Headed to Spanish Wells…Derailed

We went ashore to the Great Harbour Cay Marina this evening for a music jam session and to say goodbye to our newfound friends, because tomorrow we were going to haul up the anchor and take off to Spanish Wells, Eleuthera.

The music jam was fun with lots of talented musicians sharing their songs and humor. There was a couple of guitar players, a guy on the keyboard, a ukulele player and another guy on the trombone as well as a female singer. Some had never performed together, but they all blended well playing off one another.

As we dinghied back to the boat by the light of the full moon, we reminisced how much we had enjoyed our stay on this cute this island and how wonderful the people had been. Every person we had met on the island had greeted us and tried to help us in any way they could. Even when we had to leave the marina, the harbormaster assured us we were family and welcome to come in anytime to use the facilities or drop off trash.

St. Patrick’s Day!, March 17, 2022

We awoke at 6:00 because we needed to get an early start to arrive at Spanish Wells in the daylight.

I was below getting ready when I heard Ben exclaim, “Oh Sh…!! We are not going anywhere today!” I thought, “What in the world??!!” I knew we had gotten everything ready the night before so that all we had to do was pull anchor. I thought maybe we had dragged and ran aground or something. But no….the port engine was full of diesel fuel. OMG! How could this have happened?

It seemed our evil generator had once again reared its head and was pouring fuel into the engine compartment. The only good thing, at the moment, was that it seemed our float switch on the bilge pump was stuck so at least we were not spewing gallons of fuel overboard. We closed the fuels lines and then sat down to contemplate what we were going to do about this mess. We certainly were not going to Spanish Wells today. We let Cousin John know of our delay because he was buying an airline ticket to meet us, and we let Andrew from SV Reload n Charge know as he thought we were leaving today also.

The first order of business was to get the fuel out of the engine compartment. We could not determine the problem with the generator until this was done. Ben called the marina to see if they had any large storage jugs we could use, and they scrounge us up some 17-gallon containers. Ben dinghied in to retrieve them.

We emptied all our jerry cans into the now almost empty fuel tanks so that we would have a place to store the fuel removed from the engine room. Then we used our high-speed diesel transfer pump, we had from a prior fuel issue, and began pumping the diesel into the jerry cans.

About this time Andrew showed up to help. So while Ben continued vacuuming out the bilge and diagnosing the problem, Andrew and I filtered the contaminated diesel into other jerry cans. At $5.00 a gallon, we wanted to recover all the fuel that we could. Overall, we salvage about 30 gallons of the 40 gallons the had drained into the engine compartment. The rest we gave back to the marina as they could use the dirty fuel to clean tools and such.

Ben found that a hose in the generator was installed with a bend that cause it to split at the hose clamp. It was tight working conditions, so getting the hose off, cut and reconnected took quite a bit of effort, but with perseverance, the fixit man was once again successful.

It took all day to complete process and then clean up the diesel mess, but finally by dinner time we were done! This was not at ALL what we had planned to do today!

We had a simple dinner of nachos and then retired wondering what tomorrow would bring.

Friday, March 18, 2022

Bright and early this morning, Andrew texted that he was thinking of making a hop down the Berry Islands towards Devil’s Cay while the wind was light. This would shave off some time when the wind allowed us to make a run for Spanish Wells.

I was just getting up, but it sounded like a plan. So we decided to join him in this jaunt. I quickly got ready while Ben prepared the boat. We raised anchor and headed out of the cut. It had been a good week at Great Harbour Cay, but it felt good to be on the move again.

To get on the east side of the Berry Islands, we had to motor north around the Stirrups and pass the immense cruise ships that had taken over the islands as a cruise playground.

Then we motored directly into the wind for the rest of the day. At first the seas were relatively flat, but as the day went on and the wind picked up the ride was just slog into the wind and waves.  Nevertheless, the water was a beautiful blue and the skies were as blue to match with a few white fluffy clouds. It was gorgeous. So we motored along at 3-5 knots and enjoyed being on the water. Ben even spied a large turtle playing in the water.

