Big Cypress

Chris elected to stay on the boat and catch up with chores while I took Jamie and Alex to Big Cypress. Having managed to lose ourselves regularly on the previous couple of days in Miami I had Jamie in the front with me to navigate. The reason we got lost a lot is the interesting road names. Firstly there’s the numbered streets – 1st Street, 2nd Street etc -- and the identically numbered avenues. Streets go from east to west, avenues from north to south. That’s easy enough and fairly easy to work out if you haven’t got a map and are working your way back from the car rental place to the marina. What’s less obvious is that the city is mirror imaged around Miami Avenue and Flagler. So if you’re on the first street north of Flagler and east of Miami Avenue you’re on NE 1st Street; if you’re on the first street south of Flagler and east of Miami Avenue you’re on SE 1st Street; if you’re on the first street north of Flagler and west of Miami Avenue you’re on NW 1st Street; if you’re on the first street south of Flagler and west of Miami Avenue you’re on SW 1st Street. The same goes for the avenues. The uninitiated, who haven’t bothered with a map and can’t really see the sun, can end up a long way from their destination.

Naturally without the Captain at the helm (see Stardust), we managed to navigate our way easily onto the freeway system and were so in front of ourselves that we stopped at a supermarket and bought a picnic lunch. Usually we’re so late for everything that the only meal we eat at about the same time every day is breakfast.


Big Cypress is actually a freshwater swamp north of the Everglades and reaching to the west (Gulf) coast of Florida. In the wet season, it’s underwater (and full of bugs); in the dry season, it’s grass prairie and cypress woodland. We visited at the end of the dry season. Our first stop was the Ranger station to get orientated. The Ranger suggested the Kirby Storter boardwalk saying it was probably just as good as a hike and a great deal more comfortable. But first she said we should walk along the boardwalk outside the Ranger station itself and count the alligators – which we duly did, counting 47 of the beasties in a small creek about 100 yds long and 10 wide.


Bald Cypress trees spend half their time with the base of their trunks submerged in water so they have broad bases and they’ve adapted their root system and have “knees” to provide support and to help the tree breathe air. Like the rainforest, we saw a variety of air plants (epiphytes) growing in the branches of trees; unlike the rainforest this forest was much more similar to the ones we’re used to in the UK. We looked for the Florida panther, but we didn’t see anything but birds.


We talked to a “local” in the car park on the way out. She had visited this boardwalk a few years previously at this time and the land was already wet and that the Florida drought was very severe this year. That was about to change!

Back at the Ranger Station, Jamie and Alex completed the work necessary to get the second badge in their quest.

We got back to within a couple of blocks of the marina at 6pm, looking forward to dinner, to find it inaccessible because of a corporate fun run. It was about 9pm before we got back to the boat…

Everglades

“We’re going on an aligator hunt. We’re going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day! We’re not scared.”

The Everglades is a National Park – National Parks being one of the US’s best ideas – and has a number of visitor centres. We went to Shark Valley. On the way, I had to avoid an alligator that had made its way onto the road. Cool!

We chose Shark Valley because the guidebook said the train/tram ride was excellent and it was right for once. We had the best guide and learned a lot about Florida’s aquifer and the incredible changes that the canals and levees had made to the water flow into the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. From the mid 1850s to now, South Florida has lost 50% of its wetlands and 90% of its bird population and is now directing billions of gallons of water into the Gulf, Biscayne Bay and the Ten Thousand Islands which is adversely affecting sea habitats and not helping the drought conditions in the state. Florida’s human population was 6.5 million in 1995 and is projected to reach 20 million by 2040; in 1850 the bird population was 2.5 million and had declined to 100,000 in 1995. These are jaw dropping numbers and I just hope my grandkids and their kids will still be able to visit this incredible habitat…

We were introduced to the sawgrass prairie and tree islands and hammocks, which form where small islands of limestone bedrock form above the normal Everglades water level. Tree islands and hammocks are named for the types of trees that grow on them – like mahogany, hardwood, bay, willow and cypress.

Although the bird population has declined dramatically we saw plenty of them including a rare kind of hawk and the striking anhinga. We saw turtles and snakes and of course, a whole mess of alligators – what is the collective for alligators? A snap of alligators, a snarl, a murder…? Whether they were big alligators or baby alligators, they seemed pretty relaxed -- and we were told to act like we were.

We discovered that the park did a Junior Ranger programme in association with two other parks in South Florida: Big Cypress and Biscayne. So the kids did the Everglades badge and there was nothing for it but to visit the other two parks while we were in Miami. These programmes are educational and interactive and engage Alex so I have no problem swapping National Park for school from time to time – plus I learn a lot too...although I don't get to wear the fetching hat!

Seriously, for those readers who have children, the National Parks educational programmes are inexpensive and excellent. Wherever you visit in the US, there's likely to be a National Park nearby. Check them out here: www.nps.gov

Miami

We rented a car and drove down the coast to the Miami Seaquarium. The objective was to give Alex a Dolphin experience similar to the one Jamie had a few years ago.

The Seaquarium is a sort of low key Sea World: they do shows with seals, killer whales and dolphins and have exhibits such as manatee, sharks and reef fish and give keeper talks. We managed to spend a very pleasant afternoon learning about manatee and their rescue and being entertained by some very clever and well trained mammals. The trainers had really taken the training a step further than I’d seen before.

