Bahamas – Page 4 – Life on Lady

Reefs and Recovery

Prior to the pandemic, when we thought last year was the real start to our cruising life, we did not plan to visit the Abacos because they’re in the extreme NW Bahamas, the opposite direction from the Caribbean, our ultimate target. Besides, they had just been hit by Dorian in September 2019 and were only about 6 months into their rebuilding efforts when we set out from Georgia in early February 2020. (If you’re new to my blog, read this post to find out why our boat was in Georgia). When we realized we wouldn’t have a full cruising season again this year we talked about what we would or could do given the ongoing pandemic and Dave’s hand surgery and recovery timeline. Regardless of where we chose, we knew Indigo Lady would be in the hurricane belt for the entire hurricane season, with us on board for part of it. We also knew we couldn’t go too far.

As lovely as it would have been to see more of the Florida Keys, we didn’t want to delay our trek to the Caribbean any longer. The Bahamas are the first leg of that journey for us and they have a wonderful hurricane hole in the Berry Islands where we can leave Lady when we go back home to New Hampshire this fall. Extra bonus, when we resume cruising next January we don’t have to cross the Gulf Stream; it can take weeks in the winter to find the right weather window to do so. Now the Abacos seemed like a viable destination. Other cruisers rave about it as a destination for its friendly people and the beautiful diving and scenery. We knew we could easily spend a couple of months there exploring. They could use all the visitors they can get, too, since their economy relies heavily on tourism, which they have not had a lot of these past two years. To the Abacos we would go.

We have been in the Abacos coming up on four weeks. We’ve had several days of diving and have explored each island we’ve been to. From what I’ve read, the reefs have been declining over the years, some due to increased tourism but mostly due to the changing climate. Still, they’re in better shape than I expected. There have been a couple of beautiful dives with a good crop of healthy corals and small reef fish, others have been mostly brown with either remnant healthy corals or returning corals, hard to tell. The Bahamian government has been creating more coral & fish preserve areas since the early 2000s and there are several here in the Abacos. No fishing is allowed in these areas and you have to either anchor in sand, avoiding all coral and sea grass, or pick up one of the dive moorings, few of which remain after Dorian. I’m glad to see these efforts. Hopefully they’re making a difference. Our friend Ian is with us for a little over a week. He dove this area about 20 years ago, so it will be interesting to hear from him how the reefs have changed over those two decades.

Thus far we’ve spent time exploring the out islands of Elbow Cay, Man-O-War Cay, Great Guana Cay, and Green Turtle Cay. These are barrier islands facing the Atlantic, on the east edge of the Sea of Abaco. We spent one night at anchor outside of the private canal development of Leisure Lee on the “mainland” of Great Abaco Island on the west side of the Sea of Abaco, and a couple of nights at Marsh Harbor, also on Great Abaco. These places are at varying stages of recovery. Hope Town, on Elbow Cay, and Green Turtle Cay seem to be the furthest along. Marsh Harbor is still looking wrecked. Dorian first made landfall in the Bahamas over Elbow Cay (Hope Town) with 1-minute sustained winds of over 180 mph and gusts over 200 mph. It crawled slowly over Grand Bahama and didn’t weaken for a couple of days and even as it eventually did weaken, it pulled northward slowly. Most of the locals were stuck here during Dorian. I can’t imagine the terror they felt or the emotional scars that experience left, especially on the children. One woman we spoke to on Green Turtle Cay told us that families moved from one house to another during the storm; as one was destroyed, everyone moved to the next.

There is a lot of active rebuilding in all these areas. It is through the unquenchable perseverance of the locals, supported by numerous aid organizations, that these islands are making their comeback. We see barges running back and forth between islands with heavy equipment and building supplies. On every island is the sound of saws and hammers and the sight of stacked new building supplies waiting to be used. On Green Turtle Cay we watched a house being demolished and loaded into a dump truck for removal. Something new will take its place. Each island we’ve visited has at least one open restaurant, a couple of open shops, and a grocery store (although the one on Great Guana looked closed to us). We’ve been able to find fresh produce easily, which I wasn’t sure would be possible in a remote area like this that’s still recovering from a hurricane. We’re going to have to remember to actually eat all the frozen veggies we stocked up on in the U.S.!

