Ñandú

Warderick Wells Island is part of The Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, which protects 176 square miles of water, reefs and cays. Warderick Wells, where the park headquarters are, turned out to be the crown jewel of The Exumas. Unknowingly, we had left the best for last.

We picked mooring buoy number nine from the field that the park manages in an anchorage that’s well-protected, albeit narrow and subject to a wild tidal current. We lost the boathook in the process and recovered it later, but from what we saw during our stay, that appeared to be standard procedure when trying to pick up the buoy pendant in those strong currents. Never mind that we arrived at slack tide and didn’t really have any current to contend with, but we like to blend in, so we lost the hook anyway.

Buoy nine happened to be the closest one to an old sunken boat that became an artificial reef, home of a multitude of fish. A flood current would place Ñandú right on top of the sunken boat, gifting us with a colorful tropical garden underneath us. Getting wet was optional, as we could see the schools of fish, the huge resident lobster and the visiting nurse shark from the deck.

We spent an entire week enjoying the spectacle in our backyard, watching the tide come and go and the sand bars hide and show. We snorkeled in nearby reefs, and took the dinghy to shore to explore every inch of the hiking trails. The trails zig-zag from sandy beaches on the Bank side to rocky bluffs and seas that roar through blow holes on the Ocean side. They took us through mangroves, shady palm forests, not-so-shady Swiss-cheese-like rocky terrain, ponds, sand flats, small hills, ruins, and even a pirate lair.

What a gourmet dessert it was! You can see twice as many pictures in the photo album.

So far our interactions with Bahamians have left us with the impression that they are a polite, extremely friendly, helpful and warm bunch of people. There has been an abundance of smiles and laughter everywhere we have stopped, even though they were in the middle of an election.

Little Farmers Cay

After the spiritual and physical re-encounter with my feathers and hat (refer to the previous post if you are lost), Juan and I went looking for veggies in the tiny town of Little Farmers. Not an easy task even with that lovely name.

Veggies used to be our main staple back in the continent. These days, however, chewing a lettuce has become a holy experience. Finding veggies is like going into a treasure hunt, unless you go to the market soon after the mail boat arrives. For our quest in Little Farmers we acquired a very friendly entourage. The leader, a nine-year-old girl with bright eyes, a beautiful smile and engaging personality approached us and politely said, “Hello. May I introduce myself?”

“Yes, of course,” we said happily.

“My name is Tanelia Hansen, I am nine years old. My mom is over there. She makes crafts,” she said pointing to a group of
women. “Are you in a boat?” She added.

The conversation went from our boat to her school to our elusive salad ingredients. Juan and I were in awe at the politeness and cheerful friendliness of the kids. She and three of her friends took us up the street and left us in front of a house with assurances that tomatoes could be found within. Indeed, the woman that opened the door sold us not only tomatoes and lettuce but also introduced us to noni after we asked about a weird fruit hanging on her tree.

“It tastes awful,” she said, “but it’s good for you.”

I grabbed the alien egg look-alike and took a whiff that ended up being too deep. It smelled like a sweaty sock soaked in milk and left in a car trunk for the entire summer. I looked at her dubiously. Her husband cheerfully contributed, “You know, candies taste good but they are bad for you. It has to taste bad to be good, yes?” After such irrefutable logic I gingerly took a tiny bite. The flavor reminded me of a very rotten cheese, the kind that’s so pungent that makes you tear up. Juan wisely and politely refused to try it. We went back to the boat with our precious cargo of greens and the gifted but not-so-precious noni (I later juiced it and courageously drank it—after googling “noni and its side effects”).

Black Point

Two days later we were anchored out in Black Point, Great Guana Cay. The village of Black Point with its 230 inhabitants is the second most populated settlement in the Exumas after George Town.

As it has become  routine we went ashore not only to stretch our legs and meet the locals, but also to hunt for more veggies. We had just arrived to the municipal dock when a wiry, energetic young boy appeared at the top of the dock’s ladder. “Can I help you with that bag?” he asked referring to our dry bag full of paraphernalia.

“No thanks,” I said with one hand on the ladder and the other on the dinghy line.

“I can take the bag,” he insisted.

“No thanks, we are good,” Juan said from the dinghy while I climbed a step.

The boy continued, “Why does your engine look so weird? How do you turn it on? Show me!” Juan complied. “You just press that button? Can I drive it?”

“No!” Juan and I said, mystified.

“I know how to drive,” said the boy. At this point the bag and I were on top of the dock. Juan was taking longer thinking if he needed to lock things up a bit. After all there was a very curious and young dinghy driver who had just learnt how to use an electric outboard. “Can I have that watch?” the boy said looking at the watch we keep attached to the dry bag.

“No, sorry,” I said.

“Why not? You’re not using it,” he said.

“Well, we use it to check the time,” was my not-very-bright answer. Seeing that he was getting ready to continue, I used the oldest trick in the bag—pun intended. I started shooting questions of my own. “How old are you?”

“Seven.”

“Do you go to school?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“What grade are you in?”

“In second grade.”

“Why are you not in school now?”

