We left Nassau and Harbour View Marina at 9 am sharp Sunday morning. After calling harbor control and getting permission to move, we caught the slack tide to some degree and motored out the east harbor entrance on the way to Porgee Rocks. Unfortunately the morning departure puts you heading into the rising morning sun which makes scanning for coral heads nearly impossible. There are a few shallow areas on the way out which could challenge a deep draft vessel but fortunately we were "escaping" at nearly high tide. We were able to raise a full main and heavily reefed genny once we turned for Highborne Cay and easily sailed at 7 knots close hauled. The winds stayed pretty much in the mid teens rising to the upper teens later in the morning. Since we wanted to cross the Yellow Bank's coral heads when the sun was high in the sky, we had to furl much of the headsail to keep our speed down to less than 6 knots. We arrived in the Yellow Banks about 11:30 am and had our hands full motor sailing with the full main and trying to dodge the coral heads. With the seas running around 3-5 feet and clouds overhead, reading the water was a challenge. But with Evan on deck at the mast we were able to steer through the few miles of coral and then just keep a sharp eye out from the cockpit. We arrived at Highborne early in the afternoon around 2 and dropped anchor in the southwest anchorage with about 12 other boats that were holed-up for the next day's strong weather. The sunset was absolutely gorgeous as we dined on cornbread tamale pie and a fresh salad in the cockpit. It doesn't get better than this!

The winds on Monday were supposed to be strong so we stayed at anchor in Highborne on Monday. And what a good decision that was. The winds blew at 20-25 knots (approx 25-30 mph) with gusts over 30 knots all day. It was a tad nasty for winds and waves, but sunny and warm. We hung out cleaning and reading on the boat. Evan and Candice took a quick trip to the beach on Monday just to explore a little.

Tuesday we had a glorious sail south to Warderick Wells. We hauled anchor under sail at Highborne and worked our way out of the anchorage downwind and then turned south for a sometimes fast ride deeper into the Exumas. We found a mooring in the north field at Warderick. It was one of the outer moorings and so there was a bit of a surge from Exuma sound. But it just rock the crew to sleep rather than keep us awake. We went ashore to pay for the mooring and then walked to Boo Boo hill for the vista. On our way back we diverted to Barefoot Beach using the causeway trail. All in all, Warderick Wells is a very nice place to visit. The colors of the waters are just surreal - blues, greens, turquoise, and gin-clear!

We wanted to do some snorkeling, so we stayed on a second day. Today we stopped by Barefoot Beach again to snorkel and then went to the south mooring area to checkout the beach there. The south anchorage is much more remote and picturesque and I really enjoyed just hanging out there while Candice and Evan hiked around.