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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 caught 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 caught 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..13
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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 a;om, 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".
Every day I was doing lundry - washed almost everything from our boat, including pillows and blankets. It's absolutelly amazing feeling
to sleep in the clean bed and in dry clean cloths. We found very cheap liqure store in walking distance and couple grocery stores.
Chicken for dinner, finally!
Nearby resort has nice and busy restaurant (not counting tonns of the bugs eating you while you eat - use "Get Off!") where we had couple dinners with our friends from "Island Perl" and "Joerney". Kevin even had chance to start limbo game on the beach while locals
were playing drums (of course, he won!). We tried to hunt for lobsters and fish, but not successfully.. however, we found a bunch of huge coconuts in the nearby golf course and Kevin extracted coconut water to mix with rum.
But the weather is getting better, so we can move further south to Georgetown. So sad to leave this clean place...
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Feb.14..22
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We actually sailed (!) all the way to Georgetown, that was very pleasant trip. By the description from other cruisers Georgetown seems to be a city well compaired to Madrid or Paris! Will see...
Today is Valentine's Day and we are going to famous Chat and Chill to.. well, chat and chill with other cruisers, and dance! they had valentine dance at the bar. It was fun! We met with crew, Will and Stephany, of one of the megayaht parked at the marina. Next day we met the bar and Kevin made sure to be invited to their boat, while the owners were not there. It was very nice excursion: the machine room is very impressive, as a jacusi on the deck! We went dance after in the nearby bar and ... Kevin started Limbo game again! To his
disappointment he did not win this time, but he got very famous on the island - next days people on the street greated him as a "Limbo guy". Not everything just a play around here: we had to provision our boat, get cash from the bank's ATM ($100 in a time and $3 for service), purchase more phone minutes from BTC, connect to internet and do some work and checking on things, skyping, etc. Well... internet is really bad around here and it takes very strong nerves and great patience to do anything online.
While staying in this capital of Exumas (there are maybe about 100 people leaving here, looks more like a village with one beatup road and couple old cars, the only concreate buildings belong to two banks and BTC phone office) Kevin was able to earn $50 from the boat he
offered to change zincs on the prop via free diving and holding breath for some time under the water and. We spent this money on the same day in the nearby bar... The other day Kevin's ability to play pool paid off well - he got a second place in the pool tournament with the prize $15, which payed for our drinks, but the drive home in the dinghy at night was absolutelly horrable!
We play voleyball at the Voleyball beach, take long walks on the island, talk with other cruisers who is going further south to Caribbeans, swim, drink and .. wait for two packages to arrive (supposed to show up couple days ago, but hey, it's island time....)
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Feb.23
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Sad day for us today! All our friends are left in the morning to the next islands - Conseption and Rum Cays, but we have to stay in Georgetown because we did not get our packages sent DHL OVERNIGHT(!) to the shipping spot at the store Top2Bottom. Well, the overnight grown into a week now, and it's a possibility to get them maybe (please please please) tomorrow, on Monday.
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Feb.24 -27
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We got our packages on the Monday morning, two of them! Rushing to Georgetown to get more free water, gas and some other provision.
In two hours we were on the road, finally leaving this city (as we call it Sun City, considering the avarage age of cruisers here is 67).
Running with full sails and hard working engine with 7nm/hour to make it to the next stop - Long Island north tip - at the day light.
It's very dangerous to anchore later than 4 pm because you cannot see any corral heads and reefs in your parking spot. And, every island is just inpested with those corral heads - meanning, one wrong move and you get either stack in corrals or get a hole in the hull of your boat.
Next day in early morning we sail further, to the middle of the Long Island - it's 40 hours of motorsail. But the good news is that we finally were able to catch up with our "boddy boats" - Island Perl and Journey. We parked at the marina (expensive, $2 a foot), but needed to top up on fuel and water before southern islands which don't have much provision to offer.
It was a great day - Kevin caught a HUGE mahi-mahi!!! It will feed us and our friends for at least couplde weeks. We had 5 mahi-mahi on the hook, but were able to get out only one in the cockpit. The las fish broke the line and took our "lucky" bate, which we got as a present many years ago from the caribbean poor fisherman. Oh well, we hope we could find another lucky one soon.
