Emerald Bay to Highbourne Cay

—Blogpost written by Bob

Emerald Bay to Big Majors Spot

John, one of the friendly dock guys, helped us with our lines, as we backed out of slip E-14 at shortly after 8 AM on Sunday, April 19. I felt a little sad leaving the people we got to know who work for Sandals at the marina but, at the same time, I was anxious to get underway and get back to the U.S. as soon as we could.

Emerald Bay Marina behind us as
we motored out of the channel.

As we motored along the coast north of the marina, we recognized many areas of the island that we previously visited by car, like Paradise Bay and Cocoplum Beach.

We were making good time, doing over 6.7 knots (we had a slight current from behind and a very low sea state and our speed ultimately reached 7.4 knots), as we headed north northwest on the Exuma Sound (Atlantic Ocean). The ocean exhibited a deep blue color that was unforgettable. As we motored along we listened to an interesting interview about human-animal relationships on NPR (on our satellite radio).

Our dinghy trailing behind the boat in
the beautiful deep blue ocean.

As our autopilot did all the hard work, we took two-hour shifts at the helm. We didn’t see a single other boat but we heard a couple boaters on our VHF radio—for all we know they could have been anchored in George Town. 

Galliot Cut doesn't look like much in 
this image.  We had to motor 
through by instruments,

We reached Galliot Cut, where we traveled inside to the Exuma Bank, at noon. The entire afternoon was spent traveling on the Exuma Bank (like the next two days will be spent). There were a half dozen or so boats anchored along the bank side of Great Guana Cay as we traveled north.

The wind moved us around quite a bit
at first when we anchored off
Big Majors Spot.

We anchored near Pig Beach on Big Majors Spot at 3:30 PM, about 30 minutes prior to what we planned. There was a nice cool breeze from the southeast— this was a lifesaver after a relatively hot day of motoring. The breeze built up from almost nothing when we departed Emerald Bay to somewhere around 10 to 12 knots by the time we anchored in late afternoon. We actually anchored about 3/4-mile off Big Majors Spot so that we would have the nice breeze in the evening.  

Our only visitor for the evening
was a lone seagull.

While we didn’t see a single other boat underway today, there were about two dozen cruising boats in our anchorage, most of them sailboats. 

Big Majors Spot to Highbourne Cay

I got up several times during the night to check on the fridge compressor operation and the house battery voltage—even though the compressor seemed to be running more than I thought it should be, the house battery voltage was 12.6+ when we woke for the day at 6 AM. (My acceptance criteria has always been 12.5 volts or higher in the morning.)
Checking the weather first thing in the morning revealed a forecast for 15 knots of wind out of the south for today, Monday, April 20, and improved conditions (easterly wind) for Wednesday and Thursday.

We departed our anchorage on Big Majors
Spot at 7 AM, while the sun was
coming up but behind a cloud.

At 7 AM we started our (42-nautical mile) second day’s journey (of seven days) back toward the U.S. It was pretty easy going first thing in the morning but then the wind and waves began to build. By mid- morning, the wind was blowing at 16 knots, gusting to 18 knots, out of the south to southwest. It was a rough ride in 3 to 5 foot seas with an occasional 7-foot wave on our starboard quarter. The waves hitting our rudder kept trying to turn the boat to port. The autopilot was constantly correcting for the sudden wave-caused turns. (I didn’t take any pics during the day’s rough conditions.)

Part of our list of waypoints
for today's trip.

We anchored on the west side of Highbourne Cay at around 2:30 PM. As we were letting additional chain out Maggie got her finger caught between the outgoing chain and the chain stopper. She came back to the cockpit yelling and trailing blood all the way. I quickly went forward to secure the chain stopper before tending to Maggie’s finger. We applied antiseptic cream and then used a large gauze pad over the wound and wrapped it tightly with a bandage.

There was only one other boat, a catamaran, in the anchorage when we arrived. Shortly after we anchored the white caps stopped for the day and the anchorage settled down to a tolerable level.

Again today, we didn’t see a single other boat underway but heard a couple of them conversing on the VHF radio.

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Tomorrow, we head for Rose Island, just east of Nassau. Stay tuned for more details of our hurried trip back to the U.S.

Stay healthy and thanks for following our blog!