Little Bay, Great Guana Cay to Palm Cay Marina, New Providence

 

 Entering our anchorage at Little Bay

At anchor, view to the south

Little Bay is the bay just south of Black Point where we stayed on our way down to Georgetown last month. We wanted to go a bit south and check it out – it looked like it could be very pretty. And it was!  The first thing that happened was that our davit broke (as I wrote about in the last post). Things got better after that.

Sean & Louise were anchored at Black Point and Thursday is “cruisers happy hour” at Scorpio’s Bar. So that night we drove Petal up to town to have cocktails and dinner with them.  It turned out that there were a bunch of people at Scorpio’s – an impromptu party of sorts!  We met several couples from boats including Changing Course, Margaritaville, and Spiraserpula and Del Max who we'd been leapfrogging up the Exumas with since Georgetown. After happy hour we went to a restaurant next door, DeShamon, and had pizza.

Heading home from Black Point. The view from the dinghy dock

The next day, Sean & Louise headed out to Eleuthera to take care of some business.  We stayed and got a lot of chores done, including figuring out the davit controller. Friday afternoon we had a real treat when Gayle called us and said that she and Bill were going out snorkeling and asked if we’d like to join them. Martin and I jumped at the opportunity and followed them up at Dotham cut. It was a great snorkel site and to have two marine biologists pointing things out to you was Awesome!  My camera gave me a strange disc warning so I only got a couple of pictures. But in addition to the lobster and turtle we saw a puffer fish, scrawled file fish, brittlestars and more…

Heading out to snorkel off Dotham Cut

Baby hawksbill turtle

Slipper Lobster, his back end, didn’t get a good shot!

Joe & Holly from Scamper came over with their controller that evening and we had a drink together. Unfortunately, their controller didn’t work with our davit but we had a really nice time talking with them. They spend their winters on the west coast of Florida (which I love!) and Holly is a quilter so we had lots to talk about J

SUPing the rocky shoreline

Saturday afternoon I went out on a SUP and explored the bay.  The water was like glass – it was perfection.  Martin and I went back to DeShamon for dinner and had their lobster special. On the way home we checked out the snorkel sites that I had SUP’d over and found 1 small lion fish. It was too late (almost dark) to get him so we’re going to try to find him when we return in a couple weeks.

We planned to stay at Little Bay and wait for our new controller to arrive and then head north to New Providence where we’d pick up my Mom. When the trip to Cuba was cancelled, we gained another 6 weeks to spend in the Bahamas so we thought it would be a perfect opportunity for her to come! It was a last minute decision and I’m so happy that we were able to make it happen on such short notice! We made arrangements for her to fly into Nassau. The plan was to anchor on the SW side of New Providence, where we anchored on the way down from the Abacos, and then dinghy in to pick her up.

But several variables later, and by Saturday night we were making other plans. Most importantly, the davit was working. Then, while we were at happy hour, the folks from Changing Course told us about a marina on the SE side of New Providence. Martin has been pretty adamant about not wanting to go to Nassau but this marina is not in the city and we wouldn’t have to go into Nassau Harbor. It’s reasonably priced and has rave reviews. So now we had a good option to head up early if we needed to and the weather up there wouldn’t be a factor. And finally, the weather factored in. The forecast has been looking pretty chaotic – it seems there’s a “confused weather pattern” currently over the Bahamas. We’re expecting SW/W winds (rare for this time of year) and lots of rain over the next week.  Then Saturday night, we got slammed by some moderate SW winds. By Sunday morning we were hobby horsing so badly in the anchorage (that is completely open to the SW and W winds), that I was sea sick and couldn’t wait to leave.  

Cameras always fail to adequately capture the sea state. These were breaking waves rolling into the anchorage.

With more of the same, and potentially worse to come, we called the marina and found that they had a slip we could fit in that was supposed to come available. We would also be able to provision while up there. There’s a huge Bahamian regatta going on in Georgetown this week and apparently the mailboat (which carries food/fresh produce to the settlements in the Exumas), was hanging out down there. So it was slim pickings for provisioning.  

Party on Blossom at Warderick Wells!

