fetchinketch

In our onshore excursion today we did take an extended walk across the island away from the main road. See below for the circumstances around that time killing exercise. The variety of plants that grow here is astounding. Including plants that you might have heard of, but never actually seen. The basic ecosystem is a mixed hardwood forest, with the tallest trees maybe 15 to 20 feet tall. Mahogany, Lignum vitae, and tamarind are common. Poisonwood and machaneel are common enough to make you careful about what you touch. Flowers and butterflies abound. A delightful place.

In looking at our cruising plans for the summer season, we realized that we really want to get further north, maybe as far as Newfoundland. If that is going to be a priority, then heading north early is going to be a good idea. Since we have already touched the places that were on our visit list for this winter, it seems like this is a good place to turn around. So… for this season Mayaguana, Bahamas is going to be our furthest south and east destination. Tomorrow we begin to retrace our steps back in the direction that we came from.

Our first stop on our return trip will be to revisit the Plana Cays. This time, we’ll be checking out East Plana Cay which looks to be at least as much fun as West Plana Cay where we stayed a week ago. We’ll be there for a few days beach combing, bushwacking, snorkeling, and fishing.

Our real adventure today was getting our Bahamian fishing license renewed. This requires a trip to the Customs Office. Last year when we did this in the city of Marsh Harbor, we presented our paperwork and the officer in charge made disapproving noises about the staff at Bimini. He said that our fishing permit should have been good for a year. He crossed out the original date, wrote in a new one, and sent us on our way. Problem solved.

Out here, things were a bit more complex. We had to redo ALL our paperwork as if we were entering the country for the first time. Then it has to all be approved and stamped by the “Administrator.” Stamping is very important, and only the Administrator can do the stamping.

The problem is that the Administrator is not in the office. It seems he is out at the airport meeting today’s plane. “He’ll be back in a half hour.” Now, we know what that means in island time. So we go for a walk (see above) and return 90 minutes later, at noon. The Administrator is not back yet, and somehow is STILL expected in a half hour. Karen is smart enough to ask when the plane is due.

“Oh, One o’clock. Maybe One-thirty. If it’s not late.”

We walk down to the beach and hang out until two o’clock. Our paperwork is finally ready, with all the official stamps in lots of places.

Out at the Plana Cays we’ll be internet limited again, with only our sat phone connection. Just imagine… The pleasure of NOT reading the news for a week. 🙂

If you are reading this on email or Facebook you might want to click through to FetchinKetch.net to see all the photos.

We left the uninhabited island of West Plana Cay yesterday morning and arrived at the barely inhabited (pop: 277) island of Mayaguana in the early evening. We stopped here two years ago and enjoyed it, but moved on before we had a chance to explore much. Mayaguana is blessed with a very well protected harbor, and It looks like we’ll be here for several days as a weather front passes.

As promised, here are some pictures that we have accumulated since our last internet connection..

Sailing out of Georgetown, we landed a blackfin tuna, one of the smaller and less common members of the tuna family, but locally abundant , and very tasty.

While we always enjoy the contribution to the freezer such a catch makes, the cleanup can be a bit daunting!

The beach at Acklins Island was pretty, but narrow and rocky. The large coral rock boulders covered the land as far as we could see, making inland exploration too rough for our tastes.

The land was relatively lush with varied small trees.

And the deeper side of the reef yielded up some tasty grouper.

Our route around the southern end of Acklins Is. took us past the small Castle Island featuring a defunct lighthouse. One general rule about how navigation lights work in the Bahamas, they don’t.

Off the east side of Castle Island there is a deep reef that donated a Silk snapper to our freezer from 400 feet under the surface.

The island of West Plana Cay had the kind of beach Karen dreams about, where the only visible footprints are her own, and there are lots of shells.

Although no one lives on the Plana Cays, the conch fisherman visit regularly, and have for years judging by the variety of ages of the shells on their discard pile.

There are ruins from an earlier time. I haven’t seen anything on the history of these islands, so I don’t know how old they might be or what kind of living they might have been trying to make.

Ruins of smaller scale. Note the very sparse vegetation of very limited variety. Especially compared to Acklins Island just a few dozen miles to the west. We suspect there are two reasons for that.

This is as close as we have come to seeing a live Bahamian hutia, a strictly nocturnal rodent that is the only native mammal in the Bahamas. With limited predators, they come to dominate the ecosystem on any islands where they exist.

Non-native mammals are also doing their part to keep the vegetation in check. This is the first Bahamian Island we have seen with feral goats.

In some places on the island large terrestrial hermit crabs are very common.

Like many of the islands here, the land crab burrows are everywhere the soil is damp.

If you should sail by, West Plana Cay should be more than just an overnight anchorage to break up a passage, it’s worth exploring at some length.

Our arrival in Abraham’s Bay, Mayaguana was heralded with one of the more spectacular sunsets we have seen, and we see a lot of awesome sunsets!

Like I said in the last post… when the weather agrees, you go along!

