cruising life

You’re not renting a slip, you’re renting an island

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I’d heard great things about the Highbourne Cay marina since Florida. From Jack who ran the fuel dock at the Marathon Marina, to our friends Pat and Melana, to strangers who we met in various ports. So on our slow trip north through the Exumas, I was excited to spend a few nights here to explore.

After almost three months of traveling with Orion and SE of Disorder, our paths finally diverged for good at Highbourne. They headed straight back to Florida in a single, long 34 -hour passage! While Sanitas planned to slow roll the return. Yep. We’re obviously in denial about this adventure coming to a close. We celebrated our successful cruising season over dinner at the high-end Xuma restaurant (where a Kalik beer costs $8) and told our favorite stories and relived our best adventures. I feel that our lives are forever intertwined after this season of highs, lows, and helping each other through challenges both big and small. Goodbye Chris, Stan, Laura, and Bob! Fair winds and following seas until we meet again!

The next morning dawned loud. It was the annual Poker Run… a sponsored event of around 100 speed boats traveling from Nassau through the Exumas, complete with loud music, beer drinking, and all the accompanying shenanigans. From our anchorage just west of Highbourne, boats zoomed past so close that the wake almost sent a wave over Sanitas’ stern. Unsettling and uncomfortable, we hailed the marina and begged to be allowed to enter our slip before the usual check-in time.

Entering a marina is always interesting. This time we were the only sailboat, and Sanitas was the smallest boat by an order of magnitude. Add the Poker Run and several mega yachts queued up waiting for the fuel dock, and space was a bit tight in Highbourne marina. Capt. Mike made it look easy though, coasting to a stop perfectly positioned in our slip – one line thrown to the dock master and we were home for the next few nights. Only afterwards did he confess that we had coasted in completely on incoming current, with the engine in neutral, and therefore had no steering ability whatsoever. It’s better to be lucky than good, right?

Highbourne is one of the most expensive marinas that we’ve stayed at this year. I was uncomfortable about it at first, being always mindful of our cruising budget and calculating trade offs of what’s worth spending money on. But once we started to explore, I realized that the safe slip was the least of the benefits of staying at Highbourne. The real value of a stay here is the chance to roam the private and exquisitely maintained island at your leisure, almost as if we were resort people instead of sailboat cruisers. And our fees are also supporting a bird conservation area on the north side of the island. Sign me up! I was a bit sad to observe that many of the mega yacht guests never left their floating hotels / dance clubs to explore. Well, that meant Mike and I had most of the stunning beaches all to ourselves!

The same family has owned this island since the 1950s and has invested a great deal into the gardens and accommodations. While walking or biking around the island, visitors find frequent “surprises”; beach huts and cabanas, lounge chairs and swings, and even an open air yoga studio / gym at the highest point of the island.

The resort staff lives in a small village within the complex, and maintains an organic farm raising chickens and goats and grown produce for the Xuma restaurant. I had a lovely conversation with mama goat.

I wish I had more photos of the gardens and beaches of Highbourne Cay to share, but….. the rain started. If the theme of the first two months of our cruising season was Northerly Winds, the theme of the last month was Tropical Rains. Believe it or not, Mother Nature doesn’t keep a day planner, and hurricane season doesn’t necessarily start on June 1st. This year, the crazy winds and rains started in May, making weather watching imperative, and route planning difficult. We made the best of it by plugging into shore power and running the air conditioner, and by spending time under the many shelters on the island watching the rain from lounge chairs. Not such a bad way to pass the time!

Turning around….and sharks!

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It was bittersweet to leave Georgetown and head back north to the Exumas. Sure, I knew we’d been in Georgetown long enough (almost a month all told!) and that if we were really cruisers, then our sailboat needed to move. And we missed our friends on Orion and SV Disorder and looked forward to seeing them again. But ….. Georgetown is a turning point. Either you are continuing to sail east and south to new adventures and new counties. Or you are acknowledging that this year’s cruising season is coming to an end, and it is time to turn around and make your way back to Florida before hurricane season.

So I was in a bit of a funk as we left Elizabeth Harbor and pointed Sanitas’ bow north. After a beautiful day’s sail, we returned to Big Majors Spot, near Staniel Cay and had a very fun reunion with our Dock 4 friends. And we shook ourselves out of our gloomy mood, and decided to visit islands we had missed on our speedy trip south through the island chain.

First stop: Exploring Pipe Cay and the Decca Station ruins.

