Thursday 2/23/12 West Bay, New Providence Anchorage to Norman’s Cay in the Exumas

What a beautiful starry night last night. I was wishing I could throw the hatch wide open but was content with the view I had, knowing that the hatch would fight me opening wide and then trying to close it again.

The original plan was to head to Highborne Cay from here, but since we’d already had an internet connection and Azaya didn’t need one yet, we decided to head for Norman’s Cay instead (home to the one time infamous drug lord Carlos Leder).

We left the West Bay Anchorage at 8am through the southern path between Goulding Cay and Clifton Point on a rising tide. High tide at Nassau is 8:35 this morning. We vacillated on whether to go this way or not because the path through the rocks is narrow. Since it was high tide, and Azaya saw no problem with it, we followed them out of the Bay with Wayne on bow watch as we went through the southern entrance. The Rocky patches stand out in the aqua and emerald color of water as a yellow brown patch with dark, dark brown spots where the rocks are located. We headed out to the deeper, darker water of the Tongue of the Ocean. By 9am we were bordering the Tongue of the Ocean and the Great Bahamas Bank. What a difference in color. In the Tongue where the depths plunge down to 1000 meters (3000 ft) deep right off the Bank the water is a deep sapphire blue color. Then 3 miles to the bank the depth decreases to 200 meters and the color changes to an aquamarine color. Within a quarter of a mile of the bank the color changes to a beautiful turquoise blue at 5 meters depth and under a light blue layer of sky the visual is breathtaking at times. We just don’t see this color of water at home.


The colors change in the water - here blue



Here it's an emerald green

By 10am we were back on the Great Bahama Bank motor sailing in 12-13 feet of emerald green water and by 11am we cut our engines and slowed from 5.5 knots to 4.5 knots as we continued down the bank under a close reach in tourmaline and emerald green waters. I’m not sure what time we kicked on the engine again, but if we wanted to make it in before dark, the engines had to come on. Once we arrived at Norman’s Stake, it was time to pull in the sails. We pulled into the anchorage at Norman’s Cay around 5:40pm. The sun was getting lower in the sky and as I made our approach from Taffia Point, the sun lit up the chart plotter from behind me so that I couldn’t read it. Wayne was on rock watch – there are some rocks and sand spits that you have to maneuver around to get into the anchorage here and as my depths changed from 10 to 7 to 9 to 8 feet I throttled the engine down and positioned myself between the sun and the chart plotter.


We dropped anchor in a sandy bottom at 8 feet. There are 6 boats here (including us). We traveled 51 nautical miles via the chart plotter or 58 miles via the log on the boat that measures our progress through the water. I feel so wiped out. I’m sneezing, coughing and just plain not feeling real well. Wayne’s germs have finally caught up to me and I feel that I’ve finally succumbed to them.

After shutting down the boat systems, I made some chicken noodle soup for dinner. Not the canned stuff but homemade with egg noodles, celery, onion, carrots, broth and chicken. Man it feels good on the throat. We sat in the dark, in the cockpit eating our soup. The wind gently blowing the wind generator lets me know that I have power to charge my computer if I want to use it (I don’t) and the stars look brilliant. I wish I was feeling better to thoroughly enjoy the evening but I’m thinking it’s time for bed. We’ve already explored the Drug Lord’s ruins, the sunken airplane and last time we were here, Duffy’s was pretty much closed down… Tomorrow – the plan is to head over to Shroud… Lat/Long for tonight: 24 36.217/076 49.327