March 28, 2014.

We awoke to the winds as were forecast. 20 knots outta the east southeast. Cool, its nice when the shit happens as advertised. We decided to ride this favorable breeze 20 miles to the northwest.

We pulled the hook and rolled out the genny and found ourselves graced with a fabulous downwind sail right where we wanted to go. We were headed for the protected anchorage at Treasure Cay. We had talked to friends the day before that had said even though the anchorage could hold 30 boats there were only about 10 there. Perfect. Talking about anchorages is one of the few times that 10 is greater than 30.

Of course we didn't pull the hook until after we listened to Chris Parker. This led to leaving a half hour after the entire Frenadian navy. We had 7 boats ahead of us but fortunately 3 of them turned off towards Marsh Harbor.

In spite of our fabulous downwind sailing I couldn't help but wonder “What if the anchorage was full by the time we got there?” My other thought was “Should we just veer off a bit and go through the Whale?” It was right about this time when I heard 2 sailboats to our north talking about the Whale. Sail Away was asking Sail La Vie if he had an eyeball on the notorious cut. Sail La Vie responded that he had in fact poked his head out and tried to transit the cut earlier in the morning but the conditions had forced him back. Sail Away thanked him for the info and as an afterthought asked how big a vessel he was. Sail La Vie responded that he was a 65 foot sailboat.

So the 65 footer couldn't make it out the cut, Honey, I guess we're going to take our 42 footer to Treasure Cay. We got there an hour and a half before low tide and snuck in with 3 inches under the keel as we slipped into the protected bay. Three inches or three feet, as long as we're floating.

Its a nice little harbor,

there’s wifi and our friends the Kintalas are here. We anchored right off their stern and after lunch went for a long walk on a typically picturesque Bahamanian beach. The big surprise for us was that from this beach we could actually see the Whale Cay Cut, clearly. From the boat the southern approach to this cut didn't look all that bad.

From down here at the beach we had a vantage point that allowed us to see the rest of the cut. Brutal is the word that comes to mind. There were breakers from one side of the cut to the other. There was no obvious channel between the reefs. It was a solid wall of whitewater. And the worst thing about it was that it didn't seem to end. We were probably a mile inshore of the cut and there were breakers from the deep water all the way up to our feet on the beach.

During cocktails on the Veranda later that evening we got to see something new. Baby in the rigging....