There’s a famous line in the movie, Apocalypse Now – “never leave the boat”.
Well, today we had a taste of what can happen when you ignore that directive …
We left Nassau Harbour this morning, after
two busy days of errands on land and the loudest live “concert” we’ve ever had
the misfortune to hear, last night on Paradise Island, right next to our boat.
An hour on bouncy seas took us to a near-by
anchorage at Rose Island off an iconically beautiful white sand beach. So after
lunch, we dinghied over to the beach, and tied the boat to a tree in what
looked like a good position to the crashing waves onshore. Then we went for a
long walk on the beach, only to arrive back at the poor dinghy being
overwhelmed by the incoming tide, and almost swamped, right up to the transom,
with ocean water and tons of sand! Yikes!!
The boat was heavy, with her aluminum keel
dug into the sand - but with lots of tugging, we finally managed to pull her
bow first, to the sea, and onto drier land, where we could drain the water
through the rear bunghole. At that moment another sailor showed up to help us
get the boat back into the water, and we were able to take off back to Sea
Change under motor. Whew!
Two hours later, we had taken turns
emptying the dink of enough sand to start our own beach, and finally were
relaxing in the cockpit with a very welcome rum and coconut water. Another day in paradise J.
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