Castaway by choice - another level of paradise and a shark

John is on shark patrol. He walks slowly around the perimeter of the boat, donning the all important polarized glasses, scouring the endless clear blue for that long black slithering mass. The good thing is that we can see them for miles.

I am perched on the back ladder, armed with only a bottle of liquid soap, wearing nothing but a nervous grin. “Coast is clear?” “Yep, go for it”. This is not some swim-with-the-sharks adventure game. This is our daily shower routine. Rinse in ocean, soap up, immerse in ocean again, then jump out for a quick fresh water rinse.

We haven’t Googled anything in days. The phone reads boldly: “NO SERVICE”. Haven’t seen a building or heard the motor of a car. We are castaways by choice on the island on Conception in the outer Bahamas. It is apparently protected as a nature sanctuary and there is nothing here but white sand beaches, some bushes and the rugged rocks where the tropic birds nest. Oh, and the sharks. We used to swim and snorkel with wild abandon but the day before we left the relative civilization of Cat Island, we heard that a girl on an organized snorkeling trip in Nassau had her arm bitten off by a reef shark... Gives one a small cause for concern.

When we are not swimming in the shallows – ever alert for our black finned friends, we are walking expanses of sand - day or night. 

Back on the boat, the fridge has gone on the brink and we are testing what can be stuffed in the little freezer and what will last without growing mold here in 85% humidity and 33 degrees C.

Generator is pumping away on deck, charging up the batteries so we can desalinate some drinking water and run lights and TV at night. This is life off the grid. Disconnected but with all the modern amenities we need.

Occasionally another boat will arrive over the horizon to drop anchor here and sit with us in relative isolation and breathtaking beauty. And after a day they are off. Maybe they miss Twitter or the grocery store. Maybe they are on a tight schedule, heading back to the states for hurricane season. Perhaps they know something we don’t about the weather headed our way. We are oblivious. Haven’t seen a weather App for a week. We are reading the conditions the old fashioned way – look and see.

Today looks windy, a bit hazy. Think I’ll make a curry and we’ll take a long walk later. Bit of ‘house cleaning’ before exploring. Tides are our time. The beach is best to walk at low tide. Snorkeling best at slack tide. A dip in the rock pool on the north beach is wonderful at high tide when the ocean crashes violently through a crack in the rocks into the serene warm pond.

Yesterday we discovered the massive steel ruins of a ship that have literally grown into the rock around them. My mind exploded with wonder. How old is this ship?! What really happened? Were there survivors? If so how long did they live? What did they eat? Did they make shelter? It dawns on me that they were truly castaways and this is not Hollywood. This is a genuine story of adventure and tragedy. One that no one will ever know. It’s possible we might discover something if we Googled ‘Conception island ship wreck’. But you’d need Internet for that. Oh well, white tropic birds with their long tails flutter above, the turquoise of the ocean reflecting off their bellies. Who needs Internet?!

There are reefs surrounding the island, populated by the colour-by-numbers parrot fish and every other imaginable shape, colour and size of reef eater. I’ve been trying out my new gas-mask style snorkel gear with moderate success. No water or steam gets in but it seems to jam my jaw upward. It’s a first world problem. I can still see the beauty around me. 

I will happily sacrifice fresh milk (we’ve got the lovely powdered substitute), laundry (not wearing many clothes anyway), and the constant saltiness for this paradise. My skin is crispy, leathery, a disturbing terra cotta hue. My hair used to have highlights. It’s gone from styled to wild pretty quickly. The little greys poke out through the black roots while the rest is dry, wiry, wispy and toxic orange. Sun kissed rapidly turned to sun baked and now I’m basically fitting my role as castaway.

