Narrow passes: Glass Window

Venturing south from Spanish Wells to the ports/anchorages in Eleuthera and other out-islands generally means negotiating some very “narrow” passes and passages.   None are more daunting than Current Cut just south of Spanish Wells.  In the Bahamas, shallow banks butt up against deep ocean sounds and channels. Water depths can go from 15 feet to 2,000 feet deep in ¼ mile.   Most often, moving from one to the other requires negotiating a “cut” or narrow pass.   Water spills into, or out of these cuts, during the flood or ebb tides as if poured from a large bucket onto a flat pan (envision the ice water challenge, or Bill Bellecheck’s head after the Super Bowl).  Current Cut is the baddest of the bad!  As water rushes off of the Eleuthera Bank into the Northwest Channel during the ebb tide, the current in Current Cut can exceed 8kts…faster than most sailboats can motor.  Add to that an opposing wind and 4 to 6 foot standing waves can build up just outside (deep water side) the cut.   The term “white knuckles” is so, so inadequate.  SYB….  S… Your Britches, is more the feeling.  As a consequence, we go to great lengths to avoid transiting cuts when the wind opposes the current.  We are lucky this time going into Current Cut.  We catch the water going onto the banks during the end of the flood (with the current). We are moving at 7kts…and the engine is just at idle speed.    But, we are unlucky with the wind on the other side…it is from the south, on the nose only 12kts, but….3-4 foot waves on the banks (the shallow water side)???   Et Tu Brute?  …ouch!  Five long minutes of SYB, and then we exit the grasp of Current Cut.

The silver lining after Current Cut is Eleuthera’s  “Glass Window”; another narrow pass that has cut a hole into Eleuthera Island spanned by a bridge.   Once, during a storm, the concrete bridge was knocked 7 ft. off of its abutment by Atlantic waves pounding through.  It is quite a beautiful/scary sight, even on a relatively calm day.

Hatchet Bay; Narrow Passage Entrance

South, past the Glass Window, is Hatchet Bay, our first stop after Spanish Wells.   Also a daunting narrow pass, but not for its current.   The cut into the harbor is only 50 feet wide; the deep water we can transit, maybe only 25 feet wide.   Not much room for error with our 13ft wide boat; and you never want to meet another boat going the opposite direction!  Because of its narrow entrance, Hatchet Bay is well protected from storms, but the town is very sad.  Not a place to hang out long.  So, we are on to Governors Harbor the next day.

   Governors Harbor was once seat of Bahamian government, before Nassau took over.  It is another very pleasant place, with well-kept homes and guest houses, and fantastic Friday Fish Fry (crap….it is Sunday).  We found an antique car there that seemed strangely familiar.  Can anyone identify this car?  It looks very much like the 1948 Austin of England car my dad gave me to work on as my first vehicle (we had a “hard” top).  We could not get close enough to see the hood ornament clearly.

Simulated Junkanu for tourists at Rock Sound

From Governors Harbor we moved south again to Rock Sound, to wait out impending weather.   What, you say, pray tell, is “impending weather”.  Well, part of the “narrow passages” gig is that you only have so much time, a narrow window, through/in which to move from Island to island, harbor to harbor.  Impending weather means that some negative wind/storm event is coming, and you want to be sure you are in a good place to wait it out.  There are relatively few, all-around, protected harbors in the Bahamas.  Many places are considered “hurricane holes”…but even these fail miserably in a direct hurricane hit.   Governors Harbor is completely exposed to west winds, so with the impending weather, we must move to Rock Sound.  Even Rock Sound is not ideal; a derecho event (50kt gusts) last year damaged several of our friend’s boats, and one lost their pet dog overboard.  Rock sound is so large that you must move from one side of the harbor to another as the wind clocks around during the passage of a cold front.  And so we wait…moving from the east to west side of the sound as the wind howls in the rigging.  We wait for the next narrow passage window to Cat Island.

     LOTS OF WAITING AT ROCK SOUND!!!

