2008.1 - Andros, Bahamas

JUNE 27-JULY 11, 2008

It has been quite a while since our last trip across the Gulf Stream in Top Cat. We laid in a very ambitious plan for 2008, to include a visit to Andros, the largest and perhaps least developed of the Bahamian islands, and a jump across to the northern Exumas, and thence to Nassau before retuning to Florida.

June 27 - Getting Started – Elliot Key, Biscayne Bay, Florida

We left Vero Beach at about noon with Top Cat, our Glacier Bay 2670, on her trailer for the trip down to Homestead, at the south end of Biscayne Bay. Provisions for 2 weeks were stored in every nook and cranny – we knew we would have to be largely self-sufficient, and we were planning to stay on the boat, mostly at anchor. The big challenge in cruising with such a small boat is deciding what NOT to bring – space and weight are critical, yet we cannot skimp on safety gear and spare parts in such a remote area. Since Top Cat has no galley or refrigeration, we have a propane barbeque and a single burner butane portable stove, and we will keep perishables to a minimum.

We arrived at Homestead Bayfront Park and got launched by 4:00. Our friend Dave will come by later and pick up our truck and trailer for safekeeping while we are gone. It is a short run across Biscayne Bay to Elliot Key, where we tie up to a dock at the National Park marina and campground. As the sun goes down, clouds of ravenous mosquitoes descend on us, and despite our extensive inventory of screens and repellents, we decide we might be more comfortable at anchor, and move north a mile or so to an area where a couple of other boats are anchored. We have a quick meal of cheeseburgers and baked beans on the grill, and settle in for the night. The forecast for the crossing tomorrow is excellent, with NOAA predicting seas of 2 feet or less and light winds – but the wind blows SE at 15+ knots all night, and while that means a delightful breeze for sleeping, I get the distinct feeling it might be a bit sportier than forecast tomorrow.

June 28 – A Long Haul to Andros – Morgan’s Bluff, Andros, Bahamas

At 7:00 am, we stick our nose out Caesar Creek, and find a choppy 2-4 foot sea from the southeast. Our course to Gun Cay is a little north of east, so we will have a headsea to cross the Gulf Stream. We decide we are OK with that, and set course for Gun Cay, just south of Bimini (62 miles). We find we can comfortably make 18 knots at 3800 RPM. We arrive at Gun Cay at about 11:00, and take a short break by the ruins of the landmark lighthouse and decide we will push on to Andros that afternoon. The next leg is 72 miles across the Great Bahama Bank to Northwest Channel Light, pretty much due east. Seas on the bank are about 2-3 feet at first, building a bit by afternoon, and it is a long choppy slog, making 21 knots at 4200 RPM. At Northwest Channel Light, we will enter the “pocket”, an offshoot of the very deep Tongue of the Ocean. The last leg is 25 miles in the Tongue down to Morgan’s Bluff, on the very north end of the island of Andros. The Tongue is just plain nasty today, with confused 3-5 foot seas, but there is nothing for it but to push on, reduced to 14 knots at 3200 RPM. About that time, the chartplotter decides it cannot find sufficient satellites, so we will have to eyeball navigate along the reef edge to find the entrance channel to Morgan’s Bluff. It is pretty well marked as Bahamian channels go, since a large water tanker comes in to Morgan’s Bluff every day to load up on fresh water for Nassau. We head in to the small commercial harbor and try to make arrangements for fuel and Customs in the morning. With the help of “Shalom,” sort of an unofficial harbormaster, we leave a message for the fuel guy and talk to the Customs official, who says he will be there around 10:00 tomorrow to clear us in, and says we are free to land if we want. A quick car ride to Lowe Sound gets us some conch for dinner, and we move out into the nice sheltered anchorage just outside the harbor for an inaugural Bahamas dinner of cracked conch with peas and rice. There are a couple of other boats here, both bound back to the US, and we have a very comfortable night with a good breeze and no bugs. Jayne and I both agree we bit off way more than we could chew today, given how small our boat is and the sea conditions, but we are here!

