By Fritz Grell

With no moon, the horizon was tough to see but the stars were beautiful and the faint glow of island towns was visible from time to time. Moving to the front of the bridge periodically gave a little better night vision, away from the electronic screens, even with their brightness on low.

We were somewhere between Eleuthera and Long Island, deep in The Bahamas.

It was the beginning of a spectacular trip, surveying over 800 miles of open water from the bridge of a 58-foot sportfisher. I was helping Keith O'Daniel move his KEY MON from Stuart, Florida, to Grand Cayman. He had brought the vessel to the States for a little R&R (that's repair and replacement, for a boat), and it was now time to return to the island where Keith and his wife, Marsha, have vacationed for many years.

The problem with taking a U.S. boat to the Cayman Islands is that Cuba is right in the way. The route we would take would be through The Bahamas and around the east end of Cuba. Keith, Marsha and friends had made the first leg of the trip, ending in Eleuthera near Rock Sound at Davis Harbor Marina. Marsha and friends departed, and Joe Brown and I flew in to join Keith for the rest of the trip. We were immediately introduced to the concept of island time by Bahamasair's late departure. On board the KEY MON by about 6 p.m., Keith reviewed safety issues, ditch bag contents, life raft location and deployment, spare parts locations, operation of various items and we were on our way by around 6:45.

Our overnight leg would give us an arrival at the fuel dock of Flying Fish Marina, on Long Island, when they opened in the morning. It was important to take advantage of calm weather while we had it and also important to time our arrival at the heavily traveled Windward Passage during daylight hours. It would be easier to deal with the many ships in the daylight as well as any military vessels while in close proximity to Cuba.

The KEY MON has a range of approximately 350 miles at a cruising speed of 20 knots. Fuel management would be critical, with the longest leg of the trip 380 miles. The electronic Caterpillar gauges were extremely helpful providing accurate fuel consumption for each engine. Our “cruising speed” the first night was about 8.5 knots at 720 rpm burning about 4 gallons per hour per engine.

I was alert that first night, scanning the horizon 360 degrees, knowing that a commercial vessel can sneak up quickly at the speed. It was unlikely we would be surprised by any boat traffic, however, since a new Furuno NavNet radar had just been installed and was working wonderfully.

The large-screen Garmin 3210 was truly multi-function this evening as it displayed the chartplotter, weather and provided Keith and Joe, both from Georgia, the Atlanta Braves game on XM Radio. The VHF radio, on the other hand, did not make a peep all night on channel 16. We also had a chartplotter available on the NavNet via split screen with the radar and were running two Northstar GPS units. The Northstar 951 was set on a navigation page displaying current location, time, and other data as needed. The Northstar 6000i would have our waypoints entered and gave us distance, time to go, chartplotter and a host of other info. The Simrad AP22 autopilot received its heading information from the 6000i and would steer directly to the waypoint in NAV mode. One thing we did find with the autopilot was that if taken out of NAV mode, the unit would hunt for a while when returned to NAV mode. Once it got itself tuned in, it was dead on but sometimes the wait was annoying and we used the AUTO mode. Either way, the autopilot did an outstanding job of steering a straight course, which improves the miles to gallon figure. Our speed varied a little from 8.2 to 8.8 knots as we progressed though changing wind, sea and ocean current conditions but we were in no hurry as this leg was only about 125 miles. There was lightning in the distance, but it was seemed to stay over land. Only one other boat was seen on radar, about 6 miles away.

While I was snoozing off watch, Keith bumped up the speed for a while to keep our ETA at the fuel dock at 8 a.m. When they slowed back down, the bilge water ran forward to the engine room causing the bilge alarm to sound briefly. Keith had a quick look around, got hit in the head with a flying fish, then opened the cabin door to announce we had a bilge problem.

If you want to see someone on a boat get up quickly, try the water in the bilge announcement.

Keith already had a good idea of the source, which was the rudder stuffing boxes. They were leaking much more than desirable but not at an alarming rate. The problem was magnified since the aft bilge pump float switch had failed but the water had not risen to the alarm level. This meant a lot more water than normal ran forward when the boat came off a plane. We would run the aft bilge pump on manual if the need arose and address the situation in daylight at the marina. The engine room bilge pump was keeping up with the level adequately and was not being challenged.

The moon came up around 2 a.m. and the rest of the night was uneventful. After 12 hours, we pulled into Clarence Town Harbor on Long Island just as their local fishing tournament boats were getting underway. Due to the tournament, the fuel dock at Flying Fish Marina opened early and we did not have to wait. Keith filled the tanks we had run on with fuel, checked the engine room and batteries while I moved the dive tanks to access and tighten the rudder stuffing boxes and replace all of the bilge pump and switch connections with heat shrink electrical connectors. Eleven 5-gallon fuel jugs were also filled for a little extra safety margin and to balance the generator fuel burn from one tank. After a shower and cheese and crackers for breakfast, we were on our way again by 9 a.m. The weather was still favorable and, with about 380 miles to go, we were hoping for calm seas the entire leg.

Looking at the chart, it would appear that we would have some options to purchase fuel prior to Jamaica, but we did not. Haiti is too unstable and is excluded by the insurance company. Being a U.S. vessel and U.S. citizens, we could not venture any closer than 12 miles from the coast of Cuba. Great Inagua, a Bahamas island, had previously detained crew from this boat as well as one other I know of, and there is no fuel dock so you would have to rely on a fuel truck that may or may not even have fuel.

