Rose Island

Hi everyone,

We spent five nights at Rose Island, two on the north side and three on the south.  It's a very relaxing place - most of the time.  We moved from the north to the south after a thunderstorm came through and the wind turned northerly.

Rose Island Dawn

The anchorage on the N side is really very nice.  It's a N facing bay partially protected by coral reefs on its N and NE sides.  The reefs are obvious and the bottom is good deep sand.  The snorkelling is good, although we didn't get to see the best spot on the NE reef.

Thunderstorm approaching

A thunderstorm came through on our second evening in the anchorage.  It blew up to 20G30 from W then N.  Overnight the wind settled in the N and by dawn an unpleasant sea was penetrating the anchorage.  So we weighed anchor (still heavy) and motored around to the S side anchorage at West Bottom Harbour.

Rose Island North to Rose Island South

The approach to West Bottom Harbour is fairly shallow with bombies so we approached carefully.  We anchored in a nice sand patch and the anchor dug straight in.

View of anchorage from W

View of anchorage from E

Each day we dinghied around the anchorage and E into the shallow part of the harbour.  It's knee deep at low tide and we discovered turtles, rays, a big barracuda and a baby shark.  We dived on the boat to keep the hull clean a couple of times.  It was a bit weird standing on the bottom while scrubbing the keel.

Spot the barracuda

Turtle

Ray!

Ray

Sunset over Rose Island

After three nights in West Bottom Harbour the wind was going back around into the S.  So we motor-sailed the 5nm to Nassau's Eastern Channel where we anchored.  There was a thunderstorm over New Providence at the time which created a dramatic back-drop.  Happily it only rained after we'd anchored.

Rose Island to Nassau Eastern Channel

Heading towards Nassau

Entering the Eastern Channel

Anchored on S side of channel

The anchorage on the S side of the Eastern Channel (just W of the Nassau Yacht Club) is about 5m deep over muddy sand.  It was good holding for us despite the current running to and fro in the channel.

We'd had a great time at Rose Island.  But it was time to go into a marina in Nassau and do our final preparations for a trip to the US Embassy.

Trust all's well where you are!