Alex’s dolphin experience was also a success. We had our doubts because Alex can change his mind about doing things if they start to look difficult and he had to put of a wetsuit and bootees and attend a briefing. He was in a small group of three people plus trainer but of course he was the youngest and I was worried that the trainer would take his initial reluctance at face value and he wouldn’t get to properly interact with the dolphins. She didn’t and he did. Here are his comments:

“The dolphins felt very silky – sort of gooey and silky. I learnt how to make a dolphin twirl round. I fed the dolphins. I rode on a dolphin. They felt big to me. I felt very nervous at first but once I’d done a few tricks with them, I got to know them so I didn’t feel so nervous. “

Miami

A quiet day of chores and shopping punctuated with a visit to the Children’s Museum. This was quite fun but pitched a bit young for Jamie and Alex. One exhibit that taught kids about money was well done and got our kids thinking about how they could entrepreneurially earn some!

Miami

What a culture shock! From deserted beaches, a shop every 20 sq miles and more lizards than humans to ... Miami. Constant traffic on the freeway, constant traffic on the pavement, constant opportunities to shop, eat and repeat.

We started the day with breakfast on Miami beach, a stroll along the art deco hotels and restaurants and back along the shore. For us it was an opportunity to people watch – the beautiful people, the sporty, ripply people, the rather large people and the people with accessory dogs that reflect their owner’s personality. We then went through the rather lengthy process of clearing into the US at the Port of Miami. This meant driving past the incredible cruise ships docked in the Port and the driving past the people boarding those ships... a whole new world.

Back to the boat to move it to the less expensive municipal marina at the end of Government Cut. This involved a rather difficult manoeuvre fighting wind and current to get us safely off the dock. Having tied up using the dinghy the night before, we now, for the sake of speed, had to slip our inaccessible lines and recover them later once we’d tied up to the fuel dock. Then we travelled the mile or so up the cut past the incredible container ships and slid easily into our berth in the marina which was backed by a huge shopping mall including a live entertainment area and flanked by a freeway...

What a difference the Gulf makes.

Chub Cay- Miami

We moved to the “normal” anchorage first thing because the wind had moved round. Two reasons: one we wanted to use the marina facilities; two we wanted to be nearer the snorkel/dive site.

It was one of those days unfortunately. We tried and tried to convince ourselves that we could safely snorkel in the wind conditions. Chris even went on a recce in the dinghy but quickly turned back. We couldn’t use the beach because it was private. We couldn’t find an alternative beach in the pilotage. We did have a good lunch at the marina, however, so all was not lost!

I was bitterly disappointed that we couldn’t give the kids this last opportunity. I was bitterly disappointed to be leaving the Bahamas. Which is ironic because in the Caribbean I’d really felt there was little reason to spend any time in the Bahamas – all the history and culture was in the Caribbean – and I had been deeply worried about visual piloting. Ultimately we’d had the best time in the Bahamas and I had no desire to move onto the US.

I also had no desire to tackle the Gulf Stream with the forecast winds. We had two options: wait till about 5 or 6 days hence when things might be better or go NOW! But not exactly NOW because we’d arrive at the cut at the wrong time. NOW was in fact 11pm – in the dark. This was possible because our route out of Chub Cay was lit by red and green beacons. It was an incredibly risky option because we’d be crossing 2/3metre depths in the dark. Theoretically this was OK because we had GPS, charts and a recommended, surveyed line to follow. In practice, we all know that’s hoo hah.

We got started at 11 but it always takes longer to get going than you could possibly imagine and we didn’t actually up-anchor till gone 12 – which could put a possible strain on the Gulf Stream crossing. Alex, bless his cotton socks, arrived at the helm station as we were upping anchor, wide eyed, yet determined to help. He held Big Bertha, our million watt torch, and directed it at boats around us so we could avoid hitting them on the way out! Unnervingly for him because, as our anchor came up, so did a barracuda’s guts!!!!!!!!!!!!! Job done, he looked at us solemnly and said, “Can I go back to bed now?” and stamped back to his cabin. Alex is a weird mix of emotions and work ethic... in this case, he’d made a commitment quite outside our expectations and been totally serious in meeting it.

I took an initial deep water watch; Chris took the watch that took us into the shallows. He woke me once it was light enough to see what we might ground on. We were running very close to the surveyed line but I had to call Chris twice when we got into situations where we had .5 m under the keel and no apparent route forward. When we got to the cut, we could again see no apparent route through it – the sea was very active as was the wind and it was very much touch and go. All hands were working at maximum adrenalin as we had to lose the Genoa at great speed and breath “up” rather than “in”.

Once through the cut, the focus changed to navigating the river that is the Gulf Stream. This moved us north at 2-3.5 kts depending where we were. We had an Easterly wind which gave us a push across the stream but the wind was forecast to get high and move to the south during the passage. We needed to get to Miami before the winds conspired with the Gulf Stream to give us high waves as well as high winds – and of course we wanted to get to our next marina before dark. In the image you can see the red line showing where the boat is heading, the green line where the boat is actually going and the blue arrow showing the “current”.

As you can see from the “Sunset over Miami Skyline” pictures – we didn’t quite succeed. I was on watch before we both had to navigate Government Cut into Miami and there were a number of times when I looked behind at the waves we were running in front of and nearly lost my nerve and called Chris. I was extremely glad that we had chosen the marina right at the beginning of the Miami basin because we were both tired when we tied up to the dock.

