The Devil’s Backbone and Goodbye Bahamas

 

Molly and Tory on the Pink Sand Beach of Harbour Island.

The Devil’s Backbone is a 6-mile passage that we needed to cross in going from Spanish Wells to Harbour Island.  All the guidebooks and chart descriptions strongly recommend hiring a local pilot to steer your boat through the passage that is lined with reefs, coral heads that rise close to the surface and often crashing surf on both sides of the narrow channel.   The recommendation also includes the need for flat seas and a high sun in the sky in order to see the coral heads.

We had 4 days in Spanish Wells, plenty of time to mull this over.  Molly was inclined to pay the $150-$200 for a pilot, but I wanted to do more investigation.  All the locals we talked to second the advice to hire a pilot, but I did read one blog post that suggested otherwise.  The blogger noted that his pilot followed the magenta line on the navigational charts and that depths were never less than 8 feet.  He speculated that the guidebooks were just supporting the local economy and that one was really paying for the chance to talk with a local on your boat.

The boat in the background left is one of the several
large fishing boats in Spanish Wells.

As I dithered on the pilot decision, we enjoyed our time in Spanish Wells, a bustling community of Bahamians and the fishing capital of the Bahamas.  We were told that 75% of the lobster tails used by Red Lobster restaurants comes from here.  [Bahamian lobsters do not have claws.]  The town also has a large American-style grocery store, which we put to good use.  Everyone was very friendly and the dock owner where we stayed even introduced me to his mother so I could sit on her porch and use the Internet.

This yacht did have a pilot lead it through the Backbone.
The inflatable slide might have cost as much as our boat!

In the back of my mind, I was thinking that boats up to 150 feet long, 30 feet wide and 7-foot draft take the Devil’s Backbone, and here we are on a 25-foot with 8.5-foot beam and 2-foot draft.  I finally spoke with a Canadian who lives part-time in Spanish Wells and has a center console fishing boat similar in size to Salty Paws.  He stated that we will have no problem doing the Backbone on our own.  That settled it for me, and I plotted our course on two separate chartplotters to have redundancy.

This is our route
through the Devil's
Backbone.  Green indicates
cruising at less than 10 mph;
red less than 5 mph.

We departed shortly after dawn on Saturday (April 9th) in less-than-ideal conditions but with the plan to turn around if it gets dicey.  Both engines were running in case one fails, and I turned on our 3^rd chartplotter to add another depth sounder that Molly can easily monitor.  We were both super alert as we entered the Devil’s Backbone.   The water was too choppy to make out any coral heads, but the depths were a comfortable 10 feet, and in an hour, we were through the Backbone without incident.

Here Salty Paws is anchored off the beach on Man Island.

The next five days we anchored in three different spots in the sound off Harbour Island.  We found a great beach on Man Island to take Liz and family to for a day and also got to do some extensive walking from Harbour Bottom to the Glass Window, a bridge that separates the deep blue ocean from the aquamarine, shallow bank and which we had visited two years ago just before COVID cut short our last trip to the Bahamas.

The Lighthouse at Ocean Tally with the best looking bar in the world, but, alas, it is no
longer open to the public except as a B & B.

Here is the natural pool below the Lighthouse at Ocean Tally.

The Glass Window bridge used to be a natural arch between Eleuthera and North Eleuthera.  On the left are the deep blue
waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and on the right on the Bahamian waters on the Eleuthera Bank.

View from near the Glass Window Bridge.

We hiked another mile past the Glass Window Bridge to the Queen's Bathes.  Tory was first in.  We didn't see any royalty,
but the main road on each island is called the Queen's Highway.  Kate and William had been in the Bahamas the week before.

Molly, Liz, Matt, Charlotte and Bill.