At night we had amazing dinner with the fresh grilled fish and decided to more south tomorrow - need to use a great window of good weather.
Approaching the next island - Crooked Island - we hit the corral head! Oh boy, we hope that corral did not damage our hull.
This is was the best example of "not to do" - anchoring at the time when sun is not over your head!
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Feb. 27
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Leaving at 5:40 am, before even light, so we can make it earlier to the next stop - Acklins Island - we don't want to hit the corral head anymore!
We made it safe to the anchorage this time, did not hit any corral reefs, but it took us four attempts to securely anchore the boat!
Each time our anchore would hit just a corral or a rock on the bottom, instead of sand. We were parking more than one hour!
Kevin had to dive to check the anchore and surraundings and just to be sure, we had to set our second anchore. That was some work!
Thanks our friends, they got their dinghy down to help us.
It's a beatiful anchorage, such a serenity! Only two of our boats in the whole bay and water is amazingly clear and calm. We got very
good night sleep!
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Feb. 28- March 2
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The weather is dictating us to move ahead to our last island in Bahamas - Great Inguana. And, it's a bit far, so we have to go overnight. Leaving at 3pm our beatiful anchorage in Acklins Island, so we can make it before the weather gets really nasty - by early morning in Great Inguana.
The first part of the trip, from 3pm to about 6am next day, was not so bad. We got rained, and some squals with lightning passed us without any harm. We had to double reef the main because in the night (no moon!) it was hard to predict where we get gails. All the trip we had to motorsail because wind was not enough to get us moving no sails only.
The last part of the trip, near the Mattew Town in Great Inguana, we got some really big following seas, it was a bit scarry. I even had to wake up Kevin before his watch duty to take the helm. But we made it safe and did not get any water in the boat.
We looked for the safe anchorage for couple hours, because of the northerly winds and this island is not very protected from this type of wind. It was a bit nervebreaking to get through one narrow cut in the corral reefs to get to the anchorage, besides, visibility for navigation between the reefs was very poor since sun just started rising. But we made it save and anchored fine, now we can relax, get morning coffee and breakfas. Oh that feels good!
We stayed at this secluded place for couple days enjoying swimming, diving and catching lobsters. Kevin caught the biggest "walking" lobster we have ever seen! Rork had to help him to carry this huge sea animal to our dinghy. And, of course, we had absolutelly amizing and feeling dinner (and next day lunch) with lobsters.
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March 3 - 5
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These are our last days in Bahamas, we are waiting for favorable weather to sail to Haiti. We moved to the new anchoroge at Mattew Town which is better protected from the easterlies winds. Explored all the town back and force, and yes, we found wifi finally.
It took us the whole day to get diesel and water to provision our boats for the next long run. Poor Kevin and Rork, they had to carry, then drive dinghy multiple times to the boats from the govermental dock at Mattew Town using just 4 jerry cans.
And at 4 pm we are off to the new unkown for us destination - Haiti!
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March 6-7
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At last we are in Haiti! The place which USA goverment is not suggesting to visit at all, and insurances do not cover damage of the boats traveled in Haiti. We were very cautions approaching in the early morning unknown land (the charts don't have good info on the shores of Haiti either). We picked Pointe de la Perla bay for landing, at least just to hang out and sleep after overnight passage.
Closer to that place we were greeted by a bunch of the haitian fishing boats, and one of the fishermen (his name is College) started speaking English with us. We were so greatly surprised and happy, because none of us four speaks any French.
College showed us where we can drop our anchors, said no problem, stay, right at the shore off the beatiful little fishining village.
The scenery of this village is amaizing: situated on the beach, with houses (namely hutts) built right on the beach, behind the beach there are tall mountains of different hights, beatiful blue water. The place is just from the fairy tail, really a pearl.
It seems we were back in time, at least 200 - 300 years back in time. The village doesn't have electricity, no running water (they have a well with rain water which as we understood doesn't have clean drinking water - the villagers boil their water trying to clean it from cholera), and all haitians live like a big family, very close community.
While we were anchoring, the whole population of the village gathered on the beach watching us - including babies, children, grown ups and elderlies. As we learned, they don't have much white visitors by the boats, maybe once in couple months.
