Going to Cat Island

We are under way in the Exuma Sound, running southeast along the southwestern coast of Eleuthera. As I begin typing, the boutique cruise ship s/v Sea Cloud Spirit, a modern square-rigger anchored just north of Cape Eleuthera, is receding behind us, and the behemoth Enchanted Princess is looming ahead of us. The Nordhavn 63 Amnesia is 500 yards to starboard on a parallel course; we've been playing leapfrog with them since Glass Window.

Passing Sea Cloud Spirit this morning.

We are about to pass the part of the island owned by Princess Cruises and renamed "Princess Cays," and the anchored ship is tendering its guests ashore. South of here we can see an enormous cruise ship pier under construction; Disney has bought part of the island as well and is building it's own private retreat, to complement the one it already operates in the Abacos.

Enchanted Princess anchored off Princess Cays, right.

Disney's enormous pier under construction at the southern tip of the island.

Shortly after my last post we arrived to the shallow harbor of Rock Sound and dropped the hook (map). We opted to be fairly close to the town dock, which put us in the middle of a cluster of sailboats in a depth of just 7.5' at low tide. We missed our friends Erin and Chris on Barefeet by less than a day; they had left in the morning to make the same passage we are on now. Storms moved through the area the whole evening, so we had dinner and a quiet evening on board, and the boat got a nice fresh water rinse.

Sunset over Rock Sound from our table at Wild Orchids.

Tuesday we splashed the tender and I headed ashore to explore a little, and see if I could find a car battery. Most of the settlement is as we remembered it from nearly a decade ago, and I loaded up on fresh produce at The Market, about 3/4 mile north of the dock. I found batteries at both gas stations, and went with the cheapest option from A Family Affair (a word play on island politics) across the street from the market. That had me carrying the battery a good distance back to the dock using a jury-rigged shoulder harness.

I bought this no-name battery for $145. We think 620 cranking amps.

This slightly smaller NAPA-branded battery right next to it was $100 more. The terminals would have made for an easier install.

Getting the new battery in place was the afternoon project, and our 12v system is back to working normally. The replacement battery is smaller than the one that died, but it should be fine for the remainder of our time in the Bahamas. I can upgrade when we get back to the US if it seems like we need the extra oomph. The project, as often happens, was bigger than anticipated because the terminals on the new battery are in recesses that made getting the cables attached a topological exercise.

Vector at anchor, as seen from the public dock.

At dinner time we returned ashore together and walked to Wild Orchids. We ate at this restaurant on our last visit, but it was in a different location a little further north. Dinner was good, but the no-see-ums here are miserable. The restaurant has their own dock, but we landed at the town dock instead because it was an easier dock and we wanted a little walk.

Louise at the Ocean Hole, a 600' deep saltwater pond, connected to the ocean underground.

Wednesday I gave myself the day off after Tuesday's extravaganza. In the morning, before the sun got too high, we tendered ashore and walked up the hill past the Ocean Hole to the other grocery store, Halls, to see if they had our last couple of provisioning items, and maybe check out the sweet goods at the bakery next door. We came away empty-handed, but enjoyed our walk through town.

Vector as seen from our table at Frigates. Named for the birds, not the warships.

In the afternoon we moved the boat a half mile north. While it was nice to be near the dinghy dock, we forgot about the nearby pavilion which sometimes has loud music. We had to close the windows Tuesday night, at least until they knocked off sometime after 10. We dropped the hook in deeper water north of the new government dock (map), which put is in very close dinghy distance to Frigates restaurant.

What's left of the rickety dock. Flux, our dinghy, is at left.

Frigates is in the same space that Wild Orchids had been on our first visit, and we heard reports that their dock was mostly destroyed and unusable. We found that to be untrue; it was more usable than many docks we've seen, and had a working ladder sturdy enough for our purposes. We tendered there for dinner, and, in hindsight, I should have used their dock to go pick up my battery, as it was much closer to the gas station.

The ladder, still serviceable, and an easier climb than many a dock.

Yesterday morning we tendered right back to their dock for a final visit to The Market to pick up more bug spray. Lamenting that we missed out on the bakery, I suggested we also make a stop at the gas station, where I had remembered seeing baked goods. We found several nice items from a local baker one town over, and we chose a miniature coconut pie.

The world's smallest coconut pie.

We decked the tender as soon as we returned to Vector and weighed anchor at mid-tide and falling to move over to Cape Eleuthera to stage for today's passage. With better charts we were able to come up the Poison Channel from the sound rather than the long way around through the Davis Channel, and we dropped the hook north of the cape (map) not far from where we anchored a few years ago. We were not motivated to go ashore here again, and had a quiet dinner (and pie!) aboard. As last time, our anchor got a tenuous hold in light sand over rock, and we put out extra chain for a comfortable night.

This hardscrabble is what we are anchored in. That's 12' down, BTW, after sunset, if that tells you how clear the water is here.

This morning we weighed anchor at sunrise; you don't want to be maneuvering in narrow rocky channels here without enough daylight to see the bottom, and in the really tricky areas you actually want the sun to be well overhead. We followed our old tracks back to the Davis Channel, passing Sea Cloud Spirit, who had dropped anchor while we were eating dinner, on our way out.

Nieuw Amsterdam anchored off Half Moon Bay. The island is giving us some shelter from the Atlantic.

As I wrap up typing and start working on photos we are just abreast of Little San Salvador Island, aka Half Moon Cay, which we visited a few years ago. The Holland America cruise ship Nieuw Amsterdam is anchored offshore, making the bay a bad choice for a stop. We have 4,000' of water under the keel and the plotter is projecting an arrival at the bight of Cat Island before 5pm, so we'll continue on without an intermediate stop further north. We might just catch up to Barefeet this time.