We set out to explore Norman’s Cay by foot. Armed with water jugs, we headed to the ex drug-lord’s house’s ruins because we’d heard tell about a water cistern there. We found the house still standing and covered in sailors grafitti. Visiting sailors over the years have left their names and boat names on the walls all over the structure. It’s an eerie space with a haunted feel. I’m sure there are bullet holes in the walls somewhere.

We found the cistern, and the water was cool and fresh. The roof of the house collects in a gutter that fills the cistern. Two wee frogs were chirping happily inside. We dove the bucket down into the moist echoing cavern and hauled fresh water to fill our containers. Not having a big boat that can make drinking water from sea water, we get to forage with buckets in hand in crazy places like this.

The views from up here are amazing though. In its day, this place must have been stunning.

After we had our fill of the house and its strange energy, we went exploring along the beach for coconuts. We found even more ruins. This time is was houses of what used to be the Norman’s Cay Club. There were four huge houses right on the beach with lovely grounds and trees that give shade. Each is falling into disintegration and is a complete and utter shame. What a special place, and how sad it is that no one wants to make use of it and maintain it!

Here we found just two coconut palms that actually had decent coconuts on them. Maybe it’s too dry here now, or maybe all the cruisers have taken the coconuts, but there were only two to be found anywhere, and they were 20 feet up! I really wanted them and climbed up with one thing on my mind. Success! Two nice sweet green coconuts absolutely full of water! Too bad I skinned my feet a bit on the sharp bark. I guess the native boys have leathery soles.

We’d had our fill of the ghost town that is the south end of Norman’s Cay, so we went back to Wee Happy, our Albin Vega sailboat, and brought her around to the south anchorage where s/v Naked Lady was resting at anchor. The anchorage is just off of a cut that leads connects the Exuma sound (deep ocean) with the Exuma banks (shallow water), so there is a swift current that reverses with the tide change. We set two anchors to hold us against each current direction and marveled at the amazing glowing blues that surrounded us on all sides.

A group of sailboats arrived just after us and crowded in just on top of us. It’s really annoying that with so much damn space all around, someone will decide to drop their anchor right up your nose or ass. What the hell!? Give some space please!!! If anyone drags anchor, there’s not much time or space to react, let alone giving each other some privacy in all this huge expanse out here!

Regardless, we went to politely socialize with the other cruisers on an idyllic little island with a single palm tree and powder fine sand. Everyone brought dinner and drinks for a “happy hour” and we got to know Jimi and Mimi from s/v ExtaSea (left), Rick and Audrey from s/v Naked Lady (center) and Espin and Barbara from s/v Mini Pearl (right).

Awoke early to the wind howling around 20 knots still. All the other boats in the anchorage cleared out in the morning, and we were the only ones left. We saw Naked Lady hauling anchor to leave, and we radiod them to ask where everyone was going. They were headed to the south anchorage–their favorite spot on the island. We thought about it, but it’s really not too protected from strong easterlies. We stayed put. Later they radiod to say we should stay put. Hey, great, we already were!

We packed up the dinghy with kiteboarding and snorkeling gear to head around to the inside of the island group to check it out. Current and wind was strong, so we were soaked but sun kissed. Turning around the corner we came upon a gorgeous idyllic island with a single palm tree. Shade!!! We knew instantly where we were going first!

We disembarked on the island and claimed it for Wee Happy. It had the most beautiful powder soft white sand. lala did yoga in the shade of the palm, and I snorkeled in the shallow bathwater and collected pink conch shell bits for Lala to use in making a mosaic.

The crew from Naked Lady were anchored nearby, and they dinghied over to say hello. Rick and Audrey are from Panama City, Florida, and they are cruising 5 months a
year in their Cheoy Lee sloop. They told us about the best snorkeling spots for spearing and conching, and Rick said he’d show us how to clean conch if we got some.

Sweet. So we headed over to the spot on the island where the ex-drug lord had his dock and house. About 50 feet off the beach Lala and I got three conch. It was exhaustingly hard work…we had to reach down and pick them up as we were snorkeling!

