26 May 2012 Georgetown to Stocking Island, Great Exuma, Bahamas
I listened to the weather on the SSB radio, then connected to the Internet and downloaded a GRIB file which shows that Sub-Tropical Storm Beryl is well established off the east coast of Florida and is expected to move west and hit Florida tomorrow. The forecast is that it will reform and head out to sea again towards Bermuda, so we’ll have to keep a sharp eye on it before we sail to the east coast of the States.
We motored across to Stocking Island and anchored off Sand Dollar Beach. After lunch, we went for a snorkel and discovered wreckage on the sea bed directly beneath Alba – our anchor was nearly wrapped around it, so after trying (unsuccessfully) to spear some fish, we moved further away from the shore.
The wind was very light and variable this afternoon and the no-see-ums were murder– I had to put on a t-shirt even though it was boiling hot. Then in the evening, the mosquitos arrived and forced us down below.
27 May 2012 Stocking Island, Great Exuma, Bahamas
It was a lovely morning with blue skies and 10-15 knot winds. I decided to take some pictures of the boat with the beautiful beach in the back ground, but the damn outboard wouldn’t start.
We motored along the island and anchored off Volleyball Beach, so that we could indulge ourselves with a Sunday lunch at the beach bar.
I had a look at the outboard and eventually deduced that it was fuel starvation, so I bit the bullet and removed the carburettor. I disassembled it and cleaned the various parts. Once back together, miraculously, it started OK. I think that it was either a small piece of dirt in the jets or the float valve has gummed up. It took me a few hours to work it all out, but I now feel more confident about my ability to sort out problems on the outboard.
Later in the afternoon, we went to beach bar, had a few beers and a pork barbeque, which was very tasty.
28 May 2012 Stocking Island to Marsh Harbour, Abacos, Bahamas (Day 1)
The weather forecast shows that there are going to be squalls coming over the Exumas in a few days’ time. Tropical Storm Beryl is just hitting the coast of Florida today with 50 knot winds and will then move north east along the Georgia coast and then off into the North Atlantic.
Then it looks like there’s a gap in the weather before the winds on the east coast of the States turn northerly, which is just what we don’t want. We decided to clear out and leave this afternoon, sailing towards Charleston in Georgia, which should take five days.
Unfortunately, when we went into town, we discovered that it’s another bloody bank holiday and the customs and immigration is closed. Undeterred, we changed our plan and will now sail up to the Abacos and clear out there. It’s a two day sail and will split the journey nicely - it will probably cost us an extra day’s delay, but at least we’ll be able to get an Internet connection and download an accurate forecast before we sail the remaining three days to Charleston in Georgia.
We headed north-east out of Conch Cay Cut towards the southern tip of Cat Island which was 40 miles away. The wind was 5 knots from the east instead of 15 knots from the south-east which meant that we had to motor – not a great start.
After a couple of hours, the wind picked up and veered a little allowing us to sail. The wind continued to increase during the evening, but was backing and forcing us more to the west meaning that we couldn’t quite make it around the headland. At nine o’clock, we reefed the sails and motored for a couple of hours to gain enough easting to clear the south end of Cat Island. The motion was very unpleasant below and I didn’t sleep well on Glenys’s 7-10 watch especially as I had to get up at nine o’clock to help her reef the sails as the wind picked up.
When I got up for my 10-1 watch, I was feeling distinctly nauseous - this is the first time that I’ve felt seasick for a long time. However, by eleven o’clock, we’d rounded the point and I was able to ease the sails and run more down wind, giving us a much better motion.
29 May 2012 Stocking Island to Marsh Harbour, Abacos, Bahamas (Day 2)
We had a pleasant broad reach for most of the night.
I wasn’t able to shake the nauseous feeling for most of the day, which made me very lethargic – I didn’t even put out a fishing line because I couldn’t be bothered with dealing with a fish if I caught one.
The wind veered more southerly as the day went on and we had intermittent rain, but no strong squalls thankfully. I rigged up the spinnaker pole so that we could run “wing on wing”, straight downwind.
Our insurance company wants us to be above 35° North from the 1st June because there’s less danger of “Named Storms” above that latitude – their term for tropical storms and hurricanes. We’re only at 24° North and with over 900 miles to get to Cape Hatteras, we’ve no chance of being there by 1st June. We thought that our insurance policy had a £15,000 excess on any damage caused by Named Storms if we were south of 35° North, but when I read the fine print, I found out that we aren’t covered for ANY damage to Alba for Named Storms if we’re caught south of 35° North. If the boat sinks in a Named Storm then we’ll lose everything. Worrying, but there’s not a lot we can do about it today.
