Egg Island to Nassau

Egg Island to Nassau – 32 nautical miles sailed, 1 mile in dinghy, 1 kilometre snorkelled, 1 lionfish

It was time to return to Nassau after a spectacular week in the islands. It was again a clear, calm, and hot day and we took an early dinghy ride into the mangrove lake on the interior of Egg Island, hoping the high tide would provide enough water depth to get in. We motored through most of the narrow channel and had to paddle for only one shallow part of it, then were in the lake. It was very quiet, with no signs of fish or rays in the water, and few birds, but quite pretty. On the way out we did see two small turtles gliding through the water.

We decided to try the west side of Egg Island for another good snorkelling spot, so we pulled anchor and motored over but all we could find was sand and rock so we instead motored back to near the Arimoroa wreck for a final swim. Last time we were here we had seen a local boat anchored east of the wreck site so we dropped our anchor to see if we could find what they were looking at. As we were in the cockpit preparing our snorkelling gear something out in the water caught my eye and we looked over to see a giant leatherback turtle surfacing, with his massive dark body and head like a basketball taking a gulp of air and a look around. By the time I grabbed the binoculars to take a closer look he had already plunged back down, and despite scanning the ocean surface for a while we did not see him again. But he was a magnificent beast.

Once in the dinghy we dragged Dave around with his face plunged into the water and long legs sticking up in the air as a sort of human sonar, but after finding nothing of interest we returned to the wreck and dove there. It was once again an incredible experience and we saw many fish including a big barracuda and a giant white grouper as we circled the wide area of wreckage. I spotted a lionfish on the bottom so dove down, missed my first shot, then reloaded and speared him right through the middle of his body, but the barb had broken off my spear so he evaded capture but did not escape becoming an invasive species snack for a hungry lobster.

Dave and I swam the lengthy distance from the wreck back to SeaLight, hoping to find what the other boat was interested in, as the girls trailed us in the dinghy. There was little of interest until we were very close to the boat and noticed the hundreds of conch shells covering the grassy bottom in 23 feet of water. I dove down many times looking for a harvestable adult but could find nothing but juveniles so we surmised the local boat had already picked up the big ones. Still, it was reassuring finding such a massive quantity of them and gave me some hope for the durability of the conch fishery.

The 32 nautical mile ride back to Nassau through near glassy water was peaceful, calm, and uneventful, and the time passed quickly. I’d been hoping the tremendous luck Kira and Dave had brought with them throughout their visit would result in a beefy mahi mahi or tuna catch, but our fishing efforts were in vain.

The gas dock at Nassau Harbour Club was available so we pulled in to fill up on diesel and, hopefully, on water. Ana was able to sweet talk the reluctant owner into selling us water, which he usually reserves for marina guests only as he claimed it just took too long and used up dock space for fuel buyers. It was true the water fill was very slow, but there were no other boats looking for fuel, so we were able to leave with full tanks all around, a fine feeling indeed.

After dropping the hook at our usual spot near the Nassau Yacht Club we poured sundowner G&Ts using the pretty blue indigo gin Kira and Dave had brought, then group cooked a fantastic meal of New York Strips for the meat eaters, mahi mahi for Kira, fried plantains, and a superb vegetable stir fry. The hours melted away as we enjoyed our final dinner together with our friends and lounged in the cockpit until we could no longer remain awake.

Has There Ever Been a More Perfect Day?

Meeks Patch and Egg Island – 11 nautical miles sailed, 4 miles in dinghy, 2 kilometres walked, 1 kilometre snorkelled

The sunshine was strong, water flat, and skies clear as we left the mooring ball in Spanish Wells for our final full day in the Family Islands with our friends. I had high hopes for the day, and a couple of surprises in store for Dave in Kira, but I never could have anticipated how perfectly it would unroll.

We motored out of the harbour entrance and into the shallows leading towards the nearby island of Meeks Patch, noticing the keel scar trenches in the sand from the boats recently through this same passage at low tide. I eased SeaLight into an anchorage near a beach on Meeks and after anchoring we dropped the dinghy and paddled into land. Welcome to Pig Beach, Eleuthera version! We were met by ducks, roosters, and chickens picking at the washed up sea grass, but soon an army of piglets appeared, chasing around the milk-laden sows, clawing for a drink. I counted ten pigs and reckoned a hundred piglets, racing around the grounds in every direction, looking for a teat, any teat. Some of the piglets were very small, maybe only a week old, while others were older. The beach is used for the many tourist boats that come here, charging each visitor $15 for the privilege of a visit, but we arrived before the caretaker so our trip was gratis. I was able to grab one of the smaller ones, and passed it to Kira for a little cuddle before it got annoyed and started squealing.

After pulling up the anchor we deployed both sails for the six mile jump to the site of a wreck near Egg Island. We had a gentle eight knot breeze which pushed us along quietly at five knots. This was the first time we’d been able to raise the sails with Dave and Kira and it was a lovely, peaceful, tranquil ride as we lounged in the cockpit, rolling with the waves, looking to the sea.

The Arimoroa was a 260-foot Lebanese freighter carrying fertilizer that became ablaze in 1970 and was run aground into Egg Island by the captain to save the crew. It was further demolished by Hurricane Andrew in 1992, split into pieces and now rests in 25 feet of depth with only the bow protruding above the water, which we spotted on our approach and anchored a few hundred feet away in clear waters.

