We were all sad to leave San Salvador but we had to get to Nassau to meet some friends who were spending Easter with us in the Exumas. The Exumas is a group of small islands, called Cays, that start about 35 miles south of Nassau on New Providence Island and run more or less north to south. On one side is deep water sailing: on the other, the Bahama Bank which probably averages about 3 metres deep. Getting from ocean to bank and vice versa involves navigating the cuts which are narrow to really narrow gaps between the cays. These gaps funnel the tide and can be fraught with coral heads, rocks and sand bars and are usually subject to VPR – visual piloting rules. This means you need to go through when wind and wave conditions allow and when the light is right so you can judge depths by the colour of the sea and spot rocks. The light is right when there’s little cloud, the sun is behind you and/or high enough in the sky so you can see the bottom – generally between about 8am and 4pm. We planned the 130 mile passage from San Salvador so that we would arrive at our first deep ocean to shallow bank navigation at around 9 or 10 in the morning. We picked a not-so-narrow cut with few obstructions so we could get the hang of it (before picking up our guests!)It was, in the event, uneventful. The weather conditions were just right and, with not much discussion, we could reconcile the plotter, the charts and what we could actually see in front of us. We were rewarded with a perfect Bahamian anchorage – coral sand beach, crystal clear water, and graceful rays clearly visible under and around the boat.
We did make a foray onto land: Highbourne Marina has a shop which was fun to browse, but mostly we swam in the sea and rested. Because we needed to start early in the morning and cross 40 miles of shallow bank, we moved anchorage so we could make an easy exit with little light.
Pic: Clear waters at Highbourne Cay Marina
No comments:
Post a Comment