Then our new friend College came with his boat to pick us up to take to the shore so we can visit his village. Such a hospitality!
We gave candy to kids and their faces were so happy while putting a treasured pieces of sugar in their mouths - we guessed, they don't have much treats at all. All population is skinny and fit, seems not much food other than fish they get around. There were a lot of goats around, and their milk is sold to the big nearby city - the way they support themselves.
The pastor proudly showed us a community church (which remineded an old hutt), there were old benches for villagers and a set of drums, which pastor plays during their masses. Next we visited their newly rebuilt school and College asked what we can do for church and school, they really wanted us to give them some paint for school. But we don't have any paint on the boat, and if we had, not in the big amounts. So, we donated what we could - some cloths, shoes, paper, pencils, some dry food. Each of our boats donated an old sails for their community fishing boats. We felt bad that we could not give much more to these nice people.
Funny, we were treated as some higher up officials from United Nations, they had placed four chairs on the beach for us to sit and all the villagers stopped all their chores to stay around us and just... looked at us. We even were presented with the last four bottles of President beer, which they kept in only freezer in their village (they have couple little solar panels for it's operation).
Kevin started entertaining children by playing some games - jumping rope and limbo. Everybody were so happy and laughing - that you can understand without any words!
The anchorage was very rocky at night, and we left the next morning to the next Haity stop.
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March 8-10
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We had very long overnight passage, 32 hours long and arrived at La Vache at around 3:30 pm. We were very exhausted when we entered this bay. The anchorage is beautifully situated in just some hundred feet from the village on the beach. There are a lot of selfmade sailing boats (without ANY motors) sailing in the bay around us and some are dragged on the shore.
At the moment we arrived, haitian boys of ages 6 to 16 attacked us on their selfmade "dugout" canues, or on the worn out paddle boards. And, of course, everybody is just paddling, no engines! There are already 6 of thoses little floating devices hanging at our boat and we here French from any direction: "Madam, laundry", "buy our bread", "do you need to clean the boat", "trash?","give me something", etc. Ohhh, it's so annoying especially when you try to anchor for already third time! (anchor is not getting set in this bottom for some reason). Then one big boat with an engine hits our boat on the side (the water taxi) with some official guy on board who demands $5 to pay him right now! Oh well, ok, here is $5 and get lost. Ignoring all this caccophony is just impossible and I lose my temper and yell "everybody shut up! get off my boat!". Yes, they all finally shut up, but all the floating devices were still haning out on the sides of our boat.
This anchorage was much better, calmer and we all get good night sleep. Until...at about 5 am one of the neighboring boats started dragging to the shore. Villagers came to help to stop and move this boat to other safer place. It was very nice of them to help without asking anything in the return.
We arranged with local teenage boys purchase and delivery of disel for both boats from the bigger city - Las Cays (5 mi away). We were so glad we did not have to do that ourselves!
Rork put their dinghy down and took us all to the shore. It was so nice to be on the sturdy ground again, finally!
First thing first - we need to find wifi. Surprised we found an "internet cafe" in this primitive farmer/fishermen settlement, considering that this place doesn't have electric power and running water. Funny. The internet place belongs to the young haitian with couple brothers and he has solar pannels to keep his place running.
Very quickly we were disappointed with the speed of internet (very very slow) and went for a walk with our new haitian friends to check around. The life of haitians is very primitive. Most of them have selfmade sailboats for fishing, women are farming, taking care of cows and goats, and childres and houshold. Women don't smile in Haiti! we figured they have very tough life.
The La Vache island is very beatiful and very green. To bad that mangoes are not ripe yet... we tried to visit a nice house where some canadian lives, but he was not home, or just did not want to talk with us... We are back to internet cafe and found our dinner ready on the table (we asked them before if they can feed us). We had a white rice, fried plantains and fried little fish (the whole fish with head and eyes and tail). Food was delicious. After we almost finished, the gate opened and a bunch (about 10 or so) little 7-8 years old girls showed up all dressed up with some kind of pink. It was bizar and very funny. They sat at our table and we offered them to eat whatever we did not finish at the table... well, they ate the rest of the dinner as well they cleaned our plates too! Poor girls, seems they don't have much food to eat very often. Then Kevin, of course, started to game - call out your name holding the hands.. that was hillarious because none of girls understood anything said in English.
