Sailing

We wish we could take you all sailing with us, but  you’re not here, so we can’t.  Instead, we are inviting you on a virtual sail with us.

A couple of days ago, we sailed south to Lynyard Cay in about 15k from the north.  We sailed back in about 15-20k from the SSE.  Both were beautiful sails.   Moving along at 6 – 7.5k with just the headsail.  Wonderful.

Goldwin was mostly on the helm and I was mostly navigating – getting us around the shallows from one waypoint to another.

North of Lynyard Cay is a break in the reef called the North Bar entrance, which is a cut or pass from the Sea of Abaco into the ocean.  Rollers – big waves – come in through the cut, especially when the tide is coming in.  Which is when we were transiting that area.  Here is what it would have looked like if you had been on the boat with us – the horizon is pretty steady, but the boat is moving quite a bit.   Nothing tricky or dangerous at all, just the boat rising and falling, moving and rolling with the waves.  Sea conditions are described locally as the height of the ocean rollers and the height of the “chop” on top, (basically local wind-driven waves).  This is about a 3’ swell with a 1-2’ chop on top.  Turn your volume down as there is a lot of wind noise.  And take your Dramamine!

FYI, the red, yellow and blue plastic containers on the rail hold our extra water, diesel fuel, and dinghy gas.  Rolling around on the bow is a spinnaker pole.

Or maybe you would have been looking out the back of the boat.  Here is that view.  In this video, I tried to keep the camera stationary with the boat so that the horizon is moving and the boat is horizontal.   You can see our dinghy surfing down the waves and you can see our friends’ boat in the distance.

It took just over three hours to pull up anchor in the south Lynyard anchorage (I use that term loosely as we rocked and rolled all night long in a south wind of about 20k), and sail to Hopetown.  We took the shallow draft route, past Tahiti Beach, between Lubbers Quarters and Elbow Cay, instead of going all the way around to the west of Lubbers Bank.   This route is not deep enough for our 5’ draft all the time, but good enough on a rising tide.

And soon we were back in Hopetown.

Just in time for a really hard rain that washed all the salt spray off the boat.

P.S.  Just fly into Marsh Harbor, take the Albury’s Ferry to Hopetown (it’s a 20 minute ride), and we’ll take you for a real sail.  Promise.  Bring chocolate.