Alice town to Gun Cay

We woke to a gorgeous sunrise, like every day in the Bahamas so far:

I’d promised Jazz a short, two-hour sail: we were only going about ten miles south in prevailing easterly winds. Of course, I’d forgotten entirely about the Gulf Stream. To the west of the Bimini islands, the ocean floor drops off quickly to thousands of feet, which is plenty of room for the north-bound current. So we sailed south making five knots through the water, but only two knots over land. Fortunately, this is the last we’ll have to deal with the Gulf Stream for a while.

We anchored at Honeymoon Harbor and brought the dinghy to shore to give Captain a little taste of the beach. His emotions: decidedly mixed. Back on the boat, I grilled with a gorgeous view:

Meanwhile Jazz made salad inside (but don’t feel bad for her, she can see out the kitchen windows. Perks of a Catamaran!)

Then the boat rocked and rolled all night, because while it’s a beautiful anchorage, Honeymoon Harbour isn’t well protected from the ocean surge. Live and learn. In the morning, we headed back to shore to see some of the famous stingrays. In our haste to get off the rocking boat, though, we made some errors. Captain got splashed right out of the gate, and that set the tone for his entire afternoon. We should have recognized the failed attempt and just put him back on the boat. And we should have gone back for Jazz’s forgotten water shoes, and the GoPro. We at least brought the drone, though, and the stingrays were pretty amazing:

Also, though they were super friendly and hopeful, it turns out that the stingrays don’t really like (or notice?) the chicken we brought to feed them. At least the fish seemed to love it. (Baby barracudas!) The sharks couldn’t be bothered – or photographed well through the choppy water.

And then we spent two hours stuck on the beach while I failed to get the dinghy started. The problem? I had the choke out when trying to prime the gas pump, so there was no fuel to burn. But with the magic of ever-present internet, I pulled up the manual, read it more closely, and eventually figured it out. We eventually made it back to the boat, which we moved around to the west side of Gun Cay and had a much less bouncy night.