Days 82-85: Waves Just Keep Coming (and Stuff Keeps Breaking)

Highbourne Cay to Shroud Cay to Warderick Wells to Black Point, Exumas, Bahamas (anchorages)

April 6 to 9 2022

We were out of wifi range for a few days as we traveled through the Exumas Land and Sea Park, which is a long range of islands.  These cays are pristine and are strict about staying that way.  They do not allow any fishing and there are no stores or cell towers.

We left Highbourne, and as always in the Exumas, headed out about a mile into deeper water – deeper being relative since it was about 20 feet. 

It was a little splashy but I have found that sitting next to John so I am looking forward (instead of on the side of the cockpit) and having at least one earbud in seems to help.  Luckily, I downloaded a few Brene Brown books, so I had her voice in my ear for much of the rides the past few days

The water was calm at Shroud Cay so we took a dinghy ride to explore a nearby beach.  The terrain here is a mix of rocky outcroppings with stretches of sandy beaches.  Sometimes there are layers of flat rocks, too.

The next day we took a dingy ride through a mangrove trail.  This trail was much wider than Shark Creek in Great Harbour.  We didn’t time the tide right so we didn’t complete the entire loop.  We still saw many sea turtles so it was perfect.

Since the forecast calls for wind coming from the north on Saturday and there’s not much protection from that direction at Shroud Cay we decided to start moving south towards Black Point or Staniel Cay. We try to have a backup plan especially when weather will be a factor.

We motored out and over to Warderick Wells, which has mooring buoys.  Boats can tie up to these rather than anchor. If the mooring buoys are well maintained, this can be a nicer option than anchoring because they’re spaced well and there’s no worries about anchor drag.

Unfortunately the mooring we wanted was missing a loop, so we wound up anchoring.  While we were dropping the anchor our engine quit.  John was able to restart it.

When we travel from cay to cay we haul our dinghy and its motor separately onto Lailia.  Once we get to an anchorage we have to weigh out desire to go ashore against the amount of work to get the dinghy into the water (and back up again).  The motor weighs about 95lbs and if the sea state is too rough, it’s not worth it to struggle to get it down and onto the dinghy for just a day.  We chose not to deal with it at Warderick. 

John spent some time with our diesel motor trying to troubleshoot the issue.  We were concerned that there might have been water in the line (this can happen when buying diesel in the Bahamas) but this did not appear to be the issue.  There was some air in the line but we were able to bleed it out.

Just as we were heading out this morning our motor died again.  We had enough wind to sail with just our headsail out.  It helped that we had following waves pushing us along – we averaged close to 7 knots.  We were able to get in contact with our boat buddies who were all headed to the Black Point anchorage to make sure there would be room for us.

Some folks like the excitement of living on the edge and others like to be in the safe middle.  I am a safe middle person.  I like both backup and exit plans.  I always know where all the emergency exits are on airplanes and in hotels.  I even have a bug-out system when I stay in a hotel so I can grab my important stuff if we have to evacuate.  I do not like being in a boat with a wonky motor and big winds. I do not like it at all.  I especially don’t like it when we have to drop a sail and anchor in a crowded place.

As we furled the headsail I let go of a line that whipped around.  The other line got pulled out of John’s hand.  I had to steer our boat into a very strong wind against the waves while John recovered the lines and worked the winch to get the sail furled, all while making sure we stayed in enough depth and praying that our engine didn’t die. This may be exhilarating for some folks. It’s not for me.  The engine did not die and John got the headsail in.

Lailia’s engine also got us to our initial anchor drop and after we set the anchor, it died again.  It was a bit close to another boat so once we got the engine started again, we moved to a better spot and dropped anchor again (good thing John fixed the windlass when we were in Nassau).

John found a loose hose clamp which is probably how air was getting into our fuel line.  He tightened it and we’ll let Lailia’s engine run for a while tomorrow to see if this fixes it.  This will allow us to charge my laptop and a bunch of electronic devices and heat water for showers.

Hopefully we’ll be able to drop the dinghy tomorrow and go into Black Point.  We can dispose of our trash there, go to a laundromat, get some groceries and join our friends for a barbecue dinner at the restaurant.  We’ll be here for a few days until the winds go back to a reasonable level.

Since we left 12 weeks ago we (John) have had to  fix or replace a water pump, a wash down pump, the windlass, the alternator, and now the fuel line.  The constant movement of a boat exacerbated by rough seas is really hard on everything.  Our boat buddies are all continuously fixing their stuff, too. I guess fixing stuff can break up the monotony of waiting for weather windows sometimes.