Crossing to Florida

Since we stretched the time with our friends on Helia to the last possible moment, we face a final overnight passage to Gun Cay. My shift is uneventful with great stars, but Tom has a much more exciting watch as Liberator, two tankers and powerboat vie for space in the narrow channel of the Grand Banks. By early afternoon we sight Gun Cay. The day brings a livelier sea than we expected, so we find a refuge in a tiny protected bay. It’s Saturday and the anchorage fills with day boaters from Miami blaring either Latin or Country music. It’s back to “civilization” from here on out.

After lunch, Tom and JT snorkel vainly searching for sea biscuits. When they venture ashore, a kind woman shares some sardines with him so he can feed the rays. Later, we take our last can of sardines so Zoe and JT can try. These rays have grown accustomed to being fed and stay nearby in hopes of a handout. These southern rays are either gunmetal gray or a soft black with skin that feels like a cat’s tongue. They haven’t any teeth so they suck the food from the flat palm of a hand. JT captures it perfectly when he says it feels like the suction of a vacuum cleaner. Zoe is reluctant at first then befriends a tiny ray who comes back repeatedly to feed from her hand. While feeding the rays and beach combing I find an elusive cone shell. How lucky! I only had one and needed a second to complete my collections for the kids.

In the evening just after sunset Tom spies a spotted eagle ray cruising around the anchorage. They are such unique sea creatures and we are excited to have seen one on our last night in the Bahamas. The next morning, just after daybreak, we set sail for Miami. We are crossing the Gulf Stream which turns out to be strong enough that at times we seem to be staying in place. An hour into our trip we hear a distress signal and the Coast Guard follows it with a Pan-pan announcement asking for boaters to call in with information on when and where they heard the signal, so they can triangulate to narrow the problem. We comply and continue listening. Later a boat calls to report an overturned “homemade” sailboat. No one is visible in the water. The scarcity of information leaves us all wondering whether this was the boat reporting distress.

We finally make it to Biscayne Bay around 4 and shortly thereafter our friend Cristian comes by with his family and dog Luna on their boat. It’s a Sunday so there are some 60 to 100 boats in the harbor. It’s fun to have other kids on the boat again and they enjoy playing with each other while we catch up with Cristian and Paige. It has been an unusual day, but it has passed smoothly. At the back of our minds is the thought of the capsized boat and the distress call. For us though, we are home, safe at last. 

The Last Week

Not a week after leaving Georgetown, the biggest city in the central Exumas, we run out of propane. I am cooking when the burner stutters, then extinguishes. At first I blame the cross draft, but my inability to reignite the burner sets me straight. We are at Staniel Cay, a popular stop and wintering place for many cruisers, so we are hopeful that we can refill our tank. But a call to Isle General delivers bad news. They ran out Tuesday (it’s Wednesday) and won’t have more until the mailboat delivers on Saturday. DJ, a mechanic we’ve met, buys us some time us by lending us a fitting which permits us to transfer propane from the little grill bottles to the stove’s canister. It’s just 3 liters, but it’ll get us through the weekend. We decide to buddy cruise with Mary and DJ up to Cambridge Cay and after a fun few days (see last post), we ride the odd west wind back to Staniel Cay for propane. Not 30 minutes after anchoring, Helia pulls up in their dingy. They’ve just been to Thunderball and saw us as they came out of the cave. And Rob’s extra propane tank needs filling too! Zoe and JT are thrilled to be reunited.

After all of the errands are run and tanks filled, we rendezvous on the back side of a place called Big Major Spot. It’s tricky getting in here and people have moved only to avoid the odd westerly wind. As a consequence, all the kids find great shells on the beach. On the downside, the ocean waves also carry flotsam, and lots of sharp broken glass. While exploring, Tom and Rob find a small, but very cool blow hole in the jagged limestone rocks. We end the evening with drinks and swimming from the boat.

The next morning we head back to Cambridge and arrive in time to snorkel Rocky Dundas again at slack tide. The strong winds have stirred up the water so it’s murkier than before, but still quite nice. Mary’s caught the flu, so Colleen joins the kids for an afternoon of playing on the swing and card games aboard Helia. At slack tide the following morning we hit Sea Aquarium again and this time we find a lion fish. These gorgeous, but deadly fish are a menace to Caribbean reefs. Lionfish have poison tipped quills that can fell a human coupled with a voracious appetite that can decimate a reef. They aren’t native to this sea and have no known predator. People think they were introduced from fish tanks spilled by Andrew back in 1992. Upon returning to Liberator, Zoe promptly reports the fish to the Exuma parks so they can send someone out to collect it.