Rick and Audrey had us follow them to a spot up the shore where they have been cleaning conch for ten years. It is a tan coral sand beach that ends at hard sharp old rock cliffs covered with conch shells. The contrast between the sultry pink organic shapes of the conch and the cold steel teeth of the rocks was otherworldly.

After receiving our lesson on pulling and cleaning conch, Lala and I each did one ourselves. It was disgusting. Here I am with a conch that I just pulled from its shell. It was hard not to want to vomit.

After finishing the cleaning process, however, we ended up with nice white meat.

Back on Wee Happy, we decided to attempt a recipe from a book that Nate from s/v Waltzing Matilda gave to Lala: An Embarrassment of Mangoes by Ann Vanderhoof. Her book chronicles her and her husband’s two year trip around the Caribbean, and they basically took the exact same path that we have been taking so far. Reading her book has been like reading another person’s account of our trip. Highly recommended reading.

Regardless, at the end of each chapter she includes a recipe of a local dish from the place in which the chapter was set. The chapter from Norman’s Cay has “Cracked Conch,” which refers to using cracker crumbs as a breading to fry the fish. You have to hammer the hell out of the conch to tenderize it, and it is still a bit rubbery, but it has a great flavor, and you can’t beat just reaching out and having food fill your hands!

For fourteen years every year Rick & Audrey from s/v Naked Lady have been coming to the Bahamas from Panama City, Florida. Of all the places in the Bahamas that they have visited, they like Norman Cay in the Exumas the best, and they’ve been coming back here for ten years.

Tan from head to toe, Rick and Audrey couldn’t help but ask how we could afford to go cruising “at your age” to which Lala replied that we can do it because we are on a small and inexpensive boat. I thought that it’s also because we don’t have kids, we don’t have a mortgage, and we don’t have jobs that we care so much about that we can’t leave.

Rick and Audrey aren’t the first people to ask the question. Most cruisers that we meet are retired and able to cruise because they have savings or retirement income or investment income, etc. Most have children and many have grand children. Most have homes on land and will return to after cruising.

How difficult it is to de-interface from “life on land” and switch to a life on the water! Back when we were living on land up north in New England we had these expenses every month, among others

Rent: $900
Heating oil: $500 in winter, $50 in summer
Electricity: $50
Telephone: $100
Internet: $70
Car insurance: $100
Car maintenance: $200
Car fuel: $100
Food: $400
Entertainment/Misc: $400
Debt payments: $900
Total: $3,720

Now that we are living on the water in a southern climate we have these expenses:
Telephone: $40
Internet: $25
Boat maintenance: $100
Food: $200
Entertainment/Misc: $200
Debt payments: $600
Total: $1,165

Most notably, we are not paying rent, and we don’t have to pay to heat the house/apartment. That alone reduces our living costs by almost $1,500. Of course we don’t have a car and insurance and gas for commuting to a job. That’s another $500 every month. Telephone and internet are less expensive because we no longer use broadband and no longer have a house phone. We now only use our cell phones and iPad 3G internet. We are spending less on food because we cook almost everything rather than getting fast food or eating out a lot, and we are also getting food from the sea for free. Our entertainment costs are less because we now read more, spend more time exploring outside and traveling. Lastly our debt payments are less because we were able to negotiate reduced payments on credit cards because we have reduced income.

All together our current living expenses total about one third of what they totaled on land. Land living is expensive! Still we must find a way to meet our expenses each month. There’s the rub. If we want to cruise, we need to have either enough savings or be able to make enough money while we are cruising, or a mixture of both. The answer for many is to cruise for a while and then return to land to work and save money for another cruise. We will probably have to do this this summer, as our savings are dwindling.

So although many people ask how it is that we are able to cruise “this early in life” the answer is that it’s not all fun in the sun. Sailing is hard work, and not having regular income while having regular expenses is stressful, even if you are under a palm tree on a sandy beach. I suppose a good answer to the above question is that we’d rather deal with the financial uncertainties and GO cruising than be financially secure and trapped in one place on land or a life that sucks the passion out of us while our dreams and youth dwindle. This life is not for everyone, and not many people like us do it the way that we are doing it.

