Month: January 2010

Jan 13-20th

We made our way out of Square Rock Cut and into the Sound.  It was very lumpy with swells out of the NE at about 4-5 ft.   We motor-sailed on down the last 14.5 miles to Georgetown Harbor and anchored off of Monument beach, next to the Obelisk with a huge Osprey nest on top.    We spent our first afternoon with Mike taking me around to show me Georgetown and so he could see what has and has not changed in 13 years.   We met up with our friends Lee and Charlie of Windstar 4 and had a drink with them.   Lee and Charlie are active in the community and Lee does the weather on the local VHF cruisers net in the mornings here in Georgetown.  We then walked over to Hamburger Beach and across a small trail to the beach on the sound side.  It is known to be a good shelling beach.   Georgetown has gone out of the way to establish itself as cruiser friendly and to encourage cruisers to visit and stay.   If offers numerous places to eat and drink as well as free garbage service and free water at the dingy dock in town.   We reprovisioned with fresh fruits and veggies at the local Exuma Market.   The community of locals and cruisers alike are very welcoming and eager to to answer any questions newcomers may have on Channel 68.  General announcements go out every morning on channel 72 with the local businesses advertising their specials to the cruisers.    A list of the current day’s activities and up and coming events are also announced.   If a cruiser needs something or has something they want to get rid of that is also listed on the net.    The day after we arrived, I attended a gathering of Artists who mostly work in watercolor and got to practice with them.  We found that we had mutual Florida friends with one of the ladies.   The Cruising community is very open and at the same time seems very small.   Mike attended a Fishing Seminar,   and in the afternoon we played volleyball on the beach and a round of Mexican Train Dominos.  There is usually something happening every day.  We have spent the last few days taking advantage of the many offerings.  We have been playing fun volleyball in the afternoons and enjoyed yoga on the beach on Saturday morning.  Mike bought me a Georgetown Regatta T-Shirt and was entered into a drawing and won a bottle of wine.  He also picked up some great baked goods from Mom’s Bakery.   We have enjoyed meeting the beautiful people of Georgetown and will  have one of the local ladies weave a palm frond mat for our galley.  We traveled over to Red Shanks leaving the bustle of  the anchorages across from Georgetown.  Our friends Lee and Charlie aboard Windstar 4 showed us an alternate route.   We spent some time snorkeling and fishing for dinner.   We are so excited to have Mom and Dad here with us this week and to share with them our new life.   I know they will have a great time.

Jan 11 – 12, 2010

We spent one more day waiting for the winds to diminish before leaving Lee Stocking.   We hiked with our newest friends Mirke and Jack over some of the trails on the Island and visited Perry’s Peak, the highest point in the Exumas at 123 ft.   We had dinner with Jack and Mirke on Jacks boat and bid them fair winds the next morning as they continued their journey north and we continued south.   We traveled down the inside route to a small anchorage called Square Rock.    There was only one other boat there and so it was very quiet and out of the currents and winds.   We spent the day exploring around some of the smaller Cays close to Square Rock with some beautiful sandy beaches and a great blowhole that shot a good 20 – 30 feet into the air.   Anyone who has visited Yellowstone will understand when I say it sound just like a geyser erupting.   A big rush of air and then water shoots up as waves from the Sound side of the Island are forced through the narrow openings under and through the limestone of the Cay.    We found lots of Whelks and considered collecting some to try and prepare for dinner.  Mike said he had seen them served in a fancy restaurant, but we opted instead to try our hand at fishing around the bay and coral head for some fish for dinner.  We had seen our neighbors Zeke and Jenny aboard s/v Whitebird, out in their dingy and kayak fishing for dinner and so we did the same.   Mike used his fancy Rod and reel and I rigged up a hand line.  We used some of the leftover lobster parts and some bacon as bait.   I caught the first fish,  a Nassau Grouper,  that I had to let go as they are out of season and protected.   We caught a variety of fish some edible, some not, and enjoyed our afternoon.  We kept 1 grunt and 3 porgies and had a fish fry for dinner.   As we were enjoying the sunset, when an announcement came over the VHF CH 16 that a 7.2 earthquake had just been reported.  We were not sure where but we continued to listen and even turned on the local radio station to discover that all of the Bahamas was under a Tsunami warning.   Mike dingied over to Whitebird and told Zeke and Jenny who were very grateful as they had not had their radio on.   We waited about an hour and never saw any change in wave or water height before the warning was lifted.  We finally found out the quake had happened near Port-a-prince in Haiti.  It is sad to think of the devastation that those folks are dealing with.  The country itself was already the poorest in the Northern Hemisphere.     It was later reported by the buoys that the Bahamas had indeed experienced a 13cm Tsunami from the Haiti quake.    We considered staying longer at Square Rock but wanted to get the rest of the way down to Georgetown to get acquainted with the town and the amenities it offered.    We will try to get back up and perhaps visit with Zeke and Jenny as they are also hunter-gatherers like us and based on the little exchange we had will probably have some great stories.