From here we head to Warderick Wells, home of the Exuma Park Headquarters. It’s a unique horseshoe-shaped anchorage with mooring balls. At low tide a beach emerges in the center, but otherwise it looks like a lake. Helia sails with us.  One afternoon we hike to Boo Boo hill, where tradition dictates leaving a piece of driftwood with your boat name among a pile at the hills’ peak overlooking the anchorage.  We snorkel at a couple of sites in the park and spot another lion fish (which we report at the park office). The reefs offer a lovely variety of angelfish, huge spiny lobsters, and the biggest grouper we’ve seen. We also spot a large nurse shark, which turns out to be the mildest of the sharks in the area. Several 6 feet long lemon sharks commonly circle the anchorage, especially at meals times. They seem to feed on the jacks and other fish that eat the scraps from the boaters.

One night we host dinner on our boat after landing a tuna on passage. The kids swim before dinner 

and after eating we are treated to a front row shark feeding when we toss our tuna scraps over board. Good thing we waited!! Their speed and grace is truly awesome. Finally, the weather forces us to push up the time of our crossing the Gulf Stream back to Florida. We decide to make Hawksbill and its close neighbor Shroud Cay our final stops before parting from Helia. The kids take a moratorium from school and we spend the days hiking, swimming and playing together. The final night we divide and our kids go to Helia for a movie while Rob and Ginnie enjoy drinks with us. It’s a doubly sad parting as we are not only are we leaving our new friends, but also our trip is also drawing to a close.

Our Social Life Picks Up

While visiting Staniel Cay, Zoe meets a girl who is sailing with her mother. Alone. Mary is the first woman I’ve met who is cruising as a single parent. Unfortunately, I never feel comfortable asking how she came to live this life, but I admire her courage nonetheless. She and her 11-year old daughter Colleen have been living aboard nearly full time for 4 years. They tend to stick to an area, such as the Bahamas, and have plans to venture to the Dominican Republic for hurricane season. They do have the support of DJ, who has been living aboard a sailboat for 24 years, and they often sail in tandem.

Zoe and Colleen form a fast friendship and each day as soon as school work is done, they radio each other. Colleen joins us for the pig feeding and tour of Thunderball Grotto. Zoe teaches her to sail the dingy, and they trade books. Colleen persuades her mom to sail up to Cambridge Cay with us so they can extend their time for a few more nights.

At Cambridge Cay, we coordinate our outings with Colleen and Mary. Most snorkeling here must be at slack tide, so it makes sense.  One of our best snorkels is at the Sea Aquarium where conditions approach perfection: calm, clear waters, good sunlight and solitude. Nestled into the side of an island, the hard and corals appear more healthy than most sites in the Bahamas. The Aquarium is so named as it is as visually stunning and perfect as what one would see at the Boston or Baltimore Aquarium. Afterwards we stop by to see the sunken plane, more of a novelty snorkel. The night before we leave Mary, DJ and Colleen come over for a game night and we have a silly fun time playing Clue. The girls are crushed to be leaving each other, but we’ve foolishly run out of propane which requires us to sail back to Staniel Cay to refuel before heading north. While disappointing I am Zen enough to accept that these things happen while sailing, and it might mean we reconnect with the other family on Helia.

 

Cave Snorkeling

Snorkeling in the Bahamas takes some chutzpah. First there are sharks. Lots of them. Most are nurse sharks. While harmless, they measure 5 to 7 feet and are colored an ominous brownish gray. But spend any time observing one of the many fish cleaning stations and you’ll see lemon, black tip reef and the occasional bull shark. The facts are clear: sharks attack when people spearfish and the waters teem with fish guts. The potent smell attracts hungry predators. However, convincing anyone who has ever seen the movie “Jaws” or a terrified child that swimming in these waters is safe is altogether another story.

Next there is current. The Caribbean tides raise the water depths by about a foot, so its changes are essentially a non-event. In the Bahamas, they rip along at 3 feet and 3 knots…enough that a young child or weak swimmer will have difficulty making forward progress when swimming into the current. With fins, it’s less daunting, but a still a challenge. Lastly, jellyfish are common. While fortunately not plentiful, we see them frequently and have gotten a few stings.

