Haida Legend Adventures

After 10 years, we’re back on the water!

22 January 2017 | Yuma
20 January 2017 | Al Godones
17 January 2017
13 January 2017 | Yuma Arizona
09 January 2017 | Yuma Arizona
03 January 2017 | Arizona/New Mexico Border
01 January 2017 | Benson
30 December 2016 | Tombstone
29 December 2016 | Benson Arizona
27 December 2016 | North RV Park, Marathon Texas
26 December 2016 | Seminole Canyon
25 December 2016 | San Antonio River Walk
23 December 2016 | Bourbon St. New Orleans
19 December 2016 | Memphis South RV Park, Coldwater Mississippi
18 December 2016 | Bowling Green Kentucky
17 December 2016
16 December 2016 | KITCHENER On Route rest stop
25 August 2014
24 August 2014

Ep. 61 Lookin’ Out My Backdoor

01 February 2025 | Staniel Cay
Bill Bernaerts | awesomeness
We're making short hops down the island chains these days as there are lots of great anchorages to check out. The weather has seemed to calm down a lot with wind pretty consistent out of the east or northeast in the 8-14 knot range. We anchor close to shore where ever possible so the wind is coming off shore with minimal wave action.

https://youtu.be/JEdPlhpaVLM?si=ZylW-WAmFgY_WZmp

As we moved south we were starting to see more civilization and we ended up in Staniel Cay. This is where I had my anodes flown in at the very reasonable cost of $45 high included the brokerage paperwork for the government. We anchored in a mooring field with about 50 other boats. The beach in front of us turned out to be pig beach. This is a tourist trap where you can go and feed the pigs that swim out to meet you. Apparently they can be quite aggressive and we had little interest so we just watch through the binoculars from the boat.

https://youtube.com/shorts/qAtpmGxgxHU?si=uvzmpnQlxgJL8IQb

We also had the opportunity to get fuel so we loaded our jerry cans into the dinghy and headed to the fuel dock. Larry, whose boat holds a few hundred gallons of fuel unfortunately had to fill his tanks and had to actually go and wait in line to tie up to the dock. There is only 1 diesel and 1 gas pump so when a big boat comes n to refuel it takes a considerable amount of time. Guys like me with 4 x 20 litre jugs get filled while the big boats are arriving and departing so I got filled within a few minutes in between big boats. Oh, and if the fuel prices being +$6/ US gallon isn enough, they charge the big boats a "convenience fee" of $25 for the privilege of tying up to their dock to refuel!

In the afternoon we headed ashore to re-provision as we needed milk, bread, a few veggies and eggs. There were 2 store choices, The Pink Store and The Blue Store. We ended up going to both. Selection was limited but you're in a 3rd world country so it was good just to have the opportunity to get food. They had most of the staples as well as some fruits and vegetables.

Our experience with the bread in the Bahamas has been interesting. On Grand Bahama Island we could get commercially baked bread similar to what you get back home. We're not sure what all is in it but it lasted 2 weeks and still wasn't going stale so I'm sure it was all natural ingredients. Down here they bake bread locally and it is very dense and is more like cake than bread....and it's awesome. So we got both! Not sure about the carb content on it either!

https://youtu.be/ftsFcQHv9Ik?si=g39i6nshbF8Tj3lx

On Tuesday morning we had the privilege of being woken up naturally....by a rooster at 4 am! There are lots of them down here and this one was on Newfoundland time as he was 3 hours before sunrise! But that gave us lots of time to get ready to hoist anchor for the next bay. We also discovered that my wetsuit decided to jump ship overnight. We had both suits hanging well inside the cockpit to dry and somehow mine managed to slip of the linens make it over the stern, over the dinghy and head off onto its own adventure out to sea. We searched for close to an hour along the shorelines and through the channels but with a 3 knot current it's on its way to Africa at this point!


today's shot lookin' out my back door at our trusty dinghy waiting to take us on another local adventure.

