Day 240 Monday, February 17th A car tour of the south of Long Island

Day 240 Monday, February 17^th A car tour of the south of Long Island

Yes we wake up to another beautiful day although somewhat breezy.   The winds are out of the East North East at around 20 knots but Thompson Bay is a perfect location for this wind direction.  We get the day going early, coffee and a listen to the Chris Parker Weather show.

Sue and Dave of Sans Cles c/w buns

After the weather Dave and Sue are coming over to complete the planning/organization for the car rental.  At 8:30 they are over and we are sitting down enjoying the fresh cinnamon buns Sue baked complete with icing and a coffee of freshly ground coffee.  We give Fox Garage a call and make arrangements to pick up the car at the government dock at 1 pm.  The next big question is do we head to the north or south of the island today.  We decide we will seek some advice from Mike the owner of Island Breeze so will head in around noon to give us some time to talk to him.  We also decide that as the winds are to stay high that we will move the boats closer to the shore of Long Island to make the dinghy trip a little better as we can ride in the lee of the island longer.  We shuffle the boats in to shore, pack our stuff and have a quick lunch.  Today’s lunch was again excellent and is fish tacos, made with our Mahi Mahi catch of last week.

Inside the family van already for the trip

Noon finds us at Island Breeze, Sue and Dave head into to find Mike, owner of Island Breeze, and Julie and Dawson heads over to the Ministry of Tourism building just up the road to seek some advice.  Right at 1:00 our car shows up just after we get our info, you have to like the timing.  We are in a 1997 Honda Odyssey Van, we ask how many cars they have and the answer is 6 with all of them being rented.  To us it looks like the Odyssey is the family vehicle and with the high demand for vehicles it is put into the rental fleet.  Based on the advice from Mike and people at the Bahamian Tourism we head south on our 1^st car adventure in the Bahamas.

Julie, Sue and Dave overlooking the Atlantic

Driving in the Bahamas is on the right so as Sue is English she gets the nod at driving.  After about 10 minutes of driving we decide to take the next road which heads off to the Atlantic shore.   The next road leads to a partially developed vacation home estate.  These are quite common in the Bahamas, someone has a dream, raises some cash, gets a road and maybe 1 or two house and a couple more started and that is it.  We notice goat droppings at the stop so we move into a game of “spot the goat” with the winner getting 3 dollars in prize money.  The game is on for about 10 mins making for an exciting 5 miles with Dave being the 1^st to spot a goat.  He is a natural at the game.

View from partial finished vacation home

We now figure it is time to take a drive to the the West side of the island and head down a likely looking road, which featured a sign for the Seaside Bar and Grill.  We arrive to find that the Seaside Bar and Grill is a deck over the water with sitting for 10.  We enjoy a nice cold Kalik with the owners Jerry and his sister Karen.  The West part of the island is all bonefish country, featuring shallows up to a mile off shore. 

Jerry bar and grill, bone fishing boat on left

Unfortunately Jerry asks if any of us know computers and Dawson makes the mistake of offering up Dave who was in IT in his earlier life.  Sorry Dave.  Dave spends this stop trying to get the volume on Jerry’s computer working while we enjoy the view and get some local knowledge from Jerry and Karen.  Based on their advice, we plan our next two stops, the local Museum in Dunmore followed by the blue hole at Dean.

The museum is good, similar to so many “local” museums we have been to.

Julie and Sue at Dunmore Museum

From Dunmore it is only a short drive to Deans Blue Hole, the deepest blue hole in the world at 673 feet.  It is definitely worth the stop.  Dawson and Dave take a swim.  Unfortunately  none of us brought a diving mask. The hole is about 300’ in diameter and is in a bay off the Atlantic, well sheltered from the open ocean. There is a diving platform in the center of the hole which is currently in use as there is a film shoot underway.  Dawson talks to one of the divers and finds out she is a world record holder in free diving as well as 3 time US national Champion.  She also points out a fellow on the platform who is the current world record holder.  Free diving is one of the extreme sports where the competitors have taken something fun, diving for lobsters etc, to the extreme in our humble opinion.  They now have competitions where you ride a steel weight as deep as possible take a tag (which gives the depth you obtain) and then come back to surface where you have to answer a skill testing question and do a physical act like touch your nose.  Doesn't sound like fun to me.  On the east side of the hole we spot a rope ladder that allows you to climb to the rim of the hole for a jump.  Dawson 1 ^st tries it but gives up thinking that he will get badly scrathed by the limestone, but Dave makes the climb so peer pressure forces Dawson up, without  injury.  The view down on the blue hole is particularly good and the jump even better.

