Tuesday, February 16, 2010 Pictures to come later no bandwidth

Hoffmans Cay (N25 36.807 W077 43.958) to Nassau, N. Providence Island (N25 04.722 77 19.690)

Got up a little after 6am and watched dolphins swimming around the boat in the twilight. I could hear them blowing out and taking in air before I could ever see them. Three of them were moving about the anchorage. I sat topside watching them before putting the morning coffee on to perk. Then I turned on the SSB receiver to pull in the morning weather at 6:30am.

We weren’t sure whether we were going to stay another day here, mosey further down to another of the Berry Islands, or head over to Nassau. After listening to the weather, it sounded like today and tomorrow was pretty much the same. Winds 15-25 knots with 6-8 ft seas today and pretty much the same tomorrow. So we decided to head out today. At 9:15 we hauled in the anchor and said goodbye to a beautiful little anchorage. I would definitely come back to this one! It’s a little over 38 miles from here to Nassau so we’ll probably be there by 3:30 or 4:00 pm with the sails. Blue Pearl pulled out about 45 minutes before us. Then Azaya followed us out.

The morning gave us decent sailing with some scattered showers. We put out a fishing line to see if we could catch dinner again - but never caught anything. We’re still after the allusive Mahi or tuna! We got the boat up to 7.7 knots at times. Then the afternoon brought in some squall lines that had us heeled over pretty good. I could hear things crashing below decks. Oops. Guess I didn’t stash everything as well as it should have been. Went below and tidied up. When the squall hit us at 12:15pm, our speed went up to 8.71 knots and our rail was almost in the water. I could hear things crashing below deck again and thought Phooey! I’m going to wait to get in to pick up this time. I didn’t know a Bayfield could move that fast under sail. We had too much sail out with these squalls and had to haul some in.

It was a boisterous ride with the waves, I would say, at least 8 ft in some places. I was very glad to turn the helm over to Wayne - To be sure. My wrists were tired of holding the helm and keeping my balance at the wheel. The wave height and winds were supposed to decrease (Yah like I really believed that though) as the day went on, and of course, they increased. Our flag broke loose and the halyard for it was thoroughly wrapped up with the lazy jack lines. Another flag bites the dust – the grommet tore loose from the flag. After getting permission from Harbor Control to enter Nassau harbor (they monitor channel 9) we found the channel markers to enter. Coming in to the harbor was like surfing sideways while trying to drop the sail. It was an invigorating ride LOL but we made it in. Blue Pearl found the marina that they were going into and hailed us that if we wanted to come in there that the marina monitored Channel 72. We scouted out the anchorage near the cruise ships then further in near the dinghy dock and decided to check out that anchorage (before the first bridge). It looked decent so we pulled in there to anchor at 3:30pm and Azaya pulled in next to us. After anchoring a boat came by to tell Azaya that we shouldn’t anchor there. Basra and the freighters use that as a channel. So we reanchored.

Wayne cleaned up the lines and mess topside and I took care of the inside. Axel came by for a short visit after that and we talked about the ride over. Then I reheated the left over spaghetti and made a salad for dinner. We’ll hit the stores and try and catch up with Blue Pearl tomorrow.