Last time I wandered around the Bahamas I chose to go to Nassau, so I skipped Eleuthra, this time I choose to rectify that. Sister Daisy and I have enjoyed a lovely experience for the last week exploring this remote tropical island. I feel like I need to get you caught up.

It is interesting that I often sit down to write an update blog, feeling like I live a boring life, feeling like I do not have much to share, but magically it starts to pour out of my fingers into my keyboard. This is one of those times. Let us see where this shall lead today.

 

Davies Channel

The two of us sailor girls had a lovely sail over from the Exuma island chain to Eleuthra island about a week ago,ish. We had to push a few miles to get here so I think we ran first reef in the main and 90% genny for speed. The sail was lovely on the calm caribbean sea under sunny skies and crystal clear waters. Everything was great until we got within 2 miles of the Davies Channel, the only southern entrance to get into the super shallow Eleuthra sound.

Sailing in a thousand feet of water is usually so relaxing, sailing in a tight narrow channel with only 4-8 feet of water under your keel is far less relaxing. Especially since the charts, specifically the new updated Navionics charts, are so unbelievably inaccurate. You really cannot trust the charts when you have an 8 foot keel in a rocky reefy sound full of soft shifting sand dunes.

It extra sucked because we had to motor 9 miles directly, and very slowly, against 17 knots of wind and a knot of current fighting us in. Nine loud engine noisy miles that took 4 hours to finish following charts I don’t trust. We found our way out of the channel and just continued towards the nearest shore to anchor in 12 feet of water at high tide, so understand at low tide you minus 3 feet, thus we would be only at 9 feet deep with only a foot of water under the keel at low tide and pray the waves and swell don’t get bigger than a foot.

 

 

The disconcerting part is, the water is so deceptively clear. When the water is clearer than a swimming pool, and you watch over the side as the bottom flows past ever so shallow looking, you can see every ripple in the sands below, every rock and boulder and boomie you wiggle your keel past. It is stressful. Generally everywhere else I just love my massive 8 foot keel, but it is true, in the very shallow bahamas it is kinda inconvenient.

 

Sands Cay Shark Encounter

After a day of rest we decided to finish moving out of the rocky shallows and head north along the west coast of Eleuthra. We were in no particular rush, and we wanted to get a feel for the place, so we chose a leisurely pace, double reefed main and 40% genny in the light winds and just sailed along peacefully until we found someplace interesting to stop. We had no particular destination in mind when we started in the morning.

The charts showed this little island along the coast as being a good dive spot, so we figured, let’s dive it. Most of my cameras are dead now, so no more underwater videos will be forthcoming anymore. I will say it was one of the top 10 best snorkel spots I have ever found. It was amazing really, magical, even Daisy was mesmerized.

 

 

Now you all know that Daisy and I are both equally of the opinion that getting bitten by a shark is a horrifying way to die that neither one of us ever wants to experience. We are both very chicken, very shark afraid every time we go snorkeling. Neither one of us is particularly well educated on identifying the myriad of different types of sharks either. I do know, that nurse sharks are pretty safe though, giant sucker fish more than sharks really.

So as sister Daisy and I were holding hands, swimming together around the island surrounded in clouds of tiny baby fish swarming around us in a shimmering ethereal mass they filled our vision, thus blinding us to what lay 6 feet away. The undisturbed variety of ocean life was spectacular. Each underwater cave we swam to could be a potential hiding spot for some sleepy shark. I have had this experience enough times to know to be cautious, I never want to scare Daisy, so I didn’t mention the danger to her.

As we swam towards each cave mouth, I swam in front of Daisy holding the spear and waving the cloud of bait fish away to peer into the dark holes seeking signs of any resting sharks. We would never want to surprise and corner some chilled out shark and make him feel backed into a corner, our bodies blocking its escape to deeper waters. Surprising a shark in a cave is a terrible recipe sure to conjure up a horrible day for us.

We were doing just great for 3/4 of the swim around the island. It was just after we swam up and over the huge rocks that collapsed off the main island that it happened. I was swimming outside position with Daisy swimming closer to the rocks holding my left hand, my spear in my right hand. I looked 15 feet below us along the bottom to my right when I suddenly saw a shark 12 feet away, below and beside us, swimming along parallel to us, watching us. It was about 6 feet long, more fatty than the last shark we saw, and had snuck up behind us.

I grip Daisy’s hand in fear and draw her attention to the shark cruising by. She sees it and goes straight for my leg knife as is our shark defense plan. I stare directly at the shark, face off with it, spear forward and watch it. The two things that I remember clearly, that still stand out for me, was the odd leopard spot pattern along its back, and the elongated top of its tail fin.

 

 

I am not sure why, but I thought I remembered that tail shape meant nurse shark, so I conveyed to Daisy relax. What I didn’t think was right was that distinct spot pattern on it though, I didn’t remember the other nurse sharks I have swam with having that weird spot pattern, it puzzled me.