June 29 – The Inside Passage to Fresh Creek – Fresh Creek, Andros, Bahamas

We slept in a bit and had a big breakfast after our long day yesterday, and at 10:00 we went in to meet the fuel guy and the Customs man. By noon, the Customs man had not shown, and when we got through to the fuel guy on his cell phone, he said he will be in Nassau for the next 2 days, so no fuel. We were hoping to fuel here, since it has the best price and a good reputation for clean fuel, but the cruising guide says fuel is available in Fresh Creek, our next planned stop, and we have plenty left to get there. Fresh Creek is also a Port of Entry, and we can take another try at clearing Customs – I am anxious to clear in so we can legally start fishing. So we set out for Fresh Creek (35 miles), taking the inside passage behind the barrier reef. This is strictly eyeball navigation, threading sand bars and patch reefs in 4-6 feet of water along the coast. It is a bit choppy even behind the reef, but the light is perfect for “reading water” and we have no trouble at all with our 2 foot draft. We arrive at Andros Lighthouse Marina about 2:30 and got a slip for 2 nights. This is a nice but slightly run down facility with a bar and restaurant, laundry, free water, and most importantly, wi-fi internet access, so Jayne can catch up with her students on her online course she is teaching, and we can email friends and family. Our slip is just $32 a night (without electric). We take a short taxi ride out to the airport and clear Customs and Immigration, and finally take down the yellow “Q-flag” and hoist the Bahamas courtesy flag. I ask about fuel and it turns out they no longer have fuel at the marina – we will have to hire a guy with a couple of 55 gallon drums and a siphon hose to bring us gas tomorrow! After a swim and a short kayak ride around the creek, we hang out in the AC at the bar for a while, and then return to the boat for barbeque chicken and cole slaw for dinner.

June 30 – Hanging out in Fresh Creek – Fresh Creek, Andros, Bahamas

Today is a layover day in Fresh Creek. We had a nice breakfast in the marina restaurant, and Jayne worked on her teaching while I cleaned up the boat and wrangled the fuel. The truck came this morning with my 2 drums (110 gallons @ $6.80 a gallon) of gasoline. The guys rolled the barrels over to the wharf, stuck a hose in them, got a siphon going (by mouth!) and filled my two tanks, one barrel each. Primitive, but effective. I asked if they had any head pumpout facilities, and the dockmaster looked at me like I’d asked him if he had a nuclear reactor – he honestly had no idea what I was talking about. So we will have to use the onboard macerator discharge system next time we are offshore – yuck, but what else are you gonna do?

Now fully refueled, we went out for a quick snorkel on the reef just off Long Cay, not far from the Fresh Creek entrance channel. Anchored up in about 20 feet, the water was crystal clear bright blue, despite the still choppy seas and the shallow water. Visibility was about 100 feet, and the coral was spectacular – so much denser and healthy looking than anything I have ever seen in Florida – I mean drop dead fabulous. After sightseeing for a while, I speared an 8 lb Nassau Grouper for dinner, and we fooled around with trolling a big-lipped plug around the reef edge for a while without success.

Back at the dock, we took a walkabout, touring the Androsia batik factory right next to the marina. Batik is a “resist-dying” process, where a pattern is applied to the fabric with wax, and then the whole fabric is dyed, bringing out the pattern since the areas where wax is applied do not absorb dye. The colors are brilliant, and the patterns mostly feature fish and wildlife. The main settlement, Coakley Town, is across the creek, and we walked over the bridge, looked into some stores, and bought a BATELCO phone card. With this card, you can call from any of the abundant pay phones to the US for a dollar a minute, and make local calls as well (US cell phones do not generally work in the Bahamas, and when they do, you get hit with an eye-popping roaming charge). Dinner tonight is fresh grouper fingers, served with black beans and rice and sautéed cabbage and carrots. Our slip is right near the fish cleaning table, and the locals are busy cleaning fish until 11:00 pm. It is a very boisterous process, more like a street party, and we make some cocktails and join the fun.

July 1 - The Tongue of the Devil – Lisbon Creek, South Bight, Andros, Bahamas.

