James Bond, sharks and lionfish

Much has happened in the last five days:

1. Got the mobile comms sorted and replenished fresh food stocks in Georgetown - no more Smash or corned beef for a while.

2. Experienced perfect sailing day en route from Georgetown to Black Point, about half-way up the Exuma chain of cays (small islands or islets, pronounced ‘keys’). ‘Perfect’ constitutes smooth water, force 3-4 winds, sunshine and blue skies.

View from the forward cabin

Another view from the forward cabin, towards the stern

View from the cockpit

3. Saw a lionfish whilst snorkelling in Black Point Bay. Lionfish are edible, venomous invaders, which are voracious eaters of game fish, crustaceans and perhaps even coral. Apparently in only five weeks, lionfish can reduce the number of young native fish on a reef by as much as 80%. It was quite a sight - beautiful but somewhat threatening. You can google to see what they look like but I have no underwater camera so can't supply photo I'm afraid! The Bahamian marine authority asks for any sightings to be reported, which I will duly do.

4. Swam inside Thunderball Grotto of 007 fame but the movie cameras and their attendants have moved on. Regrettably no nice youthful Sean Connery either. It's an amazing, magical place, full of colourful fish of all shapes and sizes. The sunlight shines in through four holes in the roof of the cavern. It is located under a small rocky cay, close to the well known Staniel Cay; you have to swim under a low lip of limestone to get in but once in, it opens out into a cavern which is smaller than we expected from the film… must now watch the movie again just to catch sight of the grotto!

The notice proves we were there!

5. Witnessed swimming pigs - living on the beach at the aptly named Big Majors Spot, off which we anchored. Yes they really do swim! And people come in their boats from far and wide to see them and feed them.

Just wading this one

6. Nurse sharks visited Follyfin on Friday evening

And to think that I had been swimming in these self-same waters a short while earlier… but expect the zoologists amongst my readers will advise that nurse sharks are harmless. Nevertheless it was very exciting for us! They must have been attracted by the fishy water and the last of the mahi-mahi remains that were flushed out from the boat a little while earlier. And shortly afterwards two or three black sting rays came swimming round the boat too, but the light was not good enough to photograph them.

So you see, a memorable few days for us. Yesterday, Saturday 13 May, I would prefer to forget, however, in contrast to the perfect sailing day referred to above. Alarm went off at 04:35, weighed anchor at 05:40 and basically neither of us had any ‘off watch’ time until after we dropped anchor at 19:40 at our destination on Eleuthera. The wind just couldn't make up its mind: was it going to blow strong or weak or a bit of both? Was it going to blow from the east or south-east, both forecast in different places, or was it going to veer south and even south-west for a bit? All this meant we could never settle down and enjoy the sailing because we were constantly having to change the sail plan. All made worse by the knowledge that we had to keep the speed up as we needed to cover the 65 nm passage by sunset! Well we just made it but Skipper and I agreed that this sort of hurried passage-making is more of an endurance test than we would like.

But now we are here in Rock Sound on the island of Eleuthera.

It has the Ocean Hole,

And nine churches (see the Anglican one above), of which we spotted three in our short walk round the town. Not sure where the congregations come from though, as the town here barely looks large enough to support one church, let alone nine.

From here we will aim to get up to the Abacos by the end of the coming week, wind and weather permitting. It's a long way and will involve at least one night on passage. But at least we will then be in position for the long 500 nm ‘hop’ up to the north-east US coast.

No loaves but two fishes!

Conception, not in the usual sense but here the name of a beautiful, remote, completely deserted and unspoiled Bahamian island, inhabited only by Tropic birds (the elegant white ones with extremely long tail feathers), iguanas and other wild life. Got to be one of our top three places in which to drop the hook. Also the location for sighting our third green flash (see earlier post), which we have been unsuccessfully looking out for these past weeks. Spent yesterday there - beach walk, swimming in vodka-clear water, snorkelling and generally relaxing in a wonderful place. Follyfin was in her element.

From the beach

From seaward

Talking of tropics, we have now officially exited them, having crossed the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees North) at approximately 22:30 on Sunday night. But that’s an aside… as I compose this post on Tuesday 9 May, we are on the move again on our way to Georgetown on Great Exuma island, sad to leave Conception but mindful that the hurricane season is fast approaching, the official start of which is 1st June. For insurance purposes, we need to be at 35 degrees North by that date and we are currently at 23.6 degrees North, so still several hundred miles to sail. And my oh my, are these Bahamas BIG or what? Never realised quite how big until we got here!

