Allen's Cay

Spent the last few days with these guys - the iguanas of Allen's Cay - before heading south for the Exuma Land & Sea Park. Lots of photos from our time in the Northern Exumas (Allens Cay, Highborne Cay, etc...) in the attached photo album.

Highborne Cay, Exumas

We’ve reached the top of the Exuma Island chain; our first stop being Highborne Cay. The water is incredibly clear, and the snorkeling great... though we would recommend avoiding the area just outside Highborne Cay Marina where a dozen or so very large nurse sharks have developed their very own "snack bar". They wait at the end of the dock, under the fish cleaning station, and are frequently rewarded with scraps.

We opted to check-in to the marina to wait out a passing front after 2 days in a very ROLLY anchorage nearby. The combination of wind against current plus some strong surge in the anchorage made it feel as though we were sleeping in a washing machine!

The marina is very nice and much more comfortable... particularly the beach side hammocks, which we highly recommend.

Two of the Jubilee Crew . . .

P.S. from Pat: While Jo and Jake were writing this and baking some delicious sugar cookies, Drew, Emily and I went snorkeling and spear fishing. We managed to bring home a nice sized Yellowtail Snapper. Time from spear tip to grill, about 20 minutes. Mmmmmmm, lunch time!

We're heading out of Nassau to the Exumas

This will be a VERY short post. A few pictures here. Running out of battery right now. More later. And, can you believe that lobster???

News from Nassau

We haven’t taken many photos this week... it’s been too wet! We spent Wednesday and Thursday at Atlantis enjoying the many water slides, pools and other resort amenities that came along with our marina slip fee.

Thanks to some good advice from fellow cruising families and the fact that we’re pretty good at squeezing the most out of a day, we were able to enjoy two full, fun-filled days for under $200! If you check the resort’s website, you’ll discover that’s quite a deal!

In lieu of water park photos, we asked our field reporters to share their thoughts below. Also, here are a few shots from the day we explored downtown Nassau.

Emily...
“Woho!” I say. “Can we go on the Serpent Slide again?” The Serpent is a tunnil tube slide to be egsact and it goes into a glass tunnil with sharks surrounding you. If you go to the Power Tower and you are a wimp (no ofenst to the little people out there) go on the Falls, but if you are not a wimp go on the Drop or the Surge. On the Surge, be sure to keep your butt up or be ready for a super tonic weggey!! If you take my ivise and the life gards, I promise you will not get hurt. The End.

Jake...
Today we went to Atlantis and road the Lasy River. Me and my mom flipped in the rapids in the Lasy River. Don’t tell but I think she is a crapy driver, because me and my dad never fliped. One day on the Lasy River I road in a one (one-person) tube and I got sucked in to rapids. I waved my hand up in the air. My mom finally saw me. I stopped after the rapids, and my family caught up to me. Then we stayed together. The End.

Drew...
We went to Atlantis for 2 days. It was super fun and all the slides were great! The best were the Leap of Faith and The Abyss. The Abyss has a 50ft drop that makes you feel like you’re falling. When you get to the bottom you come out into a cave. It was 2 holes in the top and aquariums all around. There is a lot to do at Atlantis. We thought 2 days was plenty of time, but I don’t know if that would be enough for you. If you don’t like water slides, there’s a beach and also aquariums. I liked the Predator Tunnel with sharks and barracudas. I also liked watching the Manta Rays get fed.

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Behind the Blog: Rum Punch

While in Nassau, we’ve had the opportunity to sample a number of rums, the drink of choice here in New Providence where Bacardi has a large plant. We also have been experimenting with rum punch using the following recipe/rhyme which Pat found in one of his cruising books:

1 part sour, 2 parts sweet,
3 parts strong, 4 parts weak,
5 drops of bitters and nutmeg spice;
serve well chilled with lots of ice

Since we were having friends over for dinner, we decided to figure out the proportions for a gallon jug. In this quantity, the “3 parts strong” equates to about 4.75 cups of rum! I was very glad we used small glasses and had lots of food. The bottle of “Fire In De Hole” rum we chose to mix up the punch really packs one. I was also glad to see that our jug was still half-full at the end of the evening... after all we had to save some room for the delicious Nassau Royale Liqueur that our friends from Coxily brought by to share!

Nassau

We arrived in Nassau on Jan. 10. We did some exploring today as well as provisioning... our fruit hammocks were empty! Atlantis Resort (big fancy water park/aquarium/casino) is across the Harbor on Paradise Island. We visited the grounds today... its Disney-like extravagance was quite shift from the remoteness of our last stop in the Berry Islands! We’ve included a few photos with this post.

