Cave Cay to Crab Cay

Day 15: Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Wow what a day we had.  I did not sleep well.  I was solving problems dealing with lost ballast and lack of communication.  I got up in the middle of the night and wrote yesterday’s blog and checked noises on the boat that I heard as I contemplated the things of the previous day.

Sunset last night on Cave Cay

I crawled back in bed and finally fell asleep.  We both got up around 6:00 and fixed another sausage gravy on a tortilla breakfast.  The thing that I came up with in the night was that I needed to get moving on and see and do the things that we had come over here to do.  I figured that the best way to do that is to head for one of the common haunts that folks rave about when they tell of touring the Abacos.  We decided that Green Turtle Cay would be a great place to visit.  I set up in our chartplotter a route that would take us there.  The distance from Cave Cay is 42 miles and that is a doable jaunt if we leave early. 

The water was calm and the wind was light as we motored away at about 8:10. 

Relaxing at sunset on Cave Cay

We had to travel west for about 2.5 miles to get around the island of Little Abaco and travel east toward Green Turtle. As usual, the light wind was from the east so the first part of the trip was nice and gentle.  We rounded Little Abaco through shallow waters and then swung north east to get around some coral heads and shallow waters.  The winds were nice for sailing so we put up the sails and took advantage of the free travel.  Since our ballast was now gone, I put a reef in the main sail to minimize the healing. As we traveled the next 6 miles, the wind steadily increased to the point that I first furled the jib down to the size of a small working jib and then luffed the main.  We were running the motor to gain as much speed as we could.  At six knots, it would take around 7 hours to get to our destination.



At the end of the six mile run, the course made a turn to the southeast directly into the face of the wind so we dropped the sails and began motoring.  The best we could do without the aid of the sails was about 4 knots.  As we traveled along, the wind speed continued to increase and the waves became higher.  We were back to the banging and rolling that we experienced on the Crossing.  And, as the day continued those waves picked up steroids.  The boat banged hard. When we hit one of the bruiser waves, the boat speed would drop from 4.1 knots to 2.3.  It would then take a bit of time for the boat to recover her original speed.  It became obvious that we were not going to make Green Turtle Cay. 

 

We began checking the charts for the closest anchorage that would protect us from the monster waves and came up with what appeared to be a unpublicized little spot on Crab Cay.  That was to be our goal.  It seemed to take forever to arrive.  The banging seemed to intensify as the afternoon bore on.

Beach on Cave Cay

About 30 minutes before our arrival, a most serious potential mishap happened to us.  The mast is supported by 6 stainless steel wires called shrouds.  One in the back, called the back stay keeps the mast from falling forward.  Two on each side amid ship, slightly aft of the mast keep the mast from falling to either side and also helps the back stay keep it from falling forward.  The last shroud is the head stay that serves to keep the mast from falling back and also holds the jib.  On that stay is the jib furler around which we wrap the jib when not in use.  As we were banging along, I noticed that the boom that I had lashed down so it wouldn’t swing around was suddenly loose.  I checked it out and saw nothing amiss.  However, when I looked forward, I realized that the jib furler/head stay were swinging free, held only by the line that .the wrapping of the sail.  Ordinarily when the head stay becomes detached heading into the wind, the mast comes crashing down and on every other boat that we have owned that would have happened. However, on this one, we have an extra sail called a genniker that attaches to a bow sprit sticking out of the front of the boat and to the top of the mast and the genniker was keeping the mast from falling. 

I kicked the autopilot off and spun the boat around so as to head down wind (to relieve the pressure on the genniker), grabbed a piece of line and inched my way to the fore deck.  I tied the line around the base of the furler and drew it down to the U-bolt to which the head stay is usually mounted.  For some reason, the pin that holds the head stay to the U-bolt was missing.  I don’t know if it broke in two or the cotter pin that secures the pin broke are what. That jury rig held fast until we were finally in our anchorage and I could replace the pin with a bolt and lock nut.  WE WERE REALLY LUCKY!

As we were heading into the anchorage, the tiller pilot proceeded to perform an interesting dido and head off on a strange tangent.  I ran back and put it on standby and as I lifted it off of the tiller, the plastic connector on the pilot’s end snapped in two and fell in the water.  UGH.  What next. 

We hand steered (the ole fashion way) on in and dropped the anchor in a truly

Crazy man going for coconuts

lovely cove with a beautiful sand beach backed by coconut palms.  Once settled in and the head stay reattached, I dug through my backup parts and pulled an old smaller model of the tiller pilot and removed the plastic end so as to replace the recently broken one.  WE WERE REALLY LUCKY!

And then we had a warm beer.  

Janine fixed a fine pork chop and mashed potatoes dinner.  She accompanied it with a glass of white zinfandel wine.  After diner we took the Dink for a short ride over to what appeared to be a nice sand beach but turned out to be a rock hard based rocky one.  The island itself is neat because at least right near where we are is a beautiful grove of coconut palms.  There are coconuts littering the ground.  We through a couple in the dinghy in hopes of finding a way to opening them.  Our walk yielded several nice shells and a beautiful sea urchin shell.  Back in the boat, we finished our evening with a rousing game of Mexican train dominos.