Author: equinoxgardens@gmail.com

Whelp, it wasn’t the right fix. Lots of troubleshooting on Saturday morning to hone various considerations that it wasn’t, and yet still no charging. (For those interested in the nitty-gritty: the alternator has both an internal and an external regulator, and as it was bench-tested with only the internal in use (the external remained installed back aboard the boat), it could be that the external regulator either has wiring issues, or is somehow otherwise faulty. We (ha! I’m hilarious… Andy) can bypass the external regulator, but it’ll take some doing, so he’s trying to tick off the easier possibilities first). At one point it began charging, for about 20 minutes, and then went back to its old gremlin-y trick of.. not. So perhaps a nod to loose wiring? Not wanting to spent the majority of his short trip with his head in the engine compartment, we decided to make a break from the yard while it was the weekend and we weren’t getting any help anyway, and live our Chickadee lives to the fullest. Who needs refrigerated things? (Umm..)

Also? Our head pump needs replacing, as it’s leaking salt water all over the place every time we pull or push the plunger. I was hopeful that a seal had dried out and needed some moisture to cajole it into leak-free function, but.. not yet anyway. Boats. The best, right?

We had a really beautiful sail to Manjack Cay, just north of Green Turtle, and anchored in time to be able to use the fairly high tide to dinghy through the mangroves to see what we could see. An eagle ray was the first to greet us when heading in, and from there it was a lot of turtles flying this way and that, and a couple of barracudas way up in, snaking their way along the edges of the mangroves, no doubt great fishing for a top osteicthyes predator. We’ll go back again today to see things with better light above, and also perhaps hit up Brendal’s beach, where the stingrays flock for handouts, and bang up on your shins for our amusement and their begging purposes.

I wrote that first bit earlier, and we ended up scrapping the plan for the second round of mangrove exploring when we missed a high enough tide, and instead went in to the ‘cruiser’s beach’, and hiked to the other side to play on the ocean beach. Manjack is where Andy acquired his first experience with poison wood, so we were quite diligent in our surroundings assessments, especially as we squeezed tighter and tighter in various parts of the trek over. The girls in fact named it the “Death Path”, which I thought a wee bit extreme, but it kept us on our toes as we had to duck and dodge various limbs and leaves stretching out over the trail. (As a reminder, poison wood is poison ivy’s evil stepmother: its oily secretions can bring on blisters you wished you’d never known, and whose secretions then spread and spread for more blistery suffering.. a real treat for whomever gets it, to be sure.)

The walk was worth it, to no one’s surprise. An expansive beach to ourselves, and one with ‘perfect pitch’ to boot; it’s always nice to find a spot to flop around in the waves where you aren’t getting threshed by giant rollers, but with enough wave action to keep the kids happy.

We headed back to the boat for lunch, and then a quick jaunt back here to Green Turtle, where we now sit on the dock at AYS (Abaco Yacht Service, our home away from home), awaiting today’s: a)access to an electrician, b)WiFi for downloading a few movies and c)laundry.

Our hope is to have the first crack at Rand, the electrician who will hopefully help us with the alternator, because ICE IS IMPORTANT. Oh right, and water pressure, starting the engine, lighting, charging devices and other such mundane things… Then off around the whale for some Guana exploration, most likely.

Perched once again in our cherished cottage on the beach, I’m sitting and watching the sun rise over Gillam Bay, entertaining the scene like a soothing balm. The hermit crabs had made their highways in the sand overnight, zig-zagging their way to and from the beach and under the sea grapes, and everything else feels untouched and so completely peaceful. Add ‘the sound of waves crashing on the beach’ to ‘petting a cat’ for blood pressuring-lowering hacks. (Just don’t check your email or turn any phone notifications on, or you’ll end up back where you started.)

We arrived late on Wednesday after a long day of travel (but only one versus two! it’s getting easier to get to one end of things to another), and settled into our usual habits as if we’d never left. A stop in Marsh Harbour at Maxwell’s, the big grocery store, the ferry ride to the dock where we met our friend Caroljean with our golf cart, and onto the cottage. Cracked conch at Pineapples immediately after throwing our things in the door- it seems like a requirement at this point. A delicious requirement.

