Sunday 3 Jun: Castle Island to Old Bahama Channel
The day starts with us on a very sloppy slow run to 295M. Just horrible. Time for a change. So Glen has a very active shift, midnight to 3am.
First off, he decides to go Atlantic side of Bahamas, avoiding the dilemma of going over Jamaica Spit towards Nassau. The chart shows depth are OK, but sailing at night, or early/late light in an area that may have coral heads is a bit beyond even Glen’s risk profile.
So he gybes the genoa and heads directly north. Speed is now a healthy 7knots on starboard reach but the motion in the cross swell is quite uncomfortable. It’s the type that gets Oana seasick and he wonders what anguish he will face when Oana wakes up to learn it’s going to be like this for the next 2 days, in Atlantic swell again!
And so to brainstorm no.2: He u-turns 90deg to port directly west, heading around the south of the great Bahamas Bank. Both main and genoa are gybed, the pole removed and he also bends one of the stanchions in the process! Oh well, we have 2 spare after the refit…
The plan is now to cross Columbia Bank in day light to get a feel for this shallow area. If it’s dodgy then we take the long route across top of Cuba and catch the Gulf Stream up the US coast. If it looks safe to navigate then we turn north on the original plan, across the Bahamas Bank to Tongue of the Ocean then up to Nassau.
Oh hum…. decisions decisions. Driving to work each day suddenly seemed simple. Oh, but the traffic… oh, but the volume of emails once at work… oh, but the presentations and bosses… Glen then recalls the saying “a bad day sailing beats a good day in the office” … though Oana disagrees on that one 🙂
Anyhow, now that the decision is made we are sailing very nicely on port tack, beam reaching and a comfortable movement. All in time for Glen’s sleep! Oana, coming on watch at 3am is not so amused: “what on earth were you amusing yourself with? It felt like all the winches and hyraulics were going ALL the time!”. Well, it’s impossible to use a winch quietly right? And even the tiniest of sounds on deck is always amplified in the cabin. “Oops, sorry about that” he says “well, it is all nice and calm now so I’m off for a quiet sleep” 🙂
Oana’s shift remains the same: nice speed, nice movement. During his 6-9am shift Glen vows to stay still and not touch anything! While sitting on his hands in the cockpit for 3 hours he noted there is a lot of plastic debris in the sea: cups, plates, food wrapping, lids. Can only have been blown from Cuba. Plastic in the sea really is becoming a serious problem.
At breakfast we gingerly head onto Columbus Bank. The depth goes from 2500m to 10m in just 2nm. Wow, that’s quite a drop-off down there. We hope all the Nemos are swimming safely today!
On the Bank we are sailing across beautiful light blue water with depths 15-16m. As we go over the odd darker patch of coral head the depth jumps up a couple of meters. Quite a sight to be gently sailing across this flat magical water, as far as you can see. After an hour we pop off the west side of Columbus Bank and back into darker blue water 2km deep.
Now we are off the Bank we put the spinnaker up. The wind is 8-11 knots from the port stern quarter and our speed down to just 4kts with main and genoa. Once the spinnaker is up we get an instant pull. Soon we are doing 7+kts boat speed in TWS 9kts with both main and spinnaker pulling. The apparent wind now pulled to 80deg from a true wind of 140deg. It’s so lovely to see both main and spinnaker working. This could well be the moment that Glen finally bonds with the monster, now retracting the desire to sell it! (but if anyone wants to make an offer …. ).
As usual with light winds, it doesn’t remain steady and after 2 hours of champagne sailing the wind backs and drops, and the spinnaker collapses, so down it comes. The sock comes down so much easier in no wind! Again it’s stowed into the forepeak, but this time with a bit more loving care – like putting your child to bed after a good day with no tantrums!
So it’s engine-on time. Now we are firmly out of the trade winds flow, we knew it would die. But it lasted longer than expected. Looks like we will be motoring for a while now. On the positive side: we get lots of hot water, the batteries are fully charged and the engine “white” noise below decks drowns out all those annoying small noises that stop you sleeping. And … fuel will be cheap in USA.
As we pass over the small Magallanes Bank, there is zero wind so we decide to stop for a swim. The water is 16m deep but so clear we can make out the reef below us. “But what about sharks?” asks Oana. Glen persuades her that if there are any, they are not going to be bothered with us. So in we go. As it happens we are drifting close to a drop off with coral and lots of life. The water is absolutely crystal clear, and warm. 29C now, up 1.5deg from the Antillies.
Within a minute or two of entering the water, first 2 then 4 sharks are circling below us. Again Glen reassures Oana but she is not convinced and gets out. The boat is drifting at 0.4kt in the current and it’s clear the sharks are not just randomly wandering around, they are actually following us. Glen is watching 2 below him when he turns around and sees a third swimming very fast from the bottom directly towards him! He exited the water back onto the swim platform faster than ever before …. like ever :). Needless to say, he didn’t go in again! But it was a unique experience to swim above a coral bank, in the middle of nowhere.
Late afternoon a gentle breeze comes in from the NW, behind us. With engine on, the apparent wind is pushed to 40deg so it’s sails out to help assist the engine and to pin us down in the gentle swell.
For dinner we BBQ part2 of Mrs.Mahi-Mahi which we proudly caught 2 days ago. This time it delights our taste buds with its tail half. OMG it’s sooo good. And of course, very healthy.
We didn’t see the sun set as the horizon was very misty, but the sky turned a nice pink afterwards. We joke saying this is the calm before the storm.
A few minutes later we start noticing lightning inside the clouds 20nm south of us. No thunders yet, and no such activity ahead of us, so we should be safe. But the IridiumGo and iPad go into the microwave just in case!
We are approaching the shipping lanes (VTS) between Cuba and Bahamas. It seems weird not to see a single ship’s AIS in such a zone. At midnight a hazy moon rises. So ends the day.