Hawksbill Cay – OMG Wave Action

Day 273

April 9, 2016

NM Today: 10

NM Total: 4167

Once again Clark got up for the 6:30 weather report on the shortwave radio and captured the morning sun.

Sunrise at Norman’s Cay

The work crew for the new marina construction went by early as well.

Work Crew for Under-Construction Marina

We moved from Norman’s Cay to Hawksbill Cay in preparation for the predicted high winds from the north expected over the next two days. Since the new anchorage sat only 10 nautical miles away, we arrived within only an hour and a half of leaving Norman’s Cay. Hawksbill Cay is part of the Exuma Park System, and mooring balls are provided for boaters’ convenience. For boats our size the fee is $20 per day.

Hawksbill Cay Anchorage (S/V At Ease)

Fortunately, because I do not have a lot of experience with mooring balls, we found a line attached to the ball for ease of tethering ourselves in place. Once I had the boat secured, Clark did his magic with knots to feed our own line through the provided loop in the park system’s line to give the line more length and center the line on our bow. After doing our Captain’s Log bookkeeping, transforming from travel mode to at-anchor mode within the boat, relaxing for a while, and then making and finishing lunch, we dropped the dinghy for a trip to the island.

I could see that we had some wave action going, so I decided that even though I had no intention of going swimming, I should still don my swimsuit so I would have no worries should I get wet. We could see the sandy beach of the island and a sign stating the island is part of the park system, so we assumed that we should head for that beach with that sign to find the pay station to pay for our overnight stay. We assumed correctly. As I had guessed, the ride over was a splashy, wet ride. I happily ignored the fact that waves splashed me since I had dressed appropriately.

Clark wore his shorts, t-shirt, and shoes and socks for the trip to the island. When we got there, he sighed and said, “I guess I have to take my shoes off and get my feet wet.” “Do you want me to get out and pull the dinghy in for you?” I queried. “If you like”, he said. Given the way he said it, I refused to take that as a yes. The tone implied that he was doing me a favor by letting me plop myself into the water.

Finally I got him to say, “Yes that would be very helpful”, and so I climbed over the side and pulled the dinghy to shore with him in it. Pulling the dinghy with him as well as our outboard engine to shore is no easy feat. Eventually with enough tugging I got him to a point where he could jump out over the bow and keep his shoes dry.

Folks that were on the island earlier in the day had left all their paraphernalia behind on the beach and by paraphernalia I mean play toys. Lined up as nice as you please we saw two paddle boards, two inflated mats for lounging -- each with three cushions and a beach towel neatly stacked in place, and three beach umbrellas lined up strategically over the inflated mats. Besides this arrangement we saw two anchors for their various boats they used to access shore.

“Yahoos” with their Toys

The vessel with the owners of the toys looked to be in the 75 to 100 foot length range and sat at anchor well off shore. I took to calling the group from that boat “The Yahoos” as every time they made a trip to or from the beach, they passed by at full speed with no regard to whatever wake may result from their action. Besides a 20-something foot dinghy that many would considere a full-sized fishing boat, they also had two jet skis that they loved to run at top speed. We found them very annoying.

From the careful display of the play toys as well as the size of the vessel, we surmised that the boat had a full crew to care for all the whims of the owner and his guests. Clark thought it “sad” that the crew did not know any better than to run at full speed through a designated mooring field. Unlike in the states there did not appear to be any patrol to remind them to be polite.

Moving on up the hill we came to the sign designating the land as part of the park system and sure enough behind that sign we found an honor-system pay station. We filled in the boat data and stuffed the envelope with $40 as we decided we would stay for two nights to wait out the predicted north winds.

Clark with Exumas Park Sign

Once again I wore my water shoes which are great for dropping into the water to pull dinghies to shore but not great for rock climbing. The terrain surrounding the beach did not invite a casual stroll to look around. Even so Clark could not resist the urge to see the rest of the island. He found a path more suited to a mountain goat than a man and climbed up to the top of the rise to look over to the other side.

Island Vegetation

The “other” side

More of the “other” side

I decided I could wait to see what the “other” side looked like when I saw the pictures he had taken. Even though he is very agile, I worried about him falling and breaking an arm or a leg. How would I ever get him in the dinghy and back to Sea Moss?? Our outboard is temperamental at the best of times, and my ability to start it is sorely lacking.

Climbing up one rise for a view did not meet his needs. He found another rock face to climb for a view from the other side of the little beach area. This area at least proved to have some places that could be used as “foot holds”, so he scurried up like the monkey he is to see what he could see. I tried waving to him to get him to take a picture of me way down below him, but he was too preoccupied with surveying the sights up top.

