The following blog has been prepared by guest writers – Jane & John Gunner – who have been accompanying the Charnley’s on the ‘Exuma’ leg of their intrepid adventure around the Bahamas. Regular readers may well notice a complete change in writing style!! I apologise in advance.

This blog will take the format of ‘whistle-stop highlights’ so may not appear as detailed as previous blogs concerning the ‘Discovery Magic tour’.

John & Caroline C had kindly invited us to join them for two weeks aboard the wonderful cat ‘Discovery Magic’ and we joined up with them in George Town on Great Exuma Island, which is the south of the Exuma Cays. We flew into ‘Exuma International Airport’ on a tiny prop plane from Nassau. Well, I say ‘International’ airport. It was just one little building which we bypassed and walked directly from the plane to the taxi rank where we had to unload our own bags from a tiny trolley. Saved on tips, I guess.

A short dinghy ride from Exuma market, took us on board the stunning craft where we were welcomed aboard by the skipper.

The dinghy driver actually bore a strong resemblance to our hostess!!

Sadly, we had brought the English weather with us as the sky was overcast and the temperature a bracing 24 degrees Centigrade .(It may have been around 20 degrees warmer than Blighty…but we are on a tropical holiday, for goodness sake).

Something to do with these ‘weather fronts’ persuaded our hosts to remain in this area for a few days allowing us to sample the ‘cruising community’ here.

Whilst parking the boat (is that the correct terminology?) off Stocking Island beach  we were greeted with the quite wonderful welcome party of two dolphins serenely popping in and out of the water just a few feet away. A great start to this experience and a real highlight.

The ‘cruising community’ were predominately Canadians escaping their own cold winters by cruising the Bahamas. Tough life, but someone’s gotta do it!!

Stocking Island is ideal for this as there are several bars and much entertainment, including a couple of beach volleyball courts.

During these first few days the four of us got up to all sorts of things.

We played volleyball (after a little practice, of course), swam in the wonderfully warm Atlantic (29 degrees C/84f), ate nibbles and drank sundowners on the beach whilst getting to know our North American cousins and even attended ‘beach church’. They have thought of everything here.

I believe this was John C’s first experience of ‘beach volleyball’. This fact was actually useful when he placed his first ever serve high and wide to be met by a chorus of “First time in George Town?” from all the regular players (most of whom resembled Captain Birdseye with their long white hair and beards. That was just the women). John C affirmed that he was a George Town novice, so was able to retake the serve with no penalty. His next serve was an ace. Quite a brilliant tactic.

George Town is definitely a location worth returning to sometime in the future as the fellowship and friendliness the whole area exudes is just great set in the stunning aqua marine blue waters.

On the golden sands of the aptly named ‘volleyball beach’ is a signpost to which has been fixed the home destinations of visiting cruisers. Here we have affixed a piece of driftwood containing the detail ‘Bursledon, UK. 3775 n.m’.

Next time you stop by make sure you look it out.

George Town itself is very tiny, but most welcoming and quaint. It has a very handy superstore and a lovely Anglican church where Jane, Caroline and John G attended the Sunday service (after Beach church, of course). This was an ideal place to thank God for bringing us to such a glorious place.

So many of the cruising community were most friendly and had very interesting stories to tell. I think most of them were invited to a cocktail party on board on the Monday evening by Caroline, much to John C’s bemusement. The C’s showed, though, that they are great hosts.

It was quite sad to leave the George Town area, but good weather encouraged us on. Yes, blue skies, even bluer sea and warm, warm sunshine had arrived by the 5^th day. Let the sailing begin!!

I haven’t described our accommodation, yet…quite 5 star plus, plus and more.

We have our own double bedroom with en-suite loo and shower (called the ‘heads’ for some reason). The living area is magnificent with a fantastic kitchen…oops, I mean galley from which leads access to another twin room on the other side of the boat and the enormous master bedroom at the pointy end. (To be precise, I suppose a Cat has 2 pointy ends).

Up above there is loads of space to lounge about in comfort whilst the skipper and crew sail us about. There are even two trampolines (don’t ask me why they are called that, as they are not designed for bouncing around on and performing somersaults) at the pointy ends to allow us to lounge about on, although, when the waves get a bit choppy, one does get a damp botty.

Fantastic all round. Really, words cannot describe how fab this boat is!!!

 

Anyway, during the next few days we cruised around the area of the Exumas in delightful sun on glorious waters. We have taken about a million and a half photos for those of you who are interested. I think John and Caroline may append some to this blogs.

