Although we had stayed at Great Harbour Cay Marina almost long enough to qualify for the monthly rate, it was finally time to move on. We had fun there, met some great people and heard lots of sea stories, probably some of which were true.

A period of more than a day of good weather was coming up, although with light winds, so we got the dock lines off and moved out.

Our first stop was an overnight anchorage at Soldier Cay, a small, isolated cay in the Berry Islands.  We shared the anchorage with just one other boat and left early the next morning for New Providence Island and the capital city of Nassau.

Sailing in the Bahamas is quite interesting and challenging.  The country is a group of thousands of islands and small cays, with a very shallow area known as the Banks on one side and areas of much deeper water, thousands of feet deep on the other side and between the various island groups.  When sailing on the bank side, you spend the day in water depths generally less than 20 feet with random coral heads that may or may not be charted.  This is the side where you have all the infinite shades of blue and turquoise that the Bahamas is famous for, but you have to stay on your toes to stay afloat.

The Bahamas. The light blue are the shallow banks, the darker blue, the deep ocean and sounds.

The deeper or “Sound” side has very deep water and is open to the Atlantic so even though you don’t have to worry about hitting anything, you can be open to large ocean swells. To move from the Banks to the Sound, you have to navigate through various cuts in the islands, which can have very strong currents and in certain conditions, large breaking waves.  The Bahamas are beautiful and a fantastic area to cruise, but they make you work for it!

Nassau is the largest city in The Bahamas and the capital of the country.  There are American-style supermarkets there and if you need any significant repairs to your boat, this is where you go. It is also a popular tourist destination with big resorts and lots of bars and restaurants.  It features a very busy and bustling harbor with, yes, strong currents.  We anchored in the west end of the harbor near the cruise ship docks and did a big grocery run. We crossed paths with some cruising friends that we had met on the ICW, and visited their boat. It was great to see that we had all made it! We enjoyed walking around the city and trying some conch salad, a dish that’s sort of like a ceviche that is a local specialty.

Good idea to stay out of the way!

Boats of all shapes and sizes call Nassau home

We spent a fun and busy two days and nights on anchor there, then crossed over to another island group, the Exumas.

The Exumas are another more remote island group with no large towns and no cruise ships. There are some beautiful and exclusive resorts there, and some islands are private and owned by celebrities such as Johnny Depp. When you see photos of the Bahamas with the amazing turquoise waters and white sandy beaches, they are usually taken in the Exumas, so that island group is really the essence of the quieter, more natural side of The Bahamas.  It also features the Bahamas Land and Sea National Park, which was one of our major destinations for the whole trip.

We had a perfect day to cross first the deep sound then the shallow banks and had a wonderful day sailing.

Any time that 2 or more boats are going in roughly the same direction, it is always a race.  We noticed 2 other boats heading out of Nassau Harbour at the same time as us, one of which was turned out to be some  other new friends, Paul and Julie.  The third boat was friends of theirs, so we all sailed to the same place in company and of course were trying to get there first.  We took the opportunity to take pictures of each others’ boats on the way,

WildHorse under full sail, upwind in light breeze

The race is on!

We all crossed the banks without incident and arrived at Allen’s Cay within a couple of minutes of each other. Overall a fun and beautiful day!  The weather this year has been a challenge, since it’s an El Niño year which makes the cold fronts stronger and more frequent in the Bahamas, but sometimes you just get the perfect day.

We were excited to have made it to the Exumas, and looking forward to exploring, hiking, and snorkeling.

WildHorse at anchor at Allen’s Cay in the Exumas