I woke up to the sound of Rob’s dinghy outboard, like a golf cart pulling up to you just outside your bungalow door, in some dreamy vacation. In this dream, around us were palm trees and white sand. I awoke to this other wonderful reality and rubbed my eyes. I was still anchored in Hatchet Bay, with the sun’s fresh rays coming through my portholes. Given the surroundings, Sonora might as well have been a bungalow. Except we were on the water, and not in the sand. Better!
Rob is such a kind soul. He had come by the boat and helped me do the more difficult chores – like hauling up the dinghy outboard and putting it back on the mount on Sonora. I did the dishes, put away a few more things, and got ready to leave. I told Rob not to wait for me and leave first, as I’ll be right behind him. My attempt to not go to the Exumas had utterly failed. I got caught up in Rob’s passionate proposal. Usually, I am the one talking my friends into going on adventures they were reluctant to go on. It was strange being on that side of the fence.
About forty minutes behind Rob, I left Hatchet Bay. The sail to Exumas was incredible. My soreness in my arms and back from hauling up various heavy items evaporated off my skin and into the amazing breeze. Sonora flew on Hull speed on a broad reach for about half of the trip. I caught up with Rob throughout the ten hour sail, averaging six knots. Sliding over the water in full sails, I wrote the journal entries for my stay in Eleuthera.
Rob was impressed. But he didn’t know that I was pushing my boat. Leaving a full sail out when I normally would have reefed, but fully using the sail controls that some cruising boats don’t have. With the wind blowing that hard, I pulled in both outhaul and vang and made my mainsail nice and flat. The boat really does fly with my relatively new sails.
Eventually I had to take down mainsail and start my engine. We went through a sketchy mine field of coral heads that extended for twelve miles. On the charts, rock obstruction symbols dotted the area with the warning: numerous coral heads. Fortunately, we had consulted Bruce beforehand and we made sure we did this trip when the sun was on top of us. Bruce was right. An endless field of coral heads dotted in front of me. The coral heads showed up as black spots on the surface and it was possible to visually navigate between them. I squinted through my sunglasses, trying to cut through the brilliant Caribbean glare. The chart was at most, semi-accurate, and as usual in the Caribbean, visual navigation was king. I really wondered what it would have been like to go hunting here. Reef heads that are not connected to a bigger structure tend to be high in fish density. One day, I will come back and anchor just outside of these reefs and try it out. A good goal to have to daydream about in my years to come, when all of this was over.
About a third of the way there, Bruce messaged me on WhatsApp informing me of the new forecast. Winds were going to blow hard from the East, starting that evening. Great. I needed to get back to Eleuthera to pick up crew for my return journey this weekend. And the winds were going to blow hard from exactly where I wanted to go. It would be the most gentle on that exact day I wanted to come back. I wrestled with my decisions for a few hours, and half-decided that I had to sail back the same day.
This was a lesson learned. My normal decision making cycle was broken. I really wanted to do this trip “on the chill.” Never rush when I don’t have to, avoid rough seas, and never have a schedule. But tempted by a friend’s company as well as the idea of making it to the Exumas, I forgot to check the forecast one more time in the morning. I’ll need to remember this the next time I’m buddy boating. I pouted about it for a few hours, reminding myself this is still just my own fault. Rob doesn’t know what its like to have time pressure like I do, and there is no way he could fully empathize with my situation. And besides, no one put a gun to my head. I wanted to see the Exumas too, and my real fault was deferring to his decision making more than I should have. After all, Rob is still more daring. Undoubtedly he has a ton of experience in his nine months of cruising, but I still have made more bad decisions and learned from them over the decade of combined years of sailing.
When we got to the anchorage at Allen Cay Exumas, I noticed a few things. The water is incredibly gorgeous in the Exumas. Yes I say this a lot, but this place had waters that were a whole different color. Visually, everything looked too perfect. Picturesque, barely inhabited small islands in front. Turquois waters all around. All perfect, except for scores and scores of other boats at the anchorage. So much for ‘remote,’ you couldn’t deny the view. I was finally here at the Promised Land.
I also noticed that the anchorage was very rolly. Big ocean swells will ‘wrap around’ a land mass and affect the sea state on the leeward side of the islands. It was not as bad as it was on the windward side, but it was still not very comfortable. We bobbed up and down at the anchorage and took a breather.
When I told Rob I may have to leave right away, he was really bummed out. I told him about my concerns of having to be back by a certain date, and how bad the weather looked for the return trip. We talked about it some, then checked the conditions again. The wind was already picking up past what was forecasted. And a return sail at night, while being tired and hungry was not the best thing to do. Winds start settling down on Friday, and Saturday was forecasted to be slightly calmer. In other words, it would only get better from this night. I could always go back on Saturday when winds are actually calm. If I had to suffer, suffering a bit less is always preferable. I wasn’t sure what we could do in the Exumas with all this wind, but we’d make the best of it.