Andy spent yesterday working on the engine: replacing various hoses, replacing the heat exchanger and installing our rebuilt alternator (remember those fun charging issues last year? hopefully we won’t offer a redo). I puttered around in the cockpit, since down below was not accessible due to the companionway being taken apart for the sake of the engine work. I stored the sun shade, installed the dodger and detailed the lazarette, all while also collecting what I hope won’t prove to be my worst sunburn in all of these years. We are all so diligent with sunscreen I can honestly say that in seven years, we have not had any real burns, but I was clearly in tundra mode, and my ‘reapplication sensor’ wasn’t working. Ah, well, at least it wasn’t the kids, and what’s a few layers of skin? Yeesh.

The girls spent the morning in the water, collecting as much sand in their suits and scalps as possible, midday making and delivering lunch (and cleaning up from it, which really shocks the system), and the afternoon biking around. We’ve threatened to have them do schoolwork for the rest of these vacation days, but they’re onto us, and not having it. Bilge-cleaning instead, perhaps?

We launch this afternoon, so after breakfast at the liquor store (I love that THAT’S a thing) and our Day 2 COVID tests at this clinic this morning, we’ll be registering the boat (a new item on our task list, now that she’s Bahamian) and hopefully flying through the rest of our pre-launch to-dos. A day or two more here in Green Turtle, and then we’ll head around the Whale to make our way toward Hope Town. All of the comforting things!

Antsier than ever to get to the boat, we’ve managed to survive more of a winter in Maine than we ever thought possible. When the mid-January days of our usual departure timing came and went, I started twitching, I’ll admit. However, knowing that Chickadee days were coming, albeit delayed, I felt enough of a dangling carrot to work through the icy, snowy, sleeting, gray days of a winter in the tundra.

My learning curve has been mostly about adopting the dorky saying of “There’s no bad weather, only bad gear”, and I’ve been enjoying the challenge of figuring out how to be outside for as many hours as I can, the REAL key to keeping it together up here. The side goals are to get the dog exercised, raise my heart rate and explore Acadia by any means possible; the ACTUAL goal is to not slip, fall, and crack my aging body apart. So far so good!

We are boat-bound next week, after a brief stop in Portland for the Bird’s state swim meet. The intense dedication she’s given to the sport this year has been so exciting to witness. She’s part of an amazing group of supportive kids, and her hard work continues to pay off for her; she’s really hooked. And who knew we’d ever enjoy watching swim meets for hours (and hours..) on end? Certainly not I, but there you have it, we’re hooked too.

Meanwhile, Violet has been making art often, and taking a class with a local artist who is teaching her techniques that she then comes home to practice, much to our joy and wall benefit. Next step: a gallery in the house?

Our trip itself is much condensed and changed from previous years, and while thinking about it shifting originally brought me great sadness, I’m now quite excited for our dedication to making it happen at all, no matter what it looks like. We’ve imported the boat to the Bahamas (a new flag for Chickadee!), which means that we’re not bound to the three year cruising permits, and she’s free to stay happily in her Abaco Yacht Service home, and to greet us for whatever time we can steal away. We’ll find a balance for the high school curriculum with Lily, and we’ll go from there. This year the whole family will have two weeks- enough time to do a few projects, launch and sail the Abacos for a bit, and then Andy will fly home with the girls, and I’ll have another two weeks solo. (Can’t deny being VERY excited about Phase Two- a new SALVio tradition, perhaps? Alternating adults, of course..)

This means this week is go time for all of those projects hanging and unfinished business! Back to it.

Wednesday morning was my last morning in the cockpit. Bittersweet, as always. Just the day before the boat so swiftly went from cozy home to torn apart workplace, so the thoughts of our sweet beachfront rental with its gargantuan king bed and full-sized refrigerator (easy cheese*!) were appealing enough to savor my perch with more gratitude than sadness.

After leaving Spanish Wells on Sunday we had a long but beautiful day crossing north to the Abacos. Our final day of fishing was yet another bust, although we did manage to snag a plastic sheet and lose our cedar plug to a mahi we saw flinging around behind us. With all of the money we’ve spent on gear this year (replacement donut reels, new skirts, etc. etc.) we realized that we probably could have just bought three whole mahi and called it good. The plastic we picked up made us feel better, a kind of ‘net zero’ to the length of line that poor marlin probably still has attached to him.

We stopped in Hope Town for the night, and thanks to our charging issue, we needed to plug in. We’ve apparently become ‘marina people’ for this last phase, which, once we remembered the amazing pool at the Hope Town Inn & Marina, didn’t bother us one bit. We met up with friends there, had a meal in the cockpit while enjoying the view of an over-the-top birthday party (and it turns out, marriage proposal) at the marina restaurant, complete with fireworks. The next morning we dragged our departure time out, just to soak up the relaxing scenery.

