Back To The Bahamas, Mon!

Hi All…Ben here, heading back to the Bahamas!
It's a long trip from Florida in the ocean, so I mostly sleep the whole way.

I think Jeff and Izzy were wondering whether I’d make it here again after last year’s tick disease fiasco.  After returning from the Bahamas last May, I got to meet lots of new Vets and managed to rack up a sizable medical bill spanning the entire east coast of the US from Stuart, Florida to Burlington, Vermont before ”licking” it. (dog term)

 It did help me in my training program for Jeff and Izzy though.  Now I get the expensive chicken and beef canned food, and lots of treats – not to mention more walks, and the nice netting around the sides of the boat so I can be more independent and have some privacy when I go up to the “poop deck”.  Well, except for that day when we were going across the Gulf Stream in some pretty rough seas.  I had to “go” so Izzy made me put on my geeky life vest, and Jeff escorted me.  At least he was wearing his, too.
 
Embarrassing.

But I managed to get over it in the excitement of Jeff’s first success at fishing that day!  He hauled in a big colorful Dorado.  We couldn't wipe that smile off his face for three days.  We also couldn't wipe that Mahi-blood out of the cockpit for a couple hours.

Izzy said it was too pretty to kill and didn’t want to watch, so she went back to driving the boat while Jeff and I bagged the night’s dinner.   It was not so pretty by the time we figured out how to clean and fillet it!  Jeff won't let me handle the knife anymore...   It still tasted like fish, but we need some practice on the cleaning techniques.


As we drove into the harbor in Bimini, another cruiser took our picture and sent it to us.
Ray and Cynthia on Bella Vita used to have a Defever, so the sight of the Izzy R brought back fond memories for them.

Another couple of long days at sea with a stop at Chub Cay, and we arrived in Nassau.  This is a picture of the huge fancy-pants hotel called Atlantis.  It's expensive to stay there with our boat, so we stayed across the harbor at a cheap place...you know Jeff.  He said it would give us a better view of it.

We stayed in Nassau a few days longer than we expected because of  wind and rain.  Izzy took the opportunity to see the local doctor for her cold – his office is in the back of the GNC.  He had long white hair in a ponytail and an earring in one ear, and real big eyes behind his glasses.  But he gave her some medicine and she’s a lot less grumpy now.  Jeff called him Dr. Quack.

Goose Bumps was nearby, so we had fun with our friends Barb and Mike who we've known for a couple of years,

and their new Australian friends, Jennifer and Mike, while we waited for good weather.  Jeff and Izzy took a couple of long bus rides - going the wrong way to the Straw market and the Batelco telephone company.  They said they did it on purpose to see some of the town.  Sure.

This is the huge Straw Market where you can buy all the tourist stuff you ever wanted, from straw hats and bags to dominoes and wooden fish.  I had my eye on a knit Rasta hat like Bob Marley has, with the dredlocks hanging down all around, but Jeff gave me the stink-eye, so I passed.

Near the Straw Market there are some big cruise ships parked with a bunch of white legged tourists coming from them. 

 

They all seem to head to a restaurant called Senior Frogs for big rum drinks after their shopping spree for straw hats and shell necklaces. 

That's Jeff waving from the deck.

Izzy says this is where the tourists really let their hair down.

 

  Looks like this guy let his pants down too.

The waiters have fun with the tourists as they skin the conch and make salad at their tables,

or whip up some good guacamole from the avocados,

all the while keeping the tourists' glasses filled with those sweet pink rum drinks that loosen their tongues and wallets!  At Nippers Jeff calls them the "Pink Panty Droppers", but here Izzy calls them the  "Pink Money Droppers".

Nearby, this policeman had a little house right in the middle of the intersection.  He just stood there at attention for the longest time in his crisp white uniform.  It doesn't look like he'd be very good at chasing bad guys.

There’s an open market under the bridge that goes across the harbor to the Atlantis Resort.   They have lots of interesting things for sale…like these crabs.    

Izzy bought some fruits and veggies there, including plantains to try.  After working up an appetite, they stopped for their first conch salad of the year and a cold Kalik!

Batelco is the phone company here, where Jeff spent the better part of the day trying to figure out how to get internet over the phone.  Some real nice people helped him use his new unlocked phone.  He said there’s a  “hot spot” on the boat now.  I wish I knew where it is so I can avoid it.  Sounds dangerous with my bare feet.  
   

We left Nassau with our new phones, and headed to the Exumas.   Our first stop was at Allen's Cay.  The water here is multiple shades of blue, green and purple with white, white sand beaches.  It's claim to fame are the iguanas that inhabit the island and come out to greet the tourists in hopes of a hand out of food. 

They don't like to get wet, so if you are a little nervous about them getting too close to you,  just keep all four of your feet in the water.
They're pretty ugly as compaired to a fluffy dog like me (they don't have ANY FUR!) but Izzy said that Mother Nature gave them some beauty too, with their pink throats and the pink spines on their leathery backs.

I shared some of my Purina with them and they seemed to like it.  I guess they haven't ever had  a good steak, or Frannie's pasta to compare. 

We spent the night anchored in the little bay there, and I was awakened from my morning nap the next day by a sea plane that landed near us.  It taxied right up onto the beach and let some people out to see the iguanas for a while, then took off again.   Nice way to travel!

