From Nassau to Allen Cay and on to Warderick Wells - we are now in the Exumas!

The trip from Nassau to Allen Cay in the Exuma Islands is around 28 miles and takes you across "The Yellow Bank". Three years ago, when we chartered for 10 days out of Nassau, we also went across the Yellow Bank, and I was scared for 6 month before going, not knowing what to expect. Why is the Yellow Bank scary you ask? Well, because there are numerous coral heads, and you got to make sure that you don't sail over them but around them, so your boat doesn't get damaged (you get the idea, right?) One is advised to take this trip during the day (no night passage), as you need the sun, preferably behind you, to help you see the coral heads. They are actually quite easy to spot, you need a pair of polarized sunglasses, you place yourself at the bow of the boat, and you keep your eyes peeled. So that's what we did, Warren steered, and I watched. It takes about one hour to go through the Yellow Bank, and then the coast is clear. We only had to go around about 3-4 coral heads, but still, one got to watch. 
Once at Allan Cay, we stayed for a while. This was our first place to just "be", no agenda, just relax. The first couple of days, there was no wind, the water was flat as a pancake, you could see all the way to the bottom. We tried to fish for the first time, and right away, Warren caught a fish. I was fishing as well, but asked Warren to hold my line, so I could go and prepare us lunch. When I got back up on deck, Warren had put the line down, and when I checked it, there was a huge fish on it. But it swam around in a panic and got itself wrapped around the rudder. So Warren had to dive under the boat and decided to cut the fish loose, as it was too big to bring on board (3ft long)
We also went to shore to see the famous Allen Cay Iguanas. There were many of them, and not shy at all, so you got to be careful. 
The piece and quiet didn't last very long, and another "Northern" came through. These Northern are however quite common for January, even into February, but they get less and less strong. Once the wind settled down, we picked up the hook (the anchor), and started making our way down along the island chain. We stopped at Shroud Cay, and wanted to stay there for a few days, but listening to the weather forecast on the SSB (=marine radio) we heard that another blow was coming, and this one was not going to be a picknick. The forecast was for winds of 35 knots even gusting to 40 knts. The most we experienced so far was gusts of around 28 knots, and we thought that was a lot! For two days we studied our charts, and discussed our options. Where to go? Where to hide? We considered sailing back to Nassau, and even going into a marina as a last resort. This blow was supposed to last for up to one week. After much thought and discussion, we opted for Warderick Wells, in the Exumas Land and Sea park. There are mooring balls at WW, plus there are little islands all around, so good protection from pretty much any direction. We left Shroud Cay for Warderick Wells, and we were lucky to get a mooring ball right inside the main mooring field, yay! We were at WW two days before the blow, and were able to explore the area with our dinghy, and also went for hikes on the island. Once the blow started, nobody was able to move around, we all just stayed on our boats and waited for the winds and waves to calm down. The strongest gust we recorded was 36 knots, and this was in a sheltered area. 

Allen Cay, first stop in the Exumas, it's nice and calm, no wind today ...

Look at the colour of the water! You can see every ripple of sand on the ocean bottom, it's about 10 ft deep...

Warren caught his first fish, it made a nice supper! 

It's not all fun and games, chores have to be done as well! Here I do a bit of laundry by hand...

and then hang it up outside on the life lines to dry. 

We are anchored right across from this little beach...

We go see the famous Allen Cay Iguanas...

When you go exploring by dinghy, this is the stuff you come across all over the Bahamas, but it is so beautiful, you can never get enough.

We are in Warderick Wells!

On our mooring ball in Warderick Wells, there is room for around 20 boats, so we were very happy they had room for us...

We went for a hike up to Boo Boo Hill (highest point on Warderick Wells), we are the 5th boat from the left (the white one to the right of the small black boat). You see the dark blue water surrounded by the light blue and almost white water? The dark blue is the channel that's deep enough for the boats to come in and out of Warderick Wells, don't stray from the dark blue, or you get grounded! 

Here is another view from Boo Boo Hill. On the right hand side, the darker blue, that's the Exuma Sound, or Atlantic waters. On the left side you see Warderick Wells, which is on the Exuma Bank, or Caribbean side. The dark blue connecting the two sides is called a "cut". 

The calm before the storm....we decided to move happy hour to the fore deck...a change of scenery so to speak, instead of sitting in the cockpit, LOL!

Sunset!

Remember how I just explained about the dark blue water in the channel and how you must stay in the dark blue or else? Well, this poor guy was in the dark blue, but the wind caught him and blew him onto the light blue, and he got grounded. So that little dot to the left of the dinghy, that's the guy standing in the water with a rope and an anchor, trying to hold the boat from going even more into the shallows (he jumped in with all his clothes on, even a hat!). His wife was at the helm, steering, and the guy in the dinghy, that's Warren gone over to help. See the white stuff along the shore in  the background? That's the Exuma Sound side, waves crashing on shore, this is a few days after the big blow, seas are still crazy, and we are not leaving Warderick Wells yet. Not until it calms down.

