Living The Good Life In The Exumas

Pink iguanas on Leaf Cay.

Chere sitting pretty off Lee Stocking Island.

Nat and Dad return from a birthday spearing trip.

The view of one our anchorages from the top of Perry's Peak on Lee Stocking Island, highest point in the Exumas.

Dissecting fish during science class on Chere. (Note the cute teacher in the bikini).

A good take from Nat's birthday AM spearfishing trip. Lobbies, schoolmaster, lionfish and grunt. Yum!

Hanging out on the other side of Lee Stocking after a good hike.

Zusammen looking sharp in the In-the-Harbor race during Cruisers' Regatta Week.

Movietime on Chere with the kids from Osprey Zusammen and Good Trade.

These are a few pictures of what we've been up to for the past few weeks. We're in Black Point, Great Guana right now, with a weak internet connection, so we're not able to get a full blog post out. But the long and short of it is that we've been cruising the Exumas with Zusammen, Osprey and Celilo and having a ball. We spent close to a week in a beautiful anchorage on the west side of Lee Stocking Island, where we spent most of our time fishing, snorkling, spearing, conching, hiking and hanging out with our friends. (All the boys have been doing their part to eradicate the invasive and destructive, but thankfully tasty, lionfish from local reefs). Spectacular scenery. Nat celebrated his 13th!!! birthday -- Betsy and I still can't believe we have a teenager on board -- by going for a morning spearfishing trip with Tyler, John Schnauck and me, and then cake and desert aboard Chere with the entire crew. The kids from the other boats put together some very creative and thoughtful gifts. I'm sure Nat will remember this birthday for a long, long time.

We then moved north to the southern end of Great Guana Cay for close to a week. The sail north was interesting, with a nasty passage through Adderly Cut, after which we were chased by some healthy squalls which produced 30-40knot winds. I think Betsy set a "second reef" speed record that day, throwing one in just before a big blow came through.

Great Guana was a blast. We mixed it up with a lot of hiking and snorkling/spearing. We named one hike the "bloody loop", which is a good description of what our shins and feet looked like after we spent an hour or so bushwacking through some of the thorniest country I've ever seen. It didn't help that the ground consisted of razor sharp limestone needles. But the hike was worth it; the cave we were looking for had a small entrance, and the floor sloped way, way back from the entrance and ran down to a crystal clear pool of water at the bottom that was filled with small fish and shrimp. Pretty fun -- and a bit creepy, at least for me -- taking a dip at the bottom of a cavern! We also made several quick trips over to the airport bar on Little Farmers (can't remember the name). Fantastic little joint with a beautiful beach on one side and the island's runway on the other. Cheap beer, fantastic conch fritters and great people. Tough to beat.

We're now heading out to Big Major's Spot for another birthday celebration (Johnny on Osprey), and then off to Cat to meet up with the Nugents. The weather is a bit tricky for the next few days, but regardless of when we get to Cat, we plan to stay there through the Nugent's vacation and probably a bit longer. Then our general plan is to head to Eluethera and catch up with Zusammen, Osprey and Celilo for some more cruising.

All for now. Great hearing from everyone by email and phone.

Sam

Exuma

Holed Up In Georgetown, Exuma

Hello from sunny – and very windy – Georgetown, Exuma! We’ve been here for almost two weeks,riding out a nasty gale and enjoying the annual Cruisers’ Regatta. We haven’t done a good job of keeping everyone up-to-date on what we’ve been up to, and a lot has happened since our last post, so here’s a quick recap of the past few weeks.

After spending a quiet afternoon and evening fishing and snorkeling
all by ourselves just off Darby Island in the Exumas, we sailed into a very
crowded Elizabeth Harbor (Georgetown, Exuma) on Friday the 24th,
escorted by a zodiac driven two of my oldest friends, John Schnauck and Tim
Evans. John and Lex Schnauck have been cruising with their two kids, Tyler and Eliza, aboard their Pearson 36-2 since last summer, and Tim (Lex’s brother) was down visiting for a week. Pretty surreal to catch up with our good friends, who live in Marshfield, MA, way, way down here in the tropics. In another it’s-a-small-world encounter, the very next day we caught up with two other long-time friends, Robin and Sid Graves, on the beach directly in front of our boat. In any
event, after arriving in Georgetown John and Lex quickly pulled us into a terrific
group of boats they’ve befriended, all of which have kids aboard. All of the Davenports – or, as the other boats call us, the “Cheres” – have had a ball ever since.

