North Abacos, back to the U.S.

Where do I begin?! Its been so long since we've had any Internet and so a long time since we've blogged. We've been busy! After all the family left, we went back to Marsh Harbor to get a package and to re provision a bit, we encountered a ton of wind there but accomplished what we needed and left for Great Guana Cay. We ran into friends, Rob and Teena there, we met them initially at Marathon and then saw them at Green Turtle. We spent a nice time at Grabbers hanging out, swimming and catching up. They had cruised the Abacos and shared some great info on places to go with us.
We then rounded the Whale once and for all. The Whale is a cay that sticks out into the ocean and therefor one must go "outside" to get around. The way that the Abacos are laid out with Great Abaco and the chain of Cays creates a protected bay between with narrow opening to the ocean. Because the inlets are narrow they often are subject to fast currents and breaking waves, when there is strong N- NE weather they become quite treacherous and this is know locally as a rage. When listening to the weather the conditions are announced and rated for safe passage.

So once on the other side we spent about a month hopping from one uninhabited cay to another. Here are the highlights:


Powell cay was a favorite! A beautiful island with beaches all around. Great swimming and fishing! The first time we were there the kids and I scored on the ocean side beach combing for shells. Charles spent a lot of time fishing with great success, much to every ones delight! The kids fished as well and took much pride in their catches!

They caught grunts at a wreck there and barracuda on the flats. The flat fishing was fun using poppers and small buck tails brought in nice barracuda such as this one! They were then filleted, marinated and grilled. Only the small guys are edible, less than 5 pounds. At one point Charles hooked one from the beach and reeled him in right up onto the beach, this was pretty exciting all around. They are beautiful fish with black spot and a mouth full of sharp teeth. There are many a barracuda story amongst the cruising community!

Another great place is Allans-Pensacola Cay. This is two islands that are sort of side by side with a fairly protected harbor on one end. There is a path to the ocean side and on the day that we spent there we lucked out with winds from the west and therefor a flat calm beach on the ocean side! The water was crystal clear, warm and with a sandy bottom. We played and swam all day. Someone had also set up a swing an a tree from flotsam and the kids spent some time on this.

Not bad, eh?

We saw a ray swimming along the beach the kids followed it as far as they could. Later in the day we had just finished swimming and were thinking about packing up when we saw a small nurse shark patrolling up and down the beach. Soon after we saw a large reef shark doing the same and then another large nurse shark! This was very exciting as it always is to see any animal in its natural environment. The beauty is indescribable!

The kids had tons of fun playing all sorts of spearing games on the beaches. One in the dinghy spearing and one either towing the dinghy under swimming power or pretending to steer the outboard! GO, go go! They shout, the spear flies and they always get their catch! Turtles, sharks, rays, fish, anything goes and all is gotten in the world of play!

YAR!

Dakota landed this beauty, oh happiness is a fish on the hook! (or even better in the boat and on the grill!)

On April 15th Charles celebrated his 42nd birthday in Cooperstown on Great Abaco at a restaurant called Richie's. We had barbecued chicken and rice and peas. We then re provisioned as much as we could and moved on!

On of the things that we had to do a lot in the Abacos was dodge weather. There are still quite a few cold fronts (northerly winds usually around 20 mph with higher winds in squalls) around and we were constantly looking for good land protection and good holding for the anchor. One place we spent many a front was Crab Cay. Here there wasn't all that much to do on land but we went just for the front and then would move on to Powell mostly to enjoy the beaches and swimming while the weather was good.

Swimming off the boat! A real pleasure is that we spent so much time in the water. It warm enough to just hang out in!

Alistair with his catch, a little grunt! They are called this because out of water they actually grunt. They are pretty little fish that hang around wrecks and reefs.

We then proceeded to sail around the end of Great Abaco to a cay called Cave Cay. Mostly mangroves and infrequently visited is remains a wild and unspoiled place. We felt we could have appreciated it better had we had a dinghy with an outboard to really explore the area.

We left the next day for Great Sale Cay a good stop off for those travelling between the Abacos and the States. On the way we caught a great mutton snapper. This is a very tasty fish a sure favorite of ours, thus the grins!

The island has coral rock and beaches, sandy shores and flats. Something for everyone!

The kids could not resist a swim of the coral rock. Here we saw many fish swimming around the coral and also a small turtle!

Diving in!

An example of the coral rock, aptly named moon rock or the iron shore.

Alistair with the lady pirate on the beach.

Another mutton snapper succumbed to Charles' charm. They are called snapper because if you get your finger near its field of vision it will snap at you! Yikes!

He later was marinated, grilled and consumed with thanks.

Here are a few pics of a front coming through. This one had lots of lightening and rain, which we collected for drinking water. The lightening is intense, all around the boat.

