Our first day in the Exumas

In other hemispheres I think today was Monday but here in the land of no Mondays we made our traditional Sunday morning breakfast of pancakes and bacon since we didn’t do it yesterday before we left Nassau. All of these new places and things are so exciting that we celebrate everything.

Our first night in the Exumas was enjoyable with a beautiful sunset and a gorgeous sunrise to the new day. We took a leisurely morning before deciding to move on to Shroud Cay. It was a split decision. I was just as happy to stay but Highbourne Cay had little to do so we decided to move on to Shroud Cay.

Last night we started washing our dishes in salt water and I dumped the gray water overboard. This morning after I dumped the water I saw about 6 or 8 Remoras swimming through the dump looking for food morsels. Later when I was swimming I saw them hiding under the boat waiting for a new handout. 

As we were pulling up the anchor we continued to have issues with our windlass. We tried to address them before but this morning while raising the anchor our windlass died. The motor burned out so we were stuck with our anchor now dragging with only 25’ of chain out in 15’ of water. We have a 75# anchor and 25’ of chain in the water that weighs about 3# a foot. Trying to bring that up in 15’ of water by hand would have been impossible.

So I decided to dive on the anchor with my spinnaker sheet which is 3/8” line and I tied it around the roll bar and then led it up through the bow roller to the jib sheet winch in the cockpit. The spinnaker sheet is one of the longest lines we have at 90’ so it provided plenty of length. I was going to use one of our 50’ anchor lines but it probably would not have been long enough or fit into the winch well. Linda winched the sheet and I pulled up the chain and it came right up. With the winch pulling the weight I could easily lift the chain. We pulled it in and secured it and motored off the Shroud Cay.

The wind had dropped down to single digits so we motor sailed and made it to the Exumas Park and Shroud Cay about 1500 and dropped the anchor and got settled in. Dropping the anchor was easy. I simply disengaged the clutch on the windlass and the anchor fell to the bottom. We anchored in about 10’ of water so retrieving it would not be as hard as in 15’ of water. After we had the anchor set I dived down to check it and it was dug in well so we should be good until we’re ready to leave. When we’re ready to leave I will dive on it again and attach the sheet to retrieve it. Add the windlass to our issues to resolve when back in CONUS.

The anchorage here really filled up. We were hoping to get a mooring to avoid the anchor issue but they were all filled. After we anchored several boats with lots of people came in and the noise is still going. We’ve been looking for solitude but it ain’t here. Maybe many will leave tomorrow and we will have a beach to ourselves.

Tonight we watched another movie after dinner since there is no TV or Wi-Fi reception.  There was a beautiful sunset with many shades of red and gray. The pictures really do not fully depict the beauty of the sunsets. Only God could make a sky so beautiful.

Tomorrow we’re off to explore the island.