SailMakai

After diving with our pals near George Town and coming home with one little lobster, C Spirit and Makai were feeling motivated to capture some bigger bugs.  The first stop is the fuel dock at Emerald Bay Marina.  While the boats were fueling up, the kids and I explored the marina a bit.

The Lounge was quite impressive.  We lounged in the TV room, the dining room is behind us, with a billiard room and a bar room off to the side.  Too fancy for us.  The playground is still under construction.

Back on Makai hand stands were practiced. Phoenix is a gymnast and her graceful contortions inspire Genny and Marie to flip around.

The coconuts which occupied everyone’s afternoon a week ago and stained the back deck were set free.

Then Roy set out on the hunt.  He gets real itchy when his spears are dry for too long.  The first afternoon he came home with a slipper lobster and Jamey got a nice spiny lobster. It isn’t easy diving to peek into a coral head when the current is flowing like the Niagara River.

The next morning we were feeling disgusted with our ability to determine slack water and find the elusive lobster. Theoretically, the water should stop rushing in or out right about when the tide is turning around, but for some reason our observations don’t agree with the tide chart.   So we started preparations to move first thing and hopefully get to the next anchorage by high tide. Jamey said the water was surprisingly slack under his boat and suggested a quick snorkel trip on the coral heads we tried to visit yesterday. OK, lets check it out.  These coral patches are beautiful, we even saw a turtle and a big nurse shark resting in the sand.  Then we spotted them, LOBSTAH, right where they should be, sticking their little antenna out testing the waters.  Roy was chasing one around while I tried to spear the super hard shell of Lobzilla. My spear bounced off him two or three times and finally I pinned his horn so I could drag him out and get my hands on the beast.

The tails are about the size of our feet.  Jamey got a nice one for their lunch and then off we went to the next anchorage.

This is the location around the corner from the mermaid and piano sculpture.  We looked for lobster here about 10 days ago and only saw one that we couldn’t get out of its hole. Today everyone snorkeled and played on the beach while Roy hunted.

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In the end Roy got two and Jamey got one.

I was on the beach with the dinghy, Topaz and Sage when I spotted him swimming with the big bug over his head.  We do that in hopes that predators won’t get a whiff of the distressed creature on the spear. So Sage and I left Topaz and went out to get Roy’s catch.  Meanwhile Genny pointed one out for Jamey to sling.  By now everyone was pooped out except for Roy and Nancy, so they went off with the paddle board and came back with one more bug.

Now we have too much lobster.  How can that be? I guess that means another dinner party!  C Spirit and Makai couldn’t eat it all, so we sent Marie out with water to offer and make friends.

Rag Doll chatted with her and accepted the dinner offer.

Mmm, the last time I lobster hunted like this was in the Sea of Cortez in 2000.  Since then the only lobster we’ve eaten was once in Barbuda last season and here in the Bahamas.

 

I froze two tails, baked three tails, steamed all the legs and horns, chopped up some of the meat and melted it in with cream cheese, cheddar cheese, sauteed onion and a bit of garlic for a spread.  We also has sauteed spinach, and pasta for the on seafood and vegetable eaters.

 

Great Exuma is the largest of the 360 Cays that make up the Exuma district.  The capital and largest city in the district, George Town, has been our goal.  George Town is truly in the tropics as the Tropic of Cancer runs through here.  The Tropic of Cancer is the northern most point where the sun will appear directly over head.  This event only happens once a year in June during the summer solstice.

For us the major draw to the George Town area is to visit some friends and buy vegetables.  The dinghy dock is a busy place for boaters to park while in town and fill up water jugs at the hose.  As the day wears on, the dinghy raft is several boats deep on either side.

The Exuma Market is stocked regularly by shipments that arrive on the mail boat.  We were very excited to find such a wonderful selection of produce and cheeses as well as any other grocery item we might need.  As usual, you have to be very careful to check the prices.  Some items are reasonable and others are off the chart expensive.  Ken showed Eric a can of nuts for $24.  We still have a few jumbo sized containers from Costco stashed away. I did buy the $30 Jumbo bag of mozzarella because it would provide several pizza dinners.

Three days a week a pick up truck stops by the fuel station across the street and as many boaters that will fit in the back pile in for a lift to Prime Island Meats and Deli. This link to their facebook page has some great pictures of the pickup truck and inside of the deli.  After shopping here I had a grocery shopping sense of satisfaction I haven’t had in months.  While Eric and Roy waited for me to return, they ran sheets and towels through the washing machines at the laundromat. We still use our drier lines on Makai to finish the job.

Eric was so impressed with the solar panels that he took a picture.  Normally we 25 amps coming in and 12 used by our refrigeration and electronics while the rest charges the batteries.  On a windy night the wind generator does a good job keeping up with our night time usage, but if there’s no wind, then the panels are hard at work all day. This all works pretty well, but if all conditions were perfect we should get 75 amps.  The conditions that reduce the panel’s performance are things like clouds, the fact that our panels are horizontal and don’t aim toward the sun, shadows from the boom, radar and wind generator. All in all, it works great.  If we have a bad solar and wind day, we can always run the generator and make water which will charge up the batteries in a jiffy.

