We are on the way by way of three more Bahama islands. Our next stop is Inagua where we will check out of Bahamas- then the "Windward Passage" to Port Antonio, Jamaca. We are anchored with two other boats at a beautiful island called Samana. We walked on the island today and met two local men who shave the bark off a tree that grows here called Cass that is then sent to Italy to make a liquor called Compare for a living. They soak the bark in salt water, beat it off the stalk in chunks, dry it in the tropical sun and stuff it into huge bags. We see a 16ft. skiff on the beach in front of the wooden fishing shacks that are shared by locals when they are on the island. The wooden shacks are built right over the limestone rock ruins left by Loyalists and later plantation owners in the early 1900's.
Our trip over to this island, Samana, after Conception Island and Rum Cay was 70 nm and took us a long day at 5kn. We started at 4:00pm and arrived at 11:00am, motor sailing in light winds. There was a 6ft swell and some wind chop, even though there was not enough wind to sail. Makes you wonder how the locals managed to arrive in a 16 foot skiff. They said they had prepared to be on this island for a three month time. The island is uninhabited, so no supplies are available. The closest island to this one is 20 nm away! We are going to talk to them some more tonight just to be friendly.
It's hot here in the southern Bahamas. We try to keep cool in the water, but the second you come out you're hot again. Barracuda and at least one ?shark visited us when we were snorkeling and we felt chased out of the water. I will get more used to the "wildlife" as we spend time in its domain. We wish Steve and Tom, our two sons, could come and spear us some fish.
On the way from George Town around Cape Santa Maria at Long Island to Conception Island, Dan landed a nice dolphin fish, not an easy task from a heeling sailboat. It was beautiful; brilliant yellow and green, and I have to admit, very tasty. We shared it with another cruiser who is traveling with us to Jamaca on the Morgan 41ft., Tregoning, with Alison and Randall aboard. Conception proved to be a beautiful island with an interesting inland mangrove creek where we dinghied and watched hawksbill turtles scooting in the shallow, emerald colored water. Sea Star stayed at Conception where other cruisers dove a recommended wall, and we snorkeled, hiked and visited on other boats for two nights and then moved on to Rum Cay.
Rum was an 18 nm motor sail from Conception, to a reef strewn anchorage in front of a lovely white sand beach. The wind became light at Conception and continued light at Rum which improved the access to snorkel spots. It took some doing to weave our way in through the coral heads and reef to the beach where the protection was better and would prevent some of the swell from rolling us. We spent two fun filled days snorkeling with Tregoning. We have been somewhat disappointed at the variety of fish we see when snorkeling. Some reef fish seem to be missing, such as Angel Fish and even Sargent Majors. The Lion Fish I wrote about earlier seem to be on many reefs, so we wonder if they are eating the young. Some patches of corals are just lovely; alive and colorful, and some stately Elkhorn. We haven't seen an abundance of any fish and few lobsters or crabs. This does not mean they are not there, but that we haven't seen them at mid day when we are most likely to snorkel. Dan can dive down to look into the caverns and limestone formations. He will tell me when he sees something-like when he told me he saw a 14 ft. shark at Samana! He later reduced the size, but he and the shark-we don't know what kind- were very surprised to see each other. The shark just swam away and we returned to the dinghy.
After two nights at Rum Cay, Jamie on Windsong rejoined us after dealing with receiving a package in George Town after our scheduled departure. He had to wait there until it arrived two days later than expected, then sail to catch up with us at Rum Cay.
Our three boats moved to the other side of Rum Cay where there is a very well kept marina and terrific restaurant where we were served conch fritters, and cracked conch or chicken dinners. I enjoyed a night out of the kitchen, (whoops-galley), before our planned departure at 4:00PM for Samana, which was expected to take through the night, arriving in good light to see the fringing reefs and squirm into the anchorage. As we left the shallow anchorage in front of the marina, we tried to follow what seemed to be marker bouys and Sea Star actually went up onto a coral head and had to back off. The scraping noise was quite noticeable so we checked our bilges carefully for any sign of a leak for the next few hours and seem to be ok.
We did arrive as planned, but met with some scary navigation anyway as we began to plan our approach into the Propeller Cay anchorage. There was ocean swell and a west setting current as we arrived. It was also close to low tide. Tregoning was the first boat and Randall and Allison looked at the entrance. It seemed narrow but Allison went on the bow and they slowly began their approach following the path around the coral. Sea Star was right behind them as they negotiated the tricky entrance. They touched on a coral head and Randall yelled to us on the VHF-I've touched. ABORT! Abort!
Dan quickly turned to Port and using full engine and bow thruster, turned us around and miraculously got us back out to the deeper water. Tregoning bumped off and continued on in to the anchorage without any more problems. They quickly dropped the anchor and took down their dinghy to come back out and guide us in and around the coral that they hit. After a few passes with a hand held depth sounder they figured out the route to take us in. Windsong with less draft was first to follow the dinghy in, then Sea Star and we all were safely out of the coral and in the anchorage, exhausted from our night of travel, but safe. The anchorage was blue meaning sandy bottom. We couldn't wait to get into the water- well, we needed to check the holding on the anchors. We then dove to look under the boats for any damage. We were both scratched on the hull but no serious damage is evident.
We will leave Samana on Wednesday for Great Inagua.
Pictures are somewhat out of sequence
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| Leaving Bahamas |
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