After three nights in Black Point Settlement, we left on a high tide and headed south. Often our sail plan is dictated by what we need in the way of provisions or fuel and that day was no different. We were low on gasoline for our generator and although Black Point was a fairly big town by Exuma standards, it had neither a gas station or a marina so we left this excellent anchorage, intending to stop at the first town with gas for sale. A radio call from friends, Larry and Beverly on Chandelle, a Swan 46, let us know that Cave Cay Marina definitely had gas so we sailed on down to Cafe Cay, a privately owned island with big development plans.

Cave Cay

The Cave Cay Marina has substantial concrete floating docks in a small key hole bay which is probably the best hurricane hole we’ve seen in our travels south. But, other than the deserted docks, the gas pump and a few empty guest houses, this place is pretty uninhabited and it was obvious that this was yet another very slow moving Bahamian construction project. The surveillance cameras at the bay’s entrance and the Beware of Dog signs posted everywhere ensured that we got our gasoline quickly and spent no time exploring this island. When we asked the attendant where the dogs were, he gestured over his shoulder and said “oh, I think they might be running around up the hill, not sure.” We’d been forewarned that they were big dogs and more likely to snarl at us than wag their tails so we were happy to just get the gas and leave.

That night we anchored just off Cave Cay with four other boats and although we swam and snorkeled off Strathspey’s swim platform, we didn’t go ashore at either Cave Cay or Musha Cay right next door. Both these islands are private and discourage visitors. In fact, other boaters told us that if we’d anchored in the lee of Musha Cay, we would most likely be asked to move. Musha Cay has been owned by a string of movie stars, at one time Oprah. And now, most recently, a group of lesser known celebrities make their home there. No matter, we had a quiet night just around the corner from the cut and then the next day, we exited the calm bank side waters of the Exumas and headed south to Lee Stocking Island, a quick 10 miles south.

Lee Stocking Island

Lee Stocking Island is a long skinny island that is home to the Caribbean Marine Research Center. Once through Adderly Cut we headed around to the calm western shore of Lee Stocking. Each day we’d been seeing fewer and fewer boats at our anchorages and Lee Stocking was no exception. There were three boats anchored in front of the marine research center and a few others who had tied up to the few mooring balls maintained by the center. We continued on past all of them and headed another two miles down the shoreline where we dropped our anchor in complete solitude just off a little crescent of beach. This was one of those “oh, we’ve arrived” moments that make us realize that we’re really and truly sailing in the sunny south. We’ve had a few of them in the past few months, the first one being upon our arrival on the Bahama Banks, when the deep black water suddenly shallowed to 10 feet of brilliant blue. The second time was when we arrived in Warderick Wells and realized that we’d completed all our long southerly passages and were finally able to relax and enjoy the 28°C water and 30°C sunlight. And now here at Lee Stocking Island; it’s our first anchorage where no other boats were in sight and it brought a satisfied life-is-good sigh to both of us.

Our arrival at Lee Stocking coincided with a very weak cold front passage which resulted in absolutely no wind the following day. Five miles of mill-pond flat water stretched between Lee Stocking Island and the Brigantine Cays to the west of us and we jumped to take advantage of this.

Big Game hunter

The Brigantine Cays are a string of uninhabited islands surrounded by water that is too shallow for Strathspey to navigate but no problem for our dinghy. The flat water made for an easy twenty minute skim over to these deserted islands and we spent the morning there snorkeling and wading along the beach. Blair tried his luck at spear fishing again and is just starting to realize that there is a definite skill to snagging wary fish.

