We woke up at high tide—all sorts of little boats loaded with local people were departing the harbor dressed in the equivalent of Sunday clothes. Where would they go? The only other land in sight is South Bomini, across the narrow canal, some two miles away. We went into the village for some shopping. I particularly wanted a taste of the famous Bimini bread, but all the little boutiques were still closed. Tried my bank card at the money machine and it was rejected. Swell! But the gas attendant was willing to accept it and we filled out the two red canisters paying the stiff price of $6.10 a gallon (plus surtax). We left the canal around 10:00 in the morning, heading south, rounded the South Bimini and heading straight East over the Bahamian Bank.
The Bahamian bank is a wide expanse of area between the Bimini shore and Andros, some fifty miles by one hundred. The map shows surprisingly shallow depths of 6-8 feet; one could practically stand up in the middle of the ocean, at times. The waters are so clear that even when deeper than that, the bottom looks closer than that. Most of the time the bottom was sandy, with tufts of seaweed, clumps that look like sea urchins but I suspect they,re not, and an occasional, conspicuous sea star. Not a fish in sight, so I didn’t bother throwing a line behind us. We set the engine at 1500 RPMs and motored East at a cozy 3.5 KTS. We didn’t bother with the ail—the wind was practically absent.
In the afternoon, we found ourselves right in the middle of the Bahamian bank. Water, water everywhere—a flat unreal sea, the color of mercury or molten lead. The sun was blasting overhead, the engine was purring steadily, and there was nothing to do but keep the Easterly heading, with minor adjustments. Two dolphins appeared from nowhere, dove under the boat, and passed us to the right. Standing at the prow (aptly termed ‘the pulpit) gave you an eerie sensation as you glanced over the wide expanse of indifferent waters. We ate as we motored along, and opened a chilled bottle of wine to celebrate the event, whatever it may have been. Since there was a touch of south-westerly wind, we pulled out the sails that flapped lazily and settled in a relative configuration; a couple of decimals were added to our ambling speed. Behind us, the Western horizon was strangely misty, but skies were clear ahead of us.
I fired up the satellite Weather program (we could barely reach the Miami VHF radio weather anymore). A powerful storm was brewing over central Florida. Snatches of broadcasting on the radio announced powerful winds and hail. That didn’t bother me too much, since the storm was way across the GulfStream. Another minor one was gathering momentum south of Bimini (the source of the misty horizon) moving North East. I( wondered if it would catch up with us, but on the screen, it looked like it was slowly dissipating. Good thing we didn’t head South. Our aim was Andros, the largest island in the Bahamas, that we couldn’t miss. Andros became our destination for the day—but we still had some 40 miles to go. Naturally, we didn’t even consider what we would find in Andros, a mistake that would cost us dearly in the future.
A full moon was rising in the East, some ten degrees right to the mast. We decided to continue motoring at night, since the visibility was good and one could see shadows in the cockpit. We turned on the position lights and kept moving at around three knots. The feeling of navigating at night by the light of the moon was overpowering. I imagined a scenario of a man tossed overboard in the middle of the shallow seas, with the bottom close enough to reach standing on tiptoes. I had a cup of hot cocoa, trying to shake off the weird feeling. It was getting chilly,
Mihai took the first shift and I went below deck to snatch a little nap. It seemed like I had only been asleep for minutes, when the engine surged, and then died. I went on deck—the engine quit on us, like it did on Coralville reservoir. The starboard tank was still half full; we pumped the rubber pear which was stiff, but the engine still wouldn’t start. We changed the feeding line to the port tank and finally, the Etec started. Looks like the siphoning tube in the tank doesn’t reach all the way to the bottom. That’s a good thing to know. I took over and motor for another couple of hours, while Mihai went below deck. I was too wound up to nod at the helm, but the engine purred steadily and I relaxed, little by little. The horizons were again clear in the moonlight. The storm over Bimini had dissipated.
