On the days we must be mad...

... (because what would a blog look like all full of pristine beaches, turquoise seas and rum punches?!)

 2 am as we lay panting in our tiny mosquito occupied chow-zone of a cabin in the stifling heat, not a breath of wind, sweat trickling down our necks and pooling on the dampened pillows beneath us, the random slapping of limbs breaks the relative silence of the dull hum of a useless fan. I thought ‘this couldn’t get worse’. (Note to self – never say those words, even in your head).

After weeks of prepping for our friend’s visitors in perfect Bahamian weather, they have arrived. And since then the whole climate’s gone for a ‘sh*t’.

They brought booze!

The visitors on arrival day

2:30 am the distant rumbles of thunder have caught up with us two lonely little catamarans in Cherokee Point, the vulnerable bay, exposed to all the oncoming fun and games. The sky lights up to the brightness of day in shocking zaps and we are up.

It’s like a colossal game of electrified ten pin bowling right over our heads and everywhere around us. The lesser gods are on a bender and they are at the lanes, drunken and disorderly. The ball rumbles along above us, barreling through the great black clouds and then the crescendo – a teeth clenching, boat-shattering smash as the thunderous ball hits the pins. Over and over again, as I wince and squeal. JW has turned off the main power to the boat, knowing we are at the mercy of these lesser gods as to whether we’ll take a direct hit and potentially lose all the electronics on board. 

They are obviously in the mood to have some fun with us. They’ve stirred up the ocean as well, so the boat spins and bobs madly in this rain drenched mayhem.

I retreat inside, brushing aside the mosquitos who are just as frightened I’m sure. They’ve taken such a back seat as the bad guys, they might as well retreat completely and come back with their blood sucking intentions another day.

And here I sit – making sure not to hold on to anything metallic just in case – and I focus on JW’s silhouette in the door, lit up like a photo negative in the lightning show. I know he is worried, and that the soul crushing feeling of being helpless in a situation furrows his brow.  I squeeze my eyes closed after each bolt snaps down from the clouds and see the jagged designs behind my eyelids over and over.

The truth is that we are in the vicinity of some serious danger. Boats are lightning attraction devices with their tall masts, and we’ve come to a bay where there is nothing around us but surface rocks, beach sand and a tiny settlement of one story homes nearby. So we are IT if it comes down to the wire. Worst case scenario the lightning passes through the boat, leaving a gaping hole below the water line and we sink. Total loss.

I think of the storms we’ve slept through on land, the light and noise a mere inconvenience with the secure feeling of insulated and sturdy walls protecting us. Out here it’s all raw and real. We have no mosquito nets, we have no lightning protection. It’s yang to the ying of the paradise we live in. It’s the other side of the coin. It’s real and it’s 5am and we’ve been up for hours.

As I rub my red sore eyes I realise this lifestyle has no middle ground. There is no ‘mildly amusing’ or ‘slightly annoying’ in our vocabulary. It’s all ‘OMG!’ or ‘WTF!’ Extreme beauty, extreme fun, extreme danger. Big joy, big problems.

On the boat next to us, a family has flown thousands of miles to see what we see. Experience what we call normal life. This is their vacation. They swat at mosquitos, wince at the storms and hopefully will experience some of the big joys over the next few days.

As the storm passes, the game has moved on and left us with some big winds and big seas. That means ‘anchor watch’ (to keep an eye that we don’t drag into the rocks behind us), so no sleeping yet. Until the sun rises and the benign morning negates the heightened fears of the night and promises a new day of extreme beauty and yet another adventure. Zzzzzzzz

 

A serenade to the beauty, the decay, the vastness and the diversity that is the Bahamas

A cacophony of birds serenades, and the warm sun pokes at my shoulder through the cabin hatch, waking me to yet another magnificent Bahamas scene.

Shiloh sits, eerily still in mirrored glass water, if there wasn’t a depth meter to say otherwise, I’d be convinced we’re on terra firma. We’re surrounded by pine trees and the smell of a campfire. I feel as though we’ve been transported to a Canadian lake, only if I dip just one toe in this luke warm water, I’ll know different.

This is Port Lucaya, an unplanned stop for us, and yet another one of Bahamas surprises. Highly developed with many marinas, duty free shops, cruise chips and their thousands of pasty pink skinned, camera happy passengers. It's a change, and like Nassau, a hub of human activity among a largely uninhabited set of semi-tropical isles.

The landscapes are changing, the birds are different. We have moved north. For us, this is the end of the Bahamas. Our last stop before hitting the gulf stream and Florida’s east coast. I can’t believe it really. Two months ago we arrived in sweltering Mayaguana at the southern most end of the Bahamas, to a desolate little settlement. Since then we have visited thousands of worlds within themselves. So many unique little gems with indescribably blue waters, turquoise reflecting on the clouds above. A few with tiny, friendly populations, but many, many with none. Places that feed your soul. 

