At Home in the Bahamas

We’ve been here in the Bahamas over 2 weeks and in the Exumas over a week. We are currently anchored by Staniel Cay off Big Majors Cay. Our position is N24.11.12/W76.26.67. We are less than a degree of Latitude from the Tropic of Cancer which we hope to cross next week and more than 14⁰ from our origin in the Chesapeake. Considering the northern hemisphere is 90⁰ we will have covered 25% of the distance between the equator and the North Pole.

Tonight in Staniel Cay is the first night we’ve spent out of the Exumas Land and Sea Park in the past week. We spent 6 nights on 3 different islands. The Bahamas have done a great job preserving a bit of their natural state through the Park.

The sailing has been really great too. Each day we’ve sailed nicely in about 10 kts of easterly breeze. We’ve run the engine 10 hours since refueling upon our arrival in Nassau 2 weeks ago.  We haven’t run the generator so we’ve only used about 15 gals of fuel. The only reason we’ve used so much is to get into and out of our anchorages. Sailing along the islands we have been heading generally southeast and the wind has been easterly. But because of the shallows and coral heads we’ve had to run about 2 miles west of the islands so we need to motor into and out of the anchorage because going in is dead into the wind and coming out is dead down wind. Plus the occasional motor heats the water and ensures our batteries are fully charged. So far we have been able to maintain our batteries from our wind and solar.

Weather has been consistent each day with sunny skies and a comfortable breeze although tonight a squall came through with the first rain in over a week and rinsed off all the salt on the boat and brought in some much higher winds. Today we deployed our CQR anchor instead of our primary Rocna because it seemed like settled weather but with the change we may want to reconsider and deploy the Rocna. The water is only about 10’ deep (less at low tide) so diving on it to tie the retrieval line isn’t that difficult. So we will probably pull up our CQR and reanchor with our Rocna. Although this will be a test of using our CQR but we will be keeping anchor watch.

The anchorage here at Big Majors has about 30 boats this evening. Seems like each anchorage we’ve been in has been busy. Supposedly this is now less busy than say in February. But we keep looking for some solitude. So far the only place we found It was by dinghying up the creeks on Shroud Cay. Each day sailing we pass numerous boats mostly headed north. Much of the traffic has been large motor yachts that come loaded with toys. We saw 2 here in the anchorage that in addition to jet skis, boston whaler’s and paddle boards had portable waterslides! Lots of boats seem to be crowded with kids probably on Spring Break. While snorkeling the airplane wreck reef we tied up next to a skiff with a family from Arlington, VA that was staying on Staniel for the week. No doubt on Spring Break.

It’s now been 4 months since we left Oxford and cold weather. Although we had some chilly weather in Florida there was still nothing as bad as up north. Since about the time we left Marathon the day time temps have been in the 80’s and lows probably in the 70’s. We had the AC on a couple times in Nassau and Key West but generally it had been pretty comfortable.

Most of the people we’ve met spend the winter months on their boats in the warm weather but have a home they go to other times during the year. While we still have some organization issues and some additional repairs and upgrades to accomplish things seem to be falling into place and living on the boat instead of a house just seems natural. The boat is where we sleep, prepare food and get out of the weather but the outside is where we do everything else. The sound of the wind and water is very soothing.

Tonight we enjoyed a very nice dinner that Linda prepared along with our last bottle of 2005 Del Dotto Cabernet while we watched the sun set. One of the beauties of this life is that we get to see the sun set almost every day and often the sunrise. Among all the art galleries in the world there is nothing as beautiful as the sun crossing the horizon as it does each day where it can be seen. A close second is the sky at night with no light pollution to destroy the deepness of the universe and the brilliance of each star no matter how far away it is.

Tomorrow the canvas gets painted again and we have a new port to explore.