We arrive early morning at Atwood Harbour, Crooked Islands. We spend the day surfing behind the dinghy. The kids had a great time! They all stood up and Dirk tried hanging ten but only made 8 or so before the big splash! We were the only people in the bay but a couple on Mercury II, a Hatteras 65'. The hired captain and his wife were bringing the boat back to Florida. We traded them a wweather report for a better chart of the Turks and Caicos.
We had a long sail ahead to the Turks and Caicos and then to Dominican Republic, so it was all R&R...
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05/08/2008
We left early morning for Rum Cay. The sailing was good for a while but then, we had to turn the motors on as we had to head straight into the wind. We stopped at Rum Cay for a snorkel. It was a bit dodgie navigating into Flamingo bay avoiding lots of corals heads. The snorkeling was not super though Simi and I saw a big turtle. We had dinner there and continued south towards the Crooked Islands for an overnight sail.
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05/06/2008
After a couple of days in Georgetown, we left early morning for Long Island. Sailing on the east side in Exuma sound, we decide to try our luck at fishing. We were told that fishing in the shallow waters of the Bahama bank, you only catch Barracudas which retain a high mercury content. We bought some ballyhoo for bait, which cost almost as much as the fish fillets, but... not the same is it! After a long day of sailing almost as we arrive at Calabash we finally got lucky with a mahi-mahi, dorado or dolphin fish as they call it here in the Bahamas. As John was cleaning the fish, I decided that we may as well continue fishing with the other rod, lucky again. This time, it was a big one. 45 lbs dolphin fish. Sushi that night! It was delicious. We spend 2 nights there. At Calabash bay there is a resort that is round by Oak Bay Marine from Victoria. It is quite beautiful, and anybody wanted to get away to a honeymoon type place should check it out...
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05/03/2008
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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05/01/2008, Sampson Cay
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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04/30/2008, Sampson Cay
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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