It’s been a whirlwind tour of opposites. Of islands grouped together by colonial conquest. Places that are beautiful or troubled in their own right. Islands in the ocean, like us. 

From weeks of no shops, no internet, no other human contact in the Exumas, to huge supermarkets and bustling casinos. We’ve been screaming down adrenaline gushing water slides in the opulence of Atlantis resort. 

The Bahamas can’t be described. Many have tried. It’s beautiful, it’s amazing. Some of the islands belie secrets of an opulent past, where the rich made their playgrounds. In their place now, are decaying, crumbling buildings, nature quickly reclaiming their territory. Norman island, the former private fortress of infamous cocaine dealer Carlos Lehder is one of them. It really happened and wasn’t just a scene in Johnny Depp’s movie Blow. And we were there, crunching through the dead leaves that line the floors of the old rooms, imagining the parties and the killings. 

And there are so many ‘almost developments’ – places where visions and dreams were half built – marinas, hotels, huge mansions – all left for dead. Investment lost, lives changed forever. As a transient on the sea sailing past, we can only imagine the stories that surround each place.

And the next day, surrounded only by warm blue waters and sting rays and turtles and white sand beaches -you pinch yourself and wonder whether all the rest was an illusion.

This is the ‘off season’ better known as the hurricane season where the cautious leave this part of the world, holiday cottages, condos and boats all locked up and stored away for the dangerous season, while summer awaits back home in the US or Canada. It means we’ve had so much of these places to ourselves. The only boats in an anchorage, the only ones swimming in a blue hole, the only patrons at a rare bar/restaurant up the chain. It’s been our own paradise and I wouldn’t trade the experience for the hustle and bustle of tourist season at all.

Face to face with an 80 pound grumpy faced grouper in a natural aquarium,  swimming along with a graceful sting ray, sand combing with ancient dragon-esque iguanas, catching a flourescent, majestic dorado for supper setting up a ‘braai’ on our own island for the night, watching the flaming sun sink down into the ocean on another night in paradise…. These are the memories I’ll carry away from the Bahamas. A magical and largely unspoiled place. A place of dreams and a glimpse of times gone by. 

But it’s time now for even us stragglers to head out of the hurricane zone, leaving behind the grumpy groupers, the lobsters and parrot fish. The turquoise clouds to build up with weather fronts, for mother nature to rip through this chain of paradise for another season… 

We’ll sail out of Port Lucaya, with her blocks of closed up condos, and bid farewell for now to an enigma. The wonderful Bahamas. And off to a whole new adventure – America by sea!

The Long Island Review - a one road adventure

Sitting in the diner with our travel buddies, mulling over my greasy plate of fried eggs, fried sandwich ham and toasted white bread, ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ blaring from the overhead TV with bells and whistles and Americans in Halloween dress up running down the aisles, I pondered that I could be in any small town North America.

But I wasn’t. I was in a roadside café called Swamp Thing on Long Island, Bahamas. You can’t make this stuff up.

We hired our rental car and headed out on our island discovery tour, to discover there is literally one road on Long Island. It’s called The Queens Highway, but its really a one lane barely tarred road in most places. However as there are less than 3000 inhabitants on an 80 mile long island, you don’t often pass another vehicle. There are no traffic jams, not a single traffic light in fact.

There are also not many restaurants serving breakfast, so we discovered. But at the tiny 2 room museum we were told that at Swamp Thing we could rustle some up. We nearly drove by the place as there was no sign – damn, no Swamp Thing sign…. Went in to ask for directions to it, only to be told we’d reached it.

I have to admit, there was nothing ominous about the place, no swamp nearby, nothing in fact to warrant such a name. Just some locals enjoying bowls of boiled chicken in broth (called chicken souse), and bad American game shows that mesmerized the staff. 

Inside SWAMP THING

After brekky we continued the unguided tour, and found church after church after church. We tiptoed around the oldest one on the island, Spanish built and in complete disrepair and found three mysterious grave stones. Then passed the Palestine Baptist Church, a Macedonian Baptist Church and down in Clarence Town we visited the pretty catholic church with the modern art Jesus… 

Modern Art Jesus

The Catholic Church

An abandoned church

Deadman’s is the largest settlement on the island yet we didn’t see a soul. Passing the sign for the ‘Deadman’s Health Clinic’, the irony wasn’t lost on us, we had a great chuckle.

