Ragged Islands: water water everywhere...

Alan is a pretzel. Literally. Knees hug ruddy cheeks; arms twist above and below. He has worked his way down into the awkward cavity at the back of the boat; a salty pretzel with a wrench. The metal steering tiller arm threatens to behead him as he’s jostled about by the waves below.

Shiloh bucks and jolts in tune with the building seas. The wind is picking up which  was not forecast. Surprise surprise. We are anchored in 8 ft of water over the Exuma banks and land is miles away in every direction. We have come through Hog Cay’s narrow channel at high tide and the next island to find protection is over 30 miles away. In sailboat terms, that’s a lot of hours away.

Night is approaching and we are frantic. On anchoring, we discovered our floorboards floating in the port hull. 

With bulging eyes and sinking stomachs we exchange anxious glances. ‘Are we sinking?!!!’, is what we ask without asking. I stick my finger into the greasy sloshing liquid and realise it’s fresh water. Phew! But wait, this means our entire water tanks have emptied into the dirty bilges. Irretrievable. I want to cry.

A day before, we’d negotiated the tedious tying up at Exuma yacht club and spent an hour or two filling the tanks to the brim for our adventure in the land of remoteness…. $50 later, we left, tanks full, hearts happy and excited.

Now, as the water slapped back and forth with the bouncing of the boat, our hearts, if not our boat, have sunk.

The next 4 hours grind by in a sweaty frenzy, JW and Al pumping the lot of it out into the ocean and running tests with our remaining portable water jugs to locate the cause/leak. 

Our queasy guest downs a Gravol and slinks into a cabin into a comatose state to avoid the drama.

By dark, the lot of us feeling green and gutted; the guys have discovered the culprit. An old shower pipe on the ‘sugar scoop’ (back step) had burst and triggered the water pump. It had dutifully pumped the tanks dry. Sigh.

Well, we have to go back to Georgetown! How will we manage 3 weeks in the Raggeds without a drop of water?!

Alan the ultimate optimist jumps up, unfolded from his yogic position and protests. We do have watermakers. Between our two boats, we will make jugs and fill a tank just enough to give us three quick showers and a sink of dishwashing water a day. So hesitantly we agree, and try to regain our enthusiasm. But clearly this is not a good start.

The official Explorer Guides (many cruisers’ bibles for sailing) describe where we are headed as follows:

“This is unpopulated wilderness… You must be totally self-sufficient here…there is a palpable sense of remoteness… we do not encourage casual visiting… there are no marinas, no Search and Rescue help, no fuel, no water… you are on your own here.”

Sleep comes clawing and drags us under, despite the fact the wind has decided to hand us a further warning. It’s howling and kicking up the shallow waters around us, creating a wild vast washing machine as our night’s shelter.

Two days later, we are sitting on a beach, drinks in hand, snacks set up on a ragged piece of wood, chatting with the crew of two other catamarans we found as we sailed around the top of Flamingo Cay. Seems cruiser life as usual. Normal but for the constant drone of the watermaker motor, sucking in that sea water and miraculously churning out trickles of water we can use! Jugs are lugged up and down the stairs, keeping our tanks just full enough…

Fast forward one more day. The watermaker has died. And we are one further island down into the heart of the Ragged Islands. The area where ‘you are on your own, no help, no water, no marinas etc…. Again those exchanged looks of panic and some added frustration. Sod’s Law applies double fold in remote areas. We are not Robinson Crusoe and this issue needs fixing fast.

6 hours later, sweat, blood, chunks of metal rearranged, hammers, wrenches, rust flakes… the watermaker, having been dislodged from it’s cupboard below and brought out into the light, lies exposed on our cockpit table. A casualty of time and salt air. The prognosis is iffy. 

Alan zooms away in his dinghy with the cracked brushes (an essential motor part), and an idea. And we wait. And in the meantime he carries jugs and jugs of water from his boat to ours. Thanks goodness for buddy-boaters. And best friends. The Raggeds would otherwise have defeated us as the ‘holy’ book predicted.

We try to carry on with the business of enjoying the clear blue waters and white sand beaches while the patient lies like a rusty elephant on it’s makeshift hospital gurney. We cover him in old sheets for the night and hope for the best for the next day.

And doctor Al comes through first thing, sun shining extra bright, the water a blue shade of turquoise… with a home glued potentially life-renewing part!!!! 

After two more hours of surgery the patient is returned to his working compartment and the moment of truth… the on button. IT WORKS!!!!!! It works! Phew. It keeps working. Which means we can keep going. So after some cups of tea for the doc and pouring some libations to the gods of remote boat life… we are off. 

The best laid plans and the realm of chaos

Some days living aboard is quite mundane. Some days we make coffee in the morning, clean toilets and hair out of drains. We shake dust out of rugs and surf the Internet. Some days we run our daily errands, cook, wash dishes and in the evening we watch our favourite TV shows. Some days.

But then there are the other days. Days that drag on past the 24 hour mark where mayhem reigns. When there’s no time to be nervous or worried. When we push the envelope and find ourselves and our boat in situations that beg for Sod and his law to wave the magic wand of distaster.

Yesterday morning we woke early with a plan to drag our water craft out of a channel with ripping currents, onto a beach. She would gently tip forward as the tide dropped, exposing the propellers below, which would be changed out for fancy new feathered ones that promise to make us sail faster and look sexier. The work window would be just until the tide started to rise again, then we’d calmly wait for high tide to carry us off the beach without incident. What could go wrong?