We found a window to cross and it looked like another would not appear for two weeks so we grabbed it! We staged at Mangrove Cay in the middle of the Little Bahama Bank and left at 2 AM. The night was calm a beautiful, many shooting stars and our last sunrise in the Bahamas!

The day was hot so the kids were allowed to take off their life jackets and just wear their harnesses as long as they stayed clipped in. The harness had a line attached and we have lines and metal loops around the boat to clip into so that if the boat gets jogged or you loose your footing it keeps you on the boat!

The ocean swells were there but not too big and so the crossing was long but not bad at all.

The color of the water is awesome, Alistair described it as " so blue that it is purple" - its true!

We passed many man-of-war jellies. At one point we had a school of spinner dolphins surf the bow. These dolphins are smaller than bottle nosed and love to leap and jump. Pure joy!

Back home after 17 hours, we anchored in Jensen Beach, Florida and radioed our new friends, Steve and Sophia on Sea Fox, who had crossed the same day, to let them know we made it.

The next day we called family to catch up, Alistair smiles with joy as he talks to Manny (Micheline, Charles' mom).

We are now in Vero, doing laundry and getting groceries for a few days. Early next week we will start our journey north.....

Family visit in the Abacos

We arrived at Green Turtle Cay near 3 weeks ago, we spent some time exploring the reefs, spearfishing and exploring the town of New Plymouth in anticipation to my sister, her husband Bruce and two kids Max and Grant arriving to spend some time with us followed by the Waterman's a week later.

Alistair outside of Sid's supermarket in New Plymouth.

The Bernstein family arrived and we all eplored beaches, the island and Pineapples. This is at the Pineapple's pool (bar/beach club) where the kids played in the pool and swam in the beach while the adults caught up with each other and sipped on Kaliks.

Laurel taking a picture of Bruce at Pineapples.

Max showing us one of the huge starfish that are scattered over the shallow grass beds.

Here we all are having lunch at Harvey's for some good local Bahamian fare. (grouper & rice and peas)

The cousins at the Bluff House beach, happy to hang out together.

George, Greta, Mathew, Nancy, Scott and Derik arrived on the 25th of March, smiling as the ferry pulled in. Glad to see some sunshine, us and of course the little guys Dakota and Alistair.

Lisa and family overlapped with the Waterman's by two days. This is all of us at Miss Emily's Blue Bee Bar having a Goombay Smash their signature drink. The bar walls are covered with cards and the ceiling rafters have t-shirts signed by the many patrons that have left them behind. Looks like Miss Emily has seen a lot over the years.

Laurel's " Desperately in need of confession" T- shirt up at Miss Emily's

Island transportation is mainly by Golf Cart. This is in New Plymouth where Nancy drove us around that afternoon.

Scott and Derik enjoying island life.

Laurel's new hat at Coco beach.

Dakota and Alistair with the kids from "Sweet William" a neigboring boat.

Dakota walking Coco beach.

This is a very small octopus that Derik and Scott found.

Scotty and Alistair at Turtle Dreams.

I went out with the boys one night, where we had great fun playing pool with the locals at Sundowners.

The rental house that the Watermans chose had a sort of open air widow's walk on the roof, very cool with great views of Coco bay and the Atlantic, the house like many we've seen around here are named by their owners, this one was named " Turtle Dreams"

We all took the opportunity to take family photos on the roof.

Lunch at Harvey's

On the penultimate day of the Waterman's visit we went for a ride on the Alice around the island, Mathew as always hadn't been on the boat 15 minutes before he caught this mutton snapper, we added him to the pile of fish for a fish taco dinner that night.

We really had a great visit both with my sister and family and all the Waterman's, there's a lot that happened like kite flying, shell collecting expeditions, many special afternoon's watching sunsets, snorkeling, some great walks and even some rum drinking that I'm not covering in detail here, suffice it to say that all left happy and feeling that they had a great visit.

Abacos

We are at Green Turtle Cay, having arrived a couple of days ago in anticipation of my sister and family visiting and then the folowing week my inlaws and Mathew, Nancy and kids.

The above photo was taken in Man-O-War Cay, like many of the islands around here it is populated by loyalist descendants, they often have industrious, tight religous communities and just like Spanish Wells no alcohol is sold, these islands are dry, although you're welcome to bring your own to the local eateries.

Man-O-War has a very long tradition in boatbuilding and boat repair. Today they build both in wood and also now fiberglass. This is a picture of a boat being repainted. The main waterfront street is lined with boatyards, canvas shops, and boutiques. Very nice indeed.

We spent the weekend at Guana Cay, great island with beautiful beaches, good barrier reefs and island clubs. We anchored in Fisher's Bay and dinghied over to Dive Guana where Maria helped us out and gave us some local knowledge including where to find sea biscuits. You can see the how clear the water is here. The water in the Abacos (so far) is a handsome turquoise green.

