Provo to Ginn Sur Mer – what a ride!

4 days and 4 hours sailing 480nm (roughly 890km) with one 16 hour stop – we’ve made it to Ginn Sur Mer, Grand Bahamas and are waiting for a weather window to cross back to Florida. Lots has happened in the last 4 days, starting with the departure of Evelyn, Caroline and Samantha.

Like a lot of our plans this season, they changed as the time grew closer. We were to leave Blue Haven Marina on March 28th, anchor nearby so we could clear out on the 29th, and then leave around 6 am on March 30. Well in the afternoon of March 27th, a sailboat came into the dock beside us and they had sustained some damage along their trip. After a brief conversation, we discovered they had entered the Leeward Cut (the only way in and out of Blue Haven) with a north wind and swell. They got hit by a wave as they entered the channel and lost their solar panels on top of their dinghy davits. They had damage to the davits themselves and the lines holding their dinghy snapped. They also had a porthole open so took on salt water. There is a warning about the Leeward Cut – it’s dangerous with north or west wind or swell.

This story scared us – we were planning to exit that cut early March 30 with a northeast wind! We quickly changed our minds! We decided to check out of the marina and clear out of Turks & Caicos at the same time on March 28th. We then left the marina to head back to the south side of Provo so we could leave from there on Saturday, March 30. It’s a good thing we made this change. Leaving on March 28th around lunch we still encountered leftover swell from the day before. We got hit by one large wave just at the end of the channel! It was exciting for a few moments as we went up the wave about 8ft and then came crashing down!

Clearing out of T&C on March 28th and then not leaving until March 30 put us in a difficult situation. After clearing out officially, you are supposed to leave the country within 24 hours. We were going to be over that by almost a day. We joked as we motored to the south side of Provo that we’d just tell them we were having engine issues and that delayed our departure. Well we jinxed ourselves!!! We were about 3 nm from Pirates Cove (our anchorage for the night) when the engine slowly stopped running (like it had run out of gas). We’ve had issues like this in the past (trip to Bermuda comes to mind!) so Mark quickly got us up and running again so we could anchor. March 29th was spent with Mark deep into the fuelling system of the engine. First thought was that the fuel pump wasn’t working (fuel pressure was quite low). After replacing it with a newer pump (not brand new), it still didn’t work properly. Mark tried everything he could but still the fuel pressure was low. No worries – we are a sailboat after all so we can sail and the engine was still running just maybe not as reliably as we would have liked. We decided to continue with our plan to head out at 6am Saturday March 30th to Cat Island, Bahamas.

We left Saturday morning pretty much on time and the first part of our sail was a bit wild. Lots of wind and good sized waves moved us along quickly in the first 18 hours or so. The first night saw us around Acklins Island but the wind was decreasing so we had to motor sail for several hours. That was a bit stressful, not knowing if the engine would quit but it didn’t and we kept up our speed with the combination of motor and sail.

By the time we were closing in on Rum Cay, it was early Sunday morning and we were feeling really good. We had wind behind us for the most part and easy seas so we decided to not stop at Cat Island and just keep going north to the Exumas. We picked Highbourne Cay as our new destination with the possibility of stopping at other places in the Exumas if we got tired or conditioned changed. Our eta for Highbourne was around 10am on Monday, April 1.

The wind decreased again overnight (early hours of April 1st) so we motor sailed into the cut at Highbourne Cay and were on the Exuma Banks by mid morning. Things were going so well, we decided to just keep going up to Nassau. Easy motorsail got us all the way in to the north east side of New Providence by 4 pm Monday. We had done a total of 340nm in 58 hours!! Crazy! But we didn’t stop there!

After a 16 hour rest, we pulled up anchor on Tuesday, April 2 at 10am and continued north for another overnight sail to Ginn Sur Mer (our first anchorage for this season way back in January). The first part of the 140nm trip was great – sailed downwind with the spinnaker. Mark caught 2 fish – a skipjack tuna and a Spanish mackerel (we had an amazing dinner that night) and we saw lots of boat traffic (such a switch from the rather empty Providenciales). As night rolled around, we took down the spinnaker and sailed on with the jib and main sails. We were expecting high winds by morning and the wind delivered (boy did it deliver). We had a lot of wind and made up lost time from the lower winds early in the night. With strong south wind and waves behind us, we came charging into the Ginn Sur Mer inlet at 10am. Anchor was down by 11 am!! What a ride!! 4 days, 4 hours, 480nm!