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.

Racing to the Regatta

We planned on seeing the Exumas, but I wanted more than anything to be in Georgetown for the Family Island Regatta, so our trip from Nassau to Georgetown, through the entirety of the 365 islands in the Exuma chain, happened in the span of a week.

Leaving the east end of Nassau harbor can prove difficult in a flow tide, as water rushes in at half hull speed. We motored against the wind and current and resulting seas at three knots for a full two hours before we could turn south. Wind was never in our favor that day, and we stopped short of our first day goal of Norman's Cay. Norman's Cay is the former home to a notorious 1990's cocaine trafficker, and also notoriously close to Johnny Depp's Private Cay...

But with the sun headed towards the horizon, we stopped in Highbourn Cay just a few miles north.

It was a cute little island with a single very nice (and expensive) marina and a single resort. Our arrival was heralded that evening with fireworks

The next day with an ENE wind, we set sail southeast down the chain. Our eventual stop was Staniel Cay, or more specifically, Big Major Cay, home of the famous swimming pigs, about a half mile north. I was feeling a bit down about not catching a fish on the way from Nassau to Highborn Cay. We had much success trolling lures behind the boat in the Berry Islands, and reports from other cruisers promised the Exumas were replete with fish. Finally, as we sailed past a deep cut that day, the line on our our starboard side trolling spool went taught. I hauled it in only to find we had caught some seaweed. As soon as I cleaned the lure and dropped it in the water, I watched a Mahi Mahi take it at full speed just as it passed the stern. The line wasn't cleated yet, and started jumping off the spool. I tried to stop the fish's run when the line went slack. I had lost him. Even before my heart could sink, the port side trolling spool started spinning with another Mahi Mahi, this time large enough to yank the line through the cleat. I dropped the starboard spool and jumped across the cockpit to grab the port spool and start hauling it in. As I pulled the fish alongside the boat, I could see we had caught a very large male Bull Mahi, but in one last spurt of energy, he jumped out of the water, slapped me in the face, and ripped the lure right off the end of the line. Dejected, I hauled in the starboard side line only to find out that lure had also been taken with a bite clean through the leader. In spite of the loss of two fish and two lures, it was a perfect day of sailing. We sailed all day pointing just a hair above a beam reach in 20 knot of wind, gliding across the flat seas of the protected lee of the islands. Alfred the Butler, our self steering windvane, was able to steer a laser straight course. 

With the moon nearly full and hands-off sailing so easy we decided to sail into the night arriving at Big Major Cay shortly after midnight.

Aside from the swimming pigs, in the half mile stretch of water between Big Major and Staniel Cays lies another rather famous landmark: Thunderball Grotto. An unremarkable rock in the middle of the straight has been hollowed out by millennia of erosion to become remarkable enough for a 007 film of the same name. I wanted to swim in it before we left, but it is only tenable at low tide, and low tide the day after swimming with pigs was at 4pm. With our successful night sail a couple days earlier, we decided to wait until the afternoon and I made a quick trip across the bay to Thunderball Grotto to grab some GoPro footage before we weighed anchor and set sail exactly into the sunset.

We sailed past Great Guana Cay that evening and anchored under a 3/4 moon at Farmer's Cut. The next morning we headed out Farmer's Cut into the deep on the eastern side of the Exuma chain for the final passage to Georgetown.

Offshore was quite a bit rougher than our protected sailing before, and with a ESE wind we only made it as far as Lee Stocking Cay before a storm blew in and had us ducking into Aderly Cut early in the afternoon.

We finished the trip to Georgetown the next day, and in the pelagic waters off the eastern shores of the islands, we finally landed the big Bull Mahi Mahi that had eluded us.

I am a firm believer in fillet and release.

The Regatta had started a day earlier. The sloops were racing around Georgetown Harbor as we sailed in and selected our viewing spot near the Chat and Chill for the remaining three days of racing. 

Just as we dropped anchor I heard the sound of twin turbo props approaching immediately behind us. A very nice amphibious float plane had decided to enter the harbor and visit the Chat and Chill as well.

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.

