Lee Stocking Island - Shortening the To Do List

So this morning (after waking up before dawn, deciding not to leave, and going back to bed) the natives got a little restless. With the northeasterly winds blowing hard its too chilly to feel much like snorkeling or even laying out in the sun. So instead Kevin decided to fix a few minor things that have been bothering us for a while. A rattle coming from the SSB antenna was silenced with electrical tape and some tightened screws. A broken jib hank (one of the things that holds the front sail onto the forestay) that we broke on our sea trial (over a year ago) was finally sewn back together. And the jib lazy jack (which catches the headsail as it is lowered) was re-installed. So cross three things off the to-do list. Busy day.

We are so eager to get to Georgetown at this point. It is so close and yet so far; the weather forecast says the winds will be steady and strong out of the east for the next few days. And so we wait. We are looking forward to doing a little serious reprovisioning when we get there, as there is no store where we are. When we provisioned at Sam's Club we made some smart decisions and some questionable ones. For example, we looked in the freezer and discovered that we had no less than seven pounds of mozzarella cheese in there. I guess we thought we'd eat a lot more pizza. Also, since we didn't buy enough lunchmeat we've been having a lot of PB&J lunches (nothing wrong with eating like a four-year-old). Of course our freezer reconnaissance turned up a bag of frozen sliced roast beef we had forgotten about, so on a positive note we'll be eating deli-style for the rest of the week. We do have a sliver of fresh tomato left; all other fresh produce that we bought back in in Staniel Cay is long gone. As of today we are out of all snack foods except Pringles and Club crackers. We have plenty of Rice-a-Roni but no plain rice; lots of ground beef but only a small amount of chicken. Guess we thought we'd be eating more fish! However we were smart enough to lay in a tidy supply of Freezer Pops, which are great when it's hot outside but not so much when it's cold like it has been. And of course we overprovisioned for Boris -- he's all set with two and a half bags of cat food and plenty of litter. Lucky cat. So anyway, the sooner we can get to town the sooner we can restock. Anyone know some good recipes using lots of mozzarella?

Lee Stocking Island - Ready, Set, Wait!

So we have been here at Lee Stocking since Saturday. Georgetown is within sight (the other night we watched a fireworks display, which from 20 miles away looked verrry tiny). The route we have been taking so far has mostly had us going southward on the Exuma Banks side, which is in the lee side (protected from the wind) of the islands. Unfortunately from here the best route to Georgetown involves going out to the Exuma Sound side which is on the side of the islands where the wind is coming from (east). Because there is a lot of fetch (open water where waves can build up) on that side, we have been waiting for a weather window where the winds come from a direction other than East or South, which is the way we want to go. We thought today might be the day, which is why I am writing this before 6am on a Thursday morning. Usually the winds are lighter in the early morning, but today for some reason they have decided to kick up to 18 knots before sunrise. Not a good sign. So Captain Kevin called it a "no go" and it looks like we are going to wait some more here since we aren't in any hurry. As for me, I am going back to bed. 5:15 is too early to wake up.

Lee Stocking Island - Inherit the Wind

Well the northerly winds have been pretty strong for the past few days, bringing with them some cooler weather. Today Kevin decided to take a second look at our broken wind generator (windmill-looking-thingy) and see if we couldn't do something about it to get some power out of it. He had already looked at all the electrical connections, no problem there. And he had already sent the generator (without the blades) back to the company for analysis and they couldn't find anything wrong with it. But it had gotten a little banged up back in the Berry Islands and was now way out of whack and wouldn't generate much of anything. So Kevin took it down and took the whole thing apart to try to see if maybe balancing it could help. Balancing the blades is kind of like balancing a new ceiling fan only more complicated. Our wind generator only has two blades but we discovered that one was out of alignment by 1/4 inch, which is probably why the thing made such an awful racket when it was spinning. So after a couple hours of undoing bolts, following the steps in the manual, and re-bolting everything together, the blades were a lot closer in alignment, probably as close as we can get them. Kevin put the whole thing back together and back up on top of the bimini and we both held our breath and crossed our fingers. Success! (Well, sort of.) The blades spun evenly and quietly so that was great but when we checked we were still only getting about 5 amps in 15 knots of wind (we are supposed to get 10 amps). But at least we are now able to trickle-charge the batteries when the wind blows at night and we get the bulk of our charge out of the solar cells during the day.

Also for anyone wondering, we have a resolution to the Cay vs. Island debate. You'd think I might have known, since in college I took the "hard" sciences: astronomy and geology. Only I was super lazy and took the HISTORY of Geology 102 course instead of the Intro 101 course where you learn all this stuff; I can't tell the difference between silicates and silicone, mica and formica. But luckily Dar looked it up online and sent us this from the encyclopedia:
Islands: Oceanic islands can result from volcanic islands rising above the water, esp on or near a mid-ocean ridge. Oceanic islands may also be the emergent tips of volcanoes formed by hotspots.
Cays: Formed when tidal action, wind and sea birds deposit, over a long period of time, coral debris and sand onto reef flats.
So our guess is that "Lee Stocking Island" is a misnomer, since there has never been any volcanic activity in this area and there is no tectonic activity in this region. Plus the "island" is made of limestone with sandstone hills, which sounds more like the encyclopedia's description of "cay". Thus endeth the science lesson.

Lee Stocking Island -- Perry Institute

This morning we were idly watching other boats leave the anchorage when we saw one run aground. It was a falling tide and the boat was a monohull so throughout the morning we have watched as the boat has gone from nearly upright to laying almost on its side (at a 45 degree angle). The crew will have to wait until the tide rises again (in five or six hours) to be able to get going again. All the other boats in the area are happy to help but at this point there is nothing that can be done except to wait.

At 9am we made our way over to the Perry Institute for Marine Research for a tour of the facilities. The institute does all sorts of research on coral, lobster, aquaculture, and other marine life. It is supposed to be funded by the US Government, but this year apparently funds are short so not many projects are going on. The coral tank was interesting, our guide has been working on a project to grow coral specimens and so he was full of information about the different species, how they grow, and how they are impacted by changes in the environment. I both love and hate guided tours. I love hearing someone explain their life's work, but there is always some guy in the group who thinks he is on his own personal tour and keeps interrupting by peppering the guide with questions every two minutes. He's the type of guy where when the tour guide asks a question directed at children, such as "I have a question for our schoolkids: what gas do plants produce?" he (despite being more than sixty) shouts out the (incorrect) answer: "CO2!". The correct answer, which was then pointed out by an 11 year old girl, is "oxygen". Anyway despite Mr. Obnoxious it was a really good tour. My favorite part was when they showed us the hyperbaric chamber which is used to treat SCUBA divers with the bends. It is the only one in the Exuma Islands and has room for one to two people inside. Hopefully they never have to use it. Apparently they have a small two-man submarine as well but that was not included on the tour.

Btw, we did discover that the moorings here are well-made (screwed into the ground as opposed to a concrete block) and inspected annually. Our guide said he's heard all sorts of stories of moorings from Little Farmer's dragging, so I guess we were not the first.