Jan 8- 10, 2010

We enjoyed a leisurely sail down to Lee Stocking Island and anchored by 10:00am next to a Caribbean Marine Research Station.  They have done extensive research on lobsters, grouper, and conch but have recently lost their funding and may be closing the facility.   I guess in a few years we’ll have more ruins to visit.  The weather upon our arrival and the next day can only be described as the calm before the storm.  It was beautiful and sunny with very little wind and we finally got up the nerve to get back in the water and do some hunting.   We ended up snorkeling outside of the entrance to Adderly Cut, which is marked by a large stone obelisk.  We learned that these markers were used to tell passing ships that salt was being produced and could be purchased for export.    We explored along the shoreline for about a ½ hour before we discovered, “The Spot”  a ledge of coral near shore where we found and speared 4 lobster each weighing appox. 4-5 lbs each.   We brought them back to the boat and enjoyed and wonderful lobster dinner and froze the rest for another meal.  Mike described today as STELLAR!    We went back out to the same spot the next day and found there were at least another 3 about the same size hiding under the same ledge.    Mike speared one and I attempted to spear one,  “I missed,  still learning the technique for breath control when diving and hunting”.    There were also some large snapper under the ledge as well.   Mike was getting ready to spear another lobster when we noticed we were not alone.   An eight foot nurse shark was circling us and taking a huge interest in us and our activities, which isn’t unusual as Nurse Sharks love lobster.   In fact there was about a 4 foot Nurse shark at one end of the ledge while we were hunting at the other end.   Normally they just sort of hang out quietly on the bottom waiting for an unwary lobster to grab and eat, this larger one however was very active and continued its pattern of circling us and came within about 6 feet of us a couple of times.    Although they are pretty docile as sharks go they can still bite and so we decided not to tempt fate and made our way cautiously back to the dingy.    We will have to be satisfied with the 5 lobsters we have taken from this spot for now and will remember it for a future hunt.   We invited our neighbors aboard the s/v Zeiggy to join us for cocktails and lobster dip.   We enjoyed our visit with Jack and Myrinka.  Jack is an engineer and a pilot and we enjoyed a geek bonding session where he showed me more of what I could do with my SSB Airmail program.   He also helped me understand what was happening with my compatibility issue as well as some of the speed issues with Airmail.  Myrinka is visiting Jack from Belgium on a 3 month sabbatical.  We helped them set a 2^nd anchor after we had done the same for ourselves in preparation for the coming storm.  By the evening the winds began to increase and we had a spattering of rain.   Today, the storm is moving over us and the winds have increased to 15 – 20 knots and the 1 ft swells out of the NW have DD dancing on her anchors.   We are spending the day inside reading and writing.   I am catching up with my recollections of the past few days events so that you all may travel along with us.

