Cambridge Cay

After a few days at Waderick Wells Cay we moved 15 miles to the south end of the Land and Sea Park to Cambridge Cay.  We had to wind our way around Bell Cay to get into the anchorage.  There is either a very expensive home or small hotel located on Bell Cay with a beautiful beach and blue waters all around.  It was a scenic journey to the anchorage.  Again, this park anchorage did not disappoint.  It is just so beautiful here!  It was so calm in this snug mooring field surrounded by little cays.  While Waderick Wells has astounding beauty, when the tide was up our boat would roll.  So to move to this gorgeous mooring field and have it be so flat and calm was perfection!  We enjoyed the sunset after getting set up. 

While at Cambridge Cay we spent an afternoon at the beach, walking and playing with Jesse and enjoying the scenery.

Benjamin played in the sand while we walked around and explored.  He built himself a volcano and wrote a note:

“Vockano!  No Going in!”

After reading his note, we decided he needed to be writing more in his school work.  No more one word journal entries, he was definitely ready to move on to at least 1 sentence.

 

Below is a shell Savannah picked up with a beautiful crab living in to.  She placed it back in the shallow water on its back.  We watched the crab poke its head out and back in its shell looking for danger.  He did this over and over, until he finally flipped himself and his shell over.  It was fun to watch.

 

Calvin and his mega volcano.

Swimming Pigs

 

While staying at Cambridge Cay we took the tender 10 miles south to Staniel Cay.  Staniel is a big stop for most boaters, and it has a large anchorage area that can fit a lot of boats.  We were planning to bypass it when we move further south, so we thought we would take the tender down instead for a morning to see the swimming pigs. 

lFrom the anchorage there are 3 beaches.  The south beach has 4 or 5 pigs that live on it.  They were brought there by a local.  Over time they learned that the boaters would bring them food and they learned to swim out to the dinghy’s that would approach the beach.  When we arrived another tender had taken their scraps ashore so the pigs were busy eating already.  We waited a bit and toured the anchorage looking at the boats anchored there including a 100 ft mega yacht.  It is always fun to see a fancy yacht at anchor, usually we only see them at a marina, but in this part of the world there aren’t any marina’s for mega yachts, or regular boats, so we all anchor together.  It reminds me why we are travelling on a boat… there are some parts of the world, that a boat is the only way to see them, and the Exhuma’s is one of those places.  It is so worth the effort of travelling by boat to see.

We circled back around and 2 of the pigs ventured out to see us.  They swim like dogs, same sort of movement.  We had brought some bread ends that we had left over, but they didn’t seem to like my homemade bread, I guess they are a bit of food snobs. 

Exuma Land and Sea Park—WOW!

This place is amazingly beautiful!  I loved the northern Exhumas, and thought “can it get any better than this?”  YES it can!  As we have travelled and met fellow boaters or read boater blogs or books, we had noticed that many of them will say out of all the places they have been, the Exhuma’s are their favorite.  Now we know why… it is just so beautiful here.  The water colors are incredible, the clarity is amazing, and it is quiet and serene.  The snorkeling is great, there are sharks and rays everywhere we anchor.  The sand is beautiful.  The islands are a little hilly which makes for beautiful scenery.  There are no big cities, or towns or much of people at all, other than our fellow boaters.  It is heavenly.

In the Northern half of the Exhuma’s is the Exhuma Land and Sea Park.It incorporates all the Cays within a 22 mile range north to south.  Our first stop in the park, was Shroud Cay, en route to Waderick Wells Cay, the park Headquarters, I made a separate post for that stop.  We continued on to Wederwick Wells Cay for a few days stay.  We were going to stay in the Emerald Rock mooring field, but after looking at the weather a few days out, we decided to stay in the north mooring field for a little more protection from south winds in a few days.   It seems to me the north mooring field is the preferred site, and I know why, you could just sit on your boat all day and admire the view.  The Emerald rock field isn’t the same, but still beautiful.  The north field has a few sandbars that appear at low tide, which changes the water color and taking it all in, it is just breathtaking.  In fact just after we arrived and got settled, Calvin and Isabel set out to reach the sandbars via boogie board from our boat.  It was fun watching them figure out how to overcome the current that was running against them.  It was a good lesson for them on how to swim across the current not directly into it.  Then you can reach your destination.  It took them awhile, but they did reach the sandbar to play, and then it was an easy float back to the boat with the current carrying them mostly our way.  They had to stayed aimed for the front of our boat so that they wouldn’t get swept past the boat and have to fight the current back up to the boat.