And so we headed north to Warderick Wells on Sunday. Unfortunately, it was no more protected than Little Bay, so we hunkered down and I still wasn’t feeling that great. We couldn't get cell or wifi there to get updated weather info or confirm our marina reservation so we planned to head out to Highbourne the next day where we could be connected.

Monday was more calm and we got to Highbourne Cay and anchored pretty much exactly where we anchored several weeks ago. The only downside was that we had little/no cell reception even though we were anchored right under the tower. It seems that Batelco is having some serious issues throughout the Exumas. (Thankfully the problem started right after we figured out the davit.) Martin was able to get enough reception though to hotspot my phone and we downloaded and updated the weather forecast. We had a large remora visit us in the evening. He swam around the boat for quite a while. We have such a green beard along our waterline, I wondered if he thought he could attach to us! (Yes, bottom cleaning is high on our to-do list once we're out of the marina.)

Tuesday I awoke to distant rumblings. Uh oh, I know that sound. I waited for the sun to rise, listening to louder and louder grumbles. I walked to the cockpit and saw a black wall approaching from the SW. We closed the windows and waited. The wind was blowing at about 4 knots, almost dead calm. Then the water started to ripple oddly and then BAM a 60 knot gust slammed us. Kind of cool really! The sustained gust lasted about 2 minutes and averaged 50k according to our anemometer (or "wind-ometer" as I refer to it).  Blossom whipped around and stared the squall down. Can I tell you how much we love our over-sized Ultra anchor? The only unfortunate outcome was that we forgot to remove our flag and it started to shred again – and I just sewed it up! 

Sugar bird (en route to New Providence)

On our way up to Palm Cay Marina we had a guest come aboard. I remember the sugar birds from back in ’09. They would eat sugar out of your hand. I thought this little guy must be tired, he was so far from land, but he was scared so I helped him find the door. Then I saw “her” partner flying around the boat as well. I hope they landed and took a break on deck if they needed one.

We’re looking forward to spending a few days in a marina, it’ll be quite the change after more than 2 months on the hook. (Our night at Emerald Bay didn’t feel like a real “marina stay”). It’ll be nice to have wifi to catch up on emails and this blog. Our connectivity has been so bad for the past several days that we’ve not been on line much.  I’m also looking forward to a big grocery store and to some fun restaurants. We’ll be snug as a bug in the marina for the two days of strong westerlies and then two days of strong easterlies that are forecast to blow through. It looks like the “confused” weather will be winding down early next week and fingers crossed that we’ll have amazing blue sky and mild winds for my Mom’s visit!

Boat Business:

• Davit. Martin diagnosed & hotwired the davit while I was on line trying to do my share of the research.
• Water makers. Changed the oil in both water makers.
• SSB. I tried to tune in to Chris Parker (weather guru) on the SSB but there was too much static to hear what he was saying. We’ll have to try to play around and figure out if we can turn something off to get the radio to tune in better. I have an “SSB for Idi-Yachts” book I just found. I hope it helps :/
• Air conditioning. We’ve had a few very hot days and have been using our AC. The other night we tried to run it overnight for the first time using the 9k. At some point it stalled out from overload. We think a battery charger came on. Oh, if only we’d put in a 12k instead of a 9k! But we’ll keep playing with it and figure it out. By June we’ll need to run the AC overnight for sure. With no wind, my sleeping comfort level is cut off at about 85 degrees/100% humidity.

Davit Problems

We arrived at Little Bay, Grand Guana Cay around noon last Thursday. We settled in and dropped our dinghy and then the fun began!  The cable retracted but then the davit quit working. There she sat hanging over the starboard side. Our first thought was, Thank God it happened after the dinghy was dropped!!  Weighing in at about 600 lbs, there’s no way we could have gotten her off the boat deck without the davit. And without a dinghy in Exumas, we’d be really limited - it's like not having a car when you live in the country.  

The davit is a small crane that picks up our dinghy, swings it over the side of the boat and lowers with via a cable into the water. It's moved around using a “controller” which looks a bit like a video game control. 

