Dawn on Monday, December 22, 2025

When we woke up, it was overcast and the wind screaming. Much to our relief, the charter boat moved early in the morning, so at least we didn’t have to worry about them dragging and hitting us. The anchorage was rolly and uncomfortable, so Eric put out the starboard flopper stopper, which helped dampen the motion. That said, the motion made all three of us kind of grouchy. Even though it was rolly where we were, it was much worse on the north side, so we were glad we moved yesterday instead of waiting until today. Rain was in the forecast.

As soon as Keith finished his school work, he went to Zimovia to hang out with the kids. He stayed there for 7 hours. They played outside on the deck for the majority of the time.

In good news, the conditions in the anchorage improved as the day went on. Eventually, we realized that during the low tide, the waves were blocked on the north from the sandbars between the rocks. During high tide, the waves came over the sandbars, making the anchorage rollier than at low tides. 

Eric and Christi spent most of the day doing chores. When they finished, they went to the beach to enjoy some time on land. As they neared the beach, they saw a huge ray swimming close to shore.

Here was the view of Kosmos from the south edge of the beach.

They climbed up the small hill to the viewpoint.

The sunrise was blocked by the heavy clouds. But by morning, the skies had significantly cleared and we were able to see the sunrise.

Since the Shroud anchorages were so uncomfortable, the flotilla all agreed to move to the next island south, Hawksbill Cay, which was supposed to be a calmer anchorage in these winds. Eric was dubious because from the charts, it looked like Shroud had better protection. Eric was baffled as to why Shroud was so uncomfortable when on paper it looked like it should have been calm.

We spent the early morning getting ready to go – bringing in the flopper stoppers, getting dinghy up, dishes, tidying, etc. Someone asked us how the flopper stoppers work, so here was a photo. Basically, the V opened underwater and provided resistance so the water wasn’t able to move the boat around as much.

We pulled up anchor at about 0830. The passage took 40 minutes.

Much like the northern Shroud anchorage, most of the Hawksbill anchorage was shallow and there was only a narrow channel that was deep enough for us. All went smoothly with the passage and anchoring — for us anyways. Shortly after we anchored, a larger boat in our same narrow channel puled up anchor. As it was turning around, it nearly hit a catamaran anchored near it. Christi was so sure there would be a collision that she grabbed her phone and started videoing, but the captain managed to squeak by without actually hitting the cat. Here were some photos of the anchorage.

As promised, this anchorage was much calmer than Shroud had been. We were so glad we’d moved!

Hawksbill Cay was also part of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park. Since we’ve forgotten to mention it in the previous Shroud posts, we wanted to mention that the park was still charging an anchoring fee of 50 cents per foot per night that was to be paid online. The park fee was contentious this year because The Bahamas has added a new anchoring fee as part of the check-in costs. There was a strong sentiment that this new anchoring fee should cover the parks, too.

Christi and Keith did some school, then we had lunch, then we got the dinghy down. At 1300, we went to shore to go on a hike to the ocean side of the island with some of the other families… to be continued...