See Bill’s newly found sunglasses and his small mooring buoy.  These are the sorts of things he finds.  It is just trash that washed up on the beach.

This little sand dollar had a garden of small green plants growing on it when it washed ashore among a bunch of sea grass.  I thought it was sort of cute and threw it back into the water before the garden dried in the sun.

Bill found these fishing net floats on the beach at Normans Cay.  He is proud of them because they match.  It looks like they will be coming home with us.

This is our sign that we leave on top of Boo Boo Hill at Warderick Wells in the Exumas.  Each year we add another year to the list.  You can see the freshly carved MMXIX.

The Comma Sandbar emerges from the water at low tide west of Cave Cay only to be drowned an hour or so later.  Even when dry it is completely surrounded by water.

Wouldn’t you know it, Cave Cay has caves.  We took our dinghy into this one to see the limestone rock formations.  The roof is perhaps 15 feet overhead.

Greetings from George Town, Exuma.  It has been a long time since I last wrote.  I seem to have been on “Island Time” and have not gotten much accomplished since I left you all with our boat in Palm Cay Marina near Nassau waiting for our transmission to return.

On March 20 Brad, the Yanmar mechanic in Nassau, called to say our rebuilt transmission was ready to be installed.  Bill and I did a little happy dance.  We were more than ready to leave Palm Cay Marina.  It was a great place, but we did not come to the Bahamas to stay in a marina.  The transmission was back in the boat that day right after lunch.  We started the engine and tugged on the dock lines.  Forward worked.  Reverse worked.  Brad told us Tiffany would call us with the bill.  Ahhh.  The repair bill.  We sort of thought there would be one, but we had no idea how much it would be.

The bill came by email the next afternoon.  We paid it with my Visa card over the phone after calling the credit union to warn them of a large foreign charge coming their way.  Since Bill lost his wallet, my Visa card is the only card we have.  I was scared that Visa would see the suspicious charge and cancel the card leaving us stranded.  After paying the bill it was too late to leave Palm Cay, so we hung around for one more night.

The next morning, we were the first ones in the office when the door opened.  The Palm Cay Marina staff gave us some generous discounts from their listed rates for our nineteen day stay.  With that bill paid and with my credit card still working, we untied the dock lines and sailed the 31 nautical miles to Highbourne Cay.  We arrived and found a good spot to anchor in the lee of the island.  It was great to have Irish Eyes swinging with the wind and to have a nice cool breeze moving through the boat.

We spent several days anchored at Highbourne Cay watching the mega-yachts come and go.  While the weather during our stay was windy and cool, we did get to explore some of the beaches on the island before moving Irish Eyes to the north end of Norman’s Cay.  There, we explored a large sandbar and walked on the nearby beaches of Normans Cay and Saddle Cay.  Out Island Adventures had a dock with buildings and a tiki bar on Saddle Cay.  In previous years we have seen their high-speed motorboats bringing lots of folks from Nassau for a fun daytrip to Exumas.  This year it all stood silent and looked abandoned.  We do not know what happened.

As is typical for the Bahamas in the early spring, a cold front from the US was to pass over us bringing some showers and strong west wind.  In anticipation we moved into the Norman’s Cay Cut for better protection from the wind.  The cut is the channel between Normans Cay to the north and Wax Cay to the south.  It is the water passage between the Bahama Banks to the west and the Exuma Sound to the east.  It is narrow and twisting making it hard for the wind to raise any dangerous waves.  The wind did blow, but we were still able to walk along the beaches.  Bill found five bright yellow football-size Styrofoam fishnet floats while I found several pretty shells.  We also walked all around the new marina that is being built on Normans Cay.  Only one yacht and six jet skis were tied to its newly installed docks, but there was a private jet at the end of its 5000 ft runway.  When finished the marina will be a grand place.

Our next stop was one of my favorite uninhabited places in the Bahamas, Shroud Cay.  We anchored at the north end of the island.  Shroud Cay is part of Exuma Land and Sea Park.  So, it is a no take zone, and all I could do is look at the shells on the beach.  Bill could collect and remove all the plastic trash he wanted.  A system of creeks fills the entire center of Shroud Cay, with branches running from the Bahama Banks side to the Exuma Sound side.  It was, as always, beautiful.  The creeks were filled with dark turtles swimming in the baby blue water as it passed through the green mangroves to the white beaches on the Sound side.  We took a circle tour through the creeks and walked along two of the several beaches.