Most people our age are in the middle of careers and working their way through the rat race towards a day in their hopeful futures when they will be able to reap the rewards of their hard work. With the US about to go bankrupt, climate change taking its ever increasing toll on ecosystems everywhere, and peak oil about to throw the world’s economic and production/consumption system on its ass, there is no guarantee that reward will ever come from all the work. For us, it is urgently important to transition to a more sustainable lifestyle before the system comes crashing down.

It’s been a week since we last were able to find internet access! Thanks for your patience! We are in the Exumas now, and here is the story of our crossing.

After checking the wind forcast, we left Nassau on Sunday morning, hoping the wind would pick up so we could sail the final leg of our trip to the Exumas. Alas, it did not, and we got out onto the Exuma Banks to find the little wind to be on the nose as usual. Tacking into non-existent wind was just not an option, so we ended up motoring across turquoise glass to the Exumas. We found ourselves in the middle of a gigantic swimming pool — water 13 feet deep, so clear you could see right through it to the bottom, for as far as the eye could see. At one point in the afternoon, we decided to just drop the hook and go swimming, as we saw black spots in the water that indicated a coral reef. At first sight it didn’t look like much, but upon closer inspection we saw hundreds of beautiful fish inhabiting a magical underwater wonderland of brightly colored coral. We saw a big lionfish, an “invasive” species of fish that has found itself in the Atlantic, which has no natural predators in this area and is said to be responsible for killing coral reefs. This fish is threateningly awesome to witness with it’s large spiny display of venom. It screams “don’t mess with me”, although we’ve been told to kill them if we see them, as they are so deadly to the magnificent variety of life in the coral reefs here.

We arrived in late afternoon at Allen’s Cay, a group of several islands. A perfectly protected anchorage surrounded by islands awaited us, and we dropped the parking hook in the most amazing lapis colored water. The color of the water in this place amazed us each and every time we looked out upon it. We would look out at it and be stunned speechless, then go back in the cabin to get something and come back out and be completely stunned all over again. This is one of the most stunning anchorages I have ever been to, and hope to return to again. Did I mention the water is stunning? The islands themselves are rather dry and scrubby, but the Bahamas is all about the color of the water. Stunning. We both jumped in for a swim right off the sailboat as soon as we arrived, the water was so inviting. The water was so clear, it was deceptive how deep it was. I looked down through my snorkel and saw sand just below my feet and thought it was shallow enough to touch the bottom, only to find it was stil 10 feet deep. I swam to the beach nearby and checked out the iguana population. Yes, that’s right. Iguanas. These cays are known for being the last place on earth to find a population of Bahamian Iguanas, which are now an endangered species. They seem to be doing fine on these islands, however, and when you walk on the beach they will walk right up to you, expecting food. Lots of tour groups come here with people giving free handouts to the iguanas, and they have become quite used to people.

That evening we were invited to dinner aboard Sea Wolff. Robert had caught a gigantic pompano fish the day before, and we helped them finish off the last of it, while enjoying a maginifect lightning show in the distance up the on the top deck of their glorious 47 foot catamaran.

The next day we inflated our dinghy and explored the islands around us. The first beach we went to was small, but with sizable conch graveyard around it. Thousands of conch shells were discarded on the beach, greyed and bleached by the sun to look like rocks. The rocks themselves were sharp and jagged, and looked like they were hungry to eat boats alive. The islands here are harsh, arid, and covered in sharp rocks and scrubby bushes. It’s not a very inviting landscape, and there is no shade.

The second island we visited had one lone coconut palm providing a wee bit of shade, and we longed to set up camp underneath it, if it were not for the slightly aggressive iguanas looking to us for food. But there was an idyllic beach with shallow warm water where we could at least escape the sun’s heat by getting wet. On the third island, we found a concrete building whose roof had collapsed and was now in ruins. The walls were covered in graffiti written by various sailors who had also found this lone building.

After returning to Wee Happy to find reprieve from the relentless sun, we decided to move on to the next cay in the Exuma chain, Highborne Cay. The Exumas are a long chain of islands only a few miles apart, and so it is a sailor’s dream. Finally we can just sail from island to island, finding a sweet anchorage at each one. And FINALLY the prevailing East winds are not on the nose — the chain lays in a north – south direction, so we can sail from one island to another on an easy reach. Ahhh, sweet sailing at last! We deserve this!

