1 March 2019 Rat Cay to Georgetown, Exumas
We pulled up our anchor at about 09:00 and having no wind, we motored to Black Cay to have a look at a possible anchorage. Unfortunately, with our draft, we’d have to anchor about 600m away from the shore of the island and it’s exposed to swell from anywhere. We ran away.
On the way to Georgetown, a catamaran who was motoring parallel to us, suddenly veered 90 degrees and headed out to sea. I then spotted a lot of splashing in the water about ¼ mile away, so I headed for the chaos. It looked like a shoal of bonito having a feeding frenzy, but despite making four passes through and alongside the splashing, we didn’t catch anything. There was a large basking shark cruising around, which was interesting.
We arrived at Georgetown just after lunch and motored along the recommended route through the rather shallow waters – it gets down to 2.3 metres over one patch, but fortunately for my nerves, we had 0.7 metres extra depth because of the rising tide. There are over 200 boats in the Georgetown bay, which is more than we’ve seen for months. We anchored off Stocking Island at 23°30.89N 075°45.37W in 6 metres depth on good holding white sand.
The beer situation was dire – down to two bottles, so we launched the dinghy and zipped the 0.8 miles to Georgetown. The place hasn’t changed much in the past seven years. There’s a huge dinghy dock in the lagoon, which brings you to the dusty high street right next to the supermarket and the Bank.
We had a stroll around to find the laundry and scope out the liquor stores. It turned out that the cheapest place to buy beer was at the liquor store by the petrol station, but that was still $44US for a case. Everything is expensive in the Bahamas – a loaf of brown sliced bread cost us $6.50US, but if you need it, you gotta buy it. We bought a case of beer and a few provisions and retired back to the boat.
2 March 2019 Georgetown, Exumas
There’s not much opportunity to do any more scuba dives from here to the Chesapeake, so I’ve decided to sell our dive compressor and maybe our dive gear. We listened to the morning cruiser’s net and advertised that we had a compressor for sale. I’ve been a bit worried that I’d have a problem selling it because it has a 230V 50Hz electric motor and the Americans use 110V 60Hz, which means that they would have to buy a new electric motor.
I was rather pleased to hear a British voice calling us to ask about the compressor. It turns out that Nick from “Opus” wants a dive compressor and he has a 230V generator, so we’re a perfect match. We called into see him for a chat and Nick will come out to have a look tomorrow.
We carried on into town, dropped off two large bags of laundry and did a Big Shop. Craig and Kristen arrive on the 8th March, so we restocked our larder and bought lots of beer and soft drinks. We transported our booty back to the boat, had lunch and then went back into town to pick up the laundry, which was all done within three hours – great service, but it set us back $40US.
We collapsed for the rest of the afternoon.
3 March 2019 Georgetown, Exumas
The wind picked up overnight and by morning we had 15-20 south-east winds. It’s not a huge amount of wind, but the whole bay is exposed to wind from that direction and we had 2 foot wind waves all day, making us bounce around.
Our drinks fridge has been gurgling, so I checked the pressure and sure enough it was a bit low. I was a little concerned that there was air and/or moisture in the system, so I re-pressurised it and carefully heated the dryer with a heat gun to drive out any moisture. I then let out all of the refrigerant and re-pressurised the system. It would be better to evacuate the system, but not having a vacuum pump, this process should have removed any air and moisture.
Nick from “Opus” came to look at the dive compressor and, hopefully, he will buy it and most of our other diving gear. With our chores finished, we went for a look around the three lagoons on Stocking Island to refresh our memories and then walked across to the windward beach, which is stunning and amazingly deserted. We had a look at the “Chat and Chill” beach bar and ended up in the restaurant at the St Francis Resort, where we had a great burger and a couple of beers.
After our boozy Sunday Lunch, we had a lazy afternoon and evening.