There’s pretty much nothing on the island, except for the ruins of the Decca navigation system station; a radio-based system that was a precursor to the satellite-based GPS. The ruins have sort of a “Lost” TV show feel and I tried (and failed) to imagine the lonely life of the three-person maintenance crew who lived here as castaways. This guy has been waiting for a loooooong time for a crew member to replace him!

Here’s a shot of Sanitas in the harbor with some of the navigation markers and the beautiful beach.

Decca navigation system

MV Jenny was also anchored off Pipe Cay. We’d seen her several places in the Exumas where she stood out as a tall ship with an entire garden of herbs and vegetables and flowers on her second story stern. We were able to satisfy our curiosity when her captains Dick and Alex invited us over for dinner and gave us a tour. Jenny felt more like a floating home than simply a boat….a full size refrigerator! Couches and recliners! Patio furniture! An engine room the size of a one-car garage! We really enjoyed our evening hearing about Jenny’s seven years of cruising from Maine, down to Florida, and through the Caribbean!

Next stop was Compass Cay and the famous pet sharks.

The tiny Compass Cay marina is a beautiful spot in the middle of nowhere. It’s also one of the most expensive marinas in the Bahamas, so we chose to anchor in the harbor and just dinghy in to visit Tucker and his sons’ tropical paradise. Pointing out our anchorage on the very technical island map 😜

Rumor has it that an episode of The Bachelorette was filmed here a few days before our visit. The series starts Memorial Day weekend, so I might need to watch it!

We hiked the length of the island, and then brought Mike’s famous red beans and rice to the Saturday potluck dinner. Say what you will about motor boats vs sailboats, but motor boats that stay in expensive marinas bring THE BEST food to potlucks! And this group from Cape Coral, FL were extremely welcoming and generous. We also met sailors from Breckinridge, CO on SV To The Max! Fun to get a little reminder of home!

But the real highlight of Compass Cay is those famous sharks. “Only” nurse sharks, so not technically aggressive, they still have sharp teeth and beady little predator eyes, and some were still longer than I am tall. But I figured, what the heck – they have names, so they won’t eat me. Right? So, without further ado, I jumped in.

Even though I got into the water with those critters under my own power, I still found it a little bit unnerving. I’d watch the shark in front of me, keeping my hands in fists so that my fingers didn’t look too much like little squids, and a different shark would brush me from behind. Yep. I might have squealed a little bit.

“Can’t you see them circling, honey? Can’t you feel ’em schooling around? You got fins to the left, fins to the right, and your the only bait in town”

National Family Island Regatta

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“That was a great idea you had to buy a boat,” said Capt. Mike. “This is exactly how I always imagined it would be.”

“You mean not doing any boat maintenance projects, geeking out over sailboat racing, meeting lots of fun and like-minded people, spending indiscriminately on food and drink ashore, and dancing to soca bands all night long?” I asked in reply.

“Yep. Exactly.”

Ok. It’s not exactly real life. But attending the National Family Island Regatta in Georgetown Exuma was one of the highlights of our first cruising season.

More than 70 traditional Bahamian racing sloops gather each year in Elizabeth Harbor for the largest regatta in the country. Boats must be built, owned and raced by Bahamians. Rivalries between islands are strong. This year was the 65th anniversary race, and you could feel the excitement just walking through the Main Street of Georgetown. Or…. possibly I was just feeling the base beat pumping from the DJ booth outside the 242 Liquor Store.

In the days leading up to the start of the regatta, racing boats arrived at Georgetown from all over the country. We went ashore at Government Dock and watched the delicate procedure of unloading the sloops from the mail boats and stepping the masts. I say “delicate” but at times I had to hold my breath because it looked highly likely that the mail boat crane would lower one boat down into the water right on top of the previous boat.

This was our first chance to see the race boats up close and personal, and to start deciding who to root for during the rest of the week. I’m kind of partial to Number 5 – Barbarian because of its artistic paint job. Capt. Mike likes to root for a winner, so he went with the boats from Long Island; Susan Chase and Running Tide.

The first day of the regatta consisted of cup races – winner takes all. It was a beautiful day of blue skies, light winds, and the smell of competition in the air. It all seemed a bit chaotic on that first day; the race schedule just a suggestion, the race course changing frequently based on the direction and magnitude of the wind, warning guns going off at seemingly random times. But we eventually got the hang of things. The best seat in the house to watch the races is from a dinghy, anchored just off the starting line buoy. From this vantage point, you can watch the racing sloops sail or get towed to the start – no motors on these babies – lower the sails, and set the anchor. After some jockeying for position, the starting gun blasts! Half the crew hauls with all of their strength on the anchor rode, giving the sloop enough forward momentum and speed to enable the other half of the crew to haul up the giant sail. A clean start gives the crew a huge advantage!