Glenys started the engine at eight o’clock because the wind had dropped. When I got up at ten, we had enough wind to sail again, but it was slowly veering and I had a restless couple of hours, keeping close watch that the main sail didn’t gybe.
30 May 2012 Stocking Island to Marsh Harbour, Abacos, Bahamas (Day 3)
On Glenys’s 1-4 watch, she had to keep changing our course to starboard to keep running downwind, which was taking us off the rhomb line. At five o’clock, the wind dropped, so I started the engine, altered our course back towards the Abacos and gybed the main. At night and singlehanded, it takes ten times as long to do anything – it must have taken me 40 minutes to disassemble the spinnaker pole, un-rig the preventer, gybe the main and re-rig the preventer.
As we approached the narrow Man-O-War Channel going through the reefs, a large cargo freighter came powering up fast behind us. Under “The International Regulations for Preventing of Collisions at Sea”, he was the overtaking vessel, I had right of way and he would have to slow down and follow me in. However, for the sake of matrimonial harmony, I got out of the way – “pig-headed” I think she called me...
We motored five miles in 3-4 metres of water across to Marsh Harbour. The approach to the anchorage in the harbour was very nerve wracking because it’s very shallow and there are no buoys to indicate the fairway. We were going in two hours after low tide, and ended up anchoring in 2.3 metres of water, which will give us a mere 10cm below the keel at low water – I don’t think that I’ll ever get used to such shallow water. Once settled, Glenys rustled up Bacon & Eggs for our lunch to celebrate another successful passage.
I managed to get a free 10 minute trial from a wireless internet provider and downloaded the weather. As forecast, Tropical Storm Beryl is now heading north east along the Georgia coast and will be out of the way in two days. We’re thinking of staying here for a couple of nights and then leaving on Friday 1st June. There doesn’t seem to be any hint of a Named Storm around for the next week, but I sent an email off to our insurance company asking them what our options are about the endorsement to be above 35° North.
We walked to the customs and cleared out. I told them that we’re leaving tomorrow – they didn’t seem bothered at all, but I wanted to get some clearance papers to make sure that our entry into the states is as smooth as possible. While chatting to them, I found out that our 12 month cruising permit for the Bahamas (which cost $300US) expires if we’re out of the Bahamas for more than 3 months. The customs guy thought that it was amusing that I’d paid $300US for a five week stay in his country – bastard.
We found the supermarket and bought enough food to last us for a week at sea, then collapsed exhausted.
The weather forecast looks very settled for the seven days, so we’re planning to head for Beaufort, North Carolina which will take four days and then possibly continue another two days up to Norfolk in the Chesapeake.
31 May 2012 Marsh Harbour, Abacos, Bahamas
The weather forecast didn't look too good this morning. There’s a low forming over the Chesapeake on Tuesday 5th that is going to give 30+ knot winds and squalls. However, there’s a three day window that looks OK if we leave on Saturday 2nd, so we’ve decided to head for Charleston in South Carolina which is 400 miles away and we should be able to do it in three days. This weather sucks.
We may be motoring a fair bit, so I topped up the diesel tanks from our jerry can. I tried to set up a wind break, but a gust of wind still caught the first glug of diesel and sprayed it all over our beautiful teak decks. I was not pleased.
I went ashore and bought a 24 hour ticket for Internet access for the princely sum of $15US, so we spent the rest of the day on the Internet, sharing the laptop. I updated our website and Glenys wrote a few emails and browsed horse riding web sites – we’re thinking of going on a riding holiday in the middle of our haul-out in Deltaville.
We received an email from our insurance brokers, who have kindly given us an endorsement which gives us a £15,000 excess on any damage caused by Named Storms if we are south of 35° North up to the end of June. It’s a great relief that we don’t have to rush north. They didn’t charge us anything for it either - www.admiralyacht.com – they’re very responsive, reasonable cost and cruiser friendly.
On the trip from Georgetown to here, the autopilot control panel by the steering wheel was playing up badly. It kept going into “response adjustment” mode and beeping constantly. I reckoned that the fault was like the response button was being permanently pressed, so I took it all apart. I found a very small amount of corrosion on the circuit board that looked like salt deposits, so I cleaned it off with alcohol and a bit of WD40. After putting it back together, it seemed to be working, so fingers crossed it will be OK on the trip up to Charleston.
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