Wednesday 13th December

Galliot Cay Cut

23 55.55 N
76 17.80 W

We paid the bill and checked out of the Marina at 10.00hrs, intending to take a slow leisurely sail to our next destination – a staging point where we would anchor for the night before setting off for Georgetown. Once we cleared the shoals which surround Staniel Cay we found that the wind was on our beam – perfect we could turn the noisy engine off and shake out the sails! We put up the main – with the first reefing point in, followed by the jib – also reefed, turned off the engine and we were flying along at 6.5knots. This lasted for a couple of hours then we hit a dead spot, the wind died and it began to spit with rain. A beautiful rainbow appeared over one of the Cays that we were passing – guess the pots of gold could well be hidden there! We furled the sails away, started the engine and motored the rest of the way to Galliot. Arriving there we found ourselves the only ones there – we had the choice of best places to anchor. Once we’d dropped our anchor we watched for a while to make sure we weren’t dragging and whilst we did this 2 more sail boats joined us. The first was no fun, he dropped his anchor and it set immediately, the second one had 3 attempts before setting his anchor and even then we wondered about it as his boat pointed in an entirely different direction to the two of us that were his audience! He must have been OK as he was still in the same spot in the morning. It howled with wind all night – must have been the stuff we were missing all the way down.