Lee Stocking Island, Exuma Islands

Today we arrived at Lee Stocking Island. In case anyone is wondering, no we don't know why some are called "Cays" but others are called "Islands". We think it might have something to do with size but we can't find the answer anywhere in our guide books. We had a nice sail down here yesterday, the wind was out of the north (behind us) as we sailed south. Sailing downwind is probably the most comfortable point of sail for us, since the boat is gently carried forward by the waves instead of the waves slamming into it. The wind was light, 10-12 knots, which meant our average speed was only 4.7 knots, but we didn't care. It was the first time we had been under sail alone in a while, and it was nice to hear just the wind and the waves instead of the diesel engines for a change. Kevin fished for a bit, and even tried a weird trick we read about where you put WD-40 on the lure, but nothing bit. I just know somehow that the first fish he catches that's big enough to eat is going to be something huge to make up for all the empty hooks. When we got to the anchorage, there were several other boats, including "Beach Magic" (the French-Canadian family) that we met back in the Berry Islands). There is an oceanographic research center here and they provide free moorings. When we arrived, there was one empty mooring ball left but we have learned our lesson and opted instead to just use our own anchor.

Where we are:
Lat: N 23 46.179'
Long: W 76 06.327'

Little Farmers Cay - Meeting Mr. Right

Well we were glad that our mooring dragged last night so that we were able to get off of it and get ourselves anchored securely. A swift-moving cold front came through today with sustained 35 knot winds, dumping rain by the sheet on us for an hour. It was amazing, one minute we could see this gray mass of clouds moving towards us from the NW, then we were right in it and could barely see the shore due to the rain, and then within the hour it was over and the sun started coming out again. Our trusty anchor held solidly through it all.

The nice thing about the storm passing so quickly was that we were able to go ashore to Farmers Cay Yacht Club for their Friday Night Fish Fry. We had met the new manager, Kelly, earlier in the week. She looked to be in her early 30's and she's taking the place over from her parents who are retiring, and has been working for the past two months to get the place in shape. She was born here but lived in Nassau for a time, getting her degree in Marketing and working as a pharmaceutical rep before deciding to get out of the rat race and go back to Little Farmers for the slower pace. She has a very vibrant personality along with big dreams of expanding the place, and I'm sure success will come.

But back to the fish fry...we thought we would see a lot of other folks (both cruisers and locals) at the Club because dinner was relatively inexpensive ($12) and there were some great drink specials. But only one other guy showed up. Let's call him Mr. Right, since that's how he introduced himself to Kelly. Mr. Right was from New England, about 50 years old, and between jobs, although you could say his permanent occupation was a BS Artist. He was on a boat with two other guys, but they decided to stay on the boat while he dinghied over by himself. We quickly came to understand why. He was already inebriated before he arrived, but he proceeded to drink copious amounts of alcohol and flirt shamelessly with Kelly to the point of harassment. Kevin and I had just planned on showing up, having a drink, eating our dinner, and heading back to the boat, but I felt bad leaving her with only this guy for company. You could tell she didn't want us to leave either since she looked at our empty drinks then asked me pleadingly, "Would you two like another round? It's on the house...". Poor thing. So we decided to stay until the cavalry arrived; a boatload of locals with late reservations finally showed up at about 9:30 and we were free to go.

Little Farmers Cay -- What A Drag!

Back while we were in Nassau with wi-fi access Kevin downloaded a developers toolkit for his Pocket PC so that he could run the anchor alarm on the PDA. So in the evenings while I was banging my head over Su Doku puzzles (a new addiction thanks to my friend Kirstie), he was coding the software so that it would work on the Pocket PC. I joked that you can take the boy away from programming but you can't take the programming out of the boy -- I told him that I think he actually enjoys it now that he doesn't do it for a living. He looked at me and deadpanned "this will be the last thing I ever program. I can just walk away." Apparently Kevin is the Bobby Fischer of software development. He may disappear from the programming world but the legend of his genius will live on. Anyway he got the PDA version of the Anchor Alarm working so now we don't even have to get out of bed to check where we are in relation to our anchor.

So here in Farmer's Cay we have kept the anchor alarm on even though we were on a mooring. You know, just in case. Cuz' you ever know. However for the past two days the alarm has kept going off and we kept puzzling over why? We would say "Well the mooring is a massive concrete block, and it has maybe 20 feet of line attached, so there is no way we are 80 feet from the mooring...". We kept thinking the GPS was off by more than a few feet, and I even began to doubt Kevin's anchor alarm, thinking maybe there was a bug somewhere in the programming (sacrelige!). Last night the wind kicked up to 15-20 knots and the current was bubbling at a good pace. And although the anchor alarm kept chirping every once in a while, every time we got up to check on our mooring lines we were still firmly attached to the mooring.

Which is why I was shocked when Kevin gently woke me up this morning at 6 am to say "Okay, wake up, everything's okay, but I need your help". In the light of the rising sun we could see that yeah, we were still attached to the mooring, but the mooring itself (the massive concrete block part) had dragged. The anchor alarm, like Lassie, had been trying to tell us all along that Timmy was trapped in the well but we just didn't listen. Over the past three nights the mooring had gradually dragged some 100 feet from its original position! Luckily we were still in 8-9 feet of water, but we were awfully close to the rocky beach, so we started up the engines, cast off the mooring lines, and motored to the opposite side of the anchorage. There are moorings here, but we instead opted to use our own anchor, which has never dragged on us. Two lessons learned: 1. NEVER pay the full mooring fee in advance (we were paid up through tonight...Stupid, stupid!), and 2. ALWAYS trust Kevin's Anchor Alarm.

Farmer's Cay

Today we wandered around on shore for a bit at Farmer's Cay. The settlement here has 55 residents, and most of them are in some way descended from a freed slave named Chrisanna whose two sons bought the island outright from the English Crown and willed it to their descendants. We had lunch at Ocean Cabin (Terry and his wife also own the mooring we are on) and walked down to the Farmers Cay Yacht Club (home to one yacht) to have drinks. Afterwards we dinghied over to Great Guana Cay as we had read there was a large cave in one of the hills. We beached the dinghy and walked along the beach for a bit, spotting a huge eagle's nest with a mother eagle screeching at us to stay away. The trail to the cave was worn but not well marked, by the time we arrived at the cave we were both hot (why, why do we always forget to bring bottles of water?) and ready to get into the shade. Luckily the cave provided more than enough shade, it was 90 feet tall (deep?) and had a huge pool of clear water (if only we'd brought our snorkeling gear). Stalagtites and -mites were still being formed; we could hear the plink, plink of the water dripping constantly. In one spot someone had placed a bucket to catch the drips. But they must've put it there a long time ago because it was completely calcified inside and out and had long ago become a solid stone. Someone had left a plastic cup to drink water from the bucket and Kevin actually tried a taste. It's no different than the cisterns the locals use to catch the rainwater. The pool in the cave had some tiny shrimp swimming around, and along the shore were swarms of hermit crabs. Lord knows how they got there, since the cave was well inland and they would've had to scramble down a 50 foot drop to get into the cave. But now that they were inside I don't think they could get out as was evidenced by the fact that they were all too big for their shells. After resting a while we went back to the boat and had a quick swim to cool off. Kevin inspected our mooring with his snorkel. Basically they sank a huge concrete block (4'x4'x2') with a hole drilled in the middle. They ran a chain around that hole and attached a rope rode with a float that looks like a tetherball. The rope ends in a loop and this is what we tied our lines onto. Kevin said that the chain is a little worn but will still hold us. We wouldn't want to be attached to this thing in a hurricane, but since the weather is calm, it'll do.

