Nassau to Staniel Cay - March 2 to March 12
Lovely to be back on board after an excellent visit in NS. Weather there was balmy and calm the first day I was home, after that, it turned cold, nasty and every day that I needed to drive somewhere, the snow came down thick and fast. I was giddy by the time I got off the plane in Nassau, and Randy and I had a great day or two until I came down with the cold that I picked up courtesy of American Airlines.
We stocked up before we left Nassau, and headed for Allan's Cay. Very pretty white beach with a couple dozen big iguanas dozing in the sun. Several times during our stay, a speedy tour boat arrived from Nassau and a load of sunburnt bikinis got off and fed the iguanas lumps of something, took pictures, then roared off again. Ergo, whenever a boat or dinghy hits the beach, the iguanas all skitter over, hunker their crotches back into the sand and wait for the grub to arrive on the end of a stick. Some of them look fit to bust, they're so fat.
Next day the germs caught up, and the next week was given over to cruising with a cold. Felt like crap, but at least I could bake my sinuses and achey bones in the hot sun. We headed to Norman's Cay, and spent one hellish rolly night bobbing around. Woke up to hear via the VHF that the neighbours had rescued a boat with an elderly single-hander aboard. He'd fallen asleep with his autopilot on and ended up on the rocks. He was okay, but he'd lost his bobstay, and a few other bits and pieces were seriously dinged. That day, a bunch of us moved out of the swell to the inner anchorage at Norman's, and we waited out a mild cold front and the bad head cold there for a few days. We ran into another Halifax boat there - Prion, which we knew from its previous home at South Shore Marine, and had a few great chats with Norris and Marina about how it feels to abandon your mostly grown children to their own devices.
Location, location, location. In the 70s and 80s, Norman's Island was a major drug transfer point for Colombian cocaine. Billions of dollars going through. We heard one story about a man on a houseboat who anchored and was very pointedly told to move on. He said he like it, and was going to stay as long as he pleased. He went off on his dinghy the next day, and came back to find that a helicopter had lifted his boat and deposited it on a nearby hill, where you can still see the remains. "Now, you go," was the command. Don't know how he got out of there, but you can bet he did. There's also the remains of a wrecked DC3 in the inner harbour. No cocaine around, but there's a dump of shocking proportions with everything from refrigerators to airplanes to boats to surfboards. Several abandoned resort-type buildings with excellent examples of wallpaper from the 1970s.
Sailed to Warderick Wells and the Exuma Park Headquarters on March 8. I hate to keep saying stuff like this, but wow, eh? The water is just shockingly gorgeous, and the view anywhere you looked was beautiful. The islands are very dry and rocky, and the water all round is, like I said, wow. I didn't snorkel cause I was still so stuffed up, but we had a great hike over some very rough terrain, visited BooBoo Hill and Brown Dog Beach, where we opened up the knapsack and drank cold Kalik and ate crackers and cheese and apples. Tough life. (They're looking for new wardens for the park headquarters if anyone's interested.)
Two days in Warderick Wells, then we sailed (motored, short chop, wind on the nose, 25-30 knots) to Big Major. The beach there has three pigs that come down to greet dinghies. Same deal as the iguanas, I guess. Lots of free food.
Round the bend to Staniel Cay, and Thunderball Cave, where one of the early James Bond films was made. Bits of it, at least. Snorkelled there this afternoon, and it was, like, wow. More live coral in more incredible colours than I've seen anywhere, and lots of fish (saw a slippery dick, Tom!). First real snorkelling I've done in the Exumas, and I wasn't put off at all by the three foot barracuda that's taken up residence under our boat, or the dozen nurse sharks and rays that hang out at the yacht club when they're cleaning the day's catch.
There's a friendly little community here, and a pink grocery store and a blue grocery store. One is rather untidy and eclectic, and the other is extremely well ordered. Nothing much to buy in either store, but the conversation at the pink store is lively. The lady behind the counter told us about a Canadian fella that races the local boats and beats them regularly. "Dat one fast nigga," said the lady at the store. We bought juice and water from the pink store, and pink kleenex from the blue store. The only box they had. I've never purchased pink kleenex before, but since Randy inherited the head cold, we were very glad to get it and didn't mind paying $2.25. Capt and crew were feeling much better by happy hour, and headed for the yacht club. It's loaded with cruisers and their laptops since the wifi is free, the drinks are half price and there's free conch fritters.
Staniel Cay to Black Point. One of our favourite Bahamian communities so far, and the best laundromat in fourteen states and umpteen islands. Clean, reasonable, and the best view ever. Had lunch at Lorraine's while we waited for the laundry. Actually, lunch at Lorraine's Cafe takes a lot longer than the laundry. Five or six tables full of cruisers, but first she has to feed her kids that arrive at noon from the school next door, then she starts cooking lunch, table by table. You serve your own drinks and write down what you drank, and everybody pitches in to set the tables. We got there just before noon, and were finished by 2:30. While we were waiting for lunch, I walked back to the laundromat and folded all the clothes. Then we came back in the afternoon to pick up bread we'd ordered from Lorraine's mum. Had to wander around a bit until it came out of the oven, and watched a large group of little kids run races and zoom by on their bikes. They all said hello, and one five-year-old told me my watch was beautiful. Back to the boat, skipped supper, slept 12 hours.
