The narrow entrance to Hatchet Bay
We sure weren't going to fit through with him coming out!
The grilled Lobster tails are ready!
We woke today at 6am to clear, windy skies. After doing our morning engine checks and warming the diesels, we dropped the mooring ball line and headed out of Little Harbour Bar Cut to the ocean. The various weather services were reporting seas ranging from 2-3’ to 4’-6’ for our crossing to Eleuthera. We got a little of each of them as we started out in 3’-4’ seas that soon built to 4-6’ seas and then, as we approached the coast of Eleuthera, they died down to 2-3’ for the remaining few hours before we got into the shallow waters on the south and west side of Eleuthera.
One of the obstacles in our way was notorious “Current Cut” that supposedly has tidal currents that race through at up to 10 knots. Now, the max speed of Sea Glass is about 9 knots through the water – so if the current was indeed against us at ten knots, well…do the math... we wouldn’t be going anywhere! Of course, as luck would have it, we were approaching the Cut against the tide.
We ended up running in against the tide with no problems – showing 3.8 knots over the bottom on our GPS. Fortunately, the cut is only about five hundred yards long, so it didn't take too long. We "eyeball" navigated though the maze of shallows south of the Cut and, once through, set a beeline for our night’s destination at Hatchet Bay. This picturesque little bay bills itself as the safest, most protected harbor in all of the Bahamas. That might be the case; however the entrance cut is totally blind until you’re actually in it. And just as we entered the intimidating and very narrow manmade cut (with towering rock cliffs on both sides) a 150’ interisland catamaran ferry made a sharp turn and blindly entered the other side of the cut – with barely enough room for just him. Well, you can imagine how this puckered us up (and the ferry driver too I’m sure). He blasted his horn in panic and I grabbed a large handful of reverse as we slowly backed out of his way. Once he had cleared the cut, we carefully made our way in with no further drama.
We picked up one of the free government-maintained mooring balls, fired up the grill and had a fantastic sunset dinner on the flybridge, complete with grilled Slipper Lobster tails, potatoes and steamed broccoli, topped off with a very nice bottle of Pinot Grigio. There’s something about a well-earned meal, taken on the flybridge after a tiring day on the water, that makes already great food even sweeter.
After dinner, we made some water for the tanks with the watermaker and tried to stay awake long enough to watch “Eagle Eye” on the satellite TV. We failed miserably, and halfway through the movie, everyone retired to their bunks to get some shut-eye. We have another long cruising day tomorrow if we’re going to make our destination at Staniel Cay in the Exumas.
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