Category Archives: Eleuthera

Another round of ass kicking

4/23/17
South Bimini, Bahamas
Posted by Bill

We really love cruising in the Bahamas. Our favorite place to be so far is the Exumas. When we originally set sail 3 years ago, we thought we would do the Bahamas and the Keys and then work our way through the Caribbean. We have chartered boats in the Virgin Islands several times and also flown to many other places in the Caribbean for vacations over the years, so we had a pretty good idea of what we were getting into. Once we got to the Bahamas, we realized that there is no need for us to go further, and we may not…we shall see. The Exumas are beautiful and you can find seclusion. You can also find food, trash disposal, fuel, and visit some small towns to eat out and/or check out the culture. The biggest problem we have dealt with is the weather. The first year was not as bad as the last 2, which have really made it difficult to see and do all of the things we wanted. We get pinned down by weather for 5-10 days, have a couple of days to move to another place, only to prepare for another 5-10 days of bad weather. By bad weather, I am talking mostly winds and the resulting sea state. We are not fans of getting rocked and rolled for days at a time, and unfortunately, you find you are getting your ass kicked while underway and at anchor. After awhile, it just gets to us. This year my new cruising goal was “not to get my ass kicked”. Sometimes that means you have to sit somewhere for a long time. I know that this is just part of the deal, and I would not trade our experiences if I had it to do over again. We feel so fortunate to have seen the world like this. If you are thinking about going cruising, just know that this is a major pain in the butt, and some people go back to dirt dwelling because of it.

There seems to be more mega-yachts, boats in the 150-250 foot range, in the Exumas. Most of them appear to be chartered. The typical passengers are not cruising savvy, which means, they don’t understand common courtesy or respect, for other boaters or for nature. They congregate in certain spots that have become tourist attractions, and are essentially ruining the experience for everyone else. The Bahamians naturally cater to this crowd because most of their livelihood is dependent on tourism. Passengers are rude, arrogant, with a “we own the Exumas” mentality. We will not go back to some of these places because of it. The mega-rich are also buying cays or islands, and making them private. Fortunately, the law through all of the Bahamas is that 50 feet above the high tide line on all beaches are public property, so you can still enjoy the beach and water. From what we have read and heard, the privatization of the cays is changing the culture and feel of the area, and not for the better. One of the cool things that we noticed at some of the settlements like Blackpoint, is that you see the children outside playing…swimming, riding bikes, and having the same kind of fun we did as kids. You don’t see them consumed in the world of electronics like kids in the States are. They are out interacting with everyone in the streets. There is also no need to worry about their safety besides drowning or something like that. There is no crime. It was an interesting contrast. Traveling with Matt and Shirley, Grady (their white lab) is always an attraction wherever we go, especially with the kids. You don’t see many large dogs in the islands, and all of the kids want to pet him and walk him. They all asked “does he bite?” first thing upon seeing him!

Back to the weather….we got pinned down in Spanish Wells for 16 days, and for most of the time we had winds over 20 knots and open water seas to 9 feet. Spanish Wells is one of our favorite towns in the Bahamas, so there could be worse places to get stuck. We ate at Budda’s often and also wallowed at the beach on the west end of town. We also read a lot. Several times it looked like a weather window was opening up, only to slam shut. Some of the locals made comments about how bad the weather was, how long it was lasting, and how abnormal this was. We chose to abandon our plans to go through the Abacos and started looking at windows to cross the Gulf Stream back to the States, figuring we would take our time going back up the coast to Southport and enjoy some of our favorite spots along the east coast. This approach led to a plan to make passage to South Bimini, and cross to West Palm Beach. A couple of crossing weather windows came and went in the course of a week, and finally we saw one for April 25th through the 27th. Unfortunately, most routes from Spanish Wells to Bimini were 2 day hops, and we settled in on a direct route in an overnight passage. Even with an overnighter, we had to get to Bimini before the 25th and there wasn’t a very comfortable passage in the forecast to get us there. We opted to leave at dawn on the 21st and arrived in South Bimini 24 hours later, 6 hours ahead of schedule. The reason we were so far ahead of schedule is because the winds were higher than forecasted and we had good sailing. The bad part is that the sea state was not anywhere close to the forecast. After weeks of high winds, the seas didn’t have much time to settle, and to top it off, we had to go across an area where 3 oceanic bodies of water meet: the open Atlantic, the Tongue of The Ocean, and the Northwest Passage. To make matters worse, this area is thousands of feet deep, and the water goes from thousands of feet to 20 feet in ¼ mile of where it meets any land. You might be able to imagine the sea state that this creates even when there is no wind. In the middle of where all of these waters meet, we encountered very steep 6 foot seas coming from almost every direction at once, lasting for hours. It was miserable at best. Matt and Shirley had waves breaking into the dinghy hanging on the back of the boat. The bottom line is that we made it…yay…and nothing broke, and no one was injured. When we arrived in South Bimini, we slept, took a walk on the beach, and sat by the pool for the afternoon. Everyone was exhausted. Today it is raining and we are chilling on the boats. As of today, it looks like the best crossing weather is going to be Wednesday, so we are planning to depart then. These weather windows are usually very short, and they change more often than not, so you have to take the first good day you get, or you could be sitting for weeks at a time again.

