Back in Bimini

June 26-28, 2016

We woke up in Nixon's Harbor to windless flats reflecting the clouds. There wasn't even enough disturbance in the surface to obscure the view of the seafloor.

Low wind is terrible for sailing, but glorious for swimming.  By noon, the tidal current arrived generating swells that created velvety emerald luminescent swirls on the otherwise undisturbed surface of the water.

The next day was almost as calm. I sat on deck and watched light rainfall off the coast of Bimini. The ability to see full weather systems move across the sky is my favorite thing about being on a boat. I grew up in a densely forested mountainous region where you can barely see the stars through the trees. I'd never seen rainfall anywhere but above my head until I moved to the level lands and seas of Florida.

With no wind for our sails we went ashore, took a short bus ride across the south island, then took the water taxi to Alice Town on the north island.

We were looking for a liquor store to buy a couple cases of our favorite Bahamian exclusives before we left.  If you told me that a grapefruit beverage was delicious, or even drinkable, I wouldn't believe you. But it's true. It's light and sweet, and perfect to drink in the heat. Sands Pink Radler is brewed by Sands Bahamian Brewery, who, as far as I know, does not export. I already miss it.  Guinness Foreign Extra was formulated over a century ago with extra hops for global export to the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia, which are just about the only places you're likely to find it. Although, I hear that the surge in interest in craft beer in the UK and US has lead to occasional limited releases. So it could be coming to a city near you.

After acquiring the beer and returning to Nixon's Harbor, I went to comb the beach for keepsakes brewed by the sea. The public beach at Nixon's harbor was just as deserted as it was the last time I was there in March. There is definitely no shortage of the private beach experience in the Bahamas. In fact, I'd say it's harder to find company than it is to find an empty beach. There are 700 islands in the Bahamas, of which only 30 are inhabited. That's 670 islands that are almost guaranteed to be void of human life. With only 394,000 people spread across the 30 inhabited islands, chances are still good no one is going to be at a particular beach on any given day.  Even on the inhabited and touristed Island of South Bimini, on June 27th, it was just me and the trilobites.

 

While I was wandering the beach, stirring up the sand looking for fans and shells, I was taken by surprise when I looked down and saw that I had company.  A stingray was right next to my feet and appeared to be looking up at me.  He/She seemed more curious than aggressive so I stayed in the water and went about my business. He/She stayed close and fluttered around me for a while, before finally losing interest and gliding away.

After I found a few sea fans and took in the novelty of being alone in such a beautiful place for the last time, I joined AJ at Mackey's Sandbar to discuss the weather and the Gulf Stream crossing game plan.

When the Wind Dies: Sailing from Andros to Bimini

June  25, 2016

After eight days in Andros waiting for a weather window to continue sailing, the radar was finally clear of sporadic red dots.  We departed during the best wind window, that evening around 5pm, and sailed gracefully into the sunset. 

Sailing remained as pleasant through the night and into the morning.  We were able to use the windvane and take turns keeping watch. But the sun rose higher the wind blew lighter until there was none at all. By noon we were adrift in the doldrums. The sails flopped, the water was calm enough to swim in, and we were going nowhere.  

While I wasn't elated to be delayed, I was glad to see doldrums before our journey ended; for the same reason I'm retro-spectively glad we were caught in storms. Because it is now forever part of my mind's landscape, and before it certainly was not.  Whether it's 360 degrees of raging water, wind and darkness, or 360 degrees of glaring windless flat crystal sea bleeding into the sky, it's not something you get front row seats to every day, even if you are in the habit of losing sight of land. So, as our voyage was coming to and end, I felt terribly appreciative to have seen so many varied seascapes in only four months. 

   

We waited for the wind to pick up for a few hours. The sun was so severe that the cockpit was getting too hot for bare feet.  We clipped a bed sheet to the dodger for shade while we waited. We really didn't want to burn fuel all the way to Bimini. However, preferring to reach Bimini before dark, we eventually gave in and started chugging, breaking the beautiful silence.

Luckily we were reunited with the wind along the way, and shut down the engine promptly.  Bimini was in our sights about 25 hours after leaving Andros.  As we sailed into South Bimini we passed the shipwreck of the SS Sapona.

The SS Sapona is a concrete cargo ship that ran aground off the coast of Bimini in 1926 during a hurricane. It was used as a warehouse for booze supplying Miami during prohibition. During WWII is was used as target practice.  In 1965 it was featured in 007 Thunderball.  Now it is a popular site for divers.

