2023-04-08 Happy Easter. West Bay snorkeling and Andros Island

Our friends Monica and Jason on Breathe - a Manta 40 joined us in West Bay.  We went for a nice walk,  to the staircase, which is just some steep stairs cut through rock leading to a rocky shore.  We also snorkeled the statue Ocean Atlas, a underwater sculpture by Jason deCaires Taylor.  He has done several underwater sculptures.     The water was a bit murky, and filled with small jellyfish.  Some thumb sized, some half dollar sized, and a few large ones.   You could not avoid them, there were so many, but we avoided the larger ones.

Dean and Jason at bottom of stairs

2023-04-02 West Bay - just chillaxin

We stayed in Nassau until Monday, as we wanted to check and see if we could get brushes from a local shop in Nassau.  Dean called about 4 electric motor repair/rebuild businesses - but they all said the same thing "You won't find those in the Bahamas".  So we decided to give up and moved from Nassau proper around to West Bay, - still on New Providence Island.  West Bay is much calmer, without the chop and bounce from constant boat traffic that you get in Nassau.   

We also wanted to make water, and even though you can see the bottom in when you get around 8' deep in Nassau harbor, we did pull up an old tire on our chain, and you just know the chance of the water there being a bit icky is high.  

We were lucky, the watermaker worked and we ran it for about 3 hours.

Next day was calm, so we headed out for a snorkel on the north end of Goulding Cay to explore the reef.  At one time, this was one of the most beautiful reefs in the world - or so says some information on the internet.   Snorkeling it, we can believe it.  The reef structure is phenomenal.  Unfortunately, most the reef is dead, and not many fish.   It was like snorkeling through a ghost town.  Kinda cool, but sad at the same time.   

The white on the coral is dead coral.  You can see the interesting shapes still

Lots of vertical coral formations - but mostly dead

Saw a couple of parrot fish, and a few others, but not many fish

Formations were very cool

Some formations tall - this one at least 10' from floor to top

Did see some signs of coral making a comeback, so hopefully that will continue.

Next day we took a walk, the only public access point is a small public beach called Jaws Beach, which also has a nice dumpster - so we got rid of our trash.    Walked the road, and we were going to walk back through Clifton Heritage National Park on the trail - but it was $16.50 per person, so we opted out, and just walked back on the road again.  Back at the beach, we walked the beach to explore an old sailboat washed up on shore.

At the SW corner of the island there is a large ship loading/offloading dock

West Bay anchorage as seen from beach

The sailboat "Moriah" from Oriental, NC.  Has been hard ashore for a while, and mostly gutted inside.

Pretty boring the rest of the week.  Winds picked up so had a couple of boat days.   Kris did taxes and made brownies.   Dean cleaned the boat bottom, and added some seal to a lower thru hull.

We did laundry - and made water again - but only after having to repair the motor brush again.

Our friends on Breathe arrived last night - and we will hang out here out West Bay today, and then will buddy boat with them for a bit over to Andros Island - were we plan on renting a car and touring the island - which will be fun.   We understand that Andros also offers free good water - so don't have to worry about the watermaker for a while.

2023-03-26 Lindsey's visit - watermaker out again

Our niece Lindsey flew into Staniel Cay on Monday the 20th in the late afternoon/evening, after a couple of delays in her flight.   We got back to the boat, upped anchor and moved to Big Majors, as winds were clocking and becoming strong out of the NE.    

Next morning, we made her suffer through 4 hours of motoring in to strong NE winds and seas, to get up to Waderick Wells.   Now normally we would not do this, but we had to be in Nassau by Friday night, so we did the cruiser unthinkable - we made a schedule.  Fortunately, that was the only unpleasant 4 hours of the next week - so not bad at all.

We went for a couple of nice walks on Waderick, and a great snorkel where we saw lots of fish, and a group of 3 large spotted eagle rays.  The rays were a good 5 feet across and had tails that were 3 to 4 feet  long.  Spent 10-15 minutes watching and following them, very impressive.  Unfortunately, forgot the underwater camera, so you will have to take our word on it.

Our niece Lindsey - beautiful girl, and beautiful water at Waderick Wells

2023-03-19 Pipe Creek snorkeling and walks, Black Point SSCA Gam and Manta get together

We stayed a few more days at Pipe Creek, went snorkeling with Jason and Monica from Breathe, and walked the beaches with Breathe and Aaron, Julie and dog Piper from Turnerbout

Some nice large brain corals

Interesting clumps of corals and fishes

This goat seemed very curious about us, but eventually ran away when it spied the dog

Large crashing waves on the east side beaches

This little guy wasn't very afraid

Beautiful moon rise

After a couple more days at Pipe Creek, including a Pi day, 3/14, celebration on Breathe, where Monica made up apple pie and ice cream (sooo good) to celebrate Pi day, we headed south for the Black Point SSCA Gam, and Manta gathering.