By the way, I don’t want anyone to think this is all lazing about…Jane and John have discovered baking skills they never knew they had. Several loaves of bread, pizzas and many varying types of pastries/cakes have been made completely from scratch! We have impressed even ourselves!!

Oh, and a great highlight has been the success in sea fishing. 2 fish caught in 2 days from the back of the boat (aft, I think somebody has called it).

Both fish were caught in the deep Atlantic waters whilst we were hurtling along.

First a mahi mahi, or dolphin fish (no relation to Flipper and his chums). This was a really beautiful looking fish and at least 47 feet long. Blues and greens were shimmering in the sunlight before it was landed and sadly met its demise. It was quite a sad event, actually, killing such a lovely looking creature….but we have to eat something!!

The next day, we caught a slightly smaller fish (45 feet possibly) which we think was a tuna. We based that mainly on the colour of the meat, as it didn’t arrive in the normal little tins.

Needless to say, both fish were cooked within hours of their capture and tasted…well, really fresh and lovely and fishy.

Another highlight has been laying on the ‘foredeck’, which is another name for the pointy end of the boat, in the evenings watching the outstandingly colourful sunsets followed by the oh so starry, starry nights. Stars so close, you can almost reach out and touch them.

Our tour took us north (after a brief visit to Long Island) and first point of interest was Lee Stocking Island. (I don’t actually know why 2 islands are named after ladies under garments…blog readers have the option to research that later).

Here, the 4 intrepid explorers went ashore and took a trail to the top of a little hill.

May be a little hill, but what great views we had of the ocean. The shallow waters were so clear that we could see enormous rays swimming about in a little ‘ray commune’.

We also saw a sea eagle majestically soaring above us.

Thanks again God for sharing your wonders.

We were so excited by seeing the ray commune that we all bundled into our little dinghy and floated above them as they were burying themselves into the sea bed. There were literally dozens of them, some of which were huge.

Talking about the dinghy, we used that to get about in quite a lot and most of the time it was great fun and a brilliant way of getting to see the little islands and cays. Other times though, if one sat at the front, which I invariably did, one got absolutely drenched!!

Remember the Morcambe and Wise sketches (such as ‘Singing in the rain’) which involved Eric getting drenched by a bucket of water thrown from off stage by some ‘other bloke’? Well, I swear that ‘other bloke’ was strapped to the front of our dinghy throwing buckets of water over me!!

Anyway, I digress…..what other highlights have there been?

On Leaf Cay, we saw shy little pink iguanas sunbathing on the rocks. We managed to get very close in our dinghy (yes, I was drenched again) and photograph a few. They had little pink frills running the lengths of their backs, bless them. I guess that’s why they are so shy as they don’t look as tough as their much larger relatives we found on Bitter Guana Cay a little further north. These were big, butch bruisers with no girly pink anywhere to be seen.

The absolute biggest highlight for us was diving in ‘Thunderball cave’, near to Staniel Cay.

This is a blob of rock with a natural cave just beneath the surface of the water which is the home for an amazing array of coral and fish.

Called ‘Thunderball Cave’ as the James Bond movie of the same name had underwater scenes filmed there. One found oneself snorkelling with a Scots lilt ala Sean Connery.

This was indeed a dazzling delight of colour and marine activity and really, really worth the trip.

It is interesting that we saw very few fish swimming on the coral around the Exumas other than at Thunderball Cave. Maybe the fish meet up here hoping to get spotted as ‘extras’ in forthcoming Bond movies?

One can’t knock the scenery and colours above the waters, though. The whole trip has been magnificent in that respect. There are insufficient words available to fully describe the beauty and wonder.

The last few days have seen us visiting Warderick Wells national park area and little cays to the north. All rather lovely again.

At W. Wells we climbed to the top of ‘Boo Boo Hill’ (opposite Yogi Bear rise, I imagine) where the ritual is to leave a written memento of your boat on a piece of drift wood. Here we placed our piece of driftwood upon which was written the name of our vessel.

‘Discovery Magic’ ‘Southampton, England’ now proudly overlooks the Exumas.

That is a fitting position for such a wonderful vessel which, in reality, sits proudly upon the ocean waves.

As I prepare to log off now, the four of us have just enjoyed another ‘sundowner’ of the finest G & T watching another sunset of the finest quality.

As Caroline has said many times on this trip “Well done God”.