The gem of Long Island though, has to be Dean’s Blue Hole. No idea who Dean is or was, but the hole is a natural phenomena – a frighteningly deep abyss just off the beach in a beautiful bay. We met William Trubridge, the world record free diver who practices here daily, diving down over 100 metres (or 3oo ft) with no gear – no fins, no air… Amazing, but quite scary as well. Hanging over the breathtaking site, a memorial to 3 women who died here on one day in 2008, drowned in the indigo hole…

The blue hole from above - William on the platform

The memorial site at the blue hole

Back along the road what we noticed was what wasn’t there. The place was missing people. Houses upon houses, clinics, churches, abandoned, decaying. And we knew why. Down in ‘Hard Bargain’ (again, can’t make these names up!), there used to be the Diamond Crystal Salt Mines, a huge business that employed so many, allowing the community to flourish with schools and parks and clinics and shops. And then sadly, after just over a decade, the plant closed to due financial troubles at the head office in the states. And in an instant, the prosperity of the island was crippled. The population dropped from near 11,000 to under 3,000. People packed up and left the island, looking for opportunities elsewhere. And what is left is a core group of survivors. Friendly, helpful families whose names are few and recognizable on signs and businesses all along the Queen’s Highway.

Apparently this place is quite lively during cruising season, with a crescendo at regatta time in April before everyone heads back up to the relative safety of the north for hurricane season.

A few expats do remain. Mike at Long Island Breeze Resortand Yacht club, our adopted host was one of them. We latched on to this pretty place, swimming pool, laundry, showers and yummy food were secondary to Mike’s hospitality, piling us into his pick up truck to and from the shops and the farmer’s market, and supplying us with all the inside info about the island.

The only disappointment was Chez Pierre – a French Canadian run, Italian beach side restaurant and chalets that had been recommended on Active Captain. Excitedly we drove down a winding maze of a sandy dirt road to find it, only to be literally dismissed by the owner on arrival. “Hello! Are you open?”

Grunt, sigh (obvious annoyance and disdain) “Yes, but if you have no reservation I can do nothing for you.” And with that he disappeared back through the mosquito screen protected veranda into the bowels of his never-to-be-known establishment.

And that was that. A bitter end to  great adventure on a little known out island.

Despite Pierre, we liked Long Island. We languished in Mike’s pool and licked our fingers after the Philly cheese steak subs at the Long Island breeze on our final night. We dreamt of building little beach huts down in the south where the sand and scenery were unmatched, and we tried to forget our difficult sail halfway through, pounding into 25 knots of wind to get from the south up to Salt Pond.

Chillin' in the Long Island Breeze pool

Ah, the south where the colours are indescribable

The next stop is the Exuma chain, we’re heading into much more chartered territory now, the touristy side of the Bahamas. But we won’t soon forget the quiet charm of these farther places, nor take for granted how lucky we’ve been to visit.

Visiting the Atlantic side at the top of Long Island

About travelling in circles

Our head gasket is blown.

Sounds so dramatic. I envision cartoon explosions and resulting water fountains. But in reality we’ve lived with this for the past two weeks, making like all was well with our guests on board, filling the water in the one engine for each trip, then switching that engine off right after leaving the bay and back on again to assist with maneuvering on arrival at a new port.

Between this and our bulkhead coming away from the hull, causing an unsettling rubbing motion in a cupboard, (temporarily fixed by my captain with clothes pegs), we decided we had to head back down to Carriacou for the repair work. And due to timing, for Christmas too.

Some say we are going backwards. This makes me wonder about destinations and goals and ‘keeping up with the mariners’ in our newly chosen life of cruising. It is a phenomenon that cruisers congregate in ‘safe zones’ like Grenada in hurricane season, then head either north or west as soon as November rolls around. And they seem to head out FAST – skipping what are, in my opinion, a lot of great islands and adventures therein.

What direction is right, when we are surrounded by a tropical paradise on all sides and we are not living to anyone’s schedule? Is it human nature to set goals and linear directions, so as to strive toward achievement?

We have definitely tread backward over our blue tracks on the radar/GPS. But then we have done this for weeks, taking visiting guests to islands we loved, places we knew were worth sharing. Each time, through the eyes of someone else, we discovered something new and amazing. Is that backwards?

As we pulled around the jutting rock at the north end of Salt Whistle Bay on the quaint island of Mayreau for the third time in as many weeks, JW and I busied ourselves with the anchoring – searching for sandy patches in the clear water below, assessing the swell in the bay. And then I noticed our guest, like the one before her, standing up front, taking in the beauty before running for her camera. She was in awe. We had brought her to paradise. 

Salt Whistle Bay, Mayreau

 And though we booked lobster supper with Black Boy and Debbie on the beach each time, it was a new experience each time. We were seated at the two picnic tables with different diners from far off places – Sweden, France; new locals with quirky personalities and various techniques for their marriage proposals to our visiting single ladies. We were treated to a new musical serenade for our supper each visit. From Dolly Parton to Euro pop, to reggae Christmas numbers. Each time though, the buttery, garlicy lobster was divine – special to be feasting with our toes in the sand below.