It is rainy this morning, and heavy overcast, and the wind has continued blowing 15+ knots from the southeast. It has been doing this the whole time, and we are developing a love-hate relationship with the wind. The breeze makes sleeping in our non air conditioned boat delightful, and bugs have not been a problem, but it is hard going offshore for our little boat (actually the boat is as tough as nails, it is us who are a little delicate), and we have so far not been able to do any offshore fishing out in the Tongue of the Ocean, which is teeming with dolphin and tuna.

Today we are planning a 60 mile run down to Lisbon Creek on the South Bight (the southernmost of 3 broad channels that run all the way through the island from east to west). The conditions are bad today for reading water with theheavy overcast and we want to try to run offshore anyway to fish around the AUTEC buoys for tuna and dolphin. These buoys are moored in several thousand feet of water courtesy of the US Navy, which uses them for acoustic testing and tracking of ships and submarines. The buoys reliably hold lots of yellowfin tuna, and the dolphin are so abundant they are regarded as a nuisance. So we head out the Fresh Creek channel into the Tongue, and set a course for the AUTEC buoy to the south, about 20 miles. The Tongue is brutal again today – a 3-5 foot steep head sea that buries the nose if we come down off plane. We get close enough to see the AUTEC buoy, but we are taking a huge beating, and the kayak up on the hardtop breaks its rack and starts flailing around, threatening to take out all our antennas. Clearly fishing is not in the cards today. We alter course for the AUTEC land station at Cargill Creek, where there is a safe marked channel through the barrier reef. Once behind the reef, we re-secure the kayak along the starboard walkaround and regroup. It is still too cloudy to see well enough run the inside passage, so we go back outside and slug it out down to Middle Bight, another 25 or so miles. Here we once again cross the barrier reef through one of the AUTEC maintained channels, and take a break behind Goulding Cay, where there are a couple of other cruising boats anchored. By now the sky is clear, and we can run down the inside passage to Lisbon Creek, another 8 miles, over pure white sand bottom with scattered coral heads. Lisbon Creek is a charming little community on the northern edge of South Bight, and we gratefully anchor up in the perfectly sheltered creek. Like most creeks here, there is a strong reversing current, and we need to do a “Bahama moor” with 2 anchors, one set upcurrent and the other downcurrent, both cleated off the bow. The bottom was scoured out by the current, so I hand set each anchor into some deep cracks in the limestone bottom, where they are nice and secure. As a treat after our tough day, I pull out our 2 ribeye steaks, which we dry rub with garlic and pepper and grill with corn on the cob for dinner. We have a nice night at anchor with the wind (now our friend again) keeping us nice and cool, and a brief rain shower in the early am.

July 2 – Reassessing our Plans – Lisbon Creek, South Bight, Andros, Bahamas

The wind remains SE 15+ knots this morning, and it’s time to think about our planned itinerary for the rest of the trip. The plan was tomorrow we would head across the Tongue and the Exuma Bank to Staniel Cay, and from there work our way north up the Exuma Cays to Nassau. Jayne has rechristened the Tongue of the Ocean the “Tongue of the Devil” and aren’t looking forward to another long upwind head sea beating. Andros is here, Andros is very cool, and we are staying in Andros. The skipper pretends to be disappointed, but is secretly relieved. Once the decision is made, we are free to relax for a couple of days here in South Bight, and the cruising kitty funds that would have been spent for the extra fuel are free to be used for some splurging, like hiring a guide to show us around the South Bight area.

