2024 April: Rock Sound Eleuthera Bahamas

 1 April 2024 Easter Monday
Depart: New Bight anchorage, Cat Island 7:05
Arrive: Rock Sound, Eleuthera anchorage 4:30
Distance: 76 nm
Conditions: Calm seas, sunny, light cool breeze, i.e. good travel day

We had a long travel day planned today and got a very early start. We ate breakfast underway to save time to get going. 

Sunrise at New Bight anchorage

We traveled over deep waters with no land in sight for several hours today. Eventually the tip of Eleuthera came into sight about 12:30. At one point along the way, I asked Clark how far we were offshore and he said about .8 nautical miles. The chart showed depths in excess of 900 feet! The depth finders had both given up reporting depths a long time beforehand.

Land Ho! Eleuthera!

We saw two cruise ships as we passed by Little San Salvador and the south end of Eleuthera.

Carnival Sunshine
886' long x 144' wide x 28.2' draft
Seen at Little San Salvador Island

Caribbean Princess
951' long x 118' wide x 28.2' draft

We noticed cranes and construction work going on. Rumor has it that they are building a pier for Disney cruise ships to come here.

When we left this morning, we estimated our arrival time to be some time after 5:00 assuming an average speed of 8 knots. We did better speed than that for most of the trip and came in at least 30 minutes ahead of projected time. Along the way we had some playful dolphins join us. Unfortunately, they refused to pose for the camera though Clark tried! We also spied numerous flying fish which is always fun to see.

We reached Rock Sound around 4:30 and quickly found a good-holding place to drop the anchor. 

View of Rock Sound Settlement
(We'll explore tomorrow) and their
dinghy dock

When we looked around at the boats in the anchorage, we found "Bagus" whom we had recently seen. When our paths passed previously, they were making an additional stop before coming here. We had no idea the timing would work out that we would get to see them again! As we were getting settled, we saw them get picked up by friends of theirs, also on a Kady Krogen, to head into town for a look around. "Bagus" arrived today - same as us.

Sunset at Rock Sound, Eleuthera

2 April 2024

Walking tour of Rock Sound Settlement

As usual, Clark was up at 6:30 to hear the Chris Parker weather report. He noticed an interested sunrise.

Sunrise at Rock Sound

When Clark was done with weather broadcast, we got the dinghy and ourselves ready and headed into town to see the sights. As opposed to the last place we visited where the dock was deteriorating quickly, this town has a brand new dinghy dock.

Approaching dinghy dock

View down long dinghy dock

View down the metal ladder to climb up onto dock

Steps looked easier to navigate but
were really too high off the water
for dinghy use

Clark had done his research and had an action plan for today's exploration. He had a rough map from the Explorer Charts to give him an idea of where to go.

Our first destination he chose was a walk to the "Ocean Hole".  He thought we should turn as we came off the dock, but I saw a sign on Fish Street for the "Ocean Hole". We took that street and started on our way.

This route took us past the site of a local artist who had decorated the buildings with their work.

Photo Opp for tourists
with chair in front of this paintings

T
he artist's place

Even the stop sign is hand-painted

As we wove our way through the streets, I had the strong suspicion that the artist had drawn us down the side street on purpose so we could see their artwork. 

Weaving our way through the streets, we finally made our way to the Ocean Hole. We passed a playground and were left wondering if it is abandoned or currently in use. 

Swing set with cement foundation

Slide

Tree climbing anyone? Not me!

We found an information booth that was too faded to read.

We finally got a glimpse of the Ocean Hole.

Rock Sound Ocean Hole Park

Info on fish in the Ocean Hole

Gazebo at Park

We forgot to bring bread to feed the fish to bring them in close for pictures, but Clark did manage to get a couple of usable pictures.

Steps down to the Ocean Hole

Looking for fish

Views of the Ocean Hole ...

The next stop on Clark's tour took us to the Cathedral Caves. As we wove through the town streets, we came upon three barking puppies. Clark was skeptical of walking past the dogs, but I saw their tails wagging and knew we would be okay. The puppies lost interest but "mom" and "dad" came out to us to say hello. 

