We were in Black Point for the Easter Bahamian Sloop Races.  They raced class C boats which are smaller than the class A and B boats.  There were six boats racing, and everyone racing seemed to be having a good time.

 

The boats have huge sails for their size and boards called ‘the pry’ to lever them upright.  Otherwise, they would turn over and sink.  You can see that this boat’s sail has been enlarged with an extra panel of cloth.  It will need a heavier crew sitting farther out on the pry to avoid a capsize.

 

This worrisome cloud appeared before the second day’s racing, but the races went on anyway.  Yes, it rained, and the wind blew.

 

The races were closely contested with the boats evenly matched.

 

It was windy, and even with a reduced size sail the crew had difficulty keeping the boat upright.

 

This was only a part of Bill’s beach junk collection.  He brings this sort of stuff back to the boat.  We have no room for it.  It had to go… and it did.

 

More of Bill’s beach junk.  He used most of his collection to mark a trail that crosses Great Guana Cay.  This life ring and yellow rope look sort of like Gilligan’s Island.  They are at the east end of the trail.

 

Look at my shells from a morning walk on the beach.  They are in a ‘looky bucket’ with a clear plastic bottom.  I hold the bucket in the water while walking in the shallow water just off the beach, and I can clearly see the shells on the sand below.  That way I can get the shells before they wash up on the beach.

 

Our dinghy has wheels making it easy to pull the dinghy up on the beach.  They came from New Zealand and fold down like airplane wheels.

  

Hey y’all from Big Farmer’s Cay, Exuma, Bahamas.  This may be as far south as we go this year and the spot where we turn around and head north toward home.

On our last day at Hawksbill Cay, Bill took the dinghy to the beach to walk across the island through the brush and rocks to the southern anchorage.  Because it would not be on a path, I chose to stay on Irish Eyes.  I have been warned by my medical team not to fall down and hurt my new knee.  While he was gone, the floatplane we had seen at Norman’s Cay Cut days ago brought in a family to play on the beach near our boat.  Bill missed all the excitement.  The plane managed to land threading its way through the eight empty mooring balls that lay in its path.  It was quite a feat!  It taxied over to the beach and dropped an anchor.  The family played on the beach and in the water for an hour or so.  Then, everyone boarded the plane and left despite the loud and angry protests from the youngest child who was previously quite happy playing with his unlimited amount of sand.  I wonder what that short outing cost.

We left Hawksbill Cay on Monday, April 4, motoring south to Warderick Wells, the island home of the Exuma Land and Sea Park Headquarters.  We picked up a mooring ball in the south mooring field near Emerald Rock.  Bill made a device for me to use when picking up a mooring.  I snagged the heavy 1-1/2” rope with his special hook and had it aboard on my first try.  That gave me the right to criticize the sometimes-failing efforts of those on the boats that arrived after us.  Bill took the dinghy to the office to pay for the mooring, then he climbed Boo Boo Hill to retrieve our sign.  It was not to be found.  Three years had passed since we last were there, and the board seemed to have vanished.  Bill was determined to find it.  The next morning, he printed out a photo of the sign that we had taken in 2019 and went looking again.  With the photo in hand like a pirate’s treasure map, Bill started digging through the heap.  There it was, under three years of accumulation, right in the spot where we left it.  Success!  Bill brought the sign back to Irish Eyes where he put MMXXII on it.  The cracked and weathered sign recalls all our trips, and we decided to bring it home with us.  I’m not exactly sure where we will hang it in our house, but that will be a dilemma for another day.  Bill carved “Irish Eyes” on a well-worn slab of driftwood, and we both went to the top of Boo Boo Hill to add it to the stack.  [Just a bit of trivia, Jimmy Buffett’s last album “Life on the Flip Side” has the song “Book on the Shelf” that mentions the boards upon Boo Boo Hill and has a picture of him atop the hill with the big pile in the background.]

