We had to make up our minds. We were leaning toward the Dominican Republic, which would be cheaper and safer, and our friends on Whisper, Horizons, and Half Moon were there. Pooooperon. Our saltwater toilets would be pumping that sludge, we would have to rinse our cat’s Astroturf in the brown goop, and our nice new clean boat bottom would be ruined in that harbor. More hemming and hawing.
Ticktock …
June—Week 3. We made the decision to go to the Dominican Republic. Not so much because we were scared of hurricanes but because we were bored, lonely, and concerned that we’d become one of “them.” Many people weren’t willing to make that final leap into the Caribbean. They would chicken out and head back north. This would explain George Town’s other name, Chicken Harbor. That would not be us.
We traced the errant package we’d been waiting for to Georgetown, Kentucky, and had it rerouted to the correct George Town. The alternator voltage regulator was important because it would prevent our starter battery from melting when we turned on the engines. For months we had been connecting the battery to start the engines and then disconnecting it before egg (sulfur) smells permeated the boat. Upon receiving the package, we would be so outta there.
I started plotting our course to Turks and Caicos. Turks and Caicos! A new country! How intimidating and invigorating at the same time. I was happy to have something to do. Rain, rain, and more rain. Ugh. I needed to plan a way out from under that infernal cloud …
We were really ready. How ’bout you?
15
Who You Calling Chicken? Bahamas, Stage Left
June 18, 2007: S-Day (Sail Day). We planned to get up at 7 a.m., check the place that received the Federal Express packages one more time, and then head about 48 miles to Conception Island to start our four-day stepping-stone to Turks and Caicos. Conception Island would take us north and east around Long Island—out of our way if we were heading south, but we had heard great things about the island and wanted to check it out.
Michael went to the store, which opened at 8 a.m., and they told him to check the main FedEx place in town at 9 a.m. The main FedEx place told him to wait until they could call the international number at 10 a.m. Uh-oh. The good news was that our package was on Great Exuma Island. The bad news was that it was 18 miles away at the Four Seasons. No one knew why, and no one could help us retrieve it. We had to leave that day or we’d lose our weather window. The forecast was for four days of semi-decent weather (this was the Bahamas, after all), and it would take four days to get where we were going.
Michael tried to hitch a ride to get the package, but as usual he couldn’t get a lift from anyone. He couldn’t find the guy in charge of the mopeds either. The women in the marine store finally took pity on him (I think he actually batted his eyelashes at them) and handed him the keys to their car. He raced up the island, got the package, and raced back; we pulled up the anchor by 11:15 a.m.
This was going to be close. We had to go at least 6 knots to get to the first anchorage by sundown. We did okay for about the first two hours, motorsailing, when—can you guess what happened?—one engine died. We were down to 4½ knots. The only saving grace was that the sun wouldn’t set until 7:30 p.m. Even so, it was getting dark as we came to the shallow reefs surrounding Conception Island. I used the chartplotter and radar to get us around the bad stuff, and we were anchored (barely) before we lost all light.
Any guesses as to the engine issue this time? We had run out of diesel. Duh! We had extra diesel in jerry cans, we knew we’d need to refuel, but the fuel gauge was off by a quarter of a tank. We were just thankful that this was a problem we could handle. Fill ’er up!
The next morning we had only a few hours to explore the island because we needed to stay in front of the storm bearing down on us from the northeast. What a shame. Conception Island was uninhabited, but there was so much to do there. Snorkeling among huge elkhorn coral, brain coral, and all kinds of marine flora. Zipping in our dinghy around tributaries that had the fastest turtles we had ever seen darting among the stingrays. Spotting lots of birds in the mangroves. It was spectacular, and we were sorry to leave before we had time to see it all.
