Big Seas!!

Mates Log:
Monday Dec. 29th, 2008. We left Nassau yesterday at 9am, without any problems while leaving the dock, and even looking like we knew what we were doing. Actually, it was beautiful, the spot we were in did not allow us to just back out and leave, it was more complicated than that. Carey had to back out towards another dock, move forward towards the boat next to us, and then back out into the harbor. It was flawless, no close calls, no pushing off, no heroics and no obscene hand gestures. People were watching and giving us the hi-five and the atta boy. I couldn’t help but wonder if these were some of the same people who were present at our fist Nassau arrival.

I spend the next ten minutes stowing lines and fenders before I sit down and say goodbye to Nassau. It’s a lovely day and the winds and seas are supposed to be in our favor… or so we think. How wrong we were, and I do mean wrong. I’m still not sure what we missed because the winds were as predicted but the seas were way bigger than predicted. If we had waited another day there would not have been enough wind but the seas would have been flatter.

Once we are out of the channel the seas pick up, white caps are becoming more frequent and the troughs are increasingly getting deeper. We raise the mainsail and the jenny; the winds are just starboard of the bow. SongBird does not seem to want to sail close enough to the wind, or we have not yet discovered the trick. We comment on how well SongBird rides in this type of sea and are again thankful for the catamaran. I head down for another seasick pill, just in case. From here I cannot recall the exact order of events, and the order doesn’t much really matter. What does matter to us is that they happened and we are still here to tell about it. OK, so, that may be a little dramatic!

The seas are mounting and I am feeling worse by the minute (I have not had any problems with this seasick stuff since we first went to Bimini). SongBird is getting slammed by the waves and shutters when hit hard. We don’t have excessive bridge deck clearance which is the distance the salon sits above the water. The waves are starting to come over the port bow and are getting us wet. It looks lovely and is exciting to see... this is about the end of the fun. Next, the waves start rolling over the top deck on the port bow and we are starting to feel like a rising submarine when all the water rushes off the decks. I come inside the salon area and discover that the front ports that we usually leave open while under sail are taking in some water, the side ports are also taking in a little water, I close them or so I think (see lessons learned).

I go back outside; the troughs are, or at least seem huge, 10-12 feet, and what we believe to be a conservative estimate. Water is everywhere, on the decks, the seats, the cockpit area and us! I go inside to lie down; I am feeling awful and I can tell it’s going to be a long day… I had no idea how long. The front ports start to leak again, they were not completely latched, and I get wetter and colder. I get up to see what’s happening outside… lots of big seas, lots of water and lots of nausea. I go back in and lay down again on the seats in the salon. I hear, but don’t want to open my eyes to look, that the water is cascading down the salon windows on a fairly regular basis, and I begin to wonder just how waterproof and sealed up we are.

Once everything is properly latched no more water enters the boat. All of a sudden, water starts rolling over the roof of the salon and cascades down through the top hatch which is located right over my head and chest… sigh… I get a face and mouth full of water, I am now completely drenched. It is not a good day, and life on a boat is not good either. Carey gets me towels and discovers the hatch has two locking positions (see lessons learned) I get up and lay down on the other side of the seating area. I can’t really deal with this as I’m afraid I will vomit all over the place, and the last thing I want to do is clean up puke and sea water. I am freezing, sick, and feeling guilty I am not out there giving Carey moral support. When he needs my help he asks me for it and I give it to him, but as soon as he’s done with me, I’m back in the salon lying down on the seat, soaking wet, and miserable. I continue to lay and listen to all the water coming over the boat, and the shuddering when we run into a mountain of a wave. I know we won’t sink or die, although dying sounds like a pleasant relief about now.

At 12:30 in the morning Carey gets me off the water soaked seat and informs me we are getting ready to head through “the cut”. “The cut” is narrow and shallow, there are breakers and coral heads to avoid… and we are planning to maneuver it in the middle of the night! Under normal circumstances, or at least circumstances where we have our sanity, we would never attempt to do such a thing, but we don’t have much choice at the moment, and our sanity is in question since we are desperate for calm waters.

We have a handheld GPS and chartplotter, and a remote for the autopilot. Carey will be inside the salon area with the chart, the plotter, and the remote, while I sit outside keeping watch. He shows me on the chart the shallows, the coral heads and the breakers that we will be trying to miss. I know he can do this because he knows he can do this, and I trust his judgment, but I’m still not sure about our sanity. I keep watch… it is a moonless night, full of stars, but no light whatsoever except the lit beacon flashing every 4 seconds to indicate the cut!

