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Playing tourist in Nassau

/ FloatsOurBoat / 4 Comments

After a week of bad weather in Palm Cay Marina, we started to get a little bit stir crazy. So when Demario offered us a discount on a car rental, we jumped at it! Mike and I combined forces with Robert and Rhonda on Eagle Too and we spend an entire day playing tourist.

I hadn’t really felt any need to see Nassau. I’d always heard it is crowded and even dangerous. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the historic district is also very beautiful. We started our tour at the Queen’s staircase, 102 feet of stairs and a narrow canyon carved into a limestone mountain as an escape route from the city fortifications. This morning, athletes were using the steep climb as an outdoor gym…sort of like Red Rocks in Colorado.

Fort Fincastle at the top of the hill provides amazing views of Nassau and the harbor.

Quite a bit of colonial architecture remains, hosting government buildings and businesses. This is Government House, the home of the governor of the Bahamas, Marguerite Pindling.

The library is housed in the hexagonal former jail building. They store books in the cells.

I couldn’t stop taking pictures of the beautiful Greycliff Hotel and gardens. When we win the lottery, I’m staying here for a week!

In addition to the lovely hotel, restaurant, and gardens, the Greycliff Complex includes several artisan shops selling chocolates, wine, and cigars hand-rolled on premises. They say they are better than Cuban cigars. I think they all smell equally foul.

Colorful public art is everywhere in Old Town Nassau… no admission fee required.

I got it into my head that I wanted to eat lunch at Fish Fry. It’s not one particular restaurant (and not all the fish is fried!) but a cluster of casual, inexpensive eateries, shacks, and food trucks just off the bridge to Arawak Cay. You can try any type of Bahamian food here, and locals have their favorite shack, mostly named after the cook.

My friends humored me, and agreed to the fairly long walk in the heat to fish fry. I have to say, the people watching on the walk over was worth it!

As we approached Fish Fry, a tout with a sign grabbed us and started fast talking, ” You lookin’ for Fish Fry? Follow me to Fish Fry. I’ll take you right there!” It’s hard to resist the sales pitch, especially when your feet hurt and you are hot and thirsty. So we followed him into the nearest restaurant and ordered a drink. But then I had to put my foot down. I’d done my research, read reviews, and I’d be darned if we were going to act like cruise ship sheep and eat at the restaurant with the pushiest tout! I was going to eat at Goldie’s, gosh darn it!

So my long suffering friends paid for their drinks, got up and left the restaurant without ordering food, and followed me to Goldie’s. I’m glad we did! We sat out on the water overlooking a veritable mountain of queen conch shells and had a feast.

Rashid showed us how he cleans and preps the conch before cooking.

But I have to admit, by this point in our Bahamas travels, I was a little bit conched out. Is it ok to admit it? So instead I ate some amazing grilled snapper with vegetables and the signature cocktail – Goldie’s Call A Cab. What is it with the Bahamas and green cocktails?

In an effort to see how the other half lives, we decided to crash Atlantis for the afternoon. Here we are driving up the the front door (basically NO ONE actually drives to Atlantis, we might have given ourselves away with that one)

Here’s the marina we didn’t stay at, because it’s crazy expensive. We met folks at Compass Cay who stayed at Atlantis Marina for two nights and the bill was $850.

We enjoyed exploring the public areas of this resort, particularly the Atlantis themed aquarium. I was obsessed with getting a selfie with an eagle ray… not entirely successfully.

And …. much better fish pictures, no Jenn!

Our last attempt to pretend we are resort people, not cruisers, was a stroll through the casino. The highlight is definitely the Chihuly glass sculptures. I got in trouble taking the first picture. I guess I wandered into one of the gambling pits… oops!

So we walked our legs off, ate great food, and enjoyed amazing colorful art, all for the cost of a $60 rental car split between four people. Not bad at all! This might have been the best value sightseeing tour in Nassau that day!

