Paradise Found
24 April 2007 | Long Island, Bahamas
Jeannette
We made landfall on Long Island somewhere around March 12? You lose track of the days sometimes out here and I don't have our logbook handy. We anchored in Joe's Sound on the North end of the island. Beautiful, harrowing entrance channel in about 4 feet of water, 7 feet across - just barely wide and deep enough for us to squeeze through. We made it and holed up for several days to wait out a blow. Very pretty shallow areas, good for gunkholing. We found a blue hole and fished it, standing on the edge with our rods, I caught and released a small Nasseau grouper. Saw a good sized nurse shark cruising the flats and met some nice cruisers. Walked about 2.5 miles to the posh Cape Santa Maria resort for happy hour, we heard they served free conch fritters, and they did! That was fun and the sunset there was amazing. After the wind died down, we headed to "our beach". Last year, we bought some property here and there is a nice anchorage right out in front, we dropped the hook and went ashore to plant some coconuts we'd collected on our land. We didn't want to spend the night there, too exposed, so we went on down to Thompson Bay near Salt Pond and dropped the hook there. It is a great anchorage. Large, but well protected. A beautiful white stone church sits high on a hill overlooking the bay. There is a great beach with no development and a freshwater well along a path to the road where many cruisers do laundry. We use it to fill up our sunshower. There is nice diving close enough to dingy to and a grocery store not far up the road. Since we've been here we've explored three different caves, climbed dilly trees, planted another 29 coconuts on our property, met so many new friends and dove several blue holes. A highlight of our trip this year has been meeting William Trubridge, world record holder free-diver. Will is from New Zealand and he has trained here on Long Island at Dean's Blue Hole for two years now. On April 11th, he dove on a single breath without fins or any other help to 82 meters, that's 264.2 feet! He is 26 years old and a really amazing guy. We were there the day he broke the record. He had diver's and friends here from the UK, New Zealand and Brazil. Brian and I have gotten really interested in free-diving since we've been hanging out with them and learning more about it. Check out William's site verticalblue.net. I can't even tell you how cool it is. We took the vertical blue crew out sailing one day and had a great time. I'm in the process of getting my open water scuba diving certification and Brian is getting recertified, he completed the course when he was 16 yrs old, so he's doing a refresher. We've met some great people here, expats and locals and cruisers and divers. Everything is going great. Charlie the dog is doing well, he has lots of doggie friends here and loves going to Dean's Blue Hole to watch the free-diver's training. Jack the cat is doing okay, we don't spend as much time on the boat while we're here, just coffee and sleeping, but Jack sleep during the day anyway so I don't think it's that bad. We'll be returning to the states soon, don't really know when yet, but it's getting to be that time. Check ya later.