But that wasn’t the end of the day. The harbour master had put us starboard side to at the end of a dock which didn’t have adequate or adequately positioned cleats to keep us in place given the wind and current. Eventually we worked out a way of using the neighbouring pilings and the dinghy to mimic a 4 piling dockage which held us off any sharp edges!

24 hours after we’d started we had a beer.

Nassau to Chub Cay

Chub Cay is an obvious stop off before either stopping at Cat Cay or making a run for Florida and crossing the Gulf Stream. We had a date we needed to keep in Fort Lauderdale and the long range weather forecast showed that it was “now or never”. I was very keen to give Alex a last snorkel and Jamie a last dive in the Bahamas and Chub Cay was our best bet.

The route to Chub Cay was deep water sailing – no VPR until we got to Chub Cay itself. When we arrived wind was coming out of the North and we judged that the normal anchorage would be too exposed so we just anchored off the south of the island and used chart and eyes to navigate as close to shore as practical. It’s not just that it’s a bit uncomfortable if you can’t get shelter from the wind, it also puts more stress on your anchor. We have a big and effective anchor, but there’s always a little niggle in your mind in a windy anchorage that means sleep is a little troubled! Hence our apparent obsession with weather.

Travel days usually end in a beer and sunset. Today was no exception. Chris is holding his favourite frozen beer mug.

Nassau and Atlantis

The weather dictated that we stayed in Nassau for a couple of days before heading out to Florida so we did some sightseeing. The famous Queen’s Steps and the Fort were our destination. We walked: even though this meant considerable GBH of the ears by the youngest member of our party. This was memory lane for Chris and I who had stopped over in Nassau on the way to San Salvador. The fort is miniscule after Old San Juan and the view is unfortunately ruined by the cruise ships. L I’m sure it was bigger, better and more beautiful when we went there first...

We then walked – accompanied by more whinging – to the main part of town in search of a good souvenir. No dice – furry or otherwise. Finally we gave up and went provisioning.

In the afternoon, I took the kids back to Atlantis. The weather was execrable so we only went for the Aquarium armed with some research ideas for Jamie’s fish project. Chris took us in the dinghy through the Atlantis marina – a lesson in how the other half live and once again, we all wished we had a lovely expensive rib rather than our beaten up old dinghy.

Because we had specific fish movement we wanted to observe, we elected to take a 10 minute guided tour so we could ask some questions. Our guide was on her way to qualification as a teacher and had done some marine biology and she spent about 70 minutes with us and engaged the marine experts to answer the kids’ questions. It was a great experience -- we learned about movement and adaptation and behaviour and more besides. People are very impressed with the idea of home schooling and have always been very generous with their help. They were also impressed with fish the kids could accurately and the amount they already knew. It was excellent.

We rounded off the day with a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

Nassau

Getting back to Nassau was uneventful, anchoring less so. Nassau harbour does have some good holding but you have to search for it. We eventually managed to get settled on the east side of the bridge but were considered to be impinging on one of the Marinas and although the harbour police said we were in the right, felt that we might want to relocated for a peaceful life!!!!

We went through the bridge to the west side and again had to search for good holding out of the channel. After the beauty of the anchorages in the Exumas, the dirty water of Nassau harbour was a little soul destroying.

Shroud Cay

We needed a stop off point before tackling the trip back to Nassau because of the VPR rules and we chose to return to Shroud Cay – originally with the idea that Jamie and I would get to see the little stream that bisects the island. In fact, we left Warderick Wells a little later than we’d anticipated because we met a French/US couple who were doing a similar trip to ours in a monohull at the National Park HQ. They were finishing their trip a little differently in that they were shipping their boat back after exploring the east coast of the US. We did consider this option quite seriously, but in the end decided that Plan A should prevail.

While Chris and I were in the HQ using the internet, Jamie and Alex explored the island on their own and managed to climb and find Boo Boo Hill and see the blowholes on the Bahama Sound side of the Cay. This trip has given them a lot of opportunities to become independent because we’re just not worried about security like we are in the UK. It’s a bit like the freedom Chris and I had as kids – at Jamie’s age I was able to take my dog for a walk over the fields and down by the canal – something I wouldn’t dream of allowing her to do today.

When we got to Shroud Cay, something went awry with our mooring buoy pickup technique. I just couldn’t get the d****d thing up – partly because it was damaged and had lost the float which keeps the hoop that you catch with the boat hook on the surface and partly because of the wind and mostly because I just had one of those days. The upshot was that Chris had to retrieve the boat hook from the sea bed twice and when we finally got hooked on using one of our fenders as a float, our lines and the fender lines and the mooring buoy were hopelessly tangled. This resulted in some hysterical antics as Chris tried to weight the fender down with his body and which fought back with apparently animated vigour.

Anyway, having lost most of the day and to make things a bit more interesting for the children at Shroud Cay, Chris did a treasure hunt on the beach for them. This involved some superbly creative clues involving visual identification, solving riddles, taking bearings and tracking. The reward was ... a toy fish!!

The kids loved it but said it was too short!!

Bot pic: Can you solve the riddle?

Warderick Wells

Back to Warderick Wells for some more great snorkelling and a beautiful place to spend a day. It was my birthday and the kids had made me cards which were, perforce, creative and lovely. After a snorkelling trip around Emerald Rock, we decided to spend some time on a beach – curiously, given the journey we are on this isn’t something we do very often. Instead of the large iguanas at Allen’s Cay we were very quickly surrounded by tiny, inquisitive and fearless lizards. While Jamie and Alex made sand sculptures, Chris and I made photographic studies of the little critters.