We played in the beaches and the boys got to play in the strong surf. With me keeping an eye on them for undertows and the like. Just one of those parent things that's hard to shake.

There are many island clubs here in the Abacos that cater to tourists, travellers and locals. Two of the locally famous are Nippers and Grabbers, with the anchorages filling up on the weekends to listen to Rake and Scrape and take advantages of the pools and island atmosphere. The price of admission in our case is a couple of the local beers (Kalik). Cheap entry for an afternoon of swimming in the pools and listening to good music.

Here Is Alistair with his old man at Nippers.

Above is Dakota who has become half fish and will not pass by any opportunity to snorkle, swim , wade, splash, etc.

This is at Grabbers which had a rake and scrape band, here one of the tourists joins the locals to try it out. They use saws and scrape the tooth end with the back of a knife, depending how the saw is bent etc, they get different sounds. Was great to experience.

This is Laurel at Grabbers, nice digs for an afternoon.

This is at the beach at Grabbers on our way home, here Laurel just discovered some sea biscuits, we found many on the grass beds around the boat, just by snorkling for them. these Laurel found off the beach at low tide.

The Abacos are vastly different from the Exumas, they are far more developed and have large communities and provide more entertainement and things to do for visitors. There are more rental homes here, many charter boats, fishing guides, scuba outfits and overall more people. Most likely their proximity to Florida, makes this an easy getaway.

When we first arrived it was a bit of shock after being in the sparsely populated and more desolate Exumas, but alas one adapts and we are enjoying what the Abacos has to offer. The kids and us are specially loving the easy access to pools, other kids, good music and excellent reefs. Many of the Abaco islands have barrier reefs, many are a short swim from the shore. Just yesterday I had the opportunity to swim out to one see a lot of cool fish and reef and spear a couple for the dinner table. Not a bad way to spend a morning.

I have felt very fortunate to do this voyage with my family. Has been easily one of the best experiences of my life.

If you are considering some such adventure, my humble opinion is that it's worth doing and worth what you end up sacrificing (jobs, money, etc.) For life is proverbially short and we don't know what's coming, and what's better than great times and bonds with the ones you love.

Best, C

The Abacos

Before we left Spanish Wells Dakota and I went for a walk around town to look a little more. We went all the way to the tip of the island and sat in a gazebo overlooking the bank and the ocean, also the main island of Eleuthera. This pic is of the ocean.

This is the cemetery in Spanish Wells and it is interesting because here they cannot dig into the earth because the coral rock is too hard so they build up with cement. They also decorate highly with plastic flower wreaths. Notice the men resting in the shade of the tree in the background. It was just past mid-day and quite hot.

We then sailed to Royal island and left early the next morning for the Abacos. It was an exhausting crossing with not enough wind and enough seas and way too much weed in the fishing hook! Charles caught a 48 in mahi mahi and I even saw it jump right before it broke the line and got away! Dakota was devastated! Pasta for dinner again!

We made it in by 5 PM and anchored near Lynyard Cay for the night. This morning we left again early for Marsh Harbor, our big motivation was propane for we were almost out and Alistair had asked for biscuits for breakfast and pizza for dinner for his birthday. It the least we could do, right?

He opened his gifts underway and is happy to be six!

Okay so this looks strange, except if you know that Alistair told me that he didn't want cake and we had gone to get ice cream earlier in the day. So he held the candle and we sang and he made a wish! The pizza was great!

We spent a little time walking around Marsh Harbor today. We had curried chicken patties at a local deli, cheap and yummy! We then went and found home made ice cream for Alistair's birthday cake. I found this beautiful Palm tree and the hibiscus flower around 5 in across.

Marsh Harbor is one of the largest towns in the Abacos and bustles with activity. The harbor is quite large with many cruising boats and restaurants, marinas and resort line the harbor. Cars racing around and people walking and talking and all that. We were in a little bit of a re-entry shock coming from the Exumas where a large island has a few houses and a bar and an average on has one or two houses or maybe just pigs or iguanas. Unaccustomed to the hubbub we weaved and stumbled into the deli and were saved by the curried chicken patties.

Tomorrow we will head to Man0war cay or to Great Guana cay for swimming, snorkeling and beach combing before we tackle ................the Whale. Just call me Ishmael.......

p.s. We want to thank our friend Lauren for her phone assistance when dakot sliced his foot open pretty badly on a conch shell. It was about 1 inch long and quite deep right on the pad of his foot. She directed us as to the proper care for best healing, thanks Lauren! Its all healed! See you this spring!