One morning Eric got up to use the bathroom and started grumbling while flushing.  Blah, blah, blah, the toilet is clogged, blah, blah, blah, how much toilet paper did those kids stuff in the toilet, blah, blah.  Meanwhile I’m shivering in my boots because I was the last one to use the toilet in the middle of the night.  He’s in there pumping with visions of tearing apart the plumbing and spending the rest of the day digging out wads of toilet paper or some other obstruction mixed with sewage.  Then all of a sudden the toilet water turns purple.  Yikes, I just dyed the girls’ hair, I wonder how the dye got in the toilet.  Now, I’m really scared.  Then Eric finds that it pumps fine if he’s not trying to pump water into the bowl, so a quick check of the salt water intake is in order.

You wouldn’t believe what he found, a little baby octopus crawled into the sea water intake hole and settled in for a nap, when the toilet sucked him into the strainer and squeezed the ink and his life out of him.  Poor guy, but at least the rest of us are off the hook for today’s toilet disaster.  So, now if there is a mysterious problem that could result in much time and money to fix, we first say it could be an octopus before jumping to the worst case scenario.

For C-Spirit George Town is the goal because Sirene, the catamaran Jamey built in more than 10 years ago in Massachusetts. Jamey and Nancy then trailered it to Florida and sailed through the Bahamas. I heard stories about sailing right up to the beach and pitching a tent on the trampoline at night. Now those are some tough sailors.  Anyway they eventually sold Sirene and the new owner did the same and eventually sold it here in George Town. Jamey anchored near by the new owner and they family had a great sail up and down the channel.

Roy saw them out there and jumped on the Hobie.  He had a great sail across the half mile channel, then another half mile south toward town, and then back.  That was a great distance and independent sail for my almost 13 year old boy Roy.

Wikipedia says George Town has 1000 residents and I bet during the winter another 1000 boaters.  Some boaters just set their autopilot for George Town and spend the winter here snorkeling on the outer reefs, enjoying the beaches, taking advantage of easy provisions, free water fills, and other necessary services to make their lives comfortable.  The airport has regular flights from Nassau as well as the U.S. and Canada, for guests to visit. One Canadian friend said it sure beats shoveling snow.  The boaters are very organized here as well.  We used channel 68 for hailing and alternate channels for chit chatting, channel 72 at 8am is the morning net where new boaters are welcomed and old friends say goodbye as they leave, swap and trades are offered, the weather is reported, taxi shares to the airport are organized, lost and found items are identified, and reminders for the day’s events are announced.  We arrived at the tail end of the Cruiser’s Regatta which attracts more then the normal number of boaters.

With all the extra kids around, one of the moms, single handedly, put together Kid’s Day events.  They started by breaking up into three teams to make sand castles.

Then there was an exciting best out of three tug of war.  The north team won three times.  After the first two wins, the biggest boys on the end were switched to the other team, but the north team won again.

After everyone rested their sore hands an obstacle course had the kids crawling under the bench, hopping on one foot around a tree, and racing back to the finish.

The last event was story telling and a scavenger hunt which ended with a buried treasure box full of candy back at camp.

Every time a kid participated in an event, they got their name in the raffle. Marie was excited to win a gift certificate for the Exuma Market and a few bags of chips and candy.

Finally, after all that hard work there was a hot dog roast.  I could see how hanging around George Town with all of the fun activities could be addicting.

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Even though everyone was tired, we managed to come to Makai for desert. Today is my birthday, 49, I can’t believe it. Marie made me a card, Roy got me a Hawaiian sling so I can join him spear fishing, the C Spirits made a beautiful wallet, birthday cake, and a yummy bottle of rum liqueur.

The girls quickly became little social butterflies.  They visited Jeanette on Dream Catcher who we first met in Connecticut before they left home for cruising. We met Whistling Cay who has been living our parallel life.  Nathan and Wendy lived on their boat in Harbor Island, San Diego just a little after we did, then they sailed in Mexico the same time we did (even though we never met).  After this they went back to Alaska where Nathan is a commercial fishermen and raised their family.  Now they spend the winters here on a Leopard 45, which is laid out exactly like Makai with two feet cut off their sugar scoops in the back, with their three kids and yellow lab, Rocky.  A few weeks back another boater came across us on the beach at Norman’s Cay and mistaken us for them.

Meeting boaters and listening to their stories is very interesting.  Everything from their lifestyle back home to their boat and cruising experiences can provide unlimited entertainment. In the end children in 2014 settle back in the evening and play iGadgets.

Chat and Chill hosted a Friday Night Dance. The beach was lined with dozens of dinghys and the twinkling lights in the night is evidence of the many anchor lights along the open road stead.  The evening started with several parodies written by cruisers.  The lyrics were great fun announcing the craziness associated with cruising.

We participated in a fun run, if running can possibly be fun. The course had us run down a path through the jungle, over to the other side of the island, up a steep hill to the monument and then slide back down the other side completing the 1.2 mile run at the beach. From there we swam between two docks and sprinted back to the finish line.

The participants all lined up.  I looked at the skinny path we were all going to trot along and realized accomplished runners like Jamey should be in front and chubby, 49 year old mothers like me supporting their girls’ interest in participating, should be in the back.

The horn blew and they were off.

Trudging up the hill to the monument and sliding down the other side was hot, but slowing down got my heat rate and breathing back to normal. Little Marie was out in front, dropping off her shoes and positioning the swim goggles.

Genny and I wore masks as we plunged into the water for a refreshing swim to the north dock.

