Strong Winds Force us to Hangout at Rudder Cut Cay

We anticipated strong winds so we chose to ride out the blow under the protection of Rudder Cut Cay. Just as we dropped anchor on Wed .around 11:00 am, the winds picked up to 20 knots out of the east with gusts to 25-30 knots so we “chilled” Wednesday and much of Thursday while the blow continued.  We managed to swim to the cave, snorkel the mermaid and the piano statue, do yoga on the coconut palm beach, and catch up on our book reading. Unlike last time we were at Rudder Cut Cay when there were about 20 boats, this time we were one of about six boats in the anchorage, Coq en Pate being one of the others. We’d met Paul of “Coq en Pate” with his family on Long Island and Paul dinghied over as he wanted to pick our brains about what he might expect further north.  We were happy to oblige and to exchange conversation about L’Orient, France from where his catamaran was built and they started their journey.

Yes, James is underwater

A couple of mermaids

Shark Sightings, Juno’s Barracuda, and a Sandbar Sunset

Not one but two sharks were sighted today.  The first was about 4 feet long and was sighted as we were concluding a wonderful snorkel off Little Farmer’s Cay while we were still in the water.  James tried to steer him away to give Katie more time to exit the water and in doing so, sent the shark into deeper water where Sarah was still snorkeling.  Thankfully he wasn’t too interested in us.  The second shark however, was about a huge hammerhead, about 10 feet long, spotted by Sarah from the bow while Juno was plowing through calm clear waters on the bank. Soon after dropping anchor off Cave Cay, James noticed a 2.5 foot long barracuda hanging out under Juno.  We tried feeding the fish ham and nectarine bits but they weren’t appetizing enough for his liking.  No one wanted to swim off the boat with the barracuda hanging out so we dinghied over to a sandbar with a few beers and watched the sunset surrounded by water, just off Musha Cay (supposedly owned by David Copperfield).

Matthew invited us in to see his school at Farmers Cay.

A hundred fish around coral just off the beach

The barracuda that enjoyed hanging out under juno

Beautiful Queen Anglefish at a nearby reef

Beers at a sandbar

Snorkeling at the Grotto Staniel Cay, Head Woes, and Oven Rock Cave

Returning to the site of the grotto in James Bond’s “Thunderball” with Katie and James we experienced the thrill once again of swimming into a big enclosed room surrounded by rock on all sides with a ceiling 18 feet above with a small hole letting some sunlight through, filled with fish fish and … tourists.  Good news is that the tourists come, they look for 15 minutes, and then leave whereas we lingered, had the grotto all to ourselves and this time saw a lionfish while snaking our way through the rocks. 

Back on Juno, James who seized every opportunity to snorkel, opened our eyes to a huge starfish that was right under our boat and then a huge sting ray swimming by. Katie then noticed a smell emerging from our head, and as luck would have it, we discovered we had exceeded the limits of our holding tank. Never a good symptom to have but Harry got right to work and after a pump overboard the situation was mitigated with no lasting foul smelling effects. Thanks Harry. 

We then stopped about 5 miles south at “Oven Rock” on Great Guana Cay where a short 10 minute hike inland led us to a subterranean cave the size of a house filled with salt water at the bottom with small 3 inch pink shrimp. James and Harry each swam 15 feet or so into the deep waters while the less adventurous Katie and Sarah just waded a few feet in. Back at the ocean beach, we walked around a 20 foot the rock shaped like a beehive oven for which the Cay got it’s name.

Ray passing by Juno's keel

Cave near Oven Rock

Guest bloggers, Katie and James

We made it! After an early flight on Friday, we met up with Mom and Dad in Georgetown around 2pm. We got our first taste of the Bahamas with a quick snorkel in an underwater cave and a walk around Stocking island. 

Refugee from the Boston winter arrives

Straight to some snorkeling at a small cave

Katie, James, Sarah, and Harry

East shore of stocking island

Saturday was spent outside the reef making progress 50 miles north so we would be set up to work our way south during the next week. It was a long day of beautiful sailing in 15-20 knots of wind and 7ft waves. There was a brief moment of excitement when our fishing line went taught and we thought we caught dinner! Unfortunately, Dad pulled in an empty line and a fish got away with our last squid lure. We were surprisingly tired after a day of sitting and trimming sails and after dinner went right to bed.

Some big seas

Juno in capable hands

Sunday started with a visit to the iguanas on Bitter Guana (we wonder what has made the iguanas so bitter), where James enjoyed teasing the little dragons with food scraps. A hike to the top of Bitter Guana revealed a beautiful view of Exuma Bank spreading out to Exuma Sound with every color of blue imaginable. We went for our first real swim around the boat, recording hours of GoPro footage for Dad to edit out later. After picking up anchor, we headed to the pigs at Staniel Cay.  Mom got her exercise in running from one of the more aggressive pigs, while James and I took our picture with Jay-Z. A little dinghy exploring led us to a snorkel spot in the cut between Big Major and Fowl Cay. The incoming tide made for a fun lazy-river (or officially drift-snorkel) where we spotted a turtle and some of the best snorkeling we’ve seen so far.

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View from atop Bitter Guana

Katie and Jay-Z

James and Katie standing by in the Bahamas

Hitchhiking in Pastor Brown's taxi

Today was our day to reprovision in anticipation of Katie and James’ arrival tomorrow. We’d been advised that a butcher three miles north of town was the place to go for meats so we decided to walk to the butcher’s, taking a picnic lunch with us with plans to stop by the beach for a swim. We walked on the side of the Queen’s Highway that runs the length of Great Exuma, with cars driving on the left hand side as in England. En route we found (saw) pigeon peas (the local pea/bean) and bananas growing and even an old Snipe sailboat (hull 255—) the one-design sailboat that we race in Winchester. We found a great $2 rug (12 inches x 18 inches to wipe sand off our feet) at the NAPA auto parts store and a PVC pipe that Harry will use to fix a hole in our boom vang. Best of all, we treated ourselves to a little ice cream before restocking our meats at the butcher’s shop.  The cashier, hearing that we walked from George Town advised us to hitchhike back.  So, we stuck out our thumb and the first car to approach happened to be a taxi. It turned out our taxi driver was a Baptist minister named Pastor Brown.  He drove us all the way back with our shopping and in lieu of payment, asked us for a prayer. We asked for his business card should we need a cab in the future.  We were grateful for the lift and thanked Pastor Brown for the ride and parted ways returning to Juno.  We arrived back at Juno rather wet after dinghying upwind across the harbor to Stocking Island in a strong breeze.

Pigeon peas - maybe

Pausing at a beach for a break along our trek

Decisions to make on our return to George Town

The forecast today was for northerly winds to increase from nothing at dawn to about 12 knots by noon and building to 18 knots by late afternoon so we took our time and were the last to leave the anchorage around 10:30 am as the northerly was starting to build with a single reef in the mainsail. Today we needed to return to George Town to prepare to meet up with Katie and her boyfriend James who are arriving on Friday.  Halfway across, the winds increased and seas were building to 5 feet, so we put in a second reef in the mainsail and reduced the jib and were still making 8 knots on a close reach towards the northwest entrance to George Town - Conch Cay Cut. We had a favorable tide, flooding with the wind to keep waves down at the cut, but were at the very beginning of flood, meaning that it was low tide.  When we were about 20 minutes from Conch Cay Cut, Harry radioed for input on conditions at the cut. The person on the other end suggested with with our 6’ draft that we might have trouble making over one of the sand bars. 

Our choices were such that we could either wait for the tide to get up a bit higher, to head south to the southeastern entrance to George Town.  This too has it share of tricky reefs to avoid and is more narrow but more importantly in this case, the water is deeper.  We had already crossed the Conch Cay Cut on our earlier visit to George Town but the conditions were much milder then.  After sometime discussing the situation, we decided upon the southern entrance.  We entered several waypoints into the GPS help us guide Juno safely past the reef and into the calmer waters of Elizabeth Harbor, dropping anchor off sand dollar beach along with the 150 others who were taking cover from the northerly winds. 

The sunrises are as beautiful as the sunsets

More Barracuda, not so Barren Bottoms, Bahamian Blue Cocktails and a Bilge Dinner

Waking up in Calabash Bay on Long Cay, there was no wind at all and at 7:30 am, we were topsides peering down 10 feet in crystal clear waters watching the wave patterns made by the sunlight on the sandy bottom below. It really looked like we were anchored in a vast swimming pool. But then, contrary to yesterday’s blog, there is life on the sandy bottom if one is patient enough to observe.  In fact we saw a barracuda swim out from under the shadow of our boat as well as a smattering of 4-inch starfish on the sandy bottom below. Interestingly, the starfish seemed to bury themselves in the sand within the hour hiding from sight.  We spent the morning doing boat chores then dinghied to "our" private beach before showing up at the Cape Santa Maria resort for the happy hour drink special and conch fritters.  While we missed the name of the happy hour drink special we enjoyed, it was turquoise blue (tasted like a margarita) and served with conch fritters with calypso sauce, as the sun set over a cloudless horizon.  

Back aboard Juno, we made some tasty crab cakes for dinner - about the first bilge dinner of the voyage. What's a bilge dinner? First, what's a bilge? The bilge is the area of a boat beneath the cabin floor.  Before leaving Florida for the Bahamas, Sarah filled much of Juno's bilge with cans of food - from canned crab and pasta sauce, to asparagus.  She also packed as much frozen and refrigerated food as Juno could manage.  The fresh food is running out, and very expensive to replenish, so "bilge" food is making up more and more of our meals.

Barracuda, Bahamian Blues, Barren Bottoms, and Brownies

On a shallow white, rather boring looking flat sandstone reef off Conception Island, we saw our first barracuda just hovering ten feet away from us while snorkeling in the morning. The fish was probably only 24 inches long with a prominent large eye that he kept focused on us. Unlike most other reef fish that swim quickly away when we approach, the barracuda stood his ground and didn’t swim away. Not wanting to provoke him, we kept our distance and all parties were happy. 

