Month: February 2022

Our visit to Lee Stocking Island is coming to an end. It’s been a great 5 days and we’ve truly enjoyed the rest!! We’ve watched boats come and go over the past 5 days. We’ve heard some are heading to George Town but there also seems to be a large number of cruisers heading north. Everyone is saying there are way more cruiser here this year then last year (makes sense).

One of the highlights of our stay here was our encounter yesterday (Saturday) with some very large stingrays. We went for a dinghy ride to explore the area just south of our anchorage and because the water was a bit rough, we decided to come back close to shore. That was the best decision!! Steve and Jane saw the stingrays first and within about 20 minutes we were surrounded by about 10 of these graceful creatures. We had fun moving along with them and trying to get some good photos. Steve had his GoPro video camera and got some amazing underwater footage of the rays.

Another highlight was the snorkeling Mark and I did today at these 2 rocks just west of our anchorage called Tug and Barge. The coral and fish around these rocks were beautiful! It’s probably some of the healthiest coral we’ve seen in the Bahamas in recent years. There were many different types of fish and we saw one school with at least 50 fish swimming between the 2 rocks. We spent a bit of time snorkeling around and taking in all the underwater scenery.

We went for one final walk on Lee Stocking and enjoyed a short walk that led to the Exuma Sound side. The waves were fairly small today as the wind has calmed down. We met a couple walking along the little beach who followed us through the Bock Cay cut 5 days ago. They are anchored just in front of us but this was the first time we saw them off their boat. It’s always interesting to chat with fellow cruisers – you can hear some interesting stories and you can get some good tips about places to see and areas to explore. Lots of fun.

We’ll be up early tomorrow morning (Monday) to catch the high tide so we can take the southern route to get onto the Exuma Sound. George Town is fairly close and we should be anchored there by mid afternoon. It should be an easy moving day with low wind speed – it’s a motoring day!!

It’s so nice to get to an anchorage knowing you have several days before the winds change and you can move again. That’s what has happened for us at Lee Stocking. We arrived here with a mostly east wind and that wind will build (and move more south) over the next few days. So here we are – stuck in a super cool spot!! We’re nicely protected from the easterly wind and it’s a very interesting island with lots of trails.

On Thursday Jane, Steve, Mark and I checked out the abandoned Caribbean Marine Research Centre. It’s been closed for years but it looks like it was left in a hurry. They did a lot of fish research here and you can still see all the tanks and water ponds that they used for their research. The place would make an amazing movie set! There’s also an airstrip on the island but you certainly wouldn’t want to use it! We walked around the research centre and along 2 or 3 beaches on the Exuma Sound side – it was such an awesome day!!

Today (Friday) we went on another hike up to the highest point in the Exumas. The view was amazing (see photos below) and the trail was very nicely maintained! We also did another walk out to 2 more beaches – I’ll never get tired of walking on beaches with the waves crashing in!! That’s the best!!

We ended our day with a hour happy on Jane and Steve’s boat. It was the perfect way to end an awesome day. Good eats (thanks Jane!!), good drinks and best of all good company. As we were chatting in the cockpit, another dinghy flew by with 2 men and lots of groceries. We’re not close to any stores so we were super curious about how they managed to get all that stuff. Turns out they rented a car near the top end of Great Exuma Island (the island that George Town is on) and drove down to George Town to get lots of provisions!! A very good idea!

It looks like we will be here at Lee Stocking until Monday. The winds are supposed to calm down by then so we will be able to motor our way down to the Marina at Emerald Bay. This marina is in the north part of Great Exuma Island and they have water!! We need to fill our empty tank that we didn’t fill at Staniel Cay and fill our other 2 tanks as well. Jane and Steve will be staying at this marina for a few days as they visit other friends who are staying in a condo there. Once we’ve filled our water tanks, we’ll continue down to George Town and hang out there for awhile. I’m looking forward to visiting George Town again – it’s a neat place.

We had 2 lovely days anchored at Little Bay (Great Guana Cay). It was calm and fairly empty. Jane and I spent a bit of time hunting for sea glass on a beach that faces the Exuma Sound. For some reason, this beach gets a lot of sea glass – you can pick it up off the beach or grab the pieces as they get tossed around by the waves. It was lots of fun and the water was super warm.

We’ve moved south today (about 25nm) from Great Guana to Lee Stocking Island. We had a good sail with all 3 sails deployed. The first part of the trip was done on the banks side (west side of the islands). This side was much smoother so we were able to sail along at about 6.5 knots. We crossed over to the Exuma sound side (east side of the islands) and encountered larger waves and a slightly changed wind direction which made it more challenging to sail. In the end, we motor sailed the last 2 – 3 nm and then used one of the cuts to cross back onto the west side of the islands. We’re anchored at Williams Bay, Lee Stocking Island with lots of other boats. Our plan is to stay here for a few days and then jump down to George Town.