Click here for ADDITIONAL PHOTOS... this set of our time in the Berry Islands - a collection of small, mostly uninhabited islands about 35 miles north of Nassau. As you’ll see, we enjoyed our stay and the good company of the other boat families sharing our anchorage near Hoffman’s Cay.

Reports from the Field: Snorkeling at Hoffman’s Cay

The Fish that Nobody Saw, by Jake

Hi, it’s Jake. My dad was snorkeling. He scared a little fish that was a Nassau Grouper. I followed it, and I looked up. I saw ten or 200 fish! There were 2 groups of them. They were a good 1 foot all around me. My dad was too busy playing with a shrimp, and Drew and Emily were with him. I was the only one who saw the fish!

My favorite was an angel fish. Angel fish are silver and they reflect the sun and are very big. It was exciting to see so many fish, even if I was the only one who did!

The Little Reef, by Drew

The other day I went snorkeling off in some shallow water. We didn’t see much at first, but then we found some small coral. It had only small fish around it and some starfish.

When we turned around to go back, we pasted over some new coral. On one piece I saw a little yellow sea horse. I scared it off to another little piece, but it went in a hole so I could not catch it. When we got back to the dinghy we started the motor to go back for lunch.

After lunch we went to another boat to learn to clean conch. There was a power boat in the harbor that just arrived. From them, we got a free 20 pound big eye tuna that we cleaned too. Dad and Jake thought it was delicious, but tuna is not for me. I prefer white fish.

Well, that is a summary of our day.

Coral Kassel, by Emily

“OOH, AAAH”!, I say. A school of fish past by. All I can see is coral, fish, sea starts and sand dollars. I am in the water with my dad and my brother Drew. We were in what I call the “Coral Kassel”. Fish go by as I swim. “OOH, AAAH”, I say again. I see big fish and small fish. “BOO”, my dad scared a sea plant. It went down in its hole. Now we head back to our Zodiac, going into the 4:00 sun. The End.

Behind the Blog: The Fish Hunter

Santa brought Drew a pole spear for Christmas. In his great wisdom, he also left one for Pat. Since our arrival in the Bahamas, the spears have been well used. In fact, you could say a certain member of our family has become “obsessed”.

There was that first casual father-son outing... a little afternoon snorkeling; turning over a few rocks here and there in search of lobster. Then a shot was fired; then another and another. Once he actually caught something, there was no turning back.

Now we’re in the company of several other sailboats with spear poles (and kids)(and similarly obsessed dads) aboard. The guys have been getting together almost daily for “weather meetings” even when we know we’ll be staying put for a while. At first they were scheduled during the cocktail hour... makes you wonder doesn’t it?

Now the group seems to prefer morning meetings - just after breakfast and approximately 2 hours before the hints start dropping...the degree of subtleness varies:

“____ told me about a GPS coordinate with a reef I.. I mean we.. might want to check out.”

“What were you thinking for dinner tonight? Do we have any of that lobster left? I.. I mean we.. could try to catch some.”

“You should take the kids to the beach this afternoon. It would be a nice day to fly a kite don’t you think?”

“I’m going spear fishing at 1:30. Drew can come if he wants to.”

The biggest single-day catch so far has been 5 lobsters and 3 fish. At least this is a “hobby” with practical value!

Of course, we have to cook everything up quickly...fish hunters are very anxious to eat their kill; they also go to bed very early (to rest their shooting arm).

So far, there have been no puncture holes to human flesh or inflatable dinghy; no run-ins with sharks, other than an occasional nurse shark sighting; and thanks to Santa, no fights over whose turn it is to shoot. Jake, at least so far, has been content with “eating” v. “catching”, and Emily much prefers “gathering” over “hunting”... sand dollars and shells, mostly.

We're in the Berry Islands and It's WINDY!!!

Happy New Year from the Berry Islands Hope the New Year is off to a good start for you and yours. We’re in Great Harbour Cay in the Berry Islands waiting out some heavy winds that are passing through with a cold front. Click here for photos from our time in the Berrys, as well as on Bimini. The two places we’ve visited so far have been a strange mix of incredible natural beauty and incredibly sad living conditions. Trash bins sit empty next to big signs encouraging people to keep their community clean (e.g. “Keep Great Harbour Clean, Green & Pristine”), while the road sides leading to the island’s truly amazing beaches are littered with empty bottles and a wide variety of broken, discarded items. The people are friendly and welcoming; happy to give you a lift to wherever you’re going or offer directions; and quick to share advice about a great fishing spot or the best place for conch salad. Speaking of conch, we tried our hand at making “cracked conch”, after purchasing a couple of pounds of conch meat from a local we met in Bimini. He gave us great instructions for preparing the dish, the first step of which is to beat the heck out of it! Now that we’ve done it once, we have come to recognize this step cannot be over emphasized! If beat the heck out of it is step 1, steps 2,3,4 & 5 should be “repeat step 1". If well tenderized, it’s a great dish, but you definitely need patience and an arm as strong as your meat mallet! A couple of Kaliks (Official Beer of the Bahamas) can be helpful as well, for keeping your energy up during the preparation process.

