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

Last 3 Weeks in Paradise: 25 Bahamas Experiences

Disclaimer: Since it is hurricane season, we wanted to clarify that our boat is safely stored at an inland marina in Florida. This post covers our Bahamas adventures back in May. We’ll update you on the current situation soon!

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After leaving Grand Cay in March, most of our travel decisions were based on the idea of revisiting that particular island.  It is a jump-off point for scuba diving at Walkers Cay, which is supposed to be one of the best dive sites in the Bahamas. We’d provision and start to head north, only to realize we weren’t going to get a clear enough stretch of weather to make us feel good about venturing back into the more remote, less protected northern Abacos.

Once again, we were facing a nasty forecast in 3-6 days, so we decided we’d head south to provision in Marsh Harbour and then attempt to make it to Grand Cay. Ah, the sailing life – where it’s normal to turn grocery shopping into a multi-day adventure.

Spoiler alert: We never made it to Grand Cay! However these few weeks were the best of the trip. Here are 25 experiences from those weeks (in generally chronological order):

  1. We tried our Monitor windvane for the first time ever.  Can we say – WOW!
    The Monitor at work behind Paul

    The windvane is essentially an autopilot – it’s a wing on the back of the boat that you angle into the wind and connect to the steering wheel, and it steers for you. People told us we would love it, but really, wow! Normally this would be used in open sea to allow you to focus on tasks other than steering or to just take a break, but we continued to watch our course carefully and frequently adjusted the windvane since we were in a narrow area. It was just so cool to see it working!

  2. We had the most gorgeous day of sailing.  It was the only time in the Bahamas that we put up both foresails. Weather was sunny and beautiful. The water was paradise blue.

    This photo is from the day before…. only 1 sail up then haha

    We sailed at 5+ knots the whole time. The swell across Whale Channel was perfectly timed for a comfortable ride. It was a great reminder why having a sailboat is amazing!

  3. Dolphins escorted us into the Marsh Harbour anchorage. They were a mama and baby pair, and they played in the bow. We’ve had so few dolphin sightings in the Bahamas compared to the US! We also saw sea turtles and a nurse shark in the anchorage.

    Nurse shark
  4. We realized it’s a small world after all. We ran into a catamaran from Bass Lake, CA, a town near Paul’s hometown. We drove up to them in our dinghy, and it turns out they know a lot of people that Paul and his family also know.

    These snails agree its a small world!
  5. I tried to watch sunset and instead saw a big fat waterspout. That one disappeared before I could get the camera, but a second, skinnier one formed on the horizon – not nearby thankfully! We’d met the couple who owns the powerboat in this picture earlier that day, so I emailed them the photo. Their response: “Holy shit!”

    Left side of photo… the skinny water spout below the clouds
  6. We dined with cool cats at the full moon party at Cracker P’s on Lubbers Quarters. We were greeted at the dock by one of their many bar cats.
    The welcome committee at Cracker P’s on Lubbers Quarters

    We got there before the crowds, when they were still making frozen drinks, and they were SO GOOD (not sure how much alcohol was in them but yummm). It was $25 for an all-you-can-eat-buffet that they kept refilling for hours and hours. By Bahamas standards, that is not an expensive restaurant meal and it was actually REALLY tasty – the chicken was excellent; the grouper and pork were good; the coconut conch was interesting.  Beer was overpriced, but otherwise this was one of our best meals out in the islands. The place has a little beach and paddleboards, so it would be fun to check out during the day next time.