28 hours after leaving Andros, we dropped anchor as the sun set in the familiar pillowy sand of Nixon's harbor, South Bimini, about 100 yards from the first place we anchored when we arrived in the Bahamas four months earlier.

The Pineville Motel, North Andros

Mid-June 2016

While driving around North Andros we saw an advertisement for the Pineville Motel and decided to check it out.  From the outside there's nothing to indicate the colorful oasis that lies behind the fences around the property on a dusty sandy road on the outskirts of Nicholls Town. The proprietor of the hotel was exceedingly welcoming and excited to show off what they had done with the place. Before checking in he gave us a tour of the grounds.  First he took us to a room near the office that they converted into a little movie theater, that also could double as a party/event room, complete with a disco ball and a fog machine.  Next to that was a large craft room where women were making beautiful elaborate masks and costumes, as well as crafts made with sea shells and sponges. He explained that they were getting ready to host a family festival, with face-painting, food, music, dancing, and even a North Andros fashion show!  After the tour of the new activity rooms he took us into a beautiful garden oasis. 

The hotel rooms are in a brightly painted concrete structure, with an AC window unit in the wall of each room.  They have basic rooms with a double bed and shower, as well as suites with kitchenettes and living rooms. The decor inside the rooms was very unique and I can't believe I didn't take a picture. But I can explain. On the edges of the room, where the wall meets the floor, seashells and other sea formations were implanted in poured concrete. It was quite beautiful and creative.

In the center was a garden with each plant species labeled. As guests of the hotel you are allowed to pick and eat anything in it! They also had a few crabs.. but I don't think you were allowed to eat those.

Disco house!

Food service areas for events:

While I had only curiosity and no real expectations of what the Pineville Motel would be, I never could have expected a place as unique and fanciful as this.  Which is why I often prefer to wander, rather than google.. It's much more fun to be surprised than it is to be expectant.  After walking the grounds we took our first real shower in over four months, collapsed on the bed in the little room with air conditioning, and had our best night of sleep in weeks.  

Exploring North Andros

Mid-June 2016

After three days of intense sailing in storms we were safely anchored in North Andros, well almost safely.  We arrived in the harbor a little after 7pm after hitting a light squall on our way from Chub Cay. Those winds caught back up with us in Andros and we spent the first night bouncing and slipping on one anchor. The next morning when the rain had cleared, AJ rigged a second anchor and dove on both to find sand pockets between the rocks deep enough to bury them in. And just in time too, as we were soon stuck on the boat for a couple more days of  wave riding.

Shore was a welcome sight when the weather finally cleared. 

We were anchored in a little fishing harbor a few miles north of the nearest settlement, Nicholls Town, population 645.

The only business within proximity was the Water Loop, a bar/restaurant frequented by the fishermen.

Across from the Water Loop are pavilions overlooking the beach.

We were planning to be on our way as soon as possible, but after the intensity of the storms we had just survived we were a bit skittish and the radar readings just weren't inducing confidence. There weren't storm fronts on the radar, but rather storm cells would just pop up and disappear at random spots all over the map.  Essentially what we had been experiencing in the days prior. We set out on a clear flat day with nothing on the radar or weather predictions then BAM! A wall of 65+ knot wind and crazy water. Then BAM! it's gone. Welcome to the Bermuda triangle.  With the radar littered with squalls day after day we spent a fair amount of time kickin' it with the fishermen at the Water Loop, or sitting under a pavilion watching seagulls harass a pelican.

The first time we went ashore we were told to ask for a man named Sully if we needed anything. The nearest grocery or anything store was a couple miles away from the harbor, so I'm assuming stranded sailors often need a ride. Sully, short for Solomon, was an exuberant middle aged fisherman with a big smile and bigger laugh.  He and his crew of jolly fishermen were usually at the Water Loop if they weren't out fishing. The oldest among them (eighty-something) went by "Hard-Ass", made a mean conch salad, and would got to sea fishing, alone, for a week at a time, on his 18 foot homebuilt boat. They could all dance a pretty mean jig too, or rather, a Bahamian Quadrille.

