22 February 2019 Old Bight, Cat Island
We were planning to go down to New Bight which is about 4 miles along the coast, but the weather was a bit unsettled and we had some torrential showers. Instead we had a day pottering about on-board. The broker in the USA has sent us the sales literature for Alba, so we sent a few emails back and forth with amendments.
23 February 2019 Old Bight, Cat Island
It was a much nicer day today, so we upped anchor and had a lovely sail down to New Bight. The water is very shallow a long way out, so we dropped anchor about 600 metres off shore at 24°17.15N 075°25.26W in 3.4 metres depth. There’s quite a fetch and the 15-20 knot winds were raising 2 foot wind waves, but the holding was great in white sand.
We went ashore and landed our dinghy on a small beach next to the old concrete dock near the Batelco antenna. The Police Station was across the road, so we popped in to ask for directions to the grocery store and the liquor store. The police woman was very friendly and she pointed out the road to the Hermitage, which is about 25 metres to the south of the police station.
Before going shopping, we walked the ½ mile to the Hermitage, which was built by Father Jerome, who built the two churches in Clarence Town. For many years, he lived as a hermit on this hill, which at 220 feet high, is the highest point in the Bahamas. It’s an interesting little place. Father Jerome had a tiny bedroom, a kitchen a living area and a chapel. The place even has a little bell tower complete with a working bell. It also has a fabulous view of the turquoise sea. Father Jerome was buried at the Hermitage.
We strolled back down to the main road and headed south for ½ mile to the liquor store, which is very modern, air-conditioned and very well stocked. As expected, it wasn’t cheap with a case of the local Kalik beer costing $42. However, they had reasonably priced ginger beer and a local Bahamian rum only cost $12 for a litre. We splashed out on one case of beer and a bottle of rum.
The liquor store had a pickup truck parked outside and I was hoping that they would drop us and our purchases off at the dinghy, but this seemed to be a big problem for them. I think that it was something to do with both of the guys had to be in the shop at the same time. Instead, there was another guy hanging about, so it was arranged that he would drop us off for a small tip.
I said that I thought $2US was fair and it appeared to be agreed that this was okay for the ½ mile drive. Our new friend (who looked to have consumed a few fifths of rum) took us to his very dilapidated car and dropped us off at the beach. I thanked him and handed over a couple dollars, which he refused to take, saying that he wanted more.
We then had a stalemate, I refused to give him anymore because that was what we’d agreed and he said that it was an insult and I was taking advantage of a black guy. I tried to be reasonable and pleasant about it, but he eventually drove off in a huff. That’ll teach me for dealing with drunks.
Glenys nipped across the road and bought some bread at the small bakery – they also had some tomatoes, so Glenys bagged the lot. We took our booty back to the boat and then beached the dinghy ½ mile further north next to a load of colourful beach bars.
It was then a long walk of at least a mile to the grocery store. The grocery store was good and Glenys has stocked up on enough vegetables to last us a week until we get to Georgetown. I managed to thumb a lift in the back of a pickup truck, which was a great relief.
By the time that we’d loaded our things on board Alba it was 13:20, so we upped anchor and Glenys made lunch, while we were motoring back to Old Bight. It’s a much better anchorage here. Now that we had some alcohol, we invited “Moonstone” over for a few beers. It’s nice to meet some Brits who are on the same wavelength as us, but unfortunately, they’re going in a different direction.
24 February 2019 Old Bight to Rat Cay, Exumas
The weather forecast shows light winds tomorrow, so we left early to sail 45 miles south-west to the Exumas. We had a cracking beam reach all the way there, with 1-2 metre seas and blue skies, so we arrived at the cut to the south of Rat Cay at 14:00.
The entrance is a little narrow, but is well protected from the prevailing south east swell, so we entered without any problems. We followed the suggested route on the chart and motored around the island trying to stay in deep water (i.e. more than 3 metres). I was suckered into a dead end tongue, but managed to find a 3 metre spot over a sand bar – I should have hugged the island shore all the way.
I find it very stressful navigating in these shallow waters amongst sand bars, but I suppose that I’ll get used to it. We safely made it to the anchorage at the north-west side of Rat Cay and anchored at 23°43.89N 076°02.94W in 3.5 metres of water on good holding sand and light grass. It’s a nice anchorage, protected from SSW to East to North. We had a quiet night and evening, recovering from our early start.
25 February 2019 Rat Cay to Leaf Cay, Exumas
Our mission is to explore some anchorages where we can take our son, Craig when he arrives in two weeks’ time, so we headed a bit further north to Lee Stocking Island. There are recommended routes on leeward side of the Exumas, but most have sections that are too shallow for my nerves. We retraced our route out to the seaward side of Rat Cay and motored along the islands with very little wind.
It looks like the morning is the time when everyone moves because our AIS showed dozens of American and Canadian cruisers sailing along the island chain – Exuma Rush Hour. It only took us an hour to get to Adderley Cay, where we negotiated the pass and weaved our way through sand bars to Leaf Cay.
