Sitting in ORYC all alone.

Super moon

We had a weather window come up so we decided to take it and head to ORYC. It looked like a motoring window but that's fine with me just to get across the gulf stream. The forecast was for 3 to 5 ft waves and Southeast winds becoming South in the afternoon only around 10 knots, it never seems to be the same as they predict!

We had a great crossing with west winds in the morning and south winds in the afternoon, waves under a foot and a swell which was very far apart. This was one of our best time crossing to date.

We stopped in at West End for customs, the place really got hit hard by the hurricane and they have no radio, no electric and no water but customs was there to take our three hundred dollar. They are not open yet so dockage was free and since we were only going to be there for about 8 hours so that was a good thing.

We brought some relief stuff over so after taking that off the boat Jon came back with all our paperwork, we got all the time we asked for.

Instruments at night

We woke up around 1:30 am and untied the lines at 2:00 heading around the island to make Silver Cove Inlet at high tide which was about 7:30 in the morning.We had the super moon to help us out the channel at West End since the storm took out the channel markers. It really was a night night to be out as we followed the coast on a close reach the wind came around too and we had wind the whole time.

As we made our way across Freeport entrance we had to go around the cargo ships that are there unloading oil which was no problem; then we came up to a large tug towing a barge on a long cable. We could see his red port light on the front, the 3 lights indicating a tow behind him and the red green on the barge, but could not see his green knowing that we had passed his bow. AIS was not picking him up and he did not answer our call. Jon felt very confident in his course and felt we were close enough to shore where the tug wouldn't go, but when they shined one big ass light on us I panicked, because the only other time I saw this was with a sailboat that was not giving way to a tug with tow. Everything was fine and passe the tug just like Jon thought. The reason we couldn't make his green light was because he didn't have one!  "Welcome to the Bahamas mon".

The Breach

We made the channel at 7am and called Rick and Liz on the Radio, Rick and Liz have a home inside the channel and had brought their 52 foot sailboat in the week before, he offered to come out and guide us in.

Very Narrow channel

The channel had changed so much and part of the channel rocks jetty had been breached near the tree line which changed the whole flow of the water. Sand and rocks were in the channel with lots of debris on both sides. Because of the super moon we had no problem getting in and making our way to the dock.

Only a few boats are here and four Timeshare units are occupied. ORYC took a pretty good hit and lost some roofs, all their telephone poles, trees are gone, and Esters little bar at the pool has vanished. The fencing around the tennis court has been severely damaged too. There are many projects and lots of people working here, things get better every day.

Berny's place still up and running 

Tennis court damage

Giant Porgy

Breach at Running Mon channel

Boat damage at Knowles

We have been out on dinghy and by bike to see some of the damage the Hurricane did and all we can say is, WOW.!    

Channel rocks just inside Running Mon with-in the markers,...