An Exciting Sail Up the Bank

We had an amazing sail today, after a month of being prevented from doing that by either not enough or too much wind.

So this is what it looked like as we made our way three hours North to the famed Exuma Land and Sea Park. As this a protected area, the snorkeling is the best in the Exumas, and we plan to do lots of that!

The wind was blowing 20-25 knots (heavy for our little boat), with rollers on the Bank of at least a metre, and lots of white caps. We howled on a run at about 6.5 knots, with both sails reefed, and seawater splashing into the cockpit.

The sky was blue with puffy cumulus clouds, and we were in heaven. Steering was a challenge, though, because of the wind and waves, and the continuing lack of autopilot – we sure miss our third crew member, Auto. And navigation was also a challenge, because we haven’t installed our new chartplotter yet, and the charts on the Ipad are out of date. But my Captain knows what he’s doing, and he landed us safely in this gorgeous little bay, where we’re all alone at anchor, right next to Johnny Depp’s private Island (really!).

We’re also right near the site of a plane wreck that we plan to snorkel on tomorrow, as well as another great snorkeling site, appropriately named “the aquarium”, because of the multitude of sea life to be found there.

So we’re as happy as the swimming pigs on our first “nude beach” this trip. We’ll probably stay for a few days, or until our fresh food runs out – then the 5 hour trip on open ocean to Spanish Wells for bottom painting (the boat’s, of course) 😊.