Meanwhile Jamey crossed the finish line in first place.

The rest of us finished and made a sharp right turn back into the water to cool off.

That afternoon Eric went up the mast to take pictures of some fittings on the mast.  He caught us resting up after our morning exercise.

This is a great picture of the top of Makai, there are so many details here like the laundry on the life line, surf boards stick out from under the solar panels, the spinnaker guy coiled up on the trampoline, our tired old stack pack on the main sail holding on for it’s last season before I make a new turquoise one, solar panels and the solar water heater Eric installed this fall. How about the missing Hobie Cat?  Looking out over the upwind boats looking for Roy on the Hobie is like a Where’s Waldo picture. I see him in the middle.

Roy always has his eye open for critters. This Blue Crab seems to have very long arms and claws compared to the ones we found in Maryland.

The week was fun but we’re going to head north a bit to explore some areas we missed on our mad dash to George Town. It’s amazing how fast produce cravings will make us move. Plus we’re not ready to part with our buddy boat C-Spirit as they make their was back to Florida.  Soon they will be on the fast track as a new adventure begins. Jamey has an airline ticket from Florida to Seattle where he’s going to teach for 10 weeks.  Nancy and the girls have great adventures planned that include Florida, New Orleans, Denver, and Tunisia to visit Nancy’s friend. In preparation for the uninhabited Cays north of here, Nancy and I are stocking up on produce.

It took about six weeks and thirteen anchorages for us to travel the 50nm from Allen Cay, at the top of the Exumas, to Staniel Cay. We covered next 50 nm in about five days and four anchorages.  I’m sure we could have found plenty of beautiful beaches and snorkeling spots to slow us down, but we’re out of fruits and vegetables.

About 5nm south of Staniel Cay is Blackpoint Settlement.  I heard this town has the best laundromat, great provisioning, a fund raiser BBQ, free water and trash and some amazing/famous coconut bread.  The kids and I walked through town looking for ice cream and bread.  We found the bread, but like all the islands in the Exumas, the stores are bare until the Mail Boat arrives.  We did get the last loaf of bread.  It was beautiful with a delicious coconut swirl in the middle.  It was great the next morning as french toast.

We also came across Moon Dance.  While beach combing through plastic trash on Hawksbill Cay we came across a clean new fuel jug that still had gas vapor sealed inside.  Like Makai’s jugs, the boat name was on it.  So we took it on as a quest to make a new friend. Apparently, the jug fell off their stern right here at black point and floated more than 30 miles to Hawksbill Cay.  So, in the end we just gave it a ride home!  We had to move on, but are looking forward to meeting up again because Mr. Duval has experience in sport fishing.

I think as we go further south the winter storms that bring Northerly winds affect us less, so the prevailing winds are out of the south east.  Of course that’s the direction we’re heading down to Georgetown.  The weather report for the next few days says the winds will be very light which is best if we have to motor into it.  Next stop is an anchorage just south of Musha Cay. This 150 acre island is owned by David Copperfield.  It has accommodations for 24 people and can be rented for $25K per night with a three night minimum.

The beach in front of our anchorage is private and has a dog patrolling.  Actually, it looked more like he was napping in the sand, but we still couldn’t go ashore.  Right next to the beach is a cave that we took shore leave in.

The opening is very wide and the beach is only exposed at low tide.

At low or high tide, as the tide changes, it’s considered slack.  Which means that the tidal current isn’t sweeping water through the cuts.  The tidal current dictates our snorkeling, swimming, diving, and anchoring.  Low tide in the cave also means slack water so we can swim from the boat to shore without being taken away with the tide.

With the whole flotilla ashore comes an opportunity to be towed back.

Just south of the anchorage an underwater sculpture called The Musician by Jason De Caires Taylor.  The description of the piece describes it as a mirror finished Stainless Steel.  Most of it is crusted over with marine growth and only in a few places can you see the stainless shine through.

When I went to the link for this sculpture, the site looked familiar in my memory bank and sure enough, this is the same guy that did the sculptures we dove on in Grenada.

After fighting the current at the sculpture we moved in to a rocky cove with a bit of sand and shallow water to play in.

As usual we saw a barracuda watching us.  I would bet that 75% of our anchorages have had one of this guy’s relatives lurking under the boat.

Luckily, with all that time spent with this silvery neighbor, we’ve never had a problem with aggression.

All around the edge of the bay are pretty little pockets of color.

This was a great snorkeling morning.  Later that afternoon, I joined Jamie and Roy on a spear fishing trip.  Roy shot a trigger fish that immediately flipped over and died.  There was a nice coral garden full of fish, but then a reef shark came by and broke up the fishing party.

There are always new places to swim on Makai. The escape hatch looked inviting this morning.  So we cleaned the debris out of it and Marie went for a swim.

Topaz has taken to making the Hobie Cat her new nest.  When it is in the water and tied to the side of Makai she likes to nap on the tramp, and when it is on Makai’s bow she makes her way up there for a perch with a view.

