Leaving the dock and Sailing south

Christmas and New Years are over. We had an awesome visit home – stayed with Evelyn until Christmas Day and then moved to Mark’s dad for the rest of our stay. We spent Christmas Day with Evelyn, Liam and Caroline and had a wonderful breakfast. We then went to Mark’s Dad’s (the 5 of us) and had a tourtiere dinner! We had great family visits and many dinners out! It was loads of fun and the time flew by.

Our return to Nassau on Dec. 30 was easy and on time. On Dec. 31 we did some shopping to get ready for our journey south. The winds were predicted to be north/northeast starting Jan. 2 and lasting 3 or 4 days – great conditions for us to move along the Exuma island chain. Mark spent New Year’s Day working on the new pulley system for the engine. He’s been working on this for awhile now – it’s been a difficult job needing special tools. Mark has “fabricobbled” these tools to get the old pulleys off the engine (44 years these parts have been on and they didn’t want to be removed). After all that work removing the old parts and installing the new one, it didn’t work properly. There was a wobble in the pulley system! So the old one went back on! We spent our last happy hour at the dock with some of Carolyn and Nick’s friends. It was a little New Year’s Day afternoon party and it was really nice to meet these people.

We got off the dock at 8:30am Jan. 2 – waved goodbye to Carolyn and Nick and made our way the 44nm to Shroud Cay. It was a beautiful day for a sail – sunny, warm and good wind!! We had all sails up and were cruising along at 7+ knots. There was lots of boat traffic out with us so we had lots to watch!

Things sure have changed in the Exumas. It’s been 8 years since we first cruised in the island chain and the visitors are not the same! During that first season back in 2017, we had many anchorages to ourselves. The anchorages we shared were full of sailboats and a few trawlers. As we approached Shroud Cay, the difference was clear to see – the mega yachts have moved in!! We’re talking boats that range from 30 m to 100m in length. Most are anchored much further away from shore so if you look hard, you can see the sailboats tucked in closer. There were over 10 of these big boats at Shroud Cay with another 5 at the next cay south. Most of the time these boats are not an issue but sometimes they have guests aboard who are not very respectful in an anchorage. They will buzz around on their water toys (seadoos, hoverboards) and set-up tents on the beaches (expecting everyone to stay away from their area!). At night these vessels are lit up like Christmas trees – that’s kind of pretty when it’s seen from a distance. We only spent one night at Shroud so we weren’t bothered by the mega yachts.

On Jan. 3 we had another great sailing day. We moved south to Staniel Cay where we met up with Allyson and Jack on Double Vision. We met Allyson and Jack at the Nassau dock and have kept in touch. We had happy hour onboard their 50ft catamaran and saw one of the best sunsets we’ve seen in awhile. It was fun chatting with them and hearing about their Christmas adventures.

Today (Jan. 4th) we’re heading only 10nm south to Black Point. We’ll do some laundry there and relax a bit. The next day we will move to Lee Stocking Island to tuck in near Norman’s Pond Cay to wait out some west wind.