December 20, 2011 Day 4
26 56 N latitude, 79 20 W longitude
474 miles from Myrtle Beach, SC
0 miles to the Bahamas!
Hello Everybody,
We made it! We’re here! But not at Marsh Harbor, rather Green Turtle Cay
and overnight tonight at Manjack Cay. This Abacos area of the Bahamas is a
little like Narragansett Bay–huge, so it’s as if instead of heading into
Newport we tucked into Pt. Judith. I haven’t been ashore yet, but Jake, Ben
and Peter all went in to have a look around and do the final check in with
customs. They all report that the people are incredibly friendly. They
stop what they’re doing to wave. The customs lady gave Jake a hug and
wished him Merry Christmas (of course that might have been because he gave
her some of our Mahi). The water is a little shallow–less than a foot
under the keel is nerve wracking to say the least. We simply proceeded
slowly and backed up a couple of times (without hitting anything), but that
was at low tide. When we moved the boat at high tide we had a whopping 4
feet below the keel.
Last night was nerve wracking, too. We had about 50 miles to go overnight,
coming onto reefs in the dark, with 10-12 hours to go. The guys all think
of that as a great adventure. I’m more conservative, it just makes me
nervous. Jake instructed Pete not to slow down, so when I got up at 2000
with 43 miles to go and we were making 8 knots, that would have put us into
the reefs at 0300-0330 with 4 hours of darkness left. Peter and I discussed
rolling up sail to slow down for 90 minutes before we finally acted on it.
Good thing, because we slowed down to about 4 knots. At that rate we
arrived at the waypoint at exactly 0700 the target time, just 15 minutes
after the sun came up. We navigated in through the reefs, rocks and the
islands and breaking waves. It was everybody on deck as look out, Jake
driving and me hiding out below at the computer with the charts to verify
our course. (I still don’t know exactly what this place looks like.) We had
a very narrow space to motor through with breaking waves coming through with
us. Pete was watching behind for the breaking waves, and there were a few,
while Ben and Leo watched ahead for a clear path. A wave broke just behind
us as we came in, but luckily didn’t impact us. Now the guys are all
talking about the waves they didn’t mention to Jake. Once safely in and
after 2 tries we finally were anchored in 7.5 feet of water at 1015.
After the business of checking in and buying pole spears to hunt for fish
legally, we moved to a more remote anchorage, Manjack Cay. The guys all
took off: Ben shot a lobster, which we just enjoyed as an appetizer. Pete
returned with half a dozen fish for breakfast tomorrow, and Leo missed.
Jake went kayaking, and I took a shower. The hunters snorkled over a wreck
in 4′ of water and are still talking about how much fun they had.
Ben has great photos on his camera, so we’re hoping he’ll put them on the
web site once he gets back home.
All the best from the crew of avalanche, celebrating our arrival,
friendship,hunting skills and the wonders of the Bahamas.
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