We had hoped to spend more time in the Bahamas, but we are anxious to get back to the States as well, especially with tropical storm systems starting to develop in the Atlantic already. We certainly don’t want to weather those out here in the Bahamas.

Enjoying Spanish Wells

4/7/17
Spanish Wells, Bahamas
Position: 25 32.465N, 076 45.384W
Posted by Bill

Our last day in Rock Sound was productive. They have a decent grocery store and liquor store, and we bought a few things we needed. We then went to dinner at Rose’s. Rose has a small resort and restaurant on the Atlantic Ocean side of Eluethera, and has a great reputation for good food at a reasonable price. It was too far to walk, but Rose comes and picks you up at the dinghy dock. She fixed a fantastic dinner in her own kitchen, and we ate overlooking the ocean. Then we all crammed into her little car (Grady included) and she took us back. If you ever get to Rock Sound, don’t miss going to Rose’s.

We departed at dawn on the 4th with about 6 other boats, everyone trying to work the weather windows to get where they want to be. We were going to head to the protected anchorage at Hatchet Bay, but we made a change of plans as we were sailing, and opted to try to get through the cut at Current Island on the north side of Eleuthera. The seas were following and the wind was around 15 knots, so the motion of the boat was not too bad. That, plus the fact that we really didn’t care much for Hatchet Bay the last time we were there, so we turned further north and skipped it. We needed to get through the cut at Current Island close to slack tide, as the current can really rip through the cut, enough that smaller boats may have a hard time making forward motion. We were making such good time with the wind and following seas, and arrived at the cut more than an hour before slack, in spite of us slowing way down for the last couple of hours on the way there. When we went through, we had a current against us of almost 3 miles per hour, which wasn’t a problem, and we opted to drop anchor on the north side of the cut at position: 25 24.857N, 076 47.299W. Tricia made home made pizza dough, and Sofia Jeanne brought salad and toppings, and we enjoyed a real treat. Actually, now would be a great time to comment on how well we eat on board. Traveling with Matt and Shirley, we (for us, it is Tricia…not me…lol) have been taking turns making a main course, and everyone brings sides. Sometimes it is Mexican food, Chinese food, shrimp and grits, fish, etc…and then we have days where we just bring our individual meals to one of the boats and cook everything together. Most of the time we eat together. The people cooking make some really good food! After that, we play cards or just hang out and shoot the shit. It is really nice traveling with such good friends.

Being at Current Island put us closer to Spanish Wells, so our trip there on the 5th was only a couple of hours. With the winds we expected, we couldn’t comfortably use any of the nearby anchorages, so we tried to get a mooring ball in the mooring field, to no avail. There was a waiting list. Sometimes this happens, especially when a weather front is moving in, like it is right now! We opted to take a slip in the yacht haven marina. They just finished renovating it last year, complete with swimming pool, guest houses and a restaurant/bar. It is really nice! Unfortunately, it is $2.50 a foot per night….yuk! We figured we can stay a few days until a mooring frees up, or until a weather window allows us to move on. We thought that we had a window on the 8th and 9th, but it is looking mighty uncomfortable for a 10 hour ocean crossing to the Abacos. We are still debating, but it is looking like we will hunker down here, especially if we can get a mooring ball…only $25/day. The next week is around 20 knot winds out of the north/northeast for an entire week…not good weather to try and travel through the Abacos, so that is a factor as well…might as well stay here. It is easy to want to stay. Spanish Wells is one of our favorite places to visit when looking for a town/settlement atmosphere. The people here are extremely friendly. There is no trash laying around, houses are kept up, yards are tidy and mowed, there aren’t dogs and roosters running around all over the place, all which is prevalent in towns/settelements throughout the Bahamas. There are good grocery stores, marine parts, and a few good restaurants. There are also nice beaches. We haven’t quite figured out why this place is so different, but it is a good different. We have been enjoying the pool, real showers (also nice and clean facilities), and being able to just walk off of the boat to shore. We also hit our favorite restaurant and happy hour several times at Budda’s. If we get weathered in here longer than a week, we may have to skip the Abacos and start to work our way back home.

