Haven't Been Around Till You've Been A-Ground !!!

Dave and I had a great time in Nassau. We hit Hard Rock Cafe - then enjoyed dominos on the boat at the marina with neighbors. The next day we were off to the Berry Islands. At this point the Bahama part to this adventure is coming to an end. We have 3 stops left before we hit Florida. We sail about 50 nm to Little Stirupp Cay. we knew the beach there was a stop for cruise ships to bring in their passengers. And I can see why. The beach is beautiful and made to look like a Caribbean wonderland with big side and water toys everywhere. We had no intention of leaving the boat here on this island, we just stopped to rest. We planned on heading out first thing the next morning (noticed I am using words like "we did not plan!") I cooked us a nice dinner - we watched a movie and went to bed - we really enjoyed playing dominos the night before so we where keeping it mellow. As we are getting ready to go to bed Dave says " I am going to put on the anchor alarm - when the tide goes out it gets shallow." I say "OK"  To bed we go!
We have clocked around 1100nm miles since leaving St.Thomas in February. We have also except in Nassau never went to a marina. Every night we dropped the hook - and every night I (and I am sure Dave too) wonders if everything will be Ok. Most of the time it is just a passing thought. I trust my anchor - most nights!!
Around 11:00pm I hear a beep beep beep beep - What is that I ask my sleepy self - then it all clicks - "Dave the anchor alarm!!!!"
Yup we are dragging around the harbor like Neptune himself grabbed our anchor and was swinging us around his head like a lasso. It is also very very dark. Dave starts the engines and the chart plotter to see if we can figure out where exactly we are heading. We also try resetting the anchor. Then as the wonderful brand new chartplotter/radar springs to life we see something that just really sucks. As the tide came in and the current changed and the wind decided to switch directions our anchor could not take all the new things happening and decided to just quit instead of holding Cat's Eye down. We headed for a part of the harbor that our chartplotter says "dries at low tide" - this means there is NO WATER when the tide is out and our chartplotter has a picture of a little boat that resents Cat's Eye sitting right in the middle of this area. When tide is high it can be anywhere from 2' to almost 4'. This is not alot of water. To get the tide to 4' it has to be a Full Moon. It will only happen once then you would have to wait for the tides to cycle through again. So if you did not figure it out it was the one time the tide was high, after tonight it was going to get lower and lower every high tide - and lets not forget that at low tide there is no water. Cat's Eye has a 3.5' draft. We slide right on to that little sand patch of land with no problem - all of the right elements added up - the moon the wind water! (REALLY!!!!)
Dave and I realize pretty fast that this is not good. We where a little unsure of the tides so at this point we thought we still had a chance of pulling off. But apparently as soon as tide gets to its high it starts quickly going down.
Now we are JUST in sand. There is no damage done to the boat. I want to say this now - and I can say this know beacause it is all over - but this is what happened to us when the tide went out.......

Cat's Eye High and Dry.

Ok so this looks as bad as it is. We wait all night not really sure what the morning low low tide will bring - and as you can tell it did not bring good news. But knowing that this could not be the the way Cat's Eye was going to be forever (or was it!) I just kept saying at high tide we will simply pull back out. We learned another lesson at high tide, which was around noon the next day. Not all high tides are the same, just because it was deep enough for the boat to get to the middle of this lovely lil sandy spot it did not mean at the next high tide it would be the same level . Dave at this point had  gone into the amazing beach resort looking for help. Like they did not notice a catamaran a few hunderd feet from their fun bouncy water slides and toys. (we where really right off the beach). We got lucky. The friendly (wonderful, sweet, amazing) people that worked and lived on the island offered any kind help they could! We thought that the next high tide (noon that day - 12 hours stuck so far) We could just slide back. The water would rise and pick us back up and we could just back out the way we came. Not so. The keels were stuck TWO feet into the sand & mudd. Michelle sent out a team of wave runners to hook up to us and pull, tug and push - Cat's Eye was not moving. The tide was coming up short about 5". When did you ever think 5" could be that BIG of a deal!! After the tide  left us high and dry I started to panic. The next time tide was going to be as high as it was when we slid in was 12 days. I wanted to throw up. Dave was ready to set up camp at Cat's Eye new dry home for 12 days. I was NOT willing to give up for anything. I made a call to someone I knew could read tides and would guide me in the right direction (Thank you again John) I was told the next highest tide would be at 1:06am that night but would still be coming up short. This was starting to look really bad.
Then I swear a mircle happened. Out (walking) to the boat is a wonderful and smart man named Stephen. He is a captain for the lil island. He thinks by stacking floating docks on top of eachother and putting them under the boat it will give us the extra inches we need (INCHES again really who thought only a few inches could make or break your whole day!!). We had nothing to loose. Out came the floating docks. Dave and Stephen and Alex (another amazing kind person from the island) stacked and secured the docks under the boat. I felt like I was stuck in a bad dream with really nice people.

Yup - all our eggs in one basket.

Does not look like much but the thought was when tide comes in the docks will push up under the boat and give us the stupid 5 extra inches!! Now all we had to do was wait for midnight to come and bring the tide with it. If this did not work I was going to go (walk) into the happy lil resort and ask for a job because we where going to be stuck for a while. We had all day to let the shock of one minute - be floating happy around the bahamas to now being totally no funcational. It was a long day. But the rest happens really fast. We sit and wait. Tide comes up. Dave gets in the dinghy and starts pushing Cat's Eye around. I had the job of pulling on the long anchor lines Dave set out as a guide to get out. Since it is the middle of the night again!! Do bad things always have to happen when you can not see anything!?

Dave walking out the anchors.

Tide comes in - Docks go up - Cat's Eye gets at least 5 more inches!! (at least!)!! Wheee!! Yea!!! We are floating!!

We couldn't believed it worked!  Those lil docks did the trick!!
Steven, the man with the plan!!! 

We do not know how we would have gotten off of this sand bank if it was not for the nicest people on Coco Cay. We would have been making camp till the next new moon almost 2 weeks later. We spen the day getting the boat back together. I then asked Dave if he was up for a night sail to The Grand Bahama Island. This would be the last stop in the Bahamas. We both felt that we did not want to push our luck with one more night in the same harbor.  So we took off. We are now sitting in a nice marina on Easter Day. We arrived this moring around 7:30am. We tied securuly to a dock. the marina has a nice pool and beach bar. Dave and I are thinking dominos by poolside with an adult beverage are in order and well deserved!

 I can look at this whole bad bad situation a little lighter now that it is over. It is easy to say it is not our fault. Is it? maybe. Sometimes things happen. On the postive side we had increased our friend list. Coco Cay will ALWAYS be a stop on our Bahama list so we can say hello the new friends!  I learned that the floating docks can float anything! Dave is very patient when I want things down NOW!! John Jacob still proves to be one of the most reliable welth of information! The dogs know when to stay quiet and behave. Cat's Eye is an amazing vessel that is stronger then I ever gave her credit for. I feel safe on her. And 5'' is A LOT!!

Now it is off to the states!! Florida here we come!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!!