After Sandy and Brooklyn flew out of Staniel Cay Friday morning, we made a quick detour south to pick up our sails in BlackPoint Settlement. A cold front was moving through the northern Exumas that day and although Staniel Cay was warm and sunny, we could see a definite line of clouds and squalls just north of us. After talking to weather guy Chris Parker, we decided to take advantage of the winds and head west to Andros Island on Saturday. We sailed out of the sunshine at Staniel Cay and north into the rain and high winds; all the way north to Shroud Cay, a good departure spot for Andros Island. We’d been waffling over whether to head back to mainland USA by retracing our steps through Eleuthera and the Abacos but friends Bruce and Nancy on Seabird sang the praises of Andros Island, a remote and little-populated island due West of the Exumas, so we’ve chosen this path northward.

Fresh Creek

Leaving Shroud Cay at sunrise in overcast skies, we skirted northward around a large area flagged in our chart book as being full of big coral heads. At 9:30, we turned west, the sun came out, the wind blew steadily between 15-18 knots and we had a wonderful sail across the shallow banks for about 4 hours. Around noon we left the banks and continued into a deep body of water with the improbable name of Tongue of the Ocean. The depths went abruptly from 20 feet on the banks to over 1000 feet and got steadily deeper to 5000 feet. This is a far more isolated sailing area and for most of the day, we were the only boat in sight; a first for us. We arrived at Andros Island around 4 pm; a long sail for us after puttering distances of 10 miles between the Exuma Islands for the past month.

Laughing Gull

The east side of Andros Island has the world’s third largest barrier reef and there are only a few places where it’s safe to cross through the reef and into harbour. At the same time, Andros is home to quite a few AUTEC stations (Atlantic Undersea Testing and Evaluation Centers). This is where the American Navy tests their submarines, torpedos and other assorted underwater toys. These are pretty advanced testing centers and even though AUTEC has commandeered the best natural harbours and safest cuts through the reef, we’d read that you are allowed to enter their harbours only in a real emergency. Fresh Creek harbour is open to all though and about a half mile from the reef entrance there, we took our sails down and turned our motor on. Blair said that underwater these AUTEC guys could tell from our engine pitch whether we were a Russian sub and even how many blades the propellers had. I was glad that our little Yanmar 27 engine pitch was perhaps part of their schooling and there was no case of mistaken identity that afternoon.

Land Crab

We motored through the break in the reef, up into the creek with its very strong current and tied up at the Lighthouse Yacht Club and Marina. The place is almost empty right now except for Strathspey and some sailboats belonging to an outfit offering college environmental courses out of Cleveland, but in season, this is a popular fishing center and dockage is hard to come by. Besides bonefish, marlin, grouper and snapper, land crabs are considered a delicacy here and in June, Fresh Creek hosts a huge crab festival that attracts 30,000 people from all over the Bahamas and Florida. Androsia batik is produced here in a small cottage factory just around the corner from the yacht club. So all in all, Andros is a pretty prosperous island considering its small population.

Mailboat aground

For us, it’s a welcome change from the hustle bustle at Staniel Cay and surrounding area. There are few cruisers here and the VHF is silent much of the time; quite a change from the constant radio traffic in the Exumas. The people are friendly, the stores are larger and full of good fruit and vegetables. There was another strong cold front that roared through Monday and Tuesday so we spent a bit of time here, tucked away from the winds, touring the island by car and taking some time to repair the refrigerator and other minor items that are slowly grinding to a halt because of constant use and salt air. The only drawback to Fresh Creek is the gazillion no-see-ums that are feasting on me in particular; for some reason, they ignore Blair completely. It appears that Skin So Soft is no match for the Androsian breed of no-see-ums and my legs are covered with red welts so numerous that I feel like a scabby-legged 8-year old on summer holidays again!

Easter Sunday

Here on Andros on Easter Sunday, the big tradition is to go to the beach after church with all your friends and relatives, hang out, swim and cook hamburgers and hotdogs over an open fire. At the marina, a group of teenage boys spent the entire afternoon doing fancy jumps off the pier. They challenged each other with increasing more difficult jumps in a Bahamian patois that was beyond me. As soon as I said hello though, they toned their speech way down and it was recognizable as English with that Bahamian singsong sort of drawl.