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The next stop is Lee Stocking Island. This island was owned by John Perry who first noticed it while ferrying aircraft back from Europe after WWII. John Perry was a newspaper man owning a few dozen Florida newspapers as well as the Nassau Guardian and the Freeport News. Perry used Lee Stocking Island for two of his other passions, Marine research and renewable energy. It was his interest in Marine Research that led President Johnson to appoint Perry to a commission to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

We anchored in front of the research center, that is now abandoned, and had fun hiking around on the island.  Our first walk had us walking down the runway to a beach on the east side of the island.  The kids ran down to the water because they’ve been dry for about 15 minutes and needed to swim.  As we moved down the trail another beach lay before us to splash around on. Then another and another.  Finally the sun was getting low in the sky so we headed back to the boats.

The next day we took the dinghy around the corner to hike to the highest peak in the Exuma Islands.

Loaded down with cold water and cinnamon rolls, we managed to get 7 kids to the summit. A whopping 123 feet above the beach.

The view of the beaches had the kids racing back to the water.  Once again being dry for 15 minutes is 15 minutes too long.

The C Spirit family, Nancy and Jamie with Skye and Pheonix, Indigo and Sage.

At the beach a coconut tree taunted Roy until he climbed up to pick nuts for everyone.

How can you resist Skye’s request for a little girl sized coconut?

One more anchorage before Georgetown.  Roy trolled for tasty sea monsters but only came up with Barracuda.  He said he would rather get this toothy neighbor than nothing at all.

Rather than find a beach or spear fish it was decided to swim.

The kids swung over the boom to climb up Roy’s rope ladder and jump.

Marie got her hair dyed, and everyone had fun swimming in the warm water.

The kids took turns trying to break into the coconuts.

Roy finally persevered.  We used the water for this morning’s pancakes and still have chunks of white coconut meat in the refrigerator.

The rest of them will have to be cracked on the beach.  For some reason coconuts leave a horrible orange stain on the boat.  I used a special cleaner and managed to get it down to yellow, but will have to find more in Georgetown for another application.

 

 

Staniel Cay is our third taste of civilization in the Bahamas.  First was Bimini, our pantry and refrigerators were full so all we needed was to set up our BTC (Bahamas Telecommunications Company) data and voice plans for the winter. Next was the unplanned visit to Nassau where we were able to fill up on produce again, take care of generator business and a few household chores.

Staniel Cay sports a BTC tower on the beach in front of town. This is a welcome sight after weeks of signals on the edge that blink in and out unless the iPad is being held up high on the hard top.

From the water the yacht club to the east has fuel, trash, a great restaurant and bungalows for tourists. A short walk to the west is two little stores, the library, church, and a bit further down is an airport and a general store that takes care of propane, mail boat deliveries, and fishing gear.

C Spirit is anchored waiting for us to go shopping.

The first stop is the Pink Store and two houses down is the Blue Store.  Boy am I glad we spent so much time packing Costco, BJs and Walmart products on Makai.  I’m sure most families back home have more food on their shelves than these stores do.  But how can we complain, the kids got ice cream and Pringels. We were able to pick up some lettuce, eggs, and boxed milk.

Saturday’s big event was a fund raiser for the library.  There was a rummage sale where I picked up a huge tupperware bowl, perfect for popcorn.  At the library we donated several books from Makai and feasted at the baked goods sale.  Wow, we ate donuts, muffins, brownie/chocolate chip cookie muffins, cheese cake tarts, lemon bars, and there were so many other goodies we just couldn’t eat anymore.  We ate all this as a charitable donation to the library, so I’m sure that cancelled out the calories. Afterwards there was a lunch near the beach but we couldn’t possibly eat another bite.

In an effort to keep Topaz away from town, on another evening we went in search of a good beach.  Across the bay and out through the cut was a little island with a bit of sand to play on.

It is always fun to find a beach off the beaten path.

Topaz appreciates her romp on the beach.

Roy spent quite a bit of time on Windflower one morning.  Getting the scoop on what the boys at Serenity are up to and discussing free diving, trolling and spear fishing.  It was a great conversation and we got some great tips.  So the first order of business is to plan a fishing trip.

The crew on C Spirit joined us for a Sunday morning fishing trip to troll along the drop off on the east side of the Cays.  The bottom quickly drops from about 20 feet to a few thousand about a mile off shore.  There was no wind so we motored which was better for controlling the trolling speed as well as stopping for “Fish ON”.

When the spool started letting line out and everyone was running around, things started getting crazy.  Jamie grabbed a hold of Roy who was grabbing a hold of his pole which had some sort of sea monster on the other end.

Finally, they landed our first Wahoo. This 36 inch streamlined silver piece of fish muscle really made everyone’s day.  We’re not quite sure how much it weighed because the scale reflected something the size of a trout instead of a Wahoo.

Even though Roy has cleaned all of our fish so far, Jamie had some great tips on how to made a cleaner fillet.

The next two fish were barracuda which we don’t keep.  The excitement of the fight is great fun.  It is also nice to see this guy on the end of our fishing line instead of patrolling the reef while we’re snorkeling.

Check out these teeth, they look like Topaz’s pearly whites.

We also spent quite a bit Hobie Sailing.  C Spirit has a sailing dinghy, so we both zig zagged between the little islands.  One day we sailed the Hobie more than two miles out to Harvey Cay. It was a windy day and the waves were bigger than I am used to in the anchorage, but C Spirit was our mother ship and we had fun snorkeling once we got there.

Topaz is very glad she came cruising.  She runs, swims, goes snorkeling, and barks all she wants.  There is never time enough for her to have a nap.