The shark was chill, cruising us, but disappeared into the distance. We both surface excitedly and chat about the thrilling / terrifying experience. We mutually agree, time to swim back to the yacht 100 meters away, and pray we are not followed home. We swam home uneventfully on high alert

What I did not discover until later, looking thru shark images on the internet, trying to match up what I saw to a type of shark, did I discover much to my shock and horror that we just swam with a TIGER SHARK….!

 

 

Ohhh shit….!

That’s horrifying..!

I do not want to swim with a tiger shark…   EVER…!   If you ever asked me “hey Lexi do you want to swim with a Tiger shark today in open ocean..? ”  I would strongly assert ” NO ABSOLUTELY NOT..! “, but again what I want, and the reality that unfolds around me are seldom aligned.

 

Sands Cay Storm

The next morning we were planning to sail away a little further north, we were only 8 miles south of the capital city called Governors Harbour. Neither one of ever enjoys an early morning start so we decided to have a nice relaxing morning and sail away around noon. I had checked all the weather forecasts and we were only expecting 8-12 knots of wind that day, no dangers around, no rush to leave.

It was around 10 am when I noticed out a porthole that there appeared to be a dark grey storm cloud approaching. Thinking nothing of it, my huge mistake, I had assumed it would just be another typical short tropical shower slipping past, as had happened many times the day before. I was quite wrong.

 

 

Confident and relaxed with all the forecast data I had just consulted an hour ago, assuring me we would be fine, I asked Daisy to close up the hatches and proclaimed we would sail off after the little squall passed.

Captain’s mistakes are always so subtle, so easy to make. 

My assumptions that morning were a mistake

What I did not consult, did not think I needed to consult, was the satellite images and the doppler radar data. It showed a huge massive storm suddenly rising up from the warm shallow waters just to the west of us, waters full of potential energy waiting for a place to happen ever so quickly.

Within 2 minutes the winds were howling outside and the wind had swung around 180 degrees. The yacht shaking and vibrating enough to get me up off the couch to stick my head up to figure out what was going on. You can    CLICK HERE     to see the video I made about this terrible event.

I was rather surprised to see how quickly the weather turned to shit. I was also rather concerned that we had swung 180 degrees on our anchor, the anchor we dove yesterday, that was only 1/2 dug into very hard packed bottom. The anchor that I knew would not reset itself once pulled free. Once WildChild began getting pounded backwards towards the rocky shore now astern of us by strong winds and waves this would turn bad fast.

 

 

Within 2 minutes my world turned from happy and lovely to scary and dangerous.

I didn’t wait for the impending danger, I could see it coming in my mind, I lept into action right away. I told my crew, this is not safe, we are in danger now. We both put clothes on and I run up to the helm to get my engine warming up, turning instruments on. Daisy is right there beside me as we begin monitoring the storm now pummelling from the west.

Not two minutes later I am watching and realize yep… there it is… the anchor just popped out…  here we go… we are now dragging anchor..!

I have been thru this horrible stuff enough times to logically know what to do, try to think clearly thru the adrenaline rush, and focus on the data. Engine on, I put it into gear to relieve the strain on the anchor. My engine is not very happy lately, it dies below 1500 rpms, so I have to keep the throttle up, in and out of gear to not overshoot my anchor.

It takes me a while to think thru the data to find the right answer, drop the sentinel anchor. For a while I was unsure if we should just try to raise our anchor in the storm and motor out to deeper waters to weather the storm. I realized the main anchor was almost holding, and the storm would pass in less than an hour, so I doubled our holding power by adding the second anchor and letting out another 80 feet of chain.

It worked, the backwards slide abated, the anchoring technique did exactly what it is designed to do, and the danger faded away. I dropped the sentinel anchor alone in the storm on the wildly pitching deck. The bow pitching up and down until it dunks into the water, splashes me and suddenly lurches up again into the sky again, short steep waves. It was a rather wild ride, dangerous, but I was not going to risk my crew doing this, Daisy stayed at the helm.

It gets so stressful being the Captain

 

Dolphin Encounter

It was the next day, as we were finally completing the 8 mile sail up to Governors Harbour that we were escorted by a pod of dolphins. Everyday that you get to see dolphins is always a good day. I was also rather pleased my crew finally got to have this magical experience out here with me.

You can    CLICK HERE   to see the short fun video about this encounter so I will not waste too much time describing it.

 

 

It was delightful that the wonderful creatures stayed with us in close proximity to check us out for a good 2 or 3 minutes. The encounter was not a brief flash but one we could video and snap pictures and look these animals directly in the eye as they roll over on their sides to check us out.

I have had so many dolphin encounters over the years I was a little less excited than my crew, but still enthralled. We had such a lovely day though.

