4/12/2011 – Across Caicos Banks to Long Cay – 49.6 Miles
I've dreaded this leg of our trip from the day we conceived the idea of taking Jubilee further south and east to the Caribbean. Why? Well, to make it short and sweet, I hate crossing banks. And I particularly hate crossing banks filled with uncharted coral heads. Plus the entire area is shallow. It just ain't fun.
And the Caicos Banks are large – roughly 40 to 50 miles in diameter. While the guide books and the chart books show routes across the banks, those routes are anything but free of coral. They're simply paths between points that avoid extremely shallow water and extensive areas of reefs – routes where one can get through at certain least mean depths.
For Jubilee, drawing 6', taking the Starfish channel 154 degrees from Sapodilla Bay for 17 miles, then heading 104 degrees for 30 miles would put us near the southwestern tip of Long Cay, a coral-strewn area with a small anchorage area providing some protection for an overnight stop before leaving the banks for Luperon the next day. The starfish channel it would be.
The first 10 or 12 miles were pretty easy. Depths were reasonable (about 15') with a few rocks on the bottom but no major heads encountered. Then the incidence of heads increased.
As we neared cruising guide writer Steve Pavlidis' turning point toward Long Cay, the incidence of heads increased dramatically as the bottom shoaled to between 8 and 9'. Working our way around several heads, we had just gotten to Steve's turning waypoint when we found ourselves in a labyrinth of heads.
And then BANG! We touched and then bounced over a rock. I hate it when that happens.
Keeping moving dead slow we finally worked our way out of that patch and got on our 104 heading. We've of course grounded before in our sailing career (anyone who says they haven't grounded either hasn't gone anywhere with their boat or is a damn liar), so I was pretty sure we did no serious damage. That part of our keel has over 4” of solid fiberglass mat layup just for these kinds of things. Nevertheless it's disconcerting to ever hit a rock.
Incidentally, for those who might also pass through this way at low tide, the coordinates are roughly 21 degrees 30. north by 72 degrees 06.49 west. Just look for the black bottom paint on the rock below.
The next 20 miles kept Wayne and me extremely busy dodging heads (see example of one large head in the above photo), much of the time running in about 10' of water. We had left a bit later in the morning to assure high sun throughout our trip, and that helped a lot with our visibility below the surface. On the positive side, we were powering against only a 7-knot breeze, so it wasn't too rough. In our approximately 8-hour run, Bill was on the helm for all but one 2-minute bathroom break (perspiration in the heat does wonders at eliminating excess liquid), while Wayne alternated from charting, bow duty when entering coral patches, and providing a 2nd set of eyes.
The last 10 miles found depths slowly increase into the 20's, but that didn't mean the absence of heads and reefs, which became more and more numerous the closer we got to Long Cay and the edge of the banks. It surely felt good to get the anchor down at the end of this day. Except for working our way out of two miles more of heads and reefs the next day, we were essentially done with the Banks!
Ever the innovator, Wayne cooked up a way to lash his tripod with my underwater camera onto the end of our longest boat hook. I set the camera to “underwater”, always flash, and triggered the 12-second timer as we dunked the camera down next to the boat for several pics of the situation. In the attached shot you can see the fruits of our labors – not too much damage except to the bottom paint and our pride.
We celebrated with steaks, noodles, salads, and fruit desert for dinner. Bill had a scotch. Wayne had his first anti-malaria pill. What a way that Wayne celebrates!
April 13, 2011 – Long Cay to Big Sand Cay – 25.6 Miles, plus 4/14-15 Lay Days at Big Sand
We had initially planned to depart Long Cay around noon to assure arrival at Luperon, D.R., sometime the next morning, but after listening to the weather we switched to “Plan B”.
Chris Parker had revised his outlook from the prior day. His new recommendation, in his inimitably polite style was: “If it were me I'd wait until the weekend”. Turns out a tropical wave was coming through the area, with very unsettled weather and numerous squalls from the Virgin Islands to Hispaniola. Wednesday evening through Thursday night and into Friday we would likely see numerous significant squalls near and around the D.R. Plan B it would be, and we instead used Wednesday's good weather to cross to the uninhabited Big Sand Cay, a Turks and Caicos Islands nature reserve, and then sit tight there 'til the weekend. This plot also would knock about 20 miles off our ultimate jump to Luperon.
Working our way around the heads out of our Long Cay anchorage turned out to be no more fun than working our way in. We took about ½ hour between having the anchor up, working our way out of the coral and banks, and finally getting “off soundings”. It was good to be on the open ocean again.
