Waiting in Nassau

Early morning departure for Patrick and Rose - -Willie the cab driver was here before 7:30 checking out if we were ready. We said our good byes outside the entrance to the marina and sent them off to Miami/ Jacksonville/ St. Augustine to visit with Jay, Pegg and "Tia Peddie".

The rest of Friday was spent washing two weeks of salt off the decks, doing three loads of laundry AND trying to upload a week's worth of pictures for the blog. I easily spent 10-12 hours WAITING while the little blue glow-circle circled and circled and sometimes successfully uploaded a picture or two. Dan also spent a fair amount of time helping John and Betty re-wire their VHS radio as it wasn't transmitting worth a darn. They were so happy with his great electrical work (Steve take note!!) that they decided they needed to take us out to dinner. I must admit, I was a big help - - when they needed to test the radio, they called Brunelle and I had to leave my post at the computer and answer! We followed the dockmaster Peter's advice and went to the local Chinese restaurant. I don't think I've ever been to a Chinese restaurant before where the waiters didn't offer "flied lice" and one of the entrees was conch and bean stew!

We decided to "eat Nassau style" today, so we had breakfast at the Texaco station where they offered a true "Bahamian breakfast". It was an omelette served on Bahamian bread with lettuce and tomato. Really quite good! We then went to the biggest marine store in Nassau (which was having a 20% off the entire store sale today) and got a new gas tank and hose for the dinghy. We had noticed that ours was beginning to show its age. Back aboard we swapped out the old for the new and then joined Andiamo for lunch "a la Irene's". We had heard about this lady that parks her car in the parking lot in front of the marina about a block away from ours each day and serves lunch out of large vats in her trunk. Today she had chicken or turkey souse, pigs feet, conch stew, and johnny cakes, but she was out of peas and rice. We chose to get chicken souse and conch stew and johnny cakes and took it back to Andiamo to eat it. The chicken souse was not unlike a chicken stew but there were lots of bones and skin, so it took some doing to eat it - but very tasty.

Miss Irene said this was her tired smile and I can believe it, she gets up at 3 am to begin cooking for the day. Betty asked what she did when the food was gone and she mimicked - - - sleep!

The afternoon flew by and at six we headed over to Savage Son, a Valiant 40 tied up next to Andiamo, because they had spent lots of time cruising Eleuthera and we are hoping to head there next week. They had lots good tips and we look forward to new territory. Back aboard Brunelle we ate a quick non-Bahamian dinner (spaghetti) and decided to Skype with Katherine and her girls (Ryan is in Florida visiting family.) Katherine had heard that the moon was closer to earth tonight than it has been for over 18 years or something and Zoe requested we get a picture of it, so here are two moon shots - which is the better one? I couldn't decide.

