Cambridge Cay and Pipe Creek

Hello again,

So we moved from the Exumas Land & Sea Park to Cambridge Cay for 2 days. After a lively sail down the Exuma banks, with no motoring for most of it too, we arrived at Cambridge Cay. It is a lovely spot with great views of private islands all around. We had decided since we are not in a rush to spend an extra night and just enjoy the place. The first day was spent on dinghy engine diagnosis, unfortunately our bigger dinghy engine decide to play us up. After a few attempts on my own at carb cleaning and testing it was obvious something else was wrong. I noticed the fuel bulb wouldn’t harden and that was the give away. Too much fuel was getting into the engine. The obvious culprit was the fuel float valve, but after several attempts it was definitely not that. After dis-assembly of the fuel pump we found the problem, the fuel pump diaphragm was cracked letting fuel past it and into the engine directly. Now we need a new part, so it was ordered for delivery to George town a few days away. Happily we carry 2 outboards so we can still do trips ashore with the little one, just more slowly.

The next day was spent discovering the islands and walking a few trails and beaches. Our buddy boats have introduced us to beach combing and told us about Hamburger Beans and Heart Beans. They are seeds blown over the Atlantic from Africa and are collected by cruisers here in the Bahamas as they are rare and polish nicely for souvenirs and sometimes fashion accessories. We also picked up lots of sea shells and pieces of the reef life that washes up. In the afternoon we dived the Sea Aquarium and an Airplane wreck around the sound. The Sea Aquarium was fantastic with lots of variety of fish. There were dozens and too many to mention but the spectacular Angel Fish and Parrot fish made the best shows of color (colour for the brits). The plane wreck was a small Cessna which was upside down and starting it’s own reef. The most exciting part was when a large spotted ray swam past us as we dove the site. It was huge and very majestic gliding past. It was dark grey with lots of leopard like spots.

 

The one comment is warranted about the amount of debris we find on some of these beautiful beaches. It is really a testament to how long plastic lasts, it is washed up here on the Atlantic sides of the outer islands and stays for years. It is very sad and disappointing to see so much. However it is still very beautiful overall.

Then Monday we moved to Pipe Creek and the little group of islands around it. It was a short hop with just about half with the headsail only up. We got the dinghy out after lunch and started with some trails and beach combing. We found our first Heart Beans but no Hamburger Beans. After that we walked the sand banks of the creek as it was low tide. We found star fish, helmet conch, milk conch, octopus and my Mum’s favorite the sand dollar.

 

Then today we moved to Big Majors where there are wild pigs ashore and around the south end of the island is Thunderball Grotto which was the set for a James Bond movie... no prises for guessing which one.

Well that’s about it, hope everyone is well.

Devin & Liz