Any sailor who says they haven't run aground... is a liar.

I may have mentioned before about certain things that I would love to add to this boat – things that next time around I would not sail without. First being a hand held VHF, that way anyone on shore can communicate with those on the boat (oh when I fell off the million dollar catamaran I also killed our walkie talkies that we had been using to communicate). Second would be a voltage and amp battery meter, you know the pretty ones that are mounted on your walls near your engine. Thirdly, a single side band (SSB) radio. (Of course as I sail more I am sure there will be more things to add to this list, such as maybe some no-see-ums screens). Anyway, the SSB and in particular Mr. Chris Parker makes sailing a lot safer and more complex. Chris Parker is the weather man, who gives in depth updates about the weather situation in the Bahamas, while we don’t have a SSB we do have neighbors. Mr. Chris says we will be having 50 knot wind squalls until Sunday, but since we have already been at Norman’s Cay for eight days, we are anxious to leave and can’t imagine another FIVE days! So against the recommendations of the SSB we head out – bite the bullet.

The plan for the day is around thirty miles, as we are unsure of the weather we skip many very cool looking island (such as Shroud Cay where the mangrove rivers turn into whirlpools). Oh well, all the reason to return. As for waypoints we go from Norman’s Cay to Shroud Cay to Elbow Cay to Cistern Bore to Lightning Bore to Wide Channel where we cross over the Exuma Cay (island chain) and meet the Atlantic Ocean for the first time via waypoint Wide Opening. Being in the Atlantic Ocean there is now only water between us and Africa.

(An easy motor sailing day)

From there we take the waypoints of Warderick Cut and Warderick South where we enter our anchorage between Warderick Wells and Hog Cay. We are now in the Exuma Sound Land and Sea park, so we take a mooring (only $15) which turns out to be a good idea as there is a ripping current through this passage.

I only have two hours before dusk so very little time to explore the island and even at top speed I barely get past the southern tip of the island. But in my brief two hour excursion I get to see a lot of the varied landscapes and animals. The terrain is all sharp rocks around deep cavernous holes. The only vegetation is mostly poisonous and rash causing plants and trees while the wildlife is mostly tiny lizards with curled tails and hutias, the only native mammal to the Bahamas which is a creature much like a nutria but it is a lot cuter and nocturnal.

The next morning we weave our way out of the mooring location to the waypoint of Halls Pond, but along the way we slowly run aground at the sandbar just south of the mooring field – luckily, you can’t run aground if you are not going anywhere. With the strong current though we were more pushed into the sandbar, but we weave our way out through the rest of the narrow passage – pass Johnny Depp’s island – and are clear into the Exuma Sound.

Our first taste of the Atlantic! The only thing between us and Africa now is ocean. This ride is not nice at all – we are getting smacked with southerly winds of 17-22 knots right into our bow. On this 2 knot crawl, we pass Soldier’s and Bell way points, before deciding to stop wasting diesel and anchor at Compass Cay. We exit the Sound with 20 knot winds to our backs and an outgoing tide – what this amounts to is that pulling into the shallow water where our anchorage was is a vortex of BIG confused waves. We take a while to drop the hook at the northwest anchorage of Compass Cay, but we get it. We avoid the yacht club there as it is a major rip off and instead open a bag of wine and make a nice pasta for supper (we attempted to open champagne only to find that it is a strange yellow/brown color and probably a few years past its prime).

With our ambition for the Atlantic side gone we stick to the shallow inside route – it makes sense why so many Bahamas sailors must have a shallow draft. We leave through the narrow southwest passage that is nicely marked, unfortunately, we got a bit cocky and didn’t pay enough attention. Thus we changed course after the fourth marker, instead of the sixth – it was completely my navigational error, but luckily Dad caught it before we ran aground.

We now have nice southeast winds and easily pass Harvey waypoint with our eyes set on Black Point, which hopefully will have a Sunday football game.

Final Picture: not everything is scary running aground. Sometimes we actually sit and enjoy the view and by the way, the view is fantastic.