Highborne Cay, Exumas

 

- (c) Copyright 2008 - Mahi Mahi, almost 4 feet long, about 30lbs! Caught south of Highborne Cay on the Ocean side about 2 miles offshore.-

Notice the sign, $5 per bag of garbage, over 2 bags $25 each. - (c) Copyright 2008

December 28th, 29th and 30th, 2008

After a couple days of anchoring and with the winds picking up to over 25 knots, we just wanted to relax in a marina at a slip. We found ourselves at this beautiful little island called, “Highborne Cay” The population of the island is just 14 people, most of who work at the marina. The grounds are beautiful, just like a resort but more natural. We explored 3 or 4 beaches the island had to offer. The whole island is accessible by walking, there are a couple of roads for the golf carts which are the main mode of transportation.

Highborne Cay Marina - (c) Copyright 2008

Looking down from the dock, this little beach is at the end of our slip. - (c) Copyright 2008

This little arrangement is made from all the fishermen's debris that washes ashore. - (c) Copyright 2008

Just below this fish cleaning station, you'll find 4-5 sand sharks waiting for a meal. - (c) Copyright 2008

A wonderful view from the beach right at the marina. - (c) Copyright 2008

Relaxing in the hammocks. - (c) Copyright 2008

Local homes on the island. - (c) Copyright 2008

While we were at the marina I washed down the boat from the salt. I try to do this every time we pull into a marina. Water is expensive in the Exumas, 50 cents USD per gallon. The 3 days we spent at Highborne cost us over $250 in water, more than we spent on the slip fees. My fault however, I soon learned not to wash the boat with the hose, but rather use a bucket with a wash cloth, much more efficient!

Thomas doing summersaults at the beach. - (c) Copyright 2008

Notice the waves on the windward side of the island. - (c) Copyright 2008

Thomas has become a real Michael Jackson fan. - (c) Copyright 2008

Just taking a break. - (c) Copyright 2008

One of the beaches as the tide goes out, turns into a sand dune. - (c) Copyright 2008

The sun goes down, and the tides go out, what a view. - (c) Copyright 2008

We met many interesting people at this marina. One evening we hung out with a few other boaters. We met a nice family from Montreal, on their boat, “Private Island” a 59 foot power yacht, and another couple of guys who were delivering a boat to the Turks and Caicos. We got a tour of each others boats, and exchanged notes on our travels. “Private Island” spent $12,000 on fuel for his trip down from New York to Florida. He laughed when I told him that we spent about $100 on the same trip.

Stop signs in the Bahamas. - (c) Copyright 2008

It's hard to get a speed ticket without a car or a police officer to give you one. - (c) Copyright 2008

Alexander got pretty good at collecting baby conch. - (c) Copyright 2008

Thomas and Alexander also met a boy named Byron, who lives on island. We went to the beach and snorkeled with Byron, found a soldier crab and some more conch.  Snorkeling in this area you will find a variety of marina life on the reefs; coral, tropical fish, conch, lobster, sting rays, barracuda and the occasional shark. Thomas also met a few other boys from other boats, and they quickly became good friends. Watching movies on each others boats, and chatting it up like old pals. They were all sad when we had to push on to our next port.

Some friends Thomas met and hung out with. - (c) Copyright 2008

Byron and the boys snorkeling. - (c) Copyright 2008

Soldier Crab we found, he invades a shell and takes it over. - (c) Copyright 2008

Walking back after a long day at the beach. - (c) Copyright 2008

Highborne Cay was all decorated for Christmas, and Black Diamond's Blue spreader lights fit right in. - (c) Copyright 2008

Notice the two little heads just floating in the water beside the boat. These are two delivery Captains we met. They decided to go for a swim with the sand sharks of the Marina in the middle of the night. Apparently the sand sharks are harmless, but you won’t see me trying this real soon.

These are the two nuts, swimming with the sand sharks at night. - (c) Copyright 2008

Allan’s Cay, Exumas + The Iguanas!

 

Black Diamond anchored at Allan's Cay.

