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.
We have had some interesting experiences in the Bahamas. Winds and currents do strange things sometimes. We have seen some spectacular sights at Warderick Wells, Cambridge Cay and Big Majors Spot.
When we arrived in the mooring area at Cambridge Cay, the winds were about 10 or 12 knots, much more subdued than in the previous dozen days, so it was pretty easy to pick up our mooring. We noticed right away that both the mooring and its pennant were heavily marked with blue paint that matches our bottom paint. We knew exactly how that happened. It is all about winds and currents.
Before we came to the Bahamas we read about the navigation and anchoring challenges here. Winds and currents here have different characteristics than we were accustomed to in Chesapeake Bay. In the descriptions of many Bahamas anchorages, there are notes about extreme currents and the recommendation to deploy two anchors. That comment sounds relatively simple, but the solutions are not simple at all. The problems associated with the currents and winds lead many, many boaters to prefer moorings or marinas to the hazards associated with anchoring. Those hazards lead to issues with the anchor rode similar to the mooring problems that produced the markings we saw on our mooring ball and pennant at Cambridge Cay.
The differences between high and low tide in the Bahamas will normally be somewhere between 2 and 3 feet. To those of us who have cruised in New England, that difference sounds small. In Maine, tides of 12 feet are not uncommon, and the intrepid cruisers who venture as far east as West Quoddy Point will learn to deal with tides at or near 20 feet. Tales of the tides in Bay of Fundy will give anyone pause. We have cruised as far east as Schoodic Point in Maine, and we found that we could adjust easily to the greater tidal range. It was a simple matter to calculate the greater scope required, but we found no other significant challenge associated with the tides in Maine.
The lesser range of the Bahamas tides fools the novice cruiser at first. We saw the chart markings that said “strong current,” but we had no idea what that actually meant. We were prepared for the current to be strong, but we did not realize how it would affect us until we experienced it.
How did that mooring and pennant come to be so severely marked with bottom paint?
When we picked up our mooring at Warderick Wells, it must have been slack tide, although at the time we were not sensitive to tidal timings as we have become in the days since. Larry eased up to the mooring, I picked it up, we pulled the eye of the pennant over our forward cleat, and we were secure. As Larry always does, he rigged lines that basically create a harness through the eye of the pennant around the bow of the boat. Then we settled in.
I don’t remember noticing when the flood tide current began to pick up, although I could hear the water rippling past our hull. However, after I went up on deck, I observed that the bow of the boat had ridden up past the mooring ball. Later, I heard the ball banging against the hull from time to time. As the days passed and the fronts passed, I saw that ball move all over the place, or rather, I observed that we moved relative to the ball. The ball sometimes slid under the boat and popped up on the other side.
That’s not all. After the first front passed, I saw that the lines of the harness were twisted twice around the pennant. After a second front passed, the twists were completely undone. And then there was the dinghy. After the second front passed, I discovered that our dinghy painter had been tied in a tight knot by the wind. I didn’t think it was even possible for that to happen. It makes me think back to a time that I thought we had made some mistake in tying up our dinghy. We woke up after a front had passed in the night to discover that the dinghy was attached to the boat by only one tie. We always tie it up twice with quite a bit of line between the ties, but on that occasion the tie nearest the dinghy was undone by the wind. After seeing that the wind could create a knot last week, I am prepared to believe that it could untie one just as easily.
The way our boat moves with tides and currents is due to the keel. We have a full keel, and as we watched the other boats moored at Warderick Wells, we could easily discern which ones had full keels. They moved with the mooring the same way we did. When we discovered that we had run up on the pennant, we could look around and see at least a half dozen other boats doing the same thing. A full keel is much more influenced by the currents than the winds, and that behavior prevails despite really strong winds. If we had the aft cockpit curtains open, it was not uncommon for us to have winds blowing in the aft of the cockpit, because the current was forcing our keel to point opposite to the wind. The moorings expect the boat to be moved by the wind, and when we moved with the current opposite to the wind, we ran up on the pennant and received strong breezes through the aft opening to the cockpit.
So we know exactly how our mooring and pennant at Cambridge Cay came to be more blue than white. As the keel is pushed by current in the opposite direction of the wind, the keel rubs against the pennant and the ball, leaving behind a residue of blue bottom paint.
