Long Island Adventures and Baby Boomers On Board

 

These events took place in March 2019

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A little background here:

I was always a goody-goody kid. Followed the rules, saved my money, did my homework, didn’t call off work unless I was sick. I get it from my parents. They are, in general, extremely responsible adults.

So their reaction was no surprise, in 2015, when I told them we’d done something irresponsible like make an offer on a boat.  I had sent a picture of it first, so they knew how big and how theoretically expensive it was. Their reaction was, “Well, for your sake, I hope your offer isn’t accepted!” and “You know the best two days of a boat owner’s life are the day the buy it and the day they sell it!” That probably sounds worse in writing than it did over the phone – they were nice about it; they just were very obviously shocked and concerned.

Given that initial reaction, you might imagine my hesitation to tell them that Paul wasn’t joking that time my dad asked him why we bought a bought, and he responded with “to go to the Bahamas, and maybe through the Caribbean and the Panama canal.” We’d picked a departure date less than a year away, and I hadn’t told my parents yet.

“You HAVE to tell them,” Paul demanded one weekend as I headed over to my parents’ house to watch the Steelers game.

Time was running out before the game began. 20 minutes to go. “I have something to tell you,” I blurted out.

My mom had so many worries instantly spring up after I told them we’d be leaving for the Bahamas in 10 or so months that she had to walk out of the room, either to calm herself down to keep from hearing any more about it. My older brother researched the trip and how many people do it every year to show my mom this was something a lot of people do very safely, but I’m not sure how much that helped.

A year and a half later, after we’d proven we could get to the Bahamas and back with boat and body all intact, my dad started talking about coming to visit, and even sleeping on the boat a few nights. “Stay on the boat…??” my mom uttered, eyes wide.

I didn’t know if the visit was really going to work out, so when my parents booked the plane tickets from the US to Long Island, I was THRILLED (like multiple-occasions-of-spontaneous-tears-of-joy-muttering-“I’m just so excited”-type of thrilled).

We had to be strategic about their visit though. This being a totally new experience for them (they’d been on board for a ride only once, for less than an hour, under motor), combined with the fact that we wouldn’t be staying at marinas (i.e. no showers!), we weren’t sure how much they’d want to stay on the boat. This meant finding an island with an anchorage easily accessible to hotels or vacation homes, and not much island hopping, since we couldn’t guarantee that the weather would allow us to sail to their reservation on time. Not to mention, on some of these remote islands, your accommodations (assuming  you want “American standards”) can easily cost you $200-400 a night, (and of course there are always places to spend more). And without a fast boat to take us island hopping, how much would my parents get to see?

When we decided to head Long Island, we recognized this might be the perfect opportunity for my parents to join. It was the turnaround point, so we’d be taking them to places we’d already researched. Plus these were bigger islands with multiple towns so we’d have plenty to explore even though we wouldn’t be moving the boat a lot. With about 40 miles between Long Island and Exuma, they were guaranteed a “real” sailing experience, but it would be shallow enough to see the bottom most of the way, so it didn’t seem so intimidating.

When we got to Long Island, we had a week until my parents arrived, so we set off around the island to find things to do and places to stay.

Drinkin’ at Tiny’s

Thompson Bay is a sweet location. There is a secluded beach bar (with accommodations) called Tiny’s on the north side of the bay, and one family owns several businesses along the water and has built a public dock on their property, which leads you right to a grocery store, bar, and car rental ($60 or 70 a day for car rental, in cash, but when you rent the second time and they trust you, you get the option to pay upon return! I thought this was funny.) You need the car as the mile is 80 miles long with a paved “highway” but otherwise a lot of crappy roads. It’s best to have the car for at least 2 days so you can spend one day to the north and another day to the south. My parents were appreciative of us researching places to stay ahead of time, since some of the coolest sounding ones would have involved driving down the pothole-riddled dirt road 20 minutes each way every day.

My advice for Long Island is head to Santa Maria resort first (during happy hour for the free conch fritters). The manager at the restaurant there (Canadian guy) is full of tips for exploring some off-the-charts places on the island, and we didn’t get to hit all of them because we didn’t chat with him early enough!

Santa Maria’s happy hour

We did have fun exploring, both by land and by water. In addition to checking out Thompson Bay and Dean’s Blue Hole (see previous blog post), we did a lot of driving around the island. We hung out in the waves of the Love Pools.

Floating in Love Pools

 

Waves crash at Love Pools

We snorkeled the Coral Gardens – an area that, had it not been hit by Hurricane Joaquin (2015), would’ve had some of the most impressive coral structures we’d seen. Unfortunately it showed almost no signs of recovery and Paul said it was the most depressing snorkeling he’d ever done.

I went to morning yoga, hosted by some of the American home-owners, but I regretted it as the no-see-ums were vicious (this is why we live on a boat, far away from the land-lubber bugs!)

We tried to get to the Columbus statue, but they are building a development in that area and the road was all torn out. We tried to walk the rest of the way but it was near sunset and the malicious mosquitoes sent us sprinting back to the car.

I can’t believe believe we didn’t get the car stuck
Running to Columbus. If we’re fast enough, maybe the mosquitoes won’t catch us!

We spent a day watching kids sailing dinghy races and stayed through lunch and dinner, buying  many hamburgers and hotdogs at their fundraiser (real ground beef – what a treat!).

(I don’t remember if we’d mentioned before, but at this point in time, Paul was under the impression that he wasn’t going to get work assignments for the upcoming summer. This news had been a gray cloud following him around, but when we were in Long Island, he got a call that their was potential work in Poland. Spoiler alert: Poland didn’t pan out but work in the US did. I mention this because, since I’m writing this 2 years later, the Poland call seems to be the catalyst for something else Paul has been scheming up! More to come on that in a future post.)

Finally the day came when my parents were to arrive! That afternoon we stood outside the tiny airport and watched them land in a surprisingly not-so-small plane.

After they checked into their AirBnB, we took them to Thompson Bay Club – it was a great introduction to your typical Bahamaian restaurant. Semi run down building, where we ordered food at the bar, on a tiny slip of paper where you circled the meal you wanted (Ok, maybe it was unusual to have a menu – often they just ask “chicken, fish or conch?”). Then we sat in a little dining room in the back, full of ex-pats who rotate restaurants based on the happy hour specials. Overall, we were pleased with most of our dishes.

Fortunately, my parents seem to be a magnet for good food. After eating so many mediocre, overpriced meals, we found a lot of good or great meals with my parents around:

Chez Pierre, a French restaurant, which also has beach front cottages which you can rent at a pretty reasonable price considering the food is included (if you like a no frills vacation).

The deck at Chez Pierre
Did we mention Chez Pierre has fill-your-own drinks?

The marina in Clarence Town, lobster pizza and happy hour at Santa Marina, Tiny’s the beach bar that also has adorable cottages;

Clarence Town Marina
Well fed and happy

more drinks at Tiny’s!

…and even back at Georgetown, at Peace and Plenty, Blu, and Splash. (The only place we failed them was cracked [fried] conch, which was chewy and not tender when they got it.)

We had a beach day at Dean’s Blue Hole, where we found out my dad’s mustache is not suitable for mask wearing and snorkeling.

Kathy and Kerry so happy to be at the beach!
Kathy at Dean’s Blue Hole, just steps away from 663 feet of pure deepness.

We saw beautiful churches and sharks in Clarence Town.

 

We went shopping at Judee’s Creations, which is part unique craft shop and part museum, showing the ‘old way of life’ with artifacts she kept from her family. Judee is the sweetest lady so we bought some teas and souvenirs.

Judee's Gifts and Souvenirs
Judee’s Gifts and Souvenirs
The museum at Judee’s

We hiked to  the Shrimp Hole, which is quite literally a hole in the rock full of tiny red shrimp.

The trail to shrimp hole starts at the old church

Kerry at shrimp hole
A crab eating a shrimp from the shrimp hole

One of the highlights of Long Island was the Hamilton Cave tour, with Leonard Cartwright as our guide. The cave has been in his family since 1849. He grew up playing hide and seek in the caves, and he has hunkered down in them, with many other people from the community, for protection during hurricanes. There are crabs living in the caves and it was fun to spot them in the holes.

Hamilton Cave
I realize this is blurry but it gives perspective
A resident of Hamilton Cave

The true highlight of the cave tour was after my mom commented that one rock formation looked like “a fat lady’s bottom,” Leonard exclaimed “Oh, we’ve got a fun group today!” He then gave us the inside scoop on the formations that he and his friends identified when they were kids, including “big willy” and “small willy!”

One of the willies!

The original plan for departing Long Island was to get my parents on the boat the day before setting sail, so they’d have a night to get settled in. However, we checked the forecast, and if we wanted to sail, we had to leave that day since there was no wind predicted for the next several days. Thankfully, the owner at Tiny’s was nice enough to allow us use to their wonderful dinghy dock to load up my parents and their luggage (since there were no cottage guests that morning). Otherwise it would have been a struggle on the steep ladder of the public dock. The morning was overcast and the water had a bit of a chop, so the short dinghy ride was a bit of an adventure and my dad said it made him feel like he was a contestant on the show Survivor!

Lindsey pulling up the anchor. She appreciated her parents acknowledging her newfound muscles!
A fellow boat heading from Long Island to the Exumas

We had good wind and started sailing straight out of Thompson Bay. Like every time we have guests on the boat, a dolphin darted past the boat to say hello. We talked on the radio with another boat of retired biologists that I’d previously befriended on facebook since they were fellow scuba divers. My mom was shaking with nervousness at the start of the trip, but when the waves picked up, I just smiled and she relaxed. Soon enough, she was doing better than me as I felt a twinge of sea sickness, but my mom was happily chatting in the cockpit with Paul and my dad was climbing up on the bow.