Dec 26th and 27th, 2008

When we got up today and checked the weather report, it was calling for 20 to 25 knots of wind from the East. Not what we were hoping for. We are heading for the Exumas, first stop Allan’s Cay. Our course will have us sailing South East, so we will be close hauling all the way, with heavier winds, so it might be a lumpy ride. The first thing we have to do is find a place to fill the water tanks. We headed out the East channel from Nassau, the tidal stream was coming in from this direction with a strong 3-4 knot current, along with the head on 20+ knot winds. We had to navigate under the bridges that lead to Paradise Island. Our mast height is about 62 feet, and the tallest point in the bridge is 70 feet. More comfortable than the bridges in the intercostal, but we still had to be careful. There was a gas station that was open between the two bridges that we tried approach. But as soon as I turned the wheel, the current and wind took the boat at a good force side ways. We decided not to attempt docking at this gas dock. One of the bridges was less than 200 feet behind the dock. If we made any mistakes we could catch our mast under the low part of the bridge. So we decided to move on, and not too far ahead we found another station. Docking at it was very interesting. We spun the boat around, and had to battle the current and wind again. Luckily there were a few guys there to catch our lines, and secure the boat to the dock. Turns out the station was closed, and these guys were just waiting to clear customs. They had just sailed in from the Turks & Caicos. They were delivering a boat they had purchased from a charter fleet, and were taking it up to Montreal, Canada. There was a water tap there, and we were able to fill up our 400 liters of water there and head out to sea.

You can see navigation can be tricky entering Allan's Cay.

The guys wished us luck and warned us it would be lumpy. However, we were fortunate and ride was not too bad at all. We sailed all the way to Allan’s Cay in about 5 hours and made it there an hour before dark. We always try to make it to our destination in the Bahamas before dark. The islands and anchorages are usually littered with rocks, reefs and cays. All of this cruising ground is new to us, and we have never been to these parts before. So better safe than sorry, we have been fortunate and never did go aground or hit anything on this trip so far.

Another beautiful shot, notice our private beach!

Arriving to Allan’s Cay was a little tricky, the little bay where everyone anchors is very shallow on both sides and even in the middle. There is a nice hole that is 15 to 20 feet deep, but when we got there we found that 4-5 other boats had already beat us there. So we anchored just ahead of them in about 8 feet of water. That evening when the tide went out, and the winds shifted a little, we were touching the sandy bottom ever so often. We tried to throw out an second anchor to keep us in the deep side, but that was not successful. Nothing too serious, so we decided to stay where we were for the night. The next morning, most of the boats pulled up anchor and left, so we moved into a nice hole right next to a boat called Onda from Australia. Funny thing was we met up with this boat a few weeks ago in Cape Canaveral.

The boys really got use to this life style. Notice their shark tooth necklaces.

I must say that we felt as if our vacation really started in the Exumas. This is what we dreamed it would be like. The weather was much warmer, less windy from here on, and islands and anchorages are unbelievable. Just check out the pictures that we have taken in the Exumas from here on. We had a wonderful time at Allan’s Cay, loved the beach, snorkeling, swimming and of course the Iguanas.

Posing with the Iguanas of Allan's Cay.

There are dozens all around you at any given time.

The Iguanas are very tame.

Roxane thinks they are ugly.

The boys think they are cool...Alexander's favourite part of the trip.

Thomas gives this island a thumbs up.

The island boasts no human population, true of many of the islands in the Exumas. But more impressive is the population of over a hundred Iguanas. At first we were a little scared of them, we heard they may bite by accident, their eye sight is not very good, and often mistake feet and fingers for food. But soon the children got very comfortable with them. We feed them bread and carrots, it’s all we had to spare, but they loved it. After a couple of days on the island, the kids got very comfortable playing with them, and just building a sand castle and simply ignoring the dozens of Iguanas all around you. They also realized that if you dropped anything they would run and taste it, wondering if it was food. So Thomas would run around and drop his plastic shovel and watch the Iguana run toward it. Then Alexander would chase them away. Alexander even chased them on all fours, soon the Iguana were actually afraid of the kids. When another boat pulled up to feed the Iguanas, they were none to be found, they were too scared to come out. I know this was a little cruel, but I am sure once we left they would go back to their normal habits.

Alexander having fun snorkeling, with Black Diamond in the background.

Alexander finds his own conch.

Ed and Thomas find 5 conch for dinner.

Alex showing off the conch.

Two perfect conch shells.