The wreck was magnificent, colourful with coral, and more than a bit spooky. Despite being quite deep, the excellent water clarity makes it possible to see the details of the wreck: the lopsided and sheer deck, buried deep into the sand and rising up to the surface like a giant slide, the twisted metal pieces lying on the bottom, motor gears encrusted with coral, bits of machinery, huge stringers from the hull with decking long since disintegrated and eaten by the sea. I was able to dive down to look into the hidden crevasses of the pulverized ship. The area of wreckage is massive, with different parts of the ship spread wide, and full of common varieties of reef fish, but also fish we’d not yet seen, such as giant puffer fish, sun fish, and large striped grouper. The wreck is not far from where the ocean plummets to thousands of feet deep so Kira was worried about sharks, but after getting in the water and snorkelling around a bit she was perfectly fine and realized you could see any sharks coming a long ways off. I don’t remember ever being at a wreck site that was so big, interesting, and available to snorkellers instead of just divers - it was the best wreck I've ever seen after thirty years of diving. We spent a long time there exploring, with the full sun lighting up the underwater world like a stage.

The west side of Egg Island was just a short ways off so we sailed there, winding through coral reefs on one side and shallows on the other. As we were preparing to drop anchor I looked to the shore to see a small pod of dolphins cruising leisurely through the shallows. We got anchored and sat on the boat watching them, mesmerized, until the people in the catamaran already anchored nearby jumped in their dinghy, motored over, then plunged into the water, trying to swim with the wild dolphins like they had some sort of VIP pass at Sea World. The dolphins, of higher intelligence than those in the dinghy, wanted no part of that so they disappeared in an instant, headed south to the deep. Of course, the dummies in the dinghy sped after them, and soon after that left the anchorage, disappointed with the non-cooperating cetaceans. Despite all that, we felt particularly fortunate to have seen dolphins at all considering how few we’d seen in the Bahamas.

After a juicy burger lunch, we put on the snorkelling gear and dove off the boat to check out the reef beside us. Just before jumping in the water I said, “Anybody getting sick of seeing all this cool shit today?” I felt luck was on our side, so I had to flex it a bit.

What did we see on the reef? Acres of coral and rock with parrotfish and their colourful buddies munching and crunching. A lobster cage on a circular sandy patch in the middle of the reef with a medium sized lobster, two very confused looking puffer fish, and a small angelfish. A big turtle lying quietly on the bottom, watching for passing food. And what we’d been waiting for all week – a shark! Ana first spotted it and pointed it out. It was a small one and he passed by and around us, having a look at us as we looked at him. Kira loved it and was not at all scared. I first thought it was a reef shark, but it looked a bit different and had a yellow colouring, and I searched it up later to find it was a lemon shark, the first we’d seen.

There was another reef marked on the charts at the end of a nearby island so we motored there but it was mostly rock and grass and little of interest to see, so we instead dinghy’d to the gorgeous beach at the anchorage and went exploring, finding dozens of sun bleached conch shells scattered over the landscape, a carpet of soft needles and cones beneath the pine forest, and a path leading to a pair of large tidal ponds, full of mangroves, and currently draining out with the ebb tide.

We returned to the boat to load up on sunscreen and put on shirts for protection from the hot sun. I ended up remaining on the boat for a bit of solitude and writing time while the others returned to the island, explored a bit more, and gathered firewood for an evening fire. They also built a conch-rimmed firepit and constructed an artful pyre, ready to us to ignite when we returned in darkness after dinner. They seemed particularly proud of the burning man worthy structure and were excited for me to see it.

Dinner preparation was again a full group effort and after Margherita cocktails we prepared fried conch fritters, dipping sauce, boiled rice, and cilantro cabbage salad. Just as we were finishing mixing the conch batter I looked out the porthole to see a massive blaze on the beach.

“Uh oh. Look over there,” I said.

“What the fuh? They stole our fire!” said Ana.

One of the two catamarans that had arrived to the anchorage had indeed taken their crew into shore and ignited our masterpiece and were fully enjoying it. Kira, Ana, and Dave were livid so I retrieved the flare gun from the cockpit locker and started launching fireball volleys into the sails of the first catamaran, setting it ablaze. Because we weren’t sure which of the boats belonged to the villains, I launched another volley of rockets into the second boat just to be sure. That one lit up too and we had an even better fire than we were hoping for as they both burned and crackled down to the waterline as the innocents in the second catamaran leaped into the water for safety.

Dave and I took the dinghy into shore and Dave, being the far more diplomatic of our power duo, said, “Hi everybody. I see you found our firewood.”

“Oh my god, we’re so sorry,” said the wife, deeply apologetic, with angry eyes trained on her husband silently indicating: I told you not to burn the wood!

“Well, you know,” started the husband as he walked towards us in the water. “We thought it was a leave it as you found it sort of deal. So uh, we’ll do that.”

“If you could replace what you burned we’d really appreciate it,” said Dave.

One of their two young kids burst, “Hey, do you guys want to join our campfire? You can come!”

With that we returned to the boat to enjoy dinner, entertained as we watched their headlamps flashing up and down the beach as they scrambled for firewood, which we knew was not there as Dave and the girls had to go deep into the bush to find any.

In the end it turned out perfectly. They left and we arrived to a nice bed of coals and a sufficient stack of wood and we drank and talked politics and played ukulele and admired the beautiful moonless night sky.

It was a fitting end to an extraordinary day.

Exploring Eleuthera: Blue Hole Diving for Treasure, Caving, Pink Sand, Canyon Snorkelling, and a Surprise Visit

Eleuthera – 2 miles in dinghy, 5 kilometres walked, 150 kilometres driven

Renting a car in Bahamas is fun. You ask a local where to rent a car and they will give you a WhatsApp number. You call that number, they will ask you when and where you want the car, tell you the price, and arrange the pickup. You show up at the agreed-up time, read a paragraph, sign a paper, show them your driver’s license, give them cash, and they give you a car. Then you drop it off when you are finished with it. That’s it. All trust and no fuss.