  7. We accidentally attended another full moon party.
    Noticing some movement on the beach at our Mystery Island X anchorage, we got out the binoculars (are we creepy?) and saw several people building a beach fire. We were tired, but we decided to eat dinner and then drag ourselves to the beach after we saw what we thought was fire dancing…. which turned out to be a light-up hula hoop that I was required to use as initiation into the party.  There was singing and guitar playing and people from Chicago who had literally planned their Bahamas charter around attending this full moon party because they loved it last time they were here…. 12 years ago. Attending this fire ended up being the best idea because…
  8. We made friends who weren’t on the move! At the party, we met S & J, two experienced travelers and sailors who had been staying at this anchorage long term. As soon as J invited Paul to go spearfishing, I knew we’d be staying here a while, no matter how long Paul had to wait out the weather! In addition, we got to know the island’s residents who hosted the bonfire, and they were incredibly interesting and generous people – these are people who bought raw land and built it into a truly magical destination over the course of decades, with materials, groceries, and supplies they could bring in only by boat.
    Many people stop at this island to go walking, so there was always someone to talk to if you were hanging out on the beach. We met a lot of Canadians, including a family of 4 on a boat around the size of ours. They were homeschooling for a year while giving their daughters the adventure of a lifetime. The weeks were filled with dinners on boats, birthday celebrations, and more bonfires. Especially with S & J around, we got to experience the sense of community we really missed since we’d left the dock at Pineapple’s. We’re really so grateful to them for hanging out, showing us around, and tolerating all the times we yelled “ahoy” into their boat while S was on the phone!
  9. We swam with the “tame” sharks and rays. S told us about a spot where the tour boats feed the sharks and rays.
    One common activity is to put squid between your toes and let the rays suck it out. We didn’t try this!
    No one was feeding the animals when we arrived, so Paul put on his snorkel and headed in, while I stood in the shallow water trying to work up some courage while also keeping a close eye on the rays and sharks (lemons, reef, and nurse) that ventured in looking for tasty treats.
    Eventually, after seeing Paul not get eaten, I went in too. We tried to get cool pictures but the sharks were way too timid to pose for photos. I acknowledge calling them “tame” is a joke and there might be some stupidity in swimming where the animals are used to being fed, but like I said, there was no active feeding going on and unlike this woman who got bit by a nurse shark, I kept my arms to myself and my eyes open!

  10. We watched our boat neighbors battle a shark big enough to keep us out of the water. There was a big boat  anchored next to us a few days, and we later learned they were filming a pilot for an Amazon TV show (gotta get that boat tax write-off somehow, right?). We watched as one guy caught something huge on his fishing rod – he fought it for half an hour while people on the boat hooted and hollered and filmed whatever he was valiantly trying to reel in. After he gave up and caught the line, we took the dinghy by and shouted, “What did you have on the line!?”  He yelled back, “A 10-foot tiger shark!” We didn’t take any sunset swims after that.
  11. No-see-ums are way worse than mosquitoes. All of a sudden, it got warm enough for the bugs to come out in full force. We discovered this when a walk through the woods turned into a race to the beach as we tried to outrun the mosquitoes. Little did we understand that the no-see-ums would be the true enemy. For a week I’d wake up in the middle of the night as the little itchy bumps would suddenly fire up again. The boats in the anchorage kept moving farther out to sea, as they tried to find a spot far enough from the island that the mosquitoes wouldn’t come for dinner.
  12. We got to do some sweet scuba diving! Island X’s reefs are beautiful and full of little caves.
    Paul and I went diving on a rare calm day and spotted a magnificently huge elkhorn coral. J and I went the next day – he took me through some little caves and swim-throughs, where we saw a giant urchin, a moral eel, a big lobster, good-sized trigger fish, and a shark egg.

    Shark egg?

  13. The slipper lobster reared its ugly head. Have you ever heard of a slipper lobster? Neither had we. But they’re so ugly that they’re cute. And they taste good too.
  14. Bohnanza turned out to the be the world’s best card game. I’m not even joking. You get to be vicious and sneaky, but only if you want. Throw in a waterfront cabin and mojitos made with limes and mint straight out of the garden, and you pretty much have the best night ever.
  15. We discovered foods we’d never heard of. We met some folks kind enough to share from their garden. When going to the grocery store presents you with soggy potatoes, soggy onions, and broccoli, being gifted fresh food is like being given $1000, and we are forever grateful.
    And to see the  amount of hard work and love that these people put into their garden was pretty amazing. In our tour of the place, we discovered fruits we never heard of, such as the sour orange, surinam cherry and the chocolate pudding fruit! J kept insisting that 1 of every 7 surinam cherries is sweet and delicious instead of bitter. I ate like 30 of them and haven’t found the sweet one yet!
  16. We went land crabbing! J rolled up to our boat one day and asked if we wanted to go crabbing. Imagining this to include a trap being dropped in the water, I asked, “What does it involve?” He answered, “A canvas bag, long pants, long sleeves, flash lights, and bug spray… oh, and lots of rum. We’ll pick you up after sunset.”  When I told Paul, he said, “Oooooh, we must be going land crabbing!” I had no idea this was even a thing.land crab Abacos Bahamas
    On our ride to the scene of this activity, S & J gave us instruction on how to step lightly on the crabs’ heads and grab them behind the claws. Next thing we knew, we downed some rum and took off running down the trails, flashlights in hand. Soon enough, we’re busting through brush and diving into holes grabbing crab after crab, throwing them into bags and buckets…. and re-capturing the ones that managed to escape! The rum is an essential part of this because you have to give the grabs some sort of advantage.After caging and feeding the crabs for a few days to “clean them out,” a feast was had. I think we cooked something like 10 crabs for 11 people – those suckers are huge!