The next day, we took a dinghy ride to the south side of Allen Cay. In its setup, Allen Cay wasn’t much different from the numerous anchorages and the cuts leading into them that we had been to. But everything was scaled down to a miniature size. The cliffs, beaches, and the inlets were smaller. The body of water inside of it was only a few thousand feet long. Even the water below us seemed closer, even though it wasn’t, due to the extreme clarity of the water.
Apparently there are a ton of iguanas there. Since they associate humans with food, they come right up to you. We didn’t see any iguanas, but it was still early in the morning. It was probably too cold for them to move about. The cove has a beach on the south side, facing north. Coral cliffs lined the cove along the eastern and western sides, not more than fifteen feet tall. We climbed over the rocks and small hills and caught a view of the entire island, with the vast ocean stretching out from both sides. It felt a bit lonelier up there. If it weren’t for all the other boats here, we’d be one of the few people around for hundreds of miles. I spotted a rock pile on top of the east side of the island. I made a quick swim there to put my own rock on top of the pile. Back at the small beach, I saw our first iguana, shyly walking away from me. A few moments later, more came out. They seemed to ignore everyone else and took a particular interest in me. A repeating theme; cats, children, and iguanas are curious about me in the Bahamas.
We weren’t the only people here. There was a beautiful schooner anchored outside the cove, just south of Lena Rae and Sonora. A few of here guests and crew were enjoying an outing on this beach. I guess people flew out to the boat and joined them for a few weeks, enjoying little outings like this. What a neat business. The group of young crew members, all wearing a uniform of some sort, were trying to patch up a small leak on their tender. Having done just that with Rob in the Exumas, I knew how difficult that could be.
The guests were sun bathing on the beach, a few of them floating on tubes. A woman who looked to be a few years older than me struck up a conversation with me, curious about what the cruising life was like. I hadn’t had anyone outside my little cruiser circle talk to me in a while, especially someone who took an interest in me. She told me she had flown out from New York state to join this schooner. It must be wild, being in cold New England, and in an instant being here on that big sailing vessel. Flying! The idea seemed so foreign to me now. It took me much longer than a day and I only experienced gradual changes in temperatures over many weeks.
The water in the cove was way too beautiful to resist a dive. We actually went back back to our floating homes to get our dive gear and discovered that the lagoon was actually teeming with life. Small wrasse, angelfish, damselfish and other little fish that you would find in a decent sized home aquarium were everywhere. Small silver fish fry, schooling in the hundreds, swam all around us. A bit further out in slightly deeper waters, some small reef structures had slightly bigger, slightly more predatory fish like snapper and parrotfish. We even walked out to the southern side of the island to do some drift diving in deeper, bluer water. The current would push you at a knot or so. We were very careful not to get too far into the currents but it was a really different scene, with all the soft coral dancing around, with a little bit more expression than their land counterparts do when the wind pipes up.
Our dive sessions made me think – all of these tourists will leave the Bahamas never having experienced this. There is really an entirely new universe out there. This submarine world can be accessed if you just overcame the fear of getting wet. What could be a trip of a lifetime, for them, is just another tropical vacation, even if you were adventurous enough to book a week spent on a sailing schooner. More for me I guess. If everyone became scuba and free divers, it would just make the reef become more damaged. And I have to remind myself that a lot of people can’t swim, and it takes a good year of dedicated practice to get good at swimming.
Around one or two in the afternoon, we picked up anchor and relocated to Highbourne Cay, which provided better swell protection owing to its larger land mass. It was only a thirty minute trip. We had seen scores of masts anchored in that direction, so I wasn’t sure if there was room. Turns out there was plenty of room. I got to pick out a decently ideal spot to anchor and I radioed Rob to pull in close to me.
I was bitten by the reef diving bug again. That was all I wanted to do here. I made some dinner for the both of us and talked about our plans. I definitely wanted to go diving some more, hopefully spear some fish. I also wanted to see the very small settlement at Norman Cay. This would all depend on the weather. With a bit of alcohol warming up our bellies, we both retired to our own boats.
I spent a lot of time talking to friends and watching movies. For some reason, the day never feels complete to me without zoning out for a few hours and catching up with friends back home. And every day, I missed them a little bit more. That night though, I was reminded how much I was going to miss cruising with Rob, and how much fun I was having with a buddy. I still thought it wasn’t the ideal decision to make to come to Exumas in this type of weather, but I definitely did not regret spending more time with Rob.
