We had a beautiful and comfortable night on anchor at Rose Island with a nice breeze blowing through the boat and a gentle roll. We were well rested and finally ready to go to
the Exumas! We were away by about 7 AM and running at a very comfortable speed. We could see the bottom clearly, even though it was 17 feet deep! We chose to go around Yellow Bank that morning, instead of going through it. The Yellow Bank is a shallow area that has lots of coral heads. You can go through it and con between Coral heads, but we weren’t that brave yet. As we got closer to the Exumas,
the water just got flatter and flatter. The water was so clear that I could see starfish on the bottom while we were still underway. I just stood at the bow pulpit watching the sandy bottom and was amazed at how clearly I could see everything, especially all the starfish.
We pulled right into Allen‘s Cay and headed toward the south cove, but there was a large yacht there in the best spot. We turned around and ended up on the outside, just north of the entrance. It was time for lunch, and then we scrubbed down the boat and started making water. We dinghied back into the cove to the beach to see the iguanas. There were 30 to 40 of them. We brought lettuce, beans, and some broccoli stock to feed them. Lynda and Brad had lettuce, pineapple, and grapes. They were hesitant on the pineapple, but they pretty much ate everything else. Then we went to the beach in the cove. Somehow we missed that the yacht had left and a catamaran had moved in so we missed our chance to sneak into the best anchorage. We beached the dinghies on a sandbar near the shore. The view was amazing and the water was gin clear. Lynda and Brad disturbed a stingray as they came in, so we got to see it swimming around.
Back at the boat, we got a drink and used our floaties tied off to the stern of our boat. There were remoras cleaning the bottom of Sea Clef, so Cam felt compelled to help them out and scrubbed our stern but I resisted the urge and enjoyed floating until something bumped my leg. I thought it was a shark at first, but it turned out to be a remora. Either way, it inspired me to get out of the water. It was pretty hot so we decided to read in the cool shade of our boat. Cam thought he would try a little drop fishing off the side of the boat. We had purchased some bait shrimp in Nassau so Cam secured one to the hook and dropped the line in the water. The shrimp was gone immediately. He tried again, securing the shrimp a little better, but again, no sooner did he put the line in the water, the shrimp was gone. He tried one more time before he realized that the remora that were feeding off the bottom of our boat were darting out and grabbing his bait. He decided that he did not want to catch a remora so he had to stop fishing. Later, we went over to Salish Sea for cocktails on their flybridge, which was nice and cool with the breeze. It was an incredibly starry night. In the southern sky, we could see constellations that we see at home in the summer, and we thought that was pretty cool! This was paradise!
Our anchorage was a little rockier in the morning, and the boats were now facing due east instead of north. Our anchor chain was no longer puddled underneath us. We had left our dinghy tied along our starboard side, and we had a cable and padlock attached, to protect it from theft. We weren’t sure if we needed to do that or not but it turned out to be a bad idea. Suddenly, two boats had passed at speed and the wake was rocking us like crazy. Our friends were watching from their boat, and they said that the two wakes had converged right at our boat, and at one point our boat rocked so much to the port side that the dinghy lifted right out of the water! It completely tore off the aft cleat, partially tore the aft handle where our fender was attached, broke the padlock, and shifted the support bar at the helm! Fortunately, there was no puncture damage, but we no longer had the lock to secure the dinghy and there was no handle for the passenger to hold. We are now letting our dinghy float well behind us on a long painter.
At low tide, we left on our dinghy to go snorkelling. We passed two fishing boats and asked about buying some of their catch. We negotiated two lobster tails for $30. Once we secured our tails on Salish Sea, we went back out to snorkel. It was tough anchoring the dinghies as the bottom was hard. The current wasn’t bad so they stayed pretty well. We enjoyed the snorkelling and saw several varieties of fish. Cam thought he saw a Grouper so I kept an eye on the fish while Cam got the spear. He managed to partially spear it in two tries. When he pulled it up, we realized it wasn’t a Grouper. Since we didn’t know what it was, we made a quick decision to let it go so it could live and it swam away quickly. We think now that it was a Snapper which would have been a good eating fish.
After snorkelling, we dinghied over to see a car wreck in the water, and then went to the beach in the cove again. This time we hiked to the opposite shore, using palm branches to keep the iguanas away. We had a good view of the west end anchorage at Highbourne Cay from there. We stuck around for a swim while Salish Sea headed back to their boat. We shared a meal that night with our lobster tails on board our boat. It was a perfect evening.
Brad and Lynda popped by in the morning to say goodbye just as Cam was finishing a business call. After a long chat, we decided to leave as well and ended up leading the boats through Allen’s Cay to the north end of Highbourne Cay. It felt like we were anchoring in a swimming pool! Once we were secure, and had lunch, we dinghied over to the Highbourne Cay marina. Cam had been to Highbourne Cay twice before on fishing trips with family friend, Don Bere. We were barely off our dinghy
when Cam recognized a man we were passing as Joel! Joel was the fishing guide that Don would hire when he took folks fishing from Highbourne Cay and Cam last saw him 31 years ago! They had a nice visit. Then we had a walk around and bought popsicles. Popsicles don’t last long in the Bahamas! It’s a challenge to get them eaten before they melt! In the water below the fish cleaning station there are a lot of nurse sharks just waiting for fisherman to clean their catch. It was sad to see so many of them there with no fisherman in sight, just waiting for a free meal! Are they losing their instinct to hunt and just looking for handouts? We returned to our boat and got ready for a swim when Lynda called over to say a shark had just gone under our boat. Yikes! We decided to kayak closer to shore to swim without company. We had a very quick swim to wash up when we got back to Sea Clef. Then we enjoyed a very peaceful cocktails on our bow in the shade while the nurse sharks swam under us. We were pretty nervous about the sharks as we thought they were Bull Sharks, however, we now believe that they were Nurse Sharks, which are less threatening.
Salish Sea left in the morning but we stuck around and planned to go to the marina restaurant for lunch as one of the staff had said we could walk around the island a bit if we ate at the restaurant. When we arrived, they told us that the restaurant was not open for lunch that day. They also said that even if we had lunch there, we could not walk around the island. You had to actually stay at the marina to have access to the island. We wanted to connect with Joel again to share some pictures with him from fishing trips 31 years ago, but he was not working that day. Things just weren't working out. We had some fun talking to a bird and trying to get it to talk to us. It was a fun distraction. We ended up getting a few grocery items and some dinghy fuel and headed back to our boat for lunch. We gave ourselves a little treat. We can't keep ice cream frozen on our boat, but we can freeze fresh mango, which we had done a couple of days prior. Then we just add a little syrup and water and puree it to make our own mango sorbet. Very tasty and refreshing!
We were feeling a little frustrated with the privacy of the island, and the shark that was still hanging around our boat. We kayaked to shore again for a swim while constantly watching for the shark. There were some young men using fly boards and jet skis. One of the men fell off the fly board into the water, and yelled “shark!” They asked “really?” and he yelled “shark really!”, sounding a bit more panicked. A guy on a JetSki gunned around to chase the shark away. It didn’t make our swimming pool anchorage very appealing anymore and we made plans to leave the next morning.
Click on the photos below to view the images in slideshow mode. Coming up next, we go to the Land a Sea Park in the Exumas.
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