Georgetown Passage – Day 2, Part II, 12-30-08 When we left you, night had fallen on Allan's Cay's anchorages. Several boats had left, and more had arrived – rather more than were there before, actually. We were joined in our section in the space between Allan's Cay and the two long islands north of us by several sailboats and a couple of power boats. Still lots of room and a very comfortable place to stay
Despite our having been up to see the sunrise, we dallied over our morning coffees and visits to the patio rather longer than we should. As a result, I discovered that I'd miscalculated the slack tide period when I wanted to go under the boat to check out the prop and clean the third speed sensor's surrounding area, and the current was running enthusiastically. So, I gave up on the speed sensor, as I'd have nothing to hang on to, and went for the prop. However, the current got my hookah's air line caught up in one of the fishing lines we'd put out overnight, in hopes of catching something larger than the two very small fish we managed to hook in the entire time we've been trolling in the Bahamas. In the course of disentangling the line, Lydia managed to lose the bottom half (it's a collapsible, designed to come apart for easy stowing, and she'd lifted on the top part of the pole when she was removing it from the holder) of the pole, and urged me to hurry to get it. Of course, it wasn't going anywhere, having sunk immediately below the boat, and I could see it clearly, so I just grabbed my mask, leaving the fouled air line behind, and headed down. However, I learned how strong the current was when I had to swim vigorously just to get to it, and keep swimming as I came up to avoid ending up far behind the boat. Once that was out of the way, and the line was cut after I flung the lure aboard, getting it out of my air line, I got my hookah regulator and went below with my trusty serrated knife that I always carry. I was dismayed to find that not only was there a remnant of the prior mooring line around the prop, some of it was jammed into the spaces between the body and the blades (which rotate as they change from feathered to forward or reverse). No wonder she'd not had the power she'd expected! Ah, well, plenty of air, and the rudder skeg to brace myself against, I went to work cutting away the remnants of the line. I was very glad to see that it hadn't solidified, from the heat of rotation, into a solid block of nylon, like the rope I cut away, eventually, with a hammer and chisel, on our friends' boat in Lake Worth about this time last year! Still, I wasn't able to dislodge the line under the prop ears, and had to content myself with removing all but that small amount, sawing away the loose ends on both sides of all the ears. Once that was done, I grabbed the ears and attempted to make them rotate, but couldn't move it more than a few degrees by my own force. However, Perky's 62 HP could exert far more pressure than I on the long edges of the ears of the prop (the way they change direction from forward to reverse and to go into the feathered position when the engine's not turning), and I was hopeful that would suffice. While I was down there, I took advantage of the time to cut away some fishing line that had become wrapped around our prop shaft, next to the cutlass bearing. That took a while, but eventually I came back out, When I came up, Lydia said she'd lost the top of the pole in the course of disentangling the lure and the remaining line. I expected it to sink quickly as well, but despite a leash (the same famous mooring line which of which I'd just cut the remnants from the prop) I had her hold me on as I swept the area around the stern of the boat and to both sides, I didn't see it. So, I'm happy it was an inexpensive combo I'd gotten at WalMart, leaving me with a serviceable reel for some other pole, or perhaps, given that we troll with a release catch, I'll just try it by itself and a light drag to see what happens. I did, however, while I was down there working, and again as I was sweeping the area, see the boat behind us' Fortress anchor with only part of one fluke dug in. As it had a short length of chain, and the rest rope, rode, and the other anchor he had out was all chain, I presume that was his secondary. In any event, by that time, the current was benign, and the winds relatively calm, so it likely would not have mattered. Once I finished with the sweep for the missing pole section, I stowed all the stuff in the lazarette that had to be removed in order to get to our dive gear. By a little after noon, we were ready to raise anchor and head south to Norman's Cay. Before I started that process, however, I started Perky up and proved that, even if it wasn't perfect, there was, indeed, ear rotation from forward to reverse, and plenty of power. So, while I'll want to make another visit to the prop to confirm its security (this time, perhaps, with a much thinner blade in order to get