Another sweet ending to another sweet and full day. The sun set behind Meeks Patch Island not long ago, and as the rest of the boat sleeps here in our quiet anchorage, I’m happy to be regrouping after so much activity.
Backing up a few days, we left Staniel Cay on Thursday morning, and had a romping crossing, after a combined start of a romping sail and romping seas which started us out on a more exciting note than expected. About twenty minutes in I was the big ‘winner’ when a wave crested into the cockpit and doused not only me, but the clothes nearby that were piled and ready to be hung on the rail, as well as the chart kit (thankfully waterproof though frustratingly glue-y when it comes to salty pages drying together), and a blessedly cased iPad/Navionics guide. Once dried, we enjoyed a lovely crossing with little other action, and landing on Powell Point at the Cape Eleuthera Marina that afternoon was a great ending to the journey. Another kid cruiser was ‘next door’, and we enjoyed the company of new friends while we discovered the marina’s pool, beach, and restaurant. Their seven year old boy and Violet hit it off immediately, and they played and roamed and made plans to wake early the next day to be able to maximize their plans before we both split off.
Kid boating is a bonus in and of itself, for the extra wide openings the kids bring to the admissions process of meeting people. As I’ve mentioned before, our girls scout anchorages for signs of other littles as we pull in, and are either encouraged and excited (and sometimes literally drawn in by kids’ waves and bellows) by seeing small kayaks, kid art or clothing on the rails, or droopy with disappointment in what looks like the worst possible outcome… retirees and single-handers (gasp!). (/”Those lucky sailors!” say Mom and Dad!) Our new friend family was a great example: I can imagine no other situation in life in which Violet would be happy to be woken up early, and on purpose, but time with her new buddy was fleeting, and she knew how to make the most of it. (Which included loading the water guns that came in their Valentine baskets, running the docks and lawns like crazy urchins, and then plopping back down below on Chickadee while doodling and eating pancakes together. Heck of a packed hour and a half.)
While in Cape Eleuthera we walked to the Island School and had a long tour with a knowledgeable and sharp director, and I can’t speak for the rest of my family, but I’m sold. I’d apply in a heartbeat if I were sixteen again, and I look forward to seeing if our girls continue interest. The school’s mission is to foster leadership that effects change, with a hard look at sustainability and making small differences that therefore roll into larger shifts. Their campus was impressive (a farm, a boating and scuba center, a tilapia farm ‘feeding’ the aquacultural farm that had some mighty fine looking greens, etc., etc), with local and global initiatives showcased and led by students from local middle schools all the way through graduate programs. I feel like I’m in their marketing department all of a sudden, but perhaps that’s the point. It’s a supercool place doing really cool things, and I felt honored just to have a look!
From there we headed north to Rock Sound, and wow, what an odd place that was. The cruising guide and charts ‘boasted’ about many amenities and goings on, and yet instead we felt like we were in alien territory: apart from the actually identifiable market place a fair schlep from the dinghy-docking option, the ‘town’ was asleep. Three out of four buildings and homes were abandoned and being eaten by vines and shrubs, shops were closed, few people at all were even seen, signs led to nowhere (except the ‘in town’ blue hole- we did find that), and the various points of interest mentioned were either crumbling to the ground or totally nonexistent. We got back into our dinghy all but shaking our heads, and happily went home to the comfort of the boat, ready to make plans to head out again in the morning. (A funny ending to the day is that once the sun set, a ‘party’ materialized onshore and began pumping some serious 90s tunes for hours and hours… where did they come from?! Only Montel Jordan and Tone Loc know…)
Saturday led us to Alabaster Bay, which was a lovely departure from Rock Sound. About halfway up the east coast of Eleuthera, Alabaster is a wide but shallow beach rimmed in casuarinas, and we chose it largely for its decent anchoring and narrow ‘waist’, which meant an easy walk to the ocean beach on the west side.
We crossed over to the beach via an old US Navy base, which was fascinating to behold, but completely eerie to walk through. Friends mentioned that somewhere within was a bulletin board that had a still-legible flyer mentioning some activity planned for the day that the base closed, sometime in the 1980s, and seeing something like that would have sealed me in for the super creep: walking by the entry booth, the old gas ‘station’, the multi-acre concrete slab of the water collection site, falling buildings and piles of scrap metal from abandoned machinery was enough to paint a clear picture. To mentally click back and forth on the then and now as we walked through the base felt like walking with a particular breed of ghosts I was not at all comfortable with (did the show Lost sit too deep with me or what?!). I was happy to get to the beach and have it disappear behind me, and happier still that Andy had planned for a loop to get back to the boat, so we didn’t have to retrace our steps.
But the beach, holy cow, the beach. Wide, barely any