From here we could have gone southeast, hopping among the more sparsely populated islands, maybe from Crooked to Acklins to Mayaguana, but we were concerned about the weather and wanted to stay as far in front of the predicted squalls as possible. Plus, our charts showed a lot of “dangerous underwater rocks” surrounding Crooked and Acklins islands and I didn’t think those places were worth the stress. We decided to add a more easterly component to the trip and just go straight to Mayaguana Island. That meant our first voluntary overnighter (you know, sailing in the dark on purpose!). We had 194 miles to get to our last Bahamas pit stop, which would take about 30 hours. The wind and waves were all over the place, so we’d pull out the genny and then furl it back in. In. Out. Out. In. I eventually got the hokey pokey song stuck in my mind with the following words: “You put the gen-o-a out, you pull the gen-o-a in, you put the … Until you’re down to 4 knots.” Too much sun, I think.
Anyway, the sun went down and we continued to bump up and down all night as we motored through waves higher than we would have liked and coming toward us, slowing us down (not unsafe, just uncomfortable). Winds were right on our nose, resulting in the same conditions we had encountered with Captain Tim on our first day’s sail to the Bahamas—an endlessly luffing genny and a rather useless tightened main in seas strewn with shallow reefs. We weren’t confident enough to tack in these conditions, so we motorsailed.
People always talk about romantic night sailing. You’re cutting through the waves, the stars are sparkling in insane numbers overhead, nothing but the sound of the wind. Yeah, that would be romantic, but what we had were our engines running, our loud wind generators spinning, clouds, and waves banging hard on the underside of the boat. We were both so excited and nervous, and unable to sleep, that we didn’t employ a typical night watch. We both kept an eye on our radar and alternated stretching our legs every 15 minutes, looking around in the darkness to avoid any surprises. (See upcoming LESSON 65, The 15-minute rule.)
Needless to say, we were glad to be on the last leg of our four-day trip. Our final stop in Mayaguana was only to anchor for the night, so we aimed for Horse Pond Bay, as far southeast of the island as we could get, before sailing our final 53 miles to Turks and Caicos. We anchored easily and were the only ones in the bay, so we tried to enjoy the isolation. It would be our last chance before we arrived in the Caribbean, where we heard it would be hard to find empty anchorages. Tomorrow we’d wake up, set sail, and be someplace not the Bahamas by the end of the day. Yay!
So that’s it for the Bahamas, but I added the following section for those of you interested in the more technical aspects of our trip.
As you may have noticed, we had a lot of boat repairs to make and maintenance to perform. I kept them in the main part of the Bahamas section just so you could learn as we did and get an idea of how everything, from work to play, balanced out.
However, it occurred to me that only some readers will be interested in what broke. Others might not be. So at the end of most of the remaining chapters is a “What Broke?” section, describing what we had to fix as we sailed along for those of you interested in such things. The rest of you can just skip it and continue the adventure in sweet oblivion.
16
Turks and Caicos—Definite Possibilities
On the morning of our 53-mile final hop from Mayaguana Island southeast across the Caicos Passage (over 12,000 feet deep!) to the Turks and Caicos, I had to swerve around a cow. In the ocean. A dead cow, with its hooves sticking out of the water. I thought it was a log, but as it passed I stared at the receding roadkill and thought, now there’s something you don’t see every day.
We were headed to Providenciales (Provo, as the locals call it), an island on the western edge of the Caicos island group. Most boaters head south of the island because in late spring, when they usuall
y head to the Turks and Caicos, the trade winds are still blowing from the northeast. Guidebooks tell them to go to the south of the island to anchor in Sapodilla Bay, a dry, dusty place in the middle of nowhere. Then when they continue to sail the southern route, they run into shallow waters and an area like that boulder field we tackled between Royal Island and Allen’s Cay in the Bahamas. Most boaters who see the Turks and Caicos this way hate it. We didn’t follow that advice.
Astrid and Paul, on trawler Horizons—the people who called us Jacumba-At-Anchor—highly recommended Grace Bay, on the northeast coast of Provo. Because we left later in the season and the winds were coming from the southeast, going the northern route was safer and prettier, so that’s what we did. You’ll note that trade winds throughout the Caribbean tend to come from the northeast at a brisk 15 to 25 mph during the winter and shift to the southeast at a flaky 0 to 15 mph during the summer.
