Saturday 8th November – Day Seven
Left Abraham’s bay at 3 AM as planned. The forecast southeast wind came from the south, obliging us to motor almost all the way from Mayaguana to the north point of Great Inagua which we believe is Columbus’s saometio/Isabela.
In passing Little Inagua we noted a reef on its north side, a very rocky shore on its northwest side, a beachy shore studded with beautiful coral heads on its southwest side, and rocky shallows to its south. Five miles of open water separate little Inagua from the north extension of Great Inagua from which a tongue of rocky shallows extends to the north.
We motored along the northeast edge of Ocean Bight and noted several good anchorages for an east wind which Columbus experienced on 19 October when he sailed across this bight, and again when he anchored by its northeast coast on the night of 20,21 and 22 October. We can confirm that Ocean Bight from Inagua’s North Cape to Polacca Point is about twenty miles long, and another twelve miles brings us opposite Sheep Cay off Alfred Sound, or twelve leagues as Columbus recorded. Thence another eight miles to the open roadstead of Northwest Point.
We anchored in Alfred Sound, a shallow harbour perfect for a catamaran, protected from the south wind and the swell of the sea, just around the point where we believe Columbus anchored after a wind change from north to east.