Black Point to Cave Cay- Feb 6
The Nordhavn group was planning to head to Cave Cay, about 13 miles from Black Point for some snorkeling, before moving on toward George Town, to hunker down for the next cold front, and strong winds.
This move from Black Point was across the banks side of the Exuma Islands. We plotted the run across the deepest waters, and left a few hours after L’Adagio, Starlet, and Sea Turtle. The conditions were perfect as we were protected from the Easterly winds by the islands. So we were moving in the lee of the islands. The waters were clear and we enjoyed running Southern Star from the fly bridge- with an amazing view of the bottom through the clear water. It was easy to steer around the few coral heads that could cause some concern.
We arrived at the Cave Cay waypoint and steered our way toward the Cay, and past Galliot Cay, with a reputation for a pretty rough exit point to the Sounds. As we approached a squall built up, with black clouds and gusty winds building ahead of us. We steered around the dog leg channel and across the surgie Galliot Cay Cut, and towards the anchorage behind Cave Cay, seeing all three Nordhavns anchored and watching our approach. Moving off the fly bridge and into the pilot house to get away from the rain as it started to bucket down, we missed the right turn of the dog’s other -dog leg, and found the bottom soundings coming up uncomfortably. We slowed down to bare steerage, and turned hard to the west, to find the deeper water and the channel.
We dropped the hook just off of the entrance to Cave Cay Marina, and we happy to be anchored for the night. We had several other non-Nordhavn boats around us, but it looked like a trawler fest. Laust came over in his dinghy after we were settled, and suggested a Nordfest potluck on L’Adagio, as his boat is the largest. We had Sea Turtle (N50), Starlet (N46), Southern Star (N47), and L’Adagio (N76) all together in the anchorage.
Just before sunset, we met up on L’Adagio, where we feasted on a great variety of food, potluck style. The food highlight was Michelle and Caroline, who supplied lobsters from the afternoon’s snorkeling excursion. (The photo shows the dinghy line up off of L’Adagio during the ‘Nordfest’)
It was a great night, nice conversation, nice drinks, and a beautiful evening. Laust offered to help us to set our flopper stoppers the next day, which turned out to be a good lesson for us.
We had the starboard side set and the mild roll as softened even more the next night.
Laust left us to head closer to George Town, as they have a friend flying in to GT in the next few days.
This left the 3 little Nordies at Cave Cay a second night.
Jenny and I dinghy over to the Cave Cay cut to see about looking for some lobsters ourselves, but the current made it look uninviting, instead we toured the marina, Cave Cay Marina, with only one boat inside it. A beautiful marina, well protected, but it was empty. We wondered why they did not have some specials to try to get some boats into the marina.
The weather forecast from Chris Parker, promised light and variable winds for the next two days, then the evening of Thursday, we should be tucked into a secure anchorage for the predicted NNE winds up to 30 knots. So we wanted to be in George Town on Thursday.
We were thinking that we would take the next day, forecast light and variable to head all the way to George Town, when we left Cave Cay, behind Sea Turtle and Starlet.
We picked up our flopper stopper, and the dinghy, and made our way out of Cave Cay cut with an amazingly rapid current outbound through the cut. We had plenty of water, and the channel was pretty straight forward, we surged through and out into the sound, and turned south. Looking behind us, we see 5-6 other boats, mostly sail boats on the same course as we were on. The George Town rush hour the guidebooks call it.
We join the convoy as there are at least 2 dozen boats heading south. We drop lines into the water, and enjoy the fabulous calm conditions.
After a few hours, we pass the half way point to George Town, and see that the others are continuing on. We contact Starlet and learn they are heading to Glass Cay, for a stop before George Town.
We have no luck with the fishing, and feel that it is a shame to rush south with such stellar weather, and we follow Starlet into the cut at Glass Cay, and anchor behind Black Cay in crystal clear sandy bottom in about 2 meters of water.
We note that there is a surge in the anchorage, as the small Black Cay, does not buffer all of the ocean swells, as it finds its way around both ends of it.
Flopper stopper time; we launch the dinghy, and deploy both port and starboard flopper stoppers, as do Starlet. Sea Turtle is also anchored with us, but they do not have any flopper stoppers.
All three Nordhavns launch their dinghies and go in three different directions, on the hunt for some more lobsters.
The snorkeling is beautiful. Clear water and with the calm conditions we are able to snorkel the outside more exposed reefs. There is an abundance of small fish life, good coral formations, and lots of great reef structure idea for lobsters to hide in. I do spot one small lobster in a crevice alongside a nice little moray eel. As he was pretty small and the moray looked pretty settled in the hole, I passed the lobster by.
After about 2 hours of free diving, I was pretty tired, and a bit disappointed not to have any bugs to show for the afternoon. But it was a nice stop in all other ways.
Back at Southern Star, we see Sea Turtle return- with 1 bug to show for their excursion. As Sea Turtle has no flopper stoppers, she is rolling beam to beam, and Michelle picks up his dinghy and heads back toward Glass Cay, further to the north.
Starlet returns also with a lobster, and invite us to sundowners on the picture perfect white sand beach.
We agree and meet with wine, and some chairs and watch the sun sink slowly, and the no see’ims starts to feast on us. Poor Jenny was covered in welts when we got to the boat.
We finished the evening at anchor, with 2 other sailboats coming in at the last minute. They rolled badly, as our flopper stoppers made the motion on Southern Star very comfortable.
Starlet invited us to their boat, to cook up their lobster, and the one we bought the other day from a fisherman who passed by us at Cave Cay. And another Nordhavn feast and good stories flowed with our new friends on Starlet.
Tomorrow, we are onward to George Town.
