We’re just leaving Governor’s Harbour on our way back to Hatchet Bay to wait out some weather. In this post we end up sailing Eleuthera, almost the full length!

2.1 – Saturday

We raised the main before we pulled up the anchor. As we left the harbor, we rolled out the genoa for some engines-off sailing! Unfortunately, since we’re low on power, we also had to run the generator. It feels like twice the effort of motoring, which both moves us from Point A to Point B AND charges our batteries, but by doing this we don’t accumulate engine hours and it’s probably easier to get gas than diesel right now.

With decent wind came some decent chop, with my head down in the watermaker locker I started to feel queasy. After I got the watermaker started I did some laundry, which definitely didn’t help. I was doing all the work, and Kyle was just sitting there reeling in fish! The first fish he caught was a sand diver, probably a young one, whose eyes were bigger than its mouth – he snagged a lure almost half his size!

 Soon after Kyle got the lure back in the water, he pulled in a small kingfish mackerel. Food! And because this one is small, it’s not a ciguatera risk.

The biggest concern today was how bad the swell would be at the entrance to Hatchet Bay, which is a narrow cut between two rock walls. If it was too rough we wouldn’t be able to make it in. So I had that to think about during the few hours of sailing.

Navigating the cut took my full concentration, although it wasn’t too bad. It wasn’t fun but we made it just fine. The anchorage was very busy in anticipation of the upcoming blow, we drove around until we found our spot and set the anchor really well.

2.2 – Sunday

A couple boats dragged last night, so I’m glad we anchored on the windward side of everyone (aka no one was in front of us). One of the boats snagged a concrete block from an old mooring, so while he dragged too close to our friends on s/v Consort, he can’t move until Consort moves. Fortunately we’re past the worst of the wind so everyone should be fine now.

Today is Superbowl Sunday, and we didn’t expect to watch the game, our friends had no such expectations and told us to meet them at BJs $2 Bar, where the beers don’t actually cost $2 (but they are 3 for $10, which is the best beer price we’ve seen at a bar in the Bahamas!).

We debated whether to eat before heading in, and the reason is that we have a fresh fish to eat! Kyle decided to smoke the mackerel and he cooked it perfectly, flaky and tender and tasty. We really need to step up our fishing. Every time we move, we have lines in the water, but fish don’t bite when it’s calm out and we’ve been traveling in a lot of calm waters lately!

Then we dinghied in with a few other boat friends. They led us to the bar and sure enough, there were four screens with the game on! It’s funny how a place can feel so remote, then you find a legit sports bar and suddenly it doesn’t feel nearly as remote anymore! We kept the beer bucket full until halftime, after the halftime show ended we headed home because it was past boat-midnight!

2.3 – Monday

We moved back to the Glass Window this morning. The water is very calm today, and about halfway through our trip an engine hiccuped. Neither of us had touched the throttle. Our speed dropped half a knot, so something was up. Kyle played around with the engines, and he confirmed that the starboard engine had an issue but visually we couldn’t find anything amiss. When I put the throttles in reverse to back down on our anchor, a tuft of seaweed floated by the bow, so we had a pretty good idea of what the starboard prop would look like.

Sure enough, he pulled a big clump of weeds from the prop. Fortunately he didn’t even need a knife, it came off easily. As he did that we realized how bad the growth on the hull has gotten.

After fixing the prop, he started to work on cleaning the hulls. I jumped in to help, but after seeing a few big jellies I noped out of there. He tried to keep working, but there are jellies everywhere. They just gave him tiny stings, at some point you’ve got to concede that today is not the day the hulls are going to get cleaned. At least we know the current growth is pretty easy to scrape off, mostly soft weeds and no barnacles.

Oh, I know food pics aren’t the most interesting thing, but I need to rave about coconut bread. We picked some up in Governor’s Harbour and French toast will never be the same for me. This is 100% the best French toast and nothing will change my mind!

We spent the rest of the day doing chores. The sun just set, I know that because I heard a conch horn. We’ve heard that a couple other times in busy anchorages.

2.4 – Tuesday

Our friends on s/v NFA dinghied over this morning and showed us their new starfish friend! A huge charter group was arriving at the beach, and they were concerned that a tourist would kill the starfish so they brought her out to deeper water.

Today was a big day, but not for any particular reason. I did tons of laundry. The watermaker was going for over 5 hours today but our tanks are finally full.

Kyle cleaned up the port hull in preparation for guests, so the boat is probably cleaner now than it’s been in a long time! He also checked on the engines, topping up the oil and making sure the belts are tight. Really, it never sounds like much but it’s so easy to get tired out.

We never left the boat today, but we’re in such a beautiful anchorage. I can clearly see the boat’s shadow in 8 feet of swimming-pool-colored water. It’s amazing.

2.5 – Wednesday

We raised the main before we pulled up the anchor, and managed to get some good sailing in! And soon after we left the anchorage, we were visited by a couple dolphins, and then two more joined in! It’s fairly unusual for us to see them here, we saw dolphins in Florida all the time but I’ve only seen them in the Bahamas a handful of times. This is the first time they’ve come and played around our boat!

They stayed for quite a while, and since most of the time they were right under our bow I mostly have shots from directly above them, while they’re underwater.

Soon after they left, the wind died down enough that we had to start up an engine in order to keep our pace – we need to make it through Current Cut at the right time so we have favorable current. We dropped the sails as we arrived at the cut and motored through. There is a shallow channel just ahead of the cut and we were approaching it at low tide, so it was better to have full control of the boat. It wasn’t a problem at all (minimum 8.5 ft of water), and the transition from deep to shallow water was beautiful in the sunlight.

Kyle drove us through the cut while I snapped a few photos.

As soon as we were through the cut, we raised the sails again and sailed all the way back to Spanish Wells. We’re about to pick up some visitors!