Surfing a Storm Front to Nassau

A storm front was approaching, so we only had one day on Bird Cay.  We had to finish exploring the abandoned mansion and dinghy back to Robin in time to pull up the anchor and make the jump across the bay into the leeshore of Frazer's Hog Cay before night fell.  The sun set as we were entering the anchorage, and we found our spot of anchor-friendly sand by flashlight.  We waited a day and two nights in that anchorage as the wind slowly clocked from E to SE, through S and W eventually ending up NW.  Happily, Frazer's Hog Cay anchorage is protected and calm from all directions, and SV Pura Vida was there again rallying the eleven other boats in the anchorage on the radio.   That night they assured us that the wind would remain from the NW the next day as the front rolled through.  That would mean a predictable downwind run to Nassau, something that doesn't often happen.

Strong tidal currents surge back and forth from the deep Northwest Bahamas Passage ("the tongue of the ocean") and the shallow Bahamas banks every six hours, so I figured we would try to leave on an outward surge off of the Berry banks headed towards Nassau, hit low tide in the middle of the deep and catch the incoming surge into Nassau for the second half.  35+ knot winds and waves building to ten feet were predicted for the day.  I was hoping entering and exiting in a tidal surge moving the same direction as the wind would keep the waves down.  Surely my rough guess at favorable tidal currents would keep seas down to easy four foot rollers...

...35-40 knot winds built to ten foot seas by the afternoon.

Odd wave patterns converging from the two stretches of deep water behind us.

I didn't think that Robin's gloriously curved eight-ton fiberglass and lead underbody could surf, however GPS speedometer regularly surged more than three knots over base speed as the waves passed underneath.  We even hit 10.2 knots on some surfs. (though the overall readings could be influenced by tidal currents).  We started the day with a double reef in the mainsail, but were fully reefed shortly into the route.  Our tiniest triangles of sail were both pinned in place by 40 knot winds, and Robin plowed a massive trough in the ocean.  Bottomline, our 38 mile trip, anchor up to anchor down, took exactly 5 hours, giving an average speed of 7.6 knots ... in a classic full keel sailboat with a 25 foot waterline.  #micdrop  #mindsblown

Things build.

Eventually Sarah had to help me on the tiller during the hardest moments of windward helm.  It proved too much for Alfred (the self-steering windvane), and I was exhausted after nearly five hours of holding course and could barely handle it myself.   

We were happy to see land, even if it did mean the waves got steeper.  We surfed one last time past the lighthouse and breakwaters into Nassau Harbor entrance.  The waves immediately died down to a heavy chop and we finally struck sails as we made our way past the cruise ship docks to the anchorage.  There are even more videos of the passage on our YouTube channel if you didn't get your fix of POV sailing at casual bicycle speeds.

The anchor was barely in the ground before we prepped the dinghy and headed to shore to toast being alive and upright.  It took three drinks to calm down and a fourth to toast Robin's bad-ass-ery on a record setting passage.

Bullocks Harbor to Devil's Cay

On Monday, March 14^th, we left Bullocks Harbor for a 20 mile/3-4 hour sail to an anchorage nestled between five Cays.  With the proper 15 knots of SSW wind and calm seas, it was the first sail that was calm enough to walk around on deck and just chill.  We took our sweet time packing up that morning and left in the early afternoon to arrive at sunset.

Anytime we are en route we drag a fishing line or two.  The Berries are ripe with fish, and this movement didn't let us down.  We snagged a dinner in the form of a small pan-fryer Jack that I accordingly gutted, scaled ,and just pan-fried skin-on in coconut oil.  I would have kept the head and tail intact, but I couldn't quite fit it all in the pan.

Arriving at sunset.

Views of the anchorage.

Bimini to Bullocks

Weather reports were calling for an 18-20 knot ESE wind to shift to SE maybe even S on (Saturday?), but we were anxious to leave Bimini for further cruising grounds, so on Friday we pried ourselves away from docklines, internet, and (for me at least) french fries and cold beer in order to sail almost due south to N. Cat Cay so we might possibly still sail hard on a (port?) tack heading ENE the next day towards Bullocks Harbor just inside the northern tip of the Berry Island chain.

