Goodbye, Bahamas! Hello, Charleston!

And we're off! Well...not so fast! First I had to untangle the anchor chain from a submerged casuarina tree. Then we had to adjust some settings on the autopilot and run a calibration (a.k.a. drive in a bunch of circles) since we were having autopilot issues on our way into this anchorage. But once that was done we were on our way around 1700 on May 1st! I provided a killer dinner of teriyaki wings and fried rice and we went right into the watch rotation (Frank 00-04, 08-12, 16-20; Jo 04-08, 12-16, 20-00; Trent wherever he can help out during daylight), sailing into the sunset!

Calibration worked and we have autopilot! And dinner! And a beautiful sunset!

The next morning we came off the bank and turned north into the Gulf Stream. We had great sailing and were making 8-9 knots over ground with the help of the stream. 

Sunrise and sunset at sea.

On May 3rd we had another great day of sailing, caught and lost a mahi, and had a tight flyover from a USMC Harrier jet.

Everyone stood some watch today! Too bad we lost this fish (out that little hole in the step!), but the evening was magical.

We finally had to motor a little bit during the night, but on the 04-08 watch the sails came back out so we could slow down to enter Charleston after sunrise. I managed to sail all the way up the channel and it was great! I also got to see the T/S State of Maine, the training ship from my alma mater Maine Maritime Academy, as we came up the river. We checked in with the CBP ROAM app, got some fuel and water at the city marina, and anchored off of Fort Johnson to wait out a stormy afternoon and night. 

Final sunrise of the transit and celebrating a successful homecoming.

This roughly 60-hour transit was really pretty nice. It's great to have made so much progress up the coast in such a short time, and to have done so much of it under sail. My emotions are all over the place. I know that our whole lifestyle as a family is about to change and I want to savor every last minute on the water, but at the same time I want to get to Maryland and get moving on the "next." But for now, we are here.

~Jo, 1st Mate

The Cat is out of the Bag--We head to Cat Island!

 Is it seriously April already? Anyway...

We left the Jumentos and hit Long Island for a few days on our way to Cat Island. We love Hillside Grocery and Tiny's Hurricane Hole in Thompson Bay/Salt Pond and had a few nights there before heading north. 

Tiny's--great good and fun! As weird as it sounds, I crave the brussel sprouts from here.

We were expecting strong winds from the east and lucked out with a VERY private, peaceful anchorage off the private Hog Cay (a different Hog Cay than the one we were at in the Raggeds!) for a night. We had some great snorkeling on the reefs (no dinner!) and enough solitude to properly shower on deck! The only downside was the discovery that a fish spike (likely from my hogfish) had pierced the starboard tube of our less-than-a-year-old dinghy! Gorilla tape and frequent pumping works for now, but a good patch is in our future.

It's blowing 20+ knots, but our anchorage is calm! But, ugh...the dinghy! Boo!

The next day we went "around the corner" for protection from SE winds in the south corner of Calabash Bay. The adults went for a little snorkeling/exercise and found even more corals we hadn't explored before here and a team spearing/wrestling match resulted in a very nice lobster! It was a nice way to close out our time on Long Island!

Frank's monster lobster that I helped secure. It was a sunrise departure from Calabash.

As we departed for Cat Island with winds and big swells on our stern, the forecast showed two days of NW and N winds. We decided to take a gamble and anchor at Port Howe on the south shore of Cat Island. A new place! It is an anchorage lined with a large reef that is notoriously reviewed as "rolly," but we thought we might luck out with the forecast. We entered the cut in the reef and anchored easily, but with winds and swell out of the SE on the first day we had a dreadfully rolly, sleepless night. It got better as the days went by, but surge definitely makes it in there. But it was also definitely protected from the north wind. The real treat? Super reefs to snorkel! And Frank brought in a beast of a lobster that we decided would be the last of the season for us. It's been a great run!

The entrance went really well considering we had waves and wind pushing us in. Great job, Skipper!

Frank's end-of-season mega lobster and a stunning sunset!

As winds shifted to the NE, we left Port Howe for the familiar waters of "the bight." We hit New Bight to visit the Hermitage, do laundry at Gilly's (SUPER nice laundromat!), get baked goodies and fresh eggs and tomatoes at Olive's Bakery, and find good food and cruiser camaraderie down at the Fish Fry. By the way, if you've never tried the island favorite "Chicken in da Bag," Gippy's is a great place to try it and they have ice cream, too! Next we shifted to Old Bight to wait out some strong SE winds before continuing our journey north, first to Bennett's Harbor then onward to Eleuthea. 

We had a nice walk up to the Hermitage.

The "parking lot" at New Bight gave us easy access to Gilly's Laundry, Gippy's for "Chicken in da Bag," and Olive's Bakery for those delicious Cat Island flour cakes. Some water is more green here, but some anchorages are this stunning blue!

Cat Island is really great and we are happy to see that more cruisers are making it a stop on their journey through the Bahamas. It's the home of Rake & Scrape and some really sweet folks. And while there is pretty much no where to hide from westerlies (unless you try Port Howe), you can anchor almost all up and down the west coast. Even with it's increasing popularity there was still plenty of room to spread out and skinny dip respectfully! And while we could happily spend more time with the lovely people here, more adventure awaits us to the north!

~Jo, 1st Mate

The Sea Provides--Good Eats by Hand, Hook, and Spear

We have been in the Bahamas just about two and a half months and with our last week of good hunting, we realized that we've had lots of sea-provided meals in a short time, especially when we consider just how long we have stayed in national parks during that time! 

We don't eat a lot of reef fish due to ciguatera risks and personal tastes (not to mention that Nassau grouper season doesn't open until March), so we focus on lobster, conch, and pelagic fish. Here's how it's been going so far!

We didn't start hunting until we hit the Exumas this year. First up, conch in Highbourne Cay! We failed to keep count how many over our two days there as we gave some to friends, tossed some back, and ate a few.

A sweet spot of ours south of Highbourne gave us our first lobsters! (J-1; T-1)

After several weeks in the no-take Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, we found conch near Black Point Settlement.

Woo hoo! Big lobster haul on the sound side near Black Point. This was way more than we needed so we gave one to a friend as all three boats represented on the hunt worked the reef hard! (J-3)

A quick conch snack at Rudder Cay.

Two lobsters out at the Brigantine Cays (F-1; T-1) and a few (I think 2 or 3?) conch from near Lee Stocking Island.

Whoa, conch! We had another great haul near Lee Stocking.

After some time in George Town (we don't usually hunt there as there is just too much going on and way too many other hunting boaters all going to the closest legal reefs) we got crabby in Calabash Bay, Long Island!

Calabash bay continued to provide lobster! We got three on this hunt, with Trent scoring this monster! (F-1; T-2)

Fish on! We finally hooked up on some mahi mahi in the deep water between Long Island and Conception Island.

And back at Conception Island we found a few more big guys! (J-1; T-1)

Wait, did I say we don't hunt when we're in George Town? Well, conditions were decent today and Trent wanted to spear with a buddy of his...SCORE! We had a lovely lobster dinner! (T-1)

We will continue to hunt, especially in March as it's the last month of lobster season, but also the start of Nassau Grouper season! Can't wait to see how we do as the menu shifts more to fish!

~Jo, 1st Mate

The Middle Exumas--mixing old favorites with new experiences

We continued our slow roll down the Exuma Cays, hitting a few old favorites with some new twists!

First up--Rudder Cay! We skipped this spot last year as a large flotilla of boats were there as we passed by, but this time we were almost all alone with only two other boats in the anchorage. We had a great afternoon of caving, visiting the mermaid, and snorkeling. While we didn't land any lobster on the reefs, we did manage to get some conch! 

The caves are about the only thing you can explore on this private cay owned by David Copperfield!

Copperfield's "Piano" sculpture is a family favorite! We have also had good luck conching here and the nearby reefs are very pretty!

