Back in Black Point

We have returned to Black Point after a stop in Georgetown to get some immigration paperwork completed. We needed to get our passports restamped to extend our stay in the Bahamas until June.
Tried to do it the last time we were in Georgetown but learned that being “early” gets you nowhere!

Our second visit to Georgetown was a nice one... found two new anchorages we liked, plus the crowd had lessened a bit. While there, Drew celebrated his #12 birthday with friends from Kwitcherbitchen and Milano Myst. We also were able to give the kids some opportunities to “change classes” which has made recent lessons a bit more fun for all involved.

Here’s a photo album from our recent visit to Rum Cay and return to Georgetown.

The trip back to Black Point was an exciting one. Drew caught 4 really nice fish, but none quite made up for the 1 that got away! A very kind fisherman we met in Rum Cay, Ted, gave Drew a really nice rod & reel on which he managed to snag a 3-4 foot Mahi. We’ll never know the actual size because the fish managed to unhook itself just as Pat was about to gaff it in order to get it into the boat. To say that the boys were devastated by the loss is an understatement, but at least we were able to capture the moment with a couple of photos.

Rum Cay

Grouper... they taste a lot better than they look. This guy is a Nassau Grouper. The season opened February 28, but it took a while for us to get one. They're very good at hiding in the reef. This one took a lot of effort to get out of the coral - 2 spear poles and a gaff - but in the end he made a great meal for three boats (ours and two we're traveling with).


After fishing in Flamingo Bay at the Northwest corner of Rum Cay, there was an opportunity to do some SCUBA diving off of a nearby reef. Kelly from s/v Kwitcherbitchen and Pat from Jubilee teamed up for the dive and Joe from Onward volunteered to stand by as the safety officer along with Drew. It was a great dive on a wall of coral down to 91 feet in gin clear water.

Following the dive, Jubilee, Kwitcherbitchen and Onward went over to Sumner Point Marina on the south side of the island where we will be staying during the passage of the next cold front. On the way over we hooked a nice sized Amber Jack.



More later . . .

Reports from the Field: Long Island

You may get the impression from our Long Island photo album that Jubilee’s field reporters were on holiday during our stay in Long Island, but in fact they were hard at work gathering research for their latest reports from the field...

Paridice in Long Island, by Emily
Long Island in the Bahamas is 76 miles long. Long Island has two blue holes and a lot of towns. One town is called Petty. That is the name of my Grandma Janet and Grandpa Carl.

We rented a car and went to one blue hole that was 660 feet deep. I swam in the hole. It was cool! The thing I liked was there is a dive plat form in the midle of the blue hole and I loved swiming to it.

At the blue hole beach I looked for hamburger beans with my friends on Kwitcherbitchen, but we did not find any. My brother Drew found one on another beach. A hamburger bean is a brown round bean that washes a shore from Africa all the way to the Bahamas in the currint. You can make a neck-lace with one of the beans which I will do when I find one.

Blue Hole, by Jake
We went to Long Island and there was a 663 feet blue hole. It is the biggest blue hole in the world depth wise. There was also a 40-50 foot cliff. I jump off a 38 feet part, but round it up to 40 feet! There are some people who free dive 327 feet in this hole. WOW! It was amasing. The blue hole is salt water and very clear. If you drop a rock in the middle it does down and down and down, but then it disapears. The end.

Bat Cave, by Drew
Long Island is about 20 miles east of Georgetown. Long Island has a big cave in the town of Salt Pond. The cave is 1,770 feet long and about 40 feet high inside. It carries four out of five different species of bats in the Bahamas. There were about 1,000 bats in the cave. It was the first time I had even seen bats in the wild. It was very cool to see, because there were a lot of baby bats too. The only down side was the floor was covered in bat poop which is called guano. We washed our feet when we got out of the cave. It was very hot in the cave so we got some ice cream after we finished exploring it.

Conception Island

Conception Island is now a Bahamian Nature Preserve/Land Park. We spent two days there snorkeling and exploring the mangroves which are a breeding ground for sea turtles.

You can find coral reefs right off the beach, including some really spectacular and rare Elkhorn Coral. Unfortunately, the reefs are not all that healthy these days, so we didn’t see many fish. It’s sad to see the effects of global warming, bleaching and overfishing on such a beautiful place.

On our last morning at Conception, we had a surprise visitor... a baby dolphin was swimming right next to our boat. Drew and Pat were able to swim with it for quite a while which was an experience neither will ever forget! Didn’t think the day could get better until we spotted 3 whales as we watched a glorious sunset from our new anchorage at Rum Cay. They were too far off to capture the moment with photographs, but none the less, it was a whale of a day!

Here’s a photo album from our time at Conception Island and our arrival at Rum Cay.

Long Island, Bahamas

After a week of strong winds (aka wet dinghy rides) in Georgetown, we were very happy to take the first weather window that came our way to move on to Long Island, about 20 miles east of Great Exuma. We were well aware of Georgetown’s reputation for being a place cruisers either love or don’t... we didn’t.

Long Island on the other hand proved to be a really lovely spot - nice beaches; a comfortable anchorage; well stocked and very clean stores; an AMAZING blue hole and a really cool cave. Plus, there were several other kid boats sharing our anchorage.

Here’s a photo album from our time anchored at Calabash Bay and Thompson Bay, both on the western shore of Long Island. We rented a car with our friends on Coxily and Kwitcherbitchen for 2 days so that we could fully explore the island - from Cape Santa Maria to the North where there’s a monument marking Columbus’s landing in the Bahamas; to Clarencetown, the southernmost settlement on Long Island and home to one of the world’s deepest blue holes.

Our time at Long Island will definitely rank among the best times we’ve had during our travels - lots of interesting things to do and see... and some really wonderful friends to share it with.