Back at the boat, the kids and Chris made a chocolate birthday cake with our “oven” – it’s so low in energy that I believe the Octopus’s owners used theirs for storage!! (Octopus is another Lagoon 420 that did a similar trip last year).

Bell Island, Warderick Wells

The kids and Chris went out to “provision” at the Island General Store ready to depart for Bell Island on our way back to Nassau and Florida. They were convinced they’d find fresh anything where I hadn’t managed and in fact, they were right because the mail boat came in.

There are three stores on the island. The two nearest the port are called something Pink and something Blue. The shore party visited both to be met with empty shelves and the advice to wait for the mail boat to come in, it was due anytime now. So they went down to the dock to wait with, it seemed, most of the rest of the islanders. Once the boat docked, people swarmed over it like bees on a honey pot unloading supplies into small trucks and golf carts (the main mode of transport). It was, apparently, bedlam. Chris and kids followed the largest truck to Island General the largest store on the island – I think with the idea that they could get what they wanted off the back of a lorry (lol). In fact they had to wait for the truck to be unloaded, inventory taken and shelves stacked which took over an hour. If this gives the impression that the store was now full of fresh goodies, I’ve misled you! We did manage to stock up on fresh fruit and veg for about 3 days – which is what we needed to get back to Nassau

Once they’d brought back their spoils we set off for Bell Island, an overnight stop before we revisited Warderick Wells. On the way out of the cut, we passed Club Thunderball ... and I couldn’t resist taking a photo.

Bell Island was unremarkable – we anchored in the bay where the 2 private houses had their enormous dock and were joined by their enormous boat overnight. We did do some good sunset watching and star gazing.

Top pic: The mail delivery boat
Bot pic: Club Thunderball

Staniel Cay

Sadly it was time to say goodbye to the Battricks. We’d all had a great time – even though we’d had to cater for ourselves with limited shopping opportunities and absolutely no thrill rides. Something really memorable had happened every day: Adam and Callum had built on their snorkelling skills in some fabulously clear water; Cal had been up our 65’ mast; Adam had swum extensively with sharks; Cal had been introduced to diving; they’d seen rare iguanas, swimming pigs and loads of fish; and they swam in Thunderball Cave.

We felt pretty flat when they’d left. We cleaned the boat and rearranged the cabins so Jamie and Alex had their beds back and then, since I hadn’t swum through Thunderball Cave, we went and visited that again.

Compass Cay

In our eagerness to make sure we delivered our guests to Staniel Cay in time to get a flight back to Nassau, we arrived a little early and found we had a day in hand so after mming and arring for a bit (over a mammoth set of pancakes cooked by Phil and eaten by kids +Chris) we decided to retrace our steps a little and visit Compass Cay where there was the promise of petting nurse sharks over lunch.

The Staniel Cay cut out to the Sound is quite narrow but once out it was a just an hour’s cruise north and then back in through a cut that was actually to some degree marked. We weren’t able to anchor near the marina but found a spot on a sand bank just outside and dinghied in.

Lunch was cooked on an outdoor barbecue and was a choice of hamburger or hotdog to the kids’ delight and was, in fact, delicious.

But what was incredible, was the pre-lunch activity. I was in the second landing party and arrived to find the children already on the small jetty watching a couple who were petting the nurse shark. The kids were a little reticent at first, but with some encouragement started to coax the sharks to come to them and stroke them. We had a wonderful time watching the sharks and their companions – some fabulous Grey Angels and other reef fish – stroking them and feeling how like sandpaper they felt and trying to give them their names -- the smallest and most inquisitive was called Squirt. Squirt was the most frequent visitor and while the other, larger sharks quite regularly went to the bottom and rested, he was constantly on the move.

After lunch, Alex wanted to swim with the sharks. At this point, there were no other swimmers so he had to persuade Daddy to go in too. Eventually Alex, Jamie and Chris entered the water and swam gently and quietly over to the sharks who displayed pretty much the same behaviour as before – polite interest and the occasional desire to be stroked. Once the ice had been broken, so to speak, Adam and Callum went in followed by other boat crews. By mid afternoon, everyone was very comfortable swimming with sharks and there had been no injuries!! It was hard to convince Adam to leave his new friends when it was time to go.

We did feel very privileged to be able to stroke and swim with these creatures and we were very mindful of the fact that they were wild animals who were just used to humans – not pet dogs who are trained not to bite.

O’Brien’s Cay – Staniel Cay

Two delights awaited us today: swimming pigs at Big Major Spot and the Thunderball Grotto at Staniel Cay.

Big Major Spot was crowded with boats – mostly the larger stinkpots -- when we arrived and there was no pig to be seen on the beach or in the sea. We anchored anyway and kept watch on the beach. Not too much later, we spied pigs through the binoculars. The first shore party raced off in the dinghy but were beaten to the punch by another boat. The pigs did as promised – as soon as they heard a boat they stop rooting around on the beach and swam out to the noise. We had to compete with the other dinghy for attention and since we’d brought lettuce and they had something far more delectable to pig senses, we had quite a job. Finally we got their attention although they weren’t much interested in lettuce and one tried to climb onto the boat to see what else we had. It was quite unnerving to see both its front trotters on the side of the boat...