When the sun came up in front of us, we still had some 20 miles to go. The wind was picking up and holding an easterly course was becoming problematic. We passed a couple of ships (or rather they passed us) to the left and I was again experiencing the same itchy feeling, wondering when the land would show up. When it finally did, I went below deck to double-check the charts and do a little reading on Andros, and the report was none too encouraging.
Andros hardly appears on any yachtsman’s itinerary. The island is mostly uninhabited and covered with swamps and mangrove marshes. The Americans have a few research bases along the Eastern shore, but the chart authors snidely point out that no one is welcome to use their facilities, or even anchor at their buoys. There are only two settlements, , Nichols Town at the northern tip of the island, the other one, somewhere in the middle, a little north of the estuaries that slice across the middle section of the island, Even those estuaries , grandly dubbed “Sweet Water”, are unmarked, brackish, and sprouting dead ends. Vandals have been reported in the area and Ostrogoths too, maybe, in case they left anyone alive to report. Worse still, Andros was the only island where infamous “doctor flies” have made the travelers’ life a burning hell, unless (as the chart authors commented) one is an insect lover. That didn’t sound good at all. At this point, we still had some options: head for Nichols Town to fuel up and continue along the Easterly shore, or veer North East and head for the Berry islands. The first option had the disadvantage of taking us to a shore bristling with dangerous reefs and strong currents that made it unfriendly for shore navigation. The other one required a change in heading that would presumably take us across some shallow waters which both SeaClear and Garmin charts specifically mark as “unexplored” and “sandbars showing at low tide”. The typical depth was around two feet.
I was so pissed that we hadn’t checked all this information earlier. We could have taken advantage of the wind and sailed straight into the Berry island, instead of fighting it all the way. We had wasted at least three hours heading for a promised land that we were now keen to avoid. So I kept the SeaClear computer program on, below deck, doublechecking against the helm Garmin and the paper charts. We made our way slowly into the sand bars. The water dropped quickly at four feet—then at three. The bottom was a mixture of sands and rocks—not too appealing if it came to beaching the boat. We pulled the fins and the centerboard up and I stood at the prow, grabbing the furler, and trying to read the bottom by its colors (mostly a murky yellow). I could see several bands of a lighter hue in the distance, and a dark blue belt at the horizon—that’s where we wanted to go.
We motored slowly over the Joulter Cay’s sandbanks for what felt like (and most probably were) hours. I tried to pilot Mihai, avoiding the bright yellow spots) but they seemed to be shifting in the sunlight. Looking behind, I could see several sandbanks already emerging. The boat icon on the SeaClear GPS was moving maddeningly slow on the screen. Since it was so large on the chart, that added to my sense of frustration. Finally, we made our way safely to the canal north of the sandbanks (where we should have been navigating all along and from the get-go). We took and East course and headed into the Tongue of the Ocean; the depth became 10 feet, then 20, then abruptly fell to 100 and then to nothing. The Tongue of the Ocean is a deep trench East of Andros, one of the reasons why researches established their bases there, for it is the meeting place of all sorts of marine life. Knowing that we had 1800 feet of aquamarine water under our keel felt pretty reassuring.
This time I made sure I took in all the information on Berry Islands, ahead of time. According to the guide, the string of islands east of Bimini are sorely under-appreciated and worth exploring. The book mentions reefs, deep sea fishing, and all the goodies one typically associates with the Bahamas. We aimed for Chub Cays, a southerly island boasting a thriving, prosperous community (vacationers mostly, I warrant) with a number of good anchorages and a fuel marina. We could already see the two antennas in the distance. We approached the island, passing Mama Rhonda Rock to our portside (another promising place to anchor, I thought) and got closer to the bay at the south-western end of the island that marks the entrance to the canal. A couple of other ships were anchored in the bay, but the guide indicated the position of another promising spot: the Berry Island Club, situated into the canal between Chub Cay and Frazer Hog Kay. Apparently friendly and helpful, the marina also has fuel.
