Rudder Cay to Emerald Bay Marina on Great Exuma.

By Capt. Scott Buckley

Location: Emerald Bay Exumas.

In order to enter Elizabeth Harbor at Georgetown it is required to enter Exuma Sound which is the ocean side of the Exuma chain.  Most of the sailing thru the Exumas thus far has been on the west or bank side of the islands.  They are short hops between islands in the relative protection of the islands.  There are a few openings or cuts thru the island that let you travel from the shallow bank side to the deeper Exuma sound side.  These cuts can be dangerous due to seas and tidal currents. 
When tidal currents are flowing out into an incoming sea the interaction of the seas and currents make this area very rough and the proximity of shoals and reefs on both sides of the cut make precise navigation a must.  Loss of power, proximity of other vessels and adverse weather can ruin a guys days.
 
From Farmers Cay there are a couple of options for getting to Georgetown.  Farmers Cut, Galliot Cut, Cave Cut and Rudder Cut.  Galliot cut is the preferred cut for large boats but based on the tied we opted for Rudder Cut.  There is a section of 4 ft depth but with the AM tide we never saw less than 7.5 feet all the way. 

Rudder Cut

Rudder Cut is a private island  owned by the magician David Copperfield so landing on the beach is prohibited but you can anchor and snorkel anywhere.  It was really pretty place to hole up before pushing onto Emerald Bay marina just 7 miles north of Georgetown.
 
We rowed around and snorkeled.
 

Emerald Bay

The next morning we pulled up the anchor and headed out of Rudder Cut to head south to Emerald Bay Marina where the slips were just 50 cents / foot.  We would stay there for the next front and then head down to Georgetown. 

We planned to be here for at least 3 or 4 days and we decided to have some fun while we were here.
The guys went fishing and the girls spent the day at the Sandal’s resort.
 

 
After our fun filled time at Emerald Bay we headed to the Bahama sailing ultimate destination…..coming soon on our next blog post.  Preview: Big waves, expensive goods and Chat N Chill fun……

Little Farmer’s Cay and the 5 “F’s”

By Capt. Scott Buckley

Location: Farmer’s Cay Exumas

We left Black Point Harbor and headed for Little Farmers Cay to 2 reasons.  The festival of the 5 “F”s and to wait out some weather.  The entrance to the cut between Little Farmers Cay and Great Guana Cay can be approached from the north or the south.  The charts show 4.9 ft in one area on the northern approach but because we would be passing thru the shoals at high tide we chose that route to save a couple of miles of travel.  The shallowest water we saw on the northern approach was 7.5 feet and was likely a little deeper than that due to some conservative fathometer settings to the onboard instruments.

We grabbed a questionable mooring ball just outside of Big Harbor.  It belonged to the Farmer’s Cay Yacht Club and we dinghied into FCYC and met the owner Roosevelt Nixon.  A charming gentleman who ran the club, bar and restaurant with his family. 

FCYC is on Big Harbor and a little outside of town that is on Little Harbor.  Our next stop would be onto little harbor by dinghy to the Ocean Cabin resort and to meet with Mr. Terry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Capt. Dave on SV Alice Mae had convinced us to come into the volunteer signup for the various 5F’s events. There was a good crowd of volunteers but they were mostly first timers like us.

Somehow Capt. Dave managed to volunteer me for the dinghy race, and to help him on the wet t-shirt contest.  I love this guy.  The 1st mate had to run the egg toss contest.

The dinghy dock was crowded so……..

We opted to beach it.

 

Terry told me that if I agreed to chair these events it was also up to me to promote participation.  As I have only a rowing dinghy the prospect of rowing around to all the various boats did not appeal to me so I chose to announce the events on the VHF radio.  This seemed to work but had the side effect of allot of cruisers thinking I was organizing the events.

The weather deteriorated over night and it was very windy, but even so the events were well attended and a lot of fun.

There was one particularly disturbing game that was played at the 5F’s.  It involved couples and strapping a toilet plunger around the girls waist while the guy held a roll of toilet paper between his legs. 

I know very disturbing right. 

The girls then assaulted the guy trying to get the roll of toilet paper onto the plunger. There was some bruising involved.

Once the girls had skewered the roll and stopped laughing the had to run across a field and deposit the roll on a table where the guys would grab the roll and stuff back between their legs and run back to the starting point without dropping it.

It was one of the best liked games of the event.  The events started at 8AM that morning and by 4PM we were all pretty worn out and started drifting back to our boats.

The weather continued to deteriorate with strong winds out of the NE and it was along night.  Choosing to hang onto the mooring ball and not head around and anchor on the lee side of the island cost us a night of sleep as boats in the harbor started dragging anchor and Tamera and I chose to stand an anchor watch thru the night and be at the ready to bug out if the dragging boats got too close.

Our next destination was further south and perhaps Georgetown.  More on that in the next post.