28 miles of tacking back and forth to travel 17 miles down in to the Bight of Acklins... It was a great sail except when Patrick would push the limits and sail in to the white area on the charts that show either "unsurveyed" OR too shallow for our draft, as in playing the tides We were sailing fast with all sails up...so it was a little nervewracking to be sailing in 7 feet of water where charts say we shouldn't really be. Book after book proclude drafts of more than a few feet from going to this area, and here we are charging full speed ahead like we are in 30 feet of water, in a well charted area Of course I was the one who chose to sail in to this bight...where we would be anchoring in 6 feet of water everywhere we would go once we got inside. I couldn't help myself- the books do say that this is the Bahamas from 50 years ago, untouched and unspoiled .and I really wanted to see it! So we have been here for 3 days now, 2 nights. The first night off of Spring Point which is the biggest settlement on the island. I think we met almost everyone who lives there. We arrived at the broken down jetty, with a very smelly garbage bag in search of a garbage bin. A gentleman came out of his house to thank us for carrying the garbage thus far- that he could take care of the bag from here. We chatted with him for 15 minutes on the side of the road and learned that he was born there, had moved to NYC for 10 years to be with his wife and child, but moved back here for piece of mind. Life was too fast for him in NYC. He offered us water out of his well, that he had just put some chlorine in the day before, but told us to be sure to come with some tools because the spigot was in disrepair. Then we walked up the very poor gravel and rock road to the biggest grocery store on the island. It was actually big compared to some that we have seen, and the people were very glad to see us. Inside, with all eyes glued to a television set with Jerry Springer, we shopped and were pleasantly surprised to find some nice fresh vegetables- more than we had seen on most other, more populated islands! We chatted with them for 5 or 10 minutes until their attention was diverted to a young infant who had come in with his mother. The baby was hoping for a feeding from the store clerk, but she laughed that all she had to offer was some Parmalat. They had the green peppers that I have been searching for since the Exumas! We ate a pint of cookies and cream ice cream, bought some butter, and 10 peppers, and some bubblegum, and then walked to the restaurant where we were told they had some fresh bread for sale. The owner of the restaurant greeted us, sat us down on the porch chairs, and proceeded to tell us how many goats, pigs and chickens he had, and where he had gotten them, and why he cages his pigs ( they chew his water lines), and about his 2 rental houses for tourists for 100$ per night. Any tourists that do come here come for bonefishing. It appears that this doesn't even really happen very often. He didn't have any fresh bread, but he had 4 dinner rolls from yesterday. He packaged those up for us, and refused any payment for them. He offered to drive down a dozen dinner rolls for us when he baked some more in the next day or so, but we didn't want to make any promises. He told us to talk to Evans at the jetty down here if we wanted them. We went to 2 jetties, but there was no one at either one of them, and the white rolls were not that appealing anyways. Now that I am baking fresh bread when we need it , we are a little more picky about our bread On the way back, 2 trucks drove past us, each of them stopping to offer a ride, and welcome us to the island. Very friendly people in this little settlement, truly glad to see someone new. Not just to sell them something, but just to talk and smile and wave at us. The tides were very strange inside the bight. Our chartplotter had tide stations on the north and the south side of the island group, but none inside the bight. We could not get a good sense of when it was high and low tide, although we quickly found out when low tide was one night, at about 1130pm. We started to bounce off the bottom. We awoke startled and we ran out in to the cockpit. We were bouncing in 5.8 feet of water. Dead low tide in an approaching full moon. We had been there for 24 hours, but had not touched bottom. It had never been lower than 6 feet 2 inches! So in the pitch dark, we had to move the boat. Luckily we had the track saved of how we came in, so we just used it to go back out until we were in almost 7 feet of water. We dropped the hook and hoped that we had been bouncing in DEAD low tide, and our 7 feet wouldn't become 6 feet with time. We slept well, with the anchor alarm on for the rest of the evening.

