Sailing Ohana

It was time to head south. The time came sooner than we had hoped, but we had such a good weather window that it made sense. We had promised ourselves that we would leave as soon as a window came up, or if the weather didn’t cooperate, we would start gradually working our way down, via island-hopping.

We timed our departure from Emerald Bay so that we would go through the shallow Hog Cay Cut close to high tide and during daylight. We anchored after the cut in some relatively shallow water, where we had planned to spend the night. However, it was so rolly and unpleasant that we decided to put the boys to bed and keep moving. Our goal was to do some spearfishing and snorkeling on our way down the Jumentos and either head to the out islands from there, or do a huge crossing to the Dominican Republic or Puerto Rico.

The water was rough and rolly around the snorkeling spots, but we identified 3 blue holes and stopped at them to have a look. No fish or lobster were caught but it was really neat to see these holes in the ocean.

Our last stop was Jamaica Cay which is uninhabited and rugged. There are abandoned ruins of a resort that was under construction, but not even close to completion. We walked around and found fish carcasses that were washed up on the beach, probably from local fishermen’s boats. The sharks were patrolling constantly, looking for those tasty fish parts.

Little did we know this would be our last time on solid ground for several days….