4 March 2019 Georgetown to Elizabeth Island, Exumas
After breakfast, we nipped into town to buy a few more provisions and top up our SIM card. Back on the boat, we pulled up the anchor and motored down to Elizabeth Island, where we anchored at 23°30.29N 075°43.75W in 7 metres on good holding sand and weed. We went snorkelling on a reef just outside the anchorage, picking up one of the four yellow moorings. The snorkelling was pretty, but a little too shallow for us.
We headed to the south end of Elizabeth Island where we found another couple of moorings in the channel north of Guana Cay. The tide was approaching low water and the snorkelling was good, but I would imagine that the tide rips through the channel at mid-tide.
We had a quiet afternoon. This is a lovely, quiet anchorage, with only three boats at anchor. It’s only about a mile away from the crowded anchorages off Stocking Island, there’s good protection from the north-west through to east, so I don’t know why there’s nobody here.
5 March 2019 Elizabeth Island, Exumas
There’s a front due to pass over us tomorrow, but today was nice and calm with a 5-10 knots south wind. We waited until mid-morning to get better light and then motored a few miles south to Fowl Cay, where we anchored at 23°29.57N 075°42.41W in 3 metres on good holding sand and weed.
We hopped in the dinghy and picked up one of the many snorkelling moorings. It was nice snorkelling in depths from 1 to 4 metres with some nice soft corals. It’s a very popular place to go snorkelling, so there weren’t that many fish.
After lunch, we motored back to Elizabeth Island and picked a nice sandy patch to drop our anchor ready to wait out the forecast strong winds tomorrow.
6 March 2019 Elizabeth Island, Exumas
The sea was glassy calm this morning, but the wind gradually picked up during the day as the front swept over us. By mid-afternoon, we had 20 knot winds from the north occasionally gusting higher. Despite the strong winds, there was very little rain and it turned out to be a nice sunny day.
I took advantage of the light winds in the morning to clean the hull. We’ve picked up a lot of small barnacles somewhere along the way, so I spent an hour snorkelling down to scrape the little buggers off. Craig and Kristen arrive on the 8th, so Glenys spent most of the day tidying up and clearing a couple of lockers for them to use in the front cabin.
Glenys advertised a few things on the morning cruiser’s net and by lunch time had sold her ukulele and 6 metres of Sunbrella. In the evening, Ross from “Kohina” came over for a beer or two.
7 March 2019 Elizabeth Island, Exumas
We had a nice peaceful night – it’s a great anchorage in these strong north east winds. Nick from “Opus” came over after lunch and bought our dive compressor, but had changed his mind about buying the rest of our dive gear. We had a quiet day pottering about tidying up ready for our son’s arrival tomorrow.
8 March 2019 Elizabeth Island to Stocking Island, Exumas
After breakfast, we motored north for a couple of miles back to Stocking Island to be closer to town. We had a quick look at the Monument Beach anchorage, but it was full of boats, so we anchored off Honeymoon Beach, where we’d spotted a nice gap. We dropped our anchor at 23°31.32N 075°45.74W in 5 metres, just off the small pretty beach.
It was Glenys’ birthday today and as usual, there was no present from me, but her present will be the arrival of our son. We dinghied across to Georgetown and picked up some provisions. There were no cans of Kalik beer left in the liquor stores, so I’m glad that we’d bough three cases last week. There should be more on Tuesday next week when the supply ship comes in.
We hung around all day, waiting for Craig’s flight to arrive. It was supposed to land at 18:40, but was delayed by an hour. Unfortunately, the clouds built up during the afternoon and the wind picked up to 20 knots, so I was very nervous when I set off in the dark, dark night to dinghy the mile to Georgetown to pick them up. The journey to Georgetown wasn’t too bad because I was going slightly down wind.
Craig and Kristen arrived at 20:30 and had brought 2 suitcases and 2 rucksacks with them. I made them put on their water proof jackets and put the rucksacks into large bin liners. The dinghy was cram-packed full by the time that we’d all got in. I had them squat down on the floor of the dinghy – they thought I was a bit crazy because it was very calm in the lagoon by the dinghy dock.
