Sunday, February 9, 2025

Boring Day Anchored in Montague Bay, Nassau…and the Plan From Here


Allan’s Cay to Nassau – 32 nautical miles sailed

After arriving in Nassau shortly before noon after a pleasant sail from the Exumas, it began to rain and did not stop. This is only the third day of rain we’ve experienced in over four months so it came as a bit of a shock, especially as the weather forecast predicted only a slight chance of occasional light sprinklings.

We stopped at Nassau Yacht Haven to fill up our diesel and water tanks and it was the first time we’ve had to dock the boat in months. Since Fort Lauderdale I have been filling the diesel tanks using jerry cans and calculating the amount of diesel to add based on the number of hours the engine had been running since the last top up. The boat typically uses 0.75 gallons of diesel per hour so I add the appropriate amount, but hadn’t actually filled it to the top for a very long time as using jerry cans doesn’t allow me to hear the “almost full” noise the tank vent makes as it is approaching full, and I hate overfilling the tanks as it spills diesel into the water and can potentially cause fuel leaks inside the boat. So, based on my estimate I was expecting to take about 13 gallons of diesel. How much did it need? 11 gallons. I’m happy my system of fuel estimations is working out.

We also paid to fill our water tanks and took on 75 gallons of water for the price of $15, which is how much I would have spent in gasoline running the dinghy back and forth from Potters Cay filling up our water jugs, not to mention the back breaking (strengthening) job of transporting them. So, it was a good stop.

Hoping to find an anchorage closer to the dinghy dock, we tried to squeeze into one near the yacht club, but there just wasn’t enough space, so we gave up and returned to Montague Bay, where we had anchored previously, which is a decent enough anchorage, but just a little far out. The rain really started to fall once we got anchored so we hunkered down and waited, hoping it would break so that we could go into Nassau for grocery shopping. But it just kept falling and we remained in the boat all day, suffering from intense boredom, which we are unaccustomed to. The rain didn’t stop the local jet skiers and tourist boats ripping through the anchorage with wild abandon, at speeds designed to produce maximum wake, keeping the sailboats anchored here bouncing and swinging and smashing and slapping. But that motion feels normal; what comes across as strange is when there is no motion on the boat, or we’re on land. Makes us a bit wobbly.

I asked Ana a question today. The question was, Do you feel like we’re running out of time on this trip?

The answer, from both of us, was No.

Thus far we’ve covered three island chains in the Bahamas – Bimini, New Providence, and the Exumas. After Stella leaves on Wednesday we plan to sail to Eleuthera for a week, then pick up our friends back in Nassau and return with them for a week to either Eleuthera or the Exumas, depending on wind and weather. After this, we hope to sail north-east to the Abacos and spend a week there, then cut west to Grand Bahamas then back to the US and snake our way north to Canada. By the time we are done we hope to have visited six of the Bahamian island groups, which is probably more than we expected, and yet we will leave knowing there are still so many places to explore here in the future; unlimited, really. I can see why so many cruisers do not go any further south than the Bahamas. The winter weather here is pleasant, the people are kind, the cruising infrastructure is unparalleled, access is amazing with all the local airports, and there’s a thousand anchorages to explore.


So, we do not feel like we are running out of time. Instead, we feel like we are moving at the right pace, enjoying the moments, and using our time efficiently to see and experience as much as possible. Time has certainly taken on a different dimension and I will admit I’ve stopped noticing if it’s a Monday or a Wednesday or a Saturday when we’re sailing across perfectly clear aquamarine waters, or enjoying a beach fire, or snorkelling amongst the fishes, or hiking an island trail, or chilling with new friends.

What will it feel like as we sail out of the Bahamas and back up the incredibly long US coast and ICW? Well, it will be an adventure, just like it was on the way here. We will stop at places we missed, revisit places we loved, discover new places, and maybe do some longer ocean passages. I feel like we will still be Sailing to the Sun, but it will be the sun of the epic Canadian summer, and I look forward to the much longer daylight hours we’ll have for the return journey and am hoping that improved springtime weather outpaces our northward progress.

And as I sit here typing at 7 am on a Sunday I feel the Bahamian sunshine pouring in through the hatches and portholes. Time to get moving!

Saturday, February 8, 2025

Allan’s Cay – Conch Hunting, Boat Cleaning, Beach Fire


Norman’s Cay to Allan’s Cay – 13 nautical miles sailed, 5 miles in dinghy, 500 metres snorkelled, 6 conch

Today would be Stella’s last in the Family Islands so we decided to return to Allan’s Cay, the first island we anchored at in the Exumas. It did not disappoint, and I would say this is my favourite anchorage in the Exumas. It has it all – snorkelling, beach combing, beach fire spots, iguanas, superb snorkelling, conch and lobsters, sharks, and good wind protection. Yes, there are tourist boats who stop a couple times per day to see and feed the iguanas, but seeing them is fun in itself.


We arrived around 10:30 am and I went out to see if I could find some new snorkelling spots as the Atlantic side showed lots of ground structure on the charts and wasn’t too horribly wavy. I dinghy’d out to a nearby island and zero’d in on a large black patch of water then anchored nearby it. There I found an incredible and fairly small coral reef with hordes of fish and colorful coral plus dozens of conch lounging in the nearby grassy sand bottom. I found five beautiful large adults and put them in my bucket then succeeded in finding a single lobster and tickling him out of his hole with the tip of my spear (this is done by diving close to them, sliding a long pole beneath them and gently tickle their underside back legs, which they seem to hate, and will crawl out of their hole and into the open to escape the tickling). Sadly, when I tried to deliver the death blow I was quickly running out of air, and flubbed the shot. Each of my failures teaches me a bit more about spiny lobster hunting and I feel I’m getting better…but not quite there yet.

After snorkelling for a while longer, but deciding not to take any of the many available fish there, I glimped a shark in the distance and decided to push on and try to find another site, which I did along the banks of another nearby rocky island. I did not get in the water for this one, instead just scoped it out from the boat by dipping my head in the water and looking around.


