Five-Star Exumas

Great Guana Cay to Roberts Cay
March 15 – April 3

The islands of the Exumas have quite a few five-star destinations written up in all the guidebooks. We’d already hit most of the highlights where cruisers and, increasingly, tour groups and mega yachts stop. This year, we tried to sail farther off the beaten path and anchor in places we’d never been before—less publicized locations every bit as much worth a visit.

Pelican off the beaten path

Do you see the white horse?

A day so calm the horizon disappeared

Cave on Great Guana Cay

We swam in the pool in the cave

Extra excitement! An extra-big wave almost washes Keith out to sea

Beautiful and powerful

For a few days we traveled with Kim and Cathy from Quiescence. We’d first met them in South Carolina two years ago and had kept in touch ever since. Keith loved having a dive buddy for spearing lobster…and species unknown.

This was a first! A Clinging Channel Crab,
aka King Crab -- delicious!

Kim and Cathy

Our paths keep crossing with people we've met before. We ran into friends from previous years and made new ones.

A familiar boat showed up in a secluded anchorage

At Little Darby Cay it was time to reverse our heading and go north, with a first stop at Cave Cay Marina to sit out a storm. They maintain beautiful gardens there; last year vine-ripened tomatoes were at their peak. But the island's generator burned up almost a year ago and they weren't able to desalinate enough water for the gardens, so the plants died out.

This banana tree survived

Beach on Cave Cay

A conch shell, intricately and
wonderfully made on the inside

Next stop, Little Farmers Cay and Ty's Sunset Bar and Grill

A Haitian vessel that washed ashore (see "Easter Greetings" post below)

Easter Sunday we celebrated the hope found in Jesus’ resurrection at Mt. Olivet Baptist Church on Staniel Cay. It’s the only church in town, and a number of cruisers joined the local congregation for an exuberant service with lots of singing.

A little farther north at Big Majors Spot, the swimming pigs are definitely on the beaten path and well fed.

Are you kidding?! You brought me veggies??

Well, okay, maybe some cabbage

Lobster season was set to end March 31 to give the crawfish privacy while they make babies. Before then, we scurried to the northern Exumas, Keith’s favorite hunting grounds. On the way there, he caught a mahi mahi. The next day he speared a lobster. What a great way to end our month in the Exumas: enjoying five-star dinners in the cockpit in a first-rate chain of islands.

Several delicious dinners

One fabulous meal

Easter Greetings

Little Farmers Cay, Exuma

March 27, 2016

Earlier this Easter week, forty-six people boarded a thirty-foot derelict vessel in Haiti desperate for a better life, hoping to find it in The Bahamas. Their dreams were dashed on the rocks along the shore of Little Farmers Cay, Exuma.

Beached on the rocky shore of Little Farmers Cay

Cobbled rigging

~~

God walked this sod, pressed His holy heel into the earth, let His divinity fill a container of skin and filled His lungs with all our atmosphere of ache. We aren’t alone in this mess. Us on this pale blue dot of a planet in the vast blackness of the cosmos—we are the visited planet. He came. He sees. He knows. We are not alone. 
God is with us...

Ann Voskamp

~~

Sunrise along the same shore

This Easter, for them and for all of us, may the sun rise with healing in its wings (Malachi 4:2). 

Exquisite Exumas

Ship Channel Cay to Black Point, Exuma
February 29 – March 14

When He made the waters around the Exumas, I wonder if God decided to show how creative He could be using just one color— turquoise. One thousand sparkling shades. We wish our camera could capture all the mesmerizing hues our eyes have seen, but it can’t compare. Here are a few pictures to give you just a glimpse of the beauty we’ve enjoyed as we’ve made our way through the Exumas chain, slowly, on island time.

Ship Channel Cay, a sports lodge for daily iguana tours from Nassau

All speared on one day - none went to waste!

Beach on Lobster Cay

MacDuffs Restaurant at Normans Cay

The thirty-year-old remains of a sunken airplane in about 8' of water
at Normans Cay; lots of coral has formed on the wreckage under water

View toward the west over the banks from Normans Cay

A section of the Exumas is set apart as a land and sea park. These islands and the reefs around them are protected in their natural beauty. Fishing, lobstering, conching, and shelling are not allowed. But the views from the hiking paths and at the snorkeling sites are spectacular. Warderick Wells is home to the office headquarters, and we spent five days there while strong east winds blew.

