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Published: April 7th 2014
The planned destination for the day was an anchorage off Nassau- Rose Island. We had already traveled down the coast of Florida to Biscayne Bay then crossed over to Bimini where we stayed a week. Both of those crossings went fine without any incidents. The next passage was from Bimini to Chubb Cay across the Great Bahama Bank where we would stay at anchor overnight and then keep going to Nassau and beyond.We woke up in Chubb Cay anchorage a little late, maybe 7:00, and got under way at around 9 am. The crossing is a pretty straight line south east with winds from the east, we would be going close hauled the whole way with some motoring later in the day. We headed out, the day is glorious, sun shining, 12-14 knot winds, big smiles all around. We both are thinking about how we are getting into a groove after having traveled over 500 km without incident.
We balance the sails and the boat is helming itself upwind for 3-4 hours
without even touching the helm or autopilot, it is amazing how this massive boat can actually steer itself up an down big waves.
We are not heading really in the right direction we are a few degrees off our true intended heading and decide to furl in and use the engine for a few hours to head straight east then continue our sail. Tacking would not have been efficient as we were only off by a few degrees. So the engine comes on and we are now heading straight east .The engine starts to choke and then quits we are realizing we may have a problem. Up go the sails and down goes Marty to investigate. The fuel filters are replaced under way, there is a bit of a diesel mess on the floor from the rocking of the ocean but nothing too bad. We turn the engine over and it starts.
We are both proud or ourselves but now we have doubt in our minds about the engine.
Our mood changes as we realize that we must now motor full speed to the east to get to our anchorage so we can investigate the fuel/motor problem.
Along the way we always check for alternative anchorages or "escape points" if we do come to have problems, so we have an anchorage picked out on the west end of Nassau which would be an easy sail from where we are.
It's now 4 o'clock and the motor dies again. Ok not a bad thing we will go for our escape anchorage where we can come in under sail if we have to. So we head towards the west end anchorage, it looks deep on the charts but there are many rocks around the east of the entrance and to the west, maybe 100 yards wide. The water is listed at 14 feet and deeper inside this anchorage. We draw 7 feet under the boat so it sounds good.
We head towards the anchorage in question for an hour and the winds now have picked up to 20 knots and the waves are now 4-6 feet. We are 30 minutes away and can see the anchorage has big rolling waves which are crashing on the rocks just at the entrance to the unmarked channel to the anchorage. Instinct says: no way... a little too dangerous so I
decided its time to call in for a tow. It's Nassau after all, biggest city in the Bahamas. I call on the VHF for Tow boat services and get nothing. I call again and Tow Boat USA answers. The VHF connection is horrible I can barely hear the lady and she says she will send someone out asap. I had my doubts but we wait for 1 hour and I start calling back on the VHF and nobody answers. At this point we are sailing in circles outside of the anchorage. There is no tow boat coming for us. We are both getting nervous, night is coming and the winds are picking up and the large waves crashing are now huge waves crashing on the rock banks. What to do....
We decide we are going to try going into the anchorage, even though my initial feeling was to not go under these conditions. There was no where else to anchor so we would have to sail 6 hours back to Chubb Cay in 20 knot winds at night. This was a hard decision that I will now regret making for the rest of my life.
We start making
the approach to the the reef, there are no markings but we can see the crashing waves along the left side of the boat and we stay away until we can make the left turn into the inlet into the safe anchorage.
My legs are shaking and I can see Lori is also afraid but we have to get in there somehow and like I said the depth is supposed to be 14 feet at least.... should not be a problem....
We go along the reef, waves are pushing us to the side but not too badly. I wait until we are clear of the reef by 100 feet or so to get a good angle. The entrance is not marked by anything so you have to use your gps and charts and trust them..... ya right.
The turn has started and we are going into the inlet, the waves are crashing behind us and we are in about 50 feet when I look to see the depth sounder at 9 feet, we are supposed to be at 14 feet. I look up to see Lori and she is telling me its really shallow here and next
thing we know a large wave takes us and bounces us off the ground in the low of the swell. It makes a bad sound but nothing too bad, the worse is coming. We are pushed over at least 15 feet and we try to correct course and the next swell comes and this is when we hit the rock.
Image a Volkswagen beetle size rock. The boat shudders as it first hits this rock, we both look at each other... Oh no... I knew this would happen. There was an unmarked rock underwater that was not listed on my chart. So the boat is heeled over to the right side leaning on the rock. The next swell bounces the boat a little higher on the rock and this time the sound is like a bomb going off and the shudder of the boat went through my bones. The boat then started to spin around the rock, we were facing straight left and now were facing right, I grab the wheel to try and compensate. The wheel spins and spins..... we now have no helm control, the cable has snapped or we have lost our rudder.... its over.
"Mayday Mayday Bahamas coast guard we hit rocks, we need help. please call back " this is what I think I said. Or I ordered a pizza or something. At this point we have bashed up and down this rock 5 -6 times stuck hard and nobody is answering our distress call. We are both in shock, do I get the epirb out do I launch the liferaft, are we sinking????
