Iguanas and Playmates

We had a rough ride from Port Lucaya down to the Berry Islands, but found protection from strong North winds that continued to blow for 5 days. We kayaked to shore and watched several cruise ships coming to the other (windward) side of the island. Emily found our first conch and after some reading, Daddy surgically removed him from his home. After some cleaning, Kim chopped it up and served it (raw) with chopped onion, tomato, pepper, parsley and lime juice. The conch salad was great and Emily was fighting for seconds.

We hopped to a more southerly island (Little Harbor) and then made the junp to Nassau (Paradise Island) where we stayed at a marina. We saw the straw market and several more cruise ships, but the highlight of the trip was Jennifer Gay, an 11 year old. She is cruising on Opal with her parents and we enjoyed visiting with them while Emily played leggos (thanks again Mom & Aunt Sally) and compared home schooling torture stories for 3 days. Kim spent several hours by the pool chatting with Jennifer’s Mom, Linda, comparing cruising and home schooling experiences and just enjoying some adult female companionship.

We left and had a wonderful calm ride across the yellow banks to Allan’s Cay (pronounced “key”) in the Exhumas. The entire trip was in waters about 15 to 20 feet deep and the yellow banks are a series of coral heads that come near the surface for about 30 minutes of the 5 hour trip. In the yellow banks, I stood on the bow and learned to read the water colors to pick our way through while Kim handled the helm. We started out late and behind about 10 sailboats, but because of the light winds (3-6 knots), we passed all of them except one by the time we reached Allan’s Cay. Since we had arrived early, I picked (what I thought was) a sweet spot about 150 feet off a white sand beach. We went ashore and were greeted by several large iguanas that scurried out of the brush to greet us. Since we had read about them, we had brought scraps of cabbage and lettuce to feed them. It was great fun.

Since the island is uninhabited, we took the dingy around to explore another beach and found something more precious than iguanas….a nine year old girl named Emma. They played all afternoon on the beach while we chatted with their parents who are cruising on Independencia and hail from Alaska. We visited with them for two days. They are still working and thinking of selling it all and retiring early to cruise full-time. I tried to tell them that only fools would do that, but the smile on my face seemed to provide him with some motivation to really do it.

Because of the swift currents threading through the islands, we were pushed, against the wind, into shallower water near shore. The captain noticed too late to re-anchor and we spent about 2 hours at low tide around midnight resting on the sand bottom. In the morning, we set a second anchor for the first time and thereafter remained in the deeper water. All-in-all it seemed to go fairly smoothly with no damage to our home. Having a second anchor at the bow was one of the modifications we had done that proved to be a good idea.

Just as we were saying goodbye to the crew of Independencia, Opal had arrived from Nassau and Jennifer was running across the beach to hug Emily. And so it goes. With every door that closes, Dear reader, another seems to open.

Tom