into the spaces between the body and the ears), for now, it sufficed. As referenced in my last, the anchor raising was uneventful, and, I'm thankful to report, free of debris on either the chain or the anchors themselves. Gotta love this Bahamian water!! The first thing in the morning, I'd contacted Chris Parker's replacement and learned that the wind would be from the north-northeast at only 5-10 knots, expected to stay that way for the next few days. As our travels would be southeast, and our forward speed would move the apparent wind forward, we anticipated a spinnaker run on a beam or broad reach. Unfortunately, that trip turned out to be with the wind, and very little of it, at that, directly astern. As we motored out to our turning point, and headed to our next waypoint in order to see what sails to set in what configuration, the apparent wind was dead astern, or no more than 30 degrees to port, and either nonexistent or at most a couple of knots with our 5+ knot cruising motoring speed. Faced with a 2-3 knot real speed should we try to go with the spinnaker, and our late start, we elected to – again – YUCK! (another thing we really don't like, along with always-on TV, and this time, WE'RE doing it) motor our way to Norman's Cay in order to have the hook down before sundown. Fortunately, it was a very short trip, and the waypoint into the anchorage area allowed a turn that did, indeed provide a very nice, albeit, short, beam reach under sail. The entrance, as is the case in many of these anchorages, looked daunting on the charts (all half-dozen of them we used, including the chartplotter's), and the cruising guides (again a half-dozen varieties of all sorts) weren't all that encouraging, either, disagreeing on several key points. The Explorer charts, widely thought of as the absolute authority in Bahamian navigation, pointed out that this area had many unsurveyed areas, that VPR (visual pilotage rules) applied, and a sharp lookout must be maintained at all points. However, we could see that there were many boats anchored in what, from the various sources we consulted, looked, despite a supposed very shallow area, to be the ideal location. We picked our way in, avoiding the sandbars, the rocks, and other scary stuff, and found ourselves in about 12 feet of water at nearly low tide. There was plenty of room and everyone was using a single anchor, so we snugged up pretty close to another boat's stern and let our primary, the 55# Delta, down. I could see it land, and the current was running against our direction of travel, so I could also see it dig in as I let out scope about 10 feet at a time, letting it further set each time. Eventually, we wound up parallel to another boat, with about 125' of chain out. I had Lydia reverse hard, and Flying Pig stopped short and curtseyed, proving a very secure hook. As we were well before dark, we set about relaxing and watching for the green flash at sundown. No such luck, this time (we've yet to see one), but the sky was brilliantly lit above the last remnants of the sun with green shafts, so it was pretty satisfying anyway. Pulling out the remains of the pasta and conch, and adding a soup dish for extra warmth, having gotten a bit chilled when the sun went down, we enjoyed our light dinner. Norman's Cay is infamous for its prior involvement with the drug trade, Carlos Lehder at one point owning entirely half of the island, and has a DC3 awash at all but the highest tides in the harbor area to show for it, along with some shot-up houses and other remnants. Those were among the attractions we wanted to check out the next day, and we once again hit the sack early. Things to do, places to go, sights to see, this again has gotten long, so I'll leave you here in Paradise. Tomorrow we'll tell you of our adventures on and under the water on New Year's Eve… As always, those on our log lists will receive real-time reports, but those seeing these in the forums will have to wait until we have good internet connectivity. There's no internet service here, and we don't know when the next will be, but you can see our progress on our SPOT page, http://tinyurl.com/FlyingPigSpotTracking … Stay tuned :{)) L8R Skip and Crew Morgan 461 #2 SV Flying Pig KI4MPC See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery ! Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog "And then again, when you sit at the helm of your little ship on a clear night, and gaze at the countless stars overhead, and realize that you are quite alone on a wide, wide sea, it is apt to occur to you that in the general scheme of things you are merely an insignificant speck on the surface of the ocean; and are not nearly so important or as self-sufficient as you thought you were. Which is an exceedingly wholesome thought, and one that may effect a permanent change in your deportment that will be greatly appreciated by your friends."- James S. Pitkin _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
