April 7, 2008

We arrived in Eleuthera late yesterday after a great sail over from Normans Cay. We had hauled anchor a few minutes before 0800 so we could hit the cut at slack tide or shortly thereafter.

We had to motor dead into the wind for 2 miles before turning east and heading out through the Wax Cay Cut. It was wide and deep and we rode the newly falling tide out at better than 8 knots. The wind as forecast was just ahead of the starboard beam so we had both sails up to better drive us through the cut.

The seas for the first 2 miles after the cut were very confused. Again here we have the condition where a huge shallow area is draining into a body of water thousands of feet deep. The transition from twenty feet of water to over a thousand feet takes place in less than 200 yards. So with the force of the tide ebbing into the breeze it can be a bit uncomfortable.

Once through the first couple of miles, the seas turned into 4 foot rollers passing gently under the boat as we made 6 to 7 knots towards our destination. There was the occasional 8 footer to keep you on your toes. So after a 28 mile trip across, we were able to sail into the entrance at Eleuthera and sail for another 8 miles before starting the engine to maneuver for anchoring.

The anchorage here is very wide and shallow. We do have decent protection from every direction but if something nasty were to come through we might opt to move closer to one of the other shores to reduce the amount of fetch.

So we’ll probably spend 2 days here exploring before we start making short day hops up the western coast of Eleuthera. We’ve got to be very weather wary as there are only a few anchorages available for protection from the west. So anyway, that’s the plan for now, weather permitting.