Crossing to Cat Island

As if to put an explanation point on our plan to leave the crowd near Black Point and Staniel Cay, a large catamaran came right past our bow, blaring music and ablaze with seemingly every light on the boat, both inside and out, to pick up a mooring ball three spots from us…at 2:45 am. UGH. Really? Smile, and yep, outta here at 0700 is an excellent plan! Just too much fun for us old fuddy duds.
We’d picked up a mooring ball at the marina specifically because it put us near Big Rock Cut for an easy a.m. departure. All that remained was timing the tide due to the swift current in the cut.

The channel winds through several “big rocks”

While looking back at the marina, we heard this poor sailboat radio in to see if someone could “come get him.” Apparently he’d made it this close but lost steerage. The marina said they’d send someone. Hopefully, it’s not too serious and they will soon be back on their way.

Safely through the cut and in the Exuma Sound, we settled in to our 6-7 knot cruise. When crossing large bodies of water most boats use autopilot to “automatically” keep them on a course. Let the boat steer itself. Most still keep a watch on deck. And then there are those that don’t. A few hours in, literally 20+ miles from anything, this guy speeding 30+ knots kept coming at us from a distance. The only two boats for miles and miles. Distance quickly closed and it was clear “no one was at home” over there, as we were on a collision course. Five blasts of our horn to get his attention (Lordy, that thing is loud!) and finally, we see his course change to go blazing by!

Fortunately, our captain keeps watch constantly. So once we settled down and got back to watching the world go by, the “crew” got busy staying busy, as usual.

There was also plenty of time for relaxing, listening to books, a bite of lunch, etc. With the Exuma Sound calm, it was easy to see things floating in the water, like small patches of sargassum seaweed. And is that seagulls just floating out in the middle of nothing? Wait. What the heck? They have two-foot-long tails and deep orange, basically red bills! Not any seagull we’ve ever seen! An internet search (why look at the bird book we brought on board) later, and lo and behold, we discover the aptly named Red-billed Tropicbird. Cool looking pair!

That’s a cruise ship in the distance at Little San Salvador. We zoomed in from about 20 miles away! If we ever decide to visit that island, we’re going have to make sure one of those isn’t parked there. 😉

That sucker’s BIG!

When we left the really deep part of the Exuma Sound, which averages about 5000 feet, the water really quieted down. I mean really, really CALM. Our friends with sails wouldn’t care for it, but for a power boat, it was spectacular cruising.

It was calm enough to take turns kneeling on the bow pulpit, peering down to watch the bottom go by. Look at the corals. Oops, a bottle. Hey, that’s some fisherman’s glove. And we were still in 60′ of water. Fascinating! It just so happens that that’s where Todd was when the fishing line up on the flybridge went ZING and Susie at the helm, hollered,

“Fish on!”

By the time, Todd made it up from the bow, all the way astern to the pole, the line was a-screamin’. Set the hook and lots and lots of reeling in. Something silver jumping and fighting. And lots and lots of reeling in. When the fish was about 50 feet away, Todd, still on the upper deck, exclaimed with despair, “it’s only a barracuda.” Bummer, no fish tonight. But a choice had to be made. Cut the line and add to the lost-tackle price tag for our first fish? Or land the rascal and retrieve our stuff? Susie!? Grab a net, gaff, gloves, pliers and heck maybe the baseball bat because he has lots of ugly teeth! (A little prep would have helped, but we had become complacent due to our lack of fishing luck.)

After the excitement we anchored in the calm waters near Orange Creek at the top of Cat Island. There is a small community here and a long, beautiful beach just waiting to be explored.