First Storm at Anchor

Great Harbour Cay is a fun little community. Bob, Nikki, Zorro and I climbed into our dinghy and headed to shore. We tied up at Great Harbour Marina and walked around the town to the other side of the island, it seemed like such a good idea but ended up being about a 2 hour hike in the heat, thankfully there was a cool little restaurant called The Beach Club. We had lunch and beverages, purely for rehydration purposes, we chatted with some other cruisers at the restaurant from a sailboat called Island Dancer that we ended up seeing many times through out our time in the Bahamas. After lunch we walked the beach for about an hour This made Zorro very happy, not just to be on a beach and swimming but also just being off the boat. He is adjusting but it will take time, he is not a fan of the noises that the boat makes.

There was a storm expected to hit out of the North, we checked the marina and they were all full. The best bet was to head over to the other side of the island and drop anchor in Great Harbour just North of The Beach Club where we had lunch. This is a huge bay and the winds were blowing so we packed up the boat and went to shore to try some kiting. We were perhaps a little optimistic as the wind was punchy but we did get a few good turns in.The next day we decided to go winging from the boat. Nikki and I got in the water first and Bob did dinghy support. Nikki has been up and riding whereas Bob and I are both still learning. After a little while we switched up so Bob could try. All in all a good day of fun on the water and our first winging from the boat. Bob had some good suggestions for a life line off the back and it was good to practice.

The storm was getting closer and the boat was rocking a bit too much for poor Zorro he was not really settling in. Bob thought if we could set a stern anchor it may settle us down a bit. I will admit I was not on board for this. Mostly because the second anchor was buried in a forward locker and the chain and rode had not yet been attached. But what better time to set it up than as a storm was coming. Our secondary anchor is a 55lb Delta that came with the boat as a main anchor, we upgraded to 77lb Ultra. Since we were already at anchor it meant setting the stern anchor by hand. Not an easy task. The next day was even harder as we needed to pull it up by hand, definitely a workout for the day. In the end it may have settled the boat down a little, Nikki and Bob say it was better I am on the fence. For storm night we did not want both anchors down and the swell was settling a bit anyways. We did get up to 35+ knots of wind but some areas saw 40+kts overnight on our anchor watch.

The next morning since the storm was calming down we decided to head South to White Cay. White Cay is a great little anchorage, a little exposed but the storm had passed. Unfortunately there was a sailboat there, Rainbow Chaser, that had been blown onto the rocks from the storm. A salvage company was already on route and the owners had left. So sad, the couple in their 70s had just refitted the boat for one last trip and it got cut short by one nasty storm.

On the bright side Lumeah came into the anchorage shortly after we arrived. Nikki and I had met the owners Barry and Stacey and their daughter Scarlett at the Annapolis Boat Show last October, such a small world.

We spent the next day exploring Hoffman's Cay Blue Hole there are several blue holes in the Bahamas but this one is is about 600 feet wide and has a cliff that hangs 20 feet above the water. Those who jump into it from the cliff speak of an adrenaline rush as they venture into its mysterious depths. Its only living inhabitants are said to be oysters. For Nikki the adrenaline rush from the jump was compounded by the fact that her GoPro got ripped out of her hand! There were some people there practicing their free diving so she quickly asked to borrow mask, fins, and weight belt and spent about 15 minutes trying to find it but no luck! After we finished exploring the hole we went back to the boats and into some dry clothes before finishing the day with drinks on Lumeah, a brand new Exquisite 50 catamaran. What a beautiful boat.

Next we are off to Cabbage Cay, West Bay and Nassau to pick up Sharon so Bob won’t feel so lonely.