Berry Island Club

We get up and have breakfast and get ready for high tide too try to pull ourselves off. No other boats in sight. Then off to the north I see a small power boat heading south. After a couple minutes I see they are coming our way. As they approach I hop in the dinghy and go out to talk with them. The boat owner Joe Lewis is with one of his sons and Sergeant Anthony Woodside from the Royal Bahamas Police Force. The Cavalry comes to the rescue! I had never had radio contact with them, but obviously they heard our predicament over the VHF and came at the first useful opportunity.

I pull in our Manson which still is not biting into the bottom and we use it's nylon rode as the tow rope. Joe's boat has twin 200 HP engines, but I am not confident it is enough to pull us off. But with some effort we are pulled free. I pull up our Delta anchor and tie a float to our stern anchor and toss it in the water for later retrieval.

They pull us over to the dock at the now closed Berry Island Club. Anthony says they have to get back to Chub but will send some one over by car to take us into Chub Cay for a few hours. The dock is pretty rough, but I find an old board ashore to make a fender board. I put our anchors on the dock. The dock is totally covered in seagull poop. My knees are turning white from kneeling down, working on the anchors. 

Berry Island Club dock

Within an hour or so, much earlier than I expected Tyrel shows up in his truck with a few buddies to take us over to Chub. This is a part of Chub/Frazer Hog Cay that few people get to see. The two Cays appear to be one island, but they are separated by mangroves and are connected by a road built up through the mangroves. This is one of the most rugged “flat” roads I have ever been on. Slow, bouncy and lots of weaving around holes. This is worst than sailing on a rough day. 

The Road to Chub Cay, and we though sailing could get rough !

Rudder not looking too good !

We ask Tyrel to pick us up in about two hours. We head to the restaurant (closed after lunch) and Bar for a beer and to enjoy the AC. Then we head to the showers to get cleaned up. I am so covered in salt from the last two days activities I have to wash my hair multiple times to get it clean. We meet up with “Green Turtle” a large Catamaran, single handled by Monty, at Chub and thank him for responding to our VHF call yesterday. I buy 20 gallons of water in our folding Coleman 5 gallon jugs to take back with us. Many of the workers we talk to at Chub knew about our grounding. News on the Channel 16 VHF gets around.

Back on the dock at Frazers I work on securing the boat better. Even with the fender board we have to deal with bolts sticking out of the pilings. I cover the bolts with a large piece of scrap starboard. We have a nice clear early evening, stars are out and the moon is not yet up. Well, by 8:00 PM or so it starts raining and shortly there after a squall kicks up out of the south, the direction we are fortunately pointing. The winds are in the mid-30s and we are bouncing around against the dock. I hop on the dock to better secure the lines and keep my piece of starboard in place to avoid damage to the boat. The dock almost feels like it is moving as much as the boat. Finally after about an hour or two the winds settle down. 

Lessons Learned;

1) If you do not feel comfortable where you are anchored, move.

2) If you are not comfortable, dive on your anchor if you cannot see the bottom. I assume, I snagged a rock or old mooring block which held us until the wind shifted enough, that the anchor slid off.

3) Practice with your anchor watch program. I had “Drag Queen” on the whole time at anchor, but inadvertently turned off the alarm sound sometime in the morning, so we never got the audio warning.