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Early in our trip to the Bahamas we visited Little Farmer’s Cay to participate in the Bahamas sloop regatta.  I wrote about this in a previous post and really had a blast sailing on one of the sloops.    It’s been several months since we were last here so it’s fun to be back in “town”.

One thing that is very different this time than during our last visit is the state of the wind.  While there is a small cold front coming through this morning, bringing fairly strong NW winds, it’s not expected to last long and to blow through by later this afternoon, bringing moderate winds with it’s departure. Earlier in the season, we had similar weather but the strong winds persisted for several days and it was a lot windier.    As the season progresses (ie: closer to summer weather) the fronts are not as strong.  That’s good.  A number of folks have told us that this season has been the toughest with regards to weather in years.   To us the weather has been challenging but we have nothing to compare it to.

However, while it’s windy right now, yesterday was very different with near perfect weather for hanging around and enjoying the beaches and sights of Little Farmer’s Cay.

It’s hard to describe how clear and blue the waters here are when the winds are settled.  To stand on board Pandora and look down into crystal clear 15′ deep water and see schools of blue tangs swimming by is just amazing.  I have a glass bottom bucket that makes it easy to see everything, but yesterday you hardly needed it as the surface was just so still.

I really tried hard to find a way to photograph the water to give and idea of what this really looks like.  I hope that the following photos provide some context to what we saw.  Amazing.

I climbed up on Pandora’s radar arch and took this shot directly down into the water.  Can you say blue sparkly?This is what it looked like forward.  Up ahead, that’s Ariel, the Aerodyne 47 we have been sailing with for the last few days.   Ariel, home to our friends Miles and Loreen, is a remarkable boat and one that can always beat me, even if she is only a bit faster.  Having said that, she is in different league and is perhaps the only boat I’d trade Pandora for.  Unfortunately, I’d have to have two of Pandora to make the trade about equal.    She’s fast and elegant.  I always look for ways to photograph Pandora looking lovely in her native environment.  This view is a particularly fetching one.    Even Pandora appeared to be a lovely blue. And just off of our starboard beam, the Little Farm’s Cay Yacht Club.   The proprietor has a great name, Roosevelt Nixon.  He’s a very nice guy.   I love the colors that buildings here are painted.  Very bright and fun.  In our little New England town,  the “decorum police” would burn the place down overnight if we painted our home this bright a color.   Here, it works.To get the most out of the day we spent several hours looking for shells on nearby beaches and came back with a spectacular haul.   After that Brenda and I toured the harbor enjoying the sights.  The community fish cleaning station was pretty busy.  These guys had speared a few large groupers and were happy to show off their catch.

Some large rays were happy to pick up the scraps.  Interestingly, unlike Rum Cay, where the cleaning station attracted all manner of sharks,  rays were the only “locals” eager to clean up.  These rays don’t look that big in this shot but they are up to 4′ across.This cute little guy seemed to be enthralled by the action in the water below. 

Everyone turned out it seems to see the catch of the day.  It was fun checking out the action.
When the weather is perfect, there’s no place more enchanting than the Bahamas.  When it’s blowing like stink, which it does with regularity, a little less  but still better than snowy and blowing.    I am liking the whole winter warm thing.  Easy to get used to.

I am  beginning to think about plans for next summer which will probably include a visit to Maine again, our 16th visit.  Pandora’s sheep mascots have been thinking about it too it seems.   Hmm…Oh yea, I should note that Brenda’s doing great with her basket making and has now finished three, each better than the last.  Some photos to come soon.

Speaking of baskets, we have been told that there is some sort of craft show in town today.  Not sure what “town” is here but we’ll probably check it out.

Perhaps I’ll close with a shot, taken 5 minutes ago, of some impressive clouds.  Notice the beached fishing boat on shore.  It’s been there for years and is a solid reminder that we go forth here with the grace of God.    Things can go badly, even in paradise and we shouldn’t forget it.  So far, so good…  And, I remain an optimist and “ever hopeful”.  What a great day!