    I make ridiculous faces when handling crabs.
  17. Bioluminescence lit up our world. Have you ever seen a fancy power boat with decorative blue lights under the stern? That’s what bioluminescence looks like. Microorganisms in the water produce light when disturbed. We’d just barely seen this before in Puerto Rico and Florida, but then it was like a little green glitter in the water. Here it was like having a blue flashlight under water. We drove the dinghy in circles to make it glow. I would entertain myself endlessly by leaning over the boat and bouncing fenders in the water, watching the it light up and giggling. We couldn’t get the camera settings right to capture it in a photo, but google it and you’ll get the idea. We thought it would be so cool to swim with our bodies glowing, but then we’d start thinking about that tiger shark….
  18. Paul learned the art of spearfishing…. and shark fighting. When the weather finally settled, Paul went spearfishing with J. J knows the reef like the back of his hand, will chase fish into deep holes, and can hold his breath for several minutes, so Paul went truly as the student.In the Bahamas, you aren’t allowed to spearfish with scuba equipment, so you must hold your breath as long as it takes you to find, spear, and retrieve the fish. Paul’s spear is a pole attached to a giant rubber band. You pull the pole back to use the power of the band to launch the spear, but the band stays around your wrist so you don’t lose it.
    Problem number one – sometimes the fish fight back! Paul shot a fish, but before he could grab the end of the spear, the fish started to swim away, loading up the tension on the rubber band. The fish broke free and – “pop!” – launched the dull end of the spear right back into Paul’s chest. He recoiled, resisting the urge to gasp while 20 feet underwater.  Luckily, his only real injury was a bruise that lasted a week.Problem number two – the sharks know where J hunts. As soon as they hopped out of the dinghy into the water, the reef sharks were there, waiting for the spearing to begin. Normal protocol would be that if one person spears something, the other person acts as shark lookout/defense as you work to get the fish back to the boat. When Paul got a fish, he looked for J to signal it was time to roll, but he noticed that J had just speared a fish too!
    With 2 flailing, bleeding fish, they surfaced, trying to hold the fish out of the water as they swam for the boat, which now somehow seemed to be 100 yards away. The sharks were in hot pursuit, and the guys were ready to give them a good whack if they got within arms distance (don’t worry, they’re tough and wouldn’t be harmed). Though the sharks get close, J said they’re typical behavior is to look at you like, “What? You’re not a fish!” and then to swim off to the spot where the fish was originally speared.Trying to imagine what this is like? Here’s a picture from someone with a very similar experience:

    Sorry Joe, I stole your photo cause it’s just too cool
  19. Paul never looks happier than when he’s been fishing. :::love:::


  20. Nature is so freaking awesome. And sometimes you just don’t have the camera ready. Paul tossed a scrap of fish off Miss Fe into the water. Instantly, a shark darted out from under our boat and grabbed the fish – then a barracuda larger than the shark came out and stole the fish from the shark!
  21. We enjoyed the view from Foxtown. This little town on Abaco wasn’t originally in our list of places to visit, but as we made our way back towards West End to depart for the US, it offered us protection from easterly winds. The view from here, with all the rocks, made us feel like we were suddenly in a different country. And from the tall town docks (where the water is quite shallow, so dinghies only), we could see the sharks waiting for the fisherman to drop their scraps.
    Sharks and more sharks