JW and our prop guy pulled Shiloh backward onto the sand as I let out all the chain we had (and boy was it rusty at the bitter end!!). The current pulled and tugged Shiloh sideways but we managed to get her tied over. And indeed she began to tip forward ever so slightly.

But despite the best laid plans (over a steak and some red wine the night before), we began to realise as the tide went out, that the spot we’d chosen did not expose the propellers. Shiloh did not tip forward enough and prop guy tried scrummaging in sand, cold, dirty, wet, with no luck at all. We managed to scrape a few offending barnacles away but only on the back half of the boat.

And so, we’d managed to save over $850 to haul the boat out and paying $1000 per prop for a professional prop guy doing the job at a professional boat yard.  Instead, well, we had a day on the beach as it were.

Life onboard all day consisted of sliding sideways. No cooking, not much of anything except a general unease. I knew the evening was coming and the fun and games of getting ourselves out of the sand lay ahead. Prop guy had given up and gone home so it was just captain and me.

Meanwhile other cruiser friends had left the channel as there was a predicted storm with high winds at night. Not us though, we had other concerns.

By 5pm the line holding us to shore was creaking and rock hard, pulling and wheezing at us. I went up on the bow, planning to lift the chain, pull us forward, JW would let go the shore lines and we’d pull into the channel.

But no! One of the back lines snapped, the current swung us wildly sideways and some of Shiloh’s underbits made a thud on sand. “Pull forward on the chain!” Shouted captain. And I tried, but the pressure against it was massive. The windlass trip died. We couldn’t put engines on as the props, or at least one, was still firmly in sand.

Captain jumps in the dinghy and tries in vain to push us away from the shore and looming rocks. The current is winning. I run down and try the windlass trip once more and it works! Just then the tide brings us high enough to get free of sand. We swing a bit, throw the engines on and I am bringing up chain with speed. We’re free! Sigh. Of relief. For now.

But then here come the predicted winds. The VHF radio has a computerized man-voice warning us of 40 to 50kts wind gusts, asks boaters to seek safe shelter immediately. Yeah. It’s dark and our anchor seems pretty snug.

We make supper amidst the howling winds, and as each hour passes it gets colder, windier and the rain starts. And just then we see lights passing by us fast through the salon windows. We run outside to find that we’re sailing around in huge circles.

We’re surrounded by boats on 3 sides, two on mooring balls and one on a jetty. On the other side, our beach. The wind whips my hair past my squinted eyes, my toes immediately frozen. Should we throw the engines on? How high IS this wind? Will our anchor hold? The couple on one boat are VERY interested in us, especially as we sail toward them with speed. Just as we reach 20 feet away, our anchor, the wind, the current, swing us away and careening toward the moored boat.

And as my heart hits the back of my throat we’re off in another direction. The wind hits 36 knots and I’m finding it difficult to come around to the cockpit from the bow. Inside, a movie’s plot long forgotten sits on pause and abandoned luke warm tea gives up and goes cold. An hour or more has passed.

Just then I look up and notice our mainsail has been swept up in a gust and is blowing wildly around. We need to get it tied down immediately. Captain find ropes and balances above on the bimini, swinging around with the boom in the wind. We’ve all but forgotten our bouncing in circles toward boats and rocks yet all around us, it’s happening. The main is stuck behind the stay ropes and it is struggled but we get it held and tie a line round and round it.

Now to the dinghy, which in all the commotion, has been swung right under Shiloh, the outboard engine bashing against the underside. Getting the captain in that dinghy in that current was near to impossible. Getting it tied and lifted, another Olympic event that we came in medalists…

I have no photos from this experience, but this about covers it

Back inside midnight has long passed and we’re still doing intermittent anchor watch, though the wind has come down to a steady 25 knots. Our anchor has held, despite the current vs. wind dance that caught us in the middle. We collapse into bed with one ear open and a far less than restful sleep follows.

The next morning is today. A sunny day, the plan is to motor 24 miles to a quaint little town and take in their candlelight festival. Along the ICW. What could go wrong?

We start out in a bit of a disorganized rush and I’m on the helm with the chart plotter zoomed in real close. It’s a complicated exit from Beaufort. So I can handle it! I get us out and around and lefts and rights through the channel and then I hand over to the captain. I’m going to make breakfast! But the waves are huge. I mean huge. Wait a minute?! This is intercoastal water. How can it be. OH NO! I’ve lead us out the channel to the ocean!!!!! I’m crazy to admit it in print, but there it is. I run out, zoom out on the chart and confirm what I’ve done. “Turn around captain!” Wrong way. 

Well he is not impressed. To say the least. But as we do a watery u-turn, we realise the current is flowing FAST out of the channel into the ocean and hence directly against us now as we head back in. And then, one engine overheats with a loud high pitched alarm. With one engine we are doing 1 knot against the current trying to get back in. The wind is 20 knots against us. This is not good! After one attempt to sort the engine, and our high speed of 2.5 knots, I smell smoke. Shit! The same engine is now smoking. Engine off again. This time we are at the full mercy of wind and current and it takes us over an hour to come back in where it had taken us 10 minutes outbound. Oops.

Today was supposed to be relatively mundane! Instead we’re pulled over and anchored along the ICW, 3 hours into a journey, with progress toward our destination of about 4 miles. The captain is down in the engine (aka our bedroom!), with Capt Al of Alley Cat (also pulled over and anchored to help). I just looked down there and I see two sweat panted butts in the air. There are tools and pipes and black smudges everywhere. An offending burst pipe has been located. 

Hopefully they will get it sorted and we will make our evening festival. For now, a cup of tea. Which I’m going to drink no matter what.