After a totally relaxing evening enjoying the sunset with Andrey and Natalia aboard Bella Vita, the only other boat in the area, followed by a good night sleep, it was time to explore some more. We’re always on the hunt for fresh produce, so let’s check out the Orange Creek Inn, Food Store, and Laundromat! Access is during high tide to get past a really large, shifting sandbar in front of the town, so we’d need to move quickly once out of the dinghy in order to get back across said sand bar, while there was enough water to return to the boat. One of those, grab-the-groceries-and-dash sort of situations. It just so happens, the wonderful establishment is owned and operated by Margaret Cleare, with her daughter Shari helping. Wow, it was very neat and organized and very well stocked. We quickly scored some onions, oranges, apples and eggs. And then, we got to chatting. (Imagine that.) I do believe Todd and Shari are two peas in a pod, philosophically speaking. And Miss Margaret, with a great combo of steel and twinkle in her eyes, can tell you all about Cat Island. Alas, we had to dash. Sandbar and all that…
Such fine ladies. We’re sorry we didn’t think to get a group photo. Shari, we’ll be back – looking forward to meeting your new beau! 😉

Time to get back to the boat, stow the goodies, and head south down the island to an area with high terrain to get some wind protection behind Curry Murry Bluff.

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.

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!

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.

“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.

We were later joined in the anchorage by a solo sailboat and enjoyed a beautiful end of day and a blessedly quiet night. Aaah.

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…

John Anderson’s tune “Swingin'” came to mind over the last few days. My goodness, not sure exactly how bad this cold front was for y’all as it moved through the states, but Lordy, its been a doozy down here. Three days of constant, I mean constant, wind over 15 mph, gusting to more than 30! We are safely anchored and “just-a-swingin'” with numerous other boats in Little Bay off Great Guana Cay. While most of us hunkered down to wait for the winds to pass, a couple of kiteboarders took advantage of the wind for a bit of sport.

His sailboat was anchored near us, which allowed us to catch this great video:

---

Mid-afternoon, Lady Eunice, Raging Bull and Patton Pride took their places at the buoy marking the outer starting line. They all have to be anchored, with sail down, before the start. Each boat holds a team of five guys ready to race.

---

Party aside, life goes on – the supply/mail boat made another visit, allowing us to secure some fresh produce and a few staples. And then, as the latest cold front made its arrival, the anchorage kicked up, so it was time to retrieve the Lil Filly (dinghy!)