{"id":2874,"date":"2014-03-26T03:03:02","date_gmt":"2014-03-26T03:03:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=2874"},"modified":"2014-03-26T03:04:17","modified_gmt":"2014-03-26T03:04:17","slug":"the-bahamas-are-magic-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=2874","title":{"rendered":"The Bahamas are magic, really!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Tuesday and we are all the way down south in Georgetown, the largest \u201ctown\u201d in the southern part of the Bahamas and a very popular harbor with cruisers.\u00a0 At present I\u2019d guess that there are perhaps 100 boats anchored here so, as you can imagine, there\u2019s plenty going on.\u00a0 While 100 boats may sound like a lot, it\u2019s late in the season and many have already left.\u00a0 A month ago I expect that there were three times that many boats hanging out but many have left to head north to the States or south to work their way down to the Caribbean.\u00a0 Needless to say, with this many boats in one place for the winter, things are pretty organized.\u00a0 Each morning there is a VHF radio net where local businesses announce their offerings and cruisers trade and sell spare items that they have on board.\u00a0 It\u2019s amazing how much extra stuff folks have on their boats that they don\u2019t actually need.\u00a0 I guess that boaters are packrats, just like land folks, but with less space.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, as you might recall from past posts, I damaged my main anchor some time ago when I got it lodged under a ledge up near Staniel Cay.\u00a0 The shaft was bent 90 degrees so the anchor is \u201cmort\u201d.\u00a0 As I like to have a spare of many items myself, I announced, on the morning radio net today, that I was looking for an anchor.\u00a0 Well\u2026 It seems that some folks collect anchors and, for the right price, might be willing to part with one.\u00a0 Within a few minutes I got calls from a number of boats offering their wares.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have to check them out and settle on one.\u00a0 One caller told me that he has six anchors on his boat.\u00a0 That\u2019s a lot of anchors as most boats have only two or three at most.\u00a0 I wonder how much other stuff he has on board.\u00a0 Lots, I\u2019ll bet.<\/p>\n

On Sunday night Brenda and I anchored off of a lovely Cay (that\u2019s pronounced Key in the Bahamas, Kay in the US), Musha Cay.\u00a0 Interestingly, the island, and others nearby, are owned by David Copperfield, the magician.\u00a0 I guess that being a magician pays well, and let me tell you, this is a VERY nice spot.\u00a0 And, along with being a talented magician, our \u201cneighbor\u201d David has very nice taste.\u00a0\u00a0 Beautiful.<\/p>\n

We understand that you can rent the island, Musha Cay for about $25,000 per day, and it would seem that plenty do as the place was hopping while we were there. \u00a0There are plenty of privately owned islands in the Bahamas, actually too many are private, but there are only a handful of spots that are as nice as this one.\u00a0 The buildings are quite impressive.\u00a0 Actually, i understand that this is the dining room area. \u00a0 Check out the nearby dock. \u00a0No simple pressure treated pilings here. \u00a0They just won’t do For our David. \u00a0Check out the water color.\"\"<\/a>The place is spectacular and it seems that there is much more here than meets the eye, as you would expect from a magician. \u00a0Check out this article from <\/span>Forbes magazine<\/a>. \u00a0It’s worth reading. \u00a0 Yes, quite a place And you can even get fireworks for $25,000.<\/span><\/p>\n

As a particular point of interest, David Copperfield had a full size grand piano with a reclining mermaid commissioned out of stainless steel and then sunk it off of his island.\u00a0 I was able to dive on it with some new friends we met who were from France And Belgium. \u00a0They took me in their dink, complete with a 40hp motor, off to visit the piano.\u00a0 The currents were fierce and swimming down to the piano was a bit challenging.\u00a0 I took some videos but can\u2019t post them. \u00a0 Here’s a photo I pulled off of the Web.\"\"<\/a>The \u201cmain\u201d house is up on the hill and is quite a bit larger and has a commanding view of Exuma Sound.\u00a0 This is a shot that I took from the ocean side as we headed down toward Georgetown yesterday.\u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019ll bet that a G&T \u00a0or another “adult beverage” (of course included with the rental) would taste great on the deck in the evening.\u00a0 I’d guess that sunrise isn\u2019t too shabby either.\"\"<\/a><\/span>And, don\u2019t forget, all materials to build anything on one of these remote islands have to be brought in to the Bahamas and then reshipped to the island by landing craft.\u00a0 It\u2019s a complicated process and plenty expensive. \u00a0Expensive? I can only imagine.<\/span><\/p>\n

