Goat Island

While anchored in Slaughter Harbor, we took a little dinghy ride over to Goat Island. Those island looks like it is made up of volcanic rock hovering over the white sandy beach, but in reality it is all limestone! The limestone has simply been stained dark with time and eroded away in this fierce manner to create the appearance of a pumice like structure. 

The sand was so fine and fluffy, we could tell that this island is not frequently trafficked. 

The small fish that lived in the shallow pools along with the conch and starfish made every step around this island seem like a magical experience! The beauty of cruising in the Bahamas is that every island you land on is unique and there is a very good chance that you are the only one there. 

Dinghy Painter

When it comes to tying off your dinghy, most people will automatically tie it off at the stern of the yacht. I would like to propose a different place to tie it off. 

Instead of tying at the stern with a short painter, consider tying midship with a long painter. When you need to board the dinghy, the painter is already tied midship, making it easy to pull it up to the gate in the lifelines. When arriving back to the boat by dinghy, you can tie the long painter up as you arrive at the gate as well. All of a sudden, you don't have to go to the stern to reach your dinghy every time you come and go.

The last reason to tie up midship has to do with areas with strong winds and currents. If you tie up at the stern, all will be fine when the wind and tide are in the same direction. When you get wind over tide, the boat will point into the current but drift in the direction of the wind. This means that your dinghy that is tied to the stern will now be midship and smack into your hull for the next 6 hours.  

If you tie the dinghy up midship with a painter long enough to reach beyond the ends of the boat, your dinghy will always hang out (bow or stern) just past the end of the boat and never smack into the side of your hull. 

Our First Bahamian Sunset

Getting to the Bahamas took us a bit longer than it would take someone with a motor. We left April 24th at 11pm and arrived in West End at 3pm on April 26th. The winds got light and the Gulf Stream was pushing harder than expected, so we took longer to make it there. 

While the 10 hour journey took us a day and a half, the sunset on our first night there was worth it! It was a calm day, we went swimming, relaxed in the hammock, and then watched the sun paint the horizon a glorious orange. 

This is what we were looking for when we set sail for the Bahamas, and we found it on our first day there. 

Last Watch of the Night

My favorite watch schedule to be on is the last one of the night. This means that your watch usually ends at around dawn, and you get to watch the sun rise up from over the horizon. The colors at that time of morning are so intense and the blues never seem bluer!

Everything seems still and calm while still in full motion of the sea. The sleepiness I was beginning to experience just fades away as the sun rushes in and wakes me up. This will have me up as early as possible (usually around 4am) so that I get to enjoy the entire day and feel tired by the time sunset comes around. I get to reef down and let someone else take first watch. As I lay down during the dark hours of the night, I know that tomorrow I will once again get to enjoy the majestic wonder of dawn.

Nighttime Sailplan for Innexperienced Crew

When you have new crew on board, you are never certain about their abilities and judgement. Some will talk a big talk to make you think that they know what they are doing, but these kinds are all talk; and totally clueless at the helm. 

There is a huge difference between "knowing how to make a sailboat move" and "knowing how to sail". When you have new crew who can move a sailboat and will talk it up a whole bunch, you will want to try them out and see what they really know before putting them in charge of a watch cycle on their own. 

Some of the issues that will come up during nighttime watches is the need to reef, and the ability to hold a course. Sure, when you are inland, you can sail all you want until the weather turns and just drop the sails at that point. In the ocean, it is not that simple and storms can produce much more powerful waves out at sea. 

High winds and tall waves will make it harder to put in a reef, especially in the dark on a moonless night. To avoid this problem it is prudent to reef down at sunset so that if something comes up unexpectedly, you are already reefed and ready for it. 

Reefing is great because it makes the mainsail smaller, but it still involves the boom. If you have inattentive crew at the helm, they might not notice that they have veered from course and about to jibe until the boom comes crashing over. Repeated powerful jibes can damage and destroy your traveler as well as damage the metal of your spars. It is best not to do this! 

To avoid this problem, at night, we simply fly the trysail. It is small, our smallest sail and sail of choice for powerful storms; so we couldn't possibly reef down any further. It also negates the use of the boom. This means that if your new crew, or tired crew is not paying attention, a jibe is merely the flopping of a tiny sail with little load on it to the other side. No loud crashing or stress on your gear involved.