“Because it’s a holiday.” Mmmmmh, just our luck, I thought grumblingly and moved on.

After moderate success with our veggies, we moved to the next item: coconut bread. We have become very attached to this traditional Bahamian treat. “No, I don’t have any today. I might on Saturday. I am waiting for my husband because he’s the one who grates the coconut,” the lady in the shop told us. Our hopes of getting any bread dwindled. The next day—not yet Saturday—we decided to ask again anyway since we were around.

“Hello. Do you have coconut bread?” I asked the man behind the counter.

“Yes, this one.”

“Are you sure that one is coconut? The lady told us yesterday that all those were plain.”

“Yes, I am sure. I saw her putting the coconut inside.”

“Oh! She said that she was waiting for her husband to arrive from Nassau.”

“I am her husband!” he said.

“So you got here to grate the coconut, huh?”

“No, no, I didn’t grate any coconut.”

“Oh. So, are you really sure this is coconut? It looks like plain wheat to me.”

“Yes, yes, it is coconut,” he replied, laughing a bit.

“If it’s not coconut, can I return it?” I said half-serious.

“Yes, you can return it and I’ll even give you a juice for free!”

“Deal!” I said. We shook hands and I paid him. We left the little store and had walked no more than half a block when the man came out yelling “Wait, wait! It’s not coconut!” He had asked his wife who clearly knew better. I returned the bread and received my money back (no juice though).

Staniel Cay

A couple of days later a westerly blow was forecast to arrive in two days to disrupt the prevailing easterlies. We didn’t expect it to be very strong but Black Point is totally open to the west. We decided to look for a better hide-out. The obvious place was Staniel Cay, where we also could get the much-needed propane. We had our eye in a particular anchorage that seemed to be protected on all sides, close to town, and scenic. The only problem was that, according to our reading of the chart, it could fit three or four boats looking for refuge.

The next morning we started sailing at a leisurely pace. After all we had less than ten miles to cover. Soon though, we saw a flotilla of boats heading in the same direction. Six or seven sailboats, one of them a big catamaran at full engine speed that left us behind swallowing her wake. We panicked. “They are all going to our anchorage!” Juan said half-joking. We looked at each other and almost without words deployed more sail power. We adjusted everything to maximum efficiency and soon enough we were zipping through our competitors with a bit of an evil smile on our faces. As we got closer to our destination we noticed that, one by one, the boats started to drop out of a race they didn’t know they were running. “Where did they go?” Juan asked. It turns out that all of them joined tens of other boats already anchored on the west side of Big Major Cay, the island that houses the famous (and original) swimming pigs. We found ourselves alone on the other side and, to be honest, a bit creeped out. We could never figure out why all the boats chose the west-facing anchorage.

The next night the wind came and brought a show of pyrotechnics as I had never seen before. There was lightning all around us, so frequent that we wouldn’t have needed a flashlight to go on a hike. We scrambled trying to remember all the steps to protect the humans, the cat and the other cat from a strike. Computers and cell phones in the oven. Check. Nothing baking in the oven. Check. Unplug the chartplotter. Check. Is the lightning thinghy hanging from the mast into the water? Check. Rain catcher installed (nothing to do with lightning, but usually water falls from the sky with that condition). Check. The three creatures in the boat well secured in one hull and above else not touching anything metal. Mostly check. Enjoy the show. Double check. In the morning everything was back in order in nature, except us. We were exhausted, but at least we didn’t get the 100+ knots microbursts of wind that wreaked havoc in Cape Eleuthera.

Our anchorage was at a swimming distance from the Thunderball Grotto. Fans of James Bond will recognize the grotto as the place where Thunderball was filmed. You can only safely visit this half-submerged cave at low tide, when the entrance is exposed and the current is slack. When we were there the conditions were perfect, with sun rays passing through holes in the dome and illuminating the fish that follow you around. For a while, though, there seemed to be more human feet clad in fins than fish, because tour operators take their cargo to the grotto always at low tide. However, regular tourists are constricted by time, so they disappeared suddenly. We found ourselves in this magical place alone for a little while. We have no worthy photos though because our waterproof camera is evolving into a sponge. It keeps the water in. To get a visual idea you can always check Sean Connery in swim trunks in the Bond movie.

Staniel Cay is a quaint little settlement, with narrow streets and colorful houses. In the cruiser community it is known for hosting a well established Yacht Club open to all. We decided to splurge on dinner there and followed the required procedure: we made reservations for the 6pm shift and chose our entrée. We should have taken that as a first sign that dinner in the club was serious business. The second sign was that they made us wait outside the dining hall until a bell was rung. The third sign was the elegantly decorated room. Juan’s dirty shorts and more-holes-than-cloth t-shirt provided a lively contrast to the ambiance. The final sign was that instead of receiving the grouper that we ordered, delicious plates kept coming to us. It felt like Thanksgiving. Our unexpected four-course meal ended up being a bargain. We went back to the boat as two happy stuffed turkeys.

Much of life in these islands revolves around the mostly reliable schedule of the mail boat. It carries not only mail, but also people, provisions and most important of all, propane! Our quest for the cooking fuel kept us in Staniel for five days, but we did use our extra time petting nurse sharks, getting acquainted with swimming pigs, and doing unending boat chores. You know, a normal life.

