Chapter 10 (The Journey continues)

Chapter 10 Eleuthra April 2, 2017 we worked to get the boat in ship shape well into the evening for a long crossing. Steve studied all of the charts to prepare for our departure. We were up at 6 AM and departed at 6:30 AM as the sun was coming up. There was not enough light to really see detail but over the previous 2 days we studied this departure well to make sure it was safe. The winds were forecasted to blow out of the Southeast at 14-17 knots per hour. As it turned out the wind was out of the south-southeast. It was blowing (17-20 knots per hour) about 30 degrees off of our port bow which made for a little bit of a rough ride, for the first 3/4 of the trip. The trip took us approximately 11 hours to sail 60+ miles to Eleuthra. We sailed across the Atlantic and the NorthEast Providence Channel. We saw a few large barges and a few other sailboats going the opposite direction. We saw a very large pod of Dolphin! I finally got a pretty good picture that I will post when I have access. Our last post was a very difficult one to do? Internet access is almost non-existent here? We are very thankful for our phones? We landed in Eleuthra at the Egg Island waypoint. We sailed to the Current Rock Settlement. Once we got into the Northern Eleuthra banks the water colors were amazing! The most beautiful turquoise blue water we have ever seen. It appears to be very shallow but we had 15-20 foot of water over the entire sail on the bank. The temperatures are finally warming up as well. Once we were on anchor, we were concerned about our refrigerator. It was beginning to warm up. Both the fridge and freezer had been working flawlessly since we had them worked on about a year ago. Steve did all of the trouble shooting he could. He was concerned that the refrigerant either had leaked out or had impurities that blocked a line (during our rough crossing) and stopped working. We started making calls to see if we could get a repairman from one of the larger marinas close by but no one was available for at least a week (This is the Island time we are used too). Fortunately our freezers was still working great. Of course our fear was that the food we had ion board might spoil without the refrigerator. Steve continued to work on it. On Wednesday we took our dinghy to the Bluff settlement which was a 7 mile ride. We thought maybe we could buy some ice and at least get through our trip with the ice box. That was a long ride in a dinghy! We made it to this settlement which was also very depressed. They had 2 stores but no one had ice. One store had old butter tubs filled with water, frozen in the freezers. We met a local gentleman that was very friendly, his name was George. He took us to a neighboring settlement. We bought 2 #20 pound bags of ice for $17 dollars. He then took us back to our dinghy to begin the trip back to our boat. George didn't want to take any money for his time but we insisted. In the end we spent $30 for 2 bags of ice! For some reason when we got back to the boat after a 45 minute dinghy ride with only half of our ice left (due to extreme temperatures), our refrigerator began to work again? The wind was coming up again to some 30 knot winds and there was no protection where we were. We were not ready yet to take on the "Current Cut" It is an area that is referred to as the "Panama Canal of the Bahamas". It is another tricky area to move further south down Eleuthra. The current Cut is a narrow rocky lined passage with extreme currents up to 10 knots. If you time it wrong you may be sling-shoted out of the other side out of control or have a head current stronger than you have power to counter and be pushed to the rocks. Much tidal calculation is required to find the right time to cross. We currently are trying to calculate a time to provide a 3 knot push through the cut. The current continues for 1 mile beyond the cut with shallow coral and shoals to avoid. We decided to return north to Spanish Wells to get some shelter and review all of our options. We spent 2 days in Spanish Wells at the Yacht haven resort. It was a great base. Spanish Wells is a very cute settlement with many people living here and very kind people. When we were out walking we kept getting stopped and asked if they could take us somewhere. No one seemed to understand that we just wanted to walk? The temperatures were much warmer so we had some pool time. We again met many new people both Sailors and power boaters. We did a lot of walking, beach combing and relaxing. We had to do some clean up and work on the boat to get her ready for our journey south. Fun people, we met George a Bahamian that is a very active Trump supporter and rode a golf cart around with a Trump banner. There is an election about to happen in the Bahamas so lots of political banners all around. Until the next Post!