Monday 20 May, Passage to USA day 4: From Green Cay to Northwest Channel where we anchor on the bank for the night, in the middle of nowhere.
At midnight we pass Green Cay to starboard and enter the narrower section of Tongue of the Ocean, with the course set for Chub Cay.
When Oana wakes up for her shift I brief her that there is electrical activity in the clouds ahead of us, and wind died. 7-9kts only and we are doing 5kts. If the wind drops more than that we put the engine on when our boat speed drops below 4kts.
The sea is rather lumpy and waves seem to stop us, making the ride not the most comfortable. The sails are flopping a lot, and rather than trying to trim them all the time in this fickle light wind, we just keep the course to the wind. Even so, it is an enjoyable night due to the cool air and the moon which shines in the water.
The wind gradually drops even more to 4-5kts and boat speed doesn’t exceed 3kts. Three hours later, when boat speed drops to 1.7kts Oana wakes me up to furl the sails away. “Time for the engine and watermaker”. I am surprised she lasted that long at such reduced speed, normally she bails out at 4kts. Well, we need to charge the batteries and make water anyway.
Before she goes to bed she warns me there is a military ship in front of us which has no other AIS information but doesn’t seem to be moving. And sure enough, later on I get a VHF call from this ship asking me to divert course north, as they are conducting operations. Well, I don’t mind diverting north as long as I don’t have to go over the bank, it is too shallow. “Don’t worry, we’ll call you back before you get to the bank.” Which of course, they didn’t. So I just took the liberty to resume course to where we needed to go once we reached the transition onto the bank.
At 7am we pass Nassau city, and we can see the high buildings on the horizon. I also see two bars of network on my phone, so, I quickly switch on mobile data to get the weather forecast on PredictWind Offshore app. Normally it uses 40-50kb for such download, so shouldn’t be that expensive to download on roaming internet. But surprise-surprise! Even with all other apps switched off for mobile data, the connection still manages to use 3MB before it even started downloading any weather. I wait and I wait, still no refresh of weather into on PredictWind Offshore App. Well, screw that and modern technology! This already cost me £20 for nothing!
Traditional methods are the backup solution, good old SSB. As Oana keeps a lookout for the ongoing boat traffic around us, I go down below to get a connection through the SSB. Unsuccessfully though, all stations are busy and it’s not the best time of day for good HF propagation. Will try again later.
We motor for three hours till 8am, when wind comes back nicely to our beam at 8kts. At which point we happily resume sailing.
At first we are on a very exciting shy reach, Cloudy Bay just loves this point of sail. And so do we, especially when we see our speed matching the wind speed. Amazing to be slipping along at 7-8kts in the same true windspeed. With this big rig, Cloudy Bay is pretty slippery in light winds.
Then the wind gradually swings and we continue on a beam reach. In such light wind and while bouncing on the choppy waves, the boom outhaul is creaking. I try all manner of tensions in the vang, but the creak is still there.
At the north end of the Tongue of the Ocean we are back into the Atlantic. The sea is a beautiful ink-blue color and for once we don’t see black clouds build up before noon, which seemed to be the pattern since our last two days in Turks & Caicos. The swell is surprisingly not too bad, but enough to get our sails flopping and the rig banging. Not to mention we are hardly moving at 3kts boat speed.
Enough of this bobbing around, time to try the Parasailor in very light wind and swell. In 6kts true wind and apparent wind on our beam, it takes us a while till we get the sheets and guys set right. As the spinnaker catches the wind it fills ok, but then a wave hits us side on and it tries to collapse. Few attempts like this, then we decide to go slightly higher into the wind, where it just sits perfectly. And it is all quiet again, only the sound of water gently passing the hull and the sound of wind spilling out through the Parsailor’s wing. Bliss.
As we set the autohelm to sail by the wind, to keep it just above our beam, we are pointing into Northwest Channel rather than Chub Cay where our intended course was to. It is one of those moments where we let the wind take us to our next destination. So decision is made instantly that we now have a new destination and we will instead anchor behind a reef near to Northwest Channel. This is the channel where we pass back onto the Bahama Bank tomorrow morning, to exit the Bahamas on the north side.
For the next three hours we have a brilliant sail under Parasailor only, it’s just sooo stable up there and totally quiet. So much so that I fall asleep in the cockpit!
Just before 4pm we arrive at the Northwest Channel and prepare to drop the spinnaker. We are now confident we can drop it easily and in a very controlled manner, but at the same time we are quite keen to master a routine so that we don’t drop any lines in the water. Even with all the attention we pay, the hoisting line does go in the water. Well, next time we’ll do better.
We first attempt a marked anchorage (by community edit) right next to the entrance of Northwest Channel. The depth starts straight at 3.5m, so we bail out immediately, making a fast u-turn. The only other option is to go through the channel and then turn left to anchor behind a reef. Not exactly a sheltered anchorage, but it will have to do. We choose a clear sandy patch and drop the anchor in 4m of water.
From the bow it looks like there are coral heads on the bottom of the sea, and when I snorkel to check the anchor I see there is a wonderful garden down there. A sandy bottom with fine seagrass dotting with small patches of coral. Oana bandages her foot to come for a snorkel too. As she comes in, we notice we already have the usual Barracuda hiding under the boat ready to get his prey. This happens everywhere we anchor recently. But this one is particularly big! And Oana needed reassuring that it won’t come and have a nibble on us! Barracudas are indeed inquisitive but they never come closer that 2m. And if you swim after them, they always keep that same distance in front of you.
In the small corals scattered around there are plenty of beautiful fish swimming about. The underwater life is so magic. We even see two lion fish, and again I think I should get myself a spear gun, then I can do my bit to save the coral fish and feed us at the same time.
As we seep a beer in the cockpit and enjoying our surroundings (or the lack of), we notice there are lots of boats transiting this channel. It’s like a highway! And of course, 99% of them power boats. We are definitely getting near to USofA!
Late afternoon we do some of the usual preparations for ocean passage. Outboard comes off the dinghy and we flush it with fresh water as we suspect there won’t be any other chance we might need to use it before we get to Chesapeake. Deck ropes are made tidy, and we watch a very nice sunset. This time we see it dip all the way into the ocean. All followed by a lovely dinner in cockpit in the twilight, surrounded by absolutely nothing but water! No money in the world can find a restaurant with this setting.
The remainder of the evening we relax and go to bed early-ish. Very happy with our day.
