A Sail of Two Idiots (19 page)

Once we did see land, however, we had a decision to make. We were headed for one of our last waypoints to make the turn toward Royal Island when we saw a passage that seemed like a doable shortcut. We quickly consulted the guides and charts, decided we could go through it (they couldn't all be wrong!), and turned in. It was a tight fit, with a reef on either side and at times eerily dark underneath us—very scary—but we trusted our charts and kept moving (slowly).

Despite what the guides say, reading water is not a sure thing. I mean, the water was brown. Normally I wouldn't go near that with a 10-foot pole (or a 37-foot boat).
But then again, the water was so clear in the Bahamas that it looked shallow even when it wasn't. We had to use all the tools at our disposal and trust ourselves (we were still working on that part).

We did it! We'd had the perfect sail, and the shortcut shaved about 45 minutes off our trip. Time to drop the mainsail, drop anchor, and celebrate! I said, time to drop the mainsail. Nope. The sail wouldn't lower. At all. The lines were twisted at the top of the mast and the sail was stuck. Sigh. We loosened the sheets so the sail couldn't catch any wind and then headed into the anchorage to get into calmer surroundings (yes, another storm front was on its way).

We anchored and stared at our offending sail. We were momentarily distracted by a manta ray skimming past, but we eventually broke out the bosun's chair (a harness made just for this purpose) and hauled Michael up the mast to try to untwist the tangled lines at the top.

Hurray for the electric anchor windlass. We could tie the spinnaker halyard (the one I used to haul Michael's skinny butt up the mast) around the windlass. The windlass would give me a little power and leverage to allow me to pull him up.

Michael couldn't unwind or unhook anything due to the weight of the sail, so I let him back down so we could stare at it some more. Meanwhile, a nearby catamaran owner was watching us from his boat via binoculars. I was initially a bit put out by this nosy-body, but when he rowed over, yes rowed over, and offered to help, I realized he was simply trying to assess the problem from afar. He had all kinds of ideas, helped me haul Michael back up, and walked Michael through the process of breaking free the necessary parts.

Tip: Buy walkie-talkie headsets. Your voice gets whisked away by the wind when you're trying to yell at each other when one of you is aloft; they're also useful for communicating between bow and cockpit when anchoring. A lot of boaters sneer at this contraption, but I'd prefer to talk normally rather than scream. We loved our headsets.

I don't know what we would have done without the other boater. When nothing was working, he'd keep coming up with another suggestion. We learned a lot during this process. After about two hours, the sail finally released. Again, we wished we could repay these people, but then we'd remember that this is a pay-it-forward community.

While Michael had been up the mast working on the genny roller furler the previous day, our “helpers” unknowingly put the mainsail halyard block (a pulley) back on the mainsail half-cocked. We had unhooked that halyard from the head of the mainsail in order to use it to haul tools up to Michael while he was working on the furler, which attaches to the top of the mast. Most blocks spin 360 degrees, but ours didn't and had a “right way” to attach it or it would jam. Jam it did. Michael didn't notice this, and it caused the halyard to twist while he was hoisting the mainsail. Michael's comment? “I wondered why that sail was so hard to get up.”

Although (then) unpopulated and private, Royal Island is a pretty place to take refuge from what turned out to be quite a storm. We wouldn't have wanted to be in the wrong place when that hit. We talked more with Joe and Becky on
Half Moon
; they had also been trying to break free from the northern islands since November. We had seen one another a few times wandering around Marsh Harbour but had never met. They were trying to get to the Dominican Republic before hurricane season, which would start in two months. We didn't know what we would be doing that far in advance.

We had hoped to check out Eleuthera Island (to the east) while we were in the vicinity but were worried about getting trapped by yet another weather system, so we decided to keep moving south.

I had been dreading the next bit of sailing before we arrived at Allen's Cay in the central Exumas, 60 miles farther south. While I was plotting the route, our only option seemed to be going through a passage called Current Cut. That didn't sound good. We knew there could be strong currents and tricky moves on the other side. I didn't want to deal with it. After whining to Joe, I discovered that there had been another option I'd missed because it was in the crease of my chart. Yay, another way to go! I rerouted our trip (using my own new waypoints) to accommodate this much-welcome change through nice, wide Fleming Channel and was ready to go.

We had a great sail. The waters, now 3,000 feet deep, were cobalt blue, with shallower patches spread throughout that made strange but beautiful circles of light blues and greens. Dolphins and the ever-present flying fish kept us company.

Just before reaching Allen's Cay, in an area known as Middle Ground, the chart showed a lot of x's, which denoted scattered coral heads. They seemed obvious and far apart, so I hadn't worried about them. Depths ranged from 7 to 20 feet, so deeper-keeled boats (such as
Half Moon
) had to watch their route.

