The sea bottom as we sailed along the north coast of Little Abaco

The contrast of these two days leads me to discuss the job John does researching, planning and navigating our routes. The night we spent at Big Cut, the very long night with an all night anchor watch, John spent "kicking himself" for taking us into that spot. OK, we had to keep an anchor watch, but I don't see how he could expect to know how the wind direction and holding will be everywhere. We try to visualize the forecast wind direction, how it will blow across the area we see on the map. But until you get there and see it, you miss the land elevation and several other key things. And of course you can't always know the wind direction 8 hours before.

The next days trip to Cave Cay was an example of the little parts of planning that come together. We needed to transit a narrow channel to get through a reef at the North edge of the Abaco Bight, to get to Cave Cay and eventually the next day to leave the Bight. So John planned our departure to have us cross that section at a rising tide (giving us extra depth to cross the shallow, and a continued rising tide if we ran aground and needed to lift off), and also he planned to have the sun at the right height so we could "read" the water. In the Bahamas, the water color tells you about the depth as well as what is hidden underneath. It was a beautifully planned passage and worked great. Once we got to Cave Cay, the wind was coming from the wrong direction for the anchorage we had picked (and also "wrong" from what was forecast), so John eased around to a different section of the island and found us a perfect spot for the night. Best sleep in several days!

By the way, I saw about a 3 foot long reef or nurse shark chasing her supper as I was supposed to be watching the shallows through the Spence Rock cut. I saw a flurry of little fish jumping away, for dear life, and then I saw the shark swimming very fast after them. I had to work to keep my focus on watching our path.