West Bay, New Providence

Well our third trip to the Bahamas has, at least at the beginning, been the charm!   After a paltry five days waiting at No Name Harbor, Key Biscayne, we got our weather window to cross the Gulf Stream.  Five days, that is a record short time; and the trip across to Bimini took only 7.25 hours (another record)!  We had 2.5 hours of sailing, pure, unadulterated sailing in 15kts on a tight reach…no motor noise…fantastic!  Hard to imagine a much better crossing.   But wait…the euphoria was short lived.   Upon entering the North Bimini channel, we see a local sail/dive boat coming out of the harbor…and it is coming out on the wrong side of the red (remember: red-right-returning, into the port).  He passes two red marks on his starboard side.  Yikes!   Should I follow suit?  He IS a LOCAL.   But, not wanting to explain what I did to my insurance company, I stay the course….red-right-returning.  It is rough; 3+ft swells in the channel.  High ZZ’s approaches the third red mark and I hug it close, hoping even if the deep water is on the wrong side, we will still float in.  Beads of sweat begin to form on my forehead; it is dead LOW TIDE!  We hug the third red mark…and just then, in a trough, the depth sounder flashes 0.2ft under the keel.   We prepare for a crash landing; but just past the mark, the depth sounder flashes 0.8ft, then 1.5, and then 2.5ft under the keel.  We are in!   An ice cold beer, and a good Maduro cigar await the victor as we tie up at the Bimini Bluewater Marina to check into the country.

Enjoying beach at Palm Cay

Bimini is chaotic, noisy, a bit run down…we kick ourselves for not continuing on course that day to check-in somewhere further east.  But we are tired, ready to rest, and the forecast is good to continue on in short order.   But there we sit…wind from the east…when will it end?    Only five days layover this time…another record!  We are off to New Providence.    But not so fast, we decide to anchor out “on the banks” rather than do an overnight.  It is “relatively’ calm, but unsettling, anchoring with no land in sight, only wind and waves…and six other boats doing the same thing.  Not that we know any of them, but somehow, it still makes it seem like a good decision (misery loves company).  Crossing the Northwest Channel to New Providence is rough.  Ten to 15kts of wind only 20 degrees off of the bow, but the “big” thing is the swells.  NW Providence Channel funnels wind driven swells from east to west, all the way from the open Atlantic.   Cruising guides recommend making your easterly distance early in the morning, and then turning south toward New Providence as the afternoon breeze fills in.  Captain Shep does not heed this warning and is lulled to complacency by the easy going in the AM.  Bad idea!  We motor-sail with the main only, salt is everywhere.  It is a hard slog to windward, something gentlemen should not do, but 8.5 hours later, we are safely anchored in West Bay.   West Bay, is better termed ”way out bay” in New Providence.  Nothing but private land, houses and a national park.  But a good walk in the park, and we have forgotten all about the tough time getting there.  National parks in the Bahamas are different…four-wheeler tiki tours, beer bars on the beach….boogie boarding behind go-fast speed boats…you will not find that in the US National Parks.

    Big Screen TV for Super Bowl

It is Super Bowl Sunday, and we are off to Palm Cay Marina to find a TV to watch.  Much to our great joy, they have set up a projection TV outside…5 beers for $20 (unheard of in the land of $6-8 beer), a plate of wings/fish bites for $20 also.  Only wish the game…no, not the game, which was exciting…but the outcome was better.  SO, SO tired of the Patriots!   So off we go, Tuesday after the “recovery” Monday, to Spanish Wells.

    Spanish Wells is one of our favorite places in the Bahamas.  It is said that 75% of the seafood from the Bahamas comes from the fishing fleet in Spanish Wells.  It is a very well kept town with brightly painted houses, clean streets, friendly residents…and a great Valentines Day, prime rib dinner for about what you would pay in the states….also very rare…that is how I like my prime rib…slice it off, and run through the warm kitchen…do not dally….no I meant the price, which is usually 2X  a similar meal in the US.  But no time to dally for High ZZ’s also.  After digesting our meal, we are off further south to Eleuthera.

