Bahamas: Island Nation of Contrasts

Mike was navigating us in the dinghy towards The Washing Machine in the Exumas. He was looking out for turtles that magically and gracefully finned through crystal clear water over a white sand bottom. 

OUR LOOP SIDE TRIP INTO THE BAHAMAS

This travelogue covers our trip East and then South into the Exumas, Bahamas. The lower right hand point of the red-lined route was our southernmost point of the Loop!

CROSSING TO BIMINI, BAHAMAS 

The day of our crossing to the island of Bimini in the Bahamas, I woke at 6:00 a.m. to take my Dramamine. The winds were forecast to be less than 10 MPH from the North. At 7:00 a.m. our three trawler Loopers and one sailboat flotilla pulled up anchors and headed East-North-East from Key Largo. For the first 20 minutes, our path inside an inland reef was calm. 

As our bows poked out of the reef, we saw irregular seas. We knew that even a small wind from the North, opposing the Gulf Stream, disrupts the surface, creating choppy waves. This stretch was, perhaps shockingly, two thousand feet deep. 

Our buddy boats with no stabilizers were dramatically rolling left and right. This lasted about three hours. 

We knew the Gulf Stream would provide some push, but it was hard to predict how much. One reason was that it was weaker at its edges. Even so, we were surprised that we felt the effects of the Gulf Stream right away. We had to continually adjust our heading Southward to counteract the beneficial Northward push on our stern quarter. 

This is a screenshot of the Windy app showing the current speeds. The U.S. is solid gray on the upper left side. You can see how the gray/bluish Gulf Stream wraps right around Florida. The scale on the bottom shows it around 3 knots.

Luckily, watching sea states never seemed to get old. And, the wind-versus-current waves eased up. The marine blue of the ocean was mesmerizing. I could see dark teal streaks of sun rays permeating the blue surface. This was a foreshadowing of the clear blue waters to come. 

All geared up for a long day on the fly bridge. We were probably listening to a book or music.

It was a long ride, by our standards, of seven and a half hours. Eventually, it was “land ho!” We saw cruise ships and the tallest trees of Bimini. We finished this long crossing at the Alice Town neighborhood, far from the cruise ships’ neighborhood. Frankly, Alice Town was rough around the edges. The bright spot was we hung out at the pool of the marina next door with our buddy boats and met some new sailors as well. We settled in for three days, waiting for the next period of boat-able wind. Our destination was the Exumas, a narrow, long series of sparsely populated islands.  

SERIOUS BOATING

The marina on the next island hop was full so we heeded the advice of experienced sailors in our flotilla. They recommended we anchor at a shallow bank in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. Low reefs surrounded our anchorage, so waves could not grow very high—in reasonable winds. It was a Dramamine day and evening for me. It passed with minor rolling. 

New Providence Island, home to Nassau, was our next long run. This was a serious boating day with deep marine blue water and stronger winds opposing the local current. We experienced consistent three to four foot waves with occasional six foot salty waves that soaked Sacagawea’s exteriors. After a couple of hours of this, we decided to engage Sacagawea’s beast mode and sped away from our buddy boats at 19 MPH. 

Sacagawea’s semi-displacement hull rises the bow up at planing speed, which made it a better method for moving through waves. We never felt out of control or in danger. There was enough rocking to prohibit being able to safely go up and down the molded steps of the fly bridge. We arrived at our destination a couple hours before our buddy boats. Stabilizers were awesome for providing little side to side roll. 

This video is of our buddy boats rocking back and forth. This lasted for hours for them. Getting to the fun places in the Bahamas was no joke.

We anchored one night in the Western-most bay at New Providence.

Here was the view from our bow of New Providence island. Homes lined the bay. This was reminiscent of the homes we had seen along the Intracoastal Waterway in Florida.

This was nothing like Bimini. Monohull and catamaran sailboats dotted the bay. We learned that they were also staging to move to their next destination during favorable winds. 

Gawking at the real yachts was part of the Bahamas experience. At least for me. These vessels were often unique and hard to describe like this one. This was over 200 feet long. 

Mike captured this yacht leaving the anchorage. They don’t have to wait for favorable winds!

EXUMAS OR BUST

The next run was five hours to our Northern-most Exumas destination: Norman Cay. Luckily, the sea was just a light, two-foot chop in 10 MPH winds. At this juncture, we entered the shallow Bahama Shelf. In really shallow places there was clear water. The rest was either light teal, dark teal or marine blue. Occasionally we would see a circular dark area where there were coral heads.  