Look at those capable sailors!
Kerry loving every minute of the sail
Kathy getting into the sailing spirit
Kerry having his Titanic moment

After about 4.5 hours of decent sailing, the rain came in and pushed the winds out. We started up the motor and my parents went down below for a nap. Our chartplotter was mounted on a swinging arm  inside the boat, and when underway, we’d swing it out to the cockpit through the companionway. Paul had built a hatchboard with a window in it so we could close everything but still see the chartplotter, but we hadn’t needed to use it (or at least not since the cold days on the Chesapeake). On this day we put the window board into place and closed up the hatch to keep the rain from dripping down inside the boat. We laughed about how we’re normally smart enough not to travel on days like this!

George Town – ho!
That fun moment where you’re trying to prevent the sail from dropping in the water.

After a few more hours, the rain started to clear and as the sun was setting, we made our way into the George Town anchorage to begin part 2 of my parents’ adventure.

The end of the road, southern Long Island

Way Down We Go…

These events took place in March 2019.

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We were off to George Town on Great Exuma. We weren’t sure if we were going to love or hate George Town. It’s a famous cruiser gathering spot – with up to 300 boats during regatta time. We purposely planned our arrival for after regatta and felt pretty good about that decision after our friends described the social drama as “70 year olds acting like they are still in high school.” But other friends told us that they never got bored when they spent several weeks there last year, so we were trying to keep an open mind.

It was a decent day for sailing, with some swell but at an angle that wasn’t too bothersome. We would have sailed nearly the whole way, except we’d put in a bad coordinate and already had the sail down by the time we realized we had at least another hour until the inlet. Having already tidied the lines and sail bags, we were too lazy to raise sails again.

Approaching all the boats in the harbour felt as overwhelming as walking up to New York City after a month alone in the woods. Immediately we saw boats we knew – Cohort, One-O-Six, Holiday, Sklibadnir, other boats from our marina in Florida, and boats we recognized from Instagram.

Elizabeth Harbour – the most boats we’ve anchored with since…. ever.
Adastra (aka the spaceship), the most unusual boat in the harbour

Most boats hang out closer to Stocking Island, across the harbor from George Town. Hungry for dinner, we went ashore on Stocking. Despite the presence of 1000 people on boats and multiple boutique hotels and restaurants, there is nothing open for dinner on a Thursday night.  So back into the dinghy we went and over to town. We found Eddie’s. Even though we said over and over how we were sick of fried Bahamian food, this place made us like it again with tasty fried seafood, huge portions, good prices, and working A/C in the dining room.

Georgetown at sunset
Church in Georgetown
Abandoned resort at Georgetown

Our time in George Town was filled with the usual tasks of any visit to a population center (population: 1500 + boaters) – grocery shopping, water fillups (free here, unlike other places), Paul’s haircut, laundry.

Throw your trash in the back, throw disposal fee money in the front window
Doc the bartender at Peace & Plenty – he’s worked there for decades

But we soon discovered something very special here to occupy our time: the blue holes. Mystery Cave is a popular snorkeling spot in Stocking Island’s protected mooring hole. But I saw on the charts that there was a second blue hole (underwater sink hole or cave) marked near the mooring balls. We went for a snorkel to assess the caves for possible scuba diving. Mystery Cave was full of fish due to tourists feeding them but the entrance to the other hole, Angelfish Blue Hole, was about 30-40 feet underwater and didn’t look like much while we were snorkeling. This was going to be our first time getting the scuba gear out this year, and I was a bit nervous about having our first dive be in the overhead environment of Mystery Cave. Angelfish, on the other hand, went nearly straight down. This seemed like a safer “warm up” so I talked Paul into starting there. I did my research on the holes – to dive them, you must go on a falling tide when the current is flowing out of the hole and not sucking you in. We picked a time to check them out the next day.

Arriving at Angelfish, we saw the local dive boat offloading people into the water. That was great confirmation that my research on the safe time to dive was accurate! We anchored the dinghy, strapped on our gear, and plunged into the water. We followed the dive group down and Paul moved ahead of the pack. I, however, came to a near stop at 60 feet down. The cave narrowed a bit here and the force of the outflowing water seemed stronger. My BCD (the inflatable diving vest) wasn’t strapped tightly enough to me and the flow of water rushed in between my back and the vest, pulling me backwards. I pinned myself to a rock on the side and signaled to Paul that I was having trouble descending and we headed back up. I adjusted the straps, but having already used some of our air, we decide not to head back down the blue hole. Instead we headed over to the Mystery Cave entrance and used up our air hanging out with all the fish at only about 12 feet under water.

at the Mystery Cave entrance

The next day we tried the blue hole again. We had it to ourselves this time, and without a bunch of extra people to scare off the animals, the wildlife show was amazing. As we decended to the entrance, about 30 feet under the surface, eagle rays swam by and continued to make laps, so we could watch their sillouettes pass overhead as we sat at the bottom.  As we entered the hole, we spooked a school of jacks. They emerged from the darkness below, but circled the blue hole for the rest of our dive. Eagle rays, shmeagle rays…”The jacks stole the show!” Paul declared. At 90+ feet we reached the bottom, where the biggest angelfish we’ve ever seen dodged in and out of the tunnel entrances – tunnels that go who knows how far before opening to the ocean. Humongous lobsters peeked out from behind rocks at 60 ft.  It was really one of the best dives we’ve ever done. We posted the video a while back, but if you haven’t seen it, check it out:  https://pelagicexplorers.com/2019/03/06/blue-hole-diving/

Paul, eagle ray, jacks  and other fish swimming over Angelfish hole
Lindsey at bottom of Angelfish hole – the cave continues through a tunnel behind her

The day after that we dove Mystery Cave, this time going into the cave – it’s wide inside but as you descend you can only see the glow of light from the entrance, making it a bit creepy. There is not much to see inside the cave since the fish like to hang outside where people feed them. Of note, cave diving is a specialty and we  do not encourage it without appropriate training!

Mystery Cave

We loved Angelfish so much we dove it again and again. We took friends a few times. We hadn’t got as much diving in as we hoped in the Bahamas since most of the areas we hang out are shallow enough for snorkeling, and the deeper areas are usually a little more remote than what we feel comfortable diving with just 2 people in a little inflatable dinghy without much horsepower. But between Angelfish and the next dive we had planned, lugging along the dive gear and compressor was completely worth it.

Happy Angelfish blue hole divers

There are more caves to explored in this area too, particularly near Crab Cay.  We used this map. https://sites.google.com/site/minnswatersports/maps  The Crevasse near the bridge is pretty large and diveable, but the water there is not the clearest. We snorkeled the opening, and I didn’t much appreciate that the barracuda there kept getting closer when I turned my back (they are always creepily curious, but usually back off more quickly than this one did). We intended to go back for a dive but never made it. The caves along Crab Cay are small openings with outflowing water. They are somewhat difficult to find, but attract a surprising amount of fish. One of them had a puffer that kept making me laugh – he’d burst out of the cave like, “Hello, world!”, catch sight of us, panic and dash back inside.

Do you see the shrimp?

This area also has buoys to mark many of the top snorkeling spots. We spotted our first Hawksbill turtle on one of these reefs! https://elizabethharbourpartnership.org/community/interactive-snorkeling-buoy-map/

When we were above water, we checked out the too-competitive-for-us volleyball at Chat’n’Chill, joined fellow cruisers for the “rake’n’scrape” music and dancing at Eddie’s (well, Paul doesn’t dance, but everyone else did), hosted some dinners, attended some dinners, crashed a French Canadian bonfire, and went to the Bahamian music festival, where I finally got to see a Junkanoo parade!

Chat n Chill Beach
volleyball at Chat n Chill
Dancing at Eddie’s
Junkanoo Parade at the Heritage Music Festival

One of the goals for this year had been to go to somewhere truly remote – perhaps Andros, the Raggeds, or an island in the middle of the tongue of the ocean – basically to go somewhere only our boat could take us. Cohort was heading to the Raggeds, so I teamed up with them to put a lot of pressure on Paul to join them.  This season he had started to worry more about something happening to the boat while we were far for help. Every noise or puff of smoke from our engine – which had given us no problems after the work we put into it back in the Chesapeake Bay – left him paranoid for days. But we finally had him convinced to do the trip, as long as there were no west winds expected. But then 40 knots of west wind popped into the forecast. Over several days, I begged him to wait for a forecast that actually was close enough to our travel dates to be worth a damn. At over a week out, there was no use in even looking at the weather.

Unfortunately, the forecasters couldn’t seem to decide if the weather was going to be completely benign or really awful. The worst of the forecasts said:

“developing meso-scale cyclone (a small, regionally-sized developing area of low pressure)…and may support wind potentially from any direction (though the prevailing wind direction should be N-E, there may be intervals of wind from any direction)…at speeds averaging 20-40k, but with at least 50k in T-strms associated with each IMPULSE. In addition, expect waterspouts especially near each IMPULSE, as surface winds are NE-ENE / winds above the surface veer S / winds aloft are strong and WSW…so there’s a lot of vertical wind speed and direction shear.)”

