When Chris speaks, cruisers listen. January 7, 2013

Chris Parker operates a weather forecasting service and he is the respected name in wind forecasting for the Bahamas and the Caribbean. For a fee, you can subscribe to his service and he will send you daily emails with the forecast you are interested in. If you pay the fee, you also can call him on the single side-band radio, tell him your location and intended destination and he will tell you what winds and waves to expect. He also give a Bahamas forecast each morning (Monday through Saturday) on the short-wave at 6:30, that is free to anyone who gets up to listen. We don't subscribe to the service, but Dan gets up every morning (even on Sundays, because he forgets Chris doesn't broadcast on Sundays) and drinks his coffee and listens to Chris on the radio he got for Christmas from daughter Hayley and son-in-law Dan2.

For several days Chris has been predicting docile (for the Bahamas) winds for a couple of days, followed by "strong ESE winds, to last for three days." For us and others in the area, this meant finding a place to hole up with good protection from the ESE.




We left our dock at Spanish Wells on January 5th after some reprovisoning and went a short distance to a place called Settlement Bluff.




We did not go to shore, but Dan did some spearing fishing and practiced driving the dinghy, Bahama style. No fish were speared.

The next morning it was a great day for sailing and we headed down the sound to to Current Settlement. We found a nice spot to anchor and walked from the beach into the settlement. It was Sunday afternoon and the little town was closed up tight. It seemed like a ghost town.

After a rolly night at anchor we headed through Current Cut. We thought we had timed it to coincide with slack tide and light current, but we were a little early and the water was flowing against us at about four knots. To top it off, a boat ahead of us turned too early in the narrow channel, went aground and was now sideways in our path. He got unstuck from the sandbar before we got to him, so there was no trouble, but it meant for a few hairy moments.


We trolled on our way to our anchorage and caught this fish. We couldn't identify it, so we threw it back. Does anyone know what it is?






After clearing the cut we sailed across the shallow waters of the banks to a spot called the Glass Window. On one side of this narrow strip of land is the aqua blue water of the banks and on the other side is the deep, cobalt blue water of the Atlantic. The contrast is amazing.








We anchored about a mile from the Glass Window and then took the dinghy back and walked over the bridge. This bridge replaced a natural rock arch which was taken out in a hurricane.






Now we are anchored behind this rock wall, waiting for the strong winds that Chris Parker has been predicting.


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Location:Eleuthera Island, Bahamas