The grouper, the shark and yours truly

We had a great time in the Staniel Cay area, where we anchored in the lee of Big Major Cay, great anchorage with good snorkeling and beautiful beaches.
We had all gone snorkeling at the northern tip of Big Major which has small coral heads combined with a coral garden and a sandy deeper trough. I had my pole spear with me. I'd been seeing a lot of small groupers when I spotted one of takable size. He spotted me too and he quickly scampered under a coral head. Seems this is the grouper way, when in doubt go straight into your hole. It took me a while but I did finally manage to spear him in his hole but then couldn't get him out. My spear was laying at the bottom attached to the grouper while I got a breath of air before giving it another go, as I started down I spotted in the distance a shark coming our way, I couldn't tell what type of shark it was and I wasn't going to hang around to find out. I swam back to the dinghy where the kids where already in and Laurel and I got in. We then dinghied over the coral head to see the action.
The shark turned out to be two sharks, both nurse sharks. While they are fairly bening as long as you don't mess with them. I didn't want to get back in the water to compete with food with them. They both had their snouts straight in the grouper hole but couldn't get him, eventually one left, after a beach break, we got the boat hook and went back, to see if we could hook the band on the polespear and pull it out. At this point I was concerned with just getting my spear back. We floated over the reef and actually managed to hook the band, I started pulling and tugging at it with the boat hook, when all of a sudden it all came out, but with no grouper and then I realized no spear tip! I looked down and the shark had the grouper and my spear tip. The tips are expensive and I didn't want to lose it, so I gave the shark a quick jab with the boat hook and it scared him away and he took off. Laurel held the boat at the edge of the shore and after a wary look, I swam in recovered the tip and grouper. He was a bit worse for wear after the shark, but whole, see him in the picture below.

We cleaned him on the beach, and then had this sting ray come by, looking for grouper scraps. The Bahamas are loaded with rays and we've seen many but having this one swim back and forth just a couple of feet from us was really cool. The kids loved it.

We also visited a place called Rachel's bubble bath or Rachel's pool. It is at the top of Compass Cay and is a natural pool that is protected from the ocean by dunes and reef, however at mid to high tide the waves crash over a coral slot and froth into the pool, you can see it in the picture below. If you stand just in front of the break you get immersed in the froth and bubbles, great experience, we did it with our masks and snorkles to really get the full effect.

Below is the northern bank side of Compass Cay where we did some beach combing before pulling our anchor and spending the night at Bell Cay.

We left at first light the next morning and sailed 35 plus miles to Allen's Cay. We managed to get in early so had a great time at a beach, where we did some conching and where I managed to spear another grouper. We walked across to the bank side where someone had erected cairns. I wanted to include the picture below so you could see how jagged and rocky the Cays can be. These are ancient coral and are really jagged, sharp and pointy. The Cays tend to be a combination of this and of course sand beaches.

We are currently in Spanish Wells on Eleuthera where we arrived yesterday, had a nice and and uneventful crossing, although went through a section where we had to slalom our way around the coral heads. We will spend most of today here, then stage for our crossing to the Abacos late this afternoon at Egg Cay. Spanish Wells is a fishing and working community and as I write this fishing boats have been leaving the harbor one after another all morning. Here is Laurel walking along the waterfront yesterday afternoon.

We most likely won't write again until we're somewhere in the Abacos and have internet access.

Best, C.

Well, since we blogged last we have been on the move! We left the Exuma park and sailed to Black Point on Great Guana Cay where we met some folks on a boat called Osprey. They have two kids a little older but all four of them were thrilled to play! We went for a long walk to the northern end of the island and saw the 'white elephants', large white limestone cliff like rocks that stick out into the Exuma sound. After a couple of days we then made our way to Staniel Cay, where Charles went to explore the town and I entertained the four kids (Osprey was there too). We had planned to stay a couple of days and snorkel the famous Thunderball (007) but alas the weather once again intervened and we left to get protection from 40 knot squalls at the Exuma park. Although it was frustrating to be back we had a great couple of hikes and lots of great swimming, too. Every Saturday night the park puts on a bonfire and cocktail hour on the beach which we joined in with enthusiasm. A group of kids were there and our two took full advantage, as did we.

The hike we took takes you through really rough rocky coral that the islands are built on. You end up on beaches and short cliffs with great views of the sound and the banks. On the walks if your lucky you might see a hutia, a native mammal that looks kind of like a guinea pig. The hutia are endangered, so it is a great thing to see them here.

We also spent an afternoon just hanging out on a beach right in the anchorage and pretty soon all the kids came in to play and they had a ball! We haven't met too many kids so when we do it is very exciting! The kids frolicked in the water and the sand all afternoon and fell into bed that night. Happy exhaustion!

We now are back in Staniel Cay. We spent some time at the beaches on Big Major Spot and now have come back to Staniel to try to snorkel Thunderball tomorrow! The weather is wild and windy and keeps us on our toes! We will start to head north by the end of the week making our way towards the Abacos where we will meet both our families. It could be a couple of weeks before we have internet access again, at which point we will blog again! xoxo to all. L