A windy, grey cloudy afternoon/evening led to homemade pizzas & “movie night” with Sound of Music and eating hot brownies straight out of the oven. Perfection! We all love that movie so much…biggest smiles while headed off to bed. Good family night.
We needed that good ending as we had a lumpy start to the day…. less sleep last night in 25knots of wind against the current in Allen’s Cay and bouncing the boat around like we were sailing. UGH. Somehow Henry slept through it all but Mike and I were up a lot.
It was uncomfortable enough in the anchorage in the morning with high winds expected all day and night that we picked up anchor and had a brisk sail in 20-25 knots of wind for 2hrs down to Norman’s Cay and anchored on the west side beach near McDuff’s. With reefed sails the boat consistently sailed over 6 knots, briefly hitting 7.9 knots without complaining. The prop-shaft generator was making electricity from the wind for the first time in a while too. It was an act in endurance for the kids, not feeling well on a bumpy, heeled-over boat. Amazing how kicked up the waves were even while we were sailing in the lee of the islands.
It felt cold in the wind (despite being 78F) so we opted for a walk on the island and a pass on swimming. Norman’s southern end is undergoing a HUGE development after being bought by a group of investors 4 yrs ago. They have turned a little pond in the middle into a huge marina and cut through the island in 2 spots to create a dredged channel for boats to get into the marina. They plan on 72 boat slips making it the 2nd largest in the Bahamas. This is huge change for Normans. We got to walk all through it. It’s super fancy with expensive walkways, impressive landscaping. We got to see the first model home (see photo with deck chair and beach view) – for only $1.5million the 1 bedroom house could be yours! They expect the marina rates to be $12-$15 per foot per night (to put it in perspective – we look for marinas that are <$2/foot!). Amel is 39 feet – scary math. The rain clouds missed us on our walk and we came back with yet even more fresh coconuts to husk. Mike and Henry have some work ahead of them.
Tomorrow we plan to move a short way to anchor in the cut at Norman, weather dependent. Monday’s forecast is for super calm – a great day to explore sand bars and snorkel underwater plane wrecks at low tide.
Fingers crossed we can get enough data connection to stay in touch!
Fun Afloat 