Rum Cay to Mayaguana

We left Rum Cay at 8 a.m. on Feb. 10 to sail the 140 nautical miles to Mayaguana. It was an overnight sail and turned out to become almost 180 miles because we had to tack during the night and following day despite the engines running. But we made it in one piece, arrived at 2 p.m. on Feb. 11 and are now anchored in a large bay inside the reef on the south side of Mayaguana. Jacques had not slept at all (except for perhaps an hour) and when we were done with all the anchoring chores and he sat down to drink his arrival drink, he nearly got sick from tiredness. I sent him to bed for two hours, I would wake him up, but I also fell asleep on the couch, but at six we had dinner and a nice evening listening loud to our favorite music.

Somewhere during the night we passed the tropic of cancer, that’s where the sun is at his highest point during mid summer, so we are getting south.
After a good night sleep, we feel back to normal and are already planning where we will stay in the Turks and Caicos.

It is blowing 20+ knots and therefore we stay on the boat because of the chop. We plan to clean the fridge box and to read. Tonight the wind will shift to the NE and the water will be calmer to dinghy the half mile to the Abraham’s Bay settlement to clear out of the Bahamas. On Thursday we went to the customs office to hear that we had to come back on Friday. We used the wi-fi facility of the Batelco phone company which was a wall outside of the building being the only spot to receive the internet for E-mails and weather forecast. We also went to the local restaurant and had a pretty untasteful meal. 

Friday night had 50+ knots (80 mph, 95 km/h) winds in the NE Bahamas, a record low pressure for February. Fortunately for us it was only about half at Mayaguana. For peace of mind we put out a second anchor and did anchor watch. Saturday it was still blowing 20 knots but it will likely subside on Sunday when we stage to the SE corner of the island in order to cut about 20 miles off the trip to Providenciales (Provo) in the Caicos Islands and leave after midnight to Sapodilla Bay.

Ria