{"id":4992,"date":"2024-06-08T10:42:50","date_gmt":"2024-06-08T16:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/syfrenchkissinglife.com\/?p=4992"},"modified":"2024-06-08T10:42:50","modified_gmt":"2024-06-08T16:42:50","slug":"god-bless-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/syfrenchkissinglife.com\/?p=4992","title":{"rendered":"God Bless America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We can’t believe it has only been three weeks since our last post as so much has transpired and we’re excited to share! We sailed north through a few more anchorages in the Exuma chain of the Bahamas. All gorgeous scenery and crazy shallow waters, aka “skinny water” to mariners. Then we left the Exumas and sailed to New Providence, the home of Nassau and the famous Paradise Island Resort. We skipped both as there is no good anchorage around there and the marinas are quite expensive. Will do that another time. Instead, we anchored on the very west end of the island which had just enough protection from the strong southeast wind that kicked up. There was quite a brushfire on the far side of the island while we were there but fortunately the wind took the smoke just north of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The next morning, we planned to cross over to Andros Island and stop at a little harbor on the northeast corner. Doing so would have given us a whole day of daylight to cross the Bahama bank, a vast area of shallow water that, in places, is covered with bommies (coral heads) just dying to rip your keel off. As newbies to the bank, we wanted the best visibility we could get but also knew people cross in the dark all the time, sticking to the few charted channels. As we hauled the anchor, two lovely twin masted boats left ahead of us and I yelled to one skipper, “where are you headed” and he replied – Bimini. Just like that, Bimini was now our next destination. I chatted with the two skippers on the radio who said they were experienced on the bank and it was no problem at all. So we followed them to Bimini. The sailing was great for many hours with our Code O up. As night fell, we put that away and settled in for a few hours, we thought, of motor sailing into a bit of head wind. Ha! The wind built to the uncomfortable stage and slowed us down a lot. By the time we rounded the top of Bimini we were into a very strong south wind and desperately wanted to anchor for a couple hours of sleep. So, in the pitch black of 4 a.m., using radar and charts, I crept to within about 50′ of shore in a slightly protected spot and Tess went forward to drop the hook. Except that nothing happened! The windlass was dead. OMG! She reattached the safety line and, given the sea state, there was no choice but to either stand off and get beat up by the huge waves or idle-speed into it and at least get to the south end where the entrance to the only harbor exists. Even if I hadn’t been exhausted, the movement of the boat precluded any attempt to figure out the windlass problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we motored VERY slowly into the teeth of it, taking lots of water over the bow, timing it perfectly to arrive at the entrance at first light. Of course, right then a large tug that had been anchored all night, suddenly chose to cross over toward Florida literally 100′ across our bow. No warning, apparently oblivious to us. It was then we got to evaluate the channel entrance. OMG again! I’ve never seen such a dangerous entrance. It has you cover about a half mile straight along the beach with many rocks (a once upon a time breakwater?) on the other side. I’m talking, 50′ from dry land in a channel perhaps 8′ wide. Ridiculous but we seriously needed rest. So, we did it. No problems but genuinely scary. About one hour after us, we watched a similar sized Beneteau get stuck in the sand right at the turn into the harbor. It rocked around horribly, getting turned sideways to the wind and waves and the crew raised their main sail so that they would tilt over far enough to break the keel free of the sandbar they had found. It took about 5 minutes but they managed to get off and into the safety of the harbor. We later spoke to them and they said they had no damage other than losing all the bottom paint on the lower 18″ of their keel bulb and rudder. Very lucky folks!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So, we thought we were good having made it into the harbor. We had planned to go to the anchorage at the far end but as it was very shallow in the whole place we instead tried to raise the Bimini Big Game Club as they had a large dock with many empty slips. No answer so we just went to tie up on the end. With a three knot outgoing tide and 18 knots of wind opposing, we found ourselves entirely unable to cover the last 20′ to the pilings! The bow was repeatedly pushed off despite our best efforts. So we tried going the other direction. A dockhand finally showed up and said to try the side, 90 degrees to wind and current. Success but shallow. Oh, and those pilings! No flat sides here for fenders to hold you off. Just telephone poles so we had to quickly jury rig our fenders to hang sideways and hopefully get the boat secure enough they won’t fall out of place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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