Who would have thought we’d manage to pull ourselves out of Black Point on a Tuesday … what will the crowd at Scorpio’s Bar at Happy Hour think of us???
Black Point Anchorage ... dinghy dock in foreground
s/v Maja at anchor
I’m sure we would have found many reasons to linger longer, but since meeting up with Gregg and Luba (s/v Rhapsody), friends from Brunswick, our daily talks have inevitably turned to exit plans. Since we are both headed back to Brunswick, it was also inevitable that we entertain ideas of travelling back together. Their route is to go thru Nassau and then make an overnight run into Lake Worth. From there, it’s another overnight hop into Brunswick. Hop, skip and jump and we’re back. They showed up with weather charts and maps on Monday, and once you start doing that sort of thing, there’s usually no turning back. We even went so far as to commit to a reservation at a marina in Nassau since there is a strong front coming in over the weekend. Hop, ship and jump back to Florida.
Spent my last day in the laundromat ... not the beach ... WTF?????
However, today’s weather report was not encouraging. The front that we thought would keep us in Nassau for 2 days looks like it could easily lock us in there for at least 4+ days. Since the marina is $80/night, we did the math and started to second guess the wisdom of investing $400+ in a trip thru Nassau. Our back up plan is to head to the Abacos and make our jump there. Knowing the Abacos as well as we do, there are a number of spots where we could wait out the weather, at considerably less expense. We spent the morning on the favorite boater’s pastime – the weather and how/if we should change plans. In the end, we figured that we’d be more comfortable going to the Abacos, which unfortunately meant that we’d be parting company with Gregg and Luba, as they were committed to Nassau.
We dragged our feet on leaving Black Point, one of our favorite places in the Exumas, finally hauling the anchor up at noon. We made a short hop over to Staniel Cay to do some food shopping … now we are provisioned to get us back to the states. We raised the sails for the 20mile run up to Warderick Wells. It was a fabulous day to be under sail – 15-20knots of wind – and we were made the trip in under 3 hours, anchoring just as the sun set. (I so love daylight savings time!).
Leaving Staniel Cay ... sigh ....
Dan hard at work ... watching the autopilot steer!
While Dan is at the helm, this is what I'm doing ... NO, not drinking! I learned to weave while in the Jumentos, and after making several baskets, I'm into functional things, like wine bottle holders!
A great day to be a cruiser!
Wednesday, April 18
Now that we’re committed to moving north, we’ve got a strict schedule to follow to get to the Abacos by Saturday. No time to stop and explore the Exuma Land and Sea Park like we did last year. Now, it's move, move, move every day, putting as many miles under our keel as we can before the next front hits us.
Our plan now is to go to the Hopetown Marina (taking advantage of our great discount as member of the Royal Marsh Harbor Yacht Club) and wait out the squalls and 50 knot winds predicted to hit the Abacos on Saturday. We'll be snugly tied to a dock in the marina until Wednesday, as the winds are supposed to continue to be above 25 knots.
We left Warderick Wells at 9:00am after listening to the weather and once again debating the pros/cons of our options … first between us, and then on the radio with Greg and Luba. As we left Warderick Wells, we got a call from our friends, John and Cindy on s/v Hawk who we met last year and spent about two weeks sailing together. They were in Black Point! Bah! Had we only known, we’d still be sitting there at anchor!
Today was one of our best sailing days … EVER! All 4 sails up, no motor, 15 knots of wind in just the right direction for a truly beautiful day on the water. We travelled about 35 miles to Roberts Cay … we always stop here just to toast to our buddy, Robert Look!
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Anchor up at 7:00am for the long, 45mile haul up to Royal Island. We are officially leaving the Exumas after 3 months and entering Eleuthera. This route takes us through the only passage we’ll make that is full of coral heads. Fortunately, we done this route a number of times, so we had a track saved on our GPS that showed us how to weave through the coral.
The wind was not nearly as pleasant today … it was coming directly behind us so the sails had a hard time keeping the wind. Add to that a 3-5 ft swell, and it was pretty much a rolly and slow passage; we ended up turning on the motor, something we haven’t had to do in a while. No luck fishing when we entered the deep water of North Providence Channel except for the barracuda that Dan landed and decided to keep for bait (yuck! and he's keeping it in the freezer ... double yuck!). But we have another deep water passage tomorrow into Little Harbor, and he really wants to catch at least one fish this trip!
