April 10-11: Warderick Cay to Staniel Cay, Staniel to Sampson Cay

"Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence."  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

After too little time in the Exuma Land and Sea Park, we drop our mooring pennant and head for Staniel Cay. Our intentions: to drop Michael and Sus so that they can catch a small plane from the local landing strip back to Nassau and to hunker down for some strong winds later in the week.

I know I have complained about the eternal presence of the wind on our nose for each of the past several travel days, but not today! We set all plain sail and turn off the iron genny for a 15 mile run south to Staniel. Its a beautiful day with 10-15 knot winds and white puffy skies. We enjoy the catbird seats and the wind in our sails. The islands to windward smooth out the wave action, so we cruise along, between 6 and 7 knots with only light spray over our bow from time to time. The harnesses and our tethers are temporarily forgotten in the beauty of the day, but remembering a cocktail hour story by the skipper of the S/V Lady Hawk, we put them on as is our routine.

The last hour of our three hour run south, I trim the sails and take the boat off autopilot and Michael actually gets an hour to sail the boat to Sandy Cay where we will turn to cross the shallows to Staniel Cay. The sandbar shoals to 6 ft., but we cross without problems and enter the harbor. We contact the marina, and follow their directions onto a long pier, turning and backing up next the stern of a megayacht. In fact, we were almost completely surrounded. No wait... another sailboat pulled in after us. We were trapped! Sweltering in the megayacht canyon, we hooked up the electrical and proceeded to turn on the a/c... but no electricity to be found. "The island generator is out. The electricity will be on when its back on." The yacht adjacent to our cockpit solved the problem by turning on its genset. Unfortunately, his diesel fumes filled our cockpit as a result. Well, where are the showers? It has been a few days and we are smelling a little ripe. "Oh, we don't have showers." A laundry? "Well there's a lady in town, but its too late for her to hang it out to get dry today." Aaaah... where do I check in? "At the bar... someone gonna help you by and by."

Plan B: Sandra and I showered on the boat; Michael and Susan chose to wait till Nassau. After a while the a/c came on. Michael prepared an incredible seafood paella for our final dinner and we opened a couple of bottles of wine and celebrated our last evening together. The next morning, when Susan and Michael hopped into a golf cart for the trip to the airstrip, Sandra and I shoved off and ran a few miles back to the north to the Sampson Cay Marina. Sampson was everything that Staniel had not been, though there remained a preponderance of big motor vessels  in the marina. The windy weather was now expected Wednesday thru Thursday, so I spent some energy wondering should we stay or should we go before finally deciding that we wanted a few days to be still. Ultimately, we would spend almost a week enjoying Sampson. More on that to follow... John