After anchoring, we went ashore to check out some old ruins & see if we could find a trail to the other side of the island. We never did find the trail but the ruins were interesting. Notice how thick the walls are.
Notice the little fiddler crab hiding in the sand. When Carol gently prodded him, his eyeballs poked above the sand like periscopes. With enough prodding, he jumped up and ran for the water.
Saturday, we both got up feeling like maybe we should should work our way back to the States. We had heard that Florida might be shutting down and we were hoping to get there before that happened.
We found a route around the back side of Great Exuma that looked deep enough we could make it so we set off. Fortunately, the route took us near a small island that looked good for overnighting - Coakley Cay, a 70 mile trip!
This was the first decent traveling day we had had for nearly a week and a half so it was a pleasure to be out on the water.
This is our first view of Coakley. After 70 miles, it's always a relief to know that our destination is at hand.
Coakley is just a little spit of rock sitting waaaay out in the middle of nowhere. However, it turned out to be a great anchorage for the night.
Tonight's sunset was redder than most. Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Yay!
Sunday, we had an 85 mile trip ahead of us to get to an anchorage in the middle of the Exumas so it was up early. It couldn't have been a more perfect day to travel that far. The water was amazing.
Notice how the islands in the upper left side of this picture appear to be floating!
The water was amazingly clear with lots of alternating striations for miles and miles.
Land ho!
Our destination was Mangrove Cay, part of the Exumas Land and Sea Park. This big guy was the only other boat around. Notice the helicopter on the back of the boat. Wow! Talk about a mega yacht!
After we anchored, we headed in to check out the rock pile on top of this hill.
"I am NOT a mountain goat!"
As it turns out, the rock pile is a cairn that boaters keep adding to as they reach the top. Next time we come, we'll bring a contribution!
Monday's weather sounded squally but doable. An "impulse of energy" was due to hit our area sometime this afternoon. Along with it was squally weather and an increase in wind - - of course.
Since today's route was "only" about 50 miles, we headed for New Providence Island where we planned to anchor behind one of the out-islands. We do NOT want to go into Nassau, especially with the virus going on!
About 15 miles out of Nassau, we began to get a little phone service so we called our boatyard in Ft. Pierce. The manager said they had just locked the state down for 2 weeks and that we would not be able to put our boat up. Uggghhhh.
Well, we were this far so we decided to continue on with plan A and get to the Berry Islands where we could hang around for a while, waiting on weather and our boat yard.
Here's a picture of our anchorage in New Providence, about 5 miles from downtown Nassau. Fortunately, the weather held off long enough for us to anchor. Though this anchorage is waaay rolly, it will have to do. Tomorrow, we plan to move on over to the Berries.
Here's a zoomed in shot of Atlantis in downtown Nassau from the back of the boat.
