One of our guide books shares this sentiment on the Exumas: “possibly the best cruising grounds in the western hemisphere.” Oh baby, we are ready to embrace that and enjoy an even better taste of The Bahamas. And by golly those sails will get a work out even if we have to putz along at 3kts!  Sailing along at 4-5kts has the benefit of enabling a fishing line to trail off the stern; which we did with no beginners luck.

Setting up a line off the stern

Our first Exumas anchorage is the first stop for many entering the Exumas; Allen’s Cay. The Cay triumvirate is composed of Allen’s, Leaf and SW Allen’s Cay. The big attraction is the iguanas that live on Leaf and SW Allen’s Cay. According to the sign they are rock iguanas found nowhere else in the world – see, getting better already!

Rock iguana on Leaf Cay

To balance the better aspects, there is of course the not better. Anchoring in a place with moderate to strong current has moved up to the top three things we prefer to avoid in The Bahamas. Couple that with a boat who anchors too close and voila! Bumper boats- well nearly. Take a moderately hard sandy bottom, a tide that changes every 6 hours and an anchor with chain… what do you get? Chain wrapped around the anchor ready to rip out with the next switch around. Russ dove in to unwrap it- remember we can see in the crystal clear water and then swam over to Me Gusta to warn them that things would get interesting at the evening tide change, hoping they’d get the hint and move. At one point our boats were 15 ft apart. We never hit but around 6am I heard a voice and a light; they must have dragged and were attempting to re-anchor. Four tries and although they ended up a bit ahead of us, they were closer in and worse yet close to our anchor.

Russ offers advice

Sunday we headed out by 9 a.m. and for once Russ took the wheel while I directed the anchor raising. My part wasn’t difficult as the anchor comes up clean with no rinsing needed and just in case we ended up too close to Me Gusta Lagoon Cat I wanted Russ at the helm.

Wednesday bloomed chilly and since that was the worst of it, we were very happy. A mile walk toward cruise ship territory took us to the Batelco store where a Bahamian sim card was purchased for Russ’s Nokia phone; no can do with an iPhone. Benj picked up a few gifts and as a result of Russ making another personal visit to the marina, timing being everything in this case, we got the much prayed for slip.

Cruise ship area in Nassau

Potter’s Cay is a T-shaped piece of filled land (likely a wharf in years past?) that sticks out a short ways into the harbor. Several produce vendors offer a local buying alternative to the grocery but it’s the food shanties lining the street that brought us as well as locals to Potter’s Cay. Finally local food, as in conch, conch and more conch. Twin Brothers with its small picnic table filled deck overlooking the water was Benj’s choice.  Russ’s conch salad was made fresh on the deck by a young man who clearly could do it in his sleep. Oodles of lime and sour orange juices are squeezed over the diced conch to “cook” it ceviche style.

Food shanty Potter's Cay

Potter's Cay Produce Stands

We ate dinner out too- am I in heaven or what? A very short walk took us to The Poop Deck with its yummy Bahamian style menu choices, reasonable drink prices and friendly service. I was smitten when the waitress said “no problem, darlin’ ”.

In between meals we packed in a full day’s worth of chores. More provisioning, laundry, phone calls, showers, on-line flight check-in for Benj and last-minute emails, even a visit from the local customs surveillance officer checking to be sure we’d cleared in properly. Anyone can raise the flag and not cough up that $300, so I guess random checking at marinas is smart and easy.

Thursday we bid farewell to Benj at Nassau Int’l Airport, arriving at 5:30 a.m. for a 7 o’clock flight that was SOMEHOW 30 mins delayed already when we arrived. How could two weeks end so quickly? The next time we’d see our son would be June 1 after his study abroad in Italy (sud-Tirol/Alps).  Dare I mention that spring break would find him and a few friends in Barcelona?  We admit to a healthy dose of envy.

Again, we hustled our butts off and accomplished a full day’s worth of chores between 6:30 a.m. and 2pm when we had to slip the slip; even then as we fueled up on the outer dock, I continued to finalized the last blog update I’d be doing for days. Wi-fi is never free in The Bahamas; $10 for 24 hrs is typical. Garbage disposal is free when you stay at a marina, but otherwise you pay $3-$5/bag. You can bet we use large garbage bags and as is the custom dump food scraps into the water when we’re traveling between destinations. As much packaging gets discarded when disposal is free; cereal boxes, pasta boxes, etc all go and contents placed in Ziploc bags or Lock ‘n Lock containers.