January 20-21, 2007

Allen's Cay

On Saturday January 20th, we make an early morning departure from Rock Sound across the Exuma Sound to Allen's Cay. Civil Twilight joins us for the crossing. Nick rigs his fishing pole and gets several hits in the first few hours. "We'll never get there if we keep stopping to reel in fish," I whine. Unfortunately, none of the fish are keepers: several barracuda and two fish that we mistakenly think might be out-of-season Nassau groupers. The last grouper was quite large and took a joint effort to release from the hook. Large reef fish carry a risk of ciguatera poisoning, so we opt to let it go and not take the risk. After fighting that big boy, Nick decides to pull in his lines and take a break.

The Exuma islands lie between the deep water of the Exuma Sound on the east and the shallow, protected water of the Exuma Banks on the west. As in the Abacos, the cuts between the two bodies of water can be difficult to enter in the wrong weather conditions. Fortunately, we have a beautiful weather window and the Highborne Cut is calm. Even so, we must navigate visually, not relying solely on GPS waypoints. Trying to match land features on the chart with rocks and sand spits all around us is a bit stressful. However, we make it through without incident and soon arrive at Allen's Cay.

We pull into Allen's Cay at low tide and drop our primary (Bruce) anchor in 7 feet of what looks like bath water. When we put the engine in reverse to set it, the anchor drags. This has become a frequent and frustrating occurrence in the Bahamas. We notice that the water depth has dropped and we fear we'll run aground if we try to retrieve the anchor and set our secondary (CQR) anchor. So Nick loads the CQR anchor in the dinghy and drops it about 45 degrees away from the Bruce. After a great deal of effort, we seem to be set. Now it's time to go see the iguanas, the only inhabitants of Allen's Cay.

We have barely drifted off to sleep that night when the anchor alarm goes off. The ebb (outgoing) tide is flowing full force through the anchorage and the boat is swinging around. We watch our compass and navigation instruments in disbelief. The bow of an anchored boat should point into the wind. Yet despite almost 20 knots of wind, the current is pushing our stern back and forth in front of the wind. Our two anchors are not set for a reversing current, and we can only imagine the two anchor chains twisting around each other and possibly pulling the anchors out. If the boat breaks free, we won't be able to save ourselves in the dark surrounded by other boats and rocks. We're sick with worry, but finally decide the anchors are holding and go back to bed and try without much success to sleep.

The next day, we talk to Civil Twilight and other boats who had the same experience during the night. When the ebb tide occurs that afternoon, we observe the bizarre scenario in daylight. Our boats dance around their anchors like drunken prom dates. Oddly, the boats on the other side of the anchorage seem to hold their positions. Before the second night's ebb tide, we raise a reefed mizzen sail. The sail counteracts the current enough to keep our stern out of the wind and we manage to get some sleep. Tomorrow we'll find out how badly our anchors are twisted when we try to leave. We hope we won't become permanent residents, competing with the iguanas for tourist tidbits.