Sunday May 4 - Little Harbour Cay, Berrys

Got the Dinghy going

Flo's Restaurant and family residence

Waiting to get my hair cut

We have spent a little over a week at our last stop in the Berrys, Little Harbour Cay. Our book says that it was once the most important Cay in the Berrys, with sponge fishermen who raised cattle and had crops of guava, sisal and coconut. There was a sponge blight in the '30s which forced most of them to move and now there is only one family living there. They are well known among cruisers as Flo has a restaurant where she cooks fish and conch in Bahamian style, and will bake bread to order. The anchorage is lovely, with the signature turquoise waters and large rays gliding along the bottom. We have shared the anchorage with a few other boats coming and going during our time here, but still very quiet and peaceful. We finally got our dinghy motor operational here, and Chris cut my hair in a memorable salon on a deserted beach. Though we have been in the Berrys for some time we haven't even begun to see all of them. It will have to wait for another visit as our schedule is demanding that we start moving north in order to meet the conditions set by our insurance company.

Sunday April 27 - In the Berrys

Water Spout heading away from us

Debris in air from nascent water spout

We are enjoying the Berry Islands.
We first anchored at Bird Cay, on the southern edge, and have been slowly working our way north. The islands tend to be very rocky, with scrub type growth on them;the kind you think a goat would love.There are almost always one or two white sand beaches on each, and on the Banks side of the Cays the waters are beautiful shades of turquoise and aquamarine. Some of the islands are inhabited (barely), some not, and a few are privately owned and out of bounds except by invitation. I have been trying some fishing, but have not been at all successful since losing my cedar plug. At one anchorage, while casting as far out as I could, Chris pointed out that we had a huge fish right under the boat! He looked to be some kind of grouper, and was at least 30 pounds and 2 1/2 feet long. He hung around so long, and managed to become so endearing that we couldn't think of eating him, though we did name him "Dinner". He adopted the boat as a new lair, I guess, and spent a lot of time scratching up against it, bumping his head (loudly) on the rudders), and rolling playfully over on his side, as though he were looking up at us. There were several turtles at this anchorage too, grazing and swimming about.
One anchorage spawned a small waterspout just as we arrived. It didn't look like much but it rose over one small cay and had debris swirling in the air one to two hundred feet high! Then it moved off, gathering intensity as it went. It was all the more amazing as there hadn't been a breath of wind all day, and there wasn't any after either!
On the negative side I developed a tooth abcess just as we were arriving at the Berrys, and have been pretty well out of commission. My face swelled just like the caricatures you see of kids with handkerchiefs holding up their sagging cheeks and tied up on top of their heads. Luckily we have a supply of prescription medicines on board and the course of penicillin seems to be doing it's job. When we forked out all the money for those drugs I wondered whether it was worth it, but this small incident alone proves it definitely is.
Also, we can't get our dinghy motor to start, so we haven't been out exploring at all. We do have oars for the dinghy, but the currents are so strong trusting to them alone might not be wise.

Thursday April 17, Leaving Bimini

Sometimes urban anonymity seems quite desirable.
We left North Bimini today and made a real hash of our departure.
All the other boats who were leaving had left, so quietly that they were there one minute, gone the next.
We discussed the variables we needed to allow for when we backed out: tide, winds, local water taxi and ferry traffic, water depths, etc. It turned out there were a few things we forgot to allow for, the major one being the strong current. As soon as we backed out of our slip the current grabbed our (barge) boat, and turned her 90 degrees into the finger docks nearer the shore, so we were almost wedged in.
Chris managed to fight our way our without any damage to the docks, though we thanked our lucky stars that the boat that had just been there had moved! There was a fair bit of shouting and arm waving, not just from us, but we left with only a slightly bruised rub rail and very very bruised egos. I called a cheery goodbye to the dockmaster (with hindsight, it was probably not equally received) and we negotiated the narrow channel out of Bimini waters and headed south.
Bimini is on the western edge of the Grand Bahama Banks, a large area of quite shallow water a fellow sailor likened to a huge lake. It is seldom more than 15-20 feet deep, and quite often too shallow to allow a boat to pass. Because it is so shallow the water is a lovely aquamarine blue, and you can catch glimpses of the bottom. It is like sailing on an old heavy plate glass window: nearly see-through, with a blue green tinge. We were heading to the Berry chain of islands, on the eastern edge of the Bank, so we turned in that direction.
I was finally able to get a fishing lure out and tied to the back of the boat. Chris had got me a lovely one, a cedar plug, that everyone said was fail proof. We were able to hoist our sails and cut the motor, and finally get a bit of peaceful sailing time. It was the first time we have ever had both sails up at once and the motor off. Lovely!
We anchored on the Banks for the night, as it is a long way to the Berrys and we didn't want to sail at night. We anchored in 13 feet of water with nothing in sight in any direction but more water, all equally shallow! Pretty amazing.
On our way to the anchorage, with nothing to be seen anywhere around us, a bird suddenly started following our wake. There were no birds in the sky at all, so where this one came from I don't know, but he was there and peering down into the water behind out boat. He hovered for quite a while before I realized we must have a fish on our line. We reeled in and found we had caught an extremely handsome and pissed off Great Barracuda. He was about 2 1/2 - 3 feet long, but unfortunately our book says they cause "more fish poisoning than any other fish." I assume because of "ciguatera" which can be found among reef fish and their predators. So we couldn't eat him, and prying that mouthfull of sharp teeth off the lure was very daunting. We let him back behind the boat while we thought through our options and the barracuda came up with one of his own. He departed, taking my lovely lure with him, sporting a piercing that will be the envy of the rest of the crowd back at the Sand Bar.

