Bellatrix

30 January 2015

Rock Sound, Southern Eleuthera

Sorry, it’s been awhile since the last post, I will try to do better.

The passage from Harbor Island down the western side of Eleuthera is either back out Island Harbor Mouth and north then east then south around Northern Eleuthera or a short cut through a reef called “Devil’s Backbone” named because of the number of ship wrecks that have occurred there. We hired “Little Woody”, a Portuguese born Bahamian who was quite entertaining. Woody has been a fan of the Baltimore Orioles since age six. The only channel on the radio he could get was the Orioles Spring training camp in Florida who also broadcast all of the regular season games. He can tell you the starting lineup for all of the World Series games the Orioles played, the stats on any Orioles since 1966.

Woody got us to Spanish Wells and we sailed the short distance to Royal Harbor. We entered the small mouth into the harbor and anchored. We stayed there two nights and explored the island. It is the site of a few failed development efforts, the last by Jack Nicholas and Roger Staubach who were going to create a luxury resort and golf course. Today there are ruins of an earlier effort of development, and signs of lots for the later. Pictures below.

Next to Current Cut, a channel through a peninsula where the current can be 6 knots or more, either with you or against. The guidebooks cause a lot of concern about it but it really wasn’t too bad as we rode through it with the current.

Continuing south we sailed to Hatchet Bay another protected bay with a very narrow entrance. We met up with Chad, Marsha and the kids on “Free Spirit” anchored there. We rented a car and spent two days on the road. We went as far south as Governors Harbour and back north to the beach at “Devil’s Backbone”. We visited the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve, a nature preserve of about 25 acres. It was well done and had many trails through the woods and explained the plants and their uses and importance to the islands. We also stopped at “Preacher’s Cave” a site where a splinter group of settlers shipwrecked on the reef and found a cave to use as refuge. The cave continued to be used as a church for many years. The winds were heavy for a few days while there, we returned to the boat one afternoon to find a new line attached from the mooring ball to the boat. A dink approached and the guy told us one of the two lines had snapped and he and another fellow had resecured the boat. The moorings there belong to the government and are not well maintained. We invited the guys to our boat for sundowners. They where David and Corrine from “At Last” and Andy and Judy from “Jacob’s Ladder”. They are from Nova Scotia. We had a nice evening sharing experiences and getting to know each other.

Thursday Free Spirit and us had a spirited sail (that means a lot of wind and too much sail) from Hatchet Bay to Rock Sound, Robin enjoyed the run.

Rock Sound is a settlement that is trying to be Georetown, Exumas North. It has a nice protected harbor, good grocery store, and free water. Yesterday we found the “Ocean Hole”, a 600 foot deep hole with a connection to the ocean. It is about a mile from the ocean side of the island. We also went to “Boiling Hole”, another hole with caves around it. Neat to explore the caves. Free Spirit moved on to the Exumas today, we will spend a few days here before moving. Night time temps in the mid 60's, daytime 70-74, need to move farther south.