I just put the camera on one of our pilings and snapped, sometimes it took forever and other times it snapped right away. Don't know why, but you can see the difference.

~~~_/)~~~M&D

St. Patrick's Day Nassau style

Rose checked her email when we got to Nassau and a friend recommended going to Ardastra Gardens, so we decided to start our tour of Nassau there and catch the early flamingo marching show. We took a taxi to the western side of town and had plenty of time to view the animals and birds before the 10:30 show. Rose got chosen to be the flamingo imitator and did a fine job. We watched and wandered among the flamingos after the show before going into the aviary to feed the lorry parrots. Only Betty and I were brave enough to have birds crawling all over us, and we enjoyed it immensely and I think we amused the rest of our crowd. John had remained back on the boat to wait for an electronics guy to come fix their radio, so he missed the fun! Pekabu III headed over to Atlantis for the weekend and missed out too.

The flamingo "master" was not the same older guy we had seen two years ago and I didn't think he was quite as good. I asked after the older guy and it was just his day off, he's been doing it for over 50 years! The Lorry parrots were fun to feed.

There were all sorts of flora and fauna to view at the Ardastra Gardens and Zoo. The peacock just wanders around among the visitors strutting his stuff. We learned that the flamingo walks on its tiptoes and the joint we see on the spindly legs is actually the ankle, as witnessed by the one that chose to come down off his toes.

The franklin palm has interesting red berries when ripe. The hybiscus is the national flower of the Bahamas. I didn't get the names of the other two plants.

We left the gardens just before noon and walked over to the fish fry to grab a bite. We tried a different establishment and enjoyed more than just a bite so decided to walk back toward town and find the straw market. The original building that housed the market burned several years ago so they have been working under a large tent since then. It was hot, crowded and prices were not very exciting, but we did get a few things for gifts before completely frustrating the guys. We continued our walk into town and realized we had hit town just in time to see part of the St. Patrick's Day celebration. Their was a band that was somewhere between the Philly Mummers and the Bahamian Junkanoo paraders. We searched in vain for a green shirt for our very own Patrick but had to settle for a six pack of Guiness for cocktail time!

Patrick and Rose pose under the banner at the St. Patrick's Day festival.

What with a misunderstanding about which bus would take us back to the marina, we took an hour bus ride out to Cable Beach and back and got to see all the fancy hotels that dot the northern shore of New Providence island! It turned out to be a rather inexpensive tour on one of the few air conditioned buses we have encountered - and we didn't mind sitting down for a while!

We ended our full day with dinner at the Nassau Yacht Club. We had met the couple on another Catalina (a 34) who had had dinner there (club reciprocity) a few nights ago and invited us all to join them. It was a great setting and the food was reasonable and very good.

I also enjoyed looking at all the old photos on the walls and found several familiar names, but the biggest surprise was spotting a picture of the '56 Sydney Olympics where the Bahamians won their first (bronze) Olympic medal in the Star class. Watching the event were the gold winning US team of Bill Lyons and Larry Low. Larry's daughter, Joan, has been one of my best friends ever since 4th grade. (He always reminded me of Phil Silvers - Sgt. Bilko).

Quite a full day for Rose and Patrick's last day with us. They have to take a taxi at 7:30 tomorrow morning and will be sorely missed!

~~~_/)~~~M&D, P&R

Back to Nassau on Wednesday

We contemplated another day in the Exumas - Normans Cay or Highborne Cay, but the weather reports didn't sound very good, so we got a 9:00 start for the 30+ nm trip back to Nassau. We had the wind behind us all the way, so the ride was a little rolly, but we lucked out with the weather. The whole way we watched dark gray clouds hugging the horizon in all directions, but we had spotty sunshine all the way and only about 20 raindrops for about 5 minutes. We pulled into Nassau Harbour Club around 3:30 and were greeted by the news that Pete and Kathy had dinner all planned. It was welcome news because the larder was pretty bare! Patrick, Rose and I went over to the City Market to get a few breakfast items and so they could check out what a Bahamian supermarket was like. They enjoyed cruising the aisles and comparing prices with Concepcion.

As we returned to the boat we could smell Pete already grilling upwind and hurried over to Pekabu III for a reunion gathering. It was great to be back together again. ~~~_/)~~~M&D, P&R

You could see the gray clouds and several showers all around us most of the day.

Hawksbill to Shroud (a less than 4 mile trip)

There wasn't even time to roll out the jib (plus we needed to make some hot water and boost the batteries a bit) as we headed to Shroud on Tuesday morning. We found several open moorings in the mooring field and were ready to swim and adventure ashore right after lunch. Patrick found a sharksucker lurking under the boat during his morning swim and got a few good pictures of it. We also discovered we could just hold the camera underwater while cruising around in the dinghy and get some decent pictures!

Patrick's sharksucker is top left, note the conch shell in the crevice lower right. I caught the snub tailed ray on a trip to shore and didn't see the bar jack until I put it on the computer. We wondered what happened to it's tail.

High tide was around 4 pm, so we took the two kayaks into the lagoon off our anchorage while we waited for our trip through the mangroves to the windward side of the island. Patrick and Dan pedaled their way as far as the shallows would let them while Rose, Betty and I adventured on the beach, there was lots more to see here and we were amazed at the number of tiny shells that lined to the high tide line.

The lagoon at Shroud is a nursery for mangroves, note the sprouts next to Patrick. The old conch we found was sporting a funny "hairdo" of growth.

The trip to the north end and up the "river" is always amazing, so Andiamo decided to join us. We split up, I went with John and Betty to even the dinghies. We were surprised to find several other dinghies there and many people swimming on the ocean side of the island. We joined them for a bit and then headed up to Camp Driftwood on the highest point of land. Reportedly the original inhabitant was a hermit who built a shack out of driftwood and then the story continues that the FBI stationed a "watch " there to keep an eye on drug traffic on Norman's Cay. The view from the top was spectacular.