Thunderball Grotto is a cave inside of one of the small islands in the anchorage. At low tide there are entrances on both side of the island.  This is one of the locations the James Bond movie Thunderball was filmed.

The inside of the cave rises up about 15 feet with openings that let the sun shine in.

Since the entrance has a foot or so of clearance, you never have to hold your breath to get in.  This makes it easier for Topaz.

Inside there are many beautiful fish and corals.  I always love fish schools.

The lighting is unusual with it being a little darker in the cave.

Those crazy Sergeant Major fish can really mob a swimmer.

The inside of the Grotto is protected.  I think the unusual lighting really highlighted this orange coral.

Lastly, there was a lonely anemone wriggling in the current.

Just as the fish are going about their business underwater, the ever goofing off girls are going about their business at the dinghy.  They like to bounce on the pontoons and launch themselves off into a cannon ball.  There’s always plenty of giggling and splashing as well.  Genny and Marie are in heaven with C Spirit’s four little girls.
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Roy also hooked up with Cole and Gauge from Serenity.  They live here on Staniel Cay where their family business includes vacations rentals and boat rentals. Its a beautiful place if you are interested in vacationing here.  The boys recently put together this Cape Dory 25 and invited Roy to have a sleep over on the boat.

Meanwhile the girls did hand stands for the fun of it.

C Spirit also has an inflatable wind surfer on board.  The girls had yet another platform for goofing off.  Genny did manage to sail it for a bit.

Big Majors is a Cay adjacent to Staniel.  The anchorage on the west side of the island is large enough for many boats and there are three little beaches. There are quite a few large power boats here as well.  The boat at the back of the anchorage had several jet skis as well as some crazy water powered rocket boots. We’ve seen these in Saint Martin and Saint Thomas.  It’s pretty fun to watch.

There’s never a dull moment in the anchorage. One day the fuel boat came through the anchorage on its way to Fowl Cay resort.  All power in the islands is provided by generators. Fill ups should be fairly common, but this is the first we’ve seen such a big boat in the anchorage.

If this week wasn’t exciting enough, the package we’ve all been waiting for arrived.  The new rotor for our generator.  It was due to be delivered on the Wednesday mail boat, but when we heard the announcement that the mail boat wouldn’t be arriving until Saturday, Eric made arrangements for it to arrive on the Flamingo Air commuter flight.

Eric got to work right away installing the new part and putting the generator back together.

By the next afternoon he was able to push the one button starter and it fired right up.  OH YEA, 50 gallons of fresh water per hour.  No more solar showers, and paper plates.  Topaz gets nightly baths again, and I even hosed out the cockpit and rinsed the salt, sand and dog hair off the new cushions.  Eric is the big hero today!

The old part is heading to the trash.  I can’t believe how heavy it is, it takes both hands and plenty of muscle to hold it up.

More fun with friends.  Roy and Jamie cleaned today’s catch.  I have been cooking fish daily.  The Wahoo was good for three meals including a fun pot luck with 3 boats.  All the grouper, snapper and trigger fish have also provided many meals including pot luck tacos for lunch.

This evening we joined three other kid boats on the beach for a bonfire.

 

Our neighbor brought over the Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp for our movie night.  We really love that Makai can accommodate 13 people for movie night.

The girls are always begging for sleep overs with Pheonix and Indigo. Topaz likes it because there are more girls to cuddle on her in the morning.

C Spirit took them all for breakfast while we packed Makai up to move after a week in and around Staniel Cay.

We took care of chores like putting the Hobie back on deck, Roy had to drill a hole for Eric in some cramped space, and I cleaned the sand, salt and dog hair out of the cockpit while Eric made a deal to pass the portable generator on to a fellow cruiser.

Lastly, we took the dinghy down to the beach on the southern end of the island that’s occupied by pigs. The story I heard is that around the time of the beginning of the Gulf War some guy thought it would be WWIII and decided to keep some pigs on the island for farm stock. If you google Big Major’s Pigs there are several photos and videos to check out.

The one big hairy momma came out first.  She swam up to the dinghy grunting for food.  Many people walk on the beach with them and even touch them, but we thought it was too dangerous so everyone stayed in the dinghy.

The little ones were very cute and we could have spent hours watching them.  But we had to go back to town and take care of a little business.

Eric needed to pick up our propane tank that was being filled, Roy needed more trolling bait.  He started getting these frozen Ballyhoo all strung up with hooks and leader line for a tasty trolling treat.  We also had trash to drop off and one more lunch at the yacht club.

Everyone ordered the same as our dinner last week.  I got a plate of conch bits with a crisp garden salad and a Bahamian Beer.

While the rest of them ate cheeseburgers in paradise.  We were all so hungry and happy to be eating out, that the left over box was fairly empty by the time it got back to Makai.

While we waited for food the pool table kept the kids entertained.

This afternoon the bar was full of Americans and Canadians watching Olympic Hockey.

What a great week full of fun, food and friends.

We anchored in three different spots around Pipe Cay.  There is a very flat sandy area near the island and then a nice snorkeling place on the east side of the bay.  Topaz and I swam over there and when returning to the boat the tidal current trapped us.  We couldn’t get back to Makai and had to yell for the dinghy to get us.  The current between the islands flows like a river that is too strong to swim into.  Later, we swam off the back of Makai with a line tied to a fender floating down stream.  The current was so strong that when some of us got out past the fender, the dinghy had to come get us.