The anchorage is shallow at 2.5 – 4 metres and the sea bed is sand and grass, so it was difficult to see the shallows, so I motored around a bit to check out and area greater than 3.5 metres (kind of like a cat circles before it lies down). I ended up with a circular track on our chart platter, showing me an area that was deep enough for us and dropped my anchor in the middle. We ended up at 23°47.06N 076°07.75W in 3.5 metres, good holding.
After lunch, we went to the beach on the west side of Leaf Cay, which is a popular tourist attraction. There’s a constant stream of powerboats taking tourists up and down the islands, mostly heading for Big Major Cay, where the famous Swimming Pigs live. Leaf Cay is a stop for them because there are large “pink” Iguanas who live on the island. The hordes of tourists bring little snacks for the iguanas, so there are dozens of them sunning on the hot sand and rocks.
Glenys had brought some pieces of pear, so she fed them while I took some pictures. As with all beaches in the Bahamas, the sand is beautifully white and the water colours are stunning. After 15 minutes, I’d reached my threshold of Iguana-staring, so we returned to Alba and picked up our snorkelling gear.
We first went to shallow bay on the north-east of Norman’s Pond Cay (about 23°47.18N 076 08.10W). It was only a couple of metres deep, but there were some pretty coral heads and I found a very photogenic Flamingo Tongue crawling across a rock. They’re normally found on sea fans, which are constantly swirling around, so it’s hard to photograph them. This one was slowly inching its way along the rock, so I spent a happy 10 minutes taking macro pictures.
We then went to a reef just south of a yellow navigation marker at about 23°47.38N 076°08.33W. It was a nice bit of reef with hard and soft corals and plenty of fish. The water was crystal clear, but there was a fairly strong current. I’m pleasantly surprised about how good the snorkelling is in this area.
A strong current runs through the anchorage and later in the evening, the wind picked up to 15 knots from the south-east. By ten o’clock, the tide was ebbing and flowing out towards the south-east creating a bit of a chop. Alba was pointing into the current, so we had wind-waves slapping underneath our sugar scoop stern. It was noisy in the back cabin with an unsettling, jerky motion – were we dragging? It was hard to fall asleep.
26 February 2019 Leaf Cay to Rat Cay, Exumas
The tide turned at 01:30 and the change in the motion woke me up. I wearily climbed out of bed and found that we were pointing into the 15 knot wind and the waves, which was much more pleasant. It was a pitch black night with no reference lights on shore, so I had a quick look at our tablet to confirm that we were still anchored in the same place. I slept soundly for the rest of the night - I wouldn’t like to be here in very strong winds.
We waited for the sun to get higher in the sky and then motored east towards Lee Stocking Island. It looks to be a great anchorage, but it’s too shallow for our 2 metre draft. There’s supposed to be an anchorage “behind a shallow sandbar” (at 23°46.11N 076°06.96W), but there were 2 foot wind waves even in the 15-20 knot wind.
The water gradually shallows on the sand bar, so we dropped the anchor in 4 metres depth to give us time to decide what to do next. This was a mistake, because there was a very strong current which pushed our chain against the hull making a horrible grinding noise, so we only stayed 5 minutes.
Looking at the charts, we couldn’t see anywhere nearby where we could comfortably anchor. There’s one anchorage about 10 miles north, but it looks open to the south-east and is probably affected by string currents. We decided to head back to Rat Cay, which had been lovely the previous day.
It was a hard bash, motoring almost directly into the 2 metre waves and 15-20 knot wind, but 90 minutes later, we were in the relatively calm waters behind the islands. We anchored in approximately the same place as before and the wind was coming directly from the shore, so it should have been a good anchorage. Unfortunately, there was an irritating surge caused by the waves hooking around the corner. This made us rock and roll a little, which was disappointing. I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that the Exumas aren’t a great place to be in strong winds…
We had quiet afternoon and evening.
27 February 2019 Rat Cay, Exumas
The surge gradually became worse during the morning and by mid-day, we had a two foot swell hooking into the anchorage. The wind had veered to southeast and was blowing 20 knots making the anchorage into a cauldron. It was a horrible afternoon rolling around. We know that the wind will drop tomorrow, but we had to endure today.
We just pottered about, not able to concentrate on anything much. However, it’s a pretty place and there’s good internet access via the Batelco tower a few miles away.
28 February 2019 Rat Cay, Exumas
We had a relatively peaceful night, with a few bouts of jigging about as the tide changed. Daylight brought us lighter winds and the surge was much better. Our plan is to bring Craig and Kristen here next week provided that we have some light winds.
Mid-morning, we went to look at possible snorkelling spots in the area. However, the strong winds have churned up the water and the visibility wasn’t good. We had a look at the rocks to the north of the anchorage, but there was a strong current and the reef didn’t look too appealing. It was the same situation all the way around Pigeon Cay, so we zipped over to Boysie Cay to have a look at the impressive blow hole and then retreated to the boat.
We had a quiet afternoon. I went ashore to see if there were any trails on Rat Island, but the bush is thick. Ross and Phyllis invited us over to “Kohina” for sun-downers and we got on so well that they invited us to stay for dinner to help eat a lobster that Ross had caught on the outside of the channel into Rat Cay.
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