And after a ten-hour sail across the Gulf Stream, we were back in the Palm Beach area of Florida:
It was a bit of a culture shock to be back in the US—traffic, train whistles, huge boats, enormous houses, and access to a seemingly endless supply of anything we need (or even remotely think we need) to buy. On the other hand, we are very grateful to once again see reliable navigational aids, hear messages from the US Coast Guard and SeaTow on the VHF knowing they are there in case of an emergency, have excellent phone communications, free potable water (hot showers, hooray!), an almost obscene abundance and variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, possible access to Covid vaccinations, and to sleep in the calm, protected anchorages of the ICW. We take so, so much for granted.
We were able to clear in through US Customs and Immigration by simply filling out a form online. Sometimes vessels are required to participate in a video interview but we were already Verified Travelers and had our vessel decal. David had registered us (back in January) via the Customs and Border Control app ROAM so officials already had our passport and boat registration information. Sure beats standing in line for hours at the Miami airport where the lines are longer than at Disney World and, trust me, Mickey is not there to entertain you. It’s a preview of Purgatory even in non-Covid times.
We spent only one night in the Palm Beach/Lake Worth area and sailed to Ft. Pierce on Wednesday. Blessed with great wind and the extra 2 knot boost of the Gulf Stream pushing us along, we flew northward, actually reaching 9 knots for about an hour. That’s over 10 mph which for Onward felt like we’d ignited the turbo thrusters! Our incredible speed attracted some playful marine life to come by to say hello. (If you don’t see two videos, click on View Web Version at the bottom of this post.)
We entered the Ft. Pierce inlet with the tide against us and the wind and our diesel pushing us forward, creating the harrowing sensation of being inside a washing machine. It was 15 minutes I do not wish to ever repeat in my lifetime. Once again, David was laser-focused on getting us through it and we were soon back on the ICW heading to Vero Beach Municipal Marina.
Our first order of business now that we had phone service was to try to get vaccine appointments. CVS will take us even though we aren’t Florida residents—hooray! Next was laundry, grocery shopping and trying to figure out why Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts had terminated my health insurance policy on April 1. I will not bore you with the specifics, but I got caught in a catch-22 between BB/BS and Medicare, each blaming the other. (I think they need to spend time in the lines at the Miami airport as punishment.)
We’ll stay here for a couple more days, enjoying the beach and avoiding the ICW weekend boat traffic. And getting those long-awaited first Covid shots.
Monday night we were in Staniel Cay and Tuesday once again in Highbourne. It was time to make some tracks and take advantage of the good weather. We spent Wednesday night at Old Fort Bay on the west end of New Providence Island (where Nassau and the huge Atlantis resort are) but rose early to head towards the Tongue of the Ocean which I wrote about back on February 4. We were moving along quickly, planning to spend one night anchored on the Great Bahama Bank, some 30+ miles from land in all directions. Last time we did this, we were a group of 8 boats, sort of a floating wagon train. But on Wednesday, April 7, it was just the four of us, Fantasea and Onward. I was no longer apprehensive about spending a night in the open ocean, testament to how much we had learned and how much more confident I feel after living aboard for the past 8 months!
The exciting part of the crossing was Mike’s catch: a 4’ long mahi-mahi!
The four of us went to sleep that night with visions of a delicious fish dinner in the future, once we returned to Bimini.
Pulling in to Bimini Blue Waters Marina was like coming home—except none of the relatives were there! This is where we had spent 12 days back in January, cementing the friendships that would define our time together in February and March. It just wasn’t the same. But we needed to wait (again) for another good weather window to cross the Gulf Stream so in the meantime we went back to our favorite conch shacks, enjoyed time at the beach with Sheri and Mike, bought bread from Charles and stocked up on water and diesel and propane. The island is so much busier than when we were here in January! People are beginning to travel again and more of the stores and bars and restaurants have opened up. Sport fishing boats go up and down the channel and the marinas are almost full. In fact, Star came by to say welcome back. He said that when our group came over in late January from Miami, we were some of the first cruisers Bimini had seen in almost a year. He thanked us for coming then and for returning now! So typical of the gracious welcome we have received from so many Bahamians.
