Just Hangin' Out?

On the Cruisers Net the morning we were at Matt Lowe’s Cay we heard a boater thanking BASRA (Bahamas Air Sea Rescue) for their help the previous night. Naturally we were curious as to what had necessitated the emergency help, so when we heard the same boater calling a friend a bit later on the VHF, we couldn’t resist eavesdropping!

“How are you doing?” The friend asked. “I heard you on the radio this morning thanking BASRA.”

“Well, we’re a little high and dry right now.” replied the boater calmly. We’re aground over by Matt Lowe’s Cay.”

“That’s too bad,” said the friend. “What happened?”

“Well, we were coming back from Guana around 12:30 last night and we decided to go to Hopetown instead of Marsh Harbor, so I went below to look at the charts and (----) was steering and while I was below, I suddenly heard her take a hard turn to port. We heard a loud crunch and we stopped abruptly. Everything went flying in the boat.”

“Oh, wow, that’s terrible,” said the friend. How fast were you going?”

“About 13 knots”

Oh, my gosh! Did anybody get hurt?”

Not really, just a few bruises.

“So was there any damage?”

“We lost both the rudders, and there’s a three meter gash in the side of the hull….” We had to go below and gather up all our belongings and stuff them in plastic bags, because there was about two feet of water in the boat at high tide.”

“Oh, man, that’s awful. If you lost the rudders, you must be really hard aground.”

“We are. The whole boat’s out of the water.”

“What did BASRA do?”

“Well, basically nothing. They checked out the boat but we were too far out of the water to pull us off.”

As the bad news unfolded, the boater’s friend offered to help if needed, but then seemed at a loss for words. Finally after a long pause, he asked … “So what are you doing now, just hanging out?”

“Pretty much,” said the hapless boater. “Just waiting for the charter company to get here and yell at me for wrecking their boat.”

We felt very sorry for the unlucky charterer and his crew. As we got underway for Marsh Harbor later in the day, we sailed around the corner of Matt Lowe’s Cay and there indeed was the beautiful powercat. High and dry on the rocks.

The most surprising thing to us was not how cruisers came to be zooming around the sea of Abaco at 17 mph in the dark after a day of fun at Guana Cay home of Nippers and the Guana Grabber. It was the fact that the charter company didn’t equip their expensive yachts with chart plotters, a relatively small investment that might have prevented the ruination of a very nice boat and the untimely termination of an expensive charter vacation.