Day 200, Wednesday Jan 8th

Day 200, Wednesday Jan 8^th – off to Black Point Settlement

View of anchored boats at Black Point

We are up early and plan to leave around 10, which is check out time for the marina.  Just as we are readying to go the wind comes up complete with rain.  We hold off leaving till 11 to let the squall pass.  The dock hand comes to give some assistance with the lines and we get off without too much excitement although there is a bit of forward and back in order to clear everything and the depth alarms are also going off.  As soon as we clear the end of the dock we accelerate and around the corner is a 100 foot power yacht also taking off and just accelerating.  Dawson yells starboard and the big yacht throws on its bow thruster and all is fine.  Not even a close call but still takes you by surprise to see such a large boat on your pathway.

We sail to Black Point which is the first “settlement” we have been to.  Every other inhabited island has been converted to a tourist spot.  The Abacos has been taken over by rich people who have bought up most of the real estate and the locals are employed as property managers, gardeners and in the service industry.  Black Point seems to have little to no property owners except the locals.  There are numerous boats in the harbour (around 30), mainly sail, no big yachts and the few restaurants/bars do have specials that draw in all the boaters, but the island buildings and businesses all have a true Bahamian feel to them.

The winds are very high and we only put out our genoa as the distance is only about 9 miles and the last few will be head to wind so we only anticipate about a 1 hour sail.  During the passage Dawson wants to work on the watermaker which will require the engine to be on anyways.  We are on a beam reach and the wind is reading about 13 Jazzies which is over 15 knots and possibly up to 20 knots so there is quite a heel to the boat.  Julie requests a reef in the jib as she does not enjoy alot of heel and it slows the boat down.  With the winds so high we both stay on deck and Dawson defers the second portion of his watermaker install until we arrive at anchor.

Anchoring is not a problem except that we disagree on where to anchor.  Julie wants to be close to shore where most of the other boats are, and Dawson likes to not be with the herd and anchor where there is lots of room.  We settle on a good far spot, and head to town to do laundry after Dawson finishes the watermaker install which only takes about 30 minutes. 

Once we are confident we are well anchored we head into town.  There are a number of services here which we want to make use of.  The Laundromat is well written up in the guide book along with access to Wi Fi at one of the local restaurants so we head into to do some laundry and blogging.  One of the best features of the Laundromat is the dinghy dock so there is no lugging of laundry.  Unfortunately a number of other boaters have the same idea and we only get two of the 3 loads on before heading over to Lorains for a pop and use of the internet.  The Laundromat has lots of machines and is nice there are just too many customers.

 Julie becomes the blog queen so Dawson pops back and forth checking laundry and ensuring it all gets dried and folded.  Julie is done blogging after about 2 hours and joins Dawson for the folding and then we head back to the boat.

We dine on board with what remains of our supplies.  Tuna casserold tonight, which was excellent.  We are out of fresh produce etc, but have heard the mail boat is coming tomorrow with groceries so we will keep our fingers crossed we can get fresh stuff tomorrow.

We have a game of Kings Cribbage and off to bed we go.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson