On Tuesday the 23rd, We took the dinghies to shore to walk around the island and explore the ruins of a private estate built in the 30’s.  According to Explorer Charts and other references, a big development was planned here including a resort, villas, golf course and marina to be completed in 2010, but very little development has occurred and the island is virtually uninhabited except for a few fishing shacks and a resort with no guests and only minimal maintenance and security employees. The private estate used to be a large pineapple plantation and you can tell from what is left of the structures and the materials used, including some very fancy tile, that it was quite something in it’s day.  There is no evidence of pineapples any more and the estate is even more run down and full of graffiti

than it was last time we were here. We spent the evening charging up the batteries by running the generator and watching a few episodes of Sea Patrol.

The 24th brought increased winds and cloudy skies as predicted.  I went paddle boarding around the harbour and went over to the inlet to see what it looked like on the outside and was glad that we are tucked in a protected harbour.  While I had the paddle board out, I thought I would start getting Kiwi used to riding it so we put her in her pet carrier and placed it on the board, but John opened the door to her pet carrier when we were ONLY 10 feet away from Makani and she flew through the air and landed back on the boat.  We are constantly amazed at how far she can fly.  Of course she went into one of her many hiding spots and was not about to gives us a second chance today.  We spent most of the day playing a cribbage tournament and reading. John had promised me buttermilk pies for Chrismas since we couldn’t find the ingredients for them at Thanksgiving.  When we went into Spanish Wells, we couldn’t find buttermilk.  I was dissappointed as I was sure I was not going to get my buttermilk pie.  When we returned to the boat, I looked up how to make buttermilk and found a simple recipe which called for 1/4 cup lemon juice and 3/4 cup milk and in 15 minutes you have buttermilk.  I couldn’t believe it and told John, but he was very unwilling to try it and made up all sorts of excuses as to why he didn’t want to do it.  Some of his excuses were legitamate like because we couldn’t find buttermilk at the store, we did not buy the pie crusts or the vanilla that we needed to make the pies.  Also, we have no pie tins on board.  Mostly he did not want to alter his family recipe and take the chance that it would ruin a memory of something that tastes so good.  He was pretty adamant that he did not want to make the pies so I told him “fine, I’ll make them”.  This required that I make the pie crusts from scratch, the buttermilk from scratch, borrowing some vanilla and a pie tin from Lindy and baking the pies the night before so John could decide if they were up to his standard before serving them to guests. Lindy only had one pie tin, so I had to bake the second pie in our frying pan.  THEY WERE DELICIOUS! Almost as good as when John makes them.

Christmas day 2014.  Spent the entire morning deep cleaning the house partly because we were having guests, but mostly because it made me feel good to have the house super clean again.  John did all the prep work for dinner: prepare the dressing, stuff the turkey, put the green bean casserole together. The table settings looked incredible with the entire set of my new dishes layed out. Our guests arrived at 3pm and we enjoyed the “starters” they prepared.  Dates wrapped in bacon.  They also brought roasted potatoes and carrots and we sat down for a huge Christmas feast at 3:30pm.  We were trading sailing stories when I decided to go up on deck and when I did, I heard Kiwi crying. I followed the mews and found her hanging from the bottom support for the bow sprit in the water. She looked like a drowned rat and I yelled for John and he grabbed the net while Barry got in his dinghy and started to pull up to her, but she let go of the cable and swam for Barry’s dinghy and jumped in.  This is her fourth time she has gone into the pool without a lifeguard on duty. We have no idea how long she had been hanging there.  We were playing Christmas music and visiting so no one heard her go in.  Each time she has gone in the water, we have been lucky that there has been no current and the last three times, at least the water is relatively warm, but she obviously is not a fast learner.

