4/8/2019
Bimini Sands Marina, South Bimini, Bahamas
Position: 25 42.565N, 079 17.952W
Posted by Bill

If you follow our blog, I am sure you are wondering what we are doing in Bimini already. We normally stay in the Bahamas until the first week in May. A lot has been happening, but I will summarize by saying that we have had family medical issues crop up that we felt we needed to get back to the States to be able to attend to if they worsened. Couple that with rough weather and ass kickings, and various issues that our travel mates are dealing with, and we just weren’t having that good of a time in the Bahamas and decided to head back. We are looking to cross over to Lake Worth, FL on Thursday as long as the weather holds, and then we will take our time getting back to Southport unless the family medical issues worsen, at which point we will beat it back home or leave the boat somewhere secure for a period of time.

To catch you up on our whereabouts….we left the blog when we were in Emerald Bay Marina on Great Exuma. On 3/21 we sailed down to Georgetown and anchored off Volleyball Beach and the Chat ‘n Chill in Elisabeth Harbor at position 23 31.096N, 075 45.526W. Having been there before, we showed our travel mates the ropes (so to speak). We visited Chat ‘n Chill, St Frances restaurant and bar, went to Georgetown a few times for groceries, liquor, and boat parts; and also hit some restaurants. One of the highlights was a great happy hour at Augusta Bay resort across the harbor. They have a great bar there and the people are really friendly. They had 2 for 1 rum and Cokes that were mostly rum…2 for 5$ is a major bargain in the Bahamas! On 3/26 we had a good window to return up the Exuma chain and made our way back to Blackpoint, anchoring in position 24 06.198N, 076 24.174W. We waited out several days of high winds, including a day and night of northwest winds (not forecasted from that direction) that rocked us pretty badly. Of course we took advantage of the rum punch specials at Scorpios happy hour while we were there! We were treated to a couple of good sunsets during our stay:


And a view of the anchorage from shore:

The winds died for a day, so on 4/1 we anchored off Staniel Cay Yacht Club and took Larry’s boat to the fuel dock. After fueling, we moved back to Sampson Cay, probably our favorite anchorage in the Exumas, and had the inside anchorage to ourselves, anchoring in position 24 12.558N, 076 28.527W. On the way down this place was packed with boats but this time we had only a few other boats come in and anchor outside of the area we like the best. We waited out high winds again for a few days, but we were able to dinghy into Pipe Creek and Over Yonder Cay and enjoy the stunning views in that area. We also enjoyed secluded reef snorkeling and secluded wallowing at several beaches and the sand flats behind the anchorage. These are the reasons we love the Exumas, unfortunately, it is very difficult to find any more. Too many people cruising the area and way too many mega-yachts.
Having decided to make our way back home, we were looking for a suitable weather window. It looked like we had a decent 3 day window of east winds and waves, and weather we could sail and not get our asses kicked, so on 4/4 we moved up to Normans Cay to stage our crossing back to Bimini. It was a really windy day, but we were mostly in the lee of the weather and it wasn’t too bad. We anchored in position 24 36.181N, 076 49.203W. The next day we left and crossed the banks to New Providence Island (where Nassau is). Consistent with just about every other day, the forecasted winds and wave heights were not correct, and we took a beating in quartering waves. We had decided to try a new to us anchorage on the northwest corner of New Providence called Old Fort Bay. The 3 Active Captain reviews that we found suggested that it was better than West Bay which can have bad holding and a bad swell. The anchorage was really pretty. We found that a large portion of the area that is charted at 12 feet is actually less than 5, the first time we have found the Explorer charts to be incorrect in the Bahamas. The anchorage was subject to a bad swell, worse in some areas than others, and we found a spot that wasn’t too bad, until the tide shifted in the middle of the night and slammed us around all night. On the positive side….we did have a great sunset:

The next day we left, wishful that the forecast was more accurate, but to no avail the winds were higher and coming from the northeast instead of east, meaning beam seas…yuk. The first half of the trip to the Northwest Channel was really rough and uncomfortable, but the second half was pretty close to forecast. We traversed the channel with ease and went onto the banks to a place called Mackie Shoals…half way across the banks to Bimini. We arrived at Mackie Shoal about an hour after sunset and anchored in position 25 40.735N, 078 41.932W. This is in the middle of nowhere and totally exposed to the open water. We put the hook down to have dinner and to rest a few hours before we moved on. We were expecting 1 ½ foot waves and about an hour after we set the hook we had 3-4 footers slamming the bow of the boat up and down. We have had worse but it was still not fun. In spite of it all, we were exhausted from the trip and slept several hours in the slamming. We upped anchor at 3 AM and started toward Bimini…a 7 hour trip. Because the entrance to Bimini Sands marina has 4.5 feet of water at low tide, and we need at least 5 feet, we had to time it so we didn’t arrive before 7 AM and arrived before 1 PM. Just before first light, Sofia Jeanne clogged a fuel filter and the engine died. Matt replaced the fuel filter but had to prime the fuel system to get running again. To prime, he needed another hand to push the start button while he bled each injector on the engine. Since he was single handed, we all anchored in 4-5 foot seas and he brought the dinghy over to pick one of us up and use our generator (a whole other story) to start the engine. About an hour later we upped anchor and got back underway. It was the first time I have anchored in seas like that and it was crazy…the bow was rising and falling 5 feet at 3 second intervals…sometimes higher…and I thought the windlass was going to rip off the boat as the waves pulled the bow down into the water!!! We survived and managed to make it into Bimini Sands before noon. Once again, the forecast was way off, and thank goodness we had following seas or we would have received another major ass kicking.

One of the other issues we had was related to our electronics. Coming into New Providence, our wind instrumentation stopped working. I had complete redone the connections in Marathon FL months ago. On the trip from New Providence to Mackie Shoals, our GPS was dropping it’s location every 50 minutes or so. We would have to drop power from all of the electronics and restart to get them working again, only to have a repeat situation the entire trip. On the trip from Mackie Shoals to Bimini the GPS worked flawlessly, and now in Bimini the wind instrumentation is working fine too. We are thinking maybe a Bermuda Triangle thing????

3/20/19
Emerald Bay Marina, Great Exuma, Bahamas
Position: 23 37.780N, 075 55.077W

Another “long time … no blog”, and I have no real excuse. We took the worst of the weather at Sampson Cay and on the 10th the wind died enough to jump to the next anchorage which was at Big Majors Spot, anchoring in position 24 11.261N, 076 27.482W. There is good protection from the east winds we were expecting and we wanted to take our traveling buddy Larry to Pig Beach there since he had never been. We fed the pigs table scraps and they were pretty aggressive!

The next day the wind died enough to dinghy over to Staniel Cay and get some gasoline, check out the small grocery stores and have lunch at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club. The Yacht club was not our first choice, but the other two options for lunch did not have any food left when we got there. After a few rum punches and lunch, we headed back to the boats. We did a few sunset happy hours on Larry’s fly bridge and also did a “drink and drift” one evening. “Drink and drift” is where we tie our dinghies together, drink and drift as we watch the sunset.
The Drink and Drift:

A view from Staniel Cay:

Typical megayacht:

On the 12th we moved on down the cays to Great Guana Cay and the Blackpoint Settlement, anchoring in position 24 06.237N, 076 24.198W. Blackpoint is one of our favorite stops and we took advantage of the protection from north, east and south winds that built up to over 20 knots while we were there. We went to Scorpio’s happy hour 2 days while there and really enjoyed the rum punch special! We ate at Lorraine’s Café 2 nights and were disappointed both times, which surprised us. We usually get good food there. We also went to Deshamons and got pizza one night, which was really good. It was really windy and we didn’t do much else.