Hope you enjoyed, see you next time!

Christmas in Nassau

We quite like Nassau. This is our third time here, but of course the first time on our own boat. We are anchored right in the middle of all the goings on, we see the cruise ships come and go, watch the super yachts come in, the local fishing boats and ferry boats, they all parade right past our spot. Of course it gets a bit "rolly" at times, because most don't observe the "no wake" rule and blast full speed, or at least almost full speed, past us. Meanwhile, we got our VHS on channel 16, and it's like watching TV, except it's just sound, and very entertaining. Some boats get yelled at for speeding, but only if they speed past the fancy, expensive yachts, us cruisers, nobody cares about. Also people hail one another on channel 16, then say "go up one", or 72, or something like that. So then you quickly change to that channel and eavesdrop into their conversation, it's like the lurkers on FB!! Today we heard one dive boat guy ask another dive boat guy if his lady had a muffin tin as his lady was looking for one. Loads of fun, really. We are so tired from our recent crossing, we happily don't move off the boat for days, just sit and watch. Eventually though, we feel the urge to go and explore a bit, and we do.We lower our dinghy, and off we go. We go down to the main docks downtown, very busy, there are 4 cruise ships in town that day, and it shows. We soon leave, but before we do, we talked to a local girl as I had heard about a festival called "Junkanoo" and I wanted to find out a bit more about this. As she explains, we know immediately, that we don't want to miss this event. So off we go to buy tickets. Junkanoo is the biggest Bahamian celebration, it's a bit like carnival in Rio, held on Boxing day, and then again on New Year's day. When I say Boxing Day, it's really Boxing Night, as the festival starts at 12:01 AM on December 26th. 
We also dingied over into the Atlantis marina, fancy-schmanzy, only multi million dollar yachts parked there, and here we come with our dinghy. However, they were real friendly, and the dock master allowed us to tie up the dinghy for a couple of hours while we went and checked out the casino at Atlantis. We went and gambled for a bit ($20.00 worth), got some free drinks (rum and coke!) and then went back "home".
We also were on the look out to buy some lobster for Christmas, and as luck would have it, I saw some fishermen cleaning their catch. So we stopped and got us two lobster tails, they weighed 1 lbs each!!! Well, you don't want to be stingy on Christmas, right? 
On Christmas Eve, another Canadian cruiser came by our boat, inviting us to go for dinner on shore to celebrate together. Out of 10 boats anchored out, about 6-7 were Canadian! And most of them are from Quebec. We agreed, and had a lovely evening out, rare for us, as we mostly eat on the boat. Then on Christmas Day we cooked up our lobster tails, a very special treat. We ate early, as we needed to rest up for our upcoming nocturnal adventure, the Junkanoo. We slept for a couple of hours after dinner, got up at 11:00 PM, lowered the dinghy and motored over to the marina dinghy dock. (all this in the pitch dark, and it was quite windy as well). Then we walked downtown, to get to our seats just in time for the 12:01 start of the festival. It was so worth it, we enjoyed every minute. The parade took many hours, and was done by 5:30 AM. We didn't see too many tourist at the festival, and the Bahamians around us were very friendly and so proud to share this special event with us. Junkanoo is a big deal to them, it really is a labour of love, they spend all year getting ready for this. They take January off, and by February, they start on next years theme and costumes. 
We made our way back to the boat, went to sleep and spent the next 2 days waiting out yet another cold front before we could make our way across the Yellow Bank and on to the Exumas. More next time!

A "day off" for Warren always means tinkering with parts and spares. Here he took the clean out valve for the water maker apart, he thought it was leaking, but really, it was fine all along. I guess he just misses his days as instrument tech and troubleshooting. No shortage of troubleshooting issues on the boat though, perfect place for a retired instrument tech!

Here we tied up our dinghy at the public dock in Nassau, we had to move out of the way so this big cat could dock as well....

This boat was also tied up, he was preparing fresh conch salad...

Sneaking into Atlantis marina....

.One of the many super yachts..

We drove our dinghy in between these two super yachts, notice the hired hand cleaning the windows ...

We are looking for lobster, and we found some!

Getting ready for Christmas, I am baking a Key Lime pie from scratch....thank you Kevin for a great recipe!

Christmas Eve with a bunch of Canadian Cruisers...

Christmas morning....I made Swiss Christmas cookies back home and brought them along. Also, missing my children, having coffee mugs with their names doesn't really cut it....

A few decorations.... pretty pathetic... but better than nothing!

Happy Hour on Christmas Day!

...and then, the Lobster tails, yum!

And here a few Junkanoo pictures... we had fun!

Hope you enjoyed, see you next time!