Nassau to Warderick Wells

Sorry for the delay, but last weekend was very busy with no time for blogging. Let me catch you up. It’s a good thing I keep a journal while onboard, because I’d never be able to catch you up otherwise.

We set out for Nassau about 8am on the Sunday, the 15^th. Seas were bigger than predicted at the start, but mostly following, so it was only a little bumpy but nice and sunny. About 1/3 of the way through the trip we lost at least one wave direction and the ride smoothed out. Both generators worked as programmed, which was nice. We arrived in Nassau Harbor, New Providence around 2pm and were anchored in the East Channel (technically not the harbor) by 2:30pm. Got some additional provisions ashore, secured a marina slip for the following weekend, then had dinner at the Poop Deck. I was craving a burger, which is rare for me and usually only when we’re onboard, go figure. The Poop Deck’s burger did not disappoint.

Monday we exited the harbor’s west end and headed further south along New Providence to anchor in West Bay and later Old Fort Bay (between West Bay and the harbor). We dinghied to the beach at Clifton Heritage National Park for a walk and chatted with some other cruisers who gave us some intel about George Town, Exuma and a lead on a marina in Puerto Rico where we might leave Lady for this hurricane season. Score!

We spent the next few days diving. We dove the “sculpture garden,” such as it was. There were several half domes with holes in them seemingly marking the way to a 5-foot sculpture of what appeared to be a merman, then more of those half domes leading to the largest underwater sculpture in the Bahamas, Ocean Atlantis, at about 20-feet or so. Sadly, the reef near the dive mooring had fish, but the coral was mostly dead. We also dove two wrecks. The Anthony Bell was a 90’ Bahamian tugboat that was intentionally scuttled to create a reef dive site. A few hundred feet away lay the Willaurie, a 140’ Danish-built barge (1907) that sank naturally not long after the Anthony Bell was scuttled, sometime in the late 1980’s. Their bottoms rested in about 50’ of water but they extended upward to about 35’. I stayed up near their tops while the boys explored them more closely. We were able to anchor Indigo Lady in sand on the north side of Goulding Cay to dive the reef there. Again, mostly dead coral, which is depressing to see, but lots of fish. At one point I was swarmed by a school of tangs that were so close I couldn’t even get pictures. That made me giggle.

Friday morning we set out to find the purported shallow reef near the beach in Old Fort Bay, but all we saw from the surface was more dead coral. So we returned to Lady, hauled anchor and headed back to Nassau’s East Channel to anchor for Ian’s last night aboard. Saturday after breakfast we hauled anchor and pulled into a slip at the Nassau Harbor Club Marina. I spent the morning cleaning the cabin and remaking the bed for my folks’ arrival that evening while Dave saw Ian off for his taxi to the airport. 

Then the provisioning began. Dave and I made three separate trips to the nearby market and were just starting to stow the final load when we heard my folks calling out their arrival, around 5:30pm. And who was escorting them? Our friend Paul whom we’d met back in August 2020 at Fort Pierce City Marina. He noticed my folks looking around and offered to help. They told him they were looking for Indigo Lady, which surprised the heck out of him! It was nice to catch up with him a little over the next day as we continued our provisioning tasks. Earlier that same day, Dave ran into the husband of a former colleague of ours, just a couple of slips down from, who had just arrived from the Chesapeake Bay, single handing. Small world! Sunday was even busier than Saturday. I did two loads of laundry at the marina plus we made two more provisioning trips, the last of which was to the market about a mile away. That one required a cab ride back- too heavy a load to haul! Once it was all stowed it was definitely time for fruity rum drinks, then back to the Poop Deck for dinner.

Monday the 23^rd we dropped the dock lines and had a lovely passage to Allan’s Cay in the northern Exumas. Unfortunately, it was too bumpy to dive at the dive moorings, so we just anchored and went for a swim. Tuesday we dinghied to the little beach inside SW Allan’s Cay to show my folks the iguanas, then later moved Lady to the north Highbourne Cay anchorage for a less rolly night. Wednesday brought us further south to Long Cay with the hope of diving from Lady on those dive moorings, but again it was too bumpy. Instead, we anchored and did a little dinghy excursion stopping at a little beach for my folks to practice snorkeling because it has been three years since they’ve done it. Thursday we moved down to Shroud Cay, the first big island in the Exuma Cays Land & Sea Park and picked up a mooring. We did a dinghy excursion partway across one of the mangrove creeks. There was a surprising lack of sea life; we saw only three sea turtles and a couple of needlefish, but it was lovely scenery on a lovely day.  On the way back we pulled dinghy up onto a little beach and played in the current and relaxed in the water before returning to Lady. Yesterday we arrived at Warderick Wells, the headquarters of the Land & Sea Park. We picked up the mooring and went ashore to pay and to get maps of the snorkeling sites and hiking trails, then dinghied around a bit to get the lay of the land.

I’m typing this Saturday morning as we wait for the rain to stop so we can go ashore for a walk. Hopefully the water will be calm enough this afternoon for Dave & I to snorkel one of the reefs.

I haven’t had time to sort through my photos, so enjoy the one of Ocean Atlantis at the top of this post, and when I get to it, I’ll put together a little slide show and post that .

Until then, stay safe and take care of each other!