We rode the dinghy across the bay to the North Eleuthera Genes Bay Ferry Dock, a bustling place with ferry boats running people and gear back and forth from Spanish Wells. A man named John arrived with our car right on time and soon we were in our Mazda 5 dashing through the landscapes of North Eleuthera. The first stop was only a few kilometres away – a nameless, inland blue hole. A group of two tourists and a guide were just finishing up as we arrived, giving us the entire place to ourselves. It was a magnificent swimming hole, round with vertical limestone walls and only accessible by a flying leap and significant drop from one of two wooden platforms.

We were all excited to get naked after the nudie forest scenes from last night’s film screening, so after a quick change Kira was the first to leap. But disaster struck! She dropped her swimming mask upon impact and it sank down into the darkness, assumed to be hundreds of feet deep.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” I said optimistically as I leaped in with my own mask. The water was extremely salty, perfectly clear, and refreshingly cool. I strapped on my mask and looked down, happy to see that it was deep, but probably diveable at around 35 feet. I swam down a few times, trying to spot it, but could not get down far enough, so Dave tossed down my fins, then jumped in himself as Ana performed camerawoman duties from above. I swam down again, further this time, and spotted her mask, but also something else…a watch. After some deep breathing psyche-ups and a few attempts, I was able to grab her mask, then after another plunge or two, I snagged the watch. I handed it to Kira at the surface, and to our surprise it lit up with the time after she touched the face of it. It was an Apple watch, and after we had completed our swim and scaled the rock wall with the help of the installed rope and ladder, we gave it to Ana for inspection. It looked to be the newest model and must have been dropped very recently as the battery was still strong. I was pleased to have maintained my reputation as the village diver.

The next stop was just up the road, Preacher’s Cave – the location where the original settlers fleeing Bermuda from religious persecution in 1647 took up residence after their supernatural deity abandoned them and they crashed their boat into the Devil’s Backbone. The cave was spacious with excellent lighting from the natural skylights, bat-free, and had an ample supply of honey from the active combs suspended from the ceiling. I can see why they chose this place for refuge. And Dave just couldn’t stop singing, “The only hole that could ever house me, was the cave of the preacher man…” Before leaving we walked to the lovely beach on the Atlantic side and were tempted to do some snorkelling but realized we had far to go and time was short.

Eleuthera is a long and skinny island so we drove the only direction we could go – south. There was much to see – interesting foliage, homes, stores, the small villages of Lower Bogue and Upper Bogue, then the most popular viewpoint on the island - the Glass Window Bridge. This is where the island narrows to nothing but a single lane bridge where you can see the glassy and shallow teal Caribbean waters to the right and the dark blue churn and swell of the powerful Atlantic to the left. On the Caribbean side flew a large manta ray, gliding through the waters, putting on a show for the spectators.

Just beyond the Glass Window was the Queen’s Baths, a spectacular set of natural tidal pools and moon landscapes carved out by millions of year of tidal cycles, storms, and wind. There were a number of people there already, and the pools looked to be decorated with sharp rocks so we decided to skip the swim and instead just walk the area. This would be the perfect location for a crazy full moon party.

Gregory Town was our next stop and we found a sheltered bandstand with a picnic table, right next to a cute elementary school and the lovely Pitman Cove bay. We enjoyed a fine lunch of tuna wraps, fruit, and veggies as we listened to the sounds of the kids in school and watched as every single kid danced, not walked, out of the front door, proving again that Bahamians are just born with the groove.

Next up was snorkelling so we tried turning down two different roads to the Atlantic side. The first led us to a garbage dump where Dave nearly scavenged a new set of fins, but upon closer inspection he decided the right place for them was indeed the scrap heap. The next one had a promising path through a small forest, which we followed, then popped out on a decent enough beach, but it was littered with ocean plastic and layered with sharp rock at the waterline. Instead of investing more time in trying to discover our own private perfect beach we motored down to Governor’s Harbour to the French Reach, the most popular beach on the island, and for good reason – it was beautiful. Pink sand, few people, and an incredible underwater valley that we snorkelled for over an hour, seeing grouper, risky swim-throughs in the rock, schools of brilliant blue fish, and Ana even spotted a lobster which we tickled out with a snorkel then played with for a while. Kira and Dave were mesmerized with the beauty of the place, both above and below the water, and I was thrilled that we’d found such a perfect spot.

We drove into the town of Governor’s Harbour, and along the way we wondered if our friends Kate and Ben might be there as they had most recently been in Rock Sound to the south, but thinking of moving north. Ana checked the Noforeignland app and unfortunately they were still in Rock Sound. We did a driving tour around town (finding not a whole lot) then stopped at the harbour to admire the great anchorage.

“Isn’t that Ben and Kate’s boat?” Ana asked as she pointed to a sailboat easing into the harbour.

“Sure is,” I said then started hollering WADDINGTON repeatedly through my cupped, megaphone hands as the others waved their hats, wiggled, danced, shouted, yipped, and flagged. Not knowing a lot of people in Governor’s Harbour, they looked puzzled. It wasn’t until they sailed closer and Ben put the binoculars on us that they realized we weren’t just the local looney tunes. We made contact and arranged to meet them at a watering hole in town as soon as they got anchored.