Here is a picture of the pool area and our slip:
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Goodbye Exumas…Hello Eleuthera

4/3/17
Rock Sound, Eleuthera, Bahamas
Position: 24 51.870N, 076 09.788W
Posted by Bill

We left Big Majors Spot on 3/30 and moved a few miles north to Sampson Cay, one of our favorite anchorages. We moved to get some protection from south and southeast winds that were coming, but Sampson didn’t give us very much protection because of wrap around waves and bouncing off the rock walls behind us. We did enjoy the sand bars behind the anchorage. A great weather window was forming, so we moved back to Warderick Wells to stage to cross to Eleuthera. We picked up mooring number 12 on 4/1, and went swimming off of one of our favorite beaches. It is finally getting hot here and the swimming was wonderful! We had a very calm and peaceful night, thankfully.

Yesterday we left Warderick Wells, slipped out the inlet and made our way to the bottom of Eleuthera Island. We actually raised both sails!! It was the best ocean crossing we have ever had…calm seas and a nice gentle breeze. Both boats tried to do some fishing offshore, with no success. We tried a cedar plug that our good friend John Reddington gave us to try, but no luck. We went around the cape of Eleuthera and into Rock Sound Harbor. There is a nice settlement there with excellent provisioning, including a grocery store like we find back in the States. Most grocery stores in the Bahamas are like a small convenience store and there are very few stores like those we have come to take for granted in the US. We tried to do some shopping yesterday and also go to dinner, but almost everything was closed on Sundays, so we will catch up today. We are also going to wait out a short bout of strong winds tonight, and shoot for a 2 day run to Spanish Wells if weather allows. Longer term, we plan on taking the first good weather window to cross the ocean to the Abacos and then work our way back to the US by late April/early May. As always, we will travel based on the weather.

Sunrise on Exuma Sound yesterday:
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I still marvel at the color of the ocean when you get off shore. Here is an example of the water at about 4,000 feet deep:
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A couple of pictures of the town at our anchorage in Rock Sound (including Sophia Jeanne):
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We had really spotty internet access in the Exumas this year. I think something was wrong with the cellular data service while we were there. We should have good access from here on out, which will help with the blog!! Thanks for following us.

Little Harbour in the Abacos

4/9/16
Little Harbour, Abacos, Bahamas
Position: 26 19.613N, 076 59.894W
Posted by Bill

The last day in Spanish Wells, we rented a golf cart for a day and drove around the island. One of the places we stopped was a grocery store that was further up the island, one which we hadn’t gone to since it was so far on foot. This store was the size of a small grocery store in the US and was stocked really well by Bahamas standards. Having wheels, we loaded up with heavy stuff and some fresh produce (very hard to get in the Bahamas). Afterwards, we rode across a small one lane bridge to the adjacent island, Russell Island. There was a restaurant called Sandbar that was right on the water that we checked out. It was really nice, but expensive. We had lunch there and found out that they had a happy hour later, so we came back for happy hour.
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They had a specialty drink called a Mexican Hipster that we all really liked, that had jalapeño infused tequila, simple syrup, lime juice and muddled cucumbers. As Borat would say…”Great success!”. On the way back to the dinghys we stopped at Budda’s for dinner. We sat at the bar next to some locals, one which had what I diagnosed as a version of Turret’s Syndrome. He let out a signature “woooo” at the top of his lungs at random, and was one of those people that latch on to you in conversation, and makes it impossible to politely exit. On top of that he was drunk. From our boats, every day we would hear someone on shore yelling “wooooo”, and we couldn’t quite figure it out. Now, we know.

