Good for us some people on a nearby boat dinghied over and we gave them a huge pile of fish (a 6 pound package of cleaned mackerel). Later, one of the men returned with a much appreciated gift of imported Austrian chocolate.

We all took a trip to the beach and that afternoon and in the evening enjoyed a lovely sunset, a meal of fish and noodles with fresh green beans, and watching the movie Rocket Man (for the 3^rd of 4^th time).

We left Rat Cay in the morning near low tide. The tides were not going to help us take the inside route, nor was the weather. It was calm, but cloudy and raining from time to time. We crossed the shallow bank to Lee Stocking Island, following the route in the Explorer Chartbook. It was very shallow, at times we were in to 5 feet of water. Still, it was easy to follow the deep blue water as it wound it’s way through the shallow banks. Until a cloud shadow came and then everything turned dark green. With a little practice, however, we could still see the shallow water. But we decided to head out the cut to the sound, and run 8 miles to the next cut, bypassing the most shallow part of the inside route – the part around the Pimlico Cays.

The Exuma Sound was not too much of a problem. There was a big swell running, but light winds. We had rain now and then. The swell was following, and pushing the bow around in big yaws whenever a big wave caught the stern. But it was not too bad. After an hour we turned into Cave Cay Cut. It’s a good thing we have the GPS. There are lots of seeming paths through the cays to the banks. We are looking for rocks, reefs, and little cays trying to match our eyes with the charts. Karen has the chart and keeps her eyes on that. I have the helm and keep my eyes on the water, and on the GPS. Finally we approach the waypoint and the chart matches what is in front of us. The cut always looks so small from the sea, but we turn and run through. Waves and current try to make this difficult, but this time we are lucky and only one or two of those bigger waves in the sound push us around. The current is running, but weak. As if to compensate for an otherwise easy passage, the rain comes down in torrents just as we are in the pass – stopping as soon as I turn for the inside channel.

From Cave Cay Cut to Great Guana Cay is a beautiful and easy cruise. I am running about 6 knots in 10 feet of water while Karen makes lunch for the kids and for me. In a few minutes the sun is out, our windows are rolled up, and she brings me a couple of fish tacos. Heaven!

After lunch, we round White Point and I decide to go in and take a look at the anchorage. There is no one there. We drop the Danforth and back down. It seems to hook up. There is a mother Osprey feeding her young on a nearby rock. We are in 8 feet of water, it’s a good anchorage, but waves are rolling around the point. I dive on the anchor and find that it’s not set. Only 1 point is hooked behind a baseball sized rock. Below that is about 2 inches of sand on top of rock. This is no good!

So we up anchor and head for Black Point. There is a village around the point, and a good anchorage with what seems to be ideal protection from the south – southeast. Before we round the point, there is a beautiful little cove with a crescent shaped beach. A sailboat is anchored there. We turn in, drop anchor behind the boat in deep sand and back down hard. The anchor digs and is really set. Waves are rolling in but it’s not too bad for a night.

This point turns out to be my favorite swimming beach of the whole Exumas. We dinghy in to a clean beach of deep sand. It is shallow and clean from the surf out to a depth of 6 feet. There’s not a rock or coral in sight. The water is quite warm. While Duncan hunts crabs and Karen keeps him company, Amy, Heidi and I swim and play freeze tag in the water. After, I sleep on the beach next to Karen, while Duncan digs and the kids are still in the water. I dinghy back for a shower, then return to give Karen a turn.

The crew of the sailboat are there and we talk about the weather. They are heading north from Georgetown also. They have a weatherfax and it shows a big system of fronts heading down towards us. The SSB weather says the fronts are crossing to our north but I am worried. There is a front on Monday and another on Thursday.

