#10 The Yellow Bank asteroid field

“Go right 10 degrees.  Actually make it 20 degrees.  HARD RIGHT NOW!”

So screamed the voice in my ear, which was Charlotte speaking to me through our two way headsets (known as “marriage savers” by many cruisers as they avoid couples screaming and shouting at each other from each end of the boat and the inevitable miscommunication that results) in increasingly agitated tones.  She had been standing on the coach roof for two hours without a break and her job was to guide us through the Yellow Bank by eye to ensure we didn’t crash the boat into a coral bommie so to be fair she had every right to be stressed.

In order to get from Nassau or Northern Eleuthera (where we were) to the Exumas you can’t avoid a long passage across the Yellow Bank a vast stretch of water no more than 5m deep but no less than 2m which would be easily navigable by boats like us if it wasn’t for the infamous coral bommies.  These are big roughly circular clumps of coral, the smallest the size of a van and the largest the size of a house that reach up from the sandy bottom to just below the surface at low tide. Crashing into one of these would result in significant damage to one or both of the boat’s hulls in a location that was out of sight of, and many miles from, the nearest land.

It is recommended to go through this bank at high tide with the sun high in the air and behind you to give you the best chance of seeing and avoiding the bommies or sailing over them if you don’t. Easier said than done when high tide coincided with dawn and dusk on the day we wanted to cross and we were heading south in the middle of northern hemisphere’s winter which meant the sun would be in our eyes even at noon.  We decided to be in the worst of the bank at around 10:30am, close enough to noon to have better visibility but also not at complete low tide to give us some wiggle room.  This meant yet another dawn start for the crew of Kilauea.

We entered the banks under mainsail (we had a good breeze on the beam) with both engines on and idling in case we need to make an extreme manoeuvre (which we later did plenty of!).  Lottie took position as high as possible and I manned the wheel.  We spotted our first bommie with some excitement soon after and realised that it was pretty easy to see as a large black blob in the water.

As we got further in the bommies began to come thick and fast and Lottie started to give me instructions to turn the boat slightly to give each one plenty of room.  Then they really started to come at us and Charlotte had to look several bommies ahead and work out the path we should take to avoid all of them and then relay explicit instructions to me who, from my lower position, couldn’t see the things until we had passed them, no simple task.  It started to remind me a bit of Star Wars when the Millennium Falcon hyperspaces into an asteroid field and they go from relative calm to crazy manoeuvring to stay in one piece. At least we didn’t have TIE Fighters shooting at us as well.  At one point we turned more and more to starboard such that we were 90 degrees to our course.  My gentle “err darling, can I turn to Port yet? We’re kind of heading towards Cuba” was met with “do you want this boat to stay afloat or what?”

Lottie was on station concentrating like this for three intense hours and was relieved from time to time by Jasmine ferrying her raisins and cold drinks to keep her focussed.  Eventually, we were through the worst of it and she was able to leave her pilot’s post and return to the cockpit smiling proudly in the knowledge that we had navigated another challenging situation and come out on top.

We intended to anchor at Allens Cay, home of the famous native iguanas but it was a very tight anchorage with two boats already there whose skippers were giving us a look that seemed to say “don’t even think about anchoring in front of me pal”.  We decided to go on another few miles to Highbourne Cay where we found a lovely big and calm anchorage with a beautiful beach to practice our frisbee skills and generally unwind from the tension of the crossing. We had made it to the Exumas!

The Exumas is an island chain running in an arc in a roughly NW to SE direction right in the middle of the Bahamas archipelago and is widely regarded as the jewel in the crown for cruisers.  On the East side of this necklace of islands is the Atlantic Ocean with ocean depths measured in the kilometres and on the other side is a massive shallow bank some thirty miles wide ranging from 0 to 5m deep. Between the islands are a number of cuts where the tide rushes through in each direction twice a day as the bank tries to drain itself and then flood itself again with ocean water drawn by the pull of the moon. It is partly because of this flushing effect that the sea water in the Bahamas is regarded as the clearest in the world.

