Some notes from our passage

2:00 P.M. Thursday, April 28, 2016

Kailani anchored by Devils Cay

We're sailing south along the Berry Islands. The wind is a bit light and shifty, so our speed is varying from 3 knots to 5 knots. That's walking speed range, from a stroll to a brisk walk. It's not fast, but it'll work for us. We need to cover 70 miles in 19 hours, no faster. We are sailing down to Black Point in the Exumas chain of islands and we'll be crossing the Great Bahama Bank. The Bank is a huge shallow area and we want to pass over it during daylight hours. When we pass onto the Bank the depth will go from over 2000 ft down to just 20 ft and we want to be able to see when we do that. It's not so much the depth, but the possibility of coral heads or small reefs. Those can reach up close enough to the surface to  cause problems. If we average faster than 3.8 kph we'll reach the Bank at night, so we're just taking our time.

Berry Islands as we leave them in our wake

We have AIS (Automatic Identification System) on our boat. That broadcasts and receives a signals to and from other boats. All commercial vessels must have AIS; for recreational vessels it is optional. Among other things AIS broadcasts you boat name, speed and heading. The sailboat Manana passing us heading north just called to ask if we were the Kailani with Dave and Christie on board. Funny to have someone you don't know call you  by boat name on the VHF out in the middle of nowhere.

Our autopilot is keeping us on course. I adjust the sails occasionally, but mostly just sit around. We read, write, listen to music, talk and eat. Mostly we relax. I always loved sailing our little boat on Lake Travis. The only problem was the lake was so narrow that we constantly had to change course and change the sails, plus we had no autopilot, so we had to hand steer the whole time. It was fun, but it was work. This isn't. Scan the horizon every 10 minutes, watch the sails, feel the way the boat is moving, listen for any odd noises and relax.

Occasionally, we'll see flying fish. Some are really good at flying covering distances of about 100 yards, others, not so much. So far we haven't seen any other sea life.

5:00 P.M. Thursday, April 28, 2016

We have left the Berry Islands in our wake and can no longer see land  in any direction. Kailani is in the middle of the Northwest Providence Channel. The wind has filled in and we are moving along at 4.5 to 5.5 kph. Faster than we want, but the wind is forecast to die down at night, so we'll take what we can get for now. The day is perfect sailing weather; seas 1-2 feet, wind about 10-12 knots directly on our beam, not a cloud in the sky. The depth here is nearly 10,000 ft, so no chance of running aground. At our current speed, we should pass by the west of of New Providence Island just after sunset.

Right now AIS shows five vessels within range of us. A couple of cargo ships, some sort of small pleasure craft and two large yachts. My Sky is 167 ft and Starship is only 141 ft. Our AIS  is my favorite upgrade to our boat. In addition to showing information about other boats around us it also shows their course, the closest they will come to our boat and how many minutes until we reach that point. If they are going to get within a mile of us the AIS will beep so we can alter our course to increase the margin.

As I wrote, the Atlantis hotel popped up on the horizon. That's our first sighting of New Providence, so we were completely out of sight of land for all of about 15 minutes. Later tonight we'll be out of sight of land  for 10-12 hours.

9:00 P.M. Thursday, April 28, 2016

Sunset over the ocean

We have just sailed past New Providence and are now heading down the Tongue of the Ocean. The Tongue of the Ocean is a deep channel that runs down through the Bahamas. It can easily be seen if you look at a satellite view of the Bahamas on Google maps. It is over 5000 ft deep surrounded by water that is 20 feet deep. Go look, it's pretty cool.

Our speed has been ridiculous. We only wanted to average 3.5 knots, but we've been averaging over 5 knots. The wind should start to die down now, so we'll see what happens. If we keep going at this pace we'll reach the Great Bahama Bank way too early. If that happens we may drop anchor and sleep a few hours. Easier to do that than to try to sail with one of us holding a spotlight off the bow looking for coral heads.

Very little ship traffic comes down the Tongue, so there is not much out here. No other boats are showing up on AIS. Once the lights from Nassau disappear it is going to be really dark and empty out here. That's a good thing. Lights are confusing at night on the water.

