Highbourne Cay Anchorage

Sunday April 20, 2014

The morning was overcast and the wind was still blowing, but the forecast did not look all that bad, and we needed to make a move.

The route was somewhat circuitous.  First we had to retrace our steps from Friday and work our way out between the reefs back into the Northeast Providence Channel. Then we would be out in deep water for about 15 miles and then enter the “Great Bahama Bank” through the Fleeming Channel. According to the guide book the channel was also “subject to rages” in the wrong conditions. But the wind and tide were on our stern so conditions were basically OK.

The first few hours were quite unpleasant. The seas where very rough and disorganized. Lots of stuff on the boat was crashing around, including the crew. After an hour or so I remembered that while we were anchored I had opened the portlights in the Vee Berth. I raced down to close them to find sea spray in the Vee Berth, all the stores and bedding were soaked. What a mess.

The ride settled down a bit as we got into deep water and were able to put the wind and waves more on our stern. Not great, but OK. We put away the woopee bowl.

Entering Fleeming was simple enough (thank goodness for Chart Plotters) and then around the Quintus bar and on to the Bank proper. We took the depth readings at face value and kept in the deeper water. The course from there to Highbourne was now basically a straight line south, the challenge being to spot and avoid the numerous coral heads. But we were totally alone, not another boat in sight.

The conditions for “Visual Navigation” seemed OK, it was “sunny to partly cloudy” and just a moderate chop on the bank. The “problem” was still that neither of us knew what a coral head actually looked like, so we were not too sure what we would be avoiding.

  

Coral Head!

It was turning out to be a decent day, the sun was shining most of the time. We figured we would know what a coral head looked like when we saw one. And we did. That was a relief. And except for when the sun went behind a dark cloud we felt OK. They came in random patches, bit like crab pots. We now had a magenta line “Fleeming to Beacon Point”) and so as we avoided the coral heads we headed back to “the line”.

By 2PM we were “out of the woods” and by 4 arrived at our target anchorage at Highbourne. There was a big boat (maybe 150’ feet) in the area. This was the first boat we had seen all day. There was plenty of space and we found a patch of sand and dropped anchor. We fell back too close to the beach so recovered the anchor and moved another 100’ off the shore.

It had been a hard day on top of two nights of poor sleep.

We had obviously picked a popular spot. By dark Deidre counted 14 boats, including 4 “real boats”

There was a large BATELCO tower on the hill up the beach, so 3G reception was good. We made contact with Barb and Don and a meeting place was set for the next day.