In Search of Paradise VII
John finally worked out the problem with the C-Map sometime during the night. He had downloaded a McAfee Virus program onto his laptop that somehow interfered with the C-Map program. He uninstalled McAfee and, voila, C-Map operated. .
Our destination the next day was Allen’s Harbour almost at the northernmost end of the Exuma chain. We would be on our own for a while because Windy Liz and Victory were heading farther south to Shroud Cay. Gail and Ray had already been to Allen’s Cay once before. Victoria and Oliver needed to move on towards Georgetown where they would visit friends. This change in circumstance was a little unsettling to me and I expressed the feeling at dinner. Thinking it might be better to keep their company than to see Allen’s Cay, I suggested that we tag along with them. Gail insisted that we needed to go to Allen’s to see the iguanas.
“You have to go once,” she said. “But, once is enough and we’ve been once.”
We left the marina around mid-morning. As we exited the Nassau harbor, passing Porgee Rocks, their two boats split off to the starboard. A slight mixture of melancholy and anxiety set in for me. We’d known each other hardly a good week, but the experiences we’d shared compressed the bonding process like an accordion. It was like watching close, close family drift away. Plus, they had been sort of a safety net. Now, for the first time, we were by ourselves in the Bahamas.
That day, our route took us over the Yellow Bank, a stretch of the Bahama bank strewn with intermittent displays of huge coral heads. According to the Explorer Chartbook, “the best conditions for the trip across the Yellow Banks are winds at 15 knots or less from any direction except SE. Plan your arrival in the Exumas at least two hours before sundown to allow adequate water visibility. If your draft is over 5 feet, schedule your crossing of the Yellow Bank during midday. The large, black coral heads with white sand rings around them are easily seen and avoided under normal midday light conditions. If your crossing of this area should occur near low time, some of the coral heads may be a hazard for all but shallow draft vessels.”
It sounded like we could be headed through a mind field and Ray had cautioned us that hitting a coral head was not like running aground in soft sand. Not only would you destroy the coral, but it could also rip a pretty nasty gash in your keel.
We felt pretty sure we’d be okay. Our draft is 5-feet and the time of day should allow for plenty of water under us as we went across. But, we decided to conduct a bow watch as a precaution. Because of my problem with motion sickness, John took the bow and I stayed on the helm. We utilized our walkie-talkies. When he spotted a coral head, he’d radio back to me to steer either to starboard or port. The water was so clear that the contrasting dark, brown coral heads were easy to spot. It was a beautiful day, we only had the jib out because of the wind, and the time went by very fast.
By mid afternoon, the scrawny cluster of cays surrounding Allen’s Harbour materialized with the largest being Allen’s Cay on the west, SW Allen’s Cay to the south and Leaf Cay on the east. I had studied the “harbour” in the chartbook the night before. (It’s necessary to put quotation marks around the word lest you envision what most do when they hear it.) The entire configuration of cays, water included, sits between 76 degrees 50.5 minutes and 76 Degrees 50 minutes west. Or in plain English, an expanse across of ½ mile. The actual “harbour” part is at most 1/10 of a mile across and perhaps double that in length. That’s 528 feet across by 1056 long. Probably room enough for no more than 10 good-sized boats, allowing for anchor rodes and swing room.
To indicate possible places to drop the hook, the chartbook used the symbol of an anchor. Right in the center of the “harbour,” it indicated “good holding.” To the south was “poor holding,” to the northwest “fair holding,” and at both ends “strong current.” Like visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, I figured we would easily capture the prime spot because this was such a remote place, nobody else would be there. You can imagine my surprise when, as we approached, I counted 21 masts projecting out from behind Allen’s Cay.
We furled the jib and cautiously picked our way through the break between Allen’s Cay and SW Allen’s Cay. What I had seen from a distance crystallized close up. Stacked across the minimal anchorage space were 21 boats. They looked like a bunch of mismatched sardines.
We slid along the south end, John carefully guiding Up Jinks through the maze of boats and their accompanying anchor lines. It’s a fact that cruisers who already have their anchors set tend to have a very protective attitude about their space, especially when the anchorage is stretched beyond its capacity. Any new arrival is greeted with stares, glares and various body signals all indicating that you’re being watched very carefully. Conversations actually stop, beers go into holders, men rise up from cockpits and begin pacing their gunwales. Trust me, it’s much more fun being the glar-er rather than the glar-ee, but we were the new boat in. We were front and center.
To make matters worse, just about every boat had two anchors out, presumably to minimize the swing of the boats in such crowded conditions. A catamaran named “Abitibi” had already claimed the prized “good holding” spot described in the chart book. But, just a few yards north of her, John eyed a space open enough for us to actually make a turn. With Up Jinks totally throttled down, he crept forward until we approached the beginnings of a sand bar coming off the north end of Leaf Cay. He steered the boat around facing the opposite direction, handed me the helm and told me to let her drift into the wind that way. He quickly walked up to the bow, opened up the anchor locker and dropped the Bruce overboard.