One evening on the Water Loop porch I was swatting at mosquitoes and Sully said to me, "Mosquitoes are nature, if you want nature, you can't just have some of it. They feed the frogs and fish and lizards and birds. If you want the beauty Andros has, you got to have them too." True words from Solomon the wise. Still, I was starting to look like I had chicken pox. 

After about a week hanging out on the waterfront waiting on weather we were growing a bit restless. The oppressive heat and humidity of mid-summer was kicking in and altercations with horseflies resulting in long term hand to hand combat was getting more frequent. We decided to see if we could find a car to rent and drive around the island for a day. See some new sites, get a little wind in our faces... win a battle against a bug... by smashing them with my windshield..muha hahaha. (Sorry Sully.)  A little General Store of sorts a couple miles away had a single rental car.  It was a cute little early 2000's Hyundai, that came with a highly effective "Keep Left" sticker facing inward on the windshield. There's no better place to learn to drive on the "wrong" side of the road than  low-traffic, rural sprawl.

In case you're curious about the best prices in Andros, the price for three cans/bottles is as follows:  Bud Light: $6.50  Kalik~$6.25  Bush~$6.75  Heineken~$7.90  Guinness~$8.50  Coors Light~$6.75  Colt 45~$6.75.  That's $44 for a case of Kalik and $58.25 for a case of Guinness.

Grocery store and pharmacy.

Classy neighborhood.

Government administration building.

While we were out, we saw a peculiar hotel advertisement hung on a chain link fence.

We were having a nice time out of the harbor, so we decided to call the number and maybe spend our first night off the boat in four months. What sort of motel lies in middle-of-nowhere Andros anyway? I wanted to find out.

How to get to Andros the Hard Way

June 16, 2016

Our long sail from New Providence Island back to Florida was cut short when we had to stop at Chub Cay in the Berries to wait out the storms.  Weather at this time of year is spotty, and at this location on earth, doubly so.

The stretch of water between Chub Cay and Nassau is a few thousand feet deep, and then, in the stretch of a few hundred yards climbs to the Bahama banks at about 10-12 feet deep.  70-100 miles west of the Berries and Andros is the next multi-thousand-foot deep trench: the Gulf stream.

During slack tide, water sits on the shallow shelf and heats up in the sun while other waters hide in the deep trench, getting quite cold.  When the tide changes, either warm water "spills" off of the shelf into the cold deep or cold water is forced out of the deep, vertically up the wall to the warm shallows where it creates rapid thunderheads.

Chub Cay lies on the edge of the shelf where all this watery madness happens and about 12 miles west of the Northwest Channel, the only place on the shelf edge that is deep enough (about 12 feet) for a ship to traverse.

The day after being rerouted to Chub Cay by storms, we made our second attempt at the Northwest Passage. It was a lovely, mostly sunny day with a very favorable 15 knot south wind that had us on a gentle reach under full sail to the channel, no need to run the little diesel.  It was so nice that with an hour left to the channel, I popped down below to fix some lunch.  While Sarah and I were eating, Robin suddenly lurched hard on-ear, almost putting a rail in the water while turning nearly 90 degrees from east to north.  I jumped on deck to see what had happened expecting we had snagged a crab pot or one of my sheets or steering lines had frayed, but instead we were in the middle of 50 knots of wind from the west, and a small black spot cloud had formed in the otherwise sunny sky.  Our Aries self-steering wind vane steers according to the wind direction, so when Mother Nature decided to change 90 degrees almost instantly, the Aries did too.

But now we were on a fast reach at full heel under full sail in 50 knots headed due north towards the rocky breakers about a mile away (about 8 minutes at this speed).  I called Sarah on deck while I started the engine.

This is the moment for jiffy reefing.  If you don't have jiffy reefs rigged, then my advice is: don't go out sailing until you do.  I have each reef on a single line that cinches both tack and clew to pull the whole slab reef out of the mainsail at once.  It runs to a cleat and winch set up on my coachroof in the cockpit.  Under 50 knots of wind and without changing point of sail, I was able to reef the mainsail, with one line, from the cockpit, by myself, while the self-steering wind vane kept course.  I pulled the foresail in completely and had the mainsail all the way down to the third reef in about a minute.  Then I took the helm and turned 180 degrees, directly south to get away from the rocky breakers,  But even with a tiny triangle of sail on the mast, our Yanmar diesel was struggling to maintain any headway against the building swells.  The wind built the waves from a slow one foot swell to 6 footers pounding over the deck within about 10 minutes.  The engine overheated almost immediately.  I throttled it down and waited/hoped for the overheat to stop, because I wasn't about to shut it off.  But with no underwater propulsion, we were forced to do what the wind told us.  At that point, the only answer was downwind, fast.  