Here’s where the 2 foot shallow cream colored waters transition to to 8-12 feet Bombay Saphire Gin turquoise blue, which meld into deeper Tidy-Bowl turquoise blue waters that might be 65 feet deep, and then a deeper navy blue as the depths drop precipitously to seven thousand feet deep such as the depth between the Conception and Long Cays - our destination for the afternoon. Try as we may to describe the colors of the seas, words just don’t do justice to the many beautiful shades of turquoise blue water that we see here every day. Interestingly, the bluest waters appear so blue and clear because there is nothing but sand below them.  And while the turquoise waters looks so appealing to us, we imagine it must be just the opposite to most marine life. For when the water is such a beautiful blue, the ocean bottom is nothing but sand and is devoid of most larger marine life.  The coral heads and rocks provide food and shelter for fish. These appear black or dark greenish- brown amidst the sea of turquoise. So while we can enjoy the turquoise waters when we are above the surface, we also enjoy the brownish-green patches when snorkeling. Speaking of enjoyment, today we enjoyed our first substantial desert - Duncan Hines brownies.  So although from a mix, they were pretty good.

Conception Island

Waking up we thought we’d spend another day on Long Island, but the long term weather forecast caused us to change plans and head 15 miles NE to Conception Island - an uninhabited island owned by the Bahamas National Trust.  We had a great sail moving about 7 knots with winds out of the SE, crossing ocean depths of 7000 feet.  Out of habit, Sarah said to mind the lobster pot ahead. But as we got closer, the lobster pot looked like a bird with a palm frond and then it took flight revealing an extremely long, 24 inch white tail.  It turned out to be what is called a white-tailed tropical bird.  He was the first bird we’ve seen in a long while and was striking. 

We successfully navigated our way through the reef at Conception Island, anchoring with about 8 other boats in 10 feet of water about 200 yards from a beautiful beach.  Sarah was tempted to swim to the visible reef between the boat and the shore but Harry preferred to deploy the dinghy and by the day’s end, we were extremely glad we had the dinghy.  We spent an hour snorkeling the reef just off shore, crossed a path to the “north” beach where we snorkeled again, then jogged the 1.5 mile beach we had all to ourselves before dinghying back to Juno around 5:30 pm.   As we were enjoying the 6:00 pm sunset with a gin and tonic, Harry noticed two sharks swimming right under the boat. This affirmed what we’ve heard  - that you don’t want to be in the water around dusk as this is when the sharks look for food and it cured Sarah of her desire to swimming to shore regardless of how close we may be.

North Beach

Rocks for snorkeling off of North Beach

Touring Long Island by SUV

As the island is 40 miles long and about 4 miles wide with few anchorages we could get into, we were advised to rent a car to see the sights.  The Cape Santa Maria resort lined us up with a SUV and we drove past many churches, a few primary schools, several settlements as they are called, much dense vegetation and extremely few other motorists to the farmer’s market at Salt Pond. This market had about 8 vendors selling handmade straw purses and placemats, salt, eggs, bread, peas, and jam, and a few green bananas. We then drove to the oldest church (in ruins) behind which we found the “shrimp hole” which literally was a hole (more like a huge cave) in the ground in the jungle, that measured about 8 feet deep with 3 inch long red shrimp in the water.  Then we stopped for lunch on the western shore and found the sponge man’s harvest of clean and not so clean sponges drying in the sun.  

But the big attraction came afterwards - Dean’s Blue Hole which is the deepest saltwater blue hole measuring 600 feet deep. It was eery swimming around the outer edge looking into the dark abyss, but there were tropical fish on the edge of the hole in about 20 feet of water. Snorkeling adjacent to the hole in the shallow grass, we saw a 7 foot ray glide past us both. Clarence Town, the capital of the island was our final stop where we caught a fisherman cleaning his Wahoo, much to the delight of about 15 sharks under the dock, then it was a long 2 hour drive north and dinghy back to Juno to enjoy a grouper dinner.

Local resident Sarah at the Farmers Market

Ruins of a church built on the site of the oldest church in the Bahamas

"Shrimp Hole"

And there are shrimp!

Sponges drying in the sun before going to market

Deans Blue Hole

Harry with 600 feet below

Beautiful 6' wingspan of a local resident near the blue hole

In case Juno doesn't make it to the Tropic of Cancer

Long Island: Cape Santa Maria Resort’s Prize Winning Beach

After 2-3 hours sailing with light winds we motored the rest of the 20 miles to Calabash Bay, Long Island. A new French bread recipe tried en route unfortunately turned into something resembling foccacia, but all was soon forgotten as we arrived in time for happy hour at the Cape Santa Maria Resort in Calabash Bay.  The resort had the most stunning extremely fine, white sand beach ever - apparently one of the 10 finest in the world.  And it stretched on for 4 miles, with crystal clear, waters - in fact, we noticed we could see the bottom 66 feet below our boat on our approach.  The Canadian run resort was stunning and we both enjoyed margaritas and conch fritters while watching the sun set. This was definitely a “10” day. Cape Santa Maria is named for one of Christopher Columbus’ boats as there is some history to suggest that he landed here.

A rare windless day

Seeing the bottom 66 feet below. And it really is that blue.

Happy-hour sunset at Cape Santa Maria Resort