Rum Cay to Acklins Island

February 11, 2014

We had a long day ahead of us, a long sail – about 79 miles for today.  To accomplish that many miles we had to leave our anchorage at Rum Cay very early this morning.  I wasn’t sad about leaving it, it didn’t offer a lot of protection from the ocean swell and we rocked and rolled most of the night.  Daniel was up and dressed and in the cockpit – ready to go at 2:30.  I, on the other hand, rolled out of bed and grabbed a flashlight and headed for the bow of the boat.  Since we anchored in about 9 to 10 feet of water last night and the tide was down another foot or two this morning, I got to take my flashlight and shine it on the water looking for coral heads and/or rocks.  Picture me, half asleep, in my gown, on the bow of the boat.  I saw no reason to get dressed – it was just the fishes that were going to see me and I had big plans to go back to bed.  So I was on “watch” for about 15 minutes while Daniel backtracked using the “cookie crumb” trail on the chartplotter.  After we were well clear of the hazards, I threw a Coke Zero and some pop tarts at Daniel and crawled back into our soft bed.  Daniel did an awesome job steering the boat and when I got up at sunrise, I rewarded him with bacon and eggs (I’m not all bad). 

Winds were favorable for us to sail for about 4-1/2 hours, and motorsail the rest of the time.  Ocean swells were about 6 feet and weren’t bad at all.  The wind during the middle of the day kicked up some moderate wind waves, but they didn’t last long.  We watched a squal sitting over Crooked Island for a long time, but it never threatened us.  All in all it was a perfect sailing day.  Other than the cargo ships in the shipping channel, we never saw any other boats until we reached the anchorage.  We were pretty much the only 2 people in the world for a whole day - but we finally pulled into beautiful Atwood Harbor on Ackins Island.  It is a remote location and there were only 4 other boats staying here with us.  There are no houses around and I didn’t see anyone on shore.  Really quiet place, tonight.