Day 260, Sunday March 9th – A small step north
We wake up to another beautiful day. We are going to head about 25 miles north of
Cambridge Cay up to the northern end of the Exuma Sea and Land Park, to Shroud
and Hawksbill Cays, which we had skipped on our way south with Kevin and Casey.
As it is only a 25 mile sail we plan on leaving around 11. Quiescence is planning on joining us for the
next two days, so prior to leaving we head out to say our goodbyes to Airtime
and Syrena. We stop by Airtime and have
a nice good bye chat with Sue and Al.
Sue and Al are still heading south for a while so chances are we won’t
see them again till we are both in Sarnia.
As we say good-bye to Airtime, Barry and Wilma dinghy over to say good
bye to us and pass on some books. At
some point in time Julie had mentioned we need to upgrade our library. After the goodbyes we head back to
Jazzebelle to get ready to up anchor.
Quiescence dinghies over and chat about sail plans for the
next while. The forecast for the next
week has another cold front coming through on Wednesday evening. A cold front brings west winds with it as it
passes through. The issue with a west wind is there are
limited anchorages which offer protection from a west wind. Our plans are to spend three days at
Shroud/Hawksbill and then use the south wind on Wednesday (precursor to the
west wind) to sail to Eleuthera Island, take a marina berth for the west wind protection,
and then start making our way north along the coast of Eleuthera. Quiescence has the standard cruisers plan
which is to say ‘no plan’ other than they are to meet their daughter at the end
of March. The plan is to pick her up
somewhere and then show her some of the Exumas.
With this in mind they decide to take a pass on heading north to Shroud
and to stay around Cambridge for the next westerly, a sound decision. We say our goodbyes to Kim and Kathy with a
promise to get together in Toronto sometime.
As they are leaving Dawson spots a depth sounder mounted on the
dinghy. Kim states that it was less than
one boat dollar (1 boat dollar = $100 Cdn) and is a great thing to have. They had got it on the advice of a friend and
it has proven to be a very useful thing to have. We both agree and add it to our list of
things to have the next time we cruise.
We up anchor at just after 11 for the 30 mile trip to the
north. It is a sunny day but winds are
somewhat on the nose from the North East. We motor sail out of the cut and then
head a little East of our intended track to allow us have a decent sail up to
the cut to Shroud. Unfortunately the
wind starts to drop and after about an hour of sailing with the speed dropping
to below 2 knots we start up the iron genny.
We motor sail for the rest of the voyage.
 |
| Hawksbill anchorage |
Our plans are to anchor at Shroud to explore the mangrove
swamps there and also to take the dinghy over to Hawksbill Cay where there is a
rumoured to be a lovely beach on the Exuma Sound side. Enroute we make the snap decision to anchor
at Hawksbill for the night check out the beach and then head the last 3 miles
up to Shroud. We pull into Hawkbill
around 4 pm to find 2 other boats 1 swinging on the hook close to shore and a 2nd
boat on a mooring ball. We drop the hook
just south of the mooring field in about 7’ of water. On the entrance to the anchorage we had the
depth alarm go off, it would appear the water depth at mean low water would be
in the 6’ range just less than what the explorer chart has (2 m). We set up camp for the night and decide to
spend the afternoon on the boat. We both
pick up one of our new books and settle in for a couple of hours of reading.
Around dark we have dinner then a quick game of Kings
Cribbage and off to bed we go.
Cheers
Dawson and Julie
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