I returned to the boat, cleaned the conch and packed them in the freezer, had lunch with the girls, then we all went back out snorkelling. They loved the spots I’d found, and at the first one we had a prowling barracuda – a real big one, maybe 25 to 30 pounds – and Stella was thrilled to see it as she hadn’t yet seen one underwater. At the second we saw a giant sunfish as well as thousands of other fish of many varieties. We then returned to a spot we’d found here on our first stop, and absolutely first class snorkelling location, nearly inside the anchorage. I picked up one more beautiful conch there, put her in a bucket with seawater, and decided to keep her as a pet with the name Princess Concholopolous. She’s going to love it back in Paris.


Back at the boat I decided it was time to give the underside a cleaning. Little crusty sea creatures had begun sticking themselves to the hull and there was a bit of flowing green algae hair in some spots. So with my drywall trowel scraper and a brush I went to work, taking deep breaths, then swimming upside down beneath the boat, scraping the entire surface, while keeping my inverted peripheral vision on alert for sharks. We saw several sharks last time we were here, particularly after I had been cleaning conch on the back of the boat and tossing in the guts. By the end of the job I was completely spent so I dragged myself back onto the boat and sat on the swim platform resting and chatting with Princess Concholopolous, who seemed to be really happy in her new bucket home.

This is birthday week so we made a couple of calls, one to my brother Marty who turned 50 (and my nephew Leif who turned 18) and one to our buddy Andrew who is just one little year behind him. Party Marty’s having a party this Saturday at their house in Chelsea, Quebec and my whole immediate family is going to be there plus some of the highly dangerous cousins so I’m sad to be missing the shindig, especially since they all turned out for my old school backyard 50th a couple of years ago. Andrew and his partner Victoria were in Toronto for the weekend, keeping the birthday celly’s low key, but he did recruit Ana to plan his 50th next year and is hoping to pop down to see us for a couple days somewhere along our trip to discuss pertinent details.


Though we knew it would be impossible to replicate the magical, unexpected, impromptu, and perfect evening beach fire and dinner we had with new friends the last time we were here, we gave it a weak try. We gathered some wood from the island then dinghy’d over to the closest four anchored boats and invited them to a campfire. There was enthusiastic, but utterly non-convincing nods received from all invitees, and sure enough, nobody showed, which was okay with us, as we had a lovely evening on the beach, under the stars and three-quarter moon, with a fire, great music, cold drinks, and peaceful conversation.

Friday, February 7, 2025

Norman's Cay - Sunken Airplane, Hammock Naps, and Fresh Bread and Chilli


Warderick Wells to Norman’s Cay – 22 nautical miles sailed, 4 miles in dinghy, 2 kilometres walked, 200 metres snorkelled

The east winds have been blowing with incredible consistency for the past week or two, creating excellent sailing conditions for the protected Exuma banks. Our ride this morning took about 3.5 hours and was enjoyable but uneventful. Today's destination - Norman’s Cay - is a very popular anchorage with a rich and sorted history of being the base of operations for Columbian drug lord Carlos Lehder, who had a pal named Pablo Escobar. Lehder took over the island, build a huge runway, staffed it with armed guards, and brought in daily flights from Columbia, loaded with cocaine, and sometimes overloaded as one of the planes crashed and has been sitting at the bottom of the bay for over 40 years. I’m certain they had some incredible parties here too as those Columbian kingpins know how to do it up right.

Norman’s Cay is also the original planned location of the disastrous Fyre Festival back in 2017 when Ja Rule and Billy McFarland rented the island, hoping to turn it into a festival venue, but massively miscalculated the complexity of such an operation in a remote location.


Once SeaLight was anchored we took the dinghy around the south end of the island and to the location of the airplane wreck. I had been here 25 years before and the plane had deteriorated quite a bit, slowly turning into a giant coral reef, but was instantly recognizable as a large airplane, and a bit spooky as you can swim into the cabin area, where most of the cabin top is completely gone, but the aft portion still covered and was full of large fish. We do not have many regrets on this trip, but the one thing we should have done is gotten an underwater camera, as we’ve seen so many incredible things while snorkelling. Yet…not having a camera has allowed us to fully focus on the experience, something difficult to do when you are trying to capture everything with a device.


The area around the plane had a bottom of sandy seagrass, which is ideal conch habitat, and we found hundreds of juvenile conch there, but no adults. I went further out into the 20 to 30 foot depths and had the girls follow me around while I scanned the sea bed. I looked for a very long time but did not find a single harvestable conch, and I remember the last time I was here in the 90’s seeing conch scattered all over the bottom and easily collecting them. It’s clear the conch populations are not what they once were and I’m sure the conch fishermen need to go further and deeper to get them.

We stopped on a tiny island where we noticed a bench. The very new looking bench was placed there by a family in dedication to their parents, but also “To All Island Lovers”. It was very heartwarming and the three of us sat there and took a photo of our sandy feet just before topping forward and nearly falling off.


Back on SeaLight, I slung the hammock on the dinghy arch for Stella to lounge in while Ana and I mixed up a batch of bread and did some cleaning. When Stella had absorbed enough sunlight I took over and almost instantly fell asleep to the automatic swaying of the hammock provided by the slight ocean swells. It was glorious.


While waiting for the second rise, Ana and I went into shore and walked the beach all the way to the tiny resort on the island and home to the legendary MacDuff’s Restaurant and Bar. When I was last here 25 years ago with my dad and my buddy Stillman, it was a shack in the bushes with a gasoline powered blender, possibly the first in the world, and served cold Kaliks, greasy burgers, and not much else. In a brilliant stroke of luck the three of us had paddled into shore from the eastern anchorage, seen a weathered sign with “MacDuffs --->” and followed a path which led to a runway we had to cut across then right to the scabby bar. Upon entering we were shocked to find a wooden bar, with a few wooden stools, some license plates and photos stuck to the walls and a barkeeper there all alone, waiting to serve us. On the wall was a paper sign that read, “Happy Hour – Thursday – 4 to 6pm”

“What day is it?” I asked Stillman.

“Not sure,” he said, then counted on his fingers. “Thursday, I think.”

“What time is it?”

Nobody had a watch, but the barkeeper looked at hers and said, “3:55.”


During the next two hours we drank half their inventory, then drank the other half at full price after the Kalik Krazy had taken over. Sometime around 1am (or it could have been 9pm, time had lost all meaning) a German in a pink golf cart offered to drive us back to our dinghy. We poured ourselves into the cart, he poured us out at the beach, then we barely made it back to our sailboat paddling through the raging current.