Suddenly we sailed into what was a minefield of rocks. Yes, they
were
obvious in the clear waters, but they were huge, scary, dark masses and they were everywhere. This would be interesting. We had wind (abeam) but would have to weave
in and out, so we turned on our engines to keep us moving. If we lost speed, we'd lose steerage. Time for those headsets again. Michael was at the bow pointing this way and that while I tried to do what he was telling me and not hit the rocks we were passing. We were wondering if we had picked the wrong route, but we could see
Half Moon
about a half mile away weaving this way and that too. No greener grass over there.

After about 45 minutes we were past that weirdness—who put those there?—and called
Half Moon
on the VHF. We cheered each other for getting through the coral unscathed and then vowed not to do that again. I was never a big buddy-boat person (especially after The Whale incident), but in this case it was nice having someone else nearby.

An hour later we were pulling up to Allen's Cay in the Exumas. Wahoo! Most of the central Exumas are part of the Exuma Land & Sea Park, so we weren't looking for a place to live here, just a place to get warm, let loose, and have some fun.

We'd be able to island-hop without going into deeper waters or squeeze through cuts for a while. The islands in this area are bounded by the shallow (20 feet or less) Exuma Bank on the west side and the deeper (as much as 6,000 feet deep!) Exuma Sound on the east. We island-hopped down the shallow west side of the islands.

Known for its 2-foot iguanas, or Bahamian dragons, Allen's Cay was beautiful. Those people who had never ventured farther south of the Abacos were really missing something. “Those people” had almost been us.

The anchorage itself is a cove surrounded by three little islands. You're engulfed by white beaches while peeking out to the sea. Breathtaking.

We never wanted to leave. But after a couple of days we needed to find an Internet signal so we could check the weather. Our little SSB radio antenna had snapped, so no more Chris Parker, and our cruising guides hadn't told us about the 7:30 a.m. VHF weather reports broadcast by Exuma Park.

Somewhere meant Highborne Cay, but we didn't want to leave our pristine location. Instead, we dinghied the 2 miles between the islands.
Half Moon'
s Joe and Becky had skipped Allen's Cay because they were concerned about their draft, so they were already in Highborne and knew the drill. Let's just say that we were glad we had kept the big boat where she was.

Before we left Highborne Cay, we noticed a fisherman throwing fish guts into the water and lots of dark shapes swimming around. Dark shapes with fins. Sharks! On the long dinghy trip back, we kept looking at any shadows with suspicion. We also kept pretending to flip the boat. We're silly.

Weather
was
coming, so we knew we had to leave our oasis soon. Because you can't have all play and no work, while at Allen's Cay we figured out what was wrong with our three-burner propane stove. Ever since we had bought the boat, we had little explosions right after turning off the flame after cooking a meal. Poof. After hearing various propane nightmares, we took this seriously, but we couldn't find the problem. We finally broke down and pulled up the oven, only to find that the metal cups under the burners had rotted through. Yep, that would do it. We'd have to replace the stove. In the meantime, we used only the burner with the least corrosion and barbecued as much as possible. There—task done for the day.

We reluctantly left Allen's Cay for Hawksbill Cay, about 20 miles southeast down Exuma Bank, thinking that it couldn't get any nicer.

Wrong!

We could have stayed anchored off Hawksbill forever. Well, had there been any food and water there. We initially anchored waaay off the beach. We dinghied to shore only to be asked by Park Ranger Bob why we were anchored so far out. We squinted back toward the speck that was
Jacumba
and wondered the same thing. We dinghied back and then re-anchored closer to the beautiful beach. At low tide we were in just 5 feet of
warm
water, which meant we could hop off our boat and wade to shore. This was exactly what we'd been waiting so long for.

We hiked, we sprawled in the sun on the beach, and even helped Park Ranger Bob clear some nonnative vegetation just to feel as though we were giving back to this pristine place. We were in heaven. Later, we found a set of metal horseshoes in the bushes and played for hours. When we were done, we hid them back in the bushes for the next explorers.

Everything we did involved that amazing beach. We didn't want to leave, but we knew we should get somewhere better protected. Our final night, we brought wine and cheese to the beach and watched the sun set behind
Jacumba
and the huge private yacht that had snuck up behind her. Once the sun was gone, we were swarmed by mosquitoes, so we made a mad dash back to the boat. We had been in such cold temperatures for so long that we'd forgotten about those little vampires! Hrmph, it's never perfect.

Happy Easter! Procrastinating about our departure, we did a final beach walk at Hawksbill Cay, raised anchor, and motored the 18 miles to the main part of the multi-island park on Warderick Wells Cay. Most people pick up a mooring there, but the holding looked as though it was sand, so we decided to save the money and anchor in the “cheap” section. We went ashore, paid our park fee, and then immediately hiked half the island. Despite the number of boats moored there, we hardly saw anyone out and about.

The next day, the storm system we had been expecting hit from a direction we were
not
expecting. Two of our three weather sources had gotten it wrong. There had been other anchorage options; we wished we'd been warned to get to one. Oy and baaaaaarf! Everyone, whether anchored or on a mooring, was bucking like a bunch of wild broncos. Yee-haw! The anchorage was so rough that we couldn't even lower our dinghy or get to shore to give our stomachs a break. We were glad the storm lasted only one day.