Monday, January 5 - We moved the boat a few miles SW to McQueens to be closer to our jump off point for our anticipated crossing from Cat Island to Long Island with plans to bail to George Town Exumas if the weather conditions vary from the forecast. We went for our last snorkel at Cat Island only to find a few scattered coral heads.  On each of the coral heads were a lot of fish, but mostly not the type we eat.  We were just jumping in the water and taking a quick look and then moving to the next coral head to do the same.  Getting a bit frustrated and thinking we may have to eat Top Ramen for dinner, I didn’t even put on my fins at the last coral head we were going to check out.  As soon as I jumped in I noticed hundreds of barracuda and a large turtle so I swam back to the dinghy and asked John to hand me my fins.  I was putting them on in the water and went to buckle the second one which required that I look between my legs and I see shark swimming straight towards me.  I hop into the dinghy and tell John there are sharks below.  I grab my spear and jump back in and John jumps in to see the action.  For just a few scattered coral heads, we saw a lot of fish and had a great snorkel.

Tuesday morning John lets me sleep in while he anchors up and single hands around Hawks Nest Point which I really appreciate as we have not had the most restful nights of sleep on Cat Island and last night was like heaven.  It turns out the weather was exactly as predicted so we are sailing nicely, on course, to our desired destination: Calabash Bay, Long Island.  We make one pit stop at Tartar Bank which is a huge underwater mountain which rises within 7 fathoms of the surface from it’s surrounding depths.  I jumped off the side of the boat to take a look, while John manned a life line since the current and tides are very strong in this area.  Really wasn’t much to see, but it was a fun diversion.  Just before we reached the bank, the fishing reel began singing the tune “I have a Mahi Mahi on” and the pictures of that will speak for themselves.

 The sailing was excellent using our main and a partial headsail; most of the time we were sailing at 6 knots with occasionally getting up to 7 knots.  We made the 34 mile trip in just under 6 hours.  As soon as we anchor, Matt and Lyndsey dinghy over from Joe’s Sound and say hi and ask if we want to go for a snorkel.  We go to the north end of the island and see some beautiful reef and a monument in honor of Columbus, but no lobster.  Nevermind, we have Mahi Mahi.  We give Matt and Lyndsey half the Mahi and cook a bit up for ourselves and then since we are both tired from the crossing, we bug out early for a good nights sleep.

Entrance to Joes Sound

Wednesday, January 7 - We take the boat into Joe’s Sound at high tide because that is the only time you can make it into Joe’s Sound.  The entrance is very narrow and it looks like you have to drive the boat on to the shore to maneuver it correctly and not go aground.  Matt took videos from under water as we were coming in and they are super cool and show just how difficult the anchorage is to get into, but now we are in a very protected anchorage.  We go out for a snorkel because I want to see the cut we just came in from the keels point of view, and check out the rocks just outside of the cut for dinner.

Anchored in Joes Sound

View from the cockpit

We visited with Matt and Lyndsey and took a walk around the area which used to be a marina.  When we walked in the old building that used to be the office for the marina, a bunch of bat moths flew right at me and scared the bejeezers out of me. Later in the evening we were visited by these bat moths and John caught one and took it below for Kiwi to play with. Unfortunately, the video of that was too dark, but she had a blast.

Kiwi's Playmate

Kiwi Hunting the moth

Thursday was windy and rained on and off all day.  These are the days that are very demotivating as you don’t feel like doing too much, but when we got a short break in the rain, we set up a golf course and played a couple of rounds of golf on the dry sand flats.  Joe’s Sound is really nothing more than a creek and at low tide 100’ in front of us the sand beds are dry and where we are anchored, our stern sits less than 20’ from shore.  We have swung 360 degrees and have not gone aground, so we are in the perfect spot despite being able to step off the boat, into the dinghy, and on to shore. We had a line out like we almost always do, and I heard it sing, so I went to grab it and it was a ray.  It broke my line and stole my bait AND my $10 weight.  I snorkeled for 30 minutes looking for the weight, but could not find it.