Little Farmer's Cay - The Eagle Has Landed

Ugh! Last night neither of us got much sleep in our rolly anchorage at White Point. The waves were relentless, bobbing us up and down constantly. But the rocking wasn't what prevented us from sleeping, it was the incessant sloshing and slapping sounds of the waves hitting the hull. At about midnight I just gave up trying to sleep and read a book instead. So needless to say the first thing on the agenda for this morning was to move someplace else! We motored through the waves down to Farmer's Cay where we picked up a mooring ball ($10/night) and although there is a strong current that spins us back and forth 180 degrees, at least it is relatively flat and quiet. We haven't checked out the town yet, instead we took naps this afternoon since we were exhausted.

But now it is sundown and time for rum drinks. We are trying something new as a mixer -- Tang. Orange and Pineapple flavor. Yeah, I know, but it's not as bad as you'd think. We have looked in several small grocery stores for fruit punch Crystal Light to no avail. However when we saw the Tang we thought we'd give it a shot. If it's good enough for the astronauts it's good enough for us. At the very least we'll get our full dose of Vitamin C and other minerals. What's next? Anyone know a good concoction using Ovaltine?

Where we are:
Lat: N 23 57.936' (woo hoo, crossed another line of latitude!)
Long: W 76 19.118'

Black Point Settlement - The Garden of Eden

So Monday morning we decided to go ashore again to check out the rest of the town and visit Willie Rolle's sculpture garden. It was a little after 9 am and daily life in the settlement was in full swing -- one of the main industries here is straw work so we saw lots of women sitting in their front yards in the shade braiding straw. Everyone we saw along the way had a friendly "good morning" and a smile for us. Willie met up with us at his sculpture garden, which he calls "The Garden of Eden", and apparently we were the first tourists to arrive. It is tough to describe the garden without photos, we will load them when we can. But I will try to give you an idea. Willie goes into the bush here and sees shapes in the twisted dead wood that litters the forest floor. He brings these back to his front yard and puts them together to make sculptures from his imagination. There were probably more than 100 sculptures, ranging in size from 2 feet high to 7 feet, and Willie walked us through his interpretation of each. There was an eagle, a couple dolphins, a mermaid, a woman with one leg and no head, a scorpion, etc. With each one you had to use your imagination, if Willie wasn't there to explain it you probably would've just thought that it was a twisted piece of wood. It was kind of like looking at shapes in the clouds; some of his sculptures it was obvious what they were supposed to be once he told you while others were more of a stretch. We could "see" his vision for most of the pieces but some of them were a little more prone to interpretation. Kevin smirked that there were one too many "snakes" which he said wouldn't be too difficult to "sculpt" since long sticks of wood resemble snakes anyway. But here in the Bahamas I imagine they don't have a National Endowment of the Arts, and Willie's art (whether real art or just for the tourist crowd) is a unique diversion. So we "endowed" him with a small tip for showing us around, I imagine he makes much of his living this way.

The best part of the tour was when he took us to his backyard and showed us his vegetable and fruit garden, which was amazing. His house is small and set back from the road. It is brightly painted but has no running water inside. They have a spigot outside connected to a PVC pipe that runs along the road supplying water to all the residents. The house sits on a good-size plot of land, but you can't really call it land since the whole yard is a limestone rock littered with holes like a slice of swiss cheese. The holes might be a few inches in diameter all the way up to 10 feet wide and five feet deep. It is in these holes that enough soil and moisture collects so that things will grow. It's kind of like growing crops in moon craters. He had a little bit of everything: native plants like papaya, tamarind, guava, mango, banana, pigeon peas, and cassava root grew alongside carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, corn, okra, aloe, and even a cactus. Each plant eked out its living, most of them surviving without irrigation. In the smaller limestone craters only one or maybe two plants grew, while in the larger ones Willie would have one or two trees or several rows of different vegetable plants. I enjoyed it because he stopped at each plant told you what it was, what it was used for, and how to tell when it was ripe. So now I will know guava vs. papaya when I see it. The tour of the sculptures and the garden took two hours and by lunchtime we were back on the boat and off to White Point anchorage a few miles south.

Another Manta catamaran, "Paragon", decided to come with us down to White Point and we had them aboard for drinks at sunset. We've been kind of following each other since Staniel Cay. We gave them a tour of our boat and they noted the differences between their boat (a newer model) and ours. It is like seeing someone whose house has the same floorplan as yours -- everyone does something different with decor and color scheme to make it their own. We loaned them our SSB manual (they have one but no manual and they have a photocopier on board so they wanted to copy ours) and they brought us some fresh baked bread that they bought in Black Point. A pretty fair trade I would say. The anchorage here is extremely rolly though so I think we will just stay here one night and then retrieve our manual and head on further south.

Where we are:
Lat: N 24 01.574'
Long: W 76 21.648'

Great Guana Cay - Black Point Settlement

This morning we decided to move on. The wind was light so instead of traveling down the western side of the islands we headed east through Big Rock Cut to the deeper waters of Exuma Sound so that Kevin could get in some fishing. After two hours, two different lures, three different speeds and several attempts at varying the depth, we still caught nothing. We're not sure what the fish don't like, but we'll try again next time. We came back in through Dotham cut to the calm turquoise waters of the Exuma Bank and motored into the anchorage near Black Point Settlement.

Our main reason for coming here is that yesterday we heard an announcement on the radio about the local School Fair to be held on Saturday, with food and games. So we figured we'd check it out and we are so glad we did. Black Point is a very non-touristy place. There is no marina here and therefore no mega-yachts. The people of the town are friendly (their local store is called "Adderley's Friendly Store" to emphasize the point) and everyone greets you as you pass by on the street. When we arrived a little after noon, the "fair" was still being set up and the games weren't going yet. It was basically two small tents, one for games and one for food. The food tent was in operation and had quite a crowd with good reason -- the food was amazing and plentiful. For $9 we got more food than we'd had at dinner the previous night -- BBQ ribs, homemade macaroni and cheese, corn, and copious amounts of peas n' rice. We walked across the street to the school where we could eat inside in the shade.

The schoolkids were there, and they were all shyly laughing at the adults sitting in their kid-size desks and chairs eating lunch. The school teaches all the kids on the island, but we were in the building that housed the second through fourth grade. It was one room partitioned into two classrooms and decorated with artwork and typical classroom-type stuff. On the third/fourth grade side, it was cute to see posters about telling time and counting money, which were the same two topics my sister Jessica's third and fourth-graders were learning when I went to visit her classroom back in December.