Now comes the strategy. Do you sail as close as you can for the windward marker? Or do you take a risk for a better wind angle, and sail wide, requiring several tacks to reach the mark? Do you stay in the center of the harbor for clear sailing? Or do you take the race right through the anchorage searching for the perfect line and hoping to avoid hitting a stationary boat?

Then the boats approach the first marker. The skippers are using all their skills and experience to make the turn first, heeling the boat over at an alarming angle, sending the crew out to the very end of their wooden planks to counterbalance the tilt. Tacking after the turn, the boom swings across the boat, huge sail sweeping through the water on the opposite side.

Hopefully, the turn goes smoothly and sets the crew up well for the next leg. If not, there’s a chance the heel over on the turn goes a little too to far, and the sloop scoops up enough sea water to sink to the bottom of the harbor, her crew treading water or holding the tip of the mast until rescued.

Two or three laps of the course later, the boats near the finish line in front of Government Dock where the spectators sitting on the concrete wall or in shaded bandstands, as well as those of us in the dinghy flotilla, cheer wildly for the victor.

Phew. Even after four days of cup races and series races, the thrill did not fade. Capt. Mike and I might be having lunch in the cockpit, or heading to town to get groceries, and we’d hear the 5-minute warning gun, look at each other, and say, “We gotta go watch this race. Don’t you think?” And we were back in Bug and zooming toward the starting line.

So while the races themselves were we loads of fun, the festival atmosphere surrounding the races was also worth the extra week in Georgetown. The week before the races, vendors built colorful plywood shacks on regatta point which became pop up bars and restaurants on race day. Kind of like a county fair back home. Except instead of buying cheese curds, fried snickers, and beer you can buy conch fritters, sheeps tongue souse, and sky juice (aka gin and coconut water). Special ferries brought thousands of people to Exuma for the event, and everyone dressed up and hit the party. Kids were hyped up on sugar, fair games, and cheap plastic toys. Teenagers were looking each other over, flirting and pushing. And adults were renewing friendships with folks from other islands that they might only see once or twice a year. The people watching is top notch, let me tell you!

And then there’s the night life. Cruisers are usually early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise types. In fact “cruiser’s midnight” is generally about 9:00 pm. But live music started each night around 10:00 (Island time) and went as long as the crowd kept dancing. So Capt. Mike and I took afternoon naps and drank lots of caffeine and stayed up later than I have in years. The eclectic music (think Pitbull and Justin Timberlake meets BobMarley meets Caribbean soca music) kept everybody moving

Friday night’s highlight was the Junkanoo Rush Out; a high energy parade of dancers, drums, horns, and cowbells snaking through the festival grounds. As the parade passes by, you just kind of jump onto the end, and the parade gets longer and longer until it sort of collapses into a dance party. There’s definitely a Mardi Gras or Carnival vibe!

A final highlight of Regatta Week was meeting many new cruisers from all parts of the world. Our buddy boats had sailed north without us, so we had to rely on Capt. Mike’s extroverted personality to make new friends in the anchorage. In a week, we met sailors from Germany, Switzerland, Norway, and Canada, as well as many new faces from the US. We met two crews sailing on Pacific Seacraft vessels; the first of Sanitas’ sisters that we’ve ever met out on the sea. We exchanged lots of boat cards and email addresses and photos, and hope that we see some of our new friends again, whether it be later this season, or years into the future!

This photo is courtesy of Andrea Whitaker, a real photographer, and fellow member of our dinghy flotilla race watchers group!

Following in Columbus’s Footsteps

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As soon as we set anchor on the west side of Conception Island, Capt. Drew of Z-Raye zoomed up in the dinghy shouting ” Watch out for the welcoming committee!” In response to a quizzical look, he added “two big sharks circling the anchorage.” Sure enough, by the time Capt. Mike had donned swim trunks and a snorkel mask in preparation to dive the anchor, a five foot long shadow appeared next to Sanitas. He kept us company for our entire stay on the island and I named him Oscar (the grouch). This was the theme for our stay on Conception; a balance of outstanding natural beauty, contrasted by the reality of the sharks, rays, and barracuda who really belong here.