I start to hear the breakers and get the flashlight out… yeah, right. All of a sudden we take a sharp turn to starboard and I hear and feel the wave… we have found a breaker. Wide eyed, I tell Carey that we are now surfing in a wave heading to starboard. He can see what we have done on the handheld and corrects our course with the remote control. He says this reminds him of playing video games, I’m really hoping he is a good player. The engines are full throttle and the sails are still up. He wants to shoot through the cut as fast as possible so we don’t get taken in by the breakers. It's working and we are back on course. We continue through the cut, surfing waves to some degree with erratic motion, when all of a sudden everything is calm and peaceful… just like that. We lower the sails, and again thank God for His hand on us.

We head north to where we want to anchor for the next two nights. It’s so dark we can only see a few dim anchor lights and lots of stars; it’s not easy to tell the difference. We anchor and sit back to try and let the adrenaline settle before we head off to bed. It’s 1:30 in the morning, and again we know why sailors drink so much.

The next morning we get up and start to assess the damage and clean up the mess from the events of the day before. Stuff is everywhere and everything is wet. I check on the port side in the forward berth to discover that a small line from the hatch cover was caught in the hatch which caused the hatch to leak. The berth is full of water which had also washed over the side of the berth and into the head. We lost 2 hatch covers, and the port side tramp lines are frayed and started to unravel, thus leaving a flapping trampoline. Fortunately the tramps were not damaged. The lines for the tramps on the starboard side were only frayed and will also need to be replaced. No major damage was done, for which we are very thankful.

Today all I want to do is sit on unmovable land. I know we will still have the sensation of rocking even though we will not be on the boat, but I don’t care… I just want to know we aren’t moving. We find a lovely beach and we have it all to ourselves. We read, go hunting for seashells and have a picnic… all on hard, solid ground that does not rock. Today is a good solid day.

After two calm and peaceful nights we head off to Hope Town which was established by British loyalists in 1795. Hope Town is on Elbow Cay and is such a quaint and charming place. There are a lot of tourists here this time of year as Junkanoo is planned for New Years. The lighthouse here is the last manned lighthouse in the Bahamas and uses vaporized Kerosene to make the light. The inlet is protected and full of boats from all over the world.

I wish I could stop here and tell you we came in, found a mooring and all went perfect. Well, of course I can’t because most everything we do is new, so it seems everything has to become an event… and an event it was!

We came into this lovely harbor full of boats on moorings. It’s crowded and there are only a few mooring left. We find one we want to use, pull up perfectly to it but it’s painted with 'NOT FOR RENT', so we have to abandon that idea. Carey moves around the other boats, gets to an outside edge and sees the mooring he wants… I say honey this water is churned up, don’t you think we should raise the dagger boards a little? He says no sweetheart, we need the maneuverability. Not 10 seconds later I say honey I think the dagger board is hitting… no it is hitting… no it is stuck… so much for maneuverability!  So, now here we are stuck, run aground for our first time, in a small harbor full of boats! Some things seem so unjust! It takes us about 10 minutes to pull the dagger board loose. We wonder about putting handles on top of the boards and how a comealong may have helped. In the meantime another boat has entered the harbor and taken our mooring. We weave in and out of boats until we find one last mooring on an end spot… this is good. We have one miss but the second time around we hook it, tie up and again settle down talking about cruising and drinking and the whys.

A man on a boat comes up and collects our money for the next two nights. We lower the dinghy and head off to Capt’n Jacks for dinner where we sit outside and watch the sunset over the harbor. It’s a lovely scene. It is all so quaint, with water and boats everywhere, people coming to dinner in their dinghies, tying up to the dock, locals and tourists alike, dressed up for a nice date or in boat clothes, wrinkles and all. It’s fun to watch. We really like this place and would find it a nice place to live, but it’s been discovered and real estate is outrageous.

Today we take a tour of the area in the dinghy, climb 120 steps to the top of the lighthouse and walk over to the other side of the island and eat our lunch. The views are spectacular and the water is unbelievable. Tomorrow we will spend at the beach, snorkeling, as we plan on leaving here Friday to head to Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco. This is where we will haul out SongBird and give her a fresh coat of paint. We are hoping this will only take about 2 weeks but we don’t really know. We do plan on staying on the boat while on the hard.

Lessons Learned

The hatches have two options for being in a closed position. One is only slightly opened for ventilation, while being able to be locked. The other is in the fully closed and locked position which is preferable in large seas.

Make sure nothing is caught in any hatch.

When the water is churned up it’s because it’s shallow.

Raise dagger boards in shallow water.

Dagger boards can be used as an extra anchor in shallow waters… not!

We draw 3ft with the boards UP

Carey’s trying to tell himself to stop stressing so much over everything.