Caribbean Soul: Heading South to the Wilds of Ragged Islands

Days 89-90 Off To Regions South of Great Exuma Island

Today—Sunday, March 1, 2009—we got up at daybreak to get ourselves out of Elizabeth Harbour and back on our Bahama Adventure! We were relieved to see that our anchoring in the pitch dark had not put us in the shipping channel. We did, however, need to round up the dock lines and bumpers we’d left at the dock last night. We launched the rubber dinghy from its secure traveling position on the bow. The wind was blowing hard and this captain and crew were grumbling a bit—but it had to be done. John opted to row over to the docks rather than go through the work of getting the outboard down from its safe perch on the stern. Rowing in the chop and high winds was a challenge, but Captain John was determined!

By 7:30 am, we had the dinghy hauled back on the bow and secured again for our sea journey. We raised the sails and put a reef in both the main and the jib. As Caribbean Soul sailed out of Conch Cay Cut and into the Exuma Sound (the Ocean), we listened to the George Town Cruisers’ Net(VHF) to get the weather and hear all the plans for the upcoming Cruisers Regatta. The weather sounded okay for the first leg of our adventure to the wilds of the Jumentos and the Ragged Islands and the plans for Regatta seemed to be going along nicely. The best part of the Net this morning, however, was the thought-for-the-day. It sounded just right for the two of us heading out into the great unknown. Here’s the thought-for-the-day: “People who don’t live on the edge are taking up too much space!” Funny, huh?

Ahh, what a lovely sail we adventurers had! For about five hours our happy little boat sailed and leapt around in the sea with a steady 20 knot wind behind her and a beautiful Bahama blue sky above. When it was time to enter the Banks through Square Rock Cay Cut, we tangled the lines on the jib’s roller furler. This wasn’t the place to work on the furler, so John carefully lowered the whole jib—roller furler and all—right down to the deck. We kept the main up, just in case the motor quit as John did the tricky navigation into the cut. I must admit that entering a cut is pretty scary! We have excellent charts that show us just exactly where the cut is and we have a great GPS that lets us know where our boat is—however, as we approached the cut it looked too small and the surf breaking on either side of the cut looked menacing. Captain John is always calm and careful. In no time at all we were through the cut and into the calm of the Bahama Banks.

Of course, there is a challenge to navigating the Banks too (wouldn’t you know!). Perhaps you can see the light blue water in the pictures above. This is super shallow water (2 feet deep or less) and cannot be navigated by most boats. We were surprised to find another sailboat already anchored in behind Square Rock Cay when we got there. It was tricky to find a spot that kept the boat off the sharp rocks of the limestone shore on one side and the shallow sand of the light blue “dry water” on the other. It took three tries to find a place that was sandy enough to hold the anchor. Even though the anchor seemed to be holding well, John was up several times during the night checking our position as the anticipated shifting wind pushed us closer and closer to the “dry water” banks. By 6 am, John announced that we had to move our anchor to keep from being pushed aground.

We had planned to sail farther south on Day 90, but it seemed more important to get some rest instead. Our new anchor spot seemed to be good enough for a full night’s sleep. These pictures are of our two-day stay at Square Rock Cay. You can see the limestone coast with the sharp rocks and the light blue “dry water” banks. In a couple of pictures, Chef John is cooking up some fresh spinach we had brought from Exuma Markets—yum!