Today is totally planned around getting through Current Cut.  Current Cut is a bit of a navigational challenge. It is located at the northwestern tip of Eleuthera and is the gateway to the Bight of Eleuthera.  It has very strong current going through it that propels your vessel straight toward shallow grassy patches so you have to make a hard starboard turn

Bight of Eleuthera

Glass Window

immediately after getting through it, but you have sharp jagged rocks on your starboard side that you can’t get too close to (and believe me they seem VERY close). You have to stay in a very small channel for about another 1/2 mile making 2 zig zag turns with strong current.  The cut is very shallow so you have to time it near high tide or on a rising tide.  We saw depths of 9’8” and it propelled us through the cut at 11knots.  John handled it like a pro.  We then travelled another 90 minutes to a place called The Glass Window.  This site used to be a geological wonder.  An 85’ arch between where the bight of Eleuthera and The Atlantic Ocean almost meet.  In 1926 a hurricane washed away the rock bridge.  It was replaced by a concrete and steel bridge in 1960, but in 1991, that bridge got hit by a rogue wave and it moved the northern end of the bridge 7’ westward.  Seeing the huge rocks from the original arch up to a mile away from the bridge and seeing the current man-made bridge sitting 7’ from it’s original site makes your mind reel realizing the forces of nature.  Also, can you

Now a one lane bridge

Atlantic side

 

Entrance to Hatchet Bay

imagine a bridge in America that has been moved 7’ at one end only and DOT coming in and saying it’s ok, we’ll just keep on using it, only now it is a single lane bridge (see pics). It was truly an amazing thing to see.  You look to the east and see cobalt blue water of the Atlantic and then look to the west and see the turquoise water of the Bight of Eleuthera.  We had to make a decision to stay anchored here for the night or move on to Hatchet Bay in Alice Town.  We checked the weather report again and it looks like we have a run of good weather in the foreseeable future and we want to get to as many of the Far Bahama Islands as possible so we decide to move.  The entrance to Hatchet Bay is another place where you need good navigational skills. It is 90’ wide channel that was blasted through sheer rock so you have cliffs and jagged rock on each side of you and then long jetties well into the harbour.  After safely anchoring, we put the dinghy down and went in search of a cave about a mile from the harbour.  We found the cave, but the water was thick with jelly fish.  I could tell the reef was fricking amazing, but my wetsuit does not have sleeves.  I found the jelly fish thinned out the further away from shore so I moved away from the cliffs, but became frustrated because now I couldn’t see the reef.  John had a full wetsuit on, so he was enjoying the sights and I went back to the dinghy and caught up to where he was snorkeling and noticed there were less jelly fish now.  I got back into the water and was able to enjoy about a full 1/2 mile of incredible reef before the jelly fish started getting think again and I could not dodge them.

Saturday morning we got up early and went into Alice town in search of hamburger buns and to just see what there was to see in Alice town which really is not much.  We were unsuccessful in finding hamburger buns or any fresh food for that matter, but we had a nice morning walk. The Bahameins celebrate Junkanoo the day after Christmas and we looked up information on where the celebrations were being held and nothing was said about activities in Alice Town. By the time we heard the noise makers and singing and revelry, we had settled in for the night.  On our walk we saw the aftermath of Junkanoo with liquor bottles and cans all over and masks and confetti and plastic jewelry all over the streets.  Of all the times we have been in the Bahamas, we have never been at the right time or the right place to really see a Junkanoo celebration so we have to make a point of it next year. We had a great sail over to Tarpum Bay where we spent the afternoon reading and playing games.

Kiwi helping John defrost the freezer

Sunday. December 28: Perfect weather for a nice smooth sail.  We decided to stay in a marina so we could top off with fuel and water and get laundry done and have things ship shape before we go offshore and hit some of the Far Bahama islands.  Cape Eleuthera marina is a very nice marina with very nice amenities, but the dockmaster put us in the worst “slip” (actually on a cement wall). With the winds blowing from the south, it pushed the boat up against the pilings all night long so the bumpers squeeked and the boat banged all night. Also the no-see-ums were awful.  You hate to have to smeer yourself with stinky bug spray after taking the first hot shower you have had in a month, but if we didn’t, we both would have been eaten alive. We also wanted to have good internet so that we could catch up and let friends and family know our plans, but their internet was very poor. Overall, we wished that we would have just anchored out and saved our money.