Lady at anchor in the bay off Black Point settlement with its excellent launderette

February 2008
Black Point is a real Bahamian settlement on Guana Cay. The local people are really welcoming and many cruisers go to help with reading in the local school in the afternoon. There are stores with some basic provisions and the odd restaurant but the great draw is the launderette! It is large and well maintained with lots of washers and driers and its own dinghy dock. Inevitably it has become a meeting place for cruisers.
The islanders race sloops of various sizes with crowds of sail and lots of crew. To balance the rig two planks are slid underneath metal retainers on either side of the combing. These allow many of the crew to sit out on the planks and keep the boat upright. The sloops are built of light soft woods and must be pretty fast. We would love to be there when they race - it must be quite a party!

A small Bahamian racing sloop uner construction in a back yard at Black Point - being made of relatively softwood they seem to get easily damaged
The sloop 'More Fire' on the beach - the four pairs of holes in the deck are for the metal fittings that hold the hiking planks
The hull design is easily seen on 'More Fire' in this view
Anchored off Big Majors Spot in a calm we had this nurse shark by the boat with three remoras in attendance
One of the famous porkers on Pig Beach at Big Majors Spot - they are known to bite people and climb in approaching dinghies!

Walking on the north west shore of Guana Cay we found an amazing blow hole which streamed spray from it in rough seas. We tried to walk the beach but were cut off by the cliffs and briefly by a pack of wild dogs which we had to face down.
A cold front was nosing its way south towards us and we returned north to shelter in the lee of Big Majors Spot. Not all the fronts bring west winds this far south and often the strong NE winds build in with high pressure as the front passes. There are few deep water holes to shelter from west winds so careful attention to weather is essential.

This year we have made really good use of our cruising spinnaker and as a result John and Marla went searching for theirs in the bowels of Misty. Once the clouds of moths had dispersed it mad a pretty sight and regrettably meant they could use their extra waterline length and keel depth to pull slowly ahead again. Ah well...
John managed to take a really good picture of us reaching in 20 knots at over eight knots (see below left). We were just on the edge of a broach for a couple of hours before we chickened out somewhat exhausted!
The whole trip so far has been mainly under wind power and that is so much better than last year - not to say much cheaper too as diesel is 25% more in price than in Florida. We haven’t found a moment to use our 150% genoa as yet but even that may come.

The great blow hole we found north of Black Point settlement
The skipper is always happy with an excuse to use the sails to best advantage
The mate enjoys the sailing too
Our 'buddy boat' Misty having shaken all the moths out of their spinnaker is creeping away from us
Over eight knots with the spinnaker flying and lots of adrenaline and testosterone on the air

The dinghy outboard has been sickly and that is not a good thing in the Exumas. The propeller hub has a splined rubber bushing which attaches to the propeller and this has torn away from its bronze mounting. Epoxy glue welded it back in place for a while but it soon failed again. We can manage very slowly...

...And hope to repair it further down the road.

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