We departed Palm Cay with just the two of us on board. Freya left from Nassau for New Zealand after three wonderful months. Suddenly the boat seems a lot bigger and very quiet. Is there such a thing as Empty Boat Syndrome?
Palm Cay Marina was once again quiet, safe and delightful. One of the prettiest beach and restaurant settings you can imagine. Demaro and his team were ever helpful and the courtesy car was a boon. Mind you the berths are tight to get in and out of and it took us quite a bit of manouvering to negotiate the bow sprit through the pilings.
We left on a boisterous downwind sail. 15 to 20 knots in short choppy seas over the notorious Yellow Bank. This bank had been a favourite refuge for pirates on the run as they knew the safe route through the coral heads. Our objective, Normans Cay was only two nautical miles away when suddenly the Garmin GPS went blank. When that happens its rather like being on a mountain road and your brakes start to fade, not immediately life threatening but it certainly focuses the attention. Fortunately we have a back up GPS but it doesn't have the depth finder or AIS. The old IDO depth finder works but the LED display is very hard to read these days, it is probably thirty years old so there is some excuse. I ended up with my head at right angles out of the cockpit bobbing up and down like a meerkat to catch a glimpse of those all important numbers while the Skipper waited semi-patiently to check the depths against the chart. None of all this activity is helped by the fact that since I had my eyes fixed, my long sight is phenomenal; I can track hummingbirds in flight at 200 yards but ask me to read the fine print on a chart, there's trouble. Mind you having GPS does make you lazy. We always have a paper chart so we can have a track of where we are but yesterday was a reminder that you can never take things for granted. We had been talking to Chris from 'Cerulean' who with his family had sailed in the Bahamas fifty years ago. No comforting Explorer charts and GPS in those days. He remembers being sent to swim ahead of the boat with his brother through a particularly narrow channel to check for hazards in the crystal clear water. The Skipper may think that's a good idea but it's not a happening thing on this boat. Besides these days you would probably get run over by a speed boat whizzIng through the cut.
I digress, so a quick change of plan was in order. We continued to Shroud Cay, not the most pleasant anchorage in a North Easterly but easy to get into. It is always the way - the GPS could have given up the ghost on the way to Nassau, but no, it waited until we were in the Exumas with inhabited islands few and far between and definitely no handy marine store. Plus we had just bit the bullet and purchased a Satellite Phone which do not come cheap. Ah well, it looks like Georgetown for us to order a replacement as two of our favourite electronic tools have been the sonar depth finder and the AIS.
The ironic aspect of all this is that in the States we organised Sirius weather updates for the Garmin GPS. In the Bahamas it hasn't really worked so we were going to cancel it. Each time we have had Internet and decided to cancel it would start working again and then just as mysteriously disappear. Yesterday as we left Palm Cay the weather features were working beautifully: weather, warnings, 12/24/48 hour forecasts, the whole lot. It must have tipped the poor thing over the edge as it went out in a final blaze of glory.
Today in contrast was the type of day you dream about. The wind and swell had moderated overnight, so we had had a good nights sleep. We left Shroud Cay in gorgeous sunshine on a perfect close reach doing 10-15 knots in calm seas. The Skipper and I vied with each other to see who could get 'Bounty' above 7-8 knots. It was a quick four hour trip to Warderick Wells and we are now moored in one of the most beautiful spots in the Exumas. Tucked up waiting for the next front to come through, all's well with the world.
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