Georgetown Passage – Day 2, Part II, 12-30-08

OOPS! Sorry, folks, the REALLY slow internet in Norman's Cay had me
distracted. I missed

this one...


When we left you, night had fallen on Allan’s Cay’s anchorages.
Several boats had left, and

more had arrived – rather more than were there before, actually. We
were joined in our

section in the space between Allan’s Cay and the two long islands
north of us by several

sailboats and a couple of power boats. Still lots of room and a very
comfortable place to

stay

Despite our having been up to see the sunrise, we dallied over our
morning coffees and

visits to the patio rather longer than we should. As a result, I
discovered that I’d

miscalculated the slack tide period when I wanted to go under the boat
to check out the prop

and clean the third speed sensor’s surrounding area, and the current
was running

enthusiastically. So, I gave up on the speed sensor, as I’d have
nothing to hang on to, and

went for the prop.

However, the current got my hookah’s air line caught up in one of the
fishing lines we’d put

out overnight, in hopes of catching something larger than the two very
small fish we managed

to hook in the entire time we’ve been trolling in the Bahamas. In the
course of

disentangling the line, Lydia managed to lose the bottom half (it’s a
collapsible, designed

to come apart for easy stowing, and she’d lifted on the top part of
the pole when she was

removing it from the holder) of the pole, and urged me to hurry to get
it.

Of course, it wasn’t going anywhere, having sunk immediately below the
boat, and I could see

it clearly, so I just grabbed my mask, leaving the fouled air line
behind, and headed down.

However, I learned how strong the current was when I had to swim
vigorously just to get to

it, and keep swimming as I came up to avoid ending up far behind the
boat. Once that was

out of the way, and the line was cut after I flung the lure aboard,
getting it out of my air

line, I got my hookah regulator and went below with my trusty serrated
knife that I always

carry.

I was dismayed to find that not only was there a remnant of the prior
mooring line around

the prop, some of it was jammed into the spaces between the body and
the blades (which

rotate as they change from feathered to forward or reverse). No
wonder she’d not had the

power she’d expected!

Ah, well, plenty of air, and the rudder skeg to brace myself against,
I went to work cutting

away the remnants of the line. I was very glad to see that it hadn’t
solidified, from the

heat of rotation, into a solid block of nylon, like the rope I cut
away, eventually, with a

hammer and chisel, on our friends’ boat in Lake Worth about this time
last year! Still, I

wasn’t able to dislodge the line under the prop ears, and had to
content myself with

removing all but that small amount, sawing away the loose ends on both
sides of all the

ears. Once that was done, I grabbed the ears and attempted to make
them rotate, but

couldn’t move it more than a few degrees by my own force. However,
Perky’s 62 HP could

exert far more pressure than I on the long edges of the ears of the
prop (the way they

change direction from forward to reverse and to go into the feathered
position when the

engine’s not turning), and I was hopeful that would suffice.

While I was down there, I took advantage of the time to cut away some
fishing line that had

become wrapped around our prop shaft, next to the cutlass bearing.
That took a while, but

eventually I came back out, When I came up, Lydia said she’d lost the
top of the pole in the

course of disentangling the lure and the remaining line. I expected
it to sink quickly as

well, but despite a leash (the same famous mooring line which of which
I’d just cut the

remnants from the prop) I had her hold me on as I swept the area
around the stern of the

boat and to both sides, I didn’t see it. So, I’m happy it was an
inexpensive combo I’d

gotten at WalMart, leaving me with a serviceable reel for some other
pole, or perhaps, given

that we troll with a release catch, I’ll just try it by itself and a
light drag to see what

happens.

I did, however, while I was down there working, and again as I was
sweeping the area, see

the boat behind us’ Fortress anchor with only part of one fluke dug
in. As it had a short

length of chain, and the rest rope, rode, and the other anchor he had
out was all chain, I

presume that was his secondary. In any event, by that time, the
current was benign, and the

winds relatively calm, so it likely would not have mattered. Once I
finished with the sweep

for the missing pole section, I stowed all the stuff in the lazarette
that had to be removed

in order to get to our dive gear.

By a little after noon, we were ready to raise anchor and head south
to Norman’s Cay.

