Weathered Another Storm
05 March 2013 | Pineapple Cays, Eleuthera, Bahamas
Donna
We sat out the storm front in Rock Sound, on the other side of the bay from the town. The water was fairly shallow over there so we were in the company of mostly catamarans. There was lots of space between all the boats so we weren’t worried about any boats dragging into us. It was a much better spot than we had for the last storm. This storm lasted two days. The winds never got higher than 32 knots and we barely felt it because our anchorage had so much protection. We really enjoyed the time. We read, napped, and watched a couple of movies. That is the closest Bill and I ever get to relaxation!
By Monday morning we were really ready to go. The wind had another idea, it didn’t want to calm down. We waited until noon, and then headed out anyhow, it was supposed to get better. We were hoping we didn’t have another “scolded dog” incident. We were headed north to the Pineapple Cays. The cruising guide said that was the place to go for pizza and Bill had his sights set on pizza for dinner. It wasn’t too rough getting out of Rock Sound, although we were the only boat moving. When he headed into the Exuma Sound we hadn’t expected to sail but the wind was right at the edge of the angle we can sail. We ended up putting all four sails up and the boat was very happy. It was a brisk sail, heeled over on our starboard side. We really need to “heel proof” our boat! Stuff was flying all over the place. That is something we are working on.
We ended up getting to the Pineapple Cays, the South Palmetto Point Settlement, by 5:00pm. The cruising guide promised a town dock, but apparently a hurricane has come through since the guide was written. There was a half a dock, the wrong half. If we wanted pizza we were going to have to land the dinghy on the beach. Did I mention it was cold? In the mid 60’s! Yes, I know that is not cold to all of you that are expecting a snow storm tonight. To us, it is cold, especially when you have to jump into the water to pull the dinghy up to the beach. It turned out to not be so bad. The cruising guide was wrong about the dock. Maybe it was wrong about the pizza place still being there too. We walked anyhow. It was typical Bahamian town, maybe a bit nicer. There were not many abandoned houses. We finally came to the pizza place and it’s still in business! Mate and Jenny’s! It was a decent pizza, no Papa John’s, but what is? Of course we ordered a big enough pizza to take some home for lunch the next day. By the time we left it was dark out. We were surprised to see street lights most of the way. We also ran into two big dogs in the middle of the road, and this time I was carrying food! Bill scared them off though and we managed to get back to our dinghy intact. The tide had gotten lower so we had to go even further into the water to push the dinghy into deep water. Good thing we had our dinghy wheels on, they work great!
The best thing about this anchorage is the great Internet access. We even managed a couple of phone calls home via Skype before we were too exhausted to call anyone else. The picture is the view this morning of the beach. If you look carefully you can see how the dock is all broken up.
Today we head for Hatchett Bay. Another storm is coming. This one sounds worse than the others. We should have some good protection there. We also know there is a cave you can get to. We’ll see how that goes, another adventure is in our future!