Now… to the harrowing story of how we got there…  As we headed towards the entrance of the mooring field, we stopped to pull in our tender, we actually were planning on still towing it in, but at 30 feet behind instead of 150 feet behind.  As David pulled in the lines we were drifting and ended up with the tender off our port side.  David told me to head forward and as I did a part of the tow line from the very front of the tender was sucked into our port prop and yanked the tender right into the side of our boat.  we now have a nice scratched up 1 square foot area that will need to be gel coated and painted.  Along with a few scratches down the side.  So there we are the tender pinned to the side of the boat… I but the engines back in neutral and look over the side to see what happened, I’m driving from the top and only heard the tender hit us, I hadn’t seen what happened.  Savannah came running to tell me to turn off the engines because Dad was jumping in the water to see if he can pull the line out of the prop.  So now we’re engines off and drifting, and thank goodness it was about slack tide or we would have drifted faster.  Savannah and I kept an eye on where we were drifting towards.  I decided we should put out our anchor, so I confirmed with David, and then Calvin and I headed off to drop the anchor so at least we’d stop drifting and not end up in a shallow are, or worse—on the rocks.   All of this is quite stressful for me. 

With the anchor out David decided to grab the oxygen tank to see if he could get a better look at the prop with out coming up for air every minute or so.  Meanwhile we tried to stuff some fenders between the tender and our boat to minimize the scraping occurring as we rolled around in the waves.  We weren’t in a protected area, but open to the waves from the banks.  It wasn’t deep or big waves, but enough to move us around quite a bit.  Finally David realized he would just have to cut the line to get the tender off and we’d have to worry about the port prop later, the line was tightly wound in it.  So we cut the line.  We secured the tender so we could tow it on the hip of the boat, and got ready to head into the mooring field with only our starboard engine working.  We have run on one engine before, but never with the tender attached at the side and we noticed the drastic pull the tender had on us with only one engine working.  We hoped we would be okay as we made our way through the mooring field.  I was driving us in, and hoped it would be calm and easy to get thru the mooring field since it is protected from wind on most sides.  However, with it being low tide, the way thru the field was tight, the current was running thru strong, so I had David take over driving, I was too nervous.  We had to make a turn and as we approached there was another trawler on a mooring ball there, right where we needed to turn.  We had to decide whether to go behind the trawler and turn and go in front. We didn’t have long to decide, it was windy and the strong current was pulling on the boat.  The owner of the other trawler came out on deck and suggested we go in front of him as it is shallow to the side we were on, and with the current we might get run into the rocks behind him.  With the little engine control we had, David managed to back us up between the trawler and the sailboat on the mooring ball in front of the trawler.  I stood on the back deck watching and telling him where the other sailboat was and how close to the sand bar he was getting.  He did it though, we got a way with out any incidents.  Both of us were quite nervous and grateful that it worked out.  I think Heavenly Father was watching over us. 

The next task was getting hooked up to the mooring ball.  With current and wind, and our high bow, getting lined up with the mooring ball and attaching a line would be a challenge.  Madison and I were on the bow ready for the task, I had given Madison the 5 second run down on what we were going to do, when the guy from the trawler comes riding up in his dinghy and says “throw me your line and I’ll feed it through the mooring line for you!”  He fed in both of our lines and we were attached that easy!  That was so kind of him.  He didn’t have to come help us, in fact he could have just stayed on his boat and watched the show I am sure it would have been, as it would have taken us awhile to get hooked to the mooring ball.  But he hoped over in his dinghy and was a HUGE help to us.  Later that night after getting settled David and the kids took him and his wife a plate of cookies to thank him. 

Later the next day he and his wife stopped over.  We chatted for a bit and laughed about the close call with the boats and explained our one engine dilemma, and he and David talked about how to the get the line out of our prop.  He offered to come back in a bit and help David dive under the boat to get it out.  It turns out that He is from Poland, and his wife from Puerto Rico.  They swung back by a little later to help David, but David had used the hack saw and that worked to get the line out.  We invited them over to dinner that evening.

