Exploring the Exumas

16th Feb – 1st March 2014

Shroud Cay is part of the Exumas Cays Land and Sea Park  which covers 22 miles from  Wax Cay Cut  just south of Norman’s Island to Conch Cut just north of Compass Cay. The park became a “no take” marine reserve in 1986 and was the first marine fishery reserve established  in the greater Caribbean. There are no commercial developments in the park, though there are a few privately owned islands. The Park is one of the most beautiful areas in the Exumas, with pristine cays, long sandy beaches and gin clear waters.

 

We spent two days here exploring the place. There are a couple of great inland mangrove creeks which we took the dinghy up, and came out on the Atlantic side of the Island. The beaches on this side were a little rough due to the wind but on a calm day would be magic. Even still this is where I had my first swim of the season and it was fabulous.

 

Also on this side  perched above the beach is a small clearing called Camp Driftwood. It was built in the 1960’s by a fellow sailor, a hermit as legend has it. He cut steps in the rock face and carried sand in his sail bags to build a trail to the top of the 50 ft hill. Picnic tables and chairs  were built from bits of driftwood that he found along the beaches, hence the name. Today the place is deserted but the magnificent views are still there.

 

In the 1980’s Drug Enforcement Agents  from the USA used the site to spy on the drug cartel of Carlos Lehder who ran a cocaine operation from a small airstrip on Norman Island a mile or so to the north. They photographed every plane that landed and took off which eventually led to the demise of the drug operation in the area.

Moving on from Shroud Cay we had a brisk sail on flat water with just our jib down to Obrien’s Cay. A small  island named The Sea Aquarium is the main attraction here. It has a brightly coloured coral wall  with abundant fish life. Although we’d dived here a few years ago we just had to do it one more time and it was still as lovely as ever.

Our next anchorage was Big Majors Spot at Staniel Cay. Home to the famous swimming pigs, we spent several days here catching up with the little and not so little porkers. There had to be a least 15 little squealers running around on the beach this year and they hadn’t yet learnt the art of swimming from their parents.

Liam spent a lot of time hunting  and catching lobsters with some new found cruising buddies from “Windflower”.  We ventured into the Staniel Cay Yacht club one day for a spot of lunch which was just ok and after spending $10 to purchase access to the Exuma Wi –Fi decided that it was a complete waste of money. We never could connect even sitting in the restaurant. Won’t be doing that again .

Next stop was 10 miles to the south at Black Point Settlement. A true Bahamian community, everyone greets each other no matter who you are or where you come from. Most refreshing. It’s a great place to stop when travelling south and has everything for the needs of those of us on boats. A well protected  anchorage, great laundry, a few places to eat,  free wi fi and a cafe owner whose mum Connie bakes fresh bread every day and sells it right from her kitchen bench. We strolled through town and chatted with a couple of women who were weaving  long strips of flax grass which they send to Nassau to be made into baskets for the tourists. They may have been old but there sure were dexterous with their hands.

Musha Cay was a must for us this season . The island is owned by illusionist David Copperfield, and is the most perfect little cay we’ve seen. Surrounded by water just about every hue of aqua you can imagine, it certainly is a place to chill out

We’d heard rumors of an underwater statue that he’d commissioned but had not met anyone who had ever found it. After a little delving on the net Annie found the blog of a cruiser who had actually written down the Lat / Long of the spot. Armed with this knowledge, we anchored over near Rudder Cay and within minutes had found what we were looking for. There in 12 ft of water was a bronze mermaid resting on a  piano stool next to a full size grand piano. It was stunning and we were so glad we’d stopped there. It was a shame that the current was strong and we couldn’t get right down to it. We’ll stop here again next time we are passing through and maybe get a few better pics.

 

  

Time was getting the better of us and Pete our friend from Sydney was flying in to George Town in two days time, so we needed to get a move on. We had a great sail with main and jib sitting on speeds of 8- 10 knots all the way covering the 30 miles in just a few hours.

After a day of stocking up the larder, fuel, and collecting Pete are about to head down through the Ragged Islands and on to destinations south, Cuba and beyond. Were ready for some new adventures.

      

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Back To The Beautiful Bahamas

10th –16th February  2014

The day had started just the same as any other when there was a short passage involved. Wanting to arrive before dark we were up early  and on the move. Ahead of us lay the gulf stream and 50 miles of ocean separating  Miami from Bimini in the Bahamas. It was bright  and sunny with a just a zephyr of breeze, not enough to hoist the sails. Looked like we’d be motoring until the breeze came up later in the day.

