A Bad Day in Paradise

(Thurs March 17 - Dist: 24.6 mi; Avg Speed: 8.7 mph; TTT: 3:00 hrs)

Five of the eight boats which made up the original "A" Team (ie. Abaco Team) left Mangoes Marina in Marsh Harbour and headed for Little Harbour on a beautiful sunny day.  The water was so clear that you could see star fish on the bottom as we were travelling.

Little Harbour is small with a very shallow entrance so we decided that we were going to anchor out along Lynyard Cay just across from Little Harbour.  We had to visit Pete's Pub and Art Gallery so we loaded up 2 of the dinghies for the 2 mile crossing.  It was fun; the "Blaster", a rum drink was superb and went down easy....and often.   The food was good to very good.  Even the gallery was interesting to visit.  Some of the nicest sculptures that I have ever seen were here.  There were a number of pieces of the sea life in the Bahamas that I would buy especially the turtles.  For those who do not know me very well, I have never, ever wanted to buy a sculpture especially one made of metal.  In the end it did not matter, all were out of my price range by  factor of 100.

After a fun day at Pete's Pub and some shelling (to make Linda happy) we had a beautiful evening all together on Finally.  Since it was nearly a full moon, it was truly a gorgeous evening........UNTIL....

It started earlier in the afternoon when Jerry on Sassy II went snorkeling with his cell phone in his pocket.  Then Pam forgot something at Pete's Pub and had to go back to Little Harbour.  So far, just annoying, then the wind picked up around 9 PM and swung around from a different direction.  Some couldn't sleep for fear of breaking loose and for poor Richard who was asleep, he was rudely awakened by a sailboat crashing into his bow.  By the time he and Jill rushed on deck the sailboat was pulling away.  Believe it or not, the owner never apologized nor checked how much damage he had done; not even the next morning.  Well after a sleepless night for some (fortunately Q's End was fine) four of us decided to go to the marina at Man-O-War while Sassy II headed back to Marsh Harbour to buy another phone.

Things seemed to be progressing well UNTIL Bade Boomer lost their port engine.  They anchored immediately and wanted to check the props.  Bruce dove under and saw a fishing net wrapped around his propeller.  Bob from Mint Julip and I decided to give them some assistance.  Bob, who was dragging his dinghy, could not get his engine to start which meant that I needed to launch our dinghy.  The wind was still blowing good and the water was rough but I knew that my dinghy could handle it.  It rolled off nicely, then the wind caught it and swung it around behind the boat just as a large wave picked up the swim platform and slammed the davit into the tube.  It put a 5" by 5" gash in the front tube; it deflated immediately.  From that point on Linda and I struggled to save the dinghy and get it back on board....no easy task with the wind and the waves.  We did manage to get it secure again.  Meanwhile Bruce launched his dinghy and picked up Bob to do the removal.  It did not take them long.  As Bruce was returning Bob to Mint Julip, his motor stalled and before long he was a couple of hundred yards down wind.  We had no more dinghies to put in the water so Linda and I quickly weighed anchor to chase him down.  Fortunately, Bruce got the motor running enough to get him back to his boat.  Far too much excitement.

With all this dinking around we arrived at Man-O-War at low tide.  Normally not a problem except for the full moon that we had admired the previous evening.  The water was very low and the channel very, very narrow.  I am sure that it was less than 5 feet must of the way in.  The four of us did get in and tied up without any further incidents.