Returning from the Bahamas

Hi Folks,

This will be our trip’s final episode, and difficult to write, but that is getting ahead of myself. We spent the last day in Marsh Harbour hanging out with Terry and Margaret, a British couple who had come to the U.S. to buy a boat, since the dollar is so cheap compared to the British Pound, and then, at least, in theory, sail it back across the Atlantic. We had become friends a month or so earlier, but we had spent much of that time telling them that the 2005 Gemini (similar to our boat) was not designed to cross the Atlantic safely. Terry has sailed a bit, Margaret is totally new to sailing, but up for an adventure.

We spent the first day, Tuesday, sailing north to Green Turtle Cay, about 25 miles away, before a front was due to blow through the next night that might stop us from proceeding through Whale Passage, which can turn very violent in such blows. We had a nice sail up to Green turtle, and Catatonic pulled into the dock at the Green Turtle Club Marina. I had met the manager of the GTC on a flight a few weeks earlier, and she had invited us to visit with special rates and great food. “Bonnie” decided to anchor out. That night the winds came and blew all night over 30 knots. We were glad to be tied up at a dock. “Bonnie” made it through the night OK, but early next morning she started dragging anchor. With much ado, including 2 small boats zooming out to her assistance, there was minimal damage done – a bent strut for the wind turbine and some chopped up branches on the side of the harbor. Terry and Margaret were fine but shaken up. "Bonnie"

After waiting out the front and its accompanying northerly winds, we set out on Friday with Northeast winds, and sailed all day, from 6:30 AM until 4 PM , to cover the 50 or so miles to Great Sale Cay. The island is uninhabited, but a good anchorage, where many boats stay for a night between long sails, since there are few places to stop going in or out of the Bahamas. That evening, we rowed over to “Bonnie” and discussed the next day and the weather, since everything in sailing is dependent on weather. I suggested that we were probably going to sail all the way to Florida – about 100 miles, because of worsening weather, and that we should start out about midnight after about 4-5 hours sleep. That would bring us in at dawn to a tricky shoal area that we had to cross and before dark to Lake Worth in West Palm Beach, so we could have visuals on that, too. Terry and Margaret refused to leave that early, choosing instead to leave at 7 AM the next day. I had a cold and wasn’t in the mood to argue, so we reluctantly agreed.

We set off at dawn on Saturday morning, just before 7 AM with light wind coming from the North. This was not predicted and we hoped that the northerly wind would subside or clock around, since Northerly winds rub against the southerly current of the Gulf Stream and can cause big nasty waves. The winds slowly built and stayed from the Northeast at about 10-15 knots throughout the day. Motorsailing across the banks with both sails up we maintained a good pace of about 6-7 knots. At one point, as we were trolling a fishing line out behind us, they crossed behind us and we managed to “catch” an 8000 pound fish called “Bonnie”, the other Gemini. We disentangled the line with no damage except for a snapped fishing line.

As we approached West End, Bahamas, the last point of land before the Gulf Stream, we encountered 2 sailboats going the other way. We hailed them and asked how the conditions were in the Atlantic. They reported 4-6 foot waves with Northeast winds. They also reported that the weather was supposed to deteriorate over the next day (we knew this from NOAA reports on the VHF radio which we could now receive), but if we hurried up, we might get across unscathed. We thanked them and proceeded without much difficulty on through the last set of shoals near West End called Indian Passage – about 5 miles of shallow water surrounded by coral heads.

We started into the Gulf Stream and all seemed fairly calm, about 2-4 feet waves with 10-12 knots of wind coming from the Northeast. We were able to motorsail and surf down the waves comfortably going from 6-9 knots up and down the waves. As the sun was setting, we were getting tired but the going was fairly easy. About 6 more hours to go. Sunset in the Gulf Stream

That evening the winds and waves began to increase. The boat was surfing heavily, occasionally causing the person at the helm (Ronnie and I took 2 hour shifts), to occasionally have to wrestle with the steering as a large wave would push our stern sideways. All the time we kept “Bonnie’s” lights in sight, occasionally hailing each other about our heading or just to check in to see if everything was OK. At one point I radioed “Bonnie” that we had just had a flying fish land in our cockpit, but it was too small to keep, and Ronnie insisted that I throw it back.