The next morning, we walked up a short trail over a rocky ridge to the northernmost Exuma Sound beach.  It was just breathtaking.  I must admit that I moaned and groaned while walking on the rocky bits of trail, but it was worth the effort.  Here, Bill’s beach trash finds included an almost new pair of Oakley sunglasses.  Unfortunately, they are over-the-counter sunglasses and not of much use to either of us.

After a few days at Shroud Cay, we made the long trip from Shroud Cay to Hawksbill Cay, about 5 miles.  We took the dinghy around to the north end of the island to visit the sandflats there.  I walked all over the flats discovering some Wilson’s Plovers nesting in the dried seaweed above the high tide line.  Squawking loudly, they were obviously not as happy to see me as I was to see them.  Bill walked over to a sound side beach and found lots of good things.  His best find was a GoPro camera.  It was buried in the sand with just the end of the attached handle sticking out.  Getting the sand out of the cracks and crevices of the waterproof camera and getting the camera open entertained Bill for days.  He finally got the doors to the battery and memory card spaces to open.  The only pictures on the micro SD card were a couple of very short videos of someone snorkeling.  They were taken a year ago, so the camera was probably lost when it was new.  I was afraid the pictures would be of someone’s beach wedding or some other significant event, and we would be searching for the owner of the camera.  On our way back to Irish Eyes, we saw five large sea turtles slowly swimming in the warm shallow water.  What a great day!

We had been without cell phone coverage or internet access for over a week.  It was time to head to Warderick Wells, the headquarters of Exuma Land and Sea Park.  The park office used to sell internet access, but we discovered they no longer do that.  The staff had too many complaints on the speed and reliability of the satellite service, so they stopped selling it.  Oh well, we would have to be out of touch a bit longer.  We picked up a mooring ball at the Emerald Rock mooring field and spent a lovely few days swimming, exploring the beaches, and of course, retrieving our sign from BooBoo Hill.  Leaving a sign on top of the pile is supposed to bring good luck to cruisers.  We made our sign in 2008 from an old board we found on the beach and have engraved a new date in it each year since.  It is hard to believe that the piece of wood has survived outdoors this long.  Although it was hard to find an unused spot to carve the year, MMXIX, Bill managed.  We walked to the top of the hill and placed the sign once again in the pile.

Our next stop was Sampson Cay.  It is really pretty at Sampson.  In the past the cay had a public marina with a store, fuel, laundromat, bar, and restaurant.  Several years ago, the owner closed the island to the public.  Cruisers can still anchor off the island.  They are not allowed to wander ashore on the trails or anywhere else above the high tide line.  Here we at long last had cell service and spent the remainder of the day doing internet stuff.  Bill had a list of things he wanted to order for James and Sandra Little to bring when they come to visit.  I had grandchildren to catch up with.  The weather was beautiful, and we explored the area both by dinghy and by walking on the beaches.  I was going to have a relaxing swim one hot afternoon.  I jumped in the water off the side of Irish Eyes.  When I came up and opened my eyes, there was a nurse shark underneath the boat looking straight up at me.  I was up the ladder and out of the water like a shot.  There are places in the Bahamas where folks swim with nurse sharks.  Not me!  I do not care if nurse sharks are not supposed to be aggressive.  A nurse shark is still a big wild shark with a big shark mouth full of big shark teeth.  I don’t even like the idea.

With still another cold front coming and our spot at Sampson Cay exposed to the expected west wind, we moved about two miles south to Staniel Cay and anchored east of the famous Thunderball Grotto.  Staniel Cay has several stores and the famous Staniel Cay Yacht Club.  Bill and I went into town by dinghy and had a cheeseburger in paradise at the Yacht Club.  We walked the couple of blocks to the Pink Pearl Supermarket (It is about 20 x 40 feet inside.) for the few groceries we needed.  The wind increased over the next few days and the sky was dark and stormy to the north of us.  We finally got a quarter inch of rain during the night on April 10.  Bill filled two five-gallon jugs of rainwater.  The front was not nearly as bad as had been forecasted.

