Florida

Our goal was to be in Florida by the 23rd of May, so our exitus from the Bahamas was fast tracked. On route from Nassau to Chub Cay we had very light winds but were able to do a combination of sailing and motor sailing. We did have an interesting view of a funnel cloud over chub cay and uncertain as to which way the weather was moving so we quickly took down the sails and had a front row seat watching it form and dissapate.

With one last desire to swim and snorkle, Ron and the girls humoured me by pulling into a beach at North Bimini. Lily and Jenessa had fun swimming around and playing on our tow tube while I snorkled off towards the beach. The bottom here is very sandy and my expectations of seeing much here was low, but boy I do love to swim and snorkle. There has been one fish, that has eluded me that was high on my list to see and that is a Queen Trigger Fish and I still don't believe it but I saw one. This blew me away.

Bimini is the last set of islands before crossing the Strait of Florida, which I understand from others can be nasty at times due to the Gulf Stream. We had a picture perfect crossing and arrived at Port Everglades at about 5:oo p.m., though I am sure Ron would of liked more wind. Our destination, Hollywood Loggershead Marina is just a short jaunt up the intercoastal waterway with only 3 bridges to cross under. The intercoastal waterway is an amazing system with an untold number of bridges and million dollar homes.

It is with mixed emotions our journey has come to an end. What a wonderful time we have had with our daughters and friends and what an amazing journey. We will miss the beautiful warm waters, sandy beaches, exotic ports and the many new friends that we have made, but we are all looking forward to returning to our own corner of paradise and to see our family and friends.

Norman & Allen Cays

We did a whirlwind tour of Norman Cay, this is the Cay where a drug cartel and drug war took place. We haven't seen it yet, but we understand the movie "Blow" was based on this drug war. We did do a quick tour of the bay where there is a crashed DC3 airplane still visible and partially out of the water. We also wandered around the island where all the deserted buildings were from the drug operation. Not much left, but it was fun trying to figure out what was what. The girls looked high and low for a suitable souvenir, but didn't find anything.

Early the next morning we headed off for Allen Cay, home to another species of iguana. These guys were all over the place and we had fun feeding them some fruit and taking lots of pictures. Jenessa has been working on a school report about the iguanas we have been seeing. We managed to squeeze in a quick swim before we readied the boat to sail across to Nassau. Boy am I going to miss this swimming.

We are now in Nassau (this is where we picked up Lily 10 days ago). The girls wanted one last chance to shop for presents and we are also going to explore the option of spending a day in Atlantis.

Staniel Cay

We left Conception at 10:00 p.m. and headed off for the 75 mile trip to Staniel Cay. The sailing started off great but within a couple of hours the winds slowly turned onto our nose and reluctantly we started up the engines. With only a couple of weeks left we no longer have the luxury of waiting for the wind. Even still it was a beautiful evening with a huge full moon and wonderful calm seas.

We arrived at Staniel Cay and came through the cut in perfect time to anchor and hit the caves at a half hour before low water slack. The caves are a very easy snorkel with the most amazing quantity and variety of fish all waiting to be fed. Fish that are usually timid like the Queen Angelfish, Rock Beauty and Hogfish were in great abundance and it was a lot of fun watching the girls fend off the feeding frenzy as Ron would deposit bread crumbs beside the unsuspecting and soon to be screaming girls. For any of you that have seen the movies Into the Blue and Thunderball, this area was used a lot to do the underwater part of the film.

One of the must do’s before leaving Staniel Cay is to feed the swimming pigs, so we headed off with some new friends from the boat anchored adjacent to us to find the pigs. These pigs supposedly will swim out to your dinghy and even attempt to climb in. We found them and sure enough that is what they did much to everyone’s nervous delight.

Conception Island

I have to say that the Bahamas consistently have the clearest cleanest waters that we have spent any time in. Our anchorage at Conception Island was in 8 feet of again crystal clear waters over a beautiful white sand bottom. The first priority on arriving was to jump in check out the neighbourhood and then to finish scrubbing the hulls. It is amazing how quickly the barnacles and weed can grow in these warm seas. It wasn’t long after we began scrubbing that we were joined by a couple of southern stingrays and a couple of scrawled cowfish. They seemed to be quite enjoying the morsels that Ron chipped off. We later learned that one of the boaters was feeding bread to these cowfish and actually had it bite the end of her finger. (Re: Comment, this pictures is to show we do let Ron of the boat - after he has finished his todo list)

There is a wonderful coral reef called the kiddies park on the north end of Conception and this is where we introduced Lily to her first snorkeling expedition. She did great and it was fun introducing her to some of our favourite reef fish as well as a couple of very large lobsters.

The thing that makes Conception unique is a wonderful tidal creek that meanders up through the centre of the island through to a mangrove tidal lake. With the dinghy motor on shallow mode we followed it up about a mile and a half. We passed through areas where we saw conch, nurse sharks, many small barracudas and the most amazing turtle pool. There were probably at least two dozen turtles in a pool with the diameter of about 75 feet. This is probably the largest concentration of turtles that we have seen todate.

Lily's Arrived

Well with much excitement and giggling, Jenessa and I picked up Lily from the Nassau airport last evening. We have spent our day wandering around Nassau shopping and browsing while waiting for the ferry back to George Town. The ferry departs at 9:30 p.m. tonight and arrives at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. With any luck they won't be crowded and we will again be able to spread out for a sleep on the seats.

