Crossing Caicos Bank, one of our best-ever days on Cloudy Bay

Tuesday 14 May, Turks & Caicos day 6: Sailing across the amazing turquoise shallow water of the Caicos Bank and landing 3 1/2 fish.
Alarm at 7:45, but I’m already up eager to set off. We plan to sail west directly across the Caicos Bank, to French Cay, which lies just to the SE of West Caicos island. What few depths are shown on the chart, range from 2.9m-5m. And the total passage across is 25nm. It’s a bit risky with our 2.5m draft but we are determined to do it. And I have to admit: although weather conditions are near perfect, I’m a bit anxious about this endeavor. We need to leave as soon as the sun is high enough behind us to get good visibility on the shoal coral heads and patches, which exist all across the bank. And we have to be back off the bank on the west side, before the sun dips west in front of us. Today we are blessed with high pressure, meaning clear skies and low wind. Ideal conditions.

We set off by 8:45, and just ahead of us is the other yacht, Lazy Bonz, which was also anchored behind Six Hill Cays last night. We call them on VHF. They sound American and they are also heading across the bank to French Cay. We establish that they only draw 6ft, that’s 2ft less than our 8ft draft. At first, we thought it would be a good idea to follow them, so we gently motor, watching the depth and the water colour as we go.
This first part isn’t too hazardous, the depths are 5-6m. The wind is a gentle 8-10kts on our port beam and as soon as we feel confident enough to stop the engine, we sail with genoa only. Very soon after that we want more speed so out comes the mainsail too. We are now humming along at a nice 7kts on the perfectly flat turquoise water. A bit too fast probably, but we are now confident that we can spot the small coral patches and safely steer around them. Goodness knows what we would do without Polaroid sunglasses though. They make the coral spotting significantly easier.
Our speed is another problem: we are catching up the yacht we planned to follow and pretty soon after setting the sails, we have sailed right passed them. One race we didn’t want to win! Well, what the hell, we kind of wanted this place to ourselves anyway!

Just as Lazy Bonz (perfect name in this instance!) falls behind, a motor boat comes roaring up to us, appearing from no-where. On its side is “Patrol Boat”. Uh-ho, what have we done wrong now? They shout across “have you activated a distress beacon?”. We take a look at both our EPIRBs but neither are activated. We also check the VHF DSC, that’s fine too. So they roar off to the other yacht. Well, nice to know they do react to distress calls. We wonder who it could have been.

After that excitement we fly the drone. This never fails to get our adrenalin going, when we fly from the boat while we are sailing. And this time is even more so because we are also trying the dodge coral heads while flying it! We take off from the top of the bimini, and although Cloudy Bay is only doing 6knt, the drone very quickly disappears over the transom as it holds GPS position while Cloudy Bay moves forward.
The view from the drone is spectacular. To see us gently sailing through this shallow blue-blue water with coral patches is really beautiful. Coming back on board was pretty dramatic as usual, but as always, Oana manages to catch it just fine. We are getting pretty good at these tricky off-the-moving-yacht flights now.

That excitement over too, we relax and start to really enjoy the spectacle of the water we are sailing through. We take lots of videos of Cloudy Bay quietly cutting through the crystal clear water and I also manage to get some underwater shots, with the GoPro on the boat hook. They come out really well. Amazing to see the keel skimming along just 1m above the seabed. The water is so so clear you wouldn’t even know Cloudy was in water! These shots will add a new dimension to our videos. Talking clear water, there is also no sargassum sea weed about, or very little of it. So out goes the fishing line. After about 30 minutes the line spools out, brzzzzz! And we have our first fish for today, a medium sized Barracuda. But due to the risk of ciguatera toxins in Barracudas, this one will go back. Luckily, the hook comes out easily and soon he is back in the water, nursing his mouth wound.

As we proceed, and as forecast, the wind lightens and also veers. Soon we are hard on the wind on port tack. In just 5kts of wind Cloudy Bay is doing 5kts speed. Perfect sailing to match the stunning environment around us.
We decide that the next nice coral patch we pass, we will stop and have a swim. It’s midday now and the colours would be lovely to snorkel over. Oana spots a nice one and within 50m we have furled the sails and stopped Cloudy Bay. We anchor in the sand next to the patch and soon we are snorkeling over it. Not the prettiest coral, but certainly a little garden surrounded by a desert of sand. Lots of small fish, they must all know each other in this small pretty village.
There is something magical about stopping the boat in the middle of no-where, surrounded by shallow clear water over white sand. We really relish this quiet moment watching the world both below and above water.

