April 12, 2013 Water Cay-Flamingo Cay

The drawback to these small, beautiful, deserted islands (come on, you knew there had to be one!) is SURGE.  That means that the ocean swells wrap around the islands, and even though you're anchored in a spot protected from the wind, your boat will be rocking and rolling.  All.night.long.  So in the morning, we were happy to get off the boat and go ashore to explore a bit.  We took our dinghy over to a small sandy area near the center of the island so we could walk over to see the Atlantic side.  

The sand gives way to rocks and tidal pools, with ocean waves crashing onto jagged coral rock on the other side. The scenery is rugged and dramatic, and we walk carefully, as any missed step could result in a fall, a scrape, a sprain, a break, or worse.

The island is "split" at this point at high tide, with waves sluicing through the divide.  When we first arrived at the beach, we could've walked from one side to the other across the sandy bottom, but a few moments later, it's impassable.  Good thing we didn't go across, since we would've been separated from our dinghy!

These small succulents were nestled in a small hole in the rock.

 

The nearly constant easterly winds shape the shrubbery into miniature bonsai, growing out of the rock.

 A lizard keeps us company.

After exploring this rocky area, we dinghy northeast around a point to the long expanse of beach pictured below.  Gorgeous is the only word for it!  The sand is peachy-pink and talcum powder soft.  We collect lots of shells and small smooth black rocks, many so smooth they look like they're polished.

Fossilized conch shells imbedded in the beach rocks

After our morning of exploration, it's time to get underway.  Mike on Kanaloa came by in his dinghy as we were getting ready to pull up anchor.  He is going no further in Jumentos, as he has to be back in Georgetown.  We left, putting up the mainsail for the second time while at anchor.  Makes a lot of sense to do this, as the boat is already basically into the wind.  Had a good sail, about 10 miles to Flamingo Cay, fairly hard on the wind.  Just as we were passing Flamingo Cut, another Leopard cat came in through the Cut.  We decided to make a quick move to the anchorage to get first dibs.  We went to the north most anchorage of the western part of the island and Sarah insisted we anchor in the middle to take up the whole cove.  The other boat first went into the north bay of Flamingo Cay.  A while later, he came back out, probably too much surge, and continued past us to the next little bay to the south of us.  We could only see his mast at anchor.  Although the surge was a bit rough here, we decided to spend two nights.  We explored the beach and discovered three remoras, two to three feet long each, had taken up residence under Mirador.  Neither of us wanted to dive in off of the boat, as we had been doing, to cool off.  After feeding the little rascals with chicken scraps, Sarah couldn't understand why they kept hanging around.  Duh.  Now how to get rid of them.  We hope they'll disappear when we leave for our next island.  No other boats seen after the  tip of the Leopard's mast disappeared the next morning.  

Thursday, April 11, 2013.  Long Island, Bahamas-Water Cay, Jumentos, Bahamas.  

Our anchor windlass, the motor which we use to raise and lower our 60 pound anchor and attached chain, broke last Saturday. The windlass is a crucial piece of equipment, and even though we've been trying to get away from Long Island, we needed to get it fixed here before we head out to the remote islands of the Jumentos and Raggeds. This became a 5 day project.  Sunday, George and Rick from C Language took the windlass apart to diagnose the problem.  The stainless steel key, which links the motor shaft to the windlass, had completely disintegrated.  Fortunately, there is a machine shop on Long Island, which could manufacture a new key for us.  Monday morning, George took the motor to be repaired, we got it back Tuesday morning, and George and Rick reinstalled it.  Wednesday morning we are ready to leave, and start to raise the anchor.  Now the remote control for the windlass won't work!  George figures out that it's a wiring issue, so he and Rick rewire it.  By now it's noon, and too late to start out for our sail to Water Cay.  So it's one more night here...

We up anchor at 0930 and head west for the Comer channel.  The wind is perfectly behind us, and our speed suffers.  We tie a preventer to the main (on port tack), and eventually pull the jib out to port and hold it open with the starboard sheet taken to a port hull cleat.  Once we turn SSE from the Comer channel, we are able to sail with about 60 degrees to the wind on port tack.  A monohull that was two miles behind us in the Comer channel got left in the dirt once we made our turn to the south.  We were sailing under full main and full jib in about 16 to 18 knots of apparent wind, making good 8 to 9 knots over the ground.  We arrive at Water Cay, the north most cay in the Jumento chain, about 1530. There was a single boat anchored when we got there.  We anchored several hundred yards to the south of him.  Mike, on Kanaloa, the boat behind us, came in after and anchored north of the other sailboat.  Most crowded anchorage we were to see for a while.    A fishing boat, pulling a smaller boat behind, came in and anchored late in the afternoon.  We relax on board, swimming off the stern to cool down.  The water is incredibly clear down here.  Sundowners, followed by dinner and an episode of the Tudors, and then to sleep.