Providenciales, Turks & Caicos
09 February 2013
So we left with a 4-5 day weather window from Georgetown on Tuesday morning at first light. Our destination would be Rum Cay, approx 58nm away. Since we were in deep water (over 15,000’ at times) I tried my hand at fishing. It wasn’t long before we had one large Mai Mai in the freezer. The second one got away with my brand new lure so the score for the day was even.
We were expecting a tricky anchorage and we sure got it. Luckily the late afternoon sun was behind us and we managed to dodge all the coral heads with a bit of help from Bobby who owns the local Sumner Point Marina. He came out on his paddle board to show us the end of the long spit of land just at the final entrance. We docked on the old docks and realized that the picture in the guide book must have been about a hundred years old. As I was securing the dock lines I already noticed the 5-6’ sharks milling around.
Nevertheless Bobby and his young Norwegian girlfriend (Gro) were very pleasant. The property was originally purchased by Bobby’s parents in 1965 and he has been there ever since. Bobby was an artist who made sculptures from the washed up coral heads he finds on the beach. He sells them at various markets and was very proud to show me around that evening. Gro just finished backing four loaves of bread in their outdoor stone oven which they also use for pizzas and so on. The place had some small cottages on it that they rented out. The feel of the place was very much of a commune and all payment was on the honor system.
Shortly behind us there came two other boats from Quebec and New Brunswick and we helped Bobby tie them up. One of the boaters had caught two Mai Mai and asked Bobby’s friends to clean them for him. They had a cleaning station on the dock and as soon as they carried the fish to it the sharks started to circle around. Lemon sharks, Nurse sharks and the very aggressive Bull sharks all went crazy when the guys dropped in the heads and carcasses of the fish. I can’t imaging swimming in areas with these guys.
The next day we left once again with a 200nm trip ahead of us. this would take us approx 30hrs to complete and when we were done we would be in the Turks & Caicos. Four boats left with the same destination including our friends Doug & Cherry on Moma Cal. By mid morning after a bit of a flukey start to the wind we were sailing along with a nice 12knt wind on our beam reach. We killed the hours by reading, sleeping and I mad e two loaves and a baguette of bread. By nightfall the wind picked up a bit and we were screaming along at over 7kts. Donna and I would take turns sleeping and watching throughout the night. At 0400 when I woke her up for her watch I said “look out the starboard window”. There was a Carnival cruise boat that passed by within 1.5nm from us with all it’s deck lights on. It felt very close but I was glad to have been aware of it some 24nm back on my AIS system. Knowing they could see me was also reassuring.
We arrived at Sapodilla Bay at mid afternoon and dropped anchor. Doug & Cherry arrived shortly after.
Today we just spent some time seeing the sights from the dingy and spending some ‘beach time’. A gorgeous day with light south winds. We made arrangements to tack a dock for the next few days and rent a car for the rest of the week. We plan on playing tourist for the rest of the week while the wind is expected to increase as a result of the storms along the east coast.