Old Friends

After our dramatic crossing from The Abacos to Royal Island we decided to take a day off and get the boat dried out and better prepared for rough weather sailing. We put together a new pre departure checklist to remind us to rotate the dorade vents and close their air vents. One of the big issues we had was everything that came crashing down from the top of the guest berth (where it had sat religiously for a year in all sorts of heavy weather). Ironically we had both a dream last night about lee cloths for the guest berth. A lee cloth is essentially a piece of canvas shaped a little like a hammock that attaches lengthwise along the outside edge of a berth so you don't fall out in rough seas. That morning we searched the boat and sure enough we found the lee cloth for the guest berth and got it installed. Now everything on the berth is secure in all but the most violent weather.

The infamous Current Cut on the north side of Eleuthera.

That night we carefully calculated the tides for the next morning since we had to pass through the dreaded Current Cut, where a huge volume of water from the Atlantic Ocean passes through a narrow cut to Eleuthera Sound. You have to hit this at slack water unless you want a lot of excitement in your life. In addition to the current, once you are through the cut you have to take a quick 90 degree turn to the right and then sail about 20 feet off the jagged rock shore to stay in the deepest water (about 20 ft. deep) for about 1/8 mile. Since we'd been through Current Cut last May we had least knew what to expect. Conditions were great when we transited so it turned out to be a non-event.

The rest of the day was a wonderful sail on a close reach in about 10 to 15 knots with two-foot waves, ideal conditions for Flying Cloud. We sailed into Rock Sound on the southern end of Eleuthera and anchored off the city dock in about 8 ft. of water. All in all a great day of sailing.

On Feb 11th, our 41st wedding anniversary, we had plans to do some quick errands then go out for a celebratory dinner. We dingy'd into town and Meryl headed to the laundromat and I went searching for an auto parts store. All of a sudden it came back to me that Rock Sound is a great place to get things, relative to other Bahamian ports. We ended up taking the dingy up the bay to get closer to the shopping center. We tied up at the old Four Points Restaurant, now called Pascals, and walked about a ½ mile to the shopping center. My goals were to find a tip for my fishing rod, get a new switch for our light fixture (which got ruined when we took seawater into the cabin during the Abacos crossing), and finding a ¼ extension for my socket set (the original one is somewhere on the boat but I can't find it). No fishing rod tip, no toggle switch (even though they have a NAPA auto parts store), but I did score on the ¼ extension at the hardware store (which looked like they haven't added an inventory for the last 30 years). I did find some nifty Nerf type balls that we'll stuff in the dorade vents to keep the water out. Meryl did a lot better at the grocery store and I managed to sneak in some cookies and chocolates (they still had their Christmas Hersey Kisses). As usual we bought way more than we anticipated and when the Bahamian checkout lady gave me that "you aint' carrying all that back to your boat" look she closed her till and said "Come on, I'll give you a ride down to your boat." That happens more often then naught and is one of those things that make cruising such a memorable undertaking.

One side note: When we got back to Pascals we noticed a number of tour buses pulled up in front. It turned out a cruise ship had landed on the other side of the island and the passengers where off on a full day tour of the island. At Pascals a group of locals had on their Junkanoo gear (similar to Carnival in Brazil) and were dancing and singing. The thing to remember is Bahamians are really great dancers. It got real interesting as they invited the cruise ship passengers to join the dance. Let's just say there was a "rhythm deficit" amongst the cruise ship crowd. I had to remember that for most of these people this was the cruise of a lifetime and I had to laugh along with them imagining what I would have looked like if I was up there.

I loaded up the dingy and headed back to the boat while Meryl walked the one mile back to the laundry where she had two large bags ready to fold. By the time we got everything back on the boat we decided we were too tired to celebrate and put it off for another time. That also happens a lot when you are cruising.

The 75-ft custom sloop Geronimo from Newport, RI.

We left early the next morning (Tuesday) and motored out of the shallow bay, that while very wide in appearance had a somewhat restricted channel because of the depth. As we approached a turning point (on our GPS-enabled chart plotter) we saw a large boat sailing toward us. We have AIS (Automatic Identification System) on the chart plotter, which shows a symbol and name of other boats (who have AIS transmitters). The name Geronimo popped up on the screen and we laughed because it was the large sailboat that followed us south from The Abacos to Royal Island on the day we got trashed by the wind and waves. Geronimo, that day, seemed to handle the weather with no problem. Only when I hailed them on the VHF did I learn the beautiful blue-hulled sloop out of Newport, RI was a custom 75-footer that we had seen last season in The Bahamas. Never got the full info, but it was a single young guy with a bunch of college age girls. Had to be a story there somewhere.

They hung a hard right hand turn as we turned to the left and we sailed parallel to them for a while until we turned off to Cape Eleuthera Marina to fill up on gas, and more importantly, water. Had a nice chat with Leon, the Bahamian dockhand, who told me the almost empty, but luxurious marina was owned by the DeVoss family out of Michigan. Have you ever heard of Amway? Well that's them.

Had a great sail across the Exuma Sea in a 15-knot southeasterly that gave us just enough room to sail on a close reach. With smaller waves then our last crossing, it was a pleasant five-hour sail to one of our favorite Exuma islands: Norman's Cay.

One of our all time favorite anchorages, the Cut between Norman Island and Shroud Island.

It's always nice entering an anchorage that you've anchored in before; it reduces the drama and surprises that are normally part of anchoring in the shallow-water Exumas. Norman's Cay has a sort of inner bay bisected by a narrow channel of deeper water, from 8 to 15 ft. As we sailed towards the west side we both commented on the beautiful 56 ft. sailboat as we passed her. Seeing her name, we realized it was our friends Jeff and Kelli from Bellaire, Michigan with whom we spent a week here last March. Jeff is a builder who spends summers in the north woods working in construction and the rest of the year in The Bahamas on his Ted Brewer designed Tiger Sea. We joked with them that we didn't think it was them since the boat looked brand new, but then remembered they had just painted Tiger Sea the year before.

Two fun-lovin' people:  Kelli and Jeff on Tiger Sea.

Once we got anchored we jumped in the dingy and went over for a quick visit and to get caught up. Turns out they had just arrived a few days earlier. We had a wonderful time getting caught up with what they had been doing over the summer, current boat projects, new grandchildren, and life in general. I could do several pages on Jeff & Kelli but will save that for my next posting called "The King of Conch."