The Clan at Thanksgiving

After a great holiday month…err…two months, we were finally off on our 2017 southern cruise.   It was fantastic to have son Alan in FL for both Thanksgiving and Christmas (with Constance and Andre’, of course).  Unabashed eating (or should we say gorging) is a primary reason for holiday gatherings.   However, I must admit that I am way less capable of consuming mass quantities of turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy (my all-time favorite), and stuffing.  Laying on the floor, like a beached whale, is also mush less appealing than it used to be.    But I still love trying.   We took up golf, again, after a year off; sadly, none of us has improved.  Our project (well really Miss Deb’s) for this trip to the house was a new tile floor in the kitchen.   Really sets the kitchen off.  The beach weather during November and December in Venice was fantastic!  We rarely missed a day on Manasota Key.   Come see us next fall; when you are still stuck up north, somewhere, working to pay our Social Security checks.

New Kitchen Floor

Warming up

On January 10, we slipped our lines at the Palm Island Marina, and were southbound again.  This time with Admiral Deb’s new “pets”.  Ok, they are really just spice plants, but it does make the boat “more like a home”, according to the Admiral.  I must say, this trip around the horn of Florida was much better than our previous attempt in that direction.  The weather cooperated, we had a good visit with Jim and Laurie at their mom’s place in Cape Coral.  And, it was good to find out that there was enough water to get in to their dock.   Next was a visit with Derek and Rosie, Bahamas cruising friends from last season, who are spending the winter at Marco Island.   Also great to find out that we can get into Smokehouse Bay, at ½ tide or better.  It is a very well protected anchorage, we had mostly to ourselves, on the way to/from the Keys.   Playing “dodge the crab pot”, as usual, cruising past Cape Sable and into Marathon (Boot Key Harbor) on our next leg was exciting.  We actually cut one Styrofoam float in half with our prop; a first!   The pots are often closer to one-another than the length of High ZZ’s, in a grid; making it impossible to clear all of them (even when we are trying).  At night, for some reason, they all seem to disappear?

Deb’s new “pets”

At Marathon, we were reunited with radio “Marti” in Sisters Creek.  I guess, with our new president, we are no longer “friends” with Cuba, so Marti is deemed essential; just wish they would “tone it down” enough for our boat instruments to work there.  Especially the depth sounder!   Next we hit (not literally) Key Largo and visited the Glass Bottom Bar over the water with windows in the floor, and lights that attract fish at night.  So cool!   Very un-cool….Admiral Deb took the first, impromptu swim, off of High ZZ’s when one of our lifelines failed!  You know, the lifelines that we just replaced, last summer.   Seems a ring pin had worked its way out (very rare).   Deb was just not that impressed at how rare her swim was.   Luckily, the water was quite warm, and she was back aboard in less than 30 seconds (luckily for Capt. Shep, that is).    Then, it was then off to No Name Harbor, in Key Biscayne, to await our weather window for crossing the Gulf Stream.     .

    It has been some time since we posted anything to the blog….Shep’s fault for being lazy.  But also a genuine concern that he has been “barking up the wrong tree” with regard to informing friends and family of our travels/trials/tribulations.  With Admiral Deb’s, almost daily, posts on Facebook, tweeting, texting… and a lack of comments about the blog from others, Shep kind of figured it was unnecessary/superfluous.  But, since we are, once again, waiting out some weather, and we have a great internet connection, I thought I would try once or twice again.

Our 2016 Trip South:

Exciting, worrisome, testy…all good adjectives to describe our venture south from Virginia in the fall.   After sitting out Hurricane Matthew in Deltaville, we scrambled to make up time lost.   Shep had to sail the first leg solo, as Deb was bringing our car down to Portsmouth for son Alan to pick up and store at his apartment. This leg, Deltaville to the Hampton Rhoads area, or the reverse direction, has been Shep’s only solo sails on High ZZ’s.  Can’t say I enjoy it much.  Although it is now as comfortable as my solos with ZZzz’s, which were almost a weekly occurrence.  After Alan left home, I stopped playing golf and instead had weekday afternoon/evening solo sails on ZZzz’s.  Deb’s job, being less flexible, kept her nose to the grind-stone…I guess I never felt too guilty about these weekday R&R sessions whenever ZZzz’s was in the water; for 32 years I arrived daily at work 0600-0700, and many evenings did not arrive home from work until after 2100.