Once through the tunnel, we were heading directly into steep 2 foot wind waves and within one minute, we’d taken a huge wave over the bow and were wet through. It was a rough 10 minute ride across to Stocking Island and more than a little scary in the pitch black night. Fortunately, I had the anchor lights of the anchored fleet to guide me and we safely made it to the boat.
We had dinner and chatted until 22:30, by which time jet lag had hit them and we called it a day.
9 March 2019 Stocking Island, Exumas
We had a relaxed morning chatting while our guests recovered from their day of travelling. After lunch, we went snorkelling. We popped into the lagoons and tied up to one of the moorings at the “Blue Hole”, which is a small cave which extends underwater back about 20 metres. It’s an interesting little place with lots of snappers lurking inside the cave.
Many people visit the cave and feed the fish with cooked rice, so they swarmed around us when Glenys through handfuls into the water. We then dinghied along to Starfish Beach looking for any coral heads, but didn’t find anything interesting, so we went for a short walk on the pretty beach. Glenys spotted one of the Starfishes which are a very bright red colour.
We have a quiet evening on board.
10 March 2019 Stocking Island, Exumas
We went for a walk along the windward beach on Stocking Island, which was again deserted. We headed north and then climbed a steep path up to the top of Monument Hill, where there is a great view of the island and the anchorages.
Back on the beach, we tried to fly my power kite, which has been sitting in a locker on-board Alba for 8 years and has never been used. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the damn thing to fly – maybe I rigged it incorrectly or perhaps there was turbulence in the wind above the beach because it just kept collapsing on one side. Hot and bothered in the beating sun, we gave up after an hour.
Suffering from heat-stroke, we staggered to the restaurant at the St Francis Resort and had lunch. After a heavy meal, we spent the afternoon reading and snoozing.
11 March 2019 Stocking Island to Ray Cay, Exumas
The weather forecast was for lighter winds tomorrow, so we took the opportunity to sail downwind to the cays to the north of Georgetown with the plan of motoring back tomorrow in the calmer conditions. We had a pleasant 4 hour broad reach to Leaf Cay where we anchored at 23°47.06N 076°07.75W in 3.5 metres, good holding.
After lunch, we took Craig and Kristen to the beach on Leaf Cay. We hadn’t told them about the Pink Iguanas, so they were thrilled to see and feed them with pieces of fruit. After 15 minutes of staring at iguanas, we went snorkelling near to the yellow navigation pole, which again was very good with crystal clear water. We were lucky enough to spot a lovely small Green Turtle who wasn’t too bothered by us.
Back on the boat, we decided that the anchorage would be a little too bouncy, so we motored out of the pass and along the coast to Rat Cay, where we anchored at the same place as before - 23°43.89N 076°02.94W in 3.5 metres of water. Surprisingly, there’s no one else here and we’re very happy to be alone in this beautiful anchorage.
12 March 2019 Rat Cay to Elizabeth Island, Exumas
There was hardly any wind and the sea was flat calm, so Craig and I went hunting lobster. We had a look by the small rocky islands to the north of the anchorage, but there was a strong current ripping through the channels. We headed down the windward side of Rat Cay, stopping to have a look at the reef, which is mostly flat rock at 5-10 metres depth.
We eventually stopped at a place where there were some promising looking small overhangs. On my second dive, I spotted a Spanish Lobster, which is an ugly looking thing – like a large underwater woodlouse. After a couple of dives, I managed to snare it and also another one that was in the same little cave.
I had a look at another ledge and found a large Spiny Lobster lurking in a cave. It was deep inside its dead-end cave, but after a couple of attempts and by stretching my arm at full length, I managed to snare its tentacle and pull it out. With three lobsters in the bag, we gave up hunting and went for a snorkel just south of the pass into Rat Cay. The seabed on the wind ward side is flat rock, but we found good snorkelling on the leeward side.
After lunch, we left Rat Cay and motored south in calm seas back to Elizabeth Island, where we anchored at 23°30.25N 075°43.66W in 7 metres. It took us two attempts because the first one was on rubble. The anchorage was flat calm with about 8 boats at anchor.
