Bimini at last!

The conditions for our Gulf Stream crossing were ‘power boat perfect’ which means calm seas and NO wind.  We were happy to finally be on our way even if it did not include sailing.

The highlight of the trip for Kim so far was catching a 20lb mahimahi (we call her Suzie II after our first mahi in 2014 – which was a larger version).  Both freezers and the fridge were pretty full when we left Florida so the 17 meals that she provided required some creative storage.  We caught her trolling while under sail on the NW Providence Channel on the way to Nassau. Of course we had sizable 15-20 knot winds and moderate seas but that added to the challenge and satisfaction of the catch!

The pressure is off Kim now that the freezer is full of fish.

Catch of the day for dinner

 It has been very windy since our arrival in the Exumas, which is our favourite part of the Bahamas, but the sun shines endlessly and it is nice and warm.  Windy conditions whip up waves and plenty of salt spray so we are always wishing for a rain cloud to rinse the salt from the boat. Highborne Marina provided a rare stay at a dock for two nights as it was difficult to find a calm anchorage.  As always we have met a number of cruisers from the US to keep us company along the way.

These “dock” birds would sit and stare at you in the cockpit until you were guilted into feeding them.

 

Just another secluded beach.  This one is on the sound (ocean) side of Highborne Cay.

We are currently anchored at Normans Cay where you can snorkel on a DC3 plane that crashed in the bay during the drug running days of the 80’s.  There is a Beach Club on shore where we can have two burgers and a coke for $75 US. Yikes ! We think we hear our mahi calling….

Waiting for the Bahamas

“Life is what happens when you’re making plans” pretty much sums up our cruising season so far.  Although we left home on January 7th it took until March 2nd to arrive in Bimini in the Bahamas.  Cathy fractured a few bones in her foot just before leaving home so has been sporting a walking cast. By the time her foot could handle extended sailing it was February 15th.  It then took until March for a decent weather window for crossing the Gulf Stream.  Spending two winter months in Florida still beats dealing with snow, especially when your toes are exposed in a cast.  Here are a few highlights of our ‘sunshine state’ time.
As usual countless hours and dollars are spent preparing the boat for the season. In the Bahamas you need to be prepared for anything with spare parts and a shocking amount of food and other supplies.  You know you’ve spent too much when suppliers start reserving parking spots in your honour.

Spend enough and you get your own personalized parking spot

 We spent a record 10 days in West Palm Beach and enjoyed the free trolley service instead of our usual walking. We are in mega-yacht company as you can see from our neighbors.

One of the smaller boats......

Indeed the streets are lined with Royal Palms and with year round good weather, bike paths are complete with repair tools. Kim ran errands around the city on a rented City Bike and discovered this bike repair station along the waterfront in West Palm Beach.  Every hand tool one would need to effect minor repairs to your bike, including a hand pump.

Broken bike repair station

We always enjoy the Saturday Farmers Market that is a two minute walk from where we land the dinghy.  The produce is very fresh and lasts far longer than the supermarket foods.  Orchids of all kinds are amazing to see.  Martha Stewart came shopping too – it seems she was staying at her Palm Beach mansion.

Orchids at the farmers market

Not all of our days were sun bathing temps. On the day we left for Ft. Lauderdale it was 6 degrees C. Nothing that a t-shirt, turtle neck, down vest, blanket and driving gloves didn’t fix.

Boy was it chilly this morning. Florida can get cold !

We don’t sail much in Florida but did get in a motor sail to Miami where we do enjoy anchoring in a multi-million dollar neighbourhood in South Beach.  We attended the Miami Boat Show and admired the inside of a Hylas 63 and an Amel 54-wow!

We also discovered the Botanical Gardens and have included some of the plants we saw.

Spiny tree...ouch !

Clown fig

Ponytail palm

Orange flower palm

Mangrove tree

Along the canal where we dock the dinghy to go into town Kim spied a beautiful iguana with colours we never see in the Bahamas.  The iguanas we usually see are huge but definitely much more ugly.

He seemed to be protecting his space. We were worried he might jump into the dinghy.