Afterwards we were so hot and so stuffed that we didn't wait around for the games to be set up but instead headed back to the boat to take a swim and a siesta. Around 5pm we headed back into town because we saw that Scorpio Inn, the local bar, had internet access and we have been wanting to upload photos for ages. When we walked up we could hear the music pulsing from the DJ and people were thronging the street -- apparently the fair was winding down but the town was just getting started for their Saturday night. We ordered beers and the bartender Zhivago (what a great name) set us up on the internet. The past few times we have tried to load these photos we've had no luck with satellite internet, so we were pleased that the Scorpio computer was dial-up and crossed our fingers that the uploads would work. After 55 minutes, we had our photos uploaded (woohoo!) and had just 5 minutes to check our yahoo and gmail accounts, so anyone who has sent us emails there we will try to respond in the next couple of days. Anyway, if you want to have a look we have loaded a few photos starting with the Allen Cay Iguanas (the post was one of the last few days in February). Afterward we hung out for a bit at the bar and met a few of the locals (we were the only white people in the bar so we kind of stuck out as tourists). One of them, Willie Rolle, invited us to come around while we're here and have a look at his sculpture garden, which we may do tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after. It sure is nice having no schedule.

Where we are:
Lat: N 24 06.235'
Long: W 76 24.289'

Staniel Cay - St. Patrick's Day

You can tell we had lost track of the days since someone said "hey, there will be a happy hour at the marina on Friday -- wear green." And we were like, huh? Green? Why? And then we checked the calendar and sure enough it was St. Patrick's Day! So we went to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club wearing our only green shirts and met up with some new friends -- Larry & Tracy from "Soulmatie" and Don & Kim from "Paragon" (another Manta catamaran). They had drink specials and free appetizers which of course we took advantage of. The wings were pretty good, not Native New Yorker good (what DO they put in that sauce?), but satisfying nonetheless. And of course as a throwback to my college years I did order a green beer which was basically a bottle of Kalik with a drop of green food coloring. What do you expect? If they dyed a whole keg you know the locals would probably still be drinking green beer two weeks from now...

After that we all headed over to the big barbecue at Club Thunderball. Another family was added to our group -- Stacey, Patty, and Trisha who did not arrive by boat but instead flew their plane here all the way from Iowa (with a few stops of course). They are "cruising" the Bahamas in their own fashion, airstrip to airstrip. Well for dinner Chef David cooked up enough ribs, chicken, baked potato, salad, and corn on the cob for pretty much the whole island. We even spoke with some people from other islands who had made the trip to Staniel Cay just to have some bbq. I am amazed at all the expats who live here. If you looked around the room you'd mostly see Americans, many of them retirement age, who had all bought property here and built a house to live in either full or part-time. Of course the property may be inexpensive but the materials for the houses cost a pretty penny since every 2x4, nail, and roof shingle has to be shipped in here from somewhere else. But every person we talked to said that it was worth it to live in such a happy laid-back place with a tight-knit community and zero crime. They don't even have a police department here as far as I could tell.

Anyway, dinner was delicious (as is any dinner not cooked by me). Plus, someone else did the dishes so even if the meal hadn't been delicious I still wouldn't complain. Happy St. Patty's Day everyone!

Staniel Cay - Pink vs. Blue

Today we went into town to do some provisioning. There are three grocery stores, Isles General Store (which is way on the south side of the island) and two other stores in town called Pink Pearl market and Burke's Blue Market. We went into town and surprisingly the two markets are right next to each other, Pink Pearl is run by the people who own the shocking pink house while Burke's is run by the guy who owns the bright blue house. Deceptively simple. We scouted both out before buying anything and you would think that with two stores right next to each other they would have competitive prices. Not so. One had cheaper produce while the other had cheaper snacks. Butter was cheaper at the Blue store by more than a dollar but the Pink store was the only one that sold rum (at $30 a liter! Yikes!) Neither of the owners were real happy to see me writing down the prices for each item before committing to buy, we did get a glare or two. I guess a lot of shoppers must just choose their favorite color and buy all their goods from the same place, but since they were so close together we just bought stuff wherever it was cheapest. That way everyone wins, since both of them got a little bit of business and we got the best prices.

We were buying produce from the pink lady and I pointed at a piece of fruit and asked "how much are the mangoes". The lady just started laughing and said "well, first of all that's a papaya. These here are mangoes." And then she went on to point out "and that one there, that's a pineapple". Well that made us laugh since we knew at least what a pineapple looked like. She just looked at us like we were loonies, shook her head, rang us up (no cash register, no receipts), and told us to have a nice day.

Staniel Cay - Bond, James Bond

Well today was our 007-themed day. First we dinghied over to Staniel Cay to have lunch (hooray for meals not prepared by me!) at Club Thunderball. Yesterday we did a walkthrough of pretty much the entire town, you could consider it a pub crawl since we had beers at two of the three bars (hooray, beer!). As I mentioned in yesterday's post, it was a crowd of four including the bartender at Happy People, and when we had drinks at Club Thunderball it was just us, David the bartender, and the New York/New Jersey channel 2 local news (everyone here has satellite). Anyway we found out that Club Thunderball was open every day for lunch so we thought today we'd check it out. David was again behind the bar, and apparently it is a one-man show most of the week since he fills all the roles of bouncer, bartender, waiter, and chef. Today was busier than yesterday as there was another couple having drinks and a large family group also having lunch. When we asked for a menu, David said there was no paper menu but the choices were hamburger or fish fingers. Both of us chose burgers with fries. Funny thing was a few minutes later we overheard the other couple asking for munchies like chips or something, and David said "well, I can make you some eggrolls". ???!!! And even though David gave the family group the same two choices we got, the dad was kind of pushy and managed to finagle some conch fritters and conch burgers. So I guess when there is no set menu you can just ask the chef "well, whattaya got back there?". I have to say that chef David made some fabulous burgers. He apologized for not having hamburger buns but he served them on toasted homemade bread (a la Sonic) and it was delicious.

After waiting a half hour after eating (we are rule-followers!) we headed over to the main attraction and the reason for the name "Club Thunderball" -- Thunderball Cave. The cave was used as a location in the James Bond movie "Thunderball" (those of you who've seen the film will probably remember it). It is a small island with a limestone cavern that you can get to by swimming through one of several passages. At low tide, which is when we went, you have plenty of clearance (18 inches) to swim right in. And unlike the other day when we tried to go to Rocky Dundas, today was a perfect day with no waves or wind, so we both snorkeled in without worrying about hitting our heads on the rock ceiling. I was amazed because I expected it to just be a little cave, but the thing was huge and was more like a natural cathedral. The main chamber was 20 feet high with several holes ("skylights") in the ceiling directly above the pool. The water below was ablaze with color and swarming with fish. The skylights sent beams of light down through the water to highlight all the brightly colored coral and reef fish. There were maybe five different passages into the cave, some were easier to get through than others (two of them you had to dive underwater and hold your breath -- I let Kevin explore those on his own). Other people had brought food (frozen peas and corn or cereal) to feed the fish, but really you didn't need it since the fish would flock right around you without hesitation. It is the best snorkeling we have seen on this trip and was definitely a highlight of the day.

