Sapadilla Bay
07 February 2013 | Turks and Caicos
Overcast
DAY 80 - February 6th 2013 - Provo - Turks and Caicos - 21 44.25N:72 17.40W
Still sleepy from the drugs for my cold I heard Donna on the dock saying we are leaving in 15 minutes. Oh Lord, up and at em as they say. We were ready to leave in minutes and followed Kathrian and Oasis out of the channel, a new friend Jolies Julie followed us. The four of us are crossing to Provo together. Actually I did not know that we were going that far, not my choice I wanted to visit the Acklins or Mayaguana. In hindsight that is what we should have done and headed there. Chatting over the radio we decided we would carry on with the others to Provo, a longer passage but everything was good. By middle afternoon we were under sail with the motor running and the sun out and then the engine started to power down in speed for no reason. We turned it off and waited a little while, this was not the usual problem we had with the engine which had been behaving since Doug changed the lift pump (have no idea what it is), so we thought it was fixed. It was not a pleasant feeling to watch the others sail away into the distance. Doug did a little bit of maintenance but nothing seemed to work. She started every time but after a few hours powered down again. By now the wind is picking up and night is coming on, engine is behaving and we drove on into the dark and what a dark night it was, the stars were out in force and we were rocking and rolling all night long hitting 7.5 knots sometimes, I asked Doug to slow us down to 6.5 knots for my watch (engine still working). Not comfortable at all, slept for two hours at a time, will this night ever end. Jack Radioed us to tell us there was a cruise ship coming up fast behind us, fortunately I had noticed it and it passed to our starboard side about 3 miles away. It was all lit up and looked much closer than it was. I was asleep when the sun came up thank goodness at least we can now see. I was thinking of the Freedom 65 ad, about the grey haired pretty lady coming out of the yacht with coffee in her hand and joining her equally grey haired handsome husband on the deck. WELL this dream burst its bubble. Scrambling across everything in the cabin that had been thrown in there from the engine room, up into the cockpit, bouncing from side to side to see my worst nightmare. Grey skies, black sea and huge waves, no land in sight. The black clouds on the horizon telling us it going to get worse and it did. We reefed the gib and just bounced along with the engine still running until about 13.00hrs and then it said enough and powered down again (If anyone has any suggestions why this is happening please comment). We turned her off and carried on still doing about 5.5 knots with a tiny gib. As we rounded the southern tip of Mayaguana, the waves were at their worse and then started to subside, engine fired up again and the sun came out. Heading into Provo the sea turned to a pretty blue and started to calm. We drove into the Sandbore Channel and another hour to Sapodilla Bay at 17.00, 34 hours from leaving Rum Cay, we anchored close to Kathrian. So glad to set the anchor, tidied up the mess in the cabin and was in bed by 18.30. I felt awful my cold was draining me, took 2 pills and slept through the night at peace.