Great Inagua
Great Inagua: In mid February you would find a remote island, 50000 flamingos, a death trap of a harbour, a visit by a couple of billionaires, sleepless nights at anchor, our vessel caught by a fishing net, and the friendliest folks you will meet anywhere.
We arrived in Great Inagua at night. We were exhausted. My legs were tired, my eyes itchy. Anxious for sleep we waited for first light then shot into the very small government basin past the breaking swell on the adjacent west shore. It was kind of an uncomfortable entrance for us given its small width to the harbour and the developing ocean swell, but we needed fuel. We were relieved when we made it to the wall. We were exhausted, but all was well.
We weren’t lured to Great Inagua. We didn’t even want to come. Infact we wanted to stay away. We had passed it by 24 hours earlier, as the island doesn’t offer very many options for anchoring in bad weather. And there was to be bad weather in a day. We would rest, then leave as soon as the weather cleared. We found ourselves here because we were facing difficult sailing conditions in the Windward Passage. And after pounding into steep waves in 25 knot headwinds for half a day we thought given the option, we would try the passage another day in more favorable conditions. So we turned around and headed back 60 miles for this island.
Soon after we had tied up on the 6 foot high concrete wall of the basin, we were greeted by Henry Nixon (aka the flamingo man). He just pulled up on his ATV to help us tie up. Henry is one of the park wardens for the Inagua National Park , which in his words is a park for birds. It is much more than that, it is a nesting site for 50,000 Indian flamingos, and a variety of other wildlife. No sooner after meeting Henry, a truck drove up to the seawall. A man yelled from the truck window…”you want diesel”. This was the beginning of a continuous stream of very friendly visits by residents that would continue for the remainder of the day. The friendly residents are the only reason, that we someday would consider returning to the island. However today, we were too tired to entertain, we just wanted to sleep and this activity was getting between us and sleep.
Between visits we had a chance to look around the basin. The basin was plagued by a continuous swell. The design of the harbour had done little to provide protection inside. Our boat was lashed by 7 lines to two adjacent walls but still it jerked around with the incoming swell. We did our best to protect the boat and make it comfortable for ourselves. The 200 foot x 200 foot basin, had two concrete walls that you could tie up to, the other two sides were composed of piles of rocks. One of the walls had a 40 foot long sunken sailboat leaning on it. Up on the rocks a old wrecked power boat. Some of the very friendly locals confirmed that if the wind blew out of the north west our boat could be wrecked by being thrown up onto the rocks, or smashed against the wall. That was ok, the swell was light from the NW and the wind from the NE. The wind wasn’t to be NW until tomorrow. We were safe for now, but must leave by morning.
Besides the 50,000 flamingos Great Inagua has 1200 residents, salt pans for the Morton Salt Company and a few visitors. While we motoring into the basin, a 210 foot long sailing yacht had just arrived offshore. The private yacht originally constructed in 1926, was recently restored by its Swiss billionaire owners. Some of the 17 crew shuttled between the ship and shore over the next hour to prepare for the arrival of the yacht owners and their single guest. When the owners finally arrived they used our boat as a step to negotiate the height between their launch vessel and the concrete wall of the basin. The wall had increased to 8 foot high as we were now at low tide. The crew (people’s people) had not completely thought out the landing for their people. The billionaires still need to clamber, pull, scrape themselves up the remaining 4 feet high rough concrete wall from our boat to the top of the wall. The man was suitablly dressed for this event wearing jeans and casual shoes, but his wife wearing the lastest fashion for yachting didn‘t have the right shoes for wall climbing. After the husband had pulled himself up, the wife looked at the wall and let out a “huff”. Everyone was silent while her crew hoisted her out of our boat and onto the wall. Finally they were gone and we could rest.
The escape from Great Inagua
We planned our escape from Great Inagua, and realized it would take several days. Days to manage the weather, and slowly get rested enough to continue on our journey. We first need to plan the escape the government basin before the wind swung to the north west. If the wind swung to the NW we could get stuck inside the basin and have to weather the storm there. Not that interested in having the boat dashed upon the rocks, we would escape after we slept. We could only leave near high tide as the entrance to the basin is too shallow for our boat at low tide. That meant waiting for morning. At 4:00am the wind switched and it was time for us to go. Unfortunately we would have to wait for higher water. High tide being 7:30am we would leave as soon as we, dared which was 5:30am. Just before daylight with a sliver of moonlight we escaped to the ocean swell and headed for the south side of the island to anchor out the cold front and the expected 9 foot swells. Still very tired but all was well.
Anchored behind the island was a commercial fishing vessel, and a ocean frieghter. Far different company than we had become accustomed. We were getting the impression that this not a popular stop for sailboats. Contacting the fishing boat they confirmed they had no lines or fishing nets out, and were anchored 2 ½ miles offshore waiting for the weather to pass. We would look for an anchorage 1 mile offshore closer to the charted coral reefs in 25 feet of water. While slowly making our approach shoreward the boat jerked and them came to a stop and the engine stalled. Something was wrong. I had been on the bow of the boat looking for shallow reefs and rocks. We slowly drifted towards a shallow reef. We feared we were about to lose the boat. Within feet of the reefs we raised a sail and sailed to anchor another half mile offshore.
