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Back home!!!!!

We are back in Cookstown.

The Boat is at Bert Jabin's Boat Yard in Annapolis Maryland.

View Where is Northern Phoenix in a larger map

Whitby 42. Northern Phoenix .... FOR SALE.

Our trip is coming to an end and the boat is now officially for sale. Click here for all the boat details and price.

Below: Anchored behind Allen Cay facing north. Boat is 3rd from left.

Showing category "Exumas" (Show all posts)

Stocking Lee Island (and some other places)

Posted by Sahara on Saturday, March 8, 2014, In : Exumas

WARNING: This is one of those blog posts with a lot of pictures...

After leaving Emerald Bay, we headed up to Lee Stocking Island, an uneventful, 3 hour voyage. However we did see a huge turtle, and we did get a bite on one of our fishing lines- which didn't go too well, as we quickly lost whatever it was- so that was exciting.

While there, we met up with the Morrison’s again (because we are heading north, and they are still going south, sadly). The first day we tried to find a suitable ...

Georgetown

Posted by sahara on Saturday, March 8, 2014, In : Exumas

So, apparently it is my duty to tell everyone what we did in Georgetown. Pretty much nothing in the 4 days we were there. WE did chores, such a stocking up a 3 week food supply (we are measuring on the scale of a normal family, and seeing as this scale is totally inadequate, it will probably last 3 weeks, but the last week or so will consist mainly of spaghetti and other boring/disgusting food that we find in the hidden depth of the cabin). We also fixed our dinghy spark plug, which was impe...

George Town

Posted by Bryan on Saturday, March 1, 2014, In : Exumas

February 27th, we made it to George Town.

A 50 knotical mile trip, and used 3 gallons of fuel. A great wind for the day. We woke up in a very rough anchorage, that had no protection from west winds. however, after going through the cut to the other side, we had super calm water with 12-15 knot winds coming from the west. We were sheltered by the island chain and were cruising at 6-7 knots. We did not put up the mizzen sail, as the speed was suppose to be the right speed for trolling for M...
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Black Point

Posted by Sahara on Saturday, March 1, 2014, In : Exumas

February 21-27

After finally leaving Staniel’s 6 days ago, we headed down to Whitepoint, which is a point- obviously- on Great Guana Cay. We stayed there for two nights, swimming and exploring the small beach there- we even found an osprey nest, osprey included. Then we headed down to Blackpoint, which everyone says has great laundry service. Blackpoint community is much larger than Staniel’s, and much livelier as well. It has at least 3 restaurants, a laundry service- which has about 20...

Lion fish hunt

Posted by Devon on Thursday, February 27, 2014, In : Exumas

February 20th

The other day when I went swimming with the spear gun, and I saw some lionfish. I knew that lion fish were bad to the reef and you are supposed to kill any lionfish you see. So I had started shooting it, this had been the first time I used it so I wasn’t too good at it. After a while I had this score- [hits- 5] [misses- a very large number]. I hit it twice in the body, twice in the head, and once on the fin, and it was still swimming! The first time I hit it I held it out of t...

Staniel Cay Pigs

Posted by Sahara on Tuesday, February 18, 2014, In : Exumas

Feb. 17

So, we’ve finally got around to visiting the pigs. And now that I’ve seen them, I have no idea why they were trying to save the pig in Charlotte’s Web. They were big, hairy, smelly (I don’t know this for sure, but judging by their appearances that is what I conclude) and made very loud grunting noises that I have no idea how anyone gets “oink” out of. However, giving credit where credit is due, I must admit it was slightly entertaining to throw carrots at them.

So, t...

thunder ball

Posted by Devon on Tuesday, February 18, 2014, In : Exumas

February 16

Thunder ball grotto, named after the cave that was in James bond thunder ball, is a large cave that is at water level. It was very fun on the trip on the way over because Makai and C-Spirit got into the same small dinghy except for mom and dad.

At first when I got in I thought it was just going to be a slit in the sandy rock, but it was huge. You have to go in this narrow opening that is close to the water at first but then it opens up into a huge chamber. I thought the cave was ...
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Between the majors

Posted by Bryan on Tuesday, February 18, 2014, In : Exumas

We anchored between the majors, Little Major and Big Major. two islands near Stanial Cay, Good wind and wave protection.

We did a little snorkeling and Sahara drove the outboard!

The little black things are all sea urchins that are living in this pool that only gets water from splashing waves.

Cool Stag horn coral.

Sea star belly Upside down Jelly fish

Sea Flowers

There was a valentines day fundraiser on the weekend that we atte...

Valentines Day

Posted by Sahara on Tuesday, February 18, 2014, In : Exumas

So, for Valentines Day we decided to make a dessert. After much arguing and discussions we finally decided on a Christening Cake, whose recipe has been passed down through the ages, all the way back from Grunt, the caveman. For those who haven't heard of it before, a Christening cake is a multi-layered cake. Starting with a layer of merangue, followed by vanilla cake, whip cream in the middle, and topped with another layer of cake and merangue. Needless to say, its very rich, and very good. O...