On Friday, Matt and Lindsey invite us to join them on an excursion to Hog Cay.  Hog Cay is privately owned and visits ashore are by invitation only. Hog Cay is home to the largest flock of West Indian Whistling Ducks in the Bahamas.  The owners of the island feed them (at a rumored expense of $10 grand a week).

Whistling Ducks

 We heard a rumor that the owner of Hog Cay was offered $80 million for his island and turned it down.  My question is, why on earth would you want an $80 million island that smells like duck shit and has really annoying whistling birds on it?  Anyhow, we had a nice hike around the island and while leaving the island, I just had to snorkel the surrounding rocks and nailed two nice size lobsters for dinner.  In the afternoon, we went to explore a blue hole just north of our anchorage.  It truely was a sorry excuse for a blue hole, but on the way there, we saw a couple of guys trying to swim across the river to see the blue hole.  The current is very strong through here and you could tell they were struggling, so we picked them up in the dinghy and took them to the blue hole and ferried them back to their shore where they were staying in a vacation rental.

Pizza Night!

Saturday, January 10 - John and I are hankering for pizza.  We start planning and know we have all the ingredients we need, but could really use some mozzarella cheese.  At high tide, we decide we will take the dinghy across the sand flats that are dry during low tide and visit Burnt Ground which claims to have a small grocery store. It’s a 2.5 mile dinghy trip and about a half mile walk, but we get the mozzarella and a few more items and spend most of the day making fresh pizza dough, fresh pizza sauce and chopping ingredients for pizzas.  We have invited Matt and Lyndsey to join us.  We have done all the prep work so I decide to go for a swim. I am particularly interested in swimming the cut at the entrance to the anchorage as we plan to leave tomorrow and I want to take a good hard look at where the boat needs to go to not go aground or ashore.  I was quickly reminded of the strong current as I was swept past the cut and was having a hard time slowing down.  I grabbed a big rock and pulled myself close to shore and looked at Makani which was now about 100 yards up current.  I knew that John was down below and would not hear me if I yelled for help.  I pulled on rocks until I was at the cut and then started swimming like hell.  Halfway through the cut, I look down and see my $10 weight, so I dive down and grab it and got a burst of adrenaline from my fantastico find and reached the other side of the cut.  I was so excited to find my weight that I swam all the way back to Makani, but did not realize it.  I looked up and two sharks were headed straight for me.  I lifted my head to see where Makani was and she was way in the distance (or so I thought).  I swam as hard as I could and looked up again to see if I was making any progress against the current and saw a dinghy tied to the side of the boat and thought “crap, Matt and Lyndsey are already there”.  I swam about another 30 feet before looking up and realizing I was way past Makani and was swimming towards Kindred Spirit.  I relaxed and let the current carry me to Makani where we enjoyed a night of great pizzas and fine socialization.

What’s a little wind (30 knots) and a little rain on a Sunday? Well it ruined our plans for leaving our anchorage and exploring more of Long Island because the cut in and out just looked too ominous to risk. We went outside of the cut in the dinghy and of course that side of the island is in the lee of the wind so it is calm.  We were able to snorkel and see some really interesting underwater landscape. I like to swim against the current for about a half hour every day and I was just about done with my swim when Matt and Lyndsey called and invited us for dinner.  When we returned to our boat, Kiwi was going crazy chasing bat moths and the boat was full of broken moth wings.