Every year we figure new tricks for a swifter exit. We’ve stopped at the Green Turtle Club to decommission and clean lines, gear, etc., but I’ve also already laundered and stowed a number of our linens while here at ‘ground’ level, as opposed to schlepping it up and down the swim ladder while hauled out. I also had all of our bags packed with things leaving the boat before we hauled, meaning we took our giant duffels off of the ‘down the ladder’ list as well. I’ve meal-planned through the end of the trip, so we’re left with what we need to feed ourselves until we fly out, while also eating down as much of our stores as possible (always a favorite logistical and culinary task- how many of these dry goods can we fit into ‘x’ many meals when combined with what fresh produce we have left?). 

While at the dock, we met yet another wonderful family, as if our fully-packed season of introductions to dear people deserved its end cap. (Which it did!) Andy was taken fishing for the afternoon, and came home with a face sore from smiling- clinging tight while pounding into growing seas on a 30-something foot center console and not catching any dinner (has anyone noticed a pattern here?) was truly his dream afternoon. (Meanwhile, I sat at the pool with the rest of our family parts, chatting about books and living my own.)

Our haul and ‘put away’ was as efficient as ever, partly because we were so anxious to be able to maximize the time in our amazing rental. ‘Our’ house wasn’t available, so we are currently in the sister house next door, and our previous assessments about not being able to top that place were wrong, wrong wrong. This house is the one I’ll dream about forever and always. And, added bonus of all bonuses: Wild Bobby came back to us, and he’s as funny (and hungry) as ever. Both mornings I’ve gotten up at sunrise, and have seen him walk up to the house, checking the scene. He’ll circumnavigate it, crowing his rooster crow under the windows (the girls’ warm feelings toward Wild Bobby are cooling with not a small tinge of exhaustion), and I’ll stuff him full of peanuts and cereal just to keep him as quiet as possible until everyone is up. He is also our mostly companion at cocktail hour on the dune deck. Win-win? 

The weight that usually crushes me when thinking about leaving has lessened to an extent I wouldn’t have thought possible, based on previous years’ exits. Granted, I still don’t want to go home, I’ll gladly admit that, and I greatly look forward to the years that the cruising portion of our years is more in the four to five months range, but I don’t feel like I’m going back to a world of total chaos for once (excepting, of course, the global pandemic that still rages on…).  I’ve undergone a large shift in my work life while onboard this year, releasing a massive time responsibility in a certain position I left, and shifting to a certifiably less-financially stable, but massively more sane and healthy rhythm of only taking care of my own businesses. Which is plenty of work to keep me busy, while also possibly maintaining a family at the same time. While my list-making continues in a serious way and the items are hefty, involved, and some might say risky, they are all exciting, things I love to do, and they are mine. Thinking ahead to our next Chickadee trip means a certain freedom of movement I’ve never had, which in turn feels like I’m not leaving something precious behind as much as looking forward to an even better version of it. Of course, with Lily going into high school this coming year, our timing will likely look a bit different, but that’s for a later planning period. For now, savoring the last moments of this year’s journey is the task at hand.

Chickadee is covered and ready to heave a big sigh, we have bid adieu to the yard and its wonderful workers, and now we play (well, after school and a bit of work, anyway..). We will swim our last 2021 Bahamian swim, check the beach for sharks, rays and sea glass, swing in the hammocks, and luxuriate in this luckiest of cruising/adventurous world we have made for ourselves. 

*When people have complained that it’s so cold in Maine while we’re living a lovely tropical life, I try to even the field by pointing out how hard it is for us to access cheese in our fridge, a task that is necessary to perform often for the sake of obvious cheese needs. (We have to lift three separate interlocking bins out, hope there’s room on the counter or companionway steps to put them without them sliding about, and fold one’s body in half to get that low into the refer. THEN you choose your cheese, and put it all back together without anything spilling out. Having the ability to simply open a door and grab some of anything, really?! That’s the dream. (And is also how catamaran-dwellers live, but it’s still not enough of a reason for me to want one.))

It’s been a long (some might say too long) stretch here at the marina in Spanish Wells. Our alternator was still giving us trouble as we made our way up through the Exumas, so when we landed here to wait out the front (finally settling down today!), we opted for shore power and refrigeration over neither. Our solar panel can almost keep up, but the fear of not enough sun (it’s actually been cloudier at times than we’ve ever known the Bahamas to be), and the reality of having no ‘discretionary spending’ on the amperage front on the hook made up our minds for us. 