  22. Bahamians don’t approve of Paul’s beer choices. Food was surprisingly affordable in Foxtown at Da Valley Restaurant – and holy crap the fried food platter was the best we’d had. And beers were $4, except for one called Bushcrack, which was only $3. Curious, Paul ordered a Bushcrack and the patron at the bar says to the bartender, “Did you warn him?!” Paul didn’t understand what the fuss was about though – it tasted light but still had 5.7% ABV. Plus the name is just funny.

  23. No boat repairs! They say cruising is just fixing your boat in exotic places, but after leaving Florida, we were fortunate to have no real problems. Here we were, 2.5 months in the Bahamas, and the only thing we were doing was splicing a bad section of our jib sheet. It probably could have made the trip home, but we didn’t want to risk it since we wanted to head back to Florida with some actual wind so that it wouldn’t take 19 hours (unlike when we came to the Bahamas).While we were splicing , I pulled up the charts and realized we were still 2 days journey from West End, not one day. We’d gotten so spoiled in the populated part of the Abacos that we’d forgotten that not everything else was just a 10-20 mile hop.
  24. We practiced our “rough weather” sailing. OK, I suppose it wasn’t actually rough weather in the mind of most cruising sailors, but it’s not a day the recreational folks would normally pick for “fun.” We had around 15 knots of wind and 3-4 foot waves as we headed from Foxtown to Great Sale Cay. There is no cell reception in Great  Sale, so the other boats were all over the radio discussing weather and Gulf Stream crossing plans. Despite the rough seas there were several boats who had just come from the US. The next day, en route to West End, the wind and waves had calmed down on Little Bahama Bank, but the waves were annoyingly choppy – I was fine with this as I still wanted to get used to rougher waters before we crossed. Paul even sailed through narrow pass near West End, and we had a big dolphin swim through our bow wake to say “farewell.”
    Checking the weather

    Once we were within range of cell phone service once again, we checked the weather again. Chris Parker’s forecast showed more intense conditions than previously predicted for Sunday night into Monday (we planned to cross Monday morning) – he now recommended crossing only for “Salty Sailors” with 5-6 foot waves and winds 14-19 knots, gusting to 24. This was about 5 knots and 1-2 feet more than we were hoping for. We debated waiting. We debated changing our haul-out date in Florida (a schedule is the enemy of sailors). We decided to wait a few more days. Then we questioned our decision. We researched some more forecasts. We consulted with J; he said we’d be fine.As we headed to the West End anchorage, we were exposed to the waves rolling in and they were about 6 feet. Getting to experience those waves made me feel better – they seemed manageable. We decided to head out Monday morning.

  25. We managed to anchor at West End, but it was hard to sleep as we thought about coming back to the US.
    Crossing the gulf stream
    Way too amped up to sleep – bye bye Bahamas! We’ll be back soon!

    Though we heard other sailors say that West End is “the worst anchorage ever,” we’ve actually had good holding both times we anchored there.  We also tucked back in far enough that we weren’t exposed to those 6 foot waves. The problem is the current. After emailing a float plan to Paul’s dad, calling my parents, and prepping the sails for easy deployment in high winds, we attempted to sleep but the current moved our boat in a crazy pattern all around our anchor and kept shaking the snubber lose. The chain would then start rattling, waking us from whatever almost-sleep we were getting. Add in the anxiety of a big crossing, and we most certainly weren’t asleep until after midnight.

In conclusion, these last few weeks were amazing!! Here a bunch more photos, and stay tuned to hear about our adventure crossing back through the Gulf Stream to Florida!

