Heading North
28 March 2012 | 26 29.88'N
March 12, 2012
We are finally in the land of good internet service again.
We finally moved from the Jumentos around February 28 and went to Thompson Bay, Long Island. We stayed there for about a week and got to the Island Breeze for my Philly Cheese Steak fix. When you are down here any good food is exciting.
We left Thompson Bay and went to Red Shanks, Exumas, just outside of George Town to chill and relax for about a week. It is very quiet and beautiful here, but only a short dinghy ride into George Town if you need something, but away from all the foolishness you get when you anchor anywhere near Volleyball Beach . We spent our time here with a boat we met in Thompson Bay – “Quality Time” from Ontario.
We moved on to George Town, Exumas because we had to go to Immigration to get more time in the Bahamas. We only got 90 days when we landed in Nassau.
We met up with a lot of old friends here, so that was nice. We sailed in two races on a boat from Nova Scotia “No Justice” Warren and Diane from LaHave River Yacht Club. LaHave was well represented, with No Justice, Glory Days, Quick Stix and Moxi. We had a lot of fun with them.
Barry entered a volleyball Tournament and his team came in first place – who would have thought. He won a bottle of rum.
We met up with Sam the Skull and Sapphire after having to leave them in the Jumentos – reunions are always fun.
The internet was very poor in George Town, as there was about 230 boats there draining all the band width.
We were having good luck with the boat, and then some gremlins moved on board and entered our water maker. Barry worked all day replacing seals and it still leaks – too tired to do anymore, but will tackle it another day.
We left Georgetown March 10 and headed for Big Majors Spot and caught a Mahi Mahi on the way – we lost another one – we only stayed overnight there. We then moved up to Highborne Cay and stayed one night before we moved on to Fresh Creek, Andros. Fresh Creek is where we were stranded three years ago and met a lot of wonderful people. It was like old home week. We had a party every night we were there. Bicycle John (not dancing John) came one day and picked us up and took us to a Blue Hole for swimming in fresh water for the afternoon – that was a lot of fun. Windrush, Bruce and Val from Nova Scotia were at Fresh Creek also. We borrowed Audrey’s car and went north so Val could get a prescription filled at the pharmacy. Barry stayed back at the boat and worked on the water maker and managed to switch parts from our hand held water maker and fixed it – yeah. The trip up north to Nicols Town was fun as Bruce and Val had never been up there before. We went to the Mennonite farm and managed to get fresh veggies – like green beans, cucumbers, etc. etc. We drove to Morgan’s Bluff (this is where Barry and I usually check into the Bahamas) so Bruce and Val could check it out. In usual Bahamian style we went to the pharmacy and it was “closed for a few hours”. We went next door and asked if they knew where his was. They said he wasn’t there all day. Off we went to Batelco (telephone Company) to see if we could use their phone to call him at the number he left on the door. The lady there said, everyone is wondering where he is this morning; I’ll call a friend of his. She called and found out he was in court, and the courthouse was next door. Off we went to court. We got there to find out he just left. We went to lunch and used their phone this time and finally got hold of him and picked up her prescription on the way back. But it is so funny how these small communities know everyone’s business. Lucky for us they did. The Bahamian people are so friendly and helpful – it is so nice to see.
We left Fresh Creek March 16th and tried to go into Frasers Hogg Cay, in the Berry’s but found it too rough to stay so we headed up to Alder’s Cay and stayed the night there. Bruce and Val went to Bond Cay, they have a catamaran and could go in there – it was too shallow from that direction for us to go in. We went to Bond Cay the following day from a different direction and stayed there for a few days. We have been watching the weather and have decided to wait here then leave to go straight to Lacaya which will be an overnighter. Band Cay has a few good beaches on it, so we went for walks and I collected shells for Sienna’s kindergarten class. We found a sunken life raft in the shallows here and managed to salvage a few items off of it. The rumour is that Shakira (singer) bought this island and is going to build a house here. On the beach we found a pile of rubbish that was left behind, it looks like they were planning a big party and just abandoned everything for some reason. There are folding tables, chairs, tiki lamps, charcoal starters etc. etc. Weird. They have also built part of a dock and up on the hill they have constructed a platform which we guess is to show what view from the house will have.