So. We sit in Spanish Wells, with a plan to head out to anchor this afternoon, prepping for an early morning departure on the crossing back up to the Abacos. (Charging everything we can while we can!)

The week has been easy and relaxed, if not a bit bland for our cruising tastes. The island is only about 2 miles by ½ a mile, so it’s relatively easy to get to know the place. On a run one recent morning serious bikers-for-exercise (not to be confused with my biking style of huffing like a hippo with emphysema, just trying to get from Point A to Point B-biking is not my jam) passed me three times in thirty minutes; poor things are on a short track.

The island’s commerce is largely dependent on fishing, and the huge and ungainly (but always beautifully-painted) fishing boats line the shorefront to the south. (There is a channel between Spanish Wells and Russell Island to its south that makes for a very protected waterway.) Each boat has anywhere between two and five smaller center consoles rafted to it, and at first we thought it was just the sharing of dockage for lack of other options. It turns out, they’re part of the process: every morning, save for Sunday, the large ‘mother ships’ steam out of the harbor, with their ‘littles’ running alongside. It’s certainly a large operation in terms of crew members needed. The larger boats becoming the ‘processing hub’ for the smaller pangas, who dart closer to the reef systems and whose operators then dive to fish for lobster, grouper, and whatever else edible they find. We’ve only seen one major processing business here, so my guess is that they all then sell to that company. (Which, I just read on their website, is the primary supplier of Red Lobster. Ironically, I might add- nothing red about any state of these lobsters!) As I think I’ve mentioned before, there aren’t too many surnames here on the island, and if you’re a Pinder, you’ve pretty much got your hand in every pot, including the seafood export business.

Our family’s commercial shoreside interests are mainly in the ice cream trade, and we have been thrilled to be just off the same street as Papa’s Scoops, a semi-permanent tent structure that opens between 7 and 10 every night with homemade ice cream and slushie flavors.   

The Food Fair, All Mart 4 (never did find All Marts 1 through 3, but #4 was the size of our living room, so if they’d been expanding through their iterations, I can assume that All Mart 1 was a closet in someone’s house), the liquor store, the ice cream tent, the guy with a propane tank in his yard for filling, friendly goats on 16^th street to feed leftovers to… all became important stops on our land journeys. 

I’m not sure this is the right word, but the ‘highlights’ so far have been simple. We rented a golf cart one day and did a quick circumnavigation after tooling around Russell Island to find a delicious lunch spot. We walked to a woman’s garage yesterday where it turns out she runs quite the operation feeding the locals lunch every day. She was turning conch fritters in a little fryolater on a card table, and her husband was whipping up sandwiches on Johnny cakes and conch salad in their kitchen. We vaguely thought about FDA regulations of the US while we forked over very few dollars for a very lot of food in her garage filled with too many unorganized things to name, including a low enclosure of just-hatched chicks under a lamp. 

A large, dead snake in the road near the marina has been a serious point of entertainment for a few days, and we just added that to the tally of other flat things we’ve seen: four more snakes (smaller, for Andy’s sake), and one rat, larger than we would have liked to imagine island rats to be. (But at least also dead-er.)

Our biggest move was a day trip to Harbour Island with some marina neighbors who hadn’t been before, and who were kind enough to organize the ferry from here to Eleuthera, the taxi across the north end, and the secondary ferry across. We ate delicious pastries, walked the island, adopted a couple of potcakes for the short term, and looked longingly at the anchorage there that we love. 

The marina has a pool, which is where we’ve ended most days; a nice dip and quiet reading time after school work and before dinner (and ahem, ice cream). We also luxuriate in laundry facilities as well as great showers, so while we feel like we’ve stepped out of the joys of cruising for a moment, we’re cleeeaaan!!

Off to a relaxing Saturday of hoisting Andy aloft, now that the winds have died down. That’s a joke, since there isn’t an electric winch to be found on this boat, and I’ve yet to eat my Wheaties. (Which we also don’t have.) But! Anenometer assessment, windvane tightening, and a general rig check is always good. 

Happy weekend! 

Living aboard means adjusting ourselves not only to the changes in routine and movement patterns (from the planning movement of navigation to the literal movement requirements of ‘duck before nailing your noggin on the boom’ and ‘lift your leg high out the companionway to keep from denting your shin’), but also to the sounds of our onboard life. It makes me feel a bit like a wild animal, being so attuned to the slight changes that are indeed quite meaningful to our safety and survival needs; I love it. (It’s also amazing to think about wandering around in our house on land, and recognizing how little I actually hear in it, and how little I pay attention.)