Here was Norman Cay. Shallow waters were fun to dinghy around and spot turtles and rays. So crazy that the shallowest water was not blue—it was clear as glass.

Like all the good-sized Exuma islands, Norman Cay was long and narrow, running North to South. There were few trees, per se, and mostly low green shrubs. The prevailing trade winds were from the East. So all boats anchored on the calm, West side of the cays. 

Norman Cay was surrounded by narrow strips of golden-white beach’s or this: rocky, black, holey, limestone rocks.

TURTLES, WASHING MACHINES AND POISON TREES

The next day we moved only five miles to Shroud Cay. This was my favorite place during our Exumas experience. 

Visitors know that Shroud Cay, a Bahamas Land and Sea Park, had a dinghy trip through a turtle-filled, mangrove-sided slough. The destination was a beach and swim spot visitors called The Washing Machine. It was called the Washing Machine because depending on the tide, a current could gently float you in or out of a narrow entrance between the islands. A reef far out protected the beach, so waves broke steadily and smoothly. 

Can you spot the turtle in this photo? They were so graceful. 

Our friends took this video of us as we made our way through the mangrove ride:

Back in the water — not since our days in Chicago, in Lake Michigan. Mike was demonstrating the super-buoyancy of clear, Bahamian waters. The buoyancy surprised me. The water was extra salty and slightly warm. 

We climbed up a small hill at The Washing Machine beach and looked thoughtfully West at the dinghy run. 

After a couple of days at Shroud, we moved to Warderick Cay. This was also a Bahamas Land and Sea park with a park ranger and hiking maps. We made landfall and walked to the tallest point which had blowholes. However, no water was shooting when we were there. It must have been the wrong tidal time. 

During a hike on Warderick Cay it was helpful to read a sign proclaiming “poison wood”. Don’t touch that! These lovely islands have occasional gotcha-kind of flora and fauna. Poison trees, no-see-ums…and sharks. 

When we returned to our boat tied to a mooring ball, the boat was dramatically rocking. It was so bad I had to stow all interior gear (like I do when we’re underway) from falling on the floor. Getting our dinghy back up on the fly bridge via crane was terrifying experience as the multi-hundred pound dinghy and engine swung towards and away from the boat. Mike skillfully got it up and there was no damage. It was not a difficult decision to release from the mooring ball and move to another mooring in a protected area. In retrospect, we probably should have towed our dinghy to the next moorage. 

PIG BEACH, THE AQUARIUM, AND SUPER BOWL — BAHAMIAN STYLE

We moved twenty more miles to lively Staniel Cay. Chatting with Loopers helped us to hone in on how to go to this settlement’s spartan food stores on delivery day and how to maximize the restaurant/bars’ happy hours.(1) 

The Loopers were a sparse group among hundreds of sailboats in the Exumas. We learned that they are mostly snowbirds who journey down for the winter much like those who journey South to Florida and Arizona. They anchor or settle into a mooring ball for the season. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to pass the winter.

This drone shot of our anchorage at Staniel Cay obviously focused on yours truly but there were maybe 50  sailboats in this large anchorage.

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Look up behind us and see pigs swimming in the water, begging for scraps. Perhaps you’ve heard of Pig Beach. We stayed near this a few days and witnessed all the cute swimmers innocently begging for food. Farmers introduced the pigs to the island as food.(2)

Our first and best snorkel experience was at a designated spot (with a dinghy mooring buoy) called The Aquarium. It was a coral head alongside a rock islet. Although I haven’t done much snorkeling in my life, this spot had the most beautiful coral I’ve ever seen. They were golden, purple and burgundy colored. I recognized sponges (thanks Tarpon Springs!), brain coral, fan types and so many more. 

After I snorkeled at The Aquarium there were too many fish species to recount. Suffice it to say I saw everything on this online chart. It was a shock of color and diversity. I think this chart was missing a common reef predator: sharks!(3)

Our stay in Exumas coincided with the Super Bowl. A nice waterfront bar hosted a party. I’d estimate that half of the people enjoying themselves were locals and half were Loopers/sailors. We knew that it was unusual to watch the game and laugh at commercials while feeling humid, warm air and cooling tropical breezes. 

For the Super Bowl, the bar owner moved a huge TV and speakers outside. She decorated the deck and interior with colorful balloons. She also declared, “Free shot for every touchdown!” As evidenced from this table of shot-able liquors. There was all the variety of liquor you could want—but not a variety of food in the Staniel Cay area.(4)

I haven’t said anything about the Bahamian people. We superficially met those who interacted with tourists. To generalize, we found them to be warm, easy to talk with and extraordinarily generous with their time. They were just cool, meaning they didn’t try to be cool, they just seemed sincerely relaxed and confident.

