Our Worst Day in The Bahamas

 We had arrived at Hoffman's Cay on March 29th. The first day was pretty good weather, but then it turned windy out of the north and we had to hunker down on the boat. During that time, I was looking at the weather, and saw a window to make the trip back across the Gulf Stream to Florida on April 3-4. The problem was that after that, the wind would shift back to the north and would stay that way for as long as the forecast went, which is 14 days. 

It became clear to us, that we should try to make this weather window. We had two pretty good days to get to Great Harbor on the northwest corner of the Berry's. Check that out for a day or so, and then make the sail to Florida. The conventional way to make the trip from Great Harbor to Florida is across the Great Bahama Bank to Bimini. That is a 70 mile trip and is too far for a sailboat in one day. So, in settled weather you can drop anchor out on the very shallow bank. The problem was the weather window was too short for that plan. Then you wait in Bimini to make the final 50 mile crossing to Florida. All of those three legs can be done during daylight. We decided on a more aggressive plan and sail directly to Florida from Great Harbor. That would be an overnight sail, but we would be safely tucked in before the northern came in. You should not cross the Gulf Stream with any kind of north wind.

Our day of departure from Hoffman's was April 1. Yep, we decided to leave on April Fools day. I looked at the charts and it looked fairly straight forward. Although there were some shallow areas, we should be just fine. I forgot to mention and I forgot to take it into account it was also a full moon, which increases the high tides and make it shallower at low tide. We departed about 10 am, which was mid tide. I saw another sailboat on AIS exiting the channel I intended to use. I called him on the radio and asked what depths he saw. He was a very shallow draft vessel and the depths he was seeing would not work for us. I went with plan B, which was a cut that was back south a bit. As I approached it was getting closer to low tide and I decided to try a cut between two very shallow spots that should have had 5.5 feet of water at low tide. We hit ground going about 2 knots. It was about 4 feet deep. I tried to back off, but we were really stuck. I tried everything I could think of and then decided we would have to wait for higher tide to get off. The only problem was that we were looking at a very rocky island that was directly downwind of us and the wind was now about 15 knots. It was a very nerve wracking next three hours as we waited for deeper water. I kept a close watch to make sure we were not getting pushed in the direction of the island called Big Gaulding Cay. 

After what felt like forever, I felt the boat start to rock back and forth in the wind and waves. It was now time, I turned the boat hard right rudder and got the boat to spin and face the direction we had come. I powered up the engine and we very slowly started to move. Then we were free! We then tried to make the cut that I was trying to get to, by a deeper and longer path. We made it further, but Kim was on the bow watching for shallows. At one point she screamed "STOP!" I hit reverse, but it was too late. We hit ground again. The chart showed 6 feet, but the chart was wrong again. I was able to back right off of this one due to Kim's warning. At that point I was DONE! My nerves were a wreck and we needed to regroup. I saw an anchorage a short distance away and we went over behind Little Harbour Cay and Comfort Cay and put the hook down. We had a calm anchorage, but we needed a new plan. 

This is the only picture I took while we were aground. The island to the right is Saddle Back Cay. The island to the left is Big Gaulding Cay.  I did shoot a video that I will include in a later YouTube Video.

I spent that evening going over all of our options to get out of there. I decided on going back the way we came a few days before. This would add about 5 miles to our trip to Great Harbor, but I was done with hitting the bottom. We had good tracks that we could follow and as long as we waited for high tide, we should be fine. There is a deep water inlet at the south end of Little Harbour Cay that would get us to deep water. We left on the morning of April 2nd, with a new plan. The tide was rising and we were about 2 hours before high tide. We got moving and crossed the one very shallow spot on the same track we had used before and all went well. It was not long, and we were in the open water and the captain could finally relax. The only problem was that we had wind right on our nose, so we had to motor the 36.4 nm to Great Harbor Cay. It was an interesting trip. We saw two cruise ship landings that looked like amusement parks. There were three cruise ships moored there.

Kim looking out at the islands as we make our progress north. We had intermittent rain.

We were bashing into some significant swell as we made our progress north

We cruised just inside this one cruise ship that was anchored out away from shore. 

These two cruise ships were on a pier at one of the private islands.

Not our thing, but it did look kind of cool. 

After making the north point of the Great Stirrup Cay, we made a turn south and down to Great Harbor. The water got more shallow but nothing to worry about. We then came in a very narrow rock cut that lead to the very protected Great Harbor. It was not very big, but it was very calm. 

Our nice calm anchorage was a bit tight, but it worked out great.

Another shot of Great Harbor

To our stern in this shot is the entrance to the Great Harbor Marina. I took the dinghy over there to see if I could get some drinking water. I was able to get 10 gallons for $5.

I spent some more time studying the weather and it looked like it was time to go. We would have good weather for the next 36 to 48 hours with wind from the Southeast. I could not get fuel on the Sunday we arrived, so I planned to get some the following morning and then we would head west until we hit Florida. It would be about a 135 nm trip and should take us about 26 hours. In my next entry, I will write all about the crossing.