We are once again on our own after enjoying the past 10 days with our friends on Vanish. Our eyes have become so thoroughly biased with the outstanding features of this vessel that it was a joy showing these veteran yachties a complete tour of all the systems and features built into our boat. After 8 or 9 days I finally asked our guests if there was anything, anything at all they would have done differently or anything we should change and they both shook their heads and said, “Absolutely not. She’s perfect!” And I can tell you that we took them out through Whale Cut where a rage sea was building to see how she handled, we anchored many times and went through every locker and bilge and tried all systems on Vanish so this speaks volumes.

The Abacos have proven to be a wonderful place to entertain guests as there are so many cays with excellent protection. We visited Elbow Cay, Tilloo Cay, Lubbers Quarters, Man O’ War Cay, and Green Turtle Cay. These Out Islands are well serviced by the Donny and Bolo ferries which run all day ferrying tourists and workers back and forth between the islands. We’ve had excellent wifi coverage, good stores in which to provision and buy alcohol, excellent restaurants and bars to try local drinks such as the Goombay Smash and Bahama Mamas, and interesting towns with hundreds of years of history associated with them.

A couple of days ago Nick and Alison hopped onto the ferry called Bolo IV at New Plymouth on Green Turtle Cay. They headed off to meet Mark Anthony’s taxi which whisked them off to the Marsh Harbor Airport to start their long journey back to Australia. We left Green Turtle Cay the next day and headed 30 miles north to Allan’s Cay. On the way, we passed Spanish Cay which has been hard hit by Hurricane Sandy. The sea has washed across the narrowest part of the cay at the southern end of the airstrip and washed away all vegetation and buildings located there leaving nothing but sand. We saw 2 boats washed well up onto the shoreline where a photo in our guide book showed thick green bush. The 80 berth marina was apparently open but had no boats and some of the walkways were skewed.

Some cays are worse hit than others and this all depends on the direction of the hurricane winds and associated ocean swells. If you ever think of buying an island getaway, try to look at it after a hurricane and then decide if it looks secure or not. The Bahamas have encountered many hurricanes and they obviously bounce back from them but it all takes time.

We are anchored at Allans Cay, a very protected and lovely anchorage in crystal clear water and not another boat in sight. Maynard and I decided to take the kayaks out just before sunset for an hour of exercise tonight and we were just commenting on not seeing very many fish but figured that as it was nearly sunset, maybe they were hard to see. Next thing, a dark shadow came swimming towards us and passed exactly between our 2 kayaks and we looked down in the 3 – 4 feet of water to see a shark over 6 feet in length lazily swimming past. Doing what two normal Aussies would do in a situation like this, we turned our kayaks around and chased it for about 50 metres trying to identify it before it got tired of us and shot out of our sight like a bolt of lightning. It had a rounded bull type head so I must try to find out what it was. Never a dull moment.

(I will add photos to Photo Gallery in the next couple of days when we move back into better wifi as we are in the outer Outer Islands right now.)