Tomorrow we leave for Florida. Sheri and Mike head southwards to the Keys and then home to St. Pete. We will miss them terribly. We are reluctant to leave the warmth and sunshine and hospitality of the Bahamas but eager to see our family again in DC (and to get vaccinated!). Onward we go!
Well, now we were faced with some itinerary choices: do we book it to the north end of the Exumas on our own and then head to Eleuthera and then the Abaco chain before returning to Florida or do we travel more slowly for a week and stay with the remaining boats a while longer and return via Bimini and then Florida? If we were truly adventurous, we would have gone off on our own but the truth is, we really like the folks we’ve been traveling with and we’re just not ready to say goodbye. We can visit those islands another time but might never have the good fortune to sail with these good folks again. If we’ve learned anything during this year+ of Covid, it’s all about spending time with friends and family that really matters.
So off we four boats sailed, back to Darby, an island near David Copperfield’s Musha Cay that I wrote about earlier. We explored a shallow lagoon by dinghy as the receding tide quietly exposed more and more of the sand, Mother Nature’s version of a cable knit sweater pattern:
Sheri from Fantasea spied another treasure of the sea—a stranded octopus! Fearing that it would die in the drying sand, she picked up the seemingly lifeless white creature and placed it gently back in the water. At first there was no movement but slowly, slowly, it began to change color to match the darker wet sand. After observing it for a while, it became clear that it preferred to be in the darker water created by Sheri’s shadow. So once the octopus began to show more movement, she “walked” it to even deeper water by moving her shadow slowly and carefully along the shore, prodding the octopus to safety. Sheri the Octopus Whisperer.
(If you don’t see the videos below (or any of the others in my past posts) on your phone, you can click on “web version” at the very bottom of the post on your phone, or check it out on a tablet or computer screen.)
And finally the little guy swam away, flexing his legs to propel himself back to the sea.
David and I walked around the edge of the lagoon, still (after three months of exploring) fascinated by the way the rocks wear away and the shoreline weathers.
There were shells and mollusks hidden in holes that seemed to have been carved out just for them. What a great place to for an Easter egg hunt!
Our next anchorage was only 11 miles away but a world of difference. Little Farmer’s Cay (3.5 miles long) is a “particularly lovely and lively cay surviving on spunk and an independent, self-sufficient populace,” according to our cruising guide. There are only about 70 residents with a small settlement featuring a couple of restaurants, a one-room grocery store and JR Tinker’s woodcarving gallery.
We learned a bit about this tiny island’s history. A freed slave from Barraterre settled on the island in the 1800’s with her two sons, Michael Joseph Nixon and Adam Brown, who later purchased the island from the British Crown. Michael had 13 children and Adam had 5. They willed the island to their descendants who are the only people who can build on the island and cannot sell to outsiders.
It was very quiet when we arrived as it was Palm Sunday. Everything was closed and folks were home with their families for church services and family dinner. We were the only visitors that day but found our way to the Ocean Cabin. We were fortunate to find Terry Bain, owner and renowned raconteur who opened up to provide us with his special rum punch although, since it was his daughter’s day off, couldn’t offer us dinner until tomorrow. We promised to return the next day.
Now, about his special rum punch—we had to guess the five ingredients which, admittedly took us a few minutes but we finally succeeded: blue curaçao, coconut water, rum, pineapple juice and the secret ingredient (don’t tell anyone), grapefruit juice. I liked the color the best, same as the Bahamian blue sea.
Terry regaled us with story after story until our sides were splitting. Really, the guy should do a stand up comedy act! He is also the founder of the Five Fs Festival, a regatta and festival held on the First Friday of February at Farmer’s Cay. We’d like to come back next year to see the racing of traditional Bahamian sloops with their giant sails. We did go back for dinner the next night at Ocean Cabin, as promised. The lobster (with special sauce, of course) was delicious, Terry and his wife taught us the Little Farmer’s Cay national anthem, and a good time was had by all. Sailors from all over have visited this unique spot and we now know why!
