4/26/2010: Good Bye Georgetown

 Yul and Linda at Baycayneer with junkanoo costumes

Junkanoo costumes

 Bone fishing flatsConceptionDanielle Solan at RumDC-3 at MayaguanaFawn, Linda and Bobby @ salt pond inlet.  Bobby

 cutting up the conch with his mud mask on.

L-R John & Linda and Chris Lone Star; Dave & Heather Mann Wild Hair; L&H at Sumner Pt. Marina dinner

Salt pond inlet, RumFlat MayaguanaL&H at BaycayneerSumner Pt. Marina, Rum.  Kuhela in foregroundBone fish flats, MayaguanaAnother drug wreck

0700 and the alarm went off…Linda has been up for an hour listening to Chris Parker, the weatherman, and will make the coffee when she hears me rustling around. Our 0800 departure is on Bahamian time (“later mon”) and we emerge into the Exuma Sound at around 0830 to find 15-18 K SE winds, seas 1-2 ft. also from the SE, and us on course to Conception Island cutting across the waves at about 50⁰: nearly perfect sailing. Clear, blue skies with cottony cumulus clouds over Long Island and inky blue seas; what more could a cruiser ask? At 1640 we dropped the hook off a western beach south of Southampton Reef. Tomorrow we’ll snorkel the reef which is said to be spectacular as Conception Island is one of the national parks and thus protected.


Well it didn’t happen…Mr. Parker informed us that another front with 20-30K squalls was due in this evening and would put us on a lee shore (the shore being down wind), so we hightailed it out first thing in the morning to Rum Cay 20 km to the ESE. Unfortunately, there were 2-3 ft. swells 3-4 seconds apart and winds and currents nearly on the nose, so we had to tack and motor sail. Oh, well, can’t have a great sail every day, right? We snuggled in at Sumner Point Marina at Port Nelson, the only settlement of this 9 mile by 4 ½ mile island/cay. The highest point is 121 ft. so it’s virtually flat as are all the Bahamian islands and cays: good for bicycling mon. We met Danielle Solan, a 30-ish South Beach (Miami) model who was a close friend of Bobby Little the marina owner. They took us under their wing and showed us their rather beautiful and quaint island sites: the salt pond entrance where we slathered spa mud all over us and had beer and wine with a conch salad lunch from conch we caught wading in the pond; north beach paddle boarding collecting Whelks, a black and white conical snail attached to the iron rock shore. This is a great place to vacation and lie-back, especially if you love the sea: conching, shelling, diving, snorkeling, deep sea fishing, etc. One night we had dinner “in town” at Kay’s Restaurant and Bar owned by 78 year old Delores and her daughter Donna. The other daughter, Judy, ran the “grocery” store and made shell jewelry. The rest of the nights we dined high on Mahi Mahi, Wahoo, Snapper, Tuna (all provided by the sport-fish boats to accompany our sides), Peas-n-Rice, Mac-n-Cheese, Whelks (like fishy escargot)and crabs. We stayed a week.

Samana Cay was an interesting stop. I re-read the National Geographic (November, 1986) – thanks again Jim and Jane – article and re-learned the extensive reasoning that declared Columbus must have stopped here first in 1492 and not at San Salvador or Whatling or Plana or… The Acklin islanders come here to fish and gather conch and bark from trees that is used in making Compari: Kathy, maybe you should move here. The entrance to the anchorage was not nearly as treacherous and difficult as the charts lead us to believe. We anchored in sand behind Propeller Cay in 12 ft. of clear water where Columbus probably anchored, too, over 500 years ago. We were the only boat in this idyllic spot. We didn’t go ashore and left the next morning for W. Plana Cay in 5k of easterly wind: not so good for a sailor and we had to motor/sail once again. From there we motored straight into the wind (known as having it on the nose) the 40nm to Mayaguana arriving on Friday, May 7, our Aimee’s birthday: “Happy Birthday, Aimee Arnold Riebold!!” We expected to collect from the post office our courtesy flags - 1 X 2 country flags a boat flies after clearing in (presenting oneself to customs, immigration and health) - that had been mailed here a month ago from a flag company in the US of A. No show, maybe on the mail boat Monday, or Sunday, or Tuesday or BahamasAir on Monday or Wednesday. Dimes to doughnuts we’ll end up calling Nassau’s main post office to (hopefully) find them. Yul Charlton (“Papa Charlie” and the first really enterprising entrepreneur we’ve run across in the Bahamas) called on the VHF next morning having heard we asked about renting a car and offered to take us around the island for $30 less than the rental. Deal! Turns out this island is even flatter than most with an old US Army Air Corps airfield littered with confiscated drug aircraft to include a DC3: all stripped of course. They still use the strip 3X/week for flights from the rest of the Bahamas. We had a few Kaliks along the way at T.N.T. bar with owner Jingles and pork chop or fried chicken and Kalik lunch at the “Baycayner” resort near Pirate Wells. This north side of the island is a bone fisherman’s paradise with a mile out reef fringing shallow sand bars under aqua/gin-blue waters.

Today, Sunday, we’ll do projects: laundry, dive the boat for barnacles, change out the starboard fresh water pup (it keeps tripping the breaker), defrost the Engle (freezer), and go ashore to send this to BlogSpot and get email for free. It turns out the flag company cancelled the order ‘cause they didn't like the shipping address: huh?? So, we’ll buy them as we go along instead. The zincs had the barnacles, not the props. Yahoo!! It took 10 minutes to clean. We then took up the dingy, had dinner and went to bed. Back up at 2030 and pulled up the sails and motor/sailed back out through the reef following our bread crumbs on the chart plotter (the chart plotter leaves little dashes – bread crumbs – showing where we’ve been: really convenient for moonless night passages). We sailed all night in 20 k winds gusting to 25 k and 6 ft. seas 5 seconds apart making an average of 6.7 k/hr. Arrived at Sandborne Channel, Providenciales (Provo), Turks and Caicos around 7 am as directed by the Van Sant cruising guide to have the sun in our eyes and no chance to see the bottom/coral heads. Made it handily, however, to South Side Marina by 0830. Given the weather forecast we got on our way in from Simon at the marina, looks like we’ll be here a week.

Oh, we finally got OCENS (satellite weather and email) up and running. Seems the handset which I thought was the way to the satellite wasn’t right (and the “experts” at OCENS and Vizada – the satellite provider - didn’t catch it either) wasn’t the way.. Turned out just ‘cause I happened to look behind the cradle in the cupboard that the 9-pin cable connected to the DTE socket was the way in. Bada-bing it worked with a little adjustment on timing-out! So, now we can get both weather and our email – not daily ‘cause it’s expensive to use the satellite – when we don’t have a Wi-Fi connection.

PLEASE REMEMBER we are ready for company. Send us an email to let us know your desires. We can then let you know approximately where we’ll be. But, remember there is little accuracy in that the further out in time you want to come; like we stay a week in Rum ‘cause it’s fun, or don’t explore Conception because of the weather. But don’t let this stop you: COME!