Ep 60 Reggae Shark

01 February 2025 | Cambridge Cay
Bill Bernaerts | Awesome
Another excellent day enjoying the weather and surroundings. We did a snorkel trip to a place called the aquarium which was a steep sided island into about 15' of water, with coral down the slope and on the bottom. The fish diversity here was amazing to say the least! The colours on some, such as the large angel fish looked to artificial to be real....but they weren't! The following clip for youtube is a very fine representation of what it was like so enjoy!

https://stanielcayadventures.com/discover-the-beauty-of-the-aquarium-in-the-exuma-land-and-sea-park-near-johnny-depps-island/#:~:text=The%20Aquarium%20in%20the%20Exuma%20Land%20and%20Sea%20Park%20is,your%20head%20under%20the%20water.
.

aquarium video https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=the%20aquarium%20snorkel%20site%20in%20the%20bahamas&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:c823d15e,vid:OcN61xKQ6Fo,st:0

We also were very close to a private island which was developed by Johnnie Depp. There were several buildings, a large wharf and a few beaches with pavilions. Supposedly he had to sell it recently due to his legal issues and JK Rowling, of Harry Potter fame is now the new owner.

https://youtu.be/-jXzSBgvmlM?si=8E_LGjX1mxC38DA9

One other thing about this area is the abundance of rays and sharks. They seem to come by later in the day and sometimes circle around the boat a few times. Larry was in the water at the stem of his boat and saw a couple of fair sized sharks swim by. When 1 of them turned around and started to head back he got out of the water. Nurse sharks are light brown and fairly docile but these were darker in colour and we think reef sharks.

(today's song is 1 of those tunes that you can't get out of your head once you hear it. You've been warned!)

https://youtu.be/A3ytTKZf344?si=UR39ccnNrgqz_Gta

Last night we had a pot luck dinner on their boat and afterwards Lynn threw some scraps into the water off the stern. Their boat has under water lights and within a couple of minutes there were a multitude of fish, including 3 reef sharks. I'm to sure exactly how big they were
but our 9' dinghy was trailing off their stern and these guys were almost as long! It was pretty dramatic seeing them swim in and out of the lit area. We're guessing that boaters have a history of clearing their meal scraps overboard on a nightly basis so this could explain why we see them later in the afternoon. We'll go with that as it makes us feel better that they aren't cruising around during the day while we're in the water!

https://youtu.be/_7IITLEr5Nw?si=TLm0dtD6kDSWRBUb


Today's shot is of us after a snorkelling trip. Sam is trolling for Prince Charming to come and fit here with a missing fin in this land of make believe....but it's really this beautiful!!!,

Ep 59 Khan fidence Man

30 January 2025 | Waderwick Wells Anchorage
Bill Bernaerts | Pretty Windy.
Another day in paradise. We had the park warden come by for a visit to the mooring field his morning. All anchoring and mooring ball usage requires a fee which you can arrange on line. It's on the honour system and we were legal but the warden Andre, is the guy we did the electrical repairs for so we've made some good connections. (in wiring and with the staff!)

We went for a dinghy ride to scope the place out and saw a sailboat motoring fairly quickly well outside the channel and we're just in the right place to watch him go aground...at speed! Luckily it was sand but his boot stripe (waterline indicator on hull) was 6" out of the water so he was up on the sand good. We tried to push his bow around so he could motor out back into deeper water but he was stuck. And as a bonus, his exhaust pipe was dumping his cooling water into his dinghy while he tried to get free.

I told him to check his bilge to make sure he hadn't done any damage to his keel joint as sometime hard groundings will crack the joint and allow water in. Again, this was an example of a guy being a bit dazed by this. His wife blamed the chartplotter but they were well outside of the channel on the charts so this was pilot error. Oh, and the name of the boat was Northern Star! So that's 2 groundings in 3 days that we know about. Luckily it was low tide so he just had to wait it out for a few hours before he could refloat later in the day. He ended up anchoring a fair distance from us so that was a relief.

We got treat at 8:30 pm when a rocket launch was staged in Florida. We are 340 nm from the cape but we actually saw the rocket rising at an angle to the horizon with our eyes. It was even better with the binoculars with a huge parabolic wave of gas with the rocket's flame in the centre. It was heading north and we could see it for ~3 minutes.