After spending a rocky night at Emerald Rock and expecting increasing winds with the approaching cold front, we let go of our mooring ball and headed south to the better protected Cambridge Cay.  It was a rough trip sailing into the 15 to 17 knot wind with waves splashing over the bow of the boat.  We survived, arrived, and picked up the next to the last available mooring.  The following four days were windy, but we were comfortable, well protected from the waves and spending our time walking the nearby beaches.  Our only excitement came on a dinghy trip to some more distant beaches.  About a mile and a half away from Irish Eyes, the 8 hp outboard motor suddenly stopped and would not re-start.  Faced with a long long row into the wind, Bill dug into our emergency kit for tools and went to work.  He cleaned the spark plugs, drained any water from the carburetor bowl, made sure gasoline was getting to the engine, disconnected the stop switch, and just messed with it.  He finally got the engine to start at wide open throttle and part choke.  It ran, missing, coughing, and spitting, but it ran.  We came straight back to the boat where the thing quit again yards from the boat.  He rowed the last little bit.  We had a spare carburetor aboard, Bill swapped the carburetors, and the engine ran fine starting on the second pull.

Our next port of call was Staniel Cay.  We needed water, fuel, clean laundry, and a few groceries.  The fuel and water were available at the Yacht Club fuel dock, but boats were circling waiting their chance to dock there.  This operation was interesting to listen to on the VHF radio.  It was, as usual, quite uncivil.  Accusations of queue jumping, arguments over right-of-way in the narrow current ridden area, and the lambasting of the occasional boat that just drove up and docked without waiting filled the airwaves.  The dock attendant let the boats sort themselves out, just doing his job, manning the pumps, and avoiding the fray.  Bill took our fuel and water jugs in the dinghy to the inaccessible back side of fuel dock, filled them there, and returned.  In a relatively fast four trips we had 60 gallons of water, 25 gallons of diesel fuel, and a gallon of gasoline.  We went to the Yacht Club for lunch electing to sit in the fancier part of the restaurant rather than the crowded bar area.  This despite the fact I had on a bathing suit and tee shirt and did not meet the dress code.  It is one thing to go into a crowded place at home where I kind of know where most folks have been, and still another when I am in a room of twenty-five here where the people could have come from twenty-five different countries.  Ahh, COVID!  We did our grocery shopping after lunch and returned to Irish Eyes to rest and digest our big lunches.

It had been 49 days since I last did laundry.  The pile was large and, well, aromatic.  The laundromat in Staniel Cay was also a bar and liquor store.  We arrived at the laundromat around 11:00.  The proprietress was busy putting laundry in and out of machines.  There were piles of laundry everywhere, some in plastic boxes and some in bags.  The lady said we would have to wait and come back about 2:00.  That was fine, it was just another excuse for a Yacht Club lunch.  This time we ate outside on the docks watching the tour boat tourists wade among the swimming sharks.  Not me, they maybe gentle nurse sharks, but they still have teeth!  We wandered back to the laundromat after lunch, and I did our three big loads of laundry in about three hours.  It was a pleasant time sitting on the porch, drinking a beer, and chatting with the folks who came in to leave laundry, have a drink, or buy some booze.  I thought it was not a bad way to spend the afternoon.  Bill went for a walk.  I got a giggle from a group of young Americans who came in to buy a case of beer to enjoy at their rental house, but after discovering it was a $67 item, decided there were better things to spend their money on.  Things are not cheap here.

Having completed our required errands and with the wind blowing 20 knots, we moved Irish Eyes the mile or so to Big Major’s Spot.  This is where the famous swimming pigs live.  We have seen the pigs several times and did not have any desire to feed them.  It was fun to watch the tour boats from Nassau and George Town arrive and then listen to the squeals of the passengers when the pigs got too close.  It did not take much to entertain them.  We swam and did some beach walking too.

Bored with the pigs, we moved on south to Black Point on Good Friday, the first of two days of Bahamian sloop races.  The class C boats were racing in what I think were practice races for the abbreviated National Family Islands Regatta to be held in George Town the following week.  Our anchor spot was perfect for viewing the boats racing along.  Cruisers were encouraged to join the Bahamian crews for these races.  Bill and I did not think we would be an asset and declined.  I was afraid I would do something wrong and cause the boat to lose, and Bill doesn’t weigh enough to be useful on the pry.  Between intervals of sunny weather, it rained, and the wind howled, but the races went on anyway with lots of excitement.  There were right of way violations and collisions.  One of the race boats was sunk in 10 feet of water, but it was refloated, repaired, and raced the next day.