Black Point to Little Farmers. Another nice anchorage, hot, hot day, friendly folks ashore. Met Willa Mae who showed us the shortcut to the Batelco office, bought a new phone card and called home,left messages for family members who are never home when we're ashore, then watched the conch man clean some conch for another cruiser. Man, those things is UGLY. Every time he hauled another one out of the shell, he passed the spinal thingy over to his four-year-old son to eat. Looks like a piece of clear spaghetti, and it's supposed to put Viagra to shame. The little guy just twirled them around and played with them. I'm not sure he wanted to eat them either.
Little Farmers Cay to Georgetown. Long day motoring, very hot, no breeze, a bit rolly. I was feeling a bit blah and sweaty, so I went below about midday and had a shower, and then Randy went below to do the same. I was driving, he was just finishing up his shower, and I turned around to check line we were trolling, and had to holler FISH and cut the engine. Randy pops up on deck, starkers, while I'm pulling the line in. Earlier we'd picked up a two foot barracuda and threw it back, but as I got this fish closer to the boat, all we could see was bright, bright blue, a bit of yellow and some red marks. Randy was feeling a bit exposed, so he went below for some shorts while I kept hauling the fish in (put up something of a fight, ran back and forth, and splashed around a fair bit), and a few minutes later, we had a three and a half foot dolphin aboard. At least some of the splashing and dashing back and forth it was doing was because a shark was chasing it and took a couple of hunks out of its back while I was hauling it in. That was the red that we saw. God. It was a very fraught couple of minutes, but very exciting. So now we have about eight really big fillets of the freshest fish we've ever seen sitting in the freezer. (Randy cleaned the fish. Not me. Gorey mess in the cockpit.)
Georgetown has lots of boats. Lots and lots. About 400 maybe. We plan to be here for a week or so to work on the boat. Randy keeps making noises about the varnish, but we'll sort out the SSB and a few other things first, then we'll go for the cosmetic stuff (and haircuts). Fish for dinner. See below for new photos.
Lovely to be back on board after an excellent visit in NS. Weather there was balmy and calm the first day I was home, after that, it turned cold, nasty and every day that I needed to drive somewhere, the snow came down thick and fast. I was giddy by the time I got off the plane in Nassau, and Randy and I had a great day or two until I came down with the cold that I picked up courtesy of American Airlines.
We stocked up before we left Nassau, and headed for Allan's Cay. Very pretty white beach with a couple dozen big iguanas dozing in the sun. Several times during our stay, a speedy tour boat arrived from Nassau and a load of sunburnt bikinis got off and fed the iguanas lumps of something, took pictures, then roared off again. Ergo, whenever a boat or dinghy hits the beach, the iguanas all skitter over, hunker their crotches back into the sand and wait for the grub to arrive on the end of a stick. Some of them look fit to bust, they're so fat.
Next day the germs caught up, and the next week was given over to cruising with a cold. Felt like crap, but at least I could bake my sinuses and achey bones in the hot sun. We headed to Norman's Cay, and spent one hellish rolly night bobbing around. Woke up to hear via the VHF that the neighbours had rescued a boat with an elderly single-hander aboard. He'd fallen asleep with his autopilot on and ended up on the rocks. He was okay, but he'd lost his bobstay, and a few other bits and pieces were seriously dinged. That day, a bunch of us moved out of the swell to the inner anchorage at Norman's, and we waited out a mild cold front and the bad head cold there for a few days. We ran into another Halifax boat there - Prion, which we knew from its previous home at South Shore Marine, and had a few great chats with Norris and Marina about how it feels to abandon your mostly grown children to their own devices.
Location, location, location. In the 70s and 80s, Norman's Island was a major drug transfer point for Colombian cocaine. Billions of dollars going through. We heard one story about a man on a houseboat who anchored and was very pointedly told to move on. He said he like it, and was going to stay as long as he pleased. He went off on his dinghy the next day, and came back to find that a helicopter had lifted his boat and deposited it on a nearby hill, where you can still see the remains. "Now, you go," was the command. Don't know how he got out of there, but you can bet he did. There's also the remains of a wrecked DC3 in the inner harbour. No cocaine around, but there's a dump of shocking proportions with everything from refrigerators to airplanes to boats to surfboards. Several abandoned resort-type buildings with excellent examples of wallpaper from the 1970s.