Once we’d exhausted the thrills of swimming pigs, we moved to Staniel Cay and moored near Thunderball Cave. Tide and current meant that the best time to snorkel the Cave was around 5pm. By this point we were very low on fresh anything so I decided to check out the Cay’s stores while the others went snorkelling. I had a pleasant walk to Island General but the mail boat hadn’t been for a while so we were still short on fresh anything by the time Chris picked me up in the dinghy. Fortunately the spelunkers had a much better time!

Pics: Swimming pigs -- beer drinking pigs, swimming pigs... what's next? Flying pigs? A couple of shots of Main Street Staniel Cay

Thunderball Grotto is so named because it’s where the said Bond movie was shot in 1965. From the sea it’s hard to tell that the cave exists, because it’s in one of three or four tiny islands across from Staniel Cay Yacht Club. The snorkelling party took the dinghy from Hakuna Matata to one of the dinghy moorings just offshore and then swam “into” the island. At low tide this is just a swim with headroom, at high tide you need to hold your breath to get into the cave.

On the other side of the swim through you get two unique vistas. You can look down at the wide variety friendly fish – many, many sergeant majors -- and investigate the underwater blue holes that exit to the sea and imagine where the movie makers put the bomb bay doors and where Sean Connery fought the baddies. And you can look up to the cave roof, which doubles as the surface of the island and lets in dramatic shafts of sunlight. It’s a pretty magical place in its own right, but the fact it has been a Bond movie location made it COOL.

Later that evening, in the absence of anything fresh, we went to an “all you can eat” pizza and pasta evening at Club Thunderball. While the eight of us stretched their resources to the limit and beyond, we did manage to hire the Thunderball movie from the barman and spent a pleasant evening watching Sean Connery strut his stuff.

Top pic: entrance to Thunderball Cave

Mid pic: blue hole in Thunderball Cave

Bot pic: cave roof in Thunderball Cave

Warderick Wells – O’Brien’s Cay

Since Warderick Wells had land trails as well as sea features, we decided to stretch our legs and climb to the top of Boo Boo Hill and then make our way to the Park Headquarters to get internet access and pay for our mooring. Boo Boo Hill is famous because it’s the highest point on Warderick Wells and offers a fabulous view of the island and because yachting visitors leave a piece of driftwood or flag with their boat name at its summit.

Sadly we didn’t get to Boo Boo Hill – didn’t have the lat and long to hand! But we did manage a very hot scramble across the island to the Park Headquarters. The ground is a sharp, uneven and ankle turning coral and limestone covered with vegetation and pitted with swampy sand. I was, as usual, not wearing the right shoes and slipped and slid at snail’s pace while the kids forged ahead impatiently. The reward was some outstanding views of the Cay and the incredible blues of sea and sky and, at our destination, the beautiful curving Powerful Beach with its whale skeleton and pristine sand.

Given that we needed to get to our next destination in reasonable time, we sent Chris and Jamie back to the beach where we left the dinghy so they could bring it round. They took a kayak to the dinghy, then Jamie transferred from kayak to dinghy and brought it back – towing the kayak wherever possible.

Unfortunately the Park Headquarters didn’t sell ice creams or beer while we waited, but it was surrounded by some amazing birdlife and weird crabs which Alex photographed beautifully.

Once the dinghy was back, it was party A back to the boat followed by party B, release the mooring and hold our breath as we navigated the shifting sand banks back to the cut.

O’Brien’s Cay is also in the Exuma Land and Sea Park and has a number of excellent snorkelling spots including one called the Seaquarium. This is both a good snorkelling and shallow diving spot and is washed by the tide so the coral is in excellent condition. It’s a reasonably sheltered spot but is subject to a strong currents so it’s best to snorkel or dive at slack water. We had earmarked this spot to give both Callum and Alex a “tryout” with the scuba gear so we did an extensive technical and safety briefing and kitted up. Phil did dinghy duty staying on the surface “in case” and Cal and Alex went down individually with Chris. Chris was impressed with both boys: they listened and followed instructions and had really excellent experiences as a result.

After that, the snorkellers had their turn. The site was magnificent. The water was incredibly clear, there was a great deal of life and the coral was healthy and colourful. It was like a mini coral wall plunging to a max depth of about 16 feet but with the variety of coral, sponge, fans, fish and ... lobster. The lobster were incredible. Chris and I spent a good 10 minutes watching a huge lobster chase a slightly smaller lobster under, round and over rocks with relentless purpose. We didn’t know if this was aggression or courting behaviour – later we discovered it might be because one of them had moulted and the other was looking for lunch!! Whatever the behaviour was, it was spellbinding. A lobster can be quite agile as it reverses into a hole in the rocks untangling its legs from fans and coral. And, of course, we must mention incredible queen trigger, grey angels, queen angels, princess parrot, etc., etc. and so on... Life just doesn’t get better.

Shroud Cay – Warderick Wells

It was Easter Sunday – no Easter Eggs unfortunately. We’d bought a small pack of mini crème Eggs in Nassau and managed to lose them. The kids were great and didn’t mind at all ... well, very much. They had decided that Daddy had either mislaid them or eaten them and just rolled their eyes in resignation.

Today’s destination was Warderick Wells, at the heart of the Exuma Land and See Park. It’s uninhabited but houses the Park Headquarters, has some land trails, some great places to snorkel and some excellent mooring buoys. The buoys are allocated daily on a first come, first served basis via VHF radio so we needed to get going early to get in range of the Park and make our request. When we arrived at Warderick Wells Cut, we discovered that there was an Easter Sunday “Pot Luck” being held on the beach at 2pm. Now although the distance between our mooring and the cut was about 1 mile as the crow flies, we had to negotiate sandbanks that made it about a 45 minute journey.