Before I started that process, however, I started Perky up and proved
that, even if it

wasn’t perfect, there was, indeed, ear rotation from forward to
reverse, and plenty of

power. So, while I’ll want to make another visit to the prop to
confirm its security (this

time, perhaps, with a much thinner blade in order to get into the
spaces between the body

and the ears), for now, it sufficed. As referenced in my last, the
anchor raising was

uneventful, and, I’m thankful to report, free of debris on either the
chain or the anchors

themselves. Gotta love this Bahamian water!!

The first thing in the morning, I’d contacted Chris Parker’s
replacement and learned that

the wind would be from the north-northeast at only 5-10 knots,
expected to stay that way for

the next few days. As our travels would be southeast, and our
forward speed would move the

apparent wind forward, we anticipated a spinnaker run on a beam or
broad reach.

Unfortunately, that trip turned out to be with the wind, and very
little of it, at that,

directly astern. As we motored out to our turning point, and headed
to our next waypoint in

order to see what sails to set in what configuration, the apparent
wind was dead astern, or

no more than 30 degrees to port, and either nonexistent or at most a
couple of knots with

our 5+ knot cruising motoring speed.

Faced with a 2-3 knot real speed should we try to go with the
spinnaker, and our late start,

we elected to – again – YUCK! (another thing we really don’t like,
along with always-on TV,

and this time, WE’RE doing it) motor our way to Norman’s Cay in order
to have the hook down

before sundown. Fortunately, it was a very short trip, and the
waypoint into the anchorage

area allowed a turn that did, indeed provide a very nice, albeit,
short, beam reach under

sail.

The entrance, as is the case in many of these anchorages, looked
daunting on the charts (all

half-dozen of them we used, including the chartplotter’s), and the
cruising guides (again a

half-dozen varieties of all sorts) weren’t all that encouraging,
either, disagreeing on

several key points. The Explorer charts, widely thought of as the
absolute authority in

Bahamian navigation, pointed out that this area had many unsurveyed
areas, that VPR (visual

pilotage rules) applied, and a sharp lookout must be maintained at all
points. However, we

could see that there were many boats anchored in what, from the
various sources we

consulted, looked, despite a supposed very shallow area, to be the
ideal location.

We picked our way in, avoiding the sandbars, the rocks, and other
scary stuff, and found

ourselves in about 12 feet of water at nearly low tide. There was
plenty of room and

everyone was using a single anchor, so we snugged up pretty close to
another boat’s stern

and let our primary, the 55# Delta, down. I could see it land, and
the current was running

against our direction of travel, so I could also see it dig in as I
let out scope about 10

feet at a time, letting it further set each time. Eventually, we
wound up parallel to

another boat, with about 125’ of chain out. I had Lydia reverse hard,
and Flying Pig stopped

short and curtseyed, proving a very secure hook.

As we were well before dark, we set about relaxing and watching for
the green flash at

sundown. No such luck, this time (we’ve yet to see one), but the sky
was brilliantly lit

above the last remnants of the sun with green shafts, so it was pretty
satisfying anyway.

Pulling out the remains of the pasta and conch, and adding a soup dish
for extra warmth,

having gotten a bit chilled when the sun went down, we enjoyed our
light dinner.

Norman’s Cay is infamous for its prior involvement with the drug
trade, Carlos Lehder at one

point owning entirely half of the island, and has a DC3 awash at all
but the highest tides

in the harbor area to show for it, along with some shot-up houses and
other remnants. Those

were among the attractions we wanted to check out the next day, and we
once again hit the

sack early.

Things to do, places to go, sights to see, this again has gotten long,
so I’ll leave you

here in Paradise. Tomorrow we’ll tell you of our adventures on and
under the water on New

Year’s Eve…

As always, those on our log lists will receive real-time reports, but
those seeing these in

the forums will have to wait until we have good internet
connectivity. There’s no internet

service here, and we don’t know when the next will be, but you can see
our progress on our

SPOT page, http://tinyurl.com/FlyingPigSpotTracking …

Stay tuned :{))

L8R

Skip and Crew

Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig KI4MPC
See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery !
Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog
and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog

"And then again, when you sit at the helm of your little ship on a
clear
night, and gaze at the countless stars overhead, and realize that you
are
quite alone on a wide, wide sea, it is apt to occur to you that in the
general scheme of things you are merely an insignificant speck on the
surface of the ocean; and are not nearly so important or as self-
sufficient
as you thought you were. Which is an exceedingly wholesome thought,
and one
that may effect a permanent change in your deportment that will be
greatly
appreciated by your friends."- James S. Pitkin