February 15-16, 2001 -- On To Black Point

We woke up this morning to relatively good winds for making a crossing to Great Guana Island and the settlement of Black Point. I chatted with Freddie from the Odd Man Out and he confirmed that he thought today would be a fine day for the crossing. So, while Mike started taking power down and removing unneeded lines, I headed up to the dock office to pay for our dockage and power. We pulled out of the dock at 1300 GMT (0800 EST). We made pretty good time to Great Guana, but missed catching the rising tide by about 15 minutes. With the wind blowing out of the East South East, it was blowing right into the mouth of Dotham cut. When the wind is blowing in the same direction as the current, the cuts are relatively easy, or at the very least easier! When the wind is blowing opposite the current, a short steep chop kicks up. The higher the wind climbs, the higher the chop! We were facing almost a three foot chop by the time we went through Dotham cut, and we had watched it form, literally! We made it through, and the chop smoothed down to nothing within 50 feet of passing through the cut. We motored around the Black Point settlement and anchored in the southern cove of Great Guana. Rick and Evelen on Annual Hope hailed us and then came by to visit. It was great seeing them again. We haven't seen them since November of 1999 while we were both in Beaufort. On February 16, I listened in on a conversation occurring between Providenza and Windom. Britt and Ilana were attempting to troubleshoot Providenza's problem with JV-Comm long distance while underway! After they finished, I called Providenza and attempted to troubleshoot the problem as well. We walked through several items, until I came to the conclusion that I would have to see the set up before we could continue further. They said that they were happy to move around to the where we were and would see us in the afternoon. We headed out to the island and wandered around for a bit. We climbed up to the top of the hill to the beach, and found we were looking out across the cliffs that we had seen while coming in. This is another place where words can not adequately state how intensely beautiful it truly was. Sandra, thankfully remembered to bring her camera so we were able to get a few pictures. We spent some time crawling on the rocks before setting off to find a different trail down to the beach. Actually, we started off trying to find a path to another set of hills, but couldn't. We then headed back to the boat. I called Providenza and let them know we were back aboard and they headed over. After they got their anchor down and settled, I headed over to their boat. It is a Brewer 46 sailboat, and a very nicely designed and laid out one at that. We worked on the weather fax for an hour or so, and finally after reinstalling the sound drivers and replacing the patch chord between their radio and the computer, it worked! Sharon told me that she would like to have us over for dinner, but they needed to head back to the other side of the island. Instead she sent me back to Nightwinds with a plate of home made cookies. They were delicious. We sat talking for a few minutes after we got the weather fax program working again and she mentioned that they would be heading to Georgetown in the morning. I told her that we might be interested in tagging along with a more experienced boat since we wanted to go to Georgetown as well. After I got back to Nightwinds, we discussed our options and decided to tag along. We let them know, then readied the boat to get underway. Instead of tying Spot to the cabin top, we deflated him since we knew we would be using Rover at Georgetown.