We have learned to be very attentive to the tides here. We faithfully write down the times for tides in Nassau every day. The tides in any given location may be before or after the Nassau tides, but a day of observation will give you the relationship. We assume that the tides are within an hour of Nassau for rough planning. We need that timing because the tidal currents are so strong. They are often as much as 4 knots, and in many places a speed of 6 knots will be common. Many anchorages are affected so dramatically that boats must deploy two anchors if anybody is to be able to sleep at night.
Here is the rule: Tides flood toward the banks and ebb away from the banks. I think that the problem must originate in the vast expanses of the banks coupled with the way the bottom drops dramatically elsewhere. The east side of Eleuthera Island, for example, faces the Atlantic with a rocky shore and huge coral outcroppings. The rocks extend a short distance toward the ocean, and then there is nothing. The depth goes from 100 feet to 1000 feet almost in the blink of an eye. On the western side of the island, in the bight between Current Island and Powell Point, is a huge bank. That bank extends several miles from the island toward Exuma Sound, but at Powell Point, the bottom drops out again. I speculate that the difference between the shallow banks and the deep channels is at the root of the strong tidal currents.
Whatever the reason, they are not to be trifled with. Prudent mariners respect their power. A current of just 4 knots coupled with winds over 20 knots, or colliding with winds over 20 knots, can create a hazard that can push a big boat onto rocks or reefs. Everyone is advised to have a spotter in shallow water to watch for hazards, but in tight quarters, the winds and currents can fool you.
North of the anchorage on the west side of Big Major Spot is a tiny cut that separates Big Major from Fowl Cay, a Sandals property. This little cut is probably lest than 50 feet across, and it must be 15 feet deep. On the south side, the water is quite deep in a protected pool. On the north side, the channel through the cut is bounded on the east by a very shallow bank that extends along the northern shore of Big Majors. It is a microcosm that dramatically displays the big challenge across the Bahamas.
A few days ago Larry and I decided to circumnavigate Big Majors Spot. We headed north toward this tiny cut. As we approached, it was flood tide. Water was rushing through this cut at a pace so furious that the incoming water could hardly be contained. On one side whirlpools swirled and dipped noticeably in the center of circulation. On another side a confluence of opposing currents created raging cascades. We picked up speed and hurried through, hoping not to be shoved backward. On the north side I looked eastward across the shallow banks. There I saw water rushing furiously across the bank downhill toward the deep water of the cut. There was almost a waterfall into the channel.
Today we tried to navigate that cut in the opposite direction. We should have been prepared, but even our prior experience during a flood tide was no preparation for today’s ebb. The last time the tidal ranges were in a more normal range – a difference between 2 and 3 feet between high and low tide. Today the low low tide was more than 4 feet lower than the high high tide. We approached from the north during the second hour of ebb. It was a roaring torrent, and despite gunning the outboard to its highest possible speed, we were pushed off course. The only way to avoid being shoved against the rocks was to turn around and let the water take us back where we came from.
We saw some other frightful, but terrifyingly fascinating sights on this trip. As we traversed the channel between Big Major and Little Major, we could see through the cuts both to the north and south of Little Major. It was enough to take your breath away. We have heard warnings not to attempt these cuts on an ebb with wind or wave from the east, but until you see it, you don’t know. In this case, a superhigh tide was ebbing at a ferocious pace into Exuma Sound against a long period northeast swell of about 8 feet. We looked through those cuts and saw huge waves break across the entrance. Some roared against the rocks surrounding the cuts creating huge breaking waves between the rocks. Under no circumstances would I have attempted to go in or out those cuts under these circumstances.
We happened to have another couple with us today as we contemplated how we would deal with the fact that we could not navigate our tiny cut, the one obstacle that separated us from our boats safe in the anchorage on the other side of the cut. Our new friend Irina looked at me and smiled, saying, “C’est l’aventure!” That’s what cruising is: an adventure. You plan with all your intellect, and you deal with what happens anyway. Sometimes you get what you don’t want, but you get through somehow. It is all about adventure!