The pandemic hasn’t made the recovery any easier. At least 50% of the Bahamas’ economy relies on tourism one way or another. The Bahamian government has had to balance the need for tourism dollars with the need to keep its people safe from COVID. They have opened up more to travelers, requiring pre and post-arrival testing for those unvaccinated. As of May first, fully vaccinated travelers with proof of vaccination can forego the testing requirements. Masking and social distancing remain in place, with varying degrees of enforcement on the different islands. They have started a vaccination campaign here, and still impose island by island shutdowns as warranted to control spread.

There are other parts of the Bahamas we could have explored this year, equally as beautiful, equally as close to the Berry Islands where we will end this cruising season, but not devastated by the hurricane. We decided that this is a small way we can support their rebuilding efforts; show up and spend money. We’ve pulled into the harbors that have moorings and paid the (remarkably small) fee to support the mooring owners, which have surprisingly not been big marinas. We tour the town on each island and while ashore buy lunch, a handful of groceries, sometimes treats at the local bakery, and mementos and gifts in their shops. We’ve purchased some groceries in each location and some small mementos and gifts from their shops. We also learned that there is a way to donate online to support the dive moorings. We don’t care about amenities; we have everything we need onboard. Some islands have multiple lunch options, others only one. We don’t care, they all serve fabulous food. We can see hints of what the Abacos were before Dorian and why people flock here by land and sea each year, why other cruisers rave about the Abacos. Sure, we’re missing out on meeting a bunch of other cruisers, but we also don’t have the typical crowded anchorages and mooring fields and we’re having some great conversations with locals. We’re having a wonderful time. I’m glad we came.

It’s been a tough two years for the residents of the Abacos, and it will take them years to completely rebuild. If you feel so inclined, there are numerous ways to support the residents of the Abacos in their rebuilding efforts. Please share this link widely. (I’m just passing along information; I don’t get any compensation for advertising this list.)I’ll leave it at that. Stay safe and take care of each other!

Diving the “Coral Gardens”

Sorry I didn’t post last weekend as promised. We were too busy enjoying ourselves. I believe I promised you a description of our first real dive here.

I don’t know who named this area “Coral Gardens.” I suspect it was a local dive shop. At any rate, it was definitely worth backtracking to dive here. We knew there were dive moorings for small boats, so we couldn’t take Lady over. Instead we loaded the hookah system and our gear into dingy and made the 1.5 mile run to the dive site. The site is across from one of the cuts between barrier islands out to the Atlantic side and there was some swell coming in. Fortunately, a wet dingy ride doesn’t matter when one is going diving. There was nobody else there when we arrived around 10:15am, so we had our pick of the dive moorings. We picked up the one in the center so we could swim easily in either direction depending on the swells, which there were, and any current. As soon as we picked up the mooring, a little sea turtle came over to greet us. It was then that I realized I’d left my underwater camera on Lady! Argh! Of course the little turtle swam around our dingy and hookah the entire time we were preparing for the dive and I couldn’t get any photos <sigh>. He skedaddled as soon as we got in the water.

I was amazed at how big the reef was, given that it’s on the inside of the barrier islands and not on the Atlantic side. It was probably a couple hundred yards long; we didn’t dive the whole length of it. At the deepest point it was about 20 feet tall. There was plenty of reef all the way up to the surface for snorkelers to enjoy as well. There were many fish, small ones, like a nursery reef.

The current on top of the surge was tiring, so our first dive was only about half an hour. When we came up for a snack and some water, all the moorings were occupied! Another dingy was sharing our mooring and had some snorkelers off it’s stern in the shallow part of the reef. We chatted with the guy driving that dingy, had a bit of a rest and went back down for another, slightly longer dive. The current had abated and we stayed in the deeper part where the surge wasn’t as strong. When we came up again, our neighbor dingy was gone, and the boats on the other moorings were just preparing to leave.

