M/V MAERIN

FINALLY! We have some relief from the winds! The winds clocked just a bit, and moderated. Sunday evening it became fairly calm. with winds slowing to 10-15 kts. Welcome relief from the long week of 20+ kt. winds. We can finally travel!

Sunday we did some biking around Rock Sound, riding to the north side to check out the ocean side beach and some of the area out in the country! There are some homes out on the north side, some of them are newer, but most striking is the amount of construction starts that sit with rusting re-bar, or apparently abandoned buildings left to rot away. There are areas that are cleared as if a development was going to begin, but the site sits idle, and the appearance is that it has been so for several

years. The beach on the north side has some sections that are pink sand, very nice. There is a tremendous amount of trash on the beaches, so as much as they are billed as pristine, there is the ever-present trash. On our return to town, we stopped by the Ocean Hole, where many of the local teens swim. I returned later after having retrieved the retriever. She charged right in, jumping from the 3 ft. high ledge into the water! The locals were amused to see a swimming dog!

Our Sunday morning internet update indicated our weather would be improving for a trip southeast to the Exumas, we decided to make way for Highborne Cay Monday morning. Our cruise to Highborne was comfortable, we had SW winds at about 15 kts.and waves 2 ft. or less and warm weather.. Quite a welcome change from our previous 2 weeks! We enjoyed the cruise from the flybridge. We opted for a single night stay in the marina here, we used up some of the unpalatable city water we picked up in Spanish Wells to catch up on the laundry, give Maerin a much-needed de-salting, and then tank up with some RO water here that should hold us until we head north to the Abacos in 3 weeks or so.

It seems the water here is clearer. We still marvel at cruising here and watching the bottom slide under us some 15 ft. below! As we left Eleuthera, the sun highlighted the water colors as we approached the edge of the reef. The white of the sands gave way to the brilliant turquoise of the near shore waters, then turned to a greenish blue, then deeper blue-green melding into the deep indigo blue of the deep water as the wall of the reef dropped into the depths. The section we crossed today, Eleuthera Sound, is charted at just over 5,000 ft. That’s pretty deep!

Highborne Cay is privately owned, There are a few houses here, and more planned, but I really believe that half the Bahamas consists of planned development, or development that’s started… not in the process of being completed, mind you, just started! The Bahamians are painfully aware of the condition of the economy, and know that vacations, their life blood, are the first to fall under the bugetary axe when money gets tight. The marina here is nice, it’s a great location, well protected, and relatively easy access; a good stopover from Nassau. With deep water only minutes from the marina, fishing is great, as in most of the Bahamas.

Today’s catch was snapper & dolphin. The cleaning station just inside the jetty at the marina was busy, and nurse sharks were taking full advantage of the buffet of scraps!

The Explorer charts we use here are full of information about the local area, with notations on the charts about facilities, local knowledge, points of interest. In studying the chart for Highborne, I was struck by a note of a spring on the south end of the island, and thought it would be most unusual to find a spring on a Cay. Barb actually found it while walking the dogs on after we arrived, but there was no water at the spring.

Evidently, someone with a sense of humor… what’s more, the folks who do the Explorer Charts are evidently in on the joke! 😆

Tomorrow’s destination, Allens Cays, just north a mile or two from here, where the claim to fame is Iguanas!