OtherGoose: From Abacos-Eleuthera-Exumas

We headed down to Lynyard Cay around 1 pm and got anchored with about 25 other boats! C-Soul is right beside us. We will head out in the morning for Eleuthera. Egg Island is the waypoint nda then we tuck around the south side into Royal Harbour.

We anchor in Royal Harbour. around 4 pm and dropped the dnghy. We took a tour around the bay because we'd never been there before. at the east end was a huge fish pond...surrounded by nets. Breeding Pond?. C-Soul came in and dropped anchor behind us.

THe next day was a quiet morning, but dull. All the weather sites sites say a cloudy day and no wind to speak of until tonight. It's tempting to keep moving but we've never been here so we will explore the shore today. There are some interesting beaches although the odds of finding any sea beans are astronomical. They are all in Long ISland waiting for Susan to rescue them.

We will spend some time picking up all the stuff that fell off the shelves in that NOT-SO-PLEASANT crossing. C-SOul are parked behind. There are about 15 boats here...10 of whom were in the pack yesterday.

As we were talking to C-Soul, "Miss MOlly" came up to "welcome us to the harbour" and let us know that the boat behind him had caught fire the day before with a 7-year old trapped in the quarter berth..Dad got her out but burned his face and eyes and spent overnight in the Hospital in Spanish Wells. Guess we didn't have such a bad day after all. We had 4-5 foot swells with a1-2 foot chop on the beam. We left Lynyard at 7:00 amd and had our anchor down 3:45 pm -9 hours. Not so bad really.
And Todd Smethurst caught a barracuda!!!
We decided to spend the day and go exploring. We picked up Gail...Mark hadn't finished his chores so he couldn't go.

I FOUND ONE!!!! we went exploring to the other side of Royal Island today and found an awesome set of buildings.Walked down the ancient road to the ocean beach and I found a sea bean!!! By myself!!!
This place was built in the '50's as a private estate. In the 2000's someone tried to make it a resort but never succeeded. What a shame..it's an awesome place and we didn't get to explore all of it.!

We left in the early morning and headed down to FLeeming Channel across the lsat of the deep water. Tdd tried again but couldn't manage to catch anything I think the fish couldn't keep up. We were doing 7-8 knots motor sailing. We crossed the Yellow Bank in 8 feet of water through monstrous coral heads. THAT was not fun in a 2 foot swell!

After we were over the bnk we turned off the motor and sailed that last two hours to Allens' Cay. C-Soul managed to catch a mackerel, so guess what we had for supper!

We got not Allens around 3:30, dropped the anchor in a foot of water [low tide] and lowered the dinghy carefully! C-Soul was 15 minutes behind us. We all went swimming across the bay to check the anchors and then we went to the beach to meet some old friends! The island looks good. Today we will do a quick survey of U-Cay to see how it weathered the storms this year. This afternoon we will head to Shroud and tuck in for the night then tomorrow we head to Sampson Cay. There is another nasty storm coming...winds are doable but 8-9 foot seas are not especially across these waters. This is not a good winter!!!