Last Resort Sand Bar

We spent Monday with Shervin Mackey who had a day off from his job at the Bahamian Power Company and gave us a tour of Andros. He showed us all his favourite out of the way places and introduced us to cousins, aunts, uncles, distant cousins, friends, bartenders …. well, you get the picture. We met more people and heard more island stories over the day than we’d heard in the last year.

Bonefish

At one point, Shervin took us to one of the AUTEC piers, blithely leading us past all their No Trespassing signs out to where his “Mummy Aunt” Loreena and her grandchildren were casting for bonefish. She was his great aunt, 67 years old and a champion bonefisher. Loreena pointed out the bonefish muds; long patches of whitish water that result from the bonefish stirring up the sand and water while feeding on small shrimp. This pier was an excellent place to fish from in the early morning and Loreena had caught five good sized bonefish by the time we arrived. Bonefish are real fighting fish and despite being notoriously hard to fillet and eat because of all their bones, they’re considered a real delicacy. Andros is the bonefish capital of the world; interesting to us as we’d never even heard of bonefish before this past month.

Straw baskets

Loreena also wove wonderful straw baskets; works of art with Androsian batik fabric woven through the baskets. In typical Bahamian fashion, the price of these baskets was hard to pin down. Sometimes, they say “Make me happy” when you want to know the price of something here. Sometimes, they say “What would you pay for that at home”. Sometimes, they say, “I’ll ask my friend, daughter, father, mother, neighbour…..”. These were beautiful baskets and I’m still waiting to hear how much they cost so I’m not sure if I’ll leave Andros with them.

Turkey Vultures

During our travels with Shervin, everywhere we stopped there were two or three Turkey Vultures, soaring in wide circles, perched on rooftops or simply standing at the side of the road. Shervin said Vultures are really common here on Andros and they eat anything and everything, “You go lost and you happen to die, everybody going to find you because of the buzzards circling”. Nice thought. Shervin was funny and full of great stories. He had some typically Bahamian turns of phrases too. When I asked him how old his children were, he said “I have a boy who is 11 to 12, a girl who is 13 to 14, another girl who is 15 to 16 and another girl who is 17 to 18”. Kind of like shoe sizes we thought. He explained the process for building a house here in Andros. It’s basically, pick your lot, “clean it down” and start building. At that point, you send the government your application to buy the land. Shervin says “You cannot wait on the government to get a thing done and we builds de house before de approval”. He said he’d applied for his deed and permits 17 years ago and just got the paperwork back last year.

Poinciana tree

Here in Fresh Creek, in this out of the way place, we’ve met Gratton and Jennifer of Moon River. They are cruising with friend John on Vivacious, a 30 foot Endeavor. Gratton and Jennifer shared our shed at Iroquois Marina all last winter; while we worked on Strathspey readying her for this cruise, they worked on Moon River for their cruise to Nova Scotia. In some small-world moments, we’ve met them at the St Peters lock in the Bras d’Or Lakes, LaHave Bakery in Nova Scotia, Staniel Cay last week and now here in Fresh Creek. I know these chance meetings have a better probability than the proverbial 10,000 monkeys on typewriters producing a Shakespearean play but it’s always a real surprise to see people we know from home.

Batik sponges

The Androsia batik factory was an easy five minute walk from the Lighthouse Yacht Club. The word factory is stretching the truth a little though. It was a barn-like structure with three separate areas; one for printing the cotton fabric with wax designs, one full of dyeing tubs and a clean area with four sewing machines to create the final products. It was a pretty casual place and when I asked for a tour they said “Hep yuself mam” so we took ourselves on a self-guided, watch-where-you-step sort of tour, talked to some of the employees and pretty well made ourselves at home in there.

Andros has been a nice stop; remote and quite different from the rest of the Bahamas, both in landscape and weather. Soon we head north to Chub Cay in the Berry Islands and continue our trek northward.

Androsian Batik

Staniel Cay

The last cold front that stalled over the central Exumas coincided with a big snowstorm in Ottawa where close to 50 cms of snow fell. Blair’s sister Wendy captured the height of snow banks in the most apt description I’ve heard yet; “All the front walks look like goat paths now!”. In March, the weather’s unsettled everywhere it seems. We’ve hung out in this area for the last three weeks because of guests flying in and out of Staniel Cay and each day the traffic increases both on land and water. The anchorages are noticeably more crowded, late arrivals to each anchorage are more prone to anchor well within Strathspey‘s personal space and the day after the groceries arrive by mailboat, pickings are slim. These days too, as we sail between islands, it’s not unusual to count 10 sails along the horizon at all times; this is the same area where two months ago we’d see barely five boats in an entire day.

