More Spanish Wells

We're still in Spanish Wells, probably until Thursday or Friday. Almost every house here has gardens and well manicured lawns. Some of the gardens are just beautiful, with fountains and decorations. We particularly like this pink flowering bush. Don't know what it is, but it's very common.

In addition to their gardens, it seems that each house has it's own fence around the property. All sorts of fences; concrete painted to match the house trim, mesh wire, ropes on short pilings, concrete blocks, rocks, whatever, but always a fence of some sort.

We've eaten lunch twice at this lunch stand. That's me in the pink. Two sisters team up each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to provide fresh fried (cooked when ordered) conch fritters with sauce, tuna sandwiches, and Cheese Whiz sandwiches, along with home cooked brownies or cookies. We've learned that conch fritters are mostly dough batter with a sprinkling of conch bits in it. Conch snacks are mostly conch, fried in strips, in a light, frothy batter. For lunch we had an order of 6 conch fritters, a tuna sandwich, and a brownie, plus drink, for $6. Sure beats the expensive places. We can sit on a short wall in the shade of a palm tree by their apartments while we eat. Dad is a fisherman who gets lobster the old fashioned way - shooting them with a spear gun. We bought 4 tails from him yesterday, about 4 pounds for $36. One tail was large and we ate half of it for dinner last night. Lobster rolls tonight! The other 3 are frozen for future dinners.

Everyone in the town goes home for lunch. All businesses close, including the marinas, etc. Even the school closes for lunch - all of the kids get picked up by mom and are taken home for lunch. There's a five minute rush hour at noon and then at 12:45 that you wouldn't believe!

When we returned to Latitudes, we noticed a strange attachment to the anchor chain.... that's sticks, fishing line, unraveled rope, and some pieces of clothing...

Not sure what it used to be but it's a real danger to props. Getting this caught in the engine prop would foul it and cause major damage, plus the need to dive on the prop and clear it. We were glad to find it on the anchor line. We took it to town this morning and left it in one of the trash containers.

Yes, we're back into jeans this morning, it got down to 67 deg last night!

Royal Harbor and Spanish Wells

We left Governor's Harbour on Thursday, March 19, with the intention of going to Spanish Wells. We did make most of the 42 mile sail, going through the narrow Current Cut. The water us always choppy here, as it funnels down to a narrow channel, plus there are the effects of outgoing tide against incoming wind, etc. It was no problem, but it certainly was choppy.

After we cleared the cut, only about 6 miles from our destination, we watched a large squall forming over where we wanted to go. A squall is basically a local downpour, with or without lightning. Always higher wind, in the direction it's moving. We watched it move on our radar and decided to skirt around it and go to Royal Harbor instead. Royal Harbor is a private island, formerly the location of a large mansion in the 1950's. Of course, it is in ruins now. The harbor offers nearly complete protection from winds in any direction, relatively rare in the Bahamas.

Construction was started a couple of years ago on a large resort, but was halted due to the economy. The trucks and some land clearing are all that are left now. But the island is still private, so you can't go ashore.

We left Friday morning, bright and early, for Spanish Wells, only 7 miles away. The name is said to have originated three centuries ago, when Spanish explorers declared local well water the sweetest in the Bahamas. Spanish Wells is the only all white settlement in the Bahamas, all either Loyalist descendants or descendants of the original Eleuterian Adventurers who sailed for religious freedom from England back in the mid 1600's. Their boats shipwrecked on these shores and they stayed. Until a couple of years ago, all blacks had to be off of the island by dark. There are a few black natives here now, but only a very few.

The island is relatively prosperous, due to fishing. The houses are (mostly) painted and well kept. The population is about 2500. Here are a couple of views of the town. Purple house...

Oldest house on the island, complete with year-round Christmas tree (check the far right corner of the yard carefully...)There are cars, but just as many golf carts. The roads are NARROW and there is often NO place to step aside for oncoming cars. This is old English --- they drive on the wrong side of the road... Here is an example of a cute house, trash cans painted pink to match the house, but look at the street - concrete on one side, shrubs on the other.

Even the cemetery is colorful, all graves decorated.

We crossed the island (only 2 streets wide) to the Atlantic side. It's shallow forever and then drops to 3000 ft and gets rougher.

The drop off where the depth changes is where the fishing is best. And we'll be going over that area when we finally leave here, probably on Thursday, the 26th. The winds are too high for sailboats, so everyone is staying put, where ever they are, until the winds subside. SO --- since we're going over that area, my search for a new reel has been intensified. I've looked for one at ever since the original one broke, and no place in 5 settlements has had reels for sale. There aren't any here, either, but the owner of the local marina had one that he says he used three times and didn't want any more. We bought it a reasonable price instead of a new price, so we are all happy. Check it out --- this boy is a little more beefy than the old one....

It is actually larger and heavier than I had planned on buying, but at least I could get one. We'll put it on the rod today and be ready for trolling for that big mahi as we cross over to the Abacos next week and again as we cross the Gulf stream.

Since we'll be here for a few more days, we'll probably have more on Spanish Wells later.