For the first time ever, I think, we raise the anchor and set sail without using the engine – it seems very fitting to do so in this peaceful and magical place of beauty. The wind now is barely 4kts. We are still managing 4kts speed but not really in the right direction because it’s going more westerly all the time. A westerly wind! We haven’t had anything other than easterlies for 5 months now!
Once we are up to 30deg from our intended course, the rather limp sails get furled away and it’s on with the engine. Disturbing the peace a bit but I’m anxious to get moving. The sun is now slightly in the west so visibility of the corals patches in front of us is deteriorating quickly. And as much as we are loving it, we want to be off this bank while we can still safely see where we are going.

Then comes our second catch of the day. And yes, another Barracuda. Greedy buggers! This one puts up more of a fight and is also a bit harder to get the hook out of. But soon it’s back in the water too. Hmm, so this is what sport fishing is: catch a fish, unhook it, throw it back in. Yes, I guess that could be enjoyable. But better if you get to eat it too. We decide to keep the hook out of the water till we are off the bank. Enough Barracudas for one day.

With the engine on it’s only one more hour to the deep water. As we approach the drop-off, the colour of the water over the bank seems to get an even more beautiful blue, probably the nicest we have EVER seen. And we are surrounded by it, from horizon to horizon.
The depth gradually deepens to 20m then we go over the drop-off. At this point we turn 90deg to starboard and head north along the edge of the bank, towards French Cay. With dark blue to port and light blue to starboard, directly over the drop-off, we put the fishing hook and lure back in the water again. Within a minute we have another fish! This one is a real fighter. Certainly bigger than the Barracudas. Once we get it on deck we identify it as a Jack fish. Probably a yellow Jack. Very good looking fish but also on the list of possible ciguatera poisonous fish. So he goes back in the water too. Oooph, three fish caught and none to eat yet!

The fishing line goes back in, and again within minutes the spool is reeling out. Boy oh boy this is good fishing! At first this one is a real fighter, but then all of a sudden seems to give up. Once near the boat we can see why. Another fish, most likely a shark, has bitten off the lower half of our fish! No wonder it couldn’t fight, with no tail. We’ve seen this on Youtube, where your catch gets eaten before you can reel it in, but now we see it first hand. Not sure what fish it was. It would have been long and slender like a Barracuda, but certainly not a Barracuda’s mouth. Anyhow, we throw him back into the water, to either grow another tail or be desert for the same shark! We kind of know which one it will be. Poor thing.

Approaching French Cay we stop the fishing as we need to concentrate on depths again. It’s been really fun to catch four fish in one day. A record for us for sure. But we now need a new lure, as this one doesn’t have a lot of its rubber tentacles left. It has earned its retirement.

The French Cay itself is just a low lying sand island which seems to have lots of birds flying around it. As we head back onto the bank to anchor in the lee of the Cay, dozens of birds fly out from the island and almost start attacking us. They swoop down and nearly even manage to get to us in the cockpit. Then they start landing on the boom and bimini and all the time swearing at us. Clearly we are not welcomed visitors!
So we try to anchor some distance away from the island. But that doesn’t work. The seabed may look sandy but the anchor just bounces along the bottom not getting a hold. So we move even further onto the bank and anchor again in just 3.5m water. This time it digs in fine. The birds now seem to approve our distance from their nests and leave us alone. It was a bit like the Hitchcock movie there for a while!

With only 2-3kts of wind and sun’s rays starting to invade under the bimini, it’s bloody hot! At first, we are a bit reluctant to take a cool-off swim. We heard there were recent shark attacks next to French Cay. And, we just saw what one shark did to our fish, as if a warning! But I think we are far enough from the reef here, plus Oana would be the perfect feast compared to me, so in we go. The temperature of the water here is 29DegC, really warm. Yet very cooling after our hot afternoon. We both had too much sun today and look a bit like boiled lobsters, especially our noses.
After our cool-off we have late lunch as usual, needing to utilize our umbrella across the windscreen to keep the sun off us. Havent had to do that since summer in the Mediterranean.

While we are looking at our video clips after lunch, we hear a helicopter nearby. Up in the cockpit we see a big US Coast Guard helicopter at low level, heading directly for us. He flies right over the boat then gains altitude and heads off south. What is a US Coast Guard chopper doing here? This isn’t the USA. Must be drugs surveillance. Probably cataloging all the pleasure boats crazy enough to be spending the night anchored out on the Caicos Bank! Just how many other treats of excitement can we have in one day?

After another cool-off dip in the crystal clear water we get our last treat for the day. We have the most wonderful sunset. First good one for a while. It lights up the sky as it sets and we watch from our peaceful surroundings of virtually no sound, excepting the birds in the distance and very gentle water movement on the hull. Soon after dark, the moon is lighting up the water, making us feel like we are surrounded by a translucent carpet as far as the eye can see.
What a place, what a day. Likely the most wonderful day on Cloudy Bay to date, and that’s saying something!