To top it all off, tonight we were planning to watch "Thunderball" on DVD just to make it a Bond trifecta (Bond lunch, Bond snorkeling, Bond movie). But when we looked in our stack of DVD's I realized that I USED to have Thunderball on VHS, and we gave away all our videotapes since they took up too much room! I've got "Dr. No", "From Russia With Love", or "Goldfinger", but sadly no "Thunderball". It's a shame since we were so looking forward to seeing the cave. I will make it up by letting Kevin suffer through my best (worst) Sean Connery impression. "Bond, Jamesh Bond"..."shaken not shtirred"...you know the drill.

Staniel Cay - Wild Pigs and Wildcats

This morning we moved from Sampson Cay to an island about a mile south called Big Major's Spot. The anchorage here has at least 30 boats (4 of them are massive megayachts 100 feet long). Big Major is unpopulated but not uninhabited as we soon discovered -- there is a small troupe of wild pigs living on the island. This morning we watched another couple dinghy up and feed them, so we thought we'd try too. We didn't dare land the dinghy on the island (since the previous couple beached their dinghy and two of the pigs tried to get on board), but we just hung out maybe 20 feet from shore and sure enough, they swam right out to us. It was really a sight, once they are in the water all you can see are these huge ears and a big snout sticking up. All we had to offer was bread (all our produce is canned or frozen) but the pigs didn't seem to mind. The bravest one just swum around our dinghy for about five minutes gobbling up all the bread he could. He only tried to hop on board twice but we were able to lure him away by throwing the bread a few feet away from the boat. I guess these guys are pretty well-fed, since all afternoon we kept watching boats come and go bringing offerings to the pigs.

Later this afternoon we took the dinghy over to Staniel Cay, which is the most populated island in the Central Exumas. We tied up and decided to walk around the town to see what it had to offer. We stopped in at a small bar called "Happy People". Our guidebooks said it had closed after the owners had passed away, but there were some local guys who had reopened it and were keeping it going. The place had a really fun vibe, and reminded me of the old "Palappa" back home in Tempe. There were only four of us in the place, including the bartender Gary, but the music was good and the beer was cold, so what more can you ask of a bar in the middle of nowhere?

After that we crossed the street to check out the library. The building was maybe as big as my garage but it was crammed with books. In fact, the librarian told us that we could take (and keep) any book for a small donation. I guess they get a lot of cruisers who just dump all their books off and the library doesn't know what to do with them all. We got to chatting with Joan (the librarian) and she asked us where we were from. When we said Phoenix she said, "Oh, well I went to school at the University of Arizona down in Tucson". Apparently she was a Delta Gamma back in -- she had to really think about this, I guess life in the Bahamas will do that to you -- class of '51. She did undergraduate in Anthropology then traveled around a bit before moving to Florida and getting into boating. She said she and her husband came to Staniel Cay way back when and just never left. They settled down and raised their family here. She was surprised to hear that we were both graduates of U of A. I guess she doesn't see too many people from landlocked Arizona cruising around in a boat in the Bahamas. What a small world, huh? Bear Down Wildcats!

Where we are:
Lat: N 24 10.933'
Long: W 76 27.548'

Sampson Cay - Seaplane Crash

This morning we watched a seaplane come in and land right in the anchorage. It looked like it was coming from Nassau, and actually touched down and anchored near some other boats. We had lunch, did a load of laundry on the boat and then turned on the generator and the watermaker and waited for it to refill the 17 gallons of water we had used to wash our clothes. Still cheaper than the laundry at Sampson Cay marina, at $4 per machine it would've cost more than running the genset for a few hours. I went downstairs and read a little before deciding to take a nap. Kevin woke me up by opening the hatch (he was up on deck) and announcing "the seaplane is getting ready to take off". So I came outside to watch, since I'd never seen one take off before.

The seaplane motored slowly west (away from the island) and Kevin said it would eventually turn around to take off since the wind was coming from the east and it needed to take off into the wind. It didn't go out too much farther before it turned around and was basically heading straight toward the marina. It sped up and was even with us when it started to lift. But it didn't lift high enough and touched the water again. After that we just watched in horror as he got closer to the marina (on his right side) and a small 25 foot hill (directly in front of him). Kevin murmured, "he's not going fast enough". At the last second the pilot got enough altitude that he almost cleared the hill but we heard a sickening crash before watching the plane spin over the hill and out of sight. I can't remember if I started crying right away, but Kevin and I just looked at each other and said "oh my god" before I went below to turn on the VHF so that Kevin could call in a Mayday. There were at least 20-30 people who were at the marina, and we were further away, but we got our fire extinguisher, medical kit, and portable VHF loaded into the dinghy. We amazingly heard a response on the radio from a boat on the other side of the hill saying that all four people were okay. But we thought we would go anyway just in case they needed supplies (back when I was stocking the kit we got sutures, bandages, splints, etc), plus if the thing was on fire another extinguisher couldn't hurt.

We pulled our dinghy around and there were a good 30 people there in skiffs and dinghies, as well as two paramedics from one of the yachts in the marina. When we asked if they needed anything they all said that the people were all fine, the pilot had a bump on his head but other than that he was okay and talking on the phone. Kevin went to look at the wreckage but I couldn't bring myself to and stayed with the dinghy instead. Both pontoons had been torn clean off, but the plane was still upright. The left wing was crumpled a bit but both wings were still attached to the fully intact fuselage. The plane had gained enough height in the last few seconds to slide over the top of the hill instead of crashing nosefirst into it, and it had actually spun around and gone tail first partway down the other side. The undergrowth of palms and scrub must've acted as a net because the plane was at a stop before it reached the beach on the other side of the hill. These people were lucky, lucky to be alive and even luckier to be walking away. I am still shaking as I type this. We were shocked to the core to see it happen and I hope to never see anything like this again.

Sampson Cay, Exuma Islands

Yesterday we had a minor calamity on board. We -- gasp! -- ran out of rum. You are probably wondering how we could let this happen. So were we. We had stocked up in Grand Bahama back at the beginning of February (we thought four liters would last us a long time), and when we were in Nassau we were so concerned with replenishing our supply of mixers that we overlooked the minor detail of making sure we had enough rum to get us through the Exumas. So far we have only been to one island that had a store, the northern part of the island chain is mostly privately owned or uninhabited islands. So yesterday we found ourselves in a bind, which we temporarily solved by breaking into the bottle of Seagram's 7 that Ahsan & Ronda had so generously given us before they left Grand Bahama (thanks, guys!). I don't mean to make us out to be lushes. We usually each only have one drink every night at sunset. But Kevin mixes the drinks and apparently he makes them STRONG.