Staniel Cay

Posted by Sahara on Tuesday, February 18, 2014, In : Exumas

Feb 11 and 12

Staniel is an interesting Cay, more like how I expected Bahamian civilization to be like. The community is completely dependent on tourism of course, and even has its own airport- if it can be called that. The stores and shops seem barely large enough to support the island. And, like all Bahamian places, they bought out the paint isle when building the houses. You could find pretty much every color house, from blue to yellow to orange to purple.

Apparently, box...

The Sea Aquarium

Posted by Devon on Monday, February 10, 2014, In : Exumas

Feb 9th

By Devon

The other day at O’Brien’s Cay, we decided to go snorkelling at the sea aquarium. We anchored near the place and looked around, in the water were several barracudas and they were swimming around our boat, odds were that this was their territory. Soon after we examined them we got ready and jumped in the water, the water was cold (78 degrees) and it took a while to get to the reef because of the light current.

Though when we got there, there were about 150 fish consist...

Warerick wells to Pasture Cay

Posted by Sahara on Monday, February 10, 2014, In : Exumas

Feb 8

Yesterday we unanchored (apparently this is a word as its not coming up with a red squiggle like so many of my others [actually this isn’t true; you are more likely to see blue lines than anything due to my extreme dislike of the apostrophe key]) and headed down to the southern tip of Warderick Wells, where we re-anchored among the company of some other sailboats and a trimaran- basically a catamaran with 3 hulls.

Since this part of the island is still part of the park, it had trai...

Warderick Wells Nostrals and fishes

Posted by Sahara and Devon on Monday, February 10, 2014, In : Exumas

By Sahara
Feb 6

We arrived at Warderick Wells, coming from Hawksbill Cay. Warderwick Wells is known for having some of the best snorkeling in the world; and the best in the Bahamas. So today we are going to check out some of the reefs. Warderick Wells is also the main island in the nature park- another reason for the great reefs- so it has trails all throughout the island. One of them leads up to a large hill, Boo Boo Hill.

The name- which I think sucks, and they should come up with a new on...

Highborne Cay with Friends

Posted by Sahara on Monday, February 10, 2014, In : Exumas

On Feb 2,

By Sahara

we headed back up to Highborne Cay, where we had planned to visit with our friends the Morrison’s.

And, since almost the entire eastern side of the island is beach… to go and claim it. And it was awesome, because no one was on this amazingly soft-sanded beach. The water was a warm 76 degrees F (which is roughly some number above 0 in Celsius), which made us think of how everyone back home must be freezing what with all the snow and ice. I’m kidding; actually, no t...

Shroud cay Snorkle

Posted by Devon on Thursday, January 30, 2014, In : Exumas

The other day we all went to a reef and it was a quick ride because dad gave us a tow with our dinghy. We all hung on to a tow line to do it. On the way there, we also saw a whole bunch of coral and sand dollars.

At first, when we got off the dinghy, Sahara started yelling Lion fish! Lion fish!

At this point we all knew that lion fish were red, white and black with a whole bunch of spines. But lion fish are invasive species and they are bad for the reef because they crowd out the o...
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Shroud Cay

Posted by Sahara on Thursday, January 30, 2014, In : Exumas

Jan 27, 28, 29

Today we headed down to a larger cay, Shroud Cay. The water was so clear heading over, that at 18 feet you could count the blades of grass at the bottom. Of course, the whole of the Bahamas are like this, but we still are getting used to the fact. It's a bit discomforting when it looks like it is only 5 feet, even if the depth sounder is reading higher than 15.
So, anyway, Shroud Cay. It's the largest Cay we've gone to, however most of it is swampy mangroves.

Today was very...
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Normans Cay

Posted by Bryan on Thursday, January 30, 2014, In : Exumas

Normans Cay Jan 25 and 26
Day 1

We anchored off the west coast of the southern tip of Normans cay with a few other Canadian boats. Amazing the percentage of Canadian boats we see.At LEAST 25% of all the boats we see are Canadian. They understand getting away from winter!

Although hard to see in the pictures, all the islands are different.Not huge differences, but each unique. This place had a rocky (old coral) like beach. The rocks for fun to climb around. NOT slippery at all. There is no ...
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Highborne Cay

Posted by Bryan on Saturday, January 25, 2014, In : Exumas

For the past 2 days we have been staying in a lovely marina at Highbourne Cay. Highbourne was considerably larger than Allan’s Cay, meaning that you couldn’t see the other side of the island at any given time. Well, you probably could if the hills were not in the way. Yes, Highbourne is mostly just a bunch of hills, hence the name. The
first day we were here we saw some sharks. Not just any one shark, swimming by fast enough that it’s hard to really distinguish what it is. More like a�...

Allens Cay

Posted by Sahara on Thursday, January 23, 2014, In : Exumas

Jan 20

Today we arrived at Allan’s Cay, one of the first islands that you can get to safely by boat that make up the exumas! It was a short trip; only 4 hours or so. We had to spend the first two keeping watch for coral heads, where there was a possibility of grounding the boat. However, what we couldn’t get over was it was 20 feet deep, and we could see the ripples on the sand. No fish though.