January 29 - February 4, 2023
Our adventures in the Bahamas continues with us hopping around the Exhumas.
Sunday, January 29th
We hoisted the sails and Scott supervised my helm time as we headed to Shroud Cay.
Apparently, anytime there are two or more sailboats out with their sails up, it’s a race! 😂 These fellas are quite competitive, too! And although I’m at the helm, it’s Scott Hansen doing all the work with the sails (and we’re winning!). It was made even more fun by the fact that the S/V Strathcona (a 39’ Leopard) was a close match to Paul’s S/V Kya Anne (a 40’ Leopard).
I was a leisurely day, complete with naps, laughter and another spectacular sunset.
Monday, January 30th
Later, after we had all enjoyed our separate adventures, Stu & Bry dropped their dinghy and came over to join us for cocktails and snacks. Teri resurrected the former bartender within her and whipped up batch after batch of margaritas, which the group was drinking faster than she could make them.
We had SUCH a good time- there was so much laughter that I am sure that every boat within three square miles could hear us howling. At one time or another, half the group was complaining about their stomachs hurting from laughing so much and everyone was subject to teasing – Paul got a rash of crap about his boating peculiarities – everything from his proclivity to make water (“I gotta make water” is his everyday mantra) to how much water people were using 💧.
He responded to our teasing by telling Bry and Stu (with righteous indignation) that NOBODY wanted to help him wash the boat when he asked (a week ago, when we were tie up in the marina due to incoming inclement weather). I interjected to add that he was Mr. Crabby Pants, so yeah, we were all avoiding him like the plague!
Bry & Stu shared their own water stories, like the time Bry rushed through her shower as quickly as possible to ensure that Stu would have hot water for his shower, only to be outraged shortly thereafter when he luxuriated in a LONG, HOT shower after she got out.
I laughingly pointed out that Paul tends to get ‘twitchy’ when people stray from his (long) list of rules, which he vehemently denied (but Scott and Teri confirmed). Bry confessed that she was also tended to get ‘twitchy’ too, and it was usually about water consumption.
It was a good time with good people.
Tuesday, January 31st
After my Tuesday morning online bible study group session, I enjoyed the watching the colors of the water as we sailed. After I had savored the view for a while, I laid down on the trampoline and napped for most of the morning sailing run.
Time feels a bit ethereal, and the days are blurring together, but I’m pretty sure we spent 4-5 hours motoring and sailing from Shroud Cay to Warderick Wells (still located in the Bahamas). Bry and Stu were close behind us, and the wind meant the sails went up and the race was on, again.
Determined to win, or at least distract our competition, Paul broke out the long-distance water guns and various parties (who shall remain unnamed) took shots at the S/V Strathcona and her crew, while Stu yelled things like “Cheaters!” since we had motors AND sails running. (However, they also alternated between sails, motors and a combination of both.)
Once we anchored, it was a leisurely afternoon of swimming and paddle boarding.
We wrapped up the evening with a movie, Pirates of the Caribbean (Curse of the Black Pearl). It was the first time I had even seen it all the way through, and I was not particularly impressed. How had they made so many sequels? Anyway, I digress…. Once movie night wrapped up, we all called it a night and were in our respective berths by our usual 8:30/9:00 p.m. bedtime.
Wednesday, February 1st
When I woke, I spent the morning working on my The Bait of Satan workbook. I know I have said it before, but this book is INTENSE. The amount of self-reflection required is staggering, and while I am a huge advocate for personal growth, this much personal growth is just plain HARD. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to look in the mirror and face the not-so-flattering behaviors and mindsets I have. When I finally emerged, having brushed my teeth, and pulled my hair into a sloppy French braid, Scott was the only one on board. Teri and Paul had finally succumbed to Bry & Stu’s invitation to join them for a morning coffee. Scott offered to make breakfast for us both, and I savored a leisurely breakfast of a toasted bagel with eggs and bacon while we talked quietly.
When Teri and Paul returned, they had our plan for the first part of the day- snorkeling with Bry and Stu (by Emerald Rock, I think) which is part of Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.
