On the Move Again
Ambler Isle
V and S
Sun 8 May 2011 13:39
May 6, 2011
We are moving slowly northward, next stop 15 miles up at
Rudder Cut Cay. Not much there, big cave, nice beach, but guard dogs roam
the island now that it was bought by nearby Musha Cay. Musha Cay is owned
by magician David Copperfield and has accommodations for 25 guests. I
think he rents it out for $250,000 per week. They discourage boaters from
even anchoring nearby.
We took the inside route today. In
the past we always took the Exuma Sound, deep water route. But
we had time to explore, and it would be good to know if we could traverse the
shallow inside route if we ever needed to. There are no marker buoys in the
Bahamas, so we had to follow the recommended line on our chartplotter.
Amber Isle likes 5' of water.
Actually, the props touch at 4'9" so she likes a bit more. The charts
were not encouraging. Our old stand by, the Explorer Charts warned of
spots only 1 meter, (3.3') at low tide. The new Garmin
chartplotter claimed we'd never see less than 4' at low tide. Which
was right? We planned to travel on a rising tide, starting at the half-way
high mark. But there is little tide information for this
shallow, enclosed area. Some sources say it is 2.5 hours behind
Nassau tides. But what if that was wrong? At least we hoped to be
going on a rising tide, and we could stop and wait if it proved too
shallow. At one point the depth sounder screeched: we were in 5.6' of
water. But that was 6" more than needed, so we continued. We sailed
through wide expanses of open water dotted by numerous islands and islets.
Most were private and some had big houses. It was said that Faith Hill was
building a huge home on Goat Cay. After just over two hours we came
to our anchorage at Rudder Cut Cay. The big cave was a beacon to
us. Of course, there was no one here. Comparing the tide
level on the rocky shore to our estimates, we discovered that we had
misgauged the high tide time by more than an hour. If this was true, this
route was passable even to mid tide levels. We planned to let out the
entire anchor chain here and straighten out the kinks that recur
periodically. But first, we let out the anchor and checked the set by
gently powering back on it. Then we hopped into the dinghy and took
the "lookie bucket" out to inspect. It was not set. We gave another
gentle tug. Again the bucket showed no set. We raised the
anchor and tried again. Still no set. What was going
on? Finally we got it to half set, gave another gentle tug and
decided to watch it. It finally set. The winds were calm, and there
was no tension on the anchor chain. So we took the dinghy back
to nearby Darby Island, where Vincent and his dad Wendell were doing some
carpentry work. They met us at the dock and were glad to see
us. We continued our exploration, setting down the bucket into the water
to check for snorkel reefs. Amber Isle sat where we'd left
her. The east wind was a mere 6k. There was a small swell coming in
through the Rudder Cut Cay cut. It would gently rock us to
sleep. |