JW is mopping what we believe is migrated Sahara dust off the solar panels while I’ve tied up my orange mop and I’m sautéing onions in prep for my curry. I’m thinking it’s nearly time for a swim but then, through the galley window I spot him in the distance. The black slithering mass in the endless expanse of blue, winding his way toward us…

Glorious silence, neon toys and canned food - The Exuma reality

I’m squinting at the tiny mangrove roots, marveling that they push up through the mushy white sand. Sun bakes my dry corn-husk hair and exposed limbs. The tide is rapidly flowing out through rivers to the sea, leaving our dinghy exposed on the ever growing beach. We are like castaways. Salt caked and leather brown. Our small bottle of water is empty. 

JW and I sit in silence in the sand on this uninhabited island in the Exumas. Tiny resilient seeds and crispy dry leaves whisper as they tumble along the sand, at home in this harsh environment. The only other sounds are far off airplanes and distant speed boats. They try to encroach, to remind us that this reality is small and confined. But it’s ours. And it is wild and it’s free.

It could be a Saturday or a Tuesday. Shiloh is anchored out in the unprotected bay, a huge ocean swell slapping her from side to side. We’ve escaped to the shore for some peace from the incessant rolling. 

We’ve been in the Exumas for 6 weeks. We left the last town two weeks ago. The last ‘proper’ grocery store about 4 weeks ago. We’ve run out of beers and cokes and snacks. Same with eggs and bread. Haven’t seen a fresh vegetable in a while. We are in the land of the scarce.

The Bahamas Telecom network forgot about the northern Exumas as well. But we’ve managed to devise a makeshift system for getting an Internet signal once every few days. Our iphone is double wrapped in ziplock bags, then tied to a keychain float and hoisted up the mast. If we are lucky it finds weak reception and we scramble to answer emails, check in on facebook. Say hello to the real world. And then we sink back into the salty, sun soaked world of islands we love so much.

This is the land of shifting sand that creates works of art daily. Swirls of electric turquoise, emerald green, soft teal, creamy beige. And if you can hike to any vantage point above, the rewards are awe and amazement and a humbling so profound. It floors me daily. This is natural beauty unmatched. White tropic birds with their long ribbon tails swirl above, turning blue over the water with the reflection of the sea, and back to white over land. 

Each island offers something unique – hikes to ancient ruins, bubbling pools to play in between the ocean and rocks.

Earlier today we took kayaks and the SUP and paddled a dense and still mangrove river out to the ocean on an outgoing tide.  

Some days the silence is broken – pierced by the wild whirling jet skis of the mega yacht crowd. From any shoreline you might see, anchored out in the deeper waters, a colossal white or silver multi-million dollar, crew-run floating funhouse for the rich. In this place where nature is king and money is useless, it is a jarring sight. And the huge tenders with their massive outboard engines cut through the waters with disregard, shuttling the privileged owners and guests to-and-fro. Some take over a beach with elaborate umbrella systems, blankets, baskets, neon pink and green beach toys that bob around at the water’s edge, claiming their territory. 

Today it is a convoy of power boats, here to break the silence. Down from Nassau for the weekend; kids, beers, bright toys. The breathtaking beach at the end of the mangrove river is overtaken by bikinis and bellies and exuberant chatter. The decibel level is too high for us. We haven’t been in a crowd forever it seems.

They are friendly enough, one guy in a Blue Jays baseball cap sipping a Labatt Blue he’s brought all the way from Canada. “It’s snowing back home!” he tells me, as his little pink two year old, clad in full body sun-shade armour and a wide brimmed hat that covers his whole face, plays happily in the sand. I can barely hear him. My mind does not compute. Snow? Holiday makers with Canadian beer? It seems absurd. I thought we were castaways in our own little world. I think I wished it so.

But this world, free and wild as it is, must be shared. It must come to an end even for us. One day soon our canned goods will run out too. We will need to make a bank transfer or talk on a phone. My backpack/purse will have to be transformed from a sandy vessel for water, sea shells and sun block, to wallets and cell phones. The real world will call to us and we will have to answer.

But for now intense sun. Salt. Sand. Silence.