April 4th...Alabaster Bay to Current Cut.

At the northern end of Eleuthera there is long peninsula and even at the western end the water is too shallow for boats to pass. There is a Cut in the peninsula that is about 75 yards wide where we can get through but the current caused by the tides are a challenge. The goal is to go through at slack tide. However, calculating tide here is not an exact science. Our best guess was to use the tide data for Nassau and then add 2 hours.

For one of the few times in the Bahamas we did not have a good sail. The wind was directly behind us and the waves were on our quarter. We tried to sail but could only manage about 4 knots and we had a dead line....a rarity these days, so the engine was on most of the day.

The approach to Current Cut is a little tricky because the area directly in front of the cut is filled with shifting sand. The recommended path calls for going all the way to shore about a mile south of the cut and hug the rocks as you motor up to the cut. The channel here is very narrow with rock on the port and shoals on the starboard. One of the boats ahead of us went aground, but no one in our group had any problems. Once in the Cut we were flushed through riding about a 5 knot current.

Once we were through the cut we motored about a half mile east, pulled up to the beach and dropped anchor for the night.