Fuses, Sting Rays, Cat People, and Fireworks – What a Day!

Doldrums: When the ocean meets the sky and
you honestly cannot distinguish between the two.

The Captain and I were excited to move on down the Exumas with their promise of abundant sea life and exciting corals, so even with the ever-so-slight breath of wind on the air, we decided to pull up anchor and get under way.  After a tense moment of navigating a coral-lined channel, we hoisted the sails and waited for that exciting moment every sailor loves: when the wind fills the sails and you can feel the boat lean just slightly to the side as free energy starts to push you toward your next destination.  Unfortunately, no matter which way I turned the wheel, no matter how much we asked the Wind Gods, no matter how much we blew into the sails, we weren’t moving.  The doldrums is a common phrase in modern language that originally comes from sailing terminology; it’s that point where your boat is just not going to move because there is not a lick of wind to move you!

Nurse Sharks Aplenty

Borrowed from: marinas.com

The Wednesday after Mother’s Day showed up on the weather websites as our last day of decent wind for at least a week, so we reluctantly left the Island School area to get to our next port of call: Highbourne Cay at the northern part of the Exumas.  We left at the break of dawn and experienced what I see as our most perfect sailing day to date!  The winds were blowing steady at a speed that was high enough to get us where we were heading, but low enough to stay safe (for you sailor-types, we had a good beam reach of 12-16 knot wind all day coming from our port side) and coming from the perfect direction to push us oh-so-gently to our northwestern destination (if only every day could be so easy!).  As we were making yet another sizable jump (32 miles) to enter into an unknown area with sharp rock edges and coral heads around, we were happy to make the journey quickly enough to have us drinking a glass of wine with the anchor down and the sails stowed by 5:00 in the evening!

South Eleuthera - The Bahamas’ First Settlement

After leaving Hatchet Bay, our next stop was in the first settlement of the Bahamas: Governor’s Harbour.  This sleepy little town has almost as many white people as black it would seem due mostly to people who were leaving governments and slavery laws they did not agree with.  The first night there, we stumbled into the elementary school’s variety show because I was beckoned off the boat by the smell of grilling chicken (which was not as good as the jerk chicken found in Jamaica, but still good) and the sounds of large stacks of speakers.  We were entertained by the school kids performing songs, poetry readings, and choreographed dance routines; however, I was more fascinated by all the white faces and blond hair I was seeing than by the kids whose voices were turned up to ear-splitting levels on the sound system.

North Eleuthera – Nature’s Powers

Calypso's Fire in a Hatchet Bay sunset

We were welcomed to Eleuthera by Rainbow Cay and the turquoise waters of its northern cove and white sand beach that was as ideal as any postcard you could conceive.  I jumped off the boat after breakfast to swim across the harbor toward the rocks in hopes of finding a lobster dinner for the Captain and myself, but was fairly disappointed in the amount of sea life there was in general – definitely no lobsters to be found!  After such a hard go of it the day before, the Captain and I decided to take the day to clean the boat, relax, and do some swimming in the area to just unwind.  Unfortunately, the night of rocking due to sea swells was enough of an annoyance that the next morning, we were a bit wound up again and ready to work our way back up to the original destination the night before: Alice Town off Hatchet Bay.