All sorts of boats

Last week we celebrated Blair’s birthday week and the parties and good wishes stretched between anchorages and other boats. On Monday we had a pre-birthday party with our friends Nancy and Jim on Solitaire. Nancy produced a very cool birthday card with a photo collage of all our encounters with Solitaire since the first time – day one on the ICW in the first lock way back in Norfolk, Virginia in early November. Since then, we’ve spent Christmas and New Years with them at Warderick Wells, a few days down at Thompson Bay, Long Island, at Little Farmer’s Cay last week and now Staniel Cay for Blair’s birthday. In the past nine months of sailing, we’ve probably only spent three weeks with them but we feel like old friends every time the two boats join each other in a new anchorage. On Wednesday, we had another pre-birthday celebration and a goodbye party with Beth and Jim aboard Madcap at Bitter Guana Cay. We traveled a good long way with Madcap down the St Lawrence and 2300 miles to the Chesapeake Bay but this past week was the first time we’d seen them since last December. It was a poignant reminder that our year of cruising is winding up as we waved goodbye to Madcap on the way out of Bitter Guana Cay. In the ebb and flow of cruising life, they continue south to Georgetown as we head north through the islands.

Arrival!

Blair’s best present came Friday with the arrival of Sandy and Brooklyn who’ve joined us for a week down here. They flew in from Nassau in a single engine Cherokee Cessna with a big box of groceries and lots of energy and enthusiasm. Trying to fit in as much as possible this week, we rented a fast boat to get to some of the more distant sights: Pig Beach at Big Major’s Spot, Bitter Guana Cay, Gaulin Cay South, White Point, Thunderball Cave and Oven Rock Cave.

Pig Beach

At Pig Beach, the porker population had changed slightly. The biggest pig is gone now; he was the center of attention at the pig roast held after Captain Grey’s funeral a few weeks ago. But rounding out the numbers now is a tiny piglet, no more than a week old, who trotted out to the water’s edge squealing bitterly as his mom swam out for our food scraps.

Beautiful Sculpture

At Bitter Guana Cay and Gaulin Cay South, the kids were intrigued with iguanas so curious that they ran out to meet them but then swiftly retreated as soon as we got too close. We snorkeled Thunderball Cave, swimming through schools of colourful fish ‘til the tidal current grew too strong for us. And we explored Oven Rock Cave, a popular scuba diving cave down near Little Farmer’s Cay. The outer part of the cave was dry with stalagmites dripping calcium-laden water into wonderful formations and coating the rocks and a drinking bucket so that it looked like a modern sculpture. At the far end of this cave, was a small pool of water good for a cool dip. For the more adventurous sort who didn’t mind going under a collapsed floor passage to the next set of caves, this water cave stretched on for another 100 feet.

South Gaulin Cay

We had a relaxing week all ‘round, borrowing bikes from the Staniel Cay Yacht Club to explore the island, playing cards in the cockpit, reading, napping and eating well. Brooklyn made friends with the crew of Clueless, a 58 foot sport fishing boat from the Florida Keys, and because the owner and his family were eating out every night, they were happy to pass on large quantities of freshly caught Mahi Mahi, Grouper and Snapper. The Grouper and Snapper had been caught at depths of 600 feet or more and were just as tender and tasty as those caught in ten feet. For two nights we dined on the generosity of Clueless; fresh fillets lightly dredged in flour, then egg and milk, another delicate coat of Panko breadcrumbs and then quick seared in butter. Wonderful!

Did this slow us down?

This is the last bit of luxury and civilization we’ll see for a little while. We’ve filled our diesel tank, our water tanks and topped up our gasoline here. Blair hauled the dinghy up onto the dock here at Staniel Cay Yacht Club and cleaned the bottom for the first time since December and Florida.

Papaya

After almost four months, the dinghy bottom was coated with a disgusting scum that resisted a power wash and had to be scrubbed off with a stiff brush. Blair is sure that we’ll increase our dinghy cruising speed measurably; we shall see.

