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Feb.2
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The best part of staying at Warderick Exuma Park is that we have "happy hour" every night. Since cruisers don't have a perseption of the
weekdays, every day could be a Friday - and consequentially, it means "Happy Hour"! We usually start at 5pm and everybody leaves like by
the order around 7pm, when it's already really dark around and we nobody wants complications on the water in the dark.
These happy hours are great for exchanging information on where and what to explore further, also, you actually make friends and try to
keep up with them while traveling your own route (yes, we meet with Southern Belle on almost each island! independently of difference of
ours
or theirs plans). At the last happy hour we learned that we absolutelly HAVE to stop at Cambrige Cays for snorkling in the caves and see
Reachel's Baths. So... no civilization for another couple days then..., more vegetarian dinners, meanning getting fatter for Marina. The
good news is we can finally fish again outside of the park boundaries.
Today the wind is no better, of course, it's South Eeast again, exactly the direction we are traveling. But Kevin decides to go anyway
because I had meltdown today morning feeling trapped in one place for long time. The trip was not pleasant at all, even motorsailing was
tough and we barelly were making 4nm/h. We had to change our plans for the anchorage, because landing near Cambrigde Cays was
impossible,
or dangerous with our lack of experience, due to the very shallow approach to the anchoring spot.
So, first we made it to the private Bell Island with huge three villas and groomed beach and waited there for the slack time before low
tide.
We decided to land at the Compass Cay, the best technical choice for us in this cituation. Crossing the channel took some time and a lot
of effort from out "iron horse" in the engine room! But we safely anchored near the Compas Cay Marina in very beautiful and quite little
bay.
We managed to the very expensive ($2.50 a foot) Marina, paid $10 per person to get out on the shore (!!!), walked around a bit, used the
restroom with AC working (it's been too long without AC!!!!), tried to shop at the Marina's store - $5 for a bottle of beer, no rum,
the lettuce in their refrigerator was NOT for sale - we settled on the beer. At 6:30 pm Marina has a potluck, of course, we attended
(since
we don't have much left in our food storage, we made popcorn) this event hopping to meet more new people. That was big disappointment!
Well, we should expected that by the look at the megayachts and huge motorboats parked here. From all the people at the event (around 20
people)
only one lady was happy to talk with us, she was German and I tried to use German as much as I can (remember), but luckily she could
speak
some English too. She was a grandma for the kids of the Marina's manager, leaving in one of the villas on the island and visiting this
island
every year.
But, the food at party was great! Grilled lobsters, chicken, fried fish... Yam...
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Feb.3
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Big plans for today - in the morning went for a hike around the island to see Rachel's Baths. It was very nice about 3 hours event, we
felt
so happy to finally walk again, even in sand and on the reef hills. On the way we saw some ruins - seems that originally it was a
big house which might be destroyed by hurricane recently. Interesting, that one of the workers at the marina build there open air gym!
With the punching bag, weights, bench press, etc. Cool!
We decided to have our lunch at the marina's little shop - and, oh boy, $15 for a hamburger... I had a bottle of Guiness and powerbar
for
lunch.
Afternoon at the low tide we managed to snorkle in the reef's caves Rocky Dundas - that was amazing site with stalctites and stalgmites
in the cave. We could not explore this site at the best because seas were not very calm, but still we got a good feel of this cave.
Talked with our friends (Island Perl) on VHF, they are in Black Point, and we really want to see them, but there are couple more stops
we
want to make before.
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Feb.4-6
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Waiting for the high tide to leave Compass Cays and sail (or motor) to Big Major Cay - the island of the swimming pigs!
After motorsailing and anchoring among hundreds boats we dinghy to the nearby Stainley Cay. We finally filled up gas for the dinghy,
got some disel in jerry can, got 20 gallons of water and bought phone minutes at the local BTC office. Funny, the BTC (bahamian phone
service) office works 2-4 pm, the grocery stores work whoknowswhat hours but definitelly 2-4. Between three grocery stores on the island
we got some fresh (well, it's relatively fresh) produce, some chicken, yogurt, bread and rum. Wow, we can have great dinners with
drinks! In the Isles General store Kevin bought fishing spear with the sling to fish for lobsters and fish. Good luck, Kevin!
On the way back to our anchorage, we stopped by at the marina's bar to get some food (not prepaired by me finally!), drinks and meet
some people. We met with a couple of about our age from North Carolina who worked at IBM too, and at the same location where we worked
with Kevin in RTP. Wow, such a coincidence. The difference is only that we travel by a sailboat, but they use faster means for that -
little airplane which they fixed themselves. It was very nice meeting surprise.
Next day in the morining we made it to the island with swimming pigs and that was so funny and exciding! These pigs are huge, about 500
lbs and they practically attack the dinghy to get some food. So far, this island is Marina's favorite. Well, after seeing pigs we did
not get much more excitment because we decided to spend some time on our "internet" work - updating a blog, answering emails, calling
by skype. Kevin finally got online chat help for the company which manages our voice mail (since our USA service is not working here
anymore), but at the most important point the power went off on the whole island, bummer again! It's about two weeks and we still
cannot use our data minutes on our phone because pin numbers are not valid...Not sure how people claim that they can work remotelly on
the islands, we would say - this is a myth!
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Feb.6-8
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Made it to the Little Farmer's Cay - the home of the February First Friday party and C-Type sail races. Our friends, Rork and Sherry,
made it here too, that was very nice reunion after we separated in Nassau. We had very exciting and fun time at this place, and Kevin
and Rork got great education on spearfishing. Thanks to the very nice young local guy who took us on a spearfishing adventure on the
nearby corral reefs. He got for us six huge lobsters and cought a huge fish for himself. Rock was so lucky to get another lobster too!
The girsl, Sherry and I, had to stay most of the time on the dinghy and drive when it driffed too far from the fishing place, and still
we were able to snorkle a bit. Afternoon, we had to go to the Ocean Cabin Bar - the place of entertainment. We both were judges and
participants for the party games at this bar - wet T-shirt contest, guys buns and legs contest, eggtoss and plunger game - that was too
much fun!
We had an amazing lobster dinner at our boat that night! Next morning we went fishing ourselves, without our guide, and did not have
much luck - Rork cought only one lobster and Kevin none (however, he practiced with his spear to kill lionfish).
Afternoon the whole island was full of the visitors from the other islands for the C-Type sailing race - there were couple hundred
people on the island with only 60 original citizens.
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Feb.9-10
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Time to move again - at some point we have to make it to the civilization, do laundry, buy normal food and, most important, get the
cash. Not many places in past two weeks accepting credit cards, and we did not expected that.
Left Farmer's Cay and landed at Lee Stocking Cay, near the former Caribbean Marine Research Center - this is our midstop before
Georgetown. As soon as we parked, Rork and Kevin were eager to go to spearfishing again. It's a beatiful place here with some good reef.
As soon as we stopped at the best reef for fishing, Kevin spotted a huge shark cruising near him, so, in panic guys got back on the
dinghy and decided not to go back in the water again. Our mistake - we went in the high tide time when sharks are coming from Exumas
Sound to Exumas Banks throug the cuts to get some food. We did not want to become their dinner, and, we did not catch anything for
dinner. Macaroni and lentils again...
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Feb.11..
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We are in the oasis of civilization - Emerald Bay Marina. It's very nice marina, only $1 per foot a day. And, there is an amazing state
of the art FREE laundry room, great spacious restrooms and showers, huge TV in the community room at the marina with great expensive
furniture where we have happy hours almost every day. It's a DREAM spot to "lick our wounds".
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