Today’s visit was not like that. While Ana waited on the beach I walked by the No Trespassing sign and followed the wooden pathway that twisted around the rental cottages and to the back where I found the entrance to the bar. We knew from previous research that it was no longer a scabby wooden hut and had been transformed into an upscale island restaurant with astronomical prices to match – Rum Punch for $17, grouper for $46, or a cheeseburger for $30. I was angling for a visit, but Ana instead said she’d take me out to Eastside Marios when we were back home for the Thursday night “Amore for Two” for $50 in measly Canadian dollars, and we might even get it for less than that if Magnus was working there again. I took the deal.


We had a superior dinner on the boat, with a big pot of delicious chili Ana and Stella made, the fresh bread which turned out perfectly, a little spot of boxed red, and the remainder of the cupcakes for dessert. We followed this up with an in-boat screening of the 1999 “Notting Hill”, a film from the time when romance comedy could actually be pretty good. We loved it.

Thursday, February 6, 2025

Warderick Wells Cay – Incredible Snorkelling, Boo-Boo Hill, and Sundowner with New Friends


Staniel Cay to Warderick Wells – 18 nautical miles sailed, 6 miles in dinghy, 3 kilometres walked, 500 metres snorkelled

We were sad to leave Staniel Cay as it had become one of our favourite spots in the Exumas, but leave we did, and by late morning we were anchored in Warderick Wells, the park headquarters for the Exumas Land and Sea Park. Here, we were hoping to do some hiking and snorkelling in this protected national park where all fishing, hunting, and any sort of sea creature collection or perturbation is forbidden.

Ana took care of piloting while I retrieved my snap kit and fixed a bunch of the nylon straps and snaps we use to hold the rolled-up canvas side panels in the cockpit in place. The damn snaps had been failing since I first installed them, irritating me to no end, so I finally took the time to fix them.



The Warderick Wells anchorage bay is huge so we snugged up as close to the western shore as our draft allowed, which was still quite far out, then got our gear together and took the dinghy into the park office to pay the mandatory anchoring fees. The park office building is a stylish, wooden building, perched on a small outcropping overlooking the bay. From here you can see into the north mooring, which is a perfectly arced channel anchorage running through deepish blue water with shallow banks on one side and a perfect beach on the other. You have probably seen an image of this anchorage online - I expect if you search “Exumas, Bahamas” it will likely appear.

We paid our fees, picked up paper sheets detailing the local snorkelling spots and island trails, then set out on a hike to Boo-Boo Hill, but first walked onto Whale Beach to see the sun-bleached sperm whale skeleton on display there, resting on wooden cradles.


Just minutes into the hike we came across another family, a couple with two young girls. We started chatting and discovered they were from Wales, had recently bought a 43’ catamaran in West Palm Beach, and were just two weeks into their two-year sailing adventure. We connected with them right away and walked together on the rough and rocky trail, through a rapidly depleting tidal marsh, then up a bushy path to the top of Boo-Boo Hill. There, we found hundreds, if not thousands, of wooden marker boards left by previous sailors. Some were elaborately decorated, even laser cut or CNC’d, while others were simply boat names scribbled on driftwood with paint or a black marker. Many had deteriorated past the point of being readable, but others were fresh, and we recognized many boat names of sailors we’d either met or seen on the Noforeignland app. It seems everybody makes this stop but sadly we did not have a SeaLight marker to leave behind, but we will be sure to do so next time. The view from the top of the hill over the geometrically beautiful anchorage was stunning, as was the view to the Atlantic which was surprisingly calm today. We walked a bit further to see the blowholes which were, unfortunately, dry as a whale bone as the Atlantic ocean was not angry enough to provide the massive swell to power the violent explosions of water up and through the rock tubes.


We made a plan to meet for a sundowner on Whale Beach then the ladies and I went snorkelling in the bay, at Judy’s Reef, where we saw not just colourful and plentiful coral, but more fish than we’d seen anywhere, and much larger ones. I saw at least three giant Nassau Grouper, squirrel fish three times the size I’d seen anywhere else, plus a sizeable reef shark. Conch were plentiful and patterned the sand bottom with their trails. A posterboard at the park office said that conch populations in the park were thirteen times greater here than other areas in the Bahamas, and served as a massive nursery for the creatures, providing a staggering number of adult conch who migrate yearly from the park, in the neighbourhood of three million. The same was true for spiny lobsters and game fish who grew up in the safety of the park then ventured out to either outfox fishermen or get slaughtered. Best to stay in the park, fellas.


We returned to SeaLight to dump our gear, get drinks and snacks, clean up a bit, then returned to Whale Beach just as the sun was dipping down behind the park building. Our Welsh friends Ollie and daughters Lara and Zenna arrived a few minutes after that, but their mom Katie decided to hang back at the boat to enjoy a rare spot of alone time.


The girls latched onto Stella immediately as all young kids do and kept her busy exploring the beach and bushes and telling her stories of their adventures so far plus the life they had left in Wales. Ana, Ollie, and I sat at a surprisingly new picnic table beneath a pavillion and had a great chat. As we talked, from the corner of my eye I spotted something moving in the bushes. I snuck over to investigate and found a small, brown, woodchuck-like creature poking around in the crunchy palm leaves. I called the girls over to see, and one of them let out a high pitched scream when the creature began walking towards her, sending the poor little bugger sprinting into the bushes. I was sure that would be the end of the show, but within minutes it came back, then another, then another, and soon we were surrounded by them. I don’t know what they were (no internet signal in the park to look it up...but found out later they are called "hutias") but I do remember reading somewhere that there is one native mammal on some of the islands. The girls had a lot of fun getting close to them and taking photos, and the animals were not scared, so probably used to foraging the food droppings from beachgoing visitors.


After darkness fell and the half moon rose, providing a mesmerizing glow over the shallows of the bay, we said goodbye to our new friends and began paddling out to deeper water. As I was about to start the engine we heard a young voice from across the water say, “Bye Stella! We’ll miss you!”

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

How Do They Get the Crazy in the Kalik? The Secret Revealed!