Ahhhh, but maybe it’s not so sweet after all. After a recent incident with the boom that nearly ripped Lala’s arm off, she has developed a severe paranoia of the boom. To get out of the anchorage we had to sail downwind, and Lala became unreasonably panicked about the remote possibility of the boom jibing to the other side and taking someone’s head off in the process. Lala lost all her hard earned confidence in sailing and became a fearful wreck. Communication between Captain and Skipper dissolved until saling became difficult, and almost impossible. But somehow we managed to get the boat pointed in the right direction and an hour or so later sailed into the Highborne Key anchorage, where we again dropped our parking hook only a few yards from the beach.

That night we had a long conversation that went nowhere about our upcoming plans (or lack of plans) for the summer. We need to go back to New England and move our yurt that is in upstate New York, but there are a long list of unknowns in the situation that make it very difficult to make any decisions. It is especially hard to plan concrete details about the future when we are in a turquoise paradise surrounded by white sand beaches. So we went to bed.

The next day we slept in a wee bit. Got up to coffee and breakfast that consisted of potatoes and eggs. We took the dinghy into the marina that is on Highborne Key, where we got gas and some water. We took a look in the marina store, that had a great selection of essential items at ridiculous prices. $9 for a box of Cornflakes?!? $60 for a scrub brush to clean your deck?! But the 200 foot mega yachts that were docked there probably wouldn’t blink at those prices. This is the playground of the rich, and we are just lucky enough to anchor here for free.

We then decided to check out the coral reefs near the anchorage. The main activity around here really is the snorkeling. The winds were strong, and the waves a bit rough, but we went out in the dinghy anyway, and anchored near the reef. Below the surface of the water was a miniature magical bonsai forest, teeming with many kinds of coral, like long spongey yellow and purple fingers, little tree like corals, waving fans, and squiggly brain coral. Nooks and pockets and holes provided protection for hundreds of technicolor fish. We saw bright indigo blue fish that looked like they were glowing, they were such a bright blue. A humbling reminder of the vast diversity of precious, gorgeous life on this planet.

For the last few days we have been looking for our friends Mimi and Richard, on the catamaran Maffick, who we met in Andros. We were supposed to meet them in the Exumas, but haven’t found them yet. We’ve been calling them on the radio but have not reached them. We decided to press on to the next cay in hopes of finding them there. Norman’s Cay was just 5 miles from Highborne Cay, an easy hour sail. We sailed into the anchorage under the jib alone as the winds were nearly 20 knots. We managed another crash landing anchoring job under sail alone, only to realize we were too close to other boats and decided to move to another spot with the motor. We anchored right off the calm, long white sand beach in 6 feet of water, while all the other boats were way far out, rocking and rolling in the surge. No sign of Maffick. Oh well. This is our view!

Wouldn’t you know it but after we pulled into a slip in Nassau, another Albin Vega sailboat pulled into the slip next to us!

We didn’t know it until Lala met a woman in the laundromat. After introducing themselves, Lala was surprised to find that the woman, Masha, already knew who we were and all about our boat. Someone had told her that wee happy is here and to keep a lookout for us!

Apparently we are becoming a wee bit well known or something.

Turns out that Marsha is on the other Albin Vega that pulled in right next to us. Her Vega’s name is s/v Raindrop, and she and her partner Volker have been cruising the Bahamas for a while now and are on their way back to Florida.

They said that they are heading back to Panama City. That’s where our friend and fellow Vega cruising buddy Wes and his Vega Gemini Dreams are living. Maybe we could all meet up there for a “vegatarians” rendezvous!