A storm rolls over Stocking Island

Without any certainty in the forecast, we decided to head to Long Island, where Thompson Bay offered protection from most directions, including the west. Cohort would be continuing on to Turks & Caicos from the Raggeds so we said goodbye over the radio as we both headed out of Elizabeth Harbour.

We were motoring straight into the wind. We didn’t put up sails as our boat doesn’t point (sail into the wind) well. When the wind picked up and we slowed to under 2 knots, Paul started to get upset – he hates going slow and started to challenge me, “Do you think this is fun?!” I said yes, because the speed, or lack thereof, really doesn’t bother me. But we decided to put up a sail to see if it would help, even going into the wind, and wouldn’t you know, we were suddenly going 6 knots! That’ll teach us to doubt our sailboat’s ability to sail!

We sailed past White Cay, where one of the Pirates of the Carribean movies filmed a scene. Dolphins checked out the boat. With our new found speed, we could see Long Island in the distance as the sun went down. As we entered the anchorage, the woman who owns the Fair Haven house on the hill radioed us to welcome us to the bay. We heard the music from the Mutton Festival, reminding me I had wanted to get here in time for the festival but we had missed it, oh well!

We knew Long Island would be our furthest point south. What was the big draw here? Dean’s Blue Hole, one of the deepest blue holes in the world at 663 ft.

The blue hole is on the opposite side of the island, so we needed a car. Long Island is 80 miles long, so we rented the car for a couple days so we could go exploring. From Thompson Bay, you can get to very sturdy dinghy dock, a well-stocked grocery, the car rental place, the farmers market, the mechanic, Tiny’s Hurricane Hole Beach Bar, another bar in town, the gas station, and even some explorable caves. But there is so much more on this island, so the $60/day-cash-only car rental is worth it.

Dean’s Blue Hole

Given the hassle of hauling our scuba gear across the island, we thought we’d rent a 2nd set of tanks so we could dive the blue hole twice without having to return to our boat for air refills. Google listed a dive shop near our anchorage, but we found out it had closed years ago. This meant the closest place to rent dive gear was Stella Maris resort – 40 minutes north of our boat, while Dean’s Blue Hole was 40 minutes south of the boat! Once again, we felt very glad to have our own gear and compressor so we could make this dive happen!

Feeling good before diving Dean’s Blue Hole

The funny thing was, we ended up not needing that 2nd tank at all. Originally we discussed diving to 110 ft – which would be record for us. Then we decided on 100 ft. The plan was to head straight to our planned depth and slowly make our way back up. Paul was going to stay above me by a few feet to film my descent. Well, let me tell you: diving head first into a 663 feet  black hole for the first time is intimidating. (“It’s all in your mind!” an experienced friend told us. “But it’s hard when your mind is with you on the dive!” Paul retorted.) I slowed my breathing and swam on.

The visibility here supposedly can be great, but when you have a bunch of little kids swimming around, kicking loads of sand everywhere, that tends not to be the case.

About 30 feet under, Paul descending into Dean’s Blue Hole

We knew that the hole would widen at 70 feet from around 100-ft-diameter to over 300-ft-diameter. As I hit the 50 foot mark, I saw the scales shimmering on the backs of tarpon who were gliding out from their hiding spot under that 70-foot-ledge.  I tried to think about how cool the video of me swimming with tarpon would be, but I wasn’t really expecting creatures to pop out from under the ledge like that. Tarpon aren’t any sort of threat, though they freak some people out since they can get up to 8 feet long. These ones were only around 3-5 ft.

Paul’s mind was going similar places. We had heard larger animals like tarpon and sharks are sometimes spotted in Dean’s, but given that the top of the hole is surrounded by cliffs and shallow beach, we figured that was quite rare and were not expecting it. He started to think, if there are tarpon under that ledge, what else could be there? Normally seeing a shark on a dive is no big deal, but being in an enclosed space with one? We weren’t quite ready for that.

Bang-bang-bang. Paul was whacking his knife against his tank to get my attention. He signaled for me to come up. I ascended from around 60 feet and we rested on a ledge back at 50. I hadn’t realized how much my heart was pounding and was glad to sit and rest. We spent the rest of the dive circling near the surface. The fish and coral are only in the first 30 feet anyway. Plus we had fun pretending to “fall in” and “climb out” of the hole.

Around 50 feet down in Dean’s Blue Hole

 

Once we were back on the surface, in 2 feet of crystal clear water and white sand, I said to Paul, “Honestly…. I don’t need to dive that again.” Paul felt the same way – glad to have done it but okay with never doing it again!

Long Island, like much of the Bahamas, is full of caves and blue holes, so weren’t done exploring. There are several marked in Thompson Bay, so we would go on dinghy rides to explore and spearfish among the holes and rocks. The water here is often cloudy, but we still managed to find a couple of the holes, hiding some big snappers and a giant stingray. Around some of the rocks we’d see grouper and nurse sharks. A barge wreck marked on the charts was surprisingly interesting and full of fish.

Clinging crab

My favorite part was playing with the dolphins! As we headed back to Miss Fe after a day of exploring the bay, we saw a small pod of dolphins surface, and we went after them in the dinghy, hoping to swim with them.  We pulled out in front of them, they darted straight for us, and Paul hopped into the water as fast as he could with his mask. He surfaced – “It’s too cloudy. I can’t see shit!” Back into the dinghy he leapt, and after the dolphins we chased. They were definitely in a playful mood, teasing us by alternating who was chasing whom, and sometimes riding our wake. I giggled hysterically while we and dolphins circled each other for several minutes, but they wouldn’t slow down let us join them for a swim!

This was just a little of Long Island’s magic.

Thompson Bay, Long Island
You think you’re far from home, but then the US Coast Guard flies over your boat
The road to Dean’s Blue Hole
Sunset at Thompson Bay, Long Island

Everything We Thought Sailing Would Be

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When we first took off for the Abacos last season, we had some pretty idealized expectations about the color of water (blue), the number of anchorages teeming with friendly young people (many), the weather (warm and perfect), and how many fish we would catch (lots).

We were so positive, in fact, that we took off with hardly any chicken in the fridge, convinced we would be damn near pescatarians with all our inevitable fishing success. (Ok, so maybe this had more to do with the fact that we provisioned at Walmart at 10pm the night before we left the dock and they were out of chicken breasts…. but nevertheless, we were confident in our fishing skills.)

In many ways our expectations were met, but other things weren’t quite up to par – the grassy anchorages were tinted green, not every boat invited us over for a party (and they were always going the opposite way!), lots of storms rolled through week to week, and we were looking pretty sad on the fishing front.

We headed to the Bahamas this year with more realistic expectations. This time we were prepared for cooler temps and rainy days with a metal detector -a new land activity for restless Lindsey so Paul could watch movies on the boat. Yet again, we found ourselves caught by surprise.

It turns out the Exumas are what we were seeing in our sailing dreams! While we are still pretty convinced that the Abacos as a whole are our favorite, our time in the Exumas seemed to be embody what we thought sailing really would be.

I mean, just look at this place:

We had better luck meeting lots of people this year too. Part of this was from storing our boat at Indiantown: Lots of the people we met there were in the Bahamas, and we got to meet up with several them or at a minimum keep up with each others’ experiences through Facebook. In addition to this, it just seemed like there were more young cruisers this year. (FYI, “young” is anyone younger than typical retirement age, but “old” is a mindset and has nothing to do with physical age). We wondered if the Exuma island chain is a more popular destination, but our friends told us even they saw far fewer young people in the Exumas last year. Between YouTube-inspired sailors and those figuring out ways to work remotely (or retire early or temporarily), it appears our numbers are increasing.

I’m sure it helped that we were going the typical cruiser route at the typical cruiser time – lots of boats were heading south to make it to George Town on Great Exuma (the island where Fyre Festival was held, or not held!) in time for the Regatta. We repeatedly found the same anchorages as Holiday and their buddy boat Elixer, finally getting to spend some time with them in Georgetown. We met up with One-O-Six in Nassau, Black Point, Farmers and Georgetown – they are documenting their journey on a YouTube channel How Not To Sail a Boat.  Our friends on Mariposa left George Town just before we got there, but luckily we still crossed paths and shared an anchorage for a night. There were a lot of other boats we didn’t get to meet but chatted with on Instagram as they always seemed to be close by.

We also met a Wisconsin couple who had flown into the Bahamas for vacation. It was fun to bring them out to the boat for dinner on a windy day. They got the “real” experience of wearing foul weather gear and getting splashed in the dinghy!

The loneliness we sometimes felt last year definitely wasn’t there this year!

Cohort at Galliot Cay

And of course, the best part, we got to meet up with Cohort several times. We didn’t exactly “buddy boat” (you’ll never catch Paul doing something with a name like that), but we’d meet up for a few days here and there as we moved down the island chain. They showed us a shrimp-filled cave we had no clue existed; we had many sunset cocktails; we discovered fish are scared of laser pointers (don’t ask); we swam & hiked; we got our first lobsters!

Stefan teaching Lindsey to wake board

Conch – legal sized adult shells have a large flared lip

Speaking of fishing, we did better with that too. Although the Exumas don’t have the large barrier reefs like the Abacos, we had enough luck on the banks to have a few seafood feasts. Triggerfish, conch, lobster, squid – we had quite the variety!

Fish, crab, lobster – Miss Fe and Cohort clean up!!
Squid – our night fishing surprise! Super cool critters and a very sustainable fishery
Squid = calamari pasta

The weather was, for the most part, incredible. Unlike the Abacos’ weekly thunderstorms, we had  mostly blue skies, and when the wind did come in, no storms accompanied it. The sunset on Valentine’s Day was the most incredible we’d ever seen.

