After our crazy-costly provisioning in High Bourne Cay (eleven dollars for a bag of romaine, anyone?! I mean, there are three heads in there!), we jumped up to Ship Channel Cay, that much closer for ‘takeoff’ on Wednesday. It was an incredible day of sailing, with 12-15 kts almost behind us, but enough of an angle to sail with great speeds. The sweep of shallow enclosing the area to the west of the island of Eleuthera gave us the feeling of sailing alone in a pristine pool; apart from an area of about 15nm of coral head spotting, it was a a vast expanse of 10-20 feet of turquoise waters over white sand, with no land in sight. Really beautiful. We made great time, and instead of our original plan of ducking into Egg Island to sleep and leave early again, we went a bit further to Spanish Wells, an island new to the girls and not visited by Andy and me since 2003. It was a fun shift from the quiet of the Exumas (there were ice cream cones to be had!), but its eerie, sterile perfection hadn’t changed from my first impression all of those years ago. The people couldn’t have been nicer, and the amenities were all one could want, but it somehow still falls short of my Bahamian island interests. But hey, I’m picky, so there’s that!
Our second leg was a longer crossing, from Spanish Wells to the Abacos, crossing the northeastern part of the tongue of the ocean (safe to say it’d be its epiglottis?). Deeper waters meant the hope of a big catch for dinner (and breakfast, and, and…), but we weren’t so lucky. We were lucky enough to be the audience for a large pod of dolphins, who zoomed back and forth with a few leaps for show, for about 20 minutes. Definitely not bottlenose, and we’re leaning toward spinner dolphins based on their wee statures and zippy shows. Species befuddlement aside it was a treat, and they even came back later in the day for an encore.
We made great time once again, though this time motorsailing since the wind was dead behind us. A little wing-on-wing action, the iron genny, and plenty of food to get us through our sixty-seven miles before we picked up a mooring in Hope town yesterday afternoon.
After a sticky night of southerly breezes and a massive rain storm today that filled our water tanks and every available liquid-holding vessel on board, the winds have finally shifted northerly, and it’s almost an instant relief to have the drying effect of cooler, drier air.
We roamed town today after school, and hunkered below for the rest of the day, but we’ll take advantage of our stationary weekend here to explore the rest of Elbow Cay- more golf carting in our future, I do believe!