The cruising guide describes Lisbon Creek as a very friendly settlement, and it sure is that. Everyone who walks down the road by the creek gives us a shout and a wave, and it’s clearly time to go in and meet the locals. The cruising guide says Leroi Bannister, proprietor of Bannister’s guest house and the Aqua-Marine Club, is the man to see in Lisbon Creek. So we kayak in and pay a visit. Mr. Bannister is 91 years old and recovering from surgery, but he is sharper than a box of razors. We wind up spending a couple of hours chatting away about the history of Andros, his career in classic wooden boat building, and his travels and experiences. He sends his son out to find us guide for tomorrow, and his partner Marie opens up the Aqua Marine Club so we can have some cold Kaliks. Marie is also a fascinating person, from Jamaica by way of Freeport, and we spend a while learning all the local gossip and news. We tear ourselves away to take a walk to the nearest store, more for exercise than for anything we really need. The store is about a mile away, a very pleasant leg stretching walk. People are so nice here, you have to be a little careful what you say. At the store, out of idle curiosity, I ask one of the ladies if anyone around here bakes fresh bread. She immediately pulls out her phone and starts making calls, and figuring out how we could get there, etc. Protests that I don’t want to put anyone to any trouble fall on deaf ears. We don’t get very far on the walk back before the nurse at the local clinic stops and asks us if we want a ride – turns out we are anchored right in front of her brother’s house. Basking in the glow of all this kindness, we kayak up the creek a little way to take a swim, and then return to the boat for cocktails and a dinner of the rest of the grouper from Fresh Creek, pan sautéed with rice and peas. The anchors are holding well in the switching current, although the boat jinks around a bit when the wind and current are opposed. Another very comfortable and cool night.

July 3 – Hanging out in Lisbon Creek – Lisbon Creek, South Bight, Andros, Bahamas

Our guide “Shadow” came by at 8:00 in his bonefish skiff to take us on a half day tour of South Bight. We tell him we aren’t interested in bonefish, but we want to see South Bight, visit some blue holes, and catch some conch. No problem, mon.

Our first stop is the Tiamo resort on the south coast of the Bight. I had heard about this place and wanted to visit – it is a model eco-friendly resort, all solar power and low impact, but still the lap of luxury. Carbon-neutral luxury doesn’t come cheap at $1000 bucks a night, but the place is a paradise. After running South Bight about half way to the other side and seeing what pristine unspoiled flats are really like, we went on the search for blue holes. I have a thing about blue holes, I’m drawn to them like a magnet. Basically drowned springs in the Karst limestone landscape, blue holes are spooky caverns with current that flows in and out with the tides, and often lots of big fish. The first hole we visited was in the Bight not far from Tiamo – a sand bottom hole about 30 feet deep with a sunken sailboat in the middle. Hanging around the wreck were 3 huge cubera snappers – 40 pounds apiece, I’d guess. I snuck up on them as best I could, but they warily stayed out of range of my pole spear. They would have been dead meat for my triple band Riffe speargun back home, but spearguns (and the use of SCUBA for spearfishing) are not allowed in the Bahamas. Dropping down inside the sailboat hull, there was another nice snapper I had more or less cornered in the forward section, but the entire interior of the hull was wallpapered with lionfish. Lionfish are an exotic introduced pest fish that are starting to become a major problem. They have very sharp and venomous spines that cause severe pain and sometimes even fatalities. To say the least, the idea of rolling around the inside of that hull battling a big snapper was unappealing, so I passed that fish up.

Next we went off to a group of 3 blue holes on the ocean side in about 5-6 feet of water. They had beautiful coral formations all around the edges, nourished by the flow of crystal clear water flowing out of the hole, and the nicest hole went down about 40-50 feet almost vertically and then angled off into the distance as an underground passage. There were some big mutton snappers hanging in the hole, but they would retreat back to the dark depths every time I came close. That’s OK boys, I’ve got your address, and I’ll be back tomorrow.

On our way home, Jayne and I jumped in on a 6-8 foot deep grass and sand flat just in front of Lisbon Creek and drifted with the current while Shadow, well, shadowed us with the skiff. We picked up our allotted 6 conch in about 15 minutes, and then Shadow dropped us back off at the boat where we cleaned our conch and got some conch salad marinating. We couldn’t resist another visit with Mr. Bannister and some more Kaliks at the Aqua-Marine Club. Late in the afternoon the Conch Eyes, a 38’ Ocean we met in Fresh Creek, came in and picked up a mooring for the night.

July 4 - Return to Fresh Creek – Fresh Creek, Andros, Bahamas

We are running low on ice, and Jayne needs to get connected to the web again to keep up with her teaching, so the plan is to return to Fresh Creek for a couple of days. The wind is still blowing like stink, and we will still need to run outside the reef part of the way in the Tongue of the Devil, but the big difference is that going this way will be a quartering/following sea, which will be a lot more comfortable, although it keeps your faithful narrator and helmsman busy, as catamarans are a bit squirrelly in a following sea.

