This is a view that I would become very familiar with over the next several days. I'm sitting on the port settee looking forward at the Navonics charts on my iPad steering by hand to get onto The Little Bahama Bank just before midnight. It was a harrowing day.
If you've been following my journal, you'll know that this Bahamas plan was hatched about 2 years ago as an idea to celebrate my personal half century mark. The Gulf Stream is a thing of legend that is feared by many a mariner. Some people want to climb Mount Everest or Kilimanjaro as a badge of personal accomplishment. For me, though, My Personal Everest it crossing the Gulf Stream in a 19'6" sail boat. I have been thinking and planning for this day for over two years. I felt as ready for it as anything I've ever done in my life. Here's how the day went.
As I stated in my last post, I rose at0600, got some ice and fuel, and got underway at 0700. Ideally, I would be able to tack mostly to the East on an East wind and make it to West End, Grand Bahama to check into The Bahamas. So, I left Palm Beach on a port tack to head Southeast. That didn't last too long. The Gulf Stream is awesome! The current was immediately offshore, and I was making very little progress to the Southeast. So, I decided to bail on the the Southeast tack across The Stream and go with the flow. I tacked onto starboard and headed Northeast to see how much Easting I could get on The Stream. Unbelievable! What a magic carpet ride! As soon as I tacked onto starboard, my speed picked up. By the time I was halfway across, I had already lost 25 miles to the North; i.e. all of the Southing I had made on Friday to Palm Beach (glad I did that!). At one point, I was doing over 9 knots boat speed over ground, and I was concerned about overshooting the North end of the Little Bahama bank. So, I tack onto port and clawed my way to the East. After looking at my track on iNavx (see brown dotted line on image below), it was interesting to see that as the effect of the stream faded, my track headed more to the Southeast as you would expect on a an East wind / port tack.
At some point in the afternoon, it was clear that I was going to spend the night on The Little Bahama Bank. So, I began prepping my "hard core" anchoring gear to connect all of the components with appropriate shackles and seizing wire (Thanks, Steve!) for the conditions. I had a 10 pound claw anchor, 40 feet of 1/4" chain, and 200 feet of 1/2" sea anchor rode from Fiorentino that I used as ground anchor rode.
As you will read shortly, this preparation during daylight hours was essential. Here's a video I took shortly after prepping the anchor of the only ship I saw on the passage. Gives you a good idea of the easy part of the day. Earlier and later it was much wetter.
After getting the anchor gear prepped, I had a few minutes to reflect on the day so far. Everything was mostly as I expected, but A LOT wetter. At one point, I smelled an electrical short and realized it was my iPhone charging cable that was currently not connected to the iPhone and had gotten splashed with salt water. I quickly unplugged it. Not long after that, there was smoke coming from the USB charging socket that the iPad was plugged into. I quickly unplugged that as well. Again the splash of water was getting into places I didn't expect. The iPad was essential to my navigation. So, I would need a solution to the issue, but it could wait until the morning.
As I sat back looking at the fading sun, I started thinking about all of the fish that I knew where out there. I was tired and briefly considered blowing off the idea of fishing. However, the thing that motivates most parents, motivated me in the moment. What would Alex think if I said I was too tired to go fishing? "Come on, Dad!" So, I mustered my reserves and broke out the fishing gear. I had two lines in the water with artificial lures. Immediately, I started snagging on sargassum - reel in / clear, reel in / clear. It was getting tiring, and I was ready to quit and thought, "One last try for Alex." BAM! Mahi on. This is what I had wished would happen if Alex was with me. I needed to land this one for him. In the end, it was a relatively small female and easy to land.
There was one major downside to fishing. In order to land the fish, I had to disengage Shifty (my tiller auto-pilot) and heave to. After landing the fish, I was ready to head for The Bank again, but Shifty was not game - GREAT! :-( I figured that water had penetrated the casing and shorted it out. I forgot the advice of Webb Chiles (currently sailing around the word in a 24' boat and carrying 4 similar auto-pilots) - these auto-pilots are not really water proof and should be covered with a plastic bag and taped up appropriately. I knew I should have done this, but somehow it didn't make it onto my preparation list. Guess who is the auto-pilot now? 80 miles into a 400+ mile trip, yours truly would be on the helm!
Anyway, the sun was setting and the immediate priority was to get onto the reef, get anchored, and get some rest. The current tack I was on was to the Southeast, but I still needed to go East to get onto The Bank. In the interest of time and energy, I decided to motor to the East into the swell to get onto the reef (see opening picture). What seemed like should have taken an hour or so took 3ish hours. My chart said I should have been on The Bank, but my depth sounder was not reading anything. The interesting thing about The Little Bahama Bank in this area is that it goes from 1400+' depth to 20' instantly - quite the underwater cliff! Because my chart said I should have been on the The Bank, but my depth sounder wasn't reading, I thought maybe my depth sounder was broken. I motored Eastward alternatively looking at my iPad chart plotter and my depth sounder waiting anxiously for a depth reading. It seemed like an eternity, but finally 20'! I was ecstatic! However, I had to put a little distance between my current position on the edge of The Bank and The Stream. I didn't want to anchor only to find myself a drift in The Stream heading to England! So, I motored onward for maybe 5 more minutes before I decided to drop the anchor. There must have been a current coming off of the bank because the anchor rode buzzed through my hands as I let it out. As I neared the bitter end, I pulled tight and cleated the rode to the bow. I wasn't taking any chances with one cleat though, and I had enough rode left over to run it to the stern and tie it off to the stern cleats as well. I probably had 40 feet of chain and 160' of rode in the water - a 10 to 1 scope in 20 feet of water. I would sleep good tonight!
I blew up my air mattress and crashed around midnight. Leg one complete.
Total Distance = 68 nm
Elapsed Time = 17 hrs
Average Speed = 4.0 knts
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