Jan.22-25
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It was painless 4 hours motorsail from West Bay to Nassau Harbor together with our friends. At the entrance to harbor you have to request
permission to enter via VHF because there is some traffic in this harbor, predominaly, huge cruise ships. We landed at Yacht Harbor
Haven Marina ($2 per foot/night - $80 a night). It's nice to be at sturdy ground again, having restroom, shower, trash bins and laundry.
At the same day we checked out nearby marine store and .. bought a new Mercury 15hp outboard 2 stroke engine! Feels like Christmass again.
We blow off our budget out of proportion, but it's time to replace our 43 years old Mercy (running only on one cylinder now), at least
it's $500 cheaper then in Florida!
Starbucks (2 of them) and Whole foods (called here Fresh Market) made it here to Nassau! Very expensive coffee and outragiously expensive
groceries. What can you get for $50 in the grocery store? Well, for this money I got one zucchini, cup of ricotta, box of green salad,
ice cream and gallon of distilled water. We reallly need to figure out this fishing thing...
We did not like Nassau much - downtown is packed with tourists from cruise ships, everything is very overpriced - impossible to afford
a lunch in downtown restaurants and, it's dangerous to walk couple blockes up from main street and after dark on any streets because of
the street gangs.
In Nassau we found a dentist for Kevin, but have to wait for his decision if he can create a new crown for Kevin's implant - it's nothing
easy on the islands! Well, after two expensive but comfortable nights at the marina we will return to our original anchorage in West Bay.
Motorsailing again..no wind.. when finally we will have a chance just to sail all the way?
Hiding at this anchorage from the front with strong winds. Nice, we meet our young friends here - they try to use only anchorages and no
eating out (we have to make an effort to live by their example). We spent a relaxing day at the Clifton national park - walked this place
all over. The beaches are very nice here and one of the beaches, Jaws beach, is famous for screening "Jaws" movie.
It's a nice place here but too far from civilization, and we are out of bread...and then I found out that my dry east is not good anymore
Yea, live on the boat is not fun every day. At night three couples meet for planning the next trip to Exumas!
Everybody is convinced that Exumas are Heaven, will see tomorrow... And, I got a replacement for my "unactivated" yeast - Anjella and Cody bought the fresh
one for us in Nassau, yes, now we can make bread again!
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Jan.25-26
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Early in the morning, at 6:54am we left West Bay (actually, we should leave earlier, like at 6, but it never happens) and sailed to Allan's
Cay in Exumas. We were surprised to find that anchorage full of boats, and worked a bit harder this time to find space to lay an anchor.
Next day right after breakfast we got into dinhgy and started exploring beaches and little reef islands scattered around. Our goal was to find
something to eat, if not fish then at least a lobster or a conch. Otherwise we have to eat vegitarian dinner again...
Anjella and Cody joined us in our quest for food. Guys were snorkling with spears (looking like cavemen) hopping to catch something, but
after couple hours it was clear that "our" food was picked up by somebody else already, and there was a 6 feet bullshark swimming around.
We decided not to take chances with that creature and just hang out on the beach and enjoyed interactive activity with jaguanas - hundreds of
them on the beaches! They are such unattractive and rude and fearless creatures, and they might be considered as a source of dinner, but we
were not sure if we can eat them, so we left them just crawl around asking for our attention (they got used for tourists to feed them
all kinds of things). Today we finally satisfied our desire to swim and snorkle around for the whole day, that was a very fun day
(including jaguanas).
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Jan.27 - 28
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Still at Allan's Cay. Today is somewhat maintenance day for us - Marina is backing bread and Kevin dove to check bottom of the boat. Turned
out that our camera is fully covered with barnicles and zinc is gone on almost all bottom parts, which means.. yes, we have to find a marine
hardware store, again, and again.
Afternoon we motored (yes, there is no wind at all!) to Highborne Cay. It's mostly a private island with very overpriced marina. We just
anchored nearby and took our dinghy to get water and check out the store - we are low on salt and alhocol. Water was $0.50 per gallon - not
bad, but we could not affort to buy anything in the store other than salt, rum and cigarettes. This marina was occupied with multiple huge
megayahts, everything is very clean and very "brittish" (the megayahts are coming here from England).
