Manjack Cay

Bill and Leslie are The Keepers of Manjack Cay, and hosts to all gentle sailfolk that care to anchor there. Fortunately for them, there have been no aggresive invaders. Fortunatley for us, they are there! We sailed from Green Turtle Cay to Manjack Cay and anchored in the bay where they built their home 16 years ago, you can see their palm-lined beach in one of the photograph below. It was such a calm day on the water that we sailed with our cruising chute, and after we anchored, Bill and Leslie came out to say that since the water surface was as smooth as glass, they were going out on their motor-boat to view the creeks in behind their home and would we like to join them? So we piled in and in no time were in the small, shallow creek and could see right through to the bottom without even a ripple from the wind. They showed us some Hawksbill turtles and a lone Eagle Ray what unusual creatures!

We were invited to take some coconuts, our new favourite staple, use their cleared pathways to get to the ocean beach on the other side of the cay, what lovely people! They are photagaphed above, with their solar-powered golf cart and in front of their extensive vegetable garden. The other photos are of other Bahamian locals: curly-tailed lizards and Hibiscus flowers.

Bill brought a visiting freind out to our boat, both of them wooden boat builders. They arrived in visiting Bahamian fashion: at cocktail hour with drinks at the ready! I was just finishing making hummus and fresh , hot pita bread, so it was a perfect arrival! We talked into the evening, yakking endlessly about (what else?) wooden boats! We shared the story of our ocean crossing from Beaufort and were awarded near-hero status for having survived (someday I'll be brave enough the share the real story with you!) and got to know some great people. Getting to know different sorts of sailors is always a rewarding, and handy thing. You learn a lot about which cays are worth visiting, which passes are best left alone and which ones aren't as bad as they are made out to be. And I get to share recipes!

So, Bill, as requested, the recipe for the pita bread in a little lower down on the side-bar. And if Leslie is successful at making sourdough starter, I would like that recipe! (email me at michelle.lambton@gmail.com , thanks! We'll certainly see you agian!

Beach, beach, beach!

Howdya like my Christmas present? At a Christmas eve gathering aboard a Warram Catamaran named Peace (hosted by Annie and Neville), I had chance to admire a conch shell that had its very tip sawn off to make a trumpet of it. I had heard some horns blowing at sunset around the anchorage and was wondering what it might be. Jim told me that the skipper of the boat he helped move from Cornwall to Cape Breton had a conch and blew it at sunset every darned night! Now I thought the owner of this particular conch was a wee bit sauced when he offered me one, and honestly didn't expect him to remember (sorry, Al!) but on Christmas morning, there he was pulling alongside Chelonidae with a red "Santa Sack" in hand. What a lovely gift! So I've been practicing wherever we are a creating a ruckus!
So here's something funny! For the first time ever, one of us forgot to bring the painter (the rope attached to the dingy) up after getting back onto the boat! Ha ha ha ! It started to float out on the tide pretty quickly, meanwhile superJim stripped to the skin (he's always looking for the chance!), dove in and retreived it. What fun!
Many of you had asked what our whole plan was for cruising...you know, when are we coming back? and all that. We're still considering the possibilites, but it looks like we'll be heading back north for the summer. We want to do more coastal-hopping than what we did on our trip down, so planning is underway. But you never know!

Merry Christmas to all!

