[Tanya on Minx posted great photos of our trip up the lighthouse
in Hope Town. Check out her blog at http://castingaway.wordpress.com/]
Many cruisers get their weather forecast from Chris Parker at Marine Weather
Center. Every morning he broadcasts a forecast via SSB radio for folks
cruising, and then he offers passage advice to any vessel that has paid his
subscription fee. But anyone can listen in for free if you have an SSB
radio, we use a hand-held Sony world band radio that picks up SSB. We’ve
used it for a year, and it picks up the forecast pretty well most days, but
it will be scratchy depending on what’s happening in the atmosphere.
On Friday at Rainbow Cay we heard a couple of different boats ask about
going down the Exuma chain to Georgetown over the next couple of days.
Chris’s advice? “Wait a week.” Uh oh. I didn’t hear his reasoning, were they
powerboats looking for a smooth passage? Did he think it would be too tight
on the wind to head southeast along the chain? Were the waves too large? Was
the wind too strong? In any case, we didn’t have a week, we needed to be in
Georgetown by the night of the 29th at the latest for Sabrina’s flight on
the 30th. This wasn’t good.
I checked a few other sources I use, and the winds looked acceptable, but
those words still lingered in the back of my mind, “Wait a week.” Hmmm…. I
worked myself into a frenzy, checking every source I could find, emailing
friends for advice. I even got a call from a friend of Jay’s nearby that Jay
had called via SSB and then the friend contacted me via VHF. Unfortunately,
he heard Chris say the same thing, but couldn’t offer more info on the
broadcast. He had wifi access, so we talked about waves, and they were
forecast to be large, but not overly so. I thanked him immensely for the
info, but it didn’t settle my mind.
I now had info from multiple sources on wind, seas and tide. It didn’t add
up, things looked okay, sure it was going to be lumpy and the wind was
strong, but nothing too crazy if we wanted to make the flight. But those
words still played on in the back of my mind, “Wait a week.”
It was getting late in the morning when finally Sabrina (who had witnessed
my gradual progression into madness) turned to me and said, “I trust your
gut, what does your gut say?” In the past, my head has told me that
something would work, but my gut occasionally says to do the opposite. We’ve
abandoned anchorages because they didn’t feel right, we’ve stuck to deep
water passes even though the chart says there’s enough water elsewhere, and
most recently, when coming through Current Cut I trusted my gut that I
wanted to take the sandy route, not the rocky one. On the other hand, on the
way south my gut told me not to go through the Dismal Swamp, but my head
reasoned that we’d have an easier trip (until we had to turn around because
of a fallen tree.) My head also told me that we could get diesel before
making it to Norfolk, my gut knew that if there deep enough water in that
entrance, I’d have heard of someone using it before, (we ran aground.)
I turned to Sabrina and said, “My gut says go today.” The swell across the
open ocean was large, but we’d be protected by Eleuthera and Cat Island most
of the way. The wind was strong, but nothing unmanageable, we’d have to do
an overnight to make it to Georgetown, but it just seemed to me that we
needed to go immediately.
We set out shortly thereafter, and had a fantastic sail down Eleuthera. We
talked about it along the way, and couldn’t remember better sailing than the
last two days on Eleuthera. We had beam reaches in calm seas, the boat was
fast and stable, the sun bright, the temperature warm, and the water
shimmering. Plus the Eleuthera bank is deep enough that you don’t have to
constantly alter course around reefs and rocks. Back to back days that
remind us why we chose to sail the Bahamas.
We entered Exuma Sound in late afternoon and turned for Cat Island to
maintain our easting. Last year we made an almost identical trip, leaving
Hatchet Bay and ending up the next morning at Conception Island. That trip
we rode a NW wind through Exuma Sound. Georgetown is a shorter trip than
Conception, so we knew that we’d have to slow the boat down once we exited
the bank so we’d arrive on the favorable tide in the afternoon at Conch Cay
Cut.
We sailed down Eleuthera with a triple reef in both sails as the sun set. It
was enjoyable and we were making our target speed of about 5 knots under the
bright moon. Later in the evening the moon started to get blocked by clouds
and as the sky darkened more we ran into squalls. The winds built to 28
knots in the near constant battering of the squalls and I had to reef the
sails even more to keep us stable. The sea-state wasn’t bad, the waves were
somewhere between 2-6 feet, but they were very confused. The best
description was that it was like being in a washing machine, getting hit
from every side by triangular waves that seemed to launch water into the
cockpit.
With the deep reef in both sails we were unable to sail close to the wind.
We fell off to 90 degrees on the wind and slipped slowly downwind. In the
early morning we tacked to go towards Cat Island, we thought if the forecast
had deteriorated we could duck in there, plus it was making the approach to
Georgetown easier.
Saturday morning we tuned in to Chris Parker to hear the latest weather.
Several boats called in to ask the best time to get to Georgetown. No sooner
were the words, “Today will be best day in the next four” that we had tacked
and were sailing straight for Georgetown. He also mentioned the squalls that
were hitting us all night would be moving out of the area soon. (The
presence of squalls seems to have been the piece of information that I had
been missing the day before.)
As the squalls left, we gradually eased out more and more sail, broad
reaching to Georgetown in the lessening winds. We made great time, and the
wind driven sea subsided throughout the day. We entered Conch Cay Cut on the
favorable tide and dropped the hook at Sand Dollar Beach.
We went to bed early on Saturday night and Sunday morning we began cleaning
the boat. While we made it safely to Georgetown, the boat looked like it was
frosted from the amount of salt everywhere. (And here I thought we’d left
frost behind in Maryland.) We cleaned up, launched the dinghy, and prepared
for our visitors over the next month.
Trusting my gut paid off, we’re thankful to have made it here safe and we’re
very happy to have a few extra days to enjoy the harbor before Sabrina
departs.