But we made it! We took a couple of hastily assembled dishes and assembled on the beach with other human beings. Yachtie party talk is all about wind, tide and current, anchorages, marinas, different kinds of boat, where to get great provisions, places not to miss, places to miss...It’s a whole different world. But for the Yachtie this kind of talk is invaluable because inside information is hard to find on the net.

Party over and we got to the business of finding great snorkelling. We were anchored near Emerald Rock which was a good spot regardless of tide or current so party one went off to snorkel. Emerald Rock is a tiny round island in the middle of the sandy bay: on top it’s covered with vegetation, birds and insects while below the sea it’s covered in coral, fans and sealife. Party one reported beautiful Queen Triggerfish and tiny Angels. I went in party two and we struck out to some isolated coral heads south of Emerald Rock. I was on a moray hunt when I say the most enormous lobster lurking in the rocks. Lobsters are protected in the Exuma Park so I suppose they get to grow big.

We were moored next to a diving platform and the kids made good use of this till we hauled them in to eat.

Pics:
North mooring site at Warderick Wells. The boats moor in the dark blue bits!
Above water life
Diving platform

Norman’s Cay -- Shroud Cay

Shroud Cay was recommended to us because it has a series of tiny creeks through the mangroves at least one of which bisects the island and can be navigated – carefully – by dinghy from the Bank to the Sound side of the island. It’s uninhabited and part of the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park.

It wasn’t far from Norman’s Cay and we arrived before lunch time and anchored slightly north of the centre of the island. It was reasonably hairy: we anchored with .9 metres under the hull which meant, at low tide, we would, probably, have .2 metres clearance – probably.

As before, we could only take one party on the dinghy at a time. The creek is incredibly shallow especially at low tide. Some of the time the engine had to be pulled up and the dinghy had to be pushed. The Park authorities recommend that you explore the Cay at idle/no wake speed to avoid grounding, but some people ignore this advice – in particular, a powerful tender crewed by a bunch of teenagers (+) from one of the visiting stinkpots ripped along merrily creating mayhem and wake. “Wouldn’t it be funny“, mused our slightly jealous crew, “if they crashed into a sandbank!” and lo and behold, they did. From 20kts to zero in less time than it takes to say “No wake!” Our crew didn’t laugh at all...

Pics: The Landing Party, Baby Mangroves

When the landing party returned, we decided to have our barbecue before the second party went exploring. Chris wanted to move the boat nearer to our barbecue beach destination and this involved negotiating some very shallow seas at low tide. We’re able to set a “track” with our plotter which, once we’ve navigated successfully from A to B, we can use to return from B to A. So we were relatively confident that, bar grounding, we could get back to our anchorage and from there, back to the deeper(!) water. Off we went, two adults in front and Adam reading off the depth as it changed to Chris at the helm. At one point, still some way from our destination, we hastily reversed and tried a new route. The charts are pretty good, better than the plotter, but sand shifts and you just can’t be sure. Eventually, a couple of hundred metres off shore, it got really shallow. Chris decided that this was a golden opportunity – low tide and flat bottom – to see how Hakuna Matata would handle grounding – so he let it ground. Our first observation is that the depth gauge reads .2m and then about 8m – which is handy to know. The second is that even though we grounded so gently it was barely noticeable, we weren’t getting off the sand till the tide got higher and refloated us. The third was how weird it was to stand next to the boat hulls and be able to clean them off...

We abandoned ship and took to the beach with our barbecue. It was hot. There was no obvious shade. The rocks were sharp. The sand was baking. All that was missing was Kirsty Young, the Bible and the Complete Works of Shakespeare. The kids solved the shade issue by building the little shelter shown in the last photo and we had a really tasty and largely unburnt barbecue.

The tide started to rise, we’d finished the food so we went back to the boat to let the second group tackle the creek. Sadly the dinghy wasn’t playing ball and required some TLC and by the time we had that sorted we need to move the boat to somewhere where it wouldn’t ground at the next low tide overnight.. but it was still a great day.

Pics: Beautiful Beach and Interesting Rocks, The Shelter Detail

Long Cay – Norman’s Cay

Norman’s Cay was once the centre of a huge drug smuggling operation run by drug baron Carlos Lehder because it is in a perfect position to smuggle cocaine into the US using its tiny airstrip. In its heyday it was a place where anything went and was finally closed down by the Bahamian authorities in 1982 in response to pressure from the US.

But we went for the food! It’s now known for a small restaurant called McDuff’s Bar and Grill which serves great burgers – cheeseburgers in Paradise.

We left Long Cay in quite a wind – too much for us to anchor near the great snorkelling spot we’d discovered the day before because of adverse tide and current. It was only a 6 mile run but we decided to hoist the sails to take advantage of the wind and when we turned east to start navigating the sand banks, we very niftily pulled the sails down most professionally and anchored just off the beach.

The kids were almost instantly in the water, checking out the coral heads we could see from the boat and had avoided while anchoring.

But we were here for lunch. We all went ashore, ate a great lunch and explored the little hotel and the island’s diminutive runway.