Nassau is the capital of the Bahamas and a very large city and is also a main cruise ship destination. There is a large shopping/tourist area and it has a hotel complex like something you would find in Los Vegas or Disney World. It is called Atlantis and here we were able to spend some time admiring their giant aquarium. We were able to see a variety of huge fish including a Manta Ray, Spotted Eagle Ray, very large groupers and a whole bunch more. Lily has never snorkelled so I am looking forward to getting her in the water. Unfortunately we didn't bring a camera with us to Nassau, so I cannot add photos.

Turning 15 in the Bahamas

For the last month Alex has talked about her birthday and how 15 was a big one, well yesterday was the day. One of the things that she has wanted to do since we have been down here is ride a seadoo. Every time we see one, we hear, “I wish I could ride a Seadoo”. At one of the islands we did inquire about renting one for her, but they rented to only adults and the cost was $90.00 U.S. for not terribly long. Yesterday in the morning a family arrived at Volleyball Beach with two Seadoos and she convinced me she needed me to go to the beach with her. So while she stood their drooling, I asked if the owner would he consider taking her for a ride for her birthday. The owner was very pleasant and off they went for a ride and when they came back, to my surprise he jumped off and she went out on her own. This brought big smiles to the birthday girl and was even told it was fine if she wanted to use it again during the day as they planned to be at the beach for the day. She managed to use it once more and she even picked up Jenessa and took her for a ride.

I think of all of Alex’s presents she received, her favourite by far were her shoes from Jenessa. Alex now has more pairs of shoes on board than the rest of us combined.

We ended the day with a dinner ashore at the Chat n’ Chill Bar & Grill with Ray & Lori and family from the M.V. Albino Wino.

Bahamas (3)

Well we are still anchored off of Volley Ball Beach working on the details to connect with Jenessa’s friend Lily. Jenessa and I went yesterday with the dinghy and anchored at a little sandy beach near by from there we did a short walk across the island until we arrived at a beautiful white sand beach open to the Atlantic.

We had a great time walking the beach exploring the tide line and collecting a variety of different shells. After our walk we returned to the dinghy and played in the water until we attracted too much attention from a large barracuda. Now even though everything we read and hear about the barracudas tells us they won’t bother us, we still are very respective of their space (and teeth).

Today, we were off to town for water and fuel and while I was there I asked a lady at the straw market if she would teach me how to make a basket. So that is what I did today. It was great. My teacher was a 60+ year old great gramma named Nessie. We used a local palm called a silver palm (I think). The style of basket she showed me takes her about three days to complete and she sells it for $15 – 20.00. Well after hearing this I will not try to get them to reduce the price anymore.

We ended our day with all four of us going for a swim and walk collecting shells on the East side of Stocking Island. It was fun playing in the waves and trying to out do each other in who could find the best shells. This sunset picture was taken on our way up to this island from Rhum Cay.

George Town, Exuma, Bahamas (2)

Well yesterday was another day in this little piece of paradise. It started off with the girls catching up on a bit of internet time at a small resort very near where we are anchored. While there, we were invited to a noodling party and to another pot luck. The noodling party is where everybody meets at a spot with something to float in the water with and also brings their desired beverage. We were all to meet at the stern of the “Albino Wino”, a power driven catamaran owned by a couple from Edmonton. It was Lori’s birthday, so Jenessa went to work and made her a wonderful orange cake with lemon glaze and lime zest. It was quite a hit. After the noodling party was over we had to rush back to make something to take to the potluck. This was held at Hamburger Beach where we actually had our first beach fire of the trip. It seems a lot of cruisers come down to the Bahamas and only about 10 – 20% actually continues on South. When cruisers hear we have been further south they want to hear about our escapades, so there is never a lack of things to discuss. Also it seems there are regular impromptu sharings, like basket weaving or sarong tieing etc.

Today is the first day of calm seas north and south of this anchorage as a cold front passed through a couple of days ago. So the morning was spent watching and listening to all of the boats that were heading out from here. We figure at least 20 pulled up anchor in our vicinity and headed out within the last hour. We will hang out here for probably a week awaiting some mail and while we work on receiving Lily.

George Town, Exuma, Bahamas

Well after a number of long days and nights we arrived safely at George Town, Exuma in the Bahamas. The trip was longer than expected as we had hoped to clear customs at Mayaguana Island but unfortunately we did not have enough of the right currency nor was there a ATM. We required $300.00 U.S. or Bahamian for the cruising permit. We now have on board Barbados, Euros, Eastern Caribbean (EC), Tobago (TT), Dominican Republic pesos, U.S., Canadian and now Bahamian dollars.

The Bahamian Islands are couple hundred of small low islands with beautiful white sand beaches surrounded by the most amazing blue and green waters. George Town is considered the cruisers capital and we arrived right in the middle of the ”Family Regatta”, so we estimated there are at least a couple of hundred cruisers here. There are many beaches in the general area with names like Hamburger Beach, Volley Ball Beach, Sand Dollar Beach and more. These beaches become the social areas where many organized and non-organized events are held. Our first day here we went to a breakfast potluck and a dinner potluck. It was great sharing with other boaters their favourite spots to stop and preferred routes to take. We are also now exploring our options for where we will end up in Florida.

Jenessa is very excited as her good friend, Lily is coming down in about a week to join us. We are so glad that both girls have been able to have friends come and share in this adventure.