Well hello everyone. So sorry for the long silence, but we have not had an Internet connection since we left Nassau on Sunday, February 22. We originally planned to leave Nassau on Monday or Tuesday; however, it was such a horrible anchorage that we high tailed it out of there on Sunday after a miserable, windy, scary night on the anchor in the harbor. We had an excellent sail from Nassau across the Yellow Bank to Allen Cay in the northern part of the Exuma Islands. When we arrived, we stayed on the boat and chilled out in gorgeous, calm weather. From the boat we watched people go onto the little beach and get surrounded by Iguanas. They are used to tour boats coming in from Nassau and feeding them (which the cruising guide specifically says not to do). Some of the poor little guys were pretty chubby. We figured we’d go ashore in the morning and check out. During the night though, a strong northerly wind come through and our depth decreased significantly. When we anchored, we were in 11 feet of water. During low tide and with the wind draining the water, the chop was making the boat bounce up and down slapping into a sandy bottom (another nerve wracking night). The next morning we drove around the little harbor area looking for some deeper water to anchor, but couldn’t find a spot with 12 feet that wasn’t too close to other boats. So, we ended up leaving there on Monday.
After leaving Allen Cay, we headed to Highborne Cay which was only 5 miles south. We anchored there in 15 feet on the western shore. In the northerly wind, it was a rolly, bouncy anchorage. We went ashore and walked around. There was a marina there, with very large power vessels - a little too posh for us. But the grounds were really nice. We walked along the pier and at the end of the pier there were about 10 to 12 huge nurse sharks just hanging out. I guess you can swim with them and they don’t seem to mind. However, it’s been quite cold here and we haven’t been able to swim yet!!! The cold fronts just keep coming down from New England and we can’t get away from them.
On Tuesday, we stayed on the boat as it was very windy and cold. The anchorage was lousy and we just read our books all day.
Wednesday, we pulled up the anchor and headed only a few miles south to Shroud Cay. We were on a run with winds behind us at 15 to 20 knots and following seas. It was a great couple of hour sail. When we got to Shroud Cay, caught a mooring, and went ashore to a little beach to walk around for a while. When we got back to the dinghy, it was aground as the tide had gone out quite a bit in only ¾ of an hour. We waited around for a little while, but it was getting cold and starting to rain. Steve got some help from a fellow cruiser in the same situation. The guys carried both dinghies into deeper water and we headed back to the boat. On Thursday morning, we went on another excursion at Shroud Cay. We had to battle a pretty big chop in the dinghy to get to the northern end of the island to find a mangrove creek that cut through the island and came out to a beach on the northeastern shore. Once we braved the ½ hour dinghy ride and dried out, the trip was well worth it. The creek was beautiful. It was much calmer and warmer going through the creek than it had been on the outside of the island. When we reached the other end and came out to the beach, the surf was crazy! It looked like Nantasket Beach during a nor’easter! It was pretty cool (and cold too). The guy that we met the previous day at the first beach, was also on this same excursion and told us that 2 weeks ago when he was there it was extremely calm and warm. The water was like glass and they hung out at the beach and swam. Not so on this day. We did hike up a little hill and found spectacular views at the top. Because we had to enter the creek on a high tide, we didn’t want to stay too long and get stranded. When we got back to the boat it was only 10:30 A.M. (high tide was at 8:00 a.m. so we had an early start.) We decided to hop down to the next island (and not have to pay for the mooring for another night - although it was very nice there). After preparing the boat we headed just a few more miles south to Hawksbill Cay. After setting the anchor, we put the dinghy down again and headed ashore to do some hiking and check out the Russell Family Plantation Ruins – an establishment of about 10 houses on this small island back in 1785 to 1830. After the hike, Michele went for a swim and snorkeled around some small coral heads with quite a few fish. The winds were whipping again last night (it seems that they have been the whole time we’ve been in the Bahamas.) Steve is NOT having a good time here. He’s very stressed out. And there is yet another front coming through on Sunday.
This morning we left Hawksbill and had a great sail heading even more south to Warderick Wells. We are on a mooring and will probably stay here for three days to wait out the front that’s coming through on Sunday. We’ll post again before we leave here. But we are safe and doing well. We’ll try to make some phone contacts on Skype while we have Internet.
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