We arrived at Highborne Cay in the northern Exumas after a pleasant day of sailing and motorsailing. It took us about nine hours to cover the close to fifty miles. The passage over what is called the Yellow Bank is always the scariest of the whole trip as we dodge coral heads for a couple of hours. Their dark purple colour makes them easy to spot but looking into the sun makes it tricky nonetheless. The bank is sometimes only 7 to 8 feet deep so you do not want to run over any of the coral. Celebrian draws about 5 foot 4 inches. In the Bahamas you have to get used to sailing in water that often leaves only a couple of feet under your keel. That is just the nature of sailing on the banks.
Unlike Royal Island, Highborne Cay had lots of boats. Many arrive daily from Nassau as it is only about 30 miles across to New Providence Island. What surprised us was the number of mega yachts of 100 feet and more. Usually we don't see them until the spring when the Gulf Stream crossing is easier from Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
The next morning we headed south about 15 miles to Shroud Cay where we did some paddling and exploring of the mangrove creeks. Shroud Cay is part of the Exuma Land and Sea Park so it is very pristine. We saw some water birds and fishes along our excursion and enjoyed the first of some real warmth.
The following day we made a short five mile hop to Hawksbill Cay, another park island and a new anchorage for us to explore. We anchored Goldberry off a small beach and bushwacked our way over a path to the ocean. As you can see by the picture the path was rather crude...notice the blue string on the bottom left hand side cornerof the picture marking the trail. Gratefully it was only about a half a mile across but an adventure just the same. On our way we came across two large Bahamian snakes. We have only seen one other snake in all our time spent hiking in The Bahamas. They are harmless but both of them were close to four feet long. We saw and heard lots of birds as we crossed the island to the ocean side. The ocean side was quite lovely....beautiful white sand, casuarina trees lining the shore and the clear blue ocean of Exuma Sound. After doing some beach combing...nary a shell we had our picnic under some casuarina trees.
Today is Wednesday January 5th and we have finally caught up with First Edition. They are in Georgetown which is the largest settlement in The Exumas and about 70 miles from here. They are on their way to Long Island to attend to a couple of matters and then on to the Jumentos. We look forward to meeting up with them in the Jumentos in the next week or two. We are on our way to Bell Island today to hide out from a cold front for a couple of days. After the front moves through we will head to Sampson Cay to pick up some diesel and on to Black Point to do some laundry and find something lettuce like if possible? Black Point is the only settlement that has a laundry facility in the Exumas until you get to Georgetown. Black Point may have a population of one or two hundred so having a laundry is quite impressive. Ida is a smart business woman and she and Lorraine, who runs Lorraine's Cafe have put Black Point on the cruiser's map. From Black Point we will disappear for a couple of weeks in the Jumentos or what are also called the Ragged Islands. The Raggeds used to be really off the beaten track but there are now charts available and more cruisers are going there; however you still have to be self reliant because the sailing is in very remote areas and not recommended for everyone. We spent a couple of weeks there two winters ago and had hoped to return last year but couldn't get there because of the weather. We are hopeful that this year's weather patterns will be more normal.
