ROCK SOUND REPORT

We have had windy and rainy weather mostly since our arrival here.  We seldom get rain when we are in the Bahamas, but rarely an hour passes without a significant rain.  Winds have been about 20 knots most of the time, with a swell and a chop that provides not the best situation for dinghy travel, so we are sticking pretty close to Sunspot Baby except for sporadic dog trips during short lulls in the weather.  As I write this, it is pouring down and George is in the cockpit, wearing swim trunks, setting up buckets to catch more water.

The first day we were here, we did get ashore for a grocery trip and lunch at Sammy’s.  The community is friendly.  Walking back from lunch, we met a charming Bahamian lady, carrying a bucket of bananas on her head.  She gave us a bunch of sugar bananas – a Bahamian delicacy, which are short and fat, and apparently taste best when cooked with rum, brown sugar, butter and cinnamon.  What wouldn’t?  We tried eating one just plain – they are pulpier than and not as sweet as regular bananas.  We wanted to take her photo, but didn’t ask.

The rain started, and our waitress from the lunch spot stopped to give us a lift back to town.  We really enjoy these friendly, small communities.

We are anchored in a snug sound, and though it is big and gets some wind fetch, it is pretty well protected on all sides.  “Rock Sound” derived from “Wreck Sound” because the original inhabitants were wreckers – who salvaged wrecked ships, and sometimes lured ships onto the Atlantic shore to be wrecked – wrecking used to be a primary source of income for many islands.

However snug, it is also busy.  We had just gone to bed Monday night, when a big light swept our boat.  We knew that two mail boats were expected in that night, but we were anchored well north of the government dock, where they come from the south to tie up.  Scrambling into the cockpit, we saw a red fuel tanker moving astern of us (but not too close to us) on its way to the airport at the north end of the sound.  However, Double Sweet, a catamaran anchored further out, was almost in their path, and just at the time they got close, Double Sweet’s anchor light stopped working!  There was much afoot there, as they hastily put lights out everywhere.  The tanker was doing a good job of slowly moving through the area, and sweeping the anchorage with their big light.  The next morning, the mail boat was at the government dock, and the fuel tanker stayed for 24 hours, moving out the next night (more about that later on in this message).

We invited some people for drinks the other night, and we had a good time.  The real action, apparently, happened after they left.  Next Exit is a PDQ catamaran that was anchored in front of us, closer than we would like, but ok.  Don, who single hands Next Exit, came for drinks on our boat, and from there went over to Iato, a Manta catamaran, where he spent a few hours.  We woke up the next morning to find Next Exit anchored in a different spot, and the story unfolded that Don came back to his anchorage after visiting Iato, to find his boat gone.  Apparently she drug anchor past Sunspot Baby and out into the sound.  Thankfully, she didn’t hit our boat, and thankfully he found her in the dark, in choppy water, undamaged.  This must have happened after the red tanker came through on its return trip.

I figure that the mail boats and tanker are extremely careful in this area, because we met a couple last year in the Exumas, whose boat was totaled by a mail boat here in Rock Sound while they were asleep at night.  They were not injured, and their boat was replaced (not sure by whom).  Surely a good reason to spend the extra battery power on an anchor light.  A lot can happen in a supposedly secure anchorage!

We have plenty of time to prepare food while we are sitting here.  Yesterday for lunch we made blt sandwiches, with some of the leftover crab dip from our cocktail party spread onto the sandwiches.  Last night we had a pork chop dinner – a bed of onions in a 9x13 pan, with thick sliced fresh mushrooms on top, and browned pork chops on top of that.  We poured over a little bbq sauce mixed with white wine, and baked it for a half hour or so in the oven.  This morning George suggested we have a Dutch Baby for breakfast.  I made one, with sliced bananas in the bottom, and it was quite tasty.  So you can see we are well fed.

Our travel plans, once the weather clears (if ever) are to go from here to possibly Governor’s Harbour and/or Alabaster Bay (they are fairly close to each other on the west side of Eleuthera), and then there is a tricky passage called Current Cut that we must pass through when the tide is running east to west.  Once through Current Cut we hope to go to Spanish Wells, an island to itself at the top of Eleuthera, where we are hoping to get fuel and maybe tie up for a night to charge all our systems back up.

Tomorrow is Good Friday, and in the Bahamas things close up pretty much from Friday through Monday.  However, here in Rock Sound it is “Homecoming.”  Many people with Rock Sound connections come back for this weekend, and there are craft and food booths, events, etc. (but no regatta).  If we can get ashore to scope it out, we will do so.

Lynn Stateham

Next Report: Rock Sound to Abacos