#8 The Adventure begins!

“Kilauea, please advise, what are your intentions?”

So here we were, our first sail as a family and we were sailing across the Gulf Stream overnight. Many people would say this was not the best way to introduce your family to their new cruising life and they would probably be right but the weather window was perfect and my logic was that it would be better to have a calm night sail than a rough day sail. And so it proved.

The kids settled really well into their bunks and fell straight asleep to the gentle rocking of the boat as the lights of Florida faded below the horizon.  I expected to be awake the whole night for Lottie’s first night passage on Kilauea but at midnight she suggested I lay down to “rest my eyes for a bit”. After explaining how the AIS (the system which allows you to see other vessels on the chart plotter and helps you avoid them) worked I lay down for a 10 minute nap and was woken from a deep sleep 3 hours later by Lottie wondering what to do about a massive cruise ship on a collision course with us.

She’d spent the 3 hours monitoring the lights of vessels around us with the binoculars, checking them off against the AIS to make sure we were going to avoid each other, then confirming we were on the right heading before going through the same process all over again.  She seemed really in her element and dare I say actually enjoying it?  Anyway, this is when our Cruising Ship friend came on the scene and our AIS system cheerfully reported that we would collide with it in 46 minutes.  The radio crackled into life and a French sounding voice came on:

“Kilauea, Kilauea, Kilauea this is Princess of the Sea” (calling a massive lump of metal the size of the Empire State Building on its side a “Princess” seemed a bit of a stretch for me)

“Princess of the Sea, this is Kilauea, reading you loud and clear”

“Kilauea, please advise, what are your intentions?”

Hmm, my intentions?  I wasn’t ready for that question.  Marry his daughter?  Have a cup of tea?  Live a happy and productive life while being kind and caring to others?  My mind was swimming with possible answers.

“Er, Queen of the Ocean, sorry Princess, um I could turn to starboard and pass behind you?”

“Copy that you turn to starboard and I will hold my course”

Now, in hindsight if the ship that was going 5 times faster than us was to turn 5 degrees to starboard and us 5 degrees as well we would have passed happily by each other. By offering to change course we had to do a huge 30 degree right hand turn straight into the Gulf Stream reducing our speed from 6 to 3 knots while the Princess sauntered on without a care in the world.  Bloody French!

Later I learned that I hadn’t set my electronic compass up properly which had the effect of showing our boat on his screen pointing north but travelling East like a crab.  The Frenchman wasn’t being arrogant at all, he was quite justifiably confused about what the hell we were doing. Memo to self to not be so xenophobic next time.

As dawn broke we were off Freeport, Grand Bahama and the Northerly breeze kicked in just as expected as we moved out of the Gulf Stream and changed our course to the Southeast.  This gave us a full day downwind sailing under our big red Code D sail and our first taste of what trade wind sailing in the Pacific might be like.  After the initial horror that we were out of wifi range (much more confronting than being out of sight of land it seems) the kids soon broke out the games and books and the morning slipped happily past. After lunch the first sign we had of the Berry Islands appeared on the horizon, three ginormous cruise ships. Fortunately, they and their thousands of guests were all stationed off their own little island and left the islands we were to explore completely unspoilt.

We arrived at the snug little marina at Great Harbour Island at Happy Hour which meant that all the other cruisers were able to sip drinks and watch the entertainment that was us docking the boat for the first time as a family.  It didn’t go exactly to plan but we didn’t hit or damage anyone and we were soon safely tied up.  Great Harbour Island is a Port of Entry and, unlike Bimini, sees this as a great opportunity to attract more yachts, and therefore business, to the island. To this end the incredibly helpful Marina Manager, Quincy, arranged for the Immigration and Customs officials to meet us on our boat after business hours and we were done and dusted in 20 minutes, a full 2 hours quicker than our efforts in Bimini.

Great Harbour Cay was where we solidified our firm friendship with the lovely couple from Jersey on SV Womble, a beautiful new 50ft long Seawind catamaran that we had first met in West Palm Beach and also met the hilarious folk we shall call the “Cookie Monsters”. The latter were 4 retired American couples from 4 boats named Cookie Monster (the leader), Tortuga, Merriweather and Dream Maker. These were hard core Bahamas cruising specialists who had each previously cruised these waters between 2 and 13 seasons depending on the boat.  They played hard and drank hard and whilst they clearly enjoyed each others’ company, they also loved nothing more than bringing newbies like us and SV Womble into the group as well and sharing their knowledge and activities they’d planned.  Even before we had finished tying up we were given the low down.  “Tomorrow morning at 9 we have a walk at low tide to the ocean beach for some treasure hunting, then its grill and chill in the evening and the next day is pizza night.“ That’s the entertainment sorted then!

The walk was incredible.  We saw dozens of sand dollars and took home a collection of the best to decorate the Christmas tree. We also saw a turtle in the shallows and found a rare species of sea biscuit, a very bizarre animal.

The highlight of the chill and grill was the entrance of a fully grown manatee into the marina.  It came as close as possible to the party clearly enjoying the tunes put on by Quincy and lay on its back in ecstasy as Jasmine poured fresh water into its mouth.  It was about the size of a sealion but had short stubby flippers like mittens (which according to the Manatee Centre in Florida they sometimes use for hugging other manatees, ahhhhh) and a big spoon shaped tail. What a treat to see such a large sea mammal so close in the wild and all this while enjoying a beer! (me, not the manatee that wpould have been impressive). Earlier that day we had also seen our first sharks, three (apparently) harmless nurse sharks cruising through the marina looking for fish scraps.