Midnight Friday, April 29, 2016

Wendy has gone below to try to sleep. We need to get sleep when we can, so  that someone is rested enough to make sensible decisions.  When Wendy gets up, if we haven't reached the Bank, I'll go down.

It's nearly pitch black, the only light is from Nassau 15 miles behind us. The lights from the city reflect off the clouds and we can see a soft glow if we look off the back of the boat.

The wind has NOT died down. We are sailing along at 5.5 to 7 knots. That's no longer a walking pace, that's a running pace. Like running across a field at night hoping there are no holes to step in. The seas are still pretty flat, but the few larger waves we hit catch us off guard because we can't see them coming.

There is a lot of phosphorescence in the water. As the boat creates a wake you can see dozens of little lights in the foam. It looks like a flock of fireflies are swimming in the water.

We are way ahead of schedule now. We had hoped to reach our turning point around 7 am, now it looks like we'll be there by 2 am. We've been looking at the charts and it looks like we may be able to continue onto the Bank at night without worrying about coral heads for a few miles. We'll see how we feel when we get to that point.

My view at night

5 A.M. Friday, April 29, 2016

The wind died down about 12:30 this morning. With a course change and lighter wind we were about 4 miles off the Great Bahama Bank at 2:00 A.M. We started the engine, turned directly into the wind and dropped the sails. We crept onto the Bank at 3:00 A.M. while watching our depth and checking our electronic and paper charts. After quickly dropping to 20 to 30 feet of depth the Bank leveled out at 21 feet. It will stay that depth for about 15 miles and there is no coral. We slowed down so that by the time the depth drops to just 15 feet the sun will be up. We are still way ahead of schedule, so no big deal to go slow for a few hours.

After getting onto the Bank I took a short nap, now Wendy is trying to sleep. I can see the sky getting lighter already over to the east. The wind is supposed to shift to the NE today and that will allow us to put the sails back up and shut off the engine again.

8:45 A.M. Friday, April 29, 2016

Sailing across the Great Bahama Bank

We made it through the night. From New Providence to our current location we saw only one other boat. Most boats go around to the east of the islands, instead of coming in from the west.

When the sun came up we were in 17 feet of water and there was no land in sight. It felt odd to be in  shallow water, but not close to land. As the sun rose the water turned from black to gray to green. The depth is now 21 feet and while the water is green is is still clear. We can easily see the bottom.

We're back to motor sailing.  The wind is a good angle; it's just too light. As the day goes on the wind should pick up and we'll be able to shut off the engine. I love the relative quiet at the point the engine is turned off; so peaceful.

Our original plan was to make it in just before sunset. At the rate we are now going we should be in by 4:00 pm. Then it's time for a nap.

1:00 P.M. Friday, April 29, 2016

Engine off, light wind, slow sailing. We're protected from waves by the Exumas chain of islands, so it is completely flat here. We're not moving quickly, but it's a beautiful day and we're sailing in the Bahamas. We've got nowhere to go and all day to get there.

Around 10 am I tried to take a nap. Just as I was starting to fall asleep I heard the engine rev then die. We had the sails up, so we weren't dead in the water. We were only moving about 2 knots, though. First thing I checked was the fuel filter. It seemed to be ok, so I moved on to the engine. I opened up the engine cover and started checking it over. Nothing looked wrong; I checked the oil and added a little. That wouldn't cause the engine to  die, but it wasn't going to  hurt to top it off. Next I turned on the electric fuel pump and bleed the lines. Some bubbles came out which meant that air had gotten in the lines. After bleeding the lines we tried cranking the engine and about 30 seconds later it roared back to life. There is a small air leak in the fuel line that I still need to find; that will have to wait until the engine cools off.

Couldn't get back to sleep after that. I'll try again after we get anchored for the day. Still looks like we'll drop anchor around 4 pm.

5:00 P.M. Friday, April 29, 2016

Finally anchored at Black Point in the Exumas. 28 hours total. We could have gone a little faster at the end, but we were enjoying sailing and didn't want to use the engine. We'll stay here for two nights then sail down to Emerald Bay.

As the day went on the green water turned to a brilliant turquoise. The pictures don't do it justice, I've never seen anything like it.