Once we got back to Lady, we put our toys away before having lunch. “Putting our toys away” is about a half hour process. We have to get the hookah and hoses back onto Lady from the dingy and rinse it all with fresh water. Then we have to rinse all our gear and ourselves and set everything out to dry. On diving days we always spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing, not that we need and excuse to relax.

We were preparing to return to Coral Gardens the next day in the afternoon when we saw dark clouds and rain not too far away. Good thing we hadn’t taken off in the dingy yet, because it would not have been fun to get stuck in that squall out in dingy! It only clipped us with some showers and winds on Lady but went right over the dive site. Our plans thwarted for that day, we hunkered down inside for the rest of the afternoon. The following day we did return to Coral Gardens and this time I remembered my camera. So I’ll stop blabbing and let the video speak for itself. Enjoy!

FYI, it takes too long to put together these videos and I’d rather spend my time down here doing other things. Further videos of our exploits in The Bahamas will have to wait until we get home in the fall, just like I did last fall after our dive trip to the Florida Keys. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, scroll back to my posts from September-December 2020. That was some great diving!)

Be safe, and take care of each other!

Berry Islands to Abacos

Two weeks ago we were anchored in Bullocks Harbor off Great Harbor Cay in the Berry Islands, waiting out a big blow of indeterminate time. The winds lasted about a week, so we had extra time at GHC. Since I’m catching up on two weeks, you might want to grab a drink or snack and settle down someplace comfy before you continue reading; this is a long one.

We spent a couple of days exploring by bike. Those folding bikes we’ve been hauling around since 2019 finally earned their keep. We found Shell Beach, which despite its name had no shells, at least not the day we visited. It did provide a lovely walk on a soft, white sand beach, however. It’s on the Atlantic side of the island, so we could see the impact of the big winds on the seas. We also found the resort ruins up the hill from the marina. It must have been quite something back in the day. There was one cement staircase we were able to climb for a more top-down view. The remains of the courtyard include the old pool filled with accumulated rain water now. There’s another ruined resort at the north end of the island that we want to check out when we go back in August, Sugar Beach Resort. We’ll also have to talk to the locals and find out the history of these abandoned resorts.

We had lunch one day at Brown’s Garden and had a long conversation with the wonderful owner, Ronnie. His wife cooks a delicious meal! We’d hoped for lunch another day at Hammerheads, but it was closed, so we got a quick takeout lunch at the Whitewater Grocery & Restaurant. We both ordered a club sandwich. It was kind of comical. The woman taking our order was telling us it had turkey, ham and bacon, oh, but they were out of bacon. No problem, we can live without bacon. About 5 minutes later she found us in the grocery aisles to tell us they were also out of tomato. I said, “That’s okay, we’re out of tomatoes on our boat, too. We can do without.” Because of the big winds, the mailboat, which also brings food to the island from Nassau (which gets it from the U.S. mostly), had been unable to deliver. That has to be very difficult on the locals when that happens, especially with there being only two tiny grocery stores on the island.

The best part of being stuck at GHC for 10 days was that we finally caught up with a couple we met in the Dismal Swamp back in mid-November of 2019. We met Alex & Corey of Wildly Intrepid on a clear, chilly afternoon when eight boats transited from the north lock to the Visitor Center dock and tied up for the night. We chit chatted a bit that evening and again the following frosty, 31^oF morning. We’ve followed each other on social media since then, but the pandemic had prevented us from meeting up again, at least until the big blow at GHC. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we were finally on the same island chain! They were down at Hoffman Cay (where we had spent two pandemic weeks in March 2020) and were heading to GHC to be out of the winds and to stage to cross back to the U.S. Over the week that we shared the anchorage, we snorkeled a couple of times, walked ashore a bit, and shared several dinners and late nights talking. It was so fun to get to know Alex and Corey beyond their social media (which you can check out yourself on their Wildly Intrepid YouTube channel or their Instagram @Wildlyintrepid). This is one of my favorite parts of cruising, meeting interesting and fun people. It’s always a bit sad to say goodbye, but who knows, our paths may cross again in some unexpected place.

