Saturday, February 1, 2020

Turks & Caicos
21.45.631N
72.134.429W

Well, we made it to Turks & Caicos.  At 2am!  I really do need to speak to Dale about his calculations in the future.  As I said, we arrived at the Sandbore Channel entrance at 2am.  Just as we arrived, we were hailed on the radio by the Harbor Patrol questioning us as to who we were, where we were going and if we had ever been here before.  They then asked us to relay our coordinates to them.  I now think that was to determine just how exact our GPS coordinates correlated to theirs.  Neither one of us remembered any Patrol the last time we were here.  Once we entered the channel, we learned how important our GPS coordinates were. 

Thank heavens we had read the latest cruising guide and I remembered something about following a heading of 100* and then turning to something else when utilizing this approach.  Ideally, we would have arrived about noon or a little after to enter into an unfamiliar harbor but . . .  Couldn’t do anything about it now, so we slowed to a crawl (about 3 knots) and entered into a mine field of coral heads.  We inched our way across the harbor and finally made our approach to Provo, the main town. 

About 2 hours later we turned to where we thought we had anchored the last time we were here, when a light appeared in front of us that didn’t seem to be coming from shore.  I freely admit, I have a problem with lights at night; no depth perception!  I thought it was getting closer, Dale thought it was too far away to be worried about.  As I was on the helm at the time, I told him he was in charge of keeping the light under surveillance because I was dodging coral heads on the chart and keeping an eye on the depth.  With my face on fire and my heart pounding in my ears, I finally asked him to please shine a light out to see if it was a boat.  Nothing could be seen.  Then another light appeared that we had to keep an eye on.   Again, we had to dodge coral heads depicted on the chart plotter but finally, Dale could see that yes, it was a boat, so he directed me deeper into the coral to go around them.  Finally, we found a place identified as sand and anchored in 10 feet of water.  Dale took the first watch once we were set about 5am and as the sun rose could see that we had dodged a black hulled barge and its tug anchored on the “magenta line” or the guideline into the anchorage. 

As the morning progressed, Dale listened to the weather guru to determine whether we would be able to continue on to Puerto Rico during the coming week.  Unless we were prepared to leave today, the prospect of leaving in the next month looked slim.  A day here.  A day there but not the 3-4 day window we needed.  Dale is not for moving on without insurance, which means we have to stay at least through the weekend.  We decided that we might as well stay in a protected marina for the coming front and we began to hail the one he selected from the cruising guide.  Back comes the Harbor Patrol on the radio who wants all of our boat information now.  Although we told them that we had used the “Sail Clear” internet site, they told us that they didn’t get that information until after Customs and Immigration was through with it.  So, we gave all our particulars over open airwaves.  Then they told us that the marina was having problems with their radio and that we had to be within line of sight for them to hear.  They also volunteered to call them on the phone to ascertain slip space and to let them know we were on our way.  We thanked them for their assistance and began our preps to move. 

We hoisted anchor and started moving in that direction.  Once we were in line of sight, we tried again.  Again, and again.  Nothing.  Nada, Zilch!  Once again there was a “magenta line” leading to the marina location but, of course, it was peppered with coral heads.  After becoming thoroughly frustrated with the lack of communication, Dale tried calling the Harbor Patrol again to see if they could assist.  Once again, they called, got some information about hugging the red buoy on our approach but then hugging the green buoy once we made our turn.  The problem was, we couldn’t see any buoys! 

Again, we slowed to a crawl, dodged the dark areas and crept in until we could see the buoys.  I am not kidding you when I tell you there were places where there were only inches—inches—under our keel!  But, we made it in.  Once we made it to their entrance, the water deepened and I could breath again. 

As the marina was a clearing point, the dock master directed us to a fuel pier and told us that he had to call Customs and Immigration before we could fill up.  So, we cooled our jets on the boat until the agents arrived filling out the necessary paperwork.  The “Sail Clear” site is supposed to negate the constant filling out of paper forms but apparently, that only tells them that you are on your way; you still have to fill out the forms.  In other words (from the agents’ mouths) it’s a waste of time.  Then came another straw that I wasn’t prepared to deal with (particularly on little sleep and after a nerve wracking ordeal), as they’re two separate agencies, they can’t share money i.e., the final total ended in an even number but each agency’s ended in a 5, they couldn’t make change and they couldn’t share.  Here I am searching for single dollars.  They won’t take Bahamian dollars so, I’m emptying out my change purse, going through jars of change from Dale’s pockets, looking to coming up with $10 in change so that each of them has the exact amount.  I was flipping out.  Dale was frustrated too.  With me.  He told me to go to bed.  Somehow, somewhere, one of them found $5 in his pocket and made change for the other. 

Then came more excitement.  We did our first med-moor on this boat.  Not the drop your anchor and back into the dock, instead, they threw lines to us to secure to our stern and pivoted us across the slip and then raised muddy, soaked lines from the bottom of the marina that held your bow from blowing side to side.  We’re in here like sardines.  Muddy sardines.  We have just enough space to put a fender between us and our neighbor.  As we were adjusting the fenders, I told him we’d try not to disturb him with our snoring tonight.  As it turns out, he’s a very experienced delivery captain who is going to help us secure a rigging survey for our insurance and possibly find local repair for the collision damage from when we dragged in George Town.  You just never know who you’re going to be cozied up to and if we’re stuck here for a month, lets put it to use and try to make up some time somewhere else. 

Through all of the excitement today, neither one of us realized that we hadn’t eaten all day.  So we decided to splurge and go out to dinner at the marina restaurant.  Dale had lobster and I had ribs.  We met our neighbor and asked him to join us and then met another couple from Texas who are heading down to Grenada.  We made promises to catch up tomorrow and compare notes as we don’t think we’ll be going anywhere soon. 

So, with all of that, I’m off to bed.  Who knows, maybe my blood pressure is down enough for me to fall asleep now.