Location: Southport, North Carolina
Position: N 33 55.039 W 078 01.690
With the Family Island Regatta finished we were on the fast track to get back to the US. After a couple of days waiting out high winds and seas we set sail with our new friends on Osprey and Magic. Our first day was a rolly ride up the Exuma chain. In the morning we caught another mahi in the deep water, so another wonderful dinner of grilled mahi-mahi was assured. Around noon we passed through Cave Cay Cut onto the banks side and the seas flattened out for the rest of the day. It was a long day but good sailing. We topped off our fuel and anchored off Sampson Cay for the night.
A fairly short hop the next day to Normans Cay gave us the opportunity for an afternoon ashore. Every chance for a walk and a swim is precious now as we won’t be able to enjoy this azure blue water much longer. Normans Cay has a bit of a nefarious history due to Carlos Lehder’s cocaine smuggling operation based there in the late 1970s and early 80s. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Lehder).
The next day was another long downwind run up to Nassau – we all got out our spinnakers (those really colourful big downwind sails). It was a great sailing day. We anchored about 5 miles from Nassau at Rose Island, a very picturesque spot and had our final snorkel and swim of the season. Looking in one direction we could see the skyline of Nassau with it’s tall buildings and cruise ships, and in the other direction we saw white sand, coral reefs and desert islands reminiscent of Gilligan’s Island. We had a bit of a rolly night in the anchorage and none of us slept that well, probably due to anticipation of the 600 mile trip we were embarking on the next morning.
We like to do 3 hour watches on a passage and Osprey and Magic prefer 2 hour watches. We decided we would stay in contact on a single, nearly unused channel on the VHF radio. Because of our alternating watch schedule we had revolving people to chat with during our trip, making the passage back a bit more interesting than usual.
We weighed anchor 06:00 and the wind was dead behind us. This isn’t a great direction for Rachel since we broke our whisker pole (but that’s another story…) – so we ended up motorsailing more than we’d like. This was to be the case for most of the trip back. Every time we changed course to head further west, then north, then east, the wind changed direction and followed us, remaining dead behind.
At around 04:00 on the second day we were approaching Freeport on Grand Bahama Island, the other major city and port in the Bahamas. No chance of falling asleep on watch here as there were too many ships and lights to watch out for. A bit nerve racking but with all 3 boats watching out and chatting on the VHF we managed to pass by with no problems.
We now started to head NW and into the Gulf Stream – here’s where we’d make tracks, picking up a 3-4 knot boost in speed. It took us longer than we expected to reach the maximum flow, but eventually we were honking along at times making 11.4 knots over the ground (that’s really fast for us we usually do well to make 6.5) Once we hit ‘the Stream’ we headed North and now it was just a matter of riding it as far as we could. Of course the wind changed again, remaining behind us, and we continued to battle to keep the sails inflated in the rolly seas. Rolly is fine if all, you have to do is sit in the cockpit and look pretty but when you are needing to wash, sleep, prepare food, do the dishes, and use the toilet it’s not all that much fun!!
Every day we checked the weather and on the evening of day 2 the report was for the winds to shift to the north and pick up in a couple of days. At that point we decided we’d head for Charleston, about 100 miles short of Beaufort, our preferred landfall. We started to work our way out of the Gulf Stream. The next morning, as we were approaching Charleston, the weather mavens decided that the deterioration of the weather had slowed down so now it looked like we would have another day of decent weather. At the last minute we changed plans and direction and headed another 70 miles up the coast to Southport. For the last few hours in the early morning on day 4 we had to slow down to 4 knots or less so that we would not arrive before dawn. It’s definitely not much fun making landfall in the dark!! So at 06:00, 4 days and 4 nights and 630 miles after leaving the Bahamas, we were negotiating the Southport entrance channel.
Around noon the heavens opened and we had a huge thunderstorm and wind shift. Boy, were we glad we were in a safe harbour. We timed the weather just right!!
It’s hard to believe that just 8 days ago we were in George Town.