Whew! After the slow going we’ve had for the past two months (except for the week with Jim when we travelled short hops every day), we’ll have 5, 10-hr days under our belt before we pull into Hopetown Harbor and rest our weary bones! Yes, you do get weary doing daily long passages with no time off for play along the way. Everything is just much harder to do when the boat is rocking and rolling and swishing.
Fingers crossed that the Gulf Stream will be settled by next Thursday so we can continue with our original plan to get back to Brunswick by the end of April. That’s when the countdown to Michelle and Craig’s wedding will begin in earnest! We are so homesick for family and friends … that celebration will be good for the soul!
Friday, April 20
Another early day. Up at 6:30 for the weather report and underway by 7:00. Today, we'll have a 50mile run out into the Atlantic Ocean to cross from Eleuthera into the Abacos. We'll be sailing in deep blue water over 15,000 feet deep ... which always sends a shiver up our spines to contemplate!
Two boats sailing about 2 miles ahead of us reported seeing several whales ... which can be ultra exciting until you think about being in the path of a breaching whale! Still, we would have loved to see one, but such was not our luck. We did have two dolphins swimming in our bow wake for awhile though ...
Hope springs eternal for Capt Dan!
Dan keep three lines in the water with his barracuda bait. And he did catch two fish which promptly snapped the lines. One was a huge Mahi that we could see leaping thru the water behind us. That one took off with over 300 ft of line ... the other fish almost took our other fishing pole along for a ride. .
Since we don't have the luxury of time on our side, we have to take whatever wind we get. Today was another SE 15-20 knots, which gave us about 3 hours of great sailing (saw 7-8 knots on our knotmeter!). until we turned north towards the Abacos. Then the wind was coming from our stern, and even with the sails poled out, the wind made more noise thrashing the sails back and forth than they did to power us forward. As our speed dropped to 3.5 knots (giving us an ETA of midnight!), we turned on the motor and only left up a small head sail and our mizzen sail (#4 sail in the back). The ocean swells were also pushing us from behind ... which usually is a good thing, when there is a predictable swell you can ride. But today, we had was is called "confused seas" ... meaning that they came from the left, then the right, and then directly behind.
Look into your washing machine the next time you are doing laundry and you'll get a general idea of what life was like for us the last 30 miles of the trip (roughly 7 hours). This had to be the worst day on the water we've had all year. Nasty Nasty Nasty.
Dan was hand steering for the last 5 hours, as he could do a better job than the autopilot to time the swells. But as the swells climbed to 10 feet, we were mostly just getting pushed from side to side, seemingly with very little control over how the boat moved thru the water. Not much you can do at times like this ... just suck it up, watch the mileage tick down, and promise yourself that "next time", you'll make an ocean crossing under better conditions.
Seeing the entrance to Little Harbor, Abacos, on the horizon was the best thing we saw all day!
We crossed into the harbor at 5pm. with every intention of doing some serious drinking and going to bed. However, with the dire weather forecast for Saturday wearing heavily on our minds, and 25 miles to go before reaching the safety of Hopetown Marina, we decided to continue on. At least now we were out of the ocean and into calm water which definitely gave us a new lease on life. We were able to sail another 15 miles, before anchoring at Tilloo Cay at sunset. Then we did some drinking, ate cold leftovers for dinner, and crawled gratefully into bed. 65 miles today ... a long, long day under nasty conditions (just so you know not everyday is paradise on a sailing boat in the Bahamas!)
Saturday, April 21
No luxury yet of sleeping in as we needed to make the shallow entrance into Hopetown Harbor on a rising tide. So, up again at 6:30 to listen to the weather forecast that repeatedly advised all boaters listening to expect UGLY weather for the next two days.
Thunderheads ... signs of what's blowing our way.
Fortunately, we had a short two-hour run into Hopetown Harbor and were snugged up to the dock by 10:00 a.m. Hopetown is picture-perfect-cute, so we decided to enjoy this last day of good weather and spent the day in town where all the luxuries of civilization abound ... like ice cream!!
Entrance to Hopetown ... marked by their classic lighthouse.
You can see the ripples from the wind in the channel entrance....which is normally glass-calm.
At 7pm the rain started to fall. Sometime after 10pm, squalls hit with gusts up to 50 knots! That could be a new high for us! But, we've got 8 docks lines out and double bumpers on each dock piling. So we can hear the howling but don't feel much movement from our secure dockage ... which is just fine with us!
No problem spending 4-5 days here. Our next likely window for crossing over to Florida is Wednesday.
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