Reports from the Field - Bahamas Week 1: Hey Mon... Jubilee’s field reporters are back in action. It’s just that they’re on “island time” these days. Here’s what each had to say about our first week in the Bahamas, or as Drew says, “A Week in Paradise”.

A Week in Paradise - The Crossing, by Jake

Land Ho on the horizon said Jake. As we sail in to the bahamas. We can only see the tops of trees, it looks like one million islands. Now we can see the land and trees. Now the skiper (dad) steps on and we all can’t. We were traped on board until the skiper comes back from checking us all in (a requirement of the customs clearing process). Now we can all go on land. We find a guy who sells lobster. We buy 1 dozen lobster. They are delicious! Well, the end.

A Week in Paradise - Where we’ve been so far, by Emily

Land ho! Jake yells. We were iriving to Bimini on X-mas eve day. After we irivde we swam in the pool, got cookies from our friend Joe, then got some sleep. X-mas Day! We woke up at 5:00 am then got are presents. We all got Nintido DS. I got 2 polly pocket kits too. 2 days passt then we left Bimini. 2 more days passt and those 2 days were hord (crossing the Bahama Banks and having a couple nights of very roll-y anchorages was less than pleasant, especially for the girl members of our crew). Yes! I say we spot Great Harbour Cay. We irrived Great Harbour Cay Dec. 30ith and I right this January 2nd. Happy New Year.


A Week in Paradise - What we’ve been up to, by Drew

My first week in the Bahamas was fabulous. We can see the bottom at 100 feet! We got 2 spear poles from Santa and a gaff for catching fish. We have been spearing lobsters and with good luck too... we have gotten 4 so far. Just tonight we got a coconut but it was too green. We will look for a ripe one tomorrow. So that’s what we’ve been doing in Bimini and the Berry Islands (Great Harbour Cay). Happy New Year.

Behind the Blog: Unmanned Expedition

Our dinghy is named “Expedition”. This is the radio name we use to communicate with the “mother ship” whenever some of us are out exploring while others remain aboard Jubilee. The kids love it when we’re in places where they can take Expedition out on their own, both because they love to drive and because they love to talk on the VHF radio. Expedition is usually a very well behaved dinghy. It rides faithfully behind our boat on a tow rope which we let in and out based on water conditions and our speed. So we’re traveling our last leg of the ICW just before Christmas, in route from the Ft. Lauderdale area to Key Biscayne. There are a LOT of bascule bridges in this area - at least one every mile or two in some places. They all have scheduled openings that don’t always coincide with our sailing speed or Pat’s ability to make friends with the bridge tenders. Thus, occasionally, we would find ourselves idling in the channel for 10-15 minutes waiting for the next lift. As we were waiting to pass under one particular bridge, we happen to notice that Expedition had wandered off to our starboard side and look as though it was actually coming toward us. Drew was the first to realize something was wrong. Turns out the razor spurs on Jubilee’s propellor - which help to protect our prop from crab pot lines - had done exactly what they are supposed to do when something gets tangles in them... chop! Apparently as we had been idling in front of the bridge, Expedition’s tow rope had gotten too close to the motor. Drew made a valiant effort to grab Expedition with our boat pole, but wasn’t able to secure it. Pat had to jump off the side of the boat and hope he stuck the landing. He did, thanks to his cat like reflexes! (I promised Pat I’d use this phrase at least once during the course of my story.) Otherwise, a reunion would have been quite a challenge in this particularly narrow portion of the ICW where current and wake can really bounce around. Oh, and there was that bridge opening I mentioned... All this excitement happened just as the bridge was going up. Pat yelled for me to drive through the bridge, which I did at about the same time both of us realized he didn’t have the “key” that is required to be around the dinghy engine’s kill switch, which allows Expedition’s motor to start! After a few minutes of creative thinking - and the quick abandonment of the idea of using the paddles - Pat managed to use one hand to squeeze the kill switch and the other hand to start the engine and steer. Now all he had to do was keep squeezing that kill switch, catch up to us, catch the line Drew threw to him, secure Expedition, and climb back onto the boat... preferably without getting wet! Our reunion with Expedition was a success, and Pat managed to stay dry. We did have to slow down for a minute to let him back on board, but not to worry... we still managed to make the next bridge opening right on time!