Sunday & Monday April 10 and 11: Little Exuma Harbor; An Eventful Anchorage

     The wind filled in as predicted, but the seas came from a different direction.  The wind was from the NE but somehow the waves came from the East, and we were in their way.  

      It was getting kind of sloppy where we were anchored so I decided we could move in a little closer to shore and take advantage of the protection the point of land to our East would give us. The charted depths were fine and our Sounder proved them right. 

     What I didn’t take into account was that with a sustained 20 plus knot wind heading away from Exuma and Little Exuma Islands, just as Penobscot Bay in a good strong Northerly, the tides go lower than normal.

     I started sounding and found that we were getting in very thin water, so I payed out more scope to get us a bit further off shore into what I hoped would be deeper water.  This may not have been a good idea; in any case it didn’t work.

     Soon we were thumping lightly on the sand bottom and getting turned abeam of the wind direction.  Aground.

     We readied a kedge anchor to set out further off shore and I donned my snorkel gear to swim it out, with 400 feet of rode. (Pretty good pulling angle in 4 feet of water)  We hauled that taut but Willie didn’t budge.  Tide was coming for another hour and a half, but with this wind, we had our doubts.

     So since anchor #1 was doing us no good I decided to hand carry that to a better spot.  Well, the first anchor I swam/walked out was aluminum with 6 feet of chain.  Our #1 anchor is steel and has 60 feet of chain.  I had quite the aerobic workout moving that beast, first dragging the anchor some, then going back for some chain, then freeing it from a coral head, then back too the anchor, repeat many times.

     Once we had #1 out 300 feet in a similar direction as the kedge we put a mighty strain on each.  Still not moving, but bouncing again, so we were getting closer!

    Since it was getting late, but still light out, Kathy got some supper together, and just before we ate, the tide rose just enuf to get Willie to deeper water.  What a relief.

     After our nice supper we decided to pull both anchors and in spite of the large uncomfortable seas, move out into deeper water to avoid a repeat performance in the middle of the night.  

     Comfortably in deep water, (6 feet), we set out to try and sleep thru a bouncy night, as we were now outside the protection of the Eastern point.  But not much else place to find shelter, and at least thru the whole ordeal, the wind was blowing off shore, and we had no damage save a little paint worn off the bottom of our keel.  We do have the cleanest keel in George Town right now.

     Tuesday morning and the dropping wind couldn’t come fast enough! We probably won’t visit that ‘Harbor’ again.

sorry - no pictures of the excitement - we were rather busy

     While at anchor on Monday, before all the excitement, I got out a little project I had be meaning to do for a while.  I was doubtful of the viability of the emergency steering tiller that came with the Willie, so naturally designed my own.  Why not customize the boat to suit us.  

The rudder head is square bronze solid stock and just happens to fit a 15/16 box end wrench, so when we were home a month ago, I grabbed an old wrench and drilled and tapped 3 holes in it so I could fasten a wooden tiller to it.

Dan improvising - using his phone as a square.

The final product.

     Then to cut a hole in the side of the cockpit seat assembly. Using a 3 inch hole saw and a hand held sawsall, hole cut, then trimmed with white rubber welting.  Voila, a real useful emergency tiller.  (The wooden tiller has made the whole trip aboard, the welting joined us in Prince Edward Island, via Maine, via Defender Industries, the aforementioned wrench only weeks aboard)

That’s how some of these projects go, they need lots of percolation, then the timing has to be just right.