Bahamas 23:30.00N 75:40.00W
Lotus
Mon 26 Apr 2010 01:13
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We left the Turks and Caicos islands and headed for
the first of the Bahamian islands, Mayaguana, which was a deserted white
sandy island surrounded by turquoise waters - a common theme in the
Bahamas . After a few hours sleep at anchor, we set off for a blowy
overnight passage of 90nm to Rum Cay, here we spent a few days relaxing, doing
short walks around the island and watching the New York rich boys with
their expensive big boat toys, in the marina. They fly down to Miami and
roar down the Bahamas chain using what must be 100litrers of fuel an hour.
We spoke to one who had lost 3 $100 fishing lures in one outing and thought
nothing of it. It has to be said that their mahi mahi were smaller than the ones
we caught!
We then made our way upto George town through some
of the clearest water we've ever seen. We had a lone dolphin come and ride
our bow wave for a few minutes before doing a big leap out of the water and
carrying on with his journey in the opposite direction. I think I saw him
winking at me and I definitely saw him wave his fin!
 We reached George town a Mecca for American cruiser
who commonly drop anchor at the start of the season and don't move again
until the onset of the hurricane season. Like sea gypsies they have formed
their own itinerant community with dominoes at 2,
poker at 7, drinks and volleyball on the nearby beaches that they have
commandeered as their own. Needless to say we didn't join in with
them! The weather was quite overcast with some wind and rain so we
spent a couple of days chilling out after our recent passages.
Leaving George Town we set sail up the
coast in a brisk 25knot wind and were caught by a 35knot squall with a
heavy downpour and poor visibility just as we were about to the pass onto
the Grand Banks otherwise known as the great shallow sea, where the average
depths ranged from 10-30 feet. The waters in this area are something
else, perfectly clear and amazing shades of deep blue, turquoise, whites and of
course the scary browns which indicate reefs and isolated rocks. The
islands can be difficult to spot as they are very low lying, no more than
100 feet, but thankfully the GPS knew where they all
were.
 We called into a few islands on the way up the
Exuma chain, including one where we had a pleasant walk around an island in the
National Park at Wardrick Wells and another where we swam in the James Bond
thunderball cave which at high tide involves diving underwater into a cavern in
the center of an island. In the film it looks like it could house a
battleship, in reality we would have struggled to get our dingy inside it, but
the multitude of fish made for good snorkelling even though the water had turned
considerably colder (wet suits were needed).
Onwards to Nassau!
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