About 20 miles out things started going pear shaped. Our depth sounder was the first fatality. Instead of giving a readout of numbers it showed only grey dashes. Not good when you are headed to the land of shallow water and reefs. This was followed closely by our log / speed readout pulling a similar stunt. More grey dashes of death. What the heck was going on? And not to be left out, our navigation program on the computer also jumped on the bandwagon. It had decided that one of us had fallen off the boat and put itself into the man overboard mode and frozen. I swear I could hear the voice of the computer from the movie Space Odyssey saying “don’t touch that, what are you doing?” every time my fingers reached out toward the keyboard to try to rectify the problem. Oh, and did I mention that our Raymarine plotter also decided to play dead! Had a black cat crossed our path, had we walked under a ladder or smashed a mirror? Was it Friday the 13th or had the CIA somehow beamed us up and dropped us down into the Bermuda Triangle? Ok so what to do. The only logical thing was to turn around and head back to the ponderosa. Or at least to somewhere we could get a phone signal and call a technician. Reluctantly that’s what we did.

By 2pm we were back on the anchor in No Name Bay, yes that’s actually it’s name, but in truth it should have been called noseeum bay, as we were attacked with vengeance by these invisible creatures come sunset. On the way back just as weirdly as the mornings events had unfolded the depth sounder and plotter sprang back to life. The tech guy offered no solutions as to what might have caused the problems and we were bereft of ideas other than that some strange electrical spike had happened. .

 

Next morning we headed out again, take two. The seas were flatter this time and the breeze a little stronger so up went the sails and we clipped along nicely under main and jib.  Around noon the wind had come around onto the nose and we fired up the motor, time to put the sails to bed. The jib furled up nicely but as we dropped the main the outer core of the halyard shredded, jamming the main  2/3 of the way down.

Liam hates going up the mast even when the boat is as still as a millpond and he really hates going up when we are at sea. But today there was no option, the only way to get that sucker down was to cut the halyard and that couldn’t be done standing on the deck.

With a plan in mind up he went and attached a second halyard to the headboard, cut the main halyard free and we lowed the sail back down to the boom. Just as well we’d bought that new halyard while we’d been in Fort Lauderdale!

The upside of the day was that we caught a good size Mahi Mahi. The first catch of the season, way to go.

By 5.30 pm we had arrived in Bimini and had the anchor down. It was great to be back in the Bahamas again. With a not so great forecast coming up we knew we’d be in the anchorage for a couple of days. After completing our entry formalities and parting with US$300 we were officially allowed to go where we pleased for the next 180 days.

The first place we hit was the beach. We’d forgotten how fabulous  the water colour is over here. There just aren’t enough adjectives to describe it. We were mesmerized and could have stayed there for hours but there was a major job waiting for us back on the boat .

 

Most of the afternoon was taken up with Liam up the mast installing our new main halyard, which for some unknown reason happened without a hitch. By late arvo a line of squalls marched across the the sky and the rain and wind hit hard. Our anchor was dug in solidly and we felt very snug.

The heavy weather continued through the evening and night and at 1am something woke us, maybe it was just a feeling but we leapt out of bed and up to the cockpit. Horizontal driving rain and howling wind greeted us and not a foot away  was a neighbouring trawler which was bearing down on our port side. It had dragged anchor and the captain was standing in his cockpit looking like a deer in the headlights. He must have knew that he was going to hit us as he had already tied his dinghy to our bow . We quickly put out our fenders and suggested that to save any more grief he should side-tie to us until morning.

Including GWTW there were four boats in the anchorage. The other three all dragged their anchors. In the light of day the damage to our port bow was minimal, but it still would need repairing. Sadly, the couple involved in the incident offered no compensation for the damage and left the anchorage without even saying goodbye.

Once the weather settled down, we headed out over the Bahama banks to Chubb Cay, a run of 70 miles, The banks on average are around 12 ft deep and that , even for us, takes a bit of getting used to. On a clear day the aqua blue water seems to stretch out to eternity. The water is so clear that you can see starfish and turtles glide by under the boat. It is simply awesome. Being so shallow there is no fishing to be had so we busied ourselves with other projects. Yours truly did the washing while Liam started on creating a fish trap.

We made it to Chubb in time to watch the sun set and a beautiful full moon rise. It was Valentine’s day so we decided that dinner ashore might be nice. Bad decision, the food was terrible, we should have stayed home.

Athol Island near Nassau, a distance of 40 miles, was our next stop. In very lively conditions we left Chubb Cay under jib alone. Along the way we landed another two good sized Mahi Mahi. No prizes for guessing what was for dinner. From Athol another 30 miles east took us to Ship Channel Cay, a place we’d been told by friends that there has an abundance of lobsters just begging to be caught. An afternoon of hunting delivered no booty, bugger!

We were now in the Exuma chain of islands and we would be gunkholing all the way down to Georgetown. In our opinion the Exumas are the prettiest place in the Bahamas. Internet is hard to come by in these parts, so  my  next blog posting might be a few days away.  So stay tuned.

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