Raising Anchor in Bad Weather

When waves are high and winds are powerful, raising your anchor to escape the conditions can be a real challenge. In a situation like this, a manual or an electric windlass will still struggle.

The force of the wind and waves is pushing you back with such fury that the chain will be bar tight! How will you get your anchor up in this? You can try to motor up to it, but any slack in the chain will cause the bow to fall off the wind and pull the chain tightly from an angle, making the entire endeavor futile.

The best solution is to negate the engine entirely and simply use the power of the waves in your favor.

When the bow raises up the face of a wave, the chain will go bar tight. As the boat crashes down the back of the wave, the chain will go slack for just a moment. This is when you bring the chain in.

It is a slow and tedious practice but it will bring in around a foot with each wave, which can be as often as every 4 seconds if the period is close.

When you reach the anchor, the waves will help break the anchor free from the bottom and allow you to reel it in as it skips over the bottom with too short of scope to reset. Now you are free to sail away and seek a safer harbor.

Finding Land

With modern navigation software, GPS, and chart plotters, finding land may seem really simple. While all of these electronic devices are convenient, there is still a very easy way to spot land in the Bahamas from far away without the aid of technology. All you need to do is look up at the clouds in the sky!

Clouds over deep water will look darker because they are reflecting the deep blue of the water beneath them. Clouds over shallow waters will look turquoise as they are reflecting the light colored water beneath them. 

The coulda over the deep water on the left look like regular clouds, but the clouds in the middle have a turquoise hue to them, and these are over the shallow waters where land can be found.

The Bahamas are truely amazing because the flats will be 20 feet deep or less, and then you will sail off a cliff and be in water that is 8,000+ feet deep. Yes, water that is over a mile deep, right off the islands! Thanks to the clouds, you will be able to find your next island chain to explore long before you see the flat islands on the horizon. 

Weather Fax Signal

When receiving weather fax, it is important to have a very clear and good signal. The image is generated via a series of pitches. One pitch for white, another pitch for black. If the pitches are not distinct or there is a lot of background noise, your image will be distorted.

A relatively clear signal will produce an image like this. Few hiccups and a generally legible image of the weather systems at work around us.

Wind noise, conversations in the boat, or just bad reception will produce something like this. You can still make out the general context of the fax, but it is not as clear or legible as when you have good signal. 

Now, bad reception and no time to calibrate your image as it prints onto your tablet will generate something like this. The image is offset, and it is barely legible. All you can really make out is that it's supposed to be a map! 

Be sure to calibrate your setup and take advantage of the test run that NOAA sends out at the start of the weather fax transmission. If you get a clear image at the beginning, then all the subsequent faxes will be clear as well. 

Weather Forecast

I must admit, sailing in the United States will spoil you. There is internet almost everywhere allowing you to pull up your favorite weather website, and there is above all, NOAA Weather Radio.

WX channels that broadcast the weather in your area and give you updates on winds and waves for the rest of the week!

When you head offshore, you can still pick up these signals and listen to the offshore forecast, further spoiling you as you can listen to what is to come in your general area.

This comfort blanket was quickly stripped away when we entered the Bahamas. They have no weather broadcast system, and internet is not available at all islands. I was forced to look at the clouds to see what was coming in our area and download weather-faxes onto my iPad at the appropriate times.

Weather-fax is great at giving you a global picture of what is going on in the world around you, but the internet and NOAA radio will let you know what is going on around your little town, inlet, of island.

If you are an American sailor and plan to head out into international waters, be sure to familiarize yourself with weather information so that you can be your own weather expert.

Waiting for Weather

When you picture cruising, you probably imagine yourself anchored next to a gorgeous beach in crystal clear waters. While this is the goal for tropical cruising, it is not always the reality.

We are currently cruising in the Bahamas, where crystal clear waters are measured against. Every island you encounter is a magical universe unique onto itself. Yet, in this paradise, we have been confined for almost a week!

As we were sailing from Freeport to Nassau, a strong easterly wind came upon us. We nestled ourselves into the protection of Slaughter Harbor, located between Great Stirrup and Little Stirrup (Coco Cay) Cay. Both Stirrup islands are privately owned by cruise lines, so we are not allowed to step foot on their sands. This sort of makes us trapped in our own boat until the winds finish blowing.

The thing is, the winds have been blowing at 20-30 knots for the past 5 days, and seem to show little intent on letting up.

This means that we have spent the last week in our boat, waiting for weather to improve so that we can continue sailing on. Our anchorage has been a little rolly, with waves as big as 3 feet developing in the protected anchorage, but that is nothing when compared to the 8 to 16 foot waves that roll by in the deep blue waters outside of the anchorage.

Waiting for better weather is always the wise thing to do. There is no point in risking the safety of the crew or boat because you get tired of waiting for better weather. Part of cruising is the relaxed schedule. This isn't a charter boat where we only have a week to see what we came here for, this is a voyage where we have all the time we want. When we feel ready, we then move on to the next destination.

So, here we sit, waiting for the weather to blow over, and waiting for better weather to begin sailing again.