Once anchored I dove into the water to see what was wrong. We had caught a commercial fishing net on our propeller. The net formed a ball 2 ½ foot in diameter totally obscuring our prop and much of our shaft.
Fortunately we were in crystal clear waters and it was still morning so we had good daylight to try to remove it. We were in a rush to cut the net free as quickly as possible as we weren’t interested in having an engineless vessel given the approaching weather. The net was very coarse and cutting was painfully slow. It would take all day, maybe the next as well. We lucked out, within ½ an hour we had launched our dingy and borrowed a scuba tank from Captain Bruce and our new best friends on the fishing vessel “mama” that was anchored a mile away. Leaving with the scuba tank, Bruce asked we conserve air as this was his only tank. “Don’t waste time with a knife, use a hacksaw, and don’t waste my air, skip breathe, and check to see if your still hooked on, you may have bent the shaft. “ Working as quickly as I could, the net was cut free, we tested the engine and the shaft. Bruce had radioed “don’t use to much air”. We re-anchored a couple of times to ensure our anchor chain wouldn’t get tangled on the large coral heads in the deep water. The winds built but we were close enough to shore that things were comfortable. We were still very tired but now could rest, all was well.
The next day the winds continued and were forecast to shift to the north-east. Our anchorage was protected from the north-east, but not the east. If the winds shifted east we would have to pull anchor and heave to or stick it out then re-anchor on the west side once the 12 to 13’ swells had died down. The wind shifted east, we had some but very little rest. At daybreak we went around the island 12 miles looking for a spot that would allow us comfortable rest, as the next day we planned to escape for Jamaica. After testing 2 anchor spots along the way we finally settled on an anchorage that would work for the night. Diving on all the surrounding coral heads, confirming that we had clearance we finally had a good nights sleep and were rested enough for our two day trip to Jamaica.
A fantastic sail in 20 to 25 knots of wind, gusting 30, and 6 foot wind driven waves from our beam we blasted from Great Inagua between Cuba and Haiti, and rounded the windward passage. By morning we had a comfortable 15 knots of wind on a run with an easy swell. This wind quickly lightened, and the next 24 hours we had 0 to 5 knots of wind and couldn’t sail. We were happy to know realize that we had escaped Great Inagua. All was well.
We arrived in Great Inagua at night. We were exhausted. My legs were tired, my eyes itchy. Anxious for sleep we waited for first light then shot into the very small government basin past the breaking swell on the adjacent west shore. It was kind of an uncomfortable entrance for us given its small width to the harbour and the developing ocean swell, but we needed fuel. We were relieved when we made it to the wall. We were exhausted, but all was well.
We weren’t lured to Great Inagua. We didn’t even want to come. Infact we wanted to stay away. We had passed it by 24 hours earlier, as the island doesn’t offer very many options for anchoring in bad weather. And there was to be bad weather in a day. We would rest, then leave as soon as the weather cleared. We found ourselves here because we were facing difficult sailing conditions in the Windward Passage. And after pounding into steep waves in 25 knot headwinds for half a day we thought given the option, we would try the passage another day in more favorable conditions. So we turned around and headed back 60 miles for this island.
Soon after we had tied up on the 6 foot high concrete wall of the basin, we were greeted by Henry Nixon (aka the flamingo man). He just pulled up on his ATV to help us tie up. Henry is one of the park wardens for the Inagua National Park , which in his words is a park for birds. It is much more than that, it is a nesting site for 50,000 Indian flamingos, and a variety of other wildlife. No sooner after meeting Henry, a truck drove up to the seawall. A man yelled from the truck window…”you want diesel”. This was the beginning of a continuous stream of very friendly visits by residents that would continue for the remainder of the day. The friendly residents are the only reason, that we someday would consider returning to the island. However today, we were too tired to entertain, we just wanted to sleep and this activity was getting between us and sleep.
Between visits we had a chance to look around the basin. The basin was plagued by a continuous swell. The design of the harbour had done little to provide protection inside. Our boat was lashed by 7 lines to two adjacent walls but still it jerked around with the incoming swell. We did our best to protect the boat and make it comfortable for ourselves. The 200 foot x 200 foot basin, had two concrete walls that you could tie up to, the other two sides were composed of piles of rocks. One of the walls had a 40 foot long sunken sailboat leaning on it. Up on the rocks a old wrecked power boat. Some of the very friendly locals confirmed that if the wind blew out of the north west our boat could be wrecked by being thrown up onto the rocks, or smashed against the wall. That was ok, the swell was light from the NW and the wind from the NE. The wind wasn’t to be NW until tomorrow. We were safe for now, but must leave by morning.
