Culebrita to the Turks and Caicos (Day 4, Monday 21 January 2019)

When I came on watch at 0400hrs I discovered that Nicky had seen a full lunar eclipse during her 4 hour watch. That’s quite a rarity but she had mistakenly thought it wasn’t that rare and so had decided to let me sleep rather than wake me up to see the event.  It was probably a good decision but I do hope that there is another lunar eclipse soon! [Ed:  I did try to take some photos but with BV moving around and the camera needing a slow shutter speed since it was very dark(!) all that resulted were random white streaks across a black background.]

The lights on Grand Turk Island

By this time we were getting to the last 30 miles of the passage and my watch task was to get us around the northern tip of Grand Turk and then head west towards the gap between Long Cay and South Caicos for our entry into Cockburn Harbour.  Actually, we would have preferred to arrive at Grand Turk and check in at Town Salina because there is a lot more to see on that island, but the anchorage by the town on the western side of the island just didn’t look viable with the imminent arrival of the strong winds and, more to the point, the forecast northerly swell (the anchorage is sheltered from winds from northeast through to southeast but is open to ocean swells from southerly and northerly quadrants).

South Caicos ahead

Instead we headed on towards South Caicos.  None of the Turks and Caicos Islands is very high and so the call of “Land-ho!” was always going to be a late one.  BV was actually slowing down at this point as the wind dropped off.

The Turks and Caicos Islands courtesy ensign

I hoisted the Turks and Caicos Islands courtesy ensign at the starboard spreader and the yellow ‘Q’ signal flag to port so that we were ready for our arrival and then just let BV glide along at around 5 knots for the last bit of the passage.

Top: Approaching the gap between Long Cay and Dove Cay for our entry into Cockburn Harbour, South Caicos. Bottom: Just inside the harbour looking back at Dove Cay, the right hand side of the entrance

At 0800hrs Nicky joined me on watch and we dropped the sails to motor the last couple of miles into the harbour; the wind had dropped off to less than 10 knots.  It’s quite amazing that in that last mile the sea depth rises from 3000 metres to just 4 metres.  The deep channel between The Caicos Islands and Grand Turk is on the Humpback whale migration route so we kept an eye out for signs of whales but didn’t see any.

Anchored off South Caicos in Cockburn Harbour

Once inside Cockburn Harbour we circled carefully to pick a place to anchor.  Holding is reported to be suspect in places and we definitely wanted the anchor well dug into sand in preparation for the imminent blow.  We dropped our anchor at 0915hrs (having just changed our watches back an hour to Eastern Standard Time) and set about inflating the dinghy.

The GriB file showing that we were about to
get 25 knot winds on South Caicos

During the latter stages of our approach we had listened to Chris Parker’s forecast which still painted a fairly grim picture of what is coming over the following week.  Our most recent GriB file shows that we are about to get 25 knot winds, which isn’t too bad.  However, over the next few days both the GriB files and Chris Parker are forecasting winds in our area closer to 30 knots and gusts of up to 40 knots in squalls, with an associated swell from 2 different directions resulting in a very messy offshore wave pattern.  Coupled with this, the cold front is forecast to stall just south of the Turks and Caicos so there will be a lot of cloud.  It’s a shame as these are definitely not good conditions for moving around the islands because the transit routes across the Caicos Bank and through the breaks in the reefs are shallow with scattered underwater coral heads.  To safely navigate you need to be able to see through the water for which you need good light and, ideally, reasonably calm water.  We’ll just have to see what the weather actually brings.

After a quick clean up, our priority was to get ashore and to complete the arrivals formalities with Customs and Immigration.  Nicky’s passage plan had worked out beautifully and we had arrived with just enough time to do the formalities before we were likely to feel the effects of the cold front moving south towards us.  And with the paperwork complete from now on in we will just have to watch the forecasts closely to see what we can safely do in the way of exploration of the island group. I guess that, in the worst case, if we have to stay in Cockburn Harbour at least it will give us time to get the blog fully up to date!

Passage Statistics:
Position at 0910hrs 21 January:  N21 29  W71 32
Total miles covered:  434 nautical miles at an average speed of 6 knots
Approximate distance to go:  Zero nautical miles

End of day 4 position in Cockburn Harbour in the Turks and Caicos Islands