We’re off again, this time to the Jumentos Cays, with Dream Catcher, the Leopard 40 we met in Connecticut.  The chain starts about 30 miles from Great Exuma and George Town, and extends to Ragged Island about 60 miles from Cuba.  These islands are very remote with very few residents.  Duncan Town on Ragged Island is the only settlement in the chain with 72 residents reported in the 2000 census.

Our day’s travel was about 55 miles from George Town to Flamingo Cay.  We had to time the tide going through Hog Cay Cut, 15 miles from George Town, because the deepest the water gets there on a high tide is 6 feet and our boat is 4.5.  So about an hour before high tide we made a mad dash across the sand bar.  There wasn’t any wind but that gave us a great view of the bottom.

We spotted coral heads and sea stars.  Roy fished and caught barracuda one after the other.  One time the “fish on” call went out but by the time Roy got to the pole all the line went off his reel and we could only wonder what took it.  Roy felt bad for the fish that was now swimming around with 200 feet of line hanging out of it’s mouth so we turned around to look for the line.  I’m sure you can guess how that went, it’s not easy to find fishing line trailing along the bottom.

From the spreaders Roy spotted a shark and barracuda, sure enough we all saw them a few minutes later.

It’s been awhile since we’ve been on a passage this long.  Everyone started getting board so there was much running around the boat, swinging and rolling.

Just before sunset we arrived at spear fishing paradise.  But what did we see?  Two big fishing vessels and a couple dozen skiffs scattered about.  My heart sank, I was sure they were vacuuming up the bottom and we would snorkel on a barren waste land.

Roy and I swam over to Lady Marie and chatted with George the owner/captain.  He invited all of us to come back the next day for a tour.

We arrived with a plate of cookies for a tour.  He told us about Spanish Wells, on the north end of Eluthera, where he’s from, how his father was a fisherman, and now his son is aboard.  We learned that they hand spear their catch of crawfish (lobster), conch, and grouper.  According to Ronald’s Seafood in Spanish Wells, their company exports over one million pounds of lobster tails to Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants.

George showed us pictures of his family and told stories about his sons and his passion for baseball.  His advise to Roy, our fishing guru, is to stay in school!  The life of a fisherman, while it seems fun at first, consists of spending weeks at a time away from home and watching weather and storms.

Lady Marie is named after George’s wife and he fishes with just one skiff.  He said the other two dozen skiffs belong to the Dominican Republic fishing boat, which the Bahamian fishermen do not welcome in their waters.  We found that George had plenty of cruiser friends and even used the same weather report from Chris Parker that the rest of us do.

All this talk of fishing got Roy twitchy.  We donned our gear, Hawaiian Slings in hand and off we went around the corner.  Roy has a grouper in his right hand and a Hog Fish in the left.

A huge school of jacks came by and distracted us.  We had fun diving into them and cutting the school in half.  After that great freediving class I found it easy to sink 25 feet down in this clear warm water for great photo opportunities.

Roy is always hunting.  At the end of they day, he’s the only one with a full bucket of seafood.

Most of the time I don’t even try, because Roy brings in more than a meal and he does this every time he gets wet.

To keep the sharks away from the anchorage, Roy did his cleaning on the island and tossed the carcass in the bushes for the lizards and ants.

Late in the afternoon funnel clouds formed out over the bank.  Eric noticed that funnel clouds had been reported here in other blogs he reads.  The conditions must be just right for them in this area.

The next day we sailed south to Buenavista Cay about 25 miles further south.  Roy deployed a message in a bottle and caught a few more barracuda.  Since we were sailing with the spinnaker, its difficult to stop the boat to pull in a fish and since we don’t keep barracuda, the lines had to come in so we could enjoy the sail.

Ahh another great sunset in paradise.

First we anchored along the west side of the island. Topaz had a bit of shore leave as we sailed the hobie along with one foot on the sand.  She ran along and stretched her poor cramped up little legs:)  This dog never has any fun.  The water was full of little green specs, they looked like tiny leaves or seeds floating by.  Upon closer inspection we saw that they are clouds of jelly fish.  Yikes, I’m super sensitive to jelly stings.  I can go into the water with 10 people and be the only one to come out with welts.  Even though I dive with a full wetsuit and now a hood that covers everything except my mask and mouth, I still managed to get several stings that itched and a few blistered.  See it’s not all fun and games down here

We had a wonderful evening with two young couples from Nila Girl and Rode Trip, Ashley, Ren and their little baby Ani and Brian and Stephanie. Ashley prepared the most tender and delicious conch I’ve had so far. I really need to figure out how to tenderize that snail.  Roy brought a lobster and grouper to the table.  We found out that grouper eat squid because the one he caught today coughed it up in the bucket.  I offered to fry the squid up for Roy, but he waved off the idea.