It’s spring now. First day yesterday. Daylight hours are equaling night, Bahamian spring flowers are sprouting forth, the papayas are getting ripe, the water is 29 degrees C and once Sandy and Brooklyn head out today, our thoughts are turned northward. It’s time…..

Spring is blooming in the Bahamas

After Scott and Marion left us in Staniel Cay, we headed down to Black Point Settlement to do laundry. We put out only our foresail and screamed down there with the wind blowing 22 knots. The wind was still blowing hard after a week and we were no closer to Georgetown and our refrigerator parts than we were the previous week. It howled at 20-25 knots day and night as a strong cold front moved off the USA and settled heavy over the Bahamas and Strathspey. We tried to stay upbeat despite that desperately long-winded cold front and NE winds blowing stink AND a failing refrigeration system. Believe it or not, one thing that raised our spirits measurably was the torrential downpour we had on Saturday. It rained hard for almost an hour; glorious, clean, fresh water rinsing Strathspey clean of salt and grime. It was so wonderful that I actually called other boats to see if they were as excited as we were. After this sojourn in the Bahamas, I’m sure we’ll look at rain in a wholly different light back in Lake Ontario. Up there, it means the sailing isn’t fun, our activities are curtailed and most of all, it means the sun isn’t shining. Down here, where the sun shines all the time anyways, it provides desperately needed water to farmers, fills the island cisterns and water tanks, cleans Strathspey and makes us appreciate all that we take for granted in Canada.

Mailboat

All last week, we listened to weather guy Chris Parker to find a good day to make the trip down to Georgetown to extend our visitor permits and pick up refrigerator parts. In an unusual twist this time of year, the fronts are reaching all the way down to the Exumas and a good weather window wasn’t opening up for us; high winds expected through Wednesday and then a slight moderation and then a switch around so they’d be on our nose with 4-5 foot seas the entire 50-some mile trip down to Georgetown. That would make for an uncomfortable trip although we’ve heard worse forecasts from Chris; once, about a month ago, he actually said “Nobody move, nobody get hurt”. Waiting for our fridge parts to arrive in Georgetown by FedEx, we hung out at anchorages between Staniel Cay and Little Farmers Cay reading and taking lots of walks for exercise.

Typical vegetation

That’s one thing that’s been hard to get used to in this year of living on a boat – the lack of exercise. Sure, when we’re sailing, we’re burning up the calories, hauling in sails and using our back and stomach muscles to keep us upright as we sway in tandem with Strathspey‘s motion through the waves. But we don’t use our leg muscles much so we try to take in long walks as often as possible when we go ashore. While at Black Point, we went ashore and walked down the King’s Highway, a long paved road with absolutely no traffic. We thought it ran the length of Great Guana Island but it ended abruptly about two miles south of the settlement after the last hydro pole. We continued south on a wide, bulldozed dirt road bounded on both sides by low scrubby bush and not much else. At one point, at the edge of the dirt road, we came upon a cleared swath of hard dry soil where desiccated stalks of corn stood – someone’s attempt at cultivation I expect. In spite of the previous day’s torrential rain, the earth was dry and dusty. This road led all the way down to the beach where we were greeted by three dogs. One was doing all the talking while the other two stood guard behind him so we made a quick turn-around and hoofed it back to high ground as they followed us at a distance.

Spider

Because we’ve spent quite a bit of time in this area, we’re recognizing quite a few of the boats between here and Georgetown either by sight or hearing them hailing each other over the VHF radio and SSB radio. It’s a small world because quite a few of these boats are the same ones that we traveled down the ICW and through the Abacos with. Some of the boat names are a little odd, some are duplicates and some are just plain memorable: Worthless Wench, Feral Cat, Rum Tum Tiger, Wings of Angels, Wind of Peace and of course the Scottish boat, Sam the Skull.