When we sleep, we are aware of the sounds of the snubber gently shifting the pressure from starboard to port, port to starboard. We are always keen to the noise (and motion) of a shifting current, tide change, and at one point this year, the snubber hook falling loose, and the chain clanking against the roller. When we pay out all of our chain, the stretch of the rode creaks from time to time as the boat sways. All good things, as Frozen’s Olaf would say, but nighttime considerations nonetheless. Sleeping onboard is akin to sleeping with an infant nearby- the rest you get feels so heavenly, but light sleeping is key to the operation.

A noise we don’t want to hear while sleeping (among many others, including those obvious intrusions such as bilge alarms, loose halyards thwacking on the mast, the kids’ Fitbits’ forgotten alarms buzzing on the table at obnoxious hours, and the sound of large vessels steaming toward us, say) is the pressure pump kicking in. This would indicate a tap not turned off properly or worse, a leak somewhere. Worse still and more immediate to our rest, it means someone forgot to turn off the breaker, and that we have to get up to do so. Blerg. 

By day, I channel my inner owl to hear the very start of the coffee water boiling, so I can shut off the stove and not waste an ounce of propane. This year Andy’s ear has taught him the slightest of decibel drops when the alternator is charging versus when it’s not, without looking at a gauge to confirm. 

While motoring, learning sound variations of other things over the sound of the engine has its own challenges, but we’re like jackrabbits tuning our ears for the ‘whiiirrrr’ of the fishing line reeling out with a fish on, or knowing when the holding tank is empty by the shift of load sound of the macerator pump. 

Coming up on deck to continue writing this and having the Bird follow to cozy into her perch above the companionway, we were all jarred by perhaps the worst communal sound aboard- the crunchy, gritty sound of the companionway hatch sliding over too much sand in its tracks. Think nails on a chalkboard, but louder and more damaging to boat parts. Shiver.

Lily’s least favorite sound is the light-but-annoying clanging of their stateroom door when V vacates and forgets to close it, and her favorite sound is when one of us tells her that the WiFi is working so she can Nerdcraft with her friends. Violet’s least favorite is the sound of the preheat alarm of the engine, and her favorite is always the sound of the engine shutting off. (You’d think this would indicate a sailor through and through, but it’s more often easier attention paid to movies watched underway.)

Our favorite sound? The ssshhh of the waves on the hull and the gentle patter of wind in the sails on a beautiful day’s close reach. It’s time to cease the tap of the keyboard to get back to it.

Our days in Georgetown were as lovely as they could have been, perhaps save for the sad part of saying goodbye to one of our boat buddies. We adults had a final night of good cheer and good food aboard Valinor, while the kids dinghied in to the beach to spell ‘Rickanor’ in rocks on the sand flats- the trifecta has memorialized its name, and we are so grateful to have had each other as wonderful boating companions for this past month. Until we meet again!

They headed out to Conception (I’ll have to live vicariously through them), and we took advantage of the same weather to shoot north. Andy woke one morning recently to take stock of the days we have left before we haul in Green Turtle, and once he reconciled that with the weather forecasts we have, his mood turned to anxiety. We’re in race mode now! (Well, sort of..)

We had a nice sail north to Leaf Cay, an ‘anchorage’ that we remembered loving when we were there two years ago, but this time around it was less than.. grassy bottom (harder to set the anchor), and a lot of current, which would have made our kids boat/raft play more nerve-racking to behold. We instead shot down to Lee Stocking Island, where the kids happily played in the water while Andy, Dan and Susanne went ashore to check out the abandoned research station. (The Perry Institute for Marine Science’s coral research funding dried up about ten years ago, and from their accounts, it’s basically as if people just packed their clothes and walked off the dock. All else is still intact, save for whatever looters have likely helped themselves to in these years. Eerie, and as one Navionics note says “kind of Walking Dead”.) Meanwhile, I stayed aboard to weep into the last pages of the book I was reading, and to make sure the kids kept the water out of their lungs.

Yesterday was Chickadee’s most amazing day of sailing on record. We made excellent speeds on a very comfortable broad reach, with a few minor surfing episodes thrown in for good measure, always my favorite. We ran from Lee Stocking up to Staniel, and made it in time to drop the anchor and reconnect with two other boats on our oft-haunt Pirate Trap beach. The kids recreated the Rickadee Cafe once more, and we ‘enjoyed’ nice meals and their adorable service, with questionable comfort in seating. (I also almost swigged salt water from a bottle that they served my ‘ginger ale’ in, which goes to show: do not put a bottle in front of me that I shouldn’t drink. My habits apparently die hard.)