Lynn and Larry spent a few months at this anchorage a few years back as mooring field hosts so they know all the best spots. A they took s snorkelling at a place called Rocky Dundas, which is a couple of caves in the rocky shoreline that can be entered from the water. we waited for low tide so there was air space in the opening vs having to dive down to get through the entrance. there were very large caverns inside maybe 30' high by 120' wide with stalactites hanging down. A very neat experience. Here's a youtube video posted by another boater:

https://youtu.be/TdUuambZcUU?si=8HCR7zRqFsfXrBbl

If you look on the map there is a place called Bell Island, which privately owned by the Aga Khan. Ahi's name may ring a bell as he was involved in a Khantroversy a few years back when Justin Trudeau and family vacationed here over Christmas. The opposition took exception to this as it betrayed the khanfidence the public put in the PM to not receive favours or gifts from people as it may khompromise his ability to remain impartial. (Ok, I'll stop now!)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Island_(The_Bahamas)#:~:text=The%20island%20was%20purchased%20for,controlled%20by%20the%20Aga%20Khan.

https://youtu.be/uQwqSrPdwjQ?si=NK3IbqX3WLR1F6Kj


Today's shot is the mooring field in Cambridge Cay. The large vessel in the centre of the shot is some super yacht with a group of Italians on it. Lots of jet skis and toys and the staff set up a beach lunch for them complete with candlesticks! This is roughing it in the Bahamas I guess. Also in this shot you can see the pendant line leading from the mooring ball to Amaruq. This is what got caught in the sailboat's rudder in Warderwick Wells (previous post)

Ep 58 One Thing Leads to Another

27 January 2025 | Cambridge Cay
Bill Bernaerts | perfect.
The park office is a very rustic place that runs on generator power as it is waaaaay off the beaten track. There is a main reception office as well as some out buildings for staff residences, a workshop , storage and a few other buildings for staff only access. Larry has years of history visiting here on his boat and he asked if there were any jobs that needed doing based on his mechanical expertise. Apparently there was a laundry list of things to do, all electrical related.

The complex runs on generator power, of which they have 3 trailer mounted units, a main, a backup and a 3 which was not working. They also had a new hot water tank they needed to have installed. It was fairly easy as a straight swap out, with their maintenance guy Steve completing the plumbing portion. Steve knows a lot about the systems of the complex but he doesn't touch power. Better that he stays away due to the danger component when he knows that he doesn't know enough to work on it safely.

I guess we passed the test because 1 thing leads to another and we then were asked to get the power fixed to the workshop and a washroom, both of which had been dead for quite some time. We went slow and were very careful as there was no telling how this place was wired. The 3rd world electrical code was alive and well here meaning anything goes. We ended up finding burned through wiring in 2 locations being the ultimate cause of popping breakers. After a day and a half of replacing wire runs (surprisingly they had spare wire but none of the associated hardware required to do a proper job) we things up and running! Not my finest work but compared to what was there...... anyway, it works and is safer than it was.

The park staff were very pleased and gave us a couple of free nights on mooring balls as thanks. It was great to help out as help and expertise is very hard to come by in this neighbourhood.

https://youtu.be/JHYIGy1dyd8?si=Y3MWdR0Hmx8z31lw

Over the course of 3 days while we waited out the wind we had several boats coming and going. The tide going through the mooring field is pretty strong at times and reverses twice daily, so that means boats on moorings reverse the direction they are pointing due to current and surprisingly the wind makes them do funny things as well. We watched 2 boats come into the field at different times go aground because they tried to pass on the wrong side of the moored boats. Not sure why they did this as the charts have good depth contours on them and visually you can see where it is shallow. One boat, Northern Star, (remember that boat name) came in pretty fast and ground to a haunt, very close to Amaruq. Luckily he managed to get turned and powered off the bottom eventually mooring on the ball beside us. ( we let out a big sigh of relief upon seeing that)

Th next day we heard on the radio that a sailboat had struck another boat on its mooring and was stuck. We dinghied over to find the sailboat pinned against the bow of a trawler by the current with the mooring ball pendant ( the floating line attached to the mooring ball that you tied your bait to) stuck in the sailboat's rudder. Larry and I first secured the sailboat to the pendant and then got the reluctant trawler skipper to move to a different mooring ball. The current was rippin' through at about 3 knots so there is no way you're going to fight that with a 25000 lb boat.

The park warden came with his twin 200hp patrol boat and we got him to pull the boat's stern up current which eased the tension on the stuck line so we could pull it free. Once we got that done the sailboat was free and the skipper as drifting downstream quickly in the current. He was a bit dazed by this all and I had to give him instructions to get his boat turned around before he got blown ashore. I've seen this a few times on Coast Guard rescues where people in trouble seem to be in various stages of shock or confusion and that's what we had here. Luckily the guy started to listen to me and got the boat turned back into the current. I had my Brighton Rescue hat on so I think that may have helped in the credibility department. I went to the bow and got his mooring lines on the ball before we had further issues and the boat was secure. His wife was very grateful as she was the deck crew normally and had some physical challenges even under normal circumstances.


