George Town to Farmers Cay, Bahamas and I catch a big fish with big teeth.

23:57.75N 76:19.23W

11th March 2015

7163 Miles from Ramsgate by log.

            In the end we stayed in George Town until Tuesday as we were awaiting the return of our gas cylinders from the gas plant. Unfortunately they could only fill one of my cylinders as they did not have a fitting for the other, which leaves us a last chance in Nassau to get them all filled. This has been a constant problem on the trip and even though we carry both butane and propane cylinders each country has its’ own style of cylinder leaving it a hassle to get any other brands filled. The reason I say Nassau is the last resort is that we will have virtually no chance of getting our gas filled in the States, the more developed a country is, the more regulated and so they will only handle proprietary brands, its’ the old health and safety pixies at work again. But on the bright side we did get one of the two empty cylinders filled so the glass is definitely half full?.

            . Going ashore from the anchorage you pass under a small bridge to gain entry into a salt lake with a purpose built dinghy dock just inside. This is the meeting place for the semi permanent American boater population who use it and the café next door to rendezvous, fill up their jerry cans with water or fuel, get internet access and generally socialize. Just across from where we were anchored is Stocking island which hosts a very large seasonal population of American yachts, they come down, anchor up, stay for the season and talk incessantly on the VHF. The chatter is absolutely non stop and on every channel (especially 16) so that in the end we had to turn our radios off as the constant background noise just got too much. We had cooking recipes, happy birthday songs, detailed instructions on engine maintenance and of course prolonged discussions from the various beach BBQ planning committees and of course weather, weather, weather, weather. I sound grumpy but it was actually quite amusing to listen in, especially to the kids who had a school programme running and would discuss homework assignments on air, putting out general requests for things like digital kitchen scales, after school work on other peoples boats and anything else that teenagers fancy talking about. One young lady, when asked by another’s mother if her Mom was around, informed the entire harbour that Mom was shaving her legs, information which must have made Mom so happy to share.

            George Town is very friendly but very small and the journey into town by dinghy was extremely wet and bumpy at times. At low tide with a strong onshore wind Norma and myself came out from under the bridge into breaking surf. Norma squealed and ducked down in the dinghy while I was having trouble breathing let alone seeing where I was going. By the time we got back aboard Spectra we had water up past our ankles in the dinghy and the shopping bag was half full of water, mmmm salty and soggy bread, a taste sensation. On the subject of shopping the prices are eye watering, a standard loaf of cheap sliced white bread sells for $5.50 while a tin of baked beans will set you back $3. Needless to say we shopped frugally, but as this is the last stock up stop before Nassau we were forced to bite the bullet and buy some of it.

            After a very bumpy night at anchor we set sail for the 40 odd mile hop up the coast to Farmers Cay early on Tuesday morning. There are two routes shown on my plotter out of George Town bay and I elected to take the Easterly route while Mike went for the westerly one. All was going well until the water disappeared on my route, you have to get used to sailing in less than 5 meters but I went down to 0.5 meters under the keel in a couple of boat lengths. I pulled in the sails to reduce speed and reversed the engine which was running in idle and the depth continued to reduce. Finally I chickened out at 0.3 meters under the keel and turned her round, Norma was looking over the side and reported clouds of sand coming up as I reversed hard to help Spectra in the turn, the depth dropped to 0.1 meter and then we were round and retracing our steps. It was about half a mile back the way we had come before I could turn off onto the eastern route which was still shallow in parts but at least we kept a meter below the keel all the way out. Later when I checked against Mikes paper charts it showed my route as shoaling in parts which is always nice to know after the event. Later that day Mike radioed up to tell us he had hooked a huge Dorado and managed to get it on deck before it jumped back over the side, how annoying must that be. Not to be out done I deployed our fishing gear, 10 minutes later we had a strike which jumped clear out of the water and shook the hook free so no prize there then. All went quiet for the next couple of hours as we ploughed along at a steady 6-7 Knots under reefed main, mizzen, poled out foresail and sporting our newly repaired (by Kate) staysail until we were just lining up to shoot through Farmers Cut. Shoot through is an accurate description as the seas break in the entrance which is both narrow, shallow and lined with rocks. With the wind blowing at up to 20 Knots it was a matter of line her up gun the engine and ride the waves through which would be great fun in a hire boat I’m sure, not quite so thrilling when you are carrying your home with you like a tortoise.