Jan 7, 2010

We made our way south again to Darby Cay.   There is ANOTHER cold front on its way to the Bahamas and so we are looking for a place to ride it out.    The spot Mike had scoped out as a small but well protected anchorage was already occupied by the s/v  Fussel  and its crew a German couple and their parrot Coco.   We made our way to the outer anchorage and dropped anchor for the evening.   We took the dink and went back over and chatted with one of the crew of Fussel and fed Coco.   She told us of some caves beyond the ruins on Darby Cay.   I must say here, that ruins is a relative term,  It can mean anything from an organized pile of rocks and coral to an older abandoned building that has been left to the elements.    The ruins of Darby fall in to the later category.  The cement buildings it is my understanding were built sometime in the 1930’s but have since been abandoned.  There is a large cement dock that rumor has it was used by the Germans in WWII to refuel their U-Boats.    We hiked along overgrown trails past a couple of small abandoned cement buildings and up to the main ruin, a large 2 story cement house painted a pale green.   It must have been really something in its day.   We walked through it and up to the second floor to take pictures off the balcony.    We then continued another ¼ mile through the island scrub and came upon the caves.  It looks as though they were once used as livestock pens, as there was an old rusted fence and a gate inside of the cave.   There were lots of bats in the alcoves and a couple of curious birds that came within a foot of us to check us out.    Mike commented that he wished he had a metal detector and I’m kicking myself for choosing to get him a camara instead of an Underwater Metal Detector for Christmas.  Oh well.   We made our way back to the boat, picked up the scissors and a comb and went back over to the cement dock where I gave Mike a haircut.     We enjoyed another beautiful sunset at Darby Cay and will try to make our way down to Lee Stocking Island in the morning to seek a more sheltered anchorage for the storm.

Jan 6, 2010

Mike and I made our way down to Staniel Cay.   We traveled into the Charted Anchorage but the Moorings were all in use.     We made our way back out to an anchorage listed in an old guidebook just south of Big Majors Spot.   The currents made the anchorage a little rolly but not too bad.   We took the dingy over to Staniel Cay.   They have built a wonderful protected little dingy beach.   We beached the dink and walked up the road to stretch our legs and check out the small town there.  The buildings and houses are all painted in wonderful bright colors and the sea wall has a big Welcome sign painted on it as well as portraits of some of the local people of the Island.  Mike was very impressed with the improvements in the last 13 years since he had been here.   We picked up a loaf of frozen white bread at the Pink Pearl Super Market for $5.50, ouch.  We did enjoy some wonderful conversation with the elderly Bahamian lady who owned the Super Market about the changes she has seen on the island and of course her children and grandchildren.   We were walking back to the dingy when we passed a bright yellow house.  The delicious aroma of fresh bread wafted through the air and we were delighted to read the sign out front, “Fresh Bahamian Bread”.   We knocked at the kitchen door and were met by and beautiful Bahamian woman in her 50’s.  We told her the smell had drawn us to her door and inquired as to what breads she had for sale.    She had Fresh Raisin Bread still cooling just out of the oven and we did not bat an eye at the $6.00 price.    We took our purchases back to the boat and enjoyed a snack of still warm raisin bread.   It is a welcome addition to our staples.

Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park

Jan 3rd – 5^th

We left Normans Pond and sailed south approx 13 miles down to Warderick Wells.  The weather has been very fickle on one hand and helpful on the other.  The northern cold fronts continue to give us good winds to sail but also blow quite hard at times and cause us to seek shelter to avoid being tossed around.   They have also brought cooler temps and make it difficult to talk ourselves into climbing into bathing suits to snorkel.   We caught and released a barracuda on the way down which was fun to reel in.   Warderick Wells is located in Exuma Land and Sea Park, a protected area that has been set up to create a place where fish and other wildlife can have a safe haven to replenish their populations.   The palette of blues and turquoise colors of the waters around Warderick Wells are incredible.    There is a narrow channel of deep water where the park has set up moorings for vessels visiting the park.  Because of the incoming storms the moorings filled up quickly.   We arrived on Sunday and after a hike around some of the islands trails, we were delighted to see a Pam and Graham Coffee of s/v Hot Latte-tudes and Sue and Paul of s/v Not a Clue.  They were part of the New Years Eve celebration at Normans Cay.   We all got together along with some new friends David and Trudy of s/v Persephone and had a great Happy Hour on the beach getting to know each other better.   We were joined by a rather pushy Thrasher that helped himself to our snacks and then some Hutia a native mammal that looks like a large brown guinea pig.     Pam and Graham are on Year 3 of cruising, and are heading to Cat Cay and other outlying islands.  They are also participating in a volunteer program that carries school supplies to the outer islands.  VERY COOL.   Paul, also and electrician and his wife Sue are enjoying the Bahamas for the winter.     David and Trudy we were delighted to discover have a similar story to ours,  rented the house, sold most of their belongings, packed their memories in a small storage area, and are off to sail around the Caribbean until the money runs out or they get tired of it.   No real plan as to where or when, same as us.   The next northern storm rolled through with cold winds on Monday and many of us were boat bound and so took advantage to catch up on e-mail and blogs.   Mike and I did take a brief hike up to Boo Boo Hill where numerous cruisers have left tokens to the ghosts of a schooner that was lost off of the island many moons ago.    We will return tomorrow to add our token to the pile to keep the spirits happy and on our side.  We also stopped by the ranger station and fed the bananaquits on our way back to the dingy.    On Tuesday morning, the winds had subsided a little and so Mike and I contacted David and Trudy and agreed to meet them on the beach to hike down to the ruins of a settlement left from the 1700’s.  We hiked through the island scrub forest and saw curly tailed lizards and Hutia.   Our little hike turned into 5 hours and culminated in our placing of our token with the others on Boo Boo Hill.   We made tentative plans with our new friends to meet up again for dinner but the winds increased again in the afternoon and since one of us would have to travel by dingy for the get together, we decided it would be best to postpone dinner to another night somewhere further down island on our trip.   Although the winds were not in our favor that evening they did  provided a fellow cruiser with the opportunity to entertain us with his amazing kite boarding abilities across the anchorage and around our boat and over our dingy at sunset.    Mike got some great shots with his new camera.   Mike and I will head out to Staniel Cay tomorrow morning and continue to work our way down to Georgetown where we will meet up with Crystals Mom and Dad on Jan 21^st.

Jan 1^st & 2^nd, 2010

The winds blew and the rain fell during the night but the morning dawned bright and beautiful.  It was still a little windy but nothing too bad, especially in the pond.   We took the dingy out to the reef and spent the morning hunting.   Mike found and speared his 1^st lobster of the trip.   Since we had been out so late the night before we spent the remainder of the day reading, resting, and then taking a walk in the afternoon.    Mike scared a small mammal on our hike but, I did not get a good look at it.  I will try to find out what mammals are on these islands.   Mike thinks it was probably a rat.    We had a great Surf and Turf dinner that evening.       The next morning we got out our bicycles and dingied over to Kingsley’s house again and rode the bikes down to MacDuffs.  We took the computer as they have the only internet access on the Island. (Unfortunately it was not working that day).    MacDuffs is located right next to the local Airstrip.   Mike suggested we ride to the end but halfway down we noticed a plane coming into land and had to move off to the side to get out of his way.   So much for Bahamian Airport Security, I kept waiting for a loudspeaker to blast, “Security is at a level Orange, please report any suspicious behavior or bicycles on the runway to Airport personnel immediately”     We hiked up to where the Columbian Drug Lords house used to be and left our name along with many other cruisers inscribed on what remains of the walls.   We had lunch at MacDuffs and exchanged a couple of books at their book exchange.  We also ran into Kingsley and his family again as they were preparing to fly back to their main home.  We got to thank them again and give them one of our cards to keep in touch, we hope to hear from them soon.   We rode back to the pond.  The tide was low again upon our return trip so Charlie and Rosie were called on again to take us to deeper water.    We are looking over the charts and will move south tomorrow to Exuma Park at Warderick Wells.  We won’t be doing any hunting there as it is a land and sea reserve but there should be some great snorkeling if the weather holds.   There is some great information at http://www.exumapark.info