Lunch under sail from Georgetown to Conception Island.

Conception Island is a national park made up of pristine beaches, fun hikes, and the best snorkeling we’d experienced so far in the Bahamas. It’s also one of the islands that Christopher Columbus visited after crossing the Atlantic Ocean. I’m not exactly sure what his crew did here, because as far as I can tell, there isn’t any fresh water or animals to hunt for food. But Capt. Mike is probably right.By the time Columbus reached these islands, his crew was probably very grateful for the opportunity to get off the boat onto dry land and to catch their breath for a bit.

The soft, white sand beach surrounding our anchorage was one of the most perfect I’ve seen on our travels. And from the beach, there are a few fun hiking trails to the ocean side of the island and up to the cliffs. But the island is so protected and so covered with hearty gnarled vegetation, that it’s difficult to make much progress in the interior without returning covered with scrapes, scratches, and bug bites!

Hiking on Conception

Top of the cliff

The best way to experience the interior of Conception is by dinghy hiking – taking the dinghies to a creek entrance on the south side of the island and very slowly exploring the creek and its tributaries for sea life and birds. At times, the creeks get so shallow that the best way to make forward progress is to row. And at other times, the mangroves are so close on either side that you can reach out and touch them, and can see the huge schools of fish that hide in the mangrove roots for protection from predators.

We saw dozens and dozens of green turtles in the creeks. They’d duck under water quickly as we approached, and after we passed and looked back upstream, all we could see were dozens of little white turtle heads watching us. We cooled off by swimming in a small blue hole, and returned to the anchorage. Once again, we confirmed that our dinghy / motor combination isn’t sufficient for this cruising lifestyle. All of our friends zoom back and forth between the anchorage and the sights, and we just putt along slowly in Bug, usually ending up drenched by waves in the process.

Conception Island also provided the best snorkeling so far in The Bahamas. Just north of the island, we anchored the dinghies in small patches of sand and explored colorful live coral and fish of all types. I didn’t think I was afraid of barracuda, but they glare at you! They come up close with their beady little eyes and their crooked teeth and they swim right at you and glare! I’m still not exactly frightened, but also not exactly comfortable swimming with them! I’ve added an underwater camera to my shopping list for next year, because I’m so sad not to have photos of this gorgeous reef with its purple fan coral and yellow stag horn coral.

As we climbed into the dinghies and prepared for the ride back to the anchorage, we had one of the most special experiences of the trip. Looking north, we watched a mother whale and her calf rise from the ocean in full breach, and crash back down, sending a huge plume of white water into the air! We loitered for a while, watching the calf play as she surfaced over and over again, but when we started up the outboard motors, the good mama decided to hide her little one, and we didn’t see them again. We toasted to mamma whale with watermelon margaritas at sundown on Sanitas that evening.

Conditions on our sail from Conception Island to Cat Island were perfect for our first attempt at using our asymmetrical spinnaker. Winds were light, from our stern at about 120 degrees. There was a bit of a learning curve as we got the light wind sail out of the bag for the first time and figured out how to rig it to the third furling drum all the way forward on the bow sprit, but it worked! Even sailing with only this one sail up, we made about 5.5 knots toward Cat Island.

Using the spinnaker

Unfurling

Full sail

Next time, we will be smoother in raising the spinnaker, and we will experiment with using it in combination with our primary sails. What a wonderful day of sailing, and a wonderful stay on Conception!

9am water aerobics, 2pm volleyball, 7pm dancing, Repeat

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If you’ve read or heard anything about cruising in the Bahamas, you’ve probably heard about Georgetown on Great Exuma Island. It’s the capital of the expat community during the winter, with a plethora of daily activities on offer, such as: water aerobics, yoga, volleyball, dominos, music lessons, and Texas Hold’em. Not to mentions infinite opportunities for hiking, snorkeling, and exploring. Of course, Georgetown also provides all the basic services that cruisers need, such as groceries, laundry, fuel, and trash. Georgetown earned the nickname of Chicken Harbor because so many cruisers with plans to continue south get caught in the gravitational pull of Georgetown fun, and eventually discover that the entire season has passed by, driving the decision to chicken out and head back to Florida this summer, and try again for the southern Caribbean next year.

