This blog entry is for both Tuesday and Wednesday (March 3 & 4). The pictures below were taken of Square Rock Cay at sunrise on March 3. Do they seem cheery and bright or was that just the way we were feeling after a good night’s sleep? The sail boat you see in these sunrise pictures is the same one that was anchored here when we arrived. We never got off our boat to go ashore and didn’t meet these folks—it seemed that we all wanted safe shelter from the storm and nothing more. Interestingly, however, as this boat was leaving right before we weighed anchor, they sailed past us and shouted, “Hey, do you know Patti and Tipper?” Honestly, that is not unusual for cruising in the Bahamas. Apparently they saw “Beaufort, NC” on the side of our boat and wondered if we knew Patti & Tipper from Beaufort. “Yes!” we hollered back, “we do, we do!” All of us waved and they headed out to sea heading down to George Town. Our apologies to Patti & Tipper, we did not get their names. The boat looked to be a custom-made sail boat about 40 feet long. The name was Whitebird with a Florida registration number on the bow.
You can see from these pictures that it was a beautiful sailing day. These pictures are not enhanced—the sea and sky really looked like that! The water and the sky were so close in color it was hard to discern the horizon.
These next pictures give you a panorama of this sail. The first one of the bow shows south and west. The second one of the cockpit shows the north behind us. And, the shot under the boom looks to the east where our night’s destination (Coakley Cay) finally appeared.
This is what Coakley Cay looked like when we got there in the late afternoon. You will notice the sharp limestone shore similar to our anchorage at Square Rock Cay. If you are following our adventure on a chart/map, you can see that Coakley Cay is the beginning of the little traveled south side of Great Exuma Island—sort of the Down Under of Great Exuma.
The next day was beautiful. John decided that it was time to do some snorkeling, so over he went.
I must assure Wilma that her son is not drowning in this picture—he was happily exploring the limestone coast for fish & lobster and checking on our anchor. The lobsters must have seen him coming and went into hiding. The anchor looked as if it had dragged a bit in the sea grass, but it wasn’t a problem as the wind was blowing us off the beach and there were no other boats anchored here. As a matter of fact, we had not seen any boats for a couple of days.
Then, our second night at Coakley Cay was a NIGHT FROM HELL! The sea and wind were doing strange things to our boat this second night. First, the wind would swing us around to the south and the boat would “hobby horse” rocking back and forth from bow to stern. Then that motion would stop and the boat would swing around to the west where the waves would roll us back and forth sideways! Periodically we would get up and secure something, but we finally just gave up and lay in bed listening to the chaos! When the sun came up, we were able to find all the racket makers (glass bottle of oil in the cabinet, cooking pots in the oven, spinnaker pole, random halyard coming loose, etc.) Why did we just lie awake miserable all night? Who knows!
But, as day broke and we became rational beings again, we decided that we should reconsider our plan to visit the Jumentos and the Ragged Islands. This Bahama winter has been fraught with an inordinate number of cold fronts and many days of strong winds. All of this was making a trip to the wilds of J & RI pretty tough and the cruising guide said that May and June were the best months to visit there. Those Islands have little protection from this kind of weather. Surely we could have done it but cruising should be fun!
So, we decided that it would definitely be more FUN to head back up along the Exuma Cays that run north of here. When we came south to George Town, we missed the Exuma Land & Sea Park and a number of other Cays. Also, we definitely want to revisit Little Farmers Cay and Staniel Cay. So, these two tired sailors turned around and retraced our sail back up to Rocky Point.
Then, our second night at Coakley Cay was a NIGHT FROM HELL! The sea and wind were doing strange things to our boat this second night. First, the wind would swing us around to the south and the boat would “hobby horse” rocking back and forth from bow to stern. Then that motion would stop and the boat would swing around to the west where the waves would roll us back and forth sideways! Periodically we would get up and secure something, but we finally just gave up and lay in bed listening to the chaos! When the sun came up, we were able to find all the racket makers (glass bottle of oil in the cabinet, cooking pots in the oven, spinnaker pole, random halyard coming loose, etc.) Why did we just lie awake miserable all night? Who knows!
But, as day broke and we became rational beings again, we decided that we should reconsider our plan to visit the Jumentos and the Ragged Islands. This Bahama winter has been fraught with an inordinate number of cold fronts and many days of strong winds. All of this was making a trip to the wilds of J & RI pretty tough and the cruising guide said that May and June were the best months to visit there. Those Islands have little protection from this kind of weather. Surely we could have done it but cruising should be fun!
So, we decided that it would definitely be more FUN to head back up along the Exuma Cays that run north of here. When we came south to George Town, we missed the Exuma Land & Sea Park and a number of other Cays. Also, we definitely want to revisit Little Farmers Cay and Staniel Cay. So, these two tired sailors turned around and retraced our sail back up to Rocky Point.
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