Tuesday February 6, 2018 - West Bay New Province to Allen's Cay, Exumas

I got an early start this morning.  I wasn't going to be the last one in at the end of this day.  Actually, the others in the pack of 4 or 5 were heading farther south (to Norman's Cay) anyway so it didn't really matter that they decided it was going to be too much wind for the 45 mile sail.  My friend Bruce had suggested that if the wind was too strong or too much on the nose, I could go to plan B which would be to go north to Rose Island at the east end of New Province. That sounded like a good plan but it the conditions were boardline on being too much when I was about 10 miles south of the east end of New Province.  And, at that point of decision making, I only had 25 miles to go to Highborn Cay and it would have been about 15 miles north to Rose Cay.  So I elected to just keep going.  The wind was 15 to 20 with some gusts to 25.  It was from ENE and my course was ESE.  When I was about 15 miles out, the wind backed (to the left) 10 degrees and that enabled me to point 10 degrees higher so I ended up going to Allen's Cay - a couple miles north of Highborn.  I got in just after 4 and had the anchor down by 4:30. 

One of my reasons for wanting to sail was that the boat I have is a SAIL boat.  Many of the cruisers only move when they need to run their motors.  Today, I sailed about 50 miles and only ran the engine for about an hour.  Yes, it was rough (seas were a choppy 2 to 4 feet) but I enjoyed it.  And I felt the boat did real well - sailing as close to the wind as I did with both sails reefed.

V-berth after 50 miles of a port tack.
Everything you see is normally on the port side of the berth!