One of the things that you get in the Bahamas is the ability to avoid civilization.  Even the “resorts” are pretty basic.  However, we are now visiting a little cove with a lovely resort “Fernandez Bay Village“.   Even though it’s pretty much alone on this stretch of island, you can count on being pampered.   There is a lovely open air dining room and cute little cottages along the beach.  The main dining room has a thatched roof and a high peak that goes so well with the surroundings.   Yesterday, after a short sail around the point we anchored just in front of the resort and enjoyed a late lunch.   This is a shot taken of Pandora from inside the dining room.  Pretty nice spot.Here’s what the resort looks like from the deck of Pandora.  Nice from both views.Earlier yesterday, prior to heading over to Fernandez Bay we went for a hike up to the Hermitage, where Father Jerome lived out his retirement.    Father Jerome was responsible for designing and building many of the Catholic churches here in the Bahamas.  As both a priest and architect  he was multi-talented and in spite of all that he found time to be a hermit alone after her retired here. The Hermitage can be seen from the water and looks quite imposing up on the hill. As you approach it you feel like you are headed up to a monastery somewhere in Europe as it is silhouetted against the sky.   It sure looks like a long walk.Along the way, and it’s not a very long way, we passed a few “farms” these were really just patches of rocky land where the scrub has been burned off and some plants are started in holes between the rocks.  This sort of farming, typical of the Bahamas, is called “pot farming” when small holes are cut into the limestone and lined with dirt to hold moisture.  The crops are pretty limited and seem to consist of cabbage, corn, tomatoes and bananas.  While there is very little rain here in the winter, there are pockets where things will grow, usually in small depressions.  These bananas are doing very well in an area that was sunken some ten feet below the surrounding fields. We could see the remains of some tomato plants intermingled with cabbages. This is pretty rough farming as you can see with this guy digging in a recently burned patch.  He was digging holes in the ground with  a pick ax.  Think about this guy the next time you have to go to work.  It is probably not as bad as this. As we continued up the road and got closer to the Hermitage, we came upon a sort of welcome area. This sign proudly proclaims that this is the highest point in the Bahamas.   I w0nder if they use high tide or low for this measurement.  New moon tide perhaps?  Global warming will wipe out much of the islands as many are only 20′ high or less.  Let’s get Al Gore on the case PDQ!!! A nice shot of us with our friends Miles and Loreen from Ariel. Along the rocky path to the summit are the Stations of the Cross.   Just before you reach the summit you come upon the tomb of Christ with the stone rolled aside. Father Jerome’s chapel was very touching with a guest book to sign and a pew for one.   Every detail, in an ascetic way, was worked out, in miniature. Once you arrive at the Hermitage you realize that Father Jerome was talented in another way.  He managed to site and design his home to look far larger than it is.   It’s actually very small and there isn’t a room that’s even 8′ wide.  This guy lived a very simple life, that’s for sure.   Perhaps when he sent the construction bill to the Vatican, they were pleased when it seemed to cost about 1/4 of what they might have expected.  I wonder if they knew that it was only about 1/4 of the size that you’d expect?   Hmm… You get a good feel for just how small the place is when we posed for pictures looking out of the windows.  Perhaps it’s blasphemy to say this but to me but these windows reminded me of the old TV show Laugh In, with the celebrity characters in the opening doors.  Strike me down Father Jerome, but that’s what I thought.  It does look a lot larger than it is.  Here’s Brenda in the arch.  Wow, I didn’t know that she was that tall.  The building is a sweet testimony to a man devoted to the Bahamas and it was very nice to have an opportunity to visit.

We were planning to spend a few days in Fernandez Bay but today, when I listened to Chris Parker, he reported that the weather would have westerly winds on Wednesday evening, not good at all for where we were.  This meant that we beat a hasty retreat some 55 miles over to the Exuma chain and Little Farmer’s Cay today that offers better protection than Cat Island.  That’s where we are now.

Tonight we had a nice dinner with Miles and Lorreenfrom Ariel at the Little Farmer’s Cay Yacht Club and reconnected with the proprietor Roosevelt Nixon, whom we’d seen some six weeks ago when we last passed this way.