While we were anchored at Staniel Cay, Bill discovered oil in our bilge. After some investigation he found it was coming from the newly repaired transmission.  Bummer.  Bill added transmission fluid, and we set off for Black Point on Friday, April 12.  Black Point has the best laundromat in the Exumas mostly because its windows have the best view to absorb as the clothes go ‘round.  After our anchor was down, I gathered our dirty laundry and we set off for the laundromat.  About half way there the dinghy outboard quit.  Bill could not get it restarted.  The outboard had been persnickety for a couple of days.  It did not run quite right.  Fortunately, on this trip we were not too far from Irish Eyes, and Bill rowed us back.  I managed to latch onto the boat before we blew past our home.  Turns out the pickup tube, the tube that sucks gas from the bottom of the tank, had fallen off.  Bill had to drain the tank, retrieve the tube, and reattach it with a hose clamp so it would not come off again.  By this time the laundromat was closed.  Oh well, it was then happy hour at Scorpios.  We enjoyed double rum punches and fried grouper fingers for supper.  Several other cruisers were at Scorpios along with some local guys.  We talked to the locals about the Family Islands Regatta and were told we need to root for their boat, Red Stripe.  We traded tales with the other cruisers.

On Saturday morning the laundromat was again open.  Bill took me and the dirty clothes over to shore.  In talking to the young man working in the laundry, I learned Mr. Adderley who owed the Black Point grocery store had died.  Mr. Adderley had numerous children and grandchildren.  There are pictures of all the children on the wall in his store.  He loved to tell his customers all their names, where they lived, and what they did for a living.  I always enjoyed talking to him.

James and Sandra Little were due to arrive in George Town on Monday, April 22 to join us for the week-long Family Island Regatta.  There were two different forecasted good weather days for us to go to George Town; the Tuesday before they were to come and the day before their arrival.  Our transmission was still leaking oil making a sooner trip a far better choice.  It was time for us to make the trip to George Town.  We would make the trip in two hops stopping at Cave Cay along the way.  Bill refilled the transmission with oil and put a paper towel pad underneath it to catch the leak.  There was not enough wind to sail, so we motored to the north end of Cave Cay leaking transmission fluid all the way.

We had anchored near Cave Cay in the past but never in the spot near the landing strip on the island.  It was low tide just as we settled in.  We took a long dinghy ride to the comma shaped sand bar west of our anchorage.  It was a lovely place, a long and narrow spot of white sand rising from the blue water, but this year we did not find many shells.  There were lots of birds hanging out on the bar who were not at all happy to see us.  Just as we were leaving for Irish Eyes, the first of the tour boats arrived at the sandbar.  We now know why there were no shells.

In the afternoon we went over to the beach in front of Irish Eyes.  The bank side beach was narrow with a salt pond between it and the rocky shore on the Exuma Sound side of the island.  It was a very interesting place with lots of shells.  We had seen a tour boat go toward the beach just south of us.  They curiously spent a lot of time there but did not land the boat.  We decided to investigate after they left and found the shallow warm water cove filled with turtles and with a large cave in the limestone shore that we could enter with the dinghy.

Bill cleaned up the transmission fluid leak and added more oil in preparation for the thirty mile trip to George Town.  In the morning we did not have much wind, but the sky was ominous.  A long band of dark clouds was just to the north of us as we left Cave Cay and entered the Exuma Sound through Galliot Cut.  The clouds kept getting closer until finally they were on top of us.  The wind increased and swung to the east which made it easy to sail.  The trip ended up being a nice fast sail in calm water, and the black clouds just went away.  Our anchor was down at Monument Beach in the George Town harbor long before happy hour.

Bill emailed Brad a description and some photos of the transmission. They talked on the phone and came up with a repair plan.  Bill stayed behind and worked on the transmission while I hitched a ride into George Town with our friends Kevin and Chris aboard their boat, Aprés Ski, for a grocery and liquor store trip.  I even got my hair cut in town.  Bill, our palm tree mechanic, crawled into the engine compartment and worked for a day and a half.  He reattached the coupling flange to the output transmission sealing the joint with the shaft with silicone caulking, and he glued the big nut which holds the flange in place with red Loctite glue.  The transmission has been now refilled with oil for a day and does not (yet) leak, but we have not used the engine.  

We have had wind for a couple of days and a thunderstorm with rain last night.  Our water tanks are full, and we are waiting for James and Sandra to arrive tomorrow.  The locals have been building their temporary shacks in town to sell food and drink for next week’s regatta.  It should be a blast…Happy people, food, booze, and sailboat races.

A Blessed Easter to you all.