When you flip through the Bahamas telephone book, it’s divided into districts; Grand Bahama, New Providence (that’s where Nassau is), Abacos (the northern islands) and the Family Islands (the Exumas). We think the name Family Islands is apropos of the Exuma Island chain. There’s a tangible family feeling down here, a level of trust not found anywhere else and a feeling of a being part of their give and take way of life if you let yourself “go island” enough. In Black Point we’ve stopped for laundry, groceries and sharing of music at the school and church quite a few times so at this point, the locals know us; the kids walking back and forth to school, skip up to us and yell “Bagpipes” at the top of their lungs. Lorraine of Lorraine’s Cafe is storing some of our sails so when our children visit, there’s room aboard. Lorraine’s mom said they’ll be safe there, “If anyone would take them, it would be a stranger from away”. Lorraine expects you to help yourself to beer and soft drinks and internet services in her absence – just leave a note with your boat name and a list of what you’ve taken from her cooler and come back to pay her when she’s in. On our end, we’ve never bothered to lock our dinghy and in Little Farmers Cay we had a warm fuzzy over a lobster purchase from two fishermen who stopped by Strathspey. Jeff and Nick had a boatload of lobsters and tied up to Strathspey when I didn’t say no to a few lobsters for that night’s dinner. Jeff asked me for $6 for each lobster but, being without anything smaller, I offered him $20 and said maybe he could just give me whatever fish he thought was fair to make up the difference. Jeff picked out three Lane Snappers and as Nick cleaned them for us, he said he’d swung by Strathspey because he could smell the curry I was making. Without even thinking, I asked them if they’d like some curry and they must have been hungry because they both accepted without hesitation. So I dished out bowls of curry along with a bottle of beer each. These guys ate up the curry, drank the beer, and filleted our snappers for us while sitting amongst a pile of at least 20 lobsters and 30-40 conchs; all that while tied to Strathspey. Jeff said “Oh that curry she’s good, I be putting another lobster in the bag for you”. So there you go … a little give and take and a little island mojo we’re thinking.

Car rental agency

This past week, we took a fast boat from Little Farmers Cay to Barreterre at the northern tip of Great Exuma Island and then rented a car and drove south to Georgetown which is at the southern end of the island. We decided to do this water taxi thing rather than take Strathspey down to Georgetown because of the chance that we’d get stuck down there and not get a weather window to go north for our next set of visitors. Madcap joined us for the trip and with Hallen Rolle at the wheel, we made the trip down via the scenic route in his fishing boat Little Jeff, a green runabout with a 150 hp engine. We took the shallow route south as it was high tide but at low tide that afternoon on the way back, we skimmed north out on the banks making wide curves around all the sand bars. Hallen says he’s never looked at a chart in his life, “I just knows da water”. It was a quick one hour ride down to Barreterre and then less than an hour’s drive to Georgetown. With Madcap and Strathspey taking separate cars to ensure everyone’s errands got done, we stopped at Emerald Isles shopping center at the Mailboxes Etc to pick up our refrigerator parts and then at the Napa store for refrigerator hose fittings. At Georgetown, we went into full bore linear fanout mode with stops to get our visitor’s permit extended another 60 days, pick up groceries and the all important stop at the bank for cash. The Bahamas is about as far from a cashless society as you could imagine. ATMS in the Exumas are almost non-existent and payment by credit card, if accepted at all, results in an automatic markup of 5%. We pay for everything with cash, no receipts and for every U.S. $20 bill we hand over, the change invariably handed back is in Bahamian dollars.

Conch

We stayed three nights at Little Farmers Cay and this cay means fish to us. We took our first Bahamian fishing trip out of Little Farmers and here is where we know we can buy fresh fish or lobster, any kind, any day. Every other male in Little Farmers is a fisherman. Our water taxi guy Hallen, tells us it’s a really good living too. Hallen says they could fish every day of the week and still never provide enough fish and lobster to satisfy the restaurants and distributors in Nassau. When we arrived back from Georgetown, we dinghied ashore and for $8, picked up four good-sized Lane Snappers, caught just hours before. Excellent!

Winch Surgery

In anticipation of another cold front coming through with higher winds, we left Little Farmers Cay at high tide and had a fast sail up to Staniel Cay in 20 knots of wind and the biggest waves we’ve yet to see on this bank side of the Exuma Islands. Normally, this side of the islands provide for pleasant, relatively flat-water sailing but when the fronts come through, the winds clock around and set up big waves on the bank side. So we’ve tucked into the north end of Big Major’s Spot to sit out this front and to do some boat chores. This morning, Blair took apart, cleaned and greased one of our larger winches; who knew it had so many little gears and washers? Well actually Blair probably knew because this is the second time he’s worked on Strathspey‘s winches. The first time was five months ago in Portland, Maine where we’d begun to notice a harsh grinding noise as we cranked in our sails.

