Crew Log for January 7th - 8th, 2023
Trip Summary:
• Petit Cay, Berry Islands to Hoffman’s Cay
• Trip Distance of 14 NM, Total Distance To-Date of 2,632.9NM
• Departed at 09h00, arrived at 12h00
No matter how good that bottle of white wine is, it just doesn’t pair well with a perfectly cooked filet mignon. It doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be the ideal accompaniment to pasta primavera, or a sundowner on a warm summer’s evening. Likewise, it is easy for first time cruisers or novices to be naively convinced that an anchorage is “wonderful”, without first understanding what the main criteria was for rating the anchorage.
Petit Cay is a tiny rock outcrop in the north east corner of a large bay, east of Bullocks Harbor. There is a logical reason why all the populated areas are on the western sides of the islands, sheltered from the predominant easterlies. The wind had been blowing out of the east for the past day or so, which made it a perfect beam reach for our trip from Port Lucaya to Petit Cay. However, not only was the bay we were anchored in completely exposed to any wind with an easterly component, the swells rebounding off the shore created a confusingly uncomfortable sea state.
It is however, an easy in – easy out anchorage situated halfway between Lucaya and Nassau, and offers excellent dinghy landing spots on Petit Cay, to get the family pet ashore to relieve themselves and have a run. Coincidently, one of our buddy boats had 2 dogs on board, both of whom loved Petit Cay. It very quickly became apparent to us that the main criteria for assessing an anchorage was its “pet friendliness”. I prefer red with my filet mignon, thank you very much. Time to move on.
Blue Jazz and See You Soon were off early to an anchorage in the western end of New Providence Island. A lot of cruisers tend to skip the Berry islands in their haste to get to the other parts of the Bahamas. Other friends, who had arrived in the Berries before us, complained of rolly, uncomfortable conditions, and so after the night we had spent, it was tempting to follow our buddy boats towards Nassau. However, from the guidebook description, Hoffman’s Cay sounded wonderful and exactly the kind of place we envisioned when we planned this adventure. It didn’t disappoint.
It was only 14 nautical miles down the coast to Hoffman’s Cay. Getting there was fairly straight forward, although the entrance in the anchorage is through a narrow, winding cut that required close attention to both the visual cues and the charts. It would be very easy to make a wrong turn and end up on the rocks. However, once inside, silence instantly falls over the anchorage. The landscape is spectacular. Judy’s log entry for January 7th, 2023 starts with “Is this water color real?!?! Beautiful turquoise. It feels like we are really in the Bahamas now!”.
Not wanting to waste a minute, we dropped the dinghy in the water and headed for a beautiful sand beach. That’s where we first met Bruce and Kay from North Carolina along with their mini Australian Sheppard, Greta. They were travelling on sv Willow, a 1972 Pearson 39. They were headed off to snorkel in a rocky cut that opened to the Sound, while we, explored the headlands, getting our first real glimpse of Hoffman’s Cay and experiencing the crystal clear blue waters.
As we shared the sunset with Bruce and Kay, Eddie and Emily dinghied by to say hello. They had a huge husky, appropriately named “Moose”, who seemed quite at home cruising around the Bahamas on a sailboat. Eddie and Emily were on sv Just Friends, but their relationship seemed to be on a different level than their boat name suggested. We weren’t quite sure how they were cashflowing their adventure, but we all agreed that they would be perfect Youtubers. Young, attractive, personable, and adventurous. Even Moose had an entertaining personality.
The following day we found ourselves completely enveloped by giant catamarans and finally had to politely asked one if they thought they were too close. Luckily, they agreed and moved to a more comfortable distance away. Seems the secret of Hoffman’s was out as several more boats made their way into the anchorage as the day went on.
One of the main attractions on Hoffman’s was a magnificent blue hole, a large marine cavern or sinkhole, which is open to the surface and has developed in the island which is composed of carbonate bedrock. The more adventurous people jump off the high cliff into the deep water, however, given our brittle old bones, we opted instead to hike down to a limestone cave filled with stalagmites, stalagtites and natural limestone columns, where we braved a swim in the endlessly deep water.
We were relaxing in the cave when we suddenly were surprised by someone falling from the cliff edge and hitting the water in front of us. Jeff, who had recently arrived on one of the catamarans with his wife and 4 kids, had done a back flip off the top into the Blue Hole. Shortly afterwards he was joined by the 2 older boys who jumped in perfect succession. Their daughter wisely opted not to take the plunge, while his wife and younger son nervously clutched hands at the cliff edge. It was a heart stopping moment to watch them jump, as their son, who didn’t jump out far enough, narrowly missed the rocks below and luckily landed in the water. Even his daredevil Dad had to pause.
Jeff was trying to capture the events on his drone and managed to fly it into a tree on the far side of the Blue Hole. He somehow convinced his wife to swim across and retrieve it, only to fly it into the same tree again, minutes later. This time the drone went into the water, although luckily it caught a ledge in 6 feet of water. He did manage to retrieve it for the second time, although we did wonder why he was carefully holding the drone above the water as he swam back to the shore, given the damage was done.
Kay and pup Greta eventually showed up so we hike down to another beach further up the island where several more boats were anchored. It was a very secluded spot given the challenges of navigating the shallow waters to get to it. We had initially wanted to anchor here, but wisely decided against it when we looked at the depths in the approach.
We hiked back to our original landing spot and met Dave who was traveling with his wife and 2 kids. Dave was a full time pilot with United who flew back to the US for work while the rest of the family enjoyed their time in the Bahamas. As we recounted Jeff’s drone adventure, Dave also had his own story to tell. Apparently, Dave crashed the family drone on the first flight, after denying his wife the opportunity to fly it. According to Dave, he wasn’t permitted to fly the replacement, which is ironic, given he makes his living as a commercial airline pilot.
In the afternoon, we made our way over to the cut to check out the snorkeling. At first glance it didn’t seem to offer much, but as we ventured into the cut, we were in for a treat. A large ray glided up through the cut between Judy and I. It was amazing to watch how graceful these animals moved. We also spotted a small black tipped shark who checked us out. We both were pleased with ourselves that we didn’t scream into our snorkels.
Back on the boat we struggled to get an updated weather forecast given the spotty internet coverage in this area. Fortunately, Bruce and Kay have Starlink on their boat since Kay still works while they are travelling. They invited us over that evening to review the forecast and plot our next move towards New Providence and the then to the Exumas.
We don’t have any historical context, but Starlink seems to be, to use a worn out phase, a "real game changer" for working liveaboards. A quick speed check revealed that even in this remote Cay in the Bahamas, Starlink reported faster speeds than we ever have experienced with our pricey FibreOp back in Canada. It’s not surprising then why it is so popular, and why so many people can now live and work on their boat in places like Hoffman’s Cay. The view from the office is amazing!
We had 2 longer hops to get to the Exumas, a 40 NM sail to the western end of New Providence and a 48 NM run from New Providence to Highbourne Cay at the northern end of the Exuma chain of islands. The forecasted northerly winds the next few days would be perfect to get us further south. We did have mixed feelings about leaving however given Alex and Corky were planning to arrive in Hoffman’s the following morning. However, weather rules our schedule, and we agreed that leaving was the right choice.
We had an amazing time in Hoffman’s and couldn’t imagine how we could ever top our experience here. Little did we know, we would not have long to wait before the adventure kicked into high gear.
But more about that, next time.
Additional photos:
Wow! Love the write up and pics!! Thank you for sharing, From HONU TIME!