From our anchorage at Acklins Island we had some successes and some disappointments. Our first day, we spent fishing. We trolled lures all along the edge of the reef and got nothing. Nothing… until it was time to pull up the lines at the end of the day. After several hours of trying with no luck we were headed back into the anchorage. I had pulled in all the lines except the last handline, and it was almost halfway into the boat when a cero mackerel grabbed the lure, and ended up in our freezer. About as “last minute” a success as you can have!

The next day was beach exploring. The beaches are beautiful, but were a little bit of a disappointment for Karen because there was a lack of interesting shells. We had expected to do some exploring inland, but that was not to be. This part of the island is not sand or solid rock, but rather a jumble of large, angular coral rock boulders. Very unfriendly to try to walk on.

We decided to take advantage of a break in the weather and jump to the next landmark. A 10 hour sail to the Plana Cays, a pair of uninhabited islands along the route to Mayaguana, our next major landfall. As we rounded the southern corner of Acklins Island, there is a long deep reef system that extends to the east. We paused there to drop a line, and in fairly short order pulled a nice, big, bright red “silk snapper” up from 400 feet under the boat. The rest of the sail was as nice as they come. Karen suggested that if sailing was always like this we’d sail until the food ran out. Daybreak brought us up to West Plana Cay were we anchored in the lee of the island.

The first beach-combing expedition here on West Plana turned up more shells, although Karen is still reserving judgement about how awesome it will be. Both East and West Plana Cay are currently uninhabited, but we did find ruins of very old occupations. Also, a pile of conch shells where the visiting fisherman clean their catch.

We even found the skull of a rodent, obviously not a common rat, it is wider and much heavier. It is almost surely the remains of the the only native mammal in the Bahamas, the Bahamian Hutia. The Plana Cays were the last place they were found before they were reintroduced to other islands. We didn’t see any evidence of living hutia on the island, but a marked lack of diversity in the local flora suggest that they might be here in significant numbers.

We’ll be watching the weather for the next few days here since this anchorage is open to the ocean the the east, it is not a place we want to be in case of a change in the winds. Our next harbor will be Mayaguana, about 30 miles to windward of our current location. Once we get there we’ll have a connection to allow posting of photos.

When the weather cooperates, you have to take advantage! We left Georgetown, where we were surrounded by hundreds of other boats, and ended up, 24 hours later, anchored off the southeast corner of Acklins Island in a place a world apart. From the sparkle of hundreds of anchor lights, here there now are a total of three (including ours). There is not a single light visible on shore. No dunken sailors singing. No other boats we have to worry about how THEIR anchors are holding if the wind picks up. The stars are brilliant, the phosphorescent critters in the water entertain in the dark. This is way better.

As we sailed away from Georgetown the wind was light, but generally favorable. As the day moved along, the winds faded, and we toughed it out, sometimes just barely making way, in winds as light as 2 or 3 knots, but knowing that more wind was coming our way. As we rounded the northern corner of Long Island, the wind picked up and we picked up speed. Just a few minutes before I brought the fishing lines in for the evening, we hooked and landed a Blackfin Tuna. Not huge fish but Karen had put an order in for a fish suitable for serving up as poke(*), and it was delivered!

Overnight, the wind picked up from a mostly favorable direction and we made good progress to the southeast sometimes making 8 knots. We are anchored in an open roadstead, with good protection from the normal tradewinds from the northeast through the southeast. We are anchored in a narrow sandy spot close to shore in about 15 feet of water. As close as 500 feet off our stern it is a thousand feet deep.

We will be here for a couple days waiting for the next weather window to let us move east again. In the mean time, we have miles of empty beach to explore and banks and reef to fish.

Here we are back to the delightful situation of being internet deprived. At the very fringes of cellular connectivity, we get email once a day—maybe. Relaxing to not have devices clamoring for our attention!

If you have been following, we have been lingering around Georgetown in a effort to get a new thermostat for one of our refrigerators. It turns out that the new electronic thermostats are inexpensive (less than $15 each) so we ordered one for each of our three refrigeration units, plus a spare. Then, we needed delivery of a new credit card. Then we added a dimmer for the light on our compass. Then, since we had a package coming anyway, we added some fishing tackle, and other miscellaneous stuff.

It all seemed so easy. Not simple, but easy.

First, have all the goodies and mail assembled at our mail forwarding service in Florida. They collect all the bits and pieces, and put them in one box which is sent to Reggie Express in Fort Lauderdale that gets them on an airplane to Georgetown.

Those steps went smoothly and on time. Delivery to the airport in Georgetown happened on schedule on Wednesday afternoon. Now, things are in the hands of our customs broker (Doeboi–pronounced “dough-boy”) and the Bahamian Customs service.

I would think that in a town this small that the customs brokers and customs officers would have a smooth and happy working relationship. Apparently, I’d be wrong.

There was a hang up with one of the invoices. The total was on the second page. Now this was for an item with a total duty due of $5. The agent at the airport refused to approve the import. The woman working for the broker got fed up, drive 30 minutes into town where she got the local head of customs to approve the paper, then BACK to the airport to get the package released with the boss’ signature.