We ran at cruising speed for about three hours and then emptied seven of the eleven 5-gallon tanks of fuel into the port aft fuel tank that supplies fuel to the generator so that the fuel level of the aft tanks would be about even after a while. The aft tanks have sight glasses so it is easy to get an accurate reading of the fuel remaining, but the wing tanks do not and their electric fuel gauges are not very accurate. By using the Cat gallons per hour reading and keeping close track of time, we ran off of the wing tanks until we had mathematically burned the available fuel in the tanks. The port engine burned 39 gph and 38 for the starboard at 1,760 rpm at 22.5 knots and we ran a conservative 7 hours leaving some fuel in the tanks, not running the engines dry and having to deal with priming them.

Cruising along we saw no other boats but the water was beautiful and there were many flocks of birds. Unfortunately, time and fuel constraints over ruled the urge to head for the birds on the radar and we agreed that we would fish some on the Jamaica to Cayman leg. Lots of current edges would affect our boat speed one way or the other, mostly down about .75 of a knot, from about 80 miles out to the Windward Passage. Off of Great Inagua, the XM radio signal was lost along with the weather and the ball games. The Garmin also lost its GPS signal southwest of Cuba for a while, but the Furuno and Northstar units were not affected. XM did not return until we were on our way to Cayman.

The first boat we saw that leg was a sailboat south of Great Inagua. Freighters then began appearing rapidly as we approached the shipping lanes around the east end of Cuba. Within 15 minutes, four ships were in sight and the traffic continued for much of the leg. We passed outside of the shipping lanes, about 16 miles from Cuba, in the daylight as planned. At one point, there were three targets lined up in military fashion close to our heading and we were thinking the worst. Fortunately they turned out to be commercial traffic, a big relief. We were perfectly legal in all regards, but the hassle of a boarding would not have been good.

When the time came to switch over from the wing tanks, the engine room and Racor filters were inspected. The Racors were fine so the Bahamian fuel purchased was clean and no water or debris was apparent in the bowls. When darkness fell, we were well away from the shipping lanes but would continue to mark many targets on the radar. It was really dark this night as we poked along at 8.2 knots burning 8 gph. The lights from Guantanamo Bay could be seen from some 50 or so miles away, but otherwise it was black out with no horizon due to cloud cover.

We tried bumping the speed up a little to 9.5 knots but efficiency went down since the fuel burn was then 12 gph or .79 miles per gallon versus 8 gph or 1 mpg. When the welcome daylight arrived, fuel levels were checked and we enjoyed the last two hours of our 24-hour leg at cruising speed. We were in the Port Antonio harbor on Jamaica by about 8 a.m. and tied up to the fuel dock shortly thereafter.

We had a visit by the harbor police, and then a Health Department official cleared us through quarantine. During the afternoon, Customs cleared a couple of sailboats and our boat, but we still needed to be cleared by Immigrations. The gated marina is in town, so we set off to the Immigration office and a brief visit in town. Back at the Errol Flynn Marina, a dip in the pool and a nap was in order. My nap turned out to continue all night, but Keith and Joe enjoyed a very good meal at the marina restaurant.

KEY MON’s wing tanks hold 299 gallons each and her aft tanks have a capacity of 380 each. We took on 1,090 gallons, so we were tight on fuel, but we also could have chosen to run at 8 knots for more of the leg if in doubt. The generator had been running since we left Eleuthera and continued to run day and night in Jamaica since the marina’s shore power converter was malfunctioning and not able to convert 50htz to 60htz. The amount of fuel consumed by the generator prior to departure was not a problem since Grand Cayman was well within our cruising range.

By far the best part of our Jamaican visit was meeting and employing the "Hulk" for the day. Aptly named for his bodybuilder appearance, Hulk paddled a kayak all the way across the harbor and was the first to greet us. Fairly well spoken and polite, Hulk offered to clean our salty, sooty boat. A bit skeptical, Keith had him meet us at the marina since we were all tired and the thought of cleaning 36 hours of grime from the boat was not very appealing. Pay was to be determined by the results and Hulk was paid handsomely since the boat looked perfect when he was finished.

The last leg to Cayman was uneventful as we ran down the north side of Jamaica on the way to Cayman. Since we would arrive in darkness anyway, we searched for an edge, debris, weedline or some type of feature to fish on, but never found one. There were a few sportfishers and small boats off of Jamaica, but none between there and Cayman. A late afternoon thunderstorm stayed with us for 3 or 4 hours all the way to Grand Cayman. A pair of boats appeared to be night fishing off Cayman as we approached and we were tied up to the commercial wharf in Hog Sty Bay at about 9 p.m. Surprisingly, Customs and Immigrations came to the boat at around 10 p.m. to clear us in. The lady immigration official was, understandably, not in the best of moods working at 10 pm on Saturday night, but her eyes lit up when she saw a copy of Florida Sportsman on the coffee table which she said was her boyfriends favorite magazine. It happened to be the May 2007 issue in which I had two articles published, so I signed the magazine for her and she was then happy as a clam with a trophy for her boyfriend. Joe almost had his own trophy as he jumped off a tarpon with the underwater lights on that night.

Sunday morning we moved the boat around to the other side of the island, through the reef and to a private slip in the Cayman Island Yacht Club. We had traveled over 800 miles from the low-lying Bahamas to the mountains of Jamaica and on to the very low Grand Cayman and I thought the adventure had ended until an iguana jumped aboard and into the engine room vent. Some time the next day he came back out and it would have been a hit show on Funniest Home Videos watching me catch and release an iguana. Fueled by truck in the slip, we had burned virtually the same amount of fuel on our last day at cruising speed as we did on the 24 hour leg, 1,097 gallons.

We swam with the stingrays, snorkeled on the beautiful aquarium like reef, caught a couple of blackfin tuna and it is easy to understand why folks come to visit this wonderful environment. The underwater camera is really impressive here when checking out the stingrays and dive sites as well as when traversing channels and shallows. If you like crystal clear water, you’ll love this place, and you might want to consider traveling by plane but the trip by boat is a great adventure.

FS