Now we are waiting for a weather window to cross the gulf stream…stay tuned

Cat Island and Little San Salvadore

We have been lax in sharing our adventures over the last month but will try to bring you up to speed.  We had a great sail from Conception Island to New Bight on Cat Island only to find our friends Chrisy and Roger on Sanderling anchored in the harbour.  Finding people you know when you are travelling is such a delight  and with Chrisy and Roger you know you are in for a good time. This was our first visit to Cat Island. It is one of the larger islands in The Bahamas at 48 miles long and 4 miles across and still has a very traditional culture (you don’t sense any North American lifestyle here).  The  people were so welcoming and very proud of their island.  Many of the native residents believe that when the last person of a generation dies their house is left for the spirit to reside in.  The remaining family members will leave and build a new home to live in.  As a result there are abandoned homes all over the island.  To the casual visitor like us they may appear derelict, but for them it is a reminder of their ancestors.

Current family members live next door to this abandoned house

Our first night at Cat we met a cruiser who had caught two Mahi-Mahi on the sail from Conception.  He very kindly offered to provide fish for all of us, so we paid one of the local ‘Take Away’ places on the beach (take out- but NOT commercial)  to cook it for us and provide the sides. It made for a great evening of company for eight of us.  The next day we rented a car (from the brother in law of some one we met over sundowners – everyone is related here) with Chrisy and Roger and toured the island.  Along the way we met two conch divers on the Atlantic side of the island who had brought up 130 conch in two hours (an amazing feat).

Conch fritters anyone !

In the 1700 and 1800's Cat Island was home to many cotton plantations and more recently was a big agricultural center. We couldn’t see any large farming operations but there are many stone walls from the plantation days, and a few ruins of the loyalist homes.

This century old wall is all that is left of a plantation

One place of note was Arthur’s Town, childhood home of Harry Belafonte.  The town seemed to be more well off than other places along the way – hopefully due to Harry’s support. The town also has a beautiful little Anglican church and as with most of the island, blue holes and caves.

The Anglican church in Arthur's Town

The main attraction on Cat is the Hermitage on Mt. Albernia, which is the highest elevation in The Bahamas at 206 feet! It was a good thing it wasn’t higher because it felt as though we were walking in 100 degree F temperatures as we climbed to the top to tour the Hermitage! The Hermitage was built starting in 1939 by Father Jerome, a priest/architect who built many churches in The Bahamas. Upon retirement Father Jerome built the Hermitage by himself out of native stone, hauling the stones up the steep incline. On the way up the steep slope he carved the stations of the cross out of the rock.   The buildings are a miniature replica of a Franciscan monastery and were built to 1/3 scale.  When you see it from the water it appears huge, but as you get closer to the top of the climb you realise that the doorways are only five feet tall and all the furniture  is also small.  It was here that he would spend his last years in seclusion and contemplation – truly a testament to his faith.

Looking up the steep trail where the building stones were dragged to the top

The Hermitage.  It may look normal size but it is built to about 1/3 scale.

Crissy and Roger from Sanderling

The 13th station of the cross

A weather cold front was working its way to Cat so while we had the car we scoped out two anchorages at the north end of the island where we took shelter for a few days. Shanna’s Cove restaurant was a welcome sight as we reached the north end of the island.

Kim and Roger chatting at Shanna's Cove

After a long day of driving we were beckoned back to shore for an evening of Rake and Scrape on the beach.  Pompey Johnson is a well known musician on the island and has performed on the Today Show and in Paris. His band was playing for cruisers that night and as one of the girls in the band of three also owned the snack shack, she disappeared every so often to keep the kitchen going.  When this happened the music stopped and this was when Cathy stepped in to do some drumming on the goombay drum to keep the music going. It was good fun and Cathy was honoured to play with a musical legend.  Unfortunately, we left the camera on the boat so we have no photos of the evening.
Sailing regattas are a matter of island pride in The Bahamas and whole settlements will build, race, and support their sloop.  The regattas are a time of celebration and attract entrants from all over The Bahamas with spectators coming from the US to enjoy the festivities.  A new sloop was being built by hand. across the street from our favourite ‘take away’. These sloops have no ballast so crew need hike out on boards to keep the over-canvased vessel from going over.

A new Bahamian Class C sloop under construction.

As always, we spent many hours walking the beautiful beaches, some of them pink sand.  We found a few water creatures as we strolled along.

Starfish are abundant in The Bahamas

A sand crab out of its hole.  Left alone it will quickly bury itself in the sand.

