Island Time

Manjack Cay
N 26 49.202 W 077 22.068

So far, we're not having trouble getting in to island life style and island time. Here are our accomplishments for the past several days.

Wed - We rode out storms and watched other people getting in to trouble.

Thu - We snorkeled. We found a beautiful private crescent shaped beach with white sand, privacy, and shelter from outlying islands. It was almost a lagoon.

Fri - We moved 5 miles to the next Cay.

That's it.

This morning, I walked to New Plymouth to buy a few things. That is I walked half way down and half way back. Then, kindly passers by stopped to offer me a ride. One of them was a man named Carol. Carol said that he was a native of Green Turtle Key, going back 5 generations. I read in our guide book that natives of this island were called turtlers. I asked him if he was a turtler. He gave me a blank stare; he never heard that term. So much for guide books.

Carol said that he had traveled all over the Caribbean and all over the USA and he liked this place best of all. Good for him. I love it when people are so proud of their home territory.

When I got back to the boat, it was 11 AM. Based on the tide tables, I decided that was the time to leave. The channel in to the sound is deep enough only at high tide. As I raised the anchor, I looked around. Surprise, all the other boats in the harbor were also leaving at the same time. I guess we all know how to read the time tables. However, the first boat that attempted to leave ran aground. Whoops! Maybe we all read the tables wrong. After 30 minutes though, the grounded boat was
afloat again and we all could leave with out incident.

Other People's Troubles

Green Turtle Cay, Bahamas
N 26 46.735 W 077 20.180

The sailing life is not all sunshine, beaches, and naps in the hammock. There are also moments of disaster and panic. Even though we haven't had any of those for several weeks, we have witnessed some. In the past 12 hours, we saw three such events that affected other people. Here are their stories.

[By the way, when I write about other people's troubles, I never identify them. It would not be nice for others to be embarrassed by things they may read about themselves in this blog.]

Yesterday, as we were rowing in to shore, a sailboat from New Bern was attempting to back in to a slip at the Green Turtle Club Marina nearby. There was zero wind and zero current and the slip was twice as wide as the boat, so there should have been no trouble. Not so. First, the captain lost control while backing, and got his boat crosswise to the slip. Then, as he realized the mistake, he put it in forward and gunned the engine to get himself out of there. Unfortunately, there was a dinghy
passing by at just that time, and the dinghy had to scramble to row fast to avoid being run down. Double unfortunate, it was Libby and I in that dinghy. Finally, he got it backed in to the slip, but when trying to get a line over the piling, the captain fell overboard. Not a good day for him.

This morning, just before dawn, a squall passed over and the wind blew pretty hard for a while. I got up to check that the anchor was holding (it was) and went back to bed. A few hours later, we learned that an Island Packet 40 sailboat nearby dragged their anchor in that squall and were blown up on to the rocks. According to a witness, it took them 90 minutes to get off the rocks and re-anchored. This morning, that boat hired a local diver to go down and inspect the damage to the propeller, keel
and hull. I haven't heard the result.

Later this morning, a cold front passed by. The sky turned black and the winds went from zero to 35 in a matter of seconds. Just before it arrived, I had just finished putting out a second anchor. I was still up on deck when I heard a boat horn warning HONK-HONK-HONK. I looked around. A catamaran nearby had dragged. It was drifting towards shore sideways at about 4 knots; not under control. I could see the captain running around in the cockpit. I expected him to start the engine and
get out of there, but he didn't.

Bang, it crashed up against some trees and pilings on the shore. I was just contemplating going in my dinghy to offer help when a man in a power boat came along. The man passed them a line, and pulled them away from shore. Then, the catamaran got it's own engine started and took control.

That wasn't the end of their trouble. I watched (and everyone else in the harbor watched) as they tried and failed to anchor 4 more times. (They only had 70 feet of anchor rode on board; not nearly enough.) The man (captain) and wife took turns hauling up the anchor after each failure. It would have been extremely strenuous work for anyone of any age, but for seniors like ourselves, it is very very hard to do. Add to that, doing it in the midst of a gale and drenching rain and it makes for
a really miserable morning. The poor couple then gave up anchoring and tried to pick up a private mooring. They couldn't even manage to do that. Finally, a man from another boat came by in his rubber dinghy and helped them to pick up a mooring line.

This story may have more episodes. Today's really strong cold front still hasn't reached us. It is supposed to pass late this afternoon.

Green Turtle Cay

Green Turtle Cay, Bahamas
N 26 46.735 W 077 20.180

Well we made it to this wonderfully sheltered little harbor. It is called White Sound and it is on Green Turtle Cay. We got in early, anchored, rowed ashore, and set out for the town of New Plymouth, 2 miles away.

The town and the houses on the island are delightfully quaint. I especially like the pastel colors they use on the stucco walls. The Bahamians we met were all very friendly. It is also a luxury for us to have such perfect English spoken in a foreign country that is not England.