13 March 2019 Elizabeth Island, Exumas
Morning brought us light north-east winds and a peasant day. Glenys and I went snorkelling with Craig, leaving Kristen to chill-out reading a book. We dropped our anchor at the side of a shallow reef to the south of the boat channel, which was pleasant with nice coral heads and loads of soft coral. In the afternoon, the clouds built up and the wind increased to 15 knots, so we stayed on the boat.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working on a little software project, which I’ve decided to write in Java, which is a new language for me. Craig’s a professional Java programmer, so I persuaded him to spend all afternoon sitting below, while I asked loads of questions and he handed out welcome advice on my coding.
The wind continued to increase and it was blowing a hooley after sunset, so we sat down below having a super Indian curry and then played cards until late.
Having guests always puts a strain on our toilets. We’ve been using the front heads for No.2’s because it has a holding tank, which we like to empty after dark – it’s not pleasant seeing sewage drifting around in a crowded anchorage. Unfortunately, we’ve developed a blockage in the system and we weren’t able to empty the tank this evening. We’ll have to just use the aft toilet and I’ll sort out the problem when Craig and Kristen have left in a few days’ time
14 March 2019 Elizabeth Island, Exumas
It was a very bouncy night with 25 knot winds. I just HAD to get up at 04:00 to check that we were still anchored in the same place - I don’t think that any of us slept very well.
By morning, the wind had abated a little, but it was still overcast, so we went for a walk on the south end of Stocking Island. We found a path that took us along the windward shore; then cut across to Sand-dollar beach; and finally led us back to where we’d left the dinghy – it was a nice 90 minute walk.
The occluded front that has been giving us the windy weather finally passed over in the early afternoon, leaving us with nice, blue skies. The wind is forecast to drop further overnight, but we moved in towards the shore to give us a little more protection from the 15-20 knot winds.
We all went for a snorkel on the coral heads close to the shore, just to the south of a lime coloured house, which was surprisingly good. Craig found a Yellow Stingray and I found a Giant Hermit Crab in a Queen Conch shell. The wind dropped enough in the evening for us to have dinner in the cockpit.
15 March 2019 Elizabeth Island to Georgetown, Exumas
After breakfast, we motored over to anchor off Georgetown. It was scarily shallow and, at one point, we touched the bottom causing me to quickly reverse off. We gave up trying to get close to the shore and anchored at 23 30.59N 075 45.59W in 3 metres depth on fabulous white sand. We’re about ½ mile from town, but that’s much closer than anchoring at Stocking Island.
We took the dinghy ashore and went for a walk around Georgetown, basically circling around the lagoon. After visiting the tourist souvenir market, we went to Peace & Plenty hotel for lunch. It was expensive at $25US per head for sandwiches and a soft drink, but the food was very good and we were in a lovely location looking out across the emerald water towards Stocking Island.
The afternoon was spent chilling out and packing suitcases. Craig brought an extra bag, so we filled that and another cargo bag with stuff that we no longer need on the boat. He’ll be storing it in his loft alongside the 15 boxes that we already store there.
At 17:00, I took Craig and Kristen ashore in the blustery conditions to catch a taxi. We managed to stay dry for most of the way, but unfortunately, as we approached the channel into the lagoon, a big wave caught us from behind, tipped us nose down, causing our heavily loaded dinghy to plunge into a wave, which sloshed over the front of the dinghy. We’d put the luggage into bin liners, but some of their bags were a bit wet.
Back at the boat, Glenys and I remained in the exposed anchorage overnight, which was okay.
16 March 2019 Georgetown to Monument Beach, Exumas
Having guests for a week had severely depleted our provisions, so we went ashore to do some shopping and dropped off a big bag of laundry, which I was able to pick up a few hours later. Later in the afternoon, we motored over to Stocking Island and anchored at 23°31.54N 075°45.90W off Monument Beach amongst 50 other boats. It’s a well-protected anchorage, but we’re not used to being in the middle of so many boats.
