Tuesday 7th April

On Sunday we met our first bugs of the trip, and neither of us slept all night. We pulled into Sumner Point Marina in Rum Cay in the afternoon because our battery bank has been giving us some gip. Over time our battery capacity diminishes because our alternator can’t keep up with the charge that we use without running the engine for several hours a day. The alternator output seems to drop from 55 amps to about 30, and in the last week it’s actually been more like 20. I’ll save you from the electrical boredom, but essentially due to persistent undercharging (thank Nigel Caulder for great terminology) our plates in the batteries are currently coated with lead sulphate, reducing their storage capacity. We’ve put the changer on a conditioning cycle and hopefully we’ll be back to full power before we leave tomorrow.

 

So back to the bugs… we pulled into the marina and were joined by Lynne and Brian from Three Sheets for a snorkelling trip out on the reef. We first met Lynne and Brian in Normans Cay when they were travelling with other friends, and we met up with them again in Georgetown. The guys marvelled at our great spot in the marina and the facilities such as wifi and the nice bar so we invited them back for dinner later in the afternoon after some snorkelling and spear fishing. When we got back to the boat at 5.30pm it was a cloud of no-see-ums (midges in Ireland) and a few mosquitoes as well. We lathered up in insect repellent, courtesy of Lynne and Brian, and got the fish on the stove.

 

Said fish was a matter of personal pride, our first Nassau Grouper which Kel and I tag teamed to spear on the reef just outside Rum Cay. Grouper are very curious fish and really fixate on you if you come to look at them when snorkelling. Kel dove down to investigate one, deciding on whether it was suitable for dinner or not, and in a bid to get more protection he swam back to the other entrance of his cave still paying attention to Kel while I popped him onto the end of our spear. Beautiful. If you’re interested we soaked the fillets in lemon juice for 30 minutes, dipped them in milk and then flour and fried them in butter for 4 minutes each. Then popped them into a buttered tinfoil bag and baked for another 10. Moist and tasty.

 

So back on the boat one of Kel’s amazing boat salads, some fresh baked bread – our current favourite recipe was provided by Natalie on P’tit Louis – and Nassau Grouper, all washed down with some rum and coke and good conversations. The bugs however did not respect our repellent and sat down for a feast of their own. At bedtime there were still millions of them swarming around the boat, and the rest of the night was punctuated with Keli whacking the ceiling, door, wall, and herself as they nibbled at our desirable selves. Brutal. Last night was thankfully better as the wind had picked up a little and we rigged a few primitive mosquito screens to keep at least some of them out.

 

We left Georgetown on Tuesday having had a great night with Mike and Ann on Mojo, and Bonnie and Morgan on Bacchagato. Mojo was the first Irish boat we’ve seen so far and I made a beeline for them to enquire about the rugby on our first day in Georgetown. I had a quick chat with Mike from my dinghy when Ann popped her head out the companionway saying ‘is that a northern Irish voice I hear?’ Turns out they lived on the Woodstock Road years back, a few streets away from Kel and I in Irwin Ave. We spent a couple of nights with them for sundowners and really enjoyed them, nothing like some sarcasm and cutting humour once in a while.

 

Tourism is a very substantial part of Bahaman industry and the cruising community in Georgetown, most of whom stay here for six months at a time, are entertained every day of the week should they wish to be. Texas Holdem tournaments, bridge, art class, beach volleyball, recipe swaps (to which Kel threatened to send me to charm the ladies), you name it. Kel and I, and Mojo and Bacchagato, have tended to keep away from these organised activities preferring a less disciplined social calendar, so having passed on the cruisers trip to Rake and Scrape the week before we thought we’d missed our chance. To go with Mike, Ann, Bonnie and Morgan was a real treat.

 

Travelling by dinghy requires a different way of thinking about both your destination and the conditions. In Georgetown it was blowing like stink for most of the time we were there, so every trip involved a change of clothes, a cloth to wipe the boat down, taking t-shirts off or hitching dresses up. In the end most of the time you get wet no matter what you try. At sunset the six of us got into two boats with our wet weather preparations complete, and motored a couple of miles up the coast to the beach outside Porgy’s bar.

 

Rake and Scrape is traditional Bahamian music that gets its name from the inclusion of a musician playing a saw blade with a knife. Very rhythmic, buoyant melodies and some great bass lines. The band set up in the bar, which is of course really a hut on the beach, and we got down to some dancing – even little old self-conscious on the dance floor me. It was 1am before we new it and tired, sweaty, fed and watered we jumped back into the boats for a customary race home.

 

After Georgetown we’ve hopped to Rum Cay via Long Island and Conception Island, another Land and Sea Park territory about 46 miles northeast of Georgetown. It seemed like a fine place to try for our first child. Skipping that, we got in the water at the northern end of West Cay we settled for a snorkel in 5-8 feet of water through a coral field with large heads interspersed with sandy channels. Not long after we got in we spotted a shark swimming between the coral about 15 meters away, just at the range of our vision in the water. We stuck close together and kept going until the point when we noticed two sharks swimming in opposite directions less than 10 meters away and between us and the beach. At that point we decided it was definitely feeding time and we removed ourselves from the menu.

 

We’ve seen loads of sharks at Rum Cay as well, with some Nurse and Bull Sharks coming into the marina at about 4.30pm every evening to feed on scraps from the fish cleaning tables. I fed the lads some grouper guts on Sunday evening, although my loyalties were divided between the sharks and the two cats rubbing against my legs and purring loudly!

 

Today a cold front is moving through the Bahamas bringing with it a change in the winds from the constant trade winds that blow between northeast and southeast all year round. At 2pm this afternoon we are going to start a 200 mile hop to Provo in the Turks and Caicos catching the north-westerly winds of the front all the way there. The trip should take 36 hours or so and then we’re in a whole new country.