We had lunch at Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar. Miss Emily herself served us. Libby had conch chowder (delicious) and I had fried fish and fries. The fish (grouper) was absolutely wonderful. I think this is a place we could learn to like.

We saw the sights of New Plymouth in about one hour, so we walked back. We have some nice pictures, but unfortunately I can't post them until we have WIFI.

Tomorrow there is supposed to be a blow with winds up to 40 knots. We'll just sit here secure in the harbor.

There are lots of coral reefs on the ocean side of these cays. There are spots for snorkeling and for scuba diving. There is a dive shop here that offers certification lessons. We'd like to do that but the price is high; $600 each for the lessons. I think we can get certified much cheaper back in the states. Lessons or now, we want to do some diving on those reefs while we are here. We must wait for a very calm day though.

Oh God It's Nice

The Sea of Abaco
N 26 57 W 77 41

What a splendid day for sailing. We set out at 0630 with the goal of reaching Green Turtle Cay. The whole day we had clear sky and gentle winds 10-13 knots. That makes progress rather slow, but we're enjoying every minute.

The water is a bit deeper here, around 6 meters deep, so we can't see the bottom so clearly. Instead, one just gets the constant turquoise reflection of sunlight off the sand on the bottom. The waves are tiny; less than a foot in height. If we were at sea, we would be rocking and rolling even with the gentle winds, but in here it is like sailing on Sacandaga Reservoir.

We have been trolling with a spoon attached to 12 feet of steel leader, attached to 50 feet of clothesline all day. So far, we only caught a dozen or so clumps of seaweed. We'll keep trying.

There were a whole bunch of boats that pulled in to Great Sale Cay with us last night. They all left later than we did this morning, but they have all passed us before 1100. We chatted with several of them on the radio. The last one to pass us, SV Caper, let the secret out. They said, "You look like you're not using the iron jenny." That's sailor slang for the engine. No wonder they were all faster than us.

However, this afternoon the wind has been steadily diminishing. We can't make it to Green Turtle Cay before dark, but we do want to make some reasonable anchorage by dark. Therefore, we to started using the iron jenny in addition to the sails. So much for purity.

There is little scenery to see on the Cays we pass by. The look like sand bars and a little sea grass rising only a few feet above sea level. However, every once in a while we do see a structure. The guide book says that many of these Cays have small communities. They'll be fun to visit.

The Banks

Great Sale Cay, Bahamas
N 26 59.16 W 078 13.06

These Bahamas Banks are amazing. I never paid much attention to them before in my studies of geography.

Imagine a plateau, sort of like the bluffs one sees in the Western US. However, these plateaus are more than a hundred miles wide and they are almost as flat as a table on top. The plateau rises 4 kilometers above the surrounding territory. Now, for reasons I don't understand, suppose the top of this table is just 3 meters below sea level. That's what we have in the Bahamas. Come to think of it, that is also what we have in Florida except that Florida is 3 meters above sea level.

Now consider the tides. There is about 1 meter of tide here. That means that 1/3 of the water on top of the banks is flushed out and replaces twice per day. No wonder the water is so clean and clear. It also means that the tidal currents here on the banks are swift and strong.

Next consider the waves. No matter how hard the wind blows, waves on the banks will never get more than 3-4 feet high. Bigger waves would be cut off by the shallow bottom. At the fringes of the bank however is a different story. On the eastern side, the edge is defined by a chain of islands. The seas and swells of the North Atlantic are forced up from 4000 meters depth to 4 meters depth as they are squeezed between those islands. In addition, all that tidal water must ebb and flow twice per
day, regardless of waves. It all adds up to huge and dangerous waves in those gaps between the islands. The Bahamians call that The Rage.

The flat table top is spoiled in a few places where the land is a bit higher. Those places are the islands, or cays as most of them are called here. The cays are mostly infertile and have no minerals, oil or fresh water of their own. Small wonder then, they were never heavily settled.

I wish my knowledge of geography was better. I've wondered before how such huge stretches of land can just accidentally lie just a few meters above (or below) sea level. Even more amazing are the salt marshes. They cover thousands of square miles with land at a level just a few centimeters below sea level. Those levels don't sound accidental to me. There must be some feedback mechanisms in place to keep them stable. On visible mechanism is the mangroves forests, but there are no mangrove
forests here.

We sailed only 20 miles today to Great Sale Cay. I went snorkeling and Libby and I explored the shallow waters a bit with the dinghy. Tomorrow we'll go ashore and explore the shallows some more.

Now, about an hour before sunset, the biggest, grandest, most beautiful thundercloud I ever saw is approaching from the west. What a shame that I can't post pictures with SSB email. That cloud must be more than 100 miles long. It is shaped like a cone, and at it's tip is the storm. I hear thunder from far away but can see no flashes.