As we approached the coast of Florida, we saw a huge glow from all the lights on shore. Specifically we started seeing occasional bright lights in the sky that would appear and then disappear. We were 30 miles out and realized that it was airplanes taking off from West Palm Beach airport. Additional strange lights started appearing, and we could not discern the entrance to Lake Worth – just too many lights. There was no moonlight to help and everything was backlit by the lights from the shore. Finally about 1 mile off the coast, with the aid of our GPS, we decided that a set of 3 green lights was probably the entrance to the harbor we had been looking for. We weren’t sure until we got much closer, perhaps 1/4 mile away. Ronnie went up and lowered the mainsail – we had already rolled up the jib earlier, since the wind was virtually behind us and it was difficult to fly it at night with all the wave action. It was about midnight when we hailed “Bonnie” that we were lined up in the channel, but she replied back that they were having some serious problems.

First they could not start their engine, and did not know why (later found out it was a torn rubber washer). Also they could not furl their foresail, it was stuck open. As we were trying to advise them, a pilot boat coming out of the channel hailed us that a cruise ship was coming in and that we had to get out of the channel. The pilot boat’s attitude was nasty, and I considered telling him off, but since we were occupied with Bonnie’s troubles, we decided to sail out of the channel. Also, since the northeast winds and waves were kicking up we were being driven out of the channel anyway. For about 30-45 minutes, we continued to circle “Bonnie”. Finally, they managed to get their jib closed, but were still unable to start their engine. Without any control or power the waves and wind were driving them into shallow water, and we radioed them to throw out an anchor and call Towboat U.S. After they threw out the anchor in about 8 feet of water, it held and they called Towboat. The Towboat was scheduled for about 5 minutes arrival, and Ronnie and I decided that they were safe. Ronnie was not feeling well from all the hours and waves, so we headed in and told “Bonnie” that we would meet up with them the next day.

Having taken over 1/2 hour to shepherd our buddy boat to seeming safety, Catatonic had been driven down the coast away from the inlet entrance by now 6 foot waves and 15 knots of wind. We started heading back to the outer green light, but saw another green light towards the harbor. Our boat has a very shallow draft, and it is almost always safe to cut corners on buoys, where thin water is present. We also knew that it was approaching high tide. In the blackness of the water and backlit by the shore lights, we made a left turn to align ourselves with the 2 green lights that represented the entrance to the harbor. No more than 10 feet from alignment, Ronnie screamed out “ROCKS!, TURN LEFT. TURN LEFT! “ A second later, I saw the rocks – black, about 5 feet high, and very jagged less than 20 feet off our bow. I threw the engine into full reverse, but it was hopeless. The 6 foot waves threw us onto the rocks. Somehow we spun counterclockwise so that our stern was now pinned against the rocks. The waves kept lifting Catatonic and crunching her stern onto the rocks – a horrible sound of breaking fiberglass. The engine died (it actually was pounded off and into the water we found out later) and the lights on our boat started to flicker and then went out. A couple of seconds later, our batteries started smoking and then blew up. I saw that the only way to get off the rocks was to sail off, so I tried to open our jib, but it was jammed. As the boat continued to pound against the rocks, I issued a “MAYDAY” to the Coast Guard on channel 16. They replied quickly and asked for our situation and position. Either Ronnie or I responded at different times as to where we were and our condition. They asked if we were taking on water, and I replied “No, but we are in danger of breaking up”. I raced forward to try to unjam the jib furler and to see the condition of our dinghy – it was well tied down – and I decided that if things did not improve quickly I might cut the dinghy free so that we would have a backup boat. I had my very sharp knife in my pocket. Ronnie continued to talk to the Coast Guard. As I came back to the cockpit, Ronnie had found the entangled furling line for the jib and shouted to try the jib again. I pulled hard, and it opened, filling immediately and pulled us off the rocks. The whole episode on the rocks seemed like an eternity, but was less than 5 minutes.

