Bahamas!

We are so happy to be in the Bahamas!! We transited Whale Cay Cut in the Bahamas just before sunrise this morning. The cut is notorious for “raging” (breaking waves all the way across) when there is a NE swell. This morning it was, as our weather guy, Chris Parker, would say, benign. As I mentioned before, we timed our arrival this morning to coincide with the exit of an area of low pressure that was causing higher seas. We were sailing fast enough that we could have arrived before sunset yesterday if it hadn’t been for the poor conditions yesterday. It was quite a challenge to find the right sail plan to keep us from moving too fast (not a problem we often have). We tried jib and mainsail with one reef, jib and mainsail with two reefs, mainsail only with one reef and, finally, jib only. Even with jib only we were sailing too fast. Last evening the wind moved further behind us making it difficult to keep the jib filled when the waves pushed us to and fro. The jib would  start to gybe to the other side, then would slam back. It makes quite a racket in the cabin when it does that and George was trying to sleep, so I decided to start the engine and furl the jib. We motored the rest of the way to the Bahamas at a little over 4 knots. 

Before docking at the Green Turtle Club Marina we anchored Breeze On outside the harbor so that we could run the water maker. We prefer to run it in more open water as opposed to a rather enclosed harbor. After putting a few gallons of water in the tank we came into the marina, bought fuel, then tied up in our slip. George is now at the office clearing Customs and Immigration. Next on the agenda, showers!

Sunrise over Whale Cay. 

Clouds at sunrise.