When he got back down to me, I bemoaned the fact that I had waved furiously at him to get his notice for a picture. “No problem”, he said as he took off running back to the rock face. “This one is simple to climb compared to the other side.” In no time he was back up top and so I waved once more for what was now a staged photo.

Waving to Clark on the top of the Hill

When Clark came down from his “easy” rock climb the second time, he slipped towards the bottom making my heart stop and plunge down into my stomach. Although a lot of hand waving occurred in the process, he did not fall as I would have done. He came away unscathed with a big smile on his face stating the obvious, “I slipped!” I berated him for giving me minor heart failure, but my lecture fell on “deaf ears”.

With nothing else to see at the beach, we prepared to launch the dinghy. Clark looked at the scene and decided, “I guess I have to get my feet wet”. It took the two of us to drag the dinghy back out to deep enough water to move on. Clark pulled it so far out though that I asked if he intended to make me swim back to Sea Moss. He replied that he needed enough water under the boat to allow him to start the engine. Eventually he let me climb back in. Then he boarded and we left to see the lagoon a little further along the shoreline.

The lagoon turned out to be a disappointment. It looked more interesting from afar. Given we saw nothing else of interest, Clark returned us to Sea Moss. We had some rocking when we left for our beach tour. By the time we returned to the boat the wave action had picked up. I find it challenging to disembark from the dinghy when it is rising and falling out of synch with Sea Moss. Given I have no agility whatsoever, I always crawl out of the dinghy onto the swim platform upon return anyway. As we bounced up and down, I finally managed to find a lull whereby I could crawl out.

For a short trip to shore we certainly had a lot of stuff to take off the dinghy upon our return including two life jackets as required, Clark’s shoes and socks, my backpack, the gas can, and probably some other miscellaneous items as well. The last of these items is the outboard engine itself as Clark stores it in our cockpit instead of letting it sit on the dinghy when underway. The outboard is not light and it is awkward to maneuver it from the dinghy to the boat at the best of times. With wave action it is very tricky.

I knelt on the swim platform and held the dinghy. The trick is to hold the dinghy close to the swim platform but not so close that it gets caught under the swim platform as the two boats rise and fall out of synch with each other. While I held the dinghy, Clark hefted the outboard to a standing position inside the dinghy and then managed to step out of the dinghy with the outboard. As he had one foot on the swim platform and one foot in the dinghy he said, “I should be doing this with shoes on!” Wet feet are very slippery and dangerous on a boat.

If I wasn’t worried beforehand, I certainly was worried after he made that comment. He still had to pull the second half of himself out of the dinghy. I should not have worried, however, as he got himself out without any real difficulty. With the outboard stowed, he set to with the rest of the “put the dinghy to bed” operation which includes putting the runners for the davit system in place, pulling the dinghy up onto the swim platform, tying it down, and putting the cover over the dinghy to keep rain out and the items stored within the dinghy dry. What a production!

When we returned to Sea Moss, we could see black clouds in the distance and thought that the rain predicted for this weekend might be headed our way. Clark pulled out his “RainSnare” for fresh water collection, and we took the time to install it “up top” ready for precipitation.  Putting the RainSnare over our steps provides the means for Clark to run the hose from the snare directly into our water tanks for direct fill instead of one little bucket at a time as he did last time we tried this.

RainSnare Setup over Stairway

It never did rain, but throughout the afternoon the waves just kept coming and coming nonstop. Clark said he thought the storm may have passed by further out and the heavier wave action might be the result. Alternately he thought perhaps boats passed by further out and we felt their wake. Regardless of the reason for the waves, Clark was disappointed that his choice of anchorage had not worked out as well as planned. Waves hit the boat abeam (on the side) without stopping, regardless of the direction of the wind, forcing us to roll like crazy. Whenever we thought it could not get any worse, it did.

We are both very fortunate that neither of us suffer from seasickness, or one or both of us would have been hanging over the side of the boat at some point. As it was, we both just grew more and more bored by the situation. I worked on my puzzle book that I had bought for the return flight from Connecticut last month. Since it cost $6.00, I debated on whether I should purchase it just for the flight back to the Keys. Given the amount of time I spent entertaining myself with it today, I found it “priceless” in value. As I attempted to solve my various word puzzles, Clark intently studied his charts planning for the rest of our trip down the Exumas to our turnaround point for this portion of our trip.

All afternoon we rocked back and forth, back and forth. Walking on the boat even to get to the “head” became a dreaded challenge for me. Every once in a while “The Yahoos” would race by going to or from the beach to add their wake to the natural one. Each time I just sighed and went back to laboring over more puzzles. At some point Clark disappeared, and I half wondered where he had gone. Eventually I heard an anchor being deployed and wondered who had their anchor going. It turned out to be Clark, which I managed to discover by looking around to see where the noise originated from.