We are finally moving forward again. If you keep track of us, and I hope you don’t spend a lot of effort at it, you will remember that we left Harborview on May 1. We spent a week in the boatyard for bottom paint and new lifelines. We spend three weeks after that continuing to work through a lot of junk on the deck, fine-tuning some of Larry’s installations, and cleaning the boat. We spent some time at Rock Creek, made a trip back to Baltimore for groceries and departed again for the Bay.
We have bounced around a lot, and today we are in the marina only a few hundred feet from where we started. It sounds as if we are going nowhere, but in fact, we have made a lot of progress. If you had seen us on May 1 and then looked us over today, even the least nautical person would notice that this boat looks a lot more shipshape. That is the point of it all. Progress every day toward the goal. We are retired, after all, so we don’t have the sense of urgency that drives high-tech projects. We want to go cruising, but we are taking time along the way to enjoy the process.
Today we had the joy of attending worship at Christ Church again, since we are here. After seven Sundays away, it was wonderful to be there. That sanctuary inspires worship and sets us on the right course. It was also great to see our friends. Some thought we had finished our cruising and were returning for good. They could hardly take in the idea that seven weeks were devoted to getting ready and the real trip is still ahead.
We, too, get a little discouraged sometimes, but we will not stop working. It really is amazing the way each new task begins with a new problem. We are back in Harborview now simply because the people who sold us our life raft also sold us a bracket that didn’t fit the raft. Is that not weird? But we have learned that this is boat life. It is just the way it is.
In fact, we don’t have the worst of it, or we haven’t had the worst of it yet. I am reading Joshua Slocum’s book “Sailing Alone Around The World”, and I just read about a day on which he was hit by a huge wave. He noticed the wave building as it roared toward him. He dropped all sail and climbed into the rigging. He left the deck! I could not imagine why, but then the wave hit. He said that for several minutes he could not see the deck. Yet after the wave roared on, the boat shook itself and then continued to sail on. He climbed down out of the rigging to the deck.
So far, we have never had such an experience, and I hope we won’t. Joshua Slocum had no way of predicting weather at all, so he could not have known when storms were building until they were too close for him to run away. We plan to use all the weather information at our disposal to avoid known storms. Most people we know who take advantage of the information manage to avoid the kind of drama Joshua Slocum faced daily.
Tomorrow we will leave Harborview with a plan to continue cruising in the Bay while we store the rest of our gear. We look for that work to be finished within ten days. Please do not count the hours. We aren’t that good with schedules. However, if we are done in ten days, it means we should be headed out of the Bay by July 1. Stay tuned for further developments. The good ship No Boundaries will soon be on the move again.
Aboard No Boundaries
June 10, 09
Planning is one of my best things. I have been a planner for as long as I can remember. I make lists, put notes on calendars, estimate time to goal, and measure my progress. Even though I am retired and cruising, I can’t help myself. Before I start my day, I always go over my lists – little tasks that need doing, projects I want to work on, meal plans. I am constantly revising and editing my plans to accommodate our cruise plans. Some people think I just can’t let go of being a consultant, but the real explanation is that much of my success as a consultant was the result of this quirk of my personality.
Planning is a good life skill, I think. Because I plan, I accomplish some things that would be ignored or forgotten otherwise. Maybe those things don’t matter to other people, but they matter to me. It makes me very happy to cross something off today’s list. It makes me happy to see that I am more than half done with a project. It is exciting to think during the day about my meal plans and how I can make the meals more flavorful or colorful or whatever.
However, as good and valuable as planning is, sometimes flexibility is the better skill. Every once in a while, reality throws a party that simply blows away all the prior planning in the world. When reality slaps you in the face, whining, “but I had a plan” will not help.
Last night, reality slapped us in the face with a summer thunderstorm. We cruised from the Tidewater Marine Service Center in Port Covington about 11AM bound for Lankford Creek on the Eastern Shore. We had heard that there might be some thunderstorms late in the day, but none of the weather reports we heard referenced that area.
Just as we were circling the eastern branch of the creek, around 5PM, looking for a place to anchor, we heard a weather alarm that alarmed us. The Weather Service was reporting an imminent storm in the tidal Potomac with torrential downpours, potential for winds at 60 mph, and even hail. It was traveling up a track from the southeast. Such a track was like an arrow pointing right at us. We had to plan for the extreme likelihood that this storm would soon engulf us.