Looking east across Dean Blue Hole

Dive platform, individual on left is the world record holder 

Dawson climbing up rim of Blue Hole

Dave at rim taking in the view

Dawson in mid Jump

After our swim we head back to the car for the drive to our next stop, the Spires of Church of Sts. Peter and Paul located in Clarence Town.  Here you are allowed to climb to the top of twin towers of the church which overlooks the Clarence Town harbour.  It is an excellent stop; the spires are about 4’ in diameter with 3 wooden ladders leading to the top viewing platform.  The view from the top is excellent with the platform allowing you to walk around a full 360 degrees.  Julie and Sue head up one spire and Dave and Dawson up the other.

View of Sts Peter and Paul Church

Julie and Sue at top of the girl's spire

View from top of spire

Dave and Dawson on Boys spire note that the cross is missing

After this exhilarating stop it is time for a beer so we head over to the harbour.  Our 1^st choice is a stop at the Rowdy Boy Bar and Grill but after a quick peek inside we head over to the marina for a beer

The bar with a great name, but we still ended up at the marina

overlooking the harbour.  It is a good choice as we meet another set of cruisers who are at anchor in the harbour and get some info on the local services and anchorages.  Some excitement had happened here about 5 days before, with two boats suffering lighting strikes during the passages of the cold front.  We had watched the lighting from George Town and had heard on the Chris Parker show about the hits but it is sad to hear the story first hand.  The boat we are talking to did not get hit but was anchored next to the boats which were hit.  Neither of the boats hit were holed by the strike but they did lose all their electronics and suffer major damage to their electrical systems.  This is the risk of traveling around with your own 60’ lighting rod.

It is now getting to be late and we get back in the car for the last 20 mile drive to the south end of the island.  The south part of the island is much poorer than what we had seen previously with a number of ruins and shacks en route.  All of a sudden we are at the end of the road as the road just ends at a set of steps.

End of the road 

 Dave jumps out and runs over to the end of the road and picks up the stop sign which is laying on the ground for the next group of tourists.  There is access to the West Beach which provides an excellent spot to watch the sun go down.  The beach has been prepared for visitors having a gazebo, a cooking area, seating and some recently planted palm trees, a good stop for sundowners on the South Island tour.

Sunset at the south end of Long Island

From here it is back north, we are now on the look out for a spot for dinner.  We are looking for a good local restaurant and we find it at Max Conch Salad Bar and Grill.  We enjoy an excellent meal of Conch, Grouper and Plantain.  Max comes over to ensure we are well taken care of and we get the history of the restaurant.   Max describes how it all started.  He use to be a fisherman and whenever they were stuck in an anchorage due to weather, the crew would gather the conch and he would prepare the salad for the crew, and one fellow told him he should open a conch salad bar, he describes it as a hobby gone bad.  From 4 chairs serving beers and conch salad he now has about 50 seats and offers a full menu.

We are finished dinner around 8 and it is time to get back to the boat.  

By 8:30 we are in the dinghies heading out to the fleet of anchored sailboats.  We both pick out our boats without issues (in the dark it can be challenging) and are on-board by 9.

A cup of coffee, a view of the days pictures and we are in bed by 10.

An Excellent day of Adventure

Cheers

Dawson and Julie

Day 239   Sunday, February 16^th – a busy day

We wake up, yes, to another beautiful day and it is even better as we learn something right off.  We are anchored in Thompson Bay, Long Island and are scheduled to listen to the local cruiser net, which is on channel 18.  The only problem is that we can hear the call on 16 for the start of the net but cannot hear anything on boat’s VHF ch 18.  Dawson grabs the hand held and we listen that way.  After the show we look to see what the issue is, it turns out that there is a ch 18A and ch 18D dependent if you use international or US channels.  Well all this time we have been on international as we had assumed we are international being in the Bahamas but not so, everyone is on US.  This makes for an excellent start today as we have learned something.

After the net we do some planning for the day and come up with a full agenda, all to start after lunch.   Before lunch Julie does her French lessons and cleans up the boat while Dawson heads to shore for a run.  The cruisers guide recommended a run along the road to Indian Hole Point, it is not a bad run (8 kms) but nothing to compared to the beach run Dawson has been doing along the Beach of Stocking Island.

