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Safely attached to a mooring ball in St. Augustine after a 12 hour overnight passage. Winds were light and the seas calm making it a pretty easy passage. St Augustine Inlet treated us well in spite of the swift current. Glad to be here and plan on staying a week before moving on.  

This is the sunrise that we’re being blessed with this morning after leaving Cumberland Island, GA about 10:00 pm last night. We had a mellow night and should be into St. Augustine before noon. 

 Team Noodin is on the water again but before I share about that I need to apologize for leaving you hanging at the end of our last sailing season. I still hope to share a couple of stories but for now it’s best to move forward. We put Noodin to bed in St Marys, GA in June and set off in our new 2007 Toyota Corolla for a Rendezvous with our new 2000 36’ motorhome. This is a sailing blog so I won’t go into details of our summer but we spent it tooling around the northwest visiting family and friends. Many thanks to everyone who put up with us and helped us along the way. We got back to Noodin the last week of October and found her in good shape after her brush with hurricane Irma. We spent the better part of three weeks making repairs , washing, waxing, and provisioning for an extended trip to the Bahamas. While at the boatyard we met new friends and enjoyed spending time with our friends from last season. We’re currently at anchor at Cumberland Island, Georgia planning an overnight passage tomorrow night to St Augustine, Florida. More on that later. In a the meantime we have pictures. 

We needed to head north after the Family Island Regatta to get back to the USA before hurricane season. We waited a couple of days for favorable weather and then we were out onto Exuma Sound bound for Black Point. We were threatened with squalls for a lot of the trip but we never did get hit. 

We had stopped at Black Point on our way south so we knew what to expect. Namely, a small settlement with wonderful people. This time around there were fewer cruising boats in the harbour. Maybe 10 instead of the 50 that we shared space with during the southbound migration. We didn’t have much on our agenda other than to locate “the bread lady” for some coconut bread and to track down some woven baskets. 

The “Bread Lady” happened to be Lorraine’s mom who lives in the house behind Lorraine’s cafe. We knocked on the door and were greeted by Lorraine’s mom (“everybody calls me Lorraine’s mom”) who was in the midst of baking bread. We had a nice chat and left with a warm loaf of delicious coconut bread. She only sells bread from her house and doesn’t advertise.  

When we were in Black Point earlier we saw local women sitting outside weaving with palm fronds. We wanted to find one of those women who had baskets to sell. We came across Elouise sitting in front of her house. She wanted to chat and shared stories of her fishing the harbour in her younger years. She also sold us a couple of nice small baskets. 

From Black Point it was onto Warderick Wells to hang out and find some protection from a couple of days of squally weather. There was wonderful wind on the banks so we had a great sail the entire way. At Warderick Wells we did just enough hiking to get this picture of Noodin in the mooring field from the top of Boo Boo Hill. 

When you hike Warderick Wells you come across thousands (gross understatement) of what look like rat turds. They belong to hutias, the only mammal native to Warderick Wells. They’re nocturnal so during the day you just see the turds, everywhere. We were at a cruisers happy hour on the beach and the little rascals started popping out of the brush as soon as it got dark. Kinda creepy. Like the Iguanas at Bitter Guana Cay, these hutias came out in droves. 

From Warderick Wells it was onto Hawksbill Cay. This would be new ground for us as we had sailed from Eleuthera directly to Warderick Wells on our southbound journey. Hawksbill is still within the Exuma Land and Sea Park and is absolutely beautiful. Like most of the cays in the Exumas, the west side is on the Great Bahama Bank and the east side is on Exuma Sound which is basically the Atlantic Ocean. Both sides of Hawksbill have beautiful beaches. We stayed two nights and shared the anchorage with a couple of other boats each night. The trails across to the ocean side beaches were a little sketchy with poison wood trees lining the way as you walked across the sharp marl. 

It was well worth the trouble though as the ocean views and beaches were awesome. We went to the ocean side both days we were there and never had to share the beach. It couldn’t get much better. 

We left Hawksbill Cay and moved onto Ship Channel Cay to stage for our crossing to Spanish Wells, Eleuthera. Ship Channel Cay is the last big rock in the Exumas and was an overnight pit stop to get ready for our trip to Eleuthera. Goodbye Exumas, we already miss you!