On Saturday, May 22^nd, Dave and I were taking the dingy into the marina to ask a question, when another couple we met in the anchorage waved us over (hello Bob & Pam on Porkpie!). They had just heard that the island was going into lockdown for two weeks and if you went ashore you were stuck. So back to Lady we went and turned on our VHF. Early afternoon, the Royal Bahamas Defense Force (RBDF) broadcast that all boats in the marina or harbor were prohibited from leaving, they even put a military vessel at the mouth of the harbor to emphasize the point. We were told to hail the RBDF with questions, so we did. They gave us instructions to call the local police to get their okay to leave. Okey dokey, we called the police. They were fine with us leaving and told us to hail the RBDF again and tell Lt. Cox that we were okay to leave. Right-O, back on the VHF to hail the RBDF. We relayed the message from the police, but since we weren’t leaving until Monday, we were instructed to hail them right before we left. Dizzy yet? We felt fairly confident that we’d be allowed to leave Monday, but we had one additional step we needed to take anyway. Cruisers are supposed to submit domestic travel health visas when they move from one island group to another. Sunday morning I submitted ours to move from the Berries to the Abacos. They were immediately approved; one more piece of documentation that we were allowed to move. Monday arrive and we saw that Wildly Intrepid had already left for the U.S. Surely we’d be allowed to move, too. Dave hailed the RBDF at 6:00 (before coffee!), gave them the spiel of everything we’d done to get approval and they approved us to leave. Sweet! Not two minutes after our approval, four other boats hailed the RBDF also seeking approval to move on. We started something.

We had a lovely cruise Monday across the Northwest Providence Channel to Cross Harbor on the west side of the south end of Great Abaco Island. It’s not really a harbor, but it was a great anchorage for the calm night, in crystal blue water. We were up early again Tuesday and on our way around Hole in the Wall, the southernmost point of the island, and up the east coast to Little Harbor. About 10 minutes out, we were joined by several dolphins who played in our bow waves for about 15 minutes! I never get tired of watching dolphins do that. Unfortunately, that was the only good part of this leg of the trip. As we neared the point, the seas were not as forecast and it was a miserable 10 hours for me. The seas and winds were almost on our nose, a little to starboard, but the seas were a bit confused and from a couple of directions, so it felt like we were in a washing machine. I was mildly seasick most of the final 8 hours. I never used to get seasick, grrrrrr. The seasickness was exacerbated by the spasms in my midback, which alone can make me feel a little off. I munched on crackers and other carbs all day. I got a couple of hours reprieve when we got to a point where we could change course about 50^o to port, aiming toward land while still making forward progress to our destination. This put the wind and waves more on our stern, which doesn’t bother me. Eventually we had to beat back into the seas and winds to get around the next point of land before the cut we needed to pass into. A couple of hours after that we were turning west into the cut for Little Harbor and soon thereafter the reefs and small outer islands cut down the swells and my tummy settled. We anchored off Lynard Cay for the night, a couple of miles north of Little Harbor. Lesson learned, take seasick medications before any long, open-water crossing, just in case, and keep more seasick meds onboard.

It’s almost 5pm and Dave has been in the hammock for about 20 minutes with his drink while I sip mine and type this. Something is wrong with this picture! This is long enough already, so I’m going to stop here and pick it up later with a bonus mid-week post, so stay tuned. I promise to try to post weekly from now on, somewhere between Friday-Sunday.

Stay safe and take care of each other!

