Cayo Granada Cuba

Departing Cayo Blanco – with overcast skies the colours of the water are much less intense which can make reading the depths quite difficult

After our disturbed night at Cayo Blanco we made a reasonably prompt start on Thursday 14 February.  We had planned a fairly short sail, just 22nm, to Cayo Granada (also known as Cayo Grande) and, with a gentle 10knots from the east-southeast, sailed the majority of the way there.  As we went the sky became increasingly overcast, with the cloud base lowering and darkening.  It was clearly going to become pretty unpleasant quite soon.

Top: At anchor in Cayo Granada just before the storm cell hit.  Bottom: Torrential rain at the beginning of the squall – no real wind yet

Happily, we reached Cayo Granada at about 1330, shortly before the really dark clouds reached us and anchored in 5.5m on the southeast side of the cay, trying to put BV in a place to gain maximum shelter available from the low-lying island (the black clouds were all off to the southeast and the wind was from that direction too).  When the front reached us the heavens opened and torrential rain and hail cascaded around BV, reducing visibility dramatically, probably to as little as 100m.  Within about 5 minutes the wind had veered through 180 degrees and shot up from 8knots to 33knots, gusting to nearly 40knots.

The drowned rat on deck.  Nicky holding an engine running anchor watch through the middle of the storm – she was soaked to the skin by driving rain and hail – and the wind blew at up to 40kts, coming right in through the break in the reef (180 degrees out from the wind direction when we anchored).  BV’s anchor held solid throughout though the reef was too close for comfort behind us given the conditions

As the wind swung around and increased, Nicky went on deck to hold anchor watch with the engine running as, given the conditions, we felt that we were too close for comfort to the reef behind us.  Charlotte and I hid down below – there was no point in our all getting wet – and made soup for the drowned rat on deck.

Two hours after the ‘drowned rat’ picture was taken the last of the frontal cloud cleared through

Though the anchor held solid throughout, when wind dropped to a mere 18knots about an hour after the excitement had begun, we re-anchored right in the middle of cay, giving ourselves maximum space in all directions.  We had thought at first that the rain, hail and wind was ‘just’ a particularly violent squall but we subsequently realised that we had experienced the passage of our first tropical cold front.  We’d not realised before that the wind shift on one of these fronts in the Florida/Bahamas/Cuba area was so dramatic, going through 180degrees in a matter of a few minutes, nor that the frontal passage would be so violent or so brief (after the hour’s-worth of misery it remained overcast with a little light rain for another hour but the worst of the front went through in that first hour).

When we had arrived the water at the reef had been quite clear but the storm pushed so much water over the sand bars and reefs the sea became quite milky

By late afternoon the end of the frontal cloud was in sight but the water in the cay was still all churned up and had turned a milky turquoise.  So much water had been pushed over the sand bars and reefs that the sand had been scoured off them and was now held in suspension in the water, making it appear a milky green, much like the seas around Fécamp in France.  Clearly, there was little point in snorkelling now (snorkelling over the reef had been our original plan for the afternoon at Cayo Granada) but the total turbidity of the water, the very cool post-frontal air and the overcast skies weren’t conducive to a lazy snorkelling session, to say nothing of the fact that we were now anchored a long way from the reef.

A great post cold front sunset

But we had a great sunset with dramatic clouds for sundowners, which made up for the afternoon’s unpleasantness. Plus we had the prospect of reaching Cayos Cuervos, which comes recommended in our cruising guide, to look forward to the next day as well.

Cayo Granada, Cuba