Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Day 156

This morning we were up early and preparing to leave with Say Yes and head to Normans Cay. Walter was sick all night so they decided to move only 100’ away to the anchorage. Windswept has volunteered to stay behind and keep Brandaris company and will hopefully leave tomorrow.

We helped our neighbours on Emerald Seas off the dock...and then Grama and I didn’t want to leave. It was a bit of an ordeal and in helping them I ended up out in the dingy and got soaking wet -_-. The dock we’ve been at has a shallow spot a boat length behind us and has ALOT of current (we were fairly close to slack tide!).When we left we decided to get 2 dock hands to help us. Even with their help it was tight getting out.

It was a little rolly coming out of Nassau Harbour but I thought well this wont be that bad...I think those were my famous last words. I was down below cooking as the roll gradually worsened. Eventually the toast I had on the toaster flew at me and while I was attempting to catch it the frying pan I was making scrambled eggs in flew at me as well...needless to say I was not impressed.

We put a double reef in the main and rolled out the jib and we were flying! We were doing between 6.5 and 8 knots! At times (well most of the way) we were so healed over our rub rail was underwater. Grama wasn’t happy with the 5’swells and the 30knot apparent we had on the beam. Papa was...ok but was on the helm most of the day. I...well I was either not feeling well or sitting on the low side with my feet in the water telling Papa that if Fattie knew about this she’d be disappointed that we weren’t playing the POTC theme song :P I think today was epic enough for that *rolls eyes*. We decided we wouldn’t be without our great enclosure we have on our cockpit as several times we had waves and spray hit the sides.

By the time we arrived at Normans Cay we were sooo looking forward to a quiet night where we could just sit and recoup after a crazy long day. Coming into the Cay it suddenly started to rain...and we weren’t sure about depth or coral so I had to put on my foul weather jacket (more because of the spray from banging the waves) and a life jacket and stand on the bow watching for coral heads. I had been in our cozy enclosure all day and was wearing shorts and as I got wet with all the wind I was frozen! Eventually I came back and told Grama I refused to go back out because I was too cold and we pulled out the only foul weather pants we could find and I went back out on the bow. The pants we had pulled out were Papa’s and were HUGE on me lmao. They kept me warm but I wasn’t sure if they were hazardous to my safety, walking on the very wet deck with very slippery pants that were too long for me was difficult. While I was up on the bow I was worried that if I saw a coral head I wouldn’t know what I was looking at because I haven’t seen one before, AND with the cloud cover and the waves and rain I could hardly see the bottom 2’ in front of the bow! Luckily we never hit bottom or a coral head so all was good.

We dropped the hook by the beach and waited for it to set, backed down on it and thought it was good. Papa wanted to try out our looky bucket we got Grama back in Bimini (a bucket with a glass bottom) so we got the dingy ready and I drove Papa out to check the anchor. I tried to keep us positioned over the anchor in the small swells and wind and Papa leaned over the bow with the looky bucket... I wish he hadn’t because he saw the anchor was sitting on its side but about 15’ of our chain was covered. We went back to the Butt and told Grama to back down on the anchor again. While she did this we went back to watch the anchor and make sure it set.

~Now before I go any further with this story I need to explain that we have a red ball float attached to our anchor with a 24’ rope. This float tells us where our anchor is, because with 100’ of chain and another 100’ of rope it’s hard to find it lol. Another thing to realize with that is the anchor is not what holds the boat really, it’s the chain, so with constant swinging due to wind and current the anchor is not directly in front of us. We were in 7-8’ of water with 1-2’ swells and we had about 120’ of road (100’of chain and 20’ of rope) out at the time.

So Papa and I are in the dingy and Grama’s on the Butt backing down hard on the anchor. I get out to where the ball is and Papas over the bow of the dink looking with the looky bucket for the anchor. It’s very hard to keep the dingy in one place with the wind and swells and spray and as Grama is backing down on the anchor the anchor starts to move as does the ball that’s attached to it. Papa can’t find the anchor so he tells me to circle the ball. I try to chase the ball because Grama is backing down at 29oo RPM (which is our cruising speed, a.k.a. THE TOP SPEED WE TRAVEL AT!!) and the anchor is not grabbing so it’s just dragging on the bottom. So I’m running the dingy full out chasing the ball, Papa has his head over the bow of the dingy in the looky bucket yelling back to me to circle the ball, Grama has dragged the anchor 60’ and wants to know if she should keep backing down. I’m telling Papa that I’m chasing the ball and he can’t hear me and keeps telling me to circle the ball. Finally he hears me about Grama and says yes she should keep backing down and tells me to circle the ball!! I signal Grama to keep backing down and I’m chasing the ball and eventually the anchor grabs, I circle the ball, Papa says he’s happy with the anchor set, Grama stops the engine and we go back to the Butt. We dragged the anchor almost 200’ and are no longer in the anchorage and the boat is rocking and rolling with the swells and Grama and I want to be in the anchorage!

SOOO after all that we haul up the anchor and move back into the anchorage and reset the anchor (which bites almost immediately) and check it with the looky bucket and finally turn off the engine for the night.

The anchorage still isn’t pleasant with swells and the boat rocked all night and Grama and I weren’t happy. Needless to say we all ready for bed.

Niki

1 comment:

Sammeh said...

WOW sound like an eventful day
and LOL I can totally see you diving to catch toast and the pan : D
PS - don't shoot me?
:]
ily♥