The water around the Exumas is amazing

I found out why we didn't see any boats while sailing – they're all here. This is low season and there are literally hundreds of boats here. Plenty of islands and places to anchor, so it's not crowded, but I can't imagine what it would be like during the high season.

Wendy was concerned about being out of sight of land before we did it. Now that we've done it a couple of times she says, “No big deal.” I agree, it seemed like we would feel tiny out there on our own, instead we prefer being away from land and other boats – nothing to run into.

The engine died and wouldn't start again right after we dropped the anchor. I guess I'll be working on that tomorrow.

During our passage Wendy got about an hour of sleep and I got even less. We'll need to correct that for longer passages. Lack of sleep leads to poor decisions.

I go for a swim in the marina

We couldn’t get a consensus on whose fault it was; the guys sided with me and the women sided with Wendy. It didn’t really matter anyway, I was going to be the one swimming in the marina.

I had taken our dinghy out to try to find the local marine salvage yard. I tried to find it by walking around, but I had only been there by water and had no luck on foot. I took my phone with me in the dinghy and used Google maps to show my location. Now I knew where the salvage yard was located and how to get there walking. On the way back to our boat the engine died. I figured, no big deal, restarted it and continued on my way for about fifty feet before it died again. Over and over I would restart the engine only to have to die more and more quickly. Finally, I gave up and started rowing. As I approached the marina, Barry saw me, hopped in his dinghy and come out to push be the rest of the way back to our boat.

It took a couple of days before I had time to work on the engine. I was afraid that I was going to need to take the carburetor off and clean it all out. Since it had run just fine all summer and fall I tried the easy was first; I sprayed the carb with carb cleaner. It took a few tries, but eventually, it seemed to work. I took the dinghy out for a test drive and the engine died again. This time when I got it restarted it stayed running while I motored back to the marina.

Later that day I asked Wendy if she wanted to go for a ride and explore the inlet where our marina is located. There are a couple of miles of canals back in here and we had not seen most of the area. I figured that would be a good way to really test the engine to make sure it was running as it should. Since we were going to be out for a while and motoring at about 2 mph we brought along a couple of beers and a bottle opener in our little softside cooler.

We explored the area, saw lots of nice houses and some nice condos. We also saw something that seems to be common in the Bahamas, especially around here. We saw several properties that were nearly complete and abandoned. We also saw some properties that looked lived in and it was as if the owners had just walked away leaving everything behind. Like a row of townhouses where there were lawn chairs and kids toys in the yard. Weird.

As we motored around we each finished our first beer and opened a second. Here is where things began to fall apart. I opened both beers then put the bottle opener back into the side pocket of the cooler, but I didn’t zip the pocket back up. 

When we finished our tour we cleaned out the dinghy and while I tied the dinghy up, Wendy emptied the contents of the cooler. After pulling out the two empties, she dumped the remaining ice water over the side of the boat into the water. She then went down into the galley to throw away the bottle caps and put the bottle opener away. Unfortunately, those things were no longer in the cooler. We looked around and finally decided that the caps and opener had gone overboard with the melted ice. She blamed me for not zipping the zipper back after using the opener, I blamed her for not emptying everything before dumping the melted ice. Either way, the bottle opener was at the bottom of the marina.

At the back of our boat the water is no more than 12 feet deep at high tide, less than 10 feet at low tide. Diving in to get the bottle opener would be trivial, if it were actually down there. The tide was high and we couldn’t quite see the bottom, so we decided to wait.

Now, I’ve mentioned before that swimming in a marina is not a good idea. There are bathrooms in the marina, so that you don’t need to use the one on your boat. Boats have holding tanks to hold waste, so it doesn’t have to be flushed directly into the water. In theory, there should not be any waste going into the water in a marina. Of course, that’s only in theory. While most people around here will go up to the marina bathrooms if they are going to need to sit for a while, many will flush liquid waste directly overboard. While I haven’t seen it here, I have seen people flush solid waste overboard in a marina which is pretty disgusting.

