In the Exumas! Happy 4th of July!

It's been awhile since I have posted anything, so I'll try and do some catching up. We have been in the Exumas for nearly 2 months and have been having a wonderful cruise. The Exuma Land and Sea Park is one of a kind so far in the Bahamas. They have several moorings set along for our convenience. Clay and I have been doing alot of snorkeling in these spots. We been to Staniel Cay, Sampson Cay, Compass Cay, Black Point, Farmers Cay, Bells Island, Little Halls Pond, Cave Cay and now we are in George Town.
We swam with the nurse sharks, saw Johnny Depp, his wife/girlfriend, Island, and boat, and Faith Hill's Island. Run into more Texans. Steve Cone (from Texas) owns Cave Cay and the Marina. He's been working on it for 14 years. Clay knows his cousin from Arlington, TX.
George Town is a very nice laid back Bahamian community with just about everything you need. The people here are super friendly. You can anchor out if you want to or come into the Exuma Docking Services. We've done both. The town itself is quite small so you can walk to all the local places. The Straw Market here is much smaller than Nassau's which I like better and the vendors are not pushy!!!! They have an unusual Restaurant row here and they call it the Fish Fry. There are about 7-8 different little shack/restaurants you can choose from, but on down the road apiece we choose the Coconut Cove Restaurant over looking Elizabeth Harbour and had a terrific pizza!!!
My digital camera crashed, got a new underwater digital camera here, so we are going out to take some pictures and see how it works. Stay tuned for pictures,
As always,
The Happy Cruisers

How to make a Fish Taco

This little post might come in handy for some. It's short, sweet and to the point!
To make a good Bahamian fish taco, go trolling in deep waters. Catch your own fish, fillet it, cook it and eat it!!!!. When you start running out of your on food on board, it's time to get out the rod and reel. Not only did we catch this mackerel, but we also caught a baracuda!!! He was 3ft long but we let him go. They have 2 or 3 in Wardwick Wells that are pets and harmless and he reminded me of them and I didn't want him for dinner. Like I said, I'm keeping this post short, but check back soon as I will have more pictures to post. Life is good, cruising is GREAT!!!!
As always,
The Happy Cruisers!

yea pictures!!!

I finally got the pictures up. Noah is celebrating his 2nd birthday with his new pair of crocs, Jacob, (my new first mate) enjoying the boat ride and Ashton seems to be enjoying it as well. The view of the sandy beach was our backyard view in Allen's Cay, (I'll take that more than a pool and hot tub in my backyard anyday!), and then the relaxing view in Sampson Cay.
We are still in Staniel Cay enjoying the people and quiet atmosphere. Clay and I went for our daily walk around town and maybe go back out to Thunderball Cave for more snorkling. We have a string ray swimming around our boat and I've been trying to snag a picture of him. Maybe today will be the day.
Hope you enjoy the pictures, would love to hear some comments via email.
Until later...
The happy cruisers!!

Nassau

Well, here we are in Nassau with my lovely niece, her husband Alan and their 3 children, Jacob, Noah (birthday boy) and baby Ashton. I got Amy Beth into the Bahamian shopping mode, by taking the baby stroller with us to grocery shop. People did stare and wonder where the babies were!!! We took them out for a boat ride and Jacob became my certified First Mate. Everyone did fine on the ride, no sea sickness! Jacob even helped preparing hard boiled eggs. While we were cruising I asked him what he was thinking abour and his reply was, "My dad needs a boat" Looks like Alan and Amy Beth need to invest in a boat and then they can call it, "My Three Sons."

My Marley Mon needed to get a hair cut, so after lunch at Senor Frogs, we headed over to locals barber shop. Clay wanted to be sure and come out looking like Densel Washington, and his baber told him he would need to use black paint for that!!

After leaving Nassau, we headed further south and anchored in Allen's Cay. What a lovely spot that was. There is a picture of our backyard view. The next day we continued on to Sampson Cay and Staniel Cay. The water here is just breath taking. You can swim with the Nurse Sharks, a tame Baracuda, and go into Thunderball Cave and feed the fish. Thunderball Cay is where they filmed the James Bond movie, "Thunderball" and "Spash" starring Tom Hanks and Darryl Hanna. After a full day of snorkling we docked and the Staniel Cay Marina for a lovely dinner of the fresh catch of the day.

The sunsets are still beautiful and plentiful and the waters have been fairly smooth for cruising. As my favorite saying goes, a rough day cruising is better than a good day at work!!!.

Stay tuned, more to come from George Town.

Well some of my pictures are not coming thru, but I'll try again later.
Life is Good, cruising is better!!!!