As we headed out of Rudder Cut we (or rather, I) tried something new--the 1st Mate took the helm in a cut! These cuts can be treacherous, but with proper planning they really aren't bad. With winds out of the NNE and the tide flooding onto the bank, we had pretty calm conditions though did have to work against the current. This is NOT my usual role in the cuts and I'm happy that I finally did it! 

The Skipper looks totally relaxed with this swap! Hahahaha!

We fished our way down Exuma Sound and we realized we were going to be close on getting into Adderly Cut at Lee Stocking Island before the tide started to ebb. If we hit the cut at the ebb, we would have tide going against the wind which makes for dangerous conditions. Instead we opted to try Bock Cut for the first time and approached Lee Stocking from the bank side. It worked very well!

At Lee Stocking we decided to keep the "new" going and anchored in Williams Bay for the first time. The anchorage is deeper than charted, but there were many more boats than we have ever seen there and finding a spot that would leave us with a foot under the keel at high tide was actually a challenge! But we got settled in and spent a few days exploring the trails on the south end of the island and the real treat, checking out the Brigantine Cays for the first time! With our new dinghy set-up the 3nm run to the cays was quick and we did some shallow-water snorkeling and spearing that resulted in two lobsters! We also managed to find a lot of mature conch around Lee Stocking so the eating was good while we were there. 

We had fun hiking to Perry's Peak and along the trails on the south end of Lee Stocking. We even say a Bahamas Woodstar!

Lobster! Frank's is massive and Trent's is a full 2-inches bigger than the legal catch size! Both lost antenna during the hunt.

After a few days at Williams Bay we shifted to an anchorage right off the old research station. This year we did not go ashore at the station as there was definitely more activity from the owners and grounds keepers and we decided it's about time to start honoring their "no trespassing" signs. We watched from the boat as they did some landscaping and cleared filing cabinets from the science offices by the pier. 

So many conch! And I loved returning to the site of one of my college courses!

We did one more shift while in the area, heading back to east side of Norman's Pond Cay for a night so that we could slide without having to wait for high tide to get over a low spot near Lee Stocking. The holding around Norman's Pond Cay and Leaf Cay is variable and charted depths aren't super accurate off "the magenta line," but we poked around and set well for the night with great protection from NW winds. Really surprised at just how crowded all the anchorages around Lee Stocking were this time around, but as we are George Town-bound, we had better get used to lots of close company!

~Jo, 1st Mate

Let's talk CONCH

We have mentioned it before and talked about hunting for conch, but what the heck is it and how do we eat it? 

The conch we are after in the Bahamas are Queen Conch, "Stombus gigas," a species of edible sea snail with beautiful shells. We tend to find them near seagrass beds in pretty shallow water (less than 20') on the banks. We aren't looking for pretty pink shells out there, but rather shells with a bit of growth on them. But what is the most important thing we are looking for? Shells with a well-formed flaring lip are the only ones that are legal for harvest as these are "mature" conch. It doesn't necessarily matter if the shell is big as long as the lip is well-formed with a clear flare. That may sound a little vague, but once you start looking at a lot of conch it gets pretty easy to decide if a conch is adolescent or mature. Conch have been overfished in recent years so we are also very conscious about only collecting what we will eat right now--we don't collect a ton and freeze them. 

A mature Queen Conch

Getting them is as easy as picking them up! No special gear needed! In face, it's actually illegal to get the conch using SCUBA gear. Getting them out of the shell is the slightly harder part, but with practice it gets easier. Frank is actually pretty darn fast with extracting them and cleaning them now and happily shows fellow cruisers how it's done. The tools--a rock hammer/hammer/hatchet, a butter knife, and a sharp knife. The hammer (claw end if it's a regular hammer) is used to make a hole between the 2nd and 3rd row of spires from the top of the shell. Then you slide the butter knife into the hole, scraping down the inner wall of the shell to separate the muscle from the shell. After that, you just grab the conch's foot and yank it out! Ok, there's a bit of suction to overcome so it's not quite that easy, but it's not too hard! Then you use the sharp knife to take off the head, guts, foot...anything that's not white meat. And ta-da, you're ready to eat conch!