After some excellent snorkeling, we dinghied down to Barraterre, the northern most settlement on Great Exuma island and were disappointed to find both the grocery store and restaurant closed. We weren’t surprised though. Here in the Exumas, a store’s operating hours can be posted as 9-5 but often, at any time during the day, if the owner has an errand or wants lunch or perhaps even a nap, everything shuts down. If you wander around looking puzzled, often a neighbour or someone passing by will help out by showing you where the owner lives or pounding on his door or pounding on his neighbour’s door to say there is a customer. At that point the store gets opened with nary a guilty look or apology. This is the way it is and welcome to the Bahamas and island time. In this case, the owner did not surface and we got back in our dinghy and headed back to Strathspey for a late lunch and a swim to cool off.

Although we were all by ourselves at Lee Stocking Island, in the distance periodically during both day and night, big outboard skiffs ran back and forth ferrying people to work up and down the island chain. These people work at the various resorts between Georgetown and Staniel Cay and commute via these boats. It was an interesting contrast; here we were sitting in our bathing suits in Strathspey’s cockpit, enjoying the fine weather, but for the locals, this is winter and through the binoculars we could see them bundled up in long pants and hooded jackets. Everyone we talked to in Black Point Settlement visibly shuddered when we said we’ve actually been swimming every day.

We left Lee Stocking Island and moved around the corner to Leaf Cay for one night and then headed back out Adderly Cut, turned south, pulled out our sails and headed for Georgetown. Blair, ever the optimist, set up his fishing rod and trailed one of our fancy blue and green lures in hopes of catching a fish. The rhyme goes “Red and black, Wahoo attack, blue and green, Dolphin machine”. To cover all bases, he put a red and black lure on our Yoyo, a simple little setup that is just a step above tying a line to your toe. We had a hit on our fishing rod line but when Blair reeled it in, the line was missing both our expensive lure and the metal lead, indicating something with sharp teeth was toying with us; perhaps a big Barracuda? While Blair was digging out another lure, we snagged another big one on our cheap little Yoyo. Blair reeled in 25 feet of line, hand over hand (yes, hand over hand - this really is a simple setup) and hauled it out of the water just in time.

Tailless Wahoo

In that brief two minutes, something big had chomped a good six inches off the end of our dinner. We went through our standard procedure, me dancing around looking for both vodka to subdue the fish and a giant ziplock bag to slide him into and Blair excitedly speculating about what kind of fish it was and how many pounds it weighed. Not much vodka was required to subdue this poor fellow as without a tail, it was a little hard for him to flap around. Blair dug out our fish book and we’re happy to say that it was a 2 foot long Wahoo. I immediately wrapped the fish a few times in the ziplock and put him in the fridge ’til Blair could clean and fillet it.

We continued sailing down to George Town and had an uneventful passage through Conch Cut to leave Exuma Sound and get into sheltered waters. From the cut down to Georgetown it was a long eight mile zig zag between waypoints to avoid shallow water but so exciting to finally be here in Elizabeth Harbour. Georgetown is on the west side of Elizabeth Harbour and has a small anchoring area and one marina. On the east side of Elizabeth Harbour is Stocking Island where the majority of boats anchor. We pulled into Exuma Docking Services marina and set up a spider web of lines to hold us in place between pilings and a short spit of a dock. The next day, I flew home to Ottawa to tend some important home fires while Blair stayed onboard Strathspey.

Anglican Church

The population of George Town is around 900 normally. But by March, it swells to well over double that size with the arrival of easily 400 boats, eager to spend the winter in Elizabeth Harbour and enjoy the social scene, scheduled activities and stateside level of groceries. For me, the easiest way to judge a grocery store is usually based on whether they have capers and the main one, Exuma Markets, has a good stock of them. So, in my shallow cooking/eating focus, I’m thinking this is a good place to be.

