After two weeks on anchor and hardly any time ashore, I’ve come to realize this is actually one of the very best parts of cruising. I’m loving the slow pace and can’t imagine anything better. We have easy access to gorgeous, empty beaches with uninterrupted sunset views. Before the moon rises, the sky is pitch black – the kind of dark you only experience offshore, maybe even darker without the heavy light pollution of the US east coast. The west side of Rock Sound is beautiful and wild, but we’re still just a quick dinghy ride to town.
Since we hadn’t been out to dinner in a couple weeks, we went to Wild Orchids on Thursday and Frigates on Friday. Both spots have a dinghy dock, stunning sunset views and good food. The best part is that they both have fresh veggies – not something you always get in The Bahamas – and our dinner at Frigates actually came with a salad.
We visited the Boiling Hole and Cathedral Cave (which is also known as Spider Cave for the not insignificant number of spider webs adorning the walls), just south of town. The Boiling Hole is filled by a system of caves that connects to the ocean and is named for the fact that it apparently can look like it’s boiling at certain times of tide. When we were there, it wasn’t particularly impressive, though. A trail behind the Boiling Hole leads to a set of stairs, mostly well-maintained (there was one sketchy semi-rotted/semi-repaired step), into the cave.
As with many other caves throughout Eleuthera, Cathedral Cave was formed by the dissolution of limestone by rainwater over time. Tree roots cascade down from the forest floor above through holes in the ceiling, which let in plenty of light – no flashlights needed. There are several rooms to the cave, which bats (of whom we saw many) and spiders (of whom we saw none, thankfully) call home. Otherwise, we had the place entirely to ourselves.
Our main reason for coming to Rock Sound was to ride out some nasty weather that was headed our way. After sightseeing, we walked up to the grocery store to stock up since we wouldn’t be able to get off the boat once the weather turned, and stores are typically closed in the Bahamas on Sundays.
The cruising world is a very small place (I know I say this a lot, but we’re constantly being reminded of that!). I got to know Meg through the Catalina 36 owners’ group on Facebook. We both sold our Catalinas but kept bumping into each other in the digital world. Through someone else’s post, we found out that they were in Spanish Wells while we were anchored off Meeks, and we were going to try to meet up but it didn’t work out. We finally ended up in port together here, so we had her and Sandy over for sundowners during the week. Our neighbors on Kismet yelled over “Minx says hi!” as they were on the way in on Friday, so we invited them over for drinks on Saturday and had a fun evening getting to know them.
Chris finally got a chance to try out his paddle board, and we tried to go snorkeling. There weren’t really many fish, and my mask kept filling with water, so we didn’t stay in the water long (it was pretty chilly anyway!).
After having our new jib take up space below for almost two months, we finally had a morning that was calm enough for us to put it up! We knew it would take a bit to get the old sail down and “folded” (as best as one can on deck) and get the new sail up, especially since it has four vertical battens that we needed to insert and tie in place, so we wanted to pick a morning that was dead calm. It looks awesome and I cannot wait to try it out. It’s going to be great to finally be able to shape our headsail!
With heavy winds forecasted from the north and west, we moved Windara up a little farther in the anchorage on Monday. We went shortly after low tide since we were worried about depth – that way if we grounded, the rising tide would free us. We saw plenty of water and found a good spot about halfway up the harbor with a little less fetch from the north. Boats arrived throughout the day, and by dark there were 40 of us tucked in to hide from the storms. We had a couple lines of squalls blow through in the late afternoon/early evening, and I was glad we’d been in our new spot for a while so our anchor had a chance to really set. I felt bad for the couple of boats that got caught in the deluge as they were trying to anchor, particularly one who was having a hard time getting set.
Fortunately the worst of the weather passed north and south of us, and those storms looked pretty intense. Of course, the strongest thunderstorms came through just as we were eating dinner. We grabbed our rain gear and life jackets and Chris stood watch just in case – a habit that we developed since we dragged in New Bern. All through the anchorage, heads popped up like so many prairie dogs to keep an eye on our boats and the boats around us. The storm passed relatively quickly and without incident.
Tuesday was supposed to be the worst of it, and the wind built from the south steadily throughout the day. We were wide open to the south and as the wind increased, so did the waves until we had 2-footers rolling through. Just before sunset, ominous clouds filled the sky and we were surrounded by thunderstorms. The temperature plummeted and the wind came around to the west, which gave us some respite from the waves. Again, we were mostly spared, but we got some heavy rain and saw steady winds in the 30+kt range with gusts up to 45. Fortunately the weather settled after that and the rest of the week was uneventful.
Two firsts today – first “bucket laundry” and first time making water just using solar power! It’s AWESOME to be able to make water without having to run the generator – being able to generate our own power and make our own water means we can spend more time away from the dock and it decreases our carbon footprint. I know it’s a little silly to be excited about doing bucket laundry, but we haven’t done laundry since we left St. Augustine and we were getting desperate. Our original plan was to go to the laundromat tomorrow, but we’ve decided that we’re going to head to the Exumas after all, and tomorrow looks like good weather to sail – plus that way we can get settled in and spend Sunday exploring.
We moved the boat over towards town this morning so we can provision first thing tomorrow (and to get rid of the garbage we’ve accumulated!). We went out to dinner tonight at Wild Orchids and enjoyed listening to live music. It’s too bad we didn’t get to spend more time wandering around ashore and getting to know the place, but Rock Sound is a new favorite and I look forward to our next visit.
