Wayward Sun Sailing

Picture is the fish fry village area on Cat Island. It's a cool little row of shacks selling local food and all run along the beach so you can just land your dinghy close by.

Well to my surprise Capt'n managed to keep himself all day on the boat on Wednesday without being annoying wanting to get off. It was pretty windy, anchorage was comfortable, but really ugly out so we just didn't go ashore. Managed to keep busy on the boat all day, but don't remember what the Capt'n did all day - probably fixing something.

Thursday was beautiful, still windy and a little choppy, but definitely we both wanted to go ashore. Figured we would walk the road south to the other liquor store and pick up a few things. Well we got there and it was closed - hours said 9-6 Mon - Fri so go figure, but this is the Bahamas. So on the walk back a truck passed us loaded with cases of beer and we knew he had to be going to the store so contemplated walking back, but decided not to since we really didn't need anything except maybe some dry vermouth, which we can live without, I think. In the end, glad we didn't, we found out later from Simplicity that they had made the walk down there later on and while they were open, they told them they were now closed for inventory - come back tomorrow. Turns out the supply boat had come in and when we were there they were up picking up their supplies and then brought them back, but weren't selling anything until they counted stuff, interesting, but this is the Bahamas!

Well on Tuesday, we had ducked into Hidden Treasures during the rain for a couple kaliks and some awesome sweet potato fries. Denise runs the place and we promised we'd come back to taste her other delights on Thursday, but our plans had changed to have dinner there since Corsair was having a party/HH on their boat at 4pm. So to keep our promise we went for lunch (which we normally don't eat) and ordered the jerk grouper dinner to just split. Needless to say it was awesome and she is a really cool lady. Her elderly mom helps her when she gets busy and a super sweet lady too. Of course, everyone else had the same idea so they were pretty busy, but she kept it all under control. We met Privateer while we were there, super nice on a Krogen 52, which is a trawler made by Kadey Krogen. For those who don't know that boat is like living on the water in your house, to say the least. Anyway, very nice and they were going to Corsairs party later too. Well the party/HH was amazing, Donna and Matt are on Corsair and Donna had made a ton of food, plus we all brought a HH dish to share. If I remember correctly there were 9 dinghies tied to the back of their boat and something like 18 - 20 people. Privateer's dinghy cleat came undone and was sailing off into the sunset when luckily someone noticed it. People jumped in to a dinghy to go retrieve it and in the meantime untied the wrong dinghy and that was sailing off now too, yikes. All is well though, dinghies were brought back under control and tied up again. Privateer is somewhat lucky the cleat let go then and not under other circumstances when they might not have seen it happen. Anyway, we had a great time, as did everyone else - we left around 8 pm along with Privateer, so not sure if the others stayed much longer or not.

So Friday being the last day we thought we could sail back to Dotham Cut, we decided to up anchor around 7 am after bringing the dingy up since it was too late the night before. We'll miss the rake and scrape and have very mixed emotions on leaving, but gotta go sometime. We just loved Cat Island and probably should have stayed longer, but it is what it is. So sail back, even with 20 knots of wind was a motor sail. The wind was directly behind us and we needed to maintain at least 6 knot average to make the cut before dark AND hopefully at slack tide, it wasn't happening under sail alone. We got to Dotham Cut around 4:15 hoping to have got there on slack tide. There's no good information on tides for that area, but places around were showing high tide at 3:45 - 4 pm. Well obviously, we miscalculated that one - as we got closer to the cut we could see it was wind against current and the tide was running out. Dotham cut is one of the better cuts, but still a nail biter in rough conditions. With 15-20 knot winds facing an opposing current - it was rough. Capt'n steers best when the boat is getting tossed around like a ragdoll so he took over. I looked back at one point and thought the waves were going to break over the stern, but they never did even though they were furiously trying all around us. Luckily got through there with no problems and it didn't last too too long. Right around the bend is Blackpoint so ducked in there and got a nice anchor spot around 4:45. Anchorage is packed with people heading back north now, think Capt'n counted 40 boats, but I'm guessing it'll thin out quickly.

Sat was nice and laundry day, so you'd think the Capt'n would know what that means - well he does, but still complains that I rush to get in there. So, my best laid plans again were sidelined when I got up early to make breakfast & listen to CP at 6:30. Started the coffee and noticed it wasn't perking and had been on there awhile. Oh no, propane is out, so got the Capt'n out of bed to go change the tank. Well after 45 minutes we're back in business only to find out he's got the grill tank hooked up to it, our spare tank is completely empty. We had been running on the same tank for years and didn't make sense to me - I had asked him a couple weeks ago if he's positive the other tank is full, there's no way we could run on a tank that long esp. going to the Bahamas last year. No, it's definitely full - so I'm like are you sure you didn't change tanks while I was gone last year and forget, NO. Well turns out I think that was the case and we now have 2 - 20lb empty propane tank bottles. Luckily, right after we got in last night we hear Emerald Sunset - a new restaurant overlooking the water, say they could fill propane tanks. So, besides filling water, Capt'n has another job while I'm at the laundry, digging out one of the propane tanks to get filled, which should be enough to get us back home. So he got rushed into launching the dinghy so I could still get to the laundry by 8 am. Laundry was good only a couple people there and got machines right away. Actually, had a good time there - finally met Donna from Blue Jacket, which we know the name since friends of ours used to travel with them all the time. Couple other people there too and we were all talking - seems we all had something in common - sailing the Great Lakes years ago. Anyway, Capt'n came back to get me and we went over to inquire about the propane. They said they could fill it so back to the boat to drop off the laundry and get the tank. Couple other people waiting when we got back and they told us about an hour - so what else could we all do, but go get a couple Kaliks and some good conversation. Turns out it was probably more like almost 2 hours and we all ended up getting wings - then thought, hum I guess that's their plan filling the propane there - getting people to sit at the restaurant while you wait - good idea! Tank was a bit pricey to get filled, but we were desperate and very lucky to run out here, so kind of glad we did leave Cat when we did. Worst case scenario Staniel is right around the corner so we should have been able to get it filled there too.

Sunday, St. Patrick's day no CP so got to sleep in - not really, but... Think we are moving to Staniel today, but hoping after a quick jaunt into town. The two tiny stores were light on supplies and she told me to come back after the supply boat comes in. It came in late yesterday so I'm hoping to get a little more in the way of meat if possible. There are no good stores all the way to Nassau and only if you rent a car in Nassau, so I'd like to get a few more things and not have to break into my frozen meats for another week or so. Lorraine's is having a St. Patrick's day HH, 3/$10 Kaliks and a buffet. I'd like to stay for that, but Staniel we can get fuel to top off our tanks and be more than good to make it back home at that point. So off to Staniel soon...

We heard another boat that left this morning through Dotham cut and missed the slack tide also her reply back to the boat asking how was the cut, she said I'll let you know as soon as I can get my stomach out of my throat, yikes!

Oh, forecast has changed somewhat for the front coming in on Wed, it is not supposed to be as bad as expected, but the following weekend will bring high winds out of the N then veer E. Capt'n still wants to check out Pipe cay so guess we'll still head for there for a couple days, probably on Monday or Tuesday.

One more thing, we are now crossing back over our old anchor spots. To get the map to show the blue (current for sail blogs) anchor spot you just need to zoom in and it should eventually appear in the center.