Goodbye Exumas....Hello Eleuthera

Today is Monday March 15th and we are anchored in Rock Sound, Eleuthera. We arrived yesterday afternoon after a wonderful ocean sail from the Exumas and were greeted by a mother and baby dolphin on the banks.

Rock Sound is a great harbour for cruisers and the settlement is working very hard to meet the needs of the cruising boats. We were here two years ago on both our way down to the Exumas and our return from Long,Cat and Little San Salvador Islands to the Abacos. There is a decent grocery store, hardware store and even a liquor store. There are also some small gift stores so we are back in civilization here. Eleuthera is a hundred miles long by a bow shot wide (in other words very narrow) and has a population of about eleven thousand. This is quite a contrast to the Exuma Cays with its 365 cays (islands), 125 mile distance and its two settlements of Staniel Cay and Black Point with a couple of hundred people in each and Georgetown being the largest with about a thousand.
Today is Tuesday March 16th and we are moving over to the town side of Rock Sound. We had anchored on the western shore in the lee until today because of the continued west wind. Black Sound harbour is 1.5 miles wide and 4 miles long so it provides shelter from both the easterlies and westerlies dependent on where you anchor. Today we plan on picking up some provisions, doing a little gift shopping,a little exploring and the all important trip to the Napa Hardware store with a trip to the liquore store thrown in for good measure! Tomorrow we are planning on leaving and heading north up the coast of Eleuthera to Governor's Harbour. We may spend a couple of days there waiting for some east winds to take us across to Current Cut rather than beat ourselves up trying to push into a northerly. Chris Parker agrees that The Bahamas have not had the best weather this year, but he said on the SSB radio this morning that the eastern US has had the worst winter there in a long time with gale force winds and rain.....so....the weather here is definitely better!
It is Thursday March 18th and we are back on the western shore of Black Sound harbour sheltering from another cold front from the north west. This one is supposed to be short lived and with any luck will be through Eleuthera by tomorrow afternoon. Yesterday I had hoped to get an internet signal and send some blog updates; however the Batelco tower was having problems with power and the internet was down for most of the day. Now that we are on the other side of the harbour we can not receive the signal so for now I am unable to do any updates. Finding a place that has internet is one thing but finding a place that has a strong signal is another challenge. We have found no free signals this year and most places are charging ten dollars for the day. The odd restaurant has had free wifi if you eat there but even those seem to be few and far between and often the signal is poor. It sometimes takes me fifteen minutes to upload a picture to the blog so doing the blog is sometimes a labour of love. Tomorrow if the wind drops we may motor over to the town side and buy an internet signal but as aways it depends on what the wind decides to do. It sounds like we will make our next move on Saturday with a sail over to Current Cut, Eleuthera. We had hoped to head up the coast on this side of Eleuthera but we are running out of time especially if we hope to get to Harbour Island. Even though we don't fly home until the 14th of April it feels like we are near the end of our cruise and we have to be ever mindful of getting north on the ocean. We always like to spend at least a week before hauling out getting the boat ready so that means we really have less than three weeks to cruise.
Things in Rock Sound have changed since our last visit. It would seem that the economy has suffered here and several stores and eating places have closed. We spent our time walking around the area and returned to the ocean hole park. The ocean hole is a 100 yard ,tidal blue hole populated by salt water fish that move to and fro through subterranean sea tunnels. We snorkelled there two years ago but it was not that clear and clean. There has been a good effort to clean it up and turn the area into a park and the water seemed clearer with more fish. Here is hoping that the locals are no longer using the blue hole as a dump for garbage.
After our walk and getting our chores done the other day we treated ourselves to dinner out at Sammy's Restaurant. Lynn and Peter joined us and Rob had grouper and the rest of us had lobster. It was very delicious and it was my first lobster of the season. We had hoped to buy some fresh from the local fisherman but you have to find them on the dock and timing is everything. Yesterday was Lynn's birthday so we treated First Edition to "hamburgers in paradise", bean salad and a little cake that I baked. First Edition's library is amazing so one of Lynn's gifts was a friendship book mark. Captain Rob made her one of his conch bowls and as of this morning it is being used for jewellery. It was a nice celebration and as always we are grateful for the time spent with our sailing friends. Sailing provides a common bond but it is the friendship that develops that makes the relationship special.
Today is Friday March 19th and we are back across the bay for a few hours so that we can buy an internet signal and get some updates done. I hope to get in a call to my mom on Skype as well. It depends on the strength of the signal and how many boats are using the internet but it really is wonderful when it works. Rob has rowed into shore to pay for the signal and to get my password and with any luck this posting will soon be on our blog. The wind is forecast to build so we will likely move back to the more protected shore after I finish my internet entries. Rob is going to make a trip back to the hardware store and bank while I work on the boat.