We made friends with local fishermen - Kevin suggested work with them for free, actually, just for fish for dinner. They gave us three
fresh red snappers in the exchange for entertaiment: Kevin has to prove that he knows how to clean fish. Well, that did not go very well,
but we still got fish for dinner and got free rum and coke, we even exchanged phone numbers in case we need each other (life is funny,
everything can happen).
We fried the fish the way locals told us and food was delishious. Later at night we caught a huge unknown to us fish, broght it in
the cockpit and quick found it's picture in our fish reference book. Turns out it's a horse-eye jack, which is poisonous with ciguatera.
So, we had to let our fish go.... so sad, because it could feed us for at least 3 days.
Next day we saw a sailboat ran aground (corral reefs) in the channel and he could not get out himself for a while. We rashed on the
dinghy to help and joined other bigger boat there already trying to pull poor sailboat out of the reefs. We worked on that at least an hour
but in vain, so sailboat had to stay aground waiting for hight tide hopping that will help him to get out of this trap.
It was very good excesize for us - so we would know what to do in situation like that.
On the way back we saw about 20 HUGE bull sharks swimming around - that is very creepy scenery! Cannot swimm here...
At this marina we met our buddies in motorboat who we met yet in Clearwater, Fl and then met them again in Bimini. Definitely, we have to
hang out together! So, we decided to go with them to Shroud Cay this afternoon.
In the evening we visited Southern Belle (our buddies trawler) for drinks and talks - as usually, Kevin entertained everybody with our
previous sailing stories.
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Jan.29
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Shroud Cay is uninhabited island but has a lot of nature attractions. While checking out nearby a little beach with very white sand
we found a water well in the depth of mangroves which are growing on reefs. The water here accumulated from rains and was pretty clean-
we washed our salty dirty bodies and our clothes in FRESH water, that was a treat!
We had very busy day exploring nearby island Norman Cay by dinghy. We snorkled at plane crash (from the drug war in 1980s), saw the caves
in the reef walls where drugs were stored (maybe?) and explored deserted beatiful beaches with absolutelly amazing water of different
colors. Color of the water is defined by the depth of the water and terrain on the bottom and we are getting much better at "reading water"
because it's essential survival skill here, in Bahamas. At the middle of the day we stack with our dinghy in the middle of the huge Normand
Cay Bay - it was the low tide and whatever was before 2-3 feet depth now was just sand! This change happened very quickly, so we did not
have time to get to deeper waters. As a result of that, we got a hard and great workout just drugging our dinghy by hand throught the sand
to the deeper waters, that was a loooong drug... But we were revorded by the deserted beatiful white sandy beach where we allowed ourselves
to swim nacked, pick up sanddollars, check the sea stars in the water and have our lunch in the shade of only one tree on the beach.
With all this beaty around you notice some human's non-positive involvement in the nature: we saw a lot of trash on the beaches, predominaly
plastic cans of different sizes and functionality. It's very sad to see that in such a beatiful nature.
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Jan.30 - 31
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We made it to Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park (VHF 9) after about 4 hours of motorsailing (again). Very nice park with very slow and expencive
wifi - $15 per 24 hours, plus $20 for mooring ball per day. And... no restrooms or water or trash disposal or any other amenities.
But it's very beatiful wild nature park with typical Bahamian vegitation, blue holes, nice snorkling reefs, and fearless birds (they eat almost
from your hands!). And we saw a very weird animal at night near the office, which remined a very fat rat, but without a rat tail. We still
don't know what is was. By the tradition any new arrived boat has to bring a drift wood with the name of the boat to the Boobo Hill - and we did.
We met some new cruisers here and saw our old buddies, Southern Belle (we keep bumping with them at any place we go!). Every night somebody
from the cruisers organizes a happy hour, which is great opportunity to meet new people and share experiences.
Oh, and we had our 11th anniversary on Jan.31. Marina made nice dinner: mashed potatoes, salad from last cucamber and last tomato, last two chicken
breasts (can't believe they still were frozen!) and last bottle of nice red wine (Phantom - our favorite).
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Feb.1
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Waiting for better weather today - wind is to strong to move to another island. Maybe tomorrow we can finally sail to the civilized place - it's time to
get some provision and water would be great. Laundry is already so long time overdue too...
We use today for some maintenance of the boat: changed wind generator blades (the new once supposed to be more efficient), made a bread, listened to all
weather staition Kevin could find on HEM radio.
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