We finally get lifted off the rock , and are drifting to wards the other reef on the outside of this area. We have no helm, we cannot do anything at this point so I run up to the front and drop our anchor and pray.... Well the anchor grabbed the only sandy spot between the big volkswagon rock and the reef on the other side of the entrance to the inlet. I think to myself. Living the dream..... what a nightmare.
We put out 50 feet of chain in 20 feet of water until I could see the start of the next set of rocks below the boat. The swells are still bouncing us up and down and we are holding.... for now.
Lori is on
the VHF with I dunno who and has no news for us as to who may or may not come get us. We are both panicking at this point because were stuck between two rock formations and night is coming and the winds are picking up. Luckily I know the wind direction is not supposed to switch until the next day.
We are both in tears as nobody is calling our plea for help as we are in a very dangerous area and the sea and rescue unit in the Bahamas was now closed since it was past 5 pm. WHAT????
We are now checking to see if we are sinking to see if there is any fuel leaks or anything that would put us in imminent danger. There is nothing. So we are stuck floating between rock formations with no helm. The rudder is banging around as I envision the bend shaft post in the rudder and possibly losing the rudder itself as they are made to break away under incredible shock.
We get a call on the VHF from someone who has witnessed this whole event and who has found us the name of a
guy who does towing. Hurray we may have a chance to make the night and save the boat.
It's 7 when we finally get a hold of the towing man in question, he says he will get his boat ready and come get us in 1 to 1.5 hours. We have no choice but to wait for him and hope the wind doesn't change.
It is now 10:30 pm he is not here. We are both exhausted and now we are thinking our savior will not come. We are both very upset at this point.
The tow boat showed up at 11pm . He had to throw us a line in the pitch dark surrounded by rocks, I thought both boats were going to sink. We tied off and we were off to the downtown harbour in Nassau. The winds were 15-20 knots and the swells were 6 feet easy. The boat was pitching 10 feet up and down for sure. 7 hours later the boat was entering the harbour, we had to stay at the front of our boat for the whole seven hours because the line was chafing in the front rubbing on our anchor.
I beg the captain to throw us another line as Lori is screaming that the line is chaffing and will snap. He answers we are coming into the channel and we are committed at this time to go forward. He assures us he will not let us go and will come get us again if something happens. We are coming in against 4 knots of current as the tide is now flowing furiously out of this narrow inlet.
SNAP..... the line breaks..........
We are tossed back down the inlet as both me and Lori scream at the top of our lungs...... the captain hears us. Caribee ends up going back 1 mile as it takes the captain and his crew a while to come up along side of us to grab the second tow line with all the waves..... we were lucky not to hit either sides as we are swept back into the ocean.
We tie off the second line to the boat. A large waves hits us at the same time and I get flung across the boat and manage to get a hold of the lifelines and almost fell overboard. Life flashes before me
and I see Lori's face, she screams and then is crying like a baby, cannot even speak she is just doing what she can to help.... poor girl. Living a nightmare....
The boat is now in tow again and we make it up the Nassau inlet. We get into the gas dock area of a commercial dock and both break down shaking from the experience. We are wet from the waves and it was 7 am when we finally came in.
In the end the boat has some large gouges in the keel, we broke our chain for the steering and had an airlock in the engine fuel line. We trusted a chart with our lives and we almost lost the boat. I feel horrible, I knew it was a bad decision....
We took two weeks to repair things in Nassau. We were stuck on the outside of a fuel dock and we were constantly rocked by waves from the commercial vessels coming in for fuel and also from big boats going too fast in the channel. There was really bad weather for a part of our stay as well and we had to constantly arrange the
fenders all night as we got bashed from waves from behind. There was no way we could turn the boat around with the strong current, and pilons prevented us from moving the boat to the other side of the dock when a space became available. We finally got the steering back intact and got the motor running, we just needed to haul out and check for other damages such as bend and movement in the rudder or cracks we could not see from diving. We could not be hauled out in Nassau since the water was too shallow leading up the the boatyards- we would have to go back to Freeport on Grand Bahama. We decided to sail the boat and limp in to Fort Pierce at that point... why not go back to USA where we know the price, quality of labour and where we already have our car. We sailed 400 km with the help of our friends Sébastien and Marie-Claude who by some sort of miracle we ended up meeting as we were leaving the harbour that morning in Nassau. They have a beautiful catamaran and were heading in the exact same direction.... There is something to
be said for having someone looking over you and small miracles...it made us feel so much better.
We both feel horrible and are having a difficult time at this point.
We will be in Fort Pierce for a few weeks. We have to get Caribee hauled out to check her damages and fix any problems. We will have a lot of decisions to make when we feel ready to talk about them together, and a lot of research to do. For the moment we will rest for a few days. Once all is sorted out with the damages we will head back to Montreal for the season.
We want to thank everyone for the support, we really appreciate it.
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Roger Gaby and Sarah
non-member comment
You are alive and unhurt
we are glad you made it through this harrowing experience and have both of our best wishes for a safe journey from now on. You deserve it