• Ashling's LogBahamas 2025Traveler
    Anyee's Bread Bakery, homemade rolls, loaves, cinnamon buns
    Heather's Variety StoreWild parrotsSome monsters!This was from a friend in Georgetown - Starship explosionOutback resort, abandoned after the owner Henry died.Our anchorage at White CliffsThe dinghy route up the creek to the inner lake.Tyler and John kayaking to the creek.The creek ends at the inland salt lake.USAID tarp on top of pallets of cement."Uncle Lionel" serving up fresh conch salads.Ashling sunsetI'm guessing either an octopus beak or a cuttlefish beak.Emergency oil IV for the leaky saildrive.

    Great Inagua

    Mar 3–8 on the Bahamas ⋅ ☀️ 81 °F

    We made an overnight passage from Hog Cay to Matthew Town, Geat Inagua. It is the only settlement on this, Bahamas 2nd largest island. Morton Salt has harvested salt from seawater here since the 1960s, and is the main employer here. It is mostly parkland due to the 80,000 flamingos and other birds. I saw wild parrots here for the first time, in town, eating fruits off a Bahamian species of tree.

    We hit up the Mortons General Store, RJ’s store and Heather’s store searching for fresh produce. Only found green peppers and cabbages. But we scored on fruits, getting plums, apples, bananas, and pears. We had planned on either a short, food-only stop, or if weather indicated, an overnight stop with a laundry day. We took the latter and were pretty happy to have clean sheets and towels. The overnight spot at Matthew’s Town is an east-protection only. We had NE wind and NW swell, so we took a line from the starboard stern to the anchor chain and pulled it in to swing the boat into the swell. That worked fine and we had a pretty quiet night. The next morning we re-did the grocery runs (the mail boat had arrived the day before), but didn’t get too much else.

    Then we took off for White Cliffs, around the SW corner on the S end of Great Inagua. It’s a wonderful little spot inside a long reef parallel to the shore, with water flow as it’s open at both ends. The waves are non-existent, so far! We went snorkeling and I caught exactly nothing as the lobsters were too small inside the reef, at least the ones I found. Ralph on Now and Zen scored two 7lb lobsters, though!

    We had a Tortilla Tuesday dinner - John made Dale’s recipe for wine-bottle rolled tortillas. We cooked up a Spanish mackerel that we caught trolling along Columbus Bank S of the Jumentos on the way here. One filet served all five of us from Now & Zen and Ashling! We then had a marathon of Dominoes until 11:30pm. Tyler won - beginner’s luck?

    John did one of the boat chores, changing the engine oil. But while checking around, it seems we have a leak in the saildrive’s lower seal and there’s seawater in the saildrive. Ugh, we replaced those just last season!    Read more