Cruise to nowhere, and a salty cocktail hour

We are still anchored off Long Cay, but we've moved three miles northeast (map). This is a bit more pristine; we can barely see Albert Town in the distance, with just an expanse of white sand beach and turquoise water here. How we ended up here is, as usual, something of a story.

Friday we decided to see if we could move up to Landrail Point. My charts showed a couple of anchorages close in to shore that ought to have been settled enough, and it would have been nice to get into town, pick up a couple of groceries, and maybe have a meal. Also I wanted to "top up" my BTC SIM card.


Our beautiful anchorage at Long Cay, as seen from atop the mast of Ariadne. Vector is a tiny spec a bit right of center frame - click to open full size. Photo: Gabrielle Heggli

In hindsight it was not the best day for it, one of the windiest in the forecast, but we needed to move in any case, even if just to re-anchor, because I did not want that same section of chain to continue abrading on the rocks. So we made an early start, in case we needed to come all the way back, and weighed anchor for Landrail.

We started out on the direct line, cutting across the bay, but after two miles or so the waves on the beam were a bit uncomfortable, and instead we followed the curve of the shoreline. On that route it took us two and a half hours to reach Landrail. We rejoiced to see that the mailboat was at the dock as we arrived; typically that means the store will have some fresh produce and maybe milk the next day, both of which we needed.

Alas, it was not to be. It looked calm from offshore, and as we got tucked in to the anchorage area, the wind-driven chop dropped to almost nothing. But for hydrodynamic reasons that are unclear from looking at the shoreline, a two-foot swell was moving north through the anchorage. That swell would have been beam-on, and it would have been much too much roll to be comfortable there.


Landrail Point settlement, receding behind us. Mailboat center frame.

We tried two different spots with the same results. On top of that, waves were slamming up against the narrow entrance to the small craft basin, which would have made it difficult, if not impossible, to land the tender. Reluctantly, we turned around and headed back the way we came. The dozens of people who had come down to meet the mailboat and were milling around on shore must have thought we were crazy Americans.

Coming back was rougher, with the aforementioned swell against us, and we hugged the shoreline even closer. We had to come all the way back, past the cuts into the Bight of Acklins and to where the shoreline at last begins running west of south. This was the first spot that looked calm enough to us. With no marked routes here I steered from the flybridge, and we threaded our way in past the corals to what looked like a large expanse of clear sand. We did first check that we were getting an adequate signal from the cell tower, now three miles further away.

No worse for the wear, other than having used fifteen gallons of diesel on a six-hour cruise to nowhere, we settled back in and had a nice dinner on deck. It's more isolated and peaceful here than closer to town; we can barely see the two streetlights at night, nor hear the generating station. And we have the whole place to ourselves.


Gratuitous dinnertime sunset shot. We had to wait for this kind of cloud cover each evening as it was otherwise too sunny on deck.

And so Saturday morning I made the coffee and was about to step out on deck au naturel when I looked out and was surprised to see a sailing catamaran anchored about a mile north of us. Wow... these guys made a night approach to an area well-strewn with coral and set their hook. Wherever they came from, we reasoned they must be exhausted. Yet their dinghy davits were barren and there was no movement on the boat -- perhaps they went ashore someplace?

It was close to lunch time before I noticed any movement on the cat. Once I was sure they were up and about (and aboard), I hailed them on the radio to share what we learned about the island. Specifically, that there were no longer any services there except a water spigot, just in case they were hoping to find anything ashore.

I learned in that exchange that they were a delivery crew, and the boat had no tender at all, so going ashore was not even really an option. And then they invited us for a beer. Louise had a phone call scheduled at 4pm so we agreed to come over at 5. I scraped together some ingredients from the fridge and whipped up a cream cheese spread, and we dug out a box of crackers from our provision stash under the settee. We keep the carbs deliberately hard to reach so we're not tempted to open them unless we have guests.

Once again, in hindsight, we should have postponed cocktails for a day, when things were just a hair calmer. But when we arranged it, they were unsure whether they'd leave Sunday or not. And so it was that we plowed through 2-3' waves, clawing our way north for a mile to reach their Lagoon cat, Ariadne. Louise had the foresight to wear her waterproof duster, and still got soaked, and I drenched the very same shorts I took swimming back in Provo during the tender prop fiasco.


Arriving at Ariadne. This photo really belies just how rough a ride it was. Photo: Gabrielle Heggli

Even with all the drama, it was a wonderful evening. We very much enjoyed meeting Gabrielle and Thomas, who are Swiss. They do have their own sailboat, Maselle,  a monohull which is right now in Beaufort, NC, but they do deliveries for a living. Ariadne is en route from Florida, where it undertook some post-Irma maintenance, to a charter base in Tortolla, BVI. Thus it is that they have that most dangerous of all things on a boat: a schedule. Explaining well why they are bashing through seas that have us remaining here in port.