It was a beautiful calm day and the swimming on the windward side was amazing.

We all hiked to the top of the hill at Camp Driftwood to see the view.

The top shows the winding river leading to the windward side of Shroud and the bottom shows the view from Camp Driftwood. There is nothing left of the structure, just a flat site and a cairn marking the spot.

Tomorrow we head back to Nassau to avoid some "weather " that is due on Thursday. ~~~_/)~~~ M&D, P&R

Emerald Rock to Hawksbill Cay

Pekabu III was up and gone on Monday morning before any of us were awake - Pete had a lot of work and wanted more internet connection than the park provides, so they headed back to Nassau. The rest of us had a leisurely sail up to Hawksbill and crept in over some pretty "thin" spots to pick up a park mooring along the beautiful beach at the northern end of the cay. Last trip we had been at the southern anchorage, so it was new territory for us. We had lunch aboard Andiamo (more of John's great grilling) and then took the dinghy ride into the beach. The beach and water right off it were as pristine as any we've seen . Patrick and Rose immediately took a swim (which they love to do as often as possible) and I searched the shallows and beach for shells or conch or anything. The only thing I found was one small white buttercup shell which I decided to set afloat to see how far it would float on the calm waters at the beach. It stayed afloat until I couldn't see it anymore!


When we returned to the boat we put one of the kayaks together and Patrick was quite impressed with the speed the pedals produced. Lunch had been the main meal, so we snacked on hors d'oeuvres for dinner and watched again for the elusive green flash. We'll head to Shroud on Tuesday. ~~~_/)~~~M&D

I wasn't kidding when I said the plane was close!

Betty sent us this picture this morning, it WAS really close! We're off to Hawksbill Cay under cloudy skies (at 10:30 am) ~~~_/)~~~M&D, P&R

Emerald Rock Excitement

Wow, the sun has set on another eventful day. (Still no green flash, tho)

Before I begin, I have a few pictures to fill in for the last few days. Kathy stopped over this afternoon and shared her pictures of our Sampson Cay lunch on Friday and last night's beach party, so here they are:

Lunch at Sampson Cay with Kay and Tommy (the photographer) from Jubilee, Marty and Matt Miller (Runaway), Rose, Patrick, Dan & Martha (Brunelle), John and Betty (Andiamo) and Pete and Kathy (Pekabu III)

There were only two dinghies when we arrived at the Saturday night beach party on Whale Beach next to the Park Headquarters, but by the time we left, we counted over twenty! Sunset was issued in by a chorus of conch horns, in true island tradition.

We may have lost an hour by springing forward today, but we packed lots in to the remaining 23. The morning was spent sharing pictures with Rose and Patrick. They had some amazing pictures of a trip they took last month to the Andes and they got the full show of the Hinckley week aboard Brunelle. We set up a snorkeling trip with Andiamo and Pekabu III for after lunch and headed to the reef near Emerald Rock. It is amazing how many fish congregate there.

We were particularly enamored of the large brain coral and the humongous hermit crab inhabiting the conch shell.

We decided to head into the main anchorage at Warderick Wells to check out the coral heads there. We no sooner had jumped in the water when we spied two large spiny lobsters doing battle! There was third one nearby, but he didn't seem to be involved. Who knows what they were battling about, and without claws they didn't cause any damage, but one certainly seemed to come out as the winner and the other "limped" away in disgrace! There were at least ten other lobsters hanging out on the coral heads we visited, and none seemed to worry about hiding from us. We also saw one of the largest rays I've seen (outside the aquarium). All in all a very successful trip.

Clash of the titans, --- a Nassau grouper is brave enough to call the winner - - -who struts off victorious!

There was lots more to see on the coral heads near the Park Headquarters.

We were back aboard Brunelle and Rose and I were preparing our contribution to the group dinner aboard Andiamo when we heard shouts from on deck. We emerged to see a sea plane about 20 feet from the boat heading for the beach! We watched the passenger deplane and be picked up by the tender from a large yacht further out in the anchorage. While we were watching that excitement we noticed that we had another visitor - a shark was lurking right below us. And to think we had all been showering and jumping in to rinse just half an hour before! Dinner and a movie aboard Andiamo was delicious and fun. We head further up the chain tomorrow, but still within the park border. ~~~_/)~~~M&D, P&R

A little evening entertainment.

Our new friend.