After gassing up the rental car and picking up a tin of sesame seeds from the shop as a crucial ingredient for tonight’s dinner, we went to the only restaurant we could find and ordered drinks while we waited for Team Waddington. Dave is an incredible eating machine who has been diagnosed with a colony of exotic tapeworms living in his legs. They’ve learned to co-exist together in symbiotic harmony; he provides them with constant nutrition and they contribute groovy art and music ideas, whispered into his inner ear at night. To keep the worms happy he ordered a massive hamburger which, I can confirm, was delicious, as he gave me a little bite to the great displeasure of the parasites which was evident when Dave’s leg started going all spastic.

Kate and Ben arrived and we introduced them to Dave and Kira. There is nothing better in the world than being surrounded by friends and being able to introduce friends from one world to friends from another. We caught up on news, shared some laughs, and made some rough plans to meet up with them next in the Abacos. We could have stayed chatting with them all night but had to get moving to take advantage of the remaining light for the drive back to the ferry dock. It’s easy saying goodbye to Kate and Ben as it’s only a matter of time before we run into them again somewhere.

We did the turnaround north and were about halfway back when darkness fully dropped and we discovered the Japanese made Mazda had a major design flaw – the upper half of the windshield was darkened, making it impossible for Canadian-sized folk to see through it without ducking down and peering through the steering wheel. So I slumped and squinted as my travel companions helped scan for roadkill, highway walkers, fallen trees, gaps in the road, fruit-fed raccoons, and collapsed bridges. I focused on keeping the wheels on the pavement. And we didn’t see a single damn raccoon the whole day so I think that Spanish Wellian artist may have been having us on.

The dinghy trip back to Spanish Wells was done beneath a canvas of faraway stars and over pleasantly flat waters, providing for a rare, non-sketchy evening ride. Our contact from the rental car company was flashing us with her headlights as we approached a dock on Spanish Wells. We passed her the keys, she said thanks for the business, and ten minutes later we were all at work in SeaLight constructing dinner, and before long we finished the day with a magnificent meal of sesame ginger and soy marinated tuna steaks scorched on the flatiron, golden fried yuca, coleslaw, cilantro salad and plenty of red wine.

Touring Spanish Wells

Spanish Wells – 6 nautical miles sailed, 5 miles in dinghy, 6 kilometres walked

It was a dark and stormy night.

But by the morning it had calmed somewhat so we were the first boat to pull anchor and we motored into Spanish Wells. The ideal plan for the day hinged on us finding an open mooring ball and that we did – one left, so we grabbed it, gave a team “Hurrah!” then dinghy’d into shore and paid for two nights.

The plan for today was simply to walk the island. We met a young American couple as we were standing on the eastern end of the island looking out to the striking sea colours and they did the classic American story dump. Within five minutes we’d learned they had four kids, were real estate investors who owned a series of apartment blocks, had some sort of alternative mortgage business, the husband was also a professional fisherman who traveled the world for fishing tournaments and had recently just missed out, by a couple of ounces, on a hundred thousand dollar prize. She seemed to be primarily her husband’s cheerleader, but I’m sure she had plenty on the go too. They were visiting friends in Spanish Wells. I think we told them our names before saying goodbye and moving on.

Dave and Kira were intrigued by the vegetations and mesmerized by the sea colours, which made us realized how accustomed we’d become to these everyday sights in the Bahamas that are extraordinary. We were able to appreciate them again through the fresh eyes of our friends as we walked the island.

We stopped at an art studio and got a crash course in Spanish Wellian history from the resident artist and art teacher from the school next door. He showed us around the studio proudly as he pointed out all the pieces created by locals artists and kids from the school. He was also able to answer many of my burning questions about the Bahamas, but went further and told us about the raccoon problem on Eleuthera. Legend had it that some nimrod had brought a pair of mating raccoons to Eleuthera from the US some years before. Well, those two lovers had gone Marvin Gaye and produced an army of offspring, who went on to reproduce themselves, and you know how exponential growth goes. The raccoons found plenty of organic fruit to eat from the wild fruit trees and discarded food waste, making them a desirable organic meat themselves. The artist told us his friend goes there to trap them, and sells them for ten bucks each to the Haitian community living there, who are one step ahead of the other locals in identifying nutritious and affordable food options. Our artist friend claimed he was ready and willing to sample raccoon, but only if it was prepared well by a competent chef. We remained skeptical.

I mentioned in an earlier journal that Kira is a hobbyist. Among other things, she is very good at sewing so we stopped at the shop that has a large collection of fabric and found an entire row of marine-themed fabric. Swirls of shells, leaping dolphins, lobsters on parade, smiling manatees, strings of sea grass, clackity clams, beds of sponges, and fishes, so many fishes. She held various fabrics up to Dave’s body, judging which mosaic of sea creatures best brought out his handsome features and reflected his inner Aquaman. I recommended he also pick up a solid gold, diamond-eyed, spiny lobster necklace like the one we’d seen on the manly Spanish Wellian fellow pumping fuel at the gas dock last week, tucked safely into his thick grey chest hair, as if hiding within a coral reef.

We stopped at Kathi’s bakery for fresh banana bread and Johnny cake then hit the supermarket for a few small provisions – dorado fillets, ground burger, cilantro, vanilla wafers, papaya, and a few sexy vegetables. From here we walked up to the Buddha Bar, a local institution that we had yet to visit. The entrance was a house with a trailer parked beside it and a carport you walked through to enter. On closer inspection the trailer was, in fact, the kitchen and the carport led to the bar, a Caribbean themed mishmash of parrots squawking from a cage, wooden tables with metal napkin dispensers, plastic chairs that tattoo the buttocks, televisions dangling from beams, tuned to English football, clever sayings scratched on driftwood hung from every other available space, palm trees and bushes at the perimeter, and servers that outnumbered the customers and spoke with that glorious Spanish Wellian dialect.