There were unfortunately NO fishing opportunities inside the Bight, and no conchs either. So after 3 days there, we headed back to Long Cay where the locals said the best fishing and conching was. We woke up just before the sun came up and sailed out. It was a glorious sail on a beam reach most of the way. We stopped for a couple hours and had lunch in Long Cay, and then went fishing/snorkeling. We didn't find any conch or fish or lobster. So we picked the anchora back up, and sailed on without staying there for the night, to go down to Fish Cay. The books write up Fish Cay as being great to see Iguanas, and Guana Island a little further south to be great for fishing. Of course Fish Cay was the only one we had a prayer of squeezing in to for the night. Its listed just as a day anchorage in settled weather. Guana Cay was just too shallow for us to go to. So we inched our way between some reefs and sand bores to get in to Fish Cay, where we had 20 knots of windand more in squalls for the next 2 nights so much for just a day anchorage . We were lucky and DID have some luck finding dinner there. Mostly conch - we got our limits pretty easily. Usually I stay in the dinghy and drive it around while Patrick does the food gathering, but today he was the driver and I was the food gatherer! I can't dive very deep - I worry about running out of air, and my ears don't clear easily. But I captured my first few conch there- the first in about 10 or 11 feet of water.that first one was a challenge- the thing ran away from me, in to the current, and when I finally was able to catch up with him he was slippery and hard to grasp. Finally I grabbed him and came swimming to the surface with my first conch. Patrick cheered me on as I went down for another. The second one was much easier because the water was a few feet shallower, and he wasn't as fast of a runner since he was a little bigger. Two big ones - I was proud of myself. Of course this is almost a daily occurrence for Patrick. And he easily dives to 25 or 30 feet to bring them in! This amchorage was quite currenty, so I was a little apprehensive about leaving the boat and going out of site of it. But we did anyways after Patrick dove on the anchor, and we had seen it stick for 2 solid days. It was a very long hot walk on a great beach to see what was on the other side of the island. We walked past many mounds of empty conch shells cleaned in years past, as well as many many empty sea dollars. We played with a half dozen iguanas. They would raise and lower their heads to claim the territory as theres. Patrick would mimic them back until they retreated in to the bushes. It's too bad the sand dollars are so fragile- I would have loved to have sent one to each to my friends at home. The boat was still there after we walked that 4 miles of deep sandy beach, and I collapsed that night and slept very well! We haven't seen another sailboat for days and days, maybe even weeks now. It seems we are away from the mainstream route for sure now! We sailed down to Jamaica Bay from there, about 12 miles, and pinching up in to the wind , we made it on just 2 tacks. This is on the southern tip of the Acklins. We anchored for a night there. We took the dinghy in to the ramp to hike 2 miles to the town, 2 miles back. But as we pulled our dinghy up on to the beach, the rain came and we sought shelter in a little fishing cabana on the beach. After a little while, some teenage boys playing hooky from school and drinking bears, playing loud music came down. They told us that we may be able to buy gas from the fisherman who was coming in from the sea in a few minutes. Indeed the fisherman was able to sell us some gasoline. He and his wife drove us up to his home where they had barrels of gasoline in his shed. He siphoned 5 gallons in to a black bucket for us, and charged us $6.00 a gallon for the gasoline. This was pretty fair considering the effort he has to go through to buy his gasoline up in Nassau, where it runs about 4.25 per gallon. We asked how far away town was, and his wife looked at us puzzled. The next settlement is about 4 miles away she answered. I didn't realize that we were in the middle of downtown Salina Point! I asked where the grocery store was, and he drove us down there. When we arrived, there was some yelling between homes to get someone to open the store for us. He explained that no one sits in the store waiting for a customer- they would have many days of waiting with no customers. When someone wants something, they open it up. The size of a garage, with about 20 items for sale, we felt obligated to buy something after all the effort it took everyone to open it for us. SO we bought some sodas, 2 for our driver, and some crackers, and potatoes that we would need to eat tonight or they would be rotten by tomorrow. The green peppers were just too far gone to buy, even if we ate them today. There was a sign for Mutton for 2.50 per pound ( goat), but they didn't have any left. He drove us back to the dock, and we got to chat a bit with him. I was interested to learn that he chose to live here because he could work for himself here, name his own hours, not have to do a 9-5 schedule. Some things never change no matter where you go I guess. I could relate to his wanting his own schedule .I was in the same seat a few years back when I became a realtor. Of course I got to name my own hours, but Im not a good boss- I worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Of course without that I wouldn't be here now either! This little settlement is the closest to the Bahamas 50 years ago that we have seen

He drove us back to the ramp, and helped us drag our dinghy back in to the water since the tide had gone out pretty far by this time. Patrick took some pictures of him cleaning the 4 conchs he caught that day. We got back to the boat, and left for Castle Island, about 7 miles to our south. Patrick was really looking forward to this anchorage he was here 30 years ago!

