Multi-night sailing: Culebra to Matthewtown Bahamas and Man of War Bay Great Inagua to Georgetown, Exumas.
We departed the reef behind Culebra (Spanish Virgin Islands) in the mid morning. Our next destination was Matthewtown, Great Inagua, Bahamas. This would be about a 3 day sail over the top of Puerto Rico and north of the Moana passage. The first 36 hours we were having a good sail. Downwind, the seas were not very big. We could see thunderstorms along the coast but they did not bother us. There were very few other boats. The sailing was in Scott’s word: “boring.” FYI: boring is good. Boring means that the three radar targets in the middle of the night are all clearly labelled on AIS (Automatic Identification System). They are all more than 3 miles away. AIS, often provides the details of the other boat: its name, length, speed and sometimes destination. Not all boats use it but it is such a huge help to a late night cruiser. In the Bahamas, they now require by law that boats over 50 feet keep AIS on all the time.
The winds eventually died to below 7 knots and so we motored. The winds clocked around and slowly filled in and then they REALLY filled in on our starboard quarter. Wasn’t this suppose to be around 12 mph? We are seeing more like 20-25 mph and that meant building seas. The last 24 hours heading into wind, imagine a deranged carnival ride. Looking down our hull from the bed to the head (the toilet) and the hallway is pitching back and forth. Fun. NOT.
We anchored off of Matthewtown, Bahamas and raised our Q flag (a yellow flag that indicated that you have not checked into a country yet) and rested. There was quite a bit of swell in this anchorage. We were being tossed about as the waves surged into the rocky shore line and then were bounced back toward the boats (as opposed to when a wave crashes into a sandy beach and then slowly slides back with the undertow.)
Later that morning Scott took the dinghy to shore to check in at Bahamas Customs and Immigration. It was a Saturday morning. Technically, Bahama customs does not work on the weekends but on this island, the nearby shop owner let them know that Scott was waiting and they drove to their office to check us in. This was probably one of the most friendly and welcoming Customs and Immigration offices that Scott experienced on our trip. In contrast, a fellow Salty Dawg Catamaran that arrived in Georgetown on Saturday, could not clean in until Monday.
As soon as Scott got back to HELIA2, we hauled our anchor and headed north to Man -of – War Bay on the Northeastern corner of the island, up near the Morton Salt flats, where there are piles of salt accumulated from local evaporation pools. We re-anchored in front of the beach near two other boats. It was very calm inside this crescent bay.
Whoops. Poor communication between admiral and captain as we pulled into the anchorage. We passed right over a small reef. Luckily, it was deeper than our hull and so there was no contact. We are usually more aware to avoid this type of potential error. We dropped our anchor in sand in 12 feet of crystal clear water. which is so different from BVIs where we dropped in 20-35 feet and the water was not always clear.
Snorkeling off the back of our boat, we found a beautiful reef, full of purple seafans and a mid size drum fish. Looking back, I regret not breaking out our BLU3, an underwater snuba system that I insisted we purchase at a boat show. The first afternoon, after our fresh water showers, some dolphins showed up swimming between our boat and the shore. They were not close enough to simply jump in and hope to see them in the water, but I watched them cruise back and forth.
This was our first time in the Bahamas on HELIA2 as a family. We needed to come up with a plan because there are so many islands to visit. Man of War bay in Great Inagua provided great shelter from a northerly blow that would not let up for almost 4 or 5 days. While being very well protected …. the weather window shut (strong northly winds and high swell. This meant getting stuck here with ” no destinations on shore.” There was an abandon radio tower and a derelict home and church, and a small community housing spot, we assume for the Morton Salt staff, but no shops or restaurants in walking distance. We took the time to work on boat projects and to clean a few barnacles from the bottom.
The first afternoon of scraping the bottom, I was not wearing gloves. I nicked my finger on a barnacle as I passed under the boat. Argh. I know better. I cleaned out the cut very well and put antibiotic cream on it. I knew that we weren’t going anywhere for several days so I didn’t want to be dealing with an infection. It healed slowly like a deep papercut, but all was fine.
On the 4th night, I invited some of the neighboring boats over for “sundowners”. Our new neighbors were requested to bring their own drinks and if possible, to provide one appetizer to share. Sometimes this means several different cheese platters, but tonight each boat brought something unique: fresh hummus, buffalo chicken dip, salsa, wasabi cream cheese spread etc. We learned a little bit more about the other couples in the anchorage. (Unfortunately, there were no other boats with children.).
Stories shared over the appetizers included past ports of call and future travel plans and a story about a boat boarding in Le Marin. (This has been one of my biggest fears.) In this case, the wife jumped out of bed at night (while her hubby said “you are hearing things.”) to find a young couple with knapsacks and sleeping bags who thought that they had boarded their parent’s charter boat, which gave us all a good laugh.
