When I last blogged, we had just gone through a strong blow with heavy squalls registering winds in the 35 knot range in Hatchett Harbour in Central Eleuthera. The good news was that the harbour was incredibly well protected and our anchors held us nice and snug (I had 130 feet of chain out). We left Hatchett for Spanish Wells (SW) at 7:30 so that we could hit Cutter's Cut (transit points from Bahama Banks to the Atlantic) at high tide and at slack tide (where water is not flowing). We got there at 10:15 and had a very good transit through the cut. We then had about 8 miles to go to Spanish Wells where we had reserved 3 mooring balls. We entered the channel at 2:00 and found another completely different world from the rest of the Bahamas. Once secured to our mooring balls, we went to shore and walked though town.

Very hard to describe (SW), first it is predominately a white expat population with very few Bahamians to be seen. The houses are quite upscale with a number of restaurants and quite a large grocery store (as big as the smaller Publix in Miami). On one side of the town is the Atlantic and the other the sound and only 2 streets run parallel to each other following the shore. Everyone drives a golf cart here with few cars. We were told that most of the 1,900 residents are either Irish, Scottish or Brits with smattering of South Africans. I felt a tad uneasy in this very closed community. Found a liquor store that finally sold Box Wine. The liquor store is literally 10 feet X 12 feet and is packed with stuff. We bought 4, litre boxes of Chablis for Claude and a case of Kalix beer in cans. The owner indicated that he would drive us back to our boat and I asked him how long he had been in operation since this was a dry city and he responded by saying he has been bootlegging for 7 years.

Cannot say I was disappointed in leaving there and I would never live in a community that is not multi cultural.

The next day, we moved our boats, at around lunch time, to Royal Isles which would be our staging area to move the boats onto the Atlantic and off to Little Harbour in the Abacos. This journey is about 52 miles and would take about 9 hours. I joined Chris Parker and he advised that Tuesday would be the best day to cross with winds NE > E at 10 to 15 knots. We agreed on a 6:30 am departure to head to the cut between Big Egg and Little Egg Island. The
distance to the cut was about 3 miles and then we would transit into the open the Atlantic. We could see big waves crashing on the corals and we knew we would find big seas. Well I had my patch on (scopalamine) but it did not help much. I was not sick but felt queasy all day and I probably slept 8 out of the 9 hours. Really glad when we transited into Little Harbour in the protection of the Linyard Cay where the 3 boats are anchored.

Tomorrow we will attempt to enter a little harbour where Pete runs Pete's pub where they have mooring balls. we can only enter the harbour at high tide where water should be between 6 and 7 feet.

Weather is more comfortable here with highs in ~78F and lows at ~74F and much drier.

We are making our way slowly North as planned and still plan to be in Florida on ~April 1.

Talk to you all soon.

Fair Winds / Bon Vent

Bruce W. Hannah
5 - 335 Dalesford road
Toronto, Ontario
Canada
M8Y 1G8

www.brucehannah.com

Bahamas cell phone: 242 473 1067