Collecting conch on a shallow skin dive.

Cleaning the conch! The boys have the extraction process well in hand. The bottom pic is the conch bodies before they are cleaned.

But how does one eat conch? The most popular preparations for our crew are conch fritters, conch salad, and cracked conch. I haven't made conch fritters, but that's just because I'm not a huge fan of deep frying anything so I save those for when we are out to eat on one of the islands. But I do make conch salad and cracked conch!

Conch salad is basically conch ceviche. Our dear friend Ronnie Brown, owner of Brown's Garden on Great Harbour Cay, was happy to share his preparation with us! The basic conch salad is conch, salt, white onion, green bell pepper, tomatoes, sour orange, lime, and a bit of goat pepper for some heat. Basically the conch and veggies get diced, it all gets salted and juiced, and after a minute or two your lunch is ready! It's bright, tasty, and healthy! Sometimes we don't have all the ingredients and have to go with something a little simpler, like scorch conch. Scorch conch is prepared with bigger pieces of conch (so the end result is a little chewier), onion, citrus juice, salt, and goat pepper if you're feeling spicy (go for it!). Simple and delicious!

Simple ingredients make a delightful salad! When we don't have goat pepper on hand, I use a few shakes of a Bahamian hot sauce (made with goat peppers) to spice it up.

Our youngest crew member isn't a huge conch salad fan so I'll also make cracked conch every now and then. Cracked conch is basically fried conch. The meat is tenderized a lot with a meat mallet, then breaded and fried. I use an egg dredge and a panko breading seasoned with salt, pepper, and cayenne, then just pan fry for a few minutes. I like to serve it with a dipping sauce of some sort (horseradish, mayo, ketchup, black pepper is good), too.

Tenderized conch gets dredged in egg and bread crumbs before getting fried to a golden brown.

So that's a little about one of our favorite Bahamian foods...hope you consider giving it a try!

~Jo, 1st Mate

It's all about the people (and the food!)

The title says it all! In my old life, a tough day at work was always balanced by getting to work through the challenges with some pretty awesome people. Now that we're traveling all the time I can say that it still holds true--the best memories, whether they be made on pristine beaches, in a hot engine compartment, or in a crazy storm, are usually all great memories because of the people. But then there's the other travel joy...THE FOOD! And when those two glorious things come together, that's when the real magic happens.

And that's what we have here in Great Harbour Cay. Two years ago we had our first conch salad of our cruising lives (and the Skipper's first ever) at Brown's Garden. Ronnie Brown served up his specialty with a smile and a good dose of stories about the island. We visited him a few times that week, even celebrating our 15th anniversary with his conch salads served in plastic bowls with plastic spoons and cold Kalik beers. That conch salad became the one we compared all others to! We were back again last year, in the midst of COVID, and while things were definitely slower on the island, Ronnie was still in good spirits and we chatted quite a bit over Kaliks. This year, things still aren't quite back to how they were the first year, new family members are working with him, but his spirit at that great conch salad are still there!

Conch salad (background), scorch conch (foreground), and a cold Kalik!

Based on a conversation we had last year, we had a little gift for Ronnie from the states...a culinary treat that is a little hard to come by on the island. Last night the three of us headed to an early dinner at Brown's so we could deliver and Ronnie was so surprised! He has brought us so many smiles over the years and it was great to give him a little joy in return. Hugs and shots were shared, and when it was time to get dinner going, Ronnie took Trent down to the water with him to learn more about conch. We gather and clean our own conch onboard, but here Trent was getting to learn from a real master! Ronnie told him all about how to get the conch out and let him do one, taught him all about the conch anatomy, showed him how to clean it, then gave us a peek at his salad technique. And we ate and chatted and smiled and left with full bellies and hearts. 

Cheers to good friends!

Ronnie's "office" is stunning! And he and Trent had way too much fun cleaning those conch!

Ronnie sporting a big smile while making that conch salad...you can't help but smile back!

I love learning about a culture through its food. Eat the exotic stuff, hear the stories, and appreciate the work that went into the food!