But this morning we knew we would have to move on, just a few miles south of Compass Cay is Sampson Cay which has a store, marina, and restaurant. So we headed there. We were hoping to kill 3 birds with one stone: restock the rum, get gas for the dinghy, and eat something not cooked by me. Well, two out of three ain't bad. The store was well-stocked so we got a few items in addition to the rum (we were excited to see canned butter from New Zealand, you can't get that in the States). And the marina sold both diesel and gasoline so we filled both our dinghy tanks. Unfortunately the restaurant was way, way too upscale for us. It was a bit bizarre to see such a fine dining establishment way out here -- white linen tablecloths, a dress code, plus all of the dinner entrees started at $30. But Sampson Cay marina was chock full of megayachts and there are several rental cottages on the island, so I imagine the restaurant still sees a pretty brisk business. They won't be seeing us, though. Especially since the gas for the dinghy wiped us out at $4.14/gallon (we needed 7 gallons). We'll save our cash for the more populated spots of Staniel Cay (our next stop) and Georgetown where a dollar goes a little further. But we might stay here a few days to relax and do some laundry. The anchorage here is really perfect, it is nice and flat and surrounded on three sides by islands. (Including "Dennis Cay" to the south. Miss you, Dad.)

Where we are:
Lat: N 24 12.433'
Long: W 76 28.580'

Compass Cay, Exuma Islands

Sometimes we aren't the sharpest tools in the shed. Two days ago while we were in Warderick Wells we tried going snorkeling in 20 knots of wind. The snorkeling site was about a mile away by dinghy and the waves had built up to a good chop (2-3 feet, really close together). We got soaked just on the dinghy ride over there. With the wind and waves, trying to anchor the dinghy in 15 feet of water would've been tough. About every third wave had a nice frost of whitecap, so there was no way we were getting in the water to try to look at some fish, it was just too rough. So you'd think we'd learn. But today guess what, even though the anemometer (fancy word for wind speedometer) registered 22 knots of wind, we climbed in the dinghy anyway to try to explore the caves over at the Rocky Dundas.

Funny thing about the 2 islands that make up the Rocky Dundas, they are basically massive limestone rock islands with sheer cliffs dropping vertically to the water's edge. All around the island there is a slight overhang where the cliffs meet the water, and it is under this ledge that you can find the caves. You have just enough room (4 ft) to sneak under the ledge at low tide. Once past the ledge you can get inside the larger space of the caves, some of them are even lit by the sun through "skylights" (holes in the rock above going all the way down through the island). Let me tell you, they looked really awesome as we approached in the dinghy. It sure looked like there would be some amazing snorkeling back there. Of course, it also looked like a great way to get killed or severely maimed since the wind was pushing the waves right up into the caves. Surf was pounding everywhere with each crash. We just looked at each other, shook our heads, and Kevin turned the dinghy around without a word.

So instead we settled for the tamer waters in our protected anchorage back on the other island, Chicken Cay (the significance of the name was not lost on us). Our anchorage there was surrounded on three sides including the direction the wind was coming from so there weren't any waves to speak of. There were several cool reefs to explore, teeming with schools of fish in day-glo colors. I just enjoyed floating above the cities of coral but Kevin, who was on the prowl for spiny lobster or conch since we are now just outside the boundary of Exuma Park, was disappointed to come back empty-handed. Secretly I was kind of relieved since both conch and lobster are overfished here, and even though it is legal for us to take them I feel bad. It doesn't stop me from eating lobster and conch fritters at restaurants but somehow when I see it in its natural habitat it feels like maybe I should just live and let live. Great, now I have the Wings song "Live and Let Die" running through my head (or Guns N' Roses depending on which generation you belong to).

Where we are (we moved less than a mile over to Compass Cay for better wind protection):
Lat: N 24 16.750'
Long: W 76 32.598'

Chicken Cay & the Rocky Dundas

Today we left Warderick Wells and headed south a few miles to Chicken Cay. The wind was right on our nose and the waves were close together making for a really bumpy ride. Poor Boris (who likes to hide in the forward bunk) was probably airborne several times as the bow pitched up and down. But now we are nestled in this little cove off a tiny private island (Chicken Cay). The snorkeling around here is supposed to be fantastic, Kevin already explored some of the reefs inside this cove and tomorrow we will dinghy over to these two islands called the Rocky Dundas which have some partially submerged caves to explore.

Tonight is spaghetti night, we always do spaghetti and our version of "must see TV"--season 3 of "Seinfeld" and season 2 of "News Radio". We brought a few TV shows with us and set up a schedule. "Desperate Housewives" on Tuesday nights, "Nip/Tuck" on Saturday, "Father Ted" & "The Simpsons" on Sunday. It helps us to keep track of what day it is. Which I need, especially since my watch got destroyed. I had the best watch that told time, date, tides, lunar cycle, you name it. It was also waterproof. When I was in Phoenix I made the mistake of going to Al Zuni (in the AZ Mills mall) to change the watch battery. I should've gone to the Watch Station or somewhere that specializes in watches made in this century. But the Watch Station watch battery guy wasn't in yet and I would've had to wait 3 hours so instead I took it to this ancient man in a jewelry shop. I'm fairly sure he had never seen this type of watch because he spent an hour taking it apart and replacing the battery (no exaggeration -- an hour). Anyway, when I got it back I should've known it wouldn't be waterproof, but I forgot and stupidly jumped in the water last week with it on. It was completely waterlogged and even though Kevin took it apart and we dried every piece, it was definitely dead. So now I am a little disoriented because I don't know the date, the time, or the day of the week (let alone the lunar cycle). Good thing we're in the Bahamas, where time is relative and there really isn't a set schedule.

Where we are:
Lat: N 24 16.415'
Long: W 76 32.311'

Warderick Wells - Boativersary

Well we have officially owned the boat for an entire year as of today March 7 (not sure if this will post on the 7th or the 8th). One of the truisims that we have learned about boat ownership is that things break. A lot. Sometimes we break things (accidentally of course), sometimes nature breaks them, and sometimes they just get broken for reasons known only to themselves. We (meaning Kevin, obviously) are currently troubleshooting problems with two of our more important pieces of equipment.

The watermaker. Where do I begin? For those of you who aren't familiar with it, this little machine is supposed to take salt water and turn it into fresh. It sounds like magic, but it is really just using reverse osmosis to push the salt water through very small membranes to filter out the salt and other impurities. Then alacaZAM! you have fresh, potable water. When we bought the boat we were so excited because the model we have is supposed to output 16 gallons of freshwater an hour. That is enough water to take daily showers (one of our inalienable rights as Americans) as well as do the occasional load of laundry. We have recently discovered that due to issues with one of the pumps (why is it always the pump?), our watermaker is outputting only 3.7 gallons/hour. And that's on high output mode, when we run it on efficiency mode (to conserve electricity) it is even slower. Even on efficiency mode it draws a lot of power so we are concerned because we can't keep our water tank full without running the genset longer than we'd like to. I think Kevin has done all he can for this machine. It's 10 years old, parts of it leak a little, and it is looking like we need to at least replace one of the main pumps, which we will probably try to do once we get to Georgetown in April. Of course we will have to have it shipped from the states so that is a whole other tale which I won't bore you with. You know that rhyme about the US postal service, something to the effect of "neither rain nor snow nor sleet nor hail will stop the delivery of your mail"? Well in the Bahamas it doesn't snow, sleet, or hail, but their postal service leaves something to be desired.