Staniel Cay – 5 miles in dinghy, 2 kilometres walked, 500 metres snorkelled

The Staniel Cay Yacht Club was packed. We had claimed the last three stools around the bar and all the tables in the restaurant and lounge areas were full. It felt like a Friday in the regular world, but here? Tuesday.

The bar was square shaped, staff behind the bar were roundish, and the patrons were a delectable assortment of rail thin sailors, uniformed superyacht crew, well-muscled American Hulksters and their surgically enhanced partners, dreadlocked vagabonds, boutique resort tourists, and us, who others may have described as standard issue Canadian cruisers, but I would call us undercover social scientists as we scanned the faces and bodies of the people gathered, guessing their histories and motivations, on the sly.

Ana took a sip from her bottle and said, “I love these Sands Radlers. They’re way better than the Kalik ones. Those have a funny aftertaste.”

“You mean that little metallic zing you feel after every sip,” I said, sipping my Kalik and experiencing a little metallic zing.

“Yeah, that’s exactly it. What is that, anyway? It’s gross.”

“That’s the crazy you’re tasting. The crazy they put in the Kalik.”


She looked at me with her eyebrows raised in a doubtful fashion, a look I’ve become accustomed to over the years. Stella leaned back on her stool, waiting for what might come next. I continued.

“Have you ever heard of the Greek hero Achilles and his mighty spear? Well, after the death of Achilles and the subsequent fall of Troy, a Greek army slave named Gerry Kalik, under the cover of night, creeped out onto the blood-soaked battlefield plain, found the sacred spear of Achilles, and hid it in one of the ships. He survived the campaign and eventually made it back to Greece, gained his freedom, and took the spear with him as he travelled the globe, on his own adventures.” I paused to take a sip of my Kalik, in a dramatic fashion, then continued. “Gerry Kalik, through a series of misadventures, wound up shipwrecked in Nassau and was down to nothing but his loincloth, a parchment scroll inked with an ancient beer recipe he had stolen from a wandering monk back in Constantinople, and the spear of Achilles, which he had cleverly disguised as a walking stick. There, Gerry took up a new career – pirating – but during his weekends off and public holidays he made beer using the recipe but added a secret ingredient. Within each bottle of beer, which came to be known as Kalik, he would add the tiniest of shavings from Achilles’ mighty spear. These shavings acted as a powerful addictive agent, but more importantly, would consistently produce berserker behavior in those that consumed enough of it, typically seven bottles. Gerry Kalik was himself killed in a brawl right here in Staniel Cay after a bunch of his fellow pirating crew got into the Kalik kegs stored in the bowels of the ship and went crazy – burning, stabbing, slashing, pulverizing, and bashing everything and everyone on the island. None survived, but Gerry had wisely provided his sons with a map to where he had buried a chest containing the beer recipe and precise instructions for taking scrapings from the spear, which was now disguised as a coat rack in the family home. The Kalik descendants have carried on this tradition since then and that, my dear, is the origin of the unusual metallic zing you get after taking a sip of Kalik and why I barely survived my own time here in the Bahamas in my 20’s.”Ana looked at me and said, “What happens when the spear runs out? It can’t last forever.”


“Gerry also stole Odysseus’ war girdle. It supposedly had the same properties and is still buried in Nassau somewhere,” I said, taking another sip of my Kalik and feeling a great surge of creative storytelling.

“I’ll stick with the Sands Radler.”

“How many Kalik have you drank during this trip, Dad?” Stella asked.

“Uh, maybe 10?” I said nervously.

“At least 20,” Stella said.

“Way more than 30,” Ana added.

After a little mental arithmetic and taking another sip of my Kalik I said, “That’s probably right, but as I’m now older and wiser, I’ve been careful to spread them out evenly and not drink too many at once, otherwise SeaLight and me might be lodged in the bottom of the sea and you two would be floating towards Cuba in the dinghy.”


It had been a day of boat chores and a little bit of fun. I started the day by taking the bottle of Barkeepers Friend, a toothbrush, and a pail of fresh water and scrubbing off all the rust I could find growing on the stainless steel throughout the exterior of the boat. Next, I took the dinghy over to White Seal, had a cup of tea with Malakai and Mary, then helped them with troubleshooting a cranky engine vibration problem. We removed the spent anode from the propellor shaft, which may or may not have been contributing to the problem, but they were going to monitor the engine performance to see if it made a difference, then replace the anode.

Once the girls were ready, the three of us took the dinghy into Staniel Cay and went for a walk, stopping at the grocery store along the way and finding a severely depleted inventory, getting our propane tank refilled, then ending up at the Flying Pig café for a lunch of Chicken in Da Bag for me (just a fried chicken thigh and fries, no bag) and tuna melts for the ladies. We returned to the yacht club to watch the nurse sharks for a while and today there must have been thirty of them.

We did a couple more small boat jobs back on SeaLight, including cleaning out the composting toilet (one of my favourites) then the girls got busy with trying to find Stella the best deal on a new phone, applying for summer jobs, and Ana did some Newport stuff while I went spearfishing. I bagged two reef fish today – another squirrelfish and a Blue Runner, taken from reefs out near the ocean cut which was manageable with the slack tide. On the way back I stopped at the Grotto for a little snorkelling and found myself within the cavern completely alone. It was admittedly a little spooky, but I enjoyed it. I was surprised to see very few fish there, then I remembered an incident the day before. After Stella and I had snorkelled in the Grotto and around the island and were back in the dinghy, a boisterous American fellow swam up to us, then stood up in the shallow water, exposing his red, white, and blue swimming shorts, and started talking.

“You guys like the Grotto?”

“Yeah, it’s amazing,” I answered.


“Did you see all the fish?” he asked excitedly.

“Sure did.”

“You want to know the secret to seeing even more fish?”

Stella looked at me, I looked at her, then we both looked at him.

“What’s the secret?” Stella asked.


“Squeeze cheese,” he said confidently. “You take a can of pressurized cheese in there with you and spray it underwater.”

“You shoot that toxic, foul, nasty, revolting spray cheese in the pristine Grotto water?” I asked.

“You bet. Gone through four cans already. The fish love it! Well, see y’all later,” he said as he turned and shuffled through the shallows towards his dinghy – the one with the 40 horsepower engine.

So it seemed The Great Squeeze Cheese Grotto Massacre of 2025 had wiped out the local fish population. Hopefully new ones come back someday.