~Jo, 1st Mate

(the other) Leaf Cay

Knowing that a big group of boats was at Rudder Cut Cay, we passed by (even though we love it!) and headed for Leaf Cay. This is the “other” Leaf Cay—there is one in the northern Exumas that is famous for its iguanas, whereas this one is more to the south (and also has iguanas!). Winds were forecast to have a westerly component the next day so Leaf Cay would actually provide some protection. It would also put us near where we nabbed a few conch last year! Holding wasn’t amazing, but we got a decent set about an hour before sunset and enjoyed the view. 

While the kids did school I mended a glove and we snorkeled! We swam with a huge ray, found a stromatolite, and found a nice conch. While we were out a few other boats came in and definitely struggled to set the hook. That’s what we learned about Leaf Cay—some westerly protection, but strong current and a semi-hard bottom can make setting the hook a challenge. Oh, and we returned to find our kids in full-on dress-up mode!

After school the whole family went to Leaf Cay. Amazingly no tour boats visited the entire time we were there. We got chased around by the iguanas, explored the tide pools, and eventually went to the east side of the cay where we were treated to a pristine, empty beach with powdery sand. We had planned to explore other cays, but instead just stayed on this beach for the afternoon. Loved it!

Our friends on Kohole joined the anchorage, too! The next morning, they had a little anchor tangle that we helped them out with, but then Katreina and I ran to Lee Stocking Island to check out the building I lived in a long, long time ago when I was there for a class. It was more boarded-up this year, but it still stirred up some great memories.

Tropical Marine Science, ‘97-‘98

After one last snorkel around the cove (and a spider crab on my spear!), we left to head to George Town. There is a big blow coming in a few days and we have a birthday to celebrate tomorrow—the birthday girl requested George Town so that’s where we will go. We have friends already down there so it will be nice to see them, too. And we managed to hook up on a tuna on the transit so it seems like this was a good decision!

Visiting my old “dorm”; helping Kolohe with their anchor; more crab; a nice tuna.

New (?) Great Guana stops--White Point and Oven Rock

We did one last load of laundry and grabbed a few more loaves of bread from Lorraine's mom before a great upwind sail south to White Point. 

Close-hauled!

A lot of our friends were heading to Oven Rock, but we wanted to check out a few coral heads at the point. Holding wasn't fabulous and we ended up with some waves wrapping around the point and rocking us, but we stuck with it. At first we didn't see much, but ended up on a nice coral head and decided to hunt some snapper (scored!) and got the real surprise of the day, a big spider crab! The kids gave up on us and headed back to the boat, but we hit another head and I'm so glad we did--there was a pair of spotted moray eels there and they were NOT shy! I've seen green morays before, but never a spotted one so that was pretty cool. Our friends anchored nearby on S/V Bella Vita found two really nice conch, too! When Frank took a book over to help with the cleaning process, he came back with one of the conch. Andrey and Natalia had fish and conch and shared their bounty with us! So we decided to have "Bella Vita conch salad" and pan fried snapper for dinner, and cooked and cleaned the crab for the next day. 

The bounty of the sea!

🐟A note on hunting/fishing--we do it for sustenance, not just for fun. We like to supplement our provisions with fresh fish, conch, and lobster when we can. We don't often hunt reef fish due to risk of ciguatera poisoning, but sometimes we do if the locals are. If we get a big fish, we will freeze some of it or gift it to friends. The closest we come to "sport" is shooting lion fish as they are an invasive species. While you can eat them, we aren't quite ready to handle the poisonous spines and most that we hit are so small that it's a lot of risk for a little meat. When we get them we will either put them in the dink and run them somewhere away from anchored boats or swim them away from the reef and let them out in the current, figuring sharks will enjoy the meal.🐟

Ok, so more fun! The next day we ran a few miles south to Oven Rock. It looks like an oven! The draw there is a trail to a cave and as we didn't visit last year, this was new to us. Or was it? As we descended into the cave I instantly felt like I had been there before. But how? That feeling intensified as we got further into the cave, saw the bats, and started swimming in the water. This is a seriously cool cave, with cool, clear water, stalactites, stalagmites, bats, and fun rocks to climb over. So glad we came. And thanks to the power of the internet and my old college buddies on Facebook, we confirmed that I HAVE been in this cave before! We snorkeled it during my Tropical Marine Science class in the late '90's and one of my classmates had a photo that confirmed we were in the same cave. So it wasn't an entirely new experience for at least one member of the crew! 