An under water shot of the same crab

As soon as the cold front had run its course we left Cat and sailed west to Little San Salvador (or Half Moon Cay as Holland America Cruise Lines calls it). This island was purchased by the cruise line as a daytime playground for their passengers. It is an odd sight to see a ‘deserted’ cay on one side and as you head toward the anchorage you see Disneyland on the beach. The cruise ships come in around 7 am and ferry 3000 passengers to shore in a very short time. The passengers can stroll the beach, ride horseback along the shore, enjoy water sports, loud music, boat rides, snorkelling and the ultimate waste (in our opinion) sit on an open air – air conditioned, multi-level cabana! At 4 pm 3000 people are sucked back inside the ship and it departs, leaving the beach to people like us – ahhh! Fortunately only 45 of the 2,500 acres have been developed, the rest is kept as a nature preserve. The experience of seeing this daily cycle (except for Sundays) is surreal.

The bar.  Too bad it was closed when we were there.

The small open air cabana, on the right, actually had an air conditioner on the back wall.

The daily cruise ship

On our own again

When we had completed our visits with Corinne, Calvin, and Megan we turned our bow south towards Georgetown on Great Exuma Island.  This the hub for many cruisers who stay in this spot for the entire winter where much socializing is done. For us it was a jumping off point for islands to the south and east of the Exumas but not before visiting ‘Rake and Scrape’ night at Eddie’s Edgewater Cafe. Rake and Scrape is a traditional Bahamian style of music played largely on the out islands and usually includes an accordion, (in the old days a concertina) a goombay drum, and a saw that is often played with a old rusty screwdriver. The band on this night also had a guitar, bucket base, and a tom tom drum. There is nothing fancy about the evening but the rhythm is contagious and eventually everyone is dancing.

The Goombay drum is on the left and the saw player and tip bucket on the right

The rest of the band.

Most of the creature life is below water in the Bahamas but we do occasionally encounter insects such as this spider that was suspended between bushes on a deserted beach at Jack’s Cove.

Creative photography makes it appear larger than real life

Don’t know what type of beetle it is but it sat perfectly still for this portrait

The effect of the wind and waves on the limestone landscape can be very dramatic as we saw just outside Black Point.

Another dramatic spot with the Exuma Sound in the background. Can you find the "horse" in this photo ? 

 The weather since the beginning of March has been unusually settled.  The trade winds blow from the east every day and as a result there are few fronts moving through and the waters have been very calm.  On the day we sailed from Georgetown to Long Island the Exuma Sound was like glass as the temperature increased the closer we were to the Tropic of Cancer.  It was so calm that we stopped in 5000 feet of water to let out all 200 feet of our anchor chain to untwist it.

 

You can probably feel the heat just looking at the Exuma Sound.

  
Long Island is 100km long and quite narrow with one main road running the length of it.  It was the third island that Columbus landed on in the New World. As always the people were welcoming and are only too happy to stop and give you a lift to where ever they are headed. The major highlight was wonderful grocery shopping  where we loaded up on vegetables and fruit.

The very dry climate of the south Bahamas is ideal for cactus type plants.

It is always surprising to see such beautiful flowers surviving in rock and minimal soil

And everywhere you go – coconut palms

Landscaping with rock

Landscaping with rock - It may be difficult to see the hours of work that must have been spent landscaping this front yard. Clearing the scrub out, building the walls, and using rocks to create ‘gardens’ around each tree must have been a huge effort.

The ‘weather station’ at Salt Pond, Long Island.  Not so good at longer-range forecasting.

Our time on Long Island was cut short by the amazingly settled weather when we realized we could spend time on tiny Conception Island.  You might wait a few years to have weather that is settled enough to anchor at Conception as it is open to most weather. The surge from the ocean wraps around the entire island which makes for uncomfortable rolling in the one achorage.  It is a National Park (the deserted island type of park) and another of the three islands that Columbus stopped at.  It is an important birding area, and the mangroves are a playground for sea turtles. We took the dinghy into the mangroves and enjoyed the sizable turtles popping their heads up all around us but didn’t have any luck catching them on camera – they are a shy bunch.  The reef on the north side of the island is the longest continuous example of Montastraea reef in the Caribbean. The reefs were huge and looked ancient, and it was a little creepy to be in the middle of so many giant sized coral heads so close together .  We saw some of the largest fish we have ever come across  including three really scary looking Barracuda.  It was all a bit much for one of us who left the water to sit in the safety of the dinghy … guess who?

Some of our neighbours on Conception

More birds in the mangroves with the turtles

Classic Brain Coral

Some of the ancient coral, very different from the smaller, cuter stuff in the Exumas

This was the biggest parrotfish we have seen yet

A very large Tang

More ancient pillar coral on the north side of Conception

Coral on the west side of  Conception is much smaller, phew!

Eventually the winds shifted and the anchorage became quite rolly so although we still had more investigating to do here we moved on to Cat Island, but we’ll be back another year.