Unfortunately it was to be another pure motor day, directly up wind against about a 12-knot breeze with perhaps a 6' swell plus wind waves. Might sound like a lot, but it wasn't too bad.
What a treat it was to stop at Big Sand. We loved the place -- a deserted desert island just over a mile long whose west side (where we anchored, protected from the easterly trades) is mostly a long curved sandy beach with about a 1/4 mile of rock cliff in the middle. North of the island is about another mile of coral reefs and rocks/small islets. The anchorage was a little rolly, but not bad. We slept very well. Far in the distance, perhaps 50 miles or more south toward the D.R., we saw lightning all night long Wednesday night, but there were no squalls up our way. Parker's advice, as usual, was spot on.
Thursday we made a dingy trip ashore to walk the beaches. The windward side of the island was full of shells plus, sadly, lots of flotsam and jetsam. Who invented all that plastic “Stuff”, and especially plastic water bottles? Unfortunately all of the worlds beaches are becoming littered unless volunteers clean them up, and that would be a near-impossible job on a remote spot like this.
But the views were stunning. Check the attached picture of Jubilee at anchor taken from the beach. Plus, during our explorations Wayne finally got his conch shell! It should make a great horn when we get the Dremel out. We'll have him fitted out for serious cruising before he boards that plane for Minnesota.
On our trip back to the boat we stopped by Rasmus, a Hallberg-Rassey 35 owned by Scott and Brittany from Chicago. They were about the youngest cruisers we'd met so far this year – probably about as old as Wayne's oldest daughter Kelley. As the Pardey's always say, go large or go small but go now. Scott and Brittany made a good choice to take some time off to explore the world while they're young. Plus they definitely have the boat on which to do it. Neat people.
4/15/2011 – 4/16/2011 – Big Sand Cay to Ocean World – 91.1 Miles
During the Chris Parker Friday morning weather it became apparent that a window was opening for a fast dash to Boqueron, Puerto Rico, with just a one night stop in the Dominican Republic. If the forecasts held through Tuesday we should have mostly NE breezes offshore, generally moderate, with no significant squalls (the occasional rain squall can always happen, but for this period the weather was supposed to be relatively dry). It also looked like we'd be able to lay a direct course to Ocean World from Big Sand Cay rather than stopping at Luperon, a strategy that would stage us 15 miles further east down the coast in a spot where we could also clear Customs, get dock-side fuel, plus have easier/quicker access out to the Ocean for our next jump. Ocean World it would be.
We spent the rest of Friday plotting courses and weather “tuck in” options, resting a bit, and generally getting ready to head to the D.R. At 6:00pm we sat down to a big spaghetti dinner just before raising the anchor. The sun was just setting (green flash and all) as we got underway for what turned out to be a great passage.
The first 10 hours were simply marvelous. Initially we found beam winds in the 15-17-knot range, perfect for running in the high 6's and low 7's with a reef in the main and a partially rolled jib. Over the course of time the winds eased down to the 10-12-knot range, with us still running in the 6's. It doesn't get much better than that!
Around 4:30am we went through a moderate rain squall (18 knots again), but after it passed it seemed that squall shut our wind down. From about 5:00am on we switched to motorsailing our final miles.
From miles out we could see that the D.R. would be an unbelievable contrast from the low Bahamanian Islands and the Turks and Caicos. Here we approached mountains coming down to the shoreline. The D.R. Chamber of Commerce even organized a rainbow welcoming for us as we approached! How kewl was that?
Ocean World found us at our first dock since Nassau way back on February 24th, over 7 weeks prior. Being dockside for a night made things doubly handy prior to our next departure for Puerto Rico the following day. After clearing customs the Q flag was again dropped and replaced by the D.R. courtesy flag. The D.R. Flag certainly won't get a lot of wear on this trip – just one night plus the day and a half we'll be sailing in D.R. Waters.
Ocean World – Back to the [sur]real world
As a study in contrasts, who could imagine a starker one than the pristine beaches of a deserted island like Big Sand Cay (see approach to the sliver of Big Sand to the left) compared with the Dominican Republic's major tourist center, Ocean World (right), complete with marina, casino, discos, floor shows, restaurants, gift shops, dolphin and shark pools where you can swim with the fish, and beaches bustling with people and toys, all complimented by pools with loud music everywhere.
It was fun to drop into the middle of this hustle bustle for a day, but it will be equally fun to drop out of it on Sunday. By leaving mid-day Sunday, we're hoping to arrive in Boqueron, Puerto Rico, sometime on Tuesday. 'Til then stay tuned as the adventure continues to unfold.
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