Departure day

Friday 21 Feb, BHS day 52, from George Town to Clarence Town: Leaving George Town and the Bahamas in very calm conditions, and we reacquaint ourselves with the Parasailor.

We wake up to dead calm conditions and very flat sea, just as forecast. The easterly trade winds stopped as the northerly cold front approaches. Without the wind it’s very hot and I am glad we’ll be out sailing today. We have our last tasks to do on the internet, mostly emails and getting weather. Our BTC phone package will end as we leave Bahamas waters. Then we tidy up and secure everything down below, ready for the anticipated downwind rock’n’roll!

Mid-morning the light breeze kicks in from the SW and at 10am we are ready to go. A little bit earlier than planned, but better to be ahead of the curve …. or rather better to ensure we stay ahead of the northerly weather front. Once up-anchored, we swing passed Mahina to wave farewell to them, then continue south-east between the hundreds of boats all anchored behind Stocking and Elizabeth islands.
Once passed Elisabeth, the number of anchored boats decreases significantly and we start seeing very nice little bays which look like one would imagine Bahamas. For one who doesn’t need to get to town and wants to keep away from the crowds, the places here are much more pleasant to the eye than next to the crowd at Stocking Island.

In order to get to the deeper water, we have to motor 5 miles along the Middle Channel, in the shallow water, before we pop out into the deep water of the Exuma Sound. To get to Cayman we will go south and pass through the Windward Passage between Haiti and Cuba, then turn west to Cayman. But before we can initially head south we have to go 25nm NE to round the tip of Long Island. Going directly south from George Town, over the Exuma bank, cannot be done with our draft. Even so, I was tempted to try!

The sea is perfectly calm, but so is the wind. It’s barely 6-8kts and dead astern. So we motor for a little longer while we get the spinnaker out. These are perfect conditions for us to remember how to set it up and fly it. It’s been 9 months since it last saw daylight. I’m determined not to get any of the lines tangled. But when launching the snuffler, I forget to unclip one of the tack eyes from the snuffler ring and end up ripping the fitting off. No problem, just a minor sewing job for later.
With the sheets and guys pre-marked from last year, as soon as the spinnaker fills it sets perfectly. Nice. The Parasailor is designed to fly as a solitary sail when dead down wind, so we leave the mainsail furled.

At first, we experiment with no pole (as it’s designed) but even in these light airs it rolls from one side to another. Once the pole is set it flies steady as a rock. With the Parasailor sheet/tacklines setup, its very easy to raise and set the pole after the spinnaker is up and flying.
Another advantage of the Parasailor in light airs is that the wing literally holds up the body of the sail. Any normal spinnaker would collapse with its own weight with only 2kt apparent wind. Yes, apparent wind is that low ( true 6-7kts) and we are doing a steady 4-5kts silently through the water with none of the usual banging and flapping. Normally in these conditions we would simply motor, but this it too good to miss and I’m determined to minimize engine use this trip.

The calm conditions don’t last too long. The wind swings to west and increases 10-12 knots and we are soon 2-sail reaching with mainsail and spinnaker doing a boat speed of 7kts. Lovely.
About 2 miles from our turn at the north of Long Island, a dark cloud approaches and the wind quickly raises to 15kts. Frankly, I panic, and we take the spinnaker down in case there is a squall. But the squall never comes. In fact, the wind dies again and we end up motoring around the point, where we gybe the mainsail onto starboard tack. Now heading SE down the outside of Long Island we feel the Atlantic swell. Probably 1-2m with that classic long period between swells. You just feel the boat going gently up then down again, like it’s in an elevator!

On our new trajectory, the wind is behind us again. But we decide not to relaunch the spinnaker as night is approaching. And just before sunset we get a couple of squalls over 20kts. With hence-sight this was a mistake. We didn’t get any more squalls and the wind dropped to the point where we had to motor for 3 hours. The spinnaker would have pulled us through the night. But, better to have played it safe in this early part of our passage. Once dark, its too risky getting the spinnaker up with just 2 of us. In theory it’s no problem but darkness brings a whole new dimension to any maneuver and the slightest error with this massive spinnaker could put us in deep do-do.

Late evening we pass Clarence Town and get our last phone signal. And we realise there was still a whole lot of Bahamas we didn’t see …. yet 🙂 At midnight we are at the southern tip of Long Island, perfectly on our plan.