We first decided to anchor close to the wide beach that expands from the southwesterly points all the way to Frazer Hog; getting closer to the land, the colors of the waters change back to the bright turquoise hue of shallow Bahamian waters. We got closer to the white-sanded beach beyond which one could see a couple of villas tucked among palm trees, a reassuring sight since the rest of the vegetations looked very un-tropical—dwarfish pine trees and shrubbery. The Cays worth exploring look mostly like hunks of barren rock. Whatever. We pulled close to the beach and anchored in an unexpectedly strong breeze. I idn’t want a replay of the beach anchoring experience at Naples, five years before, so we decided not to stick around. We headed for the Berry Island club instead—we had to get fuel anyways.
The canal we took was well-marked, large and deep. The club marina had a huge dock with four hopeful-looking tanks. Two other boats were moored at the buoys, but there was plenty of room around and more buoys to spare. We approached the dock carefully and found a place in a little cove upwind. We cast anchor in three feet of water; the bottom was strewn with rocks. I hailed the marina on the radio, but there was no reply, so I took the dinghy and rowed ashore. The tide was low, the edge of the water was hard and reefy.
The marina itself looked deserted; an clean, well-kept building that looked abandoned “for the winter,” with a sandy bath leading to the wharf, among some palm trees and a huge pile of empty conchs (another good sign, I thought) Behind the marina, a couple of “duplexes” (motel-type buildings with two apartments in front and two in the back, several hammocks (within metal frames) some sparse bushes sprouting a few solitary blossoms and an abandoned truck with no license plate. No one in sight. The dock did have indeed several tanks labeled “Diesel” and “gas”. The only unlocked outbuilding was a wooden box with two shower stalls, off the marina—but the water was turned off. I returned to the boat and tried to raise on the radio either the marina, or the two anchored boats, for more information. A voice responded, informing me that the club was closed and there was no gas. After a short pause, the voice inquired how much gas we needed; finding out that we lust6ed for only eight gallons, the man said he would be there in the morning, invited us to moor at one of the buoys, and signed off.
We still decided to stay in the little bay, away from the other two boats. The nearer was a sail ship with a couple who took there smart-looking dinghy (with its own motor) to the dock every couple of hours to allow their marine dog to make its rounds and pee. The tide came rushing inland Hai-Hui started bobbing in six feet of water. Everything looked slightly more inviting at high tide. At sunset we heard some strange, wailing sounds wafting across the bay, the woman stood at the prow blowing into a bagpipe and “maken” the most dismal “melodye” ever since the times of Chaucer: I vaguely recognized Amazing Grace, Oh, Danny Boy and “Little Taffin” medley. After the performance, her companion duly applauded. I briefly considered bringing up my guitar for a jam session, but thought better of it.
Mosquitoes came in droves at night. By this time, we had eaten a Spartan dinner, noticing again that the grill refused to stay lit (we ended up tossing the sausages into the frying pan, and onto our trusty Swedish Origo alcohol stove) and were ready to hit the sack. We stretched the mosquito net a tad too late, trapping several within, and smoke a final pipe, admiring the full moon over the tranquil bay. I had a hard time falling asleep. Woken up at two o’clock in the morning with a sense of foreboding. Looking overboard, I saw the waters have dwindled again with the low tide, and the rocks at the bottom looks disquietingly close. I woke up Mihai and we double-checked on the Garmin. Low tide was scheduled two hours hence, and the graph showed that we would lose another half-foot of water past the lowest point when we anchored. But the depth was still over three feet, so we felt safe enough. We went back to bed—in the morning, we would get our gas supplies and head for Nassau. Our supplies have dwindled amazingly fast (especially in the beverage category) and there seem to be no grocery in sight for miles. Maybe we should get used to that thought. Wish I had brought around some instant tea sachets, so we could make our own soft drinks. We might find some in Nassau though.
