Pete Hill & Annie Hill
In the Caicos and the Bahamas the water is crystal clear and most of one’s navigation is what the Americans describe as “Eyeball”. This was just as well because our echo sounder chose to pack in two days before our arrival in the Turks.
Our first anchorage was in Cockburn Harbour, which we shared with only one other boat, a Haitian fishing boat. The Haitians are incredibly poor and they bring their boats over to the Turks and Caicos to collect empty bottles to take back to their island. This one had also been fishing for conch and fish quite successfully. We saw the boat leave the following day, and it was a pleasure to watch the ungainly beast gather way and tack out of the anchorage.
Cockburn itself was an odd place, with a rather forgotten air about it. Food was expensive by any standards but particularly by the standards of those straight from Venezuela. We pottered around the town and cleared in and out, having had some problems persuading the Customs that we did not want to make a healthy detour in order to clear out.
With Eric Hiscock’s “Atlantic Cruise in Wanderer III” beside us, we set off to cross the Caicos Bank. The Hiscock’s had had a pilot, but were down on their 5 foot draught; on the other hand they had sailed across 20 years previously, and our pilot book, which was about 10 years old, was less than encouraging. On the third hand we didn’t really fancy taking the long route round, so in Memory of Mr. Hiscock we decided to take the Wanderer route. To be fair, we did go ‘Bang’ on & coral reef head, but that was fairly early on, and I don’t think we hit another one. The Hiscock’s had a fair wind and easily did the passage in one day.
The whole exercise was enlivened by a tremendous thundersquall that caused us to anchor when it became too overcast to see the coral heads. Eventually Pete’s DF system working overtime brought up in 81⁄2’ of water. It had taken 2, 12 hour days to cover the 55 miles.
We anchored next to two young Americans in a French aluminium boat and stayed in their company for two days, sailing round the corner to Spadilla together where the presence of a bar had caused half a dozen boats to congregate together. Towards sundown our chosen anchorage was looking a little exposed, as thunder clouds were gathering. We all reconnoitered another anchorage which involved a certain amount of tortuous coral dodging. We left our wind generator up and sailed to this anchorage under foresail alone, startling our friends (and ourselves for that matter) by our manoeuvrability and ability to tack. The holding was thin sand over hard rock, so Pete dived down and hooked the anchor under a substantial rock head.
After a pleasant evening, we all turned in, only to be awoken at about 3 o’clock by a howling blast of wind. It blew like a stink with thunder and lightning. We were aware that, should the anchor break out of its hole, we would drag back on to vicious coral only a few hundred feet astern, with no chance of the anchor digging in. Of course it was pitch dark and all we could do was sit and sweat it out.
Dawn came at last then we waited for the wind to abate and by 11 o’clock we were making preparations to leave in a NN3 and sunshine. We set off for the Bahamas proper, visiting Crooked Island, Long Island and places with names like Calabash Harbour as we sailed towards George-town in Great Exuma. The town itself is no more than a village and seems quite unspoilt with friendly people.
We had a mixed bag of weather in the Bahamas and we left Georgetown in the rain. The weather cleared up that afternoon and left us with no real excuse for entering the wrong side of the rock into the anchorage of Lee Stocking Bay. Admittedly the chart was somewhat inadequate but anyway, on we ran. As we finally got off without assistance I suppose it was no more than an incident but it concentrated the mind for a while. Still we made up for it the next day by tacking out through the gap which was only about 2 or 3 hundred feet wide, with the wind coming straight in. (The engine had packed up in Venezuela). The tide was going out, which helped, but raised a very steep sea, which didn’t. Pete stood on the bow and signalled for me to put the helm down as the bow drew near to the coral. If Badger showed signs of hesitating, he merely held the foresail aback until the bow was round then let it swing over. All very satisfactory, and it restored our confidence too.
