Eleuthera

March 29th - April 10th, 2012

Leaving the Exuma's we had a day-long great sail northeast to the island of Eleuthera, which is large (90miles long) and narrow with rocky cliffs and bottoms, which can make it hard to anchor.  But with light winds it was not a big problem for us and we went ashore for exploring.  The town of Rock Sound had an "ocean hole" inland which was interesting.  It is sea water but no one, even Jacques Cousteau, has been able to find the bottom.

Eleuthera's people were extremely nice and many times we were offered rides as we walked along.
It is not a big tourist area, as it is pretty rustic in most places - mainly a good place for some serious fishing.
Some of the names I came across in their cruising guide were:  Hammer Head rock
                                                                                                    Devil's Backbone
                                                                                                    Poison Point
 Not a place for sissies !                                                               Starved Creek

                                                                                                                                                             

Ocean Hole

Jesse, Ginny and us at ocean hole

This is the library in Governor's Harbor - the second largest library in the Bahamas.

The inside of the library was beautiful.

The four of us were lucky to go to dinner at Rosie's, an Eleutheran woman who runs a small restaurant on the other side of the island.  She picks you up in her old car & cooks a meal as if you were in her house.  It is a very simple meal and the house is filled with her collection of shells, driftwood, etc. from this beach.  

T

Ray climbing back up to Rosie's from the beach.

The beach at Cocodimama resort on Eleuthera.

Sunset at Governor's Bay - not our boat

The gang arriving to our boat - possibly for happy hour?

View on Eleuthera

Wind Dust under sail

Cruising the Exumas

March 9 - 24

Bananaquit - or known as "sugarbird"

The Exumas are chain of many islands or "Cays" that run Northwest to Southeast.  The body of water on the east side is Exuma sound which is deep blue water.  We cruised down the west side on the Exuma Banks which is more protected but can be shallow and has many reefs to avoid.  So navigation is really important requiring frequent checking of charts and talking to other cruisers.  We feel so lucky to be "buddy-boating" with Ginny and Jesse, as they have done this before.  We didn't go to all the cays - there are a lot! - but feel we saw a lot.  The water color and clarity cannot be beat - just beautiful.

Typical water color

We visited Staniel Cay for a few days and one of the highlights is to go to the beach where wild pigs live in the bushes.

Pig attack !  Going after Ginny and Jesse.

They swim out to get food - i took apple cores and carrots. They have been known to try to crawl from the water into dinghies - I threw my food !

A face only a mother can love.

Going on a dinghy tour of small uninhabited Exuma cays with Ward & Richard, Ginny and Jesse.
We are evaluating the swift water running through the cut.
Some of them are owned by celebrities such as Johnny Depp and David Copperfield, but we did not see those.

Getting ready to snorkel Thunder ball Cave, made famous in the James Bond movie 

A typical street on Staniel Cay.  There are two small grocery stores, this is the "Blue Store"
The mail boat comes every 1-2 weeks to bring fresh provisions and everyone makes sure they get there before they are all gone.  The abundance in the US always amazes us when we get back home.

Ok, enough pigs - How about some crazy people in the water with a bunch of nurse sharks?
The sharks congregate there to get fish carcasses from the fish cleaning stand.

Outside the cave.  We saw some amazing coral and fish but my camera did not work.
Swimming into the cave is easy at low tide but high tide you have to go underwater.  Inside is a beautiful grotto.

One of our favorite places at Black Point in the Exumas was Lorraines.  this is her mother, who makes delicious coconut bread every day.

The "Pink Store" on Staniel Cay.   The stores were very dimly lit to conserve electricity.

Cruisers happy hour on the beach
Very informal, bring your own drink and snacks.

Jesse, Ray, and Mike from "Goose Bumps" at the cruisers happy hour

Girls at happy hour.

An uninvited but welcome guest at happy hour

Another species frequently seen in the Exumas is the mega yacht - owned by billionaires, these babies cost many millions .
And the fuel bills per week run into the many thousands of $$$

 

These mega yachts rafted up together with their toys tied alongside.
Their dinghies probably cost as much as our sailboat.

Windblown ( It never stops!),, sun in the eyes, but having a good time.

Mahi mahi - wish we could catch one half this size.  this fisherman from Michigan did give us a smaller one and fixed it on the boat - delicious

Dinghy landing on Staniel Cay - we are going out to lunch.  Just drive through the stone breakwater and haul it up on the sand.  

Another - and most common way - to get ashore is to climb the ladder.  In this case it is low tide and the ladders have a tendacy to bend inward.  Then you have to hand up or down whatever you are carrying - provisions, garbage, etc.
We also have to take our propane tanks in to have filled periodically - or no cooking.

