On To Jumentos

Sunset Rum Cay

Sitting at Flying Fish Marina in Clarence Town Long Island.  We have been here two nights waiting for a front to move through.   

We had to bail out of Rum Cay after one night due to the front.  We had dinner at "Bobbie's" house.  I will write and entire blog on that night later.  One of the most interesting characters I have ever met.

Sea Side Village Restaurant

We will be leaving here in the morning at first light to head 80 nm to Raccoon and Johnson Cay in the Jumentos.

Conch Salad

Sea Side Village

Another world class spear fisherman and the current Bahamas free diving champion Luke Maillis and his sister Oceanna were our hosts.  We ate conch salad everywhere we went.  Tonight we had Sushi with Wahoo and Conch at their house.  It is 9:51 pm and Oceanna, Ryan and Sam are hunting pigs up Island.  Great folks....very different???

Lemon Shark is Hungry

Once we arrive in the Jumentos, we will be 60 nm from Cuba.  This is almost as far south as you can get in the Bahamas.  Ryan has been reaching out to all his contacts, and the president of Headhunter Pole Spears directed us here.  It will be the perfect spot as we are looking for Hog fish, Conch and Lobster.  The island chain will protect us from the 15 kt east winds that are forecast for the next 5 days.

Jim, Ryan, Sam's Catch

There will be no cell service this far south, so my next post will not be until at least Wednesday of next week when we get back to civilization.  Hopefully we will have an epic underwater hunt.  I attached a few more pics from earlier this week.

Grouper, Lobster, Grouper

Writing from a uninhabited remote Island in the southern Bahamas

Ryan and Sam got on Top Shelf on Friday at Staniel Cay and we decided to take the 65 nautical mile run to get to the west side of this island.

Quick introduction to Ryan Myers, who is the 2017 North American Spearfishing Champion and Samantha Mase, who is the current women's World Champion.  I wrote Ryan an email back in April, and this trip ended up as a result.

We got here at 3 pm, launched the tender and when scouting.  The storm to the north of us was delivering long period 8 foot swells, which made the ride in the 13 ft tender interesting.

Sam Loves Lobster

Scouting mission complete, we got back to the boat.  Sam wanted lobster for dinner, so they jumped in the water at the boat with two flashlights and went hunting.  Sam speared the 13 lb lobster sitting on top of a rock.  See the picture for the results....more lobster than the 3 of us could eat.

Rolly night at the anchorage lead to a beautiful morning.  We sat around till about 10 am letting the sun get good and high, then started the hunt.  Ryan was not hunting, he was guiding me.  I had to get used to handling the 9 foot spear, proper loading, and how to stock a fish underwater.  I had 4 good shots and missed them all.  A little more training and just getting more comfortable in the water lead to my first spearfish.  A 6 pound Rainbow Grouper.  I was finally on the board. 

Jim & Ryan's Catch

I dove down hunting a Nassau Grouper and when I came up, Ryan pointed out the lobster I swam by.  I never saw him.  He traded me is Hawaiian Sling for my pole spear and down I went.  Having never shot a lobster, I got down face to face with him, took the shot and missed.  Ryan retrieved the spear and said he came out of a hole on the other side of the reef.  This time I followed his instruction and shot him from above.  Right through the head.  My first lobster.

My final fish of the day was a Yellow Fin Grouper.  These are typically hard to shoot (for a beginner), but I was starting to put to use some of Ryan's training.  Straight down to 26 feet.  Establish yourself on the bottom, RELAX, move slowly up of the coral that you are hiding behind.  Left hand on the structure, aim and fire.  Shot him right through the gill plate, recovered the spear before he ran into the coral and swam with my fish in hand to the surface.  Total dive time, 45 seconds, max depth of 31 feet.

Day 1's Catch

Sam went 2 for two with what we thought was a world record Yellow Fin Grouper, but when we weighed it, it was six pounds short of the record of 22 lbs.

Since we would be cleaning fish, Ryan made two dives to 60 feet and got the two Groupers you see in the above picture.

These two are great kids, world class hunters, and great cooks.  We cleaned all the fish you see in the pics, vacuumed bagged and froze them and will give most of this catch to the locals in Clarence Town when we get there Wednesday.

Dr. Bernie....here are the pics you were looking for LOL

Pigs, Grotto, Iguanas and Tourists

Writing Wednesday Morning before Thanksgiving.  Julianne took Watermaker Air Monday morning back to Ft Lauderdale Executive Airport, then Uber'd over the FTL International to get on JetBlue to Boston.  She is home with Jacqueline & AJ for Thanksgiving.  I miss having her around.

