Highbourne Cay

We arrived at Highbourne in the mid afternoon and spent the rest of the day lounging and relaxing. Martin, Ed & Jo went for a swim to cool off and I worked on the blog. Martin cooked another awesome grilled dinner and we enjoyed the sunset from the fly bridge.

The next day started with a shock as Cristobal (the boat we had words with in Big Majors) entered the anchorage, made a beeline for us and circled closely around. (The anchoring area is very large and there were few boats.) Our best guess is that were trying to get a rise out of us by pretending to anchor on top of us, waving. Once they saw we were in the pilot house watching they seemed satisfied and went off to anchor in a proper space. These guys are a real piece of work! I hope we don’t see them again as I don’t trust just how far they’ll go with their sophomoric antics.

Cristobal dropping the anchor, thankfully they didn't put out any rode

Our first adventure that day was to visit the iguanas up at Allan’s Cay, a brief dinghy ride away, to visit the Bahamian Rock Iguanas. We were incredibly lucky that there happened to be researchers on the islands. Apparently they’ve been monitoring this population of iguanas for 35 years. The iguanas are endangered and they only live on these cays in the Bahamas. They’ve been a major tourist attraction for years with large boats arriving every day from Nassau as well as cruisers like ourselves visiting.  We learned that the common practice of feeding them grapes is actually not very good for them – they’re becoming sugar addicts! If you do feed them food, it’s best to feed them with a stick or place it on the grass or rocks so they don’t ingest too much sand and sugar. Now we know to only bring lettuce when we visit them again.

The researchers capture and microchip each iguana and do blood and scat analysis. We had indeed brought grapes (thinking it was healthy since it’s fruit – well, we’ve learned now) so we used a few to help the researchers capture them.

Martin positions temps an iguana

Miss! The iguana makes a mad dash for freedom

Martin temps another

Snagged! This guy didn’t get away

He had some blood drawn

Before I understood I shouldn’t fee them grapes, I had a short stick…

Two babies fought for a grape – my fingers got in the way, ouch!

We had an amazing opportunity to see the iguanas up close. They’re really cool looking!

Poor guy is Not amused

Look at the pink scales along the spin

What a handsome lizard!

There isn’t as much traffic over on the smaller cay next to Allen’s. These iguanas aren’t quite as used to people so they were hiding and researchers were having a harder time capturing them. This also meant that these iguanas aren’t as addicted to sugar. At Allan’s they scoffed at my celery (but did enjoy the lettuce). Here, we were able to lure out a little guy with the celery. I felt guilty that this little one ended up in a bag to get blood drawn but the research is important to understanding their health & ecology and hopefully will benefit them in the long run.

Little guy before his day went bad

Baby conch blazing a trail

On the way back to Blossom we stopped at the Octopus Garden, a snorkel spot on the north side of Highbourne. The wind had picked up quite a bit and there was still a bit of current but Martin, Ed and I got in. It’s mostly bunches of soft coral here, a very different topography from other snorkel sites. It was really pretty. Martin saw a 2-3 foot barracuda but I wasn’t deterred. (I just don’t like the 5 footers.)

Snorkeling...

Gorgeous garden

This was the first day that we had overcast skies and the wind was a bit more brisk than had been predicted. I think we’re all winding down a little after so many days of adventure out on the hook. Everyone relaxed and did their own thing before we got ready to head into Highbourne Cay Marina to have dinner at Xuma.

By that night, the wind had clocked ESE and that meant that we weren’t really in the lee of the cay anymore. We were surprised how bumpy the ride in to the marina was. We arrived a bit soggy but enjoyed a great meal.

Highbourne Cay Marina

Xuma Restaurant

View from the restaurant

Normal brothers

I’m just going to call this the “Morris Face”. They seem to love it…

Heading back to Blossom, Ed's in charge of the spot light

And finding Blossom in the dark night!

Our last night on the hook was a bit restless as the seas continued to pick up from the south and we bobbed about a lot. Martin and I had a heck of a time getting Petal in place to get lifted up onto the boat deck in the morning. Luckily the seas were behind us on the way to Atlantis so the ride was much more comfortable than on the way down. Not to say that I didn’t feel sick, but it wasn’t too bad :/

We arrived at Atlantis in the midst of a fierce thunder and lightning storm. While they scare me a bit, I’d be lying if I said I don’t find them a bit exciting. We had the exact same reception in ’09 when we came into Atlantis in a big storm. We’re really looking forward to the next couple days, showing Ed & Jo Atlantis. It’s an amazing resort, kind of a water-park themed Vegas!

Boat Business.

• Main Engine. Martin went through and double checked/tightened all the fuel lines and changed the secondary filters. The RPM fluctuations seemed to have stopped so one or both actions cured the problem.
• Power Management Underway. We had three generator failures underway. We managed to overload the 20k once, then again as the breaker was too hot. We switched to the 9k and popped that too. The issue is AC. We initially were running pretty much everything on the boat – AC, 2 water makers, the washer and dryer and our batteries were charging as we’ve been on the hook for 2 weeks… We’ll definitely be getting it figured out over the next several days – it seems that spring has turned to summer in the Bahamas and it’s getting hotter, more humid and the afternoon thunder & lightning storms more frequent. All this means Air.Conditioning.
• Air Handler. I noticed that our salon wasn’t cooling down like the rest of the boat once we were docked at Atlantis. Martin used the IR pyrometer to measure the temperature coming from the air ducts. The port side was blowing 80 degrees meaning ambient temperature. He rebooted the handler and it started working properly, putting out cold air.