South to the Exumas

1.17.11

We left Nassau at 0800 to sail down to Allens Cay – our first stop in the Exumas! We were so excited and it was a gorgeous day for sailing! We hoisted the sails and looked forward to a day of clear water and sun.
Of course, with our luck and Murphy's Law once again on our tails, it was not to be. We soon realized we would be sailing into the wind all day and were having to go a bit off-course to keep our sails full. We started up the motor to compensate for our bad wind direction, but the damage had been done. The wind was not to shift all day and we were being pushed more away from the islands than we had planned for. We soon realized there would be no reason to fight the wind and tide, which was only allowing us to go forward at 1 knot/hour and instead embraced the wind direction and found a new destination. It was slightly North of where we wanted to go, but not too far off our course. Unfortunately, we were not able to make it there until after dark, so our first anchoring in the dark experience was a bit scary. There are coral heads everywhere in the Exumas and you should always sail during the day so that you can see them, since the charts and GPS are not reliable. If only....we had no choice at this point and were just praying to the sailing Gods that we made it safely.
After sailing for 9 hours on a day that was supposed to be only 6, we were more than ready to be safely at anchor. Finally things went our way and a full moon shone brightly through the approaching clouds. We were able to see enough to safely make it into the anchorage, set the anchor and get settled before the next front came through. It was a bumpy night, but the anchor held and we slept soundly all night.