We have made 800 miles in 5 1/2 days. Not a blistering pace, but respectable. After cutting over the Puerto Rican Trench, at nearly 30,000 feet some of the Earth’s deepest water, we are now approaching Anagada, the Northeastern most of the British Virgin Islands. Once we enter the Anagada Passage, we will officially leave the North Atlantic Ocean, and enter the Caribbean Sea.
Our winds continue to be almost bizarrely favorable. The only possible complaint is right at the moment we could use a bit more, but a little motoring in calm seas is vastly better than the hard-core closehauled beat this route would normally require.
It has been an uneventful trip so far in waters relatively empty of shipping. The highlight was Karen’s spotting of a distant splash, which quickly turned into a humpback whale jumping repeatedly out of the water. These waters are the winter calfing and breeding grounds for these huge creatures, so not too surprising to see them.
Martinique is about 330 miles as the seagull flies, we expect to be pulling in there in two days
We left Cape Eleuthera 3 days ago, and have covered 420 miles since. Not a terrible fast trip, but easy and comfortable. The weather continues to give us exactly what we need, and the forecast continues to look good. For anybody used to sailing in the Caribbean, the idea that anyone could sail from the Bahamas to Martinique in one go and very sail upwind will seem almost laughable, but here we are!
This part of the ocean is really very empty. A highlight of the day is if we have two other vessels within 25 miles. Not much exiting to report. Winds right now are on the lighter side, we are on a beam reach with winds from the NNW at 8, it’s sunny and comfortable.
Our expected arrival in La Marin, Martinique is April 1, making this one of our longer passages on Harmonie so far.
What does a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral look like 450 miles down range?
We were lucky, the original launch time was originally 5PM, but it was delayed a couple hours so the sun had set, but was still illuminating the sky, dramatically lighting the contrail.
This was a SpaceX launch of 23 new Starlink satellites.
We have been moving around away from the boat on deliveries, and working on refits in Fort Lauderdale, now we are back on Harmonie, and ready to sail. Karen is right now up at the marina office settling our bill. Harmonie has been waiting patiently for us in Cape Eleuthera Marina, and as a reward for her tolerance of us playing on other boats, we are taking her for a nice long ride starting today.
What a difference a day makes…
Yesterday, and overnight, a strong cold front blasted through, and has upset the normal trade winds for the next week. We are taking advantage of this unusual weather pattern to jump ahead of what would normally be a nasty upwind slog. If the weather forecasts hold we might get as far as Martinique over the next 7 or 8 days. Of course that is a long time to trust the weather forecasts, but we have alternatives if things do not turn out as expected.
The fly in the ointment here is we can not easily get an outbound clearance from the Bahamas here. Not a problem for the Bahamas, it is not required, but there are other countries down range that DO require an outbound clearance, and others that do not. So our next Port of Call will be at a country that does not require this particular paperchase. Our choices will be, Puerto Rico, the USVI, the French side of Saint Martin, and any of the French islands.
We are not completely happy with jumping out of the Bahamas so soon, but sometimes weather drives decisions.
We have begun our migration south and east from Cape Eleuthera We made a short stop to anchor for the night off of Cat Island, and then proceeded to sail the 75 miles south to Georgetown.
Our SailLogger track from yesterday. Cat Island to Georgetown.
As is our normal procedure when weather allows, as soon as we cleared the reefs and got out into open water, we set our fishing lines. We were targeting wahoo specifically because we find them especially tasty, and this area has been quite productive at delivering them for us.
We had not gone very far, sailing along at 6 knots, when the drag on our biggest rod started to scream. We furled the genoa to slow down, and headed off the wind a bit. By the time I got back to the rod, a LOT of line had peeled off the reel. It was quickly apparent that this was a very big, strong fish.
I had Karen break out the harness that transfers the pull of the rod to my back, instead of just my arms. This rod is spooled with 80 lb test line, and when a large fish is running drag out, there is a LOT of pressure on the rod.
Although the initial run was a fast as I’d expect from a large wahoo, the rest of the fight was very different. Wahoo make 3, maybe 4, really fast runs, and then they are spent. This fight settled into a powerful tug of war. The fish dove deep, and every time I’d get him up close to the surface, he would race down again in a very non-Wahoo like fashion. Each dive became shorter as he tired. And a good thing, too. My arms were getting a bit wobbly!
About 20 minutes after the first contact, I get him close enough that we can see, and my first impression is a long thin fish with blue stripes. At first, I am sure I have a HUGE wahoo, but the tail looks too big… Wait… wahoo don’t have a dorsal fin like that… And it has a bill! It’s a Striped Marlin!
Striped marlin at boatside.
Now most fisherman have a bucket list of fish they hope–someday–to catch. If you fish in the freshwater lakes of North America, it might be a muskie, the largest member of the pike family. Large, rare and hard to catch. For most salt water sport anglers, marlin are at the top of this category. Striped marlin are small as far as this family of apex predators go, topping out at “only” about 400 pounds. The black marlin tops out well over 1500 lbs.
This is our first marlin, so a fishing milestone for Harmonie. I’d guess 7 or 8 feet in length, and 150 to 200 lbs. Although they are very good eating, in the Bahamas all members of the billfish family must be released. It takes us some time to solve the riddle of how to get him unhooked in the water, but we eventually get it sorted out and off he swam.
Every fisherman will want to know what we caught this fish on…
Big baits, big fish! This is a lure out of Australia, a Nomad Minnow DTX 220. A deep diving, beast of a plug. The marlin was caught on a slightly different color, Purple and pink, not the black and purple in the photo. It’s become our goto for wahoo although we have hooked mahi-mahi and tuna on them as well.
While I have known that these lures are used by people specifically targeting marlin, for some reason it never really occurred to me that we might hook one.
Are there more fish on my bucket list? You bet… a swordfish and any of the large, deep-water groupers. I reserve the right to add to the list at anytime!
Georgetown
If you have followed our travels, you might remember that Georgetown tends to be a bit too “people-y” for us. Right now there are over 400 boats here in the harbor. People come here for the social activities, with many staying most of the season. Sort of the very reasons we tend to leave this anchorage as quickly as we can!
We had a chance today to visit the grocery store here in town which is small, but well stocked. Prices are quite high, but not wildly so for the Bahamas. The supply boat arrived yesterday, so the staff was busy restocking the produce section.
From here we will visit some of the uninhabited islands in the far eastern reaches of the Bahamas that are more our speed. If we find a weather window suitable, we will be back here to restock, and jump off for Puerto Rico.
Our Round trip, from Cape Eleuthera in the Bahamas to Charleston South Carolina, and back.
And no, it is NOT sailing!!!
We just completed a delivery sail bringing a Hylas 54 sailboat from Charleston, SC down to Cape Eleuthera Marina in the Bahamas, which is where we started the trip, and where we left Harmonie waiting for us.
Adventures in Travel
The marina in Cape Eleuthera is about 50 miles from the main airport on the island at Governors Harbour where American Airlines has just started running twice a week flights to Miami. We left the marina by taxi at 9AM, and an hour later arrived at the airport ready to board our flight. Just one problem. No airplane.
Turns out that a private twin engine turboprop has landed and had its brakes lockup on the runway. So the airport is essentially closed until they can figure out how to move it. Our plane is waiting in Miami for confirmation that they actually have a runway to land on before they take off. Eventually, the mechanics get the brakes released enough that they can move the plane, and our incoming flight arrives, two and a half hours late.
All the King’s horses and all the King’s men… “Now how does this work?”
We arrive in Miami 17 minutes before our connection to Charleston is leaving. For anybody who has been through customs in Miami, you already know that you can walk for 20 minutes just to get to the back end of the line. There was no way we were making our connection.
We get through Customs, and to the service counter to rebook, and we find out there are no empty seats available to Charleston for the rest of the day, but they can book us on the last flight of the day, at 10PM, as standby. It is likely we will get on the flight, because we are number 1&2 on the standby list, and there are a lot of weather delays on incoming flights.
Sure enough, they call us at the gate and we get boarding passes, and settle in our seats, the last two seats on the plane. We stow our carry ons, and buckle our seatbelts… then an agent comes up and says, “Sorry! One of the flight attendant jump seats is broken, one of you has to leave, we need the extra seat for crew.”
We decide that we will both bail, since it makes no sense for one of us to get there. Back into the airport we go, to another service counter. The best they can do is a 3:30 flight the next afternoon. Sigh. Well, if that’s it, that’s it. Can you cover our hotel for the night? Nope. It was a traffic delay, not our fault, no hotel voucher.
Now part of this logistical nightmare I do very well, but now we are in the territory of my chef negotiator: I turn Karen loose on them and go sit down. Fifteen minutes later we have a hotel voucher for a 4 star hotel in downtown Miami, and two meal vouchers as well. It’s her magic superpower.
From there on things went as planned expected. Our flight was on time, and we collected our baggage which was on the flight we were pulled off of the previous night, and grabbed an Uber to arrive at the marina in Charleston at 6:30PM.
So how fast is 21st century travel?
As the seagull flies, from Cape Eleuthera Marina to the City Marina in Charleston is 512 miles. In 33.5 hours. For a grand total of: 15 miles per hour. Welcome to the Jet Age! Not all that much faster than we can sail…
And the Sail…
…was mostly uneventful. No nasty weather, although we pushed hard with a lot of motor sailing to keep our speed up because we were racing an approaching cold front and its strong winds to the Bahamas. We arrived 6 slips over from Harmonie about 10 hours ahead of the bad weather. Perfect.
Nothing on the boat broke. We had no unpleasant surprises. Nobody was hurt. Except for a bit of mal de mer in the crew, all was fun and exciting.
