We spent three nights at our own private anchorage off of Rudder Cut Cay, which is a private island and apparently the owners take their ownership seriously seeing as they post "No Trespassing" signs on all of the beaches and even have wireless cameras watching each beach! It's too bad, seeing as the beaches are beautiful and there is no house in sight, so I'm not sure what the owners are worried about. Regardless of our inability to set foot on land, we found our own fun and made an adventure out of it anyway, hence staying three days!
The first night we pulled past another sailboat and onto the next bay where we were free to anchor all alone. We settled in after a few hour sail from Farmers Cay - unsuccessfully fishing while on the Exuma Sound :(. We had hoped to spearfish, but by the time we anchored, the tides had switched and it was starting to darken outside. We planned to explore via dinghy the next day.
The next morning we did some work on the boat while we waited for the clouds to clear. Finally around early afternoon, we decided to hop in the dinghy and venture around the island's shoreline to check out the nearby caves and some distant "little" islands. On a whim we decided to take a fishing pole with us and fish off the dinghy while underway. Never in a million years did we think we'd catch anything, but sure enough, although were unsuccessful with the big boat, we landed a HUGE barracuda on the dinghy! It was so big that as we reeled it in, the fish started swimming and actually dragged the dinghy in circles! Haha! The only problem was that we didn't think to bring a knife or any tools with us, so now we had a gigantic, angry barracuda on the line with huge teeth...we were afraid if we brought him in the inflatable dinghy, he'd either pop it with his teeth or with the hook, or just as bad eat one of our fingers off while we tried to de-hook him. So...we dragged the sucker all the way back to the boat - we had almost reached the far off little island when we caught him and now the poor fish had to be dragged in the water all the way back to the catamaran! Surprisingly he didn't drown on the high speed trip back, he was a little banged up and not swimming so straight, but Derek decided to continue his taser testing and after arriving back at the boat alive, the poor barracuda got a shock to the brain via taser! He calmed down though, enough for us to pop out the hook and return him to the sea. I have to say, he was the strongest fish I've ever seen, while his swim away and alongside the boat was very very slow, he was upright and swimming! I now have a different appreciation for the barracuda!
Unfortunately, our "fishing" experience put us back on board Soul Purpose cutting our exploration trip to the little islands short. At least we were able to check out a few cool caves before our "catch". We closed up the boat as it started to cool off after the sun went down and decided it was a good night for a movie. We set up the computer and TV and got comfy on the couch. Partway through the movie, Derek jumps up and yells "Holy Shit...a firework!" Now remember, we're in the middle of nowhere with no other boats in sight and we don't even see any homes on land, so how the hell can there be a fireworks show? We're not sure, but we leapt out of the salon and sat on the deck wondering "could this really be happening?" The fireworks went on for a while and were slightly behind the cliff, so we released the lines, dropped the dinghy into the water and made a mad dash into the black night and open water to get a better view. In pitch black (there was no moon) we floored the dinghy and sped to sea. It was well worth the run as we turned down the engine and watched a huge private fireworks show for about a half hour! After the last sparkle fell towards the sea, we turned around and headed back to Soul Purpose...still wondering if the show actually happened or had we started to lose it being alone in paradise for so long that we were just imagining it?
While we had planned to spearfish then hike to the green house ruins on a neighboring island this morning, we woke to a looming cold front and gloomy weather. We moved the boat towards Little Darby Island where you can hike to the green house, but changed our minds as a little rain came in. We scrapped the hike, planning to do it on our return trip. We hoisted the main sail, rolled out the jib and sailed through the inlet to open waters on the Exuma Sound. There was a light wind on our stern, so we flipped to our genaker, killed the engines and sailed lazily toward Lee Stocking Island. About an hour later we were nearing Lee Stocking, but we just weren't ready to stop sailing, so we opted to head to Gerogetown instead. We rolled into GT around 5 PM, just as the sun was setting and a small downpour was just beginning. The harbor is full of boats, a few hundred all at anchor, so after taking a pass through the anchor field, we picked out a spot near shore (shallow depth for the cat ). We dropped anchor, then pulled up to reset to give more clearance to a neighboring boat. We dropped again, in sand and grass, and dragged anchor, so up it came again! After four attempts, in three different spots, our final drop was successful so we finally shut the engines and retired to the salon as it was getting chilly without sunshine. It is 67 degrees now outside, which is cold to us now, and we're toasty inside after having had a hot dinner and piping hot showers!