Position: N 33 55.039 W 078 01.690
With the Family Island Regatta finished we were on the fast track to get back to the US. After a couple of days waiting out high winds and seas we set sail with our new friends on Osprey and Magic. Our first day was a rolly ride up the Exuma chain. In the morning we caught another mahi in the deep water, so another wonderful dinner of grilled mahi-mahi was assured. Around noon we passed through Cave Cay Cut onto the banks side and the seas flattened out for the rest of the day. It was a long day but good sailing. We topped off our fuel and anchored off Sampson Cay for the night.
A fairly short hop the next day to Normans Cay gave us the opportunity for an afternoon ashore. Every chance for a walk and a swim is precious now as we won’t be able to enjoy this azure blue water much longer. Normans Cay has a bit of a nefarious history due to Carlos Lehder’s cocaine smuggling operation based there in the late 1970s and early 80s. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Lehder).
The next day was another long downwind run up to Nassau – we all got out our spinnakers (those really colourful big downwind sails). It was a great sailing day. We anchored about 5 miles from Nassau at Rose Island, a very picturesque spot and had our final snorkel and swim of the season. Looking in one direction we could see the skyline of Nassau with it’s tall buildings and cruise ships, and in the other direction we saw white sand, coral reefs and desert islands reminiscent of Gilligan’s Island. We had a bit of a rolly night in the anchorage and none of us slept that well, probably due to anticipation of the 600 mile trip we were embarking on the next morning.
We like to do 3 hour watches on a passage and Osprey and Magic prefer 2 hour watches. We decided we would stay in contact on a single, nearly unused channel on the VHF radio. Because of our alternating watch schedule we had revolving people to chat with during our trip, making the passage back a bit more interesting than usual.
We weighed anchor 06:00 and the wind was dead behind us. This isn’t a great direction for Rachel since we broke our whisker pole (but that’s another story…) – so we ended up motorsailing more than we’d like. This was to be the case for most of the trip back. Every time we changed course to head further west, then north, then east, the wind changed direction and followed us, remaining dead behind.
At around 04:00 on the second day we were approaching Freeport on Grand Bahama Island, the other major city and port in the Bahamas. No chance of falling asleep on watch here as there were too many ships and lights to watch out for. A bit nerve racking but with all 3 boats watching out and chatting on the VHF we managed to pass by with no problems.
We now started to head NW and into the Gulf Stream – here’s where we’d make tracks, picking up a 3-4 knot boost in speed. It took us longer than we expected to reach the maximum flow, but eventually we were honking along at times making 11.4 knots over the ground (that’s really fast for us we usually do well to make 6.5) Once we hit ‘the Stream’ we headed North and now it was just a matter of riding it as far as we could. Of course the wind changed again, remaining behind us, and we continued to battle to keep the sails inflated in the rolly seas. Rolly is fine if all, you have to do is sit in the cockpit and look pretty but when you are needing to wash, sleep, prepare food, do the dishes, and use the toilet it’s not all that much fun!!
Every day we checked the weather and on the evening of day 2 the report was for the winds to shift to the north and pick up in a couple of days. At that point we decided we’d head for Charleston, about 100 miles short of Beaufort, our preferred landfall. We started to work our way out of the Gulf Stream. The next morning, as we were approaching Charleston, the weather mavens decided that the deterioration of the weather had slowed down so now it looked like we would have another day of decent weather. At the last minute we changed plans and direction and headed another 70 miles up the coast to Southport. For the last few hours in the early morning on day 4 we had to slow down to 4 knots or less so that we would not arrive before dawn. It’s definitely not much fun making landfall in the dark!! So at 06:00, 4 days and 4 nights and 630 miles after leaving the Bahamas, we were negotiating the Southport entrance channel.
Around noon the heavens opened and we had a huge thunderstorm and wind shift. Boy, were we glad we were in a safe harbour. We timed the weather just right!!
It’s hard to believe that just 8 days ago we were in George Town.
