Should I Stay or Should I Go?

The day started with a beautiful sunrise, and we enjoyed a peaceful morning. Little Sale Cay is beautiful and appears to be a tropicbird rookery – I saw several of them flying around. We could see cumulonimbus clouds in the distance, and it was obvious the weather wouldn’t remain nice for long.

We check forecasts obsessively and knew that at some point, the south/southeasterly winds we’d been seeing since we anchored would shift to the north, so we planned to head over to Great Sale once that happened. We chose not to move earlier because that anchorage is exposed from the south.

Intense thunderstorms passed through all day but generally missed us until later in the afternoon. We hoped for enough of a break in the storms to make the relatively quick passage safely. That didn’t happen. As the first storm to really hit us departed, the wind went north, putting us on a lee shore (for non-boaters, this is when the wind is blowing towards the land, meaning if your anchor drags, you’re in danger of grounding on the shore).

We’ve dragged before and know from experience just how little time you have to respond. Given our distance off the island, it wasn’t safe to stay, especially if the storm happened to have an intense gust wall. The next storm was approaching fast, so we donned our foul weather jackets, PDFs and tethers, and hauled anchor.

Within minutes, the rain was so intense that visibility was reduced to only a couple hundred yards. There was one other sailboat out with us, and we were able to see them just long enough to determine they were likely also headed to Great Sale and at enough of a distance as not to be a danger.

As lightning flashed around us, the wind continued to build, and once we cleared a few spots of reef we kept the engine slow, giving us more time to respond if we did encounter another vessel. Besides, it wouldn’t have been safe to head into the anchorage in the middle of the storm, and it would have been foolish to try.

I hated every single second. I’ve mentioned before that a lightning strike at sea is one of my biggest fears, and here we were with a 68′ mast out in the wide open Bahama banks. Seems safe, no? But I had to keep reminding myself that being caught between a rock and a gust wall would have been worse and that there was no less chance of being struck had we stayed on anchor. I was glad we had Laura aboard to help keep watch. Admittedly my usefulness was in direct negative correlation to the conditions – I mostly kept my eyes closed (although the lightning flashes were bright enough that I could see them anyway).

When the gust wall hit, it was intense. The temperature dropped drastically, and we were pelted with pea-sized hail as the wind blew the tops off the waves. I saw 48kts and Laura said she saw 54, fortunately only briefly. Despite wearing our foulie jackets, we were all soaked to the bone and cold. Windara heeled under bare poles, but at no point did she feel like she was out of her element or out of control. Oddly enough it was as the wind kicked up that I finally started to somewhat calm down. It felt like an eternity, but in reality the storm lasted about an hour total, and I’ve never been so happy to see blue sky as the back edge of the storm approached.

Once it settled down, we motored into the Great Sale anchorage, where 11 other boats are already anchored up hiding from the wind and waves. We were treated to a rainbow and a beautiful sunset, and we celebrated a safe arrival with the Strong Back stouts we’d picked up back in Marsh Harbour, originally intended to celebrate our arrival back in the US. We figured we earned it (along with wine and cheese before dinner)!

While I would have loved to not be out there in that storm, I 100% believe that Chris made the right call. I can’t say whether or not we would have held in that gust wall, but with poor visibility, it would have been extremely hard to tell whether we were dragging. If we needed to haul anchor, it would have been much more dangerous with a short-period 3-5′ sea and intense rain and howling wind that would have made foredeck-to-helm communication nearly impossible. In hindsight, we probably could have moved earlier in the day, but the earlier storms were passing over Great Sale, and all the available information pointed to having a break in the storms that would have allowed safe passage.

The important thing was that captain and crew kept a level head, took appropriate personal safety measures, moved the boat to safety and came away with a heck of a sea story!

Thanks to Laura Olsen for her photo contributions!