The offending controller

Buttons on top determine what action will happen (rotate left/right, lower/raise the cable) and then you press the trigger to make it happen. The problem was that nothing was happening when the trigger was depressed. 

Martin spent a couple hours trying to diagnose the problem. He checked voltages down at the main unit in laz, checked the electrical connections in the davit itself on the boat deck and checked to see if problem existed in the wiring between the controller and the high pressure unit

With that done and no success I looked through the archives of the Nordhavn Owners Group (NOG) on line. What an amazing resource!  I found the name and contact information for a Steelhead rep and Martin gave him a call. 

The rep told us that he thought it was the controller and that if anyone nearby had a similar davit, ES1000 or ES1500, we could use their controller to test if that was the problem.  On their way out of the harbor, Vector told us that a Fleming 55 had come in. So when we went in to town to get some provisions we stalked the Fleming and saw that they had an ES1000 Steelhead davit. So we hunted them down in town!  The couple, Joe and Holly from Scamper, were great and said they’d come by with their controller later in the afternoon.

Martin called the rep back to make sure arrangements were being made and that everything was in order to have them send a controller to Stanial Cay via Watermakers Air in Ft. Lauderdale. Watermakers routinely organizes importing spare parts for boats. His phone call timing was perfect - the middle of an engineering meeting so he ended up in a conference call with all the engineers from Steelhead. They said that the ES1000 controller would not, in fact, work with the ES1500 but suggested that Martin try a couple of different approaches.

I had also posted on the NOG to see if anyone was nearby with a similar davit and though no one was in the area, we got several suggestions from people. Based on these, Martin tried opening the controller to see if the spring and/or magnet had come dislodged (it had not) and he cleaned connections in main davit.

Still no joy. Joe & Holly came over in the afternoon and their controller didn’t work but we expected that after the second phone call.

Next on the list was to hot wire the variable solenoid to see if we could bypass the trigger function. Steelhead told Martin how to do this and we were assured that doing so wouldn’t mess up our warranty so he went ahead.

And voila – it’s working! We don’t have the variable speed control that the trigger gives the unit but we were able to lift the dinghy with no problem.

Our new controller should arrive next week and we’ll pick it up at Staniel Cay.

Rudder Cay

Blossom at anchor at Rudder Cay. 

I swear, these colors are real and not photo shopped!

View from our deck

We’ve just spent 4 days anchored off Rudder Cay, about 9 miles north of our last anchorage. It’s extremely pretty here and we spent a few days just exploring in the dinghy with our snorkel gear.  The big attraction here is the piano and mermaid that David Copperfield placed in the water off of Rudder Cay. So we were sure to get the obligatory photos!  The current rips through here so everyone flocks to snorkel it at high/low slack. I didn’t get the picture of the 4+ foot barracuda that floated nearby watching all the action. I’ll bet he comes by at slack regularly to check out all the action.

Mermaid at the piano

Martin playing the piano with the mermaid listening in

Me free falling – can’t get any lower because of my ears!

Cays to the south (the Darby’s)

Eagle rays

Sting rays

Snorkeling

Cruising around

Small cays to the north

Mushi Cay, gorgeous resort - David Copperfield owns it. You can rent it for mucho $$ if you'd like :)

We had an especially beautiful sunset one evening and I snapped a few pictures. 

Ithaki at sunset

We visited the boat in the photo to see if they’d like any of the photos and that’s how we met Elizabeth & Morgan. They’re a fun, friendly young couple who just moved aboard their boat, Ithaki. We invited them over for cocktails one evening and had a fantastic time.  I hope that we’ll cross paths with them again!  It was auspicious that they happened to be aboard that evening when we found that our bilge pump had gone off 36 times in the last 24 hours. Morgan, an experienced merchant marine, was able to help Martin sleuth the problem. Someone, ahem, like me, hadn’t turned the faucet off on the swim step hose. The make shift nozzle (we broke it a while back), began to leak and the fresh water dripped into the bilge. I took one for the team – I did taste the water in the bilge to determine that it was fresh (and slightly oily, water :/  yuck.)

