The Many Adventures of Stray Cat: Eleuthera Part III, The Glass Window April 14

Why oh why don't more boats make this easy stop--for a few hours or a night?! It has a whole page and write up in the Explorer Charts book but I suppose once folks get to the top part of the Island, they are eager to get over to Spanish Wells. We had decided to skip Hatchet Bay Pond/Alice Town and Gregory Town but at least got a good look at them and the cliffs as we went past. We arrived at an anchorage near the Glass Window and tucked in to try to keep the waves and wind at a minimum. It was a nice little place to stop.

Anchorage view

For those who may not know about it, here is the gist: This is the narrowest part of the island (the shape of the island itself is a wonder) with the ocean on one side and the bank on the other. With no reef in that area to stop it, the ocean has been battering it for...well, a long time. That's what made the original natural bridge but also eventually destroyed it due to storms in the 40's. Fast forward to current times and man made bridges that were themselves destroyed by Hurricanes in the 90's. At one point the north and south portions of the island had no viable land connection. Today there is a new bridge but you can see the remnants of both nature's and man's bridged that fell. Nature is so fickle...it first creates this amazing arch then decides she doesn't want it anymore and destroys it...using the same forces. Humans are so very very small, aren't we?

Look back towards where we anchored

Clear water, luckily because there was a lot of man made and natural bridge debris in the water

Looks normal enough we thought

Whoa...

A vision of the past

Blue and calm waters on the Bank side

Then we saw the ocean side, such power and violence

Nature takes what nature wants...no she didn't want Mark. I said if either Jon or I had gone down that close, he would have been pretty upset with us. Uh huh, he got wet yes.

Seeing both sides was a treat and a gift

Mark and I also snorkeled around the boat and for a spot that seemed basically void of much, there was a lot to see down there. Small coral formations, plants, sea anemones, and a mystery discovery. At first I thought it was a piece of plastic that got stuck on a plant or maybe a styrofoam cup of some kind. On closer inspection, Mark discovered it was some type of casing. We sent photos to my sister who told us it was an egg casing of a type of whelk and sounds like we were pretty lucky to see one in the natural! See, lesson learned over and over on this trip: it's always worth it to get in the water and see what may be there...every time--just do it. The entire stop was a lesson in 'the road less traveled'.

Sorry for the reflection...I cannot find Mark's original photo but this is a good shot of the casing.

The next morning we were up for sunrise departure and timing our arrival at the narrow Current Cut that would lead us from the inside of the northern hook the island through to the northwest side and up to St. Georges Cay, AKA Spanish Wells. There is a reason it is called Current Cut and you can probably guess what that is...you have to time your passage based on direction and tidal current. You simply cannot go through it on the wrong tide--that would be very bad. Our timing was very good and Mark got us through the shallow areas leading to the "channel". It was a hell of a ride going through it and I have video but that doesn't even do it justice. We shot through at 10.3 knots and it spit us out the other side. Crazy, nerve wracking, fun and nice to be safely on the other side. From there, north to Spanish Wells...