I was proud of my jiffy reefs, but I would have given anything for a downhaul at that moment.  With just that little triangle of sail, we were still making over 10 knots downwind  I wanted to douse the main entirely and continue sailing under bare poles, but the wind wouldn't allow us to take down the last bit of main.

Luckily "downwind fast" was directly back to Chub Cay.  Unluckily, we still had some sail in the air, the wind and waves were still building, the engine buzzer was screaming and flashing overheat, and we still had an hour and a half back to Chub.

The next ???? minutes are kind of a blur of me gripping the tiller as hard as I could while we surfed 10-foot waves that were so steep we were beginning to plow the bow of the boat into the trough while we were surfing the crests.  Even with that tiny triangle of sail, we were making over 10 knots dead downwind, and I thought we were close to pitchpoling.  Our windspeed indicator pegs out at 65 knots, and it was pegged for long periods.  Moving 10 knots downwind plus 65+ knots indicated apparent wind speed = 75+ knots actual wind speed.  The stitches on the end of our flag and the top and bottom buttons of my shirt got ripped out by the wind.  I could barely hear Sarah unless her yelling was directly in my ear.  It wasn't raining yet, but the wind was whipping up so much seawater that it stung when it hit you, which was somehow everywhere on your body at once.  I have no idea how long this lasted, probably less than 5 minutes, but it was enough time to give Sarah a warning that we may be living our final moments, and that I loved her very much.  She was pretty okay with that being the end of it.  I was impressed.

About ???? minutes later, the worst of it had passed, we could start to see a clear sky ahead of us again, and while we were still in 6-foot waves, the period had slowed down significantly, and the wind had "eased" back to a steady-ish 45 knots like when it all started.  Clouds were now dumping freshwater rather than wind-blowing seawater.  A more seasoned seaman would consider this a great day to make some distance.

We anchored back at Chub in the late afternoon about 20 yards from where we had left that morning, though it was afternoon, it looked like dusk, and we waited for the insta-storm to pass while holding through the 6 foot swells.  It was almost worse than sailing.

A day later, we decided that if storms were going to keep us from making it through the northwest passage, then we might as well wait for our time at Andros rather than Chub.  Andros is the largest and one of the least visited islands in the Bahamas.  It has large stretches of forest and fields and more rural settlements.

The sail to Andros went well enough.  It was a pleasant day that turned a bit sour near the end with a light squall, but nothing dangerous. The holding isn't great in North Andros, and the best of it, on the eastern side of the bay was taken up by four other boats with similar plans.  So we took the less-preferable western side. The sand is very shallow on the rock bottom there, so I had to dive and dig both our anchors into the best sand pockets I could find on the seafloor, and we rode out another night of deep swells. 

It took another day for the storms to finally clear enough for us to take a trip ashore, but in the meantime, the stormy weather made for spectacular sunsets.

Rerouted by a Storm

June 15, 2016

We departed West Bay with the intention of bringing our Bahamian adventure to a close with our course set for Florida.  We were headed towards the southern tip of the Bimini chain, a location far enough south to make the Palm Beach Inlet without the gulf stream sweeping us too far north. We had not decided if we were going to stop there or continue overnight towards Florida.

The sky was bright, and the sea was a vibrant glassy sapphire blue.

Sailing past high altitude rainfall.

We were happily sailing along at approximately 25 knots in calm waters towards clear blue sunny skies when I casually looked behind me. The sky was turning black as rapidly moving dark clouds coalesced on the horizon. Waterspouts began dropping to the sea.  "AJ!" I yelled pointing towards the stern. Then promptly went below to get the off shore life vests while AJ started reefing.

 

When I came back up a wall of darkness was devouring the light. As it encroached on both sides, we found ourselves pointed towards an ever-narrowing window of blue sky.

The wind kicked up, we put in another reef and decided to hightail it to the nearest island, Chub key.

We made it to Chub in time to anchor before sunset. It was a long windy bouncy night in the unprotected anchorage of a sport fishing club resort island. Unbeknownst to us, it was the first of many stormy nights to come, and our Bahamian adventure was far from over.