Interestingly, the result of way too many cruisers squatting here in George Town is that there is a definite social strata and a more noticeable level of organization. In fact, some of my more cynical friends, including Blair, might even venture to say there may even be a tad too much organization here in George Town. Blair is now spending a goodly amount of time in Georgetown on his own. He’s met quite a few other boaters and has a pretty good take on the social strata and tribal interests of the transient boats that take over this area every winter. Blair figures the boats are grouped like tribes, according to the beach they are anchored nearest. There are four beaches on Stocking Island: Monument, Hamburger, Volleyball and Sand Dollar and large groups of boats are anchored off each of these beaches. There is another anchorage down in Red Shanks, south of Crab Cay, plus there is a hurricane hole with moorings that run about $200/month. Each of these anchorages have their own character and attract similar minded boats hence the tribal aspect. I figure it’s not an issue for us as the lack of sewage pumpout facilities here will make our stay a short one once I return from Ottawa. Cuz here’s the rub - the boats dump sewage straight into the water in the George Town area and swimming is verboten if you value your health. So, stellar grocery store aside, we will be moving on once I return from Ottawa and we re-provision Strathspey.

In the meantime, Blair’s been meeting some interesting cruisers, getting to know some of the locals, trying many different ways of preparing Wahoo for dinner and doing his usual excellent job of maintaining Strathspey. All this while I’m enjoying -17°C weather up north.

Sisters-in-law weaving baskets

Baby stingray

We’re well into winter in the Bahamas now and everyone tells us to expect one cold front after another, where the wind clocks from the standard East/Northeast, through the South, West and back to Northeast again. The wind howls during the fronts but between the fronts, the weather is mild, good for snorkeling and great to travel on to the next island. We stayed at Warderick Wells through New Year’s waiting for an especially long-winded front to pass. Our anchorage was sheltered enough that we could dinghy ashore and hike most of the trails that criss-cross the island. These trails are narrow and require alertness to avoid the ever-present Poisonwood bush, a cousin to poison ivy and poison oak; actually more like the granddaddy though because a brush with Poisonwood can land you in the hospital desperate for oral cortisone.

Poinsonwood

We were like little kids after each hike and snorkel trip, always stopping into the park headquarters to tell them what new bird or fish we’d spotted. Judy, at the desk, always helped us dig through the park’s excellent collection of books to identify our finds. Amazingly, we found a second Lionfish, a baby, which makes the park wardens even more determined to catch those pesky fish. Actually, pesky is too mild a word for them because apparently the sharp barbs on their pectoral fins have a deadly poison that can lay a snorkeler flat for days.

Bananaquits

We stayed in Warderick Wells for almost two weeks and the difference between Strathspey and real cruising boats became obvious very quickly. Strathspey is a racer/cruiser meant for fast sailing, out for a weekend or at most a week between ports. As much as we love her, we know we’re pushing Strathspey to her cruising limits down here. The boats we’re amongst right now have water makers, inboard diesel generators, cavernous storage lockers and believe it or not, quite a few of them have washers and dryers onboard; all the right stuff to allow our fellow cruisers to be shore-independent. So, as much as we loved the snorkeling at Warderick Wells Cay, our dwindling gas reserves for the Honda generator, the growing garbage bag landfill site on our foredeck and our cravings for a fresh salad or two all conspired to make us upanchor and head towards civilization, Staniel Cay that is.

Pink Pearl

Heading south on the shallow banks, we simply sailed between a series of long-established waypoints on our chart. These waypoints and the lines joining them are marked in the definitive chartbook for the Exumas (The Explorer series) and surprisingly, they’re even marked on our chartplotter software. Not surprisingly, most everyone else cruising down here is also using these charts and consequently, we’re all on the Exuma Highway even though there’s lots of wide open space. It’s not a terribly busy highway though and we saw only six other boats on our way into Staniel Cay. We pulled into the Staniel Cay Yacht Club to fill our water tanks and to get some fresh produce and milk. While Blair took care of the water, I went looking for one of the three grocery stores located here. The grocery stores down here are about the size of our convenience stores at home and their stock fluctuates depending on when the mail/grocery boat swung by last. We’ve discovered grocery shopping down in the Exumas is pretty loosey goosey, with lists out the window and counting yourself lucky if you get there right after the boat so as to find what you need before they sell out. The Blue Grocery store had everything I needed at about 20% more than what I would have paid at home so all-in-all, I’m counting myself lucky.