Staniel Cay on Chartplotter

Been sitting at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club dock since Saturday.  Has the Bahamas vibe with good facilities right int he middle of the Exumas.  I can see the BTC celluar tower, so I have great data connectivity.

Being out for about a month now, the excitement you get when you go on a 1 or 2 week vacation is gone.  It is just about a laid back lifestyle that the Bahama folks live every day.  Small Airplanes, Bare-boat charters, or

Staniel Cay Yacht Club

larger charter yachts with crews have been showing up all week with vacationers.  If they are from the US (probably 50%) then they are here for the Thanksgiving break.

Relaxed at Saturday Dinner

Amazing to watch how excited people are when they are on vacation.  Watching them shows me how far I've gone to the chill side.  I'm honestly not sure if that is a good thing or not.  A couple Julianne and I met from Brewster New York had an interesting comment.  We were sitting next to them at dinner.  They had come for a 4 day vacation.  "Murph" started the conversation by saying "Boy, you two look relaxed".  Later that night Julianne said "I've never had anyone say that to me before"  Cruising these island can do that to you.  More on that in a later post.

There are 3 "tourist" attractions here.  The Pigs, The Grotto, and The Iguanas.

Swimming Pigs

The pigs are on the Big Majors Spot, which is a key NNW of Staniel.  Pigs live on the beach there and will swim out to boats that come to feed them.  There are little piggys and some big scary ones.  I tried to run up on the beach to feed one of the baby pigs and a 400 pounder ran after me.  I wasn't jogging, almost a full sprint...He kept right up.  He was hungry...He is a Pig!

Thunderball Grotto is an underwater cave with some

Julianne Feeding From Tender

holes in the top that lets light in.  This is where they filmed all of the underwater scenes for the James Bond movie "Thunderball".  Cool place, but when we visited there were to many tourists to enjoy it.  Julianne and I snorkeled up to the north and found some great reefs.

The last is Bitter Guanna Cay.  Another island of Iguanas.  This one has signs "Do Not Feed".  The

Thunderball Grotto

beach was about a half mile long and very nice, secluded.  Julianne and I were on the beach and the only ones on the island.  

A high speed tourist boat from Nassau shows up.  Now there are Iguanas on the entire 1/2 mile stretch of beach.  This captain pulls in 20 feet from us.  (here's my rant....bare with me!).  15 Asians get out of the boat and start taking pictures.  I always find it odd that when Asians are in a group, they just don't ever acknowledge anyone else exists.  Very Odd...  When they are by themselves they are as friendly as anyone else.  We moved 200 yards down the beach...they followed with the cameras....we were the only ones for 5 miles...no hi or hello or wave...We got in the tender and left...(rant complete !)

Julianne in the Grotto

We checked out all of the above on Sunday.  Julianne packed Sunday night and we had our last meal with our new friends from NY.  She is the operations manager for the MLB network.  Great stories all night about major league baseball.  

Next morning, we went to the airport.  A 3000 ft airstrip with no security.  When her plane arrived, it had to be refueled.  They brought a 500 gallon tank from the marina to fuel the plane.  I'm sure it was diesel, by the tank said Jet A.  

The Yacht Club and Airline are owned by the same American.  He made his money making marine water makers....thus Watermaker Air.  I stood on the side of the taxi way as the Cessna Caravan lifted off.  I could see Julianne waiving from the window.  She was on her way back to reality...I lost my first mate!

Julianne's Cocktail Hour

Who Is the Real Pig

Pigs Can Catch Too

Christina's Pig...LOL

...Time to go spear fishing.  Ryan and Sam will be here Friday.  Then straight to Conception Island and the South Hampton Reef.  There is a cell tower on Rum Cay, 21 nautical miles away, which is our next stop, so I'll post lots of fishing pics as soon as I can.

Please, not pork tomorrow.  Happy Thanksgiving from the Bahamas.  I miss all of you!

The Solitude of Cambridge Cay

We stayed at Warderick Wells for three nights as there was the potential of a

Chart Plotter to Cambridge Cay

weather trough turning into a tropical low and I wanted to be on a secure mooring if we were going to have 40 kt winds.  With that threat passed, we move on to Cambridge Cay, which had great snorkeling reviews and gave us protection from the forecast north winds that were happening Friday.