Here are some photos that didn’t make it into the last post.

Mark and I hope you all had a great family day and were able to spend a bit of time in person or virtually with your families. For us it’s a virtual chat – we’ll be talking with the girls tonight on messenger! We do video chats once a week to catch up on all that’s going on!!

So in my last post I talked about our water tanks and how we were going to fill our one empty tank at Staniel Cay Yacht Club! Well that didn’t happen!! We tried – we headed to the fuel dock around 8:30am Saturday morning and there were 5 boats ahead of us – and the one on the fuel dock was a mega yacht – they have huge tanks!!! We gave up after waiting over 30 minutes (and the first boat was still on the dock) and followed Daydreams out the cut and onto the Exuma Sound. We travelled a very short distance (about 5nm) to our next anchorage – Bitter Guana.

This was a new anchorage for all of us and it was a really nice spot. The island is known for it’s iguana population and tour boats bring people to see and feed them. It’s a bit unnerving to have a 2ft iguana charging at you looking for food! It’s a good thing they are way more timid then they look. We had a really nice happy hour on our boat that night and the stars were incredible!!

The next morning (Sunday) we left Bitter Guana and headed south to Great Guana Cay – home to Black Point Settlement! Black Point is known for it’s friendly people, amazing bread (made by Lorraine’s mother), Lorraine’s cafe and “the best laundromat” in the Exumas. We went there specifically to do laundry but it was Sunday – very little is open on Sundays in the Bahamas!! So we relaxed for most of the day and got ready to wait in line to do laundry on Monday morning. I decided I could hand wash most of our laundry so on Monday morning we moved from Black Point settlement to Little Bay (just south of the Black Point anchorage). It’s so nice here – super calm, a beautiful beach and only about 10 boats. Jane and Steve joined us here in the late morning after finishing their laundry! We had a lovely day looking for sea glass on the Exuma Sound side of the island.

Our next plan is to move south to Lee Stocking Island in a few days and then get to George Town by the beginning of March. We really like George Town and will spend a few days there getting supplies and relaxing.

I have lots more photos but was having trouble uploading! When we have better wifi, I’ll share some more very cool photos!!

The big blow finally left the area and we were able to leave Cambridge Cay after 6 days. It was a great spot to rest and wait out the windy days. We did see wind in excess of 25 knots (about 46 km/hr) with some pretty big gusts but we were very secure on the mooring ball. Our biggest challenge was the noise coming from our new wind generator! It made some deep vibrating sounds when the wind was really strong (which was always in the middle of the night!!). Mark sent an email to the manufacturer and it turns out that the noise we were hearing was the brakes (it was trying to slow itself down). For the next big blow, we will engage the brake ahead of time and avoid the sleepless nights. The only positive thing is that we made lots of electricity and our batteries were very well charged.

Today we left Cambridge Cay at high tide (around 9am) and made the 11nm trip down to Staniel Cay. This is the way to cruise – get going slowly and only move for about 2 hours. We were anchored right beside Jane and Steve on Daydreams ll by 11 am. We went ashore and had lunch at Staniel Cay Yacht Club and then did a little bit of grocery shopping. Staniel Cay is a very popular tourist spot in the Exumas. There are several small resorts and cabins and there are many boat excursions that come and go. The pig beach is located right here and that is a popular spot of tourists (not so popular with boaters because the tour powerboats make very big wakes and are not super courteous of the anchored boats).

Tomorrow morning we’ll head over to the marina and fill up our one empty water tank. This is our first sailing season without a water maker so we’re being careful with our water. We managed to get 18 days from our 1 tank (it’s a 100 gallon tank) and we have another just like it, so we can go a month before we would be out of water. After that, we’ll travel slightly further south to Bitter Guana Cay and check it out. We are very slowly making our way down to George Town.

Just thought I’d share a bunch of photos today! It’s very windy now because we have a cold front moving in. We’re expecting some really windy weather Tuesday and Wednesday. Today we went to Compass Cay to explore Rachel’s bubble bath and then walked along the Exuma Sound side of Cambridge Cay.

What a great sailing trip we had moving from Soldier Cay all the way down to Warderick Wells Cay. Our initial plan was to meet up with Daydreams ll at Hawksbill Cay but it turned out that they had moved down to Warderick Wells Cay to have better wind protection. We were making great time sailing from Rose Island so decided to continue on to Warderick Wells.