We dinghied down the beach to meet up with Barb and Mike and Jennifer and Michael for Happy Hour on the next beach south - Highbourne Cay.


Our friends , Carol and Paul on Odysseus arrived in time to join us


before the sun went down.

The next night we had a little pot luck party on the Izzy R with Carol and Paul, and Wendy and Burry.

The Exuma Land and Sea Park was next.  Jeff and Izzy went swimming at the Sea Aquarium near Johnny Depp's private island.  They fed the fish the rice from my upcoming dinner - what's up with that?

Around the back of Warderick Wells Cay is Hog Cay...and a great sheltered bay that now has about four mooring balls for cruisers like us to use if we want to come in from the ocean side.  We rode our dinghy around there to take a look, and found a wonderful secluded anchorage that was pristine...we made the only footprints in the sand on the beach! 

Back in the day, the pirates used this place for shelter from the seas, and to hide from  other pirates.  

Now there's a picnic table for cruisers to have their happy hour...not quite the same. 

Jeff and Izzy found a hammock tied up to ta tree

so Izzy decided to try it out. 

The pirates used to come here for the shelter, but also for the fresh water in the underground spring here. all the while being out of sight of the other pirates. 

  There was a conch-lined trail leading into the island so Izzy and Jeff took it.  It lead to a clearing with a fire ring and a well with fresh water.  Unfortunately, this is all hearsay, because I was not allowed past the beach!  Silly Park rules!!

The pirates set up a camp site here and placed their grass mats on the ground for sleeping.  The seeds traveling in their mats came from all over the world and started new palm trees and plants that are different from the rest of the island.

Here's the well for fresh water...it looked kinda scary.  Besides, I'm a trawler dog, so I had my bottle of Avion on the beach. 

I thought there should be a buried treasure somewhere on the beach, but when I started to dig for it, Jeff stopped me.  Go figure. 

Have you heard about the "green flash"?  It's a  bright green light that is supposed to flash when the sun goes down on the ocean. Well, Jeff and Izzy thought it was a bunch of phooey, since they've never seen it.  Well, one night when the sunset was particularly orange and the sun sank down behind the sea, Izzy and Jeff and I were sitting on the sun deck having our happy hour boat drinks....WE SAW IT!
Izzy is still kicking herself for not taking a movie of it!  Here it is just seconds before the green glow happened.

We got back to Big Majors to visit the pigs again this year.  We recognized the same group from last year, like this little one that Sandy and Dimitry befriended last spring.

And there are some new additions this year!  About ten new baby piglets are romping on the sand now, just learning to get wet.  They still seem to rely on the leftovers from the adults or from the tourists that actually get out of their dinghies and go onto the beach with special treats for them.  By next year they'll be swimming out to the boats, too.

Jeff and Izzy went into Staniel Cay Yacht Club for a good grouper salad, and a rum drink.  Getting out of the dinghy onto these rocks is too hard for me these days.  

At an anchorage in Cambridge Cay in the Land and Sea Park,  our mooring ball tether was covered with soft lacy sea weed.  The fish and wild life are protected here, so Mother Nature can decorate in the crystal clear water with wild abandon!

This little island is referred to as "Mailbox Cay" because it has a box mounted there for boaters to deposit their $20 mooring fee if no one comes around to collect.   

In the evening one of the volunteers at the Land and Sea Park organized a happy hour on the beach there, so we all jumped in our dinghies with our snacks and drinks to meet and greet the other boaters in the mooring field.

Our next leg took us back out into the deeper water, but that gave Jeff the opportunity to try his hand at fishing again. 
 As luck would have it, he caught another bigger Dorado on our way to Emerald Bay as we cruised in the deep water along the wall of a shallow bank.  I guess that’s where the big fish hang out looking for little fish to eat for dinner. 

He was pretty pleased with himself...maybe he deserves to have a fishing pole now, instead of just pulling in the fishing line with his hands!  I'll talk to Izzy about that.

That afternoon in Emerald Bay we met up with Pollie and Mo from Motivator and parked our boat right next to them at the dock.   I thought I was seeing double for a while when I came back from my walk, because "Motivator" looks just like "Izzy R".  I wonder if they have dog treats on board.

This time Izzy tried her hand at cleaning the fish on the dock while Jeff and I washed the boat. She came back mumbling something about Hell freezing over…I don’t think she wants to clean fish anymore, but she’s good at making it taste good!  We invited Pollie and Mo over to help us eat the Mahi Mahi that night and catch up on their travels. 

Our next stop was George Town, where most of the cruisers end their travels south before turning back to the US and Canada. Some people call it "chicken harbor" because many boaters are chicken to go any further Down-Island in the more open seas  and rough passages to get to the Caribbean islands. Cruisers stay here anywhere from a week to several months.

They have organized activities among the community of boaters, including a morning VHF radio "Cruiser's Net" for exchange of information and activities  and schedules. There is volleyball every afternoon, yoga on the beach every morning, poker games one night a week, even "beach church" on Sundays. Currently my backlegs are getting too wobbley to spike the volleyball, so Jeff and his friend Randy from "Prime Time V" have been filling in for me. 
 
 For one week in March there is the Cruiser's Regatta, with fun competitions for young and old alike. I'll have to put together some pictures in another post for that!

Looks like we're heading further south, so right now I need a nap!

Love,
Ben