The next day we sailed to Black Point on Great Iguana Cay, the spot we hated to leave back on February 28. Of course, we did our laundry, had the buffet dinner at Lorraine’s and bought four loaves of bread from her mother. David had his hair cut at the laundry and Stick made us all loaded foot-long hotdogs for $5 a piece. We even got cabbage and peppers at Adderley’s Grocery. Honestly, it felt like coming home. What a welcoming community! We looked forward to the regatta on the Saturday before Easter, services on Sunday, and the egg hunt for the kids on Easter Monday. But then the blow struck and we had to miss it all as the wind howled and the rain poured down and we didn’t leave the boat. Maybe next year.
My father’s mother, Grammie Benson, held an Easter egg hunt every year for all her grandchildren with real colored eggs—none of those plastic eggs filled with candy for her, no sir! Since I lived next door to her (in the house she had been born in back in 1882), I helped dye the eggs for many years. However, since they were always brown eggs, it wasn’t until she got a color TV in the mid-1960s that I realized how brightly colored the eggs were supposed to be!
There were white eggs available in Black Point so I hard boiled six of them to make our Easter morning more festive. The only problem—no dye. Fortunately, the WiFi in Black Point is pretty strong so I searched for directions on dying eggs naturally. Unfortunately, there were neither onions, blueberries, nor spinach available. So I tried the recipes using teabags, paprika, turmeric, red wine, and substituted kale for the spinach. Truthfully, it was pretty stinky and not very successful, but I had fun trying. Looking back on the photos, I guess in truth, I spent the day turning white eggs brown.....How Grammie would laugh!
On Monday we bade farewell to Happy Together, Buiochas, and our lead boat, Equinox. Fantasea and Onward headed northward to Highbourne, West Bay on New Providence (the island where Nassau is) and finally on to Bimini. It was very difficult to say goodbye but we promised to meet up again next year for more adventures together!
With only a few days left before Sarah headed back home and our turn to head northward, too, we spent time in George Town doing boat chores, buying a few souvenirs and stocking up on groceries, fuel, and water. I took a few more photos around town.
The supply boat had come while we were on Conception Island so we were overjoyed to find such rarities as romaine lettuce, eggplant and even watermelons at Exuma Markets. We might not see such delicacies again until we reach the States! I will never, ever, ever, again take for granted the endless abundance of food and water we enjoy at home.
Our last adventure with Sarah was a dinghy ride to go snorkeling and then to a sand bar that boasts a swing, volleyball net, and floating bar (sometimes).We were so glad she was able to join us and experience the Out Islands of the Bahamas. We plan to be back in the DC area by late May and can’t wait to see our family again.
The next evening we enjoyed sundowners and a potluck supper on the beach one last time with our group. It was a bittersweet moment as it was finally and sadly, after two full months together, time to go our separate ways. Miss Adventure headed back to North Carolina. Pleiades teamed up with some other “kid boats” (they all attend virtual school in their respective hometowns) and planned to stay in the Bahamas for three more months. Happy Together would soon head to Nassau to pick up a guest. Buiochas (who had joined us a few weeks ago) planned to stay a while longer in George Town. So Onward, Fantasea, Equinox and Happy Together bade farewell to the others and we began our trip northward. We will miss our “pod” and remember them always. We began as six individual boats hoping to stay healthy and active during the pandemic and we ended up becoming good friends and supportive seafarers. What a series of adventures we have had together!
We had time to visit one more island before needing to get back to Georgetown so we chose Conception, which the cruising guides call “the quintessential Bahamian wilderness. It offers idyllic pink sand beaches, clear turquoise waters, diving or snorkeling, and creek exploration by dinghy or kayak. You will probably see sharks and rays cruising through the anchorage.” It was all true. The whole uninhabited island is protected by the Bahamas National Trust and is, just like the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, a no-take zone.
As we approached the bay, we radioed to the others behind us that there seemed to be a set of light blue-hulled boats all anchored. We wondered if they were part of some club or tourist group affiliated with a large resort. As we ventured closer, we realized they were all white-hulled boats (some of them familiar to us from previous anchorages) but the water was so clear and sun so bright that they reflected a lovely turquoise! I wish I could have captured the effect on camera. Same with the clouds—at times the reflection off the water makes even puffy white clouds seem a shade of aquamarine.
