Long Island Bahamas (not New York), especially Calabash Bay is one of the places top on our list from our first trip to return to this time. The winds were to be out of the north and northeast for a few days which might be great for Calabash due to swells wrapping around but Thompson's Bay offers great protection. The forecast was for the wind to go more east than southeast so we would sail to Calibash later in the week. Going to Thompson's Bay would also give us a chance to try a different route than we took last time. In fact the last trip the wind died after an hour or so requiring us to motor across. Not this time! The forecast was for perfect northerly to north-north-west winds of 12-15 knots. We listened to the morning cruisers net and heard several other boats announcing the too were leaving for Long Island.
After hauling up the anchor, we left the main down and unrolled the genoa for a glorious sail from the south of George Town to Thompson's Bay. After leaving Elizabeth Harbour we were in deep enough water for Harry to put out the fishing lure. Despite Sarah's feeling that we could hook a fish, there were no bites before Harry needed to pull in the lure as we were approaching more shallow waters where the most likely fish to be caught would be Barracuda. Fine for some, but we wanted to avoid it.
We set the auto pilot to our next waypoint and settled in for a perfect sailing day - 10-15 knots of wind a little bit from behind us, full sun, 78 degrees, and the azure to cyan blue water we never tire of. Sarah set to work on her silver palm basket project while Harry worked on an update to a new anchor bridle he made while in George Town. Sometimes the water depths were only 10 feet but the charts were very reassuring that it would not be less than that. A few more waypoints, including crossing the Tropic of Cancer, and six hours after leaving George Town we put the anchor down in Thompson's Bay, Long Island just in time for Rum O'Clock and dinner.
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