Rock Sound anchorage

Leaving beautiful Alabaster Bay around 8am, we sailed to Kemps Point, furled the sails and then motored on in to Rock Sound, dropping the hook near Little Gully and Pascal’s Restaurant among 4 other boats, including s/v Short Walk. ‘Makani’ and ‘Coyote’ came in later, making 11 boats in the north and central anchorages.

Ken changed the oil, pumped in the fuel, and topped off the water tanks.

The next morning, Wednesday, January 25th, Ann and Joe stopped by on their way to the gov’t dock and we dinghied over w/them. We all stopped at Dingles, a local gas station/store/internet supplier. Ken and I walked on to The Market, stopping and talking to Betsy and Jim from m/v Smiles. Ann and Joe stopped by later for happy hour and we discussed going to Cat Island, via Little San Salvador, from here.

Thursday we replenished the fuel and water. Ken and I dinghied over to the gov’t dock, a small dock w/ladders built after the other docks were destroyed, not very convenient to Dingles. He filled the 2 jerry cans then carried them out to the dock w/o ladders, what is left of the old gov’t dock. I stayed there while he brought the dinghy around, stood on the side of the dinghy, grabbed a jerry can I helped him balance, lifting it down into the dinghy. We repeated this process, which is lucky we did because the next day Dingles ran out of fuel. I also signed up for 24hr of internet.

At noon we met Ann and Joe at Pascal’s for lunch and to fill our jerry cans w/water. They’d been sitting at the table for awhile waiting for the restaurant to open. Hours for lunch were to start at 11am, but the owner didn’t get around to opening until after noon. We all discussed our plans. With the winds continuing out of the SE, it made sense to go to the Exumas first then Rum, Conception, and Cat coming back up. Later, checking the weather again, Ken and I decided we’d go the other way. I sent Ann and email and she laughed saying they’d decided to go to the Exumas. We’d wait until morning to make a final decision. Friday with the weather report from Chris Parker predicting strong winds for a few days, we all decided the Exumas made more sense, and the moorings at Cambridge Cay would provide protection, plus there’s lots of snorkeling around there.

Ken and I went into Pascal’s again Friday and on to The Market since Pascal’s was still buttoned down at 11:30. We came back and had lunch and filled our jerry cans w/water again. We got back to the boat and put up the motor and dinghy. That night was a fund raiser/dinner at the pavilion near the beach and we could hear the loud bass until 2am! We later heard from other boaters that the dinner was delicious.