Eleuthera

Wednesday, Jan 18, 2012: We listened to Cruisers’ Net, prepared the boat, paid our marina bill for 33 days and then were on our way, waving goodbye to Sue (Ariel), hailing Kilissa to say goodbye to Richard and Carole who are staying in the Abacos for the season, and hailing Short Walk. Ann said they were waiting a day, and we should have waited w/them because we had to beat into the south wind the whole way to Lynyard Cay. We did catch a small jack near Pelican Cays that Ken filleted for supper.

I hailed the boats anchored and ‘Moira’ answered. They were thinking of waiting a day because of the large swells coming into the ocean. Heck! We’re in no hurry and tomorrow Pete’s Pub is open!

There was a fire SW of Little Harbour and with the south winds veering from the SW the smoke blew into us most of the night. Bahamians tend to burn things, like their garbage.

Thursday we dinked ashore to a small beach on Lynyard and walked up for a view of the ocean which looked flat and calm. About 4 boats had left that morning and we were thinking it would have been a good day. Later we heard the crossing wasn’t that nice and we were glad we waited a day.

The wind had shifted from the N, NW. We thought we’d try the anchorage right outside Little Harbour and dink in, but with the swell and the waves, we weren’t comfortable leaving the boat and came back to anchor farther south at Lynyard Cay. We could have gone into the harbour and left early the next morning because the tides would have been okay, but we hesitated going into the little harbour. Boats were coming down, some to anchor, some entering Little Harbour. A large sailboat, 45’ or so, anchored behind us waiting for high tide to go in and we wondered how crowded the anchorage was.

We were bouncing on our anchor with the NW wind which was to veer later to the NE and then we’d be in the lee of Lynyard.

Friday Jan 20th
3 boats left the anchorage before dawn, one, Down Island, going out the North Bar inlet and the other two slowly motoring to Little Harbour inlet allowing the sun to rise. We and Short Walk left soon afterwards, got through the inlet, raised out sails and were able to sail most of the way to Royal Island. Our only excitement were 2 freighters crossing our bows, Ken veering to the west to give them plenty of room. The swells increased in size near the end and we were glad to get behind the bank. This NE Providence Channel is deep, 15,000 feet! Motoring into the calm anchorage at Royal Harbour, we dropped the hook in 9 feet of water. Nice!