After a quick lunch we head to shore to drop off our garbage, check out the local cave, do some snorkeling on the Atlantic side, and then check out the wrecks in the bay, a very busy agenda.  We land at the dinghy dock at Island Breeze the local resort, drop the garbage off at large bins provided for us cruisers and get the direction to the cave. 

Julie in front of cave entrance

Turns out access to the cave is best by dinghy so we move up to the cave. The cave is small consisting of one big room, although we did not do a full explore so there could be an opening to a deeper portion that we did not see.  Having no lights and not being a spelunker, we just duck in.  It is neat, worth the 5 min stop.  

View inside cave

Dawson en route to the Atlantic Beach

From here we head back to Island Breeze dock for the hike to the Atlantic side of the island and some snorkeling.  The walk was reported to be about 10 mins from the net but turns out to be more like 20 mins but is worth the walk.  The road for the 1^st part is partially paved; more gravel than paved but still provides a spot for two young girls to skate board.  We ask how the ride was and their reply is “good but lots of vibrations”.

The beach provides some excellent views and a small bay for a swim.  We go for a snorkel to see if there are any lobsters, Dawson now being the proud owner of a pole spear.  But the ocean is too rough to get to the outer reefs and there is nothing to see in the reef just off the beach.  Oh well it was a nice swim.  We speak to two other cruising couples who are enjoying the beach and realize that we had met one of the couples earlier in Hope Town in the Abacos.  The cruising world is a small community with everyone traveling the same route more or less.  We take a hike up the beach and find a small cave making it a two cave day, not very often that happens.

View south along beach

Julie in sea cave

Beach garbage and beach plant 

Sand Sculpture by wind and water

We hike back to the dinghy around 2:30 and go out to check out the wrecks in the harbour.  They are there but not too exciting, more like boats left to sink on their moorings than a “wreck”.  The largest one has an Osprey nest on the top of the loading arm.  

After a full afternoon we are back on the boat just in time to be informed by Sue and Dave that there is a Cruisers Sundowner meeting on the beach at 4:30.  We made it back from our adventures just in time as it is now 4:15.

Sundowner beach after the arrivals of the "bugs"

At 4:30 we are heading to shore drinks in hand and some pretzels and hummus for the snack table.  It is a large gathering as there are about 25 boats at anchor and most people attending.  There are a large contingency of Canadians.  One fellow Bill, boat AFTICA, we confirm that we had anchored beside him in Clapperton Harbour in the North Channel back in July of last year.  As I said earlier the cruising world is a small one.  Around 6 the mosquitoes and No Seems come out so that we are all driven back to the boats by ~6:45.

Back on board we cancel supper due to the excellent grazing that was at the get together, we spend the evening watching slide shows of our last years worth of adventure (as we have now been travelling over a year having departed Feb. 7^th for our Canadian west driving holiday),  coffee and a little reading and we are off to bed. 

another end of the day

Another excellent day on the adventure.

Cheers

Dawson and Julie

Day 238 Saturday, February 15th another beautiful day of sailing

Day 238 Saturday, February 15^th  - another beautiful sailing day

We are leaving George Town to head over to Long island today.  It is about 40 nautical miles away which should take about 8 hours.  We don’t need to leave too early so we have a nice leisurely  breakfast and coffee.  It is nice that the days are starting to get longer, less pressure when sailing longer distances.

At around 9 o’clock we up anchor and head out the southern cut to the Exuma Sound.   

Leaving George Twon

The wind is perfect and we have hoisted the sail while still at anchor, we quickly get our genny out and have the engine shut down and are sailing within 10 mins.  The wind stays with us for the whole trip all out of the southwest at about 12 to 15 knots.  The boat sails well and we enjoy the sail.  We are sailing over 9 to 12’ of water which is a beautiful turquoise blue.   

We make Thompson Bay on Long Island around 4 and have the hook down by 4:30.  Thompson Bay is a very large bay which provides protection from all but a south west, the wind we rode in on.  The wind is forecasted to clock and right on schedule the wind starts to move to the north, which makes for a peaceful sleep. 