Right Turn lines herself up to go through the cut ahead of us.

Anyway I digress, as I was lining up for the entrance the fishing reel started to stream line, typical, with no time or inclination to start fighting with a fish I tightened the clutch on the reel up as tight as it would go and left it to its own devices. As we manoeuvred through the cut and around the isolated coral patches on the inside the rod stayed bent nearly double and so after about 20 minutes when everything was calm again I managed to turn my attention to reeling the fish in. Amazingly it was still full of fight and it took a good ten minutes of further effort to bring it alongside and with a heave get it over the rail and onto the side deck. See the pictures as to the size of the beasty, what they don’t show is  just how big the teeth were on this barracuda. I could have easily got my whole hand into its mouth, as there was no way that was going to happen, I removed the hook with the largest and longest pair of pliers I could find.

A big Barracuda with even bigger teeth

Unfortunately this is an area where ciguatera poisoning is reported amongst certain types of reef fish and as the symptoms range from very bad food poisoning and being ill for days, with all of the gross side effects you would expect, right through to hospitalisation and even death it is something that you have to be very wary of. Barracuda, and in particular large ones like this chap, are the most dangerous species to eat, being at the top of the reefs food chain they accumulate the toxin in their systems and so having already suffered from Manchineel poisoning on this trip he had to go back over the side. To his credit, even after being towed along at 7 Knots for a mile or two and lying on our deck for 15 minutes while I got the hook out, he recovered very quickly and was last seen heading for open water.

            After another really bumpy night at anchor with the wind blowing a hooley against the tide we took the dinghies ashore for a look around Farmers Cay in the morning.

This is a lovely peaceful little community situated on a tiny island surrounded by beautiful blue waters. We tied up to the new dinghy dock and soon spotted large rays swimming on the bottom below us along with a scattering of conch shells.

A couple of large Rats close to the beach, watch where you step!

A big Ray seen from the dinghy dock

Tony a local fisherman who runs a sometimes open conch kitchen at the pontoon was busy shelling conch at the waters edge and after a bit of negotiation agreed to make a conch salad each for us to take back aboard in an hour after we had looked around.

Conch shells Norma and Kate found on the beach

An hour doesn’t seem much but you have just about done the place in that time. We ended up with a cold beer in the Ocean Hut which is a one stop shop for passing yachtsmen and women with charts for sale (sometimes), cold beer and book exchange. It is run by Terry who has a keen interest in world politics and questioned us closely on the legality of fox hunting in Britain amongst other almost random things. The Ocean Hut has been in his family for generations and although often damaged by the occasional passing hurricane it is always repaired and manages to keep going in this very sleepy corner of the Bahamas. Terry himself travelled the world for work in his youth and was even married to a woman from Hythe with the surname of Moneypenny for a while, so as I said you can find out a lot about a place in an hour.

The path leading down from the Ocean Hut

            Back to the boats for a quick up anchor in order to clear the shallows at the 11:30 high tide we were off to Big Majors Spot another 18 miles north to visit the swimming pigs and spend a couple of days exploring, but that is for next time:

I will blog again very soon, until then goodbye and happy sailing  ………………

PS: we are still looking for some extra crew to come back across the Atlantic at the beginning of June. Three legs of about 2 weeks each, Norfolk Virginia to Bermuda, Bermuda to the Azores, Azores to Cork….anyone interested in all or part? Please drop us a line.

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