The next morning we up anchor in heavy rolling. Coffee won’t stay in our cups! The Exuma Sound is heaving. We have 3 foot following seas and medium wind. It’s not too bad and we could run 20 to 30 miles but it’s uncomfortable and we are worried about the forecast. So after a busy 8 miles we turn into Staniel and take a slip at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club. We are the smallest boat among a fleet of Megayachts. Several have dinghies of greater value than Indiscipline. The people in these boats pretty much do not even take notice of us. People on the dock do not even say "Good Morning" to us, or look at us as we walk by. This is nothing like the cruising community we have joined elsewhere. Still, it’s nice to be tied up in a secure place, plugged in, and take a day of rest and boat cleaning. We spend an afternoon putting things away and tidying up. In the evening the winds fall to nothing. Da Calm Before Da Blow?

This morning the radio is garbled and I can’t make out the weather. Winds are light from the east, but seem to be building slightly. I have heard that the front is to our north, and our forecast is S-SE winds 10 to 15, and I know it was raining heavily in Florida. Stay or go? We are going to give it some time. I am in favor of diving the cave again and taking a day off.

This morning we got everyone up and fed. Low tide was going to occur around 11 so we got ready to snorkel the cave. We dingied over in light winds and seas. The cave was spectacular - even better than our first time. We were the only people in there, the current was slacker, and the mid day light much better. After a while in the cave we explored the outside of the little Cay and were delighted in the coral, sea fans, and flourishing sea life in the shallow and warm waters. After lunch, we studied the fish book and made a list of all the fish we had seen. I had the kids each draw a picture of a fish they selected from the list. Amy got motivated and went on to create an entire illustrated book of all the fish on the list. What a project!

We kept waiting for the front, waiting and waiting. That afternoon, I sighted an ominous thing – a huge, twisting, evil waterspout. The spout was about 2 or 3 miles away out to sea on the banks. This was not a little one. It was at least 10,000 feet from the clouds all the way down to the sea, and was creating a huge wall of spray around it’s base. We were all pretty terrified that it would come to the docks, but it went on it’s way, taking a huge wall of rain with it. We were in sunny calm weather the whole time.

The rest of the day it was sunny and cooler, with variable SE winds. We watched huge towers of cumulus clouds scurrying by, always missing us. The locals were tying up for a blow. The winds continued to blow us onto the dock, where we were lying comfortably on our fender boards. That night Karen woke me about 4 AM. The winds had shifted and we were now being blown strongly off the dock. Wind waves were slapping the stern – hard. We were swung out form the dock at a 45 degree angle. We quickly got another stern line to a pole and turned to help other boats. All those on the other side of the dock were now slamming their sides onto the wood. We got a couple of our fenders into place on the large sportfisher next to us and helped a couple in a fancy center console express on the end of the dock. They were being battered fiercely. Those snotty, yachty people who wouldn’t talk to us before were on there own. I would not lift a finger to help them even if their boat was being battered into pulp. Good for them that no one seemed to be in any trouble.

The next morning we over slept and woke to general pandemonium on the dock. Although we were again experiencing light SE winds, Staniel Cay Yacht Club made a general announcement that we all had to leave. Their dock was not safe in SW or W winds and all boats had to go. If we didn’t depart willingly they would untie our lines and cast them into the sea (or so the talk on the dock went). We were shocked because we had put in here to avoid the storm and now were were being thrown into it at the last minute!

Quickly we got on the radio to Club Thunderball and found that they had 2 moorings left. We untied and motored over there as fast as we could. The 80 foot motor yacht behind us (who was the worst offender in the snotty attitude department) left and I watched them being blown onto pilings and dragging along the dock the whole way out. The pair of sportfishers next to us were heading for Nassau. The other marinas in the Exumas were full and they were not really equipped for anchoring. Of course they were Viking 55s and could probably make 30 to 35 knots all the way and be snug in Nassau Harbor Club or Atlantis in 3 hours. The sportfishers and their crews all pitched in to help us back out and we avoided any contact with the dock in the strengthening cross winds. These were nice people, as were the couple on the two sailboats there. It’s the folks on the 80 to 120 footers who refused to notice us. So much for a classless society where all men are created equal.