By the forecast, we had a 1 ½ day window on the 8th and 9th to make it to the Abacos, so we left Spanish Wells on the 7th and staged in an anchorage called Royal Island Harbour on nearby Royal Island. Staying here would cut an hour off of our trip to Abaco, giving us a padding of day light in case we had to go slower than planned. The harbor is protected from weather from all directions and was totally quiet. There are a couple of homes on the far west end of the island and an abandoned, under construction, resort, and nothing else. It was calm and quiet, and a beautiful day, and we enjoyed just chilling and looking at the view.
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The next morning we got up and took off about 6:45 AM. Sunrise over the harbor entrance:
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When we traveled outside of the protection of the reefs, the seas were rolling about 3-5 feet with a dominant wave period of 9 seconds…typical ocean swells. The further north we traveled, the larger the swells were, and the last 2/3rds of the trip was in 5-7 foot swells hitting us on the beam. Without any wind, they rolled the boat from side to side, and made for an uncomfortable ride. We ended up getting some wind and picked up the prevailing currents (in our favor) about 3/4ths of the way there, and made good time overall, making landfall at about 4:30 PM. We wanted to get into Little Harbour (360 degree protection) and grab a mooring ball, in anticipation of the next weather front moving in on the 10th, but we needed at least a foot of tide to get through the harbor entrance, which wasn’t going to be there until around 7 PM. So, we anchored off Lynyard Cay and waited. At 6:30 we upped anchor, slipped through the entrance and grabbed a mooring. If you read the blog last year, you may remember that Little Harbour was one of our favorite places in the Bahamas. It is quiet, picturesque, and the home of Pete’s Pub. Pete’s is the quintessential beach bar; no floor – just sand; picnic tables; old, signed T-shirts that people have left, are hanging everywhere. The view is great, food is great, and they have a killer rum punch!
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The caves in the background are ones that the family lived in when they first came to the harbor. They eventually built houses, the bar, and an art gallery.
Pete’s Pub:
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We have seen lots of turtles, lots of dolphins (rare in the Bahamas) and this manatee in the harbor:
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The beach behind Pete’s is beautiful, but unfortunately, like most beaches that face the Atlantic Ocean, trash (mostly shoes and plastic) litters the high tide line…sad, sad, sad, what we are doing to our environment:
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We will wait out the next weather front here at Little Harbour and then start moving up the Abacos. The week after the front is showing settled weather for the forecast period…finally!!!

Hangin’ out in Spanish Wells

4/4/16
Spanish Wells, Eleuthera, Bahamas
Posted by Bill

A lot of people ask “what do you do all day?” A typical day involves managing the batteries, charging. Just like a house, you have to do dishes, clean and tidy the place. Then there is the boat projects. Just the other day, while charging the batteries with the generator, the charging voltage stopped. The generator was chugging along fine, but there was no current going in to the batteries all of the sudden. Troubleshooting let me to find that the main battery cable that goes to the charger/inverter had a bad crimp on one end, resulting in a bad connection. The connection had gotten so hot due to the bad connection, that it was melting the cover of the fuse block it was connected to! Not good…and a sure fire hazard. I had a spare and swapped it out. It was an unplanned project that took 4 hours or so from start to finish. That is the kind of stuff that happens. Mark has also been making water with his water maker the last couple of days, and when he does, I usually spend a few hours shuttling jugs of water with the dinghy. Just another day in the life.

Like most places in the Bahamas, there are great beaches here, so we did some wallowing yesterday. I worked on perfecting my rum punch recipe and we headed over to the beach with the other Island Bound and the people on the boat next to them, Bob and Margaret, on trawler – Beyond the Sea. They are from Buffalo NY, and we all went to dinner at Budda’s after the wallowing session. We always see lots of sea life and today was no different. Turtles, lots of star fish and sea stars like this one:
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The beach:
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A trip to Harbour Island