A couple of boats that we’d met while exploring the cave at Norman’s Pond came into the anchorage while we were there. We stopped by to say hi to everyone. It’s fun to see the same folks as you skip up the cays.  One afternoon we were looking for a shark in the bay by our boat and our dinghy stalled out (no, we not run out of gas J It was quickly remedied when we got back to Blossom).  The folks from a nearby boat, Gabriel 1, were kind enough to tow us back to Blossom. We were quite grateful as we weren’t making much progress rowing against the incoming current!  We asked them over for cocktails as a thank you and we had a lovely evening with Lyle, Gary & Carol. They’ve travelled here from South Africa via the Caribbean and had the most amazing stories to tell! We saw them a couple days later when we went up to visit Little Farmers Cay. We enjoyed a beer, great company, and got a tour of their very spacious cat. We’re hoping we’ll meet up with them again as we head north.

Gabriel 1 

Sean & Louise left Rudder Cay a few days ahead of us and anchored in a pretty little bay up at Big Farmers Cay.  So one afternoon we took the dinghy up to Little Farmer Cay, about 6 miles away.

Vector at anchor

We met them and had lunch at the Farmers Cay Yacht Club. The owner, Roosevelt, was eager for me to post a pic to their new Facebook page. I got a good photo but as a friend noted, I forgot to include the kalik beer (barely visible center top of photo :)!

Bahamian Lunch

View from lunch at Farmers Cay Yacht Club

Little Farmers is very small settlement. Martin and I walked around for a bit, spoke with a local artist about his wood carvings and headed home.

On Thursday, we had our first spring? summer? storm.  Blossom got a good wash and we anxiously waited for the thunder & lightening to pass. It was nice to have a “rain day”. Martin attended to some maintenance issues and I worked on the blog. We also decided to head up to Black Point on Friday where we’ll meet up with Sean & Louise who went ahead on Wednesday. We had been planning on getting there on Friday but I’d like to start going north.  There are a few bays along the west side of Great Guana Cay that look like they’d be fun to explore and hopefully calm/current-free enough to SUP in. 

There may also be a blowy front coming next week from the west. Since there aren’t many places to take cover from west/southwest winds, everyone will be cramming into the nooks and crannies. So I’d like to see Great Guana now and be positioned a bit north and on the bank in case we need to duck in for a day or two.  We’re also in need of some fresh food and there’s a grocery store in Black Point.

The weather is definitely changing. In addition to our first thunder storm, the winds are calming down and it’s getting warmer. It was so calm the other night that I looked down and saw this:

We were just sitting on top of our anchor in what looks like really shallow water. It’s actually about 11 feet deep.

I know I post a lot of sunset pictures, but I can’t help myself. So here are a few more J

Petal and her new friend enjoying a pink sunset

Boat Business: 

• Martin finished some routine maintenance things like cleaning strainers and filters. 
• He also cleaned the bilge since I was kind enough to fill it with clean water for him.  

Next post though...getting parts shipped to the Exumas :/  How's that for a cliff hanger?!

Windy winding ways at Lee Stocking

Our last evening in the anchorage, enjoying cocktails from the flybridge

Emerald Bay Marina, in need of landscaping!

Blossom and Vector nose to nose

A week ago, last Saturday, we headed out of Elizabeth Harbour to Emerald Bay Marina just 13 miles north.  We needed to go there so we could pick up some diesel and gas and decided to spend the night there so we could better time our arrival into Adderly Cut the following day. We spent one night at the “no services” dock (no water, electric, pump out, etc) and docked right in front of Vector. We all went to dinner at a local bar/grill and got ready to head north the next day. The marina has very nice floating docks and facilities but it looks undone - they ran out of money before the landscaping was finished. I understand that the marina is currently for sale. 

We left the marina the next day and arrived at Adderly Cut in the afternoon. Vector was able to squeeze through and anchor right in front of the now defunct marine research center on Lee Stocking Cay. They only saw a bit over 7 feet as they went in and it was high tide so we decided to hang back and anchor a bit farther north.  We anchored in a spot that Michel  & Caroline from Sea Turtle pointed out to us where they used to anchor their 7’2” draft sail boat.  We’re backed up close to a sand bank but have plenty of swing room. 

