White Point to Lee Stocking Island

We went for a short walk at White Point and found a good little cove on the ocean side.  I’m always amazed at all the trash we have to hike through to find these beautiful little coves … only to find, they’re cluttered with trash also!  On the hike back, Larry found a 2X6 board in the trash and laid it over a large section of garbage so I didn’t have to walk thru it again.  It’s disgusting!!!

We were back on the boat and just ready to set sail for our next destination when Larry noticed his fishing net (that he’d used the night before) was not onboard.  He was pissed because this was a new net he had just purchased.  Then, just off the port side of the boat, Larry noticed something black on the sandy bottom.  He quickly grabbed his mask/fins/snorkel and went to see.  Yep, we don’t know how it blew off the boat (the winds weren’t that bad) or how he was able to find it so easily (we swing back and forth in the tides/winds and the boat is rarely in the same position) but we are really glad he did.

We sailed down the banks side of Great Guana and were going to stop at Big Farmers Cay.  We arrived there fairly early and thought the cut to the sound side didn’t look so bad so decided to head out and south to see if our fishing on the sound side (deeper/ocean).  Boy was it rough!  The seas were very large swells with a mish-mash of waves in between making the waters very churned up.  We weren’t even out the cut before I was beginning to think we’d made a mistake.

Away from the cut and in more open waters, the waves calmed down slightly.  Okay, so maybe they went from 6-8 foot swells in the cut to 4-6 foot swells in the open but the choppiness of the waves still made us toss and turn and bounce uncomfortably.  It was a long 3 hour trip to the entrance at Lee Stocking where we decided to stop for the night.

As we approached the cut for Lee Stocking, my apprehension grew.  It was an outgoing tide (meaning the force of water would be rushing out the cut making it turbulent).  Add to that the 4-6 foot seas trying to force their way thru the cut and I was not looking forward to this adventure.  There are reports in a lot of things we’ve read about boats capsizing or being swept onto the rocks when they try to fight winds/waves against current.  Damn … I shouldn’t read and I wouldn’t have anything to worry about!

Larry took the helm.  He was awesome.  We were riding the waves, rushing towards shore uncomfortably fast and the boat seemed almost out of control.  But during the momentary laps between swells, Larry would counteract the momentum towards the rocks by directing the boat towards the other shore.  It felt like we were going back and forth between our undo on one rock to the next but somehow Larry sailed us right down the middle.  If you look at the track on the GPS, it was almost like he was entering in calm waters … straight down the middle!

All I can say is it was a nice relief to be in sheltered waters and have Soulmatie safe.  I would hate to have to write that our trip had ended already and we were headed back states-side without our boat/home.

We motored past several boats on moorings at Lee Stocking and further south down the island to the second anchorage.  We were more protected here from the winds and there were less boats. 

It was a quiet night and we slept well.