Never mind the price of groceries, it’s an eye-opener how precious (read expensive) water is throughout the islands. We paid an all-time high of $0.45/gallon at Cape Eleuthera but have heard that it is only $0.20/gallon at the main marina in Georgetown, at the southern end of the Exumas. At either end of the price spectrum, the reality is that it’s hard to get used to paying, and paying dearly, for something that at home we take for granted. For years, I’m embarassed to admit, we carted stacks of bottled water down to Strathspey and at the end of the weekend we’d cart all those empty plastic bottles home to our recycle bin. There’s no room for bottled water on Stathspey these days and even if there were, all that extra garbage would be hard to get rid of. In the Exuma Park, there’s no garbage disposal and here at Staniel Cay, there is a $5 charge to dispose of one green garbage bag. Recycling is a pretty fledgling proposition down here so not really an option. So, these days we are drinking the water from our tanks; 40 gallons in our bow tank and 35 in our port side tank. Before we left Trident Yacht Club, Blair installed a separate facet in our sink and hooked up a Seagull IV water filter to it. This filter removes bacteria, viruses and that tanky smell so it’s not a hardship and the water is as sweet as our Navan well water.

Nurse Sharks

When we arrived at Staniel Cay Yacht Club, John and Rhoda of Wet ‘n Wild were here. We shared a tasty lunch with them at the yacht club restaurant, swapped some DVDs to watch and decided to spend the night on dock to give our batteries that extra special charge that our generator can’t provide. Staniel Cay Yacht Club has nurse sharks, and lots of them, that hang about the docks, waiting for fish scraps to be tossed in the water when the fishermen are cleaning their fish. We’ve read that sharks have an incredible sense of smell too and it takes just a minute drop of blood in the water to make them sit up and take notice. In the slip next door to us, a young lad on a big charter yacht had caught a Mahi-mahi which the captain cleaned for him. While cleaning the fish, the captain tossed a small piece of skin into the water off the stern of his big swim platform and instantly there were at least five nurse sharks circling… waiting… The captain sliced off two huge fillets for his guests’ dinner and then handed the remains to the ten-year old who held the tail a good foot above the surface while stirring the water with the rest of the Mahi-mahi’s long body. Immediately, one of the sharks darted forward and yanked the shark out of the boy’s grasp and swam off with all the other sharks close behind. Not sure where that lad’s mom was….

Pig Beach

Leaving Staniel Cay Yacht Club the next day, we motored just around the corner to anchor in the lee of Big Major’s Spot opposite a nice looking beach. Little did we know but this was Pig Beach. Years ago, someone loosed some pigs on Big Major’s, they multiplied, went a little wild and are a sideshow fed by all the cruisers that dinghy ashore. These guys expect food and now they actually swim out to your dinghy when you approach, will try to climb aboard if you swing too close and we actually saw someone get bitten when he accidentally got between the pig and it’s food. We stayed a good distance off and tossed them some perfectly nice grapefruit which they turned their nose up at - picky porkers it would seem. This was a nice big bay with excellent holding and although there were 20 other boats keeping us company, two of them over 100 feet long, we had lots of that important personal space around us.

Fishing

One of the big attractions in this area is the Thunderball Grotto, an underwater cave made famous in the James Bond 007 movie, Thunderball. At low tide, you can actually swim into the cave without going completely underwater. This area is another no fishing zone so there were lots of beautiful Parrotfish, Yellowtail Snappers and Schoolmasters swimming around us, amazingly unafraid, and again we found two big Lionfish down in a smaller cave. The next day we dinghied a good distance out past Fowl Cay to two small unnamed islands and Blair tried his luck (unfortunately without luck) at spear fishing with a Hawaiian sling that Estelle had loaned us.

