See comments at the start of
Chapter 14
LETTER 2 (second half)
"Down Time"
Lat. 18° 20' N 65° 55' W
September 23, 1991
We arrived in George Town on April 25,
just in time for the Family Islands Regatta. George Town is a final destination
for many cruisers and is called "Chicken City" because many people
who planned to go to Venezuela never get past that point. Every winter hundreds
of boats come down to George Town from North America and take up residence. The
final event of the season is the Family Islands Regatta which is limited to
Bahamians in traditional wooden boats. It's quite a party.
The entrance into Elizabeth
Harbor (where George Town is) was one of the most challenging on the trip. It's
a good thing we had been cruising about four months when we encountered it.
Otherwise, we might have turned around and headed home! Here are the
instructions from "The Yachtsman's Guide to the Bahamas":
"Proceed on 165° until
past the reef off Conch Cay, at which point Conch Cay Light should bear due
east. Alter course and steer for the Stocking Island Beacon (about 130°). On
this leg, you must pass between the southwest side of the reef off Conch Cay
and a rocky bar (often marked in some way, often not; at this writing marked
with a blue barrel) which lies about parallel to it, approximately a quarter
mile to the west-southwest. In good light this rocky bar can be seen quite
distinctly.
Once clear of the rocky bar,
when Simon's Point bears about 173° and Conch Cay Light is about 350 yards
northeast, steer directly for Simon's Point on the 173° course until you are
over the black patches or within 200 yards of the point, at the same time
keeping a lookout for rocky patches you will pass on your starboard hand. From
this point steer 128° until on a line between the pink houses of Simon's Point
and the beacon on Stocking Island. Then alter course to the beacon, thus
avoiding the shallow sandbank that extends southwest from the vicinity of Lily
Cay. The deep channel follows the Stocking Island shore and is unmistakable.
When the entrance of Stocking Island Harbour is
brought abeam, you may alter course and head for the George Town dock, one mile
to the southwest."
And here are the cautions
that go with the directions:
"Cautions (1) The
approach described here is a dangerous entrance in anything but adequate light
conditions, when hazards can be seen distinctly. (2) Unfortunately, as new
construction takes place, approach landmarks have become less distinctive. The
approach to the western entrance of Elizabeth Harbour
is on a course of 165° on Simon's Point, which is being marked with a privately
maintained pole with a black-and-white vertically striped dayboard
and topped with a radar reflector, the old Simon's Point Light having
collapsed. This mark shows above the surrounding foliage and appears just west
of a pair of large pink houses which can be seen in a group of palm trees
silhouetted against the sky. (Be aware that a coat of paint could change the
color of these houses in a day.) The mark and the pink houses are your target.
Just to the southeast of these (to the left as you enter) there is a prominent
two-story, gabled house: Do not head for this; it is mentioned here only to
help you locate your target on Simon's Point. if you mistakenly take your
bearing on a house east of Simon's Point, the 165° course will take you onto
the reef. Be right, and do not just give it a try. If in doubt, there are local
guides who will come out and take you in for a fee. All answer to their call
signs on VHF 16. They are Wendell Cooper (interlude), Clifford Dean (Gemini
ii), Ed Haxby (Exuma Fantasea), and Wendell McGregor (Little Toot.). (3)In a
heavy ground swell, particularly during the ebb, the seas tend to break for
much of the distance between Channel Cay and Conch Cay, and the cut can be
impassable. Calm weather is equally dangerous because without breaking seas,
the shallow reef off Conch Cay is difficult, if not impossible, to see. It's
there, and boats are frequently lost on it. There have been three sailboats
between 38' and 42 that were total losses between March 1986 and February 1991.
Others have been grounded, but freed with assistance."
Many cruisers spend the
entire winter year after year in George Town. George Town itself is on Great Exuma Island which runs roughly east - west. To its east
about a mile away is Stocking Island running parallel to Great Exuma. The body of water in between is Elizabeth Harbor.
During World War II it was a US submarine base. Some boats anchor on the George
Town side of the harbor, but most anchor on the Stocking Island side.
George Town has really
accommodated itself to cruisers. The Exuma Markets
(grocery store) will receive and hold mail and has a dingy dock; there is a
Laundromat with a dingy dock, etc.
During the season there are
volleyball games and beach cookouts and all sorts of social activities. Local
bars have happy hours for cruisers.
There are also get togethers of the folks who are going further south. Anyone
who has actually done it tells "the winds were from here and the seas were
from there and them that died were the lucky ones" stories. Great fun! If
you have gotten this far by yourself this is where you will probably look for
other boats to travel with for the next part of the journey.