People we met started asking “What’s your next adventure?” since we were close to finishing the Loop. It was hard to answer this. We don’t have any long trips planned at this time. There are places we want to go in the next few years, however. Time will tell.

THE GROTTO AND CONCH BURGERS FOR DINNER

One of the tourist sites at Staniel Cay was The Grotto. It’s a giant, hollow, limestone rock. Unlike the touristy descriptions online, people can easily snorkel or swim into the cave, without having to dive under any rock, during low tide at multiple entrances. There was a hole in the ceiling where rays of light dramatically pierced the walls and the water. It felt like a special spot. Underwater there were corals, sponges and more rainbow colored reef fish.

Off to The Grotto on day two. Lots of people on this day. That’s one side of The Grotto rock on the upper right-hand side of the photo.

We enjoyed The Grotto so much that we returned a second day with Looper friends. On this day, however, we took a meandering dinghy course the long way and decided to stop at a beautiful, deserted beach together. 

I decided to try snorkeling even though I could only see sand from atop the water.  When I putz’d around via snorkel it began to get interesting. I saw small growths of pretty and otherworldly looking coral and sponges. 

I returned and Mike decided to don the snorkeling gear. Our little party was chatting and staying cool in the water when quite suddenly Mike popped up holding three huge conches. Yes, they were big enough to harvest said our friends who were experienced at cleaning and cooking conch. We had eaten conch before, but only in restaurants.

Mike popped up from a snorkeling trek with conch.

We invited another Looper couple over for conch burgers so Mike and our Looper buddy teamed up, looking for one more large shell. 

Together we had everything we needed to turn the live conch into something they’d make at the Krusty Krab in Sponge Bob Square Pants.

Our looper friend taught Mike the cleaning technique and we had plenty of conches for six people. We stretched the abilities of our modest galley.

Just as we were finishing dinner, two couples stopped by, explaining that there were too many people—families with kids in fact—for a bonfire we had planned. So we invited them to climb aboard. Definitely a record for the number of people in our salon. Ten people. 

As we cleared off the detritus of dinner we spotted the orange of the bonfire on shore. All five couples  departed Sacagawea one dinghy at a time. At the beach we met more boaters of the long-term sailing variety who were going to Grenada eventually. 

This day that felt like an unsupervised summer camp. It was very good to be retired in the Exumas. And good to meet other boaters and learn of cool spots to visit in small cays. 

MOORING BALL MISBEHAVIOR

After a final day at the Stanley Cay paradise we did a final food run in the settlement and moved South. We were staging for a run to Georgetown at Great Exuma Island. For this, we needed to switch to the East side of the Exumas which was the windward side. We saw a forecast for light winds and aimed for that day. 

About half way we reserved a one night mooring buoy at a micro-marina at Farmers Cay. Over the phone the dock master said, “You can try to use the mooring, if you’d like.” It didn’t register then, but there was a hidden message he was trying to relay. When we arrived, we radio’d our arrival, as customary, and I was on deck and Mike on helm, also per custom.

 As we approached the mooring ball I had a hard time identifying where the painter was. “Aha,” I thought, “it’s just really short?!” I saw a rope with a loop very close to the morning ball, but underwater. There was not a typical float attached at the bottom of the loop. Then it dawned on me; the painter was wrapped around the mooring ball. Just as I relayed this to Mike, (cue up the Mission Impossible soundtrack) two Looper friends from the small dock approached via dinghy to assist us. 

“We saw the last guy struggle yesterday with this mooring ball. How can we help?” They eagerly volunteered. I told them my theory and stood nearby for them to work on it. Lo and behold, one of them pulled out a painter which contrasted with typical painters. It was about three times as long. Odd. 

They continued to give us A+ service and looped our two bow lines through the painter, relieving me of the hardest part of tying to a mooring ball. As we chatted briefly we all realized that the mooring ball was moving away from us. More accurately, we were moving away from it! 

Our heroes scooted back to the mooring ball and discovered that the extra long looped line we used came detached. And, a second, actual painter was wrapped around the mooring ball. Again, they assisted with looping my lines through the painter and in short order we were securely tied to the mooring. 

It seemed that the previous boat, which was having problems tying up, also used their dinghy and attached their own line (with an unfortunate knot). We explained this to the harbor master later. To this he said, “Now I know why when he left he said, ‘I left you a gift.’” 

GREAT EXUMA ISLAND SUMMER CAMP — IN WINTER

The next day, when we head into deep Atlantic water again, it was very calm. Better than the predictions. We were in a migration of sailboats, in seemed, all taking advantage of good weather. 