On Thursday (April 14th) we pulled in to Romora Bay Resort and Marina for our 4-day stay, only two long blocks from the inn where Liz and family would be staying.  We walked to the inn to drop off the pail and shovel set we bought for Charlotte and picked up their golf cart.  That afternoon Matt, Liz and Charlotte landed at the North Eleuthera airport, a direct flight from Atlanta, took a short taxi ride to the ferry dock opposite Harbour Island, and crossed the sound on the ferry.  Their ferry dropped them off right next to our boat, and their Harbour Island adventure began.

We repeatedly heard that Harbour Island is called the Nantucket of the Bahamas.  That may not be the best analogy, but it is a bustling place, with hundreds, if not thousands, of tourists and golf carts everywhere.  There are numerous restaurants, three major marinas, many resorts and a beautiful, pink-hewed sand beach on the ocean side of the 3.5-mile island.  Much of the island caters to revelers, and we were fortunate to be south of the hustle bustle.  Romora Bay has a beautiful pool along with easy beach access on the oceanside.  We made extensive use of both and also made two trips on our boat to Man Island.  It was a great time with Liz and family.

We walked right off Salty Paws to the beach on Man Island.

Matt and Liz in the surf on Pink Sand Beach.

Charlotte seemed to spent more time in the pool at Romora than sleeping. The first boat
on the background right is the top of Salty Paws.  

The Miles family did a lot of smiling.

Charlotte discovered Shirley Temples on Harbour Island and particularly liked the cherries.

We had our own dock space, where we could hang out.  Charlotte and Tory became buddies.

We frequently monitoring the weather forecasts, and Monday, April 18^th, was the only day over the next 10 days with light winds predicted.  I didn’t want us to be stuck in a harbor or anchorage that could jeopardize our plan to fly out to San Francisco from Atlanta for our nephew Max Webster’s graduation from Berkeley on May 14^th.  We decided to go from Harbour Island to West Palm in one day, 245 miles in all.

This shows our route from Harbour Island
to West Palm Beach.  The lines in white
indicate a speed over 20 mph.

Our departure routine began before dawn.  I prepared the boat, while Molly walked Tory.   Unfortunately, during her walk she tripped on a speed bump and fell on her wrist, which she thought might be broken.  She wrapped her arm and wrist, and I helped her with a makeshift sling.  She was still game for departure, but in some pain. 

We departed shortly after dawn.  The Devil’s Backbone passage was uneventful and soon we were in open ocean with a few thousand feet below our keel.  The 5-foot swells and southeast wind are off our starboard stern.  We were able to cruise at 20-25 mph, which we needed to do if we were to reach Florida by nightfall, but we had an uncomfortable 30-mile crossing until we get partially in the lee of Great Abaco Island.  The seas then began to flatten and the winds lessen. 

Going WOT (wide open throttle) keeps us around 25 mph, but eats up our gas, and after 150 miles we limped into Lucaya, Grand Bahama, with our tank indicator blinking near empty.  We refueled and checked out of Bahamian Customs, which is a new procedure imposed upon the Bahamas by the US Government so that there is a record of departure.  In an hour we were back on course for Florida.

Salty Paws anchored off Peanut Island,
a great island park.

Photos don't adequately
capture the rich blue of the
Bahamian ocean waters.

We had less than 100 miles to go.  We could tell when Salty Paws entered the Gulf Stream as the water temperature increased from 78 to 82 degrees.  The conditions were ideal.  At 5:30 pm we saw the condos of West Palm.  Then, 6 miles from the Lake Worth Inlet, our low oil alarm went off on the main motor, no doubt the result of 11 hours at WOT.  This forced us to slow down and putter into the Lake Worth inlet on our small kicker motor. As we were approaching the inlet we got a weather alert of severe thunderstorms with winds of 60mph and half dollar sized hail. We could see the lightening nearby, but fortunately the storm moved south.  At 7 pm we anchored off Peanut Island in West Palm.  All is well, except for Molly’s wrist.

Molly was given a choice of cast colors.  Her
selection goes well with the boat!

The next two days involved two medical visits for Molly.  She does, indeed, have a broken wrist, but is in great spirits and glad to be back in the States.  Tomorrow we will slowly begin our trek north.