On Sunday, we decided to have our Easter lunch on shore.  It was decision time… would it be Lorraine’s Café or Scorpio’s Bar & Grill?  Both places had people from tour boats in for lunch.  The folks at Lorraine’s were eating outside and at Scorpio’s inside.  We ate at Lorraine’s inside basically alone with the bar tender and cook.  Lorraine stopped by after church, and we complemented her on the expansions and improvements she had made to the café.  Next, we went over to Scorpio’s for two bottles of rum for the boat.  He was also expanding with a new waterside building.  We had a very nice Easter Sunday.

The wind was forecast to blow from the northeast at 20 to 25 knots with gusts to 30 knots for the next seven to ten days.  We had seen boat races in Black Point, and it would be unpleasant traveling to George Town in the unprotected Exuma Sound, so we decided to not go to George Town for the Regatta which would only have the little boats anyway.  Instead, we adopted for the beach-a-day plan, planning to move every day or two from one beach to the next down the protected banks side of Great Guana Cay.  We bypassed Little Bay and Jack’s Bay Cove planning to stop there on our way back north.  We first went to White Point, then onto Hetty’s Land.  We walked both beaches and found some beach treasures.  Bill went across the island at Hetty’s Land a couple of times to watch the waves break on the rocky shore and to search for ‘good’ beach trash.  He also rigged up his stuff for measuring the load on our anchor and experimented with our riding sail.  Our next stop was Isaac Bay, about 2 miles south of Hetty’s Land.  There were three beaches there, and I walked all three of them.  Bill bushwhacked through the scrub vegetation to the exposed east shore.  He came back with two big (2 foot) spherical fishing floats and tales of more.  The things filled our cockpit leaving me no place to sit.  Then, it was down to Bay Rush Bay where years ago we abandoned a sea kayak with a glass (plastic) bottom that we found on the east shore.  Bill used four of his collected big fishing floats and a life ring to mark the trail where we left the kayak.  We now have only two floats aboard.

Yesterday, we came down to Big Farmer’s Cay anchoring in the deepest (2 meter) spot of water west of the cay.  I’ve already collected a pile of sand dollars from the shallows and baked a loaf of bread.  We have looked at the calendar and at our past trips and decided it is time to return north if we are to be home in early June, so this is as far south as we will get this year.

Cheers.

 

Twenty-seven hours after leaving Key Biscayne, we anchored at Morgan’s Bluff, Bill went ashore to deal with the formalities of entering a foreign country, then we both went ashore for a celebratory Kalik or two and lunch.  This was the view into the outer harbor from our table.

 

Captain Henry Morgan (of rum fame) was an English privateer plundering Spanish shipping.  He supposably hid his plunder in this cave.  Bill crawled around for half an hour not finding the “X”.  It has got to be in there somewhere.

 

These people flew in on a Cessna 208 landing behind us to go snorkeling on the corroded remains of a cocaine runner’s crashed airplane behind us.  It is no wonder that rich people die in small plane crashes.

 

On takeoff the pilot backed up a couple of thousand feet behind us, gunned the engine, and came roaring at us.  Taking off just to our starboard side, his port wing dipped, and for an instant it looked like he was going to hit us.

 

The southern interior of Norman’s Cay is a shallow sand filled basin that nearly all dries out at low tide.  That area and the nearby beaches were fun to explore.

 

This is sunrise looking east behind our boat at three more boats anchored behind us in Norman’s Cay Cut.  We are all there hiding from the west winds of three cold fronts in quick succession.

 

Looking at a bright yellow boat at Shroud Cay one day and doubting my sanity, I said, “I’d swear that boat was blue.”  Two days later I understood why.

Bill found this sling chair washed up on the rocks on the north sound side beach on Hawksbill Cay., repaired it, and moved it to our beach.  That is our dinghy and Irish Eyes in the distance.  As Zac Brown said, "I've got my toes in the water, ass in the sand..."

 

Greetings from Hawksbill Cay, Exuma, the Bahamas.  As you can tell we decided to leave Miami and to come to the Bahamas rather than continue south to the Florida Keys.  The Bahamas travel restrictions were eased a bit; all we needed was a negative Covid test taken less than 72 hours before our arrival and some online paperwork.  It all sounded easy to do, and it was, well, except for the on-line paperwork, but more on that later.

