Eleuthera to Cat Island

March 27, 2014,

 

We had a  great two-day window to transit from Rock Sound, Eleuthera to New Bight on Cat Island on Sunday (3/23) and Monday (3/24).  Going in this direction you often face the prevailing east – southeast winds on the bow making the trip difficult, but these days offered light southwest – west winds making for a good motor-sail/motor to Cat Island.

 

Sunday was across the Davis Channel to the west shore of Eleuthera and a great motor-sail down to East Point, the southern-most point of the island.  The most notable part of the trip is how close the deep water comes to the island.  At times we were about a mile or so offshore, but in thousands of feet of water;  the actual ‘wall’ was probably less than a half mile from shore.  It is hard to capture this in a photo, but notice how close the deep blue water stretches to the shore.

 

 

East Cape, Eleuthera
We saw whales breaching here last year - no such luck this year

  

Rock Sound to New Bight, Cat Island is too far for a day-trip, so you must do an overnight or break the trip up with a stop at Half Moon Bay on Little San Salvador which is what we did.  This bay is one of the cruise ships ‘private islands’ and is probably the most beautiful one we have seen.  Here the deep water is less than a ½ mile from the beach and the water in the bay is spectacular.

Note the difference in the color of the water from the previous pictures.  Also note the 'pirate' ship in the 'playground'!

There was not a ship in when we arrived on Sunday, so we missed watching all the ‘activities’, but one arrived early the next morning as we were leaving.
 

 

Nieuw Amsterdam

 

 

 

  

We arrived at New Bight on Cat Island on Monday and faced an approaching front.  Cat Island offers little protection from southwest and west winds.  We had known about the front and planned to hide behind the sandbar at Bonefish Point as we had done on other visits, but the front was stronger than anticipated and ‘clocked' slower, so we had quite a ‘bumpy’ 24 hours Tuesday and Tuesday night. 

 

Cat Island is one of our favorite places and it looks like the weather will cooperate for our planned  1-2 week stay.

 

Tom

Anchored New Bight, Cat Island