Saturday 18 May, Passage to USA day 2: Arrive at Racoon Cay in the Bahamas, where we anchor to fix what we broke, calm our nerves and get some rest.
After our squall and hydraulics dramas at the end of yesterday, we are hit again by another squall at 2am. This time we manage to reduce sail and ride it in a controlled manner. It’s amazing how the wind goes from 12 to 30kts in just seconds.
Once it’s passed I’m starting to get a bit nervous about going through the Man-o-War Channel and onto the Bahamas Bank if these squall clouds are going to persist. Still a bit rattled by last evening, I decide to divert 30nm west to the nearer Racoon Channel where we can anchor and lick our wounds in the calm waters behind Racoon Cay. We both need some calming down and some sleep plus the boat is a mess of wet rope and a few things to fix.
When Oana wakes up for her shift at 4am, she finds a lovely red moon setting in front of us. The gentle beam reach sail turns into an even slower sail as the wind dies down to 6-8kts and gradually swings more in front of us.
At 7am we are approaching the Racoon Channel and she wakes me up to furl the sails away and navigate through the shoals.
The islands are surprisingly green, mostly low limestone rock coastline but we do spot some lovely beaches too. These are exposed to the swell though, so we motor around the reef and anchor on the back of Racoon Cay, next to the small Pimlico Cay, in 4m of water over a white sand bottom. We don’t take much notice of the surrounding as we are zonked. All we want is to get some sleep.
We wake up at mid-day, and although far from feeling fully rested at least we can function. During breakfast we admire the beautiful beach in front of us and listen to the birds and the goats.
But before we play tourist again, we have a few things to attend to. The aft deck got flooded in the squall, so we have to dry out the aft locker, which leaks in these situation.
Then we have to re-thread the gybe preventer in the boom. When I was de-rigging it the day before, I somehow managed to pull the end into the boom and lose it! Re-threading it was impossible whilst at sea and even in the calm anchorage it’s not easy. The pullies are unreachable inside the boom. But with a torch on the end of a sail batten and electrician’s mouse-line on another long batten we eventually manage to get the retainer line back in place through the boom. Good job, because our back-up preventer system is not so easy to use.
As we sit in the cockpit sipping a tea, we notice dark clouds coming our way. Hm, not a thunderstorm again! We would like to enjoy this anchorage a bit, not just work, so we lower the dinghy to go ashore for a swim, before the sky gets completely dark. The white beach and clear sea are calling. Oana’s injured foot gets waterproof bandaids and we are good to go.
The wild beach is lovely, with hard golden sand (although in the bright sun earlier on it looked white) and we would love to have a stroll along it. But Hop-Along Oana is too tired to hop, so we settle for a swim in the crystal clear water next to a spit of sand. The water is wonderfully warm and the surroundings amazing. We definitely have to cruise the Bahamas next season.
Back onboard just before the rain starts, we cook lunch and pray the thunder storm will go around us. After all the salt we got on the decks yesterday we could do with a good rain, but it’s just few spots. Enough for me to rinse the salt off the windscreen.
Early evening we use the SSB (HF radio) to get weather forecast for the coming days. We manage to link onto the radio transmitter in Nova Scotia. Then I do a few tests on the Empirbus, trying to track down the issue why it switches off the hydraulics randomly. No conclusion reached on that one yet. But clearly a fault that has to be addressed.
Mid-evening the sky gets darker and darker and black angry clouds are everywhere around us. Soon lightening and thunder take over the environment, and for an hour we sit in the cockpit watching the amazing light & sounds show around us. Just wish we could block out the thought of us getting struck by lightening. The entire sky lights up with the flashes inside the clouds, then forks are coming to the ground in the most amazing shapes, some curving like snakes, and some in sharp angles. We count the seconds to the loud thunders. When a lightening hits closer, we start the engine. And all antennas from the mast are disconnected and the small electronic gadgets placed in the microwave.
As one thunderstorm cell passes us, another one is coming. And then another one. By 11pm we think it’s best to go to bed with earplugs in, if we want Oana to have any finger nails left! Tomorrow will be an early start so we can get all the way across the Bahamas Bank (85nm) in day light. It has been a really nice relaxing day in this deserted setting. A welcomed rest.