It’s Saturday morning and the sun is out. For the last few days the weather has been uncharacteristically rainy and overcast. It’s been nice to have Pandora’s decks rinsed clean of salt but having it rainy, overcast and windy hasn’t been too much fun.
A few days ago we decided to head back to Marsh Harbor, not my first choice of harbor as it’s more urban than I prefer, but the provisioning is very good here and we were running out of fresh food. Throughout our four months in the Bahamas we have found that once you are outside of Nassau, Marsh Harbor and George Town, you can’t expect to find much fresh food. The exception is that there are generally tomatoes, green peppers, onions, iceberg lettuce, potatoes and carrots. However in some of the more remote areas we visited, the choice was limited to onions, potatoes and carrots if the mail boat had come in recently. If not, nothing. Yes, you can do a lot with those veggies but Brenda loves to add an avocado to that list to round out things from time to time and that just isn’t done outside of the three larger cities. Interestingly, those particular vegetable types tend to be fairly reasonably priced, unlike most things here. By comparison, while a head of widely available iceberg lettuce is less a bit more than two dollars, a package of three romaine heads run in the $10 range. That’s lot of lettuce for lettuce, in my book.
Anyway, enough about salad, how about our trip through the Whale? As I mentioned in a past post, this stretch of water can be pretty nasty when the seas kick up so coming back from Green Turtle Cay, and through The Whale, a few days ago was a bit anxiety producing for us. We waited until the winds were forecast to be light and made the trip under engine power. The seas in the ocean that day were running under five feet, I would guess. But it was impressive to see them pile up in the passage as the water depth decreased from hundreds of feet to about twenty in a very short distance. When waves enter shallow water they pile up and break which makes things a lot worse than the same waves would be in deeper water.
As we approached the passage we came close to these waves that were breaking over the shallow reefs on either side of the 800′ wide passage. These waves, and they look more impressive in “real life”, were only a bit more than a hundred yards away. As they say, “you had to be there” to appreciate them. 
While an 800′ wide cut seems like plenty of space to aim for, there aren’t any markers or buoys to mark the rocky areas. As is the case nearly everywhere in the Bahamas, rocks and shoals are not marked so you are expected to just see them through the clear water or see waves breaking over them. Oh, that’s just so comforting. Not!!! While this still makes my mouth dry, it’s not nearly as anxiety producing as it was a few months ago, when we first entered the Bahamas.
As we went through the narrow cut and out into the ocean, we passed Whale Cut Cay. This is where the waves, and they were pretty benign that day, really showed their stuff. Again, these photos don’t do justice to the power of these waves. I can only imagine what this series would look like in rough conditions. We have not seen breaking waves like this in any other part of the Bahamas in a similar sea state.
The wave began to break. 
Then the full wave hit.
And receded. 
Yikes!!! I’d hate to be stuck in that… As you can imagine, putting in the way-point coordinates and staying on course is a GOOD IDEA!!!
These clouds certainly speak to the unsettled weather. Really impressive. Notice how flat the water is, until the waves enter the shallows and break on the reefs.
This guy, who ran aground on the reef, wasn’t so lucky. I understand that this landing craft has been on the reef for some time. I expect a fiberglass eggshell like Pandora would’t hold up for very long in the waves.
Happily, no such fate for Pandora and her crew. Ending up like that boat would certainly do harm to my cruising plans and, as our son Rob would say, “that would be a career limiting move Dad. Stay away from the CLMs with Mom”. Agreed, good idea. Cream puffs don’t like to be shipwrecked.
Here in Marsh Harbor the squally weather continued and last evening we had a really dramatic thunder storm. Happily, we had made it back to Pandora from cocktails aboard this lovely catamaran from South Africa before it hit. 
We had been invited by them and a couple off of another cat to talk about our trip down the ICW and the cruising areas of the Chesapeake and New England. That’s a lot of territory to cover. Interestingly, this cat was built in South Africa and the owner has sailed extensively. After sailing the east coast this year they will head to the Panama Canal and on to the South Pacific. We hope that they will keep a blog as it would be great fun to keep up with their whereabouts in the coming years. This is a big boat. She’s nearly 50′ long and 25′ wide, twice as wide as Pandora. Their cockpit is more like a patio with several seating areas to choose from. Stepping onto this boat is more like stepping on to a floating dock. Really nice. The other couple, new to sailing and from Montana, of all places, were on the cat to the left in the photo below. It has been fun to become more acquainted with cat sailing as they are so different than mono-hulls. Sailing on one of these is sort of like sailing around in a condo with a great back deck. And amazingly, as they don’t heel, you can leave everything out on the counters, including your knife rack.
Not a bad view to wake up to today.
Actually, these boats make Pandora, who isn’t small, look like a canoe. As they say, “there’s always someone who is richer, and thinner, than you are”. Or at least, has a bigger boat.
In less than a week Brenda heads back to the states and I will do a week of sailing with my friend Craig. After he leaves on the 18th, it will be time for me to bring Pandora back to Essex. Let’s hope that the weather gods will be supportive, and The Whale will be benign.
I too am looking forward to being home again. Enough of paradise for one year, I guess.