Polite Compromise

It has been a busy past couple of weeks. We survived the rough water off of New Bight and went in search of a better anchorage, finally deciding to anchor off of Pigeon Cay. Then we moved on to Cat Cay for a few days before going to Little San Salvador. We anchored all by our lonesome inside the harbour at Half Moon Cay. Left there and sailed on to Eleuthera Island.

We stopped at Davis Harbor. Ron splurged and we spent the night tied up to a slip - with electricity so I had AIR CONDITIONING!!! And there were shore showers and a laundry room!!! Wahoo! A girl could get used to this high living!! Enjoyed a fabulous meal at their open air restaurant. The next morning, one of their fishing guides caught so much fish that he gave us several pounds of fresh wahoo and mahi-mahi.

Next, we moved northward to Rock Sound, where we met up with people we knew from the Long Island Rally, plus we met more folks. One of the boaters organized a happy hour - book/DVD swap at the restaurant right across from our anchorage. Rock Sound has a festival every year that was going on when we arrived - it's called "Homecoming." Lots of music and people. What it is: since so many people have left the area, every year for the past 20 years the harbour community has a festival so that everyone is invited to come home for a visit. What a wonderful idea! Live music, food booths, special church services, big party...

We stayed there several days, and then on the 31st, we moved on to Governors Bay. We walked all over town, and hiked up to the top of the hill that overlooks everything. We could see both sides of the island. This town was also having a festival. A jazz festival to raise money for the old, historic town library. So as we fell asleep that night bouncing on our anchor, we could hear the jazz music coming across the water. This does not suck...

Staying with our window of good weather, we moved on to Hatchet Bay. We knew where to look for the entrance based on our Explorer Guides and Ron's Garmin Blue Charts - but the opening to this bay is small. You can't see it from half a mile away, then all of the sudden - as you pass a rocky point - you see it open up. But it is only about 30 or 40 feet wide and with wind and current, it's pretty scary getting through there. However, the big government mail boats and ferry move in and out with no problems! Once inside we anchored and settled in - and quickly made friends with people on the boat next door. We all had sundowners in the back of Compromise and enjoyed the sunset together. Alice Town is the harbour area and there wasn't a whole lot to see here so we only spent one other night there before moving off again.

So we have started to move north. The weather was still overcast as we left, but we had to catch the tide in order to exit the narrow entrance - so off we went. After we had sailed barely half a mile, I looked back and saw a waterspout coming out of the clouds directly in front of the bay entrance. We took photos and just watched in awe. Hoping like hell that it would continue to move away from us. The spout went away almost as quickly as it appeared - and we never even felt the rain.

I wanted to sail past the Glass Window, which is a natural arch at the island's narrowest point. Wind and waves have washed away a hole/window where you can see the deep blue Atlantic water while you are in the light Caribbean blue water. Afterwards, we had to hurry on so we could make the ebb tide at the Current Cut. It's the channel that separates Eleuthera from Current Island - our exit to go to St. George's Cay/Spanish Wells. Current Cut has a wicked current that moves up to 7 knots in a spring tide, making it hard to get a slow moving sailboat through. So we needed an ebb tide for the best possible opportunity. Luckily, our timing was perfect and we shot through like we knew what we were doing. We spent the night anchored off of Russell Island.

From there we moved onto a mooring ball in Spanish Wells. We got caught up with groceries, laundry, and did a little sight seeing. But when we saw that we would have a couple of good/calm days we moved on to our next stop - Harbour Island. To get there we had to sail through The Devil's Backbone. Sounds cool, right? It is really an area full of coral that can only be navigated through using visual navigation. The surrounding sand moves so your charts aren't always accurate. Ron had to keep us in deep enough water, but steer around coral heads and away from the iron shore beach. We got through just fine - but we were ready for Adult Beverages as soon as we dropped anchor off of Harbour Island!

Dunmore Town/Harbour Island is beautiful. We rented a golf cart and tootled all over the island. There are gorgeous old cottages all over the bay front, colorful flowers everywhere - but best spot was the beach. It has pink sand!! At lunch, Ron had overheard a conversation being made by a realtor - who said that Al Gore is building a home on the island. So while we were riding around, every large/ostentatious home immediately became Al Gore's house. And we laughed like we thought it was funny! We are so easy to amuse...

We check several different sources for weather reports every morning. So we learned that we are expecting another front to arrive late this evening or early tomorrow. Since we knew what had one good sailing day - the ocean had calmed down from earlier winds - and prevailing winds would be light, we decided that today would be the day to make the big jump to the Abacos Islands. This would be a 50+ mile trip over open water in the Atlantic. Not something you want to do during bad weather. We pulled anchor at around 0700 hrs and headed out of Harbour Cut during a flooding tide - which is good since we had to travel through a bit of skinny water. We were able to raise the jib. The winds never got over 15kts - but mostly it was on the nose so we motored as well. We anchored in the first/best spot we could find on the map, which is Cherokee Bay. Got here about 1530hrs. Another gorgeous spot. There will be some surge, but not too bad. The beach is only a couple hundred yards off the bow and we have protection against the winds that are expected.

We took the dingy in to have a quick look around. More beautiful pink sands. And we scoped out a couple of places to go snorkeling tomorrow. We will probably be here for a few days - until the next good weather opportunity - before we move to Little Harbour or someplace further up-island. Once we move inside the barrier islands we should have protection from bad winds as we move on to the north. Yay!!

More later - Karen.