Ñandú

The Sea of Abaco is the body of water sheltered by the Great Abaco Island to the west, and a chain of barrier islands known as the Abaco Cays to the east. As the crow flies, Great Abaco is 50 nautical miles of open ocean north of Spanish Wells. However, the recommended route takes you first about ten miles almost southwest around three islands before heading north, in order to avoid the coral reefs just north of Spanish Wells.

Our mooring neighbors decided to recruit Bandit, a local guide, to do the shorter north route that threads through coral heads. We accepted their offer of joining them and split the cost of the guide, who turned out to be the only grumpy Bahamian we’ve met. So there we were, departing Spanish Wells in a tight dawn caravan of a cat following a cat following a skiff at seven knots when Bandit radioed after a turn. “Pump it up, Ñandú. You can do it.”.

“Er… this is about as fast as we can motor, Bandit.”

“Ok, we’ll slow down, then”, he replied bluntly. There was of course no need to reduce speed, but he nevertheless slowed down. To four knots. To make some kind of statement, I presume. Fine by us.

A few minutes later, before turning around to head home, Bandit directed us to continue with the same heading until we saw a depth of 100 feet; then we could alter course however we wished. When we reached that depth we set full sails and had a quintessential downwind run in company of several other boats that were also taking advantage of the perfect weather to reach Abaco.

By late afternoon we were lowering sails and dropping the anchor in The Bight of Old Richardson, in the exact same spot we had anchored three years ago on a charter boat.

Nearby was Little Harbour, a very special town. In 1950, Randolph Johnston, a renowned Canadian sculptor and college professor set sail from Massachusetts with his family to run away from the hectic pace of modern life. They settled in Little Harbour, which by then was home only to a lighthouse. The Johnstons settlement expanded from a cave to a thatched hut to a foundry to an art colony to a whole off-the-grid and still remote town. Johnston’s artistic legacy is pervasive, with the foundry still working, an art gallery run by one of his sons, and bronze sculptures all over the place.

Spanish Wells, in the north end of the Eleuthera archipelago, was a strategic pit stop for us before jumping to the Sea of Abaco. Unlike other towns we’ve visited, Spanish Wells has a mostly white population (of roughly 1600 inhabitants), descendants of crown loyalists who arrived after the American Revolutionary War. Nowadays  Spanish Wells has a brisk fishing industry, boat yards, restaurants and a variety of shops.

As the days, settlements and miles passed, we had been seeing more and more yellow signs and yellow t-shirts for the incumbent Progressive Liberal Party. Spanish Wells was, in contrast, all red for the conservative Free National Movement. The night we arrived we heard celebratory chants, hollers and honks and immediately knew who had won. We hope they don’t ditch Paris.

Our stay in Spanish Wells was uneventful. We didn’t encounter exotic critters, lightning or 10-knot currents. By far, the most remarkable thing we experienced was the supermarket, the largest we’ve been to in almost four months. It was less than a tenth the size of a small Walmart, but we were dazzled, like kids in a toy store.

To continue our way north we had to go through a narrow passage between two long stretches of land. That channel provides very little room for the whole lot of water on either side that wants to perpetually follow the tide. The consequence is “vicious currents” of “monumental proportions” that scare cruisers, especially first-timers.

So, what’s the name of that cut? You guessed, it’s called Current Cut. And the name of the island south of the cut (the one on the north being actually Eleuthera)? Yup, Current Island indeed. And the rock you would hit if you don’t turn on time? Correct, that’s Current Rock. And the nearby town? Right again, that’s no other than The Current. And what island is The Current on? Nope, you didn’t guess this time, sorry. The Current is not on Current Island, but on the Eleuthera side of Current Cut. I guess it was founded by the same bright guys who founded Kansas City in Missouri.

They say the current at Current Cut can exceed ten knots. That’s about two knots more than the top motoring speed of Ñandú. So, yeah, fighting a strong opposing current is a lost battle. A strong favoring current may seem like a good deal, but it’s not. You need some speed over the water for the rudders to be effective, and going twelve-plus knots when you have to avoid rocks might also lead to a lost battle. Only you’d lose in a more spectacular way than with an opposing current. In fact, if I had to go with such a strong favorable current I’d probably motor against the current in order to reduce the speed over ground (read “speed over the rocks”). What I’m not sure is whether I’d do it facing forward and motoring in reverse, or facing backwards and motoring forward.

People will of course tell you to pass with slack water, but that’s quite a piece of unhelpful advice. Not so much because it’s obvious, but because there’s no reliable way to know when the current goes slack. It’s supposed to be about two hours after high or low tide… except when it’s not, because the wind strength and direction can have a significant effect. And even if we knew exactly when slack was, we were more than 30 nautical miles away. With our wildly variable sailing speed, it could have taken us anywhere between four and eight hours to get there; no easy way to time the arrival anyway. A much simpler and equally sound advice would be “just go there and see what happens”. Even better if there’s someone ahead of you.