It turned out to be wonderful sailing, just not as dry as the open hatches hoped for. The winds still had not dropped to the predicted 18-20 knots. Instead we were sailing south, hard on a 30 knot SE wind in 7-12 feet of depth, but we plowed through moderate to high chop common to the shallow Bahama banks. High winds blow lots of spray comes over the rails as the boat plows through those low, fast moving waves, and the slamming can get a get violent.

Cat Cay is a private resort island, so we didn't go ashore. It was just a quick overnight at anchor near the end of the island's private runway, and we were off to Bullocks Harbor the next morning. The wind still hadn't eased off, and never did. In fact, wind and seas built all day. Even as we neared the edge of the banks, 5 foot seas were already the norm, and by sunset we were seeing 10 foot horizon-line-breakers and 40 knots.

The rest of the night was spent sailing to windward into 10 foot seas with 45 knots of wind. We were fully reefed at that point and had our windvane, Alfred the butler, dialed as close to the wind as Robin would allow while we just bashed through and soaked ourselves and the boat. We bashed so hard that I saw some high powered streams of water fly up over the bow and split into twin fountains on the mast spreaders ovearhead. It wasn't until nearly 4AM when we were inside of three miles of the leeshore on the western side of Bullocks Harbor, Berry Islands that the seas calmed. It is a very safe anchorage in any sort of easting wind, so I had the anchor in the ground at 5AM and was sound asleep by 5:20.

The next day we went ashore and ended up at The-only-bar/grocery/liquorstore-in-Bullocks. We sat near some non-locals with a variety of accents and ended up finding out that they were there working on a jetty for cruise ships on Little Stirrup Cay just north of Bullocks Harbor. During the days for some reason they spent a lot of time on a small steel platform near our anchor spot. I never asked why, but it was a cool addition to the anchorage.

Bullocks Harbor hasn't got much to offer outside of a bad weather haven plus cold beer, and good fish fingers at The-only-bar/grocery/liquorstore-in-Bullocks. It's a quiet out-island town. On Sunday we could even hear the local church blaring the pastor's gospel sermon throughout the neighborhood.

On Monday the weather finally cleared and we were ready to leave for the places with yet-fewer people.

High visibility through cloudless skies finally confirmed for our trip around the northern tip of the Berry Islands to the eastern side of the chain.

Docking at Bimini Sands Marina

After a few days exploring Bimini, we were ready to continue into the Bahamas. We needed to top up on fuel and water before we left, which required a stop at Bimini Sands Marina. While inquiring, we learned that their nightly dock rate is $1.50 per foot. At 36' that's equivalent to a night at the Motel 6. So after riding Robin like a bucking bull for five days we decided to spend a night on a still dock before days of sailing. That also included access to laundry, showers, an infinity pool, the beach, and WiFi.   

It's really peaceful here. In part because there are only about seven boats docked, and many many empty condos. The staff is wonderful, the facilities are pristine, the restaurant is excellent and not too pricey, the ship store has Bimini bread, beer, bilge pumps, bait and $25 quality flip-flips (I'm talking to you Florida's $65 flip-flop “Outlets”). Not that I need flip-flips, I did come prepared.   

My first infinity pool.

We were deliberating on weather to go ESE towards Andros, or ENE towards the Berries. The wind is ESE until Sunday. So, rather than trying to go dead into the wind to Andros or waiting, we're going to the Berries. Today we bumped into an Australian couple who had also been anchored in Nixon's Harbor with us, and had also pulled into the marina for refuge. They are finishing up their season and told us about a creepy abandoned mansion in the Berries inhabited by peacocks. That sealed the deal for me. The other place of interest is Flo's Conch Bar, which is on it's own island, accessible only by water, and dinner is served only if you radio to Flo earlier that day that you're coming. Sounds like a plan. Tomorrow we will take a short sail south down the west side of the Bimini chain to one of the Cat Cays. The following day, we'll sail 75 nautical miles ENE towards Bullocks Harbor in the northern tip of the Berries. We won't be online again until we're out of the Berries and somewhere... with WiFi.