As I mentioned, our stay here has coincided with the annual Cruisers’ Regatta, which is a two week festival of sorts put on by the huge fleet of cruisers that fill Georgetown this time of year. I have to admit, we were a little shocked –
and frankly, bummed out – when we first saw close to 300 boats in the
harbor. Not exactly the kind of solitude we had in mind. But despite the crowd,
we’ve had a great time during the last two weeks. This is almost entirely due to all of the great people we’ve met and spent time with, including the families on Osprey, Good Trade, Three At Sea, Symphony and many other boats. Really interesting
people from all walks of life, with fascinating backgrounds and life stories. Nat, Ben and Win especially have enjoyed getting together with other kids; this is the first time since leaving Florida that we’ve been around other boats with kids, so the boys have played hard with their friends. Typically, all of the kids will start calling each other on the VHF radio after school is over, then a pack will gather on the beach and head off to play games and explore.

The Cruisers’ Regatta itself has been pretty fun too. All of the Regatta events, from racing to poker to volleyball to sandcastle building, are highly organized and meticulously run by a web of committees. These committees are staffed by a fervent, dedicated group of retired cruisers who bring great zeal to their work, and whose goal,it seems, is to bring order and fun to this small corner of the Bahamas. All in all they do a great job, but needless to say the people-watching opportunities are many. On opening night there was a big party featuring a few skits, and Nat and Ben jumped into a play/presentation about the night sky organized entirely by one of their new friends, a 15 year old phenom from Three At Sea. The kids put on a great show in front of a huge crowd. We’ll post some pics. Next came the big boat races. I crewed on Schnauck’s boat – driven by Johnny of Osprey – for the in-the-harbor race, which was a lot of fun. And thanks to Johnny’s driving and John’s fast boat, we did well, coming in just behind the winning boat in our class and scoring a $10 bottle of rum for our efforts! The winning prize was two bottles of $10
rum. Maybe next year . . . .

The big excitement last week was a multi-day gale, apparently the strongest to hit this part of the Bahamas all season. The wind blew 25-35 knots for several days
and nights; in fact, the wind hasn’t dipped much ever since. Right now it’s blowing 25+ in squalls. The first night of the gale was the most interesting, with boats dragging their anchors throughout the harbor. Recall that the harbor is jammed-packed; a boat dragging its anchor is bound to hit a few other boats as it pinballs its way downwind. And that’s exactly what happened all night long. From about 1am
until daylight, we could hear air horns and shouting all over our little
section of the anchorage, coming from people warning dragging boats that they
were about to hit something. I wanted to keep my eye on three upwind boats that seemed to be dragging, so I slept in the cockpit while Betsy came up for frequent checks. Around 2 am one of those boats drifted down on our bow, and the owner – an experienced sailor who was on board alone – started his engine just after pushing off our pulpit. Because pulling and resetting an anchor solo is difficult even in the best conditions and just about impossible in a 35 knot wind in the dark, I jumped on his boat and drove while we repositioned. An exciting way to meet a neighbor.

In between all of these “events”, we’ve been fishing, hiking, shelling, working on boat projects and carousing with friends. Because of the wind and restrictions on spearfishing in the harbor, the fishing has been pretty slow. But Nat and Ben teamed
up on their first lobster last week – a 6lb + monster that Ben found and Nat
manhandled out of a deep hole. And Nat and Tyler Schnauck spent three days
this past week getting their scuba certification. A terrific accomplishment for both of them. (They quickly put their diving skills to work cleaning the bottom of Osprey, along with the Osprey crew).

We’re now waiting for a good weather window to leave Georgetown. Our tentative plan is to spend a few weeks cruising with Zusammen and Osprey and hopefully a few other
boats, before we head over to Cat Island to meet up with the Nugents. Given the weather outlook, the southern Exumas give us the most options in terms of protection, snorkeling, fishing, etc., so we’ll likely end up there. We'll try to get a post out before we leave tomorrow morning. We probably won't have any email access for a few weeks, but as always we're reachable through our Bahamian cell (call or text).