Now that we’re out of the Land and Sea Park, Roy gets to hunt.  Spear fishing is more like hunting because you search for the prey, sneak up on it and poke it with the pointy end of the pole spear.

Roy is a great hunter.  I was searching one side of the reef when I spotted him swimming toward the dinghy with this guy on the end of his spear waving in the air like a flag.

Roy and I can get two meals out of a lobster this size.

The next place we anchored had beautiful sand bars a short distance away.  We could easily swim there except for the current.  If anyone decides to swim, it needs to be at slack tide and the dinghy has to be ready for a rescue mission.

We had fun piling up the sand to see how long it would take the tide to cover it, or trudging through soft squishy sand. Every once in awhile a deep pool would form and we called it our swimming hole.

While the first two anchorages had great things to offer, the no-see-ums came out in the evening and bit us up Then a cold front was due to rain on our parade and we had to move again to find shelter from the west winds.

Inside Pipe Creek we met up with friends on C Spirit.  They live in Hawaii but are spending the season sailing from Massachusetts to the Bahamas on Grandpa’s boat.  They have 4 girls that Genny and Marie are having a blast with.  We’re having fun on the beaches, snorkeling, sailing and we’re learning a lot about fishing and cooking fish from Jamie and Nancy.

I’m not sure how they found this little flounder, it looks like a dollop of sand in Jamie’s palm.

Roy got a few tips on using the pole spear for fish, Jamie checked off the good eating fish in Roy’s book, and then they went out to find dinner.

Roy gets excited about using his fishing poles, but then he has to just sit and wait for a fish to think his lure looks delicious.  Now he can actively go out and find a fish.

Pot luck dinner on Makai tonight.
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The girls on the other had have more fun goofing off.

Genny creates a challenge for anyone on the board, she insists on rocking until people start falling off.  So in the end, we don’t get very far because we’re constantly going back to pick up lost riders.

The sand bar makes us want to play in the sand.

One more fishing trip in this location.  We looked for lobster for hours the day before and today at the very last place we dove Roy came up with this.  Pot luck on Makai again.

This lobster and the two fish he got served 4 of us.  Lobster season ends in March, but then grouper season begins.

The nice thing about friends is that they have new toys.  Marie happily strums their ukulele, and when they come over here the Little Pet Shop toys come out.

So, it looks like all fun and games, but occasionally we have work to do.  Most mornings Eric works on the computer, the kids do school work, I cook 3 meals a day plus snacks.  Last night we had a big rain and I collected 3 buckets of water to wash sheets and towels with.  We had pixies jumping on the trampoline (the name can be misleading, you aren’t supposed to jump on it).  In a place where two pieces of tramp fabric were sewn together, the stitches broke.

Since everything was clean and salt free from last night’s rain storm, we brought it back and gave the sailrite sewing machine a project while the laundry dried on the life lines.

 

 

 

Happy Birthday to Genny, Happy Birthday to Genny, Happy Birthday day dear Genny, Happy Birthday to you!  Yippee, she’s 11 years old.  Her big birthday surprise is a sewing machine, pattern, and a big stack of fabrics.

I always make Halloween Costumes and boat canvas.  This and Genny’s creative eye for wrapping blankets around her to make ball gowns, have made this a gift she should have fun with.

For several hours this morning we moved to O’Brien Cay.  On the way she made this cute striped shirt that she wears over her bathing suit.

After an intimate family dinner we celebrated with box mix chocolate cupcakes and home made frosting.  Around here sugar on anything is a hit.

O’Brien Cay is next to Johnny Depp’s island, a sunken airplane and a snorkel spot called the aquarium.  As you can see, I’m loving my camera. If you all are sick of underwater pictures of fish and coral, just let me know and I’ll cut back on filling the blog with them.

I’m wondering if the Bahamas has more than usual sunken planes, maybe they don’t salvage them, or maybe the water is so shallow, they’re not hard to find.

The corals and sponges are put together like a wild flower garden.  I could never arrange them as beautifully as God has.

We saw huge schools of big fish, little schools of colorful fish, barracuda, conch, grouper, lion fish and lobster.  Everyone frolicking in the national park.  Roy is getting really itchy with his fishing poles and Hawaiian sling, but they are safely packed away in his room where we can’t get in trouble for fishing in the park.

I visited the spotted eagle ray a couple times.  Once I was snorkeling in shallow water and got withing 10 feet of it. He has eyes like a cat and cruises around like Mr. Ray from Finding Nemo.

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These two lion fish are lucky too.  Everywhere we’ve seen them in the Atlantic Ocean the officials are encouraging their destruction. Apparently, these fish were released from aquariums and even accidentally during a 1992 hurricane.  They have spread throughout the tropical Atlantic waters and have been eating their way through reefs along the way.  Officials are asking divers to kill them and luckily many people are eating them as well.  They are beautiful but don’t belong in the Atlantic Ocean.

Then on our last morning Roy and I went for a quick snorkel on some coral head near the boat.  That’s when Roy found these jumbo lobsters.  They were living in a coral head about 3 feet high in 6 feet of water.

Roy stuck the camera in one hole.

Then another hole.

All the while thinking of melted butter and a shell cracker.  I thought he was going to jump in the kayak and paddle the 3 miles to the edge of the park so he can sling one of these big guys.

