Tuesday, February 3 – The weather forecast for today indicated that it would finally be calm enough to move from the very protected nook in Crab Cay to the main anchorage area in Elizabeth Harbour. He anchored by the Peace and Plenty resort on Stocking Island (which was owned by the same company that owns the Peace and Plenty hotel and restaurant in Georgetown).
When Kosmos arrived, there was lots of space in the anchorage, but as the day progressed, more boats arrived and the anchorage area filled in.
Friday Jan 30 – Eric woke up at 0500 to help coordinate the group re-anchoring. It began, as planned, at 0700. By 0900, the shuffle was mostly done. Everyone agreed to put out 7:1 scope so that all the boats would swing the same. Here was the new positioning on the radar. 65 was where Kosmos was and 66 was where Kosmos moved.
Deeper-draft boats in the darker blue part of the cove on the map we’d posted.
Thursday, Jan 29 — Yesterday, several boats moved into the anchorage and were uncomfortably close to one another. Eric thought all should be okay since no there was no current in the little cove and everyone will move together with the wind.
For their big outing of the day, Eric and Keith went to lunch at The Rusty Anchor. After eating, they walked the 1.5 miles to town and went to grocery store. There were still no eggs or bread. In good news, they found another market that had eggs and bread. Woo hoo! They caught a taxi back to The Rusty Anchor. After dropping off Keith, Eric visited each of the neighbors. Eric and Keith had a quiet evening onboard.
This morning, Eric got up at about 0700ish. He went outside and saw the crew of one of the boats in the anchorage, Karen and Jay, in a small inflatable dinghy. They told Eric that their dinghy had broken loose and was on the shore behind Kosmos. They were on their way to retrieve it. Eric hopped into Kosmopolitan and followed them to shore so he could help them if needed.
Karen and Jay were unable to move the dinghy off the beach because the propellor was grounded in the sand.
The battery didn’t have enough power to tilt the motor out of the sand.
Tuesday, January 27 — When Eric chose to anchor in front of town, he knew it would only be for one night as the wind was going to shift today, making this anchorage uncomfortable. He was planning to move over by Chat N Chill. As he looked at the updated forecast, he saw the blow predicted for Saturday night/early Sunday morning was pretty bad, with 30-knots of sustained winds and gusts to 40. Eric thinks this may be the biggest wind forecast he’s seen in The Bahamas. Eric studied the charts and determined that he wanted to ride the storm out in Crab Cay. Since the anchorage was small, he decided to move there today to ensure getting a spot.
This morning, Eric and Keith went to shore first thing. When they left Kosmos at 0650, the anchorage was flat and calm. They went to the grocery store in the hopes that maybe they had gotten in more inventory, but they still didn’t have eggs or bread. When Eric and Keith returned to Kosmos at 0720, the wind had already shifted and picked up, and the anchorage was already getting rolly. It was crazy how fast the conditions had changed! Since Kosmos was already mostly ready to go and they towed the dinghy, they pulled up anchor right away.
In the image below, they started from basically where the Exuma Markets was, went to the channel that was dredged to the right of Crab Cay (the darker blue line), and anchored in the dredged area on the right side of Crab Cay (the darkest blue blob) at about 0815. The lighter blue blob under the darker blue one was deep enough for catamarans, but it wasn’t deep enough for Kosmos. We’d been told that someone had started to put in a marina into this cove, but abandoned the project midway.
On Monday, January 26, the alarm went off at 0545. Christi hurriedly showered, dressed, and packed up the last minute items. We pulled up anchor at 0645 and transited the one mile to the Staniel Cay Marina. The sun rose while we were in transit.
We reached the dock at 0700. No boat had come in to the end-tie, so the dock was clear and all went as planned. Here was Kosmos on her way to Georgetown after dropping Christi off.
Christi started walking the half mile to the airport, and the first golf cart to drive by picked her up. She appreciated not having to do the walk. The airport was tiny.