Emerald Rock was literally a stone’s throw from where we were anchored, but Paul, Scott and I loaded ourselves and our gear into the dinghy and motored over to dinghy mooring ball. (Teri opted to stay behind and work on our flotsam sign.) Stu and Bry joined us a few minutes later and we spent the next 60-90 minutes floating face down in the clear blue water, lost in the wonder of the coral and sea life.
When we returned to the boat, the rest of the morning was a leisurely affair- I napped on the hard deck while the three of them chatted. Bry and Stu swung by in their dinghy to invite us to join them on a hike to Boo-Boo Hill to place our respective signs. Paul declined to go on the hike, so the three of us (Scott, Teri and I) joined Bry & Stu’s and the five of us hiked to BooBoo Hill to put up our flotsam sign (complete with the boat’s name (S/V Kya Anne) as well as our names and the date).
Why is it called Boo-Boo Hill? We can only imagine that Scott was not the first (or last) to incur injuries on a hike here. I finally found a photo from the day after his fall- he’s all bandaged up and in good spirits, despite his constant blood sacrifices to the Islands. I will add that it wasn’t the first or last time bandaids and antiseptic were used on him, though! 🤷🏽♀️😂⛑
Our hike up and down took about 2.5 hours, but mostly because we spent so much time taking in the scenery around us—there was nothing particularly arduous about it, beyond needing to step carefully around the sharp coral formations. As we returned from our hike, I was trailing behind, looking down at the pavers that marked the path from the beach when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. When I glanced over, I saw a long, slender snake, weaving its way between the pavers and tree roots.
It’s the first snake I’ve seen the entire time I’ve been here, and it startled me. In fact, when I think about the wildlife, it has been composed mostly of fish, turtles, rays, sharks, lizards, iguanas and the occasional bird (we hear the birds much more than we see them, which is strange to me). Still, it was a moment of excitement of me.
We wrapped up our adventures on Boo Boo Hill and returned to the Kya Anne, where Paul and Scott lounged on the hard deck, drinking beers, and talking. Teri got started on homemade spaghetti sauce for dinner and I sat down with my laptop to type up our last few days’ activities.
Later, Bry & Stu invited us to join them on the beach later for sundowners, and we happily accepted.
However, sundowners on the beach did not go quite the way we had planned. We have spent most of the time anchored far enough offshore to avoid the bugs, and the mid-day heat tends to keep the mosquitos and no-see-ums at bay even when we were onshore. Consequently, none of us expecting to become instant snack food for the bugs as soon as we landed on the beach. I hadn’t put on any bug spray, so the sundown was accompanied by the constant sound of me slapping my arms and legs, and wading out in the water, trying to partially submerge my body for protection from the bugs. I wasn’t the only one being eaten alive, so it made our time there brief, but we enjoyed the sunset and quiet conversation.
Thursday, February 2nd
Fun fact: The Bahamas are made up of about 700 islands and 2,400 cays (depending on what you use for a resource). A cay is a low island or reef of sand or coral.
Today, we were hanging out around Compass Cay, and took the dinghy to shore so we should make the hike to Rachel’s Bubble Bath.
Rachel’s Bubble Bath is a lagoon separated from the ocean by a rocky outcrop, and during mid to high tide, the waves crash over the rocks and into the lagoon creating bubbles of white foam much like a natural Jacuzzi or fizzy bubble bath. We had read that it was best wear sea shoes because there were lots of sea urchins on the floor of the lagoon, so we were well prepared and enjoyed our time there, despite not being there for high tide (when you get the full effect of the bubbles).
And even though we have been living on the boat in the Bahamas for several weeks, walking on its beautiful beaches never gets old.
Friday, February 3rd
After a leisurely breakfast (eggs and bacon and cheese wrapped in tortillas), courtesy of Scott H., we hauled anchor and sailed/motored for about 4.5 hours over to Compass Cay. Along the way, we saw a pod of dolphins, which never gets old.
It was another leisurely day (do you see a trend here?), and we did some snorkeling around Warderick Wells, and later, back at the boat, Stu shared some cool GoPro footage of the plane crash wreckage that we had circled in the dinghy yesterday.
We wrapped up the evening with cocktails and appetizers with Paul, Teri, Scott, Stu & Bry.
