Bahamas!

We have been in the Bahamas for a month and a half now! We crossed over on November 28th and have done a lot of exploring since.

We started in the Abacos, and were there for 3 weeks. We saw lots of sea life (turtles, sharks, jellyfish, lots of fish, lobsters) and spent some time with kid boats we knew from the US. We did lots of snorkeling, and helped some friends with some hurricane Dorian debris sorting. The Abacos are recoving from Dorian, but there is still a lot to be done. We loved Hope Town, which has recovered pretty well, although the lighthouse isn’t open for visitors yet.

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Right before Chrisitmas we crossed the the Berry Islands, and spent a full week hiding from the wind in a great little anchorage we found. While it was open to the West, there were miles of shallow banks that helped tamper the swell. We did drag anchor on Christams morning, with 25 knots from the west, but our trusty Rocna caught us again before we reached the rocky cliffs behind us. Once daylight broke, we moved farther away from the rocks and held fine for the rest of our time there.

Hoffmans Cay, where we spendt Christmas, was one of our favorite places. We visited 5 different beautiful beaches, had 2 bonfires with other kid boats, swam in the blue hole a couple times, and saw lots of turtles!

We moved South before New Years, but didn’t like any of the anchorages in the South Berries for the New Years Blow, so we crossed to Andros Island on Dec 30th. We hadn’t planned on visited Andros, but we are glad we did. Its the largest island in the Bahamas, with land mass larger than all the other island combined! Its bordered on the East side by the 3rd largest Barrier Reef in the world, and is the location of the only freh water river in the Bahamas. Andros has copious amounts of fresh water, and we added 40 gallons to our stash, even though our 1 gallon per hourr water maker has been keeping up with us just fine.

We explored Captain Morgans Cave, and looked for lost Pirate Treasure, and got a tour of North Andros from a lovely local named Lillian. She drove us around for a full day, taking us to the Blue Hole National Park, the Seminole Indian settlement, a cute seaside resturaunt called Sammy’s, and the grocery store. After a week at Morgans Bluff we moved down to Fresh Creek, about 1/2 way down Andros, and tucked inside the reef.

At Fresh Creek we visited the Androsian Batik factory, and all got new Bahamian shirts made right there. We also snorkeled the reef, and played on a gorgeous beach.

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We cross to the Exumas after a few days at Fresh Creek and stationed ourselves at Allan’s Cay for a full week. The anchorage was well protected, except for all the other boats that seemed to anchor way too close to us, in a fairly large and empty anchorage. The way the currents work in this cut, boats swing in all directions, and we had to ask a few people to move to avoid possible collisions.

Our last day there we met a lovely couple on Amalia of London, and leared that they were the creators of No Foreign Land. For those of you not familiar, No Foreign Land is a website designed for tracking boats. If you want to follow us on our journey go to noforiegnland.com and create an account, then you can look up our boat and follow us. There is a new story feature that I plan to utilize that will let me put pictures and notes about the places we visit.

We are now anchored South of Norman’s Cay in the Exumas, and plan to head to the Land and Sea park for the next few days. I was in this area 26 years ago on Whisper, and I’m excited to revisit some of the places we went. We will be out of internet range while we are in the park, as it is about 40 miles ofo unihabited islands.