 

Governors Harbour

Governors Harbour would give some amount of protection from the winds that would swing around from the southy for the next few days and we could go to shore and have a land adventure.

 

 

I am pleased to announce that when we did finally launch our dinghy the little outboard engine worked just fine, the last repair 5 days previously seemed to have been effective. We rode Penny over to the little beach there and began wandering around to explore. We really had no agenda or plans other than see if we could refill our European cooking gas tank, which we could not.

I am always careful about including others into my public blogs, so forgive me for being brief, but we got adopted by some local Canadian expats living there who invited us to their home that evening for dinner. I do not want to invade anybody’s privacy but let me say it was  a lovely evening of cultured and civilized dinner conversation with wonderful human beings.

After the second night in that harbour the winds shifted to the exposed side and it was time to leave. We were expecting strong WEST winds to come soon and we needed to find safe harbour from the impending nasty.

It was time to find and sail into Hatchet Bay.

 

Hatchet Bay

It seems, that in the 1920’s, some large company had grand agricultural plans for Eleuthra and they carved out this passage to an enclosed inland pond. The business venture failed but the boat benefits have remained. This lovely bay was once filled with free government moorings, not maintained, which have fallen apart and littered the bottom with huge blocks for entangling anchor chains and anchors.

I decided that caution is always the wise thing and we dropped anchor outside of where the old mooring field was to avoid the hidden underwater obstructions. We made friends there who could not lift their anchor 2 days later, snagged it hard on one of those blocks.

The entrance to the bay is pretty scary for your first time thru it. In calm conditions you would say no big deal, but we did not enter in calm conditions. When we came in the winds were 20 knots from the west pounding the crap out of the rough rocky shoreline. The waves smashing up into the air and reflecting back out to sea causing even more turbulence, the entrance in a rage when we arrived.

 

I was so scared making this entrance thru this unfamiliar cut I was full of adrenaline and white knuckling the helm. My body making hard and fast steering corrections as my bow gets thrown completely towards the ports side cliffs, then suddenly thrown completely facing the starboard side cliffs. Sure it is 16 feet deep in the narrow middle but will my 8 foot keel be safe if I stray 6 feet away from the middle?

Holy crap that was the second scariest harbour entrance I have ever done. Once we shot into the calm peaceful bay my knees started shaking.

 

Land Adventures

Hatchet bay was lovely, as calm as being at a marina, which is rare for us to experience. Super calm waters means I could break out the VR gear and escape my tropical yacht life for a short while and get some exercise. I also introduced sister Daisy to the Virtual World for her first time too. I knew the game   BEAT SABER   playing drums to music using lightsabers would appeal to her musical nature. She loved it and we both had so much fun. The neighbours thought I was a bit daft swinging my arms wildly on the bow, and said so later.

 

 

We were anchored so close to the shore, and it is so much work to lift and mount the dinghy engine down onto the dinghy, I decided we would just row the 80 meters to shore in the super calm waters. I decided it would be even less work for me if I got my crew to do the rowing… ha ha ha…   🙂

 

 

Honestly I am not that mean, I offered to row, sister Daisy was just happy to do it.

We had heard that there were 3 interesting things to see around here. The first one was the other inland pond apparently has seahorses in it. The second one was “the cave” 3 miles up the road. The third one was the local guy Emmet who runs the cruiser bar by the dinghy dock. Apparently he has some local songs he made and will happily sing to cruisers.

Well, the seahorses was an adventure but a bit of a bust. We began our long hot hike up the side of the dusty highway and eventually found some driveway on the left that we hoped was close to the seahorses. The place was spectacular, like a garden of eden, that seemed to have no purpose. The retired lady who made/owns/runs it just loves organic gardening. She built the place from love and enjoyment with some vague sense of eventually turning it into a business.

 

 

She draws people in with talk of seahorses, but then to protect them tells you that you cannot go swim with them or even see them. Then she offers to sell you some organic healthy foods instead, since you are there already.

The second stop another mile up the road was “the cave” as it was listed on the map. I have seen many caves in the Caribbean. This was… well…  exactly what television makes you think a cave should look like. I am unsure if it used to be a mine shaft because along with the stalagmites and stalactites there are sometimes stairs carved into the rock floor and ladder in places.

 

 

I had heard that the cave was 2 kilometers long..!  We did bring a flashlight but its batteries were dying when we turned it on so we proceeded with cell phone lights on only a short distance, maybe 100 meters in. It was super cool, if you are not claustrophobic, and it was a shame we did not have a working light with us.

The hike that day was long and hot but ending our land adventure with a stop at Emmet’s place was a perfect plan. He is a lovely man and the little town is interesting.

 

Boat Projects

No blog could ever be complete without some mention of the constant ongoing repairs and maintenance happening in the background. Yes the dinghy engine constantly breaks down, we fix it a lot. Yes I have to repair little things constantly, lately it has been the windlass control switch, I have rebuilt it twice.

