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Royal Island, Eleuthera to Abaco

A photo from the prior day since I was too occupied to take any today. Today did not look this pretty.

Saturday, March 3 – can you believe it’s March already? We’ve begun to feel like residents, after 68 days. Friday’s 48 nm sail might be the last good weather day for a while now. We anchored in Royal Island Harbor (nothing to write home about and the site of another suspended marina/resort project) near a Great Harbor 37 (red hull with white topsides) cleverly named Jack of Hearts. Could the owner’s name be Jack perhaps?

Up and at ‘em on Saturday for the 63nm trip to Abaco; see how the trips are getting longer? No problem with enough wind to sail today (18-21kts with a mid-day lull to 13) – no sir, but even Ms. Sails Well Close-Hauled has trouble at 170 degrees. A following sea is Ok though and boy did those large swells follow us all day. We tacked slightly off course, back and forth all day as we couldn’t sail fast enough off course to make up the extra distance. We had to be in and anchored before dark; and we did make it with time to spare- 5pm anchor went down and we were pooped after 10 hours.

About an hour into the trip, Jack of Hearts hailed us and we chatted the usual topics; where headed, nice boat, yours too, stable ride, weight, oh, from Maine?, our boat is a Maine Cat, see you in Abaco. Was good to know someone else was heading the same way, since our course basically takes us into the Atlantic Ocean.

Our ever-present third crew member, Herr Otto Pilot gets very cranky with large swells- he says “not so swell for me” and thus leaves the two remaining crew to the task of hand steering. The cut was a non-event at Little Harbor and we nearly overtook the monohull who’d left Royal Island 30mins ahead of us.

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Catch of the Day ..on to Abaco

I’ve detected the Captain has a goal of not fueling up at all in the Bahamas; and we just might achieve that goal. Including the roughly 13 gals consumed by the generator, we’ve only used 36 gals of diesel since leaving Nassau Jan 5. A real boon to the   budget. Conditions throughout The Bahamas, especially when headed north, are so often favorable to sail that we’re going to be in for a shocker when we arrive back in Vero Beach for the trek north. We’ll be back to mostly motoring unless we jump out for a coastal sail.

Thursday was spent bobbing along with all our sails up at one point just to keep moving faster than a conch.  I was so antsy about our slow speed that I could almost see Russ calculating the weight reduction if he tossed me overboard!  Fortunately, I don’t weigh enough to matter!

Three's a charm: main,screacher and jib

 

A drink for the Bar Jack

The wind gods and goddesses blessed us Friday with the longest, most comfortable day of sailing this entire season and King Neptune even offered up a couple of his denizens…- yay! we caught our first fish- a near miss second (tore the lure and bent the bungee cord hook) and a barracuda third, who we let go. After the obligatory photos, a drink (for the fish,- hey it was a BAR Jack), Russ prepped the Bahamas Runner, aka Bar Jack for dining- all 13 ounces of him! So the filets were tiny, but they tasted so sweet and delicious, I was amazed. Kudos to the Captain who left not a single bone in those tiny filets.

Barracuda sleigh ride