We had walked the north side beach on Sunday and found several collectable buoys and a very unusual large black one with a strange looking probe, but too heavy to lug back. I borrowed a 2 wheel cart from another boat and hitchhiked my way back on Monday to carry it back. No one seems to know what it was for but it sits now on the back bench of Sea Castle.
We met several nice people from different boats while at Rock Sound and we also stopped in to see the restored 1830s mission building that now serves a number of purposes to the local community, one being a beautiful wooden library where they also offer good internet for $1/hr.
We had plenty of fuel remaining from Long Island, topped off our 4 jugs of water and enough food for a week, pulled up the anchor and away we went. Great sailing in the morning and once we turned toward the NW, the waves started building along with the wind. Chris Parker, the weather guru is always so conservative, listing wind speeds a little on the high side. Windfinder is the opposite, there wind speeds tend to be low and the wind was well above the 14-16 knots Windfinder predicted. Fortunately, I had put 1 reef in the main, even still, we were at the limit with 20-24 knots of wind. By the time we neared Current Cut, we had been consistently seeing 8-9 mph on the boat speed, then in the 10’s and even topping 11. About 1.5 miles from the cut, the water shallows drastically and you have to choose 1 of 3 channels to get thru. We chose the one facing east, dropped the jib, eased the main to lower our speed and started both engines to have enough control thru the cut. We zipped right on thru the cut and spit out the other side. I thought it would be smooth on the other side for the remaining 8 miles to Royal Island but it was quite uncomfortable. We pulled into the safety of the very well protected Royal Island harbor and had a comfortable night.
We debated about going out the next morning as Chris Parker and Windfinder were both reporting very large seas and I figured about 50 miles across the wide open ocean. We decided to give it a try and we could always turn around if we felt it was too much. Once past the protection of the reef, the swells were quite large but with a 8-9 sec period so not terrible. The winds were of course higher than forecasted but I had left the reef in the main, even so, we had low 20’s from the NE. They stirred up a healthy chop on top of the swells but the autopilot did a great job. The chart plotter initially had us coming in about 6 pm but with the increased wind, we made it to Sandy Point just after 4pm. I am glad we had the AIS transponder because we saw more ships in this crossing than in all other Bahamas crossings combined.
Sandy Point is a small but fairly well to do settlement far from the rest of Abaco with many residents working the Disney cruise ship island of Castaway Cay, just visible on the horizon. They must leave early in the morning before we are up as we have not seen them leave yet. Friday, being Good Friday, had most shops closed but the E&E General store opened back up for us to get a few things and we came back latter to join them for the Good Friday community cookout. I still do not yet speak Bahamian very well and ended up with a big bowl of Conch Bobbie which I later found out was made from the trimmings of cleaning conchs, all the stuff we throw away. They boil it and add seasonings and it was surprisingly good, if not a little spicy. Amy got a big plate of ribs and we both were stuffed. We went back to the boat about 5 pm but the music lasted until well into the night, easily heard ¼ mile offshore on Sea Castle.
We will post more pictures once we get to better internet. I have also posted 2 videos on Facebook and just finished 2 more that I will post sometime in the next week.
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