Once we had claimed a table, Dave and took the groceries and began walking back to the boat. As we reached the oceanside road I spotted a golf cart approaching. I stopped, concentrating intensely with my eyes closed and a throat hum, then broadcast this telepathic message to the driver: Give those clowns a ride. Give those clowns a ride. Give those clowns a ride.

The driver's head rocked back as if he had been shot, then he gave it a shake, looked over at us, slowed down and said, “You clowns need a ride?”

“Sure do!” said Dave. “So nice of you to stop.”

“No problem…yet I somehow felt like I had no choice,” he said, almost to himself, slightly flustered.

I winked at Dave. He winked back. I tried winking with the other eye but it didn’t work, so we just did our secret handshake instead. Our driver whipped us back to the dinghy at top speed then we embarked, but not before waving my hand in front of his face, saying, “You will remember nothing.”

We did a quick turnaround at the boat, jamming the freezies into the freezer, coolies in the main chamber, and rest of it on the counter, then powered the dinghy back to a private dock close to the restaurant, tied it up, and hustled back up the road to the restaurant, stopping only to give a drink of Pabst Blue Ribbon to the gaudy Trump head lawn sign in somebody’s yard.

Kaliks and ginger beer arrived shortly and we put in our late lunch orders then I wandered the restaurant, looking for life tips, first from the parrots but they had nothing to say on the matter, then from the driftwood signs. Two hit me as profound:

I find when I keep one pant leg tucked into a sock, people expect less of me.

Potatoes make French fries, chips, and vodka. Seems like other vegetables aren’t even trying.

After our leisurely lunch we had just enough light remaining in the day to take the dinghy up the channel in search of dolphins and manatees. Sadly, we struck out on both, but did use the high tide to motor over to the swing sets Ana and I had found the week before which were now fully surrounded by water. And we had a lovely ride.

Our evening entertainment on SeaLight was the movie Border, which features the greatest sex scene ever filmed in the history of moviemaking, and naked creatures running joyfully through the forest. It brought me sweet dreams.

Exploring Royal Island – Ruins, Berry Poisoning, a Giant Conch, and Fresh Lobster For Dinner

Royal Island, Eleuthera – 1 mile in dinghy, 2 kilometres walked, 1 kilometre paddled, 500 metres snorkelled, 3 lobsters, 1 conch

We had a full day to consume before the anticipated storm arrived later tonight so we got started with a big breakfast of eggs, sausages, sweet fried plantains, grapefruit, and juice. Dave had gone for an early paddleboard ride to scope out the anchorage and shoreline and had found some things of interest for us to all check out.

After breakfast we loaded ourselves into the dinghy and eased across to the shore. Royal Island is privately owned with a small resort on the south-west end, but there was nobody around to ask permission to explore, so we tied the dinghy to an old and battered concrete pier and went for a walk. After ascending a weathered concrete staircase through thick bush we walked into a ruin of what looked to be an old hotel, loaded with small bats that burst out and circled around us as we explored the various stone buildings, some with collapsed roofs, others with large trees rooted into the walls.

We carried our snorkelling gear as we walked a trail leading to the other side of the island, hoping to find a reef. Instead we found a small, abandoned harbour, with sea grass and plastic littering the shoreline and a small boat with fishermen casting their lines into the water. Ana found a rubber ducky on the shore, washed it off, then stuck it into her pocket. Dave found a beaten hard hat, excellent for alternate use as a mushroom foraging bucket or possibly an improvised beach bidet in a pinch. But no suitable reef.

On the way back Kira and Dave analyzed the foliage as we went, scanning trees and plants and shrubberies, far more interested in the greenery than Ana or I usually are. They spotted a fruit tree and we pulled off some small oranges, which were later used to add a touch of tangy citrus flavour to our gin and tonics. They spotted a large termite home and I did what all ten year old boys do – poke it with a stick then throw rocks at it. Kira found a tree sprouting berries and plucked one off, mashed it with her foot, smelled it, then passed it to me, which I rubbed into my fingers and sniffed. I held it up close to Dave's nose for him to sniff it too. Ana googled it. Poisonberry, highly toxic. We washed our hands in the ocean then back at the boat with soap. Good thing I didn’t lick my fingers or stick them in any body cavities.

We constructed magnificent chili dogs for lunch with the leftover veggie chili, which had only improved with time. Dave the Explorer went back out on the paddleboard to find a snorkelling site and surprised us by returning with a giant and beautiful conch, by far the largest of the trip. I demonstrated conch cleaning technique and wished I had planted a hidden camera to capture Kira’s expression when I removed the giant slug from the shell. Shock and awe. Maybe a bit of revulsion. Certainly surprise. Dave was thrilled when I offered him the six-inch long jelly tube from the conch. He opted to chew it into pieces, relishing the flavour, instead of sucking it down whole in one go. This would likely accelerate the jelly tube's aphrodisiac properties, bringing on the Midnight War Hammer earlier than expected. I kept my distance and warned the girls to do the same.

The ladies floated in the dinghy while Dave and I snorkelled, as the approaching cold front had dropped temperatures and rendered the swimming a bit cool. While the visibility was not great, the snorkelling was excellent near the abandoned jetty where thousands of fish had gathered including a swarming school of minnows that remained still as you swam above them, and a huge hermit crab that had taken over a conch shell and was busy feasting on a dead conch from a shell beside it.

