Good times in George Town

We got back to George Town on May 3, 2014. The idea was to buy a new outboard for the dinghy and, after breaking in the engine, start going north again to get to the Abacos. From there, we'll cross to the USA again, in preparation for hurricane season.

We did buy the outboard and are quite happy with it. Our older one was fine, but it didn't have the enough power to get us on a plane. There are normally 4 of us, plus snorkel gear, fishing gear and anything else we want to carry; it was too much for the old outboard. This resulted in us taking our sweet time to get anywhere. So we bought a more powerful outboard. Wow, what a difference! The kids are so excited that every time we get to the dinghy they start yelling “go faster, daddy, faster!” The new outboard needs to be serviced after the first 10 hours of use, and so we had to stay put in George Town for a few days. The few days easily turned into almost 3 weeks.

In the meantime, we met two kid boats, Viatori and Horizon. Viatori is a Canadian boat from Edmonton (small world!) with 3 boys. Horizon is an Argentinian boat (did I mention a small world?) with a girl and a boy. Naturally, we got together with them immediately and started spending a lot of time with them.

We fell into an easy routine. School in the morning for me and the kids, while Ernesto did maintenance stuff on the boat, dinghy to town to get groceries or do laundry. Then came lunch at varied times. And then, inevitably, we all ended up in Sand Dollar Beach, where the kids ran, played in the sand, snorkeled and had lots of fun. The adults chatted, and drank mate. And also had a great time. Sometimes, we had dinner together when we were able to accommodate the Canadian and Argentinian dinner times :)

Body boarding with Viatori

This turtle and its mom appeared almost daily next to Taia. Super cute!

Horizon and Taia crew, enjoying the beach.

Viatori, Horizon and Taia's crew

The girls had a sleepover aboard Horizon!

Walk to the Exuma Sound side of Sand Dollar beach

Ernesto scrubbing the bottom of Taia. More than 2 hours of scraping and Taia is finally algae-free.

Ernesto and Jonathan, from Horizon, went spear fishing a few times. So eating fish became a habit too. The kids are becoming experts in identifying fish and get super excited about the catch of the day. Fortunately for us, they like to eat it too!

A few times while snorkeling, they ended up swimming with a female dolphin that was very curious and friendly. She would just come around and start swimming close to them. An out of this world experience!

One afternoon, when we were coming to the boat from Volleyball beach after a lunch at the Chat 'N Chill restaurant, we saw a dolphin swimming in circles around an anchored boat, very close to shore. Immediately, Ernesto jumped to the water. And soon after that, the four of us were in the water with the dinghy securely tied up to the empty boat. We spent more than half an hour being in the water with the dolphin. What an experience! I'm sure this is going to be one of those moments forever ingrained in our memories.

Another ritual is looking at the sharks, trying to decipher what type they are, when Ernesto cleans the fish and throws the remains in the water and after a few minutes, silently, a shark or two or three, appear after they smell the blood and start circling Taia. More than once I was tempted to jump into the water to look at them, but of course, being the chicken that I am, I always stay on board Taia and admire them from above.

Shark! I think it's a lemon shark.

We also had the pleasure of getting together with Distant Shores. Paul and Sheryl are a Canadian couple who have been sailing for many years. They make videos of their travels that they then sell and show on TV. We have watched all of their episodes, dreaming of the day we'd do the same thing. We met them first a few years ago, when we took a cruising seminar in Toronto. We had a great time with them and are really glad we ran into them.

Soon, very soon, we'll all go our different ways. It will be sad to say farewell to friends again. But there's always the hope that our paths will cross again. And the kids keep piling up friends!

Pudding Cut, Exuma, Bahamas

This is another of my piloting posts. It's meant for cruisers looking for information to transit an area that we find somewhat challenging.

On our way back to George Town from the Raggeds and Jumentos, we wanted to avoid beating eastward to Long Island through Comer Channel. Instead, we decided to head north-east from Water Cay, towards Rocky Point in the south western corner of Great Exuma Island (roughly around 23°35' N, 76°04' W).

From Rocky Point, we sailed north through Pudding Cut, to later exit to Exuma Sound through Square Rock Cut (which was an interesting experience in and of itself; of the hang-on-to-your-pants type of experience). Pudding Cut stretches north to south on the west side of Barraterre. Throughout the cut the charts report depths anywhere from 5 to 24 feet.

With our 6-foot draft, we transited the cut with extreme care and on a rising tide. According to the Explorer charts, the tide in the Rocky Point area is approximately 2 hours later than Nassau tides. We approached the cut area at 1045 on 3/May/2014, right around high tide in Nassau.

It is imperative to transit the cut with a good eye for reading the water. Visual Piloting Rules apply! It's not a straight shot north; we followed a snaking track based on what depths we were seeing and the color of the water. At times we even kept a bow watch.

The transit took 1 hour and 15 minutes, while the tide in Nassau was high at +2.2'. The skinniest water we saw was 7.3' in a shallow spot at the north end of the cut. Most of the cut is deeper than that, with 8 feet or more at the time we transited.

By the way, the distance between George Town and Water Cay in the Jumentos through Pudding Cut and Square Rock Cut is 75 miles. The route that goes on the east side of Great Exuma Island, through Thompson Bay and the Comer Channel, is 89 miles. In our case, coming back from the Jumentos on the more westerly route was hugely advantageous, since the wind was a healthy 15 knots from the south east the first day, and 10 to 15 knots from the south on the second day. The sail from Square Rock Cut to Conch Cay Cut wasn't the uncomfortable and slow beat we'd experienced the first time we sailed south east to George Town.

Comer Channel, Exuma, Bahamas

A common route to follow when going to the Jumentos Cays is due west from Thompson Bay in Long Island, through the Comer Channel, and then south west to Water Cay, in the Jumentos. With Taia's 6-foot draft, Comer Channel was a bit of a question mark for us. Chart data in the channel shows depths of barely 6 feet at MLLW.

The obligatory online research landed me on the Passage Reports section of the Bahamas Cruisers Guide web page. There I found a table with information that is extremely useful when planning a passage such as this one. The table shows specific waypoints along the route, along with the time S/V Onward was at those waypoints, the depth they saw, and the tide state at Nassau. I'm putting up a similar table here in the hopes that it will be useful to other cruisers.

Three of the waypoints I show on the table, Comer East, Comer Channel, and Comer West, are the waypoints shown on the Explorer Charts. The other two waypoints are roughly the half way points between the Explorer waypoints.

We transited the channel from east to west on 22/April/2014, arriving at Comer East at 1045. All depths and tide states are expressed in feet. The Minimum Depth column shows the minimum depth we saw transiting from one waypoint (in the previous row) to the next (in the current row).

	Time	Nassau Tide	Depth	Min Depth
Comer East 23°20.80' N 75°19.87' W	1045	+0.7	8.3
Halfway	1103	+0.9	7.5	7.4
Comer Channel 23°19.50' N 75°24.00' W	1127	+1.2	7.8	7.1
Halfway	1204	+1.5	8.4	7.8
Comer West 23°20.25' W 75°31.50' N	1242	+1.9	11.5	8.4