Around the corner from the reefs is another great sand bar bay.

 

We floated down the tidal streams and romped in the sand.  Another paradise, we still don’t know if we have a favorite place, each place is better than the last.

 

 

Warderick Wells is the headquarters of the Bahamas Land and Sea Park.  There are several hikes through tropical brush, a few snorkel spots teaming with fish, and a great sand bar in the middle of the north bay.  The few buildings are living quarters for the park rangers and a small gift shop.

For a crew used to spending the day in the water, hikes are death marches. It’s a good thing the path to the other side of the island can be covered in about 15 minutes.  About 8 minutes into it the complaints started flying until we came across this hole with a ladder.

Genny came prepared with driftwood she carved and decorated to leave among the contributions from previous cruisers.

Now that we’ve been dry for about 30 minutes the girls and I raced to the beach while Roy and Eric went to bring the dinghy around.  Ahhh, back in the water.

There is a gap in the mooring balls between us and the next boat over.  Come to find out a few years back a boat was moored there and while the owners were having dinner on another boat, their boat caught on fire, burned and sunk right there.  Now its an artificial reef providing shelter for some of the biggest lobsters I’ve ever seen.  Sea creatures living in the park are happy and growing big and fat under the park’s protection.

One of our snorkel spots was full of life including the Nassau Grouper.  Roy is learning about spear fishing now and this guy will become one of his targets in March when they are in season.

The schools of fish were fun to watch move around.  They reminded me of the movie Finding Nemo when the school of fish formed pictures directing Marlin to Australia.

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As always some girly whirly is photo bombing my sea live photos.

Rays are abundant but only a few jump out of the water.  When they do, the splash gets everyone’s attention.

Sponges and conchs are also abundant. We’ve seen the sponges in green, brown and purple.  Conchs are sometimes filled with the conch critter and sometimes with huge hermit crabs.

We’ve found the Bahamas to either be barren sand flats with grassy patches or beautiful patches of coral.

Great fun.

But then there’s the poor generator, still waiting for parts.

The life of a cruising boy.  He’s reading library books on his kindle from the last time we had internet, eating a Nutella sandwich on home made bread because store bought bread doesn’t last the many weeks between shopping trips.  His conch shells in the back ground, and little sister’s bathing suit on the seat next to him, thinking about his next adventure.

At first glance Hawksbill Cay didn’t look like it had much to offer, but after looking at the pictures, there were all kinds of cool things to check out.  Roy and I snorkeled Topaz to the beach and came across this lobster molt.  The lobsters in the Bahamas Land and Sea park are pretty big and enjoying the government protection they get in the park.

Roy got his chance with the new camera.  All photo sessions start with a selfie. Roy complained that his mask was leaking.  This fancy mask came apart with one screw, they cleaned the sand out of the rim and he’s off chasing sea critters again.

We saw a few new creatures like this sea turtle with a remora attached.

Out of this huge sand bottom bay there was one patch of coral teaming with life.

I can never get enough of looking at this beautiful undersea garden.

Topaz always goes snorkeling with us.  If we can’t get her to go in the right direction, we can steer her by pointing her shoulders to where we want to go.

The beach is usually her goal.  She could spend hours trudging back and forth in the shallow water pouncing on little floating things like leaves and sticks and occasionally a fish catches her eye as it zips by.  Topaz gets NO naps.  She starts her day begging for pancakes and waiting for us to finish work and school.  By noon she’s wet and stays that way until sundown. I’ve started giving her an extra meal in the middle of the day because her bones are starting to show a bit.  But I’ve never seen anyone happier than Topaz with her tail wagging at full speed as she searching for something interesting in the water.

According to Wikipedia During the American Revolution the Bahamas was controlled by Spain and then later recaptured by the British who issued land grants to American Loyalists who brought their slaves with them.  The British Navy also liberated Africans from foreign slave ships and resettled them in the Bahamas. In the 1820s American slaves and Black Seminoles escaped from Florida and settled here as well.

Hawksbill Cay has ruins of an old Loyalist settlement, so a hike was in order.

The island is a thick jungle of trees on lava and sand.  It’s a wonder anything can grow.  This path led us to the east side of the island where flotsam and jetsam collects on the beach. We spent a few hours picking through plastic and glass trash.  We found a home made float constructed out of plastic bottles held together in a fishing net.

Note to the Aanonsons- Marie takes her Christmas Candy Jar with her everywhere she goes.  Normally she stores a few My Little Ponies in it.

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We found other interesting things like plastic water and fuel jugs without tops, how about a glass of wine? YUCK!

Eric stumbled across a piece of Space Trash.  We can’t find anything that says its not space trash so that’s the story we’re sticking with.

I thought maybe we crashed on the planet of the apes or something.  Under the skin of hatch was this corrugated metal heat insulating like stuff.

The girls got tired of looking for the ruins and decided to dig holes and play in the sand.  Eric found a perfectly good gas jug with the boat name MoonDancer on in.  It looks like it was lost recently, so now we’re on a quest to find it’s owner.

Back at the boat while the kids are doing math, Eric is tearing apart the generator looking for any other fried parts and learning about how its put together.

He even had to make a puller to pop off parts.

The new activity for the week is pushing the boom out over the water, jumping in, and then climbing up the rope ladder Roy made to climb up for another jump.