4/2/16
Spanish Wells, Eleuthera, Bahamas
Posted by Bill

Happy April! We have been enjoying Spanish Wells. The town is well kept, no trash, buildings well maintained, and the people are really nice. The day after we arrived, we went ashore to do laundry. If you stay at the marina in town, you can use their new laundry facilities, but since we are on a mooring ball, we had to use the only other option…the laundry mat here…one washer, one dryer in a shed behind one of the small grocery stores (CW Grocery). We paid $6/token, which does a load of wash or a dryer load. For $24 we completed 2 loads. We hauled our cloths from the dinghy about 3 blocks to the machines and then back again.
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We have been checking out the local dining options, most of which are very pricey. We seem to keep going back to Buddah’s, as it is the most reasonable and the food is very good. Buddah also has a liquor store, and we restocked some vodka as our supply was dwindling dangerously low. Mrs. Buddah gave us a ride back to our dinghy so we didn’t have to carry the bottles…very nice. Here are some more pictures of what the houses look like:
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One of our goals at this stop was to go over to Harbour Island. It is on the Atlantic Ocean side of Eleuthera, and is known for it’s pink sand beaches and luxurious resorts. We hired a guy from Pinders Grocery store to take us via boat to the west side of North Eluethera, then via land taxi to the dock where the other water taxis go over to Harbour Island. Then we took one of those water taxis and spent the day. It was really nice there. The beach was beautiful!! We did a mini pub crawl across the island, stopping at a restaurant on the beach called Sip Sip (the locals slang for gossip). It was expensive, but the food and view were outstanding. This is certainly the land of the rich and famous. All of the places to eat or drink were very expensive, and the rooms at the resorts are in the $400+ range per night. We enjoyed the day very much and would absolutely recommend going there. Our favorite bar was at the Remora Bay resort and marina. They have a frozen custom version of Goombay Smash that was the bomb!! Bring lots of cash though!
The princesses at another Princess St:
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Random street shots:
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A not so good picture of us at the “Lone Tree”, a local tourist photo spot:
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Beach pics and an example of the resorts: 2205 6 12
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Since most of the traffic was golf carts, we weren’t surprised to see this:
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Sip Sip:
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We were planning to leave today to stage at Egg Island, then sailing to the Abacos on Sunday, but our weather window slammed shut. 6-8 foot seas today and winds cracking up from the north (where we are heading) tomorrow. It looks like we will not be able to get out of here for a week or so, but we like it here a lot and we have good protection from the weather. This certainly has been a bad winter to try and travel around the islands. The winds and seas are very uncomfortable more than 80% of the time. We seem to have a couple of days between these bad periods, where we try to get to the next place and prepare to get slammed again. Except for here, it has made it hard to check out and explore the places we are staying.

Working our way to Spanish Wells

3/29/16
Spanish Wells, Eleuthera, Bahamas
Position: 25 32.536N, 076 44.729W
Posted by Bill

The day after we arrived at the Glass Window anchorage we went ashore to see the Glass Window, which is a natural gap in the island of Eleuthera that was caused by the constant pounding of the waves and years of hurricanes that eventually wore a gap in the land. The Bahamians built a bridge over it and you can hike to it and see the Atlantic Ocean on one side, and the aqua waters of the sound on the other. The winds have been relentless and we had a very wet dinghy ride to shore. The views were breathtaking, and worth the effort to go ashore and hike to the bridge.
The sound side:
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The ocean side:
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Our boats anchored by the Glass Window:
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Then we pulled anchor and motored directly into the wind and seas for 3 hours to Hatchet Bay. The winds were between 12 and 25 knots and the seas were 5 to 6 feet with a 2 second period…not fun. The boat would bash into a wave and then pound down into the trough, one right after another every 2 seconds. It was miserable. Fortunately, the trip was only a few hours, and Hatchet Bay Pond is protected 360 degrees by hills, so we were going to a calm place to anchor. You have to go through a narrow cut in the cliffs to enter that is only about 2 boat widths wide. We got pushed around by the current as we entered but it looks more intimidating than it really is. You could not let the boat get away from you, and had to feel the movement and react immediately.
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Once inside, the water was calm and flat, and this is the first place we have anchored in flat water since Georgetown, a welcome relief. We anchored at position 25 21.046N, 076 29.520W, and went ashore to the small village of Alicetown and grabbed dinner at Twin Brothers. It was a pretty good dinner. The town is really depressed. Most of the houses and businesses are very small run down buildings, and you would see a decent house followed by ruins, followed by a house that has been under construction for probably 10 years. The people are poverty stricken by US standards. You see this throughout the Bahamas, but it was really bad here. The next day we tried to find a place to do laundry, to no avail, and walked around town. The grocery store was really nice and had pretty decent prices. Hatchet Bay has had so many great reviews and write ups. We didn’t get it. The harbor was ok, but we have seen much nicer places. The people in town were mixed…some very friendly, and others downright bitchy. Usually the Bahamians are all very friendly. We bought some groceries and dumped our trash.
The Princesses, Tricia and Jan, at Princess street…lol:
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Trash is a big deal cruising the Bahamas. Through most of the Exumas you have to carry your trash with you as there is no place to dump it. It is amazing how much trash we generate as humans. On our boat we are very conscious of minimizing trash, but it is very hard to do. Some places in the Exumas will take trash for a fee, like $6/bag. Trash management is a major issue for these small cays, and most have a trash heap that is burned regularly. We had been carrying trash for about 10 days, and were glad that Eleuthera doesn’t charge to dispose of it.
In the anchorage we saw a turtle and several rays. It is a good place to hide from winds and seas, but we wouldn’t go back unless we needed that protection.
A turtle in the bay:
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Views of the bay:
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Today we had calm winds and relatively calm seas, so we upped anchor and motored to Spanish Wells on the north end of Eleuthera. Another front is moving in tomorrow, and we grabbed a mooring ball in a sheltered spot to weather it. There have been reports that the moorings aren’t well maintained and that they have broken loose recently, sending boats adrift, but ours looks ok, and there are no good places to anchor here. There aren’t any good places to land a dinghy in town either, and we had to tie up to a concrete wall about 4 feet above the dinghy. We threw out a stern anchor to keep the dinghy from hitting the wall while we were ashore. Spanish Wells is a quaint Bahamian town, much like some of the towns in the Abacos, with well kept colonial style homes painted bright colors. We found a great place to eat and drink called Buddha’s. Buddha greeted us as we walked up and promised us great food and a happy hour. We hitched a ride on a golf cart to get there and the driver told us that the conch fritters and cracked conch was the best around…boy was he right…both of them fantastic. We retreated home to an infestation of no-see-ums…major bummer.