Bahamian docks

In anticipation of the front, this morning Staniel Cay Yacht Club made a general announcement on VHF 16 to say that they were out of diesel fuel and with the approach of this front, no-one will be allowed to use their docks until tomorrow morning. Both of these announcements are not unexpected; marinas down here routinely run out of fuel and kick boats off their docks in high winds. The docks are simply not built to withstand the strong winds usually associated with cold front passages. No matter, we have lots of diesel and we’re anchored just around the corner in a good spot. So, we feel pretty good right now: We’ve made the run to Georgetown, picked up parts and groceries. After our visit to Customs and Immigration, we’re legal and with the run to the bank, we’re flush again.

Midway down the Exuma island chain is Staniel Cay, a small island whose chief claim to fame is that it has a 3000 foot runway, three small grocery stores and a restaurant with free internet. It’s a popular stop on the way north or south down the island chain; a good place to fly visitors into, to pick up provisions and to collect emails. Staniel Cay was our destination for the string of visitors we’re expecting over the next month or so.

Piping lesson

On our way north to Staniel Cay from Georgetown last week, we stopped in at Black Point Settlement to dispatch the growing mound of laundry in our forward berth and to fulfill a promise Blair had made earlier in January. The principal, Rebbecca McKenzie, had asked him to spend some time at the local elementary school to demonstrate his bagpipes, an instrument some of these kids had not even heard of, let alone listened to. The kids were excited about his visit and showed us such a welcome that it was hard not to compare this school to others we’ve spent time in back in Ontario.

Good audience

Ms McKenzie had told them about that day’s special event and when Blair arrived, the younger children rushed up to him and hugged him unselfconciously. When I arrived a few minutes later, they gathered round and each of them held a hand out to be shaken, saying “Hello, how are you”. For each in turn, I would shake their hands and say “My name is Mary, who are you?”. They’d introduce themselves, give my hand a little shake and then run off to take their place in orderly rows, smallest to largest, in the school’s small gathering room. Blair explained how the bagpipes work, played a few tunes and then gave the kids a chance to try the pipes themselves. They were amazed at the effort required to make any sort of noise, let alone play notes, all of them laughing each time one of their classmates was able to honk those pipes.

Later that day, whiling away some time as I got emails, Blair set himself up under a tree at Lorraine’s Cafe and practiced some new tunes on his practice pipes and chanter. This always attracts the odd cruiser or local to stop and chat and that afternoon, a cruising couple and their little pug dog, Bubba, stopped to compliment Blair on the previous evening’s bagpipe serenade on the deck of Strathspey. Before you could say “Ach laddie no!”, Bubba had lifted his leg on Blair’s bagpipe case which was lying on the ground; it seems absolutely everyone is a critic these days.

Cruising kids

We’ve found that Blair’s bagpipes have been responsible for us meeting a pretty diverse group of people on this trip, both islanders and cruisers. Bubba’s owners were championship handgun shooters back in the USA. An older couple, enjoying what could perhaps be their last year of cruising, he hung on Blair’s words and was quick to tell us “You’ll have to bear with me if you’re repeating yourself, I have Alzheimer’s”. We’ve met quite a few boats with all ages of children cruising for a year or more, home-schooled and likely learning far more aboard a boat in another country than they would at home. In Black Point harbour, while Blair piped at sunset one night, two young kids came racing over in their dinghy. Eleven-year old Drew was at the tiller and 8-year old Emily stood in the bow, hanging onto the painter, straight and tall, her hair blowing out behind her. As soon as they arrived, Emily showed her appreciation for the music with a big thumbs up. These two were delighted when we offered them our Ratatouille CD but after a short chat, Drew said that although they’d like to stay longer, it was getting dark and they’d have to leave because they didn’t have navigation lights on their dinghy. They both showed a measure of confidence and responsibility far beyond their years – a common characteristic of cruising kids I expect.

Plaiting palms

Black Point Settlement was especially crowded, with almost 40 boats bobbing on their anchors and at least half of their crew ashore doing laundry so we left after doing our laundry and filing our income tax returns online. We motored about 10 miles south to Bay Wash Bay, just a short dinghy ride north of Little Farmer’s Cay. The water was flat calm, there was a 5-knot wind to keep the bugs at bay and we shared this huge bay and beach with only one other boat.