Valentine’s View from Ty’s Sunset Grill

We had nights of pure calm where we’d turn on the deck lights to illuminate the water and go night swimming in our very own “swimming pool.”

There was one night when the wind shifted to the north but the waves came from the west, which meant that our normally still-as-can-be boat rocked back and forth all night. We could have moved next to Little Farmers Cay for western protection, but we’re pretty stubborn at 10:00 pm… and midnight… and 2:00 am…. so we suffered through it, stuffing our separate berths with pillows to prevent our bodies from rolling. But that night was definitely the exception. I can tell you that the cloudy day metal detector never got used.

Farmers Cay Yacht Club
Exploring a wreck

We enjoyed many new experiences in this part of the island chain.

We met J.R. the woodcarver on Little Farmers Cay. I think you can tell from the pictures that I was pretty excited to find some art I really liked. He gave us a tour of his property,  its many edible plants and fruits, and his small carving shop. Has been a woodcarver for over 50 years and has traveled all over the world doing promotions for the Bahamas Ministry of Tourism. He uses no electric tools and said a carving like the one I bought takes him 3-4 hours.

We cruised by lots of celebrity-owned private islands. Musha and Rudder Cays are owned by David Copperfield. We swam to the sunken mermaid statue. I had lots of great photo ideas, but the current was ripping when we got there, so these are the best we got! Of note, my free diving has greatly improved. Last year I could barely get 5 feet under water, but I’m up to at least 15 now!

David Copperfield’s Musha Cay

This area seemed to have some of the clearest, bluest water in all of the Bahamas. As we took the dinghy from Rudder Cay to Darby Island, looking down upon the coral, stingrays, and grass was like looking through glass.

View of fish from above water

Our reason for going to Darby was to scope out its “Nazi” history – according to folklore, the island’s former owner was a Nazi sympathizer who signaled to U-boats and carved out places for them to hide. We had to go see this “U-boat trench.” This is also where we would have the most dangerous moment of our trip.

We had grand plans of a lovely sunset hike on the island, but we immediately noticed the horrendous and aggressive swarms of mosquitoes and no-see-ums when we tied our dinghy alongside the concrete dock. We dove into the water, but we knew this would be a quick swim since the bugs were following us, waiting to attack as soon as we surfaced!

Eagle ray in the U-boat trench

It was easy to see why it’s suspected that U-boats parked here. The dock has underwater stairs and this narrow waterway between two islands suddenly plunges very deep and does appear to be man-made.  A stingray was buried on the bottom and an eagle ray glided by us.

Paul swam to the other side of the trench and then headed back towards the dock. Just as he reached the dock, we heard a noise, but we couldn’t see where it was coming from. Suddenly, from around the corner, two large, speeding powerboats carrying the models and photographers from a photoshoot on Rudder Cay blasted by us. I shot my hand up to make sure they saw us, which they did, but they didn’t slow down. We prepared to swim over their huge wakes and watched our dinghy bash into shore. When looking at the map for this area, it looked very shallow beyond the trench, so I didn’t expect boat traffic.  If I had known, we would have left the dinghy in the channel to warn boats we were there. We were a little shaken up from the fact that 30 seconds earlier, Paul would have been swimming right in the path of these boats, so we hopped back into the dinghy and zoomed away from the swarms of bugs back to the safety of Miss Fe.

 

Lee Stocking was one of our favorite stops even though Paul, fisheries biologist at heart, found it sad to see the closed down buildings of what was one of the nicest marine research facilities he’d ever seen. The caretakers said we could roam around, and the place was beautiful. There is a hike across the old airstrip and along the edge of the cliff to the highest point in the Exumas. It felt great to really stretch our legs!

Walking the Lee Stocking airstrip

Paul mourning the loss of these aquaculture ponds

Nearby on Normans Pond Cay is a cave with an entrance that is like a deep blue swimming pool and Leaf Cay is home to many pink iguanas – I thought maybe the iguanas were a joke until I saw them!

Norman’s Pond cave entrance

We had our first experience with someone anchoring way too close to us, and it was in a spot where the uneven current ensured the boats would not swing in sync. When it was undeniable that our boats were drifting closer together, we asked them to move since they had arrived after us. First the guy denied that there was a problem, but then he agreed with me that the current was not moving our boats the same way – yet he promptly disappeared back inside his boat after acknowledging the problem! We decided to be “the bigger person” and moved a half mile away where we had 6 white sand beaches all to ourselves.

Real-life objects are closer than they appear
A cool rock near our solitary anchorage

We worked swimming into our daily routine. Last year there were a lot of no-rinse baths when the evenings got chilly, but this year, come 5:00 pm we’d dinghy over to a beach, soap up, wash our hair, swim and talk until our feet were prunes, and then head back to the boat for an on-deck solar shower fresh water rinse. Is it weird that this was one of our favorite things of boat life?

And of course, we saw lots of cool aquatic creatures:

Anybody know what this is?
First live king’s helmet conch we ever saw

Just look at those adorable eyes
Cool black and white fish
Octopus!!

Can you spot the skate (or ray of some sort) and sea cucumber?

All of this added up made me realize that the trip had really started to meet more of our original expectations. I’m not saying it was perfect. Cooking and cleaning in a small space takes way too much time. We spend too much time sitting with movies and shows on the computer. I shed like a dog washing my hair in salt water (though my hair became awesomely wavy and not frizzy). We can never agree on a consistent bedtime. Sometimes, I’d wish for a normal bed with a nightstand. Or a normal flushing toilet. (Check out our friends’ the Litzenbergers’ podcast on boredom on boats for a reality check.) But overall, the Exumas lived up to the “paradise” we thought they might be.

 

Big Changes Ahead: Boat For Sale

As some of you may have noticed, our boat is now listed for sale on this website. While we often half joke that our plans are written in the sand at low tide this is not an easy decision and something we have been considering all season.

We’ve gotten a lot of questions about deciding to sell: Are you bored? Is sailing the islands not fun? Have you run out of money? Are you done traveling? Are you buying a bigger boat?

The answer to all of these is “no!”

So why are we selling Miss Fe? Mainly, we’ve reached our goal! Our original plan was to make it to the Bahamas and spend 2-3 seasons cruising here to figure out if we wanted to sail off to more distant shores. Mission completed! Turns out we love cruising but aren’t really into long passages offshore nor do we want to keep spending winter after winter in the Bahamas – Not that this is a bad option, but the world is a big place and we want to see a whole lot more of it! We’ve been incredibly inspired by all the people we have met on this adventure. Its really opened our minds to other modes of travel and we are excited to begin a new chapter in our adventure. We didn’t come this far to only come this far. The adventure will continue so stay tuned to see where we go!

If you are interested in purchasing Miss Fe check our our listing and make an offer. If your not interested but still would like to help us out please share the listing with as many people as possible.

P.S. We still have a few more posts and a lot more pictures coming from our time in the Bahamas!