We left Big Major’s after a late lunch and sailed about seven miles south to Black Point Settlement. This sailing is such a treat after motoring for so much of our trip down the ICW. One of the bonuses of these incessant Bahamanian winds is that motoring and motor-sailing have really not been part of our vocabulary since we arrived in the Exumas. We topped up our diesel tank in Cape Eleuthera and it’s reading just slightly less than full mainly because we’ve been using these strong north winds to push us from island to island.

Hurricane hole

Black Point Settlement is right at the top of Great Guana Cay and boasts the best laundromat in the Bahamas. In fact, this is a popular spot for cruisers to stop into mainly because of the laundromat. In fact….. cruisers save up their laundry just so they can use the above-par washers and dryers here. We followed the crowd and I’m happy to report that the facilities are definitely 5-star; such are the simple pleasures of cruising. Another nice little touch is the free public water tap right around the corner from the government dock. This town is small but has a well-stocked grocery store and two restaurants. One of the restaurants, right next door to the laundromat, is Lorraine’s Cafe, a very good place to sample fresh fish and that traditional accompaniment of Bahamian peas and rice. We got two Red Snapper dinners and have decided that Red Snapper ranks right up there with Grouper as one of our new most favourite fish.

We’re keen to catch our own fresh fish though and Blair rarely misses an opportunity to talk to the locals about where to fish and who has fish to sell. Because of a week of high winds and rough seas, no one’s been out fishing. But although no one has fish to sell, everyone is happy to give advice. Blair spent a good while with one fisher who said that to catch Red Snappers and Yellowtails, trolling with our new rod and slinky looking lures won’t do the trick. He needs to take the dinghy out to the reefs, and line fish in one spot with bait. Blair bought the story and the hooks, lines and sinkers as well. Ida, from the Laundromat, provided the bait - she was clearing out the apartment above the laundry after her tenant moved out and she found a big stack of 6-inch ballyhoos in her tenant’s freezer which she very kindly handed over to Blair. So the pressure is on!

Sapodilla

Here in Black Point, I had my first taste of Sapodilla fruit. Mrs. Adderly of Adderly’s grocery store offered me one, freshly picked from a tree in front of her store. She called it a Sapodilly and it looked like a tan tennis ball and tasted like a super-sweet pear, nubbly but with sections much like an orange.

We liked Black Point Settlement and because we spent a few days here, we were privy to the natural rhythms a small town goes through as the day progresses. A real joy was to watch the school children on their way home after 3 pm. They were dressed in green and yellow uniforms and all unfailingly polite, saying “good afternoon” as they passed by and “yes ma’am” if you asked them a question. It’s a small town though and the children here in Black Point attend the local school only to grade 9 and then head to Nassau to live with relatives and continue their schooling in the big city.

Choir practice

Another reason we like Black Point Settlement is that we think there is a bit of serendipity in the air here. On Thursday afternoon, we stopped into Lorraine’s Cafe to pick up a loaf of her mom’s coconut bread; a wonderful thing made with freshly grated coconut so fine that we could taste the difference it made. When Blair mentioned he was looking for a haircut, Lorraine drove us over to her friend’s business, Esther’s Beauty Salon. Now, this was a pretty laid back place; one chair, Esther in bare feet and The Word, an evangelical TV show playing quietly in the corner. In another corner was a set of drums and an organ, which of course piqued Blair’s interest. One thing led to another and we stayed an extra day so Blair could jam with Esther and her church choir on Friday night. Esther plays the organ and sings like Aretha Franklin, her son plays drums and with her big heart she’s gathered up a group of kids under 13 in this town and organized them into a sweet yet funky choir; think Pointer sisters or Jackson Five with a whole lotta gospel thrown in. These beautiful kids sang BIG, they moved and grooved to the music and you just knew that come Sunday, the entire congregation would be on their feet and joining in. We loved Esther and the kids loved Blair and, happily, we have a firm invitation to come back to The Gordon H. Winter Memorial Chapel on our trip north and you can just bet that we will.

