Back in the U.S.

 We arrived in Brunswick GA one week ago, a 54 hour trip from Chub Cay in the Berry Islands. The passage - our first time trying to ride the north setting Gulf Stream, rather than just get past it, was lumpy, squally and generally just not much fun. Will have to reassess using the Gulf Stream, it just seems once there is enough wind the seas just build to a level that is fun sapping. Brunswick is a very nice town, the marina we are in is outstanding, nice to be able to fully re-provision the boat. This also kicks off our summer 2023 refit, lots of small and a couple of large projects. 

Leaving the Bahamas - the tried and true strategy is to get as far south and east as you plan then pick a routing back to explore. We made it as far as Salt Pond Long Island, then transited back via Cat Island, Eleuthera and Chub Cay. 

Cat Island has become my favorite spot, just the perfect blend of clear water, un touched reefs and coral heads throughout with great fishing, a very welcoming and friendly local community and the Hermitage. The only issue with Cat is that the anchorages are a bit exposed, in normal easterly weather we would move from one anchorage to another to maximize comfort. However, with any unsettled weather the anchorages are just too exposed, and this finally chased us north to Eleuthera. 


Town of New Bight


Beach & Anchorage at Old Bight


The Hermitage



The Hermitage was built by Father Jerome and sits on the highest hill in all of the Bahamas (206ft). Father Jerome was originally an architect and built many of the churches in the Bahamas. He built the Hermitage as his retirement home. The rooms are tiny, the walk way up steep with the 10 steps of the cross carved into stone. Frankly just an amazing place. 

Eleuthera has a much larger bank area, the water less clear and similar anchoring issues as Cat with the exception of Hatchet Bay which has a man made 100ft wide cut into a completely protected harbor. We spent all but one night in Hatchet Bay, using a rental car to explore the island. 


Caves on Eleuthera


Swing near the Glass Window


Queens Bath


Queens Bath




Comments

  1. Chris and Mark LignoulJuly 10, 2023 at 3:29 PM

    Hope you are doing well. I know it is still hurricane season so assume you are still in Brunswick, GA. Wondering what you are up to - how is the refit going??

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cruising The Bahamas with Friends

Image
For the past week we have been traveling with our seemingly life long great friends on board, ok only 30 years but you get the picture. The Bahamas in winter are a bit tough when planning a week adventure, weather and tide are a huge factor as well as distances between useful ports for arriving or departing guests. Accidentally, or with great luck it seemed to all work out as we were able to meet in Nassau, get out 36 hours later make our way through the Exumas to Staniel Cay where our friends departed about 30 minutes before a strong cold front arrived that left us at anchor with 30 knots of wind and 12 hours of torrential rain. During the week - nothing but blue skies and relatively light winds. We were able to stop at Allens for a visit to the pre-historic iguanas, Highborne for some fuel and grocery, Warderick Wells for hiking, snorkeling and wildlife before arriving in Staniel for some swimming pigs, snorkeling and an afternoon at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club to celebrate Rae’s birt...
Read more

Sailing the Bahamas

Image
The Bahamas provide a great training ground for working on sailing skills, whether knocking off the rust, learning new skills or learning a new to us boat, well for us all of the above. The winds generally have an east component while the islands roughly run in a NW/SE direction so there is always a sailing angle. We have been sailing on the banks the past month, thus seas are 1-3 ft chop so very stable and easy conditions.  We have never used a spinnaker or asymmetrical spinnaker on any of our previous sail boats. Tenacious came with an asymmetrical spinnaker. We had brought this on deck in Annapolis to see if we had the bits and pieces required. We had a nice down wind run in the past week that gave us the perfect sub 10 knot winds to give the spinnaker a try. We were able to make 4-5 knots with an apparent wind of 6-8 knots. The sail was reasonable easy to handle with a sock to pull down/dose the sail. The sail is big and all 3 crew members were fully engaged to manage her....
Read more

All the Places We Have Been

Image
 Well it has been a while, apologies, we are in Georgetown now, arriving on March 7, 2023 to the Mecca of Bahamas cruising. Georgetown has a fabulous, large, well protected harbor and a substantial local support network built up around the cruising community, which first started coming here in the 1960's. We passed through in 2009 as well, very little has changed - a few more resorts but for the most part, same beach bars, cruiser volleyball and a lost of boats. Georgetown is also referred to as chicken harbor, because the sailing gets much more difficult/more open ocean exposer/fewer anchorages/longer distances, very few people leave until it is time to go back to the U.S. in April/May.  Let's roll back the clock three weeks though, we found ourselves in Oven Rock on Great Guana Cay, hiking into a fresh water cave - plenty of bats. Fishing was pretty poor.  A stop at Black Point Great Guana on our way north for some provisions and some hiking to some very nice ocean side...
Read more