After the Visit

Using our directional antennae on the boat, I have a fairly good connection - but pictures are impossible to upload - so maybe next time.

We've rested up now after our busy week with the kids. We loved being able to show Krista, Sean and Michelle some of this beautiful area. Our first day at Rachel's Bubble bath and at Compass Cay Club feeding the sharks was almost perfect - and since Richard and Carole (Klarissa) and Joe and Carole (Just Ducky) had so generously showed us the trails on Thomas Cay - later in the week, we were able to play trail guides for our guests taking them to beaches and view points that many people never see.

Our fast boat ride to Black Point and Oven Rock Cave was a bit of a test of endurance for all of us - it was a bumpy day and would you believe it, in spite of the fact that Bob had brought an extra jerry can of gas and emptied it into the engine tank just before we left Black Point, we ran out of gas when we were almost within spitting distance of Sea Change at anchor near Staniel Cay. Thankfully, we were also close enough to another anchored boat for Bob to yell a request for a short dinghy tow. That was a bit more adventure than we had planned! The fast boat turned out to be a gas guzzler extraordinaire. While it was a God send early in the week for getting us to and from Pipe Creek (while we hid from the blow) and also to the sights at Compass Cay, Thomas Cay and Oven Rock - we were all glad to see the end of it when we passed it back to Richard "Breadboy" Andrews.

We have missed the kids and it was lovely to spend time with them. They are one of the reasons that we are feeling ready to begin the long journey home.

The day that the kids left, we came back to the boat to stash the goodies they had brought: into our little freezer went the last of the steaks and chicken breasts - the rest had provided dinners and lunches cooked on the barbecue at their cottage - into our lockers went all of the pasta (whole wheat spaghetti, macaroni, egg noodles), nuts (peanuts, sunflower seeds, almonds, pecans), and gummy candies (lots of gummy bears and gummy worms!). Then we pulled away from the dock at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club where we had stayed for the last 3 nights of "the visit" and sailed the short distance to Black Point to do laundry and buy lunch at the all age school fund raiser for Black Point - the week before we had lunched at a similar fund raiser for the school at Staniel Cay and had a burger and fries - this time, we had Snapper - a whole fish deep fried - head and all - moist and tasty under the crisp skin.

At Black Point, we met most of the people that we have come to know in the last few weeks. Everyone was there to support the fund raiser. Carolyn and Keith from Whim were doing laundry and then checking email at Lorraine's Cafe as we were and we joined them later for drinks on their boat. In the days to come, they were heading south to Georgetown and Long Island. (Should we do this trip again, we would try to get to Long Island - all cruisers who have gone there sing it's praises.) Our farthest point south has been Little Farmer's Cay and from here on in, we will move north, visiting some of the cays in the Exuma chain until our inclination and the winds prompt us to cross back to Eleuthera in preparation for crossing the Northeast Providence Chanel to the Abacos Islands.

For a little down time and an opportunity to use the Web and upload my last post, we sailed to Sampson Cay (still not far from Staniel Cay) and spent a night anchored there. We had arrived just a little too late to visit the store (it was Sunday), so before leaving Monday morning, we dinghied in to fill our water jerry cans with water (last chance!) and to do a little shopping. Oh my - of all the stores in the area, that has to be one of the most expensive - and they all seem expensive to us - but I did find a few needed items which I bought anyway. For most of the coming week we will be in the Exuma Land and Sea Park where there are no services: no water, no oil or gas, and no stores. We'll also be storing all our garbage on board - what you bring in, you take out.

We spent our first 2 nights in the Park on a mooring ball at Cambridge Cay and what a lovely place it is. We arrived on a day when Rick and Eliena (Moving On), the Cambridge Cay coordinators, arranged a late afternoon get-together on a sandy little slip of land in the bay. Drat - I didn't have my camera with me to take a picture of the dinghies pulled up on the beach and the rough table set up for everyone's party nibbles. It was quite wonderful to be visiting with other cruisers in the middle of such a unique place and even here, there were cruisers we had met earlier: Barb and Ken from Plumpuppet were there - we have run into them several times during the last month. I first met Barb in the laundry room at the St. Augustine Marina. (You meet the nicest people in laundry rooms.) Carol and Dave from Passport were also there. The day the kids left, Carole and Dave were waiting at the airstrip for a guest to arrive on the incoming plane and they stopped and chatted with all of us. It was fun to be able to talk with Carol again. We are most of us at the same place in our lives - with work behind us and our children grown, we're considering what to do with the rest of our lives.

Now that we are heading north as are many people that we meet. Along with talking about our lives as cruisers and where the great places are to visit, we also talk about whether we will be back - especially if we are "first timers". For many that we meet, cruising the Bahamas every winter is a way of life - and if their homes are very far north - they leave their boats further south to avoid a long trek every spring. We've met several Canadians who leave their boats for the summer in Florida or even in the northern Bahamas and then there are the cruisers, an amazing number of them, who have sold their homes and moved onto their boat. They may come back to the Bahamas every year - or more likely - it's just one of many destinations they visit as they move around the Caribbean and US or even Canadian waterways.

Will we come back? We talk about it - but when - is another question. Certainly not next year or probably not even the year after - but yes - we would do this again.

Back to Cambridge Cay - the afternoon that we arrived, we snorkeled over some coral reefs near the boat. We were able to beach the dinghy on a little sandy area and walk and then swim into deeper water to get to the reef. Dee - lighful!

We snorkeled again yesterday when we took the dinghy to a coral area called the Sea Aquarium - and tied the dinghy to one of the moorings there. I went into the water wearing a life vest - when we snorkeled in Thailand, I was swimming along a reef, and was carried by current farther than I intended and then turned to discover that I was fighting the current to get back. In the end, I was so tired that I turned on my back and held onto Bob while he pulled me along to shallow water - so now I wear a vest where there might be current.

The Sea Aquarium was exactly as billed - spectacular - lots of colourful fish and sea life growing over the coral. When I got back to the dinghy, rather than waiting for me to attempt getting a foot up on the little fender he had strung horizontally on the side of the dinghy, Bob grabbed the shoulders of my life vest and hauled me halfway into the boat - I was taken by surprise and giggling as I lay sprawled across the dinghy trying to right myself and sit up. Whatever works, I guess. All that stuff Bob bought for Sea Change for this trip, and it never occurred to either of us to buy a ladder for the dinghy. And there is one more sea life viewing aid we had never even heard about. The day that we took Sean and Michelle to snorkel at Thunderball Grotto, I borrowed a "looky bucket" for Krista from Carolyn and Keith. It's a bucket with a see through plastic bottom - when you push the bucket down into the water, you can see as clearly as if you were using a snorkel mask. We wish that we had one of those also!

Yesterday morning, we hiked Cambridge Cay. There's a well marked path from the mooring field side of the Cay to the Exuma Sound side - and then you can follow a trail up along higher points of land for majestic views of the water and Cay below. I must say that I sleep very well at night after these days spent hiking the cays and snorkeling over coral.

Today, we're on our way to Warderick Wells in the heart of the Land and Sea Park. We've been able to get a mooring in the North Mooring field and that's a very good thing: it's something that we've been looking forward to for a long time.