Black Sound on Green Turtle Cay

boatbum

boatbum

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Even the pros screw up once in a while. A nice Ferreti stuck on the hard bar with an outgoing tide...
Captain was looking for White Sound, not Black Sound. The pole is clearly RED marked... Doh. Gang, please read your charts before you leave and make sure you know where you are going. With tools like Active Captain and all of the APPS out there, one has to wonder how someone trys to enter the wrong port.

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Pretty hard to run aground at Green Turtle; the water is so clear you can "sight" the shallows!
 
Eyes work better than electronics in the Bahamas. Boat operator was color challenged. Dude in the center console is a candidate for some bird shot, throwing wake adjacent to a grounded vessel.
 
I will admit, as we followed the CC out I was alarmed at how much wake he was throwing. There are several locals that tend to have a lack of respect for property and I think this is driven by the notion that Americans are rich pricks that deserve a shafting.
And yes, there are those of us that ask for it with their shameful behavior.
 
Welcome to the Bahamas... They don't know what the word wake means down there although I often wonder if we re not all a little too wake obsessed in the US

I think he was on the correct side of the marker judging by the stern, the bow probably just swung out since it usually draws less than the stern

Looking at the charts, I'd be going VERY slow attempting to come in either black or white sound, the charts show 4' MLW and the active captain notes confirm these depth. Even If I had Locknow that it was deep enough at high tide, i wonder if I d try it and if I was I d be creeping very slowly.

Or do a run with the tender first... I've done that many times in the Bahamas when in doubt. Sure the water is clear but there isn't a big visual difference between 6' or 7' ...
 
Please read again Pascal's Words of Wisdom "do a run with the tender first".

It is astonishing how good you'll feel after you do a quick check with a leadline and your small boat.
Easier to sleep, too.
 
Pascal, I have been in and out of there several times. Because of the sharp bend in the channel the markers will get the best of you if your depth perception is off. You must pay attention to the depth / color contrast and you must go slowly. Without question he was on the wrong side of the red pole off his port bow. There is no doubt in my mind that he misread the marker. Worse, after listening to the radio dialog we wonder if he was trying to get into White Sound to the North!
Insult to injury, someone else we were traveling with stuck their boat in the mud at the same point however they were leaving the sound. They misread the same marker and stuck it in front of the marker in the opposite direction.
All this when we wanted to leave and had all the umbilical attachments disconnected and most lines cast off. Fortunately we passed astern of the yacht without issue. However I made it clear on 16 we were on the move. The ferry was milling about so I made sure they were not coming into Black Sound before we left.

It's easy to do if your depth perception is off and the light is wrong when you look at the poles marking the channel. Locals were totally lost trying to understand both groundings.
 
I bet they know the what the words Bird Shot mean. I'm surprised the locals aren't already on board stripping what can be removed and cutting away the parts that can't be easily toted off. Note that the davit is up and the deck aft of the wheelhouse is clear so the tender was either launched at the time of grounding or has already been stolen. I can hear it now, "I tell you mon, plenty water for dat boat".
 
I don't know... The stern which is the part of the boAt that s grounded is between the sticks...the bow appeared to have swung, I just can see how anyone could just miss a RRR but even more so when paired with a green

I recently replaced the sounder on Charmer's tender, it was like $100. Having a sounder on the tender is a no brainer, I have used the tender to check out a shallow attach many times. A mentioned water may be clear in the Bahamas and fairly easy to read but I won't risk $10k worth of props trying to read 6' or 7' . Drop the hook, launch the tender and run the channel takes very little time. In places where winds affect the tide, make a note of the water level on some nearb rock or marker. I even take a picture... I did that a few years back to get into rock hall Maryland which is shallow and subject to wind tides. Then when I got in with the boat, I could tell exactly how man inches I d have under the wheels at the hump before the breakwater.

A portable GPS or cell phone with nav app can also come in handy to follow an exact path in areas with few land marks, like the back side of lee stocking, rudder, mushta, rat in the exumas
 
"With tools like Active Captain and all of the APPS out there, one has to wonder how someone trys to enter the wrong port."

He/she may very well have been looking at their apps or AC and not looking where they were going. :-)
 
Pascal he took a turn when he thought he missed the marker. It can be an intimidating channel to follow since it takes you close to shore with what appears to be good water to stbd. If you look closely at this photo you will see the green pole under the roof of the house with the small antenna on it. That green pole appears more distant than the red pole he missed and the next red pole on stbd of the boat. The reaction is to mistake the red pole for green since you cannot clearly see the green pole under the roof and the sun might be in your eyes making it tough to read the red marker.
Depth perception, sun, and such all add up to a panic move to stbd that puts you on the bar. The first red marker is astern, the next one is off his port bow as you can see in the original photo, and no one expects the channel to go in that far and take a sharp turn.

I hate it for the man because I have had the panic attack going in there as well..

I just noticed this but it looks like a couple of prop scars on the bar in the image from the Nobeltec sat image. Sadly Google Earth has a cloud over the photo image it has.

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Those channel markers could use Day Boards in the proper shape, (Green=Square, Red=Triangle). That would reduce confusion and maybe eliminate a few groundings. Of course that would deprive a few locals of the nice living they make "assisting" grounded/stranded tourist. In the Bahamas look at the water, not the "channel" markers.
 
Actually the other boat got hauled off for 30 bucks but he gave him 60 because the last boater he hauled off skipped on him. And people wonder why Americans get a bad rap.
 
It's been a few years since I've been in there but it still looks pretty straight forward to me. It looks like the deeper water is to port and he just wasn't reading it with his eyes. Or the light was bad. I don't recall going in there as being any big deal. But things do change over the years.
 
At the time of day he went in, I would say he had the sun smack in his eyes. Given the layout of the markers and the sharp bend, it would be easy to have a panic attack the first time in. I did but held off because I was referring to charts. One tends to distrust chartography in a foreign country but in our experience it's pretty good in the Bahamas.
It also pays to know where you are going and visit the place virtually prior to the real deal. With tools like google earth, bing maps and etc. there is really little left to the imagination these days.
 
I've never had an issue going in and out of there. Oh, wait, I only draw 2 feet :-)

But, yes, it is confusing. It's a very narrow channel. Leeward Yacht Club is awesome in there.
 
I have seen BOLO the Green Turtle Ferry cut across that bar when the tide is in. If you look closely you will see a path across it but I doubt it is worth pursuit without tide and a shallow draft.
 
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