The next day we took an early morning dinghy trip to see the iguanas. As we landed the dinghy on the deserted beach, the undergrowth around it began to twitch and rustle and one by one six prehistoric looking lizards strode jerkily out onto the sand.  They came quite close to us where we stood by the dinghy and then struck a pose freezing their entire body other than their eyes which would dart from one to another of us.  What were they expecting, a round of applause?  When we got close to them they would shake their head furiously, perhaps mimicking the skippers in the anchorage earlier when it looked like I was thinking of anchoring there.

As we were heading back to the boat we received a text from SV Womble saying “come here, its beautiful! But watch out, its very shallow!”.  Of course it was.  We motored a few miles south to Shroud Cay and gingerly felt our way into very shallow water close to where Womble was anchored.  We were debating where exactly to anchor when a big rain squall hit, dropping visibility to zero.  “Sod it, this will do, drop the anchor!” I called to Charlotte and we were done.  We were learning that one of the great pleasures of cruising is entering a new anchorage and spotting boats you knew and friends you had made further up the chain.  Lottie was still grappling with the anchor snubber (one of the many sailing terms she finds ridiculous) when Dale from SV Womble raced over in his dinghy and ceremoniously presented us with the oar they had purchased and brought over from Nassau for us.  Womble was now overrun with four new crew, ripped, bronzed and attractive twenty somethings who we learned were Dale and Katrina’s daughter and two sons (one of which with girlfriend) who had joined them in Nassau for a few weeks of cruising.

The few days we spent at Shroud Cay will be remembered as some of the best times we spent in the Bahamas.  There are a couple of mangrove creeks that link the anchorage to the ocean side of the island and we spent a day exploring these by dinghy and paddle board.  Several times Charlotte or I would have to leap out of the dinghy when the water was too shallow and manually haul our little floating flotilla upstream (think African Queen) until we were deep enough to use the engine again while the kids spotted baby sharks, turtles and stingrays, all of which use the creek as a nursery safe from large predators.

On the ocean side of the island was the famous “washing machine”.  Just after high tide, the water from the creek rushes through a narrow channel into the ocean causing great turbulence rather like a white water rapid on a gushing river.  I grabbed the kids and jumped in while Lottie filmed us going through the rapids.  The acceleration from almost stationary to very fast was quite a thrill as was the churning and spinning effect of the water.  We raced past Lottie and all we could see was wide eyes and a shocked look as we were hurtled out towards the open ocean. I suddenly realised this was probably not the best situation to be in, effectively in a fast rip heading out to sea clinging on to two kids and I had all those Australian adverts about what to do in a rip racing through my mind (do you swim against the rip or perpendicular to it?).  I could just see the headline now “Australian family lost in a little creek was planning Ocean crossing!!!!!” Fortunately, there was a shallow bar that allowed me to stand and manhandle the kids through the rushing water to the safety of the beach and a very relieved mum.  The kids declared it great fun but declined to go again.

We also had a lot of fun practicing foiling behind the dinghy with the Womble crew racing around the anchorage cheering like mad when someone managed to get onto the foil and groaning and laughing when they inevitably wiped out.  The kids had their fun too, laughing and shrieking as they were towed around on an inflatable we bought in Florida.  By evening we would have drinks on either Womble or Kilauea watching the sun setting and catching up on each other’s adventures.  Having drinks with another boat at sunset (known as sundowners) is the most popular evening social activity for cruisers. The climax of the evening is trying to spot the famous green flash just as the sun sets. This is a phenomenon that requires a very clear horizon and occurs just as the final speck of sun disappears from view.  Some see it as the last part of the sun turning a vivid green whilst others experience a distinct flash of green.  There are lots of theories about what causes this effect but nothing that seems very definitive and it is said that strong rum cocktails improve both the effect and the telling of it.  What was clear is that on some evenings none of us would see it and on others, we all would including non rum drinking kids, so its definitely not just an individual alcohol fuelled illusion.

Shroud Cay was also where we made friends with our first other “kid boat”, in fact two of them.  Cruising with kids is common but nonetheless one of the downsides is that the kids can miss spending time with those their own age.  For this reason whenever a boat is spotted in an anchorage with small people on it by another boat with kids the same general shape and size, one of them will often introduce themselves and get the kids together.  So it was with Morgan and Mel from SV Swift of Southampton, Canadians who had moved on to their newly purchased boat in the UK and were immediately locked down before sailing from there to Europe, crossing the Atlantic, Caribbean, East Coast of USA and back to the Bahamas where they met us.  A play date on the beach with their two girls was hastily organised and we were joined by the American family of five on SV Noonsun.  Our three boats and Womble were to keep catching up with each other throughout our stay in the Bahamas and by early January, all four boats (up from two!) had firm plans to cross the Pacific this season.