SO now we are anchored at Castle Island. Again the only boat in the place. Did everyone go home or something? I made some cracked conch and homemade corn bread in a frying pan while Patrick went out diving for dinner. He didn't come back with anything, except to say that the reefs are beautiful. We will have more luck tomorrow or at the very least see some fantastic corals and reef fish! During the late afternoon, we took a long walk on the beach, down to the deserted light house, cutting our way through overgrown vegetation. My legs bled when I stumbled upon a patch of thorns. These thorns were like fish hooks- once they had me there was a barb and it wouldn't let go! My skin stretched from the bone as we tried to pull them away. Oh well, at least we made it through the next part without injury. We found the lighthouse door ajar and were able to go inside. The stairs to the top were in great disrepair. Patrick told me to only stand on the side of each one where they joined the rusted metal spiral staircase up. Each step I took, I just assumed that the step would break out from underneath my feet and held on for dear life to the railings that weren't really in any better shape! I tried to ignore the spider webs, and spiders that had made their home between the stairs. I had pictures in my head of one of us falling from high up in the lighthouse, dangling, or actually falling and being injured, and what the hell would we do all the way out here. We are hundreds of miles away from any kind of medical facility. I was grateful that we at least have medical evacuation as part of our internatlonal medical insurance. Assuming we were able to contact them- its not like there is a telephone for a hundred miles in any direction! When we got to the top of the lighthouse, the door was rusted shut to the outside. Someone else had been more determined than us to get out on the railing and had broken a hole through one of the windows. It wasn't a neat job- there were lots of jagged daggers to slip your body past, on to the open air deck on the outside. Patrick went first, and I followed, wondering why I was so determined to be out there on that very rusted balcony suspended 100 or 200 feet above trees and rocks. We were rewarded with beautiful distant views of our boat, the entire island including 2 inland lakes, one dry and one sparkling with fresh water. We could see the wreck of a freighter from many years ago that crashed on the islands surrounding reefs, and could see the lack of any development of any kind other than the lighthouse and the deserted lighthouse keepers home. It was a beautiful beautiful view! How could we be so lucky to be here!!!

OH almost forgot- it was my birthday yesterday. Patrick decorated a delicious chocolate cake for me, and we made homemade pizza! I know - maybe lobster or a gourmet fish dinner was in order- but I was really craving pizza. SO we dug out some frozen hamburger, the green peppers and an onion, and some canned mushrooms, and had a pizza feast! And chocolate cake for dessert. Patrick decorated it with "HBD" in big letters, and with our absence of birthday candles, he had 2 matches burning on it for me to blow out! We watched a fun movie at night, and fell asleep holding eachother. How could one ask for a better birthday?

So we will spend the next few nights here at Castle Island, diving, and hiking, and exploring the wreck, and the reefs between here and Acklins Island a couple miles to our north. We will hopefully have fresh fish for dinner tomorrow night, but if not it will be lobsters or conch since we have those in our freezer as a staple food now. We are getting really used to this lifestyle. I'm not sure we can ever come back! I just said to Patrick again yesterday- how did we get so lucky? ..and he replied the same way as he ever does- "we made our own luck- the harder we worked, the luckier we got". I still think it's a lot about luck. How lucky are we to both want to be here in a big way, to have enough money to get us by without working for a while, and to have the competency to actually go to these places that the books warn you against going to, or just aren't on the cruising guides radars at all. I don't think I could do this with anyone except Patrick. He scares me to death anyways with some of the places we sneak in to but at least I know I'm in great hands! If I was with someone who had never done this before or showed signs of being nervous about it all I'm not sure Id go to half the places he convinces me to go! And I wouldn't be having half as much fun either!