Mayaguana is one of the remote Outer Islands in the Bahamas. It lies north of Great Inagua and is only about 40 nm from the Turks and Caicos. It has a population of 300 and the inhabitants are divided into three settlements, scattered around the island.
The Mayaguana misadventure is our pitiful attempt to get to said remote island – a sad and woeful tale indeed. Although excited about our arrival in the Bahamas the island where we made landfall, Great Inagua, has no protected anchorages and we were anticipating strong winds clocking around from the north east to the west. We needed to get out of there to find protection and we had a limited weather window in which to do it. We set our sights on Mayaguana, an island 90nm to the north east, and planned to leave in the early evening for an overnight sail – the downside of many of the outer islands in the Bahamas is that require good light to get into the anchorage behind reefs, but they are spread far apart and it takes nearly 24 hours to get from one to the next. Unfortunately our plans were stalled when we were hit by a squall with big winds and hard rain, and then foiled entirely when it turned out not to be a squall but a front. We decided against setting out in the pouring rain and put off the sail until the next day.
Sadly this meant that our weather window to get to Mayaguana, before the strong south winds picked up, became much narrower. And, of course, the winds arrived much sooner than forecasted. Our anchorage lay on the south side of the island but the south winds had already created such big seas by the time we arrived that there was no way that we could enter it safely. Instead we decided to go to the north east side of the island for some protection from the wind and waves. This sent us about 30 nm out of our way, through squalls gusting to 40 knots, and by the time we reached the spot there was no protection available – if there ever was – as the winds had shifted west. The seas were huge, the wind was 25 – 30 knots and we ended up heaving to for four hours or so, drifting north east. We contemplated heading to the Turks and Caicos to find shelter but in the end we tacked back and were able to head south west which allowed us to get under Mayaguana again.
We half sailed and half drifted through the second night as the wind died out to leave us rocking on the swell and around 5 am we were able to tack again and finally lay our anchorage. Did I mention that all of the black market fuel that we picked up in Cuba had gone by this point and we couldn’t get any on Great Inagua? We had a pretty good idea of how many hours we had left in the tank and Adam was turning his stop watch on and off each time we started the engine in order to keep track. We were pretty sure that we had enough fuel to get through the pass in the reef and motor the 5 nm to the anchorage. In the end we sailed/drifted 180 nm to go 90 and our overnight sail turned into a three day trip. We have made a promise to ourselves that we are going to get to an area where the islands are much closer together as soon as possible.
The Mayaguana misadventure is our pitiful attempt to get to said remote island – a sad and woeful tale indeed. Although excited about our arrival in the Bahamas the island where we made landfall, Great Inagua, has no protected anchorages and we were anticipating strong winds clocking around from the north east to the west. We needed to get out of there to find protection and we had a limited weather window in which to do it. We set our sights on Mayaguana, an island 90nm to the north east, and planned to leave in the early evening for an overnight sail – the downside of many of the outer islands in the Bahamas is that require good light to get into the anchorage behind reefs, but they are spread far apart and it takes nearly 24 hours to get from one to the next. Unfortunately our plans were stalled when we were hit by a squall with big winds and hard rain, and then foiled entirely when it turned out not to be a squall but a front. We decided against setting out in the pouring rain and put off the sail until the next day.
Sadly this meant that our weather window to get to Mayaguana, before the strong south winds picked up, became much narrower. And, of course, the winds arrived much sooner than forecasted. Our anchorage lay on the south side of the island but the south winds had already created such big seas by the time we arrived that there was no way that we could enter it safely. Instead we decided to go to the north east side of the island for some protection from the wind and waves. This sent us about 30 nm out of our way, through squalls gusting to 40 knots, and by the time we reached the spot there was no protection available – if there ever was – as the winds had shifted west. The seas were huge, the wind was 25 – 30 knots and we ended up heaving to for four hours or so, drifting north east. We contemplated heading to the Turks and Caicos to find shelter but in the end we tacked back and were able to head south west which allowed us to get under Mayaguana again.
We half sailed and half drifted through the second night as the wind died out to leave us rocking on the swell and around 5 am we were able to tack again and finally lay our anchorage. Did I mention that all of the black market fuel that we picked up in Cuba had gone by this point and we couldn’t get any on Great Inagua? We had a pretty good idea of how many hours we had left in the tank and Adam was turning his stop watch on and off each time we started the engine in order to keep track. We were pretty sure that we had enough fuel to get through the pass in the reef and motor the 5 nm to the anchorage. In the end we sailed/drifted 180 nm to go 90 and our overnight sail turned into a three day trip. We have made a promise to ourselves that we are going to get to an area where the islands are much closer together as soon as possible.