This was our view as we headed to our most Southern point on our journey. While we saw rain ahead, the clouds were stunning. We ended up in just a light drizzle. 

We expected to see a lot of sailboats at Elizabeth Harbour, which was sandwiched between Stocking Island and Great Exuma Island. We knew from our charts that there were about 300 mooring balls. However, reading and seeing are two things entirely. Compared to the bays we had stopped in, Elizabeth Harbour was a make-shift floating town.

Like Staniel Cay, snow birds took almost all of the mooring balls. The majority of boats flew the Stars and Stripes and many boats flew the Red Maple Leaf. They return winter after winter. 

There was a daily, professional-sounding, “Cruisers Net” on VHF 72 every morning at 8:00am. For over an hour. It featured boat arrivals and exits, local restaurant/bar specials, sporting events (e.g. “regulation volleyball, pickleball, etc.”), children’s events (model boat building)(5), and, as they say, “much, much more!”

Mike entered the Texas Hold’em Tournie one night and won the whole thing! 

I attended this dinghy concert at the Georgetown mooring field. A fantastic singer/guitarist belted out old and new favorites from her sailboat deck at sunset. She said she was a former lineswoman (a female linesman who climbed power poles) who decided to head out alone on her sailboat and devote her life to singing and sailing.

We participated in one charity event — I think there were more charity events we didn’t do —where the money goes to the local school. I read that they use the donations to purchase school supplies. 

I left Mike on Sacagawea for a week to attend “Kind of a Cute Wedding” in Southern California (congratulations to my nephew Joe and lovely wife Amy!). While I was gone I heard he visited with Loopers, finished some generator maintenance and played online chess with our son A.J.

After two weeks in snow bird society, we learned a lot about Exuma boating life, including some dirty secrets.(6) We were ready to turn around and head North towards Nassau. We would host A.J., briefly, and make our way back to Florida. 

FOOTNOTES FOR FUN FACT FANS

(1) Good to know:

Settlements are the term for towns in the smaller islands. Cays, pronounced “keys,” are really just islands. And, they drive on the left side of the road in the Bahamas.  

(2) Originally the pigs were part of a farm on the island next door. The townspeople complained of their smell, so the farmer moved the pigs to a nearby cay. The farmer came to feed the pigs via boat, so the pigs were trained to swim out to the boat. Despite their hefty size, they were excellent swimmers in the salty water. 

At one of the happy hours at the local bar, one of our Looper friends revealed a colorful bruise on his bum that he received from a hungry, hungry pig. For some reason, he got out of his dinghy, into the water, holding the food. We heard and read other stories of pigs biting people as well.

(3) There was a rash of shark attacks when we were in the Exumas. We heard “don’t be swimming in water at all after 4:30p.m. That’s when the sharks patrol. They call it Shark-thirty.  Splashes attracted them.” Two women jumped in the water off a boat in Bimini at 6:30pm. Nearby on Bimini is a shark cage experience. They feed sharks to attract sharks to the cage. Also near us in the Exumas was a popular area for nurse sharks.. A man jumped in the water at a marina almost on top of them and was bit in the face! Unfortunately, a bull shark attacked a man on an efoil, a type of water toy in yet another marina where they feed sharks.

 

Mike got a great photo of a nurse shark sniffing around our stern after 4:30 p.m.:

(4) Staniel Cay catered to tourists in just the most basic ways. We could use a laundromat and visit a small grocery store. The stores supplied durable veggies and fruits for islanders and boaters. There were durable fresh vegetables and fruits like carrots, potatoes, cabbage and oranges. There were sufficient canned goods like pidgon peas (a new personal favorite). I found it interesting that they sold only small, frozen whole chickens (which tasted fantastic). And we had plenty of cheap eggs. After living on these provisions for weeks it amazed me that snowbirds could live on these limited types of fresh food for months.  

(5) There were lots of families with children. I think many, if not most, of them were full-time boaters. They home school their kids on their boats. Getting together with other boaters families was part of the experience.

(6) One slight disturbing aspect of our stay at Elizabeth Harbour was the realization that there were no pumpout facilities. The right thing to do was leave the mooring ball and go a few miles out to the deep ocean and release the black tank contents. No one does this. They release their tank in the evening “during the outgoing tide.” It’s literally a dirty secret of this community. Most people who stay there for months use reverse osmosis watermakers for their fresh water. We purchased fresh water from marinas twice on our stay. The common practice was to run these in the morning. That enabled them to need to filter less of the black water runoff.