We had to visually navigate east then north of Bell Island then approach the anchorage at Cambridge Cay from the North.  I was a little nervous as the

Sunset - Cambridge Cay

cruising guides gave some serious warnings about visual navigation and some of the coral reefs that could be hit if I didn't read the water right.

We made it to the anchorage without incident, and were the only boat there.  Remote and alone.  This is what we were hoping for.

Juliannes Hurricane Candle

We set up on a mooring ball provided by Exuma Park and proceeded to get to some snorkeling sites during the afternoon.  We went to dive sites called "Tom's Elkhorn Reef", "Rocky Dundas" for some cave divining, "Coral Gardens", "Sea Aquarium" and "Airplane Reef".  The only hike on Cambridge Cay was to Bell Rock.  

Lots of pictures below.  Julianne has now become a snorkeling enthusiast as she is identifying all of the fish that we are now seeking.

Jim at 21 feet

French Grunts

Elkhorn Coral

Testing Weightbelt

Looking for Hogfish & Grouper

Julianne's Sergeant Majors

Sergeant Majors

Elkhorn Reef - 17 feet

Nurse Shark

Airplane Reef

Squalls Approaching Top Shelf

Peace Sign at Bell Rock

Bell Rock

Driftwood Carvings and the Exuma Park

Monday November 12th…

We left mid morning for Warderick Wells in the Exuma Park.  We timed our departure for high tide and high

Dark Deep, Light Shallow

sun upon our arrival.  There are no red and green buoys in the Bahamas to mark the channels.  You have to quickly learn to read the color of the water.  When there is a sand bottom, which is most of the time, shallow water is a very light bluish green.  As the green gets darker, you are able calibrate the color to depth. What can throw you off is grass or coral on the bottom which looks like a darker green associated with 12-15 feet.  This is where you need to sun overhead to see the coral heads or grass.  When is doubt, slower than idle speed!.

Snubber Anchor Setup

We took this mooring on Monday afternoon in 25 kt winds.  For those of you who have never retrieved a mooring on a larger boat, you basically pull up to the mooring ball and there is a pennant that has a float attached.  It's usually a simple job to grab the float with a boat hook and then put a dock line through the pennant and return the line to the boats cleat. 

This time the length of the pennant was too short to bring up close enough to put the dock line through.  Julianne tried for 15 minutes with no success.  Finally a Captain from the catamaran next to us came over and gave a hand from his tender.  This made short work of getting on the mooring.  A German boat came into the mooring field the next day and I assisted with our tender as we were helped the previous day.  Great way to make a quick acquaintance for later on the beach.

At Warderick Wells, the current points the boat on anchor, not the wind.  There are some great snorkeling and diving spots in this channel, but you have to wait for slack tide to dive them.  5 pm was low tide, but Julianne was seeing Nurse sharks all around the boat, so we decided to start happy hour early that night.  The wind howled all night out of the northeast.  It was nice to know we were on a mooring that had held a boat our size in the last hurricane in 2016.

Tuesday morning we had a senior management meeting at work.  That lasted until 11:30 one hour before

Warderick Wells Wreck

high tide.  Our goal was 3 snorkeling spots in 2 hours.  The first was literally right next to our mooring.  The hull of a 40 ft vessel lay 10 yards to the east of our mooring.  We dove off the back of Top Shelf and Julianne snorkeled and I free dove the wreck.  I found out where all the nurse sharks were hanging out as well as a huge sea turtle.  On my second dive, I saw the most awesome site I have ever seen in the water.  4 giant rays swam by in a diamond formation going up the channel.  Their wing span had to be over 6 ft each.  Slow and graceful, one had to lift their wing to miss our mooring anchor chain.  The one time I didn't bring the camera….figures.  After that dive we dove the

Angle Fish at Judy's Reef

Ranger's Garden and Judy's Reef.  Judy's reef was a 20 ft wall at the entrance to the mooring field.  Very cool with lots of fish.  The snorkel was cut short as the currents started to increase.  Julianne is getting very comfortable in her snorkel gear.

Huber on the "Complaint Bench"

That afternoon we met some German folks who had arrived that day.  Huber asked if he could hike with us to the hill on Warderick Wells.  Seemed like a nice guy, so we invited him to hike with us.

Driftwood Carving

This hill on Warderick Wells where folks deposit driftwood with their boats name on it.  I found a piece of driftwood on the beach and carried it to the top of the hill.  I took about 20 minutes to carve "Top Shelf" into that piece of driftwood at the top of the hill.  While I was carving the driftwood, Julianne was filling the roll of a psychiatrist as the poor German was complaining about the captain the whole time!

