Woke early to relook at the weather and our route. Decided it was a go, so we readied the boat for a deep water passage.
Our journey today will take us out of Rock Sound Harbor, across The Bight of Eleuthera, through a channel between sand bars to Powell Point. From there we will head almost due west across Exuma Sound for 24 miles to arrive in the Exumas.
The Exumas are a 120 mile chain of islands, ranging in size from a rock with a few trees to the 37 mile long Great Exuma Island. The 365 island chain lies between Eleuthera and Andros Islands, south of New Providence.
A bit of history - In 1783, John Forbes, Acting Governor, granted Dennys Rolle land on Great Exuma. Rolle sent 150 enslaved peoples to Great Exuma to build a cotton plantation, The plantation era lasted til 1834 due to poor soil and slave emanicipation. Dennys, son gave 5000 of the acres he owned to the slaves, all with last names of Rolle. You can still see remnants of the cotton plantation today.
Today the economy of the Exumas relies on fishing, onion farming, tourism and salt production,
Back to today - We weighed anchor at about 8:00 and left the harbor. A freighter had come in during the night and tied up to the Government Dock.
Following our way points through the Bight, we angled our way across the rocky bottom that leads to Davis Channel. This channel takes us through a shifting sand bank. We figured if the freighter made it in here, we could make our way out!
Safely making our way through the channel, we round Powell Point we enter Exuma Sound.
We will now travel in Exuma Sounds for the next three hours. Water depth varies from 80 - 2000 feet deep, the water color is deep blue with swells of 2-3 feet.
One hour into Exuma Sound, we were hailed by a sport fisher going past us. He spotted whales. We slowed and looked but could not spot anything so we continued our journey.
Traveling another 18 miles or about 5 miles off shore we could spot islands in the distance. The water depth decreases from 200 to 90 to 40 feet as we approach shore.
We passed through the Ship Channel into Exuma Bank and the waters turned deep turquoise, 8-20 feet deep.
As we turn south onto the bank, we travel past Ship Channel Cay which is a low lying island with a few home on its southern end.
We then passed Pimlico Island which is undeveloped with lots of exposed limestone and shrubs. There is a 168 foot yacht anchored off her shore. Kinda big for these waters.
Cruising further south, we came to entrance to Allen's Cay and turned in to anchor for the night.
Allan's Cay is actually three islands, Allen's Cay, Leaf Cay and Southwest Allen's Cays which form the protected harbor where we will anchor tonight. These islands are known for the rare Rock Iguanas which inhabit two of the three islands.
As we arrived, there are two other boats were in the anchorage, but later on we had five boats anchor with us.
One boat was a tour boat which brought in tourist to go ashore and see the endangered Rock Iguanas. Apparently tour boats are in and out of here most days. We watched the iguanas scurry down the beach to greet people who arrived. You are not supposed to feed and touch the iguanas, but someone must be feeding them.
Plan to go ashore to get a good look at these ancient looking creatures so we splashed the dinghy and landed to be greeted by many iguanas.
Next we moved the dinghy down the beach to explore another shore and a ruin of a home.