Puppies

Big family

"mom" on left and "dad" on right

"Mom" and "Dad" decided to go on our walk with us and stayed with us for the rest of our tour. For almost 4 miles they stayed with us.

View of 2 Kady Krogens in the sound

More local art on walk to caves

"Dad" dog exploring beach

A very rocky beach

Clark and "Mom" passing by the town clinic

Time for refreshing water play 

I was surprised the dogs stuck with us for so long. The bright sun made for a hot walk down a long road. I was terrified when they walked on / crossed over the road worrying about the cars speeding down the road. The dogs were wise enough to get out of the way most of the time.

We saw some pretty flowers to bring some color to our walk.

I kept thinking that the dogs would abandon us along the way, but they even followed us down into the caves.

First view of the boiling hole.

To get closer we had to watch our step as we walked along a rough trail with a sketchy bridge.

Rickety bridge

Steps down to caves

View of caves from the top of the steps

Behind me I saw an alternate way to ascend from the caves. 

Not me!
Even Clark passed on this opportunity.

I walked as far as the steps down into the caves, but I stopped there. The dogs stopped with me to look down the steps as Clark marched onwards to explore.

"Should we join him or stay here?"

"Mom" was more adventurous than "Dad" and ran down the stairs to join Clark. "Dad" followed soon afterwards.

Clark took pictures while he was exploring the cave.

Tree roots extending down into the cave

Clark wound his way around, and I pointed out a path back to me that the dogs had shown me as they ran off to explore the area. The opening between the rocks was a good size for dogs but not so much for a man.

Tight fit through here

Having finished the cave exploration, we headed back into town with our next target being the food market at the opposite end of town. I thought we lost the dogs back at the cave, but they showed up for a splash in the water and a run down the beach as we made our way into town.

We passed a church along the way.

We found an interesting wall covered in license plates from lots of different places.

"Dad" dog left us somewhere in town. I think he found something to eat and abandoned us. "Mom" stuck with us until the food market, but when we came out, she too was gone.

We stopped at a hardware store on the way back to the dinghy. I needed a place to sit down. Having walked 4 miles without a break, I needed to rest for a minute or two. Clark managed to buy a metric bolt here on the way to the market that he can use in case of emergency to repair the anchor windlass that sheared off a while back.  It is not the right type exactly and it is not stainless steel, but it would do in a pinch if necessary.

I need a rest! 

Clark had stopped at Dingle's to inquire about laundry service and noticed they had ice cream sandwiches earlier in the day. On the way back to the boat, Clark popped in to buy himself one. As we walked away from the store, I saw "Mom" dog begging food scraps from a guy eating lunch. Later, Clark said he saw "Dad" dog down the road, but I could not see him. I missed my buddies!

While we were out, Clark got a text from "Bagus" asking if we would like to join them for dinner tonight at "Wild Orchids". I was so worn out from the long walk in the hot sun, I was not sure I would be able to manage the energy to make it happen. Clark said I would be fine and said yes to the invite. All told we walked 5 miles today!

We had lunch on the boat and relaxed for the afternoon until just after 6:00 when it was time to get in the dinghy for the ride to the restaurant dock. We had a lovely dinner with "Bagus" and "Longpoint". 

Ev, Anette, Bill, Don
Mary Ann missing for the moment
Clark took the picture

Dinner took a while as we worked our way through drinks, appetizers, and finally our dinners. We left after dark having seen a very pretty sunset as we dined.

3 April 2024

Laundry day

Although 3T's laundry was closed yesterday when we stopped by for a look, Clark found out that they had water problems but would be open today. Given that, I packaged up two big bags of dirty laundry to take into town. 

Gathering up the laundry was the easy part of today's job. As we went to get into the dinghy, it was bucking like a wild bronco in the waves rushing past the boat. Clark managed to get in and get it under control.  Earlier, when he was prepping the dinghy for today's trip into town, the fender protecting the dinghy from rubbing on the side of Sunset Delight broke off and floated away. 