Sarah and I each took out the inflatable paddle board for a bit of exercise, visiting the other boats near us. At one point I was in the water near the boat and Sarah calmly called out, “Mom, I think you should get back on the board.” I had no idea what she was pointing to but it was big and dark and I did what she suggested—immediately.
Those with better fish identification skills than me said it was a very large barracuda. Barracuda are gorgeous, famously fearsome, and usually they do no more than stare at you....menacingly. Probably would have left me alone but I wasn’t sticking around to find out!
We spent some time snorkeling the reefs but the highlight of our time on Conception was a dinghy trip up the creek. We saw many rays and conch along the sandy bottom. I think if, left to our own devices, we would probably have just motored slowly along but since we were with the family on Pleiades, we joined them as they jumped right into the shallow water and surface-snorkeled while pulling along the dinghy, taking advantage of the current to simply drift along the creek bed. And, wow, were we glad we jumped in, too! The water was as clear as a swimming pool so we witnessed lots of fish swimming around the roots of the mangroves, swam through a blue hole, and kept an eye on the barracuda which kept staring at us, in turn. Further into the center of the island, the creek water deepened and turned a darker green. This we had come to recognize as turtle habitat. There were scores of them! But we dubbed them “Turbo Turtles” cause they swam away like a shot as soon as we approached, even if only using oars. We all agreed that they deserved their privacy and quietly returned back down the creek to the ocean, appreciating the spontaneous call to adventure that comes from traveling with teenagers. Sometimes you just have to dive right in!
Our passage back to George Town on Sunday was quite the sail—over 40 miles with winds of 15-20 knots on the beam but it was the large swells from the north that lifted Onward some 6-8 feet every 12 seconds that truly gave us pause. Up, up, up we would rise and then gently back down again, akin to the sensation of swinging back and forth on the playground swing set. We passed by the white cliffs we had climbed to see the Christopher Columbus monument a few days ago. And we were humbled by the crashing waves (seen in the video below) as those same rollers met the rocks and reefs that protect Great Exuma from the Atlantic. It felt good to be back in the protected bays of Stocking Island.
We weighed anchor on Tuesday morning and moved the boats a few miles further north along Long Island to Calabash Bay to be closer to a mangrove lagoon that we thought might be fun to explore.
Our first adventure was into the lagoon which proved to be really, really shallow and too murky to see much underwater. So the next day we decided to stay on land and take a hike to the much-heralded Christopher Columbus monument. The three of us planned to leave about 10 a.m. to avoid the mid-day heat but, well, by now you know us, and instead we started out just before the hottest part of the day. We checked the path out on Google Maps and it looked doable and only about 2 miles each way. (Cue up Peter, Paul, and Mary: “When will they ever learn?”)
From the boat we’d seen some flags fluttering in the breeze so headed toward them. Turned out to be a lookout structure built to provide a view of the lots available at the soon-to-be-built Point Santa Maria resort. The fact that the lookout tower was pretty rusty and there wasn’t a whisper of a building in site spoke volumes. Nice view of our boats at anchor, though.
We passed by what we thought was a huge hornet’s nest but when I showed others the photo, they said it was a termite nest!
The mile-long path continued on for at least five more miles as it got hotter and steamier. We had the good fortune to come upon a road repair crew that was laying down hot tar and covering it with sand. They were friendly. The tar and sand were sticky. And did I mention, hot? Finally we came to the newly built road (a veritable highway, my friends!) that had just opened up in December 2020 to take tourists directly to the aforementioned monument. We only had to walk along it for another mile. Which seemed like three. Greeting us at the bottom of the hill upon which the monument sits was a cruel and unusual punishment for anyone foolish enough to have chosen to hike over here:
Oh, joy, an endless stairway to heaven. You can see that the decoration from the ribbon-cutting dedication ceremony was still there. Otherwise, had we arrived before December, we would have had to make like billy goats and climb up the steep slope. “I am grateful, I am grateful, I am grateful for these 104 stairs,” I chant as I pant. (Maybe there’s a vendor with cold water for sale at the top? If only I could see that far...)
