Powell Cay to Hawkbill Cay

Day 27:  Sunday March 22, 2015

Today was a moving day.  We had an early breakfast of pancakes and bacon (we found another pouch of ready bacon deep in a bilge box).  We are running low on some of our breakfast foods.  We have enough to keep us covered for the next week or so and have saved some of our good choices until the end so we will be fine.

The wind picked up a bit during the night so sleeping was more rolly than it has been for the last several nights. The wind was coming from the west south west and provided us with some nice sailing to start our trip.  We had checked the weather forecast and it looks like the winds will kick up even more tomorrow so we changed our plans and took a more southerly route that would put us closer to the good secure anchorage of Great Sale Cay.  We had originally planned to go to Allen-Pensacola Cay but opted to head for Hawksbill Cay which is a short dinghy ride from the village of Foxtown.

I put a reef in the main sail and unfurled the full jib and we clipped along at about

Second Wind heading for Hawkbill Cay under a reefed main

5.2 knots.  It was a fun ride.  As the morning passed, the wind picked up and with the wind coming just aft of 45 degrees on the port side I started luffing the main to maintain an angle of heal of between 10 and 15 degrees.  At one point, we had a puff that pushed us on over until the rail as at the water.  I had released the autopilot just prior to the puff so I jammed the tiller to the lee side and the boat headed up.  The scary thing was that without the ballast, the boat did not pop back up as designed.  I furled about ½ of the jib and although the boat slowed down to around 4.5 knots, she behaved better.

Evening meal of brats and mashed with warm beer to wash it down

 

 

After about 12 miles or so of sailing, the wind had finally veered around toward the nose so we dropped the sails and motored.  The water had a fair chop but we were still able to easily motor at 5.5 knots.  The waves were becoming larger and the boat began the pounding on some of them.

At around 12 noon, we were able to turn south and make the 3 mile trek to an anchorage on the south side of Hawksbill Cay.  We found a place to drop the hook and carefully let out an extra amount of rode and used the motor to set the anchor. The location is between Hawksbill Cay and Little Abaco island and with the wind blowing from the west south west, there were none of the big rollers that we had encountered earlier but there was quite a bit of light chop that kept the boat dancing about the anchor all the remaining afternoon and into the night. Unless the wind dies down after dark, it is going to be a long night.  I weighed our options and I felt that we really had no other.

Sunset at Hawkbill Cay anchorage

We considered taking the dink into Foxtown but since it is Sunday and things close down in the Bahamas on Sunday, and the chop would make for a wet ride, we deferred our trip until tomorrow.  So, we spent the rest of the day reading and enjoyed a great sunset.  For our evening meal, Janine fixed a chicken fettucine Alfredo dinner.  We hope for calmer wind and waters for tomorrow.