Being the Ultimate Exumas Tourists

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One of the nice things about having guests is that it forces us to get up and do things. When you have no schedule, even in paradise, it’s easy to be lured into late breakfast and lazy afternoons. With Wes joining us for the trip to the Exumas (home of the famous swimming pigs and many other hungry animals), we were ready to be fully engaged in tourist mode! You have to be as there is just SO MUCH TO SEE in this part of the Bahamas.
Wes arrived on Sunday Funday – luckily his flight arrived in the afternoon so we had a good excuse not to accept our marina neighbors’ invitation to start drinking at 9am! Despite getting up in the wee hours of the morning to start his journey from PA to the Bahamas, Wes was ready to hit the town upon arrival.
Cheers from Pirate Republic Brewery
We walked to Potters Cay (near the Paradise Island bridge) for some local grub, including cracked conch burgers and Sky Juice that was much tastier than what we’d had before, and then headed to the cruise ship tourist area. Here we ran into our marina neighbors (a dive boat crew) and some of their friends. We headed into Pirate Republic Brewing. We had told Wes he could stay as long as he wanted and he planned for 1 week.  By the time we left the brewery, Wes was telling people that he would be staying 2 weeks – that didn’t take long!
After leaving the brewery, we met up with Stefan and Catherine who we’d not seen since waving goodbye north of Fort Lauderdale. It was so great to meet up with them! We wandered around town a bit and Paul made all the non-vegetarians try the conch fritter dogs.
The next day Paul and Wes headed off to their cigar rolling class at Graycliff Cigar Company. They received private instruction to make and keep 3 cigars. The cost of the class about the same price as buying 3 cigars. They thought it was a lot of fun and highly recommend it! Catherine and I tried the Bahama Barrels winery across the street – it’s $5 for 6 huge samples. We chatted with the winemaker, who was very honest with us: “Please tell me you don’t want to talk about the swimming pigs!” We thought it was funny though that when we asked for things to do in Nassau other than eat, her recommendation was the fish fry – which is a group of restaurants. Oh well, we tried.
Enjoying the fruits of their labor at Graycliff Cigars
Dinner that night was at a Japanese restaurant that is tasty but SSSSLLLLLOOOOWWWWW. Despite being the big city, Nassau seems to represent “Island Time” more than anywhere else. Tip: if you are traveling in the Bahamas expect service to be horrifically slow! Nobody likes it but its not going to change just because you showed up, so sit back and relax. The views usually make up for it.
The next day we departed for the Exumas, excited to get back into the middle of nowhere. We were surrounded by rain clouds all day but never got wet. A couple dolphins swam by the boat to welcome Wes. Over 40 miles later, we anchored on the south side of Normans Cay and were treated to a moonless night with amazing stars.
Calm day for motoring to the Exumas
Squalls over the Yellow Bank – somehow we didn’t get wet
Like much of the Bahamas, Normans was an area well used in  the drug trade just a few decades ago. Some drug dealers crashed a plane here, and it makes for a surprisingly good snorkel spot. Much of the plane in tact and tons of fish swim through it and under its wings.
Airplane at Normans Cay
The plane is full of friendly fish!
We entered the Exuma Cays Land and Sea National Park and anchored at Shroud Cay. The Park is a no-take zone – no fishing, no collecting, etc. – so it’s full of wildlife. Shroud has creeks that are fun to explore by dinghy. We spotted a sting ray and multiple turtles, who would swim quickly away when they heard our motor.
The Park charges an anchoring fee, so Paul and Wes went to find the dropbox for the money. Strangely, it was perched on the side of a rocky hill but they shimmied up to it and gave our payment and made it back to the boat around sunset. The boat rolled side to side while I was cooking dinner as the bow was pointing into the NE winds but the swell was coming from the west, but this luckily calmed down for the rest of the night.
Shroud Cay sunset
The next day we sailed (Real sailing! Not motor sailing!) to Warderick Wells. It’s hard to admit this, but we find so few days where wind, waves, and route all combine to allow us to sail in the actual direction of our destination at a speed that wouldn’t benefit from some motor intervention. (Admittedly, our skills of sail trimming are not great and we are heading into persistent easterly trade winds.) And I don’t mind sailing for the sake of sailing, but adding time or distance to a trip just to avoid turning on the motor drives Paul up a wall. But anyways, with that fact admitted, we were pretty excited to show Wes a good day of sailing!
Sails up en route to Warderick Wells
Look ma, no motor!
We spent several days at Warderick, where the Park headquarters are located. It’s an interesting island – supposedly once lush with vegetation, it was logged and never fully recovered. We hiked for the views from Boo Boo Hill, spotted the native mammal called the hutia, walked by the ruins of walls and houses from the late 18th century, and snorkeled near Emerald Rock. We saw groupers, snapper, lobsters, lionfish and some types of rays we’d never seen before. After dark, the bioluminecence made the water sparkle when we splashed.
View from Boo Boo Hill – ocean to the right, mooring field on the left
Boat signs at Boo Boo Hill
Wes enjoying the wildlife
We took the dinghy to an area near the south of the island called Pirates Liar. The current was rushing out of there with such force that it took all of the power our dinghy had to make it in! Once inside, we were greeted by a variety of pretty blues, as the area between islands ranged in depth. There was a snorkel spot marked on a map provided by the park. There we found a small section of coral housing fish, 2 nurse sharks, and a sea turtle. We swam up current and then would drift back to the anchored dinghy, but it was hard work!  We decided to head up-current with the dinghy and drift down with Paul either riding in the dinghy or holding on it to it as he swam.
Warderick Wells Emerald Rock
Look closely – so many fish!
Nassau grouper center, part of a lion fish top left
Paul dropped Wes and I to snorkel over the stromatolites. According to Wikipedia, “Stromatolites are layered bio-chemical accretionary structures formed in shallow water by the trapping, binding and cementation of sedimentary grains by biofilms (microbial mats) of microorganisms, especially cyanobacteria.” In other words, they are living rocks. They are one of the oldest lifeforms on earth and were once thought to be extinct. To our untrained eyes, they looked like… gray rocks. But hey, we can say we saw them!
Back at our boat, we had the two largest remoras I had ever seen hanging out on our hull. These are the fish with the suction-cup-like heads that catch a ride on sharks, turtles and whales. Soon they had a friend – a nurse shark we named Javier. I was way too amused by putting the knockoff GoPro on my new selfie stick and sticking it under water to capture video of our tenants. The remoras, greedy buggers that they are, even tried to eat the camera.
Javier the nurse shark
Remoras under the boat
What I look like when I’m hanging off the side of the boat taking pictures of sharks
We had a rainy boat day involving crepes and movies, but when it cleared up late afternoon, we headed for the Park’s BYOB “happy hour,” which was mostly a group of boaters standing in the water trying not to get eaten alive by sand flies and no-see-ums. Strangely, almost everyone there was pre-retirement age but not necessarily new to sailing. There was a couple who were on their 18th season of sailing down here whose kids are only 9 and 11 years old! There were women named Sue, Susan, and Suzanne – so I stood next to woman named Lindy and we formed out own competing club. Lindy and her husband Zach have a website and YouTube channel documenting their journeys – www.funonholiday.com if you want to check it out.
Sunset while snorkeling
We exited the National Park, having barely seen all it has to offer. Our next stop was Compass Cay. You might recognize this place from the “Instagram model bitten by shark” headline that got some publicity last year. The Compass Cay Marina is best known for their “pet” nurse sharks – wild sharks that gather here since they feed them from the docks. I’ll tell you a secret: there are lots of places with fish cleaning stations that attract sharks that don’t charge you $10 per person to hang out. But this place is so well known that we had to do it.
Compass Cay nurse sharks
Apparently its been a while since Compass Cay served food at their restaurant
Sure enough, there were some people, who I’m sure call themselves Instagram models, that arrived around the same time we did. Their guide chummed the water while they tried to take the perfect picture. This is how people get bit though – the sharks have bad vision, and if you’re floating on your back, eyes closed, with your arms spread while someone throws shark food around you, your hands can look a lot like a piece of cut bait. Nurse sharks have no interest in a human snack, but I recommend keeping your hands to yourself and in fact I think I heard the tour guide telling people to ball their fists.
Paul patiently trying to stay out of this girl’s photos while she does what you shouldn’t do
Eventually, we made our way into the water, at first without snorkels and masks, and honestly it is a bit freaky without the mask to help you see them clearly! We had about 12 sharks swimming around us. We pet them – their skin feels like sand paper. We snorkeled under their docks  – it’s a surprisingly good snorkel spot with lots of coral, fish (including a big puffer), and sea turtles. Plus, during this swim Paul and Wes more than made up for the entrance fee by finding a boat hook, a Patagonia tshirt that fits me, and a really luxurious Turkish cotton towel!
Wes and I were much more hesitant while entering the water
Paul with his new turkish towel and apparently about to stomp a shark
We chatted with the recent high school grad that worked there. He said about 5 people live full time here. I would be surprised if they had much company since the marina and villas are very expensive: villas are $3000-4000/week and docking is $4/foot/night. For our boat, that would be $144 for a parking spot! And that’s before you add $50-160/day for electric and $0.50/gal for water! And 12% tax! I’m sure you can guess that the only boats we saw parked there are the same ones that can afford the Turkish cotton made-in-Turkey towels without having to untangle them from a piece of coral!
We did scope out the beach on the other side of the island, and it was one of my favorite beaches ever. A curved bay with white sand, clear water,  and a large rock protecting you from any big waves. Just gorgeous.
Compass Cay – maybe my favorite beach

Paul and Wes went out spearfishing that evening, but only popped a few invasive lionfish and brought back only 1 fish that will probaby end up being used as bait. As I watched the sunset while waiting on their return, I thought I saw a bright light as the sun dipped below the horizon. Was that the elusive green flash? I wondered. I’m still not convinced that I saw it when I was the only one on board to witness it!
Originally we planned for Staniel Cay to be Wes’s departure point. Wes was hoping for a real shower before getting on the plane. We thought we could accomplish this at the Yacht Club, but when I asked if they offered day passes for the facilities, she said, “What facilities?” Paul had told me some of the big yacht marinas didn’t have bathrooms since all the yachts have their own, but I was still surprised!
Staniel Cay
We made quick work of the tourist attractions in this area and moved on. We swam Thunderball Grotto, which is named for the James Bond movie that was filmed there. It was better than expected! The cave is full of fish, cool swim-throughs, neon sponges and even bats. Outside the cave we saw rays, trumpet fish, aquatic worms and coral. The current picks up frighteningly quickly there though, so I was glad to be wearing my fins.
Thunderball Grotto above water
Thunderball Grotto under water
Coral outside Thunderball Grotto
Stingray on the move
We checked out the original swimming pigs. We thought about skipping it after seeing Abaco’s pigs last year, but we decided we just had to see the famous ones since we were anchored only a couple hundred yards away. I was glad we did! Unlike the Abaco pigs, these ones really DO swim, and I laughed my ass off as Paul tried to back away from them into deeper water and they just kept paddling after him. I also saw them try to climb into someone’s boat. These pigs do have a reputation for biting people, so we were careful not to turn our backs. They did seem to understand that open hands means “no food.” The piglets were of course adorable.
He knows what pigs like
The original swimming pigs
Cutie patootie
We headed to the town of Black Point, which is often described as the “authentic Bahamanian experience” compared to touristy Staniel Cay. With a population of around 400, it has multiple restaurants, shops, and businesses that attract boaters.
Black Point anchorage
The people here are some of nicest we’ve met (OK, let’s be real. All over the Bahamas, people tend to be extremely friendly and helpful). For example, at Scorpio’s, home of the 2-for-1 (very strong) rum punch happy hour, I asked if they had conch salad. She said no, but when I asked if anybody else had it because Wes was leaving soon and hadn’t tried it, she sprung into action. She yelled to some guys outside to see if they had any. Nope. She disappeared out of the restaurant, headed down the street somewhere, and returned a few minutes later with information that we should try near the laundromat after 5:30. I ran down to see if anyone was selling conch around that time. Not seeing anybody, I asked two guys sitting on the wall near the gambling center, and one of them pulled out his phone, dialed a number, and let me speak with the local conch source, who told me his wife should have some the next day. We never did get the conch salad, but I appreciated the whole town trying to make it happen for Wes!
No conch salad but plenty of conch fritters…
… and Kaliks
We had a huge lobster dinner at Dashamon’s one night and awesome BBQ at Lorraine’s Cafe another night. We had wings several places – the plain fried wings are so good! We ordered coconut bread from Lorraine’s mom by knocking on her front door. Her house always smells delicious!
Lorraine’s mom’s coconut bread

We hiked to the blow hole and to a beach with a cool sandstone cave.