But who am I to complain? Really? Old Chris Columbus and his brother and the others on those three leaky ships had to cross the entire Atlantic Ocean to get here!! The white limestone promontory would have been visible for miles on a clear day and the somewhat protected lagoon would have provided a sheltered spot to land for further exploration. This is purportedly the third island Columbus visited in the Bahamas.
The view from the top (of all those stairs) was truly spectacular and the monument commemorates his landing and remembers the peaceful Lucayans who inhabited the island when Columbus arrived.
We took off for Long Island on a particularly beautiful Sunday with clear skies and light winds propelling us for 35 miles to Thompson Bay. Onward responds so well on days with those conditions, she practically sails herself.
We all went out to dinner at Tiny’s Hurricane Hole, an upscale restaurant run by an ex-pat couple with a creative menu and welcoming hospitality. We’d read reviews lauding their roasted pork bowl with Brussels sprouts and plantains so were disappointed to learn that the supply ship had “lost” their order and the dish was unavailable. In fact, their order was so short, they had to close for the rest of the week since they didn’t have enough supplies. I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be to run a business with such availability issues. It’s not like you can run to the nearest Costco and fill the larder yourself.
The next morning we walked up from the dock to rent a car from Seaside Car Rental for $75 cash for the day—all David did was fill out a simple form with our home address and driver’s license number. The owner’s brother, Andrew, told us to just leave the car at the gate when we were done, keys in the well under the radio. As we drove up island to the clinic at Simms, I wondered if there was even insurance on the car. Perhaps best not to think about it......
At the clinic, Sarah took her rapid Covid test since she’d been in the Bahamas for five days. She continued to fill out the 14-day online tracing survey for 9 more days. The Bahamas have maintained a very strict protocol and we have all benefitted. There were only 24 new cases in the whole country on March15, and none in the Exumas for weeks. Oh, how we dread returning to the opposite situation back in the States.
Our buddy boats were all going to spend time at Dean’s Blue Hole on the other end of Long Island so we drove southward through Bains, Millers, McKanns, Pinders, Pratts, and Gray’s—all small settlements (40-200 people) named after the plantation owners and Loyalists (often referred to in New England as Tories) who fled to the islands in the late 1700’s. Along the way we crossed the imaginary line denoting the Tropic of Cancer:
Dean’s Blue Hole was definitely worth the 25 mile drive! At 663’ deep, it is the second deepest blue hole in the world. It’s enclosed on three sides by a natural rock amphitheater and the fourth side offers a turquoise lagoon and powdery white beach. We snorkeled around the perimeter, amazed by the deep drop off in the center that turns the water almost instantaneously from clear aqua to midnight blue. Some of our group climbed the surrounding cliffs and dove off but the three of us simply enjoyed just visiting with the fish hiding under the limestone edges. There’s an international freediving competition held here each April—in case you’re game!
On the way back to the boat we made three special stops. First to check out the new marina in Clarence Town, home to some serious sport fishing boats...and some hungry marine animals looking for lunch, too.
Our second stop was chosen by Sarah based on a mention in TripAdvisor. “Turn here, Dad,” she called out and thus began one of those “thank goodness this is a rental car” rides up and down a cart path, not even close to being a road. But look what we found at the end—our own private circular bay and infinity pool!
The third stop was for some much needed refreshment—our first ice cream in months!!!
But the biggest adventure was still to come! About a month ago, we lost our ability to measure the wind speed because the little cups that spin around on the top of the mast had dislodged and disappeared in one of the blows in the Bahamas. So David ordered a replacement set to be delivered to Sarah and she brought the cups with her. The only tricky part—installing them at the top of the 63’ mast. She eagerly volunteered to ride up the mast in the bosun’s chair and complete the repair. Hauled up using the winch, David and Mike got her safely up and down and much clapping and hollering and words of encouragement could be heard from all the boats around. I figure if she ever leaves her day job, she has a career in mast climbing!
