We spend a full day in Calabash Bay and rowed ashore to hike up to Columbus Monument. It was a bit of a row, and a long hike, but a nice easy one on a wide road with very little traffic. Beautiful views up at the Monument as well. Aria considered it more of a death march, but I think she eventually got over it.

That evening we went into the resort for drinks and dinner, and met up with a few of the cruisers at the anchorage. Some we've met before, and a few new ones. I kind of wish we had some more time there as Calabash Bay is quite beautiful, and I would have liked to do some dingy sailing too... But winds were looking good the next day, and so we planned to get up early and head out for a long sail back to the Exumas.

The next morning the winds were as predicted, and we were able to sail off anchor and pick our way out through the reef back into Exuma Sound for a long run downwind. Winds were great and we spent the entire day scooting downwind, and down waves. As is typical the wind was directly behind us which required some gybing to keep a reasonable angle, but it all went pretty well.

We got a bit nervous about where and when we were going to make it. The timing wasn't too bad for the tides, but it was near the end of the day and daylight was running out. We decided to tuck into Rudder Cut as that was about as far north as we could make it before dark, and we had been there before so it was nice and familiar and we knew what to expect. Sure enough the cut was nice and calm and we were even able to sail in, and on top of that it was an easy place to anchor at dusk. Much busier than last time we were here, but the anchorage is very large and lots of room to anchor.

This ended working out perfectly as our friends that were heading south in the Exumas had planned to be at Rudder Cut the next day. So we were able to just stay put and meet up with them here.

It was a full day, a 60NM sail, and so we had some dinner and it was a nice early bedtime for everyone today.