There are a lot of flats here, so just riding in the dinghy we saw lots of rays, a shark and quite a few big fish just swimming along – one was an ocean trigger and of course there are always the flying fish that you disturb just by going by.
Bruce and Barry have gone hunting a few times and came back with trigger fish and lobster. There were some greater amberjacks, but no one has room for all that meat, so they left them. March 20th is our son Stephen’s birthday so we dinghied back over to Alder Cay where we got free internet so we could e-mail happy birthday to him. It is a private island so we stayed in the dinghy and brought our little computer with us and e-mailed from out there. It was rather funny to be sitting in a dinghy and doing internet.
Another funny thing happened - Barry decided to go up on deck for something and it was very fortunate that he did as he thought he heard some yelling, so he looked around and saw one person on the beach and no dinghy. He thought that was strange so looked around and saw their dinghy floating out to sea – all by itself. He jumped in our dinghy and went after it. He managed to get it (it was a long way out) and towed it back to the beach to very happy people. Barry was a hero that day and we got invited out to dinner on their boat.
We decided to leave the Berries and head to Lacaya a day later than planned as the wind never did die down when it was supposed to. We watched a 60ft+, four spreader sailboat leave Alder Cay Cut and it was burying its bow so we thought it would bury our whole boat, maybe we should leave tomorrow, Friday, March 16th. We were bored so we left early in the day and sailed along the coast. We were making too good of time –( usually you want to make good time, but we wanted to land in Lacaya in daylight and we figured it would take about 16 hours to cross) – so we stopped at Little Stirrup Cay and rested for a few hours. We decided that we couldn’t go more than 4kts or we would arrive in the dark, so we keep taking sail in. We fished along the way and caught two barracudas in thousands of feet of water. You should never catch barracuda out there (we hate them) we never did get any good fish, but we did manage to catch a bright pink air mattress floating by, of course we would rather it have been a rib inflatable – oh well.
We arrived in Lacaya around 6am, Saturday, March 24th and it doesn’t get light until 6:30-7:00, so we slowed down to 2kts and only had to kill half an hour. We made it into the Lacaya canals and anchored. There used to be two marinas here, but one shut down the day before we got here (of course it was the cheap one), it is a beautiful marina, so sad to see it fail. We dinghied into town and were quite surprised at how nice it is. It is very touristy, but we are ready for that after spending so much time in isolation on the islands. We went to a bar that serves two beers (corona included) for $5 and mixed drinks, Bahama Momma, Pina Colada etc. for $5. We found a Greek restaurant and ordered half a chicken meal for $8 etc. etc. We saw people going by with the most amazing looking ice cream (haven’t had any for six months) but we were too full to get one – we will go back. We should be here at least until Thursday due to weather – oh well might have to go to the casino and up to Freeport etc. etc. Lots to do here. There is a huge tall ship across from us called Ghost. It was used in the film “Pirates of the Caribbean”. There appears to be a “crazy” Bahamian living on board. He sings and dances and talks (to himself) for hours. He hangs from the wires, bow sprit etc. etc. Quite entertaining, but a little sad. We were going to town this morning with Dyad (Dave and Kathy), but a freak storm was passing by with thunder and lightning (we never see that down here) so we decided to say on board the boat, so Dyad invited us over for dinner this evening and we will go to town tomorrow.
Took the local bus into Freeport – not too much to see there, then we took another bus to Ocean Reef Marina. Some of our friends go there for a while so we thought we would check it out. It is a very nice place, but there seems to be more to do in Port Lacaya.
We are slowly making our way back to the US to catch our flights to Ottawa (to visit our son Stephen and his wife Marlies) on April 20th, and then back to Chilliwack for six months.