Low tide eventually came around and we could clearly see the bottle opener at the bottom of the marina. I tried to reach it with a boat hook, but 8 feet was too short. The only way to get it back was to go for a swim. It’s just a bottle opener. It has no sentimental value, it’s nothing special. It does lay completely flat, so it takes up little room. It has a long handle on it that makes it very easy to open bottles and it doesn’t corrode. While it was cheap, I just really like this bottle opener.

 Nothing special

Night was falling, so while I dug out my fins and mask, Wendy got my towel and soap. I jumped in the water, swam around to the other side of the boat and dove down to retrieve the opener. Nothing to it, it was easy and I got the opener back. I climbed out of the water, grabbed my towel/soap and headed straight for the marina restrooms to take a good, long, hot, soapy shower.

That time our boat got stuck under the dock

Last night was an interesting night. When we arrived at the marina on Tuesday we were directed to a very small slip. It would probably be a good fit for a boat about two feet narrower and six or seven feet shorter. To say that is it a tight fit is an understatement. The tide swings about three feet in this marina and it is difficult to get enough fenders around the boat to keep us off of pilings and off of the dock.

Well, last night we went to bed around 10pm and at 1:30am I woke up needing to head to the bathroom. I stepped out of bed and fell into the wall because the boat was leaning over. If we were sailing that would be typical, but in a marina that shouldn’t happen. It only took a second to realize what was going on. The starboard side of the boat must have gotten stuck under the dock. I was hoping I would be able to just push it out from under the dock and everything would be ok. That’s not how it worked out.

The sides of the boat have lifelines that help keep people onboard in case they slip and fall. The lifelines are held up by little posts called stanchions. Last night the stanchions got caught under the dock as the tide was coming up. When I arrived on deck boat was almost as high as the dock, but the stanchions were bent all the way over and causing the boat to lean way over to the side. I tried to push the boat down to get it out from under the dock and that did nothing at all. I called down for Wendy to come up and help. As she was getting out of bed and putting on clothes I released the boom and swung it all the way out to the side. Having the boom out to the side gave us a long lever to hopefully, use to pry the boat over a little more so it could be released from under the dock. With Wendy and me hanging on the boom the pressure was slightly less on the dock, but not nearly enough to get the boat out.

We have some friends, Paul and Julia, in this marina so I ran over to their boat. Amazing they were awake! Another boat had been planning on leaving at 2am and Paul and Julia had offered to help. We got Paul, Julia and the guy from the other boat, Bob, to come over to our boat. Several of us hung from the boom while someone tried to push the boat out. No deal. The problem was that our boat has 22,000 pounds of displacement. That means it would take 22,000 lbs to push our boat under water. It also has 7,600 lbs of lead in the keel to help hold it upright while sailing. With three of us on the boom there was still far too little weight to heel the boat enough.

The tide was over an hour from reaching it's highest point. We could hear the dock creaking and popping every couple of minutes. The pressure on the stanchions and the deck was still building. Paul said, “Man, those stanchions are a total loss, but we need to get the pressure off them before they rip a hole in your boat.” Then a light bulb went on in my head. I raced down below, grabbed the hacksaw, ran back up on deck and started sawing the stanchions off. Stainless steel is tough to get a cut started, but once it gets going it moves pretty fast. The first one I had to cut almost all the way through before it gave way. The second one now had all the pressure on it. When I got about half way I asked everyone to move back. Once I was about ¾ of the way through it snapped off and the boat righted itself. I’ve never been so happy with so much damage.

As it turns out there was very little damage. The two stanchions will need to be replaced, one of the stanchion bases is bent and may be able to be straighten back out and both stanchion base will need to be re-bedded. We had already planned to re-bed the stanchion bases, so no big deal there. That just moves it up on our never ending list. There is no real damage to the hull, but for the base that was bent I’ll probably install a larger backing plate when we put it all back together. My only concern is yesterday we paid $2.50 for a regular can of lima beans. I can’t imagine what they are going to want for a pair of stainless steel stanchions.

Tomorrow our neighbors will be leaving and we’ll take over their wider slip. Wendy said we should have taken some photos last night while the boat was stuck. For some reason neither of us thought to do that. It seems cruising is an adventure even in a marina.

 

Stanchion base a little bent out of shape.

 

This should be straight.

 

 

The pieces of the wreckage.