Sailing in the Bahamas

January - March 2016
A 57-day adventure by Sailing with Bob Read more
  • 16footprints
  • 1countries
  • 57days
  • 88photos
  • 0videos
  • 593kilometers
  • Day 20

    Long Island, Thompson Bay

    February 19, 2016 on the Bahamas ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    We spent 8 days at Long Island. There were alot of boats at this anchorage, everyone fled for north wind protection. There is a wonderful farmers market on Saturdays. They have plenty of fresh produce and other stuff. Down the same street is a phenomenal grocery store and a couple hardware stores. The cruisers always have an event going on. The greet and meet with sun downers was nice. One of the cruisers organized groups to volunteer to help those residents that lose alot during the hurrican that occurred October of 2015. We all volunteered. The following week we rented two vehicles to tour the entire island. We visited a couple of gorgeous beach front resorts. Cape Santa Maria Beach is one of the world's most beautiful beaches. We also visited the Columbus Monument and Deans Blue Hole. We really enjoyed Long Island. Almost every day we walked over to the Atlantic side to spearfishing and walk the beaches for treasures. This is where I learned about sea beans. Now I love walking the beach in search for sea beans!Read more

  • Day 42

    George Town, Great Exuma Island

    March 12, 2016 on the Bahamas ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    We spent almost 2 weeks at Georgetown on Elizabeth Harbour. The George Town "harbour" is nine-nautical-miles long by one-nautical-mile wide and lies between the mainland of Great Exuma Island and barrier islands, Stocking Island to the north and Elizabeth Island to the south. The harbour is really busy since the Reggada is going on. There is a great food market store with pretty much everything you need. Bob had to order a new outboard at Minn's Watersport for our dinghy since we were having problems with the old one. We hung around here until it arrived. There is also a good hardware store called top to bottom. We attended the Bahamian Music and Heritage Festival which was great. I had my first experience hitchiking! Though, here you don't just stick you thumb out, you put out your hand and dribble your hand as if you were dribbling a basketball. Funny but it works! We got picked up really quick. Georgetown is great, very convenient with alot to do. We provisioned our meats (chicken, steaks etc.) at Prime Island meat market, they are awesome! The laundromat is okay, there is a lady that assigns the washers and dryers as customers come in but she's very helpful keeping everyone in line. They even hand write the timings to know when each load is ready. It works! The water here is gorgeous! We had a dolphin swim laps around our boat about 15 times, was so cool!Read more

  • Day 43

    Water Cay, Jumentos

    March 13, 2016 on the Bahamas ⋅ ☀️ 5 °C

    We made a quick lay over at Water Cay. Anchored in front of a huge wall of limestone and sandtone. A great eastern wind protection in about 15ft clear blue gorgeous water. The spearfishing is great! Bob speared his fish Hog fish. The snorkeling was phenomenal. It looked like a huge aquarium with big beautiful nature's reef. There's a blue hole but the seas were rough to visit. We had sundowner with a few other friend sailors. The beach was background was more tropical than others. And there was a shark swimming along the shore, we actually could only see the fins but still kinda creapy!Read more

  • Day 44

    Flamingo Cay, Jumentos Islands

    March 14, 2016 on the Bahamas ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    This anchorage is an excellent protection from SW-SE in over 2 meters off the beach.  We were surrounded by plenty  coral heads. Only three sailboats anchored at this spot. We had our own sandy curved beach. Great spot for snorkeling and spearfishing. Water was so clear about 10ft deep. We saw a huge barracuda and 8ft shark swimming around our boat. We also caught a 25-30 pound Jack fish with our trolling line along side of our boat, really funny!Read more

  • Day 50

    Hog Cay, Ragged Islands

    March 20, 2016 on the Bahamas ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    We anchored at Middle Pen Bay. Its a good eastern wind protected anchorage but with some poor holding areas. Our anchor dragged again! We had about 20kt wind with unexpected Northern winds. Although, Bob had his best spearfishing day ever at a point nearby. He speared 2 large yellow snappers, a large grouper and a lobster within less than an hour.  We made a trip to Duncan Town which is the only settlement on the Ragged Islands. The town is small as you can imagine with only about 70 residents.  We had lunch at Silver Tail Logging. They also have great free wifi. The only grocery store available was closed. Cruisers are able to order their grocery via the mail boat from Georgetown but it takes about a week or two to arrive. Coming well prepared and provisioned is essential since very little or any is available here. The cruisers along with resident support have built this phenomenal Hog Cay Yacht Club for us cruisers. Cruisers have left behind their boat names all around the inside of the club. We did a bonfire and celebrated Bob's birthday. There are also many well marked trails along this entire cay. All of them take you to the Atlantic side. The high top views are amazing!Read more

  • Day 57

    Raccoon Cay, House Bay

    March 27, 2016 on the Bahamas ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    We spend one night here. Good anchorage for easterly winds. The northern point of House Bay didn't have get spearfishing although, the southern was better. Bob speared to great lobsters. As usual, we ran across our other boat buddies from the previous anchorage. We had a great time with Eutopia, the shark fisher man!Read more