I am a little behind, but I have internet now so catching up. The internet is an interesting subject: many marinas say "WiFi available" by which they mean they will sell it to you. We signed up for Bahama WiFi Max while anchored near Green Turtle Cay, $105 for 30 days. It was reasonably quick there, but in Marsh Harbor with at least 5 hot spots visible it was deathly slow - down to 500 bits/sec sometimes. Then in Little Harbor Bay much faster again. But they cover only the Abacos (and supposedly now Georgetown). Nothing in Royal Island or Hatchet Bay. I was able to get onto an open bar wifi (weakly) in Rock Sound Harbor and again steal from St Johns Rectory in the morning. Dingles will sell you WiFi there, I don't know the cost as you cannot sign up online, must go into the store and pay when they are open. There was free WiFi in Sammy's Place restaurant while you ate. Now we are at Highborne Cay Marina, like most things here it works very well but costs a lot - $15/day or $35/Wk, and is locked to your MAC address so either sign in with a router or your iPhone so you can share the connection. But I digress...

We left Hatchet Bay via the narrow cut, and motored all the way to Rock Sound Harbor, with 2-3 knots true wind from the south. I put the sails up, just to see them slat for 5 hours. As you approach Rock Sound, the chart says "widely scattered coral heads". Now as Chris says you may be able to trust Explorer in poor visibility, but what do you do with "widely scattered coral heads"? And just how deep are they, and how widely scattered? With only about 11 feet showing on the depth sounder, we peered into the water with the sun going in and out of the clouds. I stood on top of the dodger nervously fingering the autopilot remote, at times the sun was out and you could see the heads hundreds of yards ahead, other times the sun was obscured, the light flat, and I hoped I would see them at least 1 or 2 boat lengths ahead. "Widely scattered" unfortunately was correct - and this meant that there may not be any in sight at a given moment. Good you say? The problem is that it is like guessing your visibility in dense fog. You don't know what it is until something shows up. Similarly, if a coral head was in view you had some idea of what your ability to see the next one was, but otherwise you just hoped. The Raymarine autopilot remote does not help, as there is a maddening 3 - 4 second delay between a course change command and response.

However we hit none and anchored off of town along with about 12 other boats in about 8'. While Hatchet Bay had a small general store, the few other businesses where modest, really just a room in someones house. Many houses were abandon, most were in a decaying state, and it appeared to be a subsistence economy. The people were welcoming and friendly nonetheless. Rock Sound Harbor is the commercial center of Eleuthera, and there were more businesses without anything looking prosperous, and things were slightly less disheveled. We ate at Sammy's Place, the best food in town due to being the only food in town. However you do not feel bad about spending money in these towns, they are certainly in need of it.

Another cruiser gave us the Chris Parker weather forecast: another front for Thursday - Sunday, 40 - 50 knot squalls with heavy rain, etc. He was staying in Rock Sound, which allows anchoring from any shore and therefore any wind direction. I did not believe it really, the GRIB files did not show anything very serious, and Wednesday was looking like a really nice day to sail across to the Highborne Cut in the Exumas. The guides though, showed no good anchorage there for the forecast clocking wind. So I turned on my phone and at $4/min called Highborne Cay Marina, figuring we could be tied up for this weather event in the Exumas, rather than dipping our anchor all over Rock Sound for several days. Yes they could squeeze us in. So next morning up the anchor came and we motored back through the "widely scattered coral heads", out the Davis channel past Cape Eleuthera, and into Exuma sound.

To give you and idea of the "wall", I noticed the depth beginning to increase from 18 feet to 20, marked my watch at 11:39. By 11:42 the depth sounder could find no bottom, and by 11:45 we were over 1000 ft by the chart. By lunch time, 5000 ft. We had a great close reach in 12 knots from the south. Entering the Highborne Cut was a bit nerve wracking, not great visibility, and I had delayed rigging docking lines and fenders until inside the cut. There were also several other boats arriving at the same time, and there is limited room, particularly if the other boats are 100+ foot motor yachts. With a frenzy of activity I managed it, and we were guided into out slip at the Highborne Cay Marina. This is a High Zoot facility catering really to the large motor yachts (100+ feet) and smaller sport fisherman (60+ feet), though there has been a couple of other sailboats here each night also. It is very nicely maintained and run, and very expensive. Everything has a price: the slip was $2.75/ft, 30 amp power $25/night, water $0.50/gallon, showers $4 for 5 minutes and internet $15/day as I previously mentioned. A Cheeseburger in Paradise here will set you back $18 plus tip (it is very good though...). The water spigots provided to wash the sand from your feet returning from the beach are padlocked each night. But it is very organized, clean, professionally run, the water is clean and clear, there are spotted eagle rays and nurse sharks swimming lazily under the boat (illuminated at night by the ubiquitous underwater lights that the large motor yachts cannot switch off). These yachts are washed each morning bow to stern using the $0.50/gallon water from an open hose.

The wind did pick up to 15-20, clocking to the south and then west and now northwest, and we did get a couple of light rain showers. There were three boats anchored in the cut, quite exposed to the south and southwest, that simply rode it out. It looked pretty uncomfortable for them this morning, but now it is calmer there again. We are forming the opinion that: Chris Parker overstates the weather (perhaps out of an abundance of caution) and the Pavlidis guides are conservative in his description of anchorages. We had a rather sporty dinghy ride around to the north end of the island in an attempt to snorkel the "octopus' garden" reef, not sure we actually got out to it as the current was a bit daunting. We will leave tomorrow and attempt to anchor in the Allan Cays, looking for iguanas. Then off to figure out the obscure method they have of assigning moorings in the Exuma Park.

If you look closely you can find 'Anomaly' hiding in the corner: