Monday, April 7 — As mentioned yesterday, we’d gone to bed extremely late. And, thanks to the uncomfortable motion in the anchorage, we didn’t sleep well. Eager to get out of Fernandez Bay ASAP, we were up at 0600 and were pulling up the anchor at 0630. This was captured the moment before the sun peeked over the horizon (taken while we were underway).
The red dot on the lower right was Fernandez Bay, and the red dot in the middle left was the anchorage that we were going to in southern Rock Sound. It was a sunny day with scattered clouds. The ride over was pleasant, but only because we were going with the wind and waves. The swells were 2 – 4 feet at about 2 – 5 seconds and the wind waves about 1 – 3 feet. There were some white caps in the bay from the wind chop. Had we been going the other direction, it would have not been a fun ride.
Sunday, April 6 — According to the forecast, the wind was going to drastically switch directions on Tuesday. This meant that on Monday, we needed to move someplace with better protection for that type of wind. One of the primary topics of discussions the last few days was about where the best place would be to go.
The two sailboats in our D & D group both had obligations coming up in Georgetown, so they needed to ride out the winds at or near George Town. However, Eric didn’t think any of the anchorages in the George Town area looked like they’d be comfortable during the winds.
Eric decided to head north to an anchorage called Rock Sound on Eleuthera island, and so did Haste Away, the other powerboat in our D & D group. The problem was that Rock Sound was an awkward distance from North Bight, so we wanted to break it up into two hops. The sailboats agreed to go as far north as Fernandez Bay (still on Cat Island) with the powerboats so that the group could have one more day together. From Fernandez Bay, Monday’s run would be 12-hours, so we could do the whole passage in daylight.
As soon as we got up, we started getting the boat ready to go. Since we weren’t going far and we’d be in protected waters the whole way, we didn’t have to be too fastidious about securing stuff. We pulled up anchor at 0830 and dropped anchor in Fernandez Bay at 1045.
The wind was coming from the southeast, and this anchorage was totally protected from that wind direction. However, it was still a bit rolly from the swell coming in from the ocean. We decided not to deploy the flopper stoppers because retrieving them in the morning would cost us too much time.
The Kosmos crew decided to go for a dinghy ride in the estuary (the bottom part of the map above). We’d read that there was quite a bit of wildlife in there. As we’ve mentioned before, we haven’t seen a lot of wildlife in the Bahamas, so we were excited about this opportunity to see some. Here was the anchorage, taken from the dinghy.
Friday, April 4, continued — A little bit north of where we were anchored was a line of small bungalows along the shore. We were told that they were restaurants, and most were only open for dinner. One of the cruisers went to check, and was told that the restaurants opened at 1730. Just about all the families agreed to meet onshore for dinner. At 1730, we were the first in a long line of dinghies that pulled up onshore.
However, there was only one restaurant open, a sandwich shop that looked like it was open all day. The sandwich shop was overwhelmed by the number of people and simply could not serve everyone.
The sandwich shop had creative chairs.
Those who couldn’t get food waited for more restaurants to open. The kids played and the parents talked.
Yesterday, the families agreed to moved to New Bight — the northern part of The Bight Bay — where there were more activities and amenities within easy dinghy/walking distance. Eric had been reluctant to move because we’d heard it was less comfortable in the northern part of the bay, but we couldn’t resist the appeal of more activities/restaurants.
Since we were only moving about 3.5 miles within protected waters, we didn’t do a great job of securing things for sea. We did bring up the dinghy, though. With our dinghy being so lightweight, we didn’t want to take the chance of it flipping it during towing.
We pulled up anchor at about 0830 and by 0915, we were anchored in our new location. As anticipated, up here, the swell and waves came from different directions and it was rolly. We immediately put out the flopper stoppers. With the flopper stoppers out, it was still a tad lurchy, but the motion was fine overall.
In the early afternoon, the families went for a walk to Father Jerome’s Hermitage. Father Jerome was an Anglican missionary in the Bahamas for over 10 years. He then converted to Catholicism and continued missionary work in Australia. Prior to becoming a missionary, he’d been an architect, and he used his architecture knowledge to build simple, yet beautiful churches. Upon retirement, Father Jerome moved back to the Bahamas and built the Hermitage on the tallest hill in the country, Mt. Alvernia, at 207 feet. He passed away in 1956.
After lunch, we dinghies to shore near the dock. Since the dock was in disrepair, we all beached our dinghies.
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.
