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.

Life on the Hook in George Town

April 2016

After everyone went home from the regatta, George Town fell quiet and became a sleepy little town once again. With a population of only 1400, it was still the second largest place we visited after Nassau. We had rushed through the Exumas to get to the regatta on time, barely stopping to dip our toes in the sand. When the regatta ended most of the boats in the anchorages dispersed and we were left nearly alone in a perfect clear harbor with a floor of white pillowy sand. We spent the next few weeks doing nothing but watch the ever-morphing shades of blue and green dance over the surface patterns of the water. 

The endless summer sun arrived mid-May and very quickly the cockpit became too hot to touch. We created a make-shift cockpit tent with garden shade fabric in an attempt to beat the heat.

Landry day! It's best to do laundry on a day rain is predicted, that way the rain can do the rinsing, saving you a lot of wringing and trips to shore lugging back jerry cans of water. 

Watching the rain clouds roll in.

Sun setting on an evening swim.

After not moving for a couple weeks the boat bottom starts growing it's own eco-system.  Luckily, there are no waters more pleasant to scrape the bottom in than these!

George Town inner harbor:

Dinghy-ing through the inner harbor:

Everything you need in George Town is accessible within walking distance from the dinghy dock, which is on a small lake you enter from the harbor.

Views across the lake:

When you exit the dinghy dock there is an outdoor bar/restaurant immediately to your right,(and a place to throw away trash for $3 a bag on the other side of it). The yacht club restaurant is directly across the street and to the left is Exuma Market grocery store. Just down from the Grocery store there are a few shops and a couple hotels with outdoor restaurant/bars. All of the bar/restaurants had free Wifi. BTC 4G cell reception is also excellent across the island and harbor.

The food options were pretty consistent across the remote settlements of the Bahamas. There is always fried chicken and pork chops, usually fried fish and fried conch, and sometimes a burger. Sides are mac&cheese and peas&rice (peas are beans in the Bahamas). Fish was only available if someone had gone fishing that day.  When fish is on the menu, don't shy away from whole pan fried snapper, it's amazing. 

George Town harbor island side:

It's easy for time to stop in George Town. It has everything you need and nothing you don't. There are uninhabited islands with secluded beaches and snorkeling spots throughout miles of sparkling harbor. And in town you have groceries, hardware, beer, Wifi, and friendly locals who will give you a ride, or take you to their best fishing spots.  Why would anyone want to leave?

Anchoring in Nassau Harbor

The primary anchorage in Nassau harbor lies between the east side of the cruiseship docks and the west side of the cargo docks at the base of the bridge.  The depth is around 10' for much of the anchorage but falls off sharply to 25' on the north side and there is a lump in the middle that is 6' deep or less that should be avoided by deep draft boats.  Holding is good, but being a 200+ year old busy harbor, there is some debris on the bottom.  Also, the tidal current direction alternates between east and west, moving about at about 2-3 knots between tides, so your anchor will be resetting itself every 6 hours.  One morning, after a week at anchor we wrapped a pair of barnacle-covered blue jeans around the anchor and chain and started dragging, but with plenty of space to move re-anchoring was easy.   Bay Street Marina maintains a dinghy dock available to anchorage bums on the south side at east end of the anchorage right in front of the Green Parrot.

Beach soccer at the base of the bridge.

The Green Parrot has excellent food, plenty of open air seating and fast Wifi.  However it is pricey - well averagely priced for the Bahamas, $15+ a plate, $8+ appetizers.

If you are anchored in the harbor and would like to find cheaper local fare, you don't have to go much further.  There are two local restaurants a couple blocks from the Parrot with sub $10 menus.
Just take a right (go west) out of the Green Parrot and walk a couple blocks.  Native Breeze and Rachael's Takeaway will be on the left.  Both have excellent food as well.

We spent a couple days at Nassau Yacht Haven to pick up water, groceries and do laundry before returning to the anchorage.  It is east side of the bridge and is "only" $2.15 per foot daily.