Raindrop is a nice little ship. They pulled out the inboard and put on a small outboard. It’s just a 5 horse power 4 stroke long shaft, and they use it on their dinghy too. What a great idea for saving space and reducing motor maintenance, etc…

Without even trying to make it happen, we stumbled into such a preciously delicious situation in the anchorage in Andros. The other boats here have become such a lovely little family, all tucked safely into the southeast corner of the cove at Morgan’s Bluff. Every morning a group of us has been doing yoga in a beach hut seemingly made just for us, and at no charge.
We have been having potlucks at night, and outings during the day. And best of all, there is a sense of security among us — we are all looking out for one another’s boats, giving each other rides in our dinghys, and generally just being so wonderfully good to one another. The VHF radio has taken on a new dimension….it is the open discussion board for everyone in the anchorage to have a group chat while on our separate boats. We all get to listen to things like Francois the Frenchman and Allen the Irishman discuss in their wonderful accents the repairs they are doing to their bilge pumps, and hear about Mariah the 17 year old who forgot her flipflops on Allen’s boat and could he bring them over to her. In the morning Jennifer would announce how late she was running for starting the yoga class, and since we are all on island time no one would ever mind. Mimi wants to know if someone can pick up an onion for her at the store. On land, this would be an unlikely bunch of people to become “like family”, but we all had one great thing in common – living on boats and traveling in the Bahamas. So here we were, people as varied as Nate, a modern Huck Finn from Arkansas, who taught us things like how to use a “Hillbilly Bucket Anchor Alarm” (tie a bucket full of spoons or other pieces of metal to a leaded rope that hangs in the water. Put the bucket in the cabin. If the anchor drags, it will tighten the tension on the rope with the bucket, causing it to move and make enough noise to wake you up!) And then there was Allan, the great Irish sailor, who was full of rich stories of sailing in his beloved Ireland, and Michael, the college professor from Conneticut with a beautiful tattoos of a mermaid and Poseidon on his arms. And speaking of tatoos, let me not forget to mention Saunders and Tony, two young men who just finished serving in the Coast Guard and are now travelling together in a small sailboat called “GnarCrust” (short for Gnarly and Crusty). They are both COVERED in tatoos, and are on their way to Nassau to get more.

On Easter, or sometime around then, a new arrival came. A gigantic motor catamaran named Sea Wolff came into the harbor and anchored right next to us. They were a group of people from Cape Town, South Africa, and yes, they motored their luxury 47 foot megaboat all the way over here. Their boat, which is basically a floating 3 bedroom condo, is in an entirely different league than the rest of our lowly sailboats, and they are people we would not have been likely to brush shoulders with in other circumstances. But here they were in this isolated part of the Bahamas with a bunch of adventuring low budget sailors. To our surprise, they invited everyone in the entire anchorage to a dance and dinner party on their boat. We were all thrilled with that idea — dancing?!? on a boat?!? Count us in! So about 20 grungy sailors piled into their immaculately clean boat, and made merriment all night long. 20 people on their boat was not even crowded!

The front end of the boat even became a stage, and Mimi and Richard, the retired theater couple, entertained us with one of their hilarious skits.

The next day, Sea Wolff extended another generous invitation to the harbor to take everyone out snorkeling at a reef not far away. So we all got an board and got to experience this giant boat in motion, gliding across the bay, flying over the big waves. I felt like I was in a photo shoot for a yachting magazine ad featuring a luxury vacation in the Bahamas. Although the waves were pretty big and choppy out at the reef, the snorkeling was something you’d see on the Discovery Channel. Thousands of fish in vivid colors swam all around us, with purple coral fans as big as 8 feet tall dancing in the underwater currents. Some of the men, Cap’t K. included brought their fishing spears, and by the end of the afternoon they had a bucket full of gorgeous snappers, parrotfish, pudgies,and grunts for dinner. One of the local Bahamians, Johnny, cooked them up for us Bahamian style and it was exquisite.

And then, poof, the bubble of ease and contentment burst with the change of wind. We had all been kind of stuck on Andros by relentlessly strong East winds, and finally they eased enough to allow us to go. Some of the sailors will continue traveling together, others are going their separate ways, blown in different directions by the winds of change. We are continuing on to the Exumas, and buddying up with Mimi and Richard on the boat Maffick. Good thing we have facebook to keep us all connected!

When planning for our voyage, we ran into many opinions and philosophies “Go cheap and go now” turned out to be the one that made the most sense.

We looked at taking sailing and cruising courses from the American Sailing Association, but the cost was prohibitive. For the both of us to take the classes that would bring our skills up to the level of cruising would have cost as much as the purchase price of our 27 foot Albin Vega sailboat ($6,000)! So we decided to use that money to get the boat instead. Better in our view to learn by doing and afford to have a boat and cruise it than to pay for such an expensive class and have no money left over for a boat or cruising!

