An Ode to the Towed – So Long Bahamas
May 1
My last Bahamian adventure would be that boat tow back to Florida. You will recall that WW had an engine failure that I couldn’t overcome. The situation kept me at Chub Cay until early April (join the chorus of woe is Allen), and then the stars-aligned for my date with the tow boats.
Exploring Chub Cay was going great, and then one night at 10PM after returning from the Nauti Rooster I got an unexpected call from Captain Ryan of Sea Tow; the tow was on for tomorrow at noon. It caught me off guard because this week’s weather wasn’t great for the Florida Strait, but a short window appeared to be opening. WW had been made ready in anticipation of such a quick call, although my head may not have been ready that particular day.
On a bright and calm Saturday morning, I finished packing up the boat and filled some bags of food and other things I was leaving on the dock for Mike and others. Everyone was working so there weren’t many goodbyes. I decided a hot breakfast at the restaurant was a good idea, as well as a last swim at the beach. By 1100hr, WW and I were ready for the main event. The timing of my tow was accelerated in part by that skewered yacht I mentioned before. It had been at dock most of the week with pumps going, its soaked lower cabin items on the dock, and several staff watching over it. It too was headed to Florida, and I was about to join the tail end of a 3-boat conga line for a very long ride.
I met Gary the first of my towing captains who had come over from Nassau to get the fancy yacht ready for its tow. He explained the plan. When I told him my story, he regaled me with an onslaught of eco-warrior tales from across the Bahamas. Not surprisingly, many of these came back to the impacts of tourism on the environment, fisheries, and Bahamians. I wish I’d met him sooner, but we exchanged contacts with plans to reconnect so I could hear the rest of his stories.
About 1330hr, Gary saddled up to WW and we headed out of the marina providing a final show for the big boaters. He had already delivered the yacht to the awaiting Lady Pearl/Salty Dog, my Captain #2, and one crew member on the yacht. The next task was to get a line from the yacht to my bow eye. The sea state was a bumpy 2-3’. I’m pretty sure Captain #2’s crew was a late call-up from the minors because the tow lines were incorrectly tied at the yacht and tangled, which kept Gary and I crashing around trying to avoid a collision, getting soaked, or swamping. When Gary had cycled through his extensive collection of sailor explicatives, he macheted his last line to WW to escape our predicament. He peeled away with a wave of the hand and his railing voice drowning in the wind. The last I saw of him was his wake en route to Nassau, 45 NM due east.
We were officially underway westbound at 1430hr and a few hours behind schedule. It was a slow ride, 4-5 knots, but the weather was sunny, with a gentle breeze, and waves <2’. Conditions were perfect for trolling across the deep waters of the Tongue and I hooked a dorado, but lost it. Otherwise, it was sitting around writing and reading for about 5 hours as we moved onto the shallow Grand Bahama Bank (10-12’ deep). The waves had grown to 3-4’ on the bank, but we gained the running tide accelerating us to a whopping 6-7 knots. As the sun set, I laid out in bed reading and dozing because it would be 8 hours before our rendezvous with Captain #3 and my towing team weren’t very chatty. It was fascinating to see the lights and watch the line of boats crisscrossing on a similar course. One closed quickly on WW and unhealthily close astern which triggered my illumination of every light onboard. It must have woken that captain who veered off to starboard.
By 0400hr, we were north of Bimini where two new tow boats were waiting – we were late. The new captains were from Sea Tow out of Stuart, FL including Captain Ryan in the bigger boat. The seas had become rolling swells to 6’ and my next task on this very dark night was to make my way forward and unhooked WW setting me adrift to wait while the yacht tow got rigged up. My tow boat was the smaller, 24’ RIB which needed to tend to the bigger boats before coming back to me. The Nassau boat had quickly vanished once it was set free. After stoically (I hope) drifting and rolling in the dark, my tow boat came back and captain (#3) and I rigged up WW with me again sprawled across my foredeck as we bobbed in and out of unison on the rollers. In my vessel’s log I simply wrote “precarious…”.
There was ongoing chatter amongst the four boats as the two rigs were completed and we charted two separate courses east; we were headed to Hillsboro Inlet, then on to Lighthouse Point Yacht Club. We shortly gave way to two freighters that sent us south, and then we settled into a NW course for the remaining 5-6 hour cruise. As the sun rose, so too did the swells and waves. The original forecast had waves and swell at 4-5’ on a long period. But the sea had long ago ignored that prediction. By sunrise I was being dragged through a roller coaster of 8-10’ swells. Captain Ryan, the leader of our 4-boat flotilla, had warned me at the rendezvous that the strait was rougher than forecast, and their preferred sea state for towing, but we were committed to the task now. The sun was rising, we were well offshore, I had no control of my boat as it bobbed along with regular jerks of the tow line, and admittedly, a few hours of this sets your heart aflutter once or twice. At least I was inside, my tow captain’s helm was an open console with a roof. The big swells lasted a few hours and eventually subsided back to 4’ as Pompano and Fort Lauderdale appeared on the western horizon. After docking later that morning, a local captain looked at me in disbelief: “…nobody went out there today, that would be crazy…”. Alas, I’ve heard that before from family and friends, like my wonderful colleague, the late great Louis’s commentary on, yet warm-hearted support of the expedition idea, “…another of Allen’s crazy-assed ideas…”.
Just off Hillsboro Inlet, WW was handed off to Captain Spencer (#4) who shepherded us into the Inter-Coastal Waterway and safely to our dock at Lighthouse Point. Here endeth my 22-hour adventure. Next time, I’ll have caught my breath and be ready to tell you the rest of the story.
Allen
Lighthouse Point/Fort Lauderdale, FL