We will wait out the weather and enjoy this town. Looks like we have a good weather window to cross to the Abacos on Sunday, and that is our current plan.

Good-bye Exumas….hello Eleuthera

3/26/16
Glass Window Anchorage, Eleuthera, Bahamas
Position: 25 25.160N, 076 35.559W
Posted by Bill

Well, we weathered the frontal system that kicked our ass for 5 days in Big Majors Spot, and we only got off the boat to go to a Full Moon Happy Hour on Cruisers Beach the day before we left. The 5 days included a lot of rocking and rolling, and not the music kind, and it was damned uncomfortable for the most part, but no one had their anchor drag in the our anchorage, so we deemed it a successful weathering of the winds. Our good friends Hayden and Radeen on Island Spirit rolled in for the Full Moon event, so we got to spend some time with them as well. It was interesting listening to everyone on the marine radio, trying to make last minute arrangements for a mooring ball or a slip in a marina. There aren’t many to be had in the Exumas, and there are very few places to hide from winds that clock through all four directions in a few days time. We stayed tucked up in the NE corner of the anchorage at Big Majors as it was only exposed to the SW and a little to the W, and the worst winds were going to be from the NW, then move N, then move E. It worked well. The following week was supposed to have 10 – 25 knot winds from the E or SE, so we decided to pick up and leave.

On 3/24 we upped anchor and sailed up to Hawksbill Cay, and spent an afternoon on another totally deserted, beautiful beach. We anchored at position 24 28.915N, 076 46.691W. The next day we sailed up to Ship Channel Cay, which has the northern most anchorage in the Exuma, anchoring at position 24 48.645N, 076 49.763W. We basically just lounged around and read. The views were beautiful. Both of those anchorages had a nasty swell that rocked us all night. In fact, we have found very few places in the Exumas where we had a comfortable anchorage, due mostly to the winds, and swells that come from a different direction than the wind. In spite of that, the Exumas were absolutely beautiful and mostly remote. When we emerged from the boat the day we left Hawksbill, we saw that mega-yacht Firefall had anchored next to us in the night.
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We also saw dozens…not kidding…dozens of mega-yachts gathering at the cays around Highborne Cay, just north of Hawksbill. We were figuring maybe a spring break thing? We wanted to dinghy up and knock on the hull of one…”Pardon me, but do you have any Gray Poupon?”
Today we left at dawn and sailed to Eluethera. The first half of the 45 mile trip was with winds and seas behind us on our quarter, which was good. Then we had to turn and deal with them on our beam (side)…not good. Waves were 3-4 feet with a 2 second period and we were getting rolled around AGAIN! I had to hand steer the entire trip to minimize the unpleasant motion of the boat. Good thing was…we had strong winds and made great time, arriving in just under 5 hours. We were expecting 7 or 8 hours.
Eleuthera so far is beautiful! We expect to cruise around here for a week or so, and then head north to the Abacos for April. Our anchorage:
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