Mangroves at Hawksbill Cay

Southern Ray in the creek at Hawksbill Cay

The mooring field at Warderick Wells (this is the spot
where I injured my thumb two years ago)

Leaving a driftwood sign with our boat name at Warderick Wells

View to the north at Warderick Wells

View to the west at Warderick Wells

Walking on the sand bar at low tide at Warderick Wells

Chris and Eden, a delightful couple we sailed with two years ago
and again for a week this year

Rag Doll, Chris and Eden's Pacific Seacraft Dana 24 

The clinic in Staniel Cay where I first went when I was injured two years ago,
then on to Nassau

Staniel Cay Yacht Club

We support the local economy by buying lobster from "Fishy"

Sunset in the Exumas

Every night, sunset is an event. Along with many cruisers, we salute the arrival of evening by blowing a conch shell horn. The last several nights, someone has come on the radio right after sunset with the comment, “What a wonderful world we live in.” Amen, and roger that!

~~

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white

Bright blessed days, and dark sacred nights

And I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”

Weiss and Thiele

~~

Marooned in Hope Town

Elbow Cay, Abacos
January 21-February 20, 2016

Every cruising season is completely different from every other. Different places, different people, different weather. Especially weather, because it dictates our itinerary and activities. This year’s unfavorable weather has been the topic of conversation since we arrived in The Bahamas.

We started our season by staying an entire month on Elbow Cay near Hope Town due to near-constant high winds. But what a great place to be marooned! The village of Hope Town has a high cute-quotient with colorful pastel colonial cottages and inviting shops and restaurants. Everywhere you go, there’s a beautiful ocean or harbor view.

This cottage is more than 100 years old

The miniature cottage is "The Lizard Lodge" 

View of the Atlantic from a Hope Town cottage

The town’s most recognizable feature is its candy-striped lighthouse, one of only two remaining in the world that are hand-cranked and kerosene burning. Every two hours the keeper on duty uses a hand winch to lift seven hundred pounds of weight to the top of the tower. The descending weights turn a series of bronze gears that smoothly rotate the four-ton light apparatus every fifteen seconds, sending out a beam that can be seen for seventeen miles. The tower is eighty-nine feet high with one hundred one steps to the lantern room. Panoramic views from the top make the climb worth every step.

The Elbow Reef Light Station

Harbor view from lighthouse window

101 steps to the top

A view from the top

An Abaco dinghy, hand crafted right here in Hope Town

We crossed over to the Abacos in order to coincide with friends’ time here. Marty and Barb came to visit Marty’s high-school friend, JoAnne, whose sister owns a cottage on Elbow Cay. It was great to hang out with them while they were here, walking beaches, playing games, eating out. We’d met JoAnne before, but this time we got to know her much better and loved her.

Marty and Barb

JoAnne, Joanie, and Barb

In addition to these friends, we met some very interesting people during the month. Among them:
An older woman who came to Hope Town for the first time in 1957 (when it was a still best-kept secret) and has been here every winter since then in a seaside cottage her father built; she invited us over and showed us around her small and perfectly charming beach cottage…A couple who lived in Saudi Arabia for nine years while he managed a petro-chemical company there (they also have a boat pet, a turquoise iguana)…A couple who took us deep-sea fishing in a boat outfitted with all the best equipment (no trophy fish, only three red snappers); he managed the largest shipyard in the world in Norfolk, VA, her father died attempting to escape from Cuba after Castro came to power…A couple who spent the last fifteen years restoring an 1835 West Virginia brick mansion built by a descendant of George Washington’s brother…A couple who flew their own plane here from Boulder, Colorado…several of the nine “famous Mackey sisters,” daughters of a former lighthouse keeper on the island.

Keith being deck hand. Notice electric reel; they were fishing at 800 feet.

We also enjoyed several events that raised money for local causes, lazy walks on lovely beaches, and meandering bike rides around the island. Then there were the days we hunkered down to avoid wind and rain, reading for hours.

On da Beach Restaurant

A view from Abaco Inn, the first place we stayed in the Abacos 25 years ago 

The protected Sea of Abaco

What to do as weather conditions kept us pinned to the dock?  Settle in, be patient, choose contentment. And thank God for the silver linings in those clouds—the great experiences we would have missed if we hadn’t been marooned.

~~

God, I know You’re not in a hurry.

Your plans for me are on time.

You need no schedule or reminders

For I’m always on Your mind.

Elaine Wright Colvin

~~