Norman Cay, Exumas

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

024-43.800 N
076-49.140 W

Ahoy from Norman Cay in the Exumas!

I finally feel like we've begun our cruising season. So far all that we've done is to position the boat to to go where when are. Our time in Bimini was nice, but that was in a marina. Nassau was a city. Now we're playing in incredibly clear blue water with no lights around. Yeah!

Norman Cay is at the N end of the Exumas. The Exumas are a chain of cays (islands) which stretch for about 120 miles on a NW to SE slant and are positioned in the middle of the Bahamas island chain.

Norman Cay was just a convenient first stop on our way from Nassau. We left Nassau on Monday morning and motor-sailed into 2-3' seas with only 10-15 kts on the nose. S/V Unicorn was traveling with us and about an hour outside of Nassau they radioed us to let us know that they had lost their dinghy. They don't have any way of hauling the dinghy out of the water and as a result they've been towing it everywhere. They also don't have anywhere to mount their engine, so it stays on the dinghy. The end result was that they have to tow a 300 lb boat behind them. BJ had dual lines connected to a D-ring on the bow of the dinghy and when I heard that they had lost it, I said that the D-ring had broken. I was right. They turned back and fortunately they found it a couple of miles back. It's a good thing that this didn't happen during the night crossing from Bimini to Nassau, as they would never have found it.

There's a bank known as the Yellow Bank which is positioned between Nassau and the Exumas and it has scattered coral patches across it. The bank is only 12' deep in most places and that makes it very easy to see the coral as the water is sapphire blue and the coral patches are black. You can even see them with clouds obscuring the sun. We had no problems crossing the bank, but Unicorn has never dealt with coral heads and had a tense crossing. Thankfully no one had any issues.

When we got to Norman Cay there were several other boats anchored there. It seems that it's a popular transit site. BJ spent yesterday jury-rigging a new towing system using a very stretchy line from the BlueJacket chandlery (he was using a non-stretching old boat line which would impart huge shock loads) and changing out filters. We cleaned the Nassau grime off the boat and then played in the water.

Just to the S of Norman Cay you'll find the wreck of a drug runners plane that crashed in the channel between Norman and Way cay. The plane crash landed in 4' of water and since then the water has eroded the sand around it. Only a small portion of the plane remains above the water at this time, but the rest of the plane is remarkably intact. The wings and engines are still attached and you can swim through the fuselage and into the cockpit. I got some good photos which will be online the next time that I get Internet access at

Today we're headed about 10 miles S from here to Hawksbill Cay which is supposed to be one of the prettiest cays in the Exumas.

-- Geoff & Sue

Log ID: 946