We felt like we had a window to go to Long Island which is south of Great Exuma. With our depth, we had to go out the southern cut and then down the bank. The Thompson Bay anchorage seemed the best to start out with. We should have a good stretch of time with no west component wind, though the wind will go from north to northeast to east. The anchorages are protected from winds from these directions.
Thompson Bay seems to be the best central location, and we thought we could rent a car to explore the island. Many people have recommended this approach and the roads are supposed to be better than on Cat Island.
We set out around 10 am. There were several boats heading out of the anchorage and a couple of them were going south. There was still a lot of wind, in the high teens gusting in the 20’s. From what we could tell, the seas had calmed a bit from the calm night.
As we headed out the tide was coming in and was against the wind. This made for large waves in the cut which was wide but had a lot of current. David considered turning around. It is tricky through there even though we have good tracks and charts. I didn’t want to turn around but I am not the one with the weight of responsibility so after one initial questioning, I was determined to be supportive.
We powered through the waves and then sailed with our genoa reefed. Finally we got to an area that was calm enough to put up our main with a double reef. We sailed, then motor sailed as we had to go really close to the wind to get through an opening in the reefs . Then we sailed again until we entered the harbor. It was a beautiful trip. We passed the lazy river beach and the back side of Moriah Harbour Cay and Little Exuma Cay.
We arrived at Thompson Bay, Long Island and anchored. We got the boat settled but did not lower Fat Tuesday from the deck. We hung up laundry we had done with a bucket of rainwater we collected during the last storm. We made chili and watched the super bowl on our ipad.
On one of our apps, we saw a boat named Boaty McBoatface. Beate?
