We had a great time during the Super Bowl party at Silver Tails restaurant with
a group of 21 cruisers and lots of locals coming and going. Rafael came out to
pick us all up in his 25' (estimated) center console fishing boat for the 3 mile
trip to the ferry dock. At first he found it was a little too full so he dropped
a few off and made 3 trips instead of two. The ride was pretty fast for us
sailors and way close to the rocks on the iron shore, but since Rafael has lived
here all his life you just trust him to know what he's doing. Erica did a great
job with traditional Bahamian fare of fried conch, chicken and lobster tail. We
got to meet the captain and crew of the local ferry boat 'Captain C' that comes
every 2 weeks or so. It was a great evening and other than the result, which
most wanted to go the other way to the Broncos, everyone had a really great
time.
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| Waiting for Kick Off |
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| Ferry Boat "Captain C"- Captain & Crew |
After the game we had a ride back to the ferry dock and got a tour
of the 'Captain C'. The ride back in the center console boat in the dark was a
bit more hair raising than earlier but was again expertly done.
Well
what do you do when you are waiting for weather? We did another lobster hunt and
walked a lot more of the beaches during the days and had pot lucks and
sundowners on the beach with the other crews. We got introduced to a new past
time called 'wallowing' as well, which is where you sit or lie in shallow water
and drink to keep cool. We tried it but it gets pretty hot sitting in the sun
even after midday and we don't need to get sunburn so it might be better later
in the day so we will keep that in mind. We also had a birthday party for Klaus to mark his 75th year and he got to wear the signature birthday hat - glad mine isn't while we are here ;-)
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| Birthday Boy - Klaus & Karin of s/v Lucky touch |
We also gathered a few coconuts on our
walk and researched interesting things to do with them we harvested a few green
coconuts for the juice which goes well with gin. We learnt this on a trip to
Andros several years ago with Mark & Angelique when he flew us out in a
Cessna to a resort there. We also harvested brown coconuts for the meat which
was thicker and meatier. Liz made coconut cookies and some granola with shavings
of coconut. We also found a nice receipt for lobster in a coconut sauce so since
we had plenty of both we did that too, very delicious!
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| Cutting into a coconut takes practice! |
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| Green coconuts for good juice |
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| Meaty brown coconuts |
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| Getting the copra out (meat) |
Well our window
for weather keeps alluding us so we decide to take the next SE trade wind shift
and try to make it to the Acklins. This will give us a much better angle for
going south on the next leg. So February 8th the wind was forecast to shift to
070 and we got ready to leave. We were sorry to miss the school fund raiser in
Duncan town but it was still well attended by all the other boats. We crossed
mostly at night and with a 0.7 knot cross current we were set quite a few
degrees off our rhumb line by morning. This meant we had and extra 25 miles to
make back on a tack. Well just as we got 3 miles from the position for tacking
the wind died! So we motored the last 25 miles directly to Long Cay in the
Crooked and Acklins.
The calm sea gave us a fantastic opportunity though
to see some whales as 4 broke the surface behind Moosetracks about 1/2 nm away.
One even leapt totally out of the water and flopped back in on its back! Sorry
it was all too fast for pictures. Well we were pretty excited about the whales
and just chilling in the cockpit remembering the ones in Maine when our fishing
line started to scream! We had it easy as we were motoring so dropped into
neutral and fought to fish. It was a large Mahi and beautifully colored. We got
it right up to the side of Moosetracks then as so often happens it went for a
last effort thrash, only it decided to go behind the rudder. Well that's the
worst place as we have a steel strap between the keel and rudder which it
appears cuts fishing line really nicely. So we were distraught and now just
dreaming about what we could have had for dinner :-(
The entrance to the
bight of the Acklins was straight forward and we anchored off Albert town about
a mile from shore. The bight is very shallow with 8-10' mostly in the middle and
much shallower around he edges. The redeeming part of this is it makes it ideal
for wading birds. The area is therefore blessed with lots of pink flamingoes and
we were fortunate to have them about 3/4 mile away while we anchored here. The
next morning we took the dinghy to the local ferry dock. Now we had misunderstood the term ferry as everywhere else they are 100' plus, here they are
just ~20' and therefore can make the 2' deep channel to the dock. We found the
plastic pipe poles used to mark the channel and tied safely to the dock by the
ferry. By the way it only runs twice a week to Acklin Island about 20 miles away
as the population there is much larger and there is a airstrip there.