“Back Up!” he called. I threw it into reverse and upped the throttle. Up Jinks begrudgingly started backwards, John pulling rode out from the locker.
“Watch out for the sand bar!” John cautioned. I turned around to see that we were coming very close. Our opportunity for backing down on the anchor was evaporating fast.
John wrapped the rode around the port bow cleat. Up Jinks continued back for about two seconds, then the bow whipped to starboard as the anchor dug in. I de-throttled the motor and put it in neutral.
“Let it sit for a second,” John said. He stood on the bow watching intently to see if the boat held her position. As he did this, he was gauging the distances between us and the surrounding boats.
“Okay, back up on it again.”
I put it in reverse and pushed the throttle forward. Our boat knot meter climbed steadily from zero to almost a knot as the boat began to move. I felt the jerk of the anchor and watched the meter drop rapidly back towards zero.
“She’s set.” I reported. John concurred, so I shut the engine off.
He came back into the cockpit. “Now, we need to put the dinghy in the water so we can drop the other anchor.”
My surprise must have registered openly on my face because he said, “Don’t look at me that way. Can’t you see every boat around us has two anchors out? We don’t want to be waltzing around like Matilda when everybody else is restricted.”
All I could think of was the only other time we had set two anchors - the night at Chub Cay when the wind shifted and we had to carry the rode all the way around to the other side of the boat. Setting a second anchor was something I had hoped to avoid for the rest of my life.
“Then, we’ll need to dive on them.” John remarked over his shoulder as he disappeared down the companionway, like I knew what that meant.
I followed him down into the salon.
“What did you say?”
“We need to dive on the anchors to make sure they’re set. Go put on your bathing suit. We’ll get the snorkel stuff and see what they look like.”
Ah! Not only were we going to do my newest unfavorite thing, putting out a second anchor, but we were also going to do my oldest unfavorite thing, get in the water.
John fumbled through his closet and pulled out his suit. He quickly changed into it and headed back up on deck.
Before we left to go on this trip, he bought me a brand new bathing suit. Even though we had been cruising for over two months, I hadn’t worn it yet. It consisted of two pieces, a top, featuring vivid red flowers that bloused down over my waist, and a bottom with a black skirt sewn to the pants. Actually, it was quite pretty. I slipped the suit on and climbed back up the companionway.
“Now, come up front and help me lower the dinghy in the water. There’s no need to put the engine on right now. I can get the other anchor out far enough with the oars.”
I followed him up to the bow. After some huffing and puffing, we were able to turn the dinghy right side up. John took one of the halyards and clipped it to a loop in the rope he had threaded through the toe rings on either side of the dinghy. As he heaved down on the halyard, the dinghy levitated off the bow deck. My job was to guide it up over the lifeline and far enough away from the side of the boat so it wouldn’t hit the rub rail as John lowered it into the water. There was so much “ughing” and “whewing” between the two of us you’d have thought we were trying to lift a whale off the boat.
“Splash!!” The dinghy hit the water. John tied it off onto one of the bow cleats and unhooked the halyard. He gathered up the oars from the anchor locker, threw them in, then crawled under the life line down into the dinghy.
He brought the little boat around to the starboard bow.
“Now, unleash the Danforth and lower it down to me,” he instructed.
I straddled the anchor locker. With a little trepidation, I unhitched the tie that kept the anchor attached to its chain and in the cradle. With only the slightest nudge, the anchor bolted downward. I grabbed the chain to keep it from plowing into the floor of the dinghy. Once under control, I could lower it slowly.
“As I row out, you let the rode out, okay?” John made it a question just to be sure I understood.
“Got it.”
He began rowing away from the boat pulling the rode out with him. When he reached around 50 feet, he lifted the anchor up and flung it overboard. With all of the boats around us, that was all the room he had to work with. He rowed the dinghy back over to Up Jinks and tied it off at the stern.
“How about getting the snorkeling stuff out of the lazarette,” he said.
“Which one is it in?”
“I think it’s in the port one.”
I opened up the top of the port lazarette and looked down into its cavernous interior. The mesh dive bag was not readily visible. On top were a fender and the yellow bucket that holds all of the brushes, soaps and rags John uses to wash off the boat decks. The yellow bucket sat inside a little larger white bucket. I pulled all of that out of the lazarette.
Underneath, I found an air pump, a long handled broom and a contraption that sucks water out of the dinghy. I pulled all of that out. By now, I was down on my knees.
The next layer was our two golf bags. In order to get them out, I had to lie down on my stomach and put my head inside the lazarette. With outstretched arms, I wrangled the first golf bag up and out. Then, the second.
