black point – Pelagic Explorers

June 30, 2019June 30, 2019

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!

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!

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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!

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

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:

First live king’s helmet conch we ever saw

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.

April 23, 2019April 23, 2019

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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…

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!

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

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!”