17 March 2019 Monument Beach to Elizabeth Island, Exumas
We had a very quiet night, but the anchorage is far too crowded for us, so we upped anchor and moved down to Elizabeth Island again. The anchorage is a little more exposed and a bit bouncy, but there are only two other boats here.
Time is marching on and we want to head off to the East Coast of the USA soon, but the weather isn’t playing ball. There’s a front coming through on the 20th, which will send the wind around the clock with at least 24 hours of westerly winds. We don’t want to be in any of the anchorages further north because they are totally unprotected from that direction, so it looks like we’ll be stuck here until Thursday, 21st and even then, we might be motoring into north winds to get moving.
We sent most of the morning looking at alternative routes to get to Florida. Our original intention was to sail to Cape Canaveral, but it looks like the canal leading to the Intracoastal Waterway has shoaled to less than 5 feet and we won’t be able to get through. Another option is West Palm Beach, which is one of the closer ports and has a customs office in the port, but we’d be a lot further south and have an extra 2-3 days of motoring up the boring Intracoastal Waterway.
After a lot of debate, we’ve decided to make our landfall at the Ponce de Leon Inlet. It’s not a big ship port, but the channel looks to be fairly well marked and isn’t too shallow. Customs and Immigration are at Daytona Beach airport, which is about 12 miles away, so we’ll have to sort out the logistics of getting there to clear in. We have a friend, Tony Uragello, who lives in the area, so we might be able to impose on him.
So, our plan is to leave here in a few days’ time, stopping at three anchorages along the Exumas. We’ll leave the Exumas at Highbourne Cay and have a 32 mile passage across the shallow White Bank, for which we need good weather and good light. Once we get into the Tongue of the Ocean, we can either stop for the night at the west end of New Providence Island or carry on a further 320 miles to Ponce de Leon Inlet, which will be two nights at sea. Hopefully, we’ll be in Florida by the end of March.
18 March 2019 Elizabeth Island, Exumas
I wasn’t able to put it off any longer – it was time to sort out the blockage in the front toilet. The holding tank empties by gravity, so it looked like either the outlet hose was blocked or the blockage was in the holding tank itself. I snorkelled under the boat and poked a length of stainless steel cable up the outlet hose. It went in fairly easily up to a metre, so I believe that the hose from the holding tank to the outlet seacock is clear.
I then checked that the overflow/breather tube was clear (by unfastening the top end and blowing down the tube) – yuk! After tightly replacing the tube, I closed the outlet valve and then pumped more water into the holding tank from the toilet. I knew that the holding tank was completely full when sewage came out of the overflow skin fitting – yuk! Interestingly, when I opened the holding tank valve, it emptied a little bit, so I must have dislodged the blockage and then it re-blocked itself.
I’m now in a dilemma. The blockage is definitely inside the holding tank, but there’s no access into the holding tank except for the hose fitting at the bottom. I can’t remove the hose because if the contents do come out, the sewage will go straight into the bilge – yuk! I also can’t remove the holding tank while it’s full – there’s not enough room. So my only option is to leave the system alone until we get the USA when I’ll be able to get access to a holding tank pump-out station. I’m hoping that the huge vacuum will suck the blockage out.
We had a quiet afternoon lurking about – there’s a cold wind and we can’t be bothered to go snorkelling.
19 March 2019 Elizabeth Island, Exumas
We’re still waiting for a weather window. The forecast is very confused with a couple of large weather systems pulling against each other. It looks like we might be here for another 4 or 5 days.
Glenys suggested that we put some drain clear into the holding tank to try to clear the blockage. I was very sceptical, but it was worth a try – especially because the powder has come from south-east Asia, so it’s likely to be very strong stuff that wouldn’t be allowed in Europe or the USA. We put a hefty dose into the toilet and then pumped it into the holding tank. After 10 minutes, I opened the holding tank valve and to my surprise the whole contents of the holding tank came out. I filled the holding tank with water again and it emptied with a reassuring gush – job sorted.
We had a quiet afternoon on board.
20 March 2019 Elizabeth Island to Stocking Island, Exumas
At dawn, a cracker of a squall came through giving us 25-30 knot winds for a few minutes. The weather then cleared up, so after breakfast, we upped anchor and moved closer to town, anchoring off Chat & Chill Beach.
We last filled up with diesel in Puerto Rico and our tank was approaching ½ empty, so I topped up with the diesel from our three jerry jugs. One of our cooking gas tanks is about ¾ empty, so I swapped that out. Loaded with three jerry cans, a gas bottle and a big bag of rubbish, we headed into town to restock.
While Glenys went to the supermarket, I dropped off the gas bottle and filled the three jerry jugs with diesel. I met Glenys in the supermarket and helped her carry the provisions back to the dinghy and then went off to the liquor store to buy two cases of beer and some more wine. By 11:30, we were back on the boat fully provisioned.
After lunch, I nipped into town to collect the full gas bottle and we then lazed around for the rest of the afternoon – it was blisteringly hot and very humid.
21 March 2019 Stocking Island to Elizabeth Island, Exumas
The day started off with a grey drizzle and the forecast is still frustratingly unsettled, so we have decided to wait here until after the next Norther, which will be in three days’ time. The skies brightened up during the morning, so we pulled up the anchor and moved back to Elizabeth Island.
Our initial plan was to go snorkelling out of one of the passages between the islands, but they were too rough with a large northern swell crashing on the rocks. Instead we went for a snorkel on the reef just south of the boat channel, which was surprisingly good. We found a large Nurse Shark; a Green Turtle hiding beneath a coral head; and best of all, I snared a lobster.
22 March 2019 Elizabeth Island, Exumas
The wind picked up overnight to 10-15 from the north, so I’m glad that we’re here instead of the more exposed anchorages further north. We moved a bit closer to the shore and settled down for a few days. I spent all morning editing photographs and catching up on publishing my blog – I’ve been very slack and haven’t published anything for 6 weeks, so it was a real chore. Most of the afternoon was spent reconciling our finances ready for the end of the tax year – yawn…
Glenys dug out her shell collection and sorted through it. We’ll have to pay to ship the shells back to the UK, so the idea was to reduce the numbers. She tried hard, but at the end, she only found ten shells that she was willing to part with.
23 March 2019 Elizabeth Island, Exumas
It was a breezy, but beautiful day, so we went for a walk on the south end of Stocking Island. We took the same route that we did last week, but extended it a little by taking a path that continued along the windward coast all the way to the long beach opposite the lagoons. We didn’t fancy trudging along the beautiful white sand beach, so we returned to the dinghy via Sand Dollar beach. It was a very pleasant 2 hour walk.
In the afternoon, the wind slowly veered to the east, but it remained a lovely sunny day. I feel like a wimp for staying here in Chicken Harbour.
24 March 2019 Elizabeth Island, Exumas
By morning, we had 20 knot winds and grey skies – the front has finally arrived. We spent the day on board pottering about as the wind slowly picked up and the clouds built. It started to rain about 16:00 by which time we had 25 knot gusts coming through. We retired down below and watched a movie with our dinner.
25 March 2019 Elizabeth Island, Exumas
I find the weather in this region so frustrating. I set the alarm last night and was up at the crack of dawn to look at the weather, only to find it still miserable with scudding clouds and a bit of rain. The forecast is for the east wind to drop this afternoon and then tomorrow there should be blues skies and very light winds. We either go in the rain and wind today, or motor in sunshine tomorrow. I went back to bed.
The skies cleared and the wind dropped a little during the morning, so after lunch, we motored over to anchor off Chat & Chill beach and dinghied over to Georgetown to buy some provisions. The weather remained clear into the evening, so we’re hoping to leave tomorrow.
26 March 2019 Elizabeth Island to Black Point, Exumas
We were up at the crack of dawn and (finally) motored out of Chicken Harbour in blue skies and hardly any wind. With 60 miles to go to Black Point, we didn’t have time to drift along in the 5 knot north-east wind, so we motor-sailed all day.
