We have been wanting to go to this place called the Lazy River. It is well out of Fat Tuesday’s normal range but we devised a plan. A group of dinghies were going on Sunday so it seemed like a good time to go when there were others nearby. Jeff and Deb were going in their dinghy but could not get up on plane with our weight added.
So, we devised a plan to try and make it. The move to Moriah Harbour Cay got us closer, that was step one. The weather was supposed to be good for the trip. The other boaters were leaving from Stocking Island at 11 am. Our goal was to leave a good bit earlier so we would either get there before them or around the same time.
We would start out motoring, hoping not to use too much of our motor. We would have coarse bring oars, and we would bring our sail for the rather straight downwind trip back to the anchorage. And we would bring our solar panel to charge our motor so we would have enough to get back into our anchorage.
We headed out. There were no storms on the satellite but we had had a little shower in the morning. We left Josie in a rainbow.
When we got out in the main bay, we saw a concerning cloud. We had to use more motor power because of some increased wind . We stopped on Man of War Cay to see what it was going to do.
It passed us and we continued on. The tide was coming in so we were able to take short cuts over some flats. Moriah Harbour Cay was a beautiful series of flats and beaches. We saw turtles and rays swimming by. There was a deep channel next to Great Exuma on the opposite shore and homes and resorts along it. We were never far from land and in a protected area.
Finally, we reached the entrance to the lazy river. the deep channel in wound around. David followed the chart on my phone. We got to the lazy river beach right around 11:15. We pulled Fat Tuesday up and started our solar charge. Our motor was down to 22%. We had used more power than we wanted stopping on the sandbar and fighting the wind from the cloud.
A parade of dinghies soon arrived.
The lazy river is part of the park. It is like the washing machine at Shroud Cay. You can flow at out stop on a sandbar on outgoing tide, and float in on an incoming tide. When we arrived, it was an incoming tide for about half an hour. We should have left at slack tide. but Jeff and Deb offered to tow us out of the lagoon area where the current now would be against us. We ate lunch and rode the river out a few times. There were frequent clouds so our charging was not optimal but we managed to get up to 36%.
We headed out towed by Jeff and Deb and following the other dinghies. The sun angle made it hard to read the water. Jeff and Deb were anxious to catch up with other dinghies that passed us because they knew the route back. The others dinghies just raced by, leaving their wake. Once we were out of the lagoon, Jeff and Deb detached us and we pulled up the sail.
It was getting shallow where they dropped us and we had to jibe. We found ourselves unprepared for that and the boat took on a little water but we were fine. I bailed the water while David did several tacks to get us out of the shallow water. We reached the deep channel and sailed downwind back without a problem. Fat Tuesday sailed well. All of the other dinghies were long gone.
The wind, that was supposed to drop, seemed to be increasing so we decided to stop again on the Man of War Cay sandbar before crossing the larger bay. We took the sail down and put the motor back. We motored easily to our anchorage. The wind did drop, and looking back, we could have sailed, but felt safer motoring in the deeper water. Our motor was at 18% when we got back.
We accomplished our objective but we were not happy with ourselves. We did not leave enough room for error and while we would not have been in any danger as we were always near land or other boats, we could have ruined our motor with water in the boat. There was nothing else that would have been ruined by getting wet but our gear could have been more protected and floatable in event of a capsize. We have several dry bags on the boat that we did not bring, one large enough for the motor. David says that “if we ever do anything stupid like that again, we will use it.” Experience.