Coral heads called in the afternoon. These tiny underwater islands in the sea are extraordinary miniature aquariums and seem to house just ones and twos of a wide variety of species. Presumably there is traffic between these islands, otherwise there must be divine intervention to keep them populated. The coral head I snorkelled on had the usual suspects – parrot fish, sergeant majors, angel fish – plus the most perfect brain coral and a green moray eel nestling in the rocks.

After Jamie’s sojourn up the mast, the other kids were interested to find out what it was like.

Allen’s Cay – Long Cay

Our destination today was Long Cay for good snorkelling. We decided to go “outside” from the Bank to Exuma Sound. On the Sound side of the Cays, there is a drop off to deep ocean not far from shore – no VP required and quite different sailing conditions. Our decision was based on three factors: we’d heard of a good dive you could do on the east of Highbourne Cay; the Battricks are sailors so we wanted to do some sailing; and we were comfortable attempting the cuts out of and into the Bank.

We found the dive site and buoy which we were able to tie up to. Jamie, Chris and I had a pretty good dive – nothing like San Salvador but still pretty with canyons of coral reaching out like fingers towards the wall.

After the dive, we sailed again – not great sailing it turned out because the wind was in the wrong direction – and anchored at Long Cay --the colours of the water through the cut and at our anchorage just taking everyone’s breath away.

Once anchored, the landing party went off in the dinghy to scout out the snorkelling opportunities. No luck at all. The lagoon they explored had a beautiful sandy bottom and nothing else. Finally we used the chart to locate a likely spot and Jamie and Chris went out and found it. Because our dinghy is smaller than we would like, we had to ferry 8 people in two trips. So half the party went off and indeed found excellent snorkelling at Lobster Cay. This was the first time Phil and the boys saw the fish life of the Bahamas – they’ve been to the Barrier Reef – and they were suitably impressed with the clarity of the water and the colours and variety of the fish.

Later that evening was a fabulous sunset and fantastic moonrise. Perfect!

Pics: Bahamian Beach; Successful Snorkel Scouting; Melting Sun; Rising Moon

Allen's Cay

The reason for going to Allen’s Cay was the Rock Iguanas. They are unique to the Cay and are a popular day trip from Nassau!

As soon as we anchored, the kids jumped into the inviting water and snorkelled to the beach with the less hardy adults following in the dinghy. Initially we could only see one or two iguanas – but they are fairly large (up to the size of a cat) and reasonably curious so that was probably a good introduction. If you stayed quite still, they approached very close. They move very fast and can be quite unnerving – except that if you make any sudden move in their direction they speedily retreat.

Another dinghy arrived with some food, and suddenly the beach was full of iguanas posing for the cameras!

Nassau to Allen’s Cay

We had a 35 mile run to Allen’s Cay that needed to be completed before 4pm. Prior to that we had to leave the dock and refuel. The winds were higher than we would have liked with 2 large pilings on either side but with 4 adults and some useful kids, getting out was a relative breeze. We did have one of those “duh” moments: we were warping the boat to be as central as possible to the 4 pilings and realised that Phil might have some difficulty making it back on the boat...

The refuelling dock was the other side of the bridges under which we theoretically had mast clearance but we still breathed in hard as we went under. Refuelling took a lot longer than we expected: we couldn’t get petrol for the dinghy at the first dock and had to send Phil and Jamie off in the dinghy to another with the fuel cans. This involved heroic and simian climbing skills on Phil’s behalf but meant extra delay.

The sailing was pleasant and uneventful: on the way we practised “eyeball piloting” with Phil and Debbie so we would have 5 pairs of eyes to help avoid collisions. Even though we crossed the infamous Yellow Bank on the recommended and therefore surveyed route, you still need to look out for coral heads. But it’s not a chore! On the way in, I’d been able to see starfish on the bottom through the crystal clear water.

Unfortunately the early delays meant that we couldn’t easily navigate visually once we arrived at Allen’s Cay and someone had to go up the mast to see far enough ahead. Our volunteer was Jamie. She sat in a bosun’s chair near the top of our 65’ mast and spotted for us. Allen's Cay is in fact a group of three very small islands with an anchorage in the middle. We didn’t hit anything and managed to enter the anchorage and find a nice spot to anchor in front of the iguana beach. The water was so incredibly clear it was hard to believe that we were in just 2-3 metres of water.

Pics: Simian refuelling, The Battricks, Jamie up the mast

Hurricane Hole, Nassau

An unexpected day in Nassau saw us taking a walk from our marina on Paradise Island across the bridge to New Providence Island. It wasn’t a brilliant day but we took some photos from the top and they show two faces of Nassau.

Our guests, Debbie, Phil, Callum (12) and Adam (9) finally arrived in the evening. Their journey had been horrendous and they were really ready to have a holiday!

In fact Phil had a great joke ready:

Question: "Why are pirates pirates?"

Answer: "Because they arrghhhh!!!"

Atlantis, Paradise Island

Chris had promised Alex that he would take him to Atlantis if he could when we were in Nassau and our guests weren’t due to arrive till 8pm at the earliest so we cleaned and provisioned like whirling dervishes in order that we could spend the afternoon there.

Atlantis is a huge resort on Paradise Island with its own hotel, marina, beach and village but what attracted us was the huge water park and marine life exhibits. We started our visit by walking past a lagoon full of very active rays swimming in “flocks”. Even though we had swum and dived with these creatures and seen them swimming around the boat many times, we still stood transfixed and oohed and aahed. I am so pleased that we never seem to lose our sense of wonder and delight. The predator tunnel beckoned and here were shark and barracuda and some really big tarpon along with a mass of reef fish. We knew that Jamie was able to name just about any reef fish in the known universe, but it was our first opportunity to hear Alex saying, “oh look, a queen trigger!” or “no mummy, that’s not a rocky beauty, it’s a creole wrasse (duh)”.