I circled further out and found a series of large coral heads, the third of which was home to no fewer than four lobsters and one big moray eel. I called Dave over so we could double team the catch and we were able to tickle-extract three of the spiny beauties, leaving the last one (she was just a teenager), and the eel, as who wants to skin and eat an eel.

A magnificent nacho plate was constructed and eaten as a post-lunch, pre-dinner snack, then we moved onto the main feast of garlic-baked lobster tails, kale salad, and fried eggplant as the 80’s playlist streamed in the cabin and the winds started to build.

Nassau to Royal Island, Eleuthera: Do We Stay Or Do We Go?

Nassau to Royal Island – 41 nautical miles sailed, 2 miles in dinghy, 500 metres snorkelled

With cruising you are often uncertain if you are doing the right thing. You review and re-review all the relevant weather information, route information, and nautical chart data, but eventually you need to make a decision, and you’re not going to know until later if that decision was a good one. In the meantime, there is often a level of anxiety and second guessing. Am I putting the crew in danger? Should we be staying put? Are we sailing into a wild storm? What if the worst of the weather model predictions come true? Will there be space in the anchorage? If not, will we be able to find a slip at a marina?

This is how I felt as we pulled up anchor and set sail for Eleuthera.

Some of the weather models were predicting a wicked storm to pass through our chosen destination on Monday evening, with winds reaching up to 50 knots, and a scary counter-clockwise spin with a wandering and unpredictable eye, just like a hurricane. Other models weren’t showing much of a storm at all. When there is no agreement between the various models it’s a fools game to know with any certainty what may happen, it may be just as likely for the storm to hit Nassau, or the Exumas, as opposed to our chosen location. So, we left.

The wind was directly in our face and with a 40 mile sail, we didn’t have time to zig zag so we motored the entire way. The seas were better than I expected with only two to four-foot waves and occasional larger ones that caused some pounding, but it was not bad. Kira is prone to seasickness but she was using an anti-nausea tab placed behind her ear plus an electric pulse device on her wrist designed for the same. The systems worked well and we passed the hours with plenty of stimulating nausea-free conversation, some flying fish spotting, then a tuna wrap lunch.

Royal Island is a model hurricane hole with wind and wave protection from all directions. I was relieved after we slipped through the narrow channel entrance to find plenty of available space so we chose a spot we liked, dropped and set the anchor, then sat back to relax. I strung the hammock from the solar arch and Kira eased in for a little swing and some hot sunshine. Dave immediately passed out on one of the cockpit benches and I took the other, reading for a while, then dropping off. A while later the ladies took the dinghy for a ride to explore the area and returned with a snorkeling location for us that would include a “little surprise”.

We gypsy-packed ourselves and all our snorkelling gear into the dinghy and set off at slow motion across the bay, creating a tsunami wake behind us which swamped and destroyed a few of other anchored boats. Ana was at the tiller and glided us into the far end of the bay which was incredibly shallow and offered no hints of the surprise. Dave pulled out these monstrous flippers, clearly relics from the 70's with yellowed and severely hardened rubber. To make them usable he had also picked up a set of furry blue slippers which slid neatly into the fins and looked real cute.

I flopped into the water and stood up in just three feet of depth with a mucky bottom. I swam around for a bit, finding no obvious surprises, and the girls were disappointed to discover the dozens of turtles they had seen, and perhaps run over or otherwise terrorized on their exploratory run, were nowhere to be seen.

I don’t remember ever snorkelling in under two feet of water, but that’s what we did and found many interesting pulsing jellyfish creatures, mollusks, some fish, and pyramids of sand with holes on top created by unseen ocean animals. We moved into deeper water in a cut and found a small patch with grey and dusty coral and mediocre visibility. This was very poor snorkelling conditions compared to what we’d experienced in the Exumas, but Dave and Kira enjoyed it as it was far superior to the current snorkelling options in Ontario.

We returned to the boat for a round of pink gin and tonics which were heavenly. Magnus gave us a call and we all had a chance to speak to him and hear of his school experience and, more importantly, European travel plans for his upcoming breaks. I have a feeling his transition back to Canada in May is going to be a little tough for him after this incredible experience.

Dinner was a formidable vegetarian chili with coconut buns then we moved into the cockpit for evening discussions under the dark Bahamian skies. After weaving through a series of stimulating topics, I lamented to Dave that There’s No Good Sailing Songs, so we started assembling musical ideas for a spectacular song with that title. I have some other ideas for sailing songs, such as Pee Bucket, Triangular Fabric, Weather Window, Fish Fingers, and Heavy Metal Sailor, but we’ll nail this first one before filling out the rest of the album.

It wasn’t even Mariner’s Midnight when Kira called it a night and the rest of us were not far behind her. I walked back to the dinghy arch to hoist it for a night and as I stepped down onto the swim platform my foot landed on something horrible, my initial presumption being a crippled sea otter, or maybe a furred jellyfish, or possibly an obese, drowned rat. How relieved was I when I looked down to see one of Dave's soggy slippers beneath my foot.

The Germann-Hinds Meet Atlantis, Hammerheads, and a Deserted Regatta Party

Nassau – 15 kilometres walked, 2 miles in dinghy

I despise using the expression “time to kill” but today we actually had time to kill. Our friends Dave and Kira were due to arrive at the marina by around 4:30 and yesterday we had finished all our jobs to prepare for their arrival. So, we went for a walk and found a big production supporting the sailing regatta in Montague – music, vendors, food, drinks. We walked a bit further and found a fish market where all the fishermen were cleaning their catch, bagging up the good parts and selling it to locals, and tossing the skin and innards to the hungry seagulls. We considered picking up some fish, then remembered the beautiful dorado fillets we’d seen in Spanish Wells and decided to wait for those.

