January 17, 2008.

We decided to head south on Wednesday. We needed to get some fuel so we were up at 0630 to haul both our anchors and head over to the fuel dock. The Freedoms have decided they’d like a little more time in Nassau and will follow us when a better weather window opens hopefully on Saturday.

We arrived there just before 0700 and discovered that they don’t open until 0800. Christy used the time to walk the dogs and ran into an employee who said she’d try to get someone down to the fuel dock early. A guy showed up and we were refueled and underway by 0800.

The run south was a close hauled bash. The wind was out of the east south east but supposed to swing to the south south east. So we set our course to the east of the direction we really wished to travel. This worked like a charm and as the wind shifted south we were able to ease across with it and keep sailing.

Our course sent us across the Yellow Banks. The Yellow Banks are an area of random coral heads that stick up to within 5 feet or so of the surface. We draw 5 1/2 feet so there could be a problem. We were across it in less than an hour but it made for a very tense time. The water is very clear so spotting them was easy. The only problem was that the sun was still so low that it made seeing directly in front of us very difficult due to the glare.

There were 7 boats within radio range of us and we did hear one fellow hit a coral head. He didn’t appear to have any water intrusion but was going to dive the bottom of his boat when he dropped anchor to check for damage.

After crossing the Yellow Banks the wind continued to build and we were soon moving along in 15 to 20 knots of breeze. We were anchored along the western shore of Normans Cay by 1330.

The shoreline here is practically paved with stone. The sand that is available to land the dinghy on is coarse and beautiful. The island is covered with small scrub like foliage and as you get farther from the waters edge the bushes begin to be replaced by trees. The dogs literally had a mile or more of beach to run and explore.

The claim to fame of this island is that back in the seventies it was the staging point for Columbian drug lord Carlos Leder and his cocaine trafficking empire. He used to receive huge quantities of coke here and send it into the United States on his own private planes and smaller high speed boats. The airport and his residence are both still here. His home is abandoned and in ruin. There’s even one of his planes that botched its landing still awash in the water nearby.