We were trying to get down to Emerald Bay Marina on Great Exuma around the 17th because our good friends Bill and Dondi from Southport had booked a room in a resort there so we could all hang out. They were only staying a few days and we were trying to maximize the number of days we could hang together. The weather was not really cooperating, but we built a strategy to move in that direction along the lee side of the cays until we had good enough weather to make an ocean run in Exuma Sound, which was the final leg. On the 15th we moved about 7 miles down Great Guana Cay to an a beautiful secluded beach at a place called White Point, anchoring in position 24 02388N, 076 22.574W. We enjoyed some wallowing on the beach there and all got together for drinks on Larry’s fly bridge. This is the best part of the Exumas…beautiful water, beautiful beaches, and the possibility of seclusion.

The next day we moved 12.65 miles down and anchored off of Cave Cay in position 23 54.421N, 076 16.646W. We spent the afternoon exploring by dinghy. We saw this grotto on Cave Cay:

Then road down to a group of Cays owned by the magician David Copperfield. The scenery was spectacular!


Including another cave:

We snorkeled a spot called “the piano”, where Copperfield sunk a baby grand piano along with a mermaid sculpture:
We then returned to the anchorage and when the tide shifted in the middle of the night, it turned the boat beam to the wind, causing a really bad rolling condition. We didn’t get much sleep, and I actually started to get seasick…my first time ever. The next day we were planning to run Exuma Sound to Emerald Bay. Based on the forecast, it was the best day we had to make the run…seas 2 foot falling to around 1, with winds around 10 knots out of the east. On top of being slightly sea sick, I had a very anxious feeling about making the trip, but we were trying to get to our friends ASAP and all agreed to push on. We went out Cave Cay Cut into the sound and were greeted by 6+ foot seas in the cut, slamming us and showering us with spray. Knowing the cut would be rough we pushed through until we got into the sound. We had 15 knot winds on the nose and 3-5 footers. Every part of me was saying “you need to turn around and wait another day”, but we didn’t want to mess up plans for the other 2 boats so we kept going. Needless to say…another 6 hour ass kicking, and another inaccurate forecast. And another confirmation of the adage “don’t travel based on a schedule”. The marina was nice and calm when we finally got past their break wall, and our friends were there to greet us as we arrived, which was very cool. Since here, we have been hanging with our friends at the nice pool at their resort, had a party on Larry’s fly bridge, and had dinner and played cards 2 nights in their room. It has been a lot of fun and we are honored that they booked their vacation time to be with us. We have never stayed at this marina before. They have nice floating docks and a nice club house for people to hang out. The marina pool is closed and you have to pay 25$ at Bill and Dondi’s resort if you want to spend the day at their pool, or you can pay to have a day pass at neighboring Sandals resort. The showers at the marina are pretty run down and not very clean. They regularly don’t have toilet paper, soap and paper towels in the restrooms. There is a swell with an east wind or northeast wind that causes you to roll at the slip. On top of that, the no-see-ums have been relentless. We haven’t had more than a couple hours sleep every night since we have been here. I am not sure I would stay here again.

We are now facing more high winds in a few days, after which we have maybe 2 days of calmer winds followed by what looks like another week of 20+ knot east winds, and are trying to decide which way to go. We want to go to Long Island, Cat Island, then Eluethera, then the Abacos, then back to the States. Not sure that is possible in the time we have left and the forecast we are looking at right now. We will keep you posted.

3/7/19
Sampson Cay, Exumas, Bahamas
Position: 24 12.424N, 076 28.562W
Posted by Bill

