George Town tale: I was knifed on Volleyball beach

Elizabeth Harbor in George Town, nicknamed ‘Chicken Harbor’ for the amount of boats that are semi-permanently anchored (and don’t go anywhere else), is full of boats during high season (Jan-April).  The anchorage is actually across the harbor from the George Town settlement and has a life of its own- for better or worse.  Many anchored here do not and will not interact with the Bahamians on the mainland unless they are ordering a drink or paying for propane.  The hub of activity on the boat side of the harbor, not surprisingly, is centered around a beach bar named Chat n’ Chill.  There are permanent volleyball courts installed next to the bar and daily volleyball games (giving the beach the name volleyball beach).  There are also plenty of picnic tables to lounge around and open space for kids and dogs to play.  (There is also a conch salad shack- which makes the best conch salad around!  The discarded conch attracts sting rays- which swim right up to the beach- pretty cool.)

Our stay in Elizabeth Harbor has included quite a few trips from our anchorage to Volleyball beach.  And although we don’t really participate in the PLETHURA of organized activities, we did get caught up in the week of the cruiser’s regatta. The regatta is a 7-10 day blitz of activities ranging from very serious big boat racing to a whacky coconut harvest to coconut boat races.  The coconut boat race is where my foot and a blade crossed paths...

During the lead-up to the coconut boat race, a fellow cruiser organized a coconut boat making workshop.  Not really the workshop you might imagine, but more like 4 picnic tables full of power tools, sticks and coconuts, and kids and adults everywhere…using powertools…with bare feet.  Sweet 8-year-old  Eli, Cyrus’ best buddy on Whistling Cay, was standing next to me, trying to pry the flesh out from an opened coconut with a mutli-plier knife. I remember Eli saying, “Oh no!” and looking down at my foot where the knife was sticking straight up from what looked like between my 3^rd and 4^th toes.  I thought at first that the knife was simply between my toes, but when I bent down to pick it up, I noticed that it was stuck through my foot.  Eli, who is the nicest kid around, and of course would be the last person to ever hurt anyone, was mortified and more upset than I was.  Nathan, Eli’s dad, and Tyler came over and offered to pull the knife out, but I knew that I had to do it myself.  I removed the knife and looked up and realized that I had a 400 meter trek across the beach to clean out the wound.  Wendy, Eli’s mom, helped me across the sand and eventually out to her dinghy and boat and their amazing first aid kit.  There is a clinic in George Town, however, it was closed-of course- emergencies do not happen during normal business hours.  My treatment on Whistling Cay was awesome, however, and I don’t think the George Town clinic would have served me rum drinks with my ibuprofen.

..and now I can say I was knifed on Volleyball beach.

G-Town

It is 8am and everyone on the boat is still asleep- except for me of course.  A typical morning on Mirage begins with me quietly making coffee and straightening up the boat while everyone, including Zander, snores away in the V-berth.    This morning I am sitting in the cockpit, looking back at the boats we played on last night.  We are currently anchored in Red Shanks, which is about 5nm south of George Town in the Exumas.  We are here to wait out some crazy weather that is predicted- which, so far, we have not seen any part of.  This smaller anchorage feels remote compared to where we’ve been for about a month- more on why that happened later- but there are still about 18 boats anchored near one another, wind generators whipping away, kids playing, VHF radios on, and I can see cars driving by on the mainland.  “Remote” is relative here.

So is time, which is truly the reason why my blog posts have fizzled.  I’d like to say I haven’t posted because of major internet problems or lack of battery power on my laptop, but in actuality, island time has a good hold on all of the crew of Mirage.  Days melt away somehow here- it has nothing to do with Rum or margaritas- but there is a “Jimmy Buffet song” sense to cruising the Bahamas.

We are anchored in Red Shanks with four other “kid boats” – which seems high, but is actually a fraction of the kid boats in the main George Town anchorages.  The Bahamas are very much a kid and dog paradise.  You can imagine kids swimming, zipping around on dinghies, running around exploring beaches and islands- endless opportunities for fun.  It was very easy to get “stuck” here in George Town after seeing only 1-2 kid boats travelling down the Exumas.