The effects of Covid on the Miami Beach tourist economy were obvious.  Several restaurants where we have enjoyed meals in years past were no more.  Long time businesses we had frequented in years past had their windows filled with ‘closed’, ‘available’, and ‘for rent’ signs.  Miami Beach did not seem to have many foreign or domestic tourists, but they still expected to have thousands of young Spring Breakers with all the problems they bring.

In Miami we were anchored near our friends from the boat Dots Way, Dorothy and Glen.  We had not seen them in three years, so we spent a lovely evening chatting in our cockpit over drinks and snacks while we ‘caught up’.

One Saturday a cold front was to pass over Miami bringing strong west winds.  Our anchorage near Mt. Sinai Hospital was open to the west, and we expected it to become rolly.  Early that Saturday we pulled up our anchor and motored over to anchor between Star and Plum Islands for better protection.  Star Island has several “stars” who live there.  Miami tour boats cruise the area pointing out their houses.  With a crummy weather forecast, we thought the boat traffic would be light.  Boy, were we wrong!  Groups of partying Spring Breakers had chartered large motor vessels to have a fun time.  Since our spot was protected from the wind and waves, lots of the boats came to keep us company and share their music with us.  It was a harrowing afternoon with these large boats dragging their anchors in the 30 kt wind and coming far too close to us for comfort.  I googled the cost of one of these charters.  It was listed at $3000 for a half day.  I could not tell if alcohol and food were included in that price, but I do know alcohol was being consumed at a ferocious rate.  I may be showing my age, but when I was a college student, I did not have any portion of $3000.00 to spend on a half day party cruise.  Thankfully, not long after sundown the charters ended, and all the boats went home.  At sunrise, we moved back to our quiet anchorage near Mt. Sinai Hospital and vowed not to repeat that mistake again.

After Bill and I decided to go to the Bahamas, we instantly had a long to-do-list.  We needed fuel, water, food, booze, beer, and Diet Coke.  I know Diet Coke is horrible stuff filled with chemicals and carcinogens, but we drink it anyway.  It’s perfect for diluting rum.  Instead of buying cases upon cases of cans we usually buy a 5 gal bag-in-box of the syrup, dilute it with water in empty 1 liter tonic bottles, then charge the bottles with carbon dioxide from a 5 lb cylinder that Bill has on board.  The box is the equal of 13 cases of cans but takes up much less space.  Sam’s Club has stopped carrying Coke products, so we left home without a box.  I googled around and found a food distributor in Miami that sold the syrup.  I ordered it online for local pick-up from Gordon’s Food Service.  Bill and I gathered our folding hand truck, added money on-line to our Miami transit cards, and took two different buses to collect our order in Miami’s Little Havana.  The first employee we met did not speak English at all and despite Mrs. Leffler’s best effort in high school Bill does not speak Spanish, the second employee could not decode our accents, but finally a third employee understood us and brought us our 45 lb box expecting us to put it in the trunk of our car.  Out of his sight, we tied the box to our hand truck and pushed it down the street looking for the first of our three return buses.  I can imagine that the employees were trying to figure out what in the world two, old, pasty-white, English-speaking folks were going to do with all that Diet Coke Syrup!

By Wednesday afternoon March 16, the shopping was complete, everything was put away, we had two negative Covid tests, the slimy dinghy bottom was scrubbed clean, the dinghy and outboard motor were aboard, and we were ready to move to No Name Harbor on Biscayne Bay to anchor for the night so we could leave before sunrise on Thursday.  The only thing left to do was to fill out our customs and immigration forms online and get our Bahamas visas.  Bill quicky gave up in frustration and turned the job over to me.  It took me over 3 hours to get all the forms filled out, the various fees paid, and the documents printed.  This was the first year the Bahamas has had this online entry process.  The website needs some serious simplification.  Bill hummed tunes, whistled, and laughed while doing boaty stuff while I huddled over the computer fuming, cursing, and filling out forms.  We finally left Miami Beach at 6pm anchoring just after sunset outside No Name Harbor.

