Sailing Sirius

Feb 21 - 26
Heading south: White Point, Rudder Cay, Lee Stocking, and Rat Cay
Sailed to White Point with 2 other boats, Loon and Truant. We were invited to happy hour on Truant which is a beautiful Cabo Rico 47 sailboat. We had a nice visit and Mark played guitar for us. He asked Fran to bring her ukulele next time.
Sailed for the first 1.5 hours to Rudder Cay and then motored through some thin water at high tide. Lowest we say was 6.6 feet; we are at least 5.75 deep. Loon was behind us but Truant went on the ocean side with his 6.5 foot draft. We passed close by Mosha Cay which is a beautiful private island with pretty tropical painted houses. We anchored off a pretty palm treed beach on Rudder Cay, also private. We explored a couple of caves by dingy and saw the submerged mermaid and piano place there by David Copperfield. Visited with Penny and Bob on Pretty Penny. Had happy hour again on Truant and Fran and Mark played music together which was lots of fun.
Next day was an easy motor trip on the ocean side with light wind on the nose and a 12 - 18" waves. Exited Rudder Cay cut one hour prior to low tide so the cut was flat and entered Adderly cut one hour after low tide so again that cut was flat. If you enter with opposing wind and current, the cuts can be nasty. Timing is everything. Made our way along Lee Stocking Island to Williams Bay. We have visited the abandoned ocean research center on our last trip but did not go further south to Williams Bay. It is very pretty here. Robin and Chris on Cerulean were there waiting for us. Loon came along too while Truant went to the marina at Emerald Bay. We walked up the ridge for a wonderful view of both the ocean and banks sides. We visited a couple of nice beaches and saw some very large (5') rays along the way. We all had happy hour on Cerulean.
Tuesday morning, Fran started batch #3 of homemade yogurt. In the afternoon, motored with the high tide through the narrow and shallow channel to Rat Cay. Ben on Loon went to Emerald Bay. We first anchored in an area where the current was causing the boats to roll uncomfortable. We went around the corner to a better spot. We were treated to a nice pasta and salad dinner aboard Cerulean. Wednesday we took the dingy about 1.5 miles to Barraterre which is a small community not much visited by boaters due to the very shallow waters around it. We had a nice lunch at The Same Ole Place, bought some fresh local produce, and bought a locally sourced and made basket and necklace. Everyone we talked to was very friendly. Back at the boat, we stowed the dingy for an ocean passage to Long Island.

Feb 27 - Mar 5
Long Island
Got and early 7:00 am start. The narrow Rat Cay cut was calm and flat as was the ocean for the first several hours with a SW wind 10 - 12 knots. Wind built during the day, contrary to the forecast, and waves built as we got further from the lee of land. Fran was a little seasick with the rolly action of the waves on the aft quarter. Other than that, the sailing was wonderful and fast. Cerulean is 10' longer than Sirius but with the lighter winds we lead most of the way until we changed to a faster windward tack. We abandoned our original landfall of Calabash Bay which is open to west winds since the wind continued to blow strong from the SW. We sailed another 2.5 hours to Thompson Bay which was enough of a different direction that the boat was not rolly and Fran felt a lot better. Altogether we sailed 60 miles in 10 hours. We were rocking a bit in the anchorage but not too bad. Went to bed early.
Next day, winds from the west had us bouncing pretty good until 5 p.m. when the winds finally clocked to NW and we were protected by land. Actually had a breaking wave come in our forward hatch and soak our berth with salt water. Yuck. Luckily we have a spare set of sheets.
Saturday, we visited a small farmers market. Not much produce there but we did by some locally made jam and delicious banana bread. Our friend Robin bought a lovely straw handbag. Had lunch at the Island Breeze. IB is owned by Mike and is very friendly with a nice dingy dock open to cruisers to access not only his resort but also the town. He has shower and laundry facilities. Mike does it all from running a morning cruisers VHF net to the cooking and serving. Bought a few groceries at Hardings, a nice grocery store. Sunday we took a picnic lunch to a nearby ocean beach. Found the usual plastic trash but no sea glass or sea beans. The plastic trash is not from the Bahamas but from commercial ships.
Long Island is indeed long, about 90 miles. With Cerulean, we rented a car for two days to explore. Day 1: Started our tour on the north end which is not very populated; there are many small settlement to the south. We took a very rough dirt road to the Columbus monument which has a spectacular view of the north end of the island. There is also a pretty little beach there and a large salt pond. Followed a similarly rough road to the Adderly plantation ruins but could not locate them. Later we found out that the ruins are overgrown and difficult to reach. Had a very nice lunch at Cape Santa Maria resort, a very high class facility. Also visited the Stella Maris resort, an older but still nice resort. Climbed their lookout tower to get a great view of both sides of the island. Drove into the Grotto Bay resort which is small and seemed empty although it had beautiful tropical landscaping and some vegetable plants in stone troughs. Finished the day with rum punches overlooking the sunset from the deck of the Island Breeze.
Day2: Started at the tourist office to get some ideas and directions. Stopped at a small museum that had interesting pictures and artifacts. Not very much was said about the past history. Most of the black people here are descendants of slaves brought here by the Loyalists during the American Revolution. The building itself was quite pretty (opened in 2002) with nice landscaping. We drove past other nice houses with landscaping. The reason I mention the landscaping is that the norm in the Exumas is for the homes to be surrounded by rocks with little soil and whatever happens to grow there. Stopped at a general store "All Under the Sun" which did have a little of everything: computer supplies, jewelry, boating supplies, housewares, etc. There was also a small coffee café where we enjoyed lattes which we hadn't had since Nassau.
On to Clarence Town, the main town, on the ocean side. The marina there had several large fishing boats and a mega yacht. We had conch salad for lunch from the local stand. We also bought some fresh product at a warehouse where produce is gathered for shipment to Nassau. WE climbed to the top of the tower of the beautiful Catholic Church that overlooks the town. Had to squeeze up several wooden ladders to get there but we were rewarded with a fantastic 360 degree view. We talked awhile with a visiting priest, Father Greg Lyttle, from New York. There is no full time priest assigned there.
Drove through a huge area of abandoned salt ponds once worked by Diamond Salt. The processing plant was in operation from 1968 - 88. Supposedly there is a pink sand beach nearby but we did not find it. Next was the biggest attraction on Long Island, Dean's Blue Hole which is 600+ feet deep and is connected to the ocean. Free diving competitions are held here. We snorkeled over and around the hole to see many different fish and coral along the edges.
Hurried back to take showers - wonderful, long, hot showers and Island Breeze. Went to dinner at Chez Pierre and had the best meal we ever had in the Bahamas! The chef is from Canada and trained in France. We had delicious greek salad, French bread (of course), seafood pasta, and cote-de-rhone wine. It was so worth the drive on another rough road.