MARCH 16 - 27 FIRST HALF OF TRIP: 2200 MILES, SECOND HALF: ?

Proud fisherwoman with catch, off Nassau



Recess at Black Pt. Primary School



"Slaughter", a local racing boat in Black Pt., Exumas

March 17 Technically we are heading back, because we have gone as far south as we want to go. We still have some places to see that we didn’t see on the way down and we should be more direct on our way back, as we’re not planning any side trips (like our diversion to the Florida Keys in January and February). In general our first “half” took 6 months and our second “half” should take about 3 months.

The first week of our return trip we went to Black Point in the Exumas. It is about half way along the Exuma chain and is a small, friendly, non-commercial island settlement. Most of the houses in the center of the settlement have a couple of ladies sitting outside in the shade of a tree plaiting grass strips. We also saw one man doing this and he said they sell the strips to Nassau. There is a “laundermat” and a grocery store, a grade 1-8 school, a police station, and two restaurants here. We followed up on a sign posted at the laundermat and volunteered to tutor in the school for two mornings. Ken had Gregory on the first day, a first grader with a very soft voice; I had Tyrelle, an 8th grade girl who needed remedial work in math and reading. The second day we both worked with 4th grade boys. There were 3-4 other boaters each day who also were volunteering. We went outside with all the children at recess (40 children in the 8 grades). Ken was the goalkeeper for an impromptu soccer game with the little ones!

In Black Point we tried sopadillo fruit. It looks a little like a kiwi and tastes like a dense, very sweet peach, but with no juice. We also got more fresh bread from the mother of Lorene at Lorene’s Restaurant. It smelled so good we had to have some as soon as we got back to the boat, even though it was 5:30 pm and normally we would have been having rum punch and some crackers and cheese.

March 21 Continuing north we sailed to a few favorite stops from three weeks ago. We are seeing some familiar boats, including LOS GATEOWS, a cruising family from New Hampshire with 3 young girls. Debbie and Mike are home-schooling the 2 older girls and the day we saw them this week they had a surprise “field trip” day for their students -- translation: snorkeling and exploring the trails in the Exuma Park at Warderick Wells. We went aboard their boat that night. They have a catamaran and it is very wide, with two pontoons on either side of a large main cabin. Each pontoon has a bathroom and one side also has two bedrooms while the other side has one bedroom and an office. The main cabin has a large galley, a raised counter with bar stools (!) and an upholstered L-shaped settee and dining table. The flat-screen TV is on the dining side of the cabin. There’s also a back deck, maybe 10 ft. wide off the stern of the boat. Pretty comfortable!

We snorkeled a few times during this part of our trip and at one point I noticed there was a 5 ft shark cruising along going the same way I was, maybe 25 ft. away from me. I kept an eye on him/her and kept on snorkeling on the reef. There are little yellow-breasted birds here. They are friendly and come land on your hand if you hold it out. Even better if you have sugar in your hand! Ken had seven at one time feeding from his palm! Our fishing has still been coming up with little results, but yesterday I caught a Spanish mackerel. We had it for dinner last night, just enough to feed two people and delicious.

March 26 We had two great sails the past two days, as it is still quite windy but now in a good direction for sailing. We are now in Nassau at a marina, and plan to head for the Abacos in the next day or so. We haven’t been in a city of this size since Fort Lauderdale in December. There are great stores across the street from the marina and Paradise Island is across the harbor, with it’s large hotels and casinos. In this small marina there is a sailboat from Marshfield and a trawler from Hingham.

We are starting to get a little homesick after almost 6 months on the boat; of course, daydreaming of home is easier since most of the bitter cold weather must be gone by now! We should be winding up our time in the Bahamas in the next few weeks and plotting our passage back across the Gulf Stream for the U.S. We look forward to it being easier to keep in touch with friends and family, but it has been very nice to be in warm weather and in warm company here in the Bahamas.

FEBRUARY 27 - MARCH 15 SMALL CRAFT WARNINGS

Heidi and friends on tournament volleyball team



Ken and crab found on beach in George Town



School Kids in George Town (more pictures next chance I get)

Feb 27 Everyday there is too much wind! It’s sunny and there is lots to do in this area but the wind rules all! It’s somewhat better if we go into the beach on Stocking Island because that is out of the wind somewhat. We have changed our anchoring location twice because of the wind and at one anchorage we were bouncing off the bottom for an hour-and-a-half as the waves caused by the wind rocked us up and down.

Our final anchorage (so far) is quite a way from town, and we need to go to town quite often for supplies and entertainment. The dinghy ride is wet and rough, again due to the wind. But George Town has a fairly large grocery and a few vendors in the park with garden vegetables. We can get phone cards there to use in the payphones to call our parents and kids. There is a straw market where local ladies weave baskets and handbags and they also sell souvenirs there. We also went to George Town recently to watch the George Town softball team play a team of US and Canadian boaters. Lets just say that the locals are VERY good!!

Our timing has brought us to George Town right at the start of the Cruisers Regatta, run by the visiting boaters. This lasts for 10 days and includes a parade of boats past the town and local dignitaries, a children’s day that gets the local school children (3rd & 4th grades) together with the boater children for games, a volleyball tournament, a sand sculpture contest, a big “Ultimate” trivia contest, a sailing race, and MANY more activities. Our favorite so far was the No-Talent Show followed by a dance party on the sand.

We connected up with some friends from the past, Susan and Tom Maddigan from the Catboat Association (the 1970s and early 1980s). They are from Wood’s Hole, and we are finding many other Massachusetts boats here.