We picked up our mooring without incident and spent the afternoon in an uncomfortable SW wind with small waves pitching and rocking us. Heidi got seasick down below but perked up right away in the fresh air of the cockpit. All day we watched the big boats who were at the dock make their way either to anchor in the Thunderball Grotto (where we were), or to a nice looking hole we could see away to our north between Staniel and Pipe Cay. That night we watched for the "Red Sky at Night" and observed a delightful sunset that did indeed show a little red under 2 massive wall of clouds approaching. The SW winds and chop were much easier. Later they dropped to almost nothing as I sat on the bow watching the approaching lightening show.

Karen took Duncan ashore for a walk as we were surrounded by lightening on all sides – but no thunder and no rain. The boat walked in a 360 degree circle around the moorings in very light winds. By the time they returned the first drops were hitting us. The wind shifted to NW and got strong, and a few moments later lightening was arcing down all around us. Then came a deluge of rain. Karen and the kids were inside watching a video we rented from Isles General Store and I was running around with buckets trying to catch rainwater for our rapidly drying freshwater tank. The hard rain only lasted about 15 minutes, but a softer rain was with us all night.

By morning I had 5 gallons in the bucket and we had NW winds about 10 to 15 under overcast skies. The air was cool and clean. We could see large waves breaking on Harvey Cay out on the banks, and I heard on the radio that it was 6 to 8 in the sound. We were sitting quietly and comfortably in the lee of Club Thunderball.

Finally one morning we woke up to war sunshine, medium clouds to the west, light winds and a moderate forecast. It was time to get going! After the usual morning things we dropped the mooring and were underway at 10:10 AM. For us, an early start. We had light NE winds on the nose all day, and seas about 1 foot. We cruised at 8 knots for most of the day. The way north was heavily traveled, we were amused by all the boats following the Explorer Charts route and waypoints. A whole line of 6 or 7 boats all making a turn at exactly the same point. As the day wore on we eventually passed them all. We saw about 20 boats anchored at Norman’s and at 3:30 turned into Allen’s after a 45 mile run. One of our nicest passages on the Exumas. SW Allen’s Cay was our first choice for anchoring, but we could not get the Danforth or CQR to set, even after 3 tries. So we motored over to the main anchorage at Allen’s and slowly cruised around all the boats and selected our spot off the iguana beach. Our Danforth hooked up on the first try and just for good measure we also set the CQR (since it was already on deck). We were ready for Happy Hour after an hour of struggling with anchoring. But we were in a sheltered spot, in deep water, with 2 anchors down and light winds forecast.

Karen and the kids took Duncan to the beach while I took a short nap. It had been a long day. Karen and Duncan returned because the dog could not tolerate iguanas on his beach! A sailboat entered the anchorage and motored up close. It was a boat from our fun days on the North Carolina Welcome Station dock! Richard and Louise dinghied over a little later and we heard their story.

Their small sailboat had had engine problems by the time they reached Nassau. They had an OMC gas inboard, I think with some kind of stern drive. Given a rather easy Gulf Stream crossing, they knew they had an oil leak and had tried to sail across the bank from Bimini to Chub. There were very light winds and that passage ended up taking 3 days and 2 nights. When they finally reached Nasaau they ordered seals for the outdrive. They had to wait 2 weeks for these to arrive from Montreal. Then they had to wait for the haulout. Then they found that the outdrive was badly corroded. So bad you could poke your finger through holes in the metal. So they eventually got a small 8 HP outboard mounted and were cautiously trying to see some of the Exumas before heading back home. Richard didn’t trust the outoard and Louise said that it didn’t give the boat much power for busting through the cuts. They are contemplating a short Exumas cruise followed by some way of shipping their boat home to Canada. A complication is that their house is rented through September. Of course, now is not the time to return to Canada anyways.