Bimini to Great Harbor Cay, Berry Islands

We met a cool couple our first evening in Bimini (if you’re reading this, hi Craig & Roxanne!). We chatted with them for quite a while on our back porch and planned to hook up the next day to ride around the island. Thankfully, Dave & I had leftovers to warm up because we were beat from the passage from the U.S. We slept well that night!

After breakfast Wednesday morning we met up with Craig & Roxanne, rented a golf cart for a couple of hours and tooled around Bimini. The first stop we made was at Nate’s bakery for some coconut bread and cinnamon raisin bread. (Dave made French toast out of the coconut bread next morning- yum!) We all had lunch at CJ’s up the hill from Blue Water Marina- conch all around in one form or another. I had the conch fritters- yum! After lunch we got a tour of their awesome boat. After that, Dave & I went for a swim at a nearby beach, took showers and walked down the road to Big John’s for dinner. I bet that place is hopping in a non-pandemic year. On this night there were just two couples and a guy at the bar. Lovely view, good food, wonderful service.

We caught up with our new friends after dinner and had them over for rum and conversation. They helped us with some planning for our trip to the Abacos and shared a lot of their knowledge of Bahamas to the Virgin Islands when we told them about our plans for next season. Thursday morning we tossed the lines a little after 8am. Craig & Roxanne saw us off. Hopefully we’ll stay in touch. That’s one sad part of cruising, meeting great people and having to part because you’re on different tracks.

We had a plan A and plan B for our crossing to the Berry Islands. Plan A was to go about halfway, anchor off Mackie Shoal for the night and finish the trip to the Berries on Friday. Plan B was to just go straight through to Great Harbor Cay and drop the hook in the dark in the same area we anchored in March 2020. The cruising conditions were gorgeous, so we opted for Plan B. We made good speed, averaging 5.5 knots. Just after the halfway point we started passing clusters of anchored and dormant cruise ships. We passed at least two dozen! Sixteen hours later, just before midnight, we were anchored. We thanked the weather gods with an offering of rum, had some ourselves, then hit the hay.

When we got up Friday morning, Dave grilled cinnamon swirl bread for himself and the coconut bread for me (I’m addicted!). We were very thankful we’d decided to cruise straight through Thursday, because Friday morning a band of showers came through. I don’t think it would have been as serene a cruise from Mackie Shoal to GHC had we opted for Plan A. We busied ourselves with some minor boat tasks during the rain. Right around lunch we dingied to the marina to arrange for a slip for the latter half of hurricane season. We had lunch at their little restaurant shack then dinghied over to the dock near the actual town to explore a bit. We found the local liquor store and bought a bottle of Bahamian dark rum. Then we came across a well stocked, small grocery store and bought a few items, then headed back to Lady for hammock time followed by dinner and a movie.

Today we had to dinghy to the marina for 8am to meet the guy at the marina who could approve and arrange for our hurricane season slip. We had a nice talk with him and headed back to Lady shortly after. Today was boat chore day. I was in the mood. I did some laundry (clean sheets!), thoroughly cleaned our cabin and head, which I’d been aching to do, and thoroughly cleaned the salon and galley. Dave helped clean the spots I couldn’t reach easily. Dave made water, made bread, cleaned the hulls (again), fixed a couple of rattling cabin fans, dried out the bilges and got dinner going in the Instant Pot. By 3:30pm we were cooling off in the water off our stern and shortly thereafter were in our hammocks with drinks. We opted for Dark & Stormies today. It’s neither dark nor stormy here, but the wind did kick up as predicted as a front settles into the area.

The big winds are from the direction we wish to head next. How long they will last is uncertain at this point, according to the forecasts. It’s windy but not bouncy in the harbor (we’re on the lee of the island- the west side, while the winds are from the ENE). Beating into the wind and waves to get to the Abacos would not be a comfortable ride, and we’d probably only make about 4 kts, so we will bide our time here in this very protected harbor and move on to the Abacos when the conditions are more comfortable. Until then, we will spend time exploring the island.

Be safe and take care of each other!