Little fish swimming through a wrecked barge

Angel fish
Nassau grouper
Huge puffer fish
Our first sighting of the invasive lion fish
Paul trying to kill the invasive lion fish

 

Upper left corner… this fish kept attacking the camera, haha
Heading to Cracker Ps

The Shark Before the Storm

[Google_Maps_WD id=12 map=6]

Calm weather was predicted – finally! For most of our time in the Bahamas, the Atlantic had pounded the east side of the islands, and therefore the coral reefs, so we hadn’t had the scuba diving opportunities we’d been hoping for. For the next several days, no wind and no waves were expected, so we departed Green Turtle Cay and headed for Moraine Cay. We saw one boat “sailing” that looked like they were sitting still, so we kept the motor running. But even the clang-clang-clang of our motor couldn’t keep us from enjoying the Gatorade-blue water.

Moraine Cay sunset

Moraine Cay is a private island – you can rent a villa there and have it all to yourself! Or you can purchase it for less than $3 million! There is a fair weather anchorage marked on the charts on the southeast side of the island. Even with the ocean laying flat and looking like a swimming pool, our boat still rocked with the slightest motion of the sea. But we were so excited to take advantage of the calm ocean!

Calmest seas in the Bahamas!

We had a big day planned – snorkeling, fishing, and diving. We took the dinghy out to find the reef in the morning – we couldn’t believe how gorgeous it was! The best part of the reef is smack up against the island and its rocks – we explored some of the outer patches but the reef was less stunning the farther out we went. The reef near the island was dense with coral, with lots of pretty sea fans, reef fish, and hogfish in 10-30 ft of water. Paul even spotted a tuna. Visibility was near 100 feet.

Paul snorkeling Moraine Cay reef

We snorkeled for a while, and when we hopped back into the dinghy, I saw a large silhouette pass beneath us. I hung over the edge of the boat and threw my masked face into the water to see – 4 eagle rays were gracefully swimming past! Paul immediately hopped in after them with the camera.

Eagle Rays at Moraine Cay reef

To scuba dive that afternoon, we picked a spot a little further north on the reef. It was only around 20 feet deep, but there were lots of coral heads and crevices to explore. We were greeted by big angelfish. Paul went to face to face with a curious grouper. For nearly an hour we went up, down, and around the coral heads.

Fish swim among the coral heads at Moraine Cay

When we turned around to head back to the dinghy, Paul pointed to something, his hand in a closed fist. Oh crap, I thought, I cannot for the life of me remember what that means. I didn’t see anything in that direction.  I figured we were heading back, so maybe his closed fist was a navigational cue? But the thing was…. Paul kept checking over his shoulder….. and Paul NEVER checks over his shoulder when we’re diving. So nervously, I checked over MY shoulder. Still nothing. Maybe I’m paranoid…. nope, there he goes, looking around again. At this point, I knew what he was looking for, but without confirmation as long as we were under water, I could trick myself into thinking, nahhh, that can’t be it….

“Did you see the shark?” Paul asked as soon as we surfaced, at least 20 minutes later. It was far enough away that he could barely make out its shape, but even at that distance, it looked to be at least 7 feet long and was definitely NOT a nurse shark. The closed fist pointing was a danger signal – oh yeah, now I remember! I requested he hold his hand over his head like a fin to signal shark from now on! “People just don’t realize that every dive is a shark dive!” he exclaimed.

Sea fan at Moraine Cay
Sea fan
Elk horn coral

After that excitement, we took the dinghy out to some other areas for exploration. Eventually we passed into an area that I called conch city! Once we were in less than 10 feet of water, I started to jump in after them. It took us only 20 minutes to limit out. Here’s the thing about conch – they’re just too easy to catch! They poke their cute little snail-like eyes out of the shell, stare at you in fear, tuck the eyes back into their shell and start to run – at a pace of about 2 ft/minute. It just makes me feel guilty!

Private dock at Moraine Cay

The  next morning we did some fishing, but only got a little snapper that we tossed back. We jumped back in for some more amazing snorkeling. Then we took a walk on the island. Unfortunately, the end of the calm weather was coming, so we motored to Allans-Pensacola to tuck in for a few days.

Villa for rent at Moraine Cay
Putting the machete to work!
Paul’s gotten pretty decent at free diving.

On a side note, regarding food in the Bahamas: If those frozen burgers seem unusually and reasonably priced, there is a reason. The reason is that when they say it’s beef with “chicken filler,” they really mean it’s chicken filler with a little beef! They were seriously the grossest burgers I’ve ever tried to stomach. And we bought way too many of them. And with only grocery shopping about every 3 weeks, I knew we had to eat them. They are slightly more tolerable as meatballs than burgers. Just an FYI in case you ever make this mistake too.

