Continuing our mission northwest, SaltyMare and Finish Grade left New Bight Friday under grey, cloudy skies for a 27-nautical mile cruise to Pompey Rocks, midway up Cat Island. We kept an eye on squalls in the distance, even altering course and speed to avoid them, but in the end, dodging wasn’t enough. We entered a squall and temporarily lost sight of each other. The upside? Free boat rinse – yeah!

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We spent the night rocking in the swell at Pompey Rocks, but that’s okay because the “weather window” is open for an early departure Saturday for the crossing from Cat Island across a bit of the North Atlantic around the “whale tail” of Eleuthera.

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After reaching Eleuthera and swinging around the southern “tail” end of the island, we entered the Davis Channel. Suddenly, all eyes were glued to the flat water and the delightful scene 18 feet below. Nothing can explain the sensation of seemingly moving in air, magically suspended! We could completely see the bottom! It was almost as good as snorkeling, except we were going too fast. Susie and Lynn wanted to drop the anchors, jump in and just float!

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After the captain returned to the bridge, the photographer took her turn on the bow, excitedly snapping photos.

The water was so calm that in the photo below, you can see not only the shadow of Susie holding the camera, but the reflection of her face (lower in the photo) looking over the bow pulpit rail.

Here are a few in which she actually captured fish! (Well, someone on this boat has to catch fish, Honey. Hehe)

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When we arrived at our planned spot to anchor, the wind and water were still amazingly calm.

SOP on the SaltyMare has Todd positioning the boat into the wind and Susie on the bow operating the windlass and doing the birddog pointing thing so he knows the direction of the anchor chain and can adjust the boat to pull back and “set” the anchor, which takes less than a minute after the anchor and initial chain outlay hit bottom.

After the drop but before the pull back to set it, “Susie, where’s the anchor?” (She is typically pointing by now.) Umm….Hang on. It was here a second ago, but it’s no longer out in front of us.

There was no wind, but there was enough current to float us forward in just a few seconds.

No worries. A little use of thrusters, some reverse, gentle throttle, and we were hooked.

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While we are doing the anchoring bit on SaltyMare, Finish Grade is usually nearby doing the same. On this particular day, we looked up from setting the anchor bridle (the final step after setting the anchor) to find…we were pointed at each other. Just how the heck did that happen?? We both started out bow into the wind. Well, there was so little wind that our girls (the boats, not the crew) were pushed around by the swirling current. An oddity that made us all laugh.

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The grey clouds followed all the way through to sunset, followed by showers overnight.

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The next day, there were still dark storm clouds overhead and thunder well into the afternoon. Finally, in the late afternoon, we decided to risk it and head out for some beach combing.

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After a couple of hours exploring, we decided not to press our luck with the rain any longer and headed home to stow the dinghy in preparation for departing the next day. And then, lo and behold,

…Rainbows”!

What better way to end a period of rainy days than with a beautiful rainbow?!

Introducing, “Mission Possible” updates:

We are on a mission to get Susie to Marsh Harbour for a May 2 flight to Virginia, where she is needed by family.

Galliot Cay in the Exumas was our furthest point south on this trip, and the point from which we began the approximate 290 nautical mile (333 statue or “regular” miles) journey north for Susie’s date with Delta (pink star below). 300 miles doesn’t sound like that far, but at 7.5 miles an hour it’s a bit. Figuring in weather is also a big part of the mix. Certain legs of the journey DEMAND proper weather and sea state.

So far, so good! 137 miles completed (path in red). Yeah!

For those keeping up at home, we will provide Mission Updates on the next few posts to relay our status.

See you soon, Mom!

P.S. The little anchor near the bottom is our “southern most” point last year. Hog Cay, Ragged Islands.

Cat Island will always be a favorite stop for us and remain in our hearts because of the warm, genuine people we’ve met and feel lucky enough to call friends. We still had the car for Tuesday morning, so on a day already threatening rain, we made an early start (hey, we are cruisers, it wasn’t that early).

We headed “up island” to see the folks that were kind enough to befriend us and show us their garden last year, Clifton & Betty. We’ve only been to their house the one time that Betty drove us but had no doubt we’d find it with Duke’s (turns out accurate) instructions to, “drive about 45 minutes and then just before you hit the LARGEST pothole, look right. There’s the house.” (There was, in fact, even a road crew racing the rain to fill in the potholes! Not this one but maybe, someday…)

When Betty let us in the front door, the house smelled so good. She’d been hard at work trying to have freshly baked bread treats for us, but alas we were too early. So, into the garden we went. It had been very dry recently, so naturally the garden wasn’t at full peak. But the rain was on its way!

Here are a few shots of things to come, grey skies included:

Fun with coconuts!

Betty and Clifton had heard about Susie’s bout with Ciguatera last year and the gentle relief that real coconut water provided. (Thank you, Cordell and Duke.) Out came the green coconuts! And Clifton showed us his way of opening them, complete with small, carved-on-the-spot spoons!

From there, the “Coconut Master,” aka Clifton, gets us to the coconut water:

Ahh, nothing like drinking fresh coconut water.

Now, about that small spoon..

Once it’s split in half, you use the little spoon as a perfect scoop for getting the coconut “jelly.” And that’s how the healthy parts of the green coconut get consumed.

Todd asked about the dry coconuts with the firmed-up coconut meat? And of course, Clifton made it easy!

