Now We'll Try This Again
14 February 2012 | Flamingo Cay, Jumentoes
Jill
Okay, we motor sailed another 60 nm and now we're back at Flamingo Cay again. On the way we passed Passages, they were headed back to Thompson Bay! We talked to them on the radio, we knew they were alright because we'd exchanged emails, but today we got a better account of their stay here through the front. The wind and waves picked up all day Saturday, until near dark they had to move out and anchor in deeper water because the swells were bumping them on the bottom. There was no way they could get to shore in a dinghy, they estimated they were getting 6 foot waves. The wind blew harder here and took longer to turn to the north and east of north. They had 30 knot gusts overnight Saturday night and they spent the night on anchor watch. The wind didn't move to behind the island until Sunday afternoon. I'm so glad we left. They said it would have been terrible for us with Fuzzy, and we did the right thing to move.
So now we're here. We will stay here a couple of days, anyway. We're waiting to see if the next front, which comes next Sunday or so, is expected to make it down this far. If there's a chance it will, we'll make sure we're somewhere secure by then. Meanwhile we have a few nice days to see at least this island (I don't want to move further south until we know we won't have to go back again).
Bud already started fishing. He tried fishing on the way down. He asked me if I would take the helm while he fished. I told him that was okay, but he wasn't allowed to catch anything because I didn't want to slow or turn the boat. He didn't catch anything, so that was fine by me. After supper he took a few pieces of raw chicken he saved and tried fishing off the boat. He caught two Margates. Those aren't supposed to be great eating, so he let them both go and then quit fishing.
We had a little trouble anchoring. There were two boats here, a cruiser and a Bahamian fishing boat. Ed on Passages had told us to anchor a bit further out than last time. The Bahamian boat was further out, so we tried dropping our anchor behind the cruiser so we'd end up even with the Bahamian boat. That area didn't seem to have any sand, though and the anchor wouldn't set. We ended up in front of the Bahamian boat. It's closer to shore than we wanted, but the wind is all supposed to be from the east for the next several days and the anchor is buried to the bail, so it's nice and secure.
I got a nice picture of the beach here. There were some dark clouds behind it and a rainbow. I hope to get some more pictures over the next few days. I'll post them all once we're back to civilization. Meanwhile, we're enjoying the relative solitude.