We already knew that the East Fork is a poor place to be in a big blow. On a memorable evening several years ago, we spent hours circling in the East Fork trying to find a place where the anchor would hold. In the middle of the night we gave up and picked our way through the narrow channel to the West Fork, where we also never found good holding. To hear that such winds might be in our near future in this location was extremely disconcerting.
We had the advantage this time of making our trip to the West Fork, on the other side of Cacaway Island, in daylight. Yet, as we rounded the tip of the island, hoping to find a little shelter there, we could see the clouds building up east and southeast of us. They became huge. There were the soft bulbous undersides that spawn tornadoes. Some of the formations we could see showed us tumultuous downdrafts and chaotic activity. We began to see lightning.
We made a circle around the available space for anchoring. Another sailboat was already anchored almost in the middle of the channel behind the island, leaving us plenty of room to anchor closer in. We set the anchor as the rain began to fall, and then the storm exploded. Our anchor was set as well as we could manage in the location, but it could not hold against the fury that had us in its power. The storm commenced about 6PM.
On the previous occasion when we were beset by a storm in the East Fork, the wind blew furiously from one direction for hours. It was easy to see when the anchor dragged as the bow turned away from the wind and the beam of the boat became like a sail that the wind used to push us where it would. It was, therefore, easy to figure out where we needed to find shelter in order to get some relief from the wind. Knowing what we needed did not, however, automatically produce what we needed. It was a memorable 36 hours.
This new storm, on the other hand, blew in all directions. It whirled around us, and it whirled us around. Ferocious gusts heeled us over as if we were sailing in a high wind, even though we did not have any sail deployed. It was an amazing sight to see the waves change direction so rapidly that we might have been in a huge mixing bowl. At one point, we realized that we were being dragged very close to the other boat in the cove, so Larry drove into the wind and avoided a collision. Some time after 7PM the wind fell below 10 knots and the rain subsided.
We had kept the engine running and the radio tuned to the weather station throughout. Originally, the storm was projected to end about 7:30, so we thought we might be able to reset the anchor and relax, but it was not to be. First, the weather announcers changed the projection of the storm to run through 9PM, and second, we soon discovered for ourselves that the lull was only temporary. We did reset the anchor, but that work was hardly done before the wind slammed into us again.
Again we were dragged this way and that. At one point we could see that we were being pushed very close to the island, where we would be in danger of grounding. At another point, we were pushed away from the island, whirled and tilted and shaken thoroughly. Whenever possible, Larry steered the boat where he thought we would be safest, but things changed so rapidly that it was almost impossible to guess where to point the boat or to put the pressure. We briefly grounded near the island, but the bottom is silt, the real reason it is so hard to get the anchor to hold, and another gust shook us loose. Finally the wind died down, the rain stopped, and we began to see small openings between clouds. The sun was setting in a fierce red glow, turning the storm clouds into innocent-looking little cherubs.
After 9PM, the rest of the evening was predicted to be relatively calm. Winds were not projected to exceed 15 knots. We observed that the wind fluctuated between 5 and 15 knots, but we were no longer dragging. We had survived the assault and were little the worse for wear, except for complete exhaustion.
Of course, like always, I had a meal planned for this evening. I had thought we could dine on deck and watch the sun set. Needless to say, reality swept away that plan completely. Somewhere around 8PM when things were beginning to calm a bit, I thought I might make something to eat. We finally settled for some chicken salad and cottage cheese in the cockpit still watching the radar to see if more storms were coming our way, still watching in every direction, trying to be sure that the boat was still at anchor, not dragging again. All the planning in the world was irrelevant right then. The only plan that mattered was to continue to pay attention and be ready to do what it took to save the boat and ourselves.
I like being a planner. It gives my life order and direction. I am not happy without a plan. Cruising, however, teaches me that planning is only good when predictable conditions continue. When the unpredictable, the unexpected, the unwanted, overpowers your plans, it is time to flex. It is time to use God’s precious gifts of intelligence, courage and faith to get through the storm.