You got it!! This past week has had great northerly wind that has allowed us to get all the way to Clarence Town so quickly!! We’re in a great spot to say Bye to the Bahamas and Hello to Turks and Caicos.
We made a quick overnight stop at Black Point on Jan. 4th where we did some laundry and picked up a few items from the little grocery store. We were up and moving just after 6 am on Jan. 5 to sail south to Lee Stocking Island. It was a lovely sail on the banks but it became a lumpy mess when we exited Galliot Cut onto the Exuma Sound. The wind direction wasn’t great for us – it was almost too far forward for us to sail (we don’t sail upwind well) and the strength decreased a bit. We decided to bail early and take the Bock Cut which was about 2 nm north of the more popular cut at the north end of Lee Stocking Island. Once in the calm water of the Exuma Banks, we quickly made our way to our anchorage on the west side of Lee Stocking. Anchor was down just in time for lunch!
We stayed for 2 days and on day 2 (Jan. 7) we did a few jobs. In the morning I made chili – a great meal for passages. Mark decided to tackle a water leak we discovered a few days earlier. It turned out that the aft head seacock (the hole in our hull that allows us to empty our holding tanks) was the leaky culprit. Mark went to work on repairing the leak but unfortunately the whole cone shaped valve came off! Imagine water rushing in and filling the bilge! Fortunately we had 2 bilge pumps that easily kept up with the inbound deluge. I quickly grabbed all the wooden plugs we had and Mark managed to plug the 2 holes covered by the valve. It took a few more hours to get everything secured and working properly. It was an exciting morning!!!
Our anchor came up before 4pm on Jan. 7th and we made our way (in a nice rain shower – cleaned our decks!) onto the Exuma Sound to make the 84nm overnight journey to Clarence Town. We had great conditions – northwest wind strong enough to move us along at 7+ knots. We were going so fast in the beginning that our eta to Clarence Town was 4 am (way too early because we didn’t want to arrive in the dark). As the night wore on, the wind speed and direction changed and we slowed down. We sailed all the way into the Clarence Town harbour and anchor was down by 8 am.
Looking ahead we are seeing a good crossing window for Turks & Caicos on Jan. 14 – 15. If predictions hold, I’ll celebrate my birthday in T&C!!
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 