The Bahamas - Bee-uuu-tee-ful

Wow. The Bahamas truly are beautiful. Sailing along in 7 to 12 feet of calm, clear, turqouise water. Watching the starfish on the bottom. They look so clear and close. It seems like you could reach over and pick one up.
We set sail from Rum Cay and on to Long Island with our daughter Becky, who joined us for a week before she went to Cuba on a project. We anchored off the Santa Maria Resort. We were joined by our friends on II Audeacious. Lots of wonderful meals at the Resort where friends Marlene and Guy were staying. We enjoyed the warm water and some great snorkeling. After a few short days we sadly said goodbye and hoisted anchor for Georgetown. We had a great sail. As you can see Sharen found time to work on her tan on the way. After dropping anchor, Becky and Sharen stayed on the bow for some mother daughter bonding time. I know when to stay away.
Georgetown is the sailing mecca for Florida boats in the south Exumas. Actually there were hundreds of boats here from everywhere. This is one of those places where sailing folks get stuck! Sometime for a whole season. Quite nuts. It has some nice places but also some serious setbacks. The best anchorages are across a sometimes very choppy, large bay from the main town. This bay can get very stormy and I for one almost upset my dinghy on a seriously steep wave set. I was sent skyborne and was heading for a backwards flip with my motor fully revved out when the back of the dinghy thankfully caught the next wave and came crashing down right side up. After which I felt the need for a solemn moment. Another near death experience. I bumped along slowly trying to sing the theme song from "Love Boat" until I finally got across.
We hired a rental car and toured Grand Exuma Island and came upon this wonderful looking restaurant. It was closed at the time but we noticed this sign in the window. Too Cute.
We had Becky's birthday on the boat before she left for 2 months in Cuba as she would be away on the big day. This was going to be a wonderful break for her. Although she would be very busy, she would get to perfect her Spanish and also take some time off after finishing some taxing contracts in Edmonton.
We left the boat in the hands of a wonderful gentleman in a wet dock in a very protected lagoon near Georgetown while we flew home for our grandson Max's birthday. A date we felt most important to return to Canada for. We also attended to some incidentals such as taxes and the sale of one of our properties. All a distant second to seeing the grandkids and the rest of our family.
We returned after a week to sail north up the Exumas. As we left we noticed another boat going in our direction. They hailed us on the VHF radio. They had sailed this way many times and suggested some changes in our routing and urged us to join them near Thunderball cavern (Where a portion of the James Bond movie was made). This is near Staniel Cay. They were Larry and Sharon and introduced us to their friends on Figment, Barry and Di Di upon our arrival. We anchored off a quiet island nearby where the famous swimming wild pigs roam the beaches. These are farmyard pigs set free several generations ago. They swim out to your dinghy to see if you have any food for them.
We dinghied to Thunderball Island with new friends Barry and Di Di who were lots of fun, to snorkel the cavern and were thrilled by the amount of fish. It felt like we were swimming in an aquarium. We followed them in one 6" high entrance through the cavern and out another even smaller exit on the other side. We tried to swim around the island and back to our dinghy. We soon found ourselves caught in a current which we could not easily swim through so we turned around and retraced our route through the cavern once more and back to our inflatable, quite pooped.
Our next stop was Norman Cay, made famous by the Columbian Drug Lord Carlos Lederer back in the in the 80's who took over most of the island, building a runway, villas, bars and dance floors. A full on party place. The central bay has a partially sunken airplane. The story is not of a failed drug run but a plane overloaded with sod for Carlos, the drug kingpin. He wanted to have a nice lawn. We snorkeled the plane even finding a nurse shark hanging out near by. The island is now in serious disrepair. The result of a fed up US gov't who finally decided to raid the island when the local Bahamian government failed to do anything which would stop the steady cash flowing to their personal bank accounts. The story goes that Carlos traded time in prison for the names and payments to the Government officials. Needless to say there followed a wholesale change in the Bahamian officialdom.
A quick stop with Barry and Di Di at Highbourne Cay as we heading north up the Exumas. Here Sharen found a new job as an aid to a stop sign.
We stopped briefly at Allen Cay to get some photos of the local inhabitants. Then off to Nassau to join our friends Larry and Sharon and Barry and Di Di on Figment, a home built steel sloop, (his wife always thought the completed vessel was a "figment" of Barry's imagination). Here we needed to return to Canada once more as we received word that my 93 yr old father was taken to hospital. He ended up improving and has just had his 94th birthday. We trust he will get to enjoy many more.
We returned to the boat with Karla our niece who was taking the summer off prior to entering med school this fall.