Our water saving plan includes paper plates.  Sounds good except that we don’t have a place to put trash.  Right now it looks like we can squish our trash down to one bag a week and a small bag of paper to burn.  Roy, our first class boy scout, is in charge of the fire.

On our last morning here, with better directions, we took another hike to the ruins.  The cemented rock cubes are very small, maybe 8 feet square.  We saw a few foundations and then Genny started getting mosquito bites so we ran back to the safety of the water.

This curly tail lizard was nice enough to pose for us on the way. Like most lizards, these guys can drop their tail to fool predators, so a stubby tail lizard wasn’t an uncommon site.

Wednesday was nearly windless so we went about our daily routine while we motored the 40 miles back to Shroud Cay. The surface of the water was like glass and we could count the starfish as we passed by.

That’s all we saw out there until the area of the Yellow Bank.

Here the sand is speckled with coral heads. So, out of curiosity, we anchored out there in the middle of nowhere and checked out the coral. It was certainly the best snorkeling we’ve encountered so far.

The bottom was white sand with little coral heads one to four feet high. Each a home to several schools of different types of tropical fish. A nice assortment of sizes and colors.

One coral head caught Roy’s attention, the lobster hole.

Eric found it and shot us the lobster sign using his fingers for antennas.

Roy took a couple of cracks at it and then I puffed up my expert lobster hunting chest and went in for the kill. Hey, I missed it, then I missed it again, then the poor thing woozie from the spear wandered out to where Roy could pick it up. How could this be, my pride was deflated.

Come to find out he had just molted and his shell was about as thick as a ziplock baggie so it’s soft body wouldn’t stick to the spear.

 

Oh well, in the end we got two bugs for lunch, yummy.

Here Marie is demonstrating our water saving dish washing methods while sporting a light weight cape which flows in the breeze.

We had a nice day yesterday (starting where we left off) on the river loop.

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Shroud Cay is the northern end of the Land and Sea Park established in 1958. These rivers are mostly cuts through the island lined with mangroves.

It’s all salt water moving back and forth from the eastern Atlantic side to the western Bahama Bank side.

We started at the south entrance with the Hobie Cat, sailed it a little but mostly walked it or dragged it across low tide sand covered by 6″ of water.

The water was super warm and clear. Along the way we saw needle fish rising up in the air and skimming along the surface at a 45 degree angle, little puffer fish looking things and nurse sharks between one and three feet long.

At the end we played and played in the waves on the east side of the island. Since the wind turned around from the south last weekend everything got warm. Around 4:30 we sailed the hobie back through the north river.

This is actually our 3rd time up the river.  Last time the kids and I took the trip to get out of Eric’s hair while he diagnosed the generator problem, and the first time up was last week in the dinghy.

We always meet nice people at the beach.  Yesterday we met a family on vacation from Quebec.  They were heading back to the great white north the next day with the dream to take an adventure in the islands in their future.

Here we are at Camp Driftwood where the U.S. drug enforcement officials posted themselves keep an eye on Carlos’ operations on Norman Cay before the raid in 1982.

 

As always Genny has fun with the camera.

 

 

Sunday morning Eric was filling a few scuba tanks and making water when he commented on an electrical smell coming from my sewing machine. I said the old one made that smell but not the new one. A few minutes later the generator shut down. After scrounging around he found that the rotor melted down. We did this all last winter but I think that this year the hot water heaters he fixed over the summer were on as well. Whoa, bummer. We need the generator to make water. So, Monday morning we made the half day trip up to Nassau and pulled up to a dock by 2pm with plenty of time to get chores done.

The north side of the harbor is Paradise Island full of gated communities, resorts and the famous Atlantis resort.  A house with a dock is taken to a whole new level when you see these places.

 

In 24 hours Eric learned it would take at least a month to get the extremely expensive part. So, with it on order he bought a gasoline generator that we can get by with until then. This generator doesn’t have nearly the power of our other one, our water making output has dropped from 50 gal/hr to 10 gal/hr. It’s loud, requires gasoline instead of the diesel in our tanks, the size of a big ottoman and in the middle of the cockpit.

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But we’ll have water which either isn’t available or costs 30-50 cents a gallon. Poor Eric was over the top stressed.

The kids and I manage to get rid of 3 weeks of trash, 5 loads of laundry including clean sheets and towels, and buy a Hawiian Sling for lobster hunting. We stocked up on triple the price groceries after hiking to the market through treacherous traffic, solicitors and creole cussers on the street corners. We got bag apples for $8, single apples were $1.50 a piece. Cheap white bread is $4/loaf and milk $8/gallon. We concentrated on produce, splurging on strawberries and watermelon. We filled everything we have that holds water and came up with a water conservation plan.  Solar showers use far less water than the the pressure pump squirting it out of our tanks.  So, I have a solar shower bag on the kitchen counter for dish and hand washing and we have a salt water sprayer for prewashing dishes.  The other shower will go in the back for our evening showers.  If we all stand in a bucket when we shower we can use the grey water to rinse the cockpit or maybe rinse Topaz with.

 

All in all, things are much less stressed at the anchorage where we’re not hemorrhaging money, we’re back at rose island anchorage for the night, we’ll head back down to the Cays at first light.

When I dropped the anchor Tuesday evening it still had sand on it from Shroud Cay from Monday morning. It was hard to believe we were only in Nassau one day. Sent from my iPhone