At 16:45, we arrived at the Dotham Cut where we encountered very turbulent water outside the pass caused by a strong outflowing current of 3 knots. Low tide at Georgetown was at 17:30, so I think that the actual tide here is one hour later than the tide at Georgetown. When we leave here we expect to have a fairly strong ENE wind, so we want to make sure that we leave at slack water otherwise there might be nasty over-falls in the pass, especially if the wind is against the current.
Once through the pass, we negotiated the shallow water, going past the crowded anchorage at Black Point settlement to an anchorage a mile further south. We anchored at 24°04.82N 076°23.36W in 4 metres depth on fabulous white sand – it’s a lovely anchorage with two white sand beaches and best of all only five boats.
27 March 2019 Black Point, Exumas
The weather is totally dominating our lives in the Bahamas. Today’s forecast showed the next front arriving overnight as expected. The wind will veer to the west at 10 knots and then overnight to the north-west. By tomorrow night, we’ll have north winds and the following day strong north-east winds, which will last two days. Hopefully, we’ll be able to move again on Saturday, 30th.
We had yet another review of our plans. Originally, we were going to head west from Highbourne Cay across the shallows and then sail for two nights up the Tongue of the Ocean to Florida. However, the gaps between the fronts are too short to give us that big a window, so we’re now going to sail Highbourne Cay across the Yellow Bank to Nassau, where hopefully we can anchor and shelter for a few days if another front develops sooner than expected.
It was a lovely calm and sunny morning, so we went snorkelling. We scooted a mile or so south along to a nice little beach called Jack’s Bay, but there weren’t any obvious places to snorkel. On the way back, I spotted the dark shape of a bommie, so we stopped for a look. It turned out to be surprisingly good, with a large number of rocky coral heads. There wasn’t much coral, but there were a huge number of fish and conch.
As the day grew, the wind picked up from the south at 10-12 knots. The anchorage that we are in is well protected from the north-west through to the east, but very exposed to the south and west. By 15:00, we had 15 knot winds from the south-west, raising 2 foot wind waves which made all the boats in the anchorage pitch violently. It wasn’t pleasant, but all we could do was “suck-it-up” and hope that the wind veered to the north-west as forecast.
28 March 2019 Black Point, Exumas
At 02:00, the motion was still quite violent, so I got up to check that we hadn’t dragged our anchor. The wind was still coming from the west and we were still in the same place, so I went back to bed to try to sleep.
The motion was better when we woke at 07:30. The wind had finally veered to north-west, but a small swell was still coming from the west. The good news was that the forecast shows the wind slowly clocking around to the north-east, so our lives will get better.
We hung about for the morning waiting for the wind to veer a bit more an then walked a couple of miles to Black Point Settlement. There’s not much there a few small grocery stores and some bars. A mail boat had just arrived, which was the first for ten days, so most of the locals were collecting and transporting their stuff away. We managed to buy some fresh brown sliced bread which was an unexpected bonus.
In the evening we invited Olivier, Anny and their 5 year old daughter, Lily from “Deesee” over for a few beers. They kindly brought us a bottle of Gewürztraminer, which they’d brought all the way from Europe. Bizarrely, we spent a lot of time talking about skiing..
29 March 2019 Black Point, Exumas
Some squalls went through overnight and the morning was very over cast with very strong NE winds, so we spent the day on-board. It brightened up in the afternoon, but there was still a very cold wind which dissuaded us from going snorkelling.
The weather forecast looks like tomorrow will be 15 knot east winds and light south east on the following day that will be good to get us to Nassau. We then have a 180 mile sail to West Palm Beach, which will take us 36 hours. At the moment, it looks like there is a big enough weather window for us to make it provided that we carry on past Nassau and have 2 nights at sea – fingers crossed.