LESSON 63: DON’T ALWAYS GO BY THE BOOK (literally) Most people cruising in the area use Bruce Van Sant’s Thornless Path to Windward as their “bible” and refuse to deviate from it regardless of conditions. How unimaginative. We had the right winds for sailing the northern route and were able to experience the better part of the islands because we were willing to try something else. The books are guides—not law. You should have seen other boaters’ faces when we told them we had taken the northern route. Were we crazy?! Even my first mate was caught in this group-think. Michael would refuse to drop anchor if there wasn’t an anchor symbol on the chart/chartplotter in the spot I was taking us. The anchor signs are recommendations; they are not the only places you can anchor—jeez.
We got 8 miles off the Provo coast and picked up an Internet signal. Can you believe it? I sent an e-mail to Astrid and Paul, who were in the marina there, telling them we were just a couple hours out.
Two hours later, while we were winding our way through the buoys toward the marina, trying not to go outside the lines and hit the coral, we were hailed by Astrid asking if that was our “stick” coming in. She and Paul had talked the customs lady into waiting for us (it was about 4:30 p.m. by that time), and they were standing at the marina dock waiting to catch our lines. How civilized!
I saw the dock and about had a heart attack when I realized that I’d have to turn and squeeze between two boats—one a huge multi-million dollar yacht, the other a small fishing boat. Aaack! Although we had stopped at Mayaguana Island, we had not slept well. During the final passage, the waves had continued to pound us from the south, punishing us not so much by their size but by their short distance apart. Oy, the banging. We felt as though we had been under way for almost 32 hours. We were exhausted.
I managed to get to the dock without looking stupid or hitting anything, but my hands were still shaking as I filled out the customs paperwork (there weren’t too many countries that had customs agents board your boat, but Provo was an exception). I never did get used to docking—we just didn’t do it enough.
Once we were done, we moved off the dock (aaagh again) and anchored off the beautiful, long beach in Grace Bay—all by ourselves. Paradise. Welcome to the Caribbean.
I could kayak to shore and run the 12-mile beach every morning. Michael could snorkel right off the back of the boat. We had constant winds of about 20 knots and sun just about every day (with intermittent showers instead of never-ending rains). Our wind generator and solar panels were keeping pace with our energy usage, so we never had to run the engines. We could dinghy to a beach path that led to a great grocery store that even carried Diet Dr. Pepper! We could also dinghy to the Turtle Bay Marina and visit several nice restaurants. Snorkeling just outside the marina rewarded us with the most plentiful fish and colorful coral we would ever see again. It had everything we needed—except hurricane protection.
As we did on all inhabited islands with roads, we rented a car for the day so we could sightsee. We didn’t run across anything of note during our excursion, but we did check out Sopadilla Bay, to the south, and were glad we had gone north. Of course, we reprovisioned with the cheaper (and more plentiful) groceries there and got fuel as well.
For about a week another catamaran was anchored next to us. During that week their boat was hit by lightning, which fried their electronics. The bolt bounced off them and knocked out our four-month-old Garmin GPS antenna. That’s how close these guys were anchored to us—off a 12-mile beach …
LESSON 64: BIRDS OF A FEATHER … Some boaters like to stick together … really close together. Many boaters find safety in numbers. I cannot tell you how often we anchored somewhere off the beaten path only to watch another boat turn toward us. Then, because the holding was obviously good in our spot, they would plop right on top of us. (Americans tend to want the most space; the French the least.)
Garmin sent us another antenna within two days, no questions asked. That had to be the most effortless repair ever. The other boat didn’t have it so easy, especially when it hit the reef outside the marina. I hate it when that happens.
We could have remained anchored in our spot forever. We didn’t have any plans to visit the other islands that make up this country. Some were uninhabited; others were residential and we had heard that visitors weren’t exactly welcomed on them with open arms. More worrisome was the fact that the rest of the islands were surrounded by reef (particularly tricky if you were coming in from the north), so getting in and out would be dicey. It wasn’t worth it. We figured if we ever moved to Provo or visited again, we could sightsee via motorboat for a day.
