Good news & bad news.
The good news is that Sunday night, the wind dropped considerably - - as forecast. The bad news is that it changed direction nearly 90 degrees and that was not in the forecast!
Jim was up at 11:30 checking on the boat and discovered that we had shifted with the wind to the point we were near shore and rapidly running out of water. Ughhh! We fired up the boat & electronics and worked for a while to move the boat away from shore without pulling the anchor out. It became apparent that even if we moved the boat out & stretched out the chain, it would be blown back again.
Sooooo, we pulled up the anchor, moved the boat out into deeper water & re-anchored. By 1:00am, we felt confident we would be OK & did our best to get some sleep before our big move on Monday morning.
Our entrance through the "cut" into the ocean, though still pretty spicy, was doable. We caught some 6 foot rollers on our way out but were able to handle them OK.
Our 50 mile journey through the Atlantic to Egg Island near Spanish Wells was OK - - sort of. The wind was below 10 knots all day so the seas were fairly calm. The swells, though sometimes 4 to 5 feet, were manageable. The worst part was they were on the beam which meant the boat would roll one way on the way up and then roll the other on the way down. Though the stabilizers helped some, it was still a pretty active trip.
Praise the Lord we made it to Egg Island by 1:00. Woo hoo! Once there, we moved over to Royal Island, anchored & dropped the dinghy to do some exploring.
Cicadas seem out of place in the Bahamas!
Our anchorage behind Royal Island was quiet, calm and flat!!!! We stayed offshore a bit to avoid no-see-ums.
Tuesday morning dawned calm but with wind predicted to pick up so we decided to head for our marina, Spanish Wells Yacht Haven.
While we were eating breakfast, we noticed a mother ship lobster boat going by with her tenders being towed
all in a row behind her like little ducklings.
On our way to the marina, we stopped by the Spanish Wells power company fuel dock to top off our tanks. We had never been here but had heard from other boaters that it is a good place to get fuel. Once we docked, Jim had to go up the stairs & find someone to pump the fuel. They were very nice and friendly - lovely people.
Spanish Wells is a quaint, colorful island with a large fleet of lobster boats and their tenders. They ply the waters clear down to Cuba and back and are the primary lobster source for Red Lobster.
Right after arriving, we rented a golf cart and went into town to get a few parts for some boat projects that we needed to work on. The island is only about 4 blocks wide and under 5 miles long so most of the people drive golf carts to get around.
We were nearly the only boat at the marina.
This is our final blog post for this part of our journey. We will leave Samba here on Thursday and fly home so we can be with family & friends over the Christmas holiday. Then, we'll be back here to celebrate New Year's Eve with John & Barb Gauger.
We hope you have a very merry and blessed Christmas.
Jim & Carol