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

/ FloatsOurBoat / 2 Comments

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!

/ FloatsOurBoat / 4 Comments

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!

Conch. It’s what’s for dinner

/ FloatsOurBoat / 2 Comments

Have you tried conch? I don’t mean conch fritters….. those little fried balls of who-knows-what dipped in catsup. I mean REAL conch, Queen Conch, strombus gigas, straight from the ocean, maybe served ceviche style raw with lime, maybe cracked battered and fried. Well, I have had the honor of eating the best conch in the entire world on Cat Island.

On our first day in New Bight, we stopped by Duke’s Conch Shack for some cold beverages, and spent a couple of hours shooting the breeze with Duke (Or “Dukie” as the local ladies call him, although I never felt quite close enough to be on nick-name basis). Duke’s place was a huge step up from the takeaway shacks surrounding it. He explained how he made the coconut palm thatched roof by hand; what kind of wood to use for the supports and how to soak it in salt water to keep out the bugs. He explained that this type of roof is perfect, because every time a storm destroys the restaurant, he walks out into the woods and gets new building material for free. He explained that he found all of the sailing-themed decorations and light shades washed up on Ocean Beach, “you can find anything in the world over there!” And he told us the Whitty K sign is a piece of the hull of one of the champion Bahamian racing sloops. Oh! And he acted out the story of when the shark bit him on the butt and he had to get 50 stitches. After we were buddies, Duke even gave us a ride a couple of miles up the road to the best grocery store in the Bahamas.

Amid all the chatting and story telling, Duke found time to whip up the most amazing conch salad ever; ocean fresh conch “cooked” in lime and orange juice, mixed with tomato, onion, and hot peppers. I protected my treasured paper bowl in a plastic bag, on the bumpy dinghy ride back to the boat and had a divine dinner served with tortilla chips and rum punch.

Nice photo bomb, Laura!

The next day, we returned to Dukes’s after our island tour adventure, for cracked conch. Since Capt. Mike and I need to stick to a gluten-free diet, we ordinarily can’t partake of this breaded and fried delicacy. But …. after hanging with Duke all day yesterday, he told us that if we brought our own gluten-free flour, he would use it to make cracked conch just for us!

We placed an order for three portions for us and our friends. Duke said, “Let me go get the conch from the freezer”, and walked across the dirt road to the beach. Sensing something awesome, I trailed along behind him. Duke crossed the beach, waded into the choppy ocean waves, took his shirt off, and dove under water. One by one, he pulled conch shells out from the water, and threw them onto the sand. Three… six … nine … twelve. Wow! That’s a lot of conch for three portions! By the time Duke returned to the beach, the crews of Sanitas, Z-Raye, and Orion were all on the beach watching. Duke walked us through the process of cleaning and prepping conch.

First, use a hammer to pound a hole in the shell to release the suction so you can pull the conch from its home. Rinse the conch several times to clear the sand. Remove the conch “pistol”. Depending on who you ask, this is either the semen sack, which has special sexual-strength-inducing powers, or simply part of the digestive system. Either way, it’s pretty badass to swallow it hole, as Laura and I did, lol.

First taste of conch pistol

I like all the puzzled faces in this picture…

Next, you need the remove the operculum… a shell like covering that assists in locomotion, aka: a thick skin covering the conch. Cut it off with a BIG knife. Also cut off any dark of discolored pieces. Rinse a few more times.

Once you have coaxed the critters out of their shells, and removed all the nasty bits, the next step is to pound the heck out of it. FYI, this is why I don’t clean conch myself on my boat. (Picture slimy conch bits all over the walls)

After all of this extremely labor intensive cleaning and prepping (not to mention actually catching the darn things!) comes the civilized part or dipping the strips of tenderized conch in egg, cream, and flour and then frying. Add salt, French fries, and hot sauce (and a rum punch) and you have a meal fit for a queen…. conch (see what I did there?)