After looking at all our photos, I’m thinking the adventure to the Jumentos is really a fishing vacation for Roy.

Around the corner from the anchorage we found some nice reefs.  As usual Roy’s bucket filled up.  Ken and I spotted a few crawfish, I missed one and then stuck a second but it got off my pole spear.  I’ve been stubbornly rejecting the Hawaiian sling Roy selected for my birthday present, but I guess, he’s right and I’m going to have to switch.  The difference between the two is that the pole spear can be used with one hand while I hold a rock with the other.  The problems are that it’s more difficult to get your catch off the end of the spear and into the bucket and it doesn’t have as much penetration power.  The Hawaiian Sling is a bit more like a bow and arrow.  The pole penetrates better and has a better one-way barb, and your catch can slide off the other end of the spear easily into a bucket.

We also used a tip Ken got from a local and started fishing at day break.

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Yahoo, we had a lobsterfest that will go down in the record books along with our spearing trip in the Sea of Cortez with our pal Brian 15 years ago.  Between the three of us we collected enough shell fish for a huge dinner and full freezer for our upcoming guests.  In one lobster nest, Ken went down for the first bug, then I went down and shot another.  While I was pulling it out of the hole another crawled into my hand and I came up with two on one breath.  Then Roy was right there to finish it off with one more.  Whew, Ken and I redeemed our selves and don’t feel like Roy showed us up on this dive.

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Roy has his Evolve Freediving hat on to advertise Ashley and Ren’s instruction for increased bottom time.

After cleaning up from spear fishing, we took everyone out to reef in the middle of the bay.

The colors were beautiful.  I put away my wet suit, weights and sling to show this wasn’t a fishing trip.  Of course I should have worn the wet suit because I got a few jelly stings, and Roy came out in full gear to take home a lobster.

Marie practiced her freediving skills, with ventilation breathing, a peak inhalation breath, then hooks and cleanses on the surface to recover. See she even spit her snorkel out to properly close her mouth for safety. Thanks Ashley and Ren!

Yes slinging lobster is fun, but I also love to sink to the bottom for a better photo.

As always, when you enter the water, you are a guest.  The Barracuda are always lurking on the sidelines. We’re getting used to them and have been told not to worry to much, Eric and Roy like to chase them away.

The rest of the afternoon was hot and windless.  The water was crystal clear and the sky blue, a perfect day for swimming and splashing around.  But, Noooooo, a bull shark decided to spend the day doing figure 8′s around Dream Catcher and Makai.  In the evening we had a dinner party with Dream Catcher and Fooling Around, a seasoned Bahamas cruising couple on a trawler, Fred and Elaine.  Its great to visit with people who have been here for several seasons. Tomorrow is Elaine’s birthday, we better get her a present.

So at daybreak Eric drove us over to the reef.

Aww, aren’t I cute?

So Roy and I swam off into the sunrise to see if the lobsters, sleepy from their nocturnal adventures, are still playing around at their hole’s front door.

Phew, ting, ting, ting. Roy shot a quick three for a birthday present.

Happy Birthday Elaine have a nice lobster omelet.

We put our slings away, as crawfish season will be over March 31, packed up the boats and sailed back up to Flamingo Cay.

Genny did a bit of water art on the cushions.

Eric made a few conch horns. When cleaning a conch and extracting the meat you have to punch a hole in the back of it to get the meat out.   To make the horn, he had to epoxy the hole up and then using a saw cut off the tip.  Blowing into this hole makes conch music.  We’ve found that the bigger the conch the deeper the tone and we’re testing to see if the ease of making a noise has to do with the cut hole size or the conch size.

The trip to Flamingo Cay left just enough time for a SCUBA dive.  Marie joins us on the bottom with the hookah hose and strict instructions not to hold her breath and never surface faster than her smallest bubbles.  Next year when we come to Georgetown she’ll be 10 years old and can get certified in the Bahamas.

It’s a much different feeling looking at the fish and coral when I have air in the tank on my back compared to the feeling of needing to breath while freediving.

Genny likes to play in her weightless environment and look for shells.

Roy is always looking for seafood.  Its against the fishing laws to have a sling and SCUBA gear with you at the same time. Roy spotted two nice big lobsters whose legs and horns would have made an impressive meal on their own.  This is the very same coral head he pulled a lobster out of a few days ago.

The grouper weren’t even afraid of him.  The Nassau grouper has a season which opened at the beginning of March.

Without his sling Roy is a very bored SCUBA diver.

The week ended with a long sail, but great wind back to George Town.