After restocking with mail, vegetables and fruit in Nassau we timed our departure with the outgoing tide, but still had quite a bit of excitement. A seaplane decided to leave a few moments after we had got the second anchor up and were irrevocably committed. As we were having to beat out, we were glad that he passed us just as we were about to tack rather than when we were in midstream. We had to tack to pass between the pillars and slightly underestimated the extra speed of the tide under the bridge. Obediently Badger tacked and set off in the other direction, but with the tide carrying us with it, the Aries missed the pillar by inches.
We’d heard so many good reports about Bermuda that we felt we really ought to stop off and see it. Yes it is horrendously expensive, but a well stocked boat should not miss going there. At present it is free for boats to enter and anchor in St. George’s Harbour and walk around the delightful town. The Bermudians are genuinely warm and friendly people and we found they liked to chat and find out where you came from.
Still, in a hurry to get back to England we tore ourselves away from the Islands of Bermuda and headed off towards the islands of the Azores. We had a fair amount of work to windward but managed to miss out on the gales we had expected.
Horta has changed since last we were there in 1976. We initially anchored in the harbour, but a launch was put out to tow us into the new marina. I’m not sure if they would have permitted us to anchor, which is certainly a drawback. But Horta is still a very warm, friendly and welcoming place.
We had bad news awaiting us, Pete’s mother had finally given up her long struggle against cancer, and we were sad that we had not been able to see her before she died. Of course we have always realised that this is a risk with our way of life.
There was another junk in Horta – a Kingfisher 26 that had been stolen from Poole and sailed to the Azores. The thief had not only stolen the yacht, but along the South Coast had picked up various pieces of equipment to improve the boat.
After our 6 days were up we left Horta bound for Falmouth. Once again we had headwinds for 11 days out of 13, a mixed bag of light winds and vigorous breezes. We were not displeased with Badger, as a friend of ours sailing an Excalibur, left at the same time and beat us by a mere 48 hours. As we had quite a few days of very light winds indeed, Bill disappeared across the horizon in a couple of hours and as Bill is a very keen sailor, winner of the AZAB and had all Hood sails, we felt that the junk rig didn’t do so badly for herself. It is interesting to note that on the trip from Bermuda to the Azores, we made better time than a Nicholson 35 which left at the same time.
We decided to stay in England for a while. We both got jobs and are saving money to add to the cruising fund and do some improvements on Badger. She has now done 30,000 miles in all sorts of conditions and we are very happy with her. The improvements planned include changing her ferrocement keel for a Collins Tandem Keel, which is the biggest and costliest improvement. We are also fitting self tailing halyard winches and bushing the rudder fittings and generally tidying her up.
Not long after we came here, we decided that a little boat that could dry out would be a Good Thing, and we bought a Westcoaster. A few sails with her bermudan rig put us off so we have just finished converting her to junk. We are trying one or two radical ideas, which seem to be working. The mast is off centre – this allows room for a double berth, which frees the opposite side for a heater, but puts the sail on the centre line of the boat. We also decided to put the mast in a tabernacle the idea being to facilitate raising and lowering the mast, with the possibility of a Summer in the French canals in mind. The tabernacle, of Douglas fir and fibreglassed above the deck, comes all the way through the deck and steps on the keel or where the keel would be in a fin keel boat.! The tabernacle rises above the deck to a sufficient height.
The sail, of green terylene, has a much greater balance than is usual with the idea of reducing griping in a quartering wind and sea. So far we have only sailed her for about 12 hours as a junk, but can 5) that she is faster, stiffer and much better mannered and more responsive than before. Her windward ability does not seem to be impaired, though to be fair, her greatest fan would not have described her as a witch to windward. The really interesting thing that we have noticed is that, whereas before, she seemed to be very tender, now, with increased sail area, she seems to be able to stand up to her canvas. She ghosts in the lightest of breezes and yet beat to windward in the top of a Force 4 with only one reef in. All in all our first impressions of the Junk rigged Missee Lee are very positive. We will probably be in Falmouth for another year based at Islington Wharf in Penryn, for the duration.