New Providence

During our stay at Allens Cay we noticed our batteries were requiring more and more help to stay charged. We were running the generator for longer periods, despite our solar panels. We contacted a boatyard up in Spanish Wells, Eleuthra and made an appointment to go up there 3 days later when the weather allowed. In the meantime, we awoke one morning to dead house and starter batteries. Thankfully, there was enough sunshine over the next few hours to get the boat started. We were able to maintain enough charge in them until our trip to Spanish Wells. There, we had 5 new batteries installed and made it back to the Exumas within 24 hours.

The weather has been fairly typical, with fronts coming every few days, interspersed with gorgeous calm and sunny days. For our first front we went into the Pond in Norman's Cay, our old standby Hidey-Hole. We were curious about the progress on all the new development and were pleased to see that we weren't banned (at least so far) from the beautiful beaches on the Whale's Tail.

After a couple of days exploring the mangroves in Shroud Cay and the sandbars and beach at Hawksbill Cay, we caught up on laundry and provisioning at Black Point and Staniel Cays respectively. We enjoyed watching a Space X launch, easily visible throughout the entire Bahamas.

For the next 2 fronts we anchored in the Pipe Creek area and enjoyed walking on the 2 enormous sandbars, when the winds allowed. On March 6th, while anchored behind Rat Cay, Dave pointed at the sky and asked, "what's that?" I looked and responded, "it looks like the moon behind a cloud... wait, it's moving... it must be a plane- look at the taillights.." One tail light suddenly became multiple light streaks with a big fireball. We were witnessing the explosion during the eighth flight test of Space X's Starship. The debris from the explosion was scattered all across the southern Bahamas.

We have been in our current location, between Little Sampson and Sampson Cays for the most recent front. There have been west winds in addition to the usual north winds associated with these fronts, making anchoring even more challenging. We have planned ahead and, fortunately, have been able to position ourselves well for each system. We will leave tomorrow and return to Pipe Creek for the next short front, then our plan is to drop a couple of fishing lines and make a casual run over to southern Eleuthra Sunday.Read more