We’ll be here for a few days.  I hope to do a bit of snorkeling and shelling over the next few days.

 

 

At 14:00 on Sunday and we were a dozen miles from land in any direction and crossing the ocean between Long Island and Cat Island.  The water was about 6,000 feet deep and a dark rich indigo.  That’s really deep.  What’s most amazing is that the bottom drops off from about 50′ to thousands in just 1/4 mile.  It’s  a cliff, for sure.   We were fishing using a mesh cast net and caught what was probably a Mahi-Mahi, great eating, but lost it.  Perhaps the most impressive is that bringing in a fish that weighs perhaps a dozen pounds while racing along at 7kts is a challenge.  In order to bring the fish in I rounded up the boat into the wind to slow the but that made us really bounce around, which Brenda didn’t appreciate.  I guess that’s enough fishing for one day.   

The wind today is about perfect with the apparent wind in the 10-15kt range directly on the beam.  We are sailing today with Ariel, an Aerodyne 47, a boat that is much larger than we are.  However, Pandora held her own and most of the time we kept up.  We did loose over a mile on her when we rounded up to try and boat the fish.  However, after seeing how Brenda, who had been doing fine up until the “fish episode”, began to feel poorly while I tried to reel in the fish, I decided that having fish for dinner tonight wasn’t as important as keeping Brenda from becoming ill. 

We had a great week at Thompson Bay Long Island and enjoyed seeing old friends and making new ones.  As luck would have it, a group of some 25 to 30 boats decided to have a rally from George Town to Thompson Bay, something that I am told happens each winter.  As part of the festivities there were parties on the beach and dinners at the local eatery, the Long Island Breeze.  We participated in a number of the activities and enjoyed ourselves a great deal.  This rally was an opportunity for the folks that hang out in Georgetown for months at a time to get out of town for a few days.   The cocktail party on the beach was great fun.  That’s only a part of the dink “fleet” at the beach.  That’s a lot of dinks.   If you are wondering, ours is the grey one with the 15hp outboard.  Yeah, really unique.After two months in the Bahamas we decided that it was high time to begin a leisurely run north beginning with Cat Island.   As Miles and Laureen, aboard Ariel, had done this run before, we decided that we would “buddy boat” with them for a while.  We don’t know how much time we will spend on Cat as we also would like to take in some of the islands in the Exumas chain that we missed on our run down to George Town to meet up with the boys. 

Yesterday we took a hike out to one of the ocean beaches where we hoped to find some nice shells.   Yes, we have tons now but we hoped to find some varieties that we had not seen yet.  We also hoped to find some “sea beans”, small brown nuts that are about 1-3” inches around.  These floating beans come all the way from South America, I am told, and wash up on the ocean facing beaches of the Bahamas.  To date we have only found one but were rewarded by finding two yesterday.  Good thing that we found the beans as the beach didn’t have many shells.  It’s funny how some beaches have loads of shells and others don’t.

Here’s a sample of some that we found on Rum Cay last week.  You never know which beach will be chock full of discoveries.   Yes, you guessed it, Brenda loves little shells. Unfortunately, the beach was littered with plastic trash, everything from soda bottles to discarded fishing floats and nets.  Just about anything that will float and is not bio-degrade seemed to have ended up on the beach.  While most of the trash was high and dry, a remarkable amount of garbage was sloshing around in the waves off of the beach including a large tangle of lines and floats, clearly a discarded or lost fishing net.  It’s unfortunate to see a beautiful beach defiled by massive amounts of trash.  Garbage disposal on the islands is a problem and I can’t imagine what can be done to solve this.  Perhaps piling up the debris and setting fire to it is about the only option.   

In spite of the trash, the beach was quite scenic with craggy outcroppings off shore looking dramatic in the sunlight against the deep blue waters.We sat on a rock at the end of the beach and had a picnic lunch. 