By now of course it's early May and we had
planned to be much farther along. We decided to take a direct route to the
Virgin Islands rather than island hop through the Turks and Caicos,
Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. This meant an offshore passage of seven to
ten days. We found a Canadian couple (Dennis and Mary Ann) with whom we had been
sailing who were willing to leave their boat in George Town and make the
passage with us. We got Down Time all ready for this journey with extra spare
parts and extra fuel and on May 16 left on the big trip. Once again the weather
was against us and on May 19 we knew we could not make the straight shot
without going almost to Bermuda and none of us were up for a 15 day passage. We
turned south and on May 21 arrived in Provodenciales
(Provo) in the Turks and Caicos.
We later learned that to make
the direct shot from George Town to the Virgins you need to be able to motor
due east to 65 degrees longitude and then turn due south. Down Time had neither
the engine nor the fuel capacity to do that.
The Turks and Caicos
Islands are a British Crown Colony. The only island we visited was Provo. Provo
is very barren with not much to recommend it on shore. The waters, however are
some of the prettiest we have seen. A lot of people go there for diving
vacations. We left the Turks and Caicos on May 30 for
a non-stop run to Puerto Plata (Port of Silver) in the Dominican Republic.
We spent a few days in Provo
doing laundry and other chores. We docked at Turtle Cove Marina. The entrance
in through the reef was another challenge, but in this case we called on the
VHF and the marina sent a boat out to guide us in.
From Provo we sailed due south to the
border of the Dominican Republic (DR) and Haiti. We then turned east and
slogged to windward along the coast for 30 hours to get to Puerto Plata. Geographically
the DR was a nice change after the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos. The islands we had seen so far were flat and mostly
treeless. You don't even see them until you are only a few miles away. The DR
is very mountainous and can been seen from up to 40 miles away.
We left Provo mid morning on
May 30 and arrived in Puerto Plata on May 31 about 3:00 pm. Some people choose
to take several days to make this trip, working their way across the Caicos Banks by day and anchoring at night. We swung west
and south around the Banks so we could make the trip in one shot.
During the first night we
had our one and only incident of "being in the wrong place at the wrong
time." Diane was on watch and we were under sail alone. It was about 3:00
am. All at once the lights of a freighter appeared less than a mile away. We
were on a collision course and quickly tacked away. As we got a little distance
from the freighter, all her lights went out. We turned on our radar and we
could see lots of little boats around the freighter. Drugs? Illegal immigrants?
Who knows?
Now days most cruisers make
their first port in the DR at Luperon. However, in
1991 it was not a port of entry so this was not an option. There is also an old
port right on the Haitian border that some people go to. It's an old United
Fruit shipping port.
Puerto Plata is a dirty commercial harbor
with no facilities for yachts. However this was our first introduction to a
very inexpensive country. Beer (in a bar) is $ .80, mangoes are $ .03,
pineapples are $ .25. A nice dinner with drinks is about $ 6.00.
We docked stern-to to an old
concrete city pier and wired in our own electricity. Yep, that's right! Bare
wires that you connect your shore power to. We were not in Kansas anymore,
Toto!
The DR was very concerned
about black market currency exchanges and there was a huge billboard right
across the harbor that warned of all the dire consequences of doing so. Well,
it was Friday and the banks had already closed until Monday and we needed DR
cash for the weekend. Not to worry. Our "boat boy" (here they are
licensed by the police) could solve the problem. He and Jim went off down some
back street to a betting parlor. Before going in, he told Jim to give him the
money we wanted to exchange. Somehow he slipped it to the proprietor of the
betting shop who disappeared for about ten minutes in the back of the shop. Jim
was sure we had been had and that we would never see that money. However, the
proprietor returned and handed Jim a local newspaper. Jim looked puzzled and
the "boat boy" suggested he check out the sports section. Sure
enough, there was the exchanged money.
Puerto Plata has a unique
form of public transportation. There are scores of young men riding around on
small motorcycles. For a few pesos you hop on the back and they take you where
you want to go. We saw lots of local women doing their shopping this way -
packages and all.
The local rum is so
inexpensive that when you order a rum and coke, the coke is the most expensive
part. In fact, a rum and coke ordered in a bar consists of a can of coke and a
half pint of rum. That's the smallest amount they sell.
Another DR treat is to order
a pineapple drink. The take a fresh pineapple, peel it, and drop the whole
thing in a blender and that's it.
If you ever go to Puerto
Plata be sure to go to the central square for a fried egg sandwich. There are
vendors all around the square that sell them. They have a large pot of hot
cooking oil into which they break an egg. It floats on top of the oil as it
fries. They scoop it out and serve it as a sandwich with shredded lettuce and
hot sauce. Absolutely delicious.
