Bahamaste!!!

😎😎

It occurred to me that some people reading this might not have a clear idea of where the Bahamas are, so I’ve inserted a rough chart below. The Bahamas include hundreds of grouped islands – Bimini, the Berrys, the Exumas, the Abacos, Eleuthera, Long, Cat, etc, etc. The chart shows how close the Bahamas are to Florida on the far left. We crossed from Miami to Bimini (only 50 miles) and then did an overnight passage and arrived in Highbourne Cay 28 hours later near the northern end of the Exuma chain of islands.  Then to about 1/5 of the way down the Exuma chain to Cambridge Cay, and after a few days we left for Rock Sound in Eleuthera where we are now.

 The Bahamas are part of a massive underwater mountain range made of limestone and capped in places by coral reefs.  The limestone gets eroded by water and makes the overhanging shoreline you see in many photos.

So back to where I left off in the last post. On February 11 we sailed south in the Exumas from the Emerald Rock anchorage at Warderick Wells to Staniel Cay, where it’s possible to get fuel, water and, if you’re lucky, some basic provisions. The supply boat, which usually comes weekly, had not arrived for at least 10 days, so the shelves in the 3 little one-room “grocery” stores were pretty bare. No fresh produce, milk, etc. And this is one of the few preferred places to provision in the Bahamas. Oh well.  

Above is Neverland anchored at Staniel Cay with the Thunderball Grotto in the background (yup, the one made famous in the film “Thunderball”). We anchored right in front of a pretty little group of pastel-colored cottages that rent out to tourists.

Hayden and Radeen on Island Spirit were with us at Staniel and we met up one evening for conch fritters and drinks at the restaurant, where Jim took this photo. 

On Sunday we took a walk to the little airport and along the way we saw things abandoned in the scrubby vegetation beside the road – a common sight in the Bahamas. I wonder what the vertical pipe was for on this little abandoned vehicle?

At this sign we decided to go left towards the ocean breeze. At the end of the road was a lovely beach. 

Since we needed a spot better protected from forecasted strong winds and squalls, we all sailed north about 10 miles to spend a few days at Cambridge Cay. This is probably the most beautiful place I’ve visited so far in the Bahamas.  It’s known especially for good snorkeling.  Here are some photos:

 gorgeous water...

 one example of the very drought tolerant vegetation here,

 Jim hiking the trails on the Atlantic side of the Cay

 a heart-shaped stone on the beach (for Valentine’s Day)

  some fantail coral

 Jim on a swing made from netting found on the shoreline

  a pile of trash that folks keep adding to as they clean up the beach

Me taking a photo of Bell Rock on the Atlantic side of Cambridge Cay

Walking with friends on the beach, me and Radeen posing in a Valentine's heart, and me, Hayden and Radeen on the beach...

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Before the squally weather set in, one day was so calm that Jim and I took the dinghy to Compass Cay and Pipe Creek south of Cambridge Cay, where we roamed around for several hours. We saw some amazing private islands. Being in the dinghy allowed us to travel through very shallow water.

These photos were taken at Compass Cay Marina where we stopped for a hamburger and beer and watched lots of tourists “swim with the sharks”. These are harmless nurse sharks, of course.

 

We also took a walk to the beach on the Atlantic side of the island where there is a ruin of a house called “Hester’s", standing high on a hill overlooking the totally pristine beach. It was a blazing hot day and we were glad of the couple of little wooden shelters along the shore (above).

We walked back to the marina and were glad to get into the shade. The little Compass Cay Marina office/lunch deck is festooned with wooden signs mostly left by various cruisers. My favorite was “Bahamaste”. Here is another shot of the shark platform with tourists swimming with the sharks. (harmless nurse sharks, of course).

The “IRK” decal on the picnic table stands for the “Island Republic of Kalikistan”, Kalik being the most common Bahamian beer. You can see one in my hand!

 

The anchorage and mooring field at Cambridge Cay filled up very quickly as the bad weather got closer. Here's a photo through the dodger of the 30-35 knot winds and rain. We were all happy to have the crusted salt washed off the boats!! Salt is very corrosive and when you don’t have a watermaker (we don’t’) fresh water in your tanks is too precious to be able to keep everything clean.  Here, water costs about 50 cents a gallon to buy in places that make reverse osmosis (RO) water, and most often you have to haul it yourself by dinghy in 5-gallon plastic containers from a spigot somewhere on shore back to your boat.  There are very few places to bring your boat to a dock to fill the tanks directly with a hose.

Yesterday, the morning after the front went through and the weather calmed down, we readied ourselves to leave Cambridge Cay to motor about 7 hours (wind was right on the nose, of course) to Rock Sound in Eleuthera. We quickly realized something was dreadfully wrong. We had battery power in the starting battery so the engine started right up as usual, but the 3 house batteries (the ones that run everything in the boat) were dead.  We didn’t even have enough battery to use the radio, so Jim jumped in the dinghy and went to ask Hayden for help. Although Island Spirit was supposed to be leaving for Black Point any minute, Hayden came to the rescue and after extensive troubleshooting determined that the regulator for the alternator wasn’t functioning, so the batteries weren’t charging. We’d been running the frig a lot, which ran down the charge in a short time. Hayden hotwired the system, bypassing the regulator so that when we started the engine, the alternator worked again and juice began flowing to the batteries.  Hayden is amazing! He's very methodical, calm and patient and is a great problem solver.  Jim and I learned a lot about troubleshooting this system and now we all (including Hayden) are wondering if our boats should carry not just a spare alternator, but a spare regulator. After Island Spirit left to sail further south, we spent the day further investigating our battery charging problem and discovered another couple of things we'd messed up - for example, a circuit breaker to the solar panels had been jostled when moving other stuff in a locker and had caused the solar panels to only charge the starting battery.  Hmmmmm. We learned a lot that day and will be wayyyyyy more careful in future! 

Anyway, the wind shifted and so today we sailed in 13 knots on a beam reach the 7 hours to Rock Sound - couldn't have been a more lovely sail.  "Way better than bashing into waves with wind right on the nose.  The engine is charging the batteries as it should.  All is well.