Full moon over Thompson Bay

For sundowners we are joined by Dave and Sue from Sans Cles.  We enjoy a couple of drinks together, a nacho chip with dip which Julie whipped up along with some spiced peanuts which San Cles brought over.  Over drinks we all agree to rent a car on Monday and tour Long Island.  Sue has heard that it is best to rent a car for the full day starting at noon.  This way you tour the north half of the island on day one and the south half in the morning of the second day.  We enjoy a gorgeous sunset followed by a moon lit evening.

Sans Cles heads back to their boat around 7:30 and we enjoy an excellent meal followed by coffee and a game of Kings Cribbage.  

We head off to bed quite late, well after nine.

Cheers

Dawson and Julie

Day 237 Friday February 14th, Valentines day

Day 237 Friday February 14^th, Valentines day      

Well last night was not a good sleep for Julie.  The winds clocked to the north 4 hours earlier than planned so swells set up in our anchorage about midnight instead of 4 a.m.  We were planning on leaving with the morning high tide at 6 a.m. so did not mind the early morning bobbing, but when it started around midnight, Julie was constantly checking our anchor.  No need to be concerned as we held fine, and it really was not much bobbing around.  Nothing like our night at Pelee Island.

We creeped out of the anchorage about 6:30 and had lots of water under the keel by Bahamas standards.  We had a minimum of about 6 inches on the way in but at least a foot at the skinniest (shallowest) on the way out due to timing of the tides.  We anchor back near volleyball beach as we are only planning on being here for a night and there is a valentine dinner dance going on so this anchorage is handy for the social life.  We anchor about where we had been on another occasion and head to the beach for a run and yoga.  Gwen and Giomme, and their guests are joining us.  After our exercise we head over to visit Blue Moon and Charbonneau.  It is now about 11 and we go back to the mothership as Julie wants to fit a nap in today due to last nights lack of sleep and the requirement to stay up past boaters midnight for the dance.  As we approach our boat we see that it is quite close to the neighbours.  The winds had shifted to the east and the neighbour anchors with rope as opposed to chain so we swing differently.  We quickly start up the engine and relocate.  The neighbour is sitting in his cockpit watching that we don’t hit.  We yell our apologies and he dismisses it with a “they are just boats, not to worry”, which is nice.  Some boaters get quite testy if neighbours park too closely.

We are now anchored further afield, with no risk of collisions.  Julie naps, Dawson reads, then falls asleep too.  We awake at 2:00 and after deflating the kayaks to vacumn out the sand that is chafing them, we head to volleyball beach for a game of volleyball.  Oh what a busy life.  We have been enjoying the activities, although Julie has a pulled calf which is a bit tender but does not prevent her from playing.

Back on the mothership we get ready for the dinner dance.  Dinner is a buffet of ribs, fish and chicken.  We bring our own utensils as they will serve with plastic which is not very “special” for our valentines.  Julie wishes she brought a wine glass too as they serve it in a plastic disposable water glass.  Oh well.  The food is good, the music is a blast.  There are about 100 people trying to fit on the deck to dance.  We chat to many of the boater friends we have made and get lots of exercise jumping around to the music.  By 10:00 we are winding down and head home.  We find the boat very easily.  We are getting better at noting our location with the many boats anchored here.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson

Day 236, Thursday February 13th

Day 236, Thursday February 13^th

Ice cream treat along the way

We are happy with our anchorage last night.  We had rain and lightening throughout the night, but not much movement by us.  We were well sheltered.   It is still rainy in the morning so we enjoy staying in our pyjamas til around 11, just swilling coffee and reading.  Julie gets a bit of housework done, then we are off for an afternoon hike with Lynn from Windward to explore the stores along the King’s hwy.  There is a NAPA store where we find batteries and a new rug for the boat to replace the one that blew off our deck one night when we had left it out.  Next stop is an art gallery.  A lovely establishment with carvings, paintings and some jewellry.  Like normal we enjoy the look but don’t buy.  We really have no where to put stuff.  Another mile down the road we find a bit of a grocers and we get some yogurt that was not available when we had done our groceries the other day.  The best part though is the single serving chocolate Hagendas ice cream we all buy and enjoy.  We walk about another mile but there is not much to see so we turn around and head for home.  Just before our turnoff path to the beach there is an older lady with her basket weaving so we purchase a handwoven basket for our fruit.  This ladies prices are much better than the tourist straw market although for her time, she did not charge enough.

We take Lynn back to her boat and make plans to return for sundowners and dinner after we go for a swim.  Julie whips together lobster stuffed mushrooms to bring as an appetizer as we need to finish off the lobster tails  we had cooked up the other night.

