Soldier Cay and back to Great Harbour Cay

1/27/16

We left the marina Monday morning at 9:00 am and headed down to Soldier Cay.  

Tramico, Gary, Christelle and Don

Quimby (they had just arrived, didn't get a chance to get to know them)

Doug and Ursula on Island Explorer

Polly, Dave and Deanna on Illusions

Colorful Cruise Ship, Norwegian Cruiselines

Ed had spotted a nice hole tucked in behind the North end of Hoffman Cay and wanted to maybe anchor there for a couple of days and be staged for the 50 mile trip East to Eleuthera on Wednesday.  We put the fishing lines out in hopes to hook a Mahi, or anything else edible for supper. We got a huge hit on the line and the fish fought hard.  We were so excited, until we got it closer to the boat, only to find a big old Barracuda on the hook!  Darn!  Can’t have him for supper, but it sure was fun watching Ed reel him in! 

Another nice shot of the Lighthouse

Big teeth!

Big Cuda!

Another boat was in our intended spot.  There was not enough room for two boats, so we went back and found a spot to anchor just behind Soldier.  There was already a mega yacht and another sailboat anchored close to shore, so we had to pick a spot further out.  Just as soon as we dropped the hook, another sailboat (friends of the first sailboat) came between us and the mega yacht and dropped their hook!  Now we had a crowded anchorage and more worries when the wind picks up.

We were close enough to that yacht without a sailboat sneaking in between us!

We got very little sleep that night, the boat was rocking and rolling in the surge and the wind.  We watched the fishing boat that belonged to the yacht come back after dark and go over to the sailboat that anchored between us and it. He must have had choice words for the sailor because he immediately raised his anchor and moved out behind us. The following morning the two sailboats left and we moved in towards the beach for better protection.  The sailboat that was in our original intended spot had moved during the night due to the surge. We hung out on the boat Tuesday and I did some cooking and preparing for a 4:00 am departure the following morning.

Waves crashing over the land.  They had to be about 50 ft high to  be seen!

The 3:00 alarm went off and Ed was now uncertain about the weather.  The winds kicked up overnight, higher than we expected and what was forecast.  We sat at the table and discussed our options and reviewed the weather forecast.  If we didn’t go across the Eleuthera we would have to find another anchorage protected from the upcoming North and NW blow.  We knew we couldn’t stay at that anchorage.  We finally decided it was worth poking out into the ocean and see if we thought we could go East.  We weighed anchor at 4:30 am.  The wind was blowing hard and I had a devil of a time keeping the boat into the wind while Ed raised the reefed main sail.  Being dark, I couldn’t see the beach and the land and that made me very nervous as well.  As soon as we cleared the islands, the waves picked up stronger winds and a huge south swell.  The waves were about 4-6 ft. and we were forced to pound right into the ESE wind to maintain the course to Eleuthera.  We turned around and went back to the anchorage.  We turned around again and wanted to head South to the other anchorage by Hoffman and White Cay, but the swell and the winds only allowed us to maintain 2.5 kts and less.  We turned around again.  Back to the anchorage, anchor, catch our breath and eat a good breakfast before coming up with another plan.  

We studied the charts and the weather and decided the most protected anchorage in all the Berry’s was at Great Harbour Cay.  We didn’t really need to go into the marina, we could anchor in the protected bay right outside the marina.  We weighed anchor and headed north.  We were able to motor sail with the smaller jib.  The seas were wild!  6-8 ft. swells coming out of the south.  Manatee actually “surfed” many of the larger swells, bringing our speed up to 8.6 kts. at times!!  Manatee is a fine heavy boat and handled it fine.  As we rounded the north side of Great Stirrup Cay, we encountered a strong outgoing tide and when combined with the seas and the wind we were forced to bring the jib in. We taxed the engine a bit too much and started to overheat.  We blame it on the water pump we had to replace back in Ft. Myers, that was much smaller than the original Yanmar water pump.  It just doesn’t pump enough water through the engine when it is under such duress. Ed looked up, looked at the chart plotter and came up with the plan to raise those emergency white things and head off course for about 7 miles and tack back around to get into the harbor by the marina.  That worked great.  The engine cooled off and we were able to motor sail, maintaining a speed of 4.5 to 5 kt right into the cut for the marina.  We found a quiet well protected spot right outside the marina, where we will hole up until the upcoming front passes. 

Sunset

We enjoyed a nice spaghetti dinner and sunset and then hit the sack early.

We got one squall around midnight, the winds picked up to 25-30 kts and the boat swung around on the anchor.  Ed monitored the anchor, the chart plotter and was comfortable with the hold on the anchor.  A nice rain shower washed the boat down, and we slept like babies.