3rd December

23 31 N
75 46 W

Weather: overcast and cold, wind 10knots NW, waves 2 to 3 foot.

22 MORE SLEEPS!

After a very gusty night it was a relief to find that we were still tethered to the same anchoring spot and had just formed an arc around the anchor with the changing winds during the night. Poor Priss was again sick during the night, the motion of rocking and rolling is obviously difficult for her to cope with, I just wish there was something I could do to help her get over it, I have suggested to Gerry that we all take the sea sickness cure of sitting under a palm tree but he won't buy into that! Our catamaran neighbours were also still in the same spot and like us getting ready to leave, they took off about half an hour before we did as we were in no great hurry, anticipating a quick short trip for the day. After a gourmet breakfast of muesli bar and coffee we were ready to head off. At this point I have to say it was cold, not Tasmania cold (sorry guys!) and we resorted to wearing long sleeved tee shirts - in the Bahamas for crying out loud! On went the headsets, the engine and the glasses so that we could read the depth on the chart, Gerry took the bridle off (a sort of shock absorber we use to take the tension off of the anchor chain) and hauled the anchor up whilst I turned the boat towards our destination, we were away by 8.30am. As the winds and waves were due to increase during the day we elected to stay on the leeward side of the land, which in this case was the eastern side, and motor sail our way to the Exumas sea and land park where we had stopped on our previous trip to Australia. We knew there were mooring balls there as well as internet, an exchange library and who knew what else new since we last visited. As soon as we were clear of the channel we changed our heading slightly and began our trip as planned. We were very glad that we had chosen the eastern side of the land mass as we could glimpse the western side and it was chopping up terribly and the wind gusts on that side were quite evident, it would have been a horrible passage on that side. We deployed the jib and the stay sail as soon as we were out of the channel which boosted our motoring speed of 5.5 knots to an average of 6.5 knots. The wind was coming from aft of our beam, it didn't really do a great deal as far as being able to sail is concerned but it kept us from rolling around too much. Priss joined us in the cockpit and settled down to enjoy the relatively calm progression. We ran the water maker as we went along to make sure that it operated underway without any problems, it was all good and we put a few more gallons of water into our tanks. We saw very few boats heading our way but we did pass 2 quite large dive boats that were anchored off of one of the Cays and had their diver in the water flags flying so we guess there must have been either brilliant reef or a wreck to dive on in that spot.
We made good time to the Marine Park, arriving there at 11.15am and began calling them on channel 16, which is supposed to be monitored at all times by just about everyone. After our 4th attempt to raise them without success Gerry put out a call for a radio check, we immediately got a "loud and clear" response from a boat that was moored about 10 miles away from where we were, he suggested that we try raising the Marine Park on channel 9 instead of 16. At least we knew that our radio was working OK. We got an immediate response this time. Meanwhile we had turned and was heading in towards the mooring field, and the gusty wind and wave chop had become quite violent. Priss headed below deck and Gerry and I rocked and rolled whilst asking about a mooring and scoping out the options, none of which looked good. We then made a quick decision to forego the pleasure of tying up to a mooring ball and continuing to rock and roll with the gusts and chop and head much further south, aiming to reach Georgetown. Whilst it would have been nice to revisit the Marine Park we just didn't think the uncomfortable night or 2 would be worth it. So it was about turn and head back out to the deeper water and continue going south. Georgetown was a further 66NM to go and by the time we were back on our course it was midday which meant that if we could maintain a minimum speed of 5 knots we would get there at around 12.30am in pitch darkness! We had hoped to be able to fly the white flappy things all the way but once we hit the track it quickly became apparent that the wind was doing nothing to help us along, coming almost from directly astern and causing the white flappy thing to do just that - they flapped and flopped all over the place. Away went the jib and Gerry kept the stay sail out to hopefully help with some stability. As we were going to be underway for the best part of the next 12 hours I thought it prudent to organise some food, going below I warned Gerry to let me know if there were any big movements coming, he coined a new term for the white flappy things by replying that he would keep the "wobble stoppers" deployed. I made short work of organising a picking plate which we both made even shorter work of eating.
Priss returned to the cockpit and snuggled in close to me so that I could brace for both of us and she went to sleep for a good deal of the afternoon and evening. As the daylight began to fade I had high hopes of a sunset picture, I took a few but the sun was disappearing behind Farmers Cay so I didn't get to see the sun hit the water, ergo no green flash!
A very hurried evening dinner was thrown together and eaten in the cockpit by the light of a red light, sounds romantic but in reality, it was just hard to see what we were eating (maybe not such a bad thing) and difficult to get a fork to the mouth without it ending up nearer the nose or ear! We took turns in snoozing in the cockpit and keeping watch. The cat didn't do her fair share of watching but she made up for it with the snoozing!
We approached Georgetown entrance at 11pm, having made great time, furled away the sails and began motoring into the channel with great caution as there was a couple of patches of very skinny water, it was at this point that our repeater depth sounder and wind indicator in the cockpit decided to play up and stick on one reading( of course when else would it do it?), nothing would make it work properly at that time and we were left relying on the chart plotter reading as we traversed the channel. We saw less than 2 feet beneath our keel on a couple of occasions which could end up as a disaster if you aren't paying attention. For some unknown reason it always seems worse in the pitch black of night than it does in daylight, add to that a depth sounder repeater that wasn't playing the game and you can imagine the stress levels! We made our way VERY slowly to monument beach where there is a good holding anchorage and where we planned on staying the night. Gerry went on the bow with a spotlight whilst I manouvered the boat into our proposed anchoring spot, between 2 boats already at anchor there. The anchor was deployed and I backed up on it until we were happy that it had set and we weren't drifting into anything. We switched off all the instruments then switched them back on again, you know, the age-old trick of getting something to work again and low and behold everything was working normally again. We both breathed a sigh of relief, we had made it in good time, hadn't damaged anything and were ready to fall into bed. We had eaten well; the cat hadn't been sick all day and we were ahead of the horrible weather front that is coming.
We would sort out internet, a permanent anchoring spot and all the housekeeping stuff tomorrow!