Captains Log 02/22/07

Located in Sale Cay Rocks, Little Bahama Bank

Today we did the old ancient way of traveling, no motor. YES the entire day was quiet. I got everything ready while Crystal was still sleeping. Raised the mainsail while still at anchor. Packed everything away, got all the sheets ready, and manually lifter the anchor via the windlass winch. The wind was light out of the NW but in calm seas I had no hard objectives to make it anywhere. Well, on the back of my mind was the Great Sale Cay, where all the other boats would go. But my main thing was to not use the engine. Great Sale Cay was 21NM away on the west side and 30 NM on the east side. So off we went in beautiful sunny morning with light breeze, gliding through swimming pool water, at a whooping 2.6kts. Wow! But who cares. Anyhow since the wind was astern I rolled the gib back in and pulled out the radial floater. The light weight spinnaker. It took Crystal and me several tires but we got the sail up. It was great. Traveling in style and fast. Our speed got up to 4.5 knots. Yeah. We laid on deck catching sun all day while the autopilot was steering. Anyhow, by early afternoon the wind picked up even more and we decided to use it and sail passed Great Sale Cay. One thing that I have to get used to is sailing in the middle of nowhere with 12 feet of water under you. The little mangrove cay island was a patch of grass with mangroves on it. And before that we didn't see any land all day. At least we managed to go two days in bahamas without running aground. That calls for a celebration! This time I wanted to be anchored before sunset because there were some tricky shallow areas to maneuver by. So we decided to anchor just NE of Great Sale Cay. This gives us a head start next day. With W-NW winds forecasted I think we can have another day of no motor! But this time I think its a little silly to anchor or raise the anchor by hand, it just takes too long and you have to make sure the anchored is hooked in the sand so you have to reverse the engine, so the anchor sets. So we need the engine for about half hour in the morning and half hour in the evening. With this plan I think our fuel supply will last over a month. But we'll see.
Anyway, its so dark here with no lights in sight. We did hear few people on the radio, but even that is sparse. We are literally in the middle of nowhere. Tomorrow we'll head for the harbor where we'll check in, Spanish Cay. It's a straight shot of about 30NM and no tricky shoaling areas. So that should be ok. I just saw a small tanker drive by on route to West Palm Beach. I saw that same tanker at west palm beach few times while waiting on weather. That's probably how mail gets to Abacos. Anyway its good to know that this rout is deep. Hopefully we'll make 3 days in a row without running aground.

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