Salt Pond Thompson Bay, Long Island, Bahamas

 We pulled anchor at Hog Cay for the last time this season....out the cut into a bit of wind-driven chop.  Winds were forecast to be out of the southeast and 15-18 knots and 3' waves.  Perfect for an outside ocean sail to Water Cay as a mid-stopping point bound for Long Island.  Turns out the forecast was a bit low on both the wind and waves, but we struggled thru it because we wanted to fish!

 

 

Unfortunately, all we caught was this barracuda - much too big to eat so he went back into the ocean.  

 

It was a rather bumpy ride...surfing up and down the waves - we saw almost 10 knots at one point.  Steady 8 knots, though, so a great sail!

 

As we approached Water Cay in the Jumentos, Duane suggested that we could just continue on to Long Island and arrive around 10PM - since there's nothing much to see at Water, just a stopover spot, we agreed to continue.

 

On the calmer inside banks, we passed Guy on Trouble heading back to the Raggeds for the final few days of lobster season.  Talked to him a bit on the VHF.

 

And this boat Orion II (which we don't know).  Other than those 2, we saw nary a soul for the day.

 

94 miles - pretty good for  14 hours especially since the last 4 hours were motoring into 17 knot winds and waves at 4.5 knots!

Somewhere approaching the Comer Channel the sun set....we have previous tracks thru the channel so was not a problem even though it was low tide.  Lowest depth sounding I saw was 6.9 feet so plenty for our 4' draft.

Dropped the hook at Thompson Bay at around 10:45PM in the pitch black using our radar and a spotlight to make sure we didn't crash into anyone!   Will reprovision and make a plan but time for sleep!