Finally, at the very bottom of the lazarette lay the dive bag. You have to understand. The lazarette is as deep as I am tall. I stuck my head inside, then pulled up until my hips rested on the edge of the opening. Like a fulcrum, I teetered forward and strained until I touched the bag. I bumped up a little further, wiggling my fingers until finally they looped under its handle.
The bag was very heavy. Not only did it have masks, snorkels and fins inside, but also several dive weights. For a minute, I thought I was going to crumple headfirst into the lazarette. Suddenly, there was pressure on my calves. Either John had tired of waiting for me or he sensed I needed help. Nevertheless, he was on the boat, standing on my legs (albeit laughing) to keep me from falling into the abyss. He pulled me and my dive bag extension back into the cockpit.
Because of the swift current running through the harbour, John decided it would be safer to row the dinghy out again, anchor it, and use it as a base for diving. He threw the dive bag into the little boat and loaded a small anchor as well. We stepped in. He rowed us out to a spot right between the rodes of the Bruce and the Danforth. I threw the dinghy anchor overboard and tied it off. We began assembling the snorkeling equipment.
It had been a long time since I’d snorkeled or dived. Enough time to forget how much I detest the boots you have to wear inside the fins. Mine are black, with rubber bottoms, soft sides and zippers on the inside that close the boot up over the ankle. I have big feet for a woman – size 9. Not only that, my calves are wide. The only thing that makes the combination of the two bearable is the way my ankles taper. When you put on those bloody boots, my legs take on the appearance of 6-inch PVC pipes and my feet are at least two shoe sizes larger. It feels more like I’m wearing combat boots.
I wedged my feet down in the boots and zipped them up. John was three steps ahead of me, already in his fins with mask over his face and the snorkel dangling on the side. He wrapped his lips around the mouthpiece and held it in place as he fell over backwards off of the dinghy into the water. I doused my mask in the water to lubricate it a little. The strap has a tendency to grab and pinch my hair, so I stretched it as much as I could while pulling it over the top of my head. I put my fins on, poked the snorkel in my mouth, and flung my legs over the dinghy, putting me in position to go face first into the water. Taking a deep breath, I fell forward.
The first sensation was the salty water on my lips. The second was the clarity of the water as my snorkel penetrated the surface. The third was that I wasn’t going anywhere. Oh, I was kicking my fins and stroking my arms, but to now avail. It took me a few seconds to figure out the bottom of my new, beautiful bathing suit was snagged on the oar lock of the dinghy. To say that the position was awkward would be a tremendous understatement. I was totally facedown in the water. My arms weren’t long enough to reach all the way across my back to my butt to unhinge the suit. I couldn’t turn over nor could I lower my legs to bob my head out of the water. Yelling for help was out of the question. I had a snorkel in my mouth. Besides, John was already underwater diving on the Bruce. The only thing I was grateful for was that I had not gone over the side of the dinghy backwards like he did. I’d have been upside down in the water having to do sit ups just to keep from drowning.
I wrangled and wrenched, quite surely appearing to all who could see like some huge trapped animal sloshing around in the water. Finally – “Rrrrriiip!” The fabric of the suit tore. With every subsequent movement on my part, it tore a little more, until finally it released from the oar lock. I freed myself from the dinghy and reached down to survey the damage to my new suit. My whole left cheek lay totally exposed. As I kicked hard to catch up with John making his inspections of the anchors, I chalked it up to one more episode in my long running soap opera with water.
He popped up to the surface long enough for me to tell him what had happened. I know he was concerned about me, but he was equally distraught about the bathing suit. He had proudly picked it out himself and was thrilled when I like it.
“Do you think we can fix it?” he asked, spewing a little water as he dislodged the snorkel from his mouth.
“I don’t think so,” I responded. “But, we’ll see. How do the anchors look?”
“They’re fine. I dove down and dug them into the sand real good.”
We headed back to the dinghy. As I approached, it hit me. As embarrassing as the whole scene getting off had been, I was now going to have to climb back onto it with my bathing suit bottom all torn. It would be like “half-mooning” the whole harbour.
“Could you do me a favor?” I called to John. “Could you get in the dinghy first, then pull me up?”
“Sure,” he yelled back.
That plan worked well. John held on to me under my arms as I kicked ferociously with my fins to raise myself up into the dinghy. I twisted my body to sit on the side and brought my feet over quickly. It wasn’t particularly graceful, but that didn’t matter to me. All I wanted to do was get back to Up Jinks.
I pulled up the dinghy anchor and John rowed us over to the boat. As he did so, I peeled off my fins. Then I fought to reclaim my feet from the dreaded wet dive boots that had become like soggy jealous socks.
“Want to go over and see the iguanas?” John sounded almost afraid to ask the question.
“As a matter of fact, walking around on the beach with a bunch of iguanas sounds like a lot of fun.” I retorted, the truth of the statement overcoming the sarcasm. “Just another day in paradise.”
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