I can’t write an update without some form of disaster or at least a lesson learned. This one is a clear example of how one seemingly small oversight can have a knock on effect that can be quite substantial.  It started with me launching the dinghy and forgetting to put the bung in. This is a plug that lets water out of the dinghy when it is hoisted on the davits in case it rains, but also let’s the sea in when the dinghy is launched if it is not inserted.  I only noticed when the dinghy was half full of water with the fuel can floating on its side.  No problem, I thought, a quick once over with the portable bilge pump and everything was OK again or so I thought.  A day later and whilst cruising along in the dinghy, the outboard engine suddenly died.  Now fortunately, we were close to another dinghy who towed us home. We were also very lucky that Dale and his sons have all owned and at various time disassembled and rebuilt motorbike engines and they set to work with a passion and selflessness we were incredibly grateful for.  After testing various parts of the engine we came to the conclusion the fuel was contaminated with seawater and this had got into and bunged up the carburettor.   The boys taught me how to clean the carburettor using brake cleaner which is another skill I now have in my tool kit and after a good couple of hours of work is was back in action again.  One tiny bung leading to what could have been a nasty situation had the engine failed when we were far from the boat and potential rescuers.

We reluctantly left Shroud Cay the day after fixing the engine and headed south to Warderick Wells Cay the centre of the Exuma Land and Sea Park, the most stunning part of the Exumas.  The cream of the places to stay is on a mooring in a narrow channel between sand banks and islands and we managed to pick one of these up for a couple of days despite strong competition from other boats.  You can only reserve a mooring 24 hours in advance and even then you need to be there pretty sharp to bagsy it as it will soon be given to another hopeful cruiser if you don’t show up on time.  This rule applied to everyone except the good old Cookie Monsters who seemed to have secured the best spots weeks in advance.  “Its all about who you know” winked one of them but you couldn’t fault them as they soon had all the other cruisers roped in to their games of bocce on the beach.

Picking up the mooring was particularly hairy as the tide was ripping, the wind honking and the boats were packed in nose to tail with sand banks close each side to catch you out if you slightly misjudged your approach.  Everything was going very smoothly right up until the point that charlotte lifted up the very heavy mooring line which then promptly snapped the boat hook.  “where’s the spare?” she shouted. “Err, yeah, that was on my list but never made it to the top.” Came back my response at that point.  In the confusion the marriage savers (and possibly our marriage) were inadvertently (allegedly) switched off and I had no way of knowing what was going on at the front of the boat and started driving over the mooring destroying any slim chance Lottie had of getting the line on board.  I’m not sure how we would have saved this situation had the crew of SV Swift not appeared like angels in their dinghy and took a line from Lottie to put on the mooring.  The lesson for us was to give Lottie some coaching and experience in driving the boat in close quarters so that anything that involves grunt work like mooring and docking can be done by me while she drives.  We’re still working on this one.

The highlight of Warderick Wells were the walk up to Boo Boo Hill and placing the Kilauea driftwood sign that Jasmine and Lottie had painted amongst the hundreds of other boat signs left at the summit of the hill. Jasmine loved having kid boat time with her new friends on Swift and Noonsun learning new games and doing general girl stuff that I wouldn’t understand.  Each evening we were treated to the sight of a flock (?) of a dozen or so massive eagle rays flying underwater  through the anchorage under the boats.  Their presence was communicated from boat to boat by the international sign of the eagle ray which looks remarkably similar to Eddie the Eagle’s trademark eagle dance.  Often following these would be a few large nurse sharks sweeping up.

As soon as the weather cleared we were off again as we had to settle a bet between ourselves and Womble about whose boat was faster and the conditions were perfect for a race. It was also just a few days before Christmas and we were keen to get the some form of civilisation (including a pub!) to re-provision and settle in for some fun and festivities. 

So who won the race? Find out in the next installment!