Over Achiever's Boat Name Artwork

I finished the carving and went to find a place to "mount my artwork".  I had to laugh at the over achievers that were there before me.  Yes there were pieces of driftwood, but it looks like folks had taken them home and spent the summer months creating a piece of artwork.  Paint, professional carving, varnish.  Beautiful pieces.  Mine looked like the coconut Tom Hanks had carved in the movie Marooned.  I proudly placed it on a prominent perch and

Driftwood & The Psychiatrist

we started to hike down before sunset.

Getting The Cruising Groove

Wed Nov 14:  On a mooring ball #9 at Warderick Wells in the Exuma Park.   Pretties place yet, but it is remote.  We are in between the BTC (Bahamas Telecom) cell towers, so we are reduced to no internet except for the 56kb Satellite connections…very very slow.  I'll be making 2 or 3 posts from here, but I'm not sure when they will be uploaded.  I'm hoping at our next anchorage at Cambridge Cay or certainly by Saturday night at Staniel Cay.

Saturday November 10th:

West Palm Into the Exumas

We left Highbourne Key on Saturday morning for the 90 minute cruise to Shroud Cay.  ActiveCaptain, which is a social media site for cruisers, had high reviews so we decided to anchor there of 2 nights.  We had problems with the "down" part of the windlass.  Motor spins, but the clutch is slipping.  Fortunately the "up" works fine.  We anchored in 12 feet water and I let out a 7:1 scope.  Scope is the ratio of the length of the anchor chain to the depth of the water plus windlass height above water.  IF there is no current or other boats nearby and the wind is going to blow in a consistent direction, larger scope is more secure.  At

Southbound Exumas

the Shroud Cay anchorage there is no current, no other boats and the wind was going to be consistent out of the ENE but blowing up to 25 kts.  More anchor scope, better holding, better sleeping!

Shroud Cay had a number of cool things to do.  There are 3 Cays to explore.  Norman's to the North, Shroud, and then Hawksbill to the South.  There were two hikes, two mangrove creeks and two good snorkeling areas to explore. 

No Cocaine - I Checked

After anchoring, we went north to Norman's Cay to see the wreck of Carlos Ledher's cocaine over-loaded plane that crashed in the 1980's.  Norman's cay was the launching point for most of the cocaine going Florida in the 1980's.  Norman's Cay had changed and the bullet riddled houses once part of the cartel's housing were gone.  There is a significant construction project going on with a huge marina almost complete.  This will be the biggest marina in the Exumas when complete.

Tender at  Camp Driftwood

We headed back to Shroud Cay and explored the two mangrove creeks.  The most northern creek is named Sanctuary Creek which led to the east shore where you could see the full force of the North Atlantic in November.  We beached the tender on the shoals for the hike to Camp Driftwood. 

Camp Driftwood is a place a hermit lived during the 60's and 70's.  Cruisers would visit him and bring driftwood, food and other things found on the beach.  He got sick in the late 70's and cruisers would leave messages for him in a large glass jar.  Just before he died, one cruiser brought the jar to him in Nassau with hundreds of notes wishing him well.  The Exuma Park Service has removed all of the driftwood and there is nothing at the site other than a sign and a fantastic view.  But the legend still lives on.

Sanctuary Creek - Shroud Cay

Back to Top Shelf to start dinner around 4:15pm.  Tonight's menu is grilled sausage and Elaina's beans and rice that she "canned" for us.

Sanctuary Creek from Camp Driftwood

Sunday November 11th:  After breakfast we headed south to Hawksbill Cay.  The second hike was to Russell Ruins.  In the 1860's during the American Civil War, Russell brought 60 or more freed slaves to the island to farm fertile areas.  Their main food source was conch and fish.  One of the prominent remains is an oven that was used to melt conch shells to make mortar for the limestone bricks used for their buildings.  Kind of cool, but the exploring was cut short when the mangrove bugs drove us back into the sea!

Julianne Snorkeling

On the way back to Top Shelf, Julianne had her first snorkeling opportunity in the Bahamas.  It was a very small reef, but because the location is remote, the reef was packed with fish.  Julianne has a tough time with any type of mask as she is extremely claustrophobic.  But my small volume free diving mask seems to be working for her.  Each day she is making big gains in the snorkeling skills department.  Dinner Sunday night was left overs from the previous two meals.  The food on Top Shelf is at a new level, delivery sandwiches excluded!