A friend off of another boat taught Brenda how to weave baskets from palm fronds so I was hot on the trail to harvest some materials for her to work her magic on.  Happily, we were successful and harvested a number of compact fronds. You only pick the ones that look like a green spear and have not yet opened up to weave baskets. Brenda’s first basket looks great but to her discerning eye, she feels that it’s a bit rough.  Me, I am really impressed with her first effort and am certain that she will be turning out magnificent pieces very soon.  It’s worth noting that this shot of Brenda weaving her first basket was taken as we sailed up the western coast of Long Island today. Along the way to the beach we came across some “wild” goats.  The mothers and kids were quite cute.  I also spied this little lizard on a palm frond.  These little guys are everywhere.We are looking forward to seeing the sights on Cat Island and are excited about being shown the ropes by Miles and Laureen.

The trip today was over 60 miles.  Let me assure you that that’s a long way to sail in a day.  We did the run with only one hour of motoring in 10 hours.  Not  bad.   Ariel beat us by half an hour. 

Well, after a great day of sailing I was pretty pooped but not so tired that I couldn’t make a few rum punches.  Now, that’s a perfect way to cap off a great day of sailing.

How about closing with tonight’s equally perfect sunset?  Actually, that’s a similar color to a rum punch.  Accidental? I don’t think so.  

It’s Thursday morning, the sun is up and the wind has gone away. I am sitting on the deck of a local “resort” looking out at the bay and working on my blog post.  Very nice, sunny and warm.  Brenda’s doing the wash.  I am prohibited by law from touching laundry.  It seems I can’t be trusted.  I mix white and dark, dry things that are not to be dried etc.   Isn’t that OK?   Help me on this…

This is the view from where we are sitting doing our blogs, and laundry.  Pretty nice.  Speaking of no wind, and I was earlier in this post if you have lost track, I almost have.  It’s interesting how the wind goes light and variable ahead of a cold front.  Tonight as the front passes, the wind will quickly build from the north and gust to 25kts or more for a day or so.  So, today we will enjoy the calm conditions.  After the front passes and the winds return to the east, we will probably be sailing to Cat Island our first move in a northerly direction since coming to the Bahamas two months ago.

The two month milestone was particularly important given the fact that  we had only been given that amount of time on our visa when we arrived and it will expire on Monday.  One doesn’t want to have an expired visa, ever, I am told.  Happily, we were able to renew our visas yesterday on Long Island from a very well dressed and pleasant officer here on the island.  All government officials dress really well.  The “government offices” here in Long Island are “modest”.  Actually, the “complex” of buildings were mostly unmarked save a sign at the road.The management of visas is taken very seriously here in the Bahamas.  We had heard a story yesterday about a guy who had lost their immigration card, given to him when they cleared in through customs. On top of that they were late, by one day, applying for an extension.  Because of this he was told to leave the Bahamas immediately, clear into another country and then they could reenter the country and get a new visa.  And, all of this was happening with an approaching cold front making leaving dangerous.  I understand that after much back and forth, he was given a stay of execution to remain in the Bahamas until the weather settles down next week.  Having heard about this we were a bit anxious about what sort of complications we might run into ourselves. Happily, all went well.

Getting to the offices without a car would be tough so it was timely that we had decided to rent a car with some friends to tour the island.  The customs office was not even close to any harbor that we can get into here on the island.

Having a car and driving down the road, after two months of sailing was quite a novel sensation.  To go fast in a car and not get splashed, as we do in the dink, was great.  However, the thrill was tempered somewhat by the $6.00 gas prices. 

Long Island is actually quite long, as the name suggests.  I say long and not large as while it’s 50 miles long, it’s only about a mile wide (or much less) at any point. Even though the main road is paved, it takes hours to drive from one end to the other, and on the wrong side of the road.  Having said that, we didn’t have to worry about getting lost as there is only one north south road that runs from one end to the other. 

Our plan for the day was to do a bit of sightseeing including a visit to Dean’s Blue Hole, billed as the deepest in the world at over 600 feet. To be able to walk out in water that is less than three feet deep and stand on the edge of a sheer drop off that plunges to that depth is an amazing sight to behold.  The hole is a deep blue but it doesn’t really show in this photo as the surf was up and the water a bit murky.