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| Dinghy dock at Albert town |
Albert town was a fair walk up the track from the dock but since there
is nothing else to do off we went. There is a small fresh water well on the way
which you can use but it looked like we will pass on it. The track crosses the
salt ponds just before Albert town and usually lots of flamingoes are here as
well although this day there were none. We walked up to the beach on the far
side of the island and found a phone booth with an amazing view and a shelter to
sit under when it rained briefly.
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| The long walk to town |
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| What a great location to call from! |
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| The view from the shore - WOW |
We wanted to see the local church which apparently is the largest outside of the Nassau. We saw they are trying to rebuild a 1/3 of the church for services and it had a new roof on the near side as well as new stucco and shutters.
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| The church - good side visible |
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| Notice the left side is separated from the main church |
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| The bell to call service |
There are also lots of ruins on the
track as well as around town all built in a time when Long Cay was very
prosperous and was a trading and supply port for steam ships between the
Caribbean and USA. The population here then rose to 3,000 and they had roads,
carriages and a small railway for coal supply. Unfortunately with the passing of
the steam era the port was no longer needed and the town started a steep decline
from which it never recovered. There are less than 30 people now in Albert town
and we think we met about a third of them. The most modern building is the
Batelco office and cellular tower which serves locals and passing ships of which
there are quite a lot. We met 3 engineers who were upgrading the cell tower to
3G but sadly it was not done yet and their 3 day trip was already running at 2
weeks so it's an extreme case of island time! Still they had lots to chat about
and introduced us to the guy who runs the power plant here and he in turn told
us where we 'might' be able to get a cold beer. We walked to Don 's house on the
south side of the cross roads and knocked on his door. Luckily he was in and
answered the door with a huge smile.. Unfortunately though he said he had sold
out of beer the day before and there won't be any more for a week! He offered us
a coke each and insisted we took them and they were free! We chatted a while and
he told us he is rebuilding the store which is by the beach bandstand and it
should be open later this year. So we had a nice cold drink for the walk back to
the dock.
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| Lots of goats and chicken in the house yards |
Once in the dinghy we decided to see if we could get a closer
look at the flamingoes on the way back to the boat. So we motored over to the
flock and cut the engine about 1/4 mile away and used a stick to push ourselves
in further much quieter. We were rewarded by increasingly better shots of them
until obviously they thought we were too close and they flew off a little ways.
Not wanting to disturb them any more we took the pictures in the big and left
the flamingoes to feed. By the way the very small sand shrimp here is what they
feed on and the pick color of the shrimp is what turns their feathers
pink!
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| Flamingoes feeding |
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| We might be a little too close now? |
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| They do look great in flight too |
Well the weather again dictates a lot of when we stay or go and the
following day was forecast to be great to go south to Great Inagua. Sadly it
meant we missed a visit with the boat that just arrived called 'Side by Side'
who are friends of Mark and Cathy on Carina. But a great window is a great
window! We left with light easterlies and had a great beam reach down past the
tip of Acklin island and around the lighthouse. Then he angle closed 20 degrees
but the apparent wind increased and we took off for Great Inagua. we had a great
trip and the wind stayed favorable the whole way with speeds increasing to 8
knots as we neared the end for a great average of over 6 knots for 109 miles. We
did arrive in the dark as we planned a slightly longer passage but it was a
really easy place to anchor. It is very rolly here though with a constant swell
in the anchorage.
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| Acklins Lighthouse |
Well we went ashore to visit town and see customs and
immigration. The town has a lot more than most of the islands we have been to
lately and we found a great bakery (Anyee Bread), liquor store and 3 general
stores and managed to pick up some vegetables and fruit. We found the locals
very friendly and got rides from them around town which really helped. We
visited the museum and met the local park guide Henry who offers a tour for $50 but since we already saw flamingoes, we are thinking about it. We met a European couple Barbara from Germany and
Javier from Spain who had braved the harbor entrance and moored at the dock for
the princely sum of $5/night. Although it's a case of you get what you laid for
with a very rough dock, surrounded flies from the fishing boats that are
typically catered for here. The fisher men were really nice however and very
chatty, they even helped Barbara and Javier move their boat and tie alongside
when the ferry came in. All the walking around town though met with no
satisfaction for finding lunch, we saw a few bars but asked Henry what he
recommended Cosy Corner and after a few attempts to find it we found it 'on island time' and
no one was there to serve! So we returned to the dock and said goodbye to
Barbara and Javier while we shared their experiences of the DR and we shred ours
of the Exumas.
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| Matthew town harbor |
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| Tying the dinghy to a fishing boat to get on the dock |
Hopefully the wind will be back tomorrow and we can make
it south through the windward passage and on to the Dominican Republic (DR).
We hope everyone is safely warm and dry in the USA and UK, it does
appear to have been a hard winter.
