Taking Advantage of Good Sailing Winds

Spanish Wells – 43 nautical miles sailed

With an approaching cold front set to drop temperatures and jack wind speeds, we took advantage of the southeasterlies today to make the run back to Nassau. That’s the thing with sailing, it’s okay to have a general plan, but you have to watch the weather and be ready to change plans without hesitation.

Our friends Dave and Kira arrive on Saturday so we are really hoping the consistently good weather we have been enjoying keeps up, but it does look like a couple of cold fronts are on the horizon, including some rain early next week. No matter what the weather, good company means good times.

We left Spanish Wells around 9am and had an excellent sail, having to use the motor only for a short while as we had both sails up catching the 15 to 17 knot winds the entire way, reaching boat speeds of 8 knots a few times which is close to SeaLight's maximum hull speed. The ride was uneventful – saw some flying fish, but did not get any action on the fishing lures I trailed behind the boat the entire time. I’m starting to think maybe the fish only feed early in the morning or at dusk as my fruitless fishing has been happening in the heat of the day. Or maybe I’m just not cut out for ocean fishing.

The only problem we did have is when we were deploying the headsail it had a sag in it and despite winching it in, I could not get it set right. Then Ana looked up the deck and saw that we had forgotten to close the front hatch and the sheet line was caught in it, applying massive pressure to the hinges. We loosened the sheet, went to the front and untangled it, then got it set properly. Once anchored in Nassau we had a better look at it and found the screws holding down one of the hinges had been ripped out of the deck, leaving a sizeable gap for water to enter. I was able to find some thicker screws, coat them in silicone, then reattach the hatch. Dumping a few buckets of water on it produced no drips so the repair seems to be okay. To prevent a future occurrence I’ve added “Close front hatches if sailing” to my departure checklist.

We were able to claim the same anchorage close to Nassau we had last time, which was a minor miracle as the larger Montague anchorage east of there was closed to boats for a scheduled regatta this weekend, so we were sure it would be full. By the time we were anchored and settled it was already after 4pm so there wasn’t time to do much else besides cook dinner, make a meal plan for our visitors, inventory food on the boat for our provisioning run tomorrow, then sit in the cockpit for an hour, enjoying the night lights and sounds of Nassau. I did manage to catch a picture of the menacing sky monster peeking at me over the top of a boat anchored nearby.