And…
From here we get to play on Harmonie for a few weeks before our next paid gig. We are going to bounce around the Bahamas for a while, then head out east to the Windward Islands of the Caribbean, with a next target of Martinique. We will certainly be making multiple stops to get there.
We have been hunkered down in the protection of Rock Sound at the south end of Eleuthera for the last several days while a series of weather systems blew through one after another.
This is an image from our anchor watch system. It alerts us if we are moving more than the allowed distance from the place we set the anchor. We arrived to light winds out of the south, and have seen winds from the NE to the SW blowing steady in the high 30’s with gusts to a little over 40.
As you might infer from the picture, we have just swung around the fixed point that is our anchor. Thanks to our 105 lb Mantus anchor, it does the job, yet again. We did not see any major issues in the harbor, although the boat nearest use did drag along for a bit in the strongest winds. They never broke free, but ended up several hundred feet downwind of where they started.
A Visit
Before we hid in here, we took a day of calm winds to go out fishing. We didn’t do a lot of catching, but had fun. At one point, we were drifting along surrounded by the collection of fish that any boat attracts here: A school of small yellowtail snapper, and an assortment of small sharks 3 or 4 feet long hoping to make a meal of whatever we might hook. Karen points off across the flat calm water and says, “There is something coming toward us in the water!” Looking over, there is a fast moving wake, headed our way, still several hundred feet away.
My first thought is a dolphin coming over to check us out, but the wave I see is bigger than I would expect. It gets closer, and breaks the surface. It is brown, not gray like a dolphin, and Geez! It is big! It passes right within arm’s reach of the back of the boat. It’s a monster tiger shark. I can’t say for sure how big it was, but Harmonie is 15 feet wide, and this fish was close to that. It didn’t stop, or even slow down, but just kept going. As he disappeared, I looked down, and ALL of the small fish including the small sharks, have disappeared. No fools, they.
Of course this all happened too fast for us to gather our wits and get a photo, so you’ll just have to take our word for it! I’m thinking it might be a while before I go swimming again…
For many years the Bahamas has outlawed the killing of any sharks. The population of these apex predators here is way higher than anywhere else we have been. The local fisherman refer to them as the “tax man” because they frequently take a bite of whatever you are trying to land on the end of your line.
Plans
We are going to be heading in to the Cape Eleuthera Marina tomorrow, where we will leave Harmonie and fly out of the Bahamas to Charleston where we will pick up a Hylas 54 for delivery to… Cape Eleuthera Marina! The round trip should take 6 or 7 days.
We spend last night quietly at anchor in Rock Sound at the southern end of Eleuthera. We were up and moving pretty early because we expected the weather to be good for some fishing. It seems like forever since we have had the chance to get some fishing in.
By 11 AM we had our lines in the water hunting for one of the best tasting fish in the ocean, a Wahoo.
Just about an hour later, we had hooks into our target, and a few minutes later, a 28 pound Wahoo was on the deck. Not a monster, but a respectable catch.
Butchering a large fish like this is not a quick process, and it leaves the cockpit a bloody mess. But eventually the fish was turned into portions suitable for the freezer.
We ended the day at Little San Salvador, with a beautiful sunset, and fresh fish on the dinner table.
We spent last night at Royal Harbor near the northern end of the island of Eleuthera. A cold front blew through with a bit of rain and winds in the mid twenties. This is one of the few places in the Bahamas with good protection from all directions, so the shift winds as the front moves by aren’t an issue. Not to rub it in for our readers in more northerly climates, but “cold” here in the Bahamas in January means the mid 60’s
Today we are taking advantage of the winds from the northwest to make our way south and east. In the protected waters east of Eleuthera we are sailing fast downwind, and as a sailor friend of mine used to say, “Fast is fun!” Although I’m pretty sure he wasn’t thinking of this, that is not only true for the people on the boat.
For most of the past hour we have had a lone bottle nose dolphin accompanying us. Sometimes following behind, sometimes racing ahead to play in the bow waves.
Whenever these creatures come to the boat to visit and play, I am never sure who is watching who, and who is enjoying the game more.
We’ll be anchoring in Rock Sound this evening. The forecast for tomorrow is for much lighter winds, perfect for fishing!
Making your way eastward on a sailboat in the Bahamas is a challenge. Sitting squarely in the tradewinds, the prevailing winds in the islands varies from northeast to southeast. Any trip to the east requires either waiting for a break in the winds, or sucking it up and beating into them.
Our usual preference is to wait, and we have, for weeks in some cases. This time we decided to take it on the nose for our voyage from Lucaya to Royal Harbor. The forecast was for winds of 10 to 18 knots, and was very accurate.
We’re now about 26 hours into it, and closing in on our destination. The boat is making good speed, close hauled, a smooth ride, although a bit wet on deck.
fetchinketch 