We managed to hoist the dinghy onboard and secure it in its chocks, raise anchor, and set off eastward under reefed main and working jib. We were low on fuel after the motorsail across the Stream and I wasn't sure we could get any at Chubb Cay, so we battled to windward, tack after tack, with sails trimmed flat and spray flying.
         Ten hours later we had covered ten miles and, in disgust, I called a time-out and dropped the hook in two fathoms of gin-clear water. Now this was bizarre! We could see starfish on the bottom and watch our anchor chain stretch out ahead of us, and yet we were out of sight of land. I sipped a cold beer in the cockpit, marvelling at this phenomenon, while Carol lurched around the galley, throwing together a sandwich for dinner as best she could in the wild see-sawing.
         We made up the bed on the cabin sole to minimize the motion and slept remarkably snugly, in spoon-like embrace. I woke once to check the anchor and was astonished to see another sailing boat pounding by, only yards abeam. Before climbing back into my cozy nest, I flipped on the masthead light and swore to myself that I would never again fail to show a light at night, no-matter how unlikely I considered the encounter of another vessel.
         In the morning it was still blowing hard on the nose so, despite the fuel shortage, we motored, calculating consumption with the precision of a flight engineer.
         Once past Northwest Channel Light we freed off, (to close hauled at least) and made it to Chubb Cay under sail. As we came off the bank at Northwest Channel Light, the water depth instantly went from two fathoms to bottomless as if we had leapt off a cliff. Magic. We anchored off the beach to the 35-pound CQR and the big Danforth, both laid from the bow about 45 degrees apart because it was still blowing like hell, and a crude stone breakwater lay to leeward.
         A big power boat, Solid Gold, was anchored between us and the beach, and she started to drag toward the breakwater. With our dinghy on deck we were powerless to help in any physical way so I got on the radio and called the harbormaster. By coincidence, Solid Gold's skipper was in the harbormaster's office when I called, and soon he was roaring to the rescue in his Boston Whaler.
         The crew were down below, apparently unaware of their predicament, but they sprang into action as the skipper beat on the hull and shouted at the top of his voice. The engines burst into life, and the crisis was over. They weren't quite as lucky next day, though. We heard on the radio that they had lost their Whaler while trying to make Nassau in a gale. The tow rope had parted, and they couldn't turn round in the big swell.
         There is a marina at Chubb Cay at which we intended to stop only for fuel and water but, in a moment of weakness, perhaps the result of lack of sleep and a gale warning on Nassau Radio, we decided to splash out on a slip for the night. I didn't know it at the time but it would be another eight months before Adriana would once again lie to a dock. For now, though, we designated December 21, 1991, the "Night of the Long Sleep." We slept twelve hours solid and woke to find that the wind had "sat down" somewhat, and we could look forward to a gentle cruise to the bright lights of Nassau.
         We worked on our all-over tans as Adriana rolled through the leftover swell, her big genoa and full main providing stately progress in the light breeze. Nassau was on the horizon and, although we were enjoying the wonderful silence, I knew we would have to motor to be in by nightfall. Night sailing in the Bahamas is not for the faint-of-heart. The only thing reliable about the navigation marks is that they're unreliable. Even going into a major port like Nassau is best done in daylight, and the drone of the engine was a small price to pay for not ending this adventure on a reef off New Providence.

Nassau

Nassau was all hustle and bustle, and the noise and smells assaulted our senses after the isolation of the cays and atolls of the Great Bahama Bank. We left the dinghy among several others at the Bahamas Air Sea Rescue dock and strolled into the town. Cruise ship passengers jammed the tourist shops and added to the colorful melee of the famous Straw Market.
         We sat in the well-manicured grounds of the British Colonial Hotel and wrote postcards while sipping tea from dainty china cups. How terribly British. Carol dropped the postcards into a red pillar box, another reminder of home, and we set off to explore the town. We walked past the impressive Government House, climbed the sixty-six steps of Queens Staircase to Fort Fincastle and the water tower, the highest points on the island, and strolled back down the hill to Parliament Square with its lovely pink colonnaded buildings. We browsed through the shops, but there wasn't anything crying out to be bought, at least not on our cruising budget. Even the cheap booze wasn't a temptation at this point in the journey, but had I known that beer was $35 a case in George Town, I might well have viewed a few crates as an investment. A little foot sore and weary, we retrieved the trusty tender and headed back to Adriana.
         She looked splendid in her new canvas and gleaming topsides, straining at her anchor as the tide whipped through the harbor, and I felt really proud of her. That night we were serenaded by raucous pop music coming from the direction of Paradise Island and its fun palaces, but Michael Jackson and Madonna were no match for the soporific combination of weary bones, sea air and Adriana's gentle rolling. We were asleep before our heads hit the pillow.

The Exumas It was late afternoon on Christmas Eve, 1991, and we were aground on a sand bank at Allen's Cay in the Exumas. We'd had a sparkling sail from Nassau, close hauled as usual, in a steady fifteen-knot breeze. The sky was cloudless, the fuel and water tanks were full and the beer was cold; we were in fine spirits.