Thomas and I snorkeled the whole bay and saw many interesting creatures. We also caught 5 large conch, and we decided we were going to eat them for dinner that night. We invited the cruisers from the boat Onda over to our boat for some conch and wine that evening. I cleaned the conch for the first time in my life. I got some instructions from various people on this trip, and took my stab at it literally. Then Roxane fried them up in some batter, and they were pretty tasty. Even the other cruisers from Onda agreed, it was the best Conch they had in the Bahamas.

Hammering a little hole in the conch to cut the muscle loose, then it just slides out.

A little more cleaning, then in the fryer.

Enjoying the conch and some wine with the other cruisers from Onda.

The next day before we left we explored a couple of the other little islands in the same bay. You can see a few of the pictures of Black Diamond anchored in this beautiful paradise like setting.

Dinghy to the beach.

Exploring Allan's Cay. Onda in the background.

A great view on our little hike.

The kids looking for coconuts.

Exploring the windward side of the island.

Another nice view.

Thomas taking a break after a busy day exploring.

Day 11 – Sailing at Haverstraw on the Hudson.

Sept 1-2nd, 2008

Roxane and boys flew out this morning on a 9:30AM flight. I escorted them to a taxi that was waiting outside the marina at 5:30AM, and sent them on their way. They had no trouble at all, it was about a 1.5 hour drive to JFK Airport and a 1 hour flight to Buffalo airport. My brother met them there, and drove them to the mini van that was left at PCYC.

Today I was meeting some good friends and clients that live in New Jersey, they drove out to the marina for a fun filled day of sailing. The Zuidema’s have 4 boys, 3 of which came out with mom and dad, Mary and Dave, Seth 12 years old, Caleb 15 and Dave jr 26.

We set out on the river in front of Haverstraw, this part of the river opens up very wide, it is more like a nice sized lake in this area. We set both sails, and the wind actually picked up to over 22 knots. We were sailing, and sailing fast about 8 knots, Dave jr said he never experienced anything like it, he only saw this in movies, Dave sat on the rail with the rest of the boys, not too soon after Mary joined them. Dave Senior was not too sure what to think of all this, since he is a little afraid of the water. Dave must of asked a dozen times, where are the life jackets again?

After sailing around the lake dodging barges for a couple of hours, we tucked ourselves behind a nice peninsula, where about 30-40 power boats were anchored. Here we were pretty protected from the winds, but I wanted to get a little closer so we would be out of the wind. The depth read 8-9 feet, so we dropped anchour. I was so excited to be out sailing again after so many days on the boat, and unable to sail. I felt like I was back home on Lake Ontario again, that I completely forgot about the tides. (More drama to come on this subject.)

We fired up the BBQ, and enjoyed hot dogs, burgers and anything else we could find on the boat. (Roxane said I had to get rid of everything in the fridge.) The boys went swimming in the Hudson right off the swim platform. Dave was a little sea sick, so he went down for a nap. I asked Mary if he was enjoying himself, she assured me he was, this is the way he likes to spend his day off, sleeping!

After a few hours being anchored out, we decided to pull up the anchor and head back to the marina. Well so much for that plan, the tide had started to go out, and we were stuck in the muck pretty good. The dept was 5 feet and dropping, the bulb on the end of the keel was in 1.5 feet of mud. There was no options but to wait out the tide, it would not be high tide again until past mid night. With time to kill, Mary and I jumped in for a swim, and I wanted to check out just how stuck we were. I reported that we were not going anywhere too soon. So the two older boys decided they would swim to the end of the peninsula. Not long after they left, a police boat came by to ask if we were ok. I said we were fine, and I would wait out the tide, but asked if they would not mind dropping my friends off at the Marina. They kindly agreed, but not before having to pick up the boys on land, and off they were.

 

Our friends the Zuidemas taken ashore by Police boat.

 I actually had a very pleasant night waiting for the tide. I sat out in the afternoon sun, and waited for the tide to completely go out and come back again. The water depth went to as low as 4 feet, so 2.5 feet of the keel was in the mud, but the boat remained up right. I then enjoyed a BBQ steak, and some left over pasta. I watched the sun set, listen to some music, and watch the boats go by. At about 9PM the boat started drifting it was free! I started the motor, and continued to head down the river.

My next stop was Peterson’s Boat Yard, just north of the Tappanzee Bridge NY. I arrived there at about 10:00PM, and caught a mooring for the night, more on this to come!