Bahamas Recap

Bahamas Recap

Some interesting stats

·       Nights in marinas or on mooring balls  = 15

·       Nights on the hook = 28

·       Gallons of water purchased = 300? for a total of 80$ - does not seem to justify several thousand for a water maker?

·       Grocery stores visited = 100 % - our favorite was Maxwells in Marsh Harbor – pricy but stocked with everything. Most places had dry goods galore and only minimal fresh produce –  and then only on the day the shipments arrived. But eggs were easy to find as well as fresh milk – sort of.

·       Bakeries – visited everyone we heard about from Bimini to Spanish Key – have to give the highest points to Hudson’s in Treasure Cay for those warm cinnamon buns.

·       Fish caught after the 1^st week = ZEROish

    can we count the not so tasty ones that jump in the boat?

·       Rum drinks consumed? (OK, too many to count???)

A brief listing of the good, the bad and the ugly from our six weeks in the Bahamas

Good – there were many

1.    Water – it is really as clear and sparkling as advertised, and it comes in every shade of blue, green and aqua imaginable. The eye never tires seeing these crystal waters but us boaters do need to learn how to read the deceiving depths.  (New toy – hand held depth sounder – came in handy more than once.)

2.    People – those we met on other boats and those we met on shore.  Especially the stories of Red Boy’s Ice Cream and Vert’s models stand out as well as Donny in Black Sound.

3.    Anchorages = too many to list that provided safe and roomy scenic places to hang out, swim, dive, beach comb or launch a dink adventure. 

4.    Favorite stop (not an anchorage) is New Plymouth on Green Turtle Cay.  It felt like a real town inhabited by local people not just a charming tourist destination – and we visited many of those as well.

5.    Best travel buddies ever – Marty and Suzanne – who but perfect people would hang around with us for most of six weeks and still remain friends? It was a pleasure and an honor to spend many leisure hours together not to mention countless hours following or tag teaming them from anchorage to anchorage. Finer friends we could not have…. They saved us with loan of a cell phone from day one and up to the last moment were relaying weather from their satellite service to guide us safely into port. 
                                    

Bad

Bugs, bugs and more bugs – favorite sign – “if only mosquitoes sucked FAT instead of blood!” Sadly for Julia they prefer her blood as do the no-seeums and everything else that was biting.  The big flies actually drew Steve’s blood.

Ugly                                                        

Setting the anchor – Captain Steve dove, snorkeled or bucket checked our anchor every time to make sure it dug in.  After repeatedly trying all three of our anchors, we had the best luck with our aluminum Fortress. Go figure. A new anchor maybe in our future….

Lessons learned

We used Bahama WiMax to stay connected plus a sim card for data on our Ipad. Between those and the occasional marina WIFI we managed to get weather and e-mail. Thanks again to the Tucks for the loan of their phone when the one we brought refused to work. Thanks also to Suzanne for unlocking the mystery of the Ipad sim swap.

The food we brought was about the right amount to avoid buying those pricey items – Steve may even have a bag of chips for the trip home. We did have to restock some fresh items – when we saw them or get by with some canned substitutes – ie. milk, fruit, veggies, etc.  Should have brought more chocolate bars and maple syrup plus Aunt Jemima ’s complete buttermilk pancake mix – will do that next time around. There is the whole southern Bahamas to explore next time around. 

Heading home

Heading home

Unfortunately the weather did not favor us with light winds. (In fact, a possible tropical storm may be forming in the coming week!) Instead we were seeking shelter from forecasts with 20+ knot winds from the west and south.  The small cays of the northern Abacos, that we had hoped to wander among, do not offer protection at the best of times, but even less from south or west winds.  We were debating running for protection back in Green Turtle when a 24 hour window appeared to open.  At 8 AM we made the decision to run for Fort Pierce.  Now running is never really a Krogen activity so it may be no surprise that with the high seas and strongish west winds we were fighting most of the way it took us until after 2 the next day to reach Fort Pierce – 180+ miles from where we were anchored on the north side of Allans Pensacola.  We did have a short rest at Great Sale and earlier at Moraine where we pulled our dink on deck and tied everything down for the crossing.  The waves on the Gulf Stream were flat compared to the chop and roll on the bank.  Our final farewell from the Bahamas included a flashing sendoff courtesy of a lightening show off in the distance.  This should have warned us of the arrival back in the USA where we were greeted by a fast moving band of violent thunder storms stretching across the Florida peninsula.  We dodged the weather waiting for a break and finally made the inlet at Fort Pierce.  All these weather “issues” were more than offset by the four Mahi Mahi that Steve caught between swells and squalls.  The contents of the boat were rocked about but everyone agreed the Mahi tasted great – expertly blackened by Suzanne.  Just another wonderful shared evening with Alizann and a pleasant end to our Bahamas Wandering.

Beautiful Anchorages

Beautiful Anchorages

Our next stop was Manjack Cay where the property owners on the island have created several trails which they generously share with visitors.  We also had some exciting weather that blew in from our exposed west and built waves that rocked our floating home for a few hours.  When the storm passed we enjoyed a calm evening and the divers even got in a dive on the Atlantic before we left.

                                        

Powell Cay was a short hop north. Although there were no residents on the island, it did offer scenic beaches and a few trails that the Tucks explored and reported on to their lazy travel buddies. 

We did all dink over to the private island next door, Spanish Cay.  We unanimously declined to stay in their empty harbor since they charged a high season rate of $3 per foot.  We were welcome to walk the paths and eat at their restaurant. They didn’t even charge us to tie up our dinks although they mentioned the “private” status 600 times in our brief stopover and the $50 charge to clear customs there.  It did give us a good chance to see the facilities which included a nice pool, weight room and three beaches all a short walk from the docks.  Lunch was tasty in their air conditioned bar/restaurant.  Later we heard the key lime pie we passed on is the best in the Bahamas!  So we might have to return another time – at least for the pie.

Still working our way north and now a little west, we moved on to a fairly protected harbor on Allans Pensacola Cay.  These used to be two separate cays, but were joined by a hurricane, so hurricanes can build as well as destroy. Back in the early days of the space program a tracking station was located on the Atlantic beaches of Pensacola.  Now there is a path across the island to the old tracking site and lots of “signing trees” where visitors leave tokens or signs of their visit. Some of the objects are interesting and others are trash just recycled as ART.  As the winds changed we moved to the Atlantic side of the islands hoping for a less rocky night and walked the beaches once again….