Ronnie checked on the bilges below, and there was a slight amount of water in the port bilge. By now the Towboat who had been headed for “Bonnie” knew of our situation and was routed by the Coast Guard to us instead. He called out to me to see if we were “Catatonic”. I said, Yes. He came alongside as we sailed slowly under jib alone and threw me a line with a bridle. Since our main cleat is the strongest, I attached it to the center cleat, and he began to pull us in toward the entrance. The Coast Guard hailed us to see if everyone was alright and if we were taking on water. This time I responded that we were alright, but we were taking on water. I had to reset the bridle to either side of the bow, since Catatonic was slewing all over the place – now we knew we had lost our rudders and unknown until now, our engine was being dragged through the water by only 2 ropes, having been driven off of the transom by the pounding on the rocks.

As we were towed inside the harbor, the Coast Guard boat pulled up alongside us, and repeated the question about whether we were taking on water. I replied “Yes” again, and they then insisted that we get off our boat. It is their job to ensure safety of lives, and water coming in dictates that they took us off. After gathering our passports, money and wallets, we got off. They assured us that we would be able to get back on the boat for the rest of our stuff. They then proceeded to ask us a lot of questions. There were about 6 or 7 of them on board – most in their early 20’s, the oldest one about late 20’s.

Besides standard name, address, citizenship questions, they asked about all of the equipment (mostly safety) that we carried on board, who was at the helm and whether we had taken any boating courses – we had. The chief of the Coast Guard crew concluded that he could not write us up for any citation - we had done everything we could and had our boat in proper condition.

After that some of the crew started telling Ronnie a bunch of horror stories that had happened on those rocks, a tugboat sank there last year, and uninsured sailboat sank there several weeks ago. Finally one guy whispered to Ronnie that they had just missed the rocks themselves at night last week and that “don’t tell anyone, it wouldn’t be too good for anyone to known that”.

We finally got towed into a dock at Rybovich Marine, a famous powerboat builder, where the Towboat captain, Brian, attached an emergency battery pack to our bilge pump to stabilize the water coming in. The bilge pump worked well and went off every 5 minutes or so, meaning it was keeping up with the leak. I later found the other hull leaking and turned on that bilge pump also. By then it was about 3:00 AM and we were all shot. I laid down on Catatonic, totally shot, and fell asleep for a few minutes on an old sailbag. Ronnie went over and found that “Bonnie” had been towed in to the same marina, and they invited us to sleep there for the rest of the night. Exhaustion allowed us to sleep after much conversation over our experience. The conclusion was that we were fine – no bumps or bruises and that was all that was important.
The Morning After tied to a Dock - Note Engine in Water

The next morning, I helped Brian tow our boat around the dock so that she could be hauled, and knowing what had happened to us, he offered his quote of the day to me – “ A friend in need is a pain in the ars”. I laughed and told him that I had thought of that but didn’t say it to anyone. The boatyard hauled Catatonic out and we all saw the damage to her hulls. Very bad as water poured out of the aft section of her. I had remembered that 13 years ago, I had put sealed Coke bottles in her buoyancy chambers in the rear of her hulls just in case she was ever holed there. Well, it happened, and along with sealed chambers above, the Coke bottles ( about 400-600 pounds of flotation in each hull) probably kept her afloat. Port Hull Damage

The final chapter of this saga has not yet been written, but the insurance surveyor and the yard’s estimators came to the same conclusion. The cost of repairing “Catatonic” would exceed her worth. She is very likely going to be “totaled” by the insurance company. We have spent the last week emptying out our personal items and accessories – clothes, safety equipment, etc. Thankfully, Ronnie’s mom lives in southern Florida and we have been able to stay with her. For fun or confusion, we twice went to look at other catamarans for sale, but they are too expensive. We tentatively have decided to somehow “expand” our trailerable trimaran, which is small inside, so that next year we can sail back to the Bahamas and enjoy the wonderful people and weather there.

Arnie and Ronnie

P.S. Terry and Margaret have decided to have “Bonnie” shipped back to England.