As it happened, we reached Current Cut two hours after low tide, and faced an already increasing but manageable opposing current of two knots. There was no other boat doing the Cut ahead of us, though. Too bad, because I was really looking forward to ask for “The Current’s current current” on the radio.

All that stress anticipating an epic battle left us exhausted, even if the battle didn’t occur.  We swiftly anchored right after the crossing and the next morning we beached the dinghy and strolled around The Current. It turned out to be a lovely and slow-paced town.

We left the beautiful Exuma Cays on a lovely day to sail 60 nautical miles to Eleuthera, a long and thin island with roughly 200 miles of coast line. We chose Governor’s Harbour, in Eleuthera’s geographic center, as our landing destination.

We reached a wide harbour devoid of other boats, and picked the only mooring buoy that was “on service”. The other three or four, we were told, were waiting to be inspected and serviced. A front (yet another one) was expected for the day after, bringing clocking winds from the southwest, then west and then northwest. Governor’s Harbour was a pretty historic town to set as base to explore the southern half of Eleuthera by land, but the anchorage is fully open to the west.

On the other hand, Eleuthera has very few anchorages with west wind protection anyway. The only other place close by was Hatchet Bay, a small pond joined to the sea by a man-made canal. For sure we were not the only boats seeking refuge, so if we didn’t find space there we would have been worse off.

To add to the uncertainty, we had read inconsistent reports about Governor’s Harbor under west winds: from “absolutely untennable” on one extreme, to “yeah, we waited out not one but two cold fronts there” on the other side. Also, the very same guy that managed the mooring buoys said, “you are welcome to stay, but if it was my boat I wouldn’t”. Great.

Normally, we feel safer on our own anchor than on any device that we don’t know if it’s properly installed or maintained, but the situation was different here because our chart has a note that claims that Governor’s Harbour is “widely known as the worst holding ground in the Bahamas”.

We resolved to check the mooring ourselves and decide depending on how it looked. We dove 20ft (6m) to the bottom. The buoy and its rode looked in good condition, and the rode was attached through a sturdy iron ring to a huge cement block about 3ft per side. Everything seemed fine, strong, and immovable. Except for one detail. The ring was not on top of the block, but on a side. The side that faced west. And the rode was not chain, but rope. That meant that precisely with a west wind, the rope was going to rub against the edge of the block, which wasn’t exactly smooth. The taught rope could chafe and break in no time, setting us adrift in the middle of the night. Not an attractive scenario.

We didn’t really have good alternatives, though, so we decided to make do with what we had, and that 2-ton block of concrete was the best anchor we could have in the worst holding ground in The Bahamas. We just had to improve the weak link: the attachment between the block and the boat.

The first measure was to have a backup attachment in case the buoy broke free from the block. The idea was to detach our secondary anchor from its rode, lower the rode to the sea floor, thread it through the block’s ring, and shackle the rode back to itself to form a loop (since the rode has a 20-foot chain lead, chafing against the block was not an issue).

The plan looked trivial on paper. I thought I’d need two or three dives to the bottom and be done. I overlooked that you cannot just happily swim with 20 feet of chain. Nope. The chain sinks and you sink with it! I overlooked that I was going to receive a (allegedly accidental) kick in the netherlands. I overlooked that by the time you reach the bottom 20 feet below, you’re already almost out of breath. I overlooked that it was going to take long enough for me to get cold to the point of shivering. I overlooked that murky waters, lack of breath, shivering muscles and a scratched snorkeling mask in lieu of prescription glasses are not the best conditions for finicky work such as joining two links of chains with a shackle. The estimated couple of dives turned into a dozen dives from each of us, but we ultimately completed the job.

Then, for extra safety we attached a length of fire hose around the buoy’s rope and lowered it to the bottom. (Yes, we carry fire hose, because it’s great precisely for chafe protection). We spent almost two hours in the water, but now the buoy’s rope was better protected against chafing, and if it broke anyway then our backup attachment would keep us safe.

That night the front came, winds clocked west, the water became agitated, thunder was heard, dreams were interrupted, lightning was seen, and the boat rocked, yawed and pitched playing hobby horse, but it remained roughly in the same place.

Before departing we had to dive again to release our chain. Everything looked fine, but on a closer inspection, it was obvious that the fire hose saved the mooring line. Swimming back to the boat, I saw a school of small fish under our hull. At first I was happy to see life. Then I figured that a hull supporting a full ecosystem doesn’t speak well about the effectiveness of the bottom paint, which is there precisely to discourage marine life growth. Oh well. There’s always something.