Nice sunset on the last evening at Wardewick. I was at the BBQ doing a nice pork tenderloin and saw 4 eagle rays circling around the boat a few times as well as a nurse shark. I guess they have acquired a taste for pork from Pig Beach (a few cays south of here)?

Ep. 57 Green Onions

25 January 2025 | Waderwick Wells
Bill Bernaerts | Windy and overcast/rain.
Settled in to the anchorage for a few days as a big blow which is going to clock around the compass is forecast. This anchorage has pretty good protection from most directions and we're on a mooring ball so a lot more secure than on anchor, which could drag a bit if the direction of pull on the rode changes. The waterway in here is pretty tight with the blue channel being the deeper water, approx. 12' at high tide, with sand bars along the shoreline and in the middle so it's important to stay in the channel.

I did a dive to check out the boat bottom as we were not getting to the speed we should have under power. Larry had found some fishing line wrapped around his drive shafts and props so I thought we could have either the same thing or we had a lot of growth on the bottom from sitting in the marina for 2 months.

So I jump in and go under and the first thing I see are 2 fish roughly 3' in length beside our keel. My first reaction was sharks! But upon a second look they turned out to be remoras. These fish are freeloaders that usually attach themselves to larger fish like sharks and rays and clean up bay food scraps. Why they decided to attach to our hull is anyone's guess but they may have contributed to our slower speed.

https://youtu.be/yzDWWzDenZQ?si=4XWYc6eKwoOswzSO

So after getting over that surprise, I had a look at our prop and found that the sacrificial anodes on our propellor and drive shaft were virtually gone! These anodes are on the boats metal equipment and are designed to decay over time due to electrolysis between the water and the metal on the boat. These anodes were new in the spring when the boat was launched and I did buy units that were supposed to suitable for salt water. But, they're gone now. Anodes come in 3 different metals, aluminum, zinc and magnesium. Zinc is the proper metal for salt water, which was what I had bought from the supplier last spring.

The boats electrical system is all grounded and all metal components are bonded together including the rigging, mast, deck fill inlets, keel and engine. The thinking is that should the boat get struck by lightning there is a path to ground which is the water, But, if you read 1 of my earlier posts shore power in a marina can cause stray current to leak out into the water, which is a bad thing for both the boat and any live thing around that boat.

When we were at Ocean Reef and connected to shore power we had a few cases of our reverse polarity light coming on for no apparent reason. this means the positive and negative current flow as getting reversed. I found that if I unplugged and then re plugged in our shorepower cord the reversal was cleared. Not sure how this could happen, and intermittently at that, but I am thinking this may have a connection (pun intended) to our mysterious disappearing anode situation.

Larry carries a lot of spares for his boat as it is much bigger and has a lot of metal below the waterline. So he lent me a small zinc which I connected to the rigging via a copper wire and hung into the water. This is a temporary measure while I order and receive a set of new units from Florida. I have to have them flown in as there are very few marine suppliers in this part of the world. So they should be arriving by the 29th being flown into Staniel Cay, which is on our destination course.

Meanwhile, we were doing some boat cleaning as we were getting a build up of salt from the spray on the deck and our feet from being in the water when going to the beach. With high humidity the companionway steps and floors inside the boat were getting covered in salt which was sticky when dry and slick when damp. So we washed the cockpit and the steps and floors inside and now have a dunk bucket to clean our feet before going below. It seems to have really cut down on the problem. These are things nobody covers in their utopian Youtube episodes.

Sam did some inventory of food stashes as we will be in a place with a grocery store this coming week. She found that a bag of onions had started to go as they had been wet when they were purchase. Also the choice was thrown them out or salvage what we could and cook them up. Getting ride of garbage is a problem for boaters. Organic scan be thrown overboard if you are 3 miles offshore but not in anchorages so throwing them out was not our first option. So in efforts to avoid the 96 tears that goes along with onion peeling, we set up chopping station in the cockpit where there was plenty of ventilation, courtesy of the days old 20 knot wind blowing, and timed the bad parts and diced the reminder. Sam then fired them up and they're now in the refrigerator awaiting use in many of Sam's excellently creative recipes.

https://youtu.be/DE8ThaDaUdw?si=_XuvqdsJhf4cu9fo

Today's photo is looking at the mooring field and the different colours of water indicating both depth and bottom composition.

