Oh God It's Nice

The Sea of Abaco
N 26 57 W 77 41

What a splendid day for sailing. We set out at 0630 with the goal of reaching Green Turtle Cay. The whole day we had clear sky and gentle winds 10-13 knots. That makes progress rather slow, but we're enjoying every minute.

The water is a bit deeper here, around 6 meters deep, so we can't see the bottom so clearly. Instead, one just gets the constant turquoise reflection of sunlight off the sand on the bottom. The waves are tiny; less than a foot in height. If we were at sea, we would be rocking and rolling even with the gentle winds, but in here it is like sailing on Sacandaga Reservoir.

We have been trolling with a spoon attached to 12 feet of steel leader, attached to 50 feet of clothesline all day. So far, we only caught a dozen or so clumps of seaweed. We'll keep trying.

There were a whole bunch of boats that pulled in to Great Sale Cay with us last night. They all left later than we did this morning, but they have all passed us before 1100. We chatted with several of them on the radio. The last one to pass us, SV Caper, let the secret out. They said, "You look like you're not using the iron jenny." That's sailor slang for the engine. No wonder they were all faster than us.

However, this afternoon the wind has been steadily diminishing. We can't make it to Green Turtle Cay before dark, but we do want to make some reasonable anchorage by dark. Therefore, we to started using the iron jenny in addition to the sails. So much for purity.

There is little scenery to see on the Cays we pass by. The look like sand bars and a little sea grass rising only a few feet above sea level. However, every once in a while we do see a structure. The guide book says that many of these Cays have small communities. They'll be fun to visit.