   Our hearts were broken on the next leg.  Matthew had wrecked the Dismal Swamp Canal, our normal route south.   Several boats, including some we know, were trapped at the Visitors Center ( ~½ way to Elizabeth City), which is a great place to hide out from a hurricane.  Instead, we had to retrace our northbound route, through Great Bridge and the Virginia Cut.  As you can see from the accompanying photo, there was a slew of boats, forced onto the same route.  The Albemarle Sound was docile, great timing, as it can be much rougher than the Pamlico because the wind funnels east or west though the Sound. The Alligator River Swing Bridge opened for us (closed in high winds), so southward we continued.

     We were hammer down until Oriental, NC.  Just had to stop for a day or two… to enjoy one of our favorite Tiki Bars at the Oriental Marina and Inn.   Where else do they have such nice murals of mermaids?   But more important, it was time to change oil, fill water, and replace (for the second time) a balky thermostat on our brand new refrigeration system.  Seems, according to the technicians at Dolometic, we are the only boat they ever heard of getting two bad thermostats with a brand new compressor and evaporator.   Boat repairs; aren’t they grand?  Err… I mean $1,000!!!  But, our luck was about to change.  At Southport, NC, our usual jumping off point for offshore passages, we got a great break and had no weather layover.  Straight to Southport and straight offshore to Charleston, SC.

   The offshore leg was easy, just one night, but it meant coming into Charleston Harbor at 0200.  Intense!  First big test.  So many red lights flashing.  Which are marks, which are towers on land?   Oops, wow!  What is that huge dark shape coming at us?  Holy Sh_!  A monster tanker coming out at us.  Thank goodness for AIS and chart plotters!  AIS allowed us to identify and call big boat traffic, and decide on a course of action to avoid collisions.  The chart plotters sorted out all of the red flashing lights for us.  A couple of days to tour Charleston’s scenery (bird statue, Ft. Sumpter) and then off back offshore for another night to the St. Johns River in Florida.  Left Virginia 10/14, arrive Florida, 10/24.  Now that is getting somewhere!  Oddly enough, it is exactly 24-times longer, 10 days vs. 10 hours, than it used to take us to drive from VA to FL in our car.

        Then,  after a stop in St. Augustine to visit my favorite distillery, it was a quick four day trip to Velcro, I mean Vero Beach (named because it is a common “last stop” for so many snowbirds).  Finally, time for some fuel.  Let’s see, 125 gallons of diesel divided by 137 engine hours = 0.91 gallons of fuel per hour…and that divided into an average of 6.1 nm/hr = 6.7 nautical miles per gallon…not bad for a fully loaded, 26,000 lb, cruising boat under motor (about ½ of the time we are moving).  Three days R&R and then it is off again.  Time to get around the “horn” of Florida to assure Admiral Deb is home for Thanksgiving.   We have to go around the horn of FL because our mast is too tall for the Lake Okeechobee Waterway.  It would save us maybe 200 miles, but the controlling air draft (bridge height above the water) is 51 feet…our mast is 60ft tall.  But on the way to the Keys, we have our greatest trial!   At 2100, anchored in the peaceful and quiet Middle River near Ft. Lauderdale, we are assaulted…I mean verbally, flashing lights, people with guns…rapping on our hull…the Florida “Trout Troopers” are forcing us to leave!  Turns out Florida outlawed overnight anchoring in Middle River and two other spots, just that July.   The troopers were annoyed that we had not read the FL legislative transcripts before anchoring for the night.   We were equally annoyed, I even called the US Coast Guard (my old friends) to get confirmation of the FL legal authority.  But why, you say, did the trout troopers not come to tell us in the daylight…they said they did not know we were staying?   Some local wealthy landowner must have called!

At any point, now armed with a new cause (stop wealthy FL waterfront owners from owning the “view” also) we were hell bent to get to Key Biscayne, where a crew change was in store.  At No Name Harbor in Key Biscayne, Admiral Deb was replaced by good sailing buddy Matt…finally, someone who might take orders!  Matt and Shep cleared the horn at 0800 October 9 and at 1030 on the 10^th, High ZZ’s was settled into her holiday resting place…a slip at Palm Island Marina in Cape Haze, 20 min. south of our house in Venice.  As trips “around the Horn” go….easy-peasy!