Sunday 18 April, Marsh Harbor – Green Turtle Cay, Abacos 20 Miles.

Conditions were favorable for crossing the infamous whale passage which is notorious for its “rage” – there can be 10 foot standing waves in the cut if conditions are bad.

Today it was, to quote Don from s/v Boomerang, like “piss on a plate”.

We planned to head into White Sound at Green Turtle Cay as our 5’9” draft would never let us into to the more southern hip and happening Black Sound.

Unfortunately we had to leave Marsh Harbor at high tide to get out of our slip. That meant that we arrive at the entrance to White sound about 1.5 hours before low tide. Not ideal but the charts showed 5’6” so we figured we’d give it a go…

Promptly ran aground at the entrance of the channel. There was no way we could back ourselves off.

The local ferry with dual big diesels engines tried to tow us of – negatory. Big old Q wouldn’t budge. All we could do was to call a ‘securitee’ on the radio, warning other boaters that we were blocking the channel, open a beer and wait for the tide to come in.

Three hours later, about 7 pm we started to float off and put the engine in reverse. Headed straight for an anchorage about a mile away, dropped the hook and relaxed.

Went into historical New Plymouth, nice town, less frilly than Hopetown but very authentic stuff.