Day 41
Woke to a cloudy morning which quickly cleared.
After double checking our plans for the day and buying some drinking water, we set to ready the boat to leave. Today we have to time our trip, leaving to arrive at Current Cut at slack tide, about 10 miles into our trip. Hopefully we calculated correctly.
Our plans for the next two days is to travel down the Bight of Eleuthera to stage for crossing to the Exumas.
We left the dock in stiff breeze that pushed the boat away from the dock. Bill had to get back on the boat quickly as he released the lines. I did not want to leave him behind!!
We traveled out of the canal in Spanish Wells and headed south past Meeks Patch Islands to make a turn to the southeast toward Current Cut. This cut shaves off about 1.5 hours of travel, but using it requires much consideration of wind and tides.
Close to the cut we saw that SV Jubilee was on course to go through the cut. We hailed her and they shared that they had gone thru the cut three times and would check out the conditions and let us know their thoughts about crossing. After favorable conditions were confirmed, we followed them through. We cut our engine to idle speed, and proceeded. We clocked 7.9 knots going at idle speed. That's quite a current! Thanks SV Jubilee for the guided tour!
Leaving the cut we were greeted with beautiful turquoise waters and a bit of chop as we entered the Bight of Eleuthera.
This water color continued for the 30 mile trip to Governor's Harbor, a town halfway down South Eleuthera. As we traveled south, we could see the shore of South Eleuthera pass by. Along the coast of Eleuthera are several small settlements with names of - Gregory Town, James Cistern and Alice Town. Each of the settlements has homes up on the "hills", but between the settlements is undeveloped bluffs and sand dunes and beaches.
Bill was having trouble with his hat in the wind!!
As we neared Governor's Harbor 5 smaller dolphin swam to us for a ride. It is always fun to see them!
Governor's Harbor is a working harbor with enough room for larger freighter to enter and deliver goods. As we entered the harbor a 90 meter freighter was unloading semi trailers. The harbor has caves along the entrance and after the working dock area, the harbor is lined with homes. We anchored with 6 other sailboats.
I forgot to mention two things from Tuesdays road trip on Eleuthera. The were ponds which were used to harvest salt that dot the Eleuthera Island. We saw many of these ponds on our road trip two days ago.
Also the silos that dot part of Eleuthera, remnants of the dairy business that was is now gone. Though we did see cows wandering around just off the road.
Here is our sunset!
