Week 13: The Crossing

Week Thirteen – The Crossing     

We departed at 7:00 a.m on Tuesday the 25^th.  We had watered, stowed, un-shipped un-needed items and everything else that we could do. I was a little bit impatient because I had wanted to follow the fishing boats since they know the finer details of the passage to deep water. This was not possible. But Bligh lurks just beneath the surface. I let the other two delay departure until we had taken breakfast together.

Nargis took photos from across the canal. With a cheery wave goodbye, we motored out. I remembered the way and also the soft shoal that can really hang your boat up if you stray from the dredged channel – which we did do. Our grounding was at so oblique an angle that I was able to break free by applying extreme rudder and full power. For the following ten minutes my eyes were riveted to the sonar and the chart plotter- almost regardless of the mangroves which, at times, brushed our rails.

This year we have a laser thermometer.  Susan was taking the engine temperatures after the full-power ungrounding and alerted me to overheating. With visions of probable rust blockages in the marine manifold I changed the readiness rating of the engine from ‘good’ to ‘emergency use only’. We kept the engine on a fast idle and it got us clear of the last navigation mark happily enough. Susan opened the Genoa and took the wheel while I put up the main sail. There was a 5 knot breeze from the Southwest and we were moving up-channel at 3 knots by 7:30 am. A good start! We wanted to use the ‘weather window’ before things changed and this was looking like a pretty good start to what would be a long trip.

 Optimism reigned as we knocked one nautical mile after another.

Two hours later we 'stuck', still looking at the same piece of shoreline due to an unfortunate drop in the winds. Twice we dropped anchor to avoid drifting all the way back to our departure point. We motored briefly – but I did not want to use-up what might be the last short moments of this dear old Atomic 4’s service life. Finally, at 2 pm we had the beginnings of a solid breeze from astern. I rigged the spinnaker pole to the clew of the Genoa and we sailed, goose-winged, and again doing 5 knots, hoping to arrive at the reef  where we planned to anchor by the time darkness fell. Wind speed built to 10 knots by dusk, and as darkness fell we took an unoccupied mooring on the Reef, having 'not-quite' made our day’s objective.

I slept soundly and long.  Susan slept, neither so soundly or so long. She is new to sailing and is still learning which things that are worth worrying about – and to grab sleep when she can. When we slipped the mooring at 6:30 am there was no wind whatsoever and two hours later we were still within 500 feet of it.

we're in the Gulf Stream

 Finally, at two p.m., the predicted southwest winds of “from 8-14 knots” arrived. We were slowly crawling northeast with an average speed of between four and five knots. The forecast continued optimistic, calling for “variable winds”. A weather system approaching Florida from the west was shaping the forecasts which had themselves become ‘variable’. And so we listened often for changes. We decided that we could make Bimini in the dark and wait for dawn before entering port.

I shortened sail before dusk and reefed the genoa. The boat is not balanced without her main but we are sailing shorthanded for such operations as reefing the main (and it only has one reef point) so I just gasketed it to the boom and opened the genoa enough to give helm control for following winds. We arrived off Bimini at 1:30 am and set down to a long night of sailing back and forth off Bimini’s windward shore 4 miles away. There was some freighter traffic to keep us wary – and I briefly contemplated just sailing on to Nassau without stopping. At another time – maybe – but this time our destination is Bimini and we are darned well going to get there.

Bimini at dawn

 Dawn found us in building seas and increasing winds out of the west.  There was no way I was going to try to enter Bimini in this, so we decided to go through the cut at Triangle Rocks and anchor in the lee behind Cat Cay. The advantage of this is that we have done this before with Gary on Adastrelle and know the way.

large rollers

As we fought our way through very large rollers on the way to our approach position, a sailboat arrived with the daylight.  We think that it was Comfortably Numb due to subsequent radio chatter. This guy has obviously approached and entered North Bimini channel before under these conditions. And, I am guessing that his engine is more reliable than ours too. He was tying up at a resort before we were through the cut at Triangle Rocks.

We sailed on to find a quiet anchorage on Great Bahama Bank behind Cat Cay and slept all day. Late in the day the wind has been clocked northerly so we powered up the Atomic-Four and ran for all of 15 minutes before overheating. We managed to make 2 miles before dropping anchor again. I cleaned plugs and all the rest of it, and just happened to look at the anti-freeze reservoir for the engine. I took its temperature with the laser thermometer and found the header tank to be cooler than the overheated engine.

It is at times like these that I don’t know whether to say “ahah”  or “duh”. So I verbalized both ways. The engine was simply down a quart and the overheating problem was resolved. While waiting for the engine to cool, I had already taken off the carburetor and replaced the float needle – based on advice I had stumbled upon in the manual. The engine started and ran much more smoothly.