In the middle of the hole there is a raft moored for free divers to practice their “sport”.  This sport is to see how far down you can dive while holding your breath and return to the surface.  Divers come from all over the world to compete for the distinction of being able to dive the deepest.This guy was practicing.  He sat for what seemed like for ever prior to slowly diving down.  Some meditate and are able to slow down their heart rate to a point where they can go with less oxygen than mere mortals.  He wore a single flipper that looked like a mermaid fin and held both of his feet.  Notice the wire going straight down into the water from the float.  They clip to that wire to help guide them down and back.I understand that there is some hearty sole that actually reached the bottom and returned to the surface on a single breath.  Not sure I have that quite right as I have heard conflicting reports on what’s actually the deepest dive.  Those who practice the sport can hold their breath for up to four minutes.  I feel short of breath just writing about it. Yikes… 

This video is of some guy that did a free dive at Dean’s.  Take a deep breath and watch…

Around the corner from the bay where the blue hole the sea was raging.  Glad that we were not on that lee shore with Pandora.  We had sailed in those sorts of waves a few days ago and they don’t seem nearly that large when you are in water that’s 7,000 deep in the ocean.  However, when they pile up on shore…  Watch out!

Along the way we visited Clarencetown, near the southern tip of Long Island.  The harbor was rough but very pretty.

We visited a beautiful Catholic church. It looks like it belongs on the shore of the Aegean.We climbed up one of the towers.  It was very, very narrow with wooden ladders going from level to level. Once at the top, what a great view.  Along the way a view through a window.For dinner we visited a lovely spot Chez Pierre.   It’s funny that they have a website when their electricity has to come from a generator.  The road to visit is several miles from the main highway.  It was far and away the best meal we have had out in the Bahamas to date.  A great way to finish a terrific day.

Tonight we will be gathering on the beach with other cruisers for cocktails and a pot luck.  We won’t forget to bring the bug spray.   Such are the compromises of the cruising life.  Such pain…

Well, it’s Monday March 11th and we have been in the Bahamas for nearly two months.   I have to say that it has been nice to avoid all of the snow and cold weather of the north.  Having said that, the Bahamas in January and February have weather that is challenging in it’s own way, with cold fronts (a relative term as it relates to “cold”) coming through one after the other, twice a week or so.

Cold fronts drop the temperature only perhaps 5 degrees while the winds clock counter clockwise from east to south through to the north.  While the full clocking isn’t that common in the central Bahamas, the George Town and Exumas area, where we have spent much of our time, it’s very evident in the northern Bahamas, the Abacos, where frontal winds will often clock nearly 360 degrees with the passage of a front and very often with quite strong winds.

With most harbors in the Bahamas only protected from a very limited number of wind directions, perhaps from ENE-E-ESE, this means that we have to be very aware of forecasted winds and make our way to an appropriately sheltered anchorage when change is in the forecast.

In our first two months we have only really had difficulty with clocking winds, and worrying about where to go to remain sheltered, one time, and that was a few weeks ago when we headed to Rum Cay to ride out a particularly strong front.  Prior to going to Rum, we were in Conception Island which is quite isolated and is subject to wrap around swell from the ocean, even in the best of conditions.  Complicating the situation is the lack of good shelter within a day sail from there and it is certainly not protected from the northerly winds associated with a cold front.

As a result, from Conception, we really didn’t have many options, beyond George Town, where we had already spent too much time, to position ourselves to avoid unfavorable winds.  While a harbor that is sheltered from the prevailing easterlies, is a great spot during “normal” weather, it can be downright dangerous when a front passes, bringing winds that are from an unprotected direction.  In the example of Conception Island, the harbor is protected from easterly winds.  However, you would quickly find yourself on a lee shore (not a good thing) if the winds pick up from the west as is often the case in advance of the passage of a front.

