We crossed the Exuma Sound and now we’re in a new island chain, starting with Allen’s Cay!

2.17 – Monday

The crossing today is about 6 hours, we were underway by daylight. The first thing we did is get all the fishing lines in the water, we plan on running along the dropoff for the first part of the trip because it curves almost along our route. Kyle started heating up water for coffee but just like that, we had a fish on!

Pre-coffee, we weren’t on our A-game. We thought we pulled in a good sized tuna, but we got out our ID book and realized it was a horse-eyed jack, which is a ciguatera risk. We tossed it back. About an hour later we got a keeper – a Spanish mackerel!

During Kyle’s shift at the helm, I made a quick-ID guide, because so far our fish ID skills have been lacking. That helped me familiarize myself with the pelagic fish and types of jacks and tunas we might catch.

We motored the whole way, the forecast was for 12-kt winds but they hovered around 5 kts the whole time. We had the main up but it wasn’t really doing much. We got close to our destination, it was time to drop the main, and literally just then the winds jumped up to 15 kts. I think it’s pretty standard issue for me to whine about not being able to sail at least once per blog post, so here’s todays. We dropped the main and navigated it towards Allen’s Cay, anchoring around noon. Our first impression of the Exumas? There are so many boats here! We could literally see a parade of boats on their way in from Nassau, and the anchorages are packed! We’ve also heard there are over 300 boats in Georgetown now!

We intended to stay at Allen’s Cay two nights, but I didn’t love the anchorage so we changed the plan, we’d go see the iguanas then move over to Highborne Cay.

We ate lunch then hopped in the dinghy to see the Bahamas largest native species, armed with some remnants of cabbage as an offering.

It’s hard to see in the pictures, but the iguanas are decked out in bright pink trim – you can see it in the ridges along the spine and a little around the face in this photo!

They have terrible eyesight, which made hand-feeding an adventure. Half the time when I dropped the cabbage near them they didn’t see the cabbage and still went for my hand. Also they are very fast!

We went back to the boat and moved an hour south to Highborne Cay, which was a big but busy anchorage. After anchoring, a swim sounded good so we both jumped in. The water is incredibly clear and there’s actually some interesting stuff on the bottom. I’m trying to get more comfortable with my mask, last time I tried to snorkel I hyperventilated a little bit. I don’t think I’ll ever love being in the water, but I want to be able to snorkel and see cool stuff.

I was hanging out by the transom steps and Kyle decided to swim up and look at the anchor. There was also a remora hanging out on one of the keels so I asked him to take the camera and try to get a photo. Soon I heard him call back to me, calmly but firmly, “Darce? Go back to the swim platform.”

I knew right away what was going on. He was trying to get me out of the water without panicking. There’s only one animal that would make him do that.

Of course this story is ten times better because he had the camera with him, so he got some photos of the two harmless nurse sharks that swam right underneath our boat. And I’m proud of the fact that I stayed calm, and even put my face mask back on so I could dunk my head in and get a good view of them! Again, nurse sharks aren’t a threat to humans (okay, I actually just read that page and they might be more of a threat than I thought!).

I spent the evening researching ciguatera again (big mistake) right before eating our nice Spanish mackerel for dinner. The fish was delicious. And so far, harmless.

2.18 – Tuesday

We mostly did chores today, I made some foods with the groceries we just bought. We started a jar of sprouts so we have some fresh greens, and I started my overnight sourdough recipe so tomorrow we’ll have bread. I also started painting a piece of driftwood that we picked up!

In the afternoon we went for a dinghy explore, but the high winds today meant it was too choppy to see anything on the reef here, and there’s not much to do on the beach. We did a little more swimming, then Kyle cooked the rest of the Spanish mackerel for dinner!

Later this week we’ll head to the Land and Sea Park, which is almost completely off-grid so I don’t think we’ll even be able to post to Instagram!