Relaxed and not biting my nails… aren’t you proud, mom?!

We spent 5 windy, rainy, stormy days anchored at Allans-Pensacola Cay. We had wanted to explore this uninhabited island more after our short visit early in the trip.

Rainy day boredom = breadmaking

We checked out the maze of trails – the signing tree trail beginning at the “free beer” sign is still the best. We continued our hunt for remnants of the US missile tracking station with some success – we found a set of stairs and what we believe was a radar mount. You can tell it’s been hidden by the brush for a long time because the dates graffitied on it were more than 10 years old.

Matty's Track
One of the many trails – this short one lead to a rocky beach

US military ruins on Allans-Pensacola – and unfortunately the visitor trash dump
Head east from the signing tree – this marks the barely-there path to the ruins
Possibly a radar mount from the US missile tracking station

Two Bahamian guys had towed a big, motor-less powerboat onto the beach. They were camping in it while they conched and fished.  They told us there are at least 2 wells on the island. They let us take a photo with the huge sea turtle skull they found elsewhere on the island.

Sea turtle skull

We met some American powerboaters who invited us to their bonfire that was later cancelled due to rain, so when they were gone the next day, we made our rounds to invite everyone else in the anchorage to “our” bonfire. We had limited success – 3 boats didn’t answer our “ahoys” – but we did get invited aboard one boat by a couple who were only briefly in the Bahamas but the boyfriend had been living on his boat for 18 years. We had some beers and some laughs, but the guy had too much pre-dinner tequila so they didn’t make it to the bonfire.

We were thrilled that another boat did join us on the beach once the fire was lit – the owners were fellow Tennesseans who had just bought their catamaran and had a captain along to help them learn the ropes of their new boat. The captain, who was younger us than us, had worked in Andros and Florida, so she was full of good information about diving in the Bahamas and the Florida Keys. We put out the fire just as the rain was setting in, and we got soaking wet trying to unload the dinghy. My logbook notes about that night say, “Paul was happy and singing rap songs” as we scurried through the rain, so I guess we were having fun!

My other note says, “Paul said the wind howled overnight, but I slept like a baby. Luckily this is a very calm anchorage.” Well, in this case, I spoke too soon….

Watching the next storm roll over Allans-Pensacola Cay

When people express their worries about our trip, it usually involves sharks, or pirates, or the Bermuda triangle. However, my worry has been dragging anchor in the middle of the night during a storm, close to land, and having to be on deck of our metal boat with lightning striking.

After dark the next night, a thunderstorm set in. The wind suddenly picked up over 20 knots and our boat swung rapidly, putting us 180 degrees from where we’d first anchored days earlier. My eyes shot to the chartplotter. The alarm hadn’t even been triggered yet, but I knew: “We’re dragging!” I yelled to Paul. We were only a few hundred feet from the shallows and the boat was quickly picking up speed.

Instantly we sprang into action. Somehow, in the time it took Paul to start the engine, I managed to don shoes and padded gloves and got up on deck, trying to avoid contact with the metal as much as possible. In reality I have no idea if this would really help should lightning strike (Paul insists it wouldn’t do much), but I shouted to Paul to put on some shoes, when I saw that he was already at the helm – wearing only his boxers and sitting directly in a puddle of water on the metal seat.

I ran to the windlass and furiously pumped the handle back and forth, raising the anchor with record speed.  When I saw lightning apparently strike the water miles off, I honestly screamed, “I don’t want to die!”

“The faster you go the sooner we get out of this shit!” Paul yelled back. Once the anchor was up, Paul drove forward, carefully, in pitch black with only the GPS and his memories of where the rocks lay for a guide. Paul aimed for a sandy spot in very shallow water. When there was only a foot of water left under the boat, he gave the command and I dropped the anchor with gusto.  The boat drifted sideways for a nerve-wracking stretch of time until the anchor bit, and then our boat swung into line – and held! It was a miracle – this was our 3rd time anchoring here but the only time the anchor had set on the first attempt.

