Hurricane Hole, Nassau

The wind was non-existent when we left Highbourne, the sea was millpond calm and a low level mist meant you could barely see an horizon. (see pic) In these conditions, we can only bank on 5kts – sometimes less if we’re going into a strong current or against the tide. So with 40 miles to go and a preferred ETA within VPR limits, we had to plan for 8 hours cruising, so we left at around 7am.

It was our first experience of sailing on the shallow banks and was quite surreal – we could see the bottom but no land on any horizon. We practised spotting and avoiding coral heads and even hove to near one so we could see if it represented a snorkelling opportunity. It did – even from the boat we could see coral, fans and even a lionfish so Chris and Alex leapt off an unanchored boat in open ocean -- nutters. We did manage to reunite boat and snorkelers even though my manoeuvring skills are a little bit basic.

Hurricane Hole was also a first experience. This time of docking using 4 pilings, 2 front and 2 rear, to tie off to. The idea is that the ropes are balanced to keep the boat from hitting the dockside regardless of wind or tide. The tide produces about a metre of rise and fall. The greatest difficulty was Chris’s: he had to reverse the boat between the pilings – of course, from the flat calm of the morning we now had a brisk breeze to make life interesting.

Our mission for the rest of the day and the next day was to clean, clean, clean and provision for 8 people for a 10 day cruise with only 2 possible eating out opportunities...

It would have been my Dad's birthday today. He would have loved following this adventure. We still miss him.