Casting off

Three weeks of sunshine and low winds ended with the New Year and 2018 brought unstable weather to the Exumas. The tail of the low that battered the US East coast with freezing temperatures brought us higher winds and rain.   We started the Exuma shuffle, waiting for a weather window to go to Georgetown on Great Exuma. The shuffle meant sidestepping waves and wind to find a protective anchorage and occasionally returning to Staniel Cay to provision.   The 30 mile sail south in the open ocean required a day   or two of calmer weather that would lay the seas down and allow us to enter from the banks   into the ocean. Each area of the world has its own particular sailing challenges, which is one reason why cruising can be both   ‘hair-raising’ and exciting at the same time.   For the Bahamian Exuma Islands, this challenge is navigating the ‘cuts’.   The Exumas lie in a line between thousands of square miles of shallow banks and th...

We left Staniel Cay New Years Day. It was dead calm and we ran the engine, a necessity anyway, as we needed to charge our batteries and make water. The weather report had a developing, strong low-pressure system in the forecast and we decided to set our course for Pond at Rudder Cut Cay, 20 miles south. The Pond offered great all round protection and turned out to be the perfect place for us to hang out for a few days.   Like many Bahamian islands Rudder Cay had and interesting history, involving tax evasion, a prison sentence and an abandoned mansion.   An extensive system of partly overgrown roads crisscrossed the two and a half mile long island, from the broken down boat landing by the Pond, to the airstrip in the north to the former mansion at the highest point, to four beautiful beaches on the western and southern shore. It felt good to tie on our hiking shoes, take some long walks and explore. Having some free time on our hands we decided to...