Rolle Cay is quite small and it offers a window view to the southern section of Sand Dollar Beach. Remains of abandoned “resort” perched on either side of the opening

Elizabeth Harbour is huge and contains many anchoring locations, most of them named, such as Monument, Sand Dollar, Honeymoon Beach, Kidd Cove, Red Shanks. Dolphins often come through, as do sharks. Rays hang out in the shallows off Volleyball Beach but it’s the turtles we really love to watch. You might spot them anywhere, but where the water isn’t so deep is your best bet, and for us that spot is behind Rolle Cay (renamed by us to Sisters Beach as s/v Little Sister and m/v Twin Sisters can be found there quite often)

For a day or two I stood on deck (well, not ALL day), camera in hand determined to digitally capture a few acceptable photos. The sun had to be right, the water not too wavy and my slow shutter camera needed to behave. That is, I needed to press the button at precisely the right second. My camera has lots of settings but as you might guess I only use a few. One setting automatically adjusts for the scene and lighting (that’s the gold symbol) the green symbol next to the gold will do a burst of 3 to 5 shots but the quality may not be as good as with the gold setting. For the turtles I mostly used the burst setting.

Turtles are not sociable and the four or five that often swam around hardly ever came close to another one. The water depth ranged from 4ft to 6ft and if not too windy, you could easily see them as they swam, nibbled turtle grass 🙂 or napped.  Every so often- oh maybe every 4mins- you’d have a photo-op when one would surface to breathe. Typically they’d take 2 to 3 breaths, then swim back down, so I had 15-20 seconds to press that button a few times.

I watched, I waited, I had that camera ready if one was close enough. The zoom is very good and I knew I’d be successful with enough patience.  Russ even snapped a picture of me at the bow but do you really want to see my backside? Nah. But hopefully you will appreciate my efforts at turtle photography. 🙂

Backside view- they don’t always cooperate you know

Love seeing how they pose so classic turtle-like !

Even better! And when they need to move, they go fast. The smaller turtles are the most skittish and quick!

One of 5-6 turtles that hang out by Rolle Cay.  One of the best of, oh, 50 shots

P.S- just as I was working on this post (anchored in what is called the Litter Box) Russ calls out that a turtle was at the stern. Grabbed the camera, found it would not turn on- went dead somehow 😦 and I missed a fabulous shot of one coming up to breathe inches from the steps. Oh well, nice to see one today.

Here’s a few more I forgot to add in:

Rolle Cay- low wind day and he came close. Color and tint altered for the effect

More tint and color adjustment- for your viewing pleasure

TTFN!

Pipe Cay Sunset

Why oh why do we do this fast paced race down the Exuma chain of lovely cays, islets and islands? Method to that madness. One reason is that usually in January and early February the low pressure cold fronts descend upon us at least once a week bringing a day or two of relatively calm conditions, then BAM the wind shifts quickly from SW to N, often at night and upwards of 20kts. If the wind direction out of the SW to W was guaranteed to be very low, you’d just anchor to be protected from the strong North-ish winds and all fine and good. But that’s not how it goes and anchorages with good holding and protection from SW to NE are far and few between in the Exumas; or anywhere in the Bahamas for that matter.

However; if we can make the trip from the Abacos and get south to Elizabeth Harbour, aka George Town, and avoid a clocking cold front, then we have the perfect hidey hole behind Crab Cay, aka Red Shanks.

Here’s how we made the 225 nautical mile trip from Marsh Harbour to Elizabeth Harbour. Lots of prep of course and ideally provision. Russ has started a new technique to defrost our small fridge, using the hair dryer and moving a few things out-of-the-way, covering the food with a pre-chilled towel. Gets the job done faster and the fridge rebounds back to normal temp better.

So then we are ready to stock up, but wait… we are leaving sooner than expected..waaaa no grocery store for us. Oh well.

Performing a quick fridge defrost

Day One trek: 75nm from the MH Marina to the anchorage at Royal Island, Eleuthera. In just under 7 hours we moved along reasonably comfortably in 4 foot swells about 9 seconds apart (in the ocean). Low winds as forecast. We were happy, but the sailboats probably not so much.

Day Two: decision time: One option was to spend a couple of nights in Spanish Wells but doing so would have greatly delayed our George Town arrival, so we braved a sloppy and bouncy trek from Royal Island to Highourne Cay, Exumas. A windy, squally Sunday was forecast so we took a slip for two nights after fueling and catching up with Stevie who remembers us- mostly because he has an uncle who lives in CT.

The marina was empty; a few yachts and sport fish came and went. Saturday night we went up to Xuma for dinner. Only one other couple there. Then we discover that tonight is the big surprise birthday party for the resort’s manager- but so far in advance that he was really and truly surprised. Since so few customers were expected for dinner, the surprise was held tonight and boy they had fun. We were encouraged to join in and the extra wine and beer we received at no charge was a nice touch.

So, what do ya think? Hitch a ride? Nah, too small.

We toured around on loaner bikes the next day, stopping at a few beaches and admiring the spruced up herb garden.

In the shallows past the marina docks

Cutting edge and brand new, but hey it’s HOME

Black Point (roughly 55 miles north of George Town) is a mandatory stop and you may know exactly why: Ida’s Rockside Laundry, and a haircut for Russ, spiral filled coconut bread by Lorraine’s Mom and lunch at Lorraine’s Café.

Around the corner is Little Bay where you can walk across to the ocean-facing beach. We’d planned to move there in the big boat but the wind direction would have made for a rolly night, so we went back and forth by dinghy.  I was surprised at the scant quantity of shells and the only reason we picked up any sea glass was that at low tide you can reach in to the low tide sand shelf and grab what the waves bring in.

Ray and friend

Black Point Sunset

The trip from Black Point to George Town involves going out a cut into Exuma Sound (which is a Sound and not 100% Atlantic Ocean thanks to Eleuthera which lies east of the Exumas but only part way) and back in Conch Cay Cut at Elizabeth Harbour. Conditions would be OK, but not great. Fishing line in but my hopes alternated between hoping to hook one and hoping not. We were not alone out there by any means nor were we alone in ending up “fish-less.” The window would close tomorrow for boats wishing to get to George Town in reasonably comfortable and safe conditions.

We snagged a spot close to shore right off the Monument, near Cort’s Place. Their center console, aka a walk-around, was gone. Minutes after Russ says, “They can’t miss us”, the boat zooms by- blind to our existence!  Three men all too focused on the “project-of-the-day discussion.  Well, I resorted to shouting over to them and they came by to greet us and tell about the project. Cort’s friend and freshmen year roomie (so they go way back!) Gif, comes to visit for at least a week early in “the season” to exercise his carpentry skills and bask in the warmth that presently doesn’t exist in western upstate New York.

Next morning we took the big boat across the harbor to Kidd Cove, raided Exuma Market and happily noted several store improvements. Then headed to hide out in Red Shanks for several days (ok, it was a week) of big winds. So what else is new? That’s how it goes here in winter.

 Nature applies the red crayon to a scene that 15 mins earlier was only yellow.