One of our friends went to the British Virgin Islands for a week, and he spent more on airfare and renting a boat there for one week than we spent on our entire voyage of a half a year so far!

We’ve met many people along the way who have told us how they would love to do what we are doing. Many plan to go cruising “in a few years.” Some have been planning for far to long and may never actually get to it. Often people have a three year plan to get off of land and onto a boat. Surely a mortgage, career, children and pets can all bind you to a life on land.

Still, houses can be rented. Careers can be closed or changed. Children can be “boat-schooled,” and pets can be brought or given away. There is no guarantee of the future, and no one will make your dreams happen but you. So whatever it is that you dream of, let us encourage you to “go cheap and go now.” Your dreams do not have to be expensive, and Lord knows that what gets put off to tomorrow may never happen!

We heard a story of the weather last year here in Morgans Bluff. The wind blew out of the east for three weeks straight. All the cruisers that were anchored here were trapped here, and all the cruisers in Fresh Creek, 35 miles south of here, were trapped there. No one could travel north or south along the coast until it let up.

We decided to come here because our course to New Providence was fairly rough as it was into the wind and into the chop, and the waves were only 3 or 4 seconds apart. So now we are “trapped” here because the seas have built up even more and the winds haven’t let up either.

It’s a nice place to be—stuck in a sweet spot like this with other friendly people. I just dinghied out to the main entrance channel to check the wind and waves and weather. The seas are still up, although the winds are fair. I could see a large squall in the distance. The atmosphere is unstable and turbulent. If it’s this way now, I can see it getting even more turbulent as the day heats up. We’ll stay put for now.

We had planned to go south to Fresh Creek before heading eat across the Tongue of the Ocean in our little Albin Vega sailboat. It’s a great place to check out, but the holding is poor and the current is reversing and strong and there is no protection from the northeast. They used to have mooring balls for $10 a night, but they are not in service any longer, like most things here. Now the only option for staying there with a boat is a $45 per night slip. Fresh Creek is far enough south that you can sail directly east from there to make it to the Exumas. Also there is a weaving community there that we’d love to visit.

There is an inside route between Andros and the great barrier reef, but it is strewn with coral heads and should only be attempted by an active and perceptive crew on mid-tide on a rising tide in peak mid-day sun. If you go aground any other way you may never get off, and there are not many people around to help. There is no TowBoat US to call on channel 16 to help. You are pretty much on your own.

While diving yesterday I discovered a sunken wreck in the inner harbor entrance channel. Hiding in its stern were 6 lion fish. Along the bank 100 yards out were another 3 lion fish. These are amazing creatures, although they are an invasive species that is wreaking havoc on the ecosystem. Rumor has it that people had them as specialty fish in their saltwater aquariums (~$1,000 per fish), but let them go into the wild when they couldn’t keep them.

They are not only invasive, but they have no natural predators and they are venomous. Man, are they beautiful though. One of the cruisers here, Francois, got “stung” by one on his elbow. It literally swelled up larger than an apple or orange, and it’ll take him three months to heal from it. Their venom is serious. The fish can be eaten if handled and de-spined properly, but there is as-yet no market for this supposed delicacy. Lots of people buy them for their aquariums, but not here in the Bahamas. Therefore none of the fishermen are hunting these fish and their population grows unchecked.

In honor of Easter, we cruisers had a potluck dinner on the beach at the North Andros Festival Market Place. This is where the regatta is held every June. What a delightful and assorted group of people have assembled here! Allan, the Irishman, bent our ear about traveling to the Mediterranean and Scandinavia. He encourages us to sail across the Atlantic in the trade winds from Bermuda to the Azores to Spain rather than to take the northern route through Nova Scotia, Greenland, Iceland, and then Scotland. Going that way, you are sure to hit storms and heavy weather, he says. In his opinion there is no finer sailing ground than Denmark, where you can get a slip anywhere for $15 per night. Who knows if such a trip would ever come about, but it is fun to think on it.

For now we are content enjoying this splendid place that holds us while considering the next stop on our journey eastward. We are learning so much by living this way!