Latitudes in Action!

Friends took a few shots of Latitudes underway --- we like this one.

More beautiful beaches

On Friday, March 13, we sailed to another harbor on Cat Island, Bennett Bay. It’s a small settlement, very poor with the exception of a few foreigners who have homes there, mostly summer only. There is one very cute, 4 cottage resort, Sammy T’s. Very nicely done. Here is the entrance, from the beach.
And the view from the porch.
And lunch on the porch.
Complete with the obligatory thatched beach umbrellas.
The small village itself is very poor. One family has a “restaurant/bar” where they sell fresh conch salad. Take a look at this guy, sitting in the sun… we passed.
BUT we were told later that it’s quite ok. Conch are designed by Mother Nature to sit on the sand flats for 12 hours each day, baking in the sun, waiting for the tidal shift. The locals gather them, bore a hole through the shell, tie 5 of them together, and take them home to wait to sell. If they don’t sell them that day, they put them back into the water at high tide, still tied together, and they stay there until the next day when it all starts all over again. I’m TOLD that if you tie 3 conch together, they can figure out how to swim away. But 5 can’t coordinate it and can’t swim away….

There are many churches on the island, some simply deserted. This one is an old Catholic church, simply abandoned.
The inside is falling apart but not vandalized. That is something we’ve noticed in all of the Bahamas. No real evidence of vandalized property, no graffiti.
The church was apparently last used around Easter, 1992. There is still a bible and hymnal sitting on the pulpit, open to an Easter selection, with a program
We went with 3 other boats and took our dinghys up the Alligator River. The water is so crystal clear. Look at this…
Looks like a shore drop off and then water, right? Nope, there is at least a foot of water over that sandy mangrove area. There IS a drop off, about 10 feet deep. Here is a better view of what is looks like, with the water over the mangrove knees.
Next, a short sail to Little San Salvador. I caught a fish en route! A small jack.
Luke filleted him, and although it looks like very little, we got 4 nice fillets out of it. We invited another boat over for dinner and they brought some ham to supplement it. The fish was very good!
Unfortunately, I’ve lost 3 more, unable to reel them in. The line breaks at the reel tip. And the reel doesn’t work right. When we hit civilization, we’re getting a new reel with higher strength line.
Little San Salvador is an island that a cruise line owns. We can anchor there, but are not supposed to go ashore. Here are 2 of the boats. That’s our friends Dee and Dave’s sailboat for comparison (and it’s a big 47 ft sailboat, not some little guy).
Part of the activities on the island is horse riding. They came back by, horses up to their body in the water.
One big excitement, we "saw" a space shuttle take off - from about 350 miles away! It was just after sun set, about 7:45, and the sun illuminated the smoke trail from the solid rocket boosters. It was just a red line angling into the sky on the horizon. A few minutes later, there was a bright cloud in the dark sky, higher, in the same direction. It persisted for at least 10 minutes. We later heard several theories: a cloud of ionized gasses from the hydrogen rocket exhaust, giving off light, or a cloud of ice crystals from the exhaust, illuminated by the sun, already below the horizon for lower level clouds. We sort of caught that, but not very well. It was exciting though! Proud to be an American ---
Next to Rock Sound, a very cute settlement with colorful houses, a real grocery store, cheap liquor store, someone who did my laundry for me at a very cheap price, and of course, the usual lunch bar.
We left Rock Sound on St Patty’s day, headed north along the Elutherias for Governor’s Harbor. Unfortunately, our friends Dee and Dave headed south, to meet friends. We’ll miss traveling with them; it was a lot of fun. But, we’ll see them back in the States, as we head north up the ICW.
We spent Wednesday, March 18, in Government Harbour, the original capital of the Bahamas. Many Loyalist came here after the American Revolution. I guess they were the original ex-patriots…Their houses are still standing, all with beautiful views. They are all in complete disrepair, some just left, some used for storage of either garbage or junk.
The island itself is the most prosperous that we’ve seen. There are about a dozen beautiful homes, nice gardens, etc. Definitely foreigners

George Town Regatta to Cat Island

We stayed in George Town until Monday, March 9.
On Thursday, a group of us got together to register for the Coconut Harvest, more to follow. The island restaurant was preparing a pig for a bbq, and of course someone suggested a picture of “the girls”.

Later, lunch overlooking a few of the 350 boats here.

We braved a walk across the island to the sound side, a lot rougher than the anchorage.

The wind was been relentless the past week, making the 2 mile dinghy ride across to the town itself unpleasant. I needed to do some grocery shopping, mail some stuff, and dump trash, so I called the water taxi and took the ride back & forth. Luke stayed behind and did chores on the boat.
There was a great No Talent Show on Friday evening, which well earned its name. A few acts were well done and polished, but most were just fun. This belly dancer may have a few years under those cymbals, but she could sure still shake ‘em!

It got dark too early to catch pictures of all of the acts, but we had a conch orchestra (ouch!!!!), The Blues Brothers, The Raisonettes doing, of course, “heard it through the grapevine”, and the winner, a well rehearsed cancan act. After the show, there was dancing on the beach to the “oldies”…quite appropriate for the demographics of the cruising community ….

