Day 3

For some reason, waking up early on the boat seemed very natural. We were up well before 7:00am most days. It was nice to make some coffee and just take in the warm air and scenery. My younger son and I went for an early morning paddle board in The Bight and it was one of my favorite moments from the trip.

My husband and I decided that our destination for the day would be Cooper Island. It would be a nice but quick sail that would get us to Cooper in time to not only grab a mooring, but have a nice full afternoon of downtime as well.

Thanks to this forum, I was absolutely paranoid about getting to Cooper in time for a mooring. The Bight, with 80 moorings, was full the night we were there. Cooper, with only 30, was bound to be a disaster. We left fairly early and started our sail towards Cooper. The many of you who have sailed this route before will know that the channel fills up with sailboats. In my mind, every sail boat in the channel was heading towards Cooper! I try not to stress on vacation but I will admit I was worried about this. We pulled into Cooper just before 11:00 as some other boats were leaving for the day. We grabbed a mooring no problem. Phew! However, my husband kept a keen eye on the anchorage to see how quickly it would fill up. On the one hand, he relies on my research and planning for vacations. On the other hand, I think he wanted to gauge the validity of my paranoia. We were both gratified then to see every last open mooring ball taken up by noon on the day we were there. So I will send another Thank You out to this forum for helping me look like a vacation planning Rock Star!

We went ashore to have lunch and pay for our mooring. After a nice lunch, we took the dinghy over to snorkel at Cistern point which was wonderful. We had a lazy afternoon after that and then back ashore for dinner, coincidentally at the same table we sat at for lunch. Then our usual routine - back to the boat for a night cap before bed. DH had purchased a cigar at the Rhum Bar which he enjoyed during the night cap.

And so ended Day 3.