 

 

 

 

While David was working on the props, the baby took his morning nap, and Madison and I took the rest of the kids for a fun little hike on shore.  We hiked to the top of the peak on the island, not high up, but a beautiful view from the top, it’s called Boo Boo Hill. The island lore is that off the east coast of the cay many years ago a ship sank taking with it hundreds of slaves.  They say that if you come to the top of Boo Boo Hill at night you can hear the slaves singing.

To get to the top the trail passes thru a mangrove canal.  At first it started with rock hopping over small amounts of water.  Savannah was helping Matthew and they slipped and fell in the water.  They were upset that they had gotten all wet.  Then we reached the open mangrove area—and to continue on the canal we had to swim, well the kids had to swim, it was waist high on Madison and I.  We weren’t even wearing swim suits, the volunteer park rangers had mentioned anything about the hike being more water than dirt! 

We were having a great time, swimming in our clothes trying to reach Boo Boo Hill.

 

 

 

At the very top is a beautiful view of the anchorage, the path we had come, and the sound on the East side of the island.  Over the years, boaters would bring a piece of driftwood with they boat name on it and date and leave it at the top of Boo Boo Hill as a memory.  There is quite a large pile now.

Near the top are a few blowholes, and those were a lot of fun.  Small little holes, about 6 inches wide in the ground and then they narrow under the surface, sort of like a funnel.  Under us along the seashore are caves.  When the waves crash thru the caves the air is blown with tremendous force up these holes.  I was expecting a spray like a whale’s blow hole, but mostly air with a little mist came up.  But the air came at such a tremendous force—enough to blow our hair straight up.  If a little water came with it, the spray would sting our faces as it hit it.  Each blow was quite surprising and a lot of fun!.  We stood over the hole for awhile anxiously awaiting another blow. 

It was so exhilarating, like a roller coaster ride, just waiting for the next blow.  Savannah and Calvin walked a little closer to the side of the hill where the waves were crashing listening to them crash, and then a couple of big ones hit and sprayed up over the hill at us.  We had a great morning up there. Matthew didn’t like the Blow holes so he sat on a rock and patiently waited while we kept playing.  When Benjamin was done he went to sit with him.

On the way back we ran into David trying to make his way to us.  He had finished up his prop tangle, and had dressed to come meet us on the hike.  He didn’t know either that it was a “water” hike, so he got stopped as the trail became less ground and more water.  He was wearing his regular shoes and socks, and not interested in getting them all wet.  We were of course soaked by the time we found him, having crossed the deep part of the hike again.

When we reached the ranger station and headed down to our tender we found a nurse shark waiting off the dock.  Savannah and Calvin and Isabel were wanting to swim back to the boat, but had a moment of Shark fear.  They have swam with nurse sharks around them numerous times, so I am not sure why they got a little scared this time.  But Isabel jumped and started her swim.  She was headed out to the boat and saw Savannah and Calvin had chickened out and so she got a little nervous.  The current was going the other way at this time so she had to swim across it to get back to us.  She did a great job.  We loaded into the tender, and made Savannah and Calvin swim back since they left their sister alone.  We all made it back to the boat safely.

For the afternoon we decided to pack a lunch and head to find a beach on the south east end of the island.  But when we got there, the current made it so we couldn’t land the tender there, so we went over to the south west side and found a beautiful beach there to picnic and play for a few hours.  We brought Jessie along and she loved running and playing in the water and sand.

We headed back to the boat after a few hours to go for a snorkel and start dinner, but the kids still wanted to play in the sand more, so we dropped the older ones off at the sand bar near the boat where we could easily see them from the boat and the little ones took a shower and nap.

Madison and I were able to swim off the boat to a small coral area about 100 feet from the boat.  While snorkeling we saw 3 spotted eagle rays swim by us.  They were amazing to watch and just so big, maybe 5-6 feet wide. 

Driftwood Beach, Shroud Cay

We pulled up anchor at Highbourne and headed south.  We planned to make a short stop at Shroud Cay to hike to Driftwood Beach.  However, the winds had picked up as a front was passing, and with heavy winds from the north the anchorage at Shroud Cay was quite rocky.  We cancelled our stop there due to the weather, and were continuing on, when David suggested we anchor at a small Cay about 1 mile away from Shroud.  We could hide behind the small Cay from the waves and anchor the boat in calmer waves.  Then we would have to take the new tender to Shroud Cay.  We had planned to take the smaller dinghy, because to get to Driftwood Beach you have to pass through a small mangrove creek.  Tide was going out and we worried that the larger tender would be too deep of a draft on the shallow creek.  But since we anchored further away, and it was quite choppy water to get to the cay, our only choice was to take the larger tender. 