“Hello. I’m Roosevelt” said Roosevelt.

“Yes, we know. We came to pick up the hat”.

“Oh, right, it’s you! You called this morning. It’s one hundred dollars,” he joked.

Kathy had been upset for weeks because her favorite hat had pulled a disappearance act somewhere on our way south to George Town. It wasn’t so much the hat itself, but the feathers she had attached to it during a solo quest on the Mojave desert. Those feathers had great sentimental value for her, as they symbolized a profound experience she went through during that trip.

Mentally reconstructing the hat movements, we concluded it had likely been left behind in the bar at Little Farmers Cay’s marina. We had enjoyed a great conversation with Roosevelt, who owned not just the marina, the bar and the restaurant, but also the clinic and the housing for the school’s teachers. He’s a direct descendant of the slave who settled on the island after been freed. The slave’s children bought the island from the British crown and later willed it to their descendants, who cannot sell to outsiders.

A month later we were approaching Little Farmers Cay on the way back north. It was a long shot, and it required a small detour, but we tried anyway: we called Farmers Cay Marina on the radio, and inquired about the hat. “Yes, it’s here”, said Roosevelt, as if it was obvious. “I knew you would have to come back someday, so I kept it for you.”

We anchored in the exact same spot we had anchored before, lowered the dinghy, rowed a short distance to the beach, and walked to the marina at the other end of the small island, where Kathy reunited with her feathers. She thanked Roosevelt profusely, hug included. He handed us his marina business card. It read “Roosevelt Nixon, President.” He was born to
be.

Finally there she is! Her eyes covered by fine green eyelashes, she looks peacefully into the distance. She’s languidly reposing, untouched by mundanes woes like anchor dragging, constant wind on the nose and lunch time. Does she know something that I don’t?

Juan and I decided to visit the underwater sculpture “The Musician” or “the Piano” as it’s called in our chart. It was created by Jason deCaires Taylor, a diver and artist with several installations around the globe that bring attention to reef damage. The pieces are made with pH-neutral materials that welcome growth of marine life. They eventually become reefs themselves. This particular beauty was commissioned by the magician David Copperfield, and it was located almost in front of his humble abode in Bahamas: Musha Cay. If you ever win the lottery you might want to consider renting the whole island for a mere $37,000 a night. I think the price includes drinks.

We anchored in front of Copperfield’s villa for the night. We didn’t see any magical event except what nature provides. The next morning, with coordinates of the destination at hand, we loaded our trusty Gecko and departed in search of the mythical mermaid and her piano. This time we chose electrical propulsion. I won’t lie, travelling Gecko-way is rarely dry and always slow. The beauty is that it’s quiet and does not burn gas. It’s also an endless source of pride for Juan (who only recently came to accept that if we use Gecko as a means of transportation it will get scratched). So there we were, bobbing around in agitated waters, while I was trying to read a map in my cell phone through its waterproof case. Every time I deciphered some snippet of information I transferred it to Juan with a good holler over the wind noise. We continued our hunt for art in that way for a while. I yelled, Juan obeyed. Communication at its best. Finally, finally! we saw a black blob underwater. “That must be it”, we asserted with lack of conviction. Now what do we do with the dinghy? We looked at each other. There wasn’t any beach around. The closest point of possible “attachment” was a sharp rocky shore that we didn’t want to be anywhere close to. Our only option was to use the anchor. This particular anchor is not a trusty specimen. It has failed us in the past. It likes to be among rocks or entangled in tree roots. It doesn’t like water, let alone deep water. It’s a weird, temperamental piece of equipment. It’s also very cheap—probably its only good thing and at the same time the reason of our problems. (Note to self: get a decent dinghy anchor).

We moved to a safe distance of our target, just in case it actually was the mermaid. The last thing we wanted was to hook the girl by the lip (it wasn’t a fishing expedition after all). We threw the wicked piece of equipment overboard; after several tries it seemed to be doing its thing. However, we are two distrustful souls so we took turns to dive in. We didn’t want to have any unplanned dinghy departure ruining the day. After gearing up I jumped in with Juan acting as human ballast to keep the boat steady. What appeared as an amorphous rock from the dinghy materialized into a clear and beautiful shape as soon as I went underwater. A magical moment indeed. I gave two thumbs up to Juan and slowly made my way toward the sculpture.

It was eerie. From afar the mermaid seemed isolated and untouched, even a bit lonely. However as I got closer I could see that she was covered by a fine hair-like algae and baby coral. Different fish darted around hiding in mysterious crevices. Somebody had put Mardi Gras beads around her neck giving it a strange kitsch touch. The piano, a full-size metallic replica of a Steinway Concert Grand, has a shiny finish that’s starting to disappear under a lovely growth of coral and algae. The whole installation has a plethora of life. The mermaid girl was not so alone after all.

Eventually the cold and my obsession with shark encounters motivated me to swim back to the dinghy and give Juan an opportunity to be shark bait. I mean, check the pretty gal with the fish tail.