We did a short visit to Paradise Island where we were able to sneak past the guards stopping day visitors from entering the beach/entertainment area. The development is amazing. Especially the Mayan Temple slide where you slide thru a tube thru a shark aquarium. Quite neat. We stopped at a wonderful little bay in Royal Island. Here we swam in 96F water. Quite amazing. A neighbouring boat traded some fish for cookies and we dined very well on freshly barbecued mackeral. We sailed on to the Abacos stopping off in Little Harbour and Man o War Cay. Little Harbour's main claim to fame seems to be Pete's Pub. It was interesting as it was set into a hillside with couches and large chairs you would normally find in a family room set on a flattened out area of the bank such that the head of the patrons occupying the seats were at the same height of the head of the bartender standing behind the bar and they were close enough to have a good conversation and to pass another beer. We sailed on to Man O' War Island but we made a navigational error and ended up stuck on a sand bank in a rising tide. This gave us an opportunity for Karla and I to do some serious cleaning of the hull. We were so busy we did not notice when the boat had floated free. We are not sure how long we were adrift.
Man O War is a quiet beautiful landscaped, surreal kind of place. This picture of Karla & Sharen is of typical front entrance to a home. Everything about it was peaceful. We had heard stories of close families with some serious inbreeding. What we found were beautiful beaches and some wonderful people who vacationed here in solitude. The main mode of travel is golf carts. This picture is of a group of locals who just came to sit and chat. The store is closed and there were no ferries. They were just all sitting and passing the time of day. Who does that anymore?
We left Man O' War reluctantly and sailed off to Marsh Harbour, another of those places famous for "Stuck" boaters. Quite amazing. Several hundred boats who come in the fall and leave in the spring. Nice spot but....there is more to see out there folks. We did enjoy a Junkanoo Festival in Goombay Park. We saw this strange performance that seemed to have African roots done by this strange looking character. We never quite figured it all out.
We backtracked on our route to join our friends on II Audeacious who caught up to us. We joined them in Hopetown on Elbow Cay. We toured on foot as a rental was impossible to find and dined at at this wonderful hotel on the beach. They allowed us to have a swim in their pool. Ahhh. Fine wine in a nice warm pool in the Bahamas anyday. (My glass is out of the picture)
We bid farewell once more to our friends Tommy and Marianne as we wanted to get on towards our goal of getting to the Chesapeake before the hurricane season. This was going to be our first year we were going to finally make it and get our boat out of hurricane area and keep our insurance in full force.
Next stop Green Turtle Cay. Here we were twarted from our plans to enjoy the island as we found it impossible to get properly anchored. I dove the anchor several times trying to jab it into the bottom. Impossible and I was not interested in any chance of another fiasco like we head in St Martins where we dragged anchor past 4 boats and almost plowed into a local billionaire"s vessel worth over 15 million.
We finally searched around and were able to get some semblance of security and did a quick dinghy tour of the harbour and a fast supper before heading back to our boat. The next day we were off early again as "we had a long way to go and a short time to get there." Karla seemed to enjoy the sail. We stopped in the only refuge. Sale Cay which is a small flat cay far and away from anything else. We sailed into a litte anchorage to find 5 other boats. The only purpose of this anchorage is as a semi safe spot to put your hook down and get some sleep. We were the second boat out in the morning and noticed that all had up anchored before we were out of sight. All heading in different directions.
We stopped in Old Bahama marina on the fartherest west end of Grand Bahama. This was by far the most expensive marina we have ever stayed. It was nice and it was good it was there as it is the last port of call before you head across the gulf stream to Florida and the first place to tie up when you come across. We rented a car (actually it looked more like a gangsta mobile - I'm sure there were blood stains on the roof) and drove down to visit our friends on Figment at their home port in Ocean Reef Marina next to Freeport, Grand Bahama We decided to listen to them and bring Slow Dancing into their marina while we flew home for a week to attend another very important birthday, our grand daughter's 3rd. We would never be forgiven if we missed it. Thank god we only have 2 grand children. We couldn't afford the flights if we had more. Ocean Reef is one of those developments where a long trench was dug out and all the streets of houses have a back door onto the water. Ocean Reef is about 1&1/2 kms inland from the sea so we feel quite protected. This became very important because when we arrived home we discovered our son had decided to join our development company and it was necessary that we stay home to help him get started.
We tied the boat as if we would be returning in a week. We left the refrigerator going, sails on the boat etc. This became a major concern to us.
As things turned out, god brought us an angel.
When we were leaving for the plane and gentleman came up to us to say hi and told us he lived on his motor yacht 2 boats over. He said not to worry, he would keep an eye on our boat as he was close. I told him I was not concerned as I we would be back in a week to 10 days. When we realized we weren't going to be back I asked him if he could take a peek and throw out the stuff in the fridge. He and his wife has volunteered to wash, clean and basically take over the care of our poor abandoned vessel. We are very relieved that we have someone as generous as this to look after our baby.