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.