Despite the real and perceived dangers, the prospect of snorkeling in a cave is too enticing to pass up. The Exumas were formed of limestone, a soft sedimentary rock as you may remember from 4^th grade geology. As such, the land rocks are either smooth or highly pitted. At low tide, the smaller islands appear to float above the water as their bases have been worn away by millions of years of wave action. Caves, both above and below ground, abound. The Exumas Land and Sea Park contains several caves accessible by snorkelers under the right conditions, usually at slack tide when the current is weakest.

At Staniel Cay we visit the most popular cave in the area known as Thunderball, a site used during the filming of the eponymous Bond film. We opt to visit at the slack end of high tide along with another family. At high tide one can guide him/herself in by hand through a narrow passage or swim below surface through the rounded rock opening. The children are, understandably, nervous, so they guide themselves in while I opt to swim in. The cave is really a grotto with a wide oval-shaped opening that allows light to permeate onto the water. The main chamber is about 60 feet long and roughly circular in shape. Beneath the water, one can see two large oval-shaped openings about 25 feet across and 8 feet tall that appear as a backlit aquarium with coral and schools of fish in silhouette. We are stunned by the beauty and variety of fish in this small space. Schools of striped sergeant major fish, accustomed to handouts, immediately crowd any newcomer in search of crumbs. Deeper in the cave several huge colorful Queen Angel fish quietly feed. We’ve timed it a bit wrong however, and after about 30 minutes the current begins to kick up a notch and the jostling makes it clear that it is time to leave.

The next caves are located in the Rocky Dundas some 8 miles further north in the Exuma chain. Surrounded by beautiful soft and hard corals, we enter the first and largest cave. It is the only partially submerged cave in the Bahamas containing both stalactites and stalagmites (from a time when, of course, it was not submerged). The cave is shallower with colorful rock. Unlike Thunderball, fish do not explore inside, just at the reef at the entrance. Still looking out underwater at the backlit fish and reef is an unparalleled vista.

The second cave has a gorgeous staghorn coral standing guard at its entrance. We swim into this cave and are immediately tossed about by the rough water. There is a shelf here, so we stand upon and then hoist ourselves onto 3 foot higher interior floor and explore further back on foot. At the rear is a tiny patch of sand and the kids scratch their names into it. Chilton, sea snails and a single orange sea anemone are evidently the sole occupants. Despite wearing wetsuits for this adventure, the cold finally drives us back into the water and we gape at the fish as long as we can stand the chilly morning waters before leaving.

On the way back to Liberator we make an impromptu stop at a “drift” snorkel site. Here both the depth and current make anchoring untenable, so one person must stay in the dingy while the others simply drift with the current. The current acts much like a conveyer belt: it’s difficult to stop and explore anything, one just passes by: loads of colorful fish and coral.  The snorkeling here is some of the best we’ve seen. It’s been worth braving the sharks, current and jellyfish!

 

Feeding the Animals

From here we stop at Bitter Guana Cay. “Guana” is short for iguana and moments after arriving we notice odd triangular shapes on the beach. A glance through the binoculars confirms that these are indeed iguanas. We decide it would be fun to feed them and take some lettuce and celery greens to shore. As soon as the iguanas hear the dingy they begin to emerge from the shrubs and eagerly approach the beach. Somewhere between 15-20 begin jocking for position. The larger iguanas chastise the smaller ones in case there is any misunderstanding as to whom eats first. Zoe and JT are understandably alarmed by their aggressive displays and it takes some coaxing before they finally extend the leaves to the iguanas. Lettuce is a hit, but celery greens are left to the smaller iguanas. Later, we learn that this species lives only in the Bahamas and is nearly extinct. They are distinguishable by their distinctly red-tinged legs, chests and eyes (which seem a bit sinister). This is all according to the sign, which is posted 20 yards from the beach. The sign also inform us not to feed them, oops! but at this point the deed is done. They must be making a comeback (or been reintroduced) to this island, because our guidebook (which is 10 years old) mentions that the island was named for the iguana that used to live here. Animals verging on extinction are a common story in these parts, so it’s heartening to see any signs of recovery.

From Bitter Guana we are in sight of Staniel Cay, home to the famous Thunderball Cave, a site used during the filming of both the eponymous James Bond film and Splash.  We arrive in the morning and are surprised by the changes. Since we were here 7 years ago, development has exploded. Not only has the marina doubled in size, but new resorts and houses stud the rocky shoreline and smaller cays.  There are probably 20 to 30  boats in the surrounding anchorages. Staniel Cay has morphed from a quaint tourist stop to a must stop point where some cruisers spend months. 

