PASSEPARTOUT - Grounded in the Bahamas bank, birthdays and more

Grounded in the Bahamas bank, birthdays and more

PASSEPARTOUT

Christopher & Nirit Slaney

Tue 3 Jan 2012 18:10

Since we hit a rock off the Greek island Castelorizzon on our first yacht, 'Lady Be Good', 20 years ago, I have a morbid fear of touching the ground with the keel.

Sailing in the Mediterranean any time I saw only 2 meters under the keel I would be alarmed.

I knew that sailing to the Bahamas with a 7ft draft yacht was going to be a challenge, but we decided to do it anyway. We were told (and saw it proven correct) that

our NAVIONIC electronic charts cannot not be trusted on the shallow banks of the Bahamas, so we handed over $150 to buy a set of EXPLORER charts recommended by sailors with first hand experience of these waters. Every night we plan the following day's passage and pay attention to the sailing directions and way points noted on the charts and plot a course accordingly. We also have to consider tides, trying to time our passage over shoals when there is, in theory, the most water under the keel.

We were leaving Shroud Cay, another beautiful anchorage with turquoise hues crystal clear waters on our way to the Exuma Land sea Park. This park is centred on the island of Warderick Wells and is a nature reserve managed by the Bahamas National Trust. Anchoring is not allowed but a park ranger control 22 moorings allocated on a first come first served basis over the radio at 9 a.m. each day. Only when you are within radio range and striking distance of the park do you find out if you are lucky enough to get a mooring. So we called. We were two hours away in a good breeze.

But enjoying the best of this breeze took us ever so slightly off our intended route. Chris shouted with alarm as he saw the depth sounder respond to terra firma which was coming up steadily under the boat. Too late, we were aground, not much, just touching the sand, but now the wind we had been enjoying pushed us further onto the sand bank. Now we were definitely aground. We tried several tricks to break free; hoisting more sail and climbing out onto the boom to tilt the boat a few centimeters. No luck.

This was at 1230 midday, just after high tide. The water was ebbing and we were slowly but surely being left high and dry. Pretty soon we could stand in the water beside our stranded Passepartout and it only came up to our chests. Chris frantically blocked the exhaust with an empty plastic bottle to stop water backing up into the engine as we tipped over onto our beam ends.

The next high tide was over six hours away.

We got organized with our spare anchor, a 22kg ROCNA which we don't think had ever been in the water before. After manhandling the anchor into the dinghy we set off to look the nearest deep water. It was a about 40 metres away. We dropped the anchor and Chris swam down to make sure it was well bedded in to the sandy bottom. We got a line back to the bow of the yacht and settled down to wait. The plan was to winch the boat towards the anchor on the next high tide. Chris was not optimistic as the tide table showed the coming high tide would not rise as high as the one we were on when we grounded.

The afternoon wore on and Passepartout was heeling so badly we couldn't even sit properly in the cockpit, iit was like being on a slow motion landslide. Our thoughts were dark. Could this be the end of our adventure? Would we be able to save the yacht?

We compared various sources and the best calculation we could make was that high tide would be at 8:29 pm. At 8pm exactly we started hauling on the line to the anchor. Would it hold, or would our efforts and Passepartout's fifteen tons of deadweight just pull the anchor out of the sand?

It worked! One centimetre at a time we could feel the boat moving towards the anchor and the deep water and by 8:30 pm we were free. We had a struggle to get the spare anchor back on board but then moved well away from the shoal to anchor in deep water and wait for dawn.

In the morning we sailed the last two miles to the park and had to wait for our mooring buoy to become free. Another yacht had arrived during darkness, found a free mooring (the one reserved for us) and took it. But all ended well, the park ranger evicted the squatter from 'our' mooring and we were quickly secured and ashore exploring. What a traumatic day!

All ended well and Passepartout forgave us again for our mistake. From now on we stay out of the shallow waters of the banks and make our inter-island hops out on the ocean, coming in through cuts between the cays when we need to.

Our next destination was Staniel Cay, another beautiful island. It was Chris's birthday and the yacht club had big party that night so we treated ourselves to dock space for the night . We were the only sailing yacht in the club. All the rest were multi-million dollar gin palaces and sports fishing boats. We had a great time. We walked across the island to the busy private airstrip ( 5 minutes walk) and to the ferry dock (5 minutes walk to the other direction). Life for the islanders and the visitors revolves around the schedule of the mail boat, a twice-weekly ferry that brings all the supply, food, drinks, fuel, cars, building materials etc. The mail boat dock is one of two rendezvous points for the islanders, the other is the church. They congregate at the dock to pick up supplies they've ordered and catch up on news. The airport has two daily flights to Nassau, each carrying 5 or 7 passengers and numerous comings and goings on private planes and helicopters.

A lot of the islanders seem to work either for the yacht club or provide services for the big yachts that use it.

And now we are back at the park, swimming, walking, exploring. We will likely be here for two more days while a cold front and associated gale force winds passes over, then we resume our passage south to Georgetown.

Nirit