We finished our evening by stapling what remained of our wind-beaten Newport Yacht Club burgee to a rare available spot on one of the rafters in the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, thereby cementing our incredible time and experiences here for perpetuity, or at least until the rest of the burgee disintegrated.

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

Farmers Cay to Black Point to Staniel Cay


Farmers Cay to Staniel Cay – 23 nautical miles sailed, 3 miles in dinghy, 200 metres snorkelled

By 9am we had traveled from Farmers Cay to Black Point on the calm and protected west side of the Exumas. There, the girls did laundry at Rockside, the best laundromat in the Bahamas, while I took our water jugs to the nearby beach and filled them up from the high pressure fire hose water tap. An American couple was there too filling up a few jugs, and as we were chatting a Bahamian in a white truck with some sort of government logo pulled over.

“What are you guys doing there?” he said.

“We’re getting water,” I replied.

“You can’t do that,” he said. “That’s not a public tap, you’re stealing.”

“Really? Do you know this water source is identified on all the boating apps? There are many cruisers who use it. Why is it even here if people aren’t meant to use it?”

“It should have a lock on it. You guys go ahead and fill up your jugs, but don’t use it again.”

“What about that free tap in the town centre that people use all the time to fill up jugs. We see locals and cruisers there constantly.”

“That’s stealing too.”

I hope he went back to his office, got a big thick lock, locked up the valve on the tap, then put comments on the free boating apps telling people it was not for public use, and asked the administrators to remove it from their applications. But I’m 99% sure that none of those things will happen.

Our buddies in Waddington were anchored near us, so I stopped and had a visit with Ben. Their plan to continue to Georgetown was thwarted by the high winds, so they had turned north instead, but sailed further than us, which provided time for the tidal currents to ease, and by the time they arrived here in Black Point the conditions through the cut were okay.

I went into Rockside to pick up the girls at 11:30 and Ben was just dropping off Kate to do their laundry, so we had a chat with her before returning to SeaLight, pulling anchor and continuing along our way. Two hours later we dropped the hook near Thunderball Grotto in Staniel Cay. Along the way Ana discovered that our friends from White Seal – Malakei and Mary – had returned to Staniel Cay from an unplanned trip back to Nassau. Ana had taken a largish ham out of the freezer for dinner so she asked them to join us.

At 4:30 I noticed the tidal current had slackened and low tide approached, so Stella and I went to the grotto for some snorkelling. Inside the cavern was great like before, but there were at least six other people there, which made it a bit cramped, so instead we swam through the island, popped out the east side, and snorkelled around the north side and back to where we anchored the dinghy. The coral was incredible and fish abundant. The coral here was bright blue and a penetrating orange colour, with fans of brilliant red. This was a strict no fishing zone, and the fishes seemed to know it as they gathered in large groups, picking away at the coral, unafraid of the large creatures with arms and legs swimming above and around them.

Malakei and Mary arrived at 6 for a round of sundowner drinks then a fantastic meal of oven roasted potatoes, sliced ham, coleslaw, and chocolate cupcakes and a delicious blueberry pound cake they brought over. We had a great chat and a lovely evening.

Monday, February 3, 2025

Scary Passage Through Galliot Cut, Cave Exploring, and Life on a Sailboat


Rat Cay to Farmers Cay – 27 nautical miles sailed, 4 miles in dinghy, 2 kilometres walked, 200 metres snorkelled, 1 lionfish

I am still not sure if we made the right move, but it took well over an hour for my nerves to stop firing and heart to stop racing after a brutal and frightening passage through the Galliot Cut to escape the raging seas.

But first, a bit about life on the boat. We’ve become mostly accustomed to living full time on a sailboat in the Bahamas. The fresh water rationing now goes without saying, and at total usage of about 9 gallons per day I think we’re doing okay. I take nearly all my baths in the ocean, and the shampoo lathers up nicely as I massage it into my head, watching the hungry sharks prowling beneath the boat. The body does get used to the salt water. At first it feels sticky and gross, but after a while that feeling goes away and you feel normal. There is one advantage too. We are saving a ton of money on salt, as whenever we’re cooking and some seasoning is required, I just lean over the pan, shake my head a bit, and a small shower of salt crystals fall out of my hair into the filet mignons, fois gras, bluefin tuna steaks, Hamburger Helper, or whatever gourmet cuisine we happen to be making.

Both the boat and dinghy take regular beatings on the water and are suffering perpetual deterioration from constant use. SeaLight’s hull is full of nicks and scratches now and the dinghy, new in March, looks like it was rescued from a scrapyard. And every piece of stainless steel now shows signs of rusting, which is unheard of on the Great Lakes. And I’ll admit we don’t keep either of them as clean as we normally would at home, now both having been demoted to status of mini-van instead of Sunday drive Bentleys. The interior of SeaLight, however, is a different story. Ana still vacuums four times a day and I collect strings of luscious Portuguese hair from the ground, wrapped around the ketchup bottle, stuck on the walls, ensnaring my toes, wound around the fans, and fished from the various sink drain holes. But the one thing that is a major challenge is the humidity. Everything is damp, all the time. The big fluffy pillows we keep in the cockpit are constantly moist, as are the cushions we sit on. Some days we put swimming towels out to dry on the lifelines, and they are blown around all day with fifteen knot winds and baked with hot sunshine, but never get fully dry. The humidity in the boat collects constantly and mould appears nearly as fast as we can remove it, so it’s a daily struggle, but we do our best to keep the interior as clean as possible.

Power consumption and preservation are always top of mind and we do very well with it, with the batteries rarely dropping below 73%. With the combination of the large solar array, the regular motoring and alternator charging, the new AGM batteries we purchased, and the backup portable generator tucked away securely in the cockpit locker, energy has not been an issue for us.


Our meals and diets have changed a bit, as we go without many things we’d regularly eat because of the high cost or simple unavailability, but we find substitutes. I have my regular breakfast of cereal and toast every morning and have not run out, thanks to the dozens of bags of granola and cereal boxes we picked up at Aldi over the months on the ICW, plus the UHT milk I have stashed away in various boat compartments for when we can’t get fresh milk. The girls typically have toast and yogurt, and both have been readily available in shops on the islands. Lunch and dinner are a variety of foods, whatever we can get, whatever we feel like that day.

