Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera and Royal Island

Sunday, June 3, 2007

025-30.780 N
076-50.220 W

Ahoy from Royal Island, Bahamas!

[Click on the image to the right to display a map of the area.]

I decided to combine logs from Hatchet Bay and Royal Island into one report as Hatchet Bay wasn't particularly exciting. Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera is about 15 miles N of Governor's Harbor and is a good stop-over location to break up the trip. It's certainly not a destination and the town is a bit grungy. However, it is a great harbor to ride out storms. If I were to re-do this section of the cruise, I would have anchored on the W side of Current Cut instead of Hatchet Bay and then proceeded directly to Spanish Wells.

Hatchet Bay is a completely enclosed bay with a 50' wide entrance which is cut through cliffs that are about 20-30' high. It's hard to see until you're at the cut and going through the cut can be a bit exciting depending upon the sea state. We had 4'+ seas on our beam as we went through and we were rolling big time.

Once you get inside you're in a completely enclosed bay with flat water. The holding there is rated as "feeble", so you need to pick up one of the FREE government provided mooring balls. I guess that the $300 cruising permit fee goes to something. You need to be careful as you move around the mooring field as it shoals quickly and some of the balls are quite shallow. Since we had driven through Alice Town when we had the car, we didn't even drop the dinghy to explore.

The next morning we headed out at 9 AM in order to make sure that we had an ebbing tide when we got to Current Cut. As the name implies, Current Cut has a lot of current flowing through it and you want to either have slack current or have it going with you as it can flow as high as 6 kts! We had another great downwind sail with 20-30 kts of wind and dropped the main before we headed towards the cut as I didn't want to have to deal with the main being up while maneuvering through it.

Our biggest problem was the weather. We had thick clouds and a light rain coming down. Based upon what the charts and guides show, you need to head to a waypoint S of the cut and then work your way N along the island in a shallow channel before turning W in the main channel. With the poor light and rain I couldn't see the first channel and I think that I was too far away from the island. (I think that you need to run right along the island and little cays.) Suddenly it started getting very shallow and we started bumping. I called to Unicorn and told them NOT to follow me as they draw 6" more, but they pretty much followed in my tracks. We ground to a stop just before the main channel, but I managed to get the boat turned downwind and between the jib and the motor we got into deeper water and the main channel. Unicorn got stuck as we were proceeding through the main channel with several knots of current pushing us. Unicorn rolled out their jib and that heeled them over enough to get into the deep water and they made it through the cut.

After returning home and looking at satellite photos of Current Cut, I don't understand why the guides suggest that you work your way along the edge of the islands and then turn into the cut. It appears that you can enter the cut from the E and head more or less straight down it. The charts that I have show the "purple line" running that way. I would do this in the future. The satellite photos also show that if you do run along the islands that you do need to be very close to them.

We raised the main and continued on to Royal Island, which is about 8 miles from Current Cut. The entrance to Royal Island is pretty narrow, but relatively easy to get in to. The charts make it look like there's a lot of space for boats to anchor, but it's very deceiving. The holding is poor unless you're anchored in a sand spot. We headed to the SW and dropped our anchor into a sand patch between several boats. We stuck well, but I'm sure that there was some discussion between the existing boats about how close we were. There wasn't enough room for Unicorn, so they headed to the NE and found a place to anchor.

Tropical storm Berry was making it's way towards us and the winds and rain started to increase and the wind was switching to the S. In the morning Unicorn was rocking a lot and they decided to move. BJ used our portable depth sounder to check out locations via dinghy and then headed to our side of the anchorage. The problem was that it started pouring and blowing just as they got here. They tried and tried to get their anchor to hold, but they kept dragging. Finally they got it to stick, but they were only about 40' in front of us.

BJ was adjusting their anchor chain when they suddenly broke free. Sue saw this occur from down below and we ran up on deck as they swung into us. Luckily their dinghy was in between us and acted as a bumper and I was able to push their stern away as Diane powered Unicorn forward. That was definitely closer than either of us wanted! They eventually got anchored in a sand hole and seem to be holding well. I can see a new anchor in their future!

Later that afternoon the boat next to us started dragging when it started blowing 30-40 kts. A boat that was near Unicorn's original anchoring spot also decided that they wanted to move over here and decided to drop their anchor right in front of us. They didn't back down on it to check to see if it was really set and after a series of conversations with them, they agreed to re-anchor elsewhere. This was definitely a day of anchor follies! Of course for everyone else sitting around in the rain, it provided a lot of entertainment!

When the wind eventually drops we'll be headed to Spanish Wells where we're getting some needed haircuts.

-- Geoff and Sue (where it's still gusting to 35 kts in squalls)

For the cruiser:

The bar entering Hatchet Bay is about 10'.

The tides at Current Cut follow the tides at Nassau by 1-2 hours.

The guides and charts show that there are moorings at Royal Island. There aren't, but the concrete moorings are still on the bottom, so make sure that your anchor is dug into sand and not simply hooked behind a mooring. There's a new marina complex being built and there's a channel marked by buoys leading to their dock directly across from the entrance to the harbor. There's a surprising amount of traffic that moves through it, so don't anchor in the path.

The SW side of the anchorage at Royal Island will probably hold slightly more than 6 boats. We're anchored in 7' MLW. There's a sand bar on the NE side of the anchorage which is good in east winds.

Log ID: 970