Bahamas – Abacos: Sandy Cay Anchorage

 Day 292

April 28, 2016

NM Today: 51

NM Total: 4548

I woke at 6:00 today and could not get back to sleep. I got up when I heard the phone alarm go off for the Chris Parker morning broadcast and asked Clark to let me know when I could see the sunrise for myself instead of via his pictures. He said he would let me know, and I climbed back into bed to wait for his word. I took several progressive shots with my phone camera. Clark took the one shown below.

Sunrise

Since we had both gotten up early, we left our anchorage as soon as Clark had heard Chris’s report. As we traveled today, the scenery consisted of water, water, and more water with an occasional “cay” thrown in to add some interest. I never get tired or grow accustomed to the color of the water here.

Usually a boat or two appears here and there as we move along.  Since we do not have autopilot, Clark uses them as a target if they happen to be on the same course as we are. As we motored along today I noticed that Clark left the helm unmanned a few times as he ran here or there, i.e. he did not ask me to take the helm even though I was sitting right next to him. The boat held its course all on its own almost as if it had an autopilot.

At noon time Clark came upon Mangrove Cay and suggested that we drop anchor at this spot for lunch. We had a little difficulty getting the boat positioned with the anchor. The boat wanted to sit on top of the anchor instead of behind it. The wind and current were not doing their jobs properly I suppose. I had to watch over the side to see the position of the anchor to make sure it would not get fouled in the props.

Whenever I look down, as I did in the lunchtime anchorage today, and see the boat’s chain and anchor sitting on the bottom, I am in awe. Nothing can be seen even six inches below the water line in New Jersey let alone six feet and more! Here I cannot tell if the water is two feet deep or twelve! I can see the bottom in either case.  After the boat finally positioned itself (with Clark’s help) in an appropriate position, Clark made us sandwiches to eat. We had a relaxing lunch and then pulled up anchor and continued on our way to tonight’s stop.

Mangrove Cay for lunch stop

Tonight’s anchorage was the most unusual anchorage I have ever stayed at since we were out in open water with very little land in sight. There was an ever so tiny cay way off in the distance which was, I supposed, Sandy Cay and thus the name for this anchorage as that is the closest land to the spot where we sat for the night. As we approached the anchorage, I saw two sailboats off in the distance and suggested to Clark that they might be anchored at the spot we planned to stay for the night. He poo-pooed that saying they were too far away to be our destination. Well, when we finally dropped anchor, guess who we were sitting quite near … the sailboats!

Tonight's Anchorage
Notice the lack of surrounding, protective land.
We are basically anchored out in the open in the Atlantic Ocean!!!

Clark said he picked this anchorage to make the trip to Florida as short as possible. He knew the forecast called for light winds and figured we would be okay out in the open. The only problem with full sun and light winds was that as soon as we stopped moving it got hot, and I mean h-o-t! We actually moved down to be in the cabin where it was shaded from the sun. Normally on a hot day we sit out to catch the breeze which today was practically non-existent.  

Surprisingly since we appear to be absolutely in the middle of nowhere, we have some BTC phone signal, so Clark turned on the hotspot to use up some of our leftover bandwidth. We checked email and Facebook, weather reports, and such.

Clark has been a real trooper while I have been sick. To let me rest during the day, he has for the most part single-handled the boat only asking me to assist when absolutely necessary. For the past three nights he slept on the couch in the salon to stay away from my germs. I cannot imagine it has been comfortable, but at least we had the sofa fixed before we left on this trip. The seats used to collapse into the storage space below at unexpected times before we had work done on it. Now at least it stays in a fully functional position at all times with no surprises in the middle of the night!

As I mentioned a couple of times, Clark has not allowed me to touch his food and that has included his dinner.  I have been happy to let him do the cooking, but providing cooking instructions to Clark and then observing him carry out those instructions would frustrate a saint, and I am certainly no saint. Tonight’s menu seemed simple enough spaghetti with meat sauce and sautéed broccoli.

By the time we sat down to eat I was nearly pulling my hair out. I expect if the roles were reversed, and I had to do something he is skilled at while he sat and watched from afar, he’d be frustrated too. To make cooking all the more interesting, sunset came along in the middle of preparing the meal. Of course he left it all and ran for the camera to get tonight’s shot.

Sunset at the anchorage out in the middle of nowhere!!

When all was said and done, dinner was delicious. After dinner, at 8:00, the two sailboats that we thought we would share tonight’s anchorage with pulled up their anchors and left us. Apparently they planned for an overnight crossing to Florida. When we dropped our anchor, Clark came up near them saying that it would be better to be anchored in a cluster so as to be more easily seen. Well, so much for that plan! Later another boat appeared for a while, but he left as well, so we were left on our own for the night. The anchor light illuminates the boat quite well, so not to worry!

I’m very glad that we will cross in daylight hours. Weather reports have shown over the past few days that tomorrow, Friday, is our best day to cross. After that, starting Sunday in particular, the weather will deteriorate and it is not clear when the next window will appear. Thus, even though I was feeling poorly, we pushed on to get to our jumping off spot for this weather window instead of waiting an unknown amount of time for the next one. It turned out to be a good decision as even though I am not fully recovered, I am at least fully functional except in the galley.