Bimini

Wednesday, April 16

Water taxi in front of Customs House

Looking toward the Banks from Queen Street. Turning the other way we can see the Atlantic.

(notice the number of cars!)

Wednesday, April 16/08

Our plan is to leave Bimini tomorrow, as there is a weather window available. We have refitted our depthsounder with stronger glue and put extra diesel and biocide in the fuel.All the boats are getting anxious to leave, heading either east further into the Bahamas and beyond or west to the USA.
North Bimini has been lovely. We have walked the length of the longest road in the island, which ends at a new development called Bimini Bay. It is partly finished and will have condos and a marina. This is not the length of the island, maybe 2/3 of the way. There are three towns in North Bimini but you would think they were all one if it weren't for the road signs as there is no break in the buildings. Alice Town is where we came in, then Bayley Town to the north of it, followed by Porgy Bay.
We have finally seen a couple of dogs, but they are rare. The two long roads on the island are called The Kings Highway and The Queens Highway and from the higher one you can see both sides of the island at the same time. Bimini has lots of conch and the shells are used imaginatively in the buildings and patches of garden. Some garden walls have the shells placed along the top in various patterns, either slanted side by side, staggered every so often, or just at the corners. The columns at the bar next to us has conch shells circling them where they join the ceiling, and there is a house in town that has conch shells going up all the inside and outside corners of the building. Little garden plots are outlined in conch shells, or have one or two placed near a planting. The arrangement that takes the cake is the garden wall where the conch shells are placed along the top edge every two feet or so, and then painted all over in a drab matt green!
We were finally able to get a little internet time at the telephone company and Chris was able to get the taxes paid (!) and some emails done. I managed to snag my toe on a taut cord during the week (yes, I was wearing shoes) and have been pretty incapacitated since. The Wilderness Medicine course we took said that injured digits could be painful (agreed!) as there was no where for the swelling to go but my toe still managed to be 1/2 inch longer and wider than it's mate, and twice as deep. I have been pretty stoic and refrain from mentioning it more than once an hour or so.
It has been cool here for the last couple of days. The local population is wearing toques and parkas, and Chris is wearing a zipped up fleece jacket. He only does that on the coldest days in Canada! Two young sisters waiting for the water taxi were wearing matching ski outfits AND hats in pale pink and pale blue. The high that day was 72, with a low of 59!
We are all familiar with the computer screensaver of the desert island surrounded by turquoise waters and a sailboat. (the waters here look pretty much like that) It seems everybody has that dream image on their computer. So it was fun to see what the screensaver on the local telephone company computer was - a winter wonderland of a pine forest covered in snow! A local man told of visiting Canada because he simply had to see snow. I guess it underscores the point that we don't always notice the beauty in our own back yard.