Oddly, a highlight of this area is feeding the pigs. A small herd of very large pigs lives on the island and the boaters dingy over to share their expensive fruits and vegetables with them. They are generally well-mannered (the pigs, not necessarily the boaters!) and some are known to swim out to your dingy to “beg”. I find this highly entertaining. Some enterprising locals are probably quite amused that the cruisers are fattening the pigs that will one day grace their table.  It’s certainly a mark of how far removed we’ve become from our farm roots, that feeding pigs has become a tourist attraction!

 

 

From Georgetown to Staniel Cay

It seems that after nearly a week in Georgetown we’ve all lost our sealegs. We are headed to Staniel Cay, one of the most popular cays in the Exumas Chain, and intend to stop at some more tranquil anchorages along the way. The slight northerly swell has us all quite green about the gills just 30 minutes into the trip.  Some OTC seasickness meds quell our nausea sufficiently so we can assist Tom in crossing safely from the Exuma Sound (Atlantic) to the Exuma Banks side.  Fortunately, we navigate the cut with no difficulty and enter the sound.

Much like Turks and Caicos, the Exumas are a long chain of islands separated by short stretches of reef and water commonly known as “cuts”. Many millions of years ago this was a single island. Many of these cuts pose too much peril for a yacht to pass through, and even the ones that are navigable create a fair amount of stress when crossed under the best of circumstances.  The Atlantic side has high winds and rough seas, and while the banks offer protections from these, they are nonetheless fraught with perils of their own: shallow waters, numerous reefs and coral heads and the odd rock.  One must sail in good light with an eye on the tides. Here, we abandon the electronic charts in favor of the old fashioned paper variety.  How odd that as far as the eye can see is water that is no deeper than 12 feet.

Our destination is the Caribbean Marine Research Center. Upon arriving, we pick up a mooring and try to raise the facility to arrange a tour. No answer. So, we hop in to the dingy as its nearing 4pm, when most government offices in the Bahamas close. We’ve been looking forward to touring the site, and in preparation the kids have thought of questions that they can pose to the researchers. But bad news. The facility is shuttered! They’ve cleared out all of the equipment, but the offices, dorms, work rooms, bedding and housing all remains. As near as we can tell they were still operating in the fall. They must have closed in between September and December 2012. By the looks of it, they aren’t thinking they will return. What a huge bummer!

Fresh from this disappointment we head to Great Guana key for another 2 nights.  While snorkeling along the wide, lovely beach we discover hundreds of sand dollars.  Sand dollars are a type of urchin, and when alive, they are covered with “spines” that resemble dark gray-brown fuzz. And they move. Zoe points out the tracks they leave in the sand. The sand here tells a saga of life and death: the slight depressions are made by rays as hover while digging up clams, other creatures make deep pits, trails crisscross the sandy expanses. While we cannot see any clams, their abundant shells on the ocean floor and beaches indicate there must be thousands buried beneath the sand.  Tom spies a blue crab scuttling across the sandy floor and grabs it with a pair of tongs. It’s of an edible size, so we steam it. Served with drawn butter we delight in its fantastic sweet flavor. This inspires Tom to build a makeshift crab trap and we are lucky to catch another, albeit smaller one.

On Saturday morning we stop at Black Point, the largest settlement in the Central Exumas. We instantly like this place with its freshly painted buildings and neat streets. The locals are very friendly. Bikes and golf carts seem much more popular than cars.  While searching for a place known as Lorene’s, we encounter a woman weaving palm fronds. The woman welcomes us to watch while she transforms the strands into a long woven band about a foot wide. Her fingers move rapidly, yet she weaves without looking. Probably in her 60s, she tells us she has been doing this since she was a little girl. Most of her work is used to make products sold in Nassau. Finally, we find Lorene’s Café and meet Lorene herself. She has quite a reputation for coconut bread and we aim to try some.  Her tiny kitchen is redolent of cinnamon and fresh bread and the counter is full of freshly baked and bagged loaves. She is friendly and gracious woman. We leave with 2 loaves which we have savored. This tiny town seems a throwback to a less developed Caribbean. After the bustle of Georgetown, the pace and tranquility of these deserted anchorages has been a welcome change.