We all know that our time here is fleeting, however.  We, and everyone else we’ve been getting to know, must move on soon.  Some boats will be lucky enough to be able to sail further south.  Some, like us, will turn north and head, slowly, back to the states to work and look forward to another sailing season. 

But, for the moment, we are talking one more little trip south and west to the Jumentos.  I’m not sure if it will actually happen, but the diving and fishing is supposed to be some of the best in the Bahamas.  Tyler has been diving more often- free diving- not scuba- and has yet to spear a fish.  The temptation to travel just a little further and find that illusive ‘big one’ is great.  We shall see if reality or fishing wins.

 

Wardrick Wells or Zander's dark side

We arrived in Wardrick Wells tired from our rocky night.  Luckily, we found and tied to our mooring quickly, and were able to get off the boat and on to the beach in a short time.  We had planned to hike the ragged hills to get to the park headquarters, but were sad to read that Zander was not welcome to travel past the beach at Wardrick Wells because of the protected wildlife (this will be very relevant later in the story).  So we took poor Zander back to the boat before embarking on our trek.


Our hike became what is now known on our boat as a "Pam death march" (PDM).  The PDM is a regular occurrence in our cruising lives, referring to a "walk"- usually in hot or rainy weather- that is supposed to be short and lead to a restaurant, grocery store or somewhere rewarding, and ends- sometimes unfinished- after 1-100 miles with our tongues dragging and Cyrus ( and sometimes Tyler) having a cow.

This particular PDM resulted in a spectacular hike through ironshore and poisonwood trees, past 2 beaches, with views of both the eastern and western shores- but no park HQ.  We ended up taking a wet dinghy ride to park HQ- but we were rewarded with $2 movie rentals....hooray!


The real stories from Wardrick Wells involve Cyrus and Zander, however.


While visiting park HQ on our second day in the park (dinghy ride- no death march), Cyrus and I saw children playing on the beach.  Cyrus flew down to greet them, seemingly a bit tired of his mother.  While I was finishing my business at park HQ, I recognized one of the faces of the other cruisers- but could not place from where.  She recognized me as well, and we eventually realized that we had met, not on boats, but at the airport in Ft. Lauderdale, when Cyrus returned to Florida from Denver.  Cyrus had flown as an unaccompanied minor and met a family from Alaska flying to Florida to refit their boat and sail to the Bahamas.  At the time, Wendy (the mom) had been traveling for 24 hours with 3 children and a plethora of flight/airline issues.  She was so frazzled that we were not able to exchange contact information, and I thought we would never see them again.  The cruising world is small, however, and there was Wendy, her 3 children (and husband) aboard Whistling Cay once more.  Needless to say, we spent the better part of the next 3 days onboard Whistling Cay, or playing with Lily, Eli and Jedo.  Cyrus had such a wonderful time that he stopped talking to me on the day we left. 
While visiting Wardrick Wells, we also met Jennifer and Royce on Cerca Trova- also first time cruisers learning things the hard way (although their boat is a beautiful catamaran with a refrigerator, water maker and oven among other lovely amenities).  We would follow Cerca Trova to Staniel Cay and then to Blackpoint Settlement and hope to see them again soon.
On our final night in Wardrick Wells, Zander was allowed to go off-leash on the beach during a cruiser cookout/ birthday celebration for the park manager.  All was well until Cyrus came to me and asked, "What happens when you touch a rodent?"  I answered (typical mom), " Well... a rodent is like a mouse or a rat..." Cyrus: " I know that...just answer me," Me: "Well nothing usually." Cyrus: "Good- because Zander has one in his mouth."
The Bahamian hutia- https://www.google.bs/search?biw=1366&bih=643&tbm=isch&q=bahamian+hutia&revid=280812034 - sorry no pictures- my connection is too slow
Yes- our little Zander had found the protected hutia-either chased and killed it, or (I believe) just found a dead hutia and dragged it out to the beach...in front of all the park management...and guests....good thing it was dark.  The park workers encouraged me to allow Zander to keep chasing the hutia- apparently they are over-running the island and impacting the plant life.  We had no idea he was anything more than a lap-dog.  More on that in the Staniel Cay post....