Well! You can't even begin to guess what we've been up to! A whole lot o' nuthin'! Strolling, beach-bumming, coconut husking (that was actually the most work we've done in a few days!) and lazing about. I'm getting a tan for Christmas!
We're now anchored in White Sound, Green Turtle Cay. Chelonidae is lating for green turlte...cool, huh? We're finally seeing the real Abacos! The pictures of town here are all of New Plymouth, pretty wee thing. Yesterday we went to a service at theEpicsopal church. Nice people! The service seemed so familiar to me; the songs, topic of sermon, delivery of said sermon, the whole shebang...reminded me of my very early Christian days in Calgary. Then the reverend introduced himself as being from Medicine Hat, Alberta, the same part of town that bred all the preachers along the "Bible Belt" of Alberta. Ahah! It was a very pleasant experience.
The beach shown above is where we do our bumming, picnicking and annoyance of the home-owners who get to erect little beach shelters for private consumption. The beaches are all public below the high water line, but we like the idea of shade, so we tend to park in the private areas. The sand is of course beautiful and soft. The swimming is pretty exciting at ebb tide, but we're not dare-devils, so we paddle around at slack water. In the photo's background, you can see breaking water over some reefs. Reefs are only fun in perfectly calm water. James has bought some fishing gear, so I can't wait for him to go out to the reefs and catch me a fish. Yellow Tail Snapper, anyone?
Anyhow, we have all our Christamas trippings and trapping and up, saved some candy canes from last year (delightfully ...um...chewy. Yes, Chewy!) and bought some LED Christmas lights for added cheer-factor! The winter days here are really short, sunset at 5:30, so the more cheer the better! If there are no friends to keep us busy during the evenings, we tend to turn in really early. 8, 8:30! I'm embarrassed. But not tonight! A nice lady has invited the whole anchorage over to her place, a 46' Warram Catamaran, for Christmas eve cheer. Her name is Ann, a salty dog indeed! She single-handed at least two long distance passages, including the same route as we just did from Beaufort, and from Rhode Island to Ireland. And tomorrow, Christmas Day, there is a pot-luck for the whole community. Whee!
So wherever you are, we do hope you have a Merry Christmas! Enjoy yourself, your loved ones (for us it will be love from afar...we miss eveyone!) and Christ our Lord.

The Big Hop

So! The Big Blue Wet Thing. This is mostly what we saw. Sometimes it was dark. Sometimes it was more windy. Sometimes there was a nauseating current. But above all, it was life- changing. We both learned what we are made of, and that we both feel strong and brave. We took eight days to get to Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco Island, Bahamas. We stood watches, lengthening and shorting as the need for the other to sleep became evident.
I have Jim's permission to tell you all that I was not the sea-sick one! As we were exiting the channel from Beaufort, Jim raised the sails. Just as I was noticing a pod of dolphins diving under our ship's sides, sending us off, Jim actually barfed right on them. A Hahahahah! (Yes, we can laugh about it now!)
His acute, and my not-so-dramatic seasickness lasted for about three days, then we got better. driving was good for relieving the bouncy-ness.
Then we were here!
We pulled in to a marina for the first time, just to get a rest and not have to concentrate on anchoring and all that jazz. It was 9am, so we fuelled and watered the boat, then organized some laundry, try to call home, but got all screwed up (due to sleep deprivation) and gave up when the phone line suddenly went dead. We actually arrived three days ago.
Then we went for our first walk in eight days, saw the beautiful palm trees, bougainvaillia, mangroves and different birdies. Marsh Harbour is not exactly a tourist-town, so the town is not "beautiful", although it is a great place to end an ocean passage. Re-provisioning and repairs are easy, and there are lots of other sailors to glean information from on cruising the Abacos.
The Goombay music is lively, rum is cheap and there are pretty girls everywhere. But being shy of all these things, we haven't found out for ourselves yet, just hear the racket across the marina. Thank god we got off that dock, although it was nice having the facilities, and went to anchor in the harbour basin.
Next post, hopefully I'll have some shots of the beautiful beaches and such.
By the way, wirless is indeed hard to come by, especially for free, so there will be prolonged silences from me. Please feel free to hit the "comment" button at the end of each post and drop us a line. All can read the comments and you can comment on someone elses comment...what fun!
The Bahama Mama, signing out.

Bahamas!!!!!

Tah Dah! We made it!
We set out from Beaufort, NC to Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco Island. As my dad put it, we were barfing one day and sun-tanning the next! But after eight days, it was "LAND HO!" and we entered turqouise waters and saw our first palm trees. It took a few days to find wireless that works, the power is frequently interrupted. So, I will be publishing much shorter posts to get as much out to you as possible before the power (and wireless) goes down. Look at the belies in the top picture! We both look pregnant! (although niether of us is...I've learned to verbalize these things)