Abaco to Eleuthera

On the 30th we had a one day weather window to go south, but the catch was we had to traverse the Man-O-War channel with wind and waves angled straight into it. On departure we had to dislodge an old submerged power cable from the anchor that was left from Dorian. This was a finesse maneuver that required placing the anchor back on the seabed a gently moving forward perpendicular to it otherwise it would be dive time in the cold water! Large breaking waves on the surrounding reefs did not look promising as we approached the channel. At slack tide the situation looked good and we made our break out to the Atlantic. Once in the Atlantic we turned toward our destination of Eleuthera, about 100 nautical miles due south. The sail was a fast and fun beam reach occasionally hitting speeds of 10 knots or more. We made good time and by nightfall had reached the shallow waters of the Eleuthera banks. We slowly felt our way under a bright moon to our anchorage of Current Island. The island is named for a narrow cut that all boats use to get to Eleuthera’s west side. Today we went through the cut (again at slack water) because we have read the current can reach 10 knots when tide is flowing. There is a huge front arriving Monday and Tuesday so we have taken refuge on the south side of Current Island for now since all the harbors on the west side of Eleuthera are very exposed to the wind and waves with the exception of small Hatchet Bay Harbour which looks to be full of boats.