Arrival At Our Final Bahamian Destination

Royal Island to Great Harbour |  10.1 Hours  |  71 Miles  

The alarm clock sounded when it was still dark outside. With the small crescent moon still high, but the sky brightening, we raised the anchor and got underway. We headed west and I kept a lookout behind us as the sky turned shades of yellow and orange and the sun rose over Russell Island. We passed through the small channel between Little Egg Island to port and Big Egg Island to starboard. Soon we were in very deep water.

Morning clouds persisted, but we never encountered rain. We were treated to a faint rainbow directly in front of us. For the better part of six hours, the view did not change with dark blue water and overcast sky surrounding us in all directions across the North East Channel. An occasional ship would pop up on the radar and give us a new object to watch. As we neared our waypoint of Little Stirrup Cay, the waves clocked around to our beam resulting in a few sprays on the pilothouse windshield. Barry's attempt to clear his view by using the wipers produced the undesired result of a broken wiper arm. Oh, well, at least we now have a reason to visit West Marine when we cross over to Charleston. Soon landmarks were recognizable. The Great Stirrup Cay Lighthouse peaked over a small hill. Hundreds of empty chairs were positioned along the beach awaiting the next round of cruise ship passengers.

Rounding the point, the welcome signs to Coco Cay were legible. Two Royal Caribbean cruise ships were docked on their private island. The 2,500-passenger Jewel of the Seas appeared to be a mere dinghy next to the line's flagship 7,000-passenger (plus 2,300 crew members) Wonder of the Seas. Wonder of the Seas is the world's largest cruise ship, has 18 decks, and is five times larger than the legendary Titanic. For comparison, Spanish Wells has a population of around 1,800.   

After gawking at the enormity of the cruise ships and Google-ing facts and specifications, we quickly had to turn our attention back to the water in front of us. Off to starboard, a barge was being cabled to a tug. To port, a (mostly) sunken barge still lurked in the shallows. Once we cleared those two obstacles we followed our previous tracks to the anchorage off of Great Harbour Cay. A light rain continued to fall, streak lightning passed from cloud to cloud in front of us, and an occasional rumble of thunder could be heard in the closed-up pilothouse. I lowered the anchor in the rain, but we had arrived on schedule. A strong microburst caught our attention just before dinner when the wind howled for no more than 20 seconds. That was not long enough to get the instruments turned back on, but we guessed it was in the 60-knot range. Following that excitement, conditions calmed and the sun found a small gap under the heavy cloud cover to make a fiery exit. We will spend a few days at our final Bahamian destination to visit one of our favorite beaches and then wait on a weather window to cross back to the United States.