I had no idea what he was doing or why, but Clark was busy feeding out anchor line and dragging our CQR plow anchor down the side of the boat. I wondered if he planned on putting it out as a stern anchor. Instead he just dropped it over the port side of the boat and left it to hang there. He had not asked for my help, and I thought perhaps it best to stay out of his way with whatever project he had forced upon himself. I went back to my puzzle book.

Some time later, looking rather bedraggled, he came back up on the fly bridge where I sat with my puzzle magazine. He said, “Well I was cool before, but I’m hot now!” “What were you doing?!” I inquired. He proceeded to explain that he hoped the weight of the anchor off the side of the boat would cause drag and stop us from rocking so severely. He also said he put out more line to the mooring ball in fear that, with the ball most likely being held in place with all chain, the cleats might be ripped out of the boat. Earlier Clark had added support to the radar tower in the form of a makeshift guy wire to stop the tower from continuously shifting right and left on its hinge in fear that permanent damage would be done to the tower.

Mooring Configuration

Of his various protect-the-boat actions two worked well. The anchor hanging off the side of the boat did nothing but cause me angst. I feared, with the way the boat rocked so severely, that the anchor could swing back, hit the side of the boat, put a hole in the side, and ultimately sink the boat. I peppered Clark with questions about the positioning of the anchor, and he seemed to become annoyed with my questions. Eventually I made my way to the side to watch the anchor as the boat rocked. Amazingly it seemed to continue to hang straight down as we swayed as opposed to swinging into the side of the boat, so I decided it should cause no problems and might even help a bit.

Dinner time finally arrived and, glad that we had leftovers to eat for dinner, I pulled out food. Clark started the generator to get some “juice” into our battery, and I heated up our meal. Normally after dinner we wash the dishes, but with the wave action such as it was, I decided doing the dishes could wait for tomorrow. I did not feel like chasing the plates around the boat as I tried to clean them.

All day long I kept thinking and hoping that the winds would change direction as predicted and the rocking would stop. We had no such luck. If anything it got worse as the day progressed. Clark said that sunset is a high-activity time, and indeed it was. Even with the rocking Clark managed to capture said sunset in a progressive set of pictures.

Pictures of Progressive Sunset at Hawksbill Cay

By 9:30 we found ourselves sitting in the dark with absolutely nothing to do. I was sick to death of my puzzle book. Even I have limitations on motion sickness, so trying to read my Kindle in dim light while rocking back and forth did not appeal to me.  We decided to play some music from Clark’s mp3 player and go to bed. I quite literally found myself holding onto the side of the bed to stop myself from rolling to and fro. I told Clark that we might need to install seat belts for the future.

With the impossibility of sleep and the inability to read, I found the situation ludicrous. Clark did not acknowledge that he heard me, but several times I found myself chuckling quietly at the absurdity of the situation. This was supposed to be the protected anchorage! Once again Clark apologized for the poor choice of anchorage. I reassured him that he did his best based on the information he had at hand. Certainly I could not blame Clark for the weather or the current.

As we laid in bed rocking and rolling, I kept hearing loud thumps as the boat smacked down into the water. Although I had reassured myself earlier that the anchor could do no harm, I still found myself wondering if the anchor could damage the boat and cause us to sink. I mentioned something to Clark, and he said, “Let’s put it back where it belongs. I don’t think it is helping anyway.”

I felt momentarily stunned. That wasn’t quite the response I expected, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go out in the dark, walk along the side of the boat, and contend with a 35 pound anchor and all the chain that went with it on a heavily rocking boat. I thought there might be more danger doing that than leaving the anchor to hang. However, Clark’s mind was made up, and so we got dressed to go “play” with the anchor in the dark.

I worked the controls to raise the anchor and helped pull in the extra chain as Clark hefted the anchor and dragged it back slowly towards the bow of the boat. With the two of us working with it, it did not take long. Clark had to sort out some crisscrossing of the anchor chain with the lines connected to the mooring ball. I asked if he needed me to retrieve a flashlight, but he said he could do it by feel. Shortly thereafter he declared himself done with the anchor in place and the lines tethering us to the ball securely in place.

Moving hand over hand along the railing, with my body weight kept low, I made my way back to the safety of the cabin. We changed back into our night clothes and climbed back into bed. I could still hear the loud thumps when the boat hit the water, so Clark was correct. The anchor was not hitting the side of the boat. I told him he could reassure me and I could reassure myself that we had been in no danger from the anchor, but deep down my mind would not let it go.

My last coherent thought before I fell asleep was that I had had enough of the amusement park ride for the day and wished that it would stop so I could get off!