Leaving Marsh Harbour

We left Marsh Harbour May 14, saying goodbye to our new friends, Ken & Cathy, sorry I didn't get a picture of Teri & John. We plan on seeing then on our return trip. While cruising, we stopped at Fowl Cay to do some snorkeling. The fish were plentiful and very friendly. We anchored out in Little Harbour to get a good nights rest before crossing over the North East Providence Channel (Atlantic) to Spanish Wells. It was "alittle" bumpy and rough just going out the cut with 6-8 ft. waves. As we got further out the seas flattened out and made for a nice cruise. Shadow will tell you a different story, but she's a cruiser and made it okay. Once we got to Spanish Wells, we called for a pilot to take us thru the Devil's Backbone to Harbour Island on the town of Dunmore famous for their pink sands. His name is Jock and his pilot service is called the Bandit. He gave us quite abit of history on our way over. The reason it is best to have a pilot is the waters are tricky and the reefs are plentiful and not always marked on the charts. He says he makes the trip 5-8 times a day and never gets bored. His history is quite interesting. His ancestors came over from England in 1638. Their ship wrecked just outside Devil's Backbone (which is how it got it's name) and all but 1 survived. They swam ashore and lived in a cave for a year (Preachers Cave) before really getting settled. Life was really rough hard for them in many ways, as you can imagine! The ships name was William. The way his service works is like this, he comes out to your boat, ties up his boat to ours and drives us over. Once we get there he gets back into his little boat and goes back over to his home on Spanish Wells. The trip only takes close to 45 min. And yes, he does charge you for his services, but besides his service we get a history lesson and homemade bread!!! (Tell me one taxi service stateside that gives you homemade bread!!!!) Dunmore is famous for their pink sand beaches. The island itself is really to spread out to site see by foot, so we had to take a taxi to get to the beach. It really is lovely. We only stayed the night due to some problem with the generator that we need to get looked at. Back at Spanish Wells we had some guys come on board and check out the generator. After all the horrible scenarios that could be wrong with it, we were very relieved to find out a wire had broken!!! That was fixed and we will be heading towards Nassau. My niece and her family will be vacationing at the Atlantis. Can't wait to see them all!!!!
Hope ya'll are enjoying the blogspot as much as I enjoying sharing our trip with pictures. Let me hear from ya, as this is our general email to all our friends!!
Life is Good, cruising is better! Until later...
Rita-Kay, Clay and Shadow

Moving On!!

Clay and I have been in the Abacos for nearly 2 months now and we are ready to head further south to the Exums and Eluthras. We have been very blessed here in the Abacos, meeting new people (cruisers and locals) and developing lasting friendships.
The pictures in yesterdays blog show you how we do our grocery shopping, sail boat races, ranging in ages 7-70, and the Seventh-day Adventist church in Marsh Harbour and of course the beautiful sunsets we get to witness each evening.
For shopping, we get in our dinghy and go to the designated dinghy dock, tie up, walk to the store, buy our groceries in the modern store, load up the backpack, walk back to the dinghy and go back to our boat. Living this life is wonderful because of the daily exercise we get.
The sail boat races are so much fun to watch, from little kids to grandparents. They have the groups set up according to your level of sailing. For the beginners (young and old) there is usually a parent, spouse or someone close in their dinghy to root them on and close by in case something goes wrong. Fortunately, nothing serious happened and the races finished without a hitch.
We have run into alot of Texans lately, some we know and some we don't. Pamela and Raymond were here on their boat from Fort Worth TX. We had met them 6 years ago on our last visit here. She and I graduated from HS the same year, from a different HS. Pamela graduated from Paschal, the same one Clay graduated from and he knew her older sisters and her family lived just around the corner from Clay. Another surprise visit was from one of Clay's old college frat brother, Steve Murrin, aka Cowboy. Clay had not seen him close to 10 years and low and behold they run into each other in the Bahamas. Clay and I were just sitting on the boat anchored out in Man-O-War, when all of a sudden this dinghy pulls up along side our boat and begin to holler something about TX! Clay recognized Steve right away and the partying and visiting began.
Another interesting note is have you ever wondered how these Marina get their fuel for the boats? Look closely at the picture with the gas truck. The truck is put on a barge and it goes from Marina to Marina pumping fuel without leaving the barge. We were at Sea Spray when this barge came in. Sea Spray is an out of the way Cay, tucked way back off the Sea of Abacos, with a very narrow and winding entrance and low tide. It kicked up alot of sand, but didn't run aground (touch bottom).
I guess that's about it from the Abacos. Check back in a couple of weeks. I hope to catch you up with more tales and photos from the Exumas. Until later...
The Happy Cruisers

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!!!