It's time to get to the boats and to our surprise we could not find our dinghy parked on the beach (wherever we left it) and we started to worry that Rork's dinghy was stollen! In about 20 min it showed up, with Justin (one of our haitian helpers) driving it. We were so frustrated that haitian boys took a dinghy without permission! It was not very plesant accident... At they explained later they used a dinghy to drive one of the boys with injured foot to the hospital. Maybe, or maybe it's not true, but we were glad to have Rork's dinghy back. Next day we left very frustrated this pretty place, we felt that we were cheated when dinghy was used without permission...
So, we are back on the road, and the next step is Dominican Republic.
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March 11- 13
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The first stop in Dominican Republic - Isla Beata. As soon as we dropped our anchores late afternoon (the ride here was very rough! we were going about 3.5 - 4 mi/hours at most, with the waves and wind right at the bow, very exhausting) the boat with coast guard officials showed up and got in for checking our documents. Kevin and Rork presented the coast guard with a little "present" - a bottle of rum and he was very very happy about that. Uhh, keep officials happy!
Next morning we went ashore - to visit a little fishermen village and our "friend" coast guard. As we showed up, they put four chairs for us and a coast guard set in the front of us and asked if would like coffee. Of course we would like coffee!
His wife prepared coffee for everybody in the outside "kitchen" and we enjoyed it very much. Then we were asked if we would like a coconut, oh yes, of course we would like a coconut! Some young guy cut 4 coconuts from the nearby palm and cut them open for us. That was delicious. We tried to make a conversation with coast guard and his helpers, but it did not go far - our Spanich is limited and his English is NONE. We thanks for great hospitality and went for a walk around this little village. We bought some fresh fish for our dinner, even though it was not cheap, and we did not have our money changed yet from dollars to pecos. Dinner was great!
Next day we left this cute place for another long overnight passage to Barahona.
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March 14 - 17
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We got heavy rain during our night trip to Barahona, and seas were rough as well. So, we are exhausted at tired again....
We made it to the channel at about 4:30am - it's too early to enter the place we are not sure about and which has cargo ships traffic.
So, we drifted around for couple hours, just waiting for the sun to rise at 7am.
As soon as we anchored our boats, a boat with officials, coast guards, showed up first at Rork's and then our place. They checked documents and inside of the boat, and made Kevin to put his dinghy down. In an hour we got checked in and were ready to explore this town.
It's a relatively big industrial city - with cargo ships transporting sugar canes and something else, lyminar mines and some other industries. People here are NOT begging for anything, this is such a nice change! Seems everybody here is happy and doing fine, even though it's dirty on the streets - the trash is everywhere! Dominicans really love music - merenge, salsa, regaton. You can hear this music in every corner of city you go. We got new cim cards for the phones, some internet time, went to the supermercado and market, walked a lot in the town. We got a local guy Fernando to guide us around the town and since he speaks very well English, he could help us with translation and actually, teach us Spanish a bit. Kevin and Rork are slowly getting up to speed with Spanish, yea, that is helpful.
On the March 15th our friends "Island Perl", Rork and Sherry, left at night to Boca Chica where they have to meet their visitors and spent some time with Sherry's oldest child. It was so sad to separate! We had such a great and fun time together, helped each other, did all our trip planning together, but it's time for separation besides we have plans to sail down south anyway.
We said our "good byes" and we hope to sail together again maybe next year, will see....
On the next morning we had to be on the shore at 8:30am for our car trip to the Lago Enriquillo (a huge lake) with one of the coast guards and a friend of our guide Fernando. The trip was long, about 6 hours around the lake, but we have seen so much! The dominical nature, other cities, villages, parks and just how people live. We ate at the little places - just fried everything and drunk a lot of beer, including our driver-coast guard Ivan. We would stop about every hour at some bar on the way for a huge bottle of Presidente beer to share for three. And... we did not have seat belts on the back seats, and... everybody drives here crazy, and.. we saw one semi overturned in the ditch (how much beer he had while he was driving?????). But we made it safe back to our boat afternoon.