Lorraine's café hosts the SSCA Gam  SSCA website .   Basically a bunch of cruisers get together for a fun time, with a nice buffet dinner at Lorraine's restaurant, and then two days of afternoon music, food and beach activities.   We went to the buffet, had a good time, and did one afternoon of beach activities.

We also had a Manta catamaran lunch, with 5 of us Manta owners there (Charm, Breathe, Imagine, Sea Seeker, and  Green Envy (power cat))   

Full anchorage at Black Point

Fun beach activities and socializing

Monica and Jason participating in one of the many games - egg races

Kris joined in on the games, and at the end of the event they even gave out trophy's.

Kris's trophy

It has been a fun 3 days, but it is time to move on, now the festivities are over.

This morning woke up to heavy rain.  Nice to have, it has been a couple of months now without rain it seems.

Cloudy rainy morning - filled the water tanks, and got the boat rinsed off

Our niece Lindsey gave us a nice surprise, and is flying into Staniel Cay, where we will pick her up, and get to spend a few fun days with her, before dropping her off in Nassau, where she will spend a week on a dive boat.  So this coming week should be good fun spending time with Lindsey.

2023-03-12 Hanging out, waiting for watermaker parts, swirly winds

We have been having a week of swirly winds.  First they are south, then west, then north, then east - you get the picture.  

That means our travel is dictated by the winds, and were anchoring protection can be found - which is always the case, but this last week more so as normally we have a week or so of  winds from the same direction (trade winds), but this last week is more like a day from the same direction.

We spent a couple of days at the south end of Big Farmers Cay.  Just hanging out and had a nice beach walk, and spent a couple hours visiting with Ross and Phyliss on Kohina who have a 41' Maine Cat.

Nice beach, with small mangrove river

2023-03-05 Watermaker issues, calm waters, projects

 A good weather window came up, so we decided to head over to Long Island for a while.  There was going to be some very calm weather, and Kris had wanted to check out an anchorage, that looked interesting, so we headed out.

We anchored in a nice spot, that had a blue hole nearby.  We had heard that there was good snorkeling, so headed over to check it out.  Nice dinghy ride, but we saw virtually nothing on the snorkel.  No fish, shells, coral - etc etc.  Pretty boring.   

Got back to the boat, and Dean decided to start up the water maker - and it would not start.  Checked all the electrical connections, and it was getting power to the motor - but would not start.  Kris went and pulled out the brushes - as they are a wear item, and usually the motor will start slowing indicating brush wear, but that had not happened.   Well, when we pulled the brushes out we found the problem - one brush had separated.

The brush doesn't have a lot of wear, but certainly won't work broken apart.

2023-02-26 More time at George Town, Exuma. Trail hiking.

We continued our stay at George Town.  Dean played more volleyball, and Kris decided that hiking every trail on the island, and mapping them would be fun.   

Kris's goal was to make up a nice trail map of the island.  She did not make it before we left, but did walk over 12 miles of trails. And took the machete out and cleared a couple of trails as well.

Kris's trail routes.  No good map exists for other cruisers, so she might make one up.

The trails on the island are quite varied, some are pretty rough, some flat and easy, some mostly beach, and some rocky coastline.

Rocky beach trail

Liked how this rock formation made a perfect planter for the scrub brush (I think it is Wild Thyme)

What wind and water does to rock is always amazing.

Jagged iron shore along trail - crazy looking formations

Nice secluded beach

Kris added trail markers when she found scrap to work with.

Even though there are 300 plus boats anchored in George Town, Kris only saw about 3 other people out walking, and she walked both a mix of afternoons and mornings.  

We did host a Manta catamaran get together and had people from 4 Mantas join us for a beach social.

Breathe, Indie II, The Great Catsby, Heihei Rere, all joined us for the social.

The beach on Stocking Island in George Town is the meet up place, and also where the George Town Cruisers Regatta is held.  This is a two week social time with games, races, and activities.  We went in for the Variety Show.   

Dean at the mileage marker sign on the beach. 

Large crowd gathered for the Variety Show

Our view of the show

Music act on stage

Finale of the show was a group who does Junkanoo came over and played for us.

Junkanoo group marching up to stage.

It was a fun evening.   We decided that we were not into participating in most the activities.  Those of you who know us well, know we are not big group kind of people.   The weather was going to change, so we took the opportunity to leave George Town and head over to Long Island, where we will do some snorkeling and exploring.