Bye Bye Bahamas

The Exumas turned into a whirlwind trip. Wasn't really planned that way, but weather had it's way with us and that's what happened. The northern Exumas really seem like a great tropical place, and someday maybe we will enjoy them a bit more! As it was, we transited through the islands in a weeks time only making three stops before Georgetown. Our first stop, Royal Harbour, Eleuthera. It was just an overnight stop after crossing from the Abacos, time for some cocktails and dinner before bed. The following day took us across the banks to arrive at Allen's Cay in the Exumas. We stayed put here for a couple of days, visited with the Rock Iguana and spent a day in the water hunting lobster and conch. We were successful, returning to the boat with 10 conch and a large lobster. Dinner was very good.

A bit about Rock Iguana. They were once found throughout the Bahamas but were wiped out as a food source. They are now protected by Bahamian law and there are two colonies in the Northern Exumas. These are the relatives of the iguanas that were used as dinosaurs in the old horror movies.

From there we followed the western coast south to Norman's Cay, two nights there, then on to Staniel Cay. We got stuck in here for a few days with weather blowing us around, as soon as it cleared we headed out the cut into Exuma Sound and spent the day sailing down to Georgetown. We arrived the day before Chris Parker's weather seminar. We explored Georgetown, didn't take very long, learned a little more about reading weather fax and gribs, and met our weather guru. What we didn't realize before arriving in Georgetown, was that we arrived the week of the Regatta. Basically meaning there were bunches of boats, well over 300. We enjoy meeting and spending time with other cruisers, for us, this number was a bit daunting. There were quite a few people there we knew and didn't get to spend too much time with, although we would have liked too. Of course there was also the weather, it turned around to the Northwest and blew for three days, and the anchorage was a rockin. One morning I got out of bed, stumbled outside, looked around at the clear blue sky, beautiful turquoise water, and wondered how this could really be a day of bad weather. The I looked at the waves rolling under the boat, the white caps on top of them, sunk back down below, felt a little queasy from the rolling about, went back to bed and said, yep it's a bad day.

I was quite elated after three days of this weather when our weather guru, Chris Parker, announced to us that it would be a great opportunity to sail straight down to Puerto Rico. We had planned on taking our time and visiting the southern Bahama islands, but they are 250 miles of islands scattered about to the southeast. That would be the usual direction of wind. With a little issue of boat insurance, resulting in us changing our insurance company and needing to wait a week for all the changes to take effect we needed to stop in the Turks and Caicos till the insurance was finalized. Not quite Puerto Rico, but still about half way, besides we did want to see it anyway. For just over 48 hours we had some beautiful Northwest winds gently pushing us straight to our destination.