We dinghy over to Windward and have a fabulous clam linguini along with the appetizers which are lovely.  We chat for hours, but decide to head home when we start seeing lightening off in the distance.  Squalls could be on their way.

We ensure everything is secured and pile off to bed for the night.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson

Day 235, Wednesday, Feb 12

Day 235, Wednesday, Feb 12

Today is town day.  We load everything into the dinghy so we can stop at Yoga and go for a run on our way to town.  We have the propane tank, our garbage, 7  paperbooks to exchange, our laptop to blog,  some clean clothes, grocery bags, empty water bottles to fill etc.  We are pleased we have remembered everything as we have lots of errands to do.

Busy anchorage

First we go to Baha tel to buy some time on our phone and dataplan, then we head to the library and succeed in exchanging our 7 paperbacks, then to the propane drop off.  We are shocked at the lineup.  There must be 50 people milling about with about 30 propane tanks.  The truck was supposed to be here at 11 and it is 11:10 and no propane truck.  Julie heads across the road to Eddie’s where we will lunch and blog.  There is Canadian Olympics on TV which is great so we set up at the bar where there is even a plug for power.  Dawson stands in the propane line, but word is coming down the pipes that the propane truck is broken.  (not an unusual occurrence)  We get updated by the Eddie’s staff that a pickup will come and gather up all the tanks, fill them and return them.  Sounds like a plan.  It all comes together, the tanks are picked up with an estimated 30 minute turn around time.  We know that is unlikely but we plan on being at Eddie’s for a couple hours so no problem.  We struggle to get served as Eddie’s is overwhelmed with all the cruisers milling about eating, drinking, and using the internet.  Again, no rush for us.  Julie is enjoying watching Olympics, and having access to internet.  We try to watch Ross’s race from Boston last week.  No luck.  Bandwith issues.  The skating is on and we get to watch Megan Duhamel and her partner Eric which is a thrill as Megan is from our home community of Lively.  They struggle a bit, but their program is stupendous.

After about an hour lo and behold the propane tank is returned full.  Wonderful!  We finish our lunch, and head out to finish our errands.  Dawson takes our new dinghy engine over for its 10 hour servicing and gets some gasoline, Julie heads to the grocers to stock up on fresh stuff.  Dawson also buys a new tip for his spear gun.  (Wanting to catch more lobster....).

view from dinghy

By  3:00 we are back on the boat getting unloaded, and preparing to up anchor to a safer haven for the forecasted squalls and westerly winds.  We have chosen north of Goat Cay and it is shallow getting in.  We have waited sufficiently that high tide is in about an hour so if we get stuck the last couple inches of rising tide will rescue us.  Luckily we don’t touch.  The depth alarms blare for about 5 minutes though as we have only 6 inches under the keel for part of the entrance.  We are now anchored off Great Exumas island. 

We plan to meet up at the Palm Bay resort for dinner with Slow Waltz and their friends from Sudbury of all places.  Their friends Sandra and Steve are staying at the resort.  We dine at Fish Fry village about a mile down the road.  As usual we have seafood and it is great.  The walk to and from the restaurant though is dangerous as there are no sidewalks and the shoulders are very narrow.  We watch carefully and get over to the side whenever cars are coming.

We dinghy back to the mothership by shortly after 9 and call it an early night.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson

Day 234, Feb. 11, Tuesday, Georgetown

Day 234, Feb. 11, Tuesday, Georgetown

Today we are snorkelling with Gwen and Guiomme.  There is a cave in one of the hurricane holes.  We are not able to go into the cave, but the entrance is interesting with lots of fish and a huge ray watching us.  Before snorkelling we of course did yoga and went for a run (women/men respectively).

We also go for a bit of a dinghy explore looking for other snorkelling sites, but have no luck.  We return to the beach and join in on some volleyball.

We have lobster tails defrosting so have been looking forward to dinner all day.  Lynn from Windward has bought us a lemon which Julie had asked as a favour so they deliver it to us in time for sundowners.  We chat away enjoying a beautiful sunset.

Tonight we are choosing to barbeque the lobster tails.  It is a bit more challenging to determine when they are cooked.  Next time we will steam them.  The taste is fabulous though with the barbeque method.  A little butter and lemon and voila, we are eating like kings and queens.  We are definitely enjoying this portion of our adventure.

Cheers

Julie and Dawson