Saturday, February 4th
Noteworthy highlights of the day:
- Dinner at Staniel Cay Yacht Club
- Stu almost loses a hand to nurse shark while testing a woman’s shark band, and
- Sheli has her third dinghy lesson (Paul & Scott survive)
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I manned the helm for the short distance from Compass Cay to Staniel Cay, which is the area where all of our adventures took place today. It was a fun and busy day.
That morning, we took the dinghy over and dropped its anchor out near Thunderball Grotto. Movie buffs, especially James Bond fans, may know that Thunderball Grotto was named after the 1963 James Bond film Thunderball, which had scenes filmed there. In addition to Thunderball, the 1983 film Never Say Never, as well as the 1984 movie Splash and the 2005 film Into the Blue. As a result, its become a popular tourist destination for visitors in the area.
The grotto is an underwater cave enjoyed by snorkelers and divers. It was beautiful and once again, I wished I owned a GoPro to film what I saw. We weren’t there very long– there were several tour companies ferrying visitors to the area and it was a bit crowded, but it was a lovely experience.
Our afternoon humor was provided by Scott, who had hopped in the water to wash up before our trip into Staniel Cay Yacht Club for dinner. As he was getting ready to climb the ladder back to the boat, he saw a shadow and glanced behind him, just in time to see a nurse shark swimming right towards him, just a few feet away. He scrambled out of the water, calling for Teri to come and take a picture. His up-close shark encounter is especially funny because of the number of cuts and scrapes that Scott has managed to acquire over the last few weeks, and the resulting jokes made about him being “shark-bait”. The nurse shark hung around the boat intermittently for the rest of the day and evening and no matter how much I tried to cajole Scott to jump in the water for a close-up picture of them together, he wouldn’t. 🤷🏽♀️
We had more nurse shark adventures when we went into Staniel Cay to have a later lunch/early dinner at the Yacht Club.
Before departing Florida for the cruising season, Stu and Bry had purchased shark bands for swimming and snorkeling, and thus far, hadn’t had any problems with sharks. Nurse sharks are prevalent, but generally harmless.
If you were careful, you could step down to the edge and even pet the nurse sharks, which is why they have a reputation for being so docile.
As we were standing outside the yacht club at the marina, we saw a man at the fish cleaning station, quickly and expertly cleaning fish and slicing fillets. As he cut off the scrap, he would toss it in the water, and the nurse sharks would swarm around, eating whatever he dropped. There were more than a dozen nurse sharks of varying sizes moving around. The standard liability sign was posted (insert pic) and we stared down at them in rapt fascination. Nearby, a lady was opening the box on her brand-new shark band. She asked if anyone was familiar with shark bands, and Stu mentioned that he and Bry had a set. She asked if he would take her band down into the water because she wanted to see if it worked. He agreed, and stepped down into the water, extending the band in front of him, directly in front of a nurse shark.
In a flash, and before anyone could blink, the band was gone—the nurse shark has sucked it right into its mouth.
Stu stepped back, stunned. We all gasped, shocked. There were about a dozen people gathered around, watching.. You could just see the edge of the band dangling just outside the nurse shark’s mouth. We all just stood there, gaping. I don’t remember the exact words, but Stu said something to the effect of “Oh shit, it ate it!” The woman’s eyes were wide. We all continued to stand there, shocked, as nervous laughter slowly rippled through the crowd. Someone murmured that the bands obviously don’t work after all. Stu was looking around at all the nurse sharks gathered around under the fish cleaning station, and at the shark in front of him with just the edge of the shark band hanging from its mouth. He seemed uncertain what to do, then he suddenly leaned forward, grasped the edge of the strap that was hanging from the shark’s mouth and tugged. The shark opened its mouth and Stu quickly pulled the band free. All the people that were gathered around watching the drama unfold started laughing as Stu returned the band to the woman apologetically. Surprisingly, there were no teeth marks or indentations on it anywhere.
We all had a good laugh about that experience, and were super bummed that NO ONE had a camera to record what happened… The dock area was awash with tourists and visitors and the water around us was full of nurse sharks, feeding on the scraps from the charter boats. Our merriment and good humor carried us through dinner, and the six of us had a really fun dinner, laughing and just enjoying each others company at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club.
It was just a really great day. I am very fortunate.