Before we left, we took a dinghy ride out to the wreck of a plane (apparently a drug runner) we had seen on the chart.  There were a variety of fish around the wreck including lion fish, angel fish and a large stingray half buried in the sand.  We then explored our first “blue hole” a circular deep depression in otherwise very shallow water. This was particularly spooky. As you dive into the hole all the light bleeds out to blackness, the water temperature drops 5 degrees and you can just make out large shapes and shadows of various sea creatures moving about in the murkiness.

After 3 nights we were ready to move on and made the day sail around the north end of the island and then south to the anchorages around Hoffmans Cay.  The Berry Islands are renown for being very shallow and this puts off many cruisers who can’t be faced with the stress and challenge of navigating these poorly charted and shifting waters. Perhaps stupidly, we chose this tricky area to be our first Bahamas anchorage and it started very badly.

Now, whilst my confidence with a drill is still very much lacking, one thing I am confident of is my overall seamanship and decision making whilst at sea.  Unfortunately, both deserted me as we entered the cut between two islands and looked for somewhere to drop the anchor with the sun rapidly dropping out of the sky.  For some reason I still don’t understand I ignored the electronic chart (which I was told couldn’t be trusted) and identified a spot that looked perfect even though the chart said it was too shallow. It also didn’t help that I hadn’t calibrated the depth sounder. I knew it under read the depth but by how much?  As we entered I rapidly realised we were in a pan of very shallow water with no obvious way out.  The depth sounder was reading 0.5m (we were 1.45m deep) and alarms were going off everywhere.  In our favour was that we were going very slowly but this became stationary as we gradually eased to a stop.  We were aground!

I jumped in and realised that it is not a good sign if you can stand up and walk around your boat without needing to swim. Fortunately, the sand was incredibly soft and fine and we were going very slowly so there was clearly no damage with the boat sitting comfortably on both keels as its designed to do.  So what next?  Well, the sun was soon to be setting (bad) but the tide was rising (good) so the key was to get into deeper water and anchored safely within the hour.  I remember a technique called kedging where you take your anchor out by dingy to deeper water and pull in on the chain which essentially pulls the boat gently in that direction a bit like a 4 wheel drive vehicle pulling itself out of the mud using its grapple hook.  So, I surveyed the surroundings by snorkel, worked out the direction we needed to go, Lottie dropped the anchor into the dingy, I motored into the deeper water and dropped it and we let the anchor windless to the rest.  It worked flawlessly and before we lost darkness we were safely anchored in 4m of water, drinking a well deserved G&T with another new skill and lesson learned to ponder.  As it was, the charts were almost perfectly accurate.

We spent 4 magical days and nights in 3 anchorages in the Berry Islands.  The area we were in was almost completely deserted but one island had a couple of shacks and, would you believe, a bar! I may not be able to anchor but my ability to find a bar even in a complete wilderness was as sharp as ever!  It was unclear when Flo’s Conch Bar last had a customer but after meeting the very amenable Chester, the bar’s proprietor, he agreed to open up for us and SV Womble the following night giving us a choice of conch or snapper, beans n’ rice and salad.

We had no idea what to expect but we were treated to the best cooked conch we had had to date and some extraordinarily strong rum punches and this combined with great company made it an evening to remember.  Driving back from “the pub” by dinghy under star and moonlight dodging a few turtles as we went was a surreal but memorable experience as well.

We had a couple of days of zero wind or “glass outs” which enabled us to explore the ocean side of the islands by dinghy and snorkel.  The kid’s confidence in the water was growing rapidly and they had no qualms about jumping into the ocean swell and diving down to see who could touch the bottom.  The flat water also gave me a chance to try my greatest toy, a wing foil. I got Hugo to tow me around on the foil board to practice getting it to foil (rise out of the water and balance on its hydrofoil). Suffice to say that this first attempt ended up with a lot of me wiping out and Hugo circling back to get me.  Still I got airborne briefly a couple of times so took this as a win.

Going, going, gone.

We also shared these anchorages with the Cookie Monsters.  Each day they would raise anchor in sucession, follow each other to the next spot and one by one drop the anchor.  Then the dinghies would be launched in synchronisation and they would all motor off in a V formation to their next activity which could be snorkelling, beach combing, playing bocce or having sundowners on the beach.  I have no doubt these pensioners were having the best times of their lives and I have nothing but admiration for them taking control of their retirement in such a fun and adventurous way, Whilst we loved it in the Berrys we knew we had to keep moving on.  Our friends Dave and Jen would be arriving in Eleuthera in a couple of days and we had the perfect weather to cross the Northeast Providence Channel, an all day sail (or in our case, motor).

As dawn broke on 9 December we upped anchor and motored out of the cut into the ocean once more ready to excplore our next island chain. In the next installment we swim with pigs, navigate the infamous “devil’s backbone”, entertain our first guests. catch a barracuda, lose an oar and just miss sharing a shop with Paris Hilton.