In Canouan, an island run almost entirely by a mysterious company ‘CCA’ who’s vehicles line the dusty goat ridden streets, we discovered only on the third visit, a set of beaches on the windward side, and a little gem of a restaurant. Run by some young Italians, with separate menus for tourists and for workers of the omnipotent company, we managed to wedge our way into their hearts and cheaper set of menus. Surrounded by Romanian, Croatian and Italian men with hearty appetites and boisterous pool games underway, we felt transformed to a different galaxy. A glimpse of another world.

These experiences are what make cruising so intriguing. The smells and sounds of the newly discovered. The promise that you will meet someone new, try a different food, swim at a new beach.

Hiking through the centre of the mystical island of Mustique, I was transformed to a Canadian park in the summer. Acres of manicured park lawns, horse stables and children’s playgrounds. There is no other place in the Caribbean like this.

A tortoise we met on the roads of Mustique

 As we headed through the winding roads, met by many slow moving tortoises just roaming freely, we noticed one striking thing. These were our only friends along the way. Mustique was a ghost town of an island, created as a private retreat for the rich and famous, it doesn’t allow anyone residency unless they buy, or are working in one of the 54 mansions or few tiny exclusive hotels. The result is a spooky quiet that permeates. The houses are set far off the road, behind huge imposing gates.

The main strip, with it’s 4 shops – a bakery, 2 boutiques and a gourmet grocery remind me of a cottage town in Canada as well. Manicured and garbage free for the most part, it’s an example of what the Caribbean could look like with a few clean up crews on duty all the time!

The boutiques on Mustique

 We splurged and ate at Firefly at the top of the hill, Shiloh down below in the distance. I felt like a spoiled elitist, spending crazy money on Perrier and cute food, sitting at an opulent table where Tommy Hilfiger (a resident) and Alicia Keys had been dining a few days earlier.

But I had just as much fun in the streets of Union island at a free local festival celebrating the nine mornings before Christmas.

In a Roots shop on Union's main strip during the night festival

Last night, all the way ‘back’ in Carriacou we joined the barefoot gang of cruisers and a few locals, raising funds to build a new little house for ‘Slow’ – a local character who’d had a mishap with a mosquito coil…. We ate ‘oil down’ from a huge cauldron and washed it down with 5EC rum.

And so we’ve come full circle. From south to north and back south, from the exclusive to the down to earth venues, from one spot of paradise to another.

And no doubt we will head further north, but slowly! And if we decide to sail somewhere we’ve already been, I won’t consider it a backward move. Because our need for a new gasket head brought us back to a family of friends and fun for our first Christmas on Shiloh.

A pirate's life

It’s my birthday so I can be a pirate, right? 

Well actually my birthday is not until Monday but that’s never a good night to hit the town, so we decided to celebrate tonight with Elvis and Mrs. Scissorhands, our new pals. The plan is to do supper at The Devil’s Table, a pirate themed waterfront joint, run by Swedes. In Bequia. Go figure.

 Meantime, I sit in idyllic surroundings, a fig tree overhead, the turquoise water of the bay just beyond my reach. We’re using the free wifi, but the restaurant isn’t actually open as it’s still technically low season.  I don't mind at all. Though I hear that December brings with it alot of holiday celebration on this little island, and hopefully some of our yachtie buddies as well. There could be many rum squalls ahead. So for now, the calm is blissful.

 We’re nursing sore backs and wrist muscles from yesterday’s three hour cleaning and boat job marathon. Followed by a couple hours of amazing snorkeling. The work is always balanced by the wonderment. The dinghy breaks down, we get towed. JW fixes it ably, and we head to the beach for an intimate little barbeque as the sun sets with friends.... it goes on.

Life is sweet. Every day is a celebration really – no difference in a birthday. I celebrate the freedom to move independently from island to island, and I celebrate the privilege of waking to a beautiful sun and fresh blue sea every morning.

Shiloh at full sail between Tobago Cays and Bequia

 I celebrate the miracle of sharing every day with my best friend and lover, exploring the world together.

I am open to the newness of brightly painted wooden houses, and a little blond rasta boy, playing wire cars by his mother’s brightly coloured jewelry stand. I soak in the smells of fish on a grill, bright local flowers like perfume hanging heavy in the heat of the afternoon. I am like a child with eyes and ears peaked – the rooster crowing, the clothes blowing on the lines. Everything welcomes me and dares me to look further, walk more, taste everything, be more alive. 

So it’s my birthday (soon) and I will celebrate by acknowledging and absorbing, and feeling it all.

And tonight I may get at least one sheet to th' wind ;)