Blasting along to Over Yonder.

It’s Friday morning and we are tied up the dock at Over Yonder Cay.  You may recall that we had visited this private island once before about two years ago.   The island is private and available for charter.  Fortunately, we are friends with the owner Ed, so visiting on Pandora is possible.

We were particularly excited about seeing Ethan and Jamie who work on the island.  They were newly weds when we visited last time and now have growing family.  Very exciting.  We will be having them to dinner aboard Pandora tonight.  It will be a fun to catch up.

The run from Nassau here is a bit over 75 miles, a pretty good distance, but we did it in a single day on Pandora with a stiff breeze that peaked at near 30kts as we arrived yesterday afternoon.  I  was so pleased to have the bow thruster as I maneuvered up to the dock in such strong winds.

The wind was from the north so our run was a beam to broad reach the whole way.  We were blasting along at nearly 10kts much of the time.   What a thrill.   This video gives you a feel of now stable Pandora is at speed, even with a pretty good chop on the banks.
What the heck, how about another short piece of her speeding along. Love to go fast but it’s a bit unnerving to see the bottom through the clear water. At a few points along the way we only had a few feet under the keel and as we crossed the Yellow Banks, we had to dodge the coral heads that come pretty close to the surface.  Fortunately, they show up well and look like black ink spots on the water.   I don’t want to think would have happened if we had hit at those speeds.
The wind here on the dock was pretty strong last evening and is sill nearly 20kts today.  Pandora is being pressed hard against the dock.  Good thing I have lots of big fenders.

Take a look at these numbers?  Not a huge amount of apparent wind to be going this fast.  And, she hardly heeled at all, perhaps 12 degrees.    Wow, fast boat.    We passed another boat of similar size that left about an hour before we did from Nassau.  It didn’t take long till she disapeared over the horizon behind us. Our average speed for the run, including about 90 total minutes of motoring in and out of harbors was nearly 9kts.  We were running at a pace that would have clocked between 220 and 240 miles per 24 hours.

Early today the mail boat came into Over Yonder Cay marina to deliver supplies to the island. It’s a pretty busy island so they need a great deal of supplies to keep things running smoothly.  To see the mail boat come by Pandora and tie up to the dock was an impressive display of seamanship.  This was the same mailboat that brought the sloops to Little Farm’s Cay a few years ago when I was able to get a spot aboard one of them as crew.  I wrote about that amazing experience in this post.

I was able to find my way onto the bridge to meet the captain today.  Very nice guy. He recalled the race I was in and specifically remembered the crazy experience when one of the boats sunk and an enraged owner showed up and rammed the sloop that I was crewing on.

The Captain “C” was built in Louisiana back in 2002, I think.   This was posted in the wheel house.   Everything is unloaded by hand but they do have a crane on the foredeck for really heavy stuff. Over Yonder Cay has a large staff and a good number of regular paying guests.  It takes a lot of supplies to keep the island running smoothly.  This is only part of the delivery and I was told that the supply boat comes several times per month.  After bring on the dock for about an hour they shoved off.  The wash from the props danced Pandora around at the dock and stirred up quite a bit of sand. Over Yonder Cay is a remarkable place and we are very luck to be back here again. We hope to stay for a few days and there will be lots more to tell so stay tuned.

It’s great to be back and to have friends Over Yonder.