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Wednesday, April 5th - Eleuthera, Bahamas
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Reality hit hard as we left Atlantis marina and resumed
our roles as "normal" cruisers. We cast off our
lines on Saturday and left the lap of luxury for a
nearby anchorage in Nassau Harbor. The harbor was
full of floating debris and our first attempt at
anchoring brought up and old rope attached to a buoy and
a cable. After dragging a good 20 feet when we
dropped the hook for a second time, we finally got a
nice solid tug as the anchor reluctantly dug into the
bottom. Since the strong current would cause us to
switch around as it ebbed and flowed, Joe decided he
needed to jump in and check the anchor to make sure we
were well hooked. Diving the anchor, along with
dealing with any head issues, are two duties that fall
squarely on the captain's shoulders. Despite some
tendencies towards being a control freak, I am happy to
give up the reins of power on the boat on account of
these two things alone!
We
had decided not to waste any of our Atlantis time doing
the grocery shopping. We were in need of a new
supply of fresh fruits and vegetables, at the minimum,
before heading back into the wilderness. We made
our way to the well stocked grocery store and four
hundred dollars later (yikes!), we headed back to the
boat with many bags full of goodies. We were all a
bit exhausted after our "vacation" in Atlantis so we
decided to eat on the boat and make an early night of
it. Just as we were tucking the kids in bed, the
local hot spot fired up the music at an ear-splitting
decibel. Unfortunately, the music wasn't even any good;
some sort of island rap mixture. I'm not sure which was
better, being woken up at 4:15am by some Atlantis
reveler ogling the 205ft mega yacht on the dock next to
us ("Is the owner on board? Doesn't he want to
talk to me?") or enduring the hours of head banging
music. At least the drunk on the dock shut up when
I walked out and let him know that we were trying to
sleep right next door!
We
were down to quarter tanks on our fuel supply, so
hitting the gas dock was also on our list. We
hadn't filled up since New Year's. This was indeed
going to be an expensive week, adding in the $500 in
fuel with the big grocery shop and the splurge at
Atlantis. Neither Joe or I have ever been any good
at sticking to a budget, can you tell?
We
took off south for Highborne Cay, back in the Exumas.
We had missed all of the northern islands when we made
our detour to Nassau so we wanted to get back to see at
least some of them. The wind was perfect and we
had a wonderful sail, arriving at our anchorage in time
for a swim before dinner. We had gotten back on
track with school on the trip down to Highborne and
finished Test Lesson 120 on Monday morning before
heading to the beach for some romping around time.
Juliana has been practicing paddling the kayak by
herself and is really beginning to get the hang of it,
although she does not have the same level of confidence
that Cassie possesses. She paddled along the
shoreline while Cassie and I walked on the beach.
After an hour or two we made our way back to the boat
and took off for Hawksbill Cay. Although the winds
were light, we sailed most of the way and wiggled into
about 5 feet of water to drop the hook as close to the
beach as we could. We all jumped in for a swim and
the kids decided they wanted to try to swim into the
beach, although Joe volunteered to bring the dinghy and
pick us up if we got tired. We spotted another
catamaran (a Gemini, built right in our backyard in
Edgewater, Maryland) that was actually beached at the
far end of the cove. They had four kids running
around so we decided to go and make friends. It
turns out they are just here for two weeks from England,
using their father's boat that he keeps in Nassau.
It was a nice time, though, and the kids, ranging in
ages from eleven to four, all played together
wonderfully.
The wind disappeared completely overnight. It was
like being anchored in a bathtub. We stayed in
Hawksbill the whole next day, enjoying the beautiful
white sand beach that seemed to go on forever. We
shared the anchorage with one of the big mega yachts
that you see so frequently down here on charter.
They were a little loud with their jet skis and power
boats, and we would have preferred to have the place
completely to ourselves, but we also realize that we
can't be too greedy. We made our own noise as we
dragged Cassie around on the water skis the Martin's
left with us. Our 15 horsepower motor on the
dinghy was plenty strong to get our little 50 pounders
up!
We
are heading to Eleuthera right now, where we will spend
the night before heading out for the second leg of our
trip to Marsh Harbor. We meet Hope, Ramin, Natasha
and Leila there on Saturday afternoon. We always
like to have a full day to get the boat ready for
guests, so we'll get there on Thursday night and have
plenty of time to get our chores done and get the lay of
the land. We should have some good stories to tell
in the next update!
Love,
Christy, Joe, Cassie and Juliana
Next entry
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Many thanks to our
friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up
the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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