Miles: 6.2
Time: 1 hour 38 min
Avg Speed: 3.8
Max Speed: 7.5
We had a nice morning at Staniel Cay exploring Pig Beach and Cruiser Beach and decided to drop the mooring and head to Sampson Cay, just 6 miles north of Staniel Cay. Fewer boats and good protection. We were ready to get out of the surge of Staniel Cay. But another big blow was coming.
I can’t tell you how exhausted we were from all the “Big Blows” and trying to find good protection. We spent an enormous amount of time checking the weather and the wind, reading Facebook posts about where people were heading etc. Sampson Cay seemed to have North, East, and South protection. The next wind was starting in the Northwest and swinging around to South West (through the east). It was about a 270-degree swing. Most anchorages you were lucky to find protection from one direction.
There were several boats that entered our anchorage right before the big blow – one seemed a little close to our stern so we moved our anchor spot. It’s best not to have someone right behind you if you can help it. Just hours before the wind was to begin another sailboat entered and anchored right behind us. Stew immediately got on the VHF and explained this was not a great place for him to anchor. Several others in the anchorage chimed in. HE decided to anchor there anyway. All night we were dealing with this boat being very close to us. At one point around 2am Stew had to blow his born because the guy was not answering his VHF and he was about 6′ off our stern. Stew even shined a flashlight into his boat to wake him up!! Stew was up all night monitoring the situation. As the wind clocked around. We didn’t hit him but it made for a very stressful night. The guy left in the morning thankfully!!
Stew did some snorkeling – and tried to find us some lobster since March 31st was the last day of lobster season. Unfortunately, he found nothing but saw a lot of reef fish etc.
We spent some time exploring this area – it was a defunct marina with a beautiful shallow private beach behind it. We could take the dinghy into the shallow area – hoping to see some turtles – one or two around but no pictures.
We did see a lot of sharks. Several liked to swim under and around the boat and dinghy. One afternoon a woman in a boat in front of us got in to do some snorkeling. We immediately saw a fin go up, heading toward her. With our hearts in our throats, we got up to yell to her, but It was a dolphin!! It was the first dolphin we saw here in the Bahamas. There were several dolphins and they swam around her and by her, it was cool and what a great experience she had!!
While in Sampson Cay we did get some work done on our videos. We also made water and emptied the toilet. Unfortunately we had to wait to dispose of the toilet until we reached our next port.
We decided to return to Staniel Cay to provision, get fuel and dump the garbage before heading back north up through the Exumas. We have decided to head home. Just tired of fighting the weather all the time!!