We mentioned the three cent
mangoes. Puerto Plata is where we learned that the island markets have one
price for locals and one price for tourists. We learned to watch and see what a
local paid and then tell the vendor we wanted the same price. Worked every time
for the rest of the trip.
The public market in Puerto
Plata was one of the best of the whole trip, even if it is shaped like a spaceship!
From Puerto Plata we worked our way along
the coast to Samana. All this sailing was done at
night when the trade winds slacken (our path, as always, was directly to
windward). We arrived in Samana on June 6.
On the way to Samana we stopped for the night in Bahia
San Francisco. Now the DR officials are very fussy about where you can and
cannot stop. Bahia San Francisco is not on the
approved list but is a beautiful anchorage with a waterfall coming right down
to the sea. Most cruisers stop here for a fresh water shower in the waterfall.
As soon as we had anchored,
out came the local "official" from the fishing village. He looked to
be about 16, was dressed in jeans and a white navy cap and carried an old rusty
M16. He was rowed out by two men in a boat they obviously had made. He spoke
not a word of English, but was very polite. His friends held their boat off
ours with their hands so as not to damage out topsides. In addition to his M16
our "official" had a US military issue English - Spanish dictionary.
Between that and Diane's Spanish, we got along just fine. We told him we would
be gone before sun up and that was OK with him.
Samana is a small resort and fishing town (Did you know
that the two most popular Caribbean vacation spots for Europeans are the DR and
Cuba?). We found the people to be the friendliest we have met on the whole
trip. We did some boat repairs and took a trip by donkey to a waterfall high in
the mountains. We left Samana on June 26 for Puerto
Rico.
In Samana
we discovered another form of DR transportation - the motor concho.
This is like a rickshaw pulled by a small motorcycle. Samana
was where we lost one of our guns (see story in Chapter 12). Samana has a Chinese restaurant that even Tristan Jones
says serves terrible food.
We bought a papaya in the
market here that was so large we took it back to the boat a weighed it - 7
pounds. One of our cruising friends bought what she thought was a watermelon
only to find out is was a huge squash.
Here we met a couple on a 31
foot Bayliner who were traveling from New Jersey to
the US Virgins. Yep, a Bayliner 31. The only chart
they had of the entire trip from Florida to the Virgins was one of those
plastic coated things they sell fisherman in Florida. Somehow that and a GPS
had gotten them this far. We met because they asked Jim if we had any spare
charts. Turned out we did and Jim gave them some for the trip from Samana to Puerto Rico. We assumed they could read the
charts Jim had given them. Turned out we were wrong. They left Samana several days before us at about 7:00 pm. We decided
we would leave the VHF on and talk to them as they left Samana
Bay. All of a sudden our friend called and asked Jim what the
"hedges" on the chart meant. Hedges? What could he be talking about.
Jim got out our copy of the chart to look. Hedges, hell! that's a reef! They
gave us their position and they were almost on top of the reef. We radioed to
turn 90 degrees to port immediately and ask us why later. From that day to this
and probably forever, reefs will always be hedges to us.
The route from the DR to Puerto Rico takes
you across another of those infamous bodies of water: the Mona Passage (see
Gulf Stream in first letter). This is a point where the Atlantic Ocean meets
the Caribbean Sea and it can be (and was) rough. We left Samana
about 0300 and had very calm conditions until about 1800 that night. All night
we had winds of 25 - 30 knots and 8 - 12 foot seas. Finally we got to the lee
of Puerto Rico and things calmed down. We arrived in Boqueron
in the early afternoon.
Boqueron is very much a weekend seaside resort town. There
is a branch of the University of Puerto Rico a few miles away, and all the
students come to the beach on the weekend. We got a dock at the local yacht
club for $10 per day, water and electricity included (a bargain), and proceeded
to get parts from the US and do more boat repairs. We also took public
transportation to Mayaguez (about 15 miles) to the
mall (Sears, Burger King, etc.!).
We left Boqueron
again at night and sailed along the south coast to Salinas. This was supposed
to be a 13 hour trip but it took 23 because of, you guessed it, adverse winds.
About noon on this trip we were boarded by the Coast Guard for a standard
search. It was quite rough going when they came on board and you could tell
that they were more used to the ride of their 110 foot cutter. Jim took great
delight in watching them turn green as they went below for their searches. We
passed with flying colors.