Wonderfully clear water

Mockingbird

On Boxing Day, we volunteered for the Exumas Christmas bird count. It was pretty simple actually - armed with bird photo cards, supplied by the park, we were asked to note all the birds we saw over a 24-hour period. They stressed that we didn’t have to stay up all night to do it either! To amateurs, the Bahamas bird population seems nothing like the areas we passed through before crossing the Gulf Stream. We find that there is a distinct lack of gulls, terns and other sea birds here. On top of that, not being real birders in the strict sense of the word, we weren’t even sure we’d be able to identify any birds we saw. I’m happy to report that we saw two Peregrine Falcons plus seven mockingbirds.

On December 27th, while lunching in our cockpit, we noticed a new cabin cruiser had arrived in our mooring field. Blair got out the binoculars and confirmed that it was John and Rhoda Page on Wet ‘n Wild, a 49 foot Gulfstar from Trident Yacht Club. That night, we caught up with all their news and met friends Phil and Betsy who were visiting along with their daughters, Maggie and Alison. Blair was happy to go home to Strathspey that night with booty. He has a highly developed (some might say over-developed) sense of the milk “yick” factor. We’d run out of regular milk and he’d been waffling for days over whether to use UHT milk (Parmalat) on his morning cereal. Rhoda, bless her heart, made the decision for him by sending Blair back to Strathspey with a goodly amount of milk for his breakfast.

Eggs Benedict

Wet ‘n Wild stayed a few days in Warderick Wells and one morning hosted a real uptown breakfast; Eggs benedict, spicy sausages, toast, scones and champage and “real” OJ cocktails. Their boat is spacious, warmly decorated for Christmas and is definitely made for gracious entertaining. Time ran out before all the stories got told and we look forward to meeting up with John and Rhoda again somewhere in the islands.

We have a favourite snorkeling spot here that we visit every other day day for a few hours. It’s got larger-than-life National Geographic type fish and coral; Nassau Groupers, Blue Angelfish, Rock Beauties, Yellowtail Snappers and the wildest looking one I’ve ever seen, the Stoplight Parrotfish. On one visit, we saw a rare Lionfish, so exotic and wonderful that we immediately notified the Exuma Park headquarters. The on duty person said they’d “take care of it”. Hmmmm…. it seems that the Lionfish, a South Pacific native, is considered a nuisance, introduced species with no natural predators in the Bahamas. They have set up residence here, likely after being released from home aquariums and will easily clean an area out of conch and baby lobster and then move on. So we were tattletails, thinking we’d discovered some wonderful species only to find that it was a dandelion that needed yanking.

Lizard tracks

Since arriving in the Bahamas, we’ve had just two days without winds. I’d been wishing for more days like that but just like that saying “be careful what you wish for”, I was definitely sorry when the wind died down. We realized just how great the incessant Bahama winds really are because they keep the bugs away. With no wind, the gnats or no-see-’ems are voracious. These guys give a good pinch when they bite and because they’re so small, you don’t even notice them until you feel that nip. Worst of all, ordinary screens don’t keep them out. Avon Skin-So-Soft is reputed to keep them at bay and I guess it’s time to dig out that great big bottle again.

Here in the park, it hasn’t been all lazy days. We’ve also been doing some maintenance on Strathspey. I applied two coats of Cetol on our teak handrails, we’ve jury rigged a rain catcher (although nothing so fine that I’d consider posting a photo), we’ve cleaned the rust off all our stainless steel and dealt with a persistent outhouse kind of odor that’s been lingering around for the last two weeks. On Strathspey, we have a saying, “The cheese stands alone”. It’s loosely based on that nursery rhyme, The Farmer in the Dell and basically it means that when it comes to toilets, holding tanks and joker valves, you’re on your own. You can have a gazillion friends, but when it comes to sewage problems, the cheese definitely stands alone. The cheese on our boat (Blair) finally zeroed in on our malodorous problem and everything’s smelling like roses now. Whew!

