Bahamas Day 5 – 8

Powell Cay

Powell Cay was another six miles west of Manjack Cay. We were really loving these short hops, this is what I thought cruising would be all the time. We’ve had so many 50-mile days on the ICW, that I wasn’t sure island hopping was real. Turns out it is, we just had to get to the Bahamas to find it.

We arrived at Powell and Lucas, very bravely, found us a great spot close to shore. He is really loving how our new Forward Looking Sonar is working in the Bahamas. It allows us to confidently put Alaya in spots where other monohull sailboats aren’t willing to go out of fear of depth. 

We decided it was time and this was the place for a swim. The weather was perfect, high 70s and the water was the bluest of blues (are you tired of me talking about the water yet?). We made sure to mount the swim ladder. We were both a little nervous, you know sea creatures and all. Lucas made me jump in first. The water was glorious. We got our snorkel gear out and practiced swimming out to the anchor and around the boat. We both have been freaked out about diving under the boat (remember our fiasco in Harbor Beach, MI on our first night at anchor?). Turns out it is a lot less scary to do it in the Bahamas where you can see everything underwater.

As we were swimming, Larry, Ginny and their friends, Ilona and Greg pulled up in their dinghy. Buddy boats reunited again! We swapped Gulf Stream crossing stories as we treaded water. They had been at Powell since the day before and were planning to head out again soon. We knew we would catch up with them again somewhere along the way.

That evening, we went over to a new friends’ boat, SV Gusto. Whitney and Jeffrey kayaked over to Alaya earlier in the day to welcome us to the anchorage. They are also young cruisers who left full-time jobs to go sailing. We had sundowners on Gusto as we talked about FIRE (the financial independence, retire early movement) and boat projects. They also gave us some good tips about Powell Cay, including the warning to look out for Poison Wood, a poisonous tree that we had never heard of. 

As we motored back to Alaya in the dark, we saw a weird shape moving across the sky. 

Emily – “Was there a rocket launch tonight?” 

Lucas – [frantically trying to load the Space Flight Now App] “Uh, I don’t think so…”

Emily – “Well, we might be under attack by aliens”

I guess there are worse places in the world to be attacked. We got back to the boat and quickly discovered that there was, in fact, a SpaceX Starlink launch. Lucas’ app was just slow to load given the fact we were at a remote island in the Bahamas. Phew!

We spent the next four days exploring Powell Cay, on land and by sea. I love seeing all of the tiny creatures that make up the sea bed. Much of the bottom in this area was a mix of grass and sand. Even in these “empty” areas, you can see tiny fish, sea biscuits (alive and dead), sea cucumbers and much more. I love floating along taking it all. One day, we dinghied over to a sunken barge on the east side of the anchorage. I was a little nervous but excited to try jumping in from Margaret instead of walking in from a beach. The barge was surrounded by so many fish. We did a couple of laps around the barge before sighting a big barracuda. He was just hanging out watching us. We quickly swam back to Margaret and decided that was enough for the day. We learned later that barracudas are generally not dangerous to swimmers. They are very curious, especially if you are wearing shiny jewelry or holding a shiny GoPro camera. I appreciate that knowledge but their faces still freak me out. 

A few days in, we worked up the courage to try “halyard jumps.” The concept is simple. Halyards are the ropes that pull sails to the top of the mast. When not attached to the sails, they can, allegedly, be used as a rope swing into the water. YouTube sailors are always doing this but I just envisioned plowing into the side of the boat if I attempted it. Lucas went first and he was so graceful! After he successfully did it a few times, I worked up the courage to try. It took me a long time to let go but I did and didn’t die. Another success!

Cruising the Bahamas isn’t all halyard jumping and snorkeling, we also had to do a bit of boat work during our stay at Powell Cay. First, I winched Lucas halfway up the mast to install our courtesy flag sheave, the pulley to properly hang our quarantine and Bahamian cruising flags. Unfortunately, upon inspection, it required rivets instead of screws and we didn’t have the right size onboard. Zip-ties it is! Next, Lucas did a tune-up on Margaret P, our Suzuki outboard engine. We hadn’t used her since last cruising season and she was in need of some routine maintenance. Lucas did a wonderful job and after a few hours, Margaret was ready to rip. We will continue to swap between Margaret and Hush Puppy, our electric outboard, depending on what type of dinghying we have planned.

From a provisions standpoint, it had now been a week since we had been to a grocery store. We were still working through our fresh fruit and vegetables from Fort Pierce. We both have continued to get a kick out of the delicious meals we can pull off in our small boat kitchen in the middle of paradise. My favorite meal from this anchorage was chicken enchiladas. I didn’t have all of the supplies to recreate Susan Kizer’s famous enchiladas but I think mine turned out pretty well.