North Bimini, Bahamas

Saturday April 11

After 3 tries Chris found both Immigration and our Dockmaster available. He cleared in with the authorities and paid our dues to the Dockmaster. These formalities over, the crew (me!) was allowed off the boat and we had a shower! Then we had a walk along the street in Alice Town. North Bimini is supposed to be 7 miles long, but it can't be even a quarter of a mile wide where we are. There is room for just 2 streets parallel to each other. We found a laundromat, a big priority, and went back to the boat for our washing. I washed our sheets out by hand, but our clothes would take a fair toll of our fresh water and my patience, so we splurged. It was really nice to get that sticky salt feel off everything. We went 2 or 3 miles north, then back along the Gulf Stream side. The views are lovely, whichever side you are on. People are very pleasant, and we have realized we haven't heard or seen a single dog! A lot of islands we have been on have been overrun with homeless dogs so it is noticeable when there are none. We had conch and fries for supper, then went back and crashed at 9:30! We simply can't take the pace! Although many of the weekend fishing crowd have left, possibly due to the coming storm, the band struck up again tonight and played into the small hours. Lots of sailboats have come and gone in the 24 hours we have been here. It's obviously a popular stepping stone to other places.We were supposed to have 1/2 hr. of free internet here, but we can't seem to access it. We'll keep trying.

April 10 - We're off!

The Lighthouse at Key Biscayne- our last view of land

We finally made it, and have crossed over to Alice Town, North Bimini, in the Bahamas. We decided to go for it today, though tomorrow looks potentially better, because tomorrow can change! There were east winds forecast for all day, seas of 1-2 feet, and the same for the seas in the Gulf Stream. A strong North front is expected Sunday, which will last for at least 5 days, bringing storms and winds from the completely wrong direction. We had to head southeast for about 17 miles before we turned directly east and crossed into the Stream. Although Bimini is almost directly due east from the south end of Key Biscayne where we were, we had to go at least that far south to allow for the Gulf Stream current carrying us north again.
It wasn't a pleasant trip as with winds on the nose we had to motor all the way. The waves were definitely higher than forecast and there was also a noticeable north swell that all combined to make conditions very choppy and bumpy. Our poor boat got quite a thumping but it was certainly very doable. Our new depth finder fell off as soon as we started bouncing around, but we were able to hang on to it and will refit it when we get a chance. It's certainly better than nothing, and works pretty well. At least 10 tankers crossed our path on the American side of the water, four of which were a bit too close for comfort. We move so slowly that we don't feel confident we can get out of their way in time if we have to.
We were totally out in our estimate of how fast we would be able to go, and ended up only averaging about 4 miles an hour. Even though we were right on track we didn't think we would be able to reach Bimini before dark. It is a very narrow and shallow channel entry. So we plotted an alternate route that would take us north of Bimini and onto the shallow Bahama Banks, to anchor there. As it worked out we made Bimini in time, tying up at the dock at 7:15 p.m. just before sunset. Customs were still open so Chris cleared in, but had to wait for immigration the next day. Some very pleasant fellow sailors helped us with our lines and gave us their "lucky lures" which they assured us grouper would not refuse.
We are tied up at Weech's Dock. Friday night is a happening time at the dock bar and there is a live band with island style music. There are a lot of sports fishing boats in from Florida, to-ing and fro-ing into the night. A water taxi is behind us plying it's trade to South Bimini just a few hundred yards away. It comes and goes about every 10 minutes. Near their location is a very irate man who is complaining loudly about someone else, and has been for a couple of hours. The water in daylight is a clear turquoise, and we can see right to the bottom beneath our boat. There are black and yellow striped fish beneath us, a starfish, and lots of lovely irridescent minnow sized fishes. We are loving it!

Almost ready

Thursday April 9


We ended up not going to a marina, as we couldn't find one to take us that had the facilities we needed. Pretty strange in somewhere as boat oriented as this. It worked out better, though, as we were able to go to a marina for a few hours for less money and get most of our errands done. This included our much needed pump-out, a quick trip to West Marine for a temporary depth reader and second-hand held VHF. Strangely enough, we couldn't find anywhere to fill our water tanks with potable water, or anywhere to fill our propane tank. We filled the propane when we left Brunswick, but found the other day that it had been leaking. It smelt pretty strongly of gas, but we don't really know how much we lost. We are being pretty economical with our water, so we think we can manage. We have a salt water intake tap on the boat. A lot of people don't like them, because it involves putting in another hole in the hull, but seeing as this was already installed, we figure we might as well us it. It has a foot pump which you use to pump sea water right into your galley sink. I use this to wash the dishes, and it works great. I am really pleased with it, and it certainly saves water. We also wash our hair in sea water, using a pump spray with fresh water just for the rinse.
We are checking the weather and are pretty well decided to go Friday, as if we wait much longer, it will be another week before the opportunity arises, as there is a storm coming.