The alarm went off at 4am (ugh) and we were underway by 5am.  The crossing to the Bahamas was fairly easy.  We were able to sail across the Gulf Stream passing north of Bimini around 3pm, but after turning southeast into the wind on the Great Bahama Bank, we had to take down our sails.  The motor chugged all night while Bill and I took turns watching the boat and napping.  We did not see much boat traffic during the night this time.  Irish Eyes was anchored in the harbor at Morgan’s Bluff on Andros Island by 8am on Friday.  Bill went to shore and cleared us with Customs and Immigration.  My computer paperwork was fine.  We took the dinghy into the inner harbor and had a lovely lunch at Unca Harvey’s Water Loop.  The rest of the day we napped.

There is a cave in Morgan’s Bluff where Sir Henry Morgan, a pirate, is said to have hidden out and stashed some of his treasure.  Bill and I explored the area on Saturday finding the cave.  The entrance required a slight descent along a rocky slope.  I decided my new knee would not like that trail, so Bill crawled through the cave by himself.  I enjoyed the view, the breeze, and the birds.  On the way back to the boat we watched lots of small sea turtles swimming over the white sand bottom.  I love to see them darting around in the crystal clear water.

We needed to get out of Morgan’s Bluff before Monday, March 21 as a cold front was to pass over the area bringing high north winds, large waves, and possibly some rain.  Leaving Sunday morning and motor sailing all day, we passed Nassau’s New Providence Island, continued into the night, and arrived at Highbourne Cay at midnight under a full moon.  We anchored among the boats already there and fell into bed.  The expected wind and a brief bit of rain arrived as expected on Monday, so we spent the day aboard the boat resting.

We were now in the beautiful Exumas, the primary objective of the trip.  We travelled the short distance from Highbourne Cay to Galleon Point on the northwest corner of Norman’s Cay on Tuesday.  Our first step on land since Morgan’s Bluff was to walk around on some of the beaches there.  Once again, the weather persuaded us to move.  A trio of cold fronts having caused havoc in the southeast United States was coming to the Exumas.  For good protection from the wind, we motored around to anchor in Norman’s Cut.  This is a channel between Norman’s Cay and Wax Cay that goes between the Exuma Bank on its west end, and the Exuma Sound on its east end.  It is a pretty place.  There is a two-engine cocaine smuggling airplane that crashed here that is a good snorkeling spot.  During our stay, it attracted a near constant stream snorkelers from both Nassau tour boats and charter yachts.  This time Bill and I did not snorkel around the old airplane, there really is not much of it left.  When we first saw the C-46 in 2008, we could sit in the cockpit seats and hold the yokes.  Now little remains except the engines and corroding fuselage frames.  We walked on the beautiful beaches and the sand flats north of the cut just marveling at the colors.  Norman’s Cay is being rapidly developed and now has a superyacht marina and a 5,000 ft airstrip.  McDuff’s Restaurant and its rental cottages remain but are much more up-class than they were in the past.  For five days, we watched boats come and go from the well sheltered Norman’s Cut.  Charter sailing catamarans and crewed charter yachts were far more numerous than in the past.  The number of mall privately owned and crewed cruising boats seems to have declined.

We anchored for four nights at Shroud Cay, one of my favorite places.  There is not any development here as the cay is owned by the Bahamas Trust and is part of the Exuma Land and Sea Park.  There are several mangrove lined creeks that go through the island to the beautiful sound side white sand beaches and their brilliant blue water.  Our trusty old dinghy with its outboard motor has taken us on several wonderful tours of these creeks, winding through the mangroves looking at the turtles below us and at the tropic birds above.

It was quite windy during our last two nights at Shroud Cay, but we found a spot to anchor that was out of the wind.  When the wind calmed down, we motored south to Hawksbill Cay, grabbed a mooring ball, and now intend to stay here for three days or so before we continue our journey south.  This is also an uninhabited island owned by the Bahamas Trust with ruins of a previous attempt at settlement, trails, and beaches.  Fun.

This year we have a cell phone booster, hang its antenna in the rigging, and have intermittent but occasionally usable cellular service even though we are now miles from a tower.  I’ll try to write more often.

Happy Days to you all.