A Sail of Two Idiots (20 page)

Next stop, Compass Cay (only 13 miles southeast down Exuma Bank). We had originally planned to go to Bells Island to snorkel a seawall, but we changed our minds, did a voluntary controlled jibe (!), and headed to Compass instead. We
checked out some semi-underwater caves, where we snorkeled under a ledge and then came up into caverns with stalagmites and stalagtites. The sun was shining in from a hole in the limestone above. Cool.

We returned to our boat to see a discomforting, decreasing depth around it, so we re-anchored in deeper water. We were completely alone. The stars were brilliant, and little bioluminescent fish surrounded us. They were fun to play with; you'd swish your hand around in the water and they would light up.

Later that night the current picked up and did some weird things to our anchor setup, but we held (not that I slept much).

The next morning we wandered around the island. It had a few cliffs, and tributaries crisscrossed it. The islands were surprisingly varied. The only consistent thing was that many beaches on the ocean side were littered with trash, almost all of it water bottles that had washed up.

We were really enjoying this island-hopping stuff. After realizing that every island was better than the last (or at least equal to it), we stopped dreading our departures and started looking forward to our upcoming arrivals. Next up was a combo. We were heading to Big Majors Spot, where everyone anchors when they want to visit Staniel Cay, about 2 miles to the east (cruising guides warn that Staniel has bad holding). And I mean everyone anchors at Big Majors. So
that
was where everybody was. Even Johnny Depp was in the neighborhood! Despite the crowds, we were able to get a little anchorage space by maneuvering between everyone and coming right up to the beach, where there were … get this … wild pigs. They swim out to you and meet your dinghy if you have some carrots (which we did). The pigs can get aggressive and bite, not to mention puncture a hole in your dinghy, so be careful.

Staniel Cay's claim to fame is Thunderball Grotto, seen in one of the James Bond movies. The waters were too cold for me, so I skipped it, only to have Michael come back all excited and telling me that it was the best snorkeling ever! Hrmph.

At least I got to go ashore in search of the town dump. I know, doesn't that sound like fun? But we needed to get our trash off the boat. It had been a month! Where it got exciting was on our way there, when we were almost run over by
a car. We hadn't been on a road or seen a car since we had left Marsh Harbour a month before, so we hadn't even thought to look. And to look left.

Only another 10 miles southeast and we reached the Black Point Settlement anchorage at Great Guana Cay. On our way there, I asked Michael to stop farting—he was stinking up the boat—only to discover that it was one of our engine starter batteries that was doing the “farting.” Well, leaking. So we turned off the engine, and once again we motored lopsidedly to the anchorage. All we had to do was disconnect the battery from the engine (because the engine was already running), but we hadn't been using our noggins.

Engine issues were so commonplace that we didn't think much about it initially and just anchored as usual. Once we got our anchor set in nice firm sand, we had only one thing on our mind. Laundry.

We were desperate to do laundry (yes, it had been a month for that too), so we each grabbed a bag (or two) and got that chore out of the way first. We had washed some of our clothes using the ammonia/water bucket method, but some things (such as sheets) needed a washer/dryer. Badly. We found one of the cleanest Laundromats I'd ever seen (remember, I'm a city kid). There wasn't a lot on this island, even the grocery stores were the size of train cars, but all the businesses were spotless and smelled good!

Thank goodness the island people were friendly, because we needed help tracking down a new battery. The request made it down the grapevine, and a local fisherman whose boat had just sunk just happened to have an extra battery he could sell us. Problem fixed (although not cheaply). Well, sort of fixed. I turned on the engine and it died …

This is where Michael's and my personalities diverge. I had wanted to spit on the engine, tell it a few “your mama” jokes, and then use the other engine for the rest of our odyssey. Michael calmly stared at it for a while, grabbed the manual,
and tried pumping the air valve. Sure enough, there was air in the line. Well, okay. But my way would have worked too.

Once again we heard conflicting weather reports, so we decided to stay put. We would be safe for this one. Others weren't so lucky.

While we waited for the weather, we fixed a few other things. The hot water stopped working on the galley sink, which led us to discover that there was no turnoff valve that would allow us to fix it. That would require parts we didn't have. Put them on the list.

At least fixing the newly clogged toilet was easy. A lot of boaters throw their toilet paper in a trash can, but we thought that was gross. Our Lavac toilets were supposed to be uncloggable. Apparently all toilets have their limits. This particular fix (plunger) didn't require us to dismantle the toilet. We just adjusted our toilet paper thickness and use and never had the problem again.

Once the weather cleared, we realized that we had reached the end of the central Exumas (well, the mostly inhabited parts anyway). How'd that happen? We'd had such a great time that we considered going back through them and hitting a few islands we had missed, but we were so excited to have come this far that we wanted to go even farther south.

That meant George Town, about three-quarters of the way down a verrrry long island, Great Exuma Island to be exact. George Town would be our last lengthy and most densely populated stopover before heading to the Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean (the Bahamas are not actually in the Caribbean). So we staged ourselves near Farmer's Cay, another short (11 mile) jaunt south, so we could sneak out the Galliott Cut (I still hate the word
cut
) the next day. We would be leaving the shallow waters of the Exuma Bank and heading into the deeper waters of Exuma Sound. It had been a while since we'd been in the ocean and, yes, we were still reluctant to go out there. Plus, we were on our own this time. We had lost
Half Moon
. All right, we can do this. Let's go!

T
hat was a piece of cake. The winds and seas were so calm during our 45-mile, 7-hour motor down the eastern coastline of Great Exuma Island that I'm not even sure we can count it as a journey at all. It was so placid that we let the autopilot steer while we read books and played cards the whole way (of course checking for path-crossing boats every 15 minutes, a standard procedure that Captain Tim taught us and is shared by most boaters we meet; see upcoming Lesson 65, The 15-minute rule). Sure, it would have been nice to sail, but with wind comes waves, and we were relieved to have an uneventful passage.

The harbor was big, and boats were everywhere. Should we anchor off ugly old George Town, where things were convenient? Or should we get settled in at Stocking Island, about 1½ miles east across the harbor, where a pretty beach beckoned? Of course, the beach won out. Plus, Stocking Island seemed to be where the action was.

It was now mid-April, so some people had started heading to wherever their hurricane homes were, but it was still pretty crowded (more than a hundred boats). And the water was deep! Well, deeper than we were used to. We had been anchoring in 6 to 8 feet of water; this was more like 18 to 20 feet. At a 5-to-1 scope (it was too crowded for any more than that), that was 100 feet of chain out. Parts of our chain had never before seen the light of day!

We were in George Town! Well, close enough. Can we get a holla! That's right, we were impressed with our bad selves. If anyone had told us when we were shivering and practicing our moves around Green Turtle that we'd make it as far as George Town, about 263 miles, we wouldn't have believed it. It was an achievement that should be celebrated. We cheerily dinghied around to the famous Chat & Chill bar, right on the beach on Stocking Island, and prepared to click beers and rejoice with our fellow sailors.

We walked in, looked around, and almost walked out again. Were they even open? The only conversation was coming from Fox News. The bar contained two comatose couples and a surly female bartender. I even said something like, “Boy, this is the quietest bar I've ever been in,” but the couples just smiled and went back to watching TV. The bartender looked peeved that she'd have to get up to bring us a beer. I thought we might be in a Twilight Zone episode.

We got our beers and celebrated anyway, but quietly. A little later a few more people straggled in after a volleyball game, but they stayed in their little clique. Hmmm. We decided we'd have more fun back on our boat, so we went to pay. I walked up to the seated bartender, handed over some cash, and waited for my change. That would require the bartender to get up and go to the cash register. No movement. When I politely suggested that she owed us money, she sighed heavily and looked forlornly at how far the register was from where she was sitting. Oh for Pete's sake. Never mind. We just left. It wasn't worth it.

We didn't have the best impression of Stocking Island, so we decided to dinghy over to George Town the next day. A check of that town took all of 10 minutes. There were two small grocery stores, a much needed ATM, a library, and a small marine store. That was pretty much it.

Our biggest concern was being able to get an Internet signal. We had detected one from our boat but needed a password. We tracked the holder of that password to a friendly Rasta guy living in a sprawling shack. Guess he put all his money into the computer side of the business.

We didn't know what else to do with ourselves, so we headed back to Stocking Island and decided to give the Chat & Chill another chance. Michael tried to engage the male bartender (and owner) in conversation but got only grunts and a clear indication that the man did not want to talk with him. Guess it was too much trouble to tell us there was a NAPA store in the area.

Why did people go to that place? There were two other bars on the little island, but tourists were regularly ferried from George Town to the Chat & Chill, only to be ignored. We didn't get it.

To add insult to injury, we found our dinghy full of water and our shoes, some beach toys, a flashlight, and a water bailer floating away. We hadn't pulled the dinghy far enough up the beach, and the waves were splashing into it. The beach was full of people, and our dinghy was just outside the Chat & Chill, but no one had come in and inquired about the drowning dinghy's ownership. Maybe even pulled the boat up? That
never
would have happened in Marsh Harbour. If you lost a boat cushion there, it was all over the VHF. We weren't getting the draw of George Town/Stocking Island. More exploration was necessary.

We were glad we'd missed the crowds earlier in the season, because I don't think we would have liked that either. The harbor had more than 300 boats at one point; with so many boats, order had to be maintained. Someone manned the VHF information channel every morning, and if you spoke out of line, you'd get in trouble. Same was true for using the volleyball nets on the beach. People were assigned experience levels and then given times to play. We understood the need for such organization, but it would have driven us nuts.

What we
did
have was a French Canadian in a tiny boat who had decided to keep the VHF net going as long as people were listening (the main announcer had
already headed north for the summer). His accent was so thick that it was hard to understand him, but he tried to make jokes and was fun to listen to.

Stocking also had a fantastic ocean-side beach that ran the length of the east side of the island, and a few hills we could hike up for exercise. It wasn't a bad place to be anchored while we decided what to do next.

We also figured out the trick to the Chat & Chill. You didn't go
into
the place, you went under the trees
by
it, where all the boaters gathered with games, food, kids, books, and DVDs. We met all kinds of folks there.

Oh, and we discovered that Stocking Island was a nudie Eden. People walked the beach and/or worked on/cleaned their boats while naked. Well, alrighty then. We're no prudes, but there are some positions (and body types) no one wants to see unclad. If you're sensitive about that sort of thing, you might have a problem cruising. Nudies abound everywhere.

We weren't sure how much more time we'd spend in the Bahamas, and both my three-month and the boat's six-month visas were about to expire. Michael was fine thanks to his recent Miami trip. That meant a trip back to George Town. Why not rent a moped so we could see the whole Great Exuma Island?