It was either now or never...well at least a week, because the winds were supposed to get even higher. We secured everything (or so I thought) and headed out into the Sea of Abaco towing our two skiffs. This time we had them on the same length line, so that hopefully their wakes wouldn't interfere with each other. It worked great and they never ran into each other either.
As we headed south, Green Turtle Cay faded into the distance, and as we approached the sandbanks, the rain showers started catching up to us and the seas started to kick up.
That's when the rolling started from the 5-7 ft. swells making their way in from the ocean. While Dave was driving the boat, I sat backwards on the flybridge steps, watching to make sure the two little boats were behaving. Suddenly I heard all sorts of clinking glass from down below. I carefully (but quickly!) made my way down to the galley to discover that the bottles in the liquor cabinet were crashing back and forth. I shoved as many towels as I could find around the bottles, but I still heard glass hitting. Then I found another problem with a large glass jar that WAS filled with shells and sea glass had fallen over and the top had come off. That got thrown in the sink for safety, and I timed the boat roll to get back outside....just in time to catch Dave's tool boxes as they came unhooked from the sundeck's chairs and slid across the floor. Whew!
We originally thought we might do the inside 'Don't Rock' Passage, but there were too many breaking waves on our beam. It was much safer and a bit more comfortable to go straight into the roller coaster waves and out into deeper water. The breaking waves in this photo are where you DON'T want to go.
Nor do you want to veer off course in these waves.
Whale Cay is very unforgiving, especially today!
Once we made it through to the south part of the passage, the channel is deeper and we didn't have to worry about breaking waves. However, the waves were closer together and some of them, like this one on the right, looked like it might go right over the two skiffs. Not a problem as the boats skimmed right over the wave and then surfed down them.
On the north side of Guana Cay we saw this sand barge aground on the rocks, a victim of Hurricane Sandy. The weather hasn't been calm enough to salvage or pull it off the rocks.
The boat ran almost flawless, except for the starboard engine running a bit hot. Dave's steering fix worked perfect and the exhaust repair from last season was a success also. We had minimal fumes inside the boat.We knew that New Horizon was up for the challenge, but we're the ones that have the hard time in these conditions.
Going downwind and passing by Guana, Scotland, and Man 'O' War Cays, we had a light chop on the Sea of Abaco , but it rained on us several times. With the autopilot on, Dave took advantage of the freshwater rinse and cleaned the decks as we motored along at about 8 m.p.h. We stopped just outside of Hope Town Harbour to pull the little boats along side (one on each side) and our floating marina made our grand entrance into the harbor. Many greetings were called out to us as we found and picked up our mooring. It's great to be back!
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