Ready, Set, Rest

The Little Banks, Abacos, Bahamas
25 46.64 N 078 50.81 W

Well, we made it. Sometimes this year it seemed that we would never get to the Bahamas. Even last night as I looked at the wind and the current I realized that we could be back in Vero Beach as quickly as we could The Bahamas.

I managed the winds and the currents very poorly yesterday. The consequence is that the second half of this trip we had to motor sail instead of sailing the whole way. I know how to sail very well. I can plot currents and drifts. However in my mind I tend to think of the two as independent. They're not. In particular, if the winds are blowing at 10 knots, and the boat speed without current is 4, and the speed with current is 7, then the direction of apparent wind shifts a whole lot. If
that's too technical for you, the point is simply that I blew it.

Oh well, motoring or not, we got here and the trip was calm and pleasant. We never encountered any waves bigger than 2 feet, an no winds more than 15. Only one container ship tried to run us over (grrrrr, I'll write more about that some other time.)

We cleared customs, and we're now 20 miles into the banks. We dropped the anchor early, at 3 PM to relax and catch up on sleep a little. There is no land visible, no other vessels, and no waves. Nothing but white sand under green water as far as the eye can see in all directions. We'll just sit here and enjoy. Later tonight we'll see the full moon and hopefully a rocket launch.

Anchoring on the banks is kind of alien. There is no such thing as picking the right place. All places within sight are equal. One merely takes down the sail, stops the motor and wait for motion to stop and then drop anchor. We don't even need to let out much chain to prevent us from dragging. Who cares if we did drag a mile or ten? It would make no difference.

Sometimes, the things one sees and hears at night at sea are a mystery. Last night it looked like a big fishing boat was stalking us. The only other thing visible was some brilliantly lit thing to the East that seemed to be on land. The boat stayed about 2 miles away from us, but it came no closer. Hour after hour as we moved on, that boat kept it's relative position to us the same. Once, I got a good look at it broadside and I realized that it was a big ship, not a fishing boat. I thought
it was a mother ship for fishermen. Then, I began hearing Russian spoken on the VHF radio. I couldn't understand but I'm certain it was Russian. Finally, I heard a comment in English that said, "The power plant is 20 miles away." Sounds like a prelude to a Tom Clancy novel, doesn't it?

After dawn, the ship was revealed to be a super tanker. It was riding high, meaning that most of it's oil was gone. Then I put two and two together. It was a Russian tanker with a load of bunker C fuel oil to deliver to a Bahamian power plant (the brilliantly lit thing on shore). Since they couldn't dock at night, the tanker was just killing time waiting for the right hour of the morning. That it appeared to be following us was just a coincidence. It could not anchor to wait, because the
bottom was more than 2,500 feet (760 m) deep. Nothing mysterious after all.