A Very Special Anniversary

 For much of the past couple of months I had been planning our trip to the Bahamas. I had thought it would be really cool if we could celebrate our anniversary over in the islands. I never told Kim what I was thinking, because I did not want to get her hopes up and I needed to make the safest decision on our schedule not based on that date. As it turned out, the weather was perfect to make it work. We arrived in West End, Bahamas on January 17th. Our 43rd wedding anniversary was on January 19th. 

On January 18th, we awoke to fairly calm winds and beautiful sunshine. It cost $100 to stay in the marina at West End for the night, so we really did not want to stay a second one. Our friends had a few things to do before they left, so we were the first boat out of the marina. We went north about a mile and then went through a narrow cut in the reef called Indian Rock Cut with about 6 feet of water in it. We draw 4.5 feet so we made it through the rocky cut and finally into the open water of the Little Bahama Bank. The Bank is all of 7 to 12 feet deep, but it is beautiful clear water. We had the sails up and tried to sail for about half of the day. The wind was right on the nose, so we had to take a line to the north of our target. We finally tacked and came back down to the original rumb line. We took the sails down and motored the last 14 miles to a little island called Mangrove Rocks. We ended up having 7 boats anchored there for the night. The rocks offered a little protection from the east winds, but they were pretty light anyway. 

I took this shot of the 6.5 foot deep and very clear water in Indian Rock Cut.

We could see the bottom all day out on the Little Bahama Bank. The black blob is the shadow of our boat on the bottom.

Two of our buddy boats and a beautiful Bahamas Sunset

This is our friends Rich and Laura on No Doubt. We had originally met them in Washington, NC back in November. 

The next day was the 19th and I had a plan. We left or group and headed for Little Sale Key. It looked like a beautiful uninhabited Island. The rest of the group went to find civilization. 

We sailed about 24 miles in very light wind to get to Little Sale Key. When we arrived, we put the hook down in a beautiful anchorage with just one other boat about a half mile away. We we later joined by another boat, but we still pretty much had it all to ourselves. 

We got the dinghy down and went ashore. We saw some very interesting things both natural and some not. The main thing is we took a long walk on the beach, which is Kim's favorite thing to do. There it is, that was my plan. Take Kim to a very secluded Bahamian beach and go for a walk. That was her Anniversary present. I did grill up some nice steaks for dinner and agreed to watch a romantic comedy with her that evening, but how great of a wife do I have? That is all she needs to be happy. It was a great day!

We saw this "chug" on shore. This is how desperate people are to get out of Cuba and Haiti. They build these barely sea worthy boats and try to make it to the Bahamas or the US. 

I noticed that it had a rope wrapped up around the propeller. I wonder if they knew that?

Here is the Kim on a beach picture.

We did meet this very cool Canadian couple on the beach that took our picture. They were about 10 years younger than us, but also have 4 adult children. We talked for quite a while and sailed along side them for most of 3 days as we both headed East across the Bank. 

 

We had a super calm night on our anniversary. This other boat is called Exit Strategy. He is a single hander (that means he sails that 37 foot Tartan all by himself). We have seen him a number of times on our trip. He is moored about 100 yards from us as I write this. 

Well that is about it for the anniversary edition of this blog. It is always so cool to make them memorable. We will never forget where we were on our 43rd. The question now becomes what do we do now and where do we go. The weather had been very calm for the first few days we were in the Bahamas, but that was about to change. In my next entry I will write about how we keep us and our boat safe.