The first stop was back to our blue hole from yesterday, for another visit with Mr. Mutton Snapper. This time I snuck up real stealthy like, and peeped over the edge of the hole and caught him with his pants down. POW – a pretty good stick, right on the lateral line, but he shook off. Somewhat worse for wear, he swam down weakly and hid out in a little hole about 20 feet down. I went down for a second shot just as he came out and hit him a bad shot down low, and he shook off again. This time he started to head deep down into the hole. I got a couple quick breaths and followed. I caught up with him about 30 feet down, and hit him another bad shot, but he was getting tired and didn’t shake off this time. I pressed him down into the bottom and got a good grip on his gills. I’m at about 40 feet now, close to my limit, and it’s a long climb back up to the surface, even with a nice boost from the current flowing out of the hole. The air tastes sweet, and that 15 lb mutton will feed us for the next 3 days!

We run up the inside passage to Middle Bight, where the cruising guide suggests that even experienced locals prefer to run outside the reef for a couple of miles to avoid some really tricky water. When we get out into the Tongue of the Devil, it’s not too bad on this course, so we run 25 miles north to High Cay, a big rock/small island right on the edge of the barrier reef. We find a small and slightly scary pass through to the inside here, and anchor up in the lee of the cay for a snorkel before running inside the last 10 miles to Fresh Creek. Conch are abundant here, and we pick up a half dozen with no problem, and clean them right there on the spot (cleaning conch is a messy process, so it’s nice to be able to jump in and rinse the spoooge off yourself periodically).

This is a pretty good place to pump the holding tank, a couple miles offshore but not too rock and rolly, but the macerator pump is not working right – it must be corroded inside, because it just barely runs, even after I redo the wiring connections. Not enough to prime itself and start pumping waste. My bad for not testing it before we left, but I don’t use it at home, we always pump out at the dock. We are going to have to strictly limit the use of the head from here out.

Back at good old Andros Lighthouse Marina, I catch a ride to town to get 50 lbs of ice (not from a store of course, but from a garage behind somebody’s house, after tracking that somebody down) and I take advantage of the free water at the dock to wash down the boat while Jayne catches up with her students. Later, in the bar, I meet the manager of Small Hope Bay Lodge, a very highly regarded dive resort just a few miles away, and make arrangements for a SCUBA dive trip tomorrow (although we are both certified and experienced divers, there’s no way we could afford the weight and space to bring SCUBA gear with us, so this will be our big chance – Jayne is very excited). We had some nice conch salad and the best mutton snapper in the history of the world for dinner tonight.

Conch From High Cay

Entrance channel to Fresh Creek - with grounded frieghter

July 5 – We Dive the Wall – Fresh Creek, Andros, Bahamas

We had some pretty hard rain last night, and the wind remains stubbornly out of the SE at 15 knots. The van from Small Hope Bay Lodge picked us up at 8:30 for a two tank dive trip. The resort is a low-key, low impact type eco friendly little place, and they run a very professional dive operation without being overbearing and sucking all the fun out of it. We got on a funky catamaran style boat with 4 other divers, and set out for the reef edge, where the reef drops vertically from 90 feet down to lord only knows how deep. When we rolled off the boat, you could clearly see the reef 90 feet down, and the coral cover was just incredible – the healthiest, most vibrant reef I’ve ever seen. We drifted slowly along the wall, peering down into the deep blue abyss, accompanied by some big snappers that followed us around like puppy dogs, and a blacktip shark who gave us all a couple of close passes in a non-aggressive fashion before wandering off. The 30 minute bottom time went by far too fast. We then moved into a shallow 20-30 foot spot for a second tank, and watched several “cleaning stations”, where big fish would line up to have their parasites picked off by squadrons of tiny gobies that would swim directly in to their mouths and gills. It was a truly spectacular dive, well worth the price of admission of $100 each, including gear. We got cleaned up back at the boat, and walked over to town to do some shopping – we are going to try a new conch pasta recipe tonight, as plain old cracked conch and conch salad are getting a little old (I know, boo hoo, poor us). Conch in a spicy tomato sauce served over rotini pasta was big hit, and we made enough to share with the local fishermen hanging out around the fish cleaning table. The skeeters did get a little bad around sunset, and we retreated to the screened in bridge deck for cocktails.