Our schedule has changed slightly. I go to bed earlier, often by 9 and get up between 5 and 6, providing me with more sleep (but often of a reduced quality) than I usually get at home. Ana sometimes goes to bed earlier, but has not gotten any relief from her menopausal insomnia which often keeps her up to ungodly hours, but she does sleep in later than she would at home, so I think she’s probably getting more sleep than normal. Afternoon napping has become more frequent, especially during the sailing passages, and I find myself having little cockpit naps during moments of quiet, something I never do at home.

Exercise was one thing I had been a little concerned about before we began the trip, as I imagined endless hours sailing, lying around in the cockpit, being lazy. I couldn’t have been more wrong. We have been getting more exercise that we normally do, just in different forms. We’ve made a point of spending much time on land, with the help of an anchor alarm we’re able to monitor when we are away to know if the boat anchor lets loose so we can hurry back. During these times we do a lot of walking, hiking, and climbing. While at anchor we snorkel as much as possible, which provides great exercise that doesn't feel like exercise. For strength training, I’m getting all I need through carrying around water jugs and fuel tanks, moving gear around the boat, doing twisty bendy boat jobs, sets of pullups using playground equipment or whatever I can find During sailing passages I spend time doing stretching, push ups, tricep dips, planks, crunches, leg lifts, squats, and whatever else I can think of using the surfaces and spaces available. I don't do a lot of them and I don't do it every passage - just enough to keep from feeling sluggish.

Overall, we’ve been eating well, getting ample sleep, living in slightly deteriorated conditions, but feeling pretty damn healthy.

Back to our day. It was a very rolly and uncomfortable night at anchor so I was happy when day broke and we could get out of there, despite it being an absolutely gorgeous location. I went for an early snorkelling session to see two sunken vehicle wrecks which were just a short distance from the boat and had turned into a perfect home for fish with hundreds of them swimming in the cabin, the engine compartment, through the steering wheel, and around the wreckage of vehicle parts scattered around the bottom. How two vehicles ended up in anchorage beside a deserted island is anybody's guess.

The weather forecast looked very similar to yesterday so we motored through the Rat Cay cut and back out into the ocean. We noticed the swell was considerably larger than yesterday, but still manageable. I deployed the fishing line and switched lures every 30 minutes to absolutely no effect, making me wonder if I maybe had the wrong type of lure as we moved over many different depths from 50 feet to 500. Or maybe I’ve just lost the fishing touch.

The winds and sea continued to build as we sailed and we pulled in most of the jib, leaving just enough of it out for stabilizing the boat, but not so much that it would be impossible to take in if we were hit by a squall, which looked likely from the banks of dark clouds thickening on the horizon. When the gusts started clocking at over 20 knots, we got concerned. Within minutes the ocean waves had grown substantially, likely in the 7 – 8 foot range, and there were lashings of white foam being torn off the tops of them. We noticed two boats ahead of us who had changed course and headed into Galliot Cut to seek shelter so we decided to do the same. The only problem was that the outgoing tidal currents were at or close to their maximum and the east wind was directly opposted to these, creating very hazardous conditions. The one thing you are not supposed to do is sail through ocean cuts where a strong wind is blowing against the current, and that’s exactly what we were going to do. The other option was to keep sailing and hope the gusts subsided for our planned entrance into Farmers Cay Cut, but I knew the current through that cut was very strong, probably worse than this one, and the tidal currents would not be subsiding for several hours, which would put us much further north than we wanted to be, so we decided to chance it and go in.

It was horrible. My guts were sinking as I watched the wind gusts escalating on my wind gauge and the white-capped standing waves growing ever larger. Ana was with me in the cockpit and Stella was thankfully down below as we hit the worst of it. Some of the waves looked to be at my eye level and I was scared a big one was going to hit us from behind and fill the dinghy with water which could have ripped my entire arch off the boat.


SeaLight was tossed around like a toy as we made painfully slow progress against the raging current, being rocked back and forth, rails hitting the water on both sides as we heard things crashing and smashing down below in the cabin, knocked free of their homes from the violent movements of the boat. I was scared, but Ana reassured me we were going to be fine, and I knew deep down the boat could take it, but all it would take is a stalled engine to put us on the rocks or coral on either side of the channel, destroying the boat and maybe us with it.

At one point in the mayhem there was a huge crash and Ana opened the companionway door to see the fridge door lock was off and it had swung open. All the stuff inside had been thrown out and was sliding all over the floor. She yelled at Stella to stay in her cabin, then went down to ram things back in the fridge as the boat continued to be pounded. I was watching the shoreline, counting the metres of progress as we slowly made it through the worst of it and were finally in manageable and protected water.

The anchor was dropped near the Farmers Cay Yacht Club around 2pm, in a less than ideal location with fairly swift tidal currents, but quite well protected from the east winds. I exhaled all the wind from my lungs, every square millimetre of it, then drew in a fresh volume of ocean air and repeated a few times until calm returned. That was a tough passage.


After riding the girls into the yacht club to do laundry, but finding out the water was again out to the entire island, we returned to the boat, dropped off Ana, then Stella and I went out to try and find a nearby cave we saw on the Noforeignland app, near the Oven Rock anchorage. The tide was completely out so we anchored the dinghy just off the rocks in the shallows, walked north along the beach until we found a path, and followed it into the interior of Great Guana Cay. We walked along it for what seemed like too long, then it turned uphill, giving us a spectacular view of the island and the Atlantic coast, took a corner, then went downhill and into the cave. The cave was very large, and as we arrived, four other cruisers were just leaving, giving the entire cave to us. As we waited for them to leave we spotted several small hermit crabs crawling around in the leaves by our feet.


We walked in and across the rock floor of the main chamber, admiring the stalactites brandished by the cave ceiling like deadly spears, poised to strike. We found a small pool of water and I stepped into it then walked across it to a much deeper pool, further back in the cave where it was completely dark. I had read this cave was diveable and some parts were 60 feet deep, but for that you needed underwater lights and preferably a guide. As I was admiring the pool I felt a nibbling on my calf and looked down to see a small shimp clinging onto my leg hair munching on something. Upon closer inspection, the pond was loaded with shrimp, some crawling on the rocky floor, others skimming along the surface. I tried to grab one to show Stella, but it was far too fast for me and besides, Stella had already discovered them and was eye to eye with one in the water.