On the 6th day, the boats departed to various locations. We had decided to visit Georgetown. We sailed northwest, overnight passing the eastern shore of Long Island. We were actually cruising along at 10-11 knots. We would need to slow down or we would get to the pinch point in the entry reef at four o’clock in the morning. Fortunately the winds lightened up at the end of Long Island and we were able to time the turn and reef entry well. With another round of strong winds forecasted from east, we anchored closer to Stocking Island. It was a bit disappointing that we passed Rum Cay and Conception Island, the latter was on our bucket list, but the next weather window led to our decision to forgo these stops.
While walking around Georgetown, Jenna recognized the town square from the pictures I had taken here two years earlier when Scott and I first visited HELIA2 after making a purchasing offer in 2024. Everything comes full circle, given that we are a couple of weeks away from listing her for sale.
In town, we provisioned a few small bags of groceries at one of the two shops in town. We were warned about increased Bahamian costs but this was our first time experiencing buying two small bags of produce for $200. I had hoped to get some conch salad but both of the local kiosks were closed as they are preparing the local yearly island regatta next weekend.
We headed north with a goal of meeting up with other Salty Dawg boats at the 2026 Exumas Rendezvous. This rendezvous was much smaller than the previous, only about 10 boats, instead of over 80, but we could catch up with boats that we had not seen since Bequia and meet some new boat crews as well. On the way north, we stopped at a cay near David Copperfield’s private island and went snorkeling at the sunken piano mermaid statue. I wish I brought my camera. The statue was positioned in 2011 (see picture below) and has since started to grow a sizable amount of coral on the music stand, at the base and inside the lid. We could not stay long because the current was filling in and you could not float directly next to the mermaid.
Exumas Salty Dawg Rendezous
Tracey and Kimmy did an excellent job of organizing various activities at each stop. There were not long sails between each of the 5 stops but we enjoyed the variety at each location. We met everyone at Staniel Cay Yacht club, where we were all amazed by the number of nurse sharks that circled the dock waiting for a nightly fish feeding. This was not very far away from Thunderball Grotto, a snorkeling cave that we visited at low tide so there was no need to duck under the coral ledge to get inside. No sharks here just lots and lots of fish. We were anchored near the famous swim with the pigs beach. Not on my bucket list, given these large pigs can get aggressive if they think you have food.
Other rendezous stops included:
Sampson Cay: A large sand bar that continued to grow throughout the cocktail hour, where we had a “no engine” dinghy race.
Compass Cay: with Rachel’s Bubble bath. A tidal pool with splashes from the ocean side as the tide came in. This is one of the first places we started to note that the water was quite “cold”.
O’brien’s Cay: We briefly tried to snorkel the plane wreck. It was rather deep and the current was pulling very hard. Scott dropped Jenna and I in the water for a drift snorkel. Jenna was not comfortable in the current and quickly got back out. I found the eagle ray (without a tail) to be more fascinating than the wreck and soon tired. We also did a quick snorkel at the “Aquarium”. This is clearly a spot where fish are fed by humans (probably with cereal or cheese whiz). They are not shy and surround you the moment you drop in the water. There was a huge lobster under a ledge as well as a sleeping nurse shark who we laughed at because he moved 4 feet over and, like a little child, stuck his head under a rock as if to say— “ha ha. You can’t see me” while his tail stuck out from behind.
Warderick Wells Cay: was our final stop. It had a whale bone skeleton on the beach.
We hiked up to the top of Boo Boo hill and hung a SALTY dawg rally sign on the collection of fading boat signs and pendants amassed at the top of the hill.
Again with the poor footwear choice on my part. My feet were covered in soft white sand and I was only wearing thong flip flops on the fractured sharp stones that transversed the island. I thought for sure I might loose my footing. I am very happy to say that I did not but I fell far behind the pace of the group.
We had a sandcastle building competition and our final potluck dinner on the local picnic tables. Jenna claims to have won this on her own but she had help in creating her fire-breathing sand dragon.
Fire breathing sand dragon
This mooring field was by far our favorite spot because we were surrounded by crystal clear water and a sand bar on three sides of our mooring which would disappear as the tide flooded the area. We had to pull in as tight as possible on the mooring to avoid touching the bottom of the sand bar at low tide. Jenna and Scott could swim out to the sand bar and walk around.
The coral was not amazing at the nearby snorkeling sights but several large eagle rays circled around us, more than made up for the small coral humps. It was such a beautiful location that all the boats decided to stay for an additional night.
After we left the marine park, we put our fishing line back out. We finally caught another Mahi mahi!! I was so excited that I forgot to take pictures. We froze several fillets and I made some ceviche for dinner. Yummy!
I hope we catch some more and I would really like to catch a tuna. We had something on the line last week but it got away. Seems like we are doing more wishing than fishing!