Boat building

Without exception, every cruiser we’ve met has sung the praises of Little Farmer’s Cay so we dinghied down to the island from Bay Wash Bay to see what all the fuss was about. At the dinghy dock when we arrived, two fishermen were dealing with a pile of lobster in buckets as well as assorted fish that needed preparing. We’d passed these two, Casels and Charlie, a little earlier while navigating Strathspey in to our anchorage. They’d been hard at work in a grassy-bottomed area gathering up conch to supplement the fish and lobster they’d speared. We had a good long discussion about which fish we should buy, whether one lobster would suffice for dinner or two were necessary and how to extract conch from the shell.

Casels, lean, charming, and the winningest smile you ever saw was what my mother’s generation would have called “a rascal”. Charlie, quiet, steadily working throughout our long conversation surprised us by offering to take us fishing the next day. We picked up some beer in the village and on our way back to the dinghy offered a beer to each of them. Casels opened his beer with his teeth and when I asked him what his dentist would think of that, he launched into this excellent story about growing up in Freeport on his father’s sugar cane farm. He said his beer opening method wouldn’t hurt his teeth because they were extra strong from chewing on so much sugar cane as a child. He was horrified that we’d never tasted sugar cane and declared that “The Father must have made cane for us, so sweet and pure, to give us energy when we drooping”.

Bahamian Lobster

The next morning, Charlie and his uncle Aultomus Percentie (“just call me Ali”), picked us up in their outboard to spend the day fishing. The first stop was for bait. We headed a good 10 miles south of Little Farmer’s Cay, Ali continually eyeballing the shallows for a good stop. When we found a location that, to us, looked like any other spot in the water, Ali turned off the engine and we drifted with the tidal current as Charlie snorkeled over a wide area and dove repeatedly, each time coming up with 4-5 conchs. The conchs were quickly opened and the meat laid on the cooler top. Ali fired up the engine and we roared off to the next spot where Charlie went overboard with his spear and Blair and Ali baited their hooks. Ali used a regular fishing rod but Blair went low tech and had no rod, just a spool of light-weight fishing line with a hook and sinker tied to the end. All day long, the routine was the same; we’d sit in a spot for 10 minutes or so and then if nothing was biting, Ali would coax his engine to start and we’d race off to another location. Every location Ali seemed to recognize by the colour of the water and the shapes of the coral heads. Charlie, with his spear, would work below the water while Blair and Ali fished from above. We caught lobster, Atlantic Spade fish, Mutton Snappers, Queen Triggerfish and Pink Strawberry Groupers.

Atlantic spade fish

The most memorable scenes were when Ali periodically dug out his long rusty filleting knife and carved off two pieces of conch; one to bait his hook and one to pop in his mouth. Both Charlie and Ali, would search through the raw conchs, looking for the pistol, a long clear straw-shaped bit of slime reputed to help you make babies. Ali, a 50-something man with five kids, including two sets of twins, ate lots of pistols. “I think I’d like some more of those twins”. It was a neat experience for us and we have enough fish to last us a good while. Ali offered us our pick of the catch and said “Make me happy” when asked how we could repay him for the day’s adventure; we paid for his gas and we hope to do this again when our children visit.

Conch lesson

We moved on up to Staniel Cay to meet up with our friends, Scott and Marion, who arrived from Ottawa for a week’s holidays. We felt like old pros showing them our favourite haunts in this neck of the woods. Rather than trying to squeeze four adults into Strathspey, we made Scott and Marion’s cabin at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club our base for the week and they rented a 17 foot Boston Whaler with a 115 hp motor called Big Mama to explore up and down the island chain.

One of our outings was on Sunday when we motored down to Black Point Settlement for the Sunday service at the mission church with our old friend and erstwhile barber Ester. We enjoyed favoured visitor status while Blair was up on stage playing guitar accompaniment to Ester’s organ and her son Kato’s drumming. We stayed for the half hour children’s church which included a lot of toe-tapping, hand clapping and singing and then took a tour of Black Point Settlement before the actual church service started. When we arrived back at the church after our tour, the adult service started with singing and a loud heya, heya, hallelujah kind of sermon. Part of the service included the “Greeting” where everyone shook hands or hugged everyone else in the church, all while the teenage choir was singin’ and praisin’ at the top of their lungs. The Greeting was a pretty long, drawn-out affair and at one point, a small woman in a lime green suit and white hat, wrapped her arms around me and danced me in a circle. All this, while Blair was be-bopping with his guitar up on stage and Scott, Marion and I laughing so hard and enjoying this real island experience. Ester told us later that this is the most favourite part of the service because sometimes “a whole week could go by and you might not have seen or hugged a particular friend. During the Greeting, you get to see everyone.”