Now, the coconut harvest ….The idea is to have teams of 4 in each dinghy, all rushing to gather up as many floating coconuts as possible. Over 700 were dumped into a little bay area. 25 dinghys participated. We had a women’s teams and a men’s team, shown proudly below.

We were each allowed one swim fin per person for propulsion, one bucket per boat, and mandatory wearing of a life vest, no matter where you wore it. After corralling all of the teams on the beach, we had a La Mans start, with a horn blast and everyone running for their beached dinghys.
Paddle as best you can, heading for the floating coconuts the guys dinghy ----
Some were not above filching from boats --- yes, that would be Luke’s boat mate.

No matter, the girls team didn’t win, but we sure got our share of the coconuts.

The guys got 17, we got 26.
We were pleased at that little victory.

Next phase was the “guts and butts” race. Each team had carry coconuts back and forth across a volleyball court, first belly to belly, then butt to butt. We were perfect, again!
Here are Luke & Dave, butt to butt.

And Dee & Marion, belly to belly.

And THEN, the coconut toss. We women had a plan…..we knew we couldn’t hit the far targets (had 3 circles on the other side of a volleyball net, had to get the coconuts in one of them to count), so we just all went for the near target, going a perfect “4” and didn’t want to risk a wash out. Guess what !!! We got ‘em!!

We didn’t win, but we did come in high in the points, and we had a great time.
Saturday night the group met at Marian & Greg’s boat for a birthday dinnerparty for Joanne. The birthday girl is on the far right.

Sunday was mostly spent doing last chores before leaving --- trash to town, a few groceries, 50 pounds of cat litter (yes, that was the ONLY size they had!), planning our next port of call, etc. We stumbled onto an impromptu barbershop/beauty salon on the beach. One of the cruiser ladies was a hair dresser and had taken her generator, scissors, and assorted paraphernalia to a beach. We both got a hair cut and gave her a “donation”. I wish I’d taken a camera!

George Town is sort of the destination/dividing place for cruisers. Almost everyone goes there, but from there, the options are endless. Some continue south to the Caribbean or further south, some to Europe, some turn north and scoot home to the USA back the way they came, some go north and make a big circle before heading back to the USA. We left many of our friends at this point and we’ll miss them. Fortunately, we will see some of them as our northern passages cross and others at various US places as we head north, either to Deltaville or on our trip next summer to Maine.

On Monday, we left with friends Dee and Dave of Wings of Angells, from Savannah. It was a nice mostly sail to our next island, Cat, about 50 miles due east. I decided to cast out a fishing line and within 5 minutes caught a fish SO BIG it broke my reel! REALLY!!! I snagged a big mahi mahi, maybe 40 inches long. I dragged that rascal in for a long time and JUUUSSSST as we got him to the stern of the boat, he gave one big shake and broke not only my line, but also the inner workings of the reel. I think Luke has it fixed --- we’ll try again as we got to the right waters. They generally are in an area where the water depth changes, like from 4000 ft to 150 ft or from 150 ft to 20 ft.

We arrived at New Bight just in time for full moon-rise.

Wick isn’t usually interested when I cook, but on the rare occasion that I cook meat, well…. He’s most helpful.
He even tries to help his daddy after it’s ready.
New Bight (Cat Island) in the Elutheras is the home of Father Jerome. Born in England in 1876, he came to the Bahamas in the early 1900’s to restore hurricane damaged churches. As an ex-architect, he built 7 hurricane proof churches with thick walls and barrel-vaulted roofs in the Bahamas. He built the Church of the Redemption in New Bight and also The Hermitage, which was his retirement home. Beautiful and quite impressive, it was built on the highest point of land (206 ft!) in all of the Bahamas.

Now look again, at the relative size of the Hermitage, with me as a reference.

It’s so small but amazing. A tiny chapel, large enough for only 3-4 people.
His private room is here, the small room indicated by the green shutters.
The 14 Stations of the Cross bring you up the mountain to the Hermitage. Here is Christ’s tomb, with the stone rolled away.
Inside, he has even included the body of Christ.
Father Jerome was buried here, too, when he died in 1956.
His choice was perfect – the view from the church is a 360 degree view of the beautiful island and waters. This includes old cleared field areas that were once used in a effort to farm the small island.
The island beach is the perfect postcard Bahamas beach. It doesn’t get any more beautiful than this.
We even found 2 live sand dollars. See the “fuzz” on them? And they aren’t bleached out yet. Yes, we put them back in the water.
Wednesday, motored to Fernandaz Beach, 7 mles and 1 hour away. Internet! How's this for an internet cafe? Self service bar, honor system, taken over by cruisers in need of internet.

Not much else, except beautiful beaches.
Here are Dee & Dave, doing the cruiser thing, standing in the dinghy so they don’t get wet. We haven’t mastered that yet.
I think we’ll take one more day at Cat Island, then further north, maybe Little San Salvador. Hopefully we’ll have internet there, too, but not sure yet.