Reefs, turquoise waters, white beaches…we must be back in the Bahamas! Out of Luperon at 18h30 on Saturday night, we have a good breeze pushing us north west. We have planned a couple of useful waypoints in case we wish to stop for a night…reading Van Sant’s book “backwards” in order to use his description of possible anchorages on the stretch between Dominican Republic and Bahamas. His book has only few advices for people going north…the wind at our back (rather than on the nose) makes all the difference. And we also have the North Equatorial current with us, giving us .5 to .8 knot additional speed.

The night proves uneventful, with only one squall of 25 knots although lots of lightning can be seen above the island. We get to West Caicos the next afternoon around 17h30 and decide that it is not worth stopping; we are not tired, the wind is right so we continue for our second night at sea. We have a short communication with Lutz and Gaby on board s/v SuAn who stopped at Caicos for the night. They planned to stop at Mayaguana next day to check-in with Bahamas Customs and Immigration but we chose to bypass this first island of the Bahamas chain: it’s easier to sail by than to enter this reef filled place! And the skies are cloudy! We had never seen so many clouds in the Bahamian sky but as there was a troph over the region, the conditions were different than the one we encountered in our past cruising of these islands. So, we decided to spend a third night at sea and arrived at Rum Cay on May 5th at 8h30 in the morning. We were welcomed to the anchorage by a Kiwi couple – Wendy and Ian on board s/v Remedy – and chatted with them before going to bed. …we met them later that night for a sun downer and had a great time.