So here's the story of our
Coast Guard boarding. We are pounding in to wind and seas and the CG asks us to
turn and run with the wind to make it easier for their people to board. Jim
refused, as was his right, saying that we would barely make our port by
nightfall as it was and we certainly would not make it if we lost ground while
heading the opposite direction. They agreed and boarded us by running their
inflatable alongside while their men jumped over to Down Time. Now we were in
US territorial waters as we were close to the coats of Puerto Rico. Our heads
were still dumping overboard and not into the holding tanks and we would be
fined if they found that. The ride was quite rough and not at all what these coasties were used to. They sent the youngest member below
with Jim to check things out. The first thing he wanted to check was the oil
discharge plaque in the engine room. So the boat's pounding, it's hot, the
engine has been running 12 hours and this kid sticks his head in the engine
room for a whiff of Diesel! Talk about green! Next he wants to check the Y
valves on the heads to see that they are set to discharge into the holding
tanks. Jim takes him to the aft head (the one we use the most) and points out
that in order to check the valve you have to get on your knees with your face
just above the head and reach around behind to feel (you can't see) the valve.
That was it for this coastie. He headed for the deck
as fast as he could.
From Salinas we took public transportation
to Ponce which the cruising guides recommended. We didn't find much to impress
us.
From Salinas we made a short day sail to
Puerto Patillas where the first of the summer
tropical waves kept us for a couple of days. Then we rounded Point Tuna and
sailed into the resort community of Palmas del Mar. One night there (dinner at
a Chinese restaurant) and we were off to Culebra. Culebra seems to be
a hang out for US hippies who found Key West too up-scale for them. There was
still lots of evidence of Hugo damage from two years ago. From Culebra it was a half day sail to St Thomas.
We arrived in St. Thomas on July 20. The
next day Tim and Eileen Bushman (the first of our visitors) arrived. They spent
a week with us and we sailed both the British and US Virgin Islands. After Tim
and Eileen left we spent a week sailing around the islands with Dennis and Mary
Ann. We came back to Charlotte Amalie on August 4 and
Dennis and Mary Ann flew back to George Town and their boat on August 6.
The rest of August was spent docked at
Yacht Haven Marina getting all kinds of work done on the boat. I won't bore all
the non-sailors with this, but I'll enclose an addendum for you sailing types.
On September 5 we left Charlotte Amalie for a little cruise around the islands. We were gone
about 10 days and circumnavigated St. John and Tortola.
We decided this was the perfect season to be sailing here. The place is
deserted. Anchorages that might have 30 or more boats in season were all ours.
Now we are back at Yacht Haven in
Charlotte Amalie planning our trips back to the
States. We decided to go in shifts so that one of us would always be on the
boat. We will both be back here in early November ready to head on down island.
We welcome guests anytime, so cash in your
frequent flyer miles and come on down. You can contact us as we said in our
first letter which I'll repeat here for those who have forgotten.
You can call us via the AT&T High Seas
operator. Dial 1-800-SEA-CALL. Tell the operator you wish to place a call to
the vessel "Down Time", call sign WTA 2000
which is cruising in the eastern Caribbean. It may be a day or two before we
get back to you. You can write us at the address on the enclosed card. This
address will only be valid for another month since we are closing out the Miami
apartment. However, our forwarding address with the post office should keep
mail coming to us until we can get you a new mailing address.
The water is fine, the weather is
beautiful (particularly for those of you who live in the frozen north). Think
of it, how many people in this world actually know someone with a boat in the
Caribbean? Here's your chance to impress your friends and get a free cruising
vacation.
The following was an
addendum to our second letter that we sent only to our sailing friends as most
of it would bore non-sailors to tears.
ADDENDUM FOR SAILORS
Well folks, the whole trip has been to
windward. We literally did not see the wind aft of the beam until we came back
to St. Thomas from the BVI's. We have put about 300
hours on the engine either pure motoring or motor sailing. We discovered our genoa had too much of a bag in it and did not perform at
all well when partially furled. We had 6 inches taken out of the luff here in St. Thomas.
Here is a list of what worked well and
what didn't:
Our Loran actually worked very well all
the way to George Town and it continued to work to Provo. The automatic ASF's quit in Nassau so we had to manually enter new ones
about once a day.
The radar worked fine and was especially
useful on the night runs. We used it to accurately determine the range to
freighters and to follow coast lines at fixed differences.
The SSB radio we
added last summer is great. We use it to chat with friends we have met along
the way, to receive weather information, to get weather fax (in conjunction
with the computer), and to pick up world news (we followed Desert Storm via the
BBC World News Service). For those who don't know a SSB
is a ham radio which operates on restricted marine frequencies. We got a self
study course for a ham license before we left. Maybe we'll get around to it
before we get back.
