After leaving Spanish Wells we had a deadline to make as we made our way towards Current Cut, the narrow passage between the main island of Eleuthera and Current Island where waters rush back and forth with the tides at as much as 8 knots, which is faster than our hull speed. The rising tide was pushing the seawater through the cut in the right direction for us but at that speed we would have little control, even making the boat possibly move sideways. Not good; so we timed our transit of the Cut to be during or near Slack Water, the pause between the incoming and outgoing current flow.

Even with a short delay in Spanish Wells while fueling, we still made it in time to make our passage safely through Current Cut with minimal stress, and as we passed into the sheltered waters along the eastern side of Eleuthera with the sun shining and the winds very light, the expanse of water ahead of us resembled a large salt water lake, making the final hours of the day’s transit very pleasant, even with the motor running.

We anchored along the coast in a gentle breeze and enjoyed another Bahamian sunset before turning in. The next morning we wasted no time in hauling up the anchor and moving along towards Rock Sound at the southern end of Eleuthera, where tomorrow we will jump off to Cat Island to the south and hop scotch down the islands to the Caribbean.

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Beautiful waters in the bay of Eleuthera

We are now working to catch up on some of the time we lost getting some of Brilliant’s kinks worked out by sailing along the outer Bahamian islands in kind of an express route south to the Caribbean. We’ve been to several of these islands before, but more importantly we need to get far enough south to put us within reach of safe harbor when this year’s hurricane season begins in June.

We also want to spend at least a week or more, depending on weather, in the US Virgin Islands where several of our friends live. From there the path is uncertain, perhaps through the Leeward Islands to the east or an ocean passage jumping down to the Windward Islands, ending up in Grenada where we will anchor ourselves for the summer months for some fun and probably some boat work out of the water.

Unless Mother Nature decides to throw a hurricane at Grenada for the first time in almost 18 years, we’ll stay there, otherwise if a storm starts to materialize in the Atlantic we can jump south again to Trinidad as another safe haven.