Hoffman Cay - day 2

Dawn broke with C’est la Vie pointed into a stiff southeast breeze.  She danced fitfully in the whitecaps and a hint of ocean swell working its way in from the cut at Devil’s Cay.  The sea state in the Northwest Passage must be well developed if we were feeling the swell behind Hoffman’s Cay.

Not a good day to transit the 34NM at 148⁰ across the Northwest Providence Channel that will bring us to the entrance of Nassau Harbor.  I reasoned if we are not going to sail to Nassau today then I might as well read up on it over my morning coffee.  As mentioned previously we primarily use Pavlidis’ Guides to the Bahamas (On and Off the Beaten Path covers the area in which we are currently traveling) in conjunction with the Explorer Chartbook (Near Bahamas covers the area in which we are currently traveling).

 

The coffee and Nassau review in the salon lead me up the island chain and into a full vicarious exploration of Eleuthera while sprawled in the vee berth which lead to a late morning nap.  I awoke a little before lunch time.  Whew these days at anchor in the tropics can be taxing. 

Feeling amazingly refreshed, I challenged Anne to a game of lunch Scrabble.  I’ll let the reader divine the winner of the game with just a hint from a country song, “some days you’re the windshield, some days you’re the bug.”

By early afternoon the sea state in the anchorage calmed as the winds had migrated to a more easterly direction and the tide in the cut was now flooding.   Time to get off the boat for some exercise.

We stored Anne’s paddleboard deflated in the quarter berth for the Gulf Stream crossing and had not re-inflated it since arriving in the Bahamas.  Our first attempt at inflating it on deck went smoothly.  The only misstep was not inflating it to its full 15 psi.

Hoffman’s Cay provided a mixture of ecosystems to explore via paddle board… mangrove creek to sandy beach heads to grass beds off the rocky headlands. 

We were able to observe reef sharks, many types of fish, large rays...

 and a lone starfish off the beach.

Our paddle board exploration of Hoffman’s Cay proved as delightful as the previous day’s terrestrial exploration. 

 We consumed the majority of our afternoon on the boards and returned to C’est la Vie around 16:00.

Of the Berry Island’s we have explored thus far, Hoffman’s Cay has offered the best anchorage with the most opportunities for exploration.