With another storm coming through we decided not to stay at Emerald Bay where we were rocking in calm weather let alone 40mph winds. We had missed Rudder Cay on the way down and decided it would be a good place to go. Riding out a storm at anchor is sometimes easier than at a marina because you are always facing into the wind and you’re not banging the docks ruining lines and fenders. You just need to have faith in your anchor system and a good anchor alarm.
Just as we were getting ready to enter Rudder Cay Cut who showed up on our Garmin but Counting Stars AND Kohina. We all met and got to know each other at Port City Marina last summer. We played catch up on the radio as everyone was going in a different direction.
Rudder Cay is one of the islands owned by David Copperfield. It is deserted but the water is beautiful. We dropped the dinghy and went for a ride around the lagoon, checked out the caves and snorkeled the piano sculpture. We saw a beautiful heron, a turtle and a couple fish. It’s interesting that here in The Bahamas we haven’t seen a lot of fish which means there aren’t that many birds. We think it’s because reefs are scarce on the leeward side of the islands.
Remembering how difficult it is to raise the dinghy in windy weather we tucked it away while the day was still nice. Good thing as next morning the winds got fierce and we suffered through lots of rain. At least the boat got clean but we didn’t get much sympathy from friends and family up north where it is snowing and below freezing.
There were four boats anchored along the shoreline when the storm started but only three part way through. We never saw the sailcat leave and don’t know where it went. Hopefully it left under power and didn’t just drift off!
After twenty four hours of wind and rain things settled down and the sun came back out again. One of the things about being in The Bahamas in January and February are the storms. Every time there is a storm in the US it works it’s way down and we get crazy winds. There is another storm forecast for next week so we’ll need to make sure we’re in a protected place again.
Tomorrow we’ll move back up to Staniel Cay to provision and do some snorkeling. We may even wait out the next blow there as the anchorage has great holding and lots of room.