We returned to the regatta party for a hot dog and cheese nachos, visited the historical site of Fort Montague (where the historical placards suggested storming the fort and taking it over was as easy as waiting until everybody was asleep), then on the way out of the park I challenged the guard at the entrance to a hurdler’s stretch competition. He won easily, but we will remain good friends.

Back at the boat I tenderized conch and cleaned shrimp for the upcoming paella dinner while Ana worked on some yacht club business. The call from Kira finally came and I whizzed into the dock to pick up our friends. They wore long sleeved shirts (multiple layers), long pants, socks, winter hats, and sported white downy winter skin. They were thrilled to be here and ready for some Bahamian sun.

A bit of background. We first met Dave and Kira while standing in line to pick up our children from junior kindergarten when Magnus was a pudgy, lisping, milk-drinking troublemaker and their daughter Tula was a skinny, gap-toothed fireball. Tula is still a skinny fireball but she has all her teeth now, very nice ones. Dave Hind is a Thingmaker, an artist, a worker of metals, and a musical force. Kira Germann is a cool hippy, a teacher, a hobbyist, and a genius with food. They both love to travel. They both love hanging out. They both love to laugh. We are lucky to call them two of our closest friends and we have spent so many days, evenings, and weekends together over the years that it just made sense to spend a week together in the Bahamas. It’s not easy to find good travel partners so we were thrilled when they decided to visit us.

After a flurry of hugs and kisses I announced we had a surprise for each of them. I reached into the fridge and handed Kira a Life in the Clouds IPA from Collective Arts, her favourite Hamilton brewery, and part of a set of 12 I’d kept refrigerated for five months, patiently awaiting her arrival. For Dave, the plan was to present him with an acoustic guitar, but all my Marketplace messages to locals selling axes went unanswered, so all I could give him was the assurance that I had tried my best, which he was grateful for, but he was just as happy we had a ukulele on board for making sweet music.

While I had been collecting Kira and Dave from the marina, Ana was putting the final touches on the conch and shrimp paella and we ate a delicious meal together in the sunny cockpit as we caught up on news. But we did not linger as we had three venues to visit tonight and time was precious. So, back in the dinghy, back to the marina, back on the pavement, and over the bridge, walking to Paradise Island for our first stop – Atlantis. As we’d become fully locals now, we toured them around, through the marina village, close up to the superyachts, in the casino, past the designer shops, through the tunnels of the Dig aquarium, and into the water park where we found more creatures – sawfish, turtles, sharks, and a serene night scene with perfect lighting, the sounds of waterfalls, and the refreshing tingle of ocean breeze. They loved it.

Next up was a stop at HPOS10i (previously known as Hammerheads, but now under construction and rebranding), the greatest and possibly most underwhelming bar on the planet, at least on first impressions, as the entire building is crumbling apart, there are often rat carcasses rotting on the busted up sidewalks, and the local area is such that you need to get buzzed in after passing a quick visual inspection by the barkeeper. But this is where all worthy Nassau adventures both begin and end.

Alex the owner was on the scene and we introduced him to our friends. I was excited as I had a surprise for him too, a little gift that I’d had Stella dig out of the bottom of our wardrobe at home and send down with Dave and Kira.

“Alex, do you notice anything different about me?” I said as I posed for him suggestively.

“Uh….a haircut?” he stammered.

“Well yes, that too, but notice anything else,” I said as I pulled back my button-up shirt to fully reveal the vintage Hammerheads tshirt beneath it.

“OH MY GOD, is that a Hammerheads shirt?” he burst in astonishment. Alex had been a customer, then server, then manager of Hammerheads back in the day and it’s quite possible we had crossed paths here. But he had not retained any of the classic Hammerheads merchandise.

“It sure is. And you know that saying about a person willing to give the shirt off his back?” I said as I took off the button-up shirt, removed the Hammerheads shirt, then handed it to him.

“What? It’s for me? Are you sure? Do you want to make a trade?” he said as he scanned the 25-year-old shirt, still in remarkably good condition.

“Nope, it’s yours.”

“Get these guys some drinks,” Alex said to the staff as he dashed away, then returned minutes later wearing the Hammerheads tshirt and a huge smile. He then pulled out a very special bottle of Cuban rum, gave us a history of the Bacardi family’s escape from Cuba, the likely location of the traditional yeast used to make the best rum (Alex reckons it never left Cuba), and made Dave a magnificent rum drink.

As is customary, the bar was full of interesting and eclectic people. Alex introduced us to some of his friends and we got into a serious discussion about politics in the Bahamas – the corruption, the illegal immigrants from Haiti, the crime, the lack of opportunities for regular Bahamians, and their perceived downward spiral of the country. We sat and stood in the upper-level treehouse as we talked with these new friends, munching on a platter of grilled chicken, watching the perpetual basketball game happening in the court across the street, the passing traffic, the customers coming and going. Alex is an extremely well read and well spoken dude and he hung with us the entire time.

At 10:45 Ana gave us the signal to make a move to the third stop for the night – the after party at the regatta grounds, which we were told earlier in the day would be going until at least 11. We said goodbye to our new buddies and assured them we’d be back next weekend, then began our walk westward. It was a decently long stroll, but we were buoyed by the Hammerheads beverages, giving us an airy lift and sufficiently blurred vision to Kalik-wash the gritty road, decorated with flattened rodents and lizards.