We made it across the banks to the Cay and the creek.  We made it through the creek with good depths and landed at this tiny beach just before a small cut out to the sound side of the cay.  We beached the tender and walked around the corner of the beach, to this long stretch of sand.  The waves were crashing along this side of the beach, it was a beautiful site.  We were greeted at Driftwood beach by a sticky figurine.  We walked down the beach until we came to a path leading to the top of the hill.  We hiked up to the top to enjoy the beautiful view of the beach before us and the mangrove creeks behind us.  I am so glad we stopped and found a way to visit this beautiful area.  I wished we’d packed a lunch and swim suits and boogie boards to spend the day.  But the tide was still dropping and we wanted to make sure we did not get stuck there till it came back in.  Although, this would have been a great place to get stuck!  I plan to go back someday, in fact I plan to visit all of the Exhuma’s again.  It is gorgeous here!

Highborne Cay

Highborne Cay, our first landfall in the Exumas of the Bahamas.  We started our crossing on a Saturday afternoon, leaving the Florida Keys in 3-4 foot waves.  The forecast had called for 2 foot waves, and we hoped that they would lessen.  About 6 hours later they did lessen.  We had planned to cross earlier in the week, but decided to wait till Saturday when the weather looked nicer and for a longer period of time.  At night it is comforting to see lots of other boats out on the water crossing as well.  We saw a cruise ship all lit up for it’s guests, a few large cargo or freight ships, and several sailboats headed for the Bahamas as well.

The kids slept through the night easily.  And Savannah and Calvin each took a turn on watch with Dad.  Shortly before we entered the Grand Bahama Bank the wind and waves died down and it was a smoother sail.  It wasn’t terrible before, but it wasn’t smooth and nice either.  We entered the bank in the middle of the night and continued on to the Berry Islands.  We arrived at Chub Cay in the afternoon on Sunday, almost 24 hours after we left Florida.

In the morning the manager of the mooring field near where we anchored drove us to the small airport/ landing strip, for a small fee, to meet the customs agent to clear in to the Bahamas.  The only new part for us was hoping they allowed Jessie to enter the country as well.  Otherwise she would have to stay aboard the boat.  We had applied previously for a permit and had received that from the Bahamas but the agent still had to approve the records from the vet, which we somewhat “doctored”.  The permit states that they want a vet health certificate dated within 48 hours of departing for or arriving in the Bahamas.  It’s not like flying, when you have a set ticket date and can see your vet the day before you leave.  With a boat, we watch and watch for a good weather window, plus we were anchored off one of the Florida Keys, without a car or way to get her to a local vet.  So we used the Health Certificate we had gotten for flying her to Florida, and scanned it in to the laptop and re-wrote the date so it would fall in the appropriate time frame.  All went well, and Harold drove us back to the anchorage.  Along the way he gave us a little tour of the small cay.  He and his brother own 1/3rd of the land and have considered developing it.  I had asked the customs agent if he was from Chub Cay, and he quickly informed me that –no one lives on this island.  Only people here, work here, but no one is from this Island.  It is a small Island and aside from a pricey Marina and a few condo’s at one end, and the mooring field at the other, there is not much there. 

Harold showed us a pretty beach we could easily walk to, so after lunch, chores, and school, David and I took the older 4 kids to the beach for an hour.  Along the way we met up with 2 other boat families that joined us for our trip to the beach.  Their kids were a little older than ours, the youngest in each family was 10.  Calvin and Savannah enjoyed talking to them.  We had a nice break playing in the sand and chatting. 

The next morning, before the sun was even thinking of getting up, we were up and working our way out of the anchorage to head to the Exumas.  It was a little rough in the morning.  The waves were a little bigger than we were hoping for and it was windy out.  But 2 hours later it had settled down, and maybe we were in the lee of Nassau, but the waves and wind were calmer.  We enjoyed our little tour of Nassau as we passed close by, and headed out to cross the Yellow bank and arrive at Highborne Cay late in the afternoon.