After returning to the boat, I took off again on my own to see if I could catch any sea creatures. The reef where I had done battle with the original lobsters was far too rough so I went to a different coral reef that was situated right in the main channel. Surprisingly, it was amazing. The coral was brightly coloured with many different varieties and covered a large area. As I snorkelled through I saw fish of all shapes and sizes and many of them. This reef was even better than the original one; the only problem was the strong current. In this particular cay there is not much of a slack tide – it seems that as soon as we reach low or high tide, the current stops only briefly then starts flowing in the opposite direction. I did not spot any lobsters, but I did find a single lionfish and put a spear through him on the first shot. As the sun had nearly already dropped, I had to stop there, but was happy I didn’t get skunked.


Back at SeaLight I cut the poisonous spines off the lionfish then took two small fillets off the creature and tossed the remains into the water for the lobsters to snack on. My onboard inventory of fresh frozen fish now consists of meat from one little squirrelfish and one little lionfish, nearly enough for a single fish taco.

We had a late dinner, and a strange one – freshly made chocolate cupcakes, fried sweet plantain, and breakfast cereal. No rules apply for boat dinners – anything goes.

Sunday, February 2, 2025

A Pit Stop in Georgetown, A Swamped Dinghy, A Wet Boat, A Magnificent Beach Party


Calabash Bay to Georgetown to Rat Cay – 48 nautical miles sailed, 3 miles in dinghy, 100 metres snorkelled, 1 barracuda

Besides the dinghy getting completely swamped with water, SeaLight’s cabin soaked from rain, and the rolliest anchorage ever, it was a pretty good day.

We left the Calabash anchorage at 6:30 am, navigated our way slowly through the coral reefs and shallows, then almost immediately caught a small barracuda after I put out the fishing line. I was happy to catch something, yes, but today I was determined to catch a prize fish we could eat, in the form of a mahi mahi or a tuna. The sea conditions were good and the motorsail to Georgetown went well except that after that initial fish I didn’t get a sniff, despite my focused efforts watching the lure, putting crazy wounded fish action on it, and singing good luck fishing songs in my head – Hoosier and the full Ace of Base catalogue (1 song) figured prominently for some unexplained reason.


We anchored as close as we could to Georgetown and had the fastest provisioning stop ever – just over two hours to do two water runs and groceries. We had been in touch with Ben and Kate from Waddington and decided to push on from Georgetown and meet them in Rat Cay as they were on their way south and we were heading north so it might have been our last chance to see them for a while. We were excited to see our friends again.

The Quebec Army had arrived in Georgetown and taken over the dinghy dock as all I heard there was that unmistakable French dialect. I had to wait a very, very long time as one Quebeccer filled up his 40 gallon water bladder plus a dozen other jugs, juice jars, cans, and Ziploc bags. He told me I was lucky he didn’t have his 65 gallon bladder with him too, but I didn’t feel too lucky as I sat in my dinghy roasting in my own juices. He also mentioned that he would be back soon as it was laundry day and his onboard washer needed an astonishing 40 gallons of water per load. His buddy then walked by me and budded in line to fill up a big jug and as he was filling it looked over and said, “Oh that may have been rude.” Yeah, and I’m sure that won’t stop him from doing it again, any time, any place. Once he was done and had relinquished the water spigot to me, I filled my jugs and sped out of there.

As we left Elizabeth Harbour and passed through the Conch Cay Cut then headed out into the Exuma Sound, we found ourselves in prime fishing territory, a 200 – 300 foot ledge before the depths dropped into the thousands. I decided to fish more strategically, giving each of my five lures 30 minutes of deployment time then immediately changing them if they weren’t producing. Well, no quantity of fishing songs, or lure action, or wishing, or imagining, or hoping, or any of my other trusted fishing guide tricks, learned in the wilds of northern Saskatchewan so many years ago, could bring on a strike. As we approached the Rat Cay Cut, I wound in the last lure and put the fishing gear away, hoping for better luck next time around.


We wound around Rat Cay, passing at least six magnificent postcard beaches, spotted Waddington, then dropped anchor in the same vicinity as the two other sailboats already there. Then, a glorious ocean swim and bath for all of us, and quick snorkelling run to see if I could find any conch or coral, but came up empty on both counts. Ben and Kate rowed their dinghy over for a visit and we decided a beach fire and mini-party was in order. Ana and I took the dinghy into shore to gather wood while Stella started on dinner.

We picked through the crispy dry, sharp, and ragged brush and found a decent amount of burnable material then piled it up near the firepit ring we had built from coral rocks and discarded conch shells. As we were returning to SeaLight, Kate and Ben appeared in their dinghy, piled high with wood they scavenged from one beach over. We were ready, except for one last thing. We motored to each of the two boats there and invited them to the campfire, which they all enthusiastically agreed to join.


After a yummy shrimp pasta and quick cleanup, we returned to the beach with our cooler, speaker, and snacks, just as daylight was running out. Kate and Ben arrived shortly after and we got the fire started and soon Joss (Dutch) and Greta (Italian) from one of the boats and Zido (Italian/German/American) from the other arrived and the party was underway, which was really just a lot of talking, story-telling, wood burning, and a couple beers.

We hadn’t been able to pull the dinghy up far enough on the beach for the rising tide, so I had tried the anchoring trick I’d seen some cruisers doing, whereby you throw out an anchor to hold the boat in the water, then tie the other end to a rock on shore to sort of keep in in place and let it bounce around in the waves. Ben noticed my handiwork.

“You’ve got it backwards,” he said, sipping on a rum and coke. “The bow needs to be pointing out.”


I went down and had a look and he was right, it would be better with the bow out. But so far it seemed to be floating okay and not taking on any water. Plus I was too lazy to change the whole setup again.

“I’ll keep an eye on it. So far it seems okay.”

Some time later Joss points and says, “Hey, I think your dinghy is full of water.”

Sure enough, the anchor had let loose and the relentless swell had filled it right up from the stern. Both gas tanks were floating upside down, my flip flops were afloat, and a soggy towel was draped over one of the seats. With the help of the men we lifted the front end up and were able to dump out nearly all the water, then they helped me drag it far up the shore. Yet another stupid mistake in my growing catalogue of them.