We buddied boated with Andrew on SV Reload n Charge.

We passed Sugar Beach and the lovely ocean front houses.

The coastline was lined with while cliffs and rock outcroppings.

We arrive at the Hoffman-Devil’s Cay Cut around 1500. We found a nice anchorage by Gaulding Cay which was away from the buggy land in the nice breeze. We were basically surrounded on three sides by shallow water. Andrew anchored next to us, and we watched as other boats sought this delightful anchorage as well. The view from our “back porch” was amazing!

Andrew came over for a simple dinner of taco salad. Over dinner, we made a plan to visit the Blue Hole on Hoffman Cay tomorrow.

The current was really ripping across the anchorage when we went to bed, but seas were flat, and the gentle rocking of the boat lulled us right to sleep.

Saturday, March 19, 2022

We both slept in a little this morning but awoke to a beautiful morning of sunny blue skies and deep blue and turquoise water. After a quick breakfast of homemade raisin bread, we boarded the dinghy and met Andrew as he loaded Stanley, his dog, into his dinghy. We headed for the beach on Hoffman’s. The beach was perfect with white sand lined with the amazing Bahama waters.

The trail to the blue hole was simple to find even though it was narrow and surrounded by lush vegetation.

It was an easy hike to the blue hole where we were all surprised by the size of the “hole”. It was larger than we expected; it was more like a large pond lined with limestone cliffs.

Once we hike to the bottom of the trail, we found cave like overhangs. I read that while some of the rock in The Bahamas looked volcanic, it was all limestone. The rock formations bordering the hole were incredibly interesting.

 

     

We sat and just enjoyed the surroundings for a while as the shade of the overhang and cool breezes made it a very pleasant place to chat.

Afterwards, we dinghied around a bit to look at a few other coves. I was so amazed that while the water was beautiful, there were no visible fish other than minnows. I would have thought we would see starfish or something in the calm, clear waters, but only sand and grass.

I should say we didn’t see any fish except the one tiny “shark” that Ben found frolicking in the water each afternoon.

Once again, we have decided to depart tomorrow morning for Spanish Wells. We are crossing our fingers that the wind veers south as forecasted, or it will be a lumpy slow ride. I almost hate to say we are leaving so that I don’t jinx it!

Back on the boat, we readied the boat for the journey that we hoped we would make tomorrow as well as made some tuna salad for lunch in case it’s too rough to fix something else.

We would awaken about 5:30 and try to leave around 6:45.

Sunday, March 20, 2022

We headed out of the cut at 7:15 just as the sun was rising across the skyline. It looked like the rain stayed off to the east. So we had good visibility as we raised sails and turned SE toward Spanish Wells.

We were hoping that the wind would clock a little more to the south as presently between the current and the wind we could only make 89 degrees over the ground rather than the 101 degrees rhumb line we needed for Spanish Wells.

The first 3 hours of the journey were more than a little bumpy caused by wind driven wave and opposing sea driven waves. Finally, halfway there the seas settled into a nice rhythmic motion. The deep blue rolling waves slid by topped with flecks of sun kissed gold. It was mesmerizing. The sky was a tapestry of light blue with patches of white and grey clouds.

A front should be passing tomorrow. So we actually expected the wind to clock south, to west, to north during the day, but this shift did not occur when we expected. So at 1400 we furled the jib and lowered the main so that we could head into the wind toward our waypoint.

We arrived at the Egg Island Cut at 1500 as expected. It was hard to get use to moving across such shallow bodies of water where a turtle might pop his head up at any moment. It was about 15 feet deep from the cut to Royal Island Harbor which is a small natural harbor surrounded by a cay. We hoped the harbor would provide a safe haven for the 30 knot blow tomorrow.

The water was a little murky when I swam on the anchor, but I saw a starfish and a small jellyfish. We are happy to be here and can’t wait for the wind to lay a little so that we can go ashore in Spanish Wells and explore! Stay Tuned!

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