5/8/00 | Eleuthera to Abaco

• 5/2-4 Rock Sound, Eleuthera
• 5/5 Gregory Town, Eleuthera
• 5/6-7 Royal Island
• 5/8 Passage to Lynyard Cay, Abacos

We knew we had to go to Rock Sound when a cruiser told us, with awe in her voice, "The grocery store there has sixteen aisles!" Two hardware stores, a bakery, a laundromat and a Batelco station -- we're talking a big city by Bahamian standards. The anchorage was perfectly protected from the howling easterlies we've been having, a nice change from the rocking and rolling we did at Little San Salvador. So we dropped the hook for a few days to Get Things Done.

Britt's father is flying in to meet us in Marsh Harbour, Abaco, but up to now we've been using our guest cabin as a garage. If we hadn't been forced to find places to put all the junk that's accumulated there, we probably never would have, so it was good to have the excuse to clean it up and put things away. We also installed a new opening porthole and a fan in the room, so the small space will be a little more comfortable.

We got propane and fishing line at the hardware store, then went wild in all sixteen aisles of the grocery store. We've been out for over three months now, and some of our staples are down to dregs. The store had a great selection, but the US brands were as usual around twice the cost back home, so I bought Barber's Cream Crackers instead of Wheat Thins, and Ralston Corn Flakes instead of Kellogg's. I splurged on a half-gallon of fresh milk for $4; it's funny that milk (imported from Florida) is extremely expensive here, yet high-quality butter (imported from New Zealand and Ireland) is absurdly cheap at around $1.50/pound. We had our laundry done for us, since the laundromat here will wash, dry and fold clothes for about the same charge as self-serve laundromats elsewhere in the Bahamas -- such a deal!

Somehow we also found time to walk to the Ocean Hole, an inland blue hole (flooded sinkhole) which turned out to be more of a murky green hole. Britt and I went swimming anyway, but it was pretty icky and we returned to the boat fairly quickly to shower off. A huge school of some sort of snapper swam in the hole, clearly socialized to humans because instead of scattering as we approached, they converged, expecting to be fed.

At the Haven Bakery we ate pineapple tarts along with Rosemary and Richard from Gratitude. Pineapples are a big crop on Eleuthera, although we didn't see any for sale in the stores or at fruit stands and were later told that Hurricane Floyd had wiped out a lot of the plants.

From Rock Sound we had a wonderful sail, protected in Eleuthera's lee as we followed the curve of the island northwest. Once we passed Hatchet Bay we sailed close along the coast, as the water stays deep right up to the cliffs, and anchored in a tiny bight just north of Gregory Town. Gratitude anchored one bight over from us, and the next morning we all dinghied in to check out the town.

If Eleuthera is the pineapple capital of the Bahamas, Gregory Town is the pineapple capital of Eleuthera. But despite the painted pineapples decorating all the storefronts, there were no real pineapples to be had. The closest we came were pineapple tarts at Thompson's Bakery, which were even yummier than the ones we'd had in Rock Sound. Gregory Town seems kind of like a borderline hippie town, with long-haired expatriate American surfers running tiny shops selling everything from mass-produced touristy t-shirts to homemade pineapple preserves. It's a hilly town; the houses form bright clusters on the hillsides, like flowers cascading on a bush, and the streets go straight up and down in the way that they only do in places too warm to freeze. It seemed as though half the population was black, half white, and they were all named Thompson.

The next morning we continued our coastal cruising, northwest to the point where the skinny central part of Eleuthera, which we'd been sailing along, joins up with the fat hunk of northern Eleuthera at a tiny neck called the Glass Window. At one time a natural bridge joined the two sections, but it was washed away in a hurricane and now the bridge there is man-made. When we reached the Glass Window, we turned west and coasted downwind, wing and wing (main and jib out on opposite sides of the boat) to Current Cut.

Current Cut, between "mainland" Eleuthera and Current Island, is aptly named. Following the guidebook's instructions, we timed our arrival so we'd go through on an ebbing tide, and it's a good thing we did. As soon as we turned into the cut, we began to accelerate. Our speed through the water, as measured by our paddlewheel knotmeter, was 5.5 knots, but our speed over ground, as measured by the GPS, was 10.5 knots! We got spit out on the other side like a watermelon seed, and headed for Royal Island to anchor for the night.

If there's anything the Bahamas have in abundance (other than fish), it's ruins. The ruins on Royal Island were really spectacular, as the estate was built only in the 1930's and hasn't had really all that long to crumble. Nearly all the walls and most of the roofs are still intact, but vines (and graffiti) cover everything. As we wandered through the thick tropical forest, buildings peeked out of the jungle, a stone wall here, an arched roof there. If it hadn't been allowed to disintegrate, it would make a lovely island retreat; now it would take a ridiculous amount of money to bring it back to livability.

We snorkeled the cut between Royal Island and Egg Island, where a sunken tractor harbored an amazing amount of fish life, and explored Egg Island and some of the reefs just offshore before heading back to the boat. We set an alarm for 5:30, because we had nearly 60 miles to go to Little Harbour Cut in the Abacos, and went to bed early.

When we lifted anchor at 6 am, it was barely light enough to see. Three other boats followed us out of the harbor; the forecast was for east winds 10-15 knots, perfect weather for the potentially roughwater passage, and most cruisers by now were headed north like us. Gratitude was in a similar convoy of four boats leaving from nearby Spanish Wells. It was a nice sailing day, and we even caught a mahi-mahi around lunchtime. With the wind on the beam we made an easy 6.5 knots, so we had no worry about making harbor by nightfall.

One of the boats behind us wasn't so lucky. Mutual Fun's engine had quit that morning, and they didn't sail very fast. They fell farther and farther behind, and pretty soon it was clear that they wouldn't make it through the cut before dark, especially as the wind died off in the afternoon. We motorsailed the last 6 miles and anchored near the other boats at Lynyard Cay near Little Harbour, where we all convened on the VHF to discuss a possible rescue mission.

When Mutual Fun got within radio range, one of the boats hailed them and discussed plans. They gave them a set of good GPS waypoints, then organized a group of dinghies to go out to the cut with flashlights, to mark the safe passage. Fortunately the wind picked up a little, and Mutual Fun was able to sail through on their own around 8 pm, in the last bit of fading light. A few dinghies played tugboat for the last stretch to the anchorage and helped them set their anchor. It had been a long day, and no doubt everyone was more than ready to go to bed, but when somebody's in trouble, you help them out. Next time, the boat in trouble might be yours.