Two lessons. Petty officials are petty everywhere, and never try to import anything, anywhere, without the help of a local customs broker!

Now that we have arrived back in the crowded harbor at Georgetown, I can post the pictures I promised!

We’ll start with some random shots from our explorations on foot around Conception Island.

And pictures from our deepwater fishing excursions…

Lastly, a couple sunset pictures, just because they are pretty…

After several days enjoying the remote beauty of Conception Island, it is time for us to return to Georgetown, get the deliveries that are supposed to be waiting for us, and then move on again. As if to hurry us along a large “Superyacht” that entered the harbor this morning has launched a half dozen jetskies that are buzzing around the (previously) peaceful anchorage like angry hornets.

The weather for our trip back to Georgetown is forecast to be perfect, so should have a fast and easy run. The harbor there will likely even be more crowded that when we left as the annual Cruiser’s Regatta will be in full swing. Hopefully we can get a comfortable spot to anchor, and avoid the noisiest of the parties.

One of the enjoyable parts of cruising is the planning. We have spent the last couple of evenings looking at the alternatives for our next few stops. Depending on the weather, we have several choices, each one seems better than the others.

Our next major goal is to get the the Turks and Caicos, but that is likely to be two or three weeks from now. Along the way we definitely want to revisit the island of Mayaguana, and we have intermediate possible stops at Samana Cay, the uninhabited Plana Cays, several locations on Long Island, and Crooked Island. Some of the possible stops are small settlements, but most are rather remote. Hopefully the sailing, exploring and fishing will be rewarding.

We have been anchored at Conception Island for several days now. A amazingly beautiful place. An uninhabited island, it is part of the Bahamian National Park system. It is actually a cluster of small islands on top of a large and extensive reef system. The park covers all of the land and the water out to 100 fathoms deep. Both above and below the water it is a very beautiful place.

For the past two days we have weighed anchor, and headed out to do some fishing. The local waters teem with a type of red snapper. It isn’t large, about a pound or two. But it is very common and eager to bite the small pieces of squid I drop down to them. To the point that if I don’t come up with three at a time I am disappointed. There are so many of them and they are so eager for food, that I feel the “tap-tap-tap” of them attacking my baits as soon as they hit the bottom. They don’t put up much of a struggle, it’s not exactly a sporting effort. This is “meat fishing.” What they lack in strength, they more than make up for with their table presence. They are the sweetest, most delicately flavored fish we have ever eaten.

There is one teeny, tiny little issue with catching them however…

They live a bit deep. OK, more than a bit. We are catching them in 700 to 1000 feet of water. Yes, you read that right. A fifth of a mile down. That’s a LOT of cranking to bring them up to the top. The three pound sinker I use to get down to them takes a full five minutes to reach the bottom. At those depths it is always pitch black, and very cold.

In addition to the complexity of the depth, there is competition! On one side of the island, as soon as we stopped the boat, the sharks gathered around. They knew what we were there for. In fact one of the sharks is already tangled in a “deep drop” rig just like I am using. In this spot with four drops to the bottom, way, way, way down there, I get one set of three fish into the boat intact. The sharks steal the others, and twice get hooked themselves in the process. They aren’t huge as sharks go, maybe five feet long, but they have teeth I don’t want to deal with. We manage to break them off at the boatside and send them on their way.

In spite of the sharks, in two days of fishing, we have added a fortnight’s worth of dinners to the freezer—and my arm is really, really tired from all the cranking.

We’ll have pictures in a few days when we get back to the “civilized” world with an internet connection.

As we were getting ready to leave Georgetown a line of showers blew across the harbor. Heavy rain, and a clocking wind blowing up to 25 or 28 knots. A good breeze, but nothing we would consider violent. From our perspective in this crowded anchorage we had eyes on about 50 boats. As the wind picked up, at least five boats started to drag their anchors. Two ended up aground on the beach! Fortunately, the winds died down pretty quickly, and everybody was refloated without serious incident.

But it was a lesson. In this relatively minor blow, about 10% of the boats around us broke their anchors from the bottom. In a crowded anchorage the biggest danger is not from the weather, but from the other boats who have bad equipment, bad technique, or both.

In a sailing forum the other day someone was posting in the highly superior tone that the internet seems to encourage people to adapt that he couldn’t understand why anyone would ever pay to pick up a mooring instead of anchoring. It’s really simple. In a very crowded harbor I’ll go to the mooring field and pick up a mooring not because I have any doubts about MY anchoring equipment or technique, but because I doubt YOURS. A mooring might have issues, and might not be as good as my own anchor, but it’s reliability is WAY better than 90%.

When I must anchor in a crowd, I look at where the wind will come from in a sudden blow. That is usually 90 or 180 degrees clockwise from the prevailing wind direction. I pick a spot so I will be upwind of as many boats as possible during a storm, not during the prevailing conditions.

We are off grid for at least a few days while we explore Conception Island. If you sent us an email or have any other expectation of communication, sorry! We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.