{"id":21150,"date":"2026-03-31T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/?p=21150"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:00:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T23:00:33","slug":"transit-from-royal-island-near-eleuthera-island-to-highbourne-cay-exuma-islands-the-bahamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/2026\/03\/31\/transit-from-royal-island-near-eleuthera-island-to-highbourne-cay-exuma-islands-the-bahamas\/","title":{"rendered":"Transit from Royal Island (near Eleuthera Island) to Highbourne Cay (Exuma Islands), The Bahamas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Full moon just before dawn on Friday, December 5<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sunrise<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On Friday morning, while Christi and Keith did school, Eric cleaned the watermaker sea strainer, the DC carbon filter, and the AC carbon pre-filter and filters.\u00a0In the early afternoon, Eric and Keith tried to go to shore to explore the hurricane ruins<\/a>, but that dock was still inaccessible. Given how shallow it was around that dock, it was probably only usable at high tide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Later in the day, Eric checked the weather. We\u2019d planned to leave Royal Island on Tuesday, after the ugly winds forecasted for Monday<\/a> had cleared.\u00a0The updated forecast said the bad weather would last for several days, so if we didn’t leave here soon, we\u2019d be stuck here for a full week. And while this anchorage was certainly calm, we\u2019d get stir crazy if we weren’t able to get off the boat for a whole week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After analyzing the charts, Eric decided to move to Staniel Cay<\/a>, which had enough amenities and activities that it would be a good place to hang out for a week.\u00a0We’d have to break the trip up into two day-hops, day one to Highbourne Cay <\/a>and day two to Staniel Cay. Because of the tide cycles, we’d need to leave tomorrow at first light of dawn. In the evening, we stowed the dinghy and got Kosmos ready to go to sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here was Eric removing the snubber early on Saturday morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We pulled up anchor at 0630. The anchor chain was full of sea grass and sand, and there was a lot of sand on the anchor. The sand was a weird texture, almost clay-like, that wouldn’t rinse off with a hose, making it difficult to remove. The closest comparison we can think of was the Magic Sand<\/a> toy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moon was still mostly full, so there were still extreme tide swings. Today the low tide was estimated to be at -1 foot, so we ran at 1750 RPM to ensure we made it through the shallow area before low tide. Once we got past the shallow area and into the open ocean, we slowed down to 1600 RPM, where we averaged about 6-knots. Since the wind was light at 10-knots true and the seas were calm, it was actually more pleasant in the deep ocean than it had been inside the shallow lagoon. In the ocean, there were no swells and only light wind chop, but in the lagoon, it had been a little lurchy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one point, we crossed the previous track that we\u2019d taken from the Spanish Wells area to Nassau.<\/a> Crossing old tracks was unusual for us — our tendency was to keep moving on to new places. We didn’t often revisit places we’d been to before. We also rolled up 49,000 nm on the odometer. Eric has done pretty much every single mile onboard, and Christi has done the vast majority of the miles. Christi thinks it’s ironic that she’s technically an “old sea dog” because she doesn’t feel like she’s a “real” boater. She views being on a powerboat instead of a sailboat as cheating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When we re-entered the lagoon, we were in 14-feet of water, but the ground was covered in big rocks that looked like they were close to the surface, which made us a little nervous. Based on the depth sounder readings, we estimated the rocks were about 4-feet tall, which left 10-feet of clearance. The charts said the course we were on was deep enough, rocks and all, and we trusted the charts. All went fine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Calm seas — the black spot up ahead was a rock, which was deeper than it looked. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was much lurchier in the lagoon now than it had been this morning. Uncomfortable may be too strong a word, but it definitely wasn’t comfortable conditions. The rougher waters didn’t last long before we came into the shelter of Highbourne Cay. We navigated into the part of the anchorage that we’d been in at the end of our last season<\/a> in The Bahamas. Fortunately, since we were coming from a different direction, entering the anchorage was less complicated than last time. We dropped anchor at about 1530. Everything looked pretty much the same as we’d remembered it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not long after we arrived, dark clouds rolled in. It stated raining at 1700. This was one of those anchorages where the current often trumped wind, so the back of the boat was facing the wind and getting the brunt of the rain. The rear wash down was wonderful — Kosmos rarely got rain back there and she’d desperately needed a good rinsing in the rear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We never got the dinghy down. Christi made dinner and we had a quiet night aboard. The sunset was mostly, but not completely obscured by the rain clouds, and the sky turned a deep red. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Full moon just before dawn on Friday, December 5 Sunrise On Friday morning, while Christi and Keith did school, Eric cleaned the watermaker sea strainer, the DC carbon filter, and the AC carbon pre-filter and filters.\u00a0In the early afternoon, Eric … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[402,3,52,16,9,1,63,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bahamas-caribbean","category-boat-technical","category-caribbean","category-cruising-guide","category-cruising-life","category-general","category-maintenance","category-passage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21150"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21208,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21150\/revisions\/21208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kosmos.liveflux.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}