The other item that has been a constant problem has been the wind generator. The wind generator is basically a windmill device that is supposed to charge up your battery bank whenever the wind blows more than 5 knots or so. When we are living "on the hook" (anchoring instead of tying up at marinas) we basically have three ways to keep our batteries fully charged: the wind generator (only works when it's windy), the solar cells (only work when it's sunny), and the genset (works as long as you have diesel in the tank). Ideally, we should be able to get enough juice between the wind generator and the solar cells that we shouldn't have to run the genset very often. However, our wind generator has never put out the amps that the company claims -- 5.5 amps in 10 knots, 11 amps in 15 knots). But what we are getting is more like 0 amps in 10 knots and it takes a steady 20 knots to even squeeze 5 amps out of it. We sent the generator back to the company for analysis and they said all was okay, but sure enough we kept getting the same low results. Kevin has gone over the wiring with a fine tooth comb and can't find anywhere where we might be "losing" amps, so we think it is the generator. We have been getting along okay with just the solar cells and the diesel generator, but it sure would be nice to have a generator that runs on one of the most readily available power sources here -- wind. Anyway, that is another item we will be looking into when we get to Georgetown.

Despite the issues, both of these things are non-critical pieces of equipment. If they are out of commission it doesn't impact our safety, or even our comfort. So we just add them to our ever-growing list of things that need attention and pour ourselves an ice-cold drink to celebrate our one-year boativersary. Now if the freezer ever crapped out on us, we would really be in trouble. Knock wood.

Warderick Wells - Hutia and the Blowholes

Today was the perfect day to go hiking. We filled water bottles, slathered on the sunscreen (we are both way beyond "farmer tan" at this point), and headed to the trailhead on the beach. It's hard to miss the beach as there is a 52 foot sperm whale skeleton stretching across it. It was put there as a warning to cruisers not to toss bags of garbage overboard, apparently the poor whale ingested some and died as a result.

We hiked all over the north part of the island, keeping our eyes peeled for hutias. The hutia (hoo-tee-uh) is a small rodent and is the only land mammal native to the Bahamas. In the 60's it was believed to be extinct but a small colony was found on another island. In 1981 they imported 13 of them here to Warderick Wells and, as rodents do, they went forth and multiplied. Unfortunately they are nocturnal so the only hutia we got to see today was stuffed and under glass in the Warden's office.

Our hike took us to the top of the hill overlooking the shallow Exuma Bank on the west and the deeper Exuma Sound to the east. Walking along the limestone cliff we came across several holes in the rock that the guidebook described as blowholes. The holes go all the way down to the ocean and when the waves surge through the sea caves below, the blowholes erupt with gusts of air and sometimes ocean spray. Kevin was standing over two seemingly dormant ones when he asked "so when do you think they actually blow?". His question was answered immediately by a loud crashing noise and a gust of air strong enough to blow his shirt up to his chest. He jumped back and -- I am not kidding here -- screamed like a girl. No wonder the original settlers thought this area of the island was haunted by the ghosts of shipwrecks. Blowholes are scaaarry.

We tried to use the wifi internet access here ($10 for 24 hours -- guess they can charge whatever they want in the middle of nowhere) to upload photos to the website. Unfortunately the connection crapped out on us and we were only able to upload one photo (of the fish Kevin caught on our way from Nassau). We will try again next time we can find a faster connection.

Warderick Wells - Happy Hour

Yesterday we called ahead to Exuma Park to reserve a mooring ball at their Headquarters on Warderick Wells. We are expecting one or two weak cold fronts coming through in the next few days so we will stay here at least until Wednesday. During a frontal passage the wind can clock around 180 degrees from south to north so it is nice to be in a very protected spot, sheltered from all directions. The mooring field in Warderick Wells is pretty strange, there is a deep channel maybe 100 feet wide that has moorings single file. On either side of the channel are sand flats that are above the water at low tide. It is good that the park put the moorings in, since a bunch of boats anchored here would be a nightmare. At least with the moorings all the boats are evenly spaced and have enough room so that their swing circles don't intersect and no one goes "bump in the night". The island here is pretty cool, the wardens have cut hiking trails all across the island so we plan to explore a bit while we're here. There are no restaurants or grocery stores, but the main office does have a "video store" (a shelf of recent and not-so-recent releases available for a $2 rental fee). So we might check that out, too. Neither of us has ever seen that J-Lo movie "Maid in Manhattan", anyone know if that's any good?

When we checked in at the office, they told us that on Saturdays they have a "happy hour" at 5pm. Basically it is a BYOB, bring some appetizers to share, and the park provides a cooler of ice for your drinks. So at 4pm I was frantically trying to come up with an "appetizer". We have very little in the way of snack food at this point. The few snack packs of chips that we bought back when we provisioned in Florida were too valuable to just give away. And when I suggested I bake a batch of brownies Kevin said no way, since the boxes of brownie mix are hard to come by out here in the "out islands". So after racking my brain I came up with cracker mini-pizzas since we have plenty of club crackers, plenty of pasta sauce, several pounds of mozzarella cheese, and we just picked up a bag of pepperoni while we were in Nassau. So at 5:15, snacks and drinks in hand, we dinghied on up to the beach.

We met a bunch of people so quickly I couldn't remember all their names. One couple was actually in Port Lucaya at the same time we were and they remembered seeing our wedding taking place at the hotel. They actually have the same wedding anniversary as us -- Jan 14th. Small world. Everyone was really friendly and soon we were all swapping stories. It was weird though, every person we spoke with at length was fairly new to cruising and had bought their boat within the past year or so. We kind of wondered where all the "old salts" were. It was cool to see so many people from different walks of life (there were people from all over -- Czech Republic, Canada, Scotland, England, US) who have all decided to sail off into the sunset so to speak. We enjoyed meeting a few new friends and since many of them are also heading south to Georgetown, I'm sure we'll see some of them again in the weeks to come.

Where we are:
Lat: N 24 23.831'
Long: W 76 37.952'

Shroud Cay - Lazy River

Today was another sunny day in the Bahamas. Winds were light again so the water was crystal clear as well. Our little barracuda friend came by to tease Kevin some more. We can tell it's him because he's got some fishing line hanging from his gills. No wonder he now makes his home in the Exuma Park where no one can hook him.

This morning we fired up the dinghy to do some exploring inland. Shroud Cay is unique in that it has a series of saltwater creeks crisscrossing the island. At high tide they are deep enough to dinghy around in. Today was a good day to do this, since the sun was out and the water was calm so you could see the sandy, grassy bottom of the creek four feet below you. Although the creeks occur naturally they look like something you'd see at a theme park because they are perfectly walled in on either side by mangroves. It looks man-made, like someone tried to make a water park attraction along the lines of Golfland's Lazy River or Disney's Jungle Cruise. Parts of it reminded me of the movie "the African Queen" although for Kevin's sake I restrained myself from doing my (bad) impersonations of Kate Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart (schweethaart...). You can go in a creek on the west side of the island and come out on the beach on the east side, which is what we did. On the eastern beach there was something the guidebook called "Camp Driftwood". Back in the free-loving 60's a hermit named Ernest lived here on his sailboat and built a trail up the highest hill on the island (50 feet -- the Bahamas is not known for its mountainous terrain). He'd pick up whatever flotsam and jetsam washed up on the beach and make it into a table, a chair, or just plain weird artwork, all of which he left up on the hill's summit. He's long gone now, but nowadays cruisers just bring whatever junk they find on the beach and mark their boat name and the date on it and leave it up there. The oddest thing we saw there was that someone had carved a styrofoam float buoy into a mannequin head, complete with a construction hardhat (?) and a cigarette butt hanging out of his mouth. Other than that it was mostly junk -- t-shirts strung up on twine, baseball caps, a pair of sneakers dangling from a palm tree, lawn chairs, laundry baskets, and only the occasional piece of neatly engraved driftwood. We opted to just leave footprints, since someone had already stole our idea of carving a construction guy dummy head.