30 March 2019 Black Point to Highbourne Cay, Exumas
We woke early to unsettled skies and a 15 knot east wind. We motored to Dotham Cut, arriving at 09:00, which was about 1½ hours before low tide. The tide was going out at 2 knots and the wind was against it at 15 knots, so there were some large over-fall waves in the cut. We decided to “go for it” and motored out hard against the waves, taking a few epic wall of water over the bow. It was a scary five minutes, but as soon as we cleared the headland, we turned 45° north and we were quickly out of the current and the overfalls.
Despite there being only 15 knots of wind, the waves were steep and confused close to land, so we headed out into deeper water before coming onto our north-west course, which put us on a nice beam reach. The rest of the days was bouncy, but we made good time arriving at the cut into Highbourne Cay at about 16:00.
This entrance was a little scary because of the way the sea bed rises from hundreds of metres to just 5 metres, but at least we didn’t have any over-falls to contend with. We anchored at 24°42.78N 076°49.81W in 5 metres of water on good holding sand. I was expecting to be fairly isolated here, but we’re in the middle of a fleet of 20 boats.
In retrospect, perhaps we should have taken the inner route across the Exuma bank. The average depth for the trip is 5 metres.
There’s really good internet access here, so we obtained a weather forecast and unfortunately, our weather window seems to be closing up. Tomorrow looks fine, but there’s another damn front coming across Florida on the afternoon of the 2nd April. We now have a dilemma – do we carry on when we get to Nassau and risk getting clobbered by the front (if it speeds up), or do we shelter somewhere around Nassau until the front has passed over and then make a dash for it on the 4th after waiting in Nassau for 4 or 5 days. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow’s weather forecast to make up our minds - it’s so frustrating.
31 March 2019 Black Point to West Palm Beach, Florida (Day 1)
We were up at the crack of dawn to find that it was a beautiful day with a slight breeze from the south-east. The weather forecast showed that the next major front passes over Palm Beach on the night of the 2nd April. It looks like we should be okay to carry onto Florida today, but there’s a chance that on Monday 1st around midnight, we’ll get 10 knot west winds lasting for six hours.
We decided that we’ll go for it and we’ll keep an eye on the weather possibly heading further south on Monday evening, to allow us to keep sailing with a west wind. Our biggest worry is that there will be squalls accompanying the west winds – we don’t like thunder and lightning especially at night.
Having decided to leave, we put the dinghy on deck and set off just before 08:00. There was so little wind that we had to motor all morning. I took the opportunity of the calm water and weather to top up our diesel tanks from our three jerry jugs. Then we had breakfast…
Our route to Nassau took us across the dreaded Yellow Banks, which is a 6 mile wide, shallow patch littered with coral heads. The charts show several 2.1 metre patches, so we were a little apprehensive, but we saw nothing less than 3.8m even though it was low tide. (The middle of our route went through 24°53.95N 077°05.00W)
The worst part of the passage was negotiating the last section, past Porgee Rocks and out to sea. There were huge areas of weed, which changed the colour of the water from light blue to dark blue. To add to the visual confusion, the depth varied from 8 metres to 3.5 metres, so it was a little nerve wracking especially going past the west side of Porgee Rocks where one of our charts showed a shallow 2.1m patch.
By 14:00, we were in deep water and left the Bahamas behind. After the stress of navigating in shallow water, I was really happy when we crossed the 200 metre depth contour and the depth gauge shows “Last” denoting the last reading it had – we could relax. Unfortunately, there was still no wind at all, so we continued motoring out into a calm sea.
The very light winds continued all afternoon and we had a fabulous sunset reflected in the glassy sea. For the first six hours, we had 0.5 to 1 knot of current with us, but as we approached the corner of the Berry Islands it turned against us. I tried to get out of the counter current by diverting across a shallow, 25 metre deep bank, but it didn’t seem to make much difference.
The current against us decreased to less than 0.5 knots as we headed west and it was a lovely night to be motoring. We were accompanied by half a dozen cruise ships making their way from Nassau to Miami and then later had to dodge half a dozen going the other way.