Highborn Cay - Exuma's

Saturday 03/15/20 & 03/16/20

Stats - Today 38 miles, total 2876.  105 days on boat, 49 travel days.  ( I am not including the time we came home for December and January.

 We left out of Palm Cay on Saturday morning and headed to the Exuma's.  Water was a little choppy for the 38 mile trip, but nothing over 4 foot waves.  Heading into Highborn Cay in the Exuma's was gorgeous.  Our boats felt pretty small nestled in next to 70 to 200 foot yachts.  Most of them had captain and crews which reminded me of Below Deck.

Heading out of Palm Cay - it did not stay that smooth unfortunately

 Coming into Highborn Cay Marina

 Highborn Cay Marina

 View off the back of out boat.

The restaurant on site at the marina was closed due to a private event.  Mark got out his propane grill and we all cooked up pork chops and ate at one of the open shelters on the dock.  Dinner and view was great.

Back at the boat we watched another perfect sunset.

The water at the marina is crystal clear.  You can even see the shark swimming past our dinghy.

 Saw the parrot

 Yes - there is water there - and you can see some small fish.

On Sunday, we decided to use the free bikes and take a ride around the island.  Not much to see or do other than what the resort has to offer.  I did miss Don's old bike though.  Also confirmed that I am a LONG way off from the MS 150

Nothing fancy, but it was free

One of the beach accesses.

 

View of boat entering marina

After the bike ride, we decide to take the dinghies out and find a beach.  No shortage of them here.

 Gazebo's are 1st come.  Mark and I sitting under the umbrella

We also took our snorkel gear and snorkeled for a while.  Not a lot to see, but the water was so clear.  After getting back and putting the dinghies away, and decided to grill up fish and rice for dinner.  Ate under our gazebo again.

We left out Monday morning and headed toward the Eleuthera's.  We are here now, and are excited about Tony (our son) flying in tomorrow to spend a few days here.  More pictures and updates to come soon, but feel like I am at least a little bit caught up now.

Palm Cay - Nassau

Stats -  Thursday, March 12 - 54 miles - 2838 total.   Days on boat 103, 48 travel days.

We left out of Chub Cay on Thursday morning.  Waves were predicted to be 2 1/2 to 3 1/2.  Not too bad for crossing the tongue headed for Nassau.  We did see some 4 and 5's mixed in though.  I did also stop half way and tighten up the dinghy straps.  I will have to do some temporary work on it when we get to Palm Cay.  Basically the screws that hold the mount down have pulled out.  As we neared Nassau, I called the Nassau Port Authority to ask permission to go through Nassau.  I have to admit, it was really cool to go through there by boat.  Hopefully the pictures will do it justice.

 We went to the Southeast east side of Nassau to Palm Cay Marina.  After taking on fuel, we got docked up.  Slip was wide enough, but only had about 40 feet in between the docks.  Had to go in at an angle - not fun.

After checking things out, we decided to walked to Shakers for dinner.  A taxi was pulling out of the resort and offered us a ride for gas money.  After a 15 minute ride around and no Shakers, we ended up at Checkers.  It was pretty much a fast food restaurant, but good local food.  It was a long hike back to the boat. 

The next morning, we borrowed the courtesy car to find a hardware store and grocery store.  It was very strange to have to drive on the left side of the road, but it was even harder with a right hand drive car.

Got some supplies and only got lost once.  Back at the boat I worked on the dinghy mount for a couple of hours.  Was a complete pain in the ass and think I sweated out over a gallon.  Think I have a temporary fix until we get back to the states.  After that, we decided to go the beach and relax.  The beach, pool and Tiki bar were incredible.  I know I have said this before, but words cannot describe how blue and clear the water is. 

Nothing at the restaurant look that great, so we just ended up eating on the boat.  We left out Saturday morning headed for the Exuma's.  Spoiler alert, we made it and it is even better than Nassau.  Will update you on Exuma's on the next post.

Chub Cay - Berry Islands, Bahamas

Stats -  Wednesday, March 4 - 100 miles - 2785 total.   Days on boat 101, 48 travel days.

OK - sorry I have been slow on updating the blog, but we have been having a lot of fun over here.  First off, I did not realize that some of the pictures did not upload from the last post.  I am going to blame the internet instead of user error.  Anyway, pictures are now uploaded so you can go back and look at them. 

Even though today is Friday and we are in Palm Cay, headed for the Exumas tomorrow, I am only going to update on Wednesday.  We decided to move on from Bimini and go to Chub Cay in the Berry Islands.  The waves on the bank (80 miles of 20 ft water) was predicted to be 2.5 to 3.5 feet.  Once we went around the North side of Bimini, we were taking the waves on the bow.  Was a fairly rough ride for most of the day.  We did hit a small patch of rain that left a great rainbow.

After the Bank, we went into what is called the Tongue.  Basically the water goes from 20 feet to over 3000 feet.  Depth finder stopped working soon after hitting 800 feet.

Waves in the Tongue were bigger and harder.  We pounded through, but not without some issues.  Boat mechanically ran great, but things inside did get tossed about.  A picture broke, cabinets were tossed, and one of the bigger issues was that the dingy screw mounts all got pulled out.  Will have to do some work on that for a temporary fix until we are back in the states.  Oh yeah, another 1st was the toilet paper came unrolled.  FYI - we are doing fine on TP.  Guess the Corona virus is not as bad over here as in the states.

Chub Cay is a beautiful marina.  Some very nice boats here and the grounds are well kept.  Picture of us entering the Marina

Boat at Chub Cay

Restaurant, pool and check in.

Chickens seem to be roaming around freely.  By the way, Cluck is doing fine.  He is still on the boat, just does not like the rough seas.  He may make an appearance soon.

Lucy even had a rough day of it.  Some bottle shifted in the storage area and she was not able to make it to her litter box.  She had a small number 1 accident, but hard to get mad at her.  She is now recovered and found a new spot when Marcia was making the bed.

We ended up walking up to the Nauti Rooster for dinner instead of going to the main house.  I got the cracked conch and chili cheese fries.  I tried, but even I could not eat it all, but it was good.

Did I say some nice boats - 92 ft Viking

Same boat at night.

We left on Thursday and went to Palm Cay on the Southeast side Nassau.  That will be the next post.