This part of the Exumas (starting at Shroud Cay) is a national park and just like all national parks, there are fees for anchoring in this area. We decided to anchor in the middle anchorage at Warderick Wells Cay for the night. We met up with Jane and Steve on Saturday morning and had a chance to catch up. It was really nice to spend a bit of time with them and to hear about their adventures after leaving Ocean Reef.

We decided to move down to Cambridge Cay and pick up a mooring ball there. This island is the last one in the national park. There are many things to see here, including the sea aquarium (a nice coral reef with lots of fish), Rachel’s bubble bath (an inland river that ends at a rock ledge that faces the ocean so big waves send lots of bubbly water into the river), plus lots of walking trails. We’ll be here until Thursday because we’re expecting some windy weather from the north and this location gives us lots of protection.

As for our future plans, I guess our next stop will be Staniel Cay. It’s not far from here and there is a marina there that has water so we can fill our one tank. We’ve been doing a good job of conserving our water so far this season because it’s the first time we’ve been in the Bahamas without a water maker. We certainly appreciate having big water tanks now that we don’t have a water maker. We had planned to buy a new water maker this season but that just didn’t work out! So I’m guessing it will be at the top of the list for next season!

For the first time in 22 months, Crimson Kathryn was moving under sail power only. It’s such a wonderful thing to be sailing. You can hear the wind in the sails, the waves crashing as we slice through them and of course the ever active auto helm (we fondly call Auto!) that steers the boat for us. Today was a perfect sailing day – we had all 3 sails up with wind speed varying from 9 kts to 12 kts. That’s just enough wind for us to get some speed (we do much better with higher wind speeds). The wind direction was very consistent coming from the north east which allowed us to sail a straight course to Rose Island (just east of New Providence Island – home of Nassau). We left our somewhat rolly anchorage at Soldier Cay at 7 am this morning. Sails were up by 7:30 am and we maintained an average speed of 6.5 kts.

It’s been awhile since my last post, so I’ll back up a bit and start from our slightly extended stay at Ocean Reef Yacht Club on Grand Bahamas Island. Sunday, Feb. 6th was a busy day of Covid testing and shopping. The rented car from Ocean Reef was super handy. Mark, Jane, Steve and I drove out to the airport for our 48 hour Covid test (we’re all negative and very happy about that). We did some grocery shopping and Steve filled up his diesel jerry cans. It was a very productive day!

We’re always watching the weather (mostly the wind) so we can make decisions about moving through the islands. On Sunday, the upcoming winds were looking not great for sailing (at least on Monday and Tuesday). Wednesday, Feb. 9 looked promising with wind predicted to be from the south west to north west. Jane and Steve decided to leave on Monday and motor (and possibly motor-sail) the 75 kts to White Cay in the Berry’s. So we said goodbye (for now) to our buddy boat Monday morning! Our decision to stay until Wednesday meant we had to pay for one more night at the marina but we had to leave that day no matter what the wind was doing because Grand Bahamas is one of 4 islands that has a inter-island travel restriction. If you stay longer than 72 hours, you have to get a Covid test before you leave.

Wednesday morning at 6:30am we left the dock at Ocean Reef and set course for Petit Cay (north east side of the Berry’s). Unfortunately we didn’t see that predicted wind. But we had no wind and the water was flat, flat, flat! We made excellent time under motor and ended up going further south to Soldier Cay – a nice little anchorage that we had all to ourselves!

Alright all caught up!! Today’s sail was amazing and we were joined by all kinds of sailboats! Everyone took advantage of the wind direction to get further south from the Berry’s. There was a catamaran, named Gratus, that was in front of us as we left Soldier Cay and over the course of the day, we managed to catch and pass them. That’s a big deal for this old boat!! She is so suited for sailing – heavy (about 23,000 lbs) which helps her sink into the water so she can take those waves on! The shape of the boat is designed to cut through the water, especially as the wind kicks up. This boat wants wind and she gets in her happy spot when the wind reaches 15 – 20 kts. Today didn’t give us those wind speeds but it was a great sail anyhow.

We’re now anchored on the south side of Rose Island and the plan is to leave here in the morning and head to Hawksbill Cay. Jane and Steve on Daydreams ll are already on a mooring ball at this island. We’re expecting a rather blowy Sunday and Monday (coming from the north east) so we’ll be moving a little further south, near Cambridge Cay, to tuck in for a few days. Like I said – always watching the wind!

