Gunkholing — Cupcake Afloat

Although we have not traveled many miles over the past few days, we have done a good deal of snooping around the islands to the north of Staniel Cay. In contrast to our Bahamas visit in 2012, this year we are slowing way down to explore and enjoy the area. (Landlubbers: “gunkholing” is when cruisers wander about and anchor in protected, shallow spots.)

Because of our watermaker, we free to anchor away from civilization until our limiting factors kick in. (The resource we ran out of first used to be water, now it is primarily a place to dispose of our trash, secondarily our need for fresh vegetables drives us back to settlements.)

A few days ago (side note: dates and days of the week are getting pretty vague for us, so if we miss your birthday or anniversary or parole date don’t take it personally) we sailed out of Big Majors towards Fowl Cay. Well, one of the Fowl Cays…there are several around here. As soon as we turned out of the anchorage we pulled out the asymmetrical spinnaker and flew it for the first time since the Alligator River back in September.

Days like this are why we came down here.

We can’t remember the last time we saw another boat flying a downwind sail. The point was driven home to us when a sailboat on a reciprocal course to ours gave us a thumbs up and took a few pictures of beautiful Cupcake looking glorious. We took a few pictures of our own as well.

Fowl Cay is an interesting private island with a horseshoe-shaped cove. The island is conveniently located a dinghy ride away from Rocky Dundas, a pair of tiny islands with great snorkeling at a coral reef and pretty cool cave. We checked them out and enjoyed the fish life and the corals and the caves. Then we scooted about 3/4 of a mile to Compass Cay where there was a bubble bath. In the Bahamas a bubble bath is a formation where the waves crash over a short stone bar to churn up the waters in an otherwise protected, shallow pool. Because it was such a settled day, there was not much bubbling going on. We waded in the pool and added a hoodoo to the collection on shore. All the limestone around here really lends itself to hoodoo-stacking.

The Fowl Cay anchorage was a beautiful, idyllic spot but because of the way Cupcake was lying relative to the wind, we had a very rocky night. In the morning we moved to Bell Island, just inside the southern border of the Exuma Land and Sea Park. Had a great snorkel, scraped barnacles off the bottom of the boat, and spied on a pair of big stingrays hunting in the sand near the boat. Moss perfected her underwater skills and now easily swims under Cupcake. We then had an even rockier night. All day the boat was sitting in calm waters. As soon as we started dinner, things got really unpleasant. Safe, just uncomfortable. Ugh.

You see beautiful water. I see coral and shallows. And a deep path.

The route from Fowl Cay to Cambridge Cay and Bell Island took us over some extremely narrow, shallow channels. Our GPS took us on a route that would have run us hard aground on a falling tide, so Visual Piloting Rules applied. (Landlubbers: VPR means trust your eyes, not the charts, to read the water depth. Upon arriving in the Bahamas, the water all just looks gorgeous. But after a little experience, we’ve re-learned to read the water color to determine the depth. We’re also getting pretty good at reading currents and winds and little ripples to give us more clues about what places are safe and deep enough for the boat. And running aground on a falling tide is the wrong way to do it because depending on where you are in the tide-cycle, you could be sitting on the bottom for up to six hours, waiting for the rising tide to lift you off. We always try to run aground on a rising tide. (Really, we plan our thin-water excursions for flood tide whenever we can.))

That’s Moss pointing out the safe route through the shallows.

In the Land and Sea Park there is a new rule that, in addition to paying $20/night to use a park mooring, boats now need to pay 50¢/foot just to anchor. We are not a fan of the notion that we should pay for the privilege of using our own anchor and chain, but understand that we are guests here and these are the rules. We also understand that the Land and Sea Park is privately funded and that it is a fantastic resource. We don’t understand where the money is going, however. The park hosts at Cambridge Cay where we took a mooring for a delightfully calm night were volunteers from Canada, not Bahamians earning money. There is no pump out boat, so moored boats without awesome composting heads like ours just dump their waste into the pristine protected waters. There is no enforcement of the no-wake zones. There is nowhere to take trash ashore, resulting in piles of plastic debris on land that cruisers collect from the beach but which are never removed.

In any event, we passed a pleasant afternoon with Jennabird who we first met at Cape Lookout, NC and then again in Bimini. Every time we see them, we end up losing a Croc overboard. This time Moss threw my shoe off the dinghy just to keep our streak alive. We also score Flav-or-ice from them. Super fun people.

At the beach on the Exuma Sound side of Cambridge Cay, Moss and I built another flotsam catamaran. This one was significantly larger than the last one and had a sail, a dinghy, and an anchor.

As much as we enjoyed the park, in the interest of spending nothing for the night and in the interest of spearfishing tomorrow, we moved to Sampson Cay today. This anchorage is very protected, right next to a beautiful former-resort that is now a private island. Met a boat from Camden, Maine this afternoon. It’s nice to see people from home waters. Bonus: they are a kid boat.

Tonight Ellen is making tacos with hand-made tortillas for dinner. Last night we had chicken fried rice. Yesterday we had eggs and hash browns for breakfast. Ellen has hit her stride.

Crazy Ellen in the galley taking time out from making noise with the pots and pans.