Besides the 50,000 flamingos Great Inagua has 1200 residents, salt pans for the Morton Salt Company and a few visitors. While we motoring into the basin, a 210 foot long sailing yacht had just arrived offshore. The private yacht originally constructed in 1926, was recently restored by its Swiss billionaire owners. Some of the 17 crew shuttled between the ship and shore over the next hour to prepare for the arrival of the yacht owners and their single guest. When the owners finally arrived they used our boat as a step to negotiate the height between their launch vessel and the concrete wall of the basin. The wall had increased to 8 foot high as we were now at low tide. The crew (people’s people) had not completely thought out the landing for their people. The billionaires still need to clamber, pull, scrape themselves up the remaining 4 feet high rough concrete wall from our boat to the top of the wall. The man was suitablly dressed for this event wearing jeans and casual shoes, but his wife wearing the lastest fashion for yachting didn‘t have the right shoes for wall climbing. After the husband had pulled himself up, the wife looked at the wall and let out a “huff”. Everyone was silent while her crew hoisted her out of our boat and onto the wall. Finally they were gone and we could rest.
The escape from Great Inagua
We planned our escape from Great Inagua, and realized it would take several days. Days to manage the weather, and slowly get rested enough to continue on our journey. We first need to plan the escape the government basin before the wind swung to the north west. If the wind swung to the NW we could get stuck inside the basin and have to weather the storm there. Not that interested in having the boat dashed upon the rocks, we would escape after we slept. We could only leave near high tide as the entrance to the basin is too shallow for our boat at low tide. That meant waiting for morning. At 4:00am the wind switched and it was time for us to go. Unfortunately we would have to wait for higher water. High tide being 7:30am we would leave as soon as we, dared which was 5:30am. Just before daylight with a sliver of moonlight we escaped to the ocean swell and headed for the south side of the island to anchor out the cold front and the expected 9 foot swells. Still very tired but all was well.
Anchored behind the island was a commercial fishing vessel, and a ocean frieghter. Far different company than we had become accustomed. We were getting the impression that this not a popular stop for sailboats. Contacting the fishing boat they confirmed they had no lines or fishing nets out, and were anchored 2 ½ miles offshore waiting for the weather to pass. We would look for an anchorage 1 mile offshore closer to the charted coral reefs in 25 feet of water. While slowly making our approach shoreward the boat jerked and them came to a stop and the engine stalled. Something was wrong. I had been on the bow of the boat looking for shallow reefs and rocks. We slowly drifted towards a shallow reef. We feared we were about to lose the boat. Within feet of the reefs we raised a sail and sailed to anchor another half mile offshore.
Once anchored I dove into the water to see what was wrong. We had caught a commercial fishing net on our propeller. The net formed a ball 2 ½ foot in diameter totally obscuring our prop and much of our shaft.
Fortunately we were in crystal clear waters and it was still morning so we had good daylight to try to remove it. We were in a rush to cut the net free as quickly as possible as we weren’t interested in having an engineless vessel given the approaching weather. The net was very coarse and cutting was painfully slow. It would take all day, maybe the next as well. We lucked out, within ½ an hour we had launched our dingy and borrowed a scuba tank from Captain Bruce and our new best friends on the fishing vessel “mama” that was anchored a mile away. Leaving with the scuba tank, Bruce asked we conserve air as this was his only tank. “Don’t waste time with a knife, use a hacksaw, and don’t waste my air, skip breathe, and check to see if your still hooked on, you may have bent the shaft. “ Working as quickly as I could, the net was cut free, we tested the engine and the shaft. Bruce had radioed “don’t use to much air”. We re-anchored a couple of times to ensure our anchor chain wouldn’t get tangled on the large coral heads in the deep water. The winds built but we were close enough to shore that things were comfortable. We were still very tired but now could rest, all was well.
The next day the winds continued and were forecast to shift to the north-east. Our anchorage was protected from the north-east, but not the east. If the winds shifted east we would have to pull anchor and heave to or stick it out then re-anchor on the west side once the 12 to 13’ swells had died down. The wind shifted east, we had some but very little rest. At daybreak we went around the island 12 miles looking for a spot that would allow us comfortable rest, as the next day we planned to escape for Jamaica. After testing 2 anchor spots along the way we finally settled on an anchorage that would work for the night. Diving on all the surrounding coral heads, confirming that we had clearance we finally had a good nights sleep and were rested enough for our two day trip to Jamaica.
A fantastic sail in 20 to 25 knots of wind, gusting 30, and 6 foot wind driven waves from our beam we blasted from Great Inagua between Cuba and Haiti, and rounded the windward passage. By morning we had a comfortable 15 knots of wind on a run with an easy swell. This wind quickly lightened, and the next 24 hours we had 0 to 5 knots of wind and couldn’t sail. We were happy to know realize that we had escaped Great Inagua. All was well.
posted by tobogganride at 1:58 AM
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