Another item on the list I have been ignoring for years, and finally decided to tackle after the last heavy rain the other day, was the main deck hatch above the salon. Some idiot, before I ever bought the boat, hacked a huge fuckin 6 inch hole in it, to install a stupid solar vent, which never helped much even when it did work. The stupid solar vents never last longer than a year, cost over a hundred bucks, and leak constantly. An ocean going blue water yacht regularly takes waves washing the topside deck and pouring down the air vents of this stupid thing.

Over the years I gave up replacing it, too expensive, and resigned myself to simple sealing it up with silicone. A few years ago I even mounted a solar light on top of it. Over the last 2 months though, every rain and wave, it leaks so much water dripping into the middle of my salon we have to put a towel down to catch it. This became a project I should eventually address.

Sister Daisy and I were in the middle of doing a fabulous repair job when the weakened hatch suddenly cracked right thru..!   Losing your main hatch way out here, without even a hardware store in sight, is rather depressing.

 

 

So after I stopped crying and could rise up from the fetal position of misery, frustration and defeat, my engineer brain began working the problem. The highs and lows of cruising life right? This was emotionally devastating for me.

In the end the repair we affected turned out pretty good using only materials on hand. We cut some plexiglass circles to cover the original butchered hole rather nicely, using butyl tape to seal it. The new crack was repaired with some 2 part marine epoxy and plexiglass splints I made. It doesn’t leak anymore, so YAY…   🙂   but how long until it splits again is anyone’s guess.

Friends helped me find, and get cut, a new hatch in Florida. Hopefully it will be awaiting us when we get to Cape Canaveral in 2 weeks.

 

Glass Bridge

The sail out of hatchet bay 2 days ago was splendid. I love the calm seas in here and light winds when we get them. The sailor teddy bears just love this lifestyle too, mind you they only watch us stupid humans do all the work and suffering.

 

 

We sailed up to the glass bridge in northern Eleuthra in the morning and went to go explore the bridge in the afternoon. Our dinghy engine failed on us again, forcing us to row home. The glass bridge is a misnomer, there is no glass on it, we have no idea where its name comes from, but the views are spectacular.

 

 

It amazed me to the see the Atlantic side of the island smashing spray 50 feet up into the air and see the Caribbean sea so calm on the other side. The weather was not even rough out. It amazed us to watch Atlantic waves smashing so hard into the cliffs on the east side the spray went 50 feet up into the air and over the top of the cliffs to spray the roadway…!

This is what makes Bahamas sailing so pleasurable on the good days of east trade winds.

 

 

Snorkeling was a bust though, the Caribbean side is flat sandy barren desert under the water. No life to see and no rock formations to explore underwater there.

Yesterday we slowly sailed to here now, staging for the big crossing to the Abbacos tonight? or tomorrow? unsure at this exact moment.

 

Future Looking intentions

Yesterday, May 11th 2022 we sailed west from the glass bridge in light squirrely winds and very shallow waters to stage ourselves at the northwestern tip of Eleuthra to be ready for the wind shift expected soon.

Yesterday’s 5 hour slow sail was extremely stressful. All of the charts are completely wrong, super inaccurate and I had very little water under my keel most of the day praying we don’t hit any unmarked rocks or reefs. Sailing tight, close hauled, into 8-16 of unstable winds making course adjustments constantly while staring at the depth sounder really sucked for me. Super vigilant and ready to perform an emergency stop maneuver at a seconds indication we were about to hit bottom.

Very stressful type sailing

 

 

Today is Thursday 12th as I write this and we are staged as planned but it is glassy calm outside the yacht, not a breath of wind to be had. I am unsure if we will be able to make it to Egg island today to stage to shorten the Abbacos crossing as was my plan. WildChild could make the short 14 mile passage today but I need a minimum of 4 knots of wind, I currently have ZERO knots of wind, dead calm.

This plan is evolving right now to become a night sail leaving this evening before sunset to get thru the narrow shallow cut to open waters before dark. It is almost a full moon tonight, and the ocean is dead calm. Perhaps we will just leave around 4pm, and night sail all the way into Marsh Harbour tomorrow afternoon.

My well trained amazing crew is up for it.

All plans on the Ocean are always very flexible and subject to last minutes changes based upon the subtle moods of mother nature.

Soon I plan to land in Florida before the end of the month. I am trying to find new crew to help me do the US east coast next. The search is not going so well, i fear I might be doing it solo if I cannot find help.

 

it is funny that I often think I live a boring life huh…

it all just becomes repetitious after a while…

I dream of your safe easy dirt life…

wanna trade places…?

I would trade you this yacht for a nice camper van….

 

 

Wild Captain Lexi

 

…. giving hugs from far away to all of you…