We stayed at Lee Stocking Island for 4 days, while a front passed through. Spent time exploring on shore, and working again on our dodger. Lee Stocking used to house a marine research center which is now abandoned.
It is interesting to walk around the island and see all the abandoned equipment, supplies, and buildings. It was probably more money to remove the items than to just leave them.
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| Ocean side view from Lee Stocking Island |
We have moved south slowly. We left Nassau on December 29th, and motored over to Normans Cay. Our friends on Bedouin were there, so we had a nice walk on the beach with them catching up.
Next day, we went to Fowl Cay, where we worked on our Dodger project a bit, and hung out on the boat for a couple of days avoiding south winds. When they died down, we headed north to Soldier Cay, and anchored there within the Exuma Land and Sea Park, in order to snorkel the Sea Aquarium. We did the snorkel, but were not that impressed, we thought we remembered it as being better last time in the Bahamas. Since you have to pay to anchor in the Exuma Land and Sea Park, we left the next day and sailed down to Pipe Cay.
We liked Pipe Cay, and ended up staying there for 7 days. Did some snorkeling, worked on the dodger project, hiked on shore and relaxed. Unfortunately, did not take many pictures.
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| Our view at Pipe Cay |
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
We had a good weather window, and a schedule so on 12/22/2021 we left the Abaco's and headed south to the north end of Eleuthera - or more accurately the west end of Royal Island. Weather was good, with winds 16 to 25 knots, so we made excellent time, although the seas were 4 to 6', the ride was not bad.
We have been waiting on a good weather window to make an offshore jump of 50 miles further south. Winds have been strong out of the East to Southeast - so not good. Waves have been spectacular though, crashing on the eastern beaches.
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| Lynyard Cay east side in strong East winds and swell |
We moved south, stopped at Powell Cay, and had a nice time. Walked to beach on east side. Very pretty beach.
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| East side of beach. Not much trash here |
Still at Allans / Pensacola Cay. Nice weather. Still surrounded by sharks. Have been working on identification, and 95% sure they are bull sharks. Not ones to go swimming with. Sharks in the Bahamas are not uncommon, but usually you are out of the water by 4:00 each day, as usually the sharks come around during twilight hours. You can generally plan on mid day being shark free. Unfortunately, we think that people have been feeding the sharks, or cleaning their fish catch from the boats and these have become used to boats having food. They circle the boat all day long. We have had from two to five swimming circles around us since we have arrived, with no visible break.
After our covid test came back negative, we left North Palm Beach, and had a relatively smooth motor across the gulf stream to arrive in the Bahamas at West End on Grand Bahama. Left at 5:30 at night, just as dark was settling in, and arrive at 6:00 next morning after motoring on one engine most the night. Got in a little too early, so had to slow down for about a 1/2 hour at the end and wait for daylight to enter the narrow channel.
Check in went well, and we left by 9:30 a.m. to head to Great Sale Cay. Nice to be back in the blue water.
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| Sailing from West End to Great Sale Cay |