But our real business here was water slides, so that’s what we did next. They picked a nice easy tube ride for me: Jamie went on a single tube as point man and Alex and I followed behind on a double. After a series of luge like swoops and banks we plunged into a shark infested lagoon. Fortunately we were enclosed in a clear plastic tunnel to give us the illusion of being surrounded by shark while flat on our backs in an airfilled tube. A nurse shark had draped itself over the top of the tunnel and was taking a nap – quite a view.

Jamie decided to do a slide called The Abyss or Leap of Faith or something similar – and here she is!

The watery fun continued till 7 when the park shut and we had to get back for our guests. On the way out we walked past the Manta Rays and watched them moving majestically through the water – it was really hard to leave.

Once back at the boat, we again whirled around dervishly and only began to get concerned when our guests hadn’t arrived by about 9pm. Our mobile phones didn’t work in the Bahamas so we couldn’t make or receive the usual voice or text messages or even make a call. Our internet access was miserable and intermittent but we decided to check email and try to Skype. It turned out that our guests had an awful journey from the UK and missed their connection – they wouldn’t be in till the next day. We felt very deflated and disappointed – but very upset for them too.

Hurricane Hole, Nassau

The wind was non-existent when we left Highbourne, the sea was millpond calm and a low level mist meant you could barely see an horizon. (see pic) In these conditions, we can only bank on 5kts – sometimes less if we’re going into a strong current or against the tide. So with 40 miles to go and a preferred ETA within VPR limits, we had to plan for 8 hours cruising, so we left at around 7am.

It was our first experience of sailing on the shallow banks and was quite surreal – we could see the bottom but no land on any horizon. We practised spotting and avoiding coral heads and even hove to near one so we could see if it represented a snorkelling opportunity. It did – even from the boat we could see coral, fans and even a lionfish so Chris and Alex leapt off an unanchored boat in open ocean -- nutters. We did manage to reunite boat and snorkelers even though my manoeuvring skills are a little bit basic.

Hurricane Hole was also a first experience. This time of docking using 4 pilings, 2 front and 2 rear, to tie off to. The idea is that the ropes are balanced to keep the boat from hitting the dockside regardless of wind or tide. The tide produces about a metre of rise and fall. The greatest difficulty was Chris’s: he had to reverse the boat between the pilings – of course, from the flat calm of the morning we now had a brisk breeze to make life interesting.

Our mission for the rest of the day and the next day was to clean, clean, clean and provision for 8 people for a 10 day cruise with only 2 possible eating out opportunities...

It would have been my Dad's birthday today. He would have loved following this adventure. We still miss him.

Back on Passage to Highbourne Cay

We were all sad to leave San Salvador but we had to get to Nassau to meet some friends who were spending Easter with us in the Exumas. The Exumas is a group of small islands, called Cays, that start about 35 miles south of Nassau on New Providence Island and run more or less north to south. On one side is deep water sailing: on the other, the Bahama Bank which probably averages about 3 metres deep. Getting from ocean to bank and vice versa involves navigating the cuts which are narrow to really narrow gaps between the cays. These gaps funnel the tide and can be fraught with coral heads, rocks and sand bars and are usually subject to VPR – visual piloting rules. This means you need to go through when wind and wave conditions allow and when the light is right so you can judge depths by the colour of the sea and spot rocks. The light is right when there’s little cloud, the sun is behind you and/or high enough in the sky so you can see the bottom – generally between about 8am and 4pm. We planned the 130 mile passage from San Salvador so that we would arrive at our first deep ocean to shallow bank navigation at around 9 or 10 in the morning. We picked a not-so-narrow cut with few obstructions so we could get the hang of it (before picking up our guests!)

It was, in the event, uneventful. The weather conditions were just right and, with not much discussion, we could reconcile the plotter, the charts and what we could actually see in front of us. We were rewarded with a perfect Bahamian anchorage – coral sand beach, crystal clear water, and graceful rays clearly visible under and around the boat.

We did make a foray onto land: Highbourne Marina has a shop which was fun to browse, but mostly we swam in the sea and rested. Because we needed to start early in the morning and cross 40 miles of shallow bank, we moved anchorage so we could make an easy exit with little light.

Pic: Clear waters at Highbourne Cay Marina

Last Diving Day

Our last dive started with a swim though from the sandy floor and the top of the coral reef to around 27m down the wall. From there we worked our way along and up the wall to meet the divers who needed to stay around 12m -- including Jamie. I like wall diving although it can be quite daunting and a bit disorientating to look off into the far blue yonder. On this dive we saw another shark – a rather large reef shark – who instead of just making contact and leaving, decided to cruise back and forth. I felt like I was being sized up, but I’m sure it was just an impression...

At the end of the dive, we went in search of the underwater Columbus memorial. It wasn’t hard to find and here it is.

Snorkelling

There’s a dive site not far from Riding Rock called Snapshot which is just about deep enough to dive and shallow enough to snorkel. So as Jamie and I dived round some exceptionally pretty coral heads, Chris and Alex snorkelled above us. It was quite neat to be able to wave to each other and to occasionally see them free diving down to us.