They say, when put to the test, your boat can take more than you can. Today we unwillingly tested this theory. We started the day at 8:00 am with a wonderful sail. We left Frazer's Hog Cay and sailed out to enter the Tongue of the Ocean. We were sailing west and had favorable southerly winds and a favorable current. We were making 6 knots and decided to turn off the motor. It was lovely. This worked for about an hour when the wind took a westerly shift, picked up created lots of waves which slowed us down as we crashed into them. We had to drop the jib and tolerated this for about 2 more hours, sailing on just the mainsail until we entered the Great Bahama Bank. All boats must go through the Northwest Channel. There are shoals on either side so there was no sailing off course to catch the wind. We motor sailed this way for several hours. Due to the on and off squalls during the night I had not slept well, so was getting a little sleepy. We observed some rain on the radar, but I decided to catch 40 winks before the rain hit. Just as I was getting comfy, Charlie called on the radio and checked that we had noticed the approaching bad weather. We had lowered part of our enclosure. Awake and alert now, we decided to close up all sides and it was none too soon. The winds started to pick up and blew between 30 and 40 knots for about the next half hour. The highest gusts were 42 knots, that's 48 mph. The wind was all over the place and waves crashed over the bow. We tossed all our cushions below and gritted our teeth for the worst. Charlie quipped that a fresh water bath wouldn't hurt, but what we got was a continual salt water shower for about an hour and a half. Just about the time the wind abated to less than 20 knots, the thunderstorms hit. Jack had all he could do to keep Caprice on course and we veered somewhat off course to keep the boat manageable and to try to avoid the worst of the thunderstorms. Then finally the rain came. We know from our aviation study of the weather that the rain is the end of the thunderstorm so there was hope we would make it through. Finally after about the longest hour and a half of my life, the rains slackened, the wind and seas calmed and we had once again easy seas and a south westerly wind. We still had to pinch into the wind to stay on course to Gun Cay, but at least it was a pleasant sail.
About 6 pm these two tired sailors called Wyvern and said we'd had enough for today. We are still about 27 miles from Gun Cay, a 5 hour trip. Charlie agreed and we dropped the anchor and cooked some dinner. The cabin was a mess from all the tossing and turning, but no harm done. An odd phenomenon appeared when we finally emerged from our shelter. There was a pile of sand on top of the dodger and our foredeck were covered with sand. We are not sure how that happened. Later on we saw a couple of water spouts forming in the clouds, but they never reached the ground. One theory is that we may have been hit by a water spout and it deposited the sand on top of the boat. There was a point where our dinghy swung so bad it almost tipped over. Jack has it very securely tied and it has never even tipped.
Tonight as we are anchored, the seas are fairly calm but we are keeping an eye on some thunder and rain clouds building in the west. It may not be a calm night after all. We will hit the hay early and sleep while we can. Tomorrow we finish our Bahamas voyage and get ready to cross over back to the States.
If you are reading this, we made it!
MONDAY MAY 5
We had a quiet night after all and awoke to a moderate rainstorm. It was good to get some restful sleep. It was the worst day and the best night we have ever spent on the Great Bahama Bank. Fortunately the rain didn't last long and by 8 am we were ready to take off towards Gun Cay. We had a very mundane sail, motoring very tightly into the wind (as usual). We were able to hoist a main and a jib for most of the day, but didn't get much help. This afternoon the sun came out and it was very pleasant most of the day. When we arrived Charlie put his dingy down and invited us to go on our last beach walk of this Bahamas trip. Since we have never set foot on Gun Cay we accepted. I wanted to walk all the way to the lighthouse. It was a long treacherous walk over this rocky shore, but we made it down the west side of the island and then returned on the east side. Tomorrow we plan to get a very early start and we will be out of touch most of the day as we sail across the Straits of Florida homeward bound. Next stop USA.
The picture is Gun Cay lighthouse.