Monday morning, the winds were decent and predicted to drop so we headed the 40 miles south to Water Cay, the start of the Jumentos island chain. Our ultimate goal was to make it on south to the Ragged Islands chain over the next couple of weeks. Sadly, that didn't happen - more info to come.
The first half of the trip was flat and gentle. Then, of course, the winds kicked up to over 15 knots and it got a little uncomfortable for the rest of the trip. Oh well.
The anchorage at Water Cay was nice and protected from the prevailing easterly trade winds.
We took the dinghy to the beach to see if we could find the "trail" to the other side of the island. There was a fishing camp set up which the fishermen returned to at sunset. They had old freezers on the beach that they put their catch into, along with blocks of ice.
We finally found the trail. It was a scrubby area marked with flip flops and other flotsam boaters had found. Had it not been for the occasional piece of flotsam, we would never have been able to follow the trail.
On the way back, we both added to the flotsam trail.
Once back at the dinghy, we went exploring down the coast, looking for a cave. Though we didn't find it, we did see lots of beautiful scenery.
Right at sundown, fishing boats began returning from their long day at sea. The Bahamas Defence Force also showed up and boarded one of the boats that looked it might have been of Cuban origin. The police appeared to confiscate a very large bag of cleaned fish - - maybe some kind of payment??
After they boarded the fishing boat, they came to us to check our papers. Our paperwork was in order so they didn't come aboard. We think the main purpose of their visit was to check on the Cuban boat.
Before the night was over we counted 5 small fishing skiffs and 3 small mother ships anchored in the bay. Everyone left as soon as the sun was up the next morning to resume their fishing.
The wind dropped to nothing as the sun went down. You can see our anchor chain dribbled along the bottom of the water.
Around 11:00, the wind came back up some, but 180 degrees different from where it had been. Argghhh. So began Jim's regular check on the position of the boat. Though we swung to a spot that was uncomfortably close to the rocks, by 3:30am the wind had shifted just enough that we were able to sleep. PTL!
The next morning, as we were raising the anchor, our chart plotter lost all of our charts! Though all of our electronics were working fine, the charts have all of the depth and detail we need to run the boat. Though we could manually use our laptop if we had to, it is not a good way to have to navigate these small, shallow islands.
After trying everything we could to get our charts up, we decided to head back to Salt Pond where we would have phone service to be able to talk to a technician. Fortunately, though we had no charts, we did have the route we had followed the previous day so we blindly retraced our steps for 40 miles. Argghhh!
We made it back to Salt Pond OK. Once there, Jim was able to contact a technician from Furuno who was able to diagnose the issue and help us re-establish our charts. Phew!
Interestingly, we think this need to return to Salt Pond was providential. Once back, we learned that Carol's 96 year old father had been scheduled for colon cancer surgery the following week. Had we been in the out islands for 2 or 3 weeks, we would not have known about that.
Now that we're in a place that has phone and internet service, we can stay abreast of her family.