Monday - After cleaning up moth wings for about an hour, we got in the dinghy to assess the entrance/exit to Joe’s sound one more time before we head out to check out Thompson Bay.  The wind is stronger than forecasted, and Matt and Lyndsey came by to invite us on a snorkel with Patrick.  We decided to stay in Joe’s Sound and meet Patrick, who ownes a houseboat and 32 foot sail boat that he keeps in the Sound for use during the winter.  The rest of the year he is in NYC on his 100 foot sailing schooner doing charters (The yacht is moored in the financial district). We saw his boat while visiting New York and took pictures of it. When we came into Joe’s Sound a few days ago, he was in Norway visiting his girlfriend.  Matt and Lyndsey were anxious for us to meet him and he’s quite the character.   Matt and Lyndsey got a grouper and Patrick and John got a few lobster so we met at Patrick’s houseboat and shared dinner that night.  Patrick took us to some of his favorite snorkeling spots, one of which was a very rough dinghy ride through 6-8 foot ocean swells and into a small bay.  After arriving, we decided it was too rough to snorkel so back out the cut we go, up and over 6-8 foot swells with some breaking on either side.  It was the scariest dinghy ride Kathi or I have ever been on.  We all survived the trip and had a wonderful meal at Patrick’s. Patrick was in NYC on 9/11 and was one of the many boats that ferried people across the bay to safety.  He had some great stories to tell.

We’ve wanted to explore more of Long Island so we left on Tuesday with the intention of sailing to Thompson Bay, about half-way down the Island, 22 miles away. Unfortunately the wind was on our nose so we motor-sailed until we saw a line of squalls on the horizon.  We decided to anchor off of Bain’s Bluff, about 7 miles away from Thompson Bay.  We took a short snorkel where Kathi caught a few crabs to have with dinner and made it back to the boat shortly before a strong thunderstorm hit.  After we let the heavy rain rinse off the decks, we opened the scuppers to divert the rainwater into our water tanks.  In about 15 minutes, both tanks were full. The lightning was incredibly close and the thunder was deafening.  Kiwi was scared to death and for a while we just knew we were going to get hit by lightning.  We still had lightning and thunder all around us when we got up to go to the bathroom at 4am.

On Wednesday we made it to Thompson Bay and filled up with 14 gallons of dinghy fuel (We had been down to our last cup of gasoline).  We walked to the grocery store and explored the settlement somewhat.  We both were very tired from not sleeping well with the storm last night so we went to bed very early.

Thursday we walked to the ocean side of the Island carrying our snorkel gear hoping to find a great reef and dinner. It was pretty rough with much surge and opposing currents which made snorkeling a bit unsafe and things were stirred up so much that visibility was limited.  We left our gear on a cliff and walked about two miles down the beach where we found a beautiful cove.  We had to hike uphill about 100 yards and then we looked down a steep cliff.  It looked like a great seaglass spot so we did a bit of mountain climbing to get into the cove.  Unfortunately, we didn’t find any seaglass AND, we had left our camara in our bags back at the original cliff so this beautiful Kodak moment will have to be in our memories.  When we returned to the boat, another couple that owns a Gozzard stopped by to say hello, so we invited them for cocktails and appetizers and visited with them.  They are doing the opposite route of us so they told us all about the places we are headed to and we told them about the places they are headed to.

 We decided to leave on Friday the 16th but the winds would not cooperate so we hunkered down in the anchorage, did laundry and played games. We tried to snorkel in several spots, but things were so stirred up, that visibility was about 2 feet. The middle part of Long Island doesn’t seem to fit with what we like to do; snorkel, spearfish and look for seaglass.  Most of the area we explored is very sandy with little or no reef. 

We decided that we should move back up to the north end of the Island on Saturday so we can explore our options which are to head over to Conception Island and Rum Cay or go west to Georgtown.  We sailed the entire distance using our main and the staysail.  Our average speed was 6.4 knots and our maximum speed was 7.6 knots—a very robust sailing day for us!  At times we wished we had less sail out, but Makani was sailing fine and we just had to get use to the amount of heeling.  We anchored in Calabash Bay then went for a snorkel and got two lobsters with 8+ inch tails.  The area we were hunting in was about 25’.  It is quite a different workout getting lobster in 25’ vs. less than 10 feet.  The lobsters here are way back under shelves, so finding them is challenge number one.  Then you have to dive down with spear ready to go and shoot them.  I have to leave my spear in them and dive down a second time to retrieve the spear and the lobster because I can’t hold my breath long enough to do it in one dive especially if the lobster wants to fight.  Sometimes I swear I am going to drown getting a big lobster, but I never get sick of doing this and the lobster dipped in fresh homemade pesto butter was delicious.