Gone are our stints of short travel days, and after today’s day of Staniel Cay leisure, we will make as much northward progress as possible, and fast. Sunday is forecasting a stretch of high winds and ever-growing seas for a number of days, so we’ll tuck into where we land for a bit, and hope we enjoy our surroundings!

We left Staniel in what feels like was a previous lifetime, but in actual fact was… maybe five days ago? Wowza! The days are long and packed, and we pivot between activities so frequently they often seem to multiple within themselves.

Our first stop was Galliot Cay after a really nice afternoon sail on the bank. Our plan was to leave quite early that morning and make it further south to Rudder Cay, but one of our own needed some engine help, and the engineer among us was dispatched to work, while the rest of waited and enjoyed an easy morning aboard and wifi enough to ‘get to school’ for the girls and to ‘get to work’ for us.

We hadn’t been to Galliot before, and as soon as the anchor was set, we threw our snorkel gear into the dinghy and went for a nice drift snorkel around a nearby island. Not a ton to see fish-wise, but the coral was abundant, which is always a promising and comforting sight.

The next morning we decided to head out quite early to get offshore for our long southbound day, and were immediately deterred by the steep seas banging around in the cut; the tidal current meeting the wind made for an experience that was too much for Chickadee, and most importantly the dinghy, clanging around in the davits with excessive force from the drops. (Not to mention my piping hot, full first cup of coffee that was thrown from the cockpit table and sloshed on every surface nearby. Boo hiss.) We turned around and headed south on the bank side, and planned to wait for slack water to attempt a different cut. Rudder Cay it was after all!

We dropped anchor, had breakfast, and by that time one of our buddy boats had appeared, so we had some play time with them before our noontime, slack water departure. We snorkeled at David Copperfield’s sunken ‘mermaid playing a piano sculpture’ (he owns nearby Musha Cay, and likely sunk the piano next door to avoid throngs of curious snorkelers in his ‘front yard’), and again around a small island bluff that was rife with activity. Shortly after our arrival we had a warning from fellow snorkelers about an increasingly aggressive reef shark. (We didn’t stay long enough to learn more!)

A couple of long days ‘on the outside’ later, a beautiful and quiet anchorage in between, and once again a big zilch on the mahi front, we made it to Georgetown. I find this place bittersweet in a lot of ways. Sweet because the kids have multiple avenues in which to meet new friends- beachside gatherings, tree swings, beach volleyball courts, or just poking around the neighborhood (anchorage), bitter because it’s likely our southernmost point before we turn around to head slowly for the barn. (I say likely because once again we find ourselves poised and eager to find a window to get out to Conception Island for a night or two, but don’t yet know if it’ll be possible.) Sweet because the grocery store here is abundant with a wide variety of produce and cheeses (mmm, CHEEEESE), but overwhelming because there are SO many boats here. I love meeting new people, and of course there is a very common thread here to pull us all together, but ultimately for me, it’s a lot, and I look forward to the cozy stillness of the boat even more each day that passes.

We have gotten off the boat, however, and spent one of our days here in the ‘big city’. We busied ourselves with our various shore-based tasks while the kids named the local wildlife on the dinghy dock (the turtles were social, the pufferfish, less so, which is probably for the best). We then hit the straw market for some braids and gifts, had a delicious lunch ashore, and came back to Chat N’ Chill, the afternoon boater hangout.

The rhythms are familiar and relaxed but full of activity; the girls have spent hours stringing boats to boats to boats off the stern for balancing/gaming/who knows what kind of entertainment, we’ve hiked to the Monument and found our name in the sand below, hit up a kid’s birthday party on Flip Flop Beach, explored the ocean side beach, and read with our toes in the sand. Throw in schooling, work, hours of FaceTiming friends for the girls, the constant boat tidying tasks required, cooking delicious meals, sharing others with friends, the books that we’re all devouring, and it’s hard to believe that we’re only awake for 16 hours a day. (And it’s no wonder we crash earlier here than any land-based sleep routines.)

We’re gearing up to spend a lazy lunchtime at the Peace & Plenty beach bar/restaurant, where I’ll gladly sit in a lounge chair and read the day away while the kids bounce on the floating trampoline that may or may not be a huge draw for our group. (The ‘bar’ part is helpful, too.) Happy Sunday, all!