July 6 - Hanging out in Fresh Creek – Fresh Creek, Andros, Bahamas

Today we went for a long kayak up Fresh Creek, under the low clearance fixed bridge that connects the settlements on each side of the creek. We try to play the tide, riding up the creek on the tail of the flood tide and waiting for the ebb to ride back out. There are some nice houses for a mile or so up the creek, and then you are in a mangrove wilderness of shallow flats and channels. The rusting hulk of a big barge and crane sits in the middle of the creek, slowly returning to the elements. It must have come up the creek back before the fixed bridge was put in, because it sure didn’t get in under the current bridge. We went on another shopping expedition, this time to look for some butane canisters for our little stove, and were pleasantly surprised to not only find them, but find them for about half what West Marine sells them for back in the states. A rare thing in the out islands, where everything seems to be about 150-200% of the US price. The store also had butane stoves nicer than our old rusty one for $30, so I bought one, unable to pass up a bargain.

I’m trying to call the fuel guy up in Morgan’s Bluff again to assure myself we may be able to actually buy some gas when we get up there in a couple of days, but no answer. Rather than take the chance, I buy another barrel of gas from the local Fred Flintstone fuel delivery system to split between the two tanks – that will allow us to at least reach Bimini. The price is now up to $7 per gallon. Jayne is finishing up her online teaching, and we are following the progress of Hurricane Bertha, which looks like it will give us a wide berth, as she is headed well north up towards Bermuda. Weather reports are hard to come by here unless we can get online, as we are far beyond the range of NOAA VHF weather out of Miami. Next year I am definitely going to invest in XM/WX or some other satellite based weather reporting – it sucks to be out of touch during tropical storm season. We have a nice dinner of fried chicken in the marina restaurant, as we are heading back out to the boonies tomorrow.

July 7 – Anchoring Drama in Staniard Creek – Staniard Creek, Andros, Bahamas

This morning we loaded up on ice, and Jayne loaded up on some hand woven baskets made by Maria over in Coakley Town and got underway at about 10:30, bound up the inside passage to Staniard Creek, only about 8 miles away. The cruising guide suggests an anchorage near the mouth of the creek in 6-8 feet with good holding. When we arrive, we find there is a new development being built there called Coconut Grove, and when we ask the guys working there about the anchorage, they tell us it is now private. That is a load of BS of course, they have no right to restrict anchorage, but we don’t want to go where we aren’t wanted so we head up the creek towards the settlement of Staniard Creek proper. The creek is only 3-4 feet deep at mid-tide, with sandbars and flats, which would be a problem for most boats, but not for Top Cat’s 2 foot draft. We find a deep spot near the bridge across the creek in the settlement where we are welcomed with open arms – up yours, Coconut Grove. We anchor with the bow pointed into the flood current, and set a stern anchor downstream for when the current shifts – this is small spot without much swinging room. We swim in and hang out under a big shady seagrape tree with the local kids, supervised by the matriarch of the settlement. Jayne is a big hit with the smaller kids, who all want to go swimming with her. We walk over to the white powder sand beach on the ocean side, and north to the where the creek enters the ocean. We passed a really cool funky looking waterfront bar appropriately called Colors, as it is painted a riot of bright blues, yellows, and pinks. But of course it is closed. A little further along, we meet a group of folks from Georgia who are here doing some volunteer work for their church, helping to rebuild some houses and a church damaged last year by a tornado. Farther along, there is a Greenpeace field station, empty and closed looking. As a professional biologist, I have a low opinion of Greenpeace, but I hope they are doing some good work here to preserve this very special little place.