We ended up spending about two months in George Town and other than visits from family, the Family Island Regatta was definitely the highlight. It’s also one of the highlights of the year for the people of the Bahamas. Many of the Out Islands hold regattas but this is the national regatta for the big bragging rights. The sloops must be constructed of traditional materials and must be owned and skippered by Bahamians. The boats are shipped in (literally) and unloaded at the government dock.  There isn’t a limit on the number of crew or the size of the sail. It’s all up to the skipper depending on the race day wind. Another very different thing is the start. The boats all anchor with their bow at the start line waiting for the start signal. When the gun fires, the crew simultaneously hauls up the anchor and raises sail. 

We enjoyed three days of racing, food and drink, and hanging out with the locals. These guys speak a flavor of English all their own but when they get excited about their racing it’s taken to a whole new level. The racing took place in Elizabeth Harbour amongst all the cruising boats. The pictures were taken with my point and shoot camera so the quality is sketchy but you’ll get the idea. 

Three days after Mat left for frosty North Dakota, our son Brian and his girlfriend Jess arrived from Idaho for a visit. When Mat visited Noodin he got to have a taxi ride from the airport to the dinghy dock at Exuma Market and then a ride in the dinghy out to Noodin which was anchored nearby. Brian and Jess got to experience a little more local flavor and got to have the taxi ride but also had to take the water taxi to our anchorage across the harbor. 

The reason for the water taxi was that it was too windy to anchor nearby to pick them up. This also meant that it was too windy to do many of the things that they hoped to do. Fortunately it wasn’t too windy to get to shore for a some beach walks and catching a few (too many) rays. 

We snorkled several different places after the wind abated. The best were the cuts between the harbor and the sound where the water clarity was better and the coral was healthier. Snorkeling the cuts did provide a little adventure with the waves breaking over us but it was a great time. 

We had a nice but rolly sail around Stocking Island and had a nice fish on for a bit as we were coming back through the cut. Note to self: tacking with a fish on gives him slack enough to avoid the dinner table. 

The day of Brian and Jess’s departure we had an incredible dolphin encounter. Phebe spotted a couple of dolphin swimming near the boat and they stayed around long enough that we encouraged Brian and Jess to dive in and swim with them. They did and swam with them for 20 minutes or so before coming back to the boat. The dolphins weren’t ready to leave yet so we all had more chances to swim with them. All in all, we were probably in the water with them for an hour but they stayed near the boat for about 3 hours. Incredible!

We had known since January when we were in the Abacos that our son Mathew would be joining us in George Town on March 10th and our travel plans included getting to G-Town a week early to make sure that we didn’t miss Mat’s arrival because we were holed up waiting out crappy weather. It was a good plan well executed because we were here a week early and the day after we got here we got 3 days of howling winds that confined us to the boat. After that, we had another couple of days with winds strong enough that we wouldn’t have traveled. 

The highlight of Mat’s stay was a trip to Long Island. It’s about a 35 mile sail from George Town to Salt Pond, Long Island and we had an awesome sail. The wind was primarily out of the SW which meant that we had smaller seas because we had protection from land in that direction. The sail got off to a great start as Phebe landed our first fish on our hand line. We’re pretty sure it was a “horse eye jack”. Phebe filleted it on the side deck immediately and it was on our plates that evening. 

We got to Long Island just in time to enjoy some more strong winds but once again we were able to find shelter in a cozy bay (Thompson Bay). Our first day in Thompson Bay treated us to the wettest dinghy ride ever and our first experience with hitchhiking in the Bahamas. The hitchhiking was definitely more fun than the dinghy ride. The next day found us renting a car for a bit of land exploration. Mat and I shared the two days of driving with the passengers reminding the driver to stay on the left side of the road. The sign on the windshield was also a good reminder. 

We really put that little Toyota through the ringer. The Queen’s Highway was alright but once you left it you might as well have been on an abandoned Montana logging road. Sights included the Christopher Columbus monument at Cape Santa Maria, Dean’s Blue Hole, and Clarence Town. 

 

The trip back to G-Town provided hit and miss sailing but there were a couple more fish brought to the boat. The first was a barracuda that Mat brought to the boat before it’s sharp teeth severed the line. The second was another jack that Phebe caught just before entering Elizabeth Harbour. 

Mat’s stay was rounded out with snorkeling, beach walks, making and blowing conch shell horns, and just spending time together. It was a great time.