March 9 The wind has died down significantly. We are feeling freed up to go snorkeling, beachcombing, and maybe taking a side trip to some of the other small islands near the south of Great Exuma. However, first we need to straighten out a problem with the engine. It doesn’t start sometimes and Ken has narrowed it down to the solonoid (got a new one but still having problems) or the starter (this is a bigger problem as we can’t get a new one here).

March 13 We are very lucky in that the small town here has a BIG Auto Parts Store north of town and they have a mechanic that was able to look at our starter (Ken dismantled it and brought it in -- by dinghy to a beach near the store) and he fixed it the next day. It is back in place and starting our engine perfectly!

March 14 The grand finale to being in George Town was the final night of the Bahamian Music & Heritage Festival. We attended with Tom & Susan from Brilliant and their guests. And about 500 others! It is an outdoor evening music program (with daytime storytelling, straw work, and local crafts) that was 3 days and nights. The final night had some great Exuma performers and some bigger names flown in from Nassau. A Junkanoo group made an appearance (awesome!). What a night -- ending at 2 am with fireworks and another junkanoo group. Unforgettable!!

Thus ends two weeks of sports and partying with the other cruisers, shelling, snorkeling, meeting Bahamians and dancing with them, and fighting the overactive wind! We plan on leaving tomorrow and heading back up the island chain in the Exumas, and then visiting the Abacos in the northern Bahamas.

February 18 - 26 LOCAL HIGHLIGHTS: GOATS, RAYS, & FRESH BREAD

Gil on STELLA MARIS



Looking out from "Peace & Plenty" dock in George Town



Ken with a barracuda he caught on the Exuma Bank

Feb. 25 We’re several islands down the chain of the Exumas at Big Major Spot near Staniel Cay. We are enjoying the weather (mostly sunny every day) and the water (snorkeling to see fish and coral).

We were entertained yesterday morning by two goats on the otherwise unoccupied island. They had a face-off in a cave opening that was near our boat. They pawed the ground, butted heads, backed-up and charged. They paced themselves and several hours later were still going at it until some dinghy came along and came too close, disrupting them (maybe they were glad to end it at that point!).

But one of the best things here in this simple village is a bright yellow house with a “Bread” sign outside. When we first stopped in we were told that we could get whole wheat bread at 4 pm when it came out of the oven, so we went back at 4 pm promptly, and then we ordered coconut bread for the next day. Today on the VHF radio we heard that the Yellow House has conch fritter mix to take home and cook for yourself as well as bread. We’ll be there!

We’ve continued to meet interesting cruisers and exchange stories about where we’ve been so far and where we’re going. Some boats are now headed north and can give us up to date reports on where to stop as we head south and good advice about water depths and which cuts to consider using when we pass from the Bahama Banks side of the Exumas to the Exuma Sound. Some cruisers are seasoned and have made this trip many times and others are also new to this and can laugh with us at our first time exploits.

We met Gil from Miami in the Exuma Land and Sea Park a few days ago. He is single-handing a large John Alden sailboat with old charts and this is his first trip to the Bahamas. We have exchanged information and questions and have traded-off on cooking dinner the last two nights.

We’ve had some beach meetings with larger groups -- some planned and some impromptu -- where we get to gab and get more advice and info. The evening beach gatherings usually include a campfire of driftwood and BYOB. We’re experimenting with different rums and different mixers so the combinations are endless.

Today we snorkeled in Thunderball Cave, and saw many of the colorful tropical fish that hang out there. The area around this cave was used in the Thunderball James Bond movie some years back. There are also large rays that coast along the bottom, mostly ignoring us. Some are more than three feet across and today we saw a very large one that was a gray-blue color.

Feb. 28 We sailed to George Town today. There is a route in more shallow water that is more protected from the wind, but since we are trying to avoid shallow water, we took the route through a “cut” to the Exuma Sound and motor-sailed all day to Elizabeth Harbor where George Town is. We fished on the way but only had one bite, and no luck. The town is large compared to others in the Exumas and has more facilities and supplies. There are estimated to be 300 cruising sailboats anchored here, spread out between 4-5 different areas all in sight of each other. It is quite protected here from pretty much all directions.

There is a morning “Cruisers Net” in this harbor on the VHF radio that is moderated by one person but includes information from other designated volunteers. People take turns reporting on the local business schedules, the weather, the up-coming cruisers regatta (The 37th Annual!). Then each interested boat, in turn, can announce that they have just arrived, or that they have some equipment for sale, or that they need to borrow something, etc. This weekend there were church schedules, information about upcoming trivia contests, announcement of a workshop on understanding the weather in the area, and many other subjects.

March 1 Meals are an interesting subject and ours are almost always good; on board our boat we can cook almost anything and it tastes delicious! Must be the fresh air and the anticipation that if we’re roughing it how can it turn out so well. We often make substitutions in a recipe and the results are so good we plan to replicate them when we get home. Eating out for a lunch or dinner in this area is interesting. You usually get a limited menu and then pick out what you want and then you are told they are out of that. After a few tries you settle on what they DO have. Sometimes as you walk in they tell you they “just have chicken” or that they “will have hamburger when the next mailboat delivery comes in a few days”. The food has been good but you can’t have your heart set on any one favorite! Even conch, the local shellfish, is not always available. Today lunch was not grouper or conch chowder, but the mahi mahi and the chicken on ceasar salad were excellent.

In George Town we have connected up with Gil from Miami and his girlfriend Manny has joined him. There are several other boats here that we remember from other places. Stay tuned for more adventures from the Bahamas!