I guess that as JP Morgan once quipped, \u201cif you have to ask, you can\u2019t afford it\u201d.\u00a0 David Copperfield, it seems, doesn\u2019t have to ask.\u00a0 However, he does rent out the island.\u00a0 Only, of course, if you can afford it. \u00a0Me, I am one of those who DO have to ask what things cost so I\u2019ll never know.<\/p>\n

What a spot.\u00a0\u00a0 As the sun rose on Monday morning I watched a crew of three get out on the beach and rake every inch by hand to remove any seaweed that had washed up on shore overnight.\u00a0 Pretty amazing.\u00a0\u00a0 And, at night the docks have blue underwater LED lights that flash in a very nice way all night.\u00a0 I would expect nothing less from our buddy David.\u00a0 Of course.<\/p>\n

So, on Monday morning at 08:00 we headed out to make the run to Georgetown, the largest town in the central Bahamas to re-provision and to get ready for our last month out prior to meeting up with our son Rob and his girlfriend Kandice back in Staniel Cay in late April.<\/p>\n

Our plan was to make the 40 mile ocean run down to Georgetown on a settled day.\u00a0 While we were only able to sail less than half of the way as the wind died, we did have a really nice run.\u00a0 One thing that I did, which seemed very decadent, was to crank up the watermaker (a desalinator that takes the salt out of seawater) and use a hose to wash off nearly two months of salt that had accumulated on the decks.\u00a0 Believe it or not, we have not had any rain of consequence for all that time.\u00a0\u00a0 Things had become very salty, that\u2019s for sure.\u00a0 So, with the watermaker cranking away, I washed the salt off of the decks and scrubbed away, all while motoring along in the ocean in conditions that were as calm as you can imagine.\u00a0 By the time we reached Georgetown a few hours later the tanks were full again.<\/p>\n

As a point of clarification, on the \u201cbank\u201d side of the islands, away from the ocean, the water is less than 20 feet deep for thousands of square miles, but on the ocean side, the water depth goes from about 40\u2019\u00a0 deep to, believe it or not, 3,500 feet deeP or more. \u00a0That\u2019s an impressive depth and what a drop off in only a short distance from shore.\u00a0 That\u2019s some drop-off of 3,500 deep in less than a mile.<\/p>\n

Anyway, as usual, I digress. \u00a0\u00a0So we motored along in perfectly calm conditions and I washed off the boat as the watermaker happily cranked away replacing what I was squirting all over the boat.\u00a0 So, Pandora\u2019s plenty clean now.\u00a0 And, tonight Brenda and I sat up on the bow to enjoy an \u201cadult beverage\u201d while watching the sun go down.\u00a0 Very nice.<\/p>\n

Also, as we motored calmly down the Exumas chain toward Georgetown, we decided to throw out a line to see what we could catch and while we didn\u2019t get a fish that we could eat, we did catch a pretty large Barracuda.\u00a0 These guys are pretty nasty looking with big teeth, about \u00be\u201d long.\u00a0 Intimidating.\"\"<\/a>After some effort I was able to release him and still keep my lure, and my fingers…<\/span><\/p>\n

All and all, a very nice day on the water, and even Brenda liked it.\u00a0 Smooth and calm, her favorite.<\/p>\n

Today, in Georgetown we did provisioning and \u00a0will be waiting for the next cold front to blow through.\u00a0 Hopefully, we will be able to head out by the weekend or early next week.\u00a0 Destination?\u00a0 Perhaps the Jumentos.\u00a0 Fortunately, we ran into a few of our friends who just got back from a month there.\u00a0 Very remote and beautiful, we were told.<\/p>\n

More to come on that, I would expect. \u00a0 It seems to me that there is plenty of magi pic in the Bahamas, David Copperfield aside.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Tuesday and we are all the way down south in Georgetown, the largest \u201ctown\u201d in the southern part of the Bahamas and a very popular harbor with cruisers.\u00a0 At present I\u2019d guess that there are perhaps 100 boats anchored here so, as you can imagine, there\u2019s plenty going on.\u00a0 While 100 boats may sound […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2874"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2881,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2874\/revisions\/2881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}