New Adventures - Moving... Visiting... going south : some days it goes wrong, then a new day

Friday, February 22, 2013

some days it goes wrong, then a new day - leaving Great Harbor Cay

We finally had a weather window to proceed west leaving Great Harbor Cay to Bimini then back to Florida. Tuesday would be a brisk sailing day, but very do able for Cool Hand and her crew. Nancy from S/V Summer Breeze came to see us off and toss lines and without any drama we were out and on our way. The wind in our slip was about 9 kts but quickly started to pick up once we were in the small harbor. Great Harbor Cay is shallow but we have gotten in and out three times so this was a piece of proverbial cake.

WELL you would think!

We just cleared the two markers and started to make way for the cut to open water when we stopped, stuck fast in shallow water and soft weedy sand. Checking the Tide chart we were almost at low tide and we could not get ourselves off. Then the wind picked up and gradually shoved us into the sand bank. We sighed, cursed a little, then settled down to a bowl of breakfast cereal and waited for the tide to change. Tom let the anchor down to try and hold our position. And we waited………………………………………………

11 AM the tide was turning the wind was gusting to 20 and we tried again to get ourselves off to no avail. Tom, disgusted called the marina for help. They contacted Jon, Arline Libby in one dingy and John in another to help dislodge us.

First they tried using their dinghy’s to push us free. We made a little, inches not feet, progress. Then we gave our Halyard line (it goes to the top of our mast) to Jon and using his dingy tried to heel Cool Hand over while we tried to use our engine to move forward. Again small progress and we got her pointed towards deeper water.

Then we got out our spare anchor and Jon took it out about 75’ from our bow dropped it in and using our electric windless we did move Cool Hand forward. Jon pulled us over again and Tom took the Anchor line to our Primary Wench (not electric) in the cock pit and using muscle power, engine power, and dingy power we finally scooted free.

It was about 2 PM at this point so we returned to the marina, aware that Jon and John were not following us. We got Cool Hand secured with the help of Nancy and Anita. Tom lowered our dingy and went back with Jimmy (S/V Summer Breeze) to see about retrieving our anchor.

Around 3 he returned without anchor, which was buried in the sand only about 6” showing. They were going to try and find scuba tanks for Tom to use to unbury the dang thing. In the end Tom and Jon took Cool Hand out to the scene of our folly and used the windless and Primary Wench to grapple the thing free. I mention all of these wonderful new friends without their help- well we still might be out there stuck. The boating community is great and we learned a lot from their expertise and patience during a difficult and stressful event for Tom and me.

Now – in the line of it could be worse. There were two large BTC communications towers at the entrance to this harbor. While we were having our drama with the wind and waves, a BTC crew was trying to remove one of the cell towers to make way for some new equipment. One of the wires snapped sending the tower careening into the other tower, crashing both to the ground hitting the crane and the power plant. NO ONE WAS HURT - however, the island is without cell service, telephone service, internet… it all came crashing down. The crew had to borrow a satellite phone from one of the boat owners in the marina to call in the disaster. As we were leaving on Wednesday the estimated time for repair was a month.

So our adventure did not seem so bad all things considered. One day we may even laugh about it.

Wednesday morning we tried and succeeded in leaving. Not a breath and haze on the horizon so we motored most of the morning. We went as far of the West coast of Bimini and anchored out for the night. We had a rock and roll night woke early for the long last leg to Miami, But that is in the next blog.