Begining of a two week vacation

It’s getting late in the season and Dutchess must get moving North, towards Florida to repair damages sustained when a gale storm blew through George Town (Dutchess' anchor dragged and tangled anchor chains with a 50’ power boat, slamming into the side of the power boat for 20 minutes until dinghies came to their rescue). Anyways, we have a weather window approaching to take a run up the Exumas for a couple weeks. However, there is a low pressure moving westward across the Caribbean that has a 30% change of developing into a tropical depression south of Cuba and will move north towards Miami causing strong westerly winds later in the week (5 days from now). We all decided to still go and keep an eye on the developing weather…as we would always do anyway. Jettie and Donna on Dutchess asked if we wanted to make the trip to Florida on their boat and they would pay for our flight back. We gave it some serious thought but it would leave little time for us to prepare BoomDeYada for the hurricane hole before we travel back to the continent. So we decided to buddy boat with them and go see the Exumas again (we rushed through them on our way down as our friend travelling with us had to catch a flight home from George Town).

We prepared the boat and topped up our fuel…ready to go minus our inverter/charger. We will rely on solar, wind and the main engine for charging our batteries.

May 31^st : our 29^th wedding anniversary :) It was a beautiful day as we lifted anchor at 09:00 and headed up Elizabeth Harbour to exit through Conch Cut and into the deep water of the Atlantic…a 21 mile run to Adderly Cut, 31 miles total for the day. This timing would have us exiting with the ebb tide and re-entering with the flood tide…prefect for current helping to push us along. We put out one fishing rod and took the advice of a local boater/fisher, named Fat Boy (the locals all seem to have street names), who had said to stay in the 150-400’ depth for catching good fish. It’s a narrow band of water as it quickly drops to 1,000s of feet. He said we would catch Barracuda in depths of 100ft or less, which we don’t want and won’t eat because of ciguatera poisoning. The swells were eight seconds apart and waves less than a foot, wind on our beam…it was a great day for a motor/sail. It didn’t take long before the line started to run, I grabbed the rod and starting reeling…it soon had no fight. Only the head of the Ballyhoo was left, a clean cut…must have been a Barracuda…reload. A little while later, zinnnggg again, I reeled in a Barracuda. I got my gloves on and grabbed a set of pliers to remove the hook from his month, then tossed him back in. Now down 2 Ballyhoo. 

Reeling in the tuna

Landed the Blackfin tuna on deck.

Really starting to hate these Barracudas. Zinnnggg again, another F’ing Barracuda. I pack it in for a while. Aaah haa, there are some birds flying down to the water and fish jumping, I quickly throw a lure out (one that makes bubbles and stays at the surface)…zinnnggg, a good fight…it’s a Blackfin Tuna…YES, and just half an hour away from Adderly Cut!! Tuna is known to give a good fight for their size.

Anniversary cheers with coconut cups gifted to us from Dutchess

Catching the tuna slowed us down, so Dutchess is leading the way, however, we have discovered a big difference in the accuracy between Navionics charts versus Garmin charts (we have both, Dutchess only has the Navionics). Navigating their way to the anchorage they almost ran aground twice…good thing we traveled together while monitoring VHF16 and VHF17 where we can communicate freely at a moment’s notice. 

Jettie & Dwayne enjoying fresh Sashimi!!!

Once both boats are secured around 15:00, Jettie drops their dinghy and heads over for an anchor drink and fresh Tuna Sashimi. We will stay here two nights to give us time to explore the area tomorrow.

Abandoned research center from our anchorage

  












Lee Stocking Island has a somewhat abandoned Marine Research Center with No Trespassing signs; the buildings were in darkness last night and no sign of life,

125' on top of the Exumas - our boats at anchour

so instead of investigating further, we dinghy about a mile down to a beautiful secluded beach, anchored our dinghy, found the trail and hiked up the tallest point in the Exumas, 125ft. Then at slack tide, we took both dinghies around the point towards the cut where the charts showed several coral heads. We couldn’t find them so we headed to Leaf Cay where there are Pink Iguanas.

Julie with one of 20 Iguanas that met us on shore of Leaf Cay

We can see an adventure boat already there with their guests. As we pulled up, there were a couple dozen large Iguanas on the beach. They came to greet us in hopes we had food for them (vegetarians), they would even allow you to pet them. The tour boat driver was happy to point out a good snorkelling spot where we spent the next hour swimming around watching life in this other world.

Lots to see below the surface too!

The next day, while waiting to leave, I saw birds diving down to the water and fish jumping again. So I jumped in the dinghy (the water was only 4-5 ft deep) with the existing lure I used to catch the tuna and sped through the birds and fish a few times…zinnggg. It was a nice 1 foot long Jack, not really prepared to land him in the dinghy I dragged him back to the boat, however, as I passed Dutchess, I saw a Barracuda heading for my fish…too late, he cut right through the nylon leader with ease and took my lure with the fish…damn those Barracudas! 

Sunset from Lee Stocking Island

sv BoomDeYada

Boomdeyada2014@gmail.com

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Skype: dwayne.sadler

Blog: sadlerstravels.blogspot.ca