Hurray!! We’re here. The crossing from Lake Worth to Grand Bahamas Island was pretty good but long. We left the Lake Worth anchorage around 7 pm and headed out the inlet near the beginning of the flood tide. We encountered a 1.5kt incoming current which didn’t really impact our exit. The waves were very manageable at the entrance and after a few miles out, they became even more relaxed.

As usual we didn’t see the direction of wind that was predicted – south, south east was predicted and we had more easterly wind. Our travel direction from Lake Worth was south east so we were basically heading into the wind (again!!). We were hoping to get all sails up and have a good sail across but that didn’t quite work out. We did deploy the jib and mizzen and ended up motor sailing on a slightly higher angle (if you looked at our crossing trail, you would have thought we were headed further north!).

It was a great night to cross – warm, clear and the winds were fairly low which made the waves small. Lots of boats were out – some pleasure crafts (like us) heading to the Bahamas and other places, plus lots of working vessels – cruise ships, cargo ships etc. We had a bit of moonlight in the beginning hours so we could see quite well. It’s always interesting to do a night crossing – watching the AIS signals on our plotter and looking for lights in the distance. This crossing was uneventful which is exactly what you want!

We arrived at Port Lucaya, Grand Bahamas Island at 9:30 am. We went straight to the Grand Bahamas Yacht Club to clear in through the customs and immigration office at that location. It was an interesting process this year. In my last post I mentioned the online cruising permit site – click2clear which we filled out ahead of time and the health visa requirement that we also did ahead of time. When we arrived at the dock, we were put into a slip and told that the yacht club would help us print our documents and issue our fishing license but because we weren’t staying at the club, there would be a fee for this service. Okay no worries – whatever it takes to clear in. Clearing in the boat was super easy and fast but it took about 1 hour to go through immigration for us because the immigration officer wasn’t on site. By 11 am, we were on our way to Ocean Reef Yacht Club. Jane had made reservations for us to stay at the club for a few nights.

It’s now Sunday morning (Feb. 6)! We are rested from our sail over and getting ready for the day. We have rented the club’s car for the day so we can go get our 48 hour Covid test and do a little shopping. Right now we are planning to stay here tonight and then head out probably tomorrow (Monday) to go south. Our goal is to get to the Exumas and stay there for the season. It’s so good to be here!!!

We’ve finally given up the marina life. After a month at Reynolds and 6 weeks at Loggerhead, it was definitely time for this old boat to get a move on. We backed out of our slip on Jan. 31 and headed to the fuel dock. Once our tanks were full, we followed Jane and Steve (on Daydreams ll) out the inlet and onto the ICW.

The weather on Monday was perfect- warm and sunny and a little bit of north east wind to give us an added little push down the ICW. There was a bit of traffic on the water but for the most part we were alone going south. We followed Daydreams for most of the trip down to Fort Pierce until we got to the North Fort Pierce bascule bridge. We took the lead after the bridge because we knew the anchorage we were aiming for that night. Our anchor was down and secured by 2:30pm and we were able to relaxed and enjoy our first night on the hook in 6 weeks!!

The next morning we headed out the Fort Pierce inlet (at 8 am) hoping for a nice east wind sail down to Lake Worth (about a 45 nm journey). Well we got a journey alright but not the lovely sail we were hoping for. We left Fort Pierce on a flood tide so we battled the current out the inlet. Once released from the inlet’s grip, we turned south into wind that was way more south then east. Crimson Kathryn has an overheating issue when we sail with wind on our port side. We heel over which causes the water intake to come out of the water. Our engine is water cooled so we have to be very careful to watch our engine temperature. We tend not to put sails up on this tack to avoid any overheating but Tuesday’s ocean was so wavy and with the wind almost on our nose, we had no choice but to put the jib up. It was a long sail – we had to tack 3 times to keep moving away from the shore in order to use the south east wind as much as possible. After a day of bouncing around, we made it into the Lake Worth inlet at 6:30pm. Daydreams got in about 2 hours before us so they were able to help us get into the anchorage by talking us in. Steve was also out on his bow with a big flashlight showing us where to drop anchor. We were never so thankful for a buddy boat!!! One positive from our sail down – Crimson Kathryn didn’t overheat!! The engine stayed consistently cool. All the work Mark did on the cooling system worked wonderfully.

So here we are – anchored beside the mega yachts at Rybovich Marina and waiting for a weather window to cross to the Bahamas. It’s looking like we will have a good opportunity this Saturday starting around 1 am. Our Covid rapid antigen tests are done (negative!!) and we have our Bahamas Health Travel Visa. We’re working on our click2clear cruising permit now. It’s getting closer!