Despite the dinghy flooding, we had an excellent night with old and new friends, all remarkable people with remarkable stories. Yet another in a long series of brief, but significant and memorable people moments we’ve enjoyed along the way.

As the night went on, small droplets of rain began to fall, which took us by surprise as there had been no rain in the forecast and we simply just weren’t used to seeing water falling from the sky. It didn’t take long before it really started coming down, so we doused the fire, launched the dinghy, and paddled back, as I was scared water had infiltrated the gas tank so I didn’t want to run the engine until I was able to clean the gasoline. And yes, the dinghy ride was sketchy as hell as I rowed back through utter darkness, with high winds and swell, with the girls pointing me towards our anchor light which we could see swaying back and forth with unusual vigour. We made it onto the boat safely and as I attached the shackles to the dinghy to crank it up on the davits, something snapped and it fell back down. A pin had fallen out of one of the shackles as the cotter ring had worked its way out. I’d actually found the ring in the dinghy just after we’d arrived and wondered where it had come from. Stupid mistake – if something is out of order, like a strange smell or boat part lying where it shouldn’t be, or an unusual noise…investigate immediately. Fortunately, it hadn’t let loose after the dinghy was in the davits as that would have been a far worse outcome and we could have potentially lost our engine. One more for the catalog of stupid mistakes.


The boat was a mess. We had left the top hatches and some of the side hatches open and rainwater was everywhere – on the floor, the couch, on the books, on the bed, in the carpets. We’d forgotten the cardinal rule – before you leave the boat, assume somebody is going to get onto the boat to try and steal something…and it is going to rain. Another one to add to the catalogue.

Only after the frenzy of cleaning and drying was done did we realize just how badly the boat was rolling around. We had seen some postings online about this anchorage getting rolly with certain winds, but I had hoped it wouldn’t be bad with the full protection from the east wind. And after we’d arrived and got anchored, the boat was not rolling at all so I expected it would stay that way. Nope. When Kiss sang, “I want to rock and roll all night…” I’m sure this is not what they had in mind.

It was going to be a bouncy evening.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

Columbus Monument, Beach Walk, and Sundowner at Cape Santa Maria


Calabash Bay, Long Island – 9 kilometres walking, 7 miles in dinghy, 100 metres snorkelled

It would have been hard to top the action-packed roster of events over the past couple of days, so we didn’t even try. I started the day by dropping a clothespin off the boat into the water, so strapped on a mask and dove down to grab it. I had absolutely no doubt I would find it, as yesterday I had dropped a clamshell fitting I was trying to attach to the front of the boat, and swam down to find not only the fitting, but also the tiny screw I had also dropped. Now that’s something that would likely not be possible in the murk and muck of Lake Ontario.


We waited for high tide then took the dinghy into Hoosie Harbour, barely squeaking over the low spots, kicking up sand from the dinghy engine, then followed the channel to the small fisherman’s dock, where a circling ray was looking for handouts. There, we tied the dinghy then began the long walk to the Columbus/Lucayan monument, which was a few kilometres on what seemed to be the nicest and least used road on Long Island as we didn’t see a single vehicle the entire time, and the round trip took nearly two hours through moist 26 degree heat and cloudless skies. The monument was on top of a hill, reached by very new looking stairs and railings, with strategically places benches for a breather. Incredible 360 degree views awaited us, looking out to the angry Atlantic and back in towards the peaceful and flat blue lagoon.


By the time we returned to the dinghy, everybody was hot, tired, and annoyed, and it didn’t help that we hadn’t bothered to bring along sunscreen, water, and were short one hat. But any complaining there may have been was instantly eradicated when we met a group of German cruisers on their way to the monument, and one of the ladies had a fresh infant strapped to her body, no hat, and was wearing a tank top. I’ll take my baby well done please.


Our original plan was to take the dinghy through a long mangrove channel which circumnavigated Galliot Cay, but after hitting ground several times and pushing against a strong outgoing current, we accepted that we had missed the high tide window and returned to the boat via our original path, seeing a Bahamian guide with customers in a boat catching a bonefish in the shallows along the way.


We had picked up a tube of marine glue a few days before to reattach one of the soft flooring panels on the swim platform, and there was some left, so we spent a while gluing things on the boat – some countertop laminate that had become detached, some flooring in the cabin that had been lifting, then I spent a good thirty minutes with paper towels, toothpicks, and my breath clearing out the glue from the little screw on applicator, something I’d never do at home as I’d be tossing it straight into the garbage, but with the luxury of time….why not?

I went out on a solo snorkelling mission, hoping to get a lobster or two and some fish. I dinghy’d west out to the large bank of coral reefs encircling the harbour. The water was rough as hell as the east wind had plenty of space to build up from land and the fetch had created large waves. To make it worse, there was ocean swell coming in from the north, creating a real mess of superstacked water. I snorkelled around for a while, but didn’t see the quantity or diversity of fish we saw the day before and not a single lobster. Even if I had found a lobster, the currents created by the waves were strong and throwing everything around underwater so it would have been impossible to keep still. I returned to the dinghy, which was being severely bounced around, and motored back to the shoreline and further south to Joe’s Sound, which had reefs indicated on the chart. Sadly, these were all rock with little coral and few fish so I gave up and returned to the boat, empty handed, but still in one piece.


To finish off our trip to Long Island, we went into the Cape Santa Maria Resort for happy hour, bur first took a long and slow walk down the pristine beach which stretched for over a mile. The sand here had a hard packed surface, which was great for walking on, but was still incredibly soft and you could easily dig a hole with your toes. We walked less than half the beach to a section of rock where people had created inukshuks and various stackings, creating a dreamy scene against the backdrop of pine trees and the protected, flat waters with sailboats bobbing around in the harbour. Stella created an artful stack then we just sat there for a while on the natural rock benches, looking out at the water, saying nothing, thinking our thoughts.

After a Kalik, two virgin frozen pina coladas, a spectacular sunset, and a small tray of complimentary conch fritters in the cozy and cool resort bar, we returned to the boat, vacuumed up all the leftovers for dinner, and had an early night in preparation for our sail back to Georgetown tomorrow.