While in Palm Cay Marina, the forecast showed 2 days of 10-15 knots of wind and seas of 1-2 feet both out of the SE, then a calm day, then 4 days of 20 knot plus winds out of the north as a front passed through. Overnight in Palm Cay, the winds picked up over 15 and the sea state was looking nasty. Our choices…leave now, make it to the Exumas and find a place to weather north winds, which is not easy in the Exumas, or stay in expensive Palm Cay Marina for a week. We opted to leave. One of the bad things about Palm Cay is that it is a very tight marina with not much room to maneuver a boat like ours. We had to back out of our slip with winds on our stern quarter with barely enough room to get the boat out of the slip and turned around to get out of the marina. I was concerned that as we backed out the wind would grab us before we could get the bow turned into it, pinning us down in the fairway, and that is exactly what happened. Fortunately, the boats on our port side were resting inside the outer pilings, and unfortunately, the boat on our starboard was sticking out into the fairway about 3 feet. I couldn’t clear the boat on the starboard side and we ended up pinned to the pilings of the slips that were on the port side. Thankfully, Tricia was able to push off the bow with a boat hook, and I got the stern off the piling by me just enough to clear the boat that was sticking out, but it was not fun! We motored out into the Banks heading SE, directly into 3-4 foot waves, with occasional 2 footers, all hitting us every 2 seconds. The 2 second wave period was the bitch of it all. We were bashing directly into it. We would get our speed up to 6 MPH briefly and then a series of 3 waves would bash into the bow, throwing it up and slamming it down, slowing us to 3 MPH. Winds were primarily 15-20. This turned a normally 6 hour trip into almost 9 hours of getting slammed. It was absolutely miserable. We anchored at Normans Island in position: 24 36.206N, 076 49.243W. We had cocktails and watched the sunset on the beach.

The next day we left and tried to get into the Warderick Wells north mooring field. This is a great place to sit out a frontal passage, but it was full with a waiting list. We executed the backup plan and went to Cambridge Cay, one of our favorite places. The moorings were all taken and the anchorage was nearly full, but we were able to find a place to drop the hook…position: 24 18.254N, 076 32.444W. Cambridge is in the Exuma Land and Sea Park which is a nature preserve. You can’t take anything (like shelling or fishing) and you can’t leave anything (like trash). It is absolutely beautiful. The weather calmed down and we enjoyed a couple of days there, snorkeling the Aquarium…a really cool reef that looks just like an aquarium (think like Columbus Zoo aquarium exhibit), a sunken plane, and a couple of caves in the Rocky Dundas. The day after we arrived, several people left and all 3 of us were able to get mooring balls, so we decided to weather the first couple of days of the frontal passage at Cambridge. We had decent protection from the winds as they clocked from north to northeast, but there is a strong current that runs SE to NW and put our boat sideways to the wind and waves for a good portion of the days and nights, making us roll side to side.

The winds died a bit on 3/7 and we decided to make a run to Sampson Cay, our absolute favorite anchorage in the Exumas. There is usually no one there, it is very well protected from all winds except west, there are great beaches within a short ride, and if you really need fuel or groceries you can take a long dinghy ride to Staniel Cay. We arrived just before noon and anchored in position: 24 12.424N, 076 28.562W. We were shocked to find the anchorage stacked full of boats! Apparently, our secret anchorage has been discovered…that sucks! I think part of it is that there are a lot more people cruising the Exumas. Normans Island was crowded, Cambridge was very crowded, Warderick Wells is croweded, and we are hearing that Big Majors/Pig Beach is packed full of boats as well as Georgetown. We have noticed this as a trend each year we travel here, with more people every year, and more mega-yachts every year. The mega-yachts are taking over the Exumas and making them a playground for all of their toys. In my opinion, this is ruining the Exumas for the normal cruiser and it is sad to see.

We played bocci ball on the beach in the salt flats of Sampson and had happy hour on Sofia Jeanne and have a very comfortable and protected position for the strong east winds we are expecting for the next 3 days. Then we are expecting a day with winds around 10 knots, immediately followed by several days of 20-25 knot winds. We are going to have to stay hunkered down or travel short distances in protected areas for the duration.

Some pics…..
We had these turtles visit us every day at Cambridge Cay:

One of the views from our mooring in Cambridge Cay:

Sights traveling around Compass Cay on the way to Sampson. The water colors are amazing and the pictures can’t do it justice:

We are anchored in front of this house on Sampson Cay, and another view of some of the boats here: