This week’s video involves a sail across the Little Bahama Bank with some strong Easterly winds. This made for quite the adventure.
Our sail from Freeport started off with surfing down some 6-7 foot steep waves which Cory has a blast doing. On the other hand I was feeding the fish. This is one of the downfall of being pregnant while sailing, I’m much more seasick. Fortunately we found shelter at Ginn Sur Mer near West End and along with SV Spirit Bird and SV Turned Out we dropped anchor. It’s not the most scenic area and it looks as if they started a development which hasn’t led to anything yet but it was perfect for a good night’s sleep with a 360 degree protection.
The following day despite the strong 25-30 knots Easterly wind we left our anchorage unaccompanied this time. As we rounded West End on Great Bahama Island we realized that the waves wouldn’t be too bad. It was all about timing with high tide to navigate the shallow Indian Cut. This was our shortcut to the Little Bahama Bank which we had to cross to reach the Abacos. We initially wanted to sail North to Memory Rock because Cory heard it was good fishing. However with the big waves in the forecast I wasn’t so keen myself. So the goal was to stay on the Southern portion of the Little Bahama Bank to have hopefully smaller waves. East winds made for an absurd amount of tacks and extra Nautical miles covered because that’s exactly the direction where we needed to go.
We ended up setting anchor by Mangrove Cay for one night. We didn’t go ashore since it looked like there wasn’t much shore access or anything interesting. Instead we got some good rest for the next day. The stars were incredible since there wasn’t much light pollution. No land in sight.
The next day we stopped at Great Sale Cay and enjoyed it to ourselves. We really wanted to try our luck at spearfishing so despite the low visibility we dressed up in our wetsuits and jumped in. It wasn’t the greatest spot but Cory still managed to spear two small grunts. We cooked them on a bonfire on our private beach. This felt great after having spent too much time near Freeport. Filmed March 2021.
