We get notice of Hurricane Joaquin when we are on our second
day in the Market Fish Cays. We are the only boat in our favorite anchorage by
Soldier Cay. Jeff sends us a message on
our satellite communicator, DeLorme Inreach, that a hurricane, Joaquin, has
slipped past Ida, which fizzled out, and has strengthened just east of Bahamas
and is headed our way.
Fly Away at Soldier Cay in calm seas
We are midway between 2 outstanding hurricane holes, Great
Harbor and Chub Cay. We are experiencing
15-20 knot winds from the north so we decide to go south back to Chub Cay. If we do that we will need to head back to
Florida via the Bahama Bank, instead of the northern route via Northwest
Providence Channel by Freeport and West End, Grand Bahama. We agree it’s the better course, so we enjoy
a fabulous downwind sail for about 20 nautical miles and endure 8 nm going into
an east northeast wind to Chub Cay. We go
into the marina and get a slip. We are the only boat in the marina except for the owner's boat. The
marina is protected 360 degrees with a channel that curves back and forth
before opening up to the slips. It still
rock and rolls. The fisherman who tie
up along the channel are rocking about 4 feet, but where we are is still and calm,
and we hope to be safe.
We remove the headsail and secure the main sail on the boom
with tight crisscrossed lines. Daryl secures
the dinghy in the next slip. In the
event of severe weather, we plan to deflate the tubes a little and fill the
hull with water to partially submerge.
We leave the outboard motor on to give it weight. On Fly Away we check all the halyards and tie
them off to the mast to avoid clanging and chafe.
We visit the club manager, Michael, who is unconcerned about the hurricane as we
are not in the path according to all weather forecasts. All forecasts show the storm going northeast
away from us. For now, though, it is
building and moving southwest toward us.
Michael lives in a beach house with bullet proof plate glass
windows! He also has a 2 engine plane, a
Cessna Seneca 6 seater that cruises at 182 mph! He is from Eleuthera and has
managed Cat Cay Club and Bimini’s Big Game and Fish. But he does sound unsure. He shows us the
marina plans and assures us we are in a very good location. He also says he
will take care of us. Good to know. As sailors, we watch weather and appreciate
forecasts, but we make our own decisions, so we tell him we will continue to
watch the storm, prepare our boat, and be ready to leave the boat if necessary. There are rooms available to rent – one level
hotel type rooms on the island. He tells us Dan Scott is the man to talk with
about flights off the island. We ask about
the captain of the big boat, C’mon, Man, from Matagorda, TX.
The captain’s name is Bobby and he helped us with lines our
first day. He keeps the boss’s boat
immaculate. The boss is the Chub Cay Club
owner, George Bishop of Texas. Bobby is also unconcerned about Joaquin and he
is a survivor of both Andrew in 1992 in Miami and Katrina 2005 in New
Orleans. He was a charter boat captain
in New Orleans, so he knows. Or does
he? It’s a Disney-esque, head in the
sand, nothing bad can happen attitude – weird.
The boat is a 4.5M Viking sportfisherman that goes 54 mph and gets to
Ft. Lauderdale in a couple of hours!! It
has stabilizing gyros for big waves forward and back, side to side, and it
all runs on an iPad! Very clever. He tells us he will keep us updated and make
sure nothing bad happens to us.
Hmmm.
C'mon, Man, a Viking Sportfisherman
the only other boat in the Chub Cay Marina
In the cool of the evening, we remove the bimini and dodger
and tie everything down. This hurricane
threat is not what we hoped for, but sailing in hurricane season (June 1 –
November 30) carries that risk and we have planned, and are prepared, to do
what is necessary to save our boat and ourselves. We hope it turns north sooner rather than
later, but hope is not a plan. We plan to be safe. To sail again!
Fly Away prepared for hurricane
Note the empty slips
Fly Away put back together
Note the beautiful weather
Hurricane Joaquin has quickly become a dangerous category 4
hurricane and is still headed our way.
We check our surroundings and realize there are some vulnerabilities in
the marina. It’s got state of the art floating docks, but the pilings are only
about 10 feet at low tide. A Cat 4 storm
with 6-12 foot surge and higher than normal tides would render the marina a mess
of pick up sticks. But that’s a worst case and we are hopeful for a better
scenario.
On Friday the storm turns.
“Hooray!” as Ann says. It is
going northeast quickly, speeding away from us, exactly as all the forecasts
indicated. We are sooo very lucky and
grateful to miss The Big One. A frontal storm
in the US moved though to push the hurricane on its new path, so US to the rescue!
Unfortunately, a large container ship off the coast of Long
Island, (yes, there is a Long Island in the Bahamas) went down in 15,000 feet
of water with 33 people lost. We come to
find later that it’s a US registered boat with a Maine Maritime Academy
graduate as captain. Extremely sad.
Tropical storm conditions reach 200 miles from its center so
we prepare for an interesting night. Ready
to adjust lines on the dock in the dark and maybe blinding rains. We dress for bed in easy to dry clothes. We tie lines up and down the 2 slips and
adjust the boat for wind ‘down the hatch’ wind scoop. It’s overcast and cool, but very light air.
Hardly enough to keep the wind generator working and the seas are flat. We adjusted lines twice, but nothing major,
thankfully.
As guests at the marina we are welcome to join workers at
the staff caff, so we do lunch with all the workers. We meet Byron Ellington, the supervisor, who
is a photographer when he is not working on the reverse osmosis water plant or the
power plant. He posts on facebook and
has uploaded pictures of Fly Away at sunset when we were in the anchorage. They are lovely.
Fly Away in Chub Cay Anchorage by Byron Ellington
For more pictures and videos visit his facebook page
We awake to high seas and find it’s too rough to leave the
marina so we stay another couple of days and put the boat back together. I polish the stainless stain bows of the
bimini and dodger before we put it back up.
Put the head sail back on and untie the main sail.
As soon as the seas subside and the winds become more favorable,
we head out for the Northwest Channel and the Bahama Bank to Bimini. We spend 2 nights on the bank and stop at Cat
Cay for fuel, provisions, and shopping for Cat Cay t-shirts for Amy and all my
cat friends. We move the boat up to the
beautiful pool-like waters of Bimini and rest before we cross the Gulf Stream. We have about 175 miles to Cape Canaveral and
hope to catch some advantage of the Stream.
The seas are high from residual hurricane conditions, but they are
manageable and die down as we move north.
It’s a glorious crossing. We see stars, sliver moon, and planets at night
off the Bahamian coasts. We pass between huge thunderstorms on the US east
coast. Still, the waves grow as we get closer to the
US coast and we decide to go in at Ft. Pierce about 65 miles south of Cape
Canaveral. It takes us 2 days to move up
the Intracoastal Waterway to Titusville and its Municipal Marina.
Home for now. Work to do - bottom job, new head sail, cats to visit. Then, back to the Bahamas!