Lacking a tender, they hadn't been off the boat in a week, and it's been that long since we interacted with any other humans as well. With everyone eager for company, we spent the entire evening over beer and snacks and sea stories. We finally headed back to Vector just as the light faded, not wanting to return after dark. We hope we will see Thomas and Gabrielle somewhere along the east coast as they cruise their own boat.

Yesterday Gabrielle emailed me some photos she captured, and we talked again by VHF. The anchorage was nearly as choppy as it was Saturday, and I think none of us was eager to repeat the wet ride or the acrobatics we needed to execute to debark at either end, so we just left it at that. This morning they weighed anchor and sailed off around the corner past Landrail point, headed east. It turned out they had also given up on anchoring there Friday night, which is how we ended up neighbors. Their next stop is Provo, so we gave them the rundown of all we had learned.


Ariadne sailing off into the sunrise. This is as close as we ever were.

The last thing I did before leaving for Ariadne Saturday was to go online and buy another week of unlimited data for the phone. With no way to top up BTC, buying more time for the Aliv SIM was my only option, and I wanted to do it before the current allotment ran out Saturday evening, while we were at cocktails. I had purchased it at the last possible moment on our way out of Provo the previous Saturday. Fortunately, it seems to have settled in and is requiring far fewer APN resets.

We had the tender in the water only long enough to go over there and back. Splashing it in these winds, which have been 25 steady and gusting 30 since we arrived, was quite literally splashing, and I struggled to get it in the water and up and running in the chop just before we headed over. We decked it as soon as we got back.

Today I went for my first swim since re-anchoring in this new spot. We've been using a bucket as a make-shift flopper-stopper, and the bucket needs some weight in it. I had started out using my dive weights but I don't want them to accumulate marine growth, so here I tried using a couple of old wine bottles from our recycling bin. They worked, mostly, but apparently some current caught the bucket and dumped a bottle out. I had to go snorkeling for it to avoid being a litter bug. I did snag it, but my free diving is rusty and I barely made it the 15' down.

I have to confess to a bit of nervousness when I jumped in, because we've had a barracuda hanging around the boat for the last couple of days. He stayed through dinner last night, perhaps looking for handouts. He was still hanging around this morning, still hopeful. I'm sure he's used to following sportfishers, who are constantly throwing fish bits over.


Our very own barracuda, with his fan club of smaller fish. No, we can't get the Heart tune out of our heads, either.

We've been trying to top up the water tank here in the pristine waters off Long Cay, and yesterday I started the watermaker and it ran all day at close to 10gph. Considering it's been averaging more like 6gph, we were rather amazed. The tank is nearly full, even after Louise did laundry earlier in our stay.

Today, on the other hand, I started it this morning and production steadily dropped into perhaps the 5gph range or less before it quit altogether, giving us a "stalled" alarm. This means the feed pump has stopped pumping; a visit to the engine room confirmed the feed pump would not run even when bypassing the control board and powering it directly. It was also very hot.

This is actually an important clue. I have been suspecting the motor on the feed pump for some time, even though I disassembled it, cleaned it, inspected the brushes, and reassembled it in Fort Lauderdale. I am now suspecting the brushes might be a tad short (worn), even though visually they looked good. This motor has a weird brush spring with which I have no experience, and so my inspection may have been lacking.

Reasoning that the pump quit because a thermal switch inside the motor had opened, I let the whole thing cool down and tried again. It is once again making 9+gph. I could remove and open up the motor again to clean and adjust the brushes, but there is a risk to that. So we are going to keep a close eye on it and hope it gets us through the rest of our stay in the Bahamas as-is.


Some small fish hanging out around our running gear, which is starting to show some growth. Bucket hanging in the background is the "flopper stopper."

Speaking of the rest of our stay, we've been pinned down here by weather for over a week now and are quite ready to move along. Tomorrow, or if not, Wednesday, is our best window and we will grab it, trying to make some progress and gain some more shelter before the system that is currently brewing in the Gulf of Mexico becomes a threat. Weird weather has been the hallmark of this trip; few we have spoken with can remember a consistent spate of 20-30kt easterlies like this for quite some time.

Our plan from here is to make for the leeward side of the southern tip of Long Island. We'll anchor for a night, likely in some swell, and then get an early start the next day to make the low spot of the Comer Channel at the afternoon high tide, 4:30 or 5:30 depending on whether we hit it Wednesday or Thursday. From there we will still have an hour or so of good light to make an anchorage on the west coast.

We'll spend a little time in Long Island to regroup, taking on some provisions and carefully watching the weather; the subtropical low in the gulf is a big unknown at this point. But from there, by one route or another, we will make our way back onto the bank and up to Nassau, where I am scheduled to fly out the second week of June for a Red Cross training event. Louise will be on boat and cat watch duty in my brief absence.

I'm hoping the weather is good enough for a departure tomorrow morning. For one thing, it will give us more leeway at the other end to settle in to a protected anchorage. For another, it means we will have high tide at an earlier hour, giving us a bit more wiggle room at the end of the day.