We decided to be tourists today in Hopetown on Elbow Cay. Dave wanted to get fuel in our jerry cans. So he pulled up to the fuel dock and Cheryl and I walked over to the lighthouse. This is one of only two light houses that still use kerosine for their light source. It was built in 1864. It also has to be manually wound every 2 hours. It can be seen 17 miles away. We climbed the 101 steps to the lantern. The view was spectacular.
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| view of the harbor looking east out to Atlantic Ocean |
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| harbor entrance |
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| our boat from the lighthouse |
We met Dave back at the dock. He transported us across the harbor. Cheryl and I went to the Elbow Cay museum while Dave took the fuel back to the boat. We thoroughly enjoyed seeing the history and artifacts. So fun to have a tourist here with me, since Dave is not.
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| most of the dinghy docks were high and you had to climb ladders in and out |
Dave then joined us for lunch. We walked to the Hopetown Lodge and ate lunch overlooking the beach on the Atlantic side of the island. Cheryl and I shared the lobster salad and a mahi mahi wrap while Dave had a hamburger. So besides being a cribbage playing tourist friend, Cheryl will also split lunches with me!! So fun to have a girl friend here. AND Cheryl treated us to lunch.
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| view as we walked through town |
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| our view during lunch |
We returned to the boat and decided to move the boat further south. Cheryl is leaving out of Nassau on Saturday, so we are going to stop at some islands along the way. We planned to position ourselves near the channel we would exit to get out into the Atlantic to sail south, anchor for the night, and leave in the morning.
When Dave and I are on the boat alone, I don’t get to see what he does to raise the anchor. So I had trained Cheryl how to handle the helm and what our hand signals meant, so I could go forward with Dave to see what he does. So today, Dave watched me bring up the anchor. I want to get more experience this week, so we will be more versatile.
We arrived in the North Bar Channel area about 6:30 pm and weren’t real happy with the anchorages (too exposed to the wind which makes for rough sleeping), so we decided to just continue on. It was about 55 miles to Egg Island in the Eleutheras. So we would either spend most of the day traveling there tomorrow, or we could do it overnight. Cheryl was excited for the adventure, so off we went.
The passage through the channel went fine. Then we set our course. The winds were about 15 mph with gusts higher. It was going to continue this way for another day, so waiting wouldn’t make a difference. Well we started with 8-10 foot swells which made for an interesting ride. About 8:00, we decided we should start rotating watches. Cheryl wanted to do her share, so we had her start. Since we were still wide awake, we could show her the basics and then told her to wake up Dave if she had any questions. Dave laid down right away, but I visited with Cheryl for awhile, made sure she was comfortable, then I laid down. Both of us were in the cockpit with her. All she had to do was grab a toe. The combination of the diesel fumes and no horizon once it was dark didn’t set well with her. But she was a trouper and finished her two hour watch.
I took over at 10:00 until 12:00. Then Dave started at 12:00am. With in 30 minutes, he had the jenny sail out and shut off the engine. That is the first time we have had favorable winds on an overnight sail to use sails only. Cheryl’s next watch should have been at 2:00. She and I woke up about 3:30. When we asked Dave why he didn’t wake her, he said “you girls have to play tomorrow, I can take a nap.” We were getting close to our anchorage, I thought, so we let Cheryl sleep. I relieved Dave until we pulled into our anchorage at about 6:00am. We anchored and all watched the sunrise behind Egg Island. Then we went to bed.
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