On Sunday, January 4, we woke up before dawn so we could get Kosmos ready to go to sea. The moon was so bright that it looked like a spotlight.

It was a colorful dawn.

We estimated that it would take us 10 hours to get to Palm Cay Marina, and we only had 10.5 hours of daylight. We pulled up anchor as soon as we felt like it was bright enough out for good visibility, at about 0645, and headed out to the ocean via the same narrow pass with the strong current that we’d come in through on Tuesday. Since our auto-pilot didn’t perform well in strong currents, Eric hand steered through the pass. He estimated that there was at least 3-knots of current against us. All went smoothly.

Looking north at the shoreline from outside the pass.

The sun rose not long after we exited the pass

We ran at 1850 RPM to help ensure we made it to the pass back into the lagoon at high tide, which put our speed in the low 7s most of the time. It was a gorgeous day with mostly clear skies. The seas were calm — less than one foot of swell and about one foot of wind chop at longer intervals — but it was head seas, so it wasn’t quite ideal conditions.

We made it to the next pass at about noon. The pass was nice and wide, but the current was surprisingly strong. At 1900 RPM, we were only making 3.5 knots. Eric had to hand steer. The water was so turbulent that it looked like it was boiling. We suspected the current was stronger than normal due to the full moon.

While in the pass, two boats got dangerously close to us. A catamaran was on a collision course with us, so we changed course. Minutes later, this guy went flying across our bow. We passed a Nordhavn 72 (at a comfortably safe distance) called Sunday Morning. We thought it was funny that we passed it on a Sunday morning.

After we made it through the pass, Eric slowed us back down to 1800 RPM. We arrived at the channel marked by pylons that led into Palm Cay Marina at about 1700. Since we’d successfully navigated the channel before, Eric was less anxious than he was last time. But the shallow, narrow channel still stressed him out, especially because it was low tide, and probably extra low due to the moon.

Last time we’d come in, the channel through the marina was clear and we docked near the entrance. This time, there were big catamarans along the channel, making it very narrow. And they put us in the back, so we had a longer trek in the narrow channel to our spot.

Last time we were at Palm Cay, we’d noticed a large percentage of the slips in the marina were occupied by charter boats. Our slip was in the middle of a block controlled by a company that chartered catamarans. When we’d made the reservation, we hadn’t thought about the fact that today was the last day of the holiday week. The marina was probably a zoo with all the charterers returning their boats today. Four people helped us get into the slip and tie up, it looked like two from the marina and two from the charter company. The way the docks were configured, the slip would have been tough to get into, and especially to tie up, without help, so we were grateful for them. It was nearly low tide, and we were relieved that we weren’t on the ground. 

We went to the restaurant at the marina, The Pink Octopus, for dinner. The sunset was gorgeous, with the sky passing through the full rainbow of colors at various points in time.

We were excited to be in a restaurant with more variety of food choices. Most of the Bahamian restaurants we’ve been to lately had more or less the same menu items, and we were ready for something different. Nassau has access to more variety of foods than the Exumas did, hence the broader menu. While the meal was expensive and the portions small, the cost/portions weren’t that different from the Exumas, but the food was better.

In evening a small squall came through and it rained enough to help rinse some of the salt off the boat. We loved it when God washed the boat for us.