SAND, sand, everywhere…

We aboard the good ship Chickadee are in the business of sand redistribution. It’s a simple two-way street (beach sand in, boat sand back over the side from the dustpan), but the roads themselves are littered with housekeeping chores, laundry requirements, and near-homicidal thoughts by our captain. Beach days are the kids’ favorites, but the idea of managing all of that sand on the boat end of things makes Andy just about as crazy as anything else. Inevitably the sand didn’t all get washed out of our suits on that last dip in the water, and goodness knows no matter how much ‘shaking out’, we transport quite a bit in our bags each day. (Stuck to water bottles, picnic things, books, etc.) This year we made the excellent choice to buy fancier new beach towels which are amazing at releasing sand even when wet, as opposed to the sand-sucking terrycloth we’d used until now. BUT. Fancy towels aside, the sand comes aboard. We spray the kids off on the stern, we shake the bags, we snap the towels a few more times… and the sand is still here. Hair is brushed, sand falls out. Dry bathing suits are taken off the rail, sand pours out. You pick up that one little thing that you forgot to put away last night, and poof, sand jumps into your arms. I personally don’t mind it too much. For a kid who freaked her freak out if that toe seam was moved to the ‘wrong’ spot when putting shoes on as a kid, it’s amazing what I’m willing to put up with when it comes to salt and sand. The girls joke that they sleep on the beach, there is often so much sand in their bed (falling from the depths of their thick tangled hair each night as it dries). Andy, not so much. 

After a whirlwind of time here in Staniel Cay (laundry, provisions, dinner ashore with the monohull families one night complete with shark-petting (we’re back at the girls’ favorite conch stand/nurse shark feeding hole), beach pig visiting, Thunderball snorkeling (the Bond movie’s famous site), boom jumping and a lovely gathering on a comfortably spacious catamaran another evening, we were able to swap our sand concerns for wind concerns on Saturday night.

With gusts forecasted into the 40s, we had set a second anchor earlier in the day, but also spent a semi-sleepless night of anchor watching. We’re near an ocean cut where the current is brisk at times, and also in opposition to the wind direction, strong as it was (for most of the day it was a sustained 35kts with gusts higher). It felt like a puzzle to figure out which way we should be sitting, and which anchor is doing the work at times, but once we did, and feeling great comfort in our ground tackle, rest was better, and we cozied in for a lazy Sunday of wind-watching, movie-watching, and definitely not waist-watching.

Books were read, food was eaten, drawings were colored, Minecraft was Minecrafted (technically term that Lily would approve of, I’m sure), cribbage was cribbaged, the dinghy never left its davits, and not a new grain of sand came aboard. In fact, I had a little cleaning jag at one point yesterday, and I’m now confident that we have less sand on board than the day before, which feels like a miracle. Thanks, wind!

It’s been a while since we alit on the shores of Highbourne Cay, and we’ve compiled some noteworthy and sometimes insane experiences since we’ve been out of data reach. A lengthy summation, in partial netherworld form, since that’s what this incredible life so often feels like.

Once upon a time, in a world known as the Exumas Land and Sea Park, the kid boats converged upon a lovely island called Shroud Cay. So many boats! So many kids! So many new friends! The mission was clear: get as wet, as salty and gather as many memories as possible. (Also to eat a lot while doing so.)

One fine morning, the brave monohull denizens took a trip ashore to find the freshwater well on the south end of the island. Result: found. Salinity: Fresh-ish, and rimmed with algae. Emergency purposes in a pinch! That day? Not so thirsty.

That same afternoon brought the monohulls and the catamarans together: through the mangroves the dinghies and children lured their parents. On the shores of the ocean beach there were cliffs to jump, beach games to play (there were eleven children, after all), and Cirque du Soleil performers to entertain! (And I’m serious here, there were Cirque du Soleil performers, and they were certainly entertaining. After all of their efforts with our group, I seriously thought about acrobat-napping the woman, since she could have tripled-dutied as our nanny, house acrobat (we all have those, right?) and French teacher- she was adorable and as energetic as I never remember being in my twenties, and clearly loved kids, but also she was very fast, and sadly got away.)

Since the afternoon apparently didn’t hold enough intrigue for the adventure-hungry ELEVEN children, they decided to take the slow route home, in that they decided to swim/drift with the flooding tide through the mangroves instead of mounting their noble inflatables. The adults drifted the dinghies alongside and swapped snacks with one another while the kids weaved their way over confused sea turtles and perhaps the odd lemon shark. As all good fairy tales end in a beautiful sunset, the children flooded out into our anchorage just as the fiery orb dipped its toe into the horizon. 