Blossom art, drawing faces

Anchor track, doing the figure 8s

We’re having a very strange phenomenon happen here though.  Normally in high winds or with a strong current, the boat will pull out to the end of the anchor chain and you swing back and forth at the end of the chain. If winds are light, we tend to meander and sail quite a bit, resulting in a messy path as Blossom does a walk-about through the anchor circle.  In this spot, on the rising tide, Blossom is caught in an OCD-like pattern of pacing around in circles making a figure 8 over our anchor. Petal flips back and forth, lying sideways to Blossom on the port or aft side as the lee side changes. It’s the strangest thing we’ve seen yet at anchor.  Obviously there’s a strange fight going on between current and the wind and/or we’re lying in a strange eddy. You can see that we let out more chain after we went out in Petal to make sure we wouldn’t wash up on the sand bar with more scope.

To the west, you can see how the sand bar cuts the outgoing current so the sailboat is comfy.

Anchorage to the east where Vector was anchored.

  

Blossom at anchor

It was quite windy here until the last couple of days. Now it’s finally calming down a bit.

We’ve been here now for 5 full days and we’ve had a great time exploring.  I managed to capture most of our explorations with photos…

They have a pretty pinkish hue

These two were circling each other, having a standoff it appeared

Big, big guy

Martin on the beach after the iguanas got tired of waiting for food

We visited Leaf Cay and were mobbed by pink iguanas as soon as the dinghy landed. We didn’t bring food so I felt a bit bad but we saw a tourist boat come after we left so they got their snack!  These iguana were bigger than the ones up north and a bit more bold.

Even the birds were bold!

We spent a couple of days snorkeling around the area. We found a nice spot on the west side of Norman’s Pond. We saw a tour boat snorkeling there and returned some pool noodles that were making a break for freedom. When they left we checked it out.

It was a shallow reef area with lots of juvie fish

It’s a bad picture but that’s a file fish

Shark! (He’s small, about 3-4 feet, but still!)

One day we went out looking for a snorkeling spot off the cays near the cut. Then we found a small shark swimming in the shallows who was also looking for fish and that kind of killed the mood for me.

There’s a salt pond in the middle of Norman’s Pond Cay that we checked out one day. The entrance is too shallow, even for our dinghy, so we returned at high tide with a kayak (Martin) and a SUP (me). You enter through a shallow canal lined with mangroves and it opens into a very large, shallow pond. It was tranquil and beautiful. The canal was a nursery for fish. We had hoped to find conch shells there that had died of natural causes so they’d have no holes. (We want to make a conch horn). But it seems all the conch were harvested long ago – we only saw a few small live conch and a few decent old shells that had been harvested. We did manage to find a couple that might work. They’re soaking in bleach now.

The entrance to the pond

A huge ray came by to watch Martin anchor the dinghy

The mangrove-lined canal

Baby barracuda (about 6 inches).

He was just as curious the adult barracudas seem to be. He followed us a bit through the canal.

The salt pond

A couple people have asked me why I don’t have pictures of me in the blog more often. Here you go!

Exiting the canal

We did some exploring by dinghy to check out the neighborhood. 

There are a few beautiful beaches along the east side of Lee Stocking Island.

We also went out to see the “tug and barge” cays that sit off to the southwest of the anchorage. There wasn’t much there but we did see a gorgeous osprey eating a fish. I wish I’d been quick enough to catch a picture of him as he flew away with this lunch. I don’t think he was happy we were there, he was quite vocal about our approach.

  

We managed to find the “submarine cave” on Norman’s Pond Cay after looking for it a couple of days. You need to be at low tide, and it helps if you see a family of cruisers who’ve just found it! I jumped in the entrance but had no desire to check out the 250 feet below!

Cave

Living creature or fossil?

Blossom in a ray of sunlight during a rain shower

We’re leaving this afternoon to go to Rudder Cay, about 10 miles north of here. Sean & Louise went up yesterday so we’ll be meeting them there.  We’re looking forward to exploring the area and checking out the mermaid and piano snorkeling site.