Norman Cay and Exuma Sea Park

Eight days after leaving Stuart, Florida where we had kept the boat over the summer and rented the condo for the month of November, we arrived in the Exumas. Actual travel time was seven days since we spent a full day in Fort Lauderdale having our fuel injector looked at and having supper with Yoli and Chris.

The gods were smiling because we have had a great weather window to cross over and descend into the Exumas. Norman Cay was an island we did not have an opportunity to visit last year and we decided to make our way directly from Nassau. We had a great northwesterly wind that pushed us handily southeast to Norman. We had picked up one of our spinnaker sails from Annapolis on our way down to Florida and our transit between Nassau and Norman was a great opportunity to try it. We had never flown this sail (colourful balloon sail for you non-sailors) and it took a while to set it up. The first time around we got the wrong line in the spinnaker pole and when we raised the sail it hour-glassed and after quite the struggle we got it down. The second time we got it up but could not raise it quickly enough to fly it. Again we had to pull it down. In hind sight we realized that we should have shortened the lines and also headed further downwind so that the sail would have opened in front of the boat rather than on the side where we were trying to raise it. What we did notice is the tremendous power this sail generates as it was impossible to hold on to when the wind caught it. In all of this mucking about we also discovered that the spinnaker halyard (the rope used to raise the sail at the mast) appeared to be twisted over the fore stay and the sail furling system. The halyard had been used a number of times to pull things up the mast when either Menno or the riggers were up the mast. We will have to go up the mast one more time to correct this little problem before trying to fly the spinnaker again.

Norman Cay was a drug runner’s island for many years until they got booted out by the government. There are the remains of a DC-3 aircraft in the water just near the anchorage. At one time it was recognizable as a plane but now not much remains. We found a number of conchs which are very plentiful at this island and we developed the knack in cleaning and cooking them and had them for supper. Lobster has still remained elusive and we will continue hunting them and the groupers that also abound in the water.

We left Norman Cay when we heard the weather was going to turn nasty at the end of the week. Winds were already blowing 20-25 knots and they were predicting up to 30 later on. We headed south for 20 miles in 20-25 knot winds and for a while were sailing nicely until the winds shifted further south. We put in to the Exuma Sea Park where we had been last year and could take a mooring ball. We also finally caught up with Charlie and Shirley on La Coquette who befriended and encouraged us last year. They had been behind us by a day for nearly a week and then skipped by us while we were enjoying Norman Cay. When this weather subsides we intend to head south to Black Point which has a great Laundromat, a half decent grocery store and several nice anchorages.