Ahhh, paradise. That’s what it is in the Bahamas. Paradise. White sandy beaches, crystal clear water, cool gentle breezes, and lots of rum.
We’d heard about this little beach off of Prime Cay. No one ever goes there. You get the whole place all to yourself. Go past the first beach. Then, if you can get over the sand bar, the 2nd beach is amazing! “Good holding”, they said. That means your anchor shouldn’t drag. Shouldn’t. It’s kind of an important thing.
Imagine pulling into a bay, dropping anchor, backing down, putting on the bridle, and heading to shore for a nice long hike. The sun is shining, the views are incredible. You’re so excited to be here. You hike all the way to the top of the island and look out over the water, only to see your boat drifting out to sea. It happens.
So when they say “good holding”, you hope it’s true. And when they say “not good holding”, you pay attention.
Well, we couldn’t get over the sand bar. We realized that after passing the first beach and coming to a slow, smooth halt. The depth sounder read 0.00. That was also a clue. So we backed off, turned around and went back to the first beach. “Not good holding”, the chart said. “Not good holding.”
But the anchor set so fast. I watched it disappear into the sand. Yes, the water is that clear.
We backed down on it at 2000 rpm.
We sat there for 30 minutes watching after we turned the engines off.
Eh, we’re fine.
And we were, for two days. There was literally no wind. Our boat kept drifting around effortlessly. The water was so clear that several times a day we would notice the anchor and the chain, commenting on the tracks it left in the sand.
Later, that 2nd day, we saw that we had drifted around so much that the anchor shank was facing forward, not aft like it’s supposed to. “It’ll reset when the tide changes”, we said to each other, and went about our day.
Then, around 2:00 am, our anchor alarm went off. That loud piercing noise that’s certain to wake the dead. Make no mistake, if you hear this, your boat is no longer in the swing circle you drew for it. But that’s just it, we drew the swing circle. And we’ve been wrong before.
The island is uninhabited. And since there were no other boats around or lights on the island, we couldn’t really tell if we had dragged. We looked at the chart plotter, thought it was just a drift, and went back to bed. Five minutes later, it went off again. Convinced we were now dragging, we got out of bed. Standing on the bow, naked, at 2:40 in the morning, flashlights in hand, we watched the anchor reset into the sand, just like we thought it would. We just didn’t think it would take so long.
“Not good holding”. Pay attention.
April 2021