He told me when I came out, "We've lost a fender!" I assumed it was gone for good having disappeared overnight. Later, he said, "I can see the fender!" I was amazed that he could see it. If it had been a white fender, it would have blended in with all the whitecaps. With the navy blue fender cover, it stood out more clearly. I asked if he was going after it, and he said, "Of course!"

I wasn't sure how he would manage to capture the errant fender in the waves, but in short order I saw he was on his way back already with the fender in hand. When he arrived back at Sunset Delight having retrieved the runaway fender, he docked the dinghy on the port side of Sunset Delight, where he found a bit of shelter from the waves, hoping to make it easier for me to get in the dinghy.

Once underway, we bounced our way across the sound to the dinghy dock where we had the challenge of leaping from the dinghy onto the metal ladder to climb up to the dock. I tried a few times before I could get a strong enough grip on the ladder to risk stepping off the dinghy.  I sat down quickly a couple of times for fear of falling overboard.

Once up on the dock, I held the lines to hold the dinghy close enough for Clark to hand up the bags of laundry and then grab the ladder to climb up to me. It was quite exciting, and I was glad we were both wearing our life jackets under these challenging conditions.

When we got to the "Laundry Mat", we found a big crowd of locals doing their laundry and a long wait for an available washer to start our washing. What we hoped would be a couple of hours of work turned into a day's project.

We arrived around 10:00 in the morning.  After our long wait, we finally got one washer and had to do the loads sequentially. By noon we had one load in a washer and one in a dryer. The owner said the wash would take about 40 minutes. I asked if it would be okay if we went for lunch and hurried back. He was fine with that so we walked to Louis Delights, the deli /  ice cream place down the street a ways.

When we got there, the place was packed with locals. That I took as good news and bad news. Good news - if the locals are swarming this place, it is probably a good choice. Bad news - if the place is packed, we will have a long wait here as well.

The food actually came out pretty quickly and it was delicious! As we left to go back to the "Laundry Mat", we told the proprietress that we would be back later for ice cream.

When we got back to the washers and dryers, we found that we still had a long wait on the washer. The water pressure is so slow here that filling the machine takes forever and a day! We had rushed back only to have to sit and wait some more. 

We finally left the "Laundry Mat" a little after 2:00 having spent almost 4 hours enjoying the view.

Wash $3.50

True to his word, Clark took us back to the ice cream place for a cold treat before facing the challenge of getting back into the bucking dinghy from the dinghy dock.

I am happy to report that we survived the ordeal of climbing back into the dinghy. We got soaked with salt water on the way back to "Sunset Delight" has crashing over the waves caused us to get sea spray in the face and on our clothes several times. Thank goodness I had the clean laundry well-protected from getting wet. 

Lassoing a "Sunset Delight" cleat turned out to be the next challenge as the cleat was way over my head. Attempting to stand to reach the cleat, I thought I might go overboard, so I sat back down and tried to throw a line around the cleat from down below. I am not sure how I finally managed it, but I did capture the cleat allowing Clark to maneuver the dinghy into position so he could get off and tie us up properly. I then handed him all the bags, seat cushions, and etc before pulling myself off the dinghy and into "Sunset Delight". Whew!

My first job after getting onto SD was to change my clothes. I was covered in saltwater and had even had a taste of it a couple of times, so I was a bedraggled mess. After putting things out to dry and cleaning myself up, I stowed the clean laundry and then sat down to relax with word puzzles for the afternoon.

As I sat on a chair in the cockpit, the Bahamas supply boat came into port. It appeared to have only one container on board for delivery.

Bahamas Supply ship

A short while after adding more containers, the ship left again.

Clark decided that we should stow the dinghy for travel this evening before sunset as the waves had settled down enough that we would not have to deal with a swinging dinghy as we lowered it into place. 

After dinner, we watched Remington Steele while I updated the blog.