Sailed to Warderick Wells and the Exuma Park Headquarters on March 8. I hate to keep saying stuff like this, but wow, eh? The water is just shockingly gorgeous, and the view anywhere you looked was beautiful. The islands are very dry and rocky, and the water all round is, like I said, wow. I didn't snorkel cause I was still so stuffed up, but we had a great hike over some very rough terrain, visited BooBoo Hill and Brown Dog Beach, where we opened up the knapsack and drank cold Kalik and ate crackers and cheese and apples. Tough life. (They're looking for new wardens for the park headquarters if anyone's interested.)
Two days in Warderick Wells, then we sailed (motored, short chop, wind on the nose, 25-30 knots) to Big Major. The beach there has three pigs that come down to greet dinghies. Same deal as the iguanas, I guess. Lots of free food.
Round the bend to Staniel Cay, and Thunderball Cave, where one of the early James Bond films was made. Bits of it, at least. Snorkelled there this afternoon, and it was, like, wow. More live coral in more incredible colours than I've seen anywhere, and lots of fish (saw a slippery dick, Tom!). First real snorkelling I've done in the Exumas, and I wasn't put off at all by the three foot barracuda that's taken up residence under our boat, or the dozen nurse sharks and rays that hang out at the yacht club when they're cleaning the day's catch.
There's a friendly little community here, and a pink grocery store and a blue grocery store. One is rather untidy and eclectic, and the other is extremely well ordered. Nothing much to buy in either store, but the conversation at the pink store is lively. The lady behind the counter told us about a Canadian fella that races the local boats and beats them regularly. "Dat one fast nigga," said the lady at the store. We bought juice and water from the pink store, and pink kleenex from the blue store. The only box they had. I've never purchased pink kleenex before, but since Randy inherited the head cold, we were very glad to get it and didn't mind paying $2.25. Capt and crew were feeling much better by happy hour, and headed for the yacht club. It's loaded with cruisers and their laptops since the wifi is free, the drinks are half price and there's free conch fritters.
Staniel Cay to Black Point. One of our favourite Bahamian communities so far, and the best laundromat in fourteen states and umpteen islands. Clean, reasonable, and the best view ever. Had lunch at Lorraine's while we waited for the laundry. Actually, lunch at Lorraine's Cafe takes a lot longer than the laundry. Five or six tables full of cruisers, but first she has to feed her kids that arrive at noon from the school next door, then she starts cooking lunch, table by table. You serve your own drinks and write down what you drank, and everybody pitches in to set the tables. We got there just before noon, and were finished by 2:30. While we were waiting for lunch, I walked back to the laundromat and folded all the clothes. Then we came back in the afternoon to pick up bread we'd ordered from Lorraine's mum. Had to wander around a bit until it came out of the oven, and watched a large group of little kids run races and zoom by on their bikes. They all said hello, and one five-year-old told me my watch was beautiful. Back to the boat, skipped supper, slept 12 hours.
Black Point to Little Farmers. Another nice anchorage, hot, hot day, friendly folks ashore. Met Willa Mae who showed us the shortcut to the Batelco office, bought a new phone card and called home,left messages for family members who are never home when we're ashore, then watched the conch man clean some conch for another cruiser. Man, those things is UGLY. Every time he hauled another one out of the shell, he passed the spinal thingy over to his four-year-old son to eat. Looks like a piece of clear spaghetti, and it's supposed to put Viagra to shame. The little guy just twirled them around and played with them. I'm not sure he wanted to eat them either.
Little Farmers Cay to Georgetown. Long day motoring, very hot, no breeze, a bit rolly. I was feeling a bit blah and sweaty, so I went below about midday and had a shower, and then Randy went below to do the same. I was driving, he was just finishing up his shower, and I turned around to check line we were trolling, and had to holler FISH and cut the engine. Randy pops up on deck, starkers, while I'm pulling the line in. Earlier we'd picked up a two foot barracuda and threw it back, but as I got this fish closer to the boat, all we could see was bright, bright blue, a bit of yellow and some red marks. Randy was feeling a bit exposed, so he went below for some shorts while I kept hauling the fish in (put up something of a fight, ran back and forth, and splashed around a fair bit), and a few minutes later, we had a three and a half foot dolphin aboard. At least some of the splashing and dashing back and forth it was doing was because a shark was chasing it and took a couple of hunks out of its back while I was hauling it in. That was the red that we saw. God. It was a very fraught couple of minutes, but very exciting. So now we have about eight really big fillets of the freshest fish we've ever seen sitting in the freezer. (Randy cleaned the fish. Not me. Gorey mess in the cockpit.)
Georgetown has lots of boats. Lots and lots. About 400 maybe. We plan to be here for a week or so to work on the boat. Randy keeps making noises about the varnish, but we'll sort out the SSB and a few other things first, then we'll go for the cosmetic stuff (and haircuts). Fish for dinner. See below for new photos.
posted by Susan at 11:28 AM
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