12 April 2014 | Little Farmers Cay, Bahamas 23’57.70N 76’19.22W – Little Bay, Great Gauna, Bahamas 24’04.79N 76’23.20W via Blackpoint, Great Gauna, Bahamas
Patience is a virtue. After waiting out a front in Farmers Cay we are feeling pretty virtuous but after getting into the habit of listening to Chris Parker’s forecasts and then all the ‘chat’ that happens afterwards we have realised that we’ve got a long way to go before we reach the virtuous high point where Chris sits.
Right on time the wind performed its obligatory 360 spin and the wind howled into the anchorage. The clouds darkened, the rain came and the waves built as the tide swept us back and forth. We were happy where we were and our anchor seemed to be so well dug in its tip could have been pointing out in Australia.
The big amusement of sitting at anchor in all the howling wind was watching the charter boats and those who’d not been watching the weather come into the bay and ‘try’ to either anchor or pick up mooring balls. The water swept them one way and the wind blew them the other giving us hours of entertainment and feeling very self righteous having made our plan days ago.
With the waiting game over we got back into our morning routine of listening to Chris Parker at the ungodly hour of 06:30 in the morning; download some weather and then making a plan. Chris Parker gives just the most accurate weather forecasts we have ever heard and on Ruffian is known as a soothsayer.
We’d heard stories of boats in the Bahamas listening to Chris and then asking very stupid questions like ‘I’m moving 2 miles is it safe?’ or ‘What’s the weather where I am going to be like?’ and this is after he’s just outlined exactly what the weather is going to do. Everyday we listen and are amazed at his patience answering all the stupid questions from cruisers who clearly don’t have the ability to write things down or remember anything. Back in Florida we are sure there are no sharp corners in his office and big signs saying ‘These people pay you.’
With great weather set for days we moved out of the bright waters in Farmers Cay and headed north. As we sailed along we were constantly shocked by the rocks that we kept seeing just to leeward of us. Time and time again we had to remind ourselves that there was no rock and it was just the shadow of our sails on the seabed. The feeling of sailing all day being chased by our shadow with mere inches of water under our keel in water so flat we could have been in a swimming pool was bizarre beyond words, we did however finish our day feeling truly elated and once again with our faces aching from smiling so much.
After anchoring in Blackpoint, where the water was anything but black and the bay was anything but pointed, and completing our chores at "the best laundry in the Bahamas", we set off on a full on “off road” hike with 'Il Sogno'.
We left armed with a screenshot of a chart and quickly realised that it was designed for voyaging by sea and not adventuring by land. We were fully off the beaten track as there was no track to find and we trekked over ankle breaking rocks, sinking sand beaches and tidal ripping mangroves. Along the way we happened across a blow hole that spewed salt water, a blue hole that seemed to go down to the centre of the earth and a cut where waves piled up on top of water that was desperate to get out to the open sea. It just went to prove that you only ever get lost if you have a map and therefore know where you are going.
After the romp all that was on the agenda was a reinvigorating ice lolly. We’d always been told that provisioning in the Bahamas would be a challenge but the provisioning at Blackpoint was supposed to be second to none. We could buy litres of UHT milk, tins of anything and everything, and after trying to explain the concept of an ice lolly to both Americans and Bahamians, we found that ‘Mrs Hubbard’s Ice Lolly Cupboard’ was bare in the extreme.
After all the virtuous waiting for good weather we seem to have ‘lucked out’ as things have settled down in the Exumas, while the Abacos (which are just north of us) have to weather yet more cold fronts. There are the gems of the Bahamas in front of us and we’re not going to have to hide while we explore them.
Here it comes. Time for a bit of a blow.
Ahh happy days. The calm after the storm.
Sailing along at 6 knots with 6 inches under the keel.
There are worse places to wait for your washing.
The Laundymat (Bahamian spelling) is cruisers contact central.
Larry was not happy at being washed but was happy with the result.
Grapefruit point. Always worth the romp.
The water in the Bahamas is like nowhere else we’ve sailed.
Scary scary cut. Pleased we’re not trying to go through there.
Our first ‘blue hole’. The islands are like swiss cheese and riddled with caves and tunnels.
Would you believe the water is like this everywhere?