5-18: On to Man-O-War Cay

Tuesday morning we made ready to cast off for Man-O-War Cay, sans Scott & Dana, who were staying behind for the scuba dive; they would catch up with us that evening by way of “Island Girl”, another of the Fleet vessels. One task we had to do before we left was to pull up to the dock at the marina to replenish our on board water supply. “Crookshanks” has 2 150 gallon water tanks and we had used most of one of them. This necessitated maneuvering the boat adjacent to the dock, so that we could tie up and be replenished. Adrienne & I guided the boat up to the dock without incident and we refilled our empty water tank (PS: Water isn’t free in the out islands of the Bahamas; it was $30 to fill the tanks.)
Upon filling our tank and settlin’ up (paying for non-southerners), we proceeded to ease away from the dock, backing into the wind…. always something to account for, but often overlooked by the novice. We cleared the dock. Easing “Crookshanks” into the forward gears for the two engines --- nothing happened. One, or maybe both, engines had died. We began to drift downwind, closing quickly toward a shore dock downwind to our stern. Fortunately, we quickly realized what was up, and, equally fortunate, the engines cranked quickly and we powered away.
We exited White Sound without incident and made our way back into the Sea of Abaco. Under sail, both Yvonne and Ellen took the helm and experienced being at the helm of the vessel for the first time. Both did very well.
After enjoying catching whatever fair wind came our way for a time, we refocused and set about for Man-O-War. This necessitated renegotiating around Whale Cay, although rocks and reefs remained unmoved, necessitating re-navigation in reverse. This time, while it was nowhere close to the Bahamas famed “Rage”, the seas were as rough as we had experienced and we bounced quite a bit.
‘Interesting aside here. “Fourwinds”, “Grand Cru” and “Crookshanks” pretty much made this passage together around Whale Cay. “Fourwinds” and “Crookshanks”, being somewhat faster, overtook and passed “Grand Cru”. One particularly demonstrative occupant of ‘Grand Cru” expressed the on-board sentiment by successively “mooning” each passing vessel. ‘All in good sport, of course!
On both passages around Turtle Cay, our GPS acted strangely at about the same point, both going and coming. Was it just difficulty getting a satellite fix … or something more sinister? Bermuda Triangle? We’ll never know. Anyway, we did it the old fashioned way, reading the maps, recognizing land points and making our way south. It worked, and we arrived at the entrance to Man-O-War Cay.
We got in around 5:30 PM. Most of fleet anchored together, although James Murray’s boat returned to Marsh Harbor because of refrigerator problems. Dinner was on board with grilled lemon parsley chicken breast (grilled Mahi for Peter), served with couscous & salad.
Weather: Winds lessened mid-day. Humidity increased.