Shroud Cay - Exuma Islands

This morning started off clear and windless. We motored down to Shroud Cay and anchored just off the southwest side of the island. We are now just inside the protected waters of the Exuma Land and Sea Park. It is 176 square miles that the Bahamian government has set aside as a wildlife sanctuary. There is no fishing or taking of any sea or land life, including seashells. Fines are hefty -- if you are caught poaching they can do anything from fine you $500 to the more drastic measures of confiscating your boat and sending you back home. So we don't intend to fish, in fact Kevin put his fishing poles away so that he wouldn't forget. Of course this afternoon we spotted a huge barracuda hanging out not five feet behind the boat right at the surface watching us. The fish stayed there at least an hour, hardly moving. We aren't sure what he wanted -- he might've been expecting a handout or maybe he just wanted to taunt Kevin who has been dying to see, let alone catch, a fish that size.

The early afternoon was hot, and with no wind it was sweltering. After our nurse shark encounter the other day we consulted via email with Darlene, our friendly neighborhood shark enthusiast. She confirmed for us that nurse sharks are non-aggressive and don't like the taste of humans too much so long as we aren't swimming around with chum tied all over us. So Kevin and I felt safe enough going for quick swim to cool off (sans chum, of course). After that we put up the bow shade which was something the original owner had made for the boat. It is basically a huge white canvas circus tent that shades the front half of the boat. You can lay out on the trampolines and get cooled by the breeze without getting roasted in the sun. It looks bizarre from a distance, but it really works well. We had to take it down pretty quickly when we saw a dark patch of clouds in the distance. Within 30 minutes we were hit by a brief squall with 20 knot winds and rain. Funny thing about squalls like that, they move so fast. This one was gone in less than 2 hours and we had sunshine and no wind again for the rest of the afternoon.

Our friend Brett emailed us a good question the other day, asking what kind of boat is a trawler. It's a big slow motor vessel that's usually not very aerodynamic-looking (as opposed to a power boat, which looks like it was built for speed). A lot of couples cruise in them, since they have good fuel economy and can be fairly roomy inside. Note when I say "slow" it's relative, a trawler's cruising speed can be anywhere from 5-10 knots (we cruise at about 7.5). Anyway, I try to remember to define any sailing lingo we use in these logs, but if I forget let me know.

Where we are:
Lat: N 24 32.051'
Long: W 76 48.163'

Norman's Cay - Gangsta's Paradise

We are seven miles south of Highborne Cay, anchored on the west side of Norman's Cay. Back in the 70's and early 80's this was the base of operations for a cocaine-smuggling drug lord named Carlos Lehder. This guy bought up much of the island's buildings including the marina and airstrip. When he was here his goons would chase away would-be cruisers with guns. It's quite a long story of how he was caught, basically the US pursued him for years and the Bahamian government didn't do too much about him (he owned more than the island, it was thought that he owned several high-ranking officials as well). After dogged pursuit by the DEA, Lehder fled to Medellin, Colombia where he was captured, extradited to the US and is now serving life w/o parole plus 135 years. Anyway, now life on the island is back to normal, but there are a few reminders of his presence.

Probably the most famous is the submerged wreck of a small drug running airplane (a DC-3 maybe?). We dinghied around the south end of the island into the harbor to check it out. It is there resting on the bottom in maybe 6 feet of water. The wings are intact, the tail has fallen over and the fuselage is disintegrating. We were a little disappointed because our guidebook has this great photo of the near-intact plane clearly visible above the surface but the picture must be 20 years old and of course we went to the wreckage at high tide so all we could see above the water was maybe a foot of the fuselage. But the water was clear and we could see the plane submerged as "plane" as day.

The other attraction on Norman's, that I was specifically looking forward to, is a restaurant called MacDuff's that is reported to have the best burgers in the Bahamas. Unfortunately it is under new management and will maybe (?) re-open in November but was definitely closed for business when we went ashore. So tonight I decided to try something. Our friend Jo on Maggie Rose (see SC trip log) recommended some mail-order canned meats. We ordered one can each of pork, beef, and ground beef, just to try it out. We tried the pork a month ago with bbq sauce and it made great pulled pork sandwiches. So tonight I thought I'd try sloppy joes with the ground beef. It was less than spectacular. When I opened the can, Boris immediately started meowing and I can't blame him, the contents did resemble cat food. Once I mixed in the sloppy joe fixings it turned out okay, but since our freezer works really well I think in the future we'll just stick to frozen meat. Anyway it wasn't a total loss, we did have rum drinks while the sun went down. All in all, a pretty good day.

Where we are:
Lat: N 24 35.996'
Long: W 76 49.510'

Highborne Cay - shark infested waters

So this morning the wind died down a bit and we were able to move over to the western side of Highborne Cay and dinghy into the marina. We weren't originally planning to stop here, but we did want to pick up our spare pump from Hart's Desire. We got a little soaked on the dinghy ride in, since the current was against the wind and it made for a wet rollercoaster ride. After speaking with the couple from Hart's, it sounds like they have a leak around their driveshaft seal (the driveshaft drives the propeller) which is something that can't be fixed until they haul out, so it looks like their cruise is over and they will have to go back to Nassau. We sure hope they are able to get it fixed in Nassau, since we would not attempt a gulf stream crossing with a problem like that.

After picking up the pump, we explored the marina a bit. For such a remote location, it was pretty new. They had a well-stocked grocery and boating equipment store, a nice book swap, and even a catering service that delivers to your boat! But best of all they had some amazing beachfront right outside the marina, I swear it looked like something out of a Corona commercial -- white sandy beach, hammocks strung between palm trees, wooden rocking chairs on the wraparound porch, the whole nine yards. Just being there was relaxing. Until we ventured out to the fish cleaning station at the end of the dock and happened to look over the side. There were 11 huge nurse sharks swimming around -- and I mean huge -- each was easily as big as Kevin, not including the tail (their tail, not Kevin's). I guess they hang out there waiting for someone to clean a fish and throw the guts over the side. It was amazing -- you could see them so clearly. (We have photos and video that we'll upload to the website next time we have internet access.) We had unknowingly dinghied right past them to get into the marina, but what was so frightening was that we knew we'd have to go right back through them to get out! But they took no notice of us and by the time we got the dinghy over there, they had stopped feeding and had settled back down on the bottom where they typically hang out.

Where we are:
Lat: N 24 42.811'
Long: W 76 49.802'