Highborne is on the northern end of the Exuma Islands.  We anchored with 7 or 8 other boats about 200 feet from a nice sandy beach.  Shortly after setting our anchor, David dropped a rope in the water and it sank below us.  He had Calvin jump in and go get it.  I teased Calvin to watch out for the sharks.  A few minutes after Calvin climbed out David looked down at the water and said he thought there was a Stingray under the boat.  He looked again and said, no, I think that’s a shark.  It swam out to the side of the boat and so we got a better look at it, and sure enough it was a nurse shark.  Calvin thought it was funny because of what I had been just teasing him about.  Nurse sharks are not aggressive and usually very shy.  Madison then mentioned that she had seen off the back of the boat while we were setting the anchor.  It was pretty cool, to just arrive and see sharks hanging out to say Hello.  Benjamin came and waved at the shark and said Hi to him.  He told the shark he knew he was nice.  Last spring he was very scared of sharks, so it was nice to hear him getting over his fears.   We took a quick trip in the tender to check out the small marina on the Island, and visit the anchorage in the Islands just north of us.  It was then getting dark and time to head back and have dinner.  The next day, David and I went into the marina to see if they had a Batelco (Bahamas phone data sim card) and for some bananas; we bought 11 bananas for the low price of $10.  The kids ate them all by the next day, so it was worth it.  The marina is all that is on this island, nothing else for miles and miles.

The kids hurried thru their school work so we could spend the afternoon on the beach.  Jessie swam from the boat to the beach to get in a good exercise.  We did a little snorkeling nearby, and then swam from the beach to the boat—that’s how close we were. Along the way I saw a Conch shell walking along. It’s snail inside was making good time walking along the sand under the water.

The next morning we took a field trip to a beach 2 miles north of us to see the Rock Iquanas. As we pulled up to the beach they all came out.  Some were 2 feet long, not very big, but there were so many of them.  The fast tour boats bring tourists out here from Nassau and they feed the Iguanas, so they come to the beach eagerly hoping for food.  We didn’t bring them any, but when Calvin or Isabel would crouch down the Iguana’s would come forward towards them thinking they had food. 

That afternoon we put the little kids down for naps after lunch and took the older kids out for a snorkel. Even Benjamin did a great job snorkeling.  It was a fairly calm day so we circled the cay on the outside to see how the new tender handles the ocean waves. On the east side of the Exhuma’s is the sound, where it is thousands of feet deep—good for fishing, and on the west side is the banks, where it is only dozens of feet deep or shallower. The banks side is where we see the gorgeous blue water colors and sand bars appearing at low tide. After our circle around the island, we landed back at the beach by the boat. We played in the sand for a bit and then again swam back to the boat.  This time the kids hung out for a bit on their boogie boards playing in the water off the boat.  Jessie got in to swim with them and practice using her water ramp and the stairs.

Florida Keys

David had docked the boat in Marathon, Fl, which is about an hour before Key West.  So that is where we returned with the kids to the boat.  We spent 9 days in a Marina stocking and getting ready, and waiting for our new tender.  Our 12 foot dinghy was just a little small for our large family.  Now add the new baby, and the dog and it’s even more tight.  So we decided to buy a larger tender that would allow us more room, faster travel, and increase our range of things we can go see and do.  In the old dinghy 3  miles was our max, and even then the 3 miles needed to be nice flat water in order to go that far without getting wet or the ride being too bumpy.  David decided on an offshore fishing boat.  It has brought new challenges for us.  We have to tow it behind us, so we’ve had to figure out exactly how to tow it and it slows us down a little.  But it is roomy and zips along nicely, taking us to see new things.

While we were in Marathon we attended the local LDS branch there.  It is a very small branch, but they are big in friendliness and spirit.  We enjoyed worshipping our Savior with them on the Sundays we were there. After church each week they have a linger longer and we enjoyed visiting and getting to know them over lunch.  During the week they get together for a mid week activity on Wednesday nights.  We were able to attend the Wednesday we were there and had a fun time playing games and writing Christmas cards to the troops away from their families for the Holidays. On Sunday Savannah had mentioned that a game she had played at school was once was trying to get an Oreo into your mouth from your forehead without using your hands.  The Missionary couple serving in the branch brought Oreos just so we could play the game.  It was a lot of fun watching everyone try to figure it out.  I couldn’t figure it out.  Everyone else, after a few attempts were able to enjoy their oreo.