At dawn we were approaching New Providence. We could see a small light halo above the island, but it was not at all what I had expected of the largest town in the Bahamas. We gave both New Providence and Andros a respectful berth as we cruised north.
The seas were quite confused, and it was obvious why it had been so difficult to steer a straight course overnight. Waves came at us seemingly from all directions. It was time to choose between the Northwest Channel and the Northwest Providence Channel. The choice seemed obvious. If we had seriously confused seas already, and we had not even begun to move into the funnel of the Northwest Channel, what could we expect if we chose that option? We decided to avoid what looked like big trouble and go the other way. We never regretted that choice.
We came around the southern edge of the Berries on a tack that took us far to the east. We tacked several times that day as we moved north. We looked over at Hoffman/White/Devil area and remembered our first misadventure with the engine. As the day wore on the wind wore off. The last thing we had expected was to be becalmed, but when the wind speed indicator displays 5 or 7 or 3.4, it feels like a calm. After the serious but lovely winds overnight, we were disappointed.
We discussed anchoring in Great Harbour south of Great Stirrup Cay to wait out the weather that was expected the next day. Our information seemed confusing, and our confusion had led us to decide to take a chance on it, but as we drew near to Great Harbour, we evaluated the possibility of anchoring there. It has a wide, easy entrance, so entering and departing under sail seemed doable. The problem lay in the fact that as the predicted winds clocked around, the protection would not be consistent through all points. We talked about what we would do as the winds clocked around after the passing of the first front. Where would we go?
A bigger problem surfaced due to the lack of wind. We could not get there before dark. We could not go in after dark, and we felt that we did not want to be outside tacking back and forth all night. We decided to proceed toward Freeport.
Part of our problem in dealing with this situation was that the forecast we had recorded did not clearly explain what Chris Parker meant by “nasty” weather. We knew that we could not cross the Gulf Stream until the winds had passed through the northerly quarter and back to east or southeast. Chris had said that there would be squalls but the wind in the squalls would be light. Still, he had said it would be “nasty.” We just did not know what that meant. We would soon find out.
We continued cruising northeast toward Freeport all night. Our entire trip seemed to be an effort to sail on a course 330 or 240, and never at any time was it easy to maintain either course. We were always adjusting. We reefed down at sunset again, having learned our lesson. We do not like reducing sail at 2AM in winds gusting to 30 knots.
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