Last night, there were more than 70 boats anchored in Black Point Harbour. At 6:23am a “friendly” guy in a small open fish came flying through the harbor blaring his music (country, I think, it was so loud our teeth were rattling). It was at that point, we looked at each other and said,”huh, then, “We’re outta here!”
We weren’t the only boat thinking that, as the anchorage dumped probably 30 boats before 0900.
The plan? Let’s head a bit north to a spot called Big Majors, also a popular anchorage, but the thought was maybe, just maybe, they also dumped a batch of boats hopefully headed south. Lotta maybes, so off we went.
So out on the bank we went, and most of the sailors were actually sailing! It was pretty, all the sails. Yep, there were a lot of them. All was fine until an oncoming large catamaran, that was previously not sailing but motoring decided to cut in front of us, now dead in the water as one of at least 6 people on board tried to raise the sail. Another dude was filming with his phone, while a couple of ladies “drove” the boat. We slowed to allow them to pass in front of us, watching this show. I think a couple more were cheering as they then did a 180 and started coming right at us! We gunned it (yea, a trawler doing 6 kts is now trying to do 8) and they all waved, “Sorry!”
Our first thoughts were, yep, there are a lot of boats out here. Heck, you gotta watch for traffic! Traffic?? But we wanted to get away from it all…
Next up was the big turn by Harvey’s Cay where we could finally see Big Majors. If it was okay in there, there would be a lot of water attractions (snorkeling, maybe fishing) nearby, so we could stay a few days to play.
Let’s check that plan. In fact, let’s top off the fuel tanks at Staniel Cay (basically right next door, and they go through a lot of fuel…. good thing) and head out tomorrow away from the Exumas over to Cat Island!
Oops, poor timing, we had to wait / hover / station keep / stay in one place for about an hour while a gentleman with his family watching, ever so slowly filled up their catamaran, using the fuel pump clearly on trickle, then cleaned up, then filled the extra cans with gas for the dinghy. The family just watched.
We finally got our chance, fueled up, asked about a slip for the night or maybe a mooring ball?
We’re on a mooring for the evening, leaving first thing in the morning to cross to Cat Island. We’ll stop in later to see how the traffic is….
Oh, did we mention Staniel Cay is a busy place – big boats, the mail boat/freighter, and an airport. We have to mention the airport (prop jobs – not silent…). And as night fell, one of the nearby mega-yachts is running a big, noisy generator and has a very unhappy infant aboard. Poor little guy.
But as always, the sun is beautiful saying goodnight…
Our Travels 