When we get back to our settlement, the current is RIPPING on the ebb, and our stern is now facing upstream, putting a huge strain on the anchor and causing water to pile up in the motor wells, not a good thing. I don’t want to pull the anchors that I had once again hand set in cracks in the limestone bottom, as I would have to snorkel them out, and as soon as I pulled them we would be instantly out of control in the strong current with me out the boat, so we decide to try a little maneuver we had done in a wicked blow one time in the Marquesas (the one off Key West, not the one in the south pacific). We take the (now upcurrent) stern anchor, and while leaving it cleated at the stern for now, lead it alongside the boat and cleat it off to the bow. The theory is when uncleated from the stern, the boat will snap around 180 degrees and we will now be anchored with the bow facing the current. To avoid fouling ourselves on the downcurrent anchor line, we will do this with the motors off and trimmed all the way up out of the water. Unfortunately, when we execute the maneuver, we do our 180 in a bad direction and fetch up hard on a submerged concrete breakwater with a sickening crunch. In a burst of adrenaline, I hop out and shove us off, and we complete our swing without incident. Now we are facing in the correct direction, bow upcurrent. It turns out that in anchoring where we did, we are in a velocity zone for the ebb current as it funnels through the bridge. The flood current velocity is greatly diminished by the same bridge, so we will not have this same problem next tide. A quick dive reveals no damage to the hull, but the transducer mount bracket is broken, which I sort of fix with some tie-wraps. We sort of fix the chagrined captain with some cocktails, and have an awesome dinner of mutton snapper (our old friend from Lisbon Creek) with pigeon peas in coconut milk sauce and rice.

Anchored out at Staniard Creek

The settlement at Staniard Creek

July 8 – Back to Morgan’s Bluff – Morgan’s Bluff, Andros, Bahamas

We retrieve our anchors this morning without incident, pick our way back down Stainiard Creek, and run up the inside passage behind the reef up to Morgan’s Bluff (35 miles). When we arrive, Morgan’s Bluff is now a beehive of activity, preparing for the annual sailing regatta to start 2 days from now that will bring a thousand people to this sleepy outpost. Bleachers, stages, and shop stalls are all being frantically painted and repaired for the big event. We get anchored up in the roomy and protected anchorage outside the harbor and visit with the couple of other cruising boats here. We got an updated weather report from Happy Cat, who also told us about an inland, fresh water blue hole not far from here that was worth a visit. Given my aforementioned mania for blue holes, we made plans for tomorrow, which will be a layover day. After some cold Kaliks at the now jumping bar on shore, we made a really good conch chowder for dinner, and relaxed in the nice cool bug free breeze to read our books (yes, the wind is STILL blowing hard out of the SE).

Getting ready to check out some patch reefs on the way to Morgans Bluff

July 9 – Uncle Charlie’s Hole – Morgan’s Bluff, Andros, Bahamas

This morning we slept in and had a big breakfast before paddling in to the harbor for our expedition to the inland blue hole known as Uncle Charlie’s Hole. We met “Gogi,” who agreed to drive us to the remote little spot out in the woods about 5 or 6 miles from Morgan’s Bluff. The Hole is just that- a circular hole in the limestone a couple hundred feet across with a 15 foot drop straight down in to very deep clear fresh water. After a refreshing plunge, we swam over to the rickety ladders that allow you to climb back out. Hmmm… might have been a good idea to check those ladders out first, before jumping in, because if you can’t climb them, you are well and truly stuck in the hole. I went over to the least rickety one and climbed up, only to discover that some dope had nailed the top in to a poisonwood tree, which was oozing toxic itchy sap all over the top rung – no thanks! The other ladder fortunately proved negotiable, and we had fun diving and swimming for a while, leaching all the salt water out of our hides. We then took a driving tour around Nicholls Town, the major settlement in the area, before returning to Morgan’s Bluff. A couple mile walk along the road and through the woods on a little trail we found provided some further exercise, as did a long snorkel around the anchorage. Joe and Nils, aboard a very salty looking Marine Trader trawler anchored next to us, invited us over for dinner later that evening, where we had some excellent barbecued ribs and 4 bottles of wine. Around 7:00, the first of several large ferries full of regatta fans pulled in to the harbor, and the party volume on shore increased exponentially.

Racing boats coming in for the regatta - Morgans Bluff

July 10 – Downwind run to Bimini – Alice Town, Bimini, Bahamas.