The cave at Oven Rock

With daylight to burn and smooth seas, we continued south, out of Galliot Cut, and are headed for Leaf Cay/Lee Stocking Island for the next few days. 

~Jo, 1st Mate

Our first visit to Soldier Cay

Several boats left Great Harbour Cay Thursday heading the same direction as we did. While some headed to the Hoffman’s Cay area, we opted for Soldier Cay. We had never been, it looked neat, and we could possibly stay through the next round of southerly winds.

I’m just going to say it—Thursday was an epic cruiser day! We fished the ledge on our way over and caught a nice blackfin tuna (and a cero mackerel that we released). It wasn’t massive, but could have been 3-4 good meals for the two of us that eat fish. Instead we opted for two big, fresh meals! Five boats were already in the anchorage when we arrived and we struggled to find good bottom to set the hook, but we saw lots of turtles during the evolution and finally did find some suitable sand after dropping the dinghy to recon the field. Then to top it all off we had a beach bonfire at sunset and watched the sky change from fiery red to pitch black and glittering with stars. It was just our little family on the beach and it was a beautiful evening.

Friday we decided to hunt for some snorkeling spots. The water was a little chilly and the swells coming in the cuts made for sloppy conditions so we headed to the beach for some low-key snorkeling. Some neighbors had been spearing some coral heads out in the middle of the channel into the anchorage, but we just didn’t feel like getting tossed around and we had some nice tuna ready for dinner! At this point we had also decided to stay put for the weekend’s southerly winds.

Today we hiked over and around the island, played and relaxed on the beach, met another cruising family, then hunkered down for gusty winds. We are getting rocked around a little, but the protection is good enough and the anchor is holding!

We could see making this stop again. It may not be a place with a popular tourist site, but the ease of navigation and peaceful, pristine beach are enough for this crew.

Slay Ride! Enjoying the bounty of the sea 🎣 🦞 🐚

I couldn’t resist!  While heading south in the sound we saw “Sleigh Ride” on AIS and I couldn’t help but think that “Slay Ride” would be a great name for a fishing boat.  And while we’re not about to change our boat name anytime soon, we did slay some ocean critters over the past few days!

First, while up at Rudder Cut Cay we found two legal conch!  We only harvested one to meet our needs.  We also managed to spear two lobsters!  Lobstering turned out to be a family affair as we each have our own strengths—Trent is the spotter, Jo can linger at depth, Frank is the best-aimed shot, and Katreina mans the dinghy/stays away from the killing.  We saw many lion fish as well, but as we didn’t have gloves with us, we couldn’t safely harvest them.  Lesson learned—if we have the spear, we have gloves so we can help thin this invasive species.  That night we enjoyed a conch salad appetizer followed by a dinner of cracked conch and grilled lobster—yum!

Couldn’t even pick up the other lobster for the pic!

Lobster prep is easy!  Twist, poke, pull!

Conch prep is a little more challenging as you have to get the bugger out of the shell before essentially skinning it.  Oh, and ours was a boy!  Frank did not eat the “Bahamian Viagra.”  😳

Then as we were making our way to George Town (pounding into wind/waves on the nose!), we hooked two mahi mahi!  One got away just as we were about to get it aboard, but we successfully landed the second.    Grilled mahi tonight!

Our first mahi mahi!

We could get used to this, but as we are now in Elizabeth Harbour there will be no hunting for a bit.  Good thing we have some mahi mahi in the freezer!  We honestly strive to not take more than we need or can consume in short order so this restriction is just fine.  It just seems like the right thing to do.