We had a very relaxing week in the Turks and Caicos islands (TCI). A few days after our arrival (and Day 1 Boneheaded boat drama – see previous post), our guests/crew, Helen and Klas, moved off the boat to one of the local resort villas for the last few days of their stay.
Then it was time for us to catch up on boat chores (the list never ends). Moxie got a very thorough bath, we cleaned forward and aft lockers, replaced caulking, polished the stainless, and I caught up on some work, etc. Best of all we had long walks every day with a few stops in the resort gym!! Woohoo!
Given that we’d had more than 90% of our meals on the boat in the last 30 days… we ate out when we could, but the Turks is very expensive. We also needed to restock our food supply, so we went to the grocery almost every day… but that wasn’t much cheaper.
Using the picture to the right, guess at how much these few items cost (price at the bottom). I know everything has to be imported, but Sheesh!! Unfortunately, the Turks and Caicos has the best selection we’ll find until we get to the US, so we had to ‘bite the bullet’ and stock up. Cha-ching!
Even though the Broncos didn’t make it to the Super Bowl we booked a table to watch it with Helen and Klas at a Bar called Danny Buoy’s. Ironically, we watched the KC Chiefs play in the Super Bowl at the very same bar 3 years ago.
Unfortunately, we had to cancel because Helen cut herself badly on Saturday morning and had to be rushed to the hospital for surgery. She was putting away a ceramic coffee cup, but it broke and sliced her right across the wrist. Turns out she didn’t cut any tendons but did ‘nick a nerve’. However, the Turks surgeon didn’t feel qualified to repair the damage so they had to cut their trip short a few days so she could see a micro-vascular surgeon back in the US.
Soon, it was time to begin making our way up to Georgetown, Exumas (Bahamas). As most of you know, the weather on the East Coast has been crazy and those same strong low-pressure systems bring cooler weather to the Bahamas often with strong wind and large waves. The last few days (Feb. 5-8) have been no different.
Although the winds were decreasing a little each day, big waves were still being churned up by winds further north.
Usually this isn’t a problem, but since the Turks is surrounded by reefs (240 miles of reef!), with only a few openings out to the sea, the timing of going through the ‘cuts’ needs to be chosen carefully.
We decided to leave the marina on Monday (2/9) and go ‘eyeball’ the same cut we came in through (Ft. George) and make a decision based on what we saw. However, once we looked at the cut, and saw how much the waves were breaking, we definitely weren’t going thru that on Monday am. So, we found a secluded spot behind Little Iguana Cay and anchored for the night to wait for the wind/waves to die down a little more.
Sunrise on Tuesday morning was beautiful – and pretty calm..but we watched through the binoculars as another boat went through a narrower reef than Ft. George. Their mast was bobbing and weaving back and forth, and we could only imagine what it felt like as they went through. A few days later, we got a message from the Skipper that said it was ‘the scariest thing he’d ever done with a boat!”
We pulled up anchor to have another look at the Ft. George cut. The video shows the waves breaking over the reef just south of the cut… not nearly as bad as Monday.
So we continued up towards the cut. At the entrance to the cut, we hovered to study the wave pattern, and it looked much better than Monday. So we put up our sails and started moving towards it. It takes about 3 minutes to pass completely through the cut and all was well at first… then Anthony spotted the 1st of a set of 3 cresting waves (they often comes in sets of 3),
We negotiated the 1st one with no problem, but as soon as that one passed under us, there was a slightly larger one up ahead, which was also breaking, and we took a lot of spray with that one.
After we passed the 2nd one, there was an even bigger wave behind that (the 3rd one)…. which we went over just as it started to break… and a big SLAM on the back side of it sending water up through the trampoline, and spray across the cabin top… and I GOT DRENCHED!
Inside the cabin and below, the fridge door opened and food spilled out, cans of soda fell off the shelf and were rattling around on the floor, our bunk got wet (just a little).
Later we noticed that the casing around the life raft had cracked… but lots of duct tape took care of that!
We got a little unlucky with our timing, because in the 10 minutes before we went through, we saw what looked like benign conditions with no breaking waves. Moxie is a strong boat and built to handle much larger waves. The damage to the life raft is regrettable and the whole thing will have to be replaced. However, we think the case damage might have begun much earlier during our recent Atlantic crossing, when we were smacked around by bigger waves.
We’ll hop our way up the Bahamas chain towards Georgetown in the Exumas to wait for our daughter and son-in-law to arrive on the 21st!
After that drama, we sailed to Little Inagua Island, and on to Great Inagua Island the next day so we could officially clear into the Bahamas!
Cost of Groceries in picture: $162! Mostly because of the nuts, but still…