We walked around Staniel Cay, made it to Pink Pearl Grocery for some Rum and ice cream for the boys. The locals were entertaining at the dock feeding the sharks and rays the leftover from their conchs cleaning. The boys named all the sharks in the bay. We left in the afternoon and went to anchor by Sandy Cay for some kite flying and a great soccer game. We then continued south to spend the night at Black Point. We left the next day, a great day of sailing, we tried our luck at fishing, and ended up feeding them instead of catching them. We anchored at Oven Rock off Farmer's Cay and explore the shore, went for a walk across the island to check out the east side of the island. The seas were still rough but the weather was forecast to ease off the next day.
The morning was calm and we took advantage to go through the narrow passage to the east side. We sailed down to Georgetown.

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Hi people,
The last few days, we have been sailing around in the Bahamas. Yesterday afternoon, after we anchored, we went to visit the marina. The locals boys were feeding the sharks the cleaning from the daily catch. They were huge. We don't know what kind of sharks they were but we will try to find out today. After that we went snorkeling with a scared feeling of being baits...
Anyone around Sampson Cay with kids should pay us a visit, because we can always use a good friend to play with.

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We left Nassau Saturday afternoon, and headed to Rose Island to position ourselves for the crossing to Allen's Cay. The next morning, we got up early to sail in rough water to the Exumas. The sailing was upwind and we had to do lots of tacking back and forward to get there. We got there just in time to see the cigarette boats unload a tour group to see the prehistoric iguanas that inhabit that island. We went to shore to have a better look and Simi was able to feed them grapes. Before dinner we went for a snorkel and saw lots of fish and also a few lobster. We tried to sling them but we are not very good and we also saw that they were pretty small, so we gave up. We will try our luck again soon. At dinner time there was only 4 boats left in the anchorage and we had a peaceful night.
The next morning, we went for another snorkel and then motored to Long Cay and anchored by a sea aquarium. It was so great to see the kids. Simi was so fascinated and Theo is starting to dive with the snorkel. John slinged a type of parrot fish (we thought that it was a grouper) we brought it back to the boat and at sundown we saw a dolphin fish coming to check out our bait. It was pretty neat to see the fish circling the boat for more food.
Today, we decided to move a greater distance, the north easterly wind was blowing just enough for us to put our spinnaker up for a good part of the trip. We traveled about 40 miles at about 8.5 knots. It was great sailing! We trailed a ballyhoo bait and caught a 3 foot Barracuda. Big fish with lots of big teeth, the kids want to save them for necklaces. We set anchor at Sampson Cay. We went for a dinghy tour to the marina. The locals were cleaning their daily catch and the sharks were pretty happy to get the leftovers. Noboby volunteered to snorkeled there, but we went around the corner of the bay for a quick look. The current was a bit strong for the kids. We stayed back in the bay. We went back to the boat for a fish barbecue. mmmm!

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We left Marsh Harbour on Wednesday afternoon with a 15 knots right on our butt. We sailed wing on wing (Jib to starboard, Main to port) amongs the shallows by Elbow Cay in less then 6 feet of water. We did not follow the charts close enough and had to back track a bit to avoid running aground. We made it to Little Harbour by dinner time. We went on a small excursion to the beach and some nice people from Papi, a Fontaine Pajot catamaran taught us how to harvest conch. The bay was littered with big ones. We collected a couple of harvested one for nice horns, which are use to wish to sun good night at sunset. The kids are having fun practicing their trumpet like blow on the conch horn. We also decided to try a live one and boiled it until it came out. We can't wait to try conch ceviche.
On Thursday morning, we left early to make the passage through the Northeast Providence Channel to Nassau. We arrive just in time for sunset. We had a nice sail again mostly wing on wing speeding up to 10 knots.
On Friday, we came to Nassau Harbour Club Marina to meet with Dirk and Thomas. We stayed at the Marina and took advantage of the water. Our water tanks needed a full scrub down. We noticed after crossing the Gulf Stream in the big waves that things got churned up and we did not like the colour of the water. Time to take to caulking out and see what has been growing in there for the last 9 years...
Nice to have fresh water!

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Sunday morning, we left Green Turtle Cay and traveled south to Great Guana Cay. We sailed through Whale Cay passage without to much too much excitement. We had turn back the day before , the sea conditions were creating some breaking waves over the shallow area. Simi met a friend Tobi who traveled with us while his parents on "Windswept" a Whitby 42 followed closely to the anchorage. Soon upon arrival to the south end of Great Guana, we got our snorkeling gear and headed for the reef. We saw some big rays and meter needle fish. We made it back to the boat for dinner and chess.
Today (Monday), we had Windswept over for some computer lessons...Rich was able to download the Nobeltec program that cousin Jean-Pierre copied for us. We will have fun in the next few days experimenting with it. In the afternoon, the wind direction changed and we decided that it would be better to make it to Marsh Harbour where the anchorage would be more protected. We left Guana just in time to get rained on. We arrive at Marsh Harbour and dinghied over to shore and strolled down main street. We made it back to the boat to organize dinner.

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We arrived in the Bahamas after a 2 overnight sail from St-Augustine. We left sunny Florida on Friday afternoon, the bridge of Lions bid us farewell at 1500hrs. The seas were fairly calm and the winds not too strong. We had a good sail but ended up doing some motoring during the first night. Soon after sunrise we decided that if we wanted to cross the Gulf Stream, we needed to do it in the next 24 hours or else wait it out in beautiful southern Florida... so we crossed, the unusual way! From Cape Carnaveral across to the Abacos. The current was strong and sometimes wonder if we were making any head way but after a long night and a rainy morning in the middle of nowhere north of the Bahamas, we arrived. Land-ho, the kids were happy to say! We have some friends from St-Augustine that joined us for the crossing and it made it easier on John and I. A bit more sleep always helps. We came through Powell Cay Channel with a bit of apprehension as there are quite a few breakers on either side and then continued south to Nunjack Cay where we anchored. The boys were soon swimming around the boat while I prepared our first dinner in the tropics. We had a beautiful night at anchor.
The next morning we snorkeled and kayaked and played in the water. We then had to make it to the Customs office to make our entrance official. We continued south to Green Turtle cay for customs. We anchored in White sound. That night was horrible. I woke John up at around 0200. The wind had picked up 30-35+ knots. There were several boats in the anchorage that had problems with their anchors and some boats actually played bumpercars...not a pretty scene. Fortunately we were out on the outskirts and away from the crashes though the mangroves were a bit too close for comfort and the depth read 1.2 feet under the boat. We kept watch all night... we moved the next morning in a bit more water 2.5 feet under the boat. it will tke some time to get used to the shallowness of this boaters' paradise.

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