Dec 31, 2009 – Jan 1, 2010

We cleaned up and took the dingy over to Kingsley’s house at 7:00pm.  There was no one at the house and initially we thought we might have gotten the description wrong.   We waited until almost 7:30 and then we began walking down the road. We ran into another gentleman who confirmed, we did have the right house, but Kingsley was at his in-laws house since he was renovating his.  He assured us he would be by soon as he needed to turn off all the lights.  Kingsley and his Wife, their children, His Sister and Brother-in-law and their children came barreling down the road and began apologizing profusely for being late.  We told them they had nothing to apologize for especially with that many people to get ready for the evening.   We hopped into the back of his truck along with a couple of the kids and headed up the road on what felt like Mr. Toads wild ride.  The roads are narrow and only partially paved in some areas, traveling in the dark on this unlit island road, after moving so slowly on the boat for so many days, it felt like we were traveling at amazing speed.   The food was terrific and the company even better.  We enjoyed a multitude of delicious island specialties and had a wonderful time meeting other cruisers and chatting with Locals and Cruisers alike.  We brought along a bottle of Champagne to toast the new year and shared it with our new friends.   2010 was rung in with Fireworks on the beach.  Kingsley and his family dropped us off at his house.   It was low tide and so we towed the dingy out across the shallows and rode back to DD under a beautiful full moon.  Mike kept his promise of a wonderful New Years.   A great time was had by all and even though we left along with our host family shortly after midnight, were heard tell of the party continuing into the early hours and of many of the party goers enjoying a skinny dip before retiring back to their boats and bungalows.

Dec 31, 2009

We consulted the charts and tide tables.  We weighed anchor at 7:30am and made our way against a strong tidal current powering through the 4-5 ft surf at the entrance to the cut and out into the channel.  We turned North toward the entrance to Norman’s Pond.   As we entered we visually scoured the entrance and surrounding area for 2 sets of steaks that were supposed to line up to show were the deepest part of the channel was.  We found one set but were having difficulty seeing the other set.  We traveled a little too wide of the channel and nearly ran aground. We finally spotted the second set of steaks and powered our way back into the channel and on into the Pond where it was calm.   We anchored and dropped our dingy into the water and decided we would go explore a  back route that was supposedly for dingies that ran from the pond to where we were first anchored without having to head out into the surf.    We thought we thought we would make our way over to the local hangout on Normans Cay called MacDuffs to see what they had planned for the evening.   Mike had promised me a fun New Years Eve since we spent most of Christmas crossing the Gulf Stream in rough seas.   We made our way along the dingy channel only to find that it was not deep enough even for dingies at low tide.  On our trek we began referring to each other as Charlie and Rosie as we had to play the parts of Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn in the African Queen.  We towed and drug the dingy across some of the shallower areas and sandbars.  We finally made our way around the point to where MacDuffs was located and found they were having a New Years Eve Buffet.   We made reservations(by giving them our boat name)  and then asked them if there was a way to get there by land as we did not want to make that dingy ride at night, (low tide was just after midnight and we didn’t think Charlie or Rosie would be in any condition to repeat our dingy trek) Kingsley, a local, who was sitting with us at the bar said he was coming back to MacDuffs this evening for the festivities.  He was renovating his house on the pond and would be happy to pick us up and give us a ride to MacDuffs.  He described to us which house was his and we agreed to meet him at 7:00pm.  Charlie and Rosie headed back across the sandbars and spent the afternoon resting up for the evening’s festivities.

Dec 30th

A Bright New Day.  We left Nassau with a Floatilla of about 10 other boats all leaving Nassau for various ports.   We caught NE winds at about 17-20kts and motorsailed 37 miles to Norman’s Cay.   The seas were spirited at 5-7 ft.  DD performed well again and we blew by a couple of other boats that left before us and were headed for the same location.   Mike also caught his first fish on the way to Norman’s.  Things are looking up.  We arrived at Norman’s and anchored near a wreck of an old plane on the S side of the Island.  It remains from the 1980’swhen the Columbians were running drugs and entertaining the Bahamian officials to keep their operation running smoothly.  Part of the plane was exposed above the water and Mike told me he windsurfed around the tail (which had since collapsed) last time he was here.
The waters were beautiful in various shades of turquoise blue.  We passed by what Mike referred to as Corona Island, a small sandbank with a single palm tree.    The current was strong but we set 2 anchors and settled in for the evening.   Mike had read about Norman’s pond a protected anchorage that he thought we should be able to access from the East if we enter at high tide.   We will try to make our way into the pond tomorrow as there is a strong cold front approaching on Friday evening and Saturday that may present winds at 25-35 kts, Rainstorms and seas up to 12 ft.