A happy meal onboard Megerin

WalderickWells, Exumas

Relaxing with my blue pedicure to match the sky.

We had just about a 2 hour sail to Walderick Wells and took a mooring ball for $20/night.  This is in the Exuma Cay Land andSea national Park system so there is nothing ashore but the ranger station, where we pay our bill, rent DVD's, exchange books, etc.  The park Ranger there is Darcy, who lives with her husband on their boat year round and has done this for EIGHT years.  Don't think I could do it.  Very scrubby vegetation on all of these islands, and the land is a kind of craggy limestone with holes all over it.  We did take a hike one day but some places could be dangerous if you don't watch your footing.  Basically a pretty barren landscape with few birds, but the water is beautiful.  I neglected to take pictures our first day and now the weather is not so good so hope another opportunity comes along for that before we leave.

Ray on our hike - is this Bahama weather?

The weather we are getting may be tied in to the horrible weather in parts of the US, where 30 some people have died in tornados.  Ours is not that bad, but we just don't go out into rough, high seas with possible squalls creating winds up to 30-40 its.  So, I have been cleaning (no cell phone), cooking (no restaurants), reading (Glass Castle), DVD's (Season 2 of Boston Legal, Big Fish), and best of all getting together with fellow cruisers.  Last night we went to the beach and had a "Blowin' Like Stink" happy hour party with Jesse & Ginny from Wind Dust, Jack and Shaun from Pattycakes, and Ward & Richard from Begheera.  It was also Jack's birthday so Shaun had made a delicious apple cake, her first attempt to bake on their boat and it was a big success.  We all agree the answer to the question we are asked and sometimes ask ourselves - "Why do we do this?" - the answer is meeting incredible people who you instantly have something in common with.  It just doesn't happen on land.

Enjoying the beach before the bad weather but still so windy ray had to hold the umbrella. The only visitor we had that day was a curly tailed lizard who kept creeping up on us - I think he thought we had some food for him.

I was so proud of my pasta I took a picture - it was delicious, just zucchini, garlic, olives, bits of turkey pepperoni and Parmesan with olive oil and lemon juice as sauce.  Add a glass of red wine and lunch on the boat!  Good thing I provisioned well in Miami.  And Ray is always super appreciative of my cooking.

On our hike to Boo Boo Hill we did find blow holes, which during high tide blow up spumes of water but we just felt the hot air coming up.  The island used to have forest on it but excessive logging over 200 years ago left it a barren landscape vulnerable to hurricanes, and will never be able to recover from that.  There is only one mammal in the Exumas, called  Hutia, a small rodent that comes out at night only.

All boaters are encouraged to hike Boo Boo and leave piece of driftwood with their names on it.  Seems there is not enough driftwood so e

Carcass of a whale washed up on the beach here a few years ago.  An autopsy showed it died from ingesting plastic bags, wrappers, etc.  The park here is dedicated to conservation and preservation.  They say "Leave only footprints in the sand".

Jesse (Wind Dust) and Shaun (Pattycakes) on our boat for happy hr.

Jack (Pattycakes) and Ginny (Wind Dust)

Us (duh).  The galley is behind me and guest cabin behind steps on other side.

Chart view of typical cay in Exumas.  Surrounded by reefs and sand bars, navigation can be tricky.

Men of the Sea - Ray, Jesse, Richard, Ward, Jack

Forgot to say, the winds were so strong yesterday, Jesse called over and said "I think your ananometer (or however you spell it and it sure is hard to say but he does it well) is gone.  This is a thing on the top of our mast that spins around and tells us how fast the wind is blowing and from what direction.  Actually, it stopped working a month ago and we weren't going up the mast to fix it. Anyway, when we got in our dinghy we found one half of it and could see the other half at the bottom of the ocean in 10 feet of water.  Rest in peace.

Nassau to the Exumas

On Highbourne Cay

We delayed our departure from Nassau a day because of weather, of course, but glad we did, as we met a couple who were chartering and had to come back in to dock because it was so rough.  As soon as we put the anchor down at Highbourne Cay we had a big rain that washed all the salt off the boat - great.
The next day we had a happy hr on the beach (Jesse's idea)and met some other cruisers.  After Highbourne we went to Hawksbill Cay, where we had lunch out at the restaurant Xuma.

Ray and Jesse in dinghy

Nurse sharks at the end of the dock.  They are feeding on bait from fishing boats.

Happy hour

We broke our topping lift on the way from Nassau which made the boom fall a couple feet to the top of our bimini, which is luckily very sturdy.  Ray now has a spare halyard holding it up.

Ok for now, will update our week at Walderick Wells soon.  I still don't quite know what I am doing with this blog.