March 24, 2008

We left Cave Cay and headed for the settlement at Black Point. Black Point is one of my favorite towns in the Bahamas. They have a decent government dock to tie the dinghy too and free fresh water 25 yards from the dock.




It’s a small town but the people really seem motivated to make a living which is not always the case when you travel from place to place here.

I was filling my water jugs from the free spigot when a pair of little girls walked up to me and started their own version of twenty questions.

Her: What are you doing?
Me: Filling my water jugs.
Her: Why?
Me: So I can take the water back out to my boat.
Her: Why?
Me: So we have something to drink.
Her: Why do you need water to drink on the boat?
Me: Because that’s here we live.
Her: You just can’t turn on the sink and get water?
Me: Yes, but first I have to fill the water tank.
Her: Why do you live on a boat?
Me: So we can travel around and see new things………..

For me it seemed to go on forever, when the first little girl exhausted her line of questioning her compadre started again with almost the exact same questions. Little girls always freak me out.

Both of the girls were about 4 years old and about 2 feet tall. You could see in their faces that they were really considering the answers to their questions. The pace of life here is just so different from what we’re used to in the States. A pair of kids, barely bigger than toddlers, walking the street by themselves, talking to a stranger. Just try and visualize that scenario back in the states.

The main reason we stopped at Black Point besides a great laundry mat, free water, the promise of groceries and wifi was for protection from a northerly that’s due to arrive soon. As advertised it got there as promised; boy did it ever.

When a cold front comes through the Bahamas the wind does a very predictable clocking. Its predominately from the east and as the front comes through it moves clockwise, coming from the south then west and then from the north. No matter what you definitely have to protect yourself from the north. With some fronts the wind will blow for 12 hours from the west before turning northwest, then north and finally northeast.

Other times the wind will move through the western quadrant fairly quickly. An hour or three and the west wind is history and before you know it the wind is blowing from the north. From the north it could last for a day or several days, that’s why northerly protection is your main concern.

Unfortunately Black Point is completely exposed from the west. The wind from this front moved through the west in about 8 hours, of course at night. This was plenty of time for the seas surface to be whipped into an angry frenzy. We had big rollers coming right into the west facing V shaped anchorage. Of course it was during the night so sleep was hard to come by for some of the crew. By morning the wind had increased in velocity but had turned so as to come from the north where we had great protection so things were much calmer.