We made it three miles this time. (Yippee!  L)

South Bimini

 As we anchored for the second time a sailboat came through the Cut at Turtle Rocks at South Bimini and another overtook us and motored through the same Cut. This gave me some confidence that the shallow choke point near this Cut would not prevent our passing. The engine had been running well and then got rougher and eventually stopped. We let it cool and I cleaned all of the plugs, reconfirmed the coolant level and removed the fuel filter and blew through it to confirm easy flow. We re-started and this time we made the anchorage at Dollar Harbour next to the community of Nixon’s Harbour – the only community on South Bimini.

Dropping anchor yet again, the fuel system still checked out okay. The problems now seemed to be intermittent firing of one or two cylinders. There was one fouled plug. I checked the ignition leads and found that one was not making proper contact in its distributor cap socket. I removed the ignition leads from their alignment binders and re-arranged them to eliminate the possibility of inductive losses. This time the engine purred. By this time it was no longer a dead calm and an onshore breeze was again gracing the approaches to North Bimini. Susan plotted us a 1.2 mile course to the entrance and we went with it. By point eight miles the engine was running rough. By the time we entered the channel only 3 cylinders were working and the engine was labouring mightily.

200 yards from our destination

It stopped again – right in the middle of a narrow and busy navigation channel. We had only just made shelter from the onshore winds and waves. The first tie-ups were only 200 yards ahead and here we sat, anchored in a narrow channel that had current running at 2 knots.
Megayachts were passing us closely at 15 minute intervals and sportfishing boats went by more frequently.

We had become a hazard to navigation.

super ferry from Ft Lauderdale

And I was completely out of fresh ideas.

I stared at the engine for at least 20 minutes, petting the wires in the hope that their carbon cores would restore sufficient contact to get us to the anchorage.

It started and it ran, again, and we went to the first available anchorage. It was occupied by a trimaran and I had read that the anchorage was too small for more than on

one or two boats – so we kept going, up the newly dredged channel to the larger anchorage. We chugged along and the 3 mile trip was uneventful, to our great relief. By 2:45 pm we dropped anchor and then hugged and danced around a little bit in sheer joy.

Our day was not yet over. God knows I wanted to lay back for a while but we had now officially entered a foreign country and certain formalities must be met. We hoisted our quarantine flag and, after launching the tender which we had carried on our foredeck, I rowed to the customs office at the nearby Resort World Fisherman’s Village Marina offices, sitting on the vessel papers and our passports.

rowing to sign us in

The Dockmaster’s office advised that I could fill out the forms in their office but that I must report to the Main Customs Office in Alicetown, three miles away. It seems that the satellite Customs office at Resort World exists to facilitate fast turn-arounds for the half dozen or so passenger seaplanes that arrive and depart daily.

My taxi arrived at about four-thirty and my driver, a pleasant young man named Carson, took me first to the Customs office. Carson sat in the lobby while I checked our vessel in to the Bahamas, securing a cruising permit and a fishing license. By the time we had finished it was nearly 5:30. The Customs people were good enough to check and could confirm that Immigration offices were delayed in closing and that if I hurried, they might process me as well.

Carson took me to the van for the one-hundred yard drive to the Immigration Office, and personally took me to the right door and ‘nodded’ me into an office that was about to close.

sunset at Resorts World

When I finally returned to Panacea we sat back at last, Susan with her glass of wine and I with a can of beer watching the parade of arriving megayachts on one side and the glorious sunset on the other. We have arrived! Cheerful greetings in French wafted from the only other sailboat in the anchorage. We later got to better know our neighbours, Jack and JiJi from Montreal.

We waived and I briefly dropped by to greet them before we tucked-in for a well deserved sleep.

Tomorrow we will visit every marina and ‘shop’ for the best deal, so that we can have shore power and water, showers and – hey – a pool, maybe.

MARINA	SLIP (monthly)	ELECTRICITY	WATER	WiFi	POOL/SHOWERS
Fishermans Village	$1.00/ft/day = $1054.00	Extra:  rate not quoted	Extra: rate not quoted	Free: reaches the public anchorage too!	Yes
Bimini Big Game	$500/mo to 50 feet boat length	Extra: $13.00/day	Extra: $15.00/day	Free:	Yes
Blue Water	$500/mo	Extra: $100/mo	Extra: $0.75/KwHr	Free: but weak	Yes
Seacrest	daily $ only			Free	No
Weeche’s	$0.75/ft/day			Free	No
Brown’s	$1.00/ft/day	$0.30/gal	$0.70/kwh		Locked Shut

All day on the hook and it feels so good.
In the afternoon we were graced with the asistance of Jim and Judy ( Inzi 2, Toronto ) and Jack and Jean ( Tawannee 2, Montreal )- to raise  our extremely well-set anchor. They provided subsequent escort to us on our 3 mile trip to the BlueWater Marina and tugged us into our slip after the inevitable engine failure. Six days after we departed our previous port-of-call we were at last tied-up at our destination, sharing drinks and stories with Cruising Friends.  It had been a long one-hundred miles!