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Unfortunately, the rental had to be returned by noon, so we really did miss out on the freshly baked bread when we scooted out with our garden goodies.

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With the produce dry and stowed, we loaded back into the wet dinghies, and returned to New Bight for lunch and ice cream…rain be darned! In the end, the rain won though.

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Rain be darned you say? We made it back to the boat soaked, put the dinghy up top, and it then rained for the next two days! By far the most rain we have experienced in the islands.

A couple days later, we received visitors from Finish Grade! We think they were going stir-crazy. (Or are they just crazy?)

If you think the shots of our visitors look grey, you’d be right. We sat for a bit in the cockpit discussing charts, weather, and next steps, then they swam back home, arriving just as the skies opened up again!

The rainy days and our need to head north for Susie to make a trip to Virginia, made it hard to get back over to the beach for a real send off with/from our friends. Heck the morning we left, we dropped the dinghy and rushed over to bid Duke farewell, but alas, he had gone “fishing” (conching) eeeaaarrrllllyyy, so we missed him. Pompey wasn’t around, and Cordell was busy in the back of the shop. Even Duke’s spider, Nancy, was nowhere to be found.

Not to worry. We will see you all again in a few months!

Upon the Easter sunset salute by conch, what did we hear? That’s right the familiar retort from Duke’s Conch Stand on shore. Our friend Pompey decided we needed a response! How fun!

After visiting the Hermitage Monday, we ventured “down island” in a rental car to show our friends, Terry & Lynn from Finish Grade, Cat. It’s different in that it’s hilly and has lots of trees.

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Down on the south end of Cat is the Andrew Deveaux Plantation House that we saw/found last year. It’s a ruin from the 1780’s, and it appears the government in Nassau sent someone in to clean up the site since we were here last.

You can use the sliders to compare some of the shots below with similar shots from 2022.

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After exploring Port Howe, we decided to “go west, young man” to the tip of Cat Island’s “slanted-J” shape. So off we went to check out Hawk’s Nest Resort and Marina. For sale, by the way, for just a cool $21 million… Apparently, the kids want to cash out what Dad built.

The marina is a good stop for the sport fishermen, and on the inlet coming in. We never saw so many sharks in one place. Proof that if you feed them, they will come… Actually, they come en masse as soon as they hear footsteps on the dock.

Since the marina has depth and fuel, we will keep it in mind for the future, maybe.

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After running around most of the day Monday, we finally returned to New Bight to see the gang at the beachside shops, where hugs and joyful greetings were exchanged!

We chatted away the rest of the afternoon with the gang (I think Cordell was hiding from the camera) before heading home for Todd to make his sunset date with the conch horn and listen for the retort from shore!

We’re not done with Cat, yet though. We still have to go “up island” to see our gardening friends!

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As predicted, it was a perfect day to cross, with light wind and calm seas.

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As it turned out, no fish were harmed during the trip. (Chicken for dinner.)

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We consulted radar and AIS, and watched that white spot grow larger and larger, until it became…

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Moving along in a settled sea afforded us the rare opportunity to photograph each other…

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For that afternoon, the rain remained in the distance, and we anchored in New Bight without incident.

Then it was time to switch gears. It was, after all, Easter. Susie roasted the aforementioned chicken and made dessert. Terry and Lynn brought mashed taters and a tasty spinach casserole, and we enjoyed dinner together before sunset.

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Easter Monday seemed the perfect time for us to revisit the Hermitage that sits on Mount Alvernia, at 206 feet above sea level, the highest elevation in the Bahamas. From our earlier posts, you might remember that the builder, Father Jerome, after building a bunch of churches all over the islands, came to Cat Island in his early 60’s to single-handedly HAND-build, with local stone, a little hermitage and chapel to spend his final years as a hermit.  Yeah, we think it’s a very cool place and we’re excited to share it with our friends.

We took the dinghies ashore and headed to the base of Mount Alvernia.

The “billy goat” portion of the hike begins with the Stations of the Cross, from Station 1, “Jesus Christ is condemned to death” to Station 14 when the stone is rolled away to reveal an empty tomb.

At the top, you find the Hermitage is much smaller than it looks from below.

PS. Terry, we were honored to be there. Cum deo, ipsi vivent in aeternum.

First, a forgotten tidbit. While walking the beach some time back, Susie found a tiny bit of something that looked like a little plant/flower. She’d found a green one of these earlier in our trip but without the stem. This one she carefully guarded during the rest of our explorations that day by tucking it into a compartment in the dinghy. And then she forgot it. Weeks – and many dinghy rides – later, she remembered the little “flower” and (hopefully) opened the compartment to retrieve it.

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Now back to the weekend: to stage for a Sunday crossing to Cat Island, we moved from Big Majors to Galliot Cay Saturday morning. We’d read of a good area to snorkel nearby, so we grabbed the gear and headed out. What a spot! Just off a small island, there is this smallish (50 yards square) area of the most beautiful stuff.

First things first. Susie snagged the underwater camera to get a shot of our “Jacques” (Todd), who loves being in the water and swims like a fish!

Once the camera was returned, he happily headed off to capture images of the large reef while the rest of us continued exploring.

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Sprinkled in were some really beautiful corals. What’s still amazing to fathom is that they are living, growing organisms, not rocks…

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He captured so many beautiful fish and other critters………

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We also found more Christmas Tree Worms:

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Not much was found on the beach, but in the shallows, our group still found interesting things!

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Sufficiently dried out, we went home to shower the salt away.