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.
This week has been really fun. On Saturday we went to the town here, George Town. We ate lunch and picked up some cheese from the store. The ride to George Town was super wavy, and we got totally soaked.
On our way to George Town
Cette semaine était amusante. Samedi on a visité le village d’à côté, George Town. On a mangé le déjeuner et acheté du fromage. Le voyage à George Town avait beaucoup de vagues, et nous étions trempés.
This week has been fun. We were at sea on Saturday and Sunday and nothing much happened. Dad was sick, and so was I. We arrived in the Bahamas on Monday, and we stopped at a place called Matthew Town for a few minutes to check into the country. After that we left Matthew Town on Great Inagua, and went to another island, Long Island, which took a day. The bay was named Little Harbor and we met a nice family there. We went to the beach with them.
the anchorage in Little Harbor, Long Island
Cette semaine était amusante. On était en mer samedi et dimanche, donc il ne s’est pas passé beaucoup de choses. Nous sommes arrivés sans les Bahamas lundi, et nous nous sommes arrêtés dans un village qui s’appelle Matthew Town pour s’enregistrer dans le pays. Après ça on est parti de Matthew Town de Great Inagua, et nous sommes allés sur une autre île, Long Island. Le voyage a duré toute la journée. La bay s’appelle Little Harbor, et nous y avons rencontré une famille. On est allé à la plage avec eux.
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.