We never did get our ham
licenses, but I sure would before I went again - especially since they have
reduced the code requirement.
The GPS (we named it George) has been
great. A funny thing happened because of Desert Shield/Storm. It seems that the
military could not get enough military units for the Gulf so they had to use
commercial ones. This meant that they could not use the SA feature of the
satellites which makes commercial receivers less accurate than the military
ones. Thus our George was giving us fixes accurate to within five feet! Another
interesting story is that even using commercial units the military could not
get enough so they went through marinas confiscating GPS receivers using
manufacturer's records to locate them. Our George escaped because we bought it
from a Miami exporter and the feds must have assumed it had been sent out of
the country.
Of course now (June 2000)
there is no more SA.
Our best George story is our trip from
Spanish Wells to Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera. The entrance
to Hatchet Bay is a 90 foot wide channel blasted into a cliff several hundred
feet wide. There are no reliable lights and we arrived after dark. George put
us within 100 feet of the cut which is more accurate than I could read the
chart we were using.
The desalinator
we added in the fall has been great. Between Miami and St. Thomas we took on
water only at Chub Cay, Spanish Wells, Provo and Boqueron.
We had to send it back for repairs from here. It seems a spring had broken in
the over pressure relief system. The water is of excellent quality and of
course for 3 months there were four of us on board. We named the desalinator Igor because it sounds like Frankenstein's
apprentice working down in the cellar.
The auto pilot (named Reggie) has been
faultless and in fact has steered virtually the entire way from Miami. On our
offshore run from George Town to Provo Reggie steered for 5 days nonstop.
Our engine continues to overheat and I am
involved in a major effort here in St. Thomas to find out why and fix it.
Between Puerto Plata and Samana the fuel pick-up tube
for the generator broke off and dropped to the bottom of the tank. We ordered
replacements from Boqueron and replaced both
generator and engine pickups there.
We got a dirty load of fuel somewhere
early in the trip and I am only just now getting it out of the system.
We discovered our battery charging systems
were not up to the job. In George Town we added a special unit designed for
cruisers. It has worked well, but I just discovered that something is wrong
with it and it will have to go back to the States for repair.
We never really did have
adequate charging capability for all those batteries we carried. Next time I'll
put high output alternators on both the engine and generator and install one of
those smart charging systems.
Our wind speed/point indicator stopped
working and had to be repaired.
We had some bimini
enclosure work done here and had some rotten wood in the aft cabin overhead
replaced.
Our computer hardware has not fared so
well. The ink jet printer quit in Chub Cay, barely a week into the trip. The
laptop developed an intermittent display failure after we got to St. Thomas.
Right now I am using an old RGB monitor I borrowed
from a guy here.
Now for some sailing stuff.
The weather really was awful in the
Bahamas last winter. In theory, cold fronts are supposed to cause the wind to
swing around in a clockwise direction so that you can sail south and southeast.
Well, when the cold fronts came through they were so strong that the winds were
high (25 - 30 knots). This caused high seas which meant we could not use
eyeball navigation which is the only kind there is in the Bahamas. Thus we sat
until the front passed and then the wind was on the nose again.
Since we have been sailing in consistently
higher winds than back in Florida we have been using the sails in a furled
position. As mentioned above we discovered that we could not point very well
with the jib furled so we had it re-cut here in St. Thomas. We have not really
put it to the test yet but hope it will be an improvement.
Our five days offshore were a real
experience for all of us. It seems it takes about three days to get your system
use to the routines. It's easier after that. Since there were four of us on
board we stood two people watches. Our watches were 0000 - 0400, 0800 - 1400,
1400 -2000, 2000 - 0000. Thus during the day we were standing six hour watches
and four hour at night. This seemed to work well.
The only overnight sails we have actually
had were crossing the Gulf Stream (1 night), Gun Cay to Chub Cay (1 night),
George Town to Provo (5 nights), Provo to Puerto Plata (1 night) Puerto Plata
to Samana (1 night), Samana
to Boqueron ( 1.5 nights), Boqueron
to Puerto Patillas (1 night). All the rest have been
day sails.
Most of our anchorages have been good and
our combination chain/line rode has worked well. We looked into replacing the
chain/line with all chain, but I thought the weight in the bow would be too
much. Except for a couple of times in the Bahamas we have anchored using only
one anchor (our 45 lb. CQR). It has never failed us.
We only dragged anchor once
on the entire trip.
The sailing should get better as we
"turn the corner". Come sail with us.
Yea, right! Turn the corner.
Little did I know then.
Jim & Diane
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