The “C” shape was our path for several days at anchor. The rest is our path as we popped loose, drove away from the shallows, and reset the anchor.

We looked around the anchorage and could tell by the lights and the crew on deck that some of the 8 other boats were dragging too, but there was no risk of collisions as long as the wind direction stayed relatively steady. We were setting alarms to wake up and check on things, when I saw a message from Other Paul, who was back in Florida. Florida had  just been hit with 35 knot winds and boat-damaging waterspouts, and it was heading our way.

My adrenaline was still kicking from resetting the anchor in the storm. Now my mind started racing over what we should do to prepare for dragging again. Paul insisted that I was being overly fearful and there was nothing to prepare because there wasn’t much else we could do besides what we’d already done. To begin with, it was unlikely that we’d drag again. If we did and our anchor wouldn’t reset, we’d either end up aground, hopefully on the sandy beach, or be trying to motor out of the anchorage into the spacious Sea of Abaco. We would not be tossing in our second anchor (Fortress FX- 37), which is what I was asking about, because it would be harder to raise if needed, would risk tangling the other anchor, and stood almost no chance of setting in the grassy bottom. What he said made sense to me, but I could not convince myself that doing nothing was the best plan. What about just in case? It turned into a pretty fierce argument.

Finally, under the principle of having to give a panicked person something to do, Paul told me to ready the anchor as long as I promised not to throw it in the water under any circumstances.  I debated if I should even bother, knowing he said this just to stop the argument. But thinking better safe than sorry I did it anyway, and I tried to think through what other actions I could take to prepare.

I checked the Facebook sailing groups to validate the forecast, and there were rumors that Chris Parker was predicting 40-70 knot winds (46-80 mph – yes land lubbers, Cat 1 hurricane starts at 74 mph). This was crazy! There was nothing but minor thunderstorms in the earlier forecasts (this was also months ago, so it was well before hurricane season if you were wondering). Once I saw that forecast, I knew then I wouldn’t be sleeping.

I stowed some of the sails below so they wouldn’t get shredded in high winds and to reduce windage. I closed the galley and head seacocks to prevent taking on water if the boat  were to end up sideways in the shallows (though Paul later explained that our boat is set up so this wouldn’t be a problem like it is on many other boats).

Ultimately, this was the worst night on the boat – not because of the weather, but because Paul and I will never see eye-to-eye on what happened that night. We fell from our most glorious moment of teamwork into the ugliest moments of discord. He saw me as panicked and irrational. I later admitted that I was afraid (of course!) but I felt I was logically thinking through possibilities. I saw him as careless while he felt he had thought through the facts and had the most realistic plan.

In Paul’s defense he remained calm throughout the night. Actually, I think he slept a little too well. In later discussions he said simply, “We weren’t prepared for hurricane force winds and there was nothing we could do in that anchorage that we hadn’t already done to be prepared for that”.

Paul’s take on the situation was this:

It was a sort of checkmate scenario we were staring down. Several boats and shallow waters made making our way out of the anchorage in the dark highly risky at best. Even if we could make it out, there were no other anchorages around that we could navigate into at night offering better protection. Furthermore, our boat doesn’t have the engine power to make headway against 30+, knots severely limiting our options if we did go out into the narrow Sea of Abaco. In reality, we had the anchor dug in hard and deployed with the absolute maximum amount of chain we could deploy without putting ourselves on the beach. If the winds really hit with hurricane forces and our anchor gave out, we probably would have been on the beach before we could do anything about it. I knew that on land we would be wet and miserable but safe. There would be no need for the life raft,  no weeks spent adrift at sea, no treacherous reef to tear us to pieces. Just a sandy beach and knee deep waters to wade through to get to safety. Knowing that if the worst happened we would be safe was enough for me, even if it meant we might lose the boat in the process. It was a freak storm well beyond what forecasts were calling for. We didn’t do anything wrong, but somehow we were out of good options and left only with the choice to take the least bad option. 

I stayed awake until 3:30 am, and then I woke up every hour until sunrise, waiting for the winds to come.

Thankfully they never came.