3 seconds of sheer terror!

3 Seconds of Sheer Terror!!

How do I begin to explain this in words???

The waves were 5 seconds apart or so. The wave height 6 feet is a modest assumption. Some waves were closer.  They just kept rolling and rolling and crashing into the breakers just outside of Emerald Bay Marina.  We were out in the Sound and looking for the entrance to the marina.  The winds a modest 13 knots but this is after 3 days of winds over 20-27 knots.  The waves can pick up in the wide ocean. And Big waves they were.  No surprise.

We had been watching the weather and watching a new website called windfinder.com! So for days we knew it was going to be rough going to get to Georgetown (GT).  Ya know it is tough to put a sailor on a schedule and here again we are in a place of needing to be somewhere on a certain day. 

When the student is ready the teacher appears.  When we live by the spirit then the Divine appears. We were at Staniel Cay wondering when to leave and how to get to GT. We ate at a place and there were sailors that we had met in Nassau.  We told them of our plans and they gave us  a perfect way to get there.  One short 20 mile day to Farmers Cay. Anchor for the night then Go out the Golliet Cut on an out tide to GT 30 miles.

The anchorage was beautiful at farmers cay. The sail was good again with winds at the 20k mark and we only used our Genoa. Ben sailed the full day while I read and relaxed.  It was a very nice gift.  We got up the next day and well… I will tell that story later…. You must be getting tired of our poop-pump stories – they just keep coming and coming! Or running and running or plugged up and plugged up.

So today we had to motor cuz the winds were finally turning southeast from our Northeaster and we were going southeast. We also knew that today was the mildest day in four days. Plus we read the chart book and it said not to enter the marina if you have a strong NE wind. I thought it would be fine due to the winds were now SE. little did we know that the waves were still crashing after such a long few days of NE winds.

We motored so as to not arrive in the night.  It was about 5pm. We radioed the harbor master to give us instructions as how to enter the marina.  It looked scary cuz all I saw was crashing big waves and then I saw the cut. Here is where the Terror begins…

As we were just outside of the harbor cut (and I mean a cut is where the opening goes from wide like the ocean to a narrow cut…  all the weather, winds, current have to squish through a small cut in between the breakers.  Breakers are big rocks or man made cliffs where the surf crashes on.  Ya know just like Hawaii 5-0 where the waves are huge and crash up against the rocks spraying water 30-50 feet in the air… yeah that!) well this was an inlet cuz there was no outlet at the other side.

As Ben and I looked for the inlet, we could not see an opening.  It looked like just waves and waves of surf hitting breakers and crashing.  The waves were so huge! I just can’t describe it.  But I’ll try…

I was on motor power going 5 knots. The swells were closer together and probably about 6 feet high. I rode up on one swell it was not curling into a crashing wave it was just a calm swell.  I rode up the next one… all the while I was watching the red and green markers, around me was waves crashing into breakers making loud noises to the right and left of me.  I stayed focused on making sure we shot through that small inlet!  The next swell was even bigger when all of a sudden -as we entered the narrow channel- a wave caught us broadside. the boat heeled over 85 degrees… lets say the mast was almost in the water, sea water poured into the cockpit but I was unaffected by the water and didn’t even notice until later when it was all over the cockpit was soaked…. Ok back to the wave… it tipped us on our side… we were headed for a big breaker on our beam side… This is the moment I screamed really loud so loud that our new neighbor who was watching this all from the shore heard me yell.  He thought we were toast. 

He had been watching the boats arrive and each other boat had just missed the crashing waves by seconds but not us! Nope we got tossed sideways, it is here again where I said I screamed, out of terror but I was not unfocused, I was staring at the green marker, Ben repeated what the harbor mastor had said, “stay to the green marker” Ben said, go to the left of the Green marker. (I just could not get myself to do that cuz that is why they have markers so you don’t go outside them.) I was ready to run over the green marker but not go on the wrong side of it.  So back to my blood curdling screa… One-thousand-and-one (we were tipped over) one-thousand-and-two we were just popping back up and one-thousand-and-three I cranked the wheel so as to surf the ridge of the wave to the green marker (can you imagin our boat suring on a wave? Yes it did just that. An 18 ton surf board!!,) the boat preformed amazing – she righted herself… rode the wave to the green bouy I gunned the engine to push harder through the waves and pop – just like my sore toe I felt immediate relief! It was calm inside the marina.  I was shaking like a leaf. Ben was shook up too.  During this he was sitting behind me in the stern pulpit thinking, oh no we are going to be washed up against the far breaker rocks.

I was amazed the harbor master let us come through that knowing how dangerous that was! And I’m happy we had no passengers so as to not scare them.  It was scary but I never felt dispare or hopelessness like we were going to die.  I have to say in the 3 seconds it is amazing how our minds can race with thoughts and things appear in slow motion!

In hindsight I can’t think of anything I would have done differently except to not go in the inlet. When we arrived a crew of awestruck sailors met us at the dock to help us tie up.  Our neighbor who saw the whole thing said we did an excellent job getting through that.  There was another boat that just tied up and he just finished entering, he was shook up too.  Lots of camaraderie all around in admiration of getting through!  Many of the sailors have been here for 3 days just waiting for the winds to die down and here we went through it! Never again.  My favorite port is a port I have already been so I know the lay of the land.  Now that I know the lay of the land, I would never attempt that again.

As I said before when you live by the Spirit the Divine shows up.  And the Divine has kept us safe and I am truly grateful! Amen