Fishing boats

Captain Grey died last week. He was well known throughout the islands. Besides owning a substantial portion of Staniel Cay, he was the captain of one of the mailboats that make the rounds delivering supplies to the islands between Nassau and Georgetown. Captain Grey’s funeral is this Saturday, at a small church down the road from the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, where hundreds of people from all the islands are expected to arrive. This past week, as I walked past the cemetery on my way to the grocery story, I could see the work progressing on Mr Grey’s tombstone, a covered-wagon sort of crypt; one man carefully smoothing the wet concrete while at least nine others encouraged him, laughing, telling stories and sharing the occasional beer. Apparently, when one of the captains dies, because they are so well known and play such an integral part of the island life, their funerals are attended not only by all the other captains in the islands but everyone else who knew them even slightly. Ester said there will be a big party after his funeral with lots of singing and dancing and of course the biggest Greeting you ever saw.

Iguana

After church, Ester invited us back to her house for a “small” lunch. It was obvious that she had cooked the entire weekend in anticipation of our Sunday visit as she set out a buffet of lobster, lasagna, traditional Bahamian rice and peas and macaroni and cheese, salads, slow-cooked ribs and coconut cake. It was unexpected generosity and we know what a special person Ester is. Her comment to the congregation at the beginning of the service said it all: Today is a day you’ve never seen before and it’s a day you’ll never see again so let’s enjoy it together for it’s a beautiful day”. We waddled out of Ester’s house and headed back to Staniel Cay, making a stop at Bitter Guana Cay to check out the iguanas that overrun the beach here. After that, we made the obligatory visit to Pig Beach on Big Major’s Spot to show Scott and Marion the swimming pigs.

Scuba at Warderic

Big Mama powered us all the way up to Warderick Wells one day with lots of stops in between. The wind was blowing from the West, an unusual direction that made Exuma Sound wonderfully calm so we took advantage of that and roared up to Warderick Wells on the Sound side to do some snorkeling. Scott and Marion loved the different fish we saw there and then on our way south, at Rocky Dundas, we enjoyed a different sort of snorkeling; more coral than fish and some caves to swim into with stalagmites and ‘tites.

It’s easy to get into “bob” mode while cruising; find a nice anchorage and just bob there, reading and taking the occasional swim or walk. Visitors mitigate the bob factor and make us get out and see all there is to see in an area and Scott and Marion were no exception. In their fast boat, we explored up and down the island chain during the day and ate wonderful meals with fine wine each night. At one of our stops one day at Sampson Cay Marina, you’d have thought they were old time cruisers by their level of excitement over the tasty hard cheese, good crackers and extensive wine selection there. They’ve been surprised at the lack of wine and uptown sort of muchies down here and it didn’t take long for them to get right into the typical cruiser psyche of always looking/planning the next grocery run. We enjoyed their visit and their generosity. They obviously knew how precious a daily long, fresh-water shower would be and said to us “the second bathroom in our cabin is yours, go for it”. Go for it we did and there was lots of that lather, rinse, repeat sort of thing going on this past week.

Crisis what crisis?

Here too in Staniel Cay, we’ve rendezvoused with Madcap after not seeing them since before Christmas and have just started to catch up on each other’s news. On the down side of things, our refrigerator has ground to not quite a halt but definitely a slow crawl. The freezer no longer works but the fridge, when set to maximum, will keep things cool. Blair has two cans of R134 freezer coolant but no connectors to use for filling our freezer system so we will be putting a call out for those items in Georgetown next week when we make our visitor permit run. As well, our VHF radio had lost it’s “long-distance” capability so only those boats in our immediate area could hear us. Blair took the VHF cable connection in the mast apart and discovered a fair bit of corrosion. He cleaned it, put it back together, and now we can talk to boats at least 15 miles north and south of us. I’ve lost track of all the “Whose your Daddy” moments now but they’re all pretty good at this point. So all-in-all, with good visits, good snorkeling and our VHF working properly now, Staniel Cay has been a good place to be over the last week in February (a leap week at that).