Heading down from the Berries to Rose Island anchorage on Monday, a 50nm journey. We were able to motorsail for some of the way. We had to cross over a stretch of water known as the tongue of the ocean. If you look on Google Earth you will see the dark blue section of water that looks like a mixed up musical note, running between the Exumas and Andros Island. the deepest contour line we crossed on the chart was 10800'....that's 2 miles deep in case your imperial measurement knowledge is a bit rusty. Speaking of rusty, stainless steel is a misnomer as ours needs repeated polishing to keep the rust and corrosion under control in this harsh salt environment.

But I digress. We had several rain storms blowing around during the day and I got a chance to fine tune my radar skills setting the rain clutter function to pick up the storm cells. This allowed us to track their movement in relation to our course and determine if we had to button up the cockpit canvas to stay dry during a downpour. It got pretty warm during those squalls inside but luckily they didn't last too long.

As the high rises on Nassau came into clear view there was a black cloud layer hovering over the island. A few minutes later I looked around our jib
which was blocking our starboard side view and spotted a very big, black twister (officially a waterspout when it heads out over water) heading slowly east off the end of Nassau....right where we were heading! We immediately stopped the boat and furled in our sail in preparation for the worst. I tracked the storm on radar and saw we were about 5 miles out yet we could see this thing which was almost the same width from top to bottom vs the typical funnel shape...so this thing was BIG! It looked like it blew itself out after a few minutes as it, and the squall were tracking slowly to the southeast, so away from us.

We heard some excited boaters shouting on the vhf with reports that it passed them by 300' and there were actually 3 of them in total. It is fair to say my baby was a little shaken up on this one. We managed to get into the anchorage a hour later unscathed but with a new 1 to add to our boating experience. we were kinda busy at the time figuring our action plan if it came our way so didn't get a chance to take any photos. Sam later read that funnel clouds are more common in the summer so we were lucky to see one off season!?

https://youtu.be/7VhlSmPNsDA?si=9FxxsKkRCLUdEBvL

Over the next 2 days we were sailing on the Bahamas Bank , which is the shallow bank shown in the multi-hued green colour on the google earth shot below. Here the water depth averages about 20' with many coral heads and other obstacles to navigate around. Looking over the side of the boat is a bit unnerving at first as the water is so clear you think you're about to go aground at any moment. But Sam did a masterful job of plotting navigation courses through the bad stuff until. A and just like that we aired in the Exumas!

We consider this part of the Bahamas that people dream about when they hear the word. We are in Wardewick Wells anchorage which is part of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, est. in 1958. It is the first land and sea park in the world and it is awesome! We managed to get a mooring ball for 5 nights as there is a big blow coming on the weekend so we nice and secure in an anchorage with protection from most directions except for 2 cuts coming into the basin.

This video url shows many of the spots in the park...we are on a mooring ball that is shown at about the 1:30 min mark and it really does look like this...no colour enhancements or editing to make it look this good!

https://youtu.be/nuWGf75m5Yg?si=0idnnvo1wDBuPVA-

There is a whale skeleton displayed on the beach that washed up dead many years ago. Apparently it died due to ingesting plastic so this is a world wide problem that seems to be getting worse. ( they showed a shot it in the above video.)

(bonus song from Yes from their heyday)
https://youtu.be/RNfYtjQZcv0?si=D4QwKIxBhAS0jFX1

our shot today is a google maps photo of the tongue of the ocean and the Bahamas yellow bank. We started this leg of the journey from the Berry Islands at the end of the chain south of Bullock Harbour to Rose Island east of Nassau (watch out for the twister) down to the Exumas with 1 night in Shroud Cay and to our mooring field at the Sea Park Visitors Center.