Hawksbill Cay

After leaving Norman's Cay, we did a little provisioning and headed toward the Exuma Land and Sea Park- a 25+ mile stretch of protected cays.  No fishing, shell collecting or hunting allowed- the stretch of islands are a beautiful example of the natural Bahamas.
Our primary destination was the park headquarters on Wardrick Wells, with its protected moorings- we knew that a pretty nasty northern wind was headed our way in the evening and wanted to be tucked away safely for it.  Unfortunately, as we headed south, having to motor because of strong headwinds, our engine began to have trouble.  At first, the engine was losing rpm slowly, and then, randomly, the rpm would dive- never quite fully quitting, and then rev back up to our original speed.  Reluctantly, we made the decision to take our chances on a mooring outside of Hawksbill Cay- still within the park, but not as protected as we had hoped.
The water was rough and it took 3 tries to hook the mooring ball: Tyler yelling at me from the bow and while I tried my best to steer a 10,000 lb. tub slowly toward a ball that I could not see.  Tension?  Yes.
After recovering from grabbing the mooring, we decided to enjoy the weather and the island before the evening winds came in.

Hard to believe that bad weather was headed our way

As we explored, we found a lovely trail- marked by cairns (piles of rocks) and winding through ironshore (amazingly hard volcanic rock) and mangrove.  While wading through a shallow creek, we spotted a nurse shark- about 2 feet long- that sent Tyler out of the water quickly.  Cyrus, on the other hand, was excited to wade more and try to find another shark.  The trail led to a beautiful and untouched beach on the eastern side of the island.  The entire family played, chased crabs (Zander) and enjoyed amazingly clear water.  

As evening approached, we went back to Mirage, watching clouds approach from both the west and north.  The wind prediction we had said that the winds would be "clocking around" from south to west to north and the come in strongly from the north by 6pm.  The weather we were watching, however, told a different story. During the hour before sunset, we watched 4 boats come in to our same mooring field- escaping the approaching storm.  By 6pm, westerly winds and a strong storm were beating down on Mirage.  In the waning light, one last boat made an attempt to hook a mooring ball, but the storm and waves were too strong and the light was too dim- they ended up anchoring nearby.  Completely unprotected from the west, our mooring was now a roller coaster ride.  We were happy-now a relative term- to be tied to a strong mooring, however, the waves and storm made for a sleepless night.

In the morning, the wind and waves had died down somewhat, and we crawled out to the cockpit.  Sadly, our dinghy had flipped over in the waves during the night- spilling its contents into the sea.  The motor stayed attached, but the flippers and yet another dive mask and Cyrus shoe were lost.  We learned our lesson to never leave anything in the dinghy overnight and counted our blessings that we did not lose the outboard.
We licked our wounds, made a bunch of coffee, and headed toward Wardrick Wells.

A few snorkeling pics

Between Norman's Cay and Hawksbill Cay, we snorkeled some nice coral heads.  I will again post pics entitled, there really are fish in this picture...and they were so bright!  I also can't find a pic of the barracuda we found...just sitting...alone...creepy.  Enjoy:

No fair!

No wonder so many people were asking about the blog.  I had been using an app called BlogGo to post when wifi was not working well and apparently my posts were not posting!!! The app is now "undergoing complete restructuring" and I lost 4 posts uploaded in January.

Many apologies... I will try to recall and retype our travels to Nassau, Harbour Island and Spanish Wells. 

Down the Exumas part 2: Norman's Cay

We were able to anchor for an afternoon and overnight in Norman's Cay.  A former haven of a drug cartel, Norman's Cay has one of the best airplane wreckage dives in the Bahamas.  The plane is still mostly in tact, but has become part of the marine life.  The water is shallow enough that the wreck can be seen above and below the water at almost any tide.

The little sergeant major fish are very used to people and not only swim right up to you as you snorkel, they follow you throughout the dive.  Cool...and a little creepy.

Norman's Cay also has a little one-palm-tree island with a bench that is dedicated to a couple that loved to cruise the Exumas.  We left Norman's because of an approaching front, but we would have loved to stay for more than one night.