Too soon it was the end of July and our two-month visas were about to expire. Of course we could renew them, but we decided instead to use their expiration as the kick in the pants we needed to get to safer surroundings in hurricane terms. We were already two months into the official hurricane season. Horizons was long gone. It was time for us to go, too.
East Caicos
Ooooookaaaaaay. Head hanging … foot dragging … lower lip out here. I guess we should leave. Mope. We set our course for the Dominican Republic, reluctantly picked up anchor, and headed to East Caicos, a 53-mile hop, to anchor overnight. We had to sail north around North Caicos, then east, and then southeast, encountering strange gusty winds coming from all over. Once at East Caicos, we aimed for a circular reef, inside which we would drop anchor.
Once we got to where I had plotted our entrance to the reef, all I saw was breaking water. That didn’t look right. Then I noticed that the chartplotter called the area a “fake cut,” and I realized that I had chosen the wrong entrance. Oops! Because I had learned about looking up from my chartplotter in Miami (LESSON 19, yes it was me), my mistake did not turn into a disaster. After a quick check of the charts, we went through the correct cut and dropped anchor. We were chagrined to discover that the bottom was coral (sorry!) but relieved when the new Bulwagga anchor grabbed.
To be surrounded by nothing but reef—wow! We were mesmerized (and somewhat terrorized) all night by the waves crashing around us—so mesmerized, in fact, that we got no sleep. The anchor held all night despite the high winds; unfortunately, it also bent …
Grand Turk
As the sun came up, so did our sails, and we used our chartplotter track to get us back out of the reef (we couldn’t see the coral in the low-angled light) and headed for Grand Turk, about 41 miles southeast. At one point during our sail, I brought us alongside a benign storm cell just to see how close I could get to it without being sucked in. I had seen the storm on the radar and initially tried to avoid it, but I’d gotten pretty good at reading these types of cells over the past few months. On radar, the black mass didn’t look that dense. Once we could see the storm, the direction of the rain (straight down) indicated that there was no wind, and the fact that the rain wasn’t bouncing off the ocean also suggested light winds (if any). There was no thunder either, so I felt like teasing it a bit. We were able to reach out over the port side of the boat and get our fingertips wet, while getting nary a drop of rain on the rest of us or on Jacumba. Nifty.
> Brisk winds gave us a nice five-hour sail, but once we arrived at the South Dock anchorage, we had trouble finding a place to drop anchor. On one side was a freighter, on the other side a cruise ship, and in the middle a lot of private moorings for boats catering to the cruise-ship passengers. Tourists were frolicking in the water in the limited places we could plop. We motored up the shore but couldn’t find an alternative, so we motored back and squeezed ourselves into a space.
While the ship was in, people were everywhere, stores were open, touring dinghies motored around us—it was madness. As soon as the ship left, the harbor died. No bars, no restaurants, nothing. All closed. Weird.
Since we had time to explore, we decided to walk to the historic downtown area of Cockburn Town. We’re avid hikers, but the island was bigger than we thought and we got tired walking. It was hot! We decided we weren’t that curious about our destination and ended up flagging down a cab to take us back to the boat. Thanks to the freighter and the Texaco refinery, we didn’t get a lot of sleep on that stopover and were happy to leave early the next morning.
Big Sand Cay
Here we hit a little slice of heaven before our final stop in Pooperon. Just 19 miles (three hours) southwest of Grand Turk, we stopped at Big Sand Cay (a Turks and Caicos national park) and didn’t want to pick up anchor again. We were going to stop just for the day and then take off that night for a 90-mile overnighter to the Dominican Republic, on the island of Hispaniola. Change of plans! We knew when to stop and smell the roses (and sleep)—LESSON 61. We thoroughly enjoyed the beauty, the peace, and the quiet. There were four other boats there, all with Canadian flags, but they were quiet too.
A Sail of Two Idiots Page 15