We left Manjack Cay before noon. The night before had been rough with very strong winds, driving rain, and a boat that danced a little too much at anchor for my comfort. But after some early morning rest we pulled the hook to start our way over to the stranded naked party.
We saw the many, many, many people on the beach and the just as many boats either beached or anchored off shore and decided as a group to bypass the party. It was a sailing trip after all. So we sailed south towards the whale Cay passage. There wasn’t a lot of wind at first, and what wind blew seemed to come straight from where we needed to go. But who cares, right? Plenty of room between Big Abaco and GTC for tacking, as well as food and stocked bar made the afternoon sail just enjoyable.
At some point we decided to motor sail to get through the passage to the other side. We did not think short taking unnecessarily through the passage with its rocks and reefs around made sense. As we were motoring through the passage the wind picked up out of the south extensively. It went from 6 to 9 knots to over 20 in a few minutes. We also started noticing that many of the smaller power boats where zipping past us rapidly. Was the party on Fiddle Cay over? I turned to look behind us, stuck my head out from under the bimini and saw a massive, angrily black, thunder storm behind us. I wasn’t too worried. We were motoring into the wind, and it was behind us. Logic, on some level, says that the storm was headed the other direction. Storm logic. Mixed with rum. Not wise.
The storm was in fact, heading toward us. The roiling black mass was pushing against the prevailing wind. Slowly off in the distance the smaller cays disappeared behind a curtain of heavy rain and blackness. We were going for Fishers Bay on Great Guana. We wanted to get to it and anchored prior to the storm hitting. The storm though, sent forth a long black finger holding a curtain of torrential rain. On one side of the boat a devilish blackness riding over the 22 knot wind in our faces; on the other day light. I spun the wheel starboard and ran to the light. As I did the last couple of boats trying in vain to make Fisher’s Bay were swallowed by this turmoil.
The cold from the storm reached us. On our necks we felt the cold air but our faces still felt the strong southern breeze and its warmth. That’s when we saw it. A finger reached down from the cloud every so slowly. As it dangled like a wand over the water, it called forth the water’s surface. At first a wisp on the sea, but then a torrent of water; it appeared as if it was raining up! The two parts connected in the middle to form a water spout less than a nautical mile away. I added some RPMs via the throttle. It headed south and slightly east while we nudged the boat west. The spout itself had become as dark as the clouds that spawned it and as the boat pulled ahead of its direction of travel it became anemic and fell back to the sea.
Just as it did another formed abeam of the boat. As we pulled ahead of its direction of travel, it too fell apart and back into the sea of abaco. This happened 5 more times for a total of seven waterspouts. Each one pushed us further west and south, forming, if all their “dots” were connected a pointer back to Marsh Harbor. With the lateness of the hour, we decided to head for Marsh Harbor. We did make it after enduring another 2 hours of spinning winds and pouring rain. The rain fell so intensely that visibility fell to less than 100 feet in front of the boat. We just “hovered” outside the entrance to Marsh Harbor, until the rain had slacked enough for us to follow another vessel in and make out the marks.
I am not sure what is worse. Banging around on anchor in the pitch black of a moonless night where the storm that batters remains unseen or seeing the storm that batters you…