By the time we arrived at Montague Park the party was over and vendors were mostly packed up. There were no drinks left to be had and no music beyond the strong winds whistling through the palms and echos of machine-gun Bahamian patois bouncing between the vendors. We walked the grounds, joked with a vendor, then turned around and retraced our steps back to the marina where we loaded into the dinghy, explaining the finer points of sketchy late night dinghy manoeuvring, then took off. With the low tide it was possible to shortcut beneath the docks, and when we popped out we were hailed by a wobbly man standing alone at the back of his very large and very new catamaran.

“Nice boat!” I hollered.

“Yeah,” he said, struggling for words, balance, and vision as he seemed to have hit his Kalik limit for the evening.

“It’s huge,” Ana said. “We’re on a 43 Beneteau sailboat.”

“Ah, little boats…they’re so….” he said, searching for words that would not come, then simply hugged himself tightly and looked dreamily up into the air as we motored away waving.

We sketched our way across the bumpy seas to SeaLight, used the safer sea-lion belly slide unloading technique without incident, then recapped the evening’s events in the comfort of the cabin, with water for all except me as I just couldn’t wait to try a margarita with the fancy bottle of tequila they had brought for us.

It was well after real midnight when we finally called it a night. Welcome to Nassau!

Atlantic Dinghy Dock, Trip Planning, and Boat Cleaning

Nassau – 4 kilometres walked, 4 miles in dinghy

The cold front with its associated strong northerly winds swept in today and by the evening it was blowing at 20 knots and gusting higher than that. A few boats had left the anchorage, but there were still at least eight or ten others here so we didn’t want to leave SeaLight unattended for long. I did an early water run to Potters Cay and filled up our five jugs, to the sound of heavy reggae being blasted from a SUV with massive speakers and the owner nowhere in sight. None of the conch shacks were open and the place was mostly deserted, except one dude with a ripped shirt, filthy pants, and dreadlocks encased in a vibrant scarf who dancing to the music as he watched me at the tap.

Late morning we decided to take a short dinghy ride to Atlantis to see if we could find the dinghy dock which we’d heard about but not yet seen. I activated the mirroring on my anchor alarm app so we could see the boat’s position from Ana’s phone and race back in case the anchor dragged with the winds. We were able to zoom through the main channel as there were very few boats out today due to the weather, so the water surface was not boiling with wake as it usually is. We motored slowly into the Atlantis marina and eyeballed all the massive yachts, as all they accept here are massive yachts. This trip we are on is decadent and incredible, but seeing the extravagance of these big boys is otherworldly and, honestly, hard to imagine what that level of wealth would be like. I’d bet on one thing, though – we’re having more fun than them. The dinghy dock was hidden behind three of these monsters and we had to wiggle our way between them to get to it. Once there, we asked the dockmaster if we could leave our dinghy for a while and they said no problem.

Paradise Island doesn’t have a lot on it besides Atlantis, but we hadn’t explored the south side so we walked up the street and found a shopping plaza, a small straw market, a collection of food trucks, and a largish grocery store where most of the shelves were barren and prices of the items they did have were exorbitant, except for the chopped turkey in packages for two bucks a pound (which we couldn’t have fit in our freezer even if we did want it) and a bottle of Dijon mustard which was only four bucks, the cheapest things in the store, and our only purchase.

We stopped at Potters Cay for a final fill of the water jugs then returned to SeaLight for some afternoon cleaning – Ana scrubbed the filthy dingy until it was spotless and I swabbed the decks, then we cleaned the cockpit together, made up the guest bed, cleaned the heads, then vacuumed, but only after Ana gave me a quick haircut. I also invested a bit of time in assembling the food stamps we were awarded at the grocery store on the playing cards they gave us. Since the stamp backs weren’t sticky, and we don’t have a stapler on board, I used the next best adhesive – leftover caulking. It was time well spent as the final product will give us a whopping four dollars in credit the next time we shop there, enough to buy one small avocado or a third of a box of Fruit Loops.

In the evening, between monitoring the boat movements in the anchorage and making dinner (tough New York strips, salad and spiced yuca), we discussed our plan for the journey home. Our friends arrive tomorrow, will stay for a week, then we will sail for the Abacos at the first opportunity, which will likely be the last area of the Bahamas we will explore before starting our return journey northwards.

Our goal moving southwards from Canada was to see as much as possible, explore the towns we passed through, stay ahead of the cooling weather, and time our Florida arrival for Ana’s return flight to Canada for Christmas. That trip from start to finish took ten weeks. Our goal for the return journey is slightly different. We’d like to remain in the warm as long as we can, particularly because the northern winter this year has been so brutal, but our three-month Bahamas cruising permit expires April 6 so we need to be out of the Bahamas by that date. The other date we are working towards is May 1, when Ana returns to work, but the Erie Canal does not open until May 16, so she will have to fly home from wherever we get to by the end of April.

We’ve been told by several other cruisers that the return trip is much faster due to the longer days, fewer stops, and possibility of faster offshore runs, particularly from Bahamas where the Gulf Stream gives you a couple of extra knots of speed. In fact, a couple in a catamaran we met last week said they can make it to New York City in just over a week if they do it in three offshore jumps and the weather cooperates. It’s about 850 nautical miles from Abaco to New York City, which works out to 121 miles per day, which translates to an average speed of 5 knots. It all checks out. We do not need to get there that quickly, but it’s nice to know it’s possible.

Our plan will likely be to do offshore runs where we can and where the weather permits, stop at a few places we missed along the way and others we really enjoyed, and keep chasing the sun, but this time it will be the glorious sun of southern Ontario.