Black Point’s blow hole

We like beaches best when you can avoid the sun!

We wandered around town and saw tiny planes come in right over the rooftops for landing.

 

 

We found a new restaurant with a sunset view. And most importantly, we showered! The laundromat offers 8 minute showers for $4. Worth it!

 

Rockside Laundry – best laundry ever – they have showers!
Wes had morning flight out, so Paul dinghied him to the laundromat dock at 7:00 so he could walk to the airport from there. I bet you’ve never gotten to the airport by boat and on foot, have you? Thanks for visiting, Wes. It was awesome having you aboard!
When Paul returned to the boat and woke me up, he asked what I wanted to do that day. I reflected on all we had done in the past 2 weeks before replying, “Nothing! Absolutely nothing!”
That sunshine sure wears you out!

The Forgotten Island: Great Harbour Cay

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After spending a night at anchor outside the island, we motored gently though the imposing pass that had been cut straight through coral rock some 60 years prior. The marina at Great Harbour is tucked into a very impressive hurricane hole with outstanding protection from every direction. We checked in with customs/immigration (they gave us a full 6 months here) and after some quick showers, we proceeded to rent a car from Krum’s Grocery Store. It didn’t take long to realize this island was different than anything we had visited prior. It had beautiful grand buildings everywhere but they all lay in ruin. It turns out that in the late 1960’s some $38 million was invested into making this the an island paradise for the rich and famous. A top notch golf course was built with an extraordinary clubhouse. Jack Nicklaus was even hired to promote the island and given a house. (If you want to golf, bring your clubs and balls as the 9 holes are still maintained by the HOA).  A private club and a great beach resort was also constructed along with numerous condos, villas, and bungalows.  We were lucky to meet an American woman whose family had owned a home here since the glory days, and she told us stories about dinners at the club house and the everyone being “dressed to the nines.” This place had class that we just don’t see anymore. I wanted so very much to sip a Manhattan at the pool with the movie stars but alas we were left to explore post apocalyptic ruins. It was heartbreaking to see the the foundation of the clubhouse was still in good shape. It wasn’t a hurricane that caused its demise but neglect and abandonment.

I could still drink a Manhattan by the pool, but…

It was then I remembered the Bahamas resist change, they resist occupation, and they resist persecution. The Bahamas are meant to be free. Some have changed an island here or there but as I see time and time again, nature in the Bahamas is always ready to take back what is hers. When the losses become more then the rich can bear, the buildings fail, the concrete cracks and what’s left behind is the true magic of the Bahamas that we love so very much.

Club House
Golf course
Club House… decorated for Halloween complete with “body bags” (stuffed with leaves)

After viewing the old clubhouse ruins we made our way into the town of Bullocks Harbour where all the locals live. We drove up and down the streets with our useless guidebooks trying to find any restaurant that was still open, only to give up and pull into Brown’s Garden, which is not listed in any guidebook but clearly is the place to be in town. We all affectionately refer to it as “Ronnie’s place” after the proprietor Ronnie “the entertainer”. Ronnie wasted no time in serving up an ice cold round of Kalik beers for the very fair price of 3 for $10. He then asked if it was our first time in the Bahamas to which Naomi replied an enthusiastic, “Yes!” Seeing that we had ordered cracked conch Ronnie said to Naomi, “Come wit me m’am. I got someting to show yah”. I instantly knew what was up and grabbed a camera as we all piled out of the bar and across the street to the water where in a tiny little cove lied several thousand empty conch shells. Ronnie pulled on a old weathered rope and up came half a dozen conch. He pulled two off and expertly began showing Naomi how to remove and clean them.

Ronnie the Entertainer cleaning conch

Of course the part we were all waiting for came when he removed the translucent crystaline style from the conch’s body and offered it to Naomi. It looks like a piece of clear spaghetti. Naomi looked hesitantly to us and we reassured her that everybody does it. She slurped it down as we all giggled. While we have all tried it before, we didn’t mention that it’s widely referred to as an aphrodisiac by the locals. Ronnie was living up to his name the entertainer, and well, the food doesn’t get much fresher. 

Hubert’s fish shack

The next local we encountered was Hubert “Da Fishman”. Hubert was part entrepreneur and part hustler. He rented boats, fishing guides, sold beer and tobacco (only when they were processing the catch) and had all the best fresh fish on the island. He was also located about 100 yards down the dock and became pretty good entertainment every evening when he would arrive with his gang of fishing boats and fishermen. Most days they would show up with piles of conch, lobster, snapper, hogfish, yellowtails and more – all available at very reasonable prices like the lobster at $12 a pound tails only. Dave and even more so Naomi were instantly captivated by this and asked us to cook some up for them. So I ordered up three pounds of lobster tails from Hubert. Hubert grumbled to one of his guys who tossed up a bag and weighed it. Hubert, not liking what he saw, grumbled something about a new scale and came over to inspect it. Now we were all thinking the tare was off and we would probably loose a tail. On the contrary, after inspection Hubert ordered up another small tail for us and we promptly paid him. I didn’t weigh them but it sure as heck felt like more than 3 pounds to me and came out to 6 tails. We broiled up 4 tails with creole herb butter and used the remaining two to make lobster scampi which was pretty darn tasty.

We were treated very well at the marina in addition to Hubert having fresh fish most days. Monday and Wednesday the dockmasters took orders for fresh bread. The banana bread was the best any of us have ever had. There was also pizza night where wonderful pizzas were delivered piping hot right to your boat. But the best value was the $10 Friday night BBQ where chicken, ribs, steak, corn, mac and cheese, and peas in rice were served up in generous portions to cruisers and pretty much everybody else on the island that had access to cars or even bicycles. It was all great, but we loved the mac and cheese with its spicy kick. Yep that’s right when you add some tangy Louisiana hot sauce to mac and cheese something truly magical happens.

While we still had the car for another day, we drove the length of the island. On the northeast side there are more club ruins. An unassuming driveway takes you uphill to the walls and patios of an oceanside club where the Rat Pack hung out and where it was said that the french owner/bartender liked to serve drinks while naked. He was french after all. The only guest there now was a Bahamian racer snake!

Sinatra’s old haunt
One of a few native snakes

Nearby, a pullout led to a small sandy beach with rocky cliffs and a cave.  The contrast of this landscape compared to the Abacos was startling! And of course, where there is a rock to climb, we must climb it.

The cave
View from the top of the rock

Continuing our tour of the beaches, we also explored the Beach Club – an outdoor restaurant and bar overlooking yet another beautiful beach and serving surprisingly good and fresh food.

We headed south towards the sand bars near Haines Cay. The paved road ends with a several-inch drop off to a rough, rocky dirt road that makes you question if the path is actually intended for cars. As usual, Lindsey was driving as she has mastered “left to live” driving and doesn’t get too freaked out by the massive potholes or it seeming like everyone is on the “wrong” side of the road. However, she didn’t have faith that the little car could handle some off-roading.

“I don’t know if I can take the car down this!” Lindsey said.

“The lady said to take the dirt road all the way to the beach!” Dave urged.

“Just do it!” I chimed in.

Nervously, slowly, she proceeded forward while the rest of us volunteered steering directions to try to avoid the divots, rocks, and bushes scraping the car’s paint. Amazingly, we only bottomed out once and didn’t knock any parts off the car. The road ends at the mouth of Shark Creek, where a huge hammerhead was once tagged. The beach itself is clear water over shallow white sand, and at low tide many sand dollars and mysterious creatures of the sea can be found. The snorkeling at Haines wasn’t great (sounds like Hawsknest is better) but we did see a huge barracuda and a lobster.

Tailgating after surviving the drive down the dirt road
Shelling Beach at Shark Creek
Sea cucumber
Mystery creature – guesses include sea pickles and moss animals
Happy mom & dad

After returning our rental car to Krum’s, we had to find new forms of transportation since the marina is a bit of a walk from many of the restaurants and attractions. We took to the dinghy to explore what is left of the former drug dealer island Cistern Cay.  Putting 4 adults in the inflatable dinghy is not usually something we do, and will try to avoid repeating, but we all made it there safely though perhaps a little wet! We forgot the map of course, so we didn’t find the little blue hole or the wrecked plane, though we heard the plane isn’t much to see. The drug dealer island was pretty interesting though – there are ruins of homes with great views, an extensive road system, old cars, and even a go-kart locked in a garage. However, the joke has become, “What they call ‘ruins’ in the Bahamas, we would just call ‘abandoned’ in Tennessee!”