It is because of the passage of a front that we found our way to Rum Cay, certainly one of the most interesting islands that we have visited to date.  I have already written a good deal about our visit there but I should include a photo of the sculpture that Bobby, the marina owner and local artist, did for us.  Bobby is known for his sculptures carved from found objects, mostly coral heads.  These pieces of coral, some quite large, were found washed up on the beach or were dredged from the harbor when the marina was constructed.  He told us that these pieces of coral are from a time when the seas were at a very different level, around the last ice age, some 15,000 years ago.  While the coral pieces come out of the ground looking pretty nasty, all black and stained, they bleach in the sun and after Bobby is done with his carving they look all fresh and new.

Here’s a photo of the raw piece of coral that Brenda selected.

Here’s the same piece after Bobby did his magic.  We are thrilled with his work and certainly will be back to him for another piece if we find our way back there next winter.  He really does great work.

So, what’s next as we think about the next two plus months of our trip?  We are now in Thompson Bay Long Island where we have been for the last two nights after our sail from Rum Cay, a 50+ mile day, which we did, happily, under sail.  I spent much of yesterday cleaning the boat and polishing all of the stainless, something that I have not done in months.  316 stainless, while it’s designed for the marine environment, does get mild surface rust, perhaps better described as a patina, that has to be removed with a mild abrasive such as Soft Scrub.  This is pretty easy to do but does take time.  Pandora had gotten pretty scruffy but now she looks great.  I still have to spend a few hours cleaning some grey streaks off of the hull which I will tackle over the next few days.  The bottom needs cleaning but I am note quite ready to handle that job.

With our trip nearly half over, we will soon begin heading toward the northern part of the Bahamas and will likely visit some of the islands of the Exuma chain that we missed on our way down to George Town.  We also hope to spend some time on Cat Island and Eleuthra on our way to the Abacos, the most northern part of the Bahamas.  The northern portions are best visited in the spring when the fronts are less powerful.

At some point in May we will head back to Florida, probably Ft Pierce.  Brenda will head home by plane and I’ll bring Pandora back to CT with crew.  I’ll have Pandora hauled, probably for two months for some upgrades and maintenance.  After re launching her we will probably take her to Maine for a month or two.  After that we may do some local sailing prior to taking her, again with crew, to Annapolis for the boat show in October and then on to Florida where she will be stored for several months prior to heading back to the Bahamas for part of the winter.   While we are spending nearly 5 months here this winter, I expect that we will come here for three months next winter and split our time with a few months of sailing in Maine too, and area that we love and have spent a lot of time over the years.  Frankly, Brenda and I like the idea of splitting up our time aboard as being away from home for such a long stretch away from family has been tough.

For now, with a much shorter time horizon in mind, we are thinking about what to do in the next week. We are debating if we will stay here in Thompson Bay Long Island through the passage of the next cold front, which will arrive in a few days.  While the bay is very well protected from the sort of northerly winds, 20-25 kts, that will come through with the front mid week, we will be stuck here until the prevailing easterlies return.  That’s probably ok as we were hoping to spend a few days exploring the island with a rental car.

Having said that, Long Island is large, nearly 75 miles long, with miles of beaches to explore and some of the deepest blue holes in the world.  Blue holes are common here as the islands limestone rock is sometimes dissolved by the salt water over time creating caves that run for miles under the island.  These holes, a sort of sink-hole where a piece of land collapses, can be in the middle of an island or out in the water.  You can see them as they show up as a dark blue hole, a few hundred feet across, against a ring of white sand in shallow water.  Often these holes are in the middle of an island and look like a small pond that is a deep indigo color.  Interestingly, a sport of free diving has evolved in these holes, where swimmers will dive down, sometimes hundreds of feet while they hold their breath. The sport is to see who can go down the farthest and come back up while holding their breath.  I understand that some of the best free divers in the world live here on Long Island.  I get out of breath just thinking of this.  If you search for “free diving Bahamas” on You Tube, you will see these guys strutting their stuff.  Not for me…

We will have to see if we’ll leave soon or stay for the week. I’m betting staying will be the word.  Besides, we’re in the Bahamas mon, and we can always put off a decision until tomorrow.