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Thursday, February 23rd - Mayaguana, Bahamas
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We
left the Turks and Caicos islands this morning,
navigating our way through the reef on the north coast
of Providenciales, or Provo, as the locals call it.
Of the half a dozen major islands in T&C, Provo is by
far the most affluent and developed. We had
visited a few of the uninhabited ones on our way
through, and this was our last stop in T&C.
Arriving in South Caicos on Saturday, Jaimie found that
the local customs office was not open to clear us in
until Monday morning. As it was already afternoon
and navigating anywhere else that day on the shallow and
reef-strewn Caicos Bank would be impossible. Johnny
contacted us on the radio and suggested an overnight
anchorage off of Long Cay. The kids immediately
ran off in the dinghy with Po to the beach while Joe and
I went through the anchoring drill. Our first
attempt put our anchor firmly wedged on a little crevice
of the limestone bottom. Although it appeared to
be holding us, we didn't want to count on it for the
night. It is much better to bury your anchor in
sand, and we knew there was plenty around, so we raised
it and tried again, with much better luck.
I
can't wait to share the pictures of the Turks and Caicos
with you, but I'll have to post them on the photos page
separately when I get a good internet connection.
For now, my descriptions will have to suffice.
Our guide book claims that the image of the shallow, 60
mile wide Caicos Bank is one of the three most stunning
sights on Earth, gazing down from space. The
contrast in colors between the deepest part of the North
Atlantic Ocean and the 6-12 foot water on the bank, is
startling. The water goes from 20,000 feet deep to
10 feet deep over a few hundred yards. The dark
indigo blue of the ocean changes as if by the wavering
hand of a child's drawing, to a brilliant turquoise,
studded with patches of dark green and black coral
heads. The color is so intense that the billowing
white clouds pick up the green and blue hues from the
reflection off the water. The brilliant sunlight
leaves nothing to the imagination. Every little
clump of grass on the bottom and wisp of cloud floating
above is clearly painted on nature's canvas. What
I wouldn't give to have a bit of artistic talent.
I'm afraid my little digital camera did not do this
justice.
There is a row of four large islands that define the
northern edge of the Caicos Bank. Each of these
islands, and the other smaller ones that continue south
for a short while along both the eastern and western
edge of the bank, are fringed by coral reefs. Most
of the sides and all of the southern border of the
Caicos Bank are defined solely by coral reefs. The
occasional small land mass appears along the fringe.
Long Cay was one of these islands on the eastern edge of
the bank. We planned to traverse the bank due west
to French Cay, another isolated mass of land, on Sunday.
We
all noticed the change in water temperature when we
jumped in. Being just a little farther north makes
a huge difference in the temperature of both the air and
the sea. It's still pretty tropical, but it isn't
as warm as it was in the Virgins or Leeward Islands.
Nonetheless, we enjoyed some great snorkeling along the
reefs of Long Cay before setting out on our coral
dodging journey across the Bank. We were happy to
follow Johnny Martin, who also happens to be our
insurance agent, across the sometimes treacherous
waters. Jaimie draws 4.5 feet with her fixed keels
whereas Zia draws a little less than four feet as
defined by our rudders. Actually, we decided that
this was a good situation to use our dagger boards as a
little insurance against grounding the boat and breaking
a rudder. We hoped that we would be going slowly
enough to avoid any major damage but we stayed close on
Jaimie's tail just in case. We were new to dodging
coral heads and didn't want to take any chances.
Seven barracuda and two red snappers later, we arrived
at French Cay in time for a snorkel and a trip to the
beach. Unfortunately, none of the fish we caught
were edible as ciguatera poisoning is a threat in all
these reef fish, but it was gratifying to catch
SOMETHING after our miserable luck on the passage here.
French Cay is an uninhabited island surrounded by - you
guessed it - a coral reef. The kids had spent the
day sailing with their friends on Jaimie so Joe and I
had the boat to ourselves for most of the day. We
were lonely! As annoying and demanding as they can
be, we missed our little troublemakers. We shared
a dinner onboard Zia and set out the next day for
Providenciales. This time the four girls were on
Zia.
We
had a bit of a scare as we were pulling into Sapodilla
Bay. We looked back and saw that Jaimie was being
boarded by several people on a power boat. We
tried hailing them on the radio but they didn't answer.
We decided that it couldn't be anyone with malicious
intent in broad daylight. They would have said
something on the radio if that were the case. We
kept an eye on them through the binoculars and watched
as, fifteen minutes later, the powerboat took off and
made a beeline straight for us. By this time,
Jaimie had told us that it was the US Coast Guard making
a routine inspection. We welcomed them onboard
just as we were finished anchoring and learned about
their efforts in keeping the waters safe and clear of
drug traffickers. They were on a cutter out of
North Carolina, patrolling the waters from the Bahamas
as far south as Jamaica. They had confiscated
50,000 pounds of cocaine and a whole bunch of pot.
"What do you do with the boats?" Joe asked.
"We usually sink them. We either set them on fire
or shoot them full of holes," was the deadpan response
of the group's ring leader.
"Sounds like a serious job perk," said Joe enviously.
That got a grin out of all of them. It was
comforting to know that our guys were out there to come
to our rescue if we needed them. We did ask if we
should be worried about running into drug runners and
they reassured us that they were mostly between Haiti
and Jamaica and not something to be too worried about in
the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas.
Having cleared in and rested up, we decided to make the
trek to the north coast of Provo, where all the action
can be found. The entrance through the coral reef
can be tricky and downright frightening, but again, we
had Jaimie to lead us through. We watched as waves
were breaking to the right and left of us, lifting us up
and dropping us back down in increasingly shallow
waters. We were thankful for a relatively calm day
and good sunshine. I can't imagine making that
trip in unsettled conditions.
We
spent one very uncomfortable night in a rolly anchorage
along the beach lined with all the hotels. Again,
it was too late in the day to attempt to wind our way
through the sandbars and coral heads to a more
comfortable anchorage, but Joe and Johnny scouted it out
in the dinghy so we would be ready to move the next day.
We wound up rafted together in the middle of a channel
between two small cays on the eastern edge of
Providenciales. It was no more than 250 yard
across. There were brilliant white sand beaches on
both sides of us and 10 feet of water below us. We
spent the day on the beach and in the kayak, exploring
the unspoiled ocean wilderness.
A
cold front is threatening the Bahamas over the weekend
and we still had 300 miles to travel before the first of
the month, so we decided to take off this morning.
We originally planned to sail through the night to Rum
Cay, but everyone had a poor night's sleep last night.
The current in the little channel we anchored in was
very strong and had us turned around and making all
sorts of noises all night long. We decided to stop
overnight in Mayaguana, where we can clear into the
Bahamas, and then continue on to Rum Cay tomorrow.
Just as we were approaching the intimidating cut through
the reef into Abraham Bay, Joe shouted down to me that
we had a big one on the line. Boy, was he right.
We reeled in a 35 to 40 pound Wahoo. This was by
far the biggest fish we have caught so far and it was
beautiful. I secured it as best I could on the
stern and ran forward to help navigate through the coral
to a safe anchorage. It was a bit harrowing, as it
was 5:15pm and the light wasn't great for seeing the
bottom, but we made it safely through and around all
obstacles. It took me about an hour to fillet the
Wahoo. I had already made spaghetti sauce for
dinner and the girls had their hearts set on that but
I'm going to try a fish stew for dinner tomorrow night.
We'll be eating Wahoo for a while!
We
miss you all more than we can say. It is the one
thing that makes this whole adventure hard.
Love,
Christy, Joe, Cassie, and Juliana
Next entry
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Many thanks to our
friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up
the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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