BUT! The tale is not over. That was but one day in the life.

The salty crew then beat their way upwind to neighboring Hawksbill Cay, where there were not only endless sand flats, but snorkeling, paddle-boarding and general land exploration and mayhem, all of which ended in a beach bonfire. (The land exploration was for dry wood. And these fires are allowed in the Park? Hmm, sure!) Crew members engineered a cheese table, and we roasted bread on sticks. A hearty apres-dinner feast (because who says a meal should end when the meal is over?!), and a cobbled-together celebration. (Necessary 2021 side note: this is a land where COVID is in and of itself practically a fairy tale. We had all been tested before and again since arrival, we have taken two weeks of health surveys, and have been literally living a quarantined life on board since. It’s a miraculous wonder that we can be with people –touch them even, gasp!- and no one talks about a pandemic. Embarrassingly privileged of us all, we completely realize.)

The Exumas Land & Sea Park was vast, and lo and behold, there were more kid boats to fold into our ranks. Warderick Wells found us yet another family (a monohull for those counting), and a sand bar hangout (with a reef shark circling the edge, perhaps waiting for toes to fall deeper?) for our introductory afternoon. All meet and greets should be so pleasant.

Because Warderick Wells isn’t conquered without some hiking, Boo Boo Hill was climbed, which resulted in finding our boat name board yet again. Success! Less success: the Sharpie to add the year to the board was left on the beach, which meant we brought the board with us to amend and drop on our way north next month. (But it’ll be updated! And more colorful!)

After the swelliest night of non-sleep, we ‘awoke’ (does it count to say ‘wake up’ when you were never really asleep?) to start the day, again with a hike. The brave Rickadee crew battled our way through poison wood* forests (it was mentioned that a video or audio account would have been amazing along our line of eight: “On your right! Then crouch down- it’ll be on the left again just after that!” and so on and so on…), and along razorlike shorelines of eroding limestone. Three cheers for flip flops as hiking shoes! (I owe Rainbow a serious ‘thank you’ for not shredding to pieces after years of me abusing them in such situations.) We crossed to the ocean side and hiked along to the pirate’s lair, saw a very jittery hutia (an adorable rabbit-sized rodent that inhabits Warderick Wells) on the beach on the bank side, and a number of smaller ‘freshwater’ wells inland on our way back across. In doing so, we proud Rickadeeans defined what roasting, sweating, starving, thirsty and exhausted was for the day; sinking into the water after finding our dinghies again was a TREAT.

Popping outside (to the east of the islands) was the order of the day after our hike that showcased both seas and their conditions- we had a lovely sail down to O’Brien’s Cay, where the good ship Chickadee now sways gently on her anchor. 

Our kid crew has amassed together again, and in our short 30 hours here we’ve cocktail hour’d with the best of them (kids as shark bait playing on the paddle board and floats after shark hour), snorkeled at the Park’s beautiful Sea Aquarium (where the sargeant majors ‘hup to’ if you have some bread to offer, and often even when you don’t), and spent the day on a favorite beach with a sweeping cut just feet off the beach itself: a ten foot deep channel with surprisingly good sea life deposited within the beautiful sand banks. (Today’s exciting sighting was a spotted moray eel, popping out from time to time to ‘bark’ at the pestering squirrelfish, who were clearly drawn to its cave/home.) 

Since we plan on waiting here (ish) until the winds die down more to keep our further southing to a minimum of upwind slogging, we have more time to explore these beautiful options. More snorkeling, more climbing, more swimming, more of everything but fresh produce and decent snack foods. It’s been a long while since we have seen a grocery store, and while we’re at it, a washing machine. Looking forward to the always-fleeting-but-still-insanely-appealing feeling of salt-free clothing, towels and sheets. LUXURY, I tell you. 

Speaking of luxury, Mark Zuckerburg’s yacht is nearby just east of the islands (it draws too much to play in the Bahamas bank, and is ‘shunned’ to the ocean side of all of this fun); should we just dinghy over and see if they have any asparagus and/or Pringles? Problem solved!

*Poison Wood note: Poison Wood (Metopium toxiferum) is scattered about on most islands, and can be a complete bear to deal with if it touches bare skin. Years ago Andy had rainwater drip off of a leaf, and ended up with a festering blistering rash that lasted for weeks. We try hard to avoid a repeat, and Violet is our resident poisonwood scout- she’s always dutifully on the lookout. A vigilant eye (and a helpful V) is a small price to pay for the views and sights of the island trails!