We Made It through the Storm
17 February 2013 | Normans Cay, Exumas, Bahamas
Donna
Yesterday morning it was so calm that Bill decided to do some work he had been planning to do on the spreaders, half way up our main mast. Pulling him up there is easy with our anchor windlass. We just rig all the lines, including our inline safety and I push the button on the deck and he goes up. It worked out very well and is one less thing on our to-do list. We saw that the weather was going to come but we had a few hours before it did so we went for a dinghy ride over to Wax Cay, the next island over. I'll mention again that Cay is pronounced Key in the Bahamas but we have noticed that not everyone down here knows that either. A lot of people on the VHF radio say it wrong. We had a bit of a wild ride over to the island but once we got there we put the dinghy up on the beach and tied it off. Part of the island is a resort, but we stayed away from that side. We had a nice long walk in the other direction. Bill had read there was a cave on the island. We found it but it was full of water so there was no way we were going in there. It looked like there was a project underway to build some houses, and there was a great waterway and dock over there. We are sure no one uses it. There seems to be a lot of that going on in the Bahamas One of the biggest worries about the storm was not how comfortable we would be, or whether our anchor would hold. Captain Bill knows how to set the anchor, and ours is a particularly good type: a Rocna. The real worry is how everyone else anchors. Yesterday a boat next to us was a little close so Bill went over and told him he was concerned about their closeness once the storm hit. They were very understanding. They are Canadian, as are about 90% of the people we've met in the Exumas. Bill figures all the Americans are further south! They moved their boat, but because the current is so strong here, it got away from them and they smashed into another boat. We felt very bad about that. The other boat moved almost into the spot they had come out of, but they were a little further away, so we didn't worry as much. Then a catamaran came and anchored in a really bad spot for us. Apparently they don't know much about anchoring though because they didn't stay in that spot for long, they dragged pretty far. Eventually they figured that out and moved again. Once the storm started the other boat dragged too. It looked like it was going to be a long night. We were bouncing up and down and the wind was howling. Luckily no one hit us in the middle of the night and our boat held well. There is still some heavy wind and clouds this morning, but the worst of it seems to be over. Tomorrow we are heading to the Exumas Land and Sea Park, supposedly one of the most beautiful places in the Bahamas. We will spend a couple of days there before heading further south.