Ep. 56 Twist and Shout

22 January 2025 | Warderick Wells
Bill Bernaerts | Awesome
Heading down from the Berries to Rose Island anchorage on Monday, a 50nm journey. We were able to motorsail for some of the way. We had to cross over a stretch of water known as the tongue of the ocean. If you look on Google Earth you will see the dark blue section of water that looks like a mixed up musical note, running between the Exumas and Andros Island. the deepest contour line we crossed on the chart was 10800'....that's 2 miles deep in case your imperial measurement knowledge is a bit rusty. Speaking of rusty, stainless steel is a misnomer as ours needs repeated polishing to keep the rust and corrosion under control in this harsh salt environment.

But I digress. We had several rain storms blowing around during the day and I got a chance to fine tune my radar skills setting the rain clutter function to pick up the storm cells. This allowed us to track their movement in relation to our course and determine if we had to button up the cockpit canvas to stay dry during a downpour. It got pretty warm during those squalls inside but luckily they didn't last too long.

As the high rises on Nassau came into clear view there was a black cloud layer hovering over the island. A few minutes later I looked around our jib
which was blocking our starboard side view and spotted a very big, black twister (officially a waterspout when it heads out over water) heading slowly east off the end of Nassau....right where we were heading! We immediately stopped the boat and furled in our sail in preparation for the worst. I tracked the storm on radar and saw we were about 5 miles out yet we could see this thing which was almost the same width from top to bottom vs the typical funnel shape...so this thing was BIG! It looked like it blew itself out after a few minutes as it, and the squall were tracking slowly to the southeast, so away from us.

We heard some excited boaters shouting on the vhf with reports that it passed them by 300' and there were actually 3 of them in total. It is fair to say my baby was a little shaken up on this one. We managed to get into the anchorage a hour later unscathed but with a new 1 to add to our boating experience. we were kinda busy at the time figuring our action plan if it came our way so didn't get a chance to take any photos. Sam later read that funnel clouds are more common in the summer so we were lucky to see one off season!?

https://youtu.be/7VhlSmPNsDA?si=9FxxsKkRCLUdEBvL

Over the next 2 days we were sailing on the Bahamas Bank , which is the shallow bank shown in the multi-hued green colour on the google earth shot below. Here the water depth averages about 20' with many coral heads and other obstacles to navigate around. Looking over the side of the boat is a bit unnerving at first as the water is so clear you think you're about to go aground at any moment. But Sam did a masterful job of plotting navigation courses through the bad stuff until. A and just like that we aired in the Exumas!

We consider this part of the Bahamas that people dream about when they hear the word. We are in Wardewick Wells anchorage which is part of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, est. in 1958. It is the first land and sea park in the world and it is awesome! We managed to get a mooring ball for 5 nights as there is a big blow coming on the weekend so we nice and secure in an anchorage with protection from most directions except for 2 cuts coming into the basin.

This video url shows many of the spots in the park...we are on a mooring ball that is shown at about the 1:30 min mark and it really does look like this...no colour enhancements or editing to make it look this good!

https://youtu.be/nuWGf75m5Yg?si=0idnnvo1wDBuPVA-

There is a whale skeleton displayed on the beach that washed up dead many years ago. Apparently it died due to ingesting plastic so this is a world wide problem that seems to be getting worse. ( they showed a shot it in the above video.)

(bonus song from Yes from their heyday)
https://youtu.be/RNfYtjQZcv0?si=D4QwKIxBhAS0jFX1

our shot today is a google maps photo of the tongue of the ocean and the Bahamas yellow bank. We started this leg of the journey from the Berry Islands at the end of the chain south of Bullock Harbour to Rose Island east of Nassau (watch out for the twister) down to the Exumas with 1 night in Shroud Cay and to our mooring field at the Sea Park Visitors Center.

Vessel Name: Amaruq
Vessel Make/Model: Tartan 3500
Hailing Port: Brighton On
Crew: Bill, Sam and Finn (Dinghy Dog) sadly Finn is no longer with us.(sniff!)
About:
Bill and Sam retired in 2014 and took off for an 8 week, 1400 mile cruise of the Trent Canal, Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and home again to home port. In 2018 they traded their boat for a 5th wheel and cruised the US southwest for 2 winters. [...]
Extra: Follow their adventures as they knock 1 more thing off their bucket list.