Loyalist wall

There are a few drawbacks to staying so long at Warderick Wells, paradise though it is. One is the lack of groceries here; they sell ice and internet time only. Our last grocery purchase was in Hope Town almost two weeks ago and although we still have some fresh veggies, we’re slowly whittling that stock down to just onions, yams and carrots. One thing that surprises us is the type of food that keeps forever in our small refrigerator. I mean, I always knew yams and carrots were first prize contenders for the most number of years to be lost in the back of your fridge without rotting but who knew about iceburg lettuce? I rarely buy that insipid-tasting lettuce but on a hunch in Lake Worth, Florida, I grabbed one head and tucked it way down deep at the bottom of the refrigerator. It’s hard to believe but that iceberg is still alive and doing very well almost a month later. We’ve got some canned vegetables that I can dig out when we really start worrying about scurvy but for now we’re fine until we reach Staniel Cay about 20 miles south of here.

Exuma Sound

Another drawback is the policy of no fishing, lobstering or taking of conch within the Exuma Land and Sea Park. Boats who’ve arrived here from further north outside the park bring tales of wonderful lobster they’ve caught and broiled for dinner, or excellent Yellowtail Snappers they’ve snagged on their fishing lines. For now though, we’re still happy to snorkel amongst these lobsters and fish and capture them on a cheapie underwater camera that Blair picked up in the park headquarters.

Fresh baked

A strong cold front swept through Florida and the Bahamas Wednesday morning so we’ve stayed longer than we planned in the Exuma Park. It’s relatively sheltered here - not so much from the winds which easily blow over these low islands but more from the big waves and swells associated with the storm. There is enough of a chop in the bay here though that we’d be good and wet if we attempted to go ashore so we’re laying low on Strathspey, reading playing guitar and baking bread. Nancy on Solitaire I, a Morgan 40, passed me her recipe for excellent sourdough bread. It’s a must try mainly because of the technique which includes a science experiment sort of yeast rising that I couldn’t resist. Stage 1 involves a gallon-size zip lock bag, yeast, flour and water. About two hours after Stage 1, I actually hailed Nancy on the VHF radio to confirm that the zip lock should resemble an over sized balloon. I was a little worried that it would explode and spew arcs of sticky dough throughout Strathspey’s interior. But, all was in order and by the end of the recipe, I’d produced two loaves of bread that will definitely be short lived.

Close to the water

Midday on the first day of this storm, two kayakers sailed by us whooping it up in the high winds. They had tents and wet bags strapped to their kayaks and looked like they were paddling the length of the Exumas. They paddled right up onto the beach, hauled their kayaks up under the trees and are well tucked away from the high winds right now.

On this first day of high winds, I’m actually wearing a light weight polar fleece; it’s blowing 30 knots, the sky is gray and nothing would tempt us into those aquamarine waters. The VHF radio has been quiet, indicating that everyone’s staying put. Everyone that is except four fit-looking 20-something young men on a Beneteau 31 who came sailing in here to grab a mooring can late in the day. Wherever they came from, it must have been a wild ride down. With 30 knots of wind blowing them down the line of mooring balls, they turned slightly, drifted sideways caught in a strong gust for a good 200 feet and then with a final quick turn shushed their way onto the mooring ball. These guys probably ski the Matterhorn in winter and I could imagine them later that night sitting back over a beer or two and retelling their excellent sail. Did I mention they were Canadian. A hardy people I think…..

A new recruit

New Year’s Eve was our 200th day on this trip. We celebrated that milestone and the New Year on the beach at Warderick Wells with about 30 other boaters, a bonfire, excellent food and Auld Lang Syne on the bagpipes. It was easy to celebrate with these relative strangers as we all share the same interests right now; exploring the warm Bahamian waters this winter under sail.

So here’s to 2008 and all it brings.