It was an easy couple of hours sail from Emerald Bay to Elizabeth harbor, once the northerly winds and swells had finally calmed. Sanitas rejoined her buddy boats at an anchorage just off Sand Dollar Beach, and we quickly got dragged ashore to the Chat ‘n’ Chill on Stocking Island for our introduction to the festivities.

Chat ‘n’ Chill, aka Volleyball Beach is the social hub of the area; a beach bar that also doubles as the church, book exchange, volleyball league, and domino club. We spent A LOT of time here over the next few days, meeting other cruisers, and getting my kitty cat fix by hanging out with the very laid back ginger tabbys.

On our first night in the harbor, we attended a bonfire on Sand Dollar beach where we met the crew of SAVA, who are home-schooling their two children aboard, and watched the captain of Maitre ‘d twirl Polynesian fire balls. The evening was marred a bit when Z-Raye’s dinghy went for a walkabout without her captain well after dark. We put out an APB on the VHF to get everyone in the harbor on the lookout. And somehow, Stan and Chris of Disorder were able to find her, drifting in the middle of Elizabeth harbor, in a 2 knot current, making a break for Miami. I have no idea how they were lucky enough to spot her, tie her up, and tow her in using only flashlights! Note to self…. apply reflective tape to our dinghy, Bug.

After celebrating Sharon’s birthday with burgers at Splash Beach Bar, we climbed to the top on Monument Hill and surveyed the view of the harbor and of all the boat names memorialized in stone on the beach. We accepted the challenge and made our own stone tribute to Dock 4, the home base in St Petersburg of our whole group.

In Georgetown, I got my hair cut for the first time since Miami. I walked into Trainee’s hair salon (and fish market) and got a pretty darn good cut for $20. Unfortunately, Trainee was sold out of fresh fish for the day, lol.

I spent one fun afternoon on my Isle inflatable standup paddle board. It took a while to build up my courage to go farther and farther from the boat. I tend to get lulled into a false sense of security, when the water and wind are still, and I am moving at a brisk pace in a comfortable direction. Then the breeze picks up or a wake comes through the anchorage (Or I simply realize I need to turn around to get back to where I started) and it all falls apart. Today, I made it all the way around Sand Dollar anchorage, getting up close and personal with several green sea turtles, and then as I approached Sanitas, I realized I had no idea how to stop. Lacking any other plan, I pretty much ran right into her. When the paddle board stopped so suddenly, I fell off and had to collect my hat, sunglasses, water bottle, and paddle before trying to board the boat with some level of dignity intact.

Capt. Mike’s sport of choice is volleyball. Back in Colorado, he used to play on several different leagues, at various levels of competitiveness. As 2:00 approached each afternoon, I could sense him getting more antsy and ready to head over to volleyball beach. If I wasn’t ready, I’d have to follow later on the SUP, or catch a ride with another boat. He had a blast burning up the court every afternoon …. and still has the raw marks on his knees healing slowly to show for all those dives into the sand, sacrificing his body for the ball.

On our last night if Elizabeth Harbor, we dinghied over to Georgetown to attend the rake ‘n scrape at the Peace and Plenty hotel. A Rake ‘n scrape is traditional Bahamian live music, usually played with a base, accordion, and saw – maybe even a washboard. This one was a bit more polished than most, with electric guitars provide most of the melody, and one lonely quiet saw soloist way in the back. It was a great evening though, dancing to the band at the lovely outdoor patio, and hanging out with locals and other cruisers on Archipelago, Mariposa, and Wavelength. Mike noticed that the bartender was getting overwhelmed with customers early in the evening, so he offered to carry in a few cases of beer and to reload the beer fridge. She allowed him to help out until a second bartender arrived, earning a few free beers for his efforts!

Did I mention how large Elizabeth Harbor is? In my imagination, I had always envisioned a small, manageable harbor, ringed by pristine white sand beaches, where every business and amenity is right within reach. In reality, Elizabeth Harbor is huge, and there are many available anchorages to choose from depending on the weather and winds, and if you’d rather be close to Stocking Island socializing, or close to errands and shopping in town. So when we committed to dinner, drinks, and dancing at Peace and Plenty, we knew we were in for a long dark dinghy ride home across the harbor in Bug. We made it, and somehow Capt Mike was able to pick out the exact anchor light belonging to Sanitas from the constellation of artificial stars ringing the bay, and aimed us straight at her. Our first stay in a Georgetown for the season had come to a close, and any lingering crustiness we would feel the next morning on our sail east was worth it for the fun of dancing outdoors on a beautiful evening.