4 people in a little dink…

We had dinner at Carriearl, a boutique hotel that offers rides from the marina to their restaurant. We took the ride with another couple and enjoyed talking with them over drinks while we waited for dinner.  The house that was converted into the hotel and restaurant was once owned by fashion critic Mr. Blackwell. Carriearl is run by a British couple with a few employees, but they seemed to having a hell of a night. The place was busy, and the power went out a few times, though hardly anyone batted an eye as this happened. However, the water wouldn’t turn back on, so now, in addition to serving drinks, taking orders, giving rides, and supervising the cook, the owners were  also running from pool-to-bathroom with buckets of water to flush the toilet! Despite the chaos (and varying quality of our dishes), the ambiance of this restaurant is really fantastic and we had a lot of fun.

Good drinks at Carriearl

The marina also offers bikes. Lindsey and I took these into town one afternoon on a search for beer and food – turns out if you are willing to ride into town and up and over the hill, you can buy a 6-pack for $10 rather than pay Hubert $24! By the time we found the beer, had snacks while watching the sunset at Coolie Mae’s (it took a while… island time, mon… they were making the conch fritter batter fresh), and ordered conch salad at Ronnie’s, it had gotten dark. Really, really dark.

Lindsey assessed the situation. “OK, we weren’t planning on being on out past dark…. so I didn’t bring the headlamps. And now it’s dark AND raining. So this should be a fun ride back, right?” My wife has a twisted idea of fun. Time for another one of Lindsey’s death marches I muttered under my breath. 

We put our food in the baskets, got on the bikes and started pedaling furiously through town. There are some infrequent street lamps to light the way – and the potholes.  Lots and lots of potholes… some deep… some really deep. “Hole!” we yelled to one another. “Car!” If the car was on our side of the road, we’d scurry into the grass or bushes to avoid being hit. If the car was coming the opposite way, we’d use the shadows cast by the headlamps to scope out the upcoming potholes. Lindsey giggled most of the way home. Like I said, twisted idea of fun. 

Having spent a week in Great Harbour, we made some friends at the marina. We were docked between two boats with chefs, one of which was a fishing boat, so we got spoiled with wahoo sashimi and sushi. We got tips for the rest of our trip and got to hear some wild stories about working on mega yachts… especially ones that the owners sink for fraudulent insurance claims! Another neighboring boat was Jack Nicklaus’s yacht, and it sure looked like he was onboard, though we only saw the crew step foot on land. Nicklaus himself may have been out fishing on one of the yacht’s three flats fishing boats.

Lindsey with Jack’s boat

We enjoyed walking up and down the docks, spotting critters – lots of sergeant majors, little fish, an occasional nurse shark, barracudas – even an octopus! (What we didn’t enjoy was climbing up and down the docks – our boat is low and the docks are high, so our climbing moves got a workout at low tide!)

Despite the magic of this place, it is not all that popular for cruising boats to stop here. (To clarify, in our world, “cruisers” or “cruising” refers to people socially boating on sailboats or trawlers, to distinguish from racing boats, not to be confused with cruise ships!)This adds to its allure as we love to have a place to ourselves or shared with only a few other cruisers. The crazy part is – just to the north are the Stirrup Cays, where cruise ships send folks to enjoy the Berry Island beaches with hundreds of other people – while just a few miles south, you can have the beaches all to yourself!

Leaving through the cut

We set sail from the marina, planning to round the Stirrup Cays to head south along the eastern side of Great Harbour. A dolphin jumped in our bow wake and a giant loggerhead turtle floated by, ensuring this forgotten island wouldn’t be forgotten by us.

(Interested in visiting Great Harbour? Here are a few other resources:

https://www.greatharbourcaymarina.com/history.html

https://isimpo.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/great-harbour-cay-in-the-berry-islands-bahamas-2/

http://www.consultresearch.com/GHC2.htm 

Enjoy!)

You Can Pick the Time or the Place – but Not Both

Miss Fe – weighing anchor! Photo courtesy of S/V Cohort

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After our late spring return to the USA, we were very fortunate to have many things fall right into place. Paul’s company hired him back for seasonal work in Miami. My job also was able to take me back for 50% remote work, though a communication mishap meant I accidentally got to have the summer off, and I didn’t return to work until October. With Paul’s 10-days-on-4-days-off schedule, we had an epic summer and fall which included:

-trips “home” to both PA and TN
-a cruise ship to Cuba (it’s amazing, you should go)

Across from Havana

Cuban Cigars in Cuba

Fusterlandia in Havana

-my 10-year college reunion
-scuba diving wrecks in the Florida Keys

Barracuda on the Spiegel

Invasive Lionfish speared for dinner

Looe Key

-diving with sharks and 300-lbs goliath groupers in West Palm Beach
-spotting way too many gators and crocodiles in the Everglades
-hiking and hot springs with friends in Utah

Arches National Park

-trying lots of new Cuban and Peruvian food
-bicycling from Florida’s East Coast to West Coast
-and exploring Miami with Paul’s awesome coworkers.

Jonas and the possum

Wolf licking Lindsey’s deoderant

Paul not loving the snake

We are not taking our good fortune for granted!

Paul’s job ended two weeks earlier than expected, and by early November, we found ourselves in  Indiantown Marina with the boat in the work yard. Our goal was to depart for the Bahamas around the 1st week of December.

Major projects on the table included bottom paint, fridge expansion, and repairing damaged topside paint under our rub rail. It only took a day or two to start to overwhelm Paul with boat projects – especially with me still working a job. But I pointed out to him how this was so different from our days in Maryland, where we would watch the powerboaters go out to play while we slaved away with paint brushes. Here in Indiantown, there were over 50 other boats in the work yard, full of people just like us to banter with about problems and ideas! At last, acres of people willing to subject themselves to physical, mental and chemical abuse. Kindred spirits!

We were lucky to meet a lot of awesome people in the boat yard – mostly Canadians, as they seem to be 75% of the marina’s population. Apparently they don’t do well with cold either! After listening to so many other people’s stories of traveling the world by boat, motorcycle, train, or with kids in tow, we started to feel like we’ve done zilch in comparison! (Paul says this is a great feeling because we didn’t come this far to come this far: We came to go a whole lot further.)

Other than the mosquitoes and no-see-ums, Indiantown is not so bad. Though the food choices are limited (3 taco trucks, a BBQ joint, and a few others of similar varieties), it’s really pretty good and pretty cheap. The marina staff are all super nice and two of the guys even live on site and are always up for drinks in the evening. During the week of Thanksgiving, the marina hosted 4 nights of parties with free food and drink!

As our boat work progressed, we realized we weren’t going to be in the water “on time” and pushed our launch back a week. By the time we had launched we had:

-painted the bottom and put on new zincs
-removed the rub rail, repaired the paint under it, and reattached it (with the help of friends)
-turned our fridge into a freezer/fridge spillover, nearly doubling the storage size
-replaced an aluminum plate on the windlass
-painted/ziptied length indicators on the anchor chain
-installed the brand new Mantus anchor
-applied Cetol to most of the teak
-repainted the bowsprit and hatches
-installed a second bilge pump, which allows us to actually use the sink in the head

That list doesn’t seem big enough for 5 weeks of working every day! But believe me each of those projects involved ridiculous amounts of tedious sanding, drilling, cutting, painting, fiberglassing, or wiring that would drive anyone mad.

It was around this time that we began to realize our friends who might cross the Gulf Stream with us were not available, and we began to discuss the possibility of Paul’s parents Dave and Naomi tagging along – his parents were thrilled that, in theory, this would mean spending Christmas in the Bahamas with us. But they weren’t aware of the #1 rule of visiting someone’s boat – “You can pick the time or the place, but not both!”

Once we launched, the stress of trying to make a pre-Christmas crossing happen set in. When we tested the engine, Paul easily fixed the seized starter – but then just as easily broke a hose barb on the engine’s cooling system. Removing the broken hose barb led to the discovery of some near-tragic carbon build-up, which turned out to have an easy fix discovered only after a solid half hour of intense cursing. After paying a lot of money for overnight-Saturday-delivery for the replacement part, the wrong part arrived, causing a 4-day delay. After tripling our previous record for money spent on groceries in a single day, the larger fridge seemed to be struggling to cool, and Paul was so worried sick about it that we had several 2 a.m. fridge temperature-taking parties. Well, he did at least I mostly tried to sleep through it. One day, when we were still on the brink of possibly leaving by Christmas if the weather cooperated and we didn’t break anything else, I asked Paul how he had been feeling that day.

“Pretty terrible,” he said.

“Me too. I’ve had a constant, overwhelming feeling of dread,” I replied. I’ve felt nervous many times in my life but never had I felt this type of stomach-twisting, heavy-chested anxiety caused by the dread of potentially being at fault for cancelling Christmas on parents.

Another relevant sailing saying is “The most dangerous thing on a boat is a schedule” – though I think this is supposed to refer to dangerous weather, not dangerous levels of stress!

We had been watching a potential weather window the Sunday before Christmas, but when the forecast showed that opportunity would no longer come to fruition, a wave of relief washed over. Sure, it sucked that we wouldn’t be spending Christmas in the Bahamas or with our parents, but this also meant we didn’t have to rush to Miami in high winds to attempt staging for that Sunday.

Departing Indiantown on a good weather day!

We sat out several days of bad weather in Indiantown Marina, before departing on a nice and sunny December 22. The next week ended up being amazing! We anchored across from Stuart where our friends from Indiantown Catherine and Stefan were hanging out. We explored the market, boardwalk and downtown section of Stuart – this was a fun change of pace since we tend to get off the boat for exploration very infrequently when in the US.

Stuart Boardwalk – thanks Catherine for the photo!

Stuart Boardwalk

A few days later we anchored in West Palm Beach, where friends we’d made in the Bahamas, Susan and Jeremie, were hanging out. It was wonderful to be reunited with them! We had Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day drinks with them. Paul’s local extended family picked us up for the family Christmas dinner and gift exchange, which was delicious and fun.

Christmas tree in a house…

…. vs Christmas tree  on a boat

Catherine and Stefan anchored next to us a few days later.  Paul’s coworker Richie and his wife were vacationing nearby and stopped by to see the boat and have lunch. WPB is street after street of cool shops and restaurants, plus has a free dock and free trolley. It was an awesome place to explore with friends. Shout out to WPB for being our favorite spot to be stuck in Florida!

West Palm Beach Magical Sand Sculpture that is not destroyed by rain

Reunited and it feels so good!

WPB Mural

After we left WPB, we headed to Lauderdale and then on to Miami. You never really know what you are going to encounter on the ICW. We saw many manatees, mansions decorated for Christmas, jumping eagle rays, a jumping shark, and even a captain wearing a t-shirt but no pants and no underwear! Miami was pure insanity as it took our comparatively slow sailboat hours to get passed the area where literally thousands of powerboats party on the weekend.

Busy day near Port Everglades

Miami power boat party

The channel was very narrow in several areas with shallow spots, just outside the channel. We ran aground once and heard the crunch of scraping bottom against gravel, but a water taxi wake gave us enough water to power off the shallow spot immediately. We got held up at the last bridge and ended up traversing downtown Miami at night – this was fairly terrifying as there is a ton of boat traffic, confusing parts of the charts, and many shallow spots. The auto routing feature on the Navionics app was a lifesaver as far as helping us quickly find a viable route.

New Years Eve was spent at a fuel dock somewhere in Biscayne Bay – we had called twice before showing up but they didn’t mention they were closing early, so we spent the night there after checking in with the police officer and security guard. We celebrated the New Year by taking outdoor showers at the adjacent county park and cooking up steaks. We also managed to get an oil change in. Luckily we could see the 10pm fireworks perfectly from our boat because Paul was on antibiotics and didn’t feel like getting up for the midnight show.

Our final few days in Miami were spent at Dinner Key Marina in Coconut Grove. We picked up a mooring ball – for the first time, on the first try, with no yelling! (Side note: we’ve decided there is no yelling on our boat… just speaking loudly with love!) Over 4 days, we ran errands, had dinner with my summer sailing buddy, bought packing peanuts to reduce the size of our functional but power-hungry fridge, ate a lot of Sushi Maki and carefully watched the weather. In a consultation with forecaster Chris Parker, he said he had enough confidence in the weather that we could give Paul’s parents the go-ahead to start their 2-day journey from Knoxville to Miami. “It’s time!” we excitedly told them as we knew these couple weeks of waiting felt twice as long.

Paul’s parents arrived the afternoon of the 4th. They stayed in a hotel and caught the 8am marina shuttle to our boat the next morning. Unlike the nights prior to our previous crossings, I slept through the night and woke up feeling fresh! The forecasted storms had already passed, so we untied the lines and were motoring across Biscayne Bay by 8:40.

When we hit the Atlantic late morning, the West wind was in full force and we raised the sails. When the Gulf Stream current started pushing us, the boat was making 7-9 knots! The wind clocked north – you may hear advice to “never” cross the Gulf Stream with a north wind, but in reality this depends on the strength of the wind. The forecast said the wind would back up to West, but this never happened. After 4-5 hours of sailing, the wind died out and the seas had reached 5+ feet – the boom clanged while I tried to find an angle that would work, and a few of the slides on the mainsail broke. We decided keeping sails up was pointless, and we started motoring more directly East to Moselle bank. Between the current and dodging a cargo ship, we were already a bit north of our waypoint and would have to make up the ground when we were closer to the Bahamas.

We motored through the night, switching off in 4-6 hours shifts, Paul with Naomi and me with Dave.  Between experience, scopolamine, and getting a good night’s rest, this was the most comfortable stream crossing yet for me, even with not quite reaching the “flow” of steering in the waves that I had mastered the last time. The lights of Bimini were in sight before 9 PM, and we soon crossed onto the banks where it’s only 10-60 feet deep. We saw a lot of cargo ships through the night, ensuring we were staying awake. Shortly before sunrise, Paul woke me to raise the sails as we were making only 2 knots under motor. I raised the main.

“Weird, that didn’t help at all!” Paul said. “Where are we, the Bermuda triangle?!” (Actually, yes….). I raised both foresails and we sped up to 4 knots. The wind helped us almost the rest of way until the final couple hours when it shifted completely East and we couldn’t sail directly into it.

Naomi, Dave and Paul happy to be in the Berry Islands!

Thirty-four hours and 131 miles after we left the marina, we were setting our anchor next to Great Harbour Cay, Berry Islands, Bahamas! Free again at last…

Sailing Home!

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May 21, 2018

3:30 am: Alarm goes off. Decide to sleep for another half hour.

4:00 am: Alarm goes off: Get up. Check weather. Currently blowing up to 20 knots. The original plan was to start with a double reefed main (prepped last night) and staysail, but with this much wind, we decided to wait for daylight.

5:30 am: Alarm goes off. Still looks dark outside. Try to sleep.

6:00 am: Alarm goes off. It’s light out. Let’s roll.

6:30 am: Anchor is up and motor is on.

We decided to immediately raise sail for stability. The wind was only about 10-12 knots, but we left in the reefs, raised the jib, and kept the motor running. In case of increasing wind, we didn’t want to be going forward to the bow in large waves and getting seasick while trying to adjust the sails.

As we pulled out of West End, Paul watched a huge tuna leap out of the water. Goodbye, Bahamas!

We headed southwest for 8 nautical miles – though in hindsight we should have gone at least 10 so we wouldn’t have to fight the Gulf Stream current so much as we approached Florida. The winds out of the southeast continued to be around 10 knots, possibly less, but the waves weren’t joking around, averaging 6 feet.

Gulf Stream Crossing Bahamas to Florida
Waves never look big in photos!

With the waves this big, steering took a lot of concentration, so we traded who was at the helm every hour. We both stayed in the cockpit for the whole trip, going below only to use the head (restroom). This was the first time I’d ever used a scopolamine patch for seasickness, and boy was I glad to have it!

We continued to see large waves even as the wind dwindled. And I started to think this was fun! A wave on the stern would occasionally get us wet and I’d laugh. I loved that in Gulf Stream the deep water looks royal purple, but when the top of a wave would start to foam, it would appear a bright, vibrant blue. I steered towards animal shapes in the clouds, and I couldn’t believe it when Paul proudly told me that I was doing a better job of steering than him.

Please note my expression…

… versus Paul’s expression

We saw 1 cargo ship and 1 cruise ship, and both passed several miles in front of us. A powerboat sped by us, and a sailboat was headed in another direction. At one point, I questioned if I saw a whale’s tail, but most likely it was a wave and my imagination. We watched some rain clouds in the distance, but luckily we didn’t get more than a little sprinkle.

Cruise ship ahead!

We did turn the motor off for an hour to slow us down, since the wind had picked up and the boat was speeding down the waves at over 8 knots. We probably should have considered putting up more sail when the wind dropped again, but things were going so smoothly motor sailing that we really didn’t want to disrupt our flow (or risk dropping below 5 knots, which we needed to average to be sure we’d reach Florida well before sunset). We waited until the last hour of the trip to take the reefs out of the main.

We were shocked how near to shore the Stream’s current was that day. We fought it almost all the way to the inlet. As we approached Lake Worth, our course over ground was West, but our actual compass heading was nearly South! It’s hard to explain how that messes with your head when you’re trying to compare where you are on the GPS to what you see in front of you.

Paul got quiet as we approached the inlet. He had prior experience with the inlets of Northern California and knew better than I that this could get ugly. And it was ugly – not just because of the water suddenly turning chocolate-milk-brown, but because the consistent 6-foot waves stacked up tighter and tighter at the entrance. I held my breath, praying the waves wouldn’t break over our boat, while Paul nervously but expertly steered down the middle of the rock jetties, as commercial ships chugged by and beachgoers naively observed.

In a just a few minutes, the waters calmed and we were welcomed back in the IntraCoastal Waterway. We lowered the sails and headed for the anchorage at the north end of Lake Worth.

“How big do you think some of those waves were?” I asked Paul. My thought was 8 feet.

“I bet some of those were 10,” he said.

“Really?” I was about to say that I had thought they were only 8 but I bet we could handle 10, when Paul cut me off.

“I wouldn’t want to do it again in more than 4 foot waves!” he exclaimed.

I countered, “Oh come on, that was fun though, wasn’t it?” He gave me a blank look. I prodded, “You have to admit that was fun!” He wouldn’t agree and he now thinks I’m crazy.

At the anchorage, we checked in to the US using the “ROAM” app, which was super easy and didn’t require us to leave the boat.

A 13 hour journey and we were home sweet home.

Pelicans welcoming us back to the US

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It took us two days to get to Indiantown due to the St. Lucie Lock schedule. Once at Indiantown, we prepped the boat to get hauled and moved as much of its contents into storage as we could. We also took note of how many alligators hang out in this marina and of how cheap the BBQ in town is.

Entering the St Lucie Lock

Each boat’s lines are run around a cleat at the top of the lock – then you hold on tight as the waters rush in!

In just two more days, we said see-ya-later to Miss Fe and headed back into a life on land… but only for a few months, till the sea calls us again.