The weather is looking really nice for the next week, so we dropped our mooring and said goodbye to Hopetown this morning and we are now anchored at Great Guana for a last fling ashore. Lunch at Grabbers and Dinner at Nippers! Then tomorrow we will do the Whale Cut and anchor at Manjack for our last night in the Bahamas. The plan is then to leave early and head for St. Mary’s in Georgia. With a bit of luck we should arrive Friday.
We spent Friday night at Tilloo Bank with hopes of snorkeling and exploring the sand. But after a short dinghy ride we decided the wind was too much and we would head to Hopetown. We were glad we headed up then as the moorings in Hopetown were quite limited. We did find one and intend to stay in this quite protected harbor thru the next blow which is our part of the nor’easter. So there may be a chance to move again on the weekend or late next week.
We left Warderick wells on Saturday but only went two islands north to hawksbill. Once there we hiked trails to the 1785 plantation ruins and then dinghies to the sand bar at the north of the island. The ruins were bigger and more complete than any others we had seen. Quite cool. However the sand bar was amazing. We ll post pictures soon. Sunday was a robust sail back the way we came and northeast to Rock Sound on Eleuthera island. We hired a car and drove the island, had some dinghy adventures in the bad weather and continued on along the eastern shore to Eleuthera.
We managed to get a protected spot at Exuma Park and have been here for 5 days through the front passage. This is a beautiful spot and even though it is windy we have had a lot of sun and cooler weather. During that time we have volunteered at the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park (Ed doing electric and programming and Tina painting signs), done some baking, watched DVDs and rocked and rolled. Luckily the squalls missed us but the high winds (gusting 25-30) have been with us for two days giving us a lot of electricity from the wind generator. We hope to move on tomorrow morning to our last Cay in the park before we make the mad dash across to Eleuthera. We did visit Hawksbill Cay on Saturday, March 15. there are well preserved Loyalist ruins, trails throughout the island, moorings and an incredible sand bar at the north end of the island.
We did sail the crossing to Rock Sound, Eleuthera and used the protected harbor and bad weather to rent a car and explore the island. We drove north and saw Govenor’s Harbor, the Levy Preserve and the Glass Window. The Levy Preserve is a recently developed botanic garden with native plants, beautiful water features and an energetic sponsor and staff.
The Glass Window is a very narrow spot on the island where the Atlantic has broken through to the sound side. A natural rock arch was washed away long ago and replaced by a succession of bridges. It is a very cool spot but the bridge doesn’t look permanent.
Then a week of waiting on weather to move but hopefully we will have better internet connectivity and some grocery stores. We crossed to the Abacos on Friday, March 21.
We survived the last cold front without issue at Cambridge and enjoyed cruiser cocktails on the beach, nice walks on the cay, and a quick snorkel at the Aquarium,next to Johnny Depp’s island (no he didn’t invite us over….again). We had a couple of squalls, but the lightning was distant and winds only hit 28 knots. We said goodbye this morning to our friends Tom and Dana who have left on their sail back to the States (work beckons) and then we headed south to Musha Cay (David Copperfield’s island, and he blew us off too!!!!).
It was a nice downwind sail. Tomorrow we intend to snorkel on a stainless steel sculpture of a piano playing mermaid in about 20′ of water nearby. Here are two pictures of the piano. Actually about 12′ of water and yes, the water is that clear.
Then we will start working our way North. There is more bad weather predicted Thursday so we will try to get a spot at Warderick Wells on Tuesday. The winter weather here has been bad, but not nearly as bad as home. It’s chilly tonight, probably in the sixties.
Looking back, we had a good time in Georgetown visiting with friends and hiding from the west winds. We are now on a pattern of a strong front once a week which requires protection from the west. Most of the protection is for winds from the north through the south in the anchorages around us. For the front tomorrow, we have come north to Cambridge Cay mooring field which is quite protected from many directions. It is also one of our favorite places for snorkeling, hiking and scenery. By some incredible luck we managed to get one of the few moorings here but there is room for anchoring as well. Right now, all 14 moorings are taken and about 15 additional boats are anchored in the area. The trick right now is to have as much fun as possible before the bad weather comes and keeps us on our boat.
S/V Merlin 