Sunday Eleuthera adventures

While sailing in Eleuthera Sound we passed two noteworthy vessels, one a Presto 30, a cat ketch designed and built in Maine, but ideally suited to the Bahamas, it draws 18" with the board up and can be trailered. We had heard about the boat from Ben Emory, my first neighbor in Pretty Marsh, Maine MANY years ago. He is getting hull #7 and plans to sail it in the BVI and then the Bahamas. This was hull #1 and the owners are ecstatic with it.


The other was a 1922 Trumpy, and a picture is worth a 1000 words!

We left Governour's Harbour early this morning so that we would have time to take a side trip to the Glass Window at the top of Eleuthera Sound before heading through Current Cut on our way toward the Abacos. The Glass Window was a natural occurring bridge in the narrowest part of Eleuthera Island created by the ocean waves eating away at the limestone. Eventually the natural bridge was eaten away completely and a manmade bridge was built. Then in 1991 a rogue wave picked up the bridge and moved it 7 feet to the west! So for several years Eleuthera was essentially two islands. Just recently they have re-attached the moved bridge to the road and one can now travel the full length of the island again.

The three of us anchored at the north end of Eleuthera Sound at lunchtime and dinghied into the beach to take a look at the Glass Window.

We anchored the dinghy off an adjacent beach and hiked (past this wonderful piece of driftwood - - I didn't even venture to figure out how to get it home!) up to the bridge across the Glass Window.

Upper left shows the Glass Window from the boat - white water is pouring in from the ocean. Upper right is of the ocean eating away at the limestone. Lower left shows the shifted bridge with the deep blue to left and pale aqua to the right. Middle bottom shows a big slab of the former road where it ended up.

After marveling at this natural/man-made wonder we headed WSW for Current Cut. We had been asking around for local knowledge about when to make passage through the cut which is known to have current of up to 6 knots. The consensus seemed to be to use the tide table for Nassau (there are very few places that have tide tables) and go through about one hour after high at Nassau. High was at 3:30 so we aimed to get to the cut between 4 and 4:30 to be sure we had time to study it. We got there right at 4 and had no trouble passing through with about one and a half knots of current against us. We went right by the remains of the old Current Club where I had stayed over 50 years ago on Mar Claro our family boat, and anchored a quarter mile around the corner from the cut close to the beach on the northwest side of Eleuthera. We were treated to yet another gorgeous sunset.

This time it's Pekabu III silhouetted against the fiery sunset.

Tomorrow a long run up to the Abacos. ~~~_/)~~~M&D