Well we made it to Mayaguana all right, the nearest Bahamian Islands to Providenciales from where we set sail last Monday, 1 May... and it is one of the most isolated islands too, in the group variously named ‘The Far Bahamas’, ‘Far Horizons’ or ‘The Out Islands’. When we dropped anchor well inside the reef-protected Abraham’s Bay, Follyfin was quite alone

...except for a sad-looking monohull wreck stranded on the reef, that obviously miscalculated its exit passage. No photo of that I’m afraid as too busy concentrating on not meeting the same fate! There is very little on this part of the island, only a few inhabitants, a church, very basic shop housed in a half-finished house, as well as, importantly for us, a Customs and Immigration office and bizarrely, a mobile telephone shop just opposite. Regarding mobile communications, it took two dinghy trips ashore to get mobile internet sorted but this has since gone AWOL - the story of my life.

This island is a favourite amongst sport fishermen, according to a Dutchman we met on the beach. He comes every year with a group of friends, choosing it because of its remoteness, lack of commercialisation and the very friendly local population. They spend their days wading in the shallows trying to hook the elusive bonefish, apparently very shy, large and difficult to catch. Once caught and data recorded, the fish are put back as they do not make good eating. “What's the point?” I thought but didn't voice. Our main excitement came with a knock on the hull after dark at about 21:00, just as we were preparing for bed (early nights on board Follyfin). “Can we come aboard Sir?”. It was a contingent from the Royal Bahamian Defence Force, out from Nassau and checking on all anchored vessels in the islands. Two very polite and proper individuals came into the saloon and filled in yet more forms detailing that we were not carrying firearms or pets plus other information. As they departed half and hour later I noticed that both were armed. Not called a defence force for nothing…

Leaving Mayaguana early the next morning we had another overnight passage to Long Island where we anchored in Clarence Town on the east coast. Now with the word ‘town’ in the name would you expect some shops, or at least one shop, where you could buy at least a loaf of bread? I would, but sadly nothing...except two very well built churches (see below) and the new and very posh Flying Fish marina containing the Lighthouse Point restaurant. Apparently, the nearest provisioning shops are an 8-mile drive away for which we could call a taxi or hire a car. Needless to say, we didn't do either but clearly the several visiting American large motor launches, all kitted out for deep sea fishing, didn't need provisions. Despite heavy rain, we walked to inspect said churches instead, both of which were locked tight.

Outlook from Flying Fish marina...wet wet wet!

Anglican, with RC church in background

Roman Catholic

Interesting story behind them though. Both were designed and built with manual labour early in the 20th century by an extraordinary Englishman named Father Jerome (previously named John Hawes). He started out studying architecture but switched to theology and was ordained in the Church of England. In 1908 he arrived in the Bahamas where he devoted himself to travelling the islands and repairing storm-torn wooden churches, reconstructing them in stone. He converted to Catholicism and spent 25 years in Australia, then returned to the Bahamas in 1939 to retire. He built not only a hermitage for himself but also nine churches including the two on Long Island pictured above. All these have withstood more than one hurricane and are still in use today. Remarkable.

Consolation for the rain was a magnificent sunset.

We were wet and needed wifi so consoled ourselves with fresh seared tuna (oh such a hardship) at Lighthouse Point and a couple of hours ‘interneting’ as we call it. Not having had any success with provisioning during the past 7 days, which we had been forewarned about, the cook was forced to fall back on K rations. Pitta breads, Jacobs cream crackers, corned beef, baked beans and Smash have all featured… Moral: never travel without your corned beef and Smash. Vital for keeping the Skipper and crew happy.

However, the good news today is that we caught not one but two huge mahi mahi fish whilst en route. The first was put back since we knew we could not manage to do it justice without wasting a great deal of the magnificent beast. The second was even bigger

and although we wanted to put him back, he had the hook so deeply caught it could not be freed. So Skipper did the business, filleting and cleaning on deck as best he could. The meat went straight in the fridge and am happy to say, now we are securely anchored off Georgetown, that a call out on the VHF brought two ‘customers’ from neighbouring boats to help devour the wonderful fruit of the deep. Our supper was mahi mahi fillets fried in butter, with Jacobs cream crackers and Follyfin coleslaw (cabbage keeps so so well!). One grapefruit, four onions and a third of a cabbage represent the sum total of remaining fresh food on board. Thank goodness we are going shopping tomorrow!