Our trip from West End to Treasure Cay included three stops along the way.
Wednesday, Nov 20th. We left the dock at West End at 6:30 am. We motor sailed most of the way arriving at 4:30 pm. We had sun in the morning and clouds building during the afternoon. We saw no other boats on our northerly track to Grand Cay. The captain discovered a slow leak in the exhaust system which he will monitor. Anchored the boat and prepared the dingy to go ashore which meant hoisting it off the bow of the boat and hoisting the dingy engine off the stern of the boat and attaching it. All this was done as quickly as possible, but darkness and rain cut that adventure short.
The reason for our excitement to go to shore is that I have a plastic bin full of books to give to a little boy I met here in June, 2012. He said he had no books to read and would I bring him 20! His name was DeAngelo, and I had a picture of him walking Bentley around the settlement.
Thursday, Nov 21st. We all leave the boat at 8:00 am and walk with our bin towards the school. We pass a mother and her three children and ask if they know DeAngelo...they answered that he moved to Nassau. No!! I showed them the picture, and they said the boy in the picture was Keenan and he is in third grade. School starts at 9:00. We arrived at 8:30 and Keenan showed up at the office with his mother. We showed her the picture and she agreed that was
Keenan. Keenan stood looking at me like I was a ghost...he didn't remember me or walking Bentley. We took the bin of books to his classroom and opened it up on his desk. His eyes grew larger and larger as he picked out books he liked. He gave a few to his teacher and one to each of his classmates...12 in all! Happiness for everyone, especially me! Was it really the boy I met a year and a half ago, or just a lucky little boy that looked like DeAngelo! I guess I will never know.
We returned to the boat by 11:00 am and raised the anchor which had collected a window frame from a house and a 10 foot steel rebar. No wonder we didn't drag last night. We had good winds for sailing and were enjoying our motor sail, when the engine sputtered and quit at 1:30 in the afternoon. So we sailed in 20 knot winds at close reach with only half of the jib sail out. We entered Great Sale Cay, a large basin of water in the shape of an inverted V, and dropped anchor. Will bled the fuel lines and the engine started up right away.
Friday, Nov 22nd. Watching and studying the weather is an important part of traveling any where on a boat. So we use different weather sources and recently the news hasn't been good. A strong wind system is arriving by Sunday and mariners are cautioned to find safe haven. We need to get to Treasure Cay, our safe haven of choice, by Sunday at noon and we have 75 miles to travel to get there. But today isn't going to be suitable for that. We have strong 25 plus winds from the East, and that is the direction we need to go. Tomorrow is predicted to be much lighter, so we will try Saturday instead. Today we enjoyed the unpopulated beauty of this Cay with a walk on the beach with ruins of some type of construction and a dingy ride around the basin.
Saturday, Nov 23rd. We pulled anchor up at 4:00 am and motored in ENE winds under 10 knots. The exhaust is still leaking but we are still plugging on. We tried to sail but the winds dropped to below 5 knots, and we picked our destination for the night....Cooper Town on the Great Abaco Island...leaving us 34 miles tomorrow.
Sunday, Nov 24th. Another early start...3:45 and passed a popular stopping point...Green Turtle Cay at dawn. The day so far is sunny and light winds. We make it to Treasure Cay by noon and drop anchor in the basin outside of the resort/marina area. And then the winds came!! At 4:00 we had 30 to 4o knot winds with rain squalls, and the anchor is dragging. We put out another anchor and 200 feet of anchor chain, which seemed to hold. We monitored it most of the night.
Monday, Nov 25th. We moved to a mooring ball....three plastic jugs tied to a secured line on a huge concrete block. However, our cautious still dove down to check the lines. We finally feel secure and will remain here until we fix the exhaust system leak and spend some time with our island friends Cathi and John Cash.
Miss you all.
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