How it worked:
- Days of emotional preparation to cross the unknown shallow area and to tie to an unfamiliar dock
- Figuring out when the high tied is with no local tide stations using eyeballs and computer models
- We raised the anchor our usual way
- We made a mile in relatively deep/safe water (about 3 meters)
- We spent about 15 minutes crossing nerve-wracking area of 1.6 meters (2.5 with the tide in) with our keel being 1.75 meters
- We tied to the gas station dock, it was Meg’s brilliant idea to stern-tie, this way we had the keel in deeper water and it was less pain tying the boat
- We spent about 20 minutes filling everything we had to fill: two inner fuel tanks + 9 fuel jugs
- We left just after the tide started leaving
What’s up with our anchor rasing/dropping
Our windlass failed about a year ago. One of the two front clits and the windlass itself got ripped off during a winter gale. So, we keep the boat attached to the anchor by tying the chain to the mast. All this time, we’ve been dropping and lifting anchor with the hands-hook-rope-winch setup.
Why aren’t we in a boatyard? The local Bahamanian yards are a rip-off and I am not allowed into the US. To have any repairs done, we need to get to Windward islands.