Tuesday, April 1 – We got up early to finish getting ready to go. It was still cloudy and rainy when we first woke up, but it quickly cleared into a sunny day with scattered clouds. Here was the sunrise.
We pulled up anchor at 0730. It was a moderately uncomfortable ride to Cat Island for most of the trek; only the first and last hour had protection from the open ocean. The wind was about 12 knots. The swells were 3 – 4 feet at 6 – 7 seconds from starboard (right side of the boat), plus 1 – 2 foot wind chop. The wind chop waves were rapid and sharp. The motion was lurchy, and it was not easy to move around. Eric had to turn the stabilizer actuation rate up from what we normally run them at.
The red dot on the bottom left was our starting point in Elizabeth Harbour; the orange dot on the top right was our destination in The Bight Bay. The purple dot on the right (about 1/3 way up) was Calabash Bay on Long Island. And yes, the dotted line was the Tropic of Cancer, so we’ve been technically out of the tropics since leaving Little Harbor, Long Island (note, The Rusty Anchor appears to be right on the Tropic of Cancer, so maybe we were back in the tropics while eating there).
Since Cat Island was one of the few places near to George Town with good protection from southeast winds, which the forecast said the wind was about to shift to, there was a conga line of boats going to this island. We were one of the earlier arrivals at 1600.