It’s going to be a pretty long run today, about 110 miles to Bimini, so we get an early start and up anchor at about 7:00. There is a large ship at the water barge wharf unloading the regatta boats, sleek wooden sloops 25-40 feet long. We wish we could stay for the fun, but we need to get moving along.

We round the corner from the sheltered harbor area and POW! We run in to a wall of water, and take a solid wave over the bow – the big swells are rolling straight in the entrance channel, opposed by an outgoing current that is stacking them up. I curse myself for not checking the tide, but we are in the belly of the beast and there is literally no turning back now – we take a couple more monsters over the bow before we clear the reef and make our turn to the north – not an auspicious beginning. Once out in the Tongue of the Devil, we have a 4-6 foot quartering sea for 25 miles to Northwest Cannel Light, a scary course that keeps me very busy at the helm. But our little Glacier Bay performs like the rough water champ that it is, and gets us safely to Northwest Channel, where we turn due west for a straight following sea run across the Great Bahama Bank, 75 miles to Gun Cay in 2-3 foot chop. This course is not too bad, and we are making 22 knots at 4300 RPM.

When we get to Gun Cay, we make an executive decision that we are going to go the extra 10 miles in to Bimini and get a slip and a hotel room for the night – it’s been 13 straight nights of sleeping on the boat, and we don’t feel like anchoring out at Honeymoon Harbor on the north end of Gun Cay. Also, I’d been working the helm hard all day, and it was starting to feel a little mushy, like the hydraulic steering could use a fluid fill and bleeding, something I’d prefer to do at the dock. So we head in to Bimini, through the new marked channel, and tie up at the Bimini Bluewater Resort, where we arrange for a slip, get a room, and pump 30 gallons of gallons of gas just to be sure for crossing back to Florida tomorrow. The gas comes from an actual pump through an actual nozzle and costs $6.15 per gallon. We take a quick swim in the pool, check in to our room, shower, and come back down to the boat where I fill and bleed the hydraulic steering (after digging way into the spares locker for the fluid and the syringe like thingy that fills the helm reservoir) and punch the Florida waypoints into the chartplotter for tomorrow.

Then we took a walking tour of Alice Town, the main settlement on Bimini. I’ve never liked Bimini all that much. If the Bahamas was Smoky Mountains National Park, Bimini would be Gatlinburg – a gateway tourist trap of tackiness designed to extract as much money as possible from the thundering herd. At least it was a weekday – on summer weekends Bimini fills up with drunken knuckleheads from Miami that we can certainly live without. But now, coming in from the boondocks of Andros, Bimini takes on another aspect – there are restaurants and stores that are actually open, and have stuff. And you can buy ice and gas whenever you want! (Still no head pumpout though). After a nice dinner, we luxuriate in our air conditioned room with running water and cable TV and get ready for the final leg tomorrow.

Almost home after 2 weeks in the sun - Bimini

July 11 – Homeward Bound – Vero Beach, Florida, USA

The ocean from our hotel room window looks really nice this morning, and the forecast for the Gulf Stream is 2 feet or less – might we finally have a nice flat crossing? We take off at 7:15 and are having a great run, an easy 22 knots at 4300 RPM, our favorite cruising speed. About 8 or 10 miles out, we are hailed on VHF by a US Coast Guard cutter a couple miles distant who asks us to throttle back while he asks us some questions about who we are, where we are going, our passport numbers, etc. Apparently satisfied, they send us on our way. The Florida edge of the stream gets a little sporty, but by 10:30, we clear Cape Florida and enter Biscayne Bay. Then it’s about an hour trip down the Bay to Homestead Bayfront Park, the start of our adventure 2 weeks ago. We clear in over the phone with US Customs, made much easier by our participation in the Customs Local Boater Option Program, where we basically pre-register our boat and crew. Once they have our LBO numbers, everything else is already in their computers, and the whole process takes less than 10 minutes. Best of all, it is not necessary to drive to an Immigration facility to clear in with Immigration in person like you would otherwise have to do.

We get loaded up on our trailer, and by 3:30 we are back in our driveway in Vero Beach, safe and sound.