Hill and I left Warderick Wells on Monday to head to Staniel Cay, about 15 miles south, in order to meet up with our friends Tracy and Vytas, who were sailing up from George Town on their boat, Sunshine Daydream. Tracy and Vytas left Chicago in September of 2007 and have sailed through the Caribbean and across the Atlantic Ocean to the Med and back. They have inspired us with the emails of their travels and provided lots of helpful advice as we planned our own journey.
Staniel Cay is home to an underwater cave called Thunderball Grotto, named such because some of the underwater scenes of the James Bond movie Thunderball were filmed there. At low tide you can swim right into the cave and light from outside comes through numerous openings in the top and sides. It's gorgeous. The outside of the grotto is covered with coral and fish - better snorkeling than in Warderick Wells. We used the underwater camera again and Hill took some fantastic pictures and movies.
When Tracy and Vytas arrived on Tuesday, they invited us to feast on fresh-caught mahi-mahi on their boat. We provided the rum punch. We didn't get back to our boat until 1:30am - probably the latest we've stayed up since we left on this trip. The next evening, we visited "Club Thunderball," which was described to us by the owner (who grew up in Florida) as "my Bahamian dive bar." It's slightly up on a hill and overlooks the anchorage next to Staniel Cay. It had happy hour, a band, and a foosball table. What's not to like?
The next morning after Tracy and Vytas left, we were so sad. We have met a ton of wonderful people in our travels, but it's always special to meet up with (as Vytas calls them) "land friends." HOpefully, when we get back to the US, we can get more of our land friends (and family) to come see us on the east coast.
We spent Wednesday with some of those aforementioned wonderful people - having a hamburger-eating party with four of our friends that we met in the Exumas - Jim and Denice of Lizard and Robert and Carolyn of Moondance. We met all of them in Allen's Cay and have made our way down through the islands together. Robert and Carolyn were celebrating their one year anniversary of living on Moondance and we enjoyed helping them mark the occasion.
From Staniel Cay, our plan was to go straight to George Town. We got everything ready on Thursday - made lunch, put drinks in the fridge, stashed our snacks in easily accessible places, and tidied up the boat. Hill even got the coffeepot ready so that all we had to do was turn it on. The weather forecast called for the wind to die on Thursday evening and then build up to 10-15 knots from the N/NE on Friday afternoon. We planned to leave at 2am and motor until we had enough wind to sail, with Hill and I switching out watches every 2 hours until we arrived in Georgetown around 1-2 pm.
The first inkling that our plan might not work out was that the wind never died on Thursday evening. A front came through bringing squalls in the afternoon, and after that the wind shifted immediately to the north and kept on blowing. Not a big deal, though. Then, at 9pm as we were getting ready for bed, Hill started paying attention to our position on the GPS. Our anchor had started dragging, badly. We ran up on deck and Hill turned on the engine while I started pulling up the anchor. It was completely dark because the moon wasn't up yet, so it was a little freaky. The anchorage at Staniel Cay is sandwiched between the ship channel and several shallow sand bars, and several boats were anchored near us. I was worried that we would hit one of the sand bars as we maneuvered to a new spot. But Hill used the GPS and assured me that we were okay.
We reanchored quickly, but our nice easy plan was ruined. Between listening to the wind build and worrying about the anchor dragging again, neither of us could go to sleep. Around 11, I turned on the light and said that I wasn't comfortable leaving at 2. Instead we decided to get up at 6:30 to listen to the weather and then leave at 8.
We left as planned, and went through the cut out into Exuma Sound. We had about 15 knots and we were on a close reach with 4-5 foot waves. While the wind and wave intensity were what we had expected, the wind direction was supposed to be behind our beam, not in front of it. So it was a much less comfortable ride than we had anticipated, and not one that I was up for doing for 10-12 hours on no sleep. I asked Hill if we could try again on another day, and he agreed. We went back through one of the cuts to protected waters and anchored at Black Point.
Even though we have probably blown our schedule for getting to Georgetown and back to the U.S by May 1, I'm really glad we stopped in Black Point. Both Lizard and Moondance arrived later in the day, along with Becky and Karl of Windara, and their two children, who we met back in Norman's Cay and also hung out with in Warderick Wells. Black Point is a more typical Bahamian settlement, and it was fun to hang out with the locals in the bar and restaurants (at local prices too!). Black Point also has a spotless new laundromat where we were able to do our laundry, which had reached critical mass. I did not think before we left that I would get so excited to see washers and dryers - I was able to do four loads at one time! Yippee!
Black Point also had a restaurant that served PIZZA. Hill and I organized pizza night yesterday for 10 people and it was so good. We also spent three hours earlier in the day hiking to the northern point of the island, which overlooks the cut out into Exuma Sound. One look out there and I was ready to stay in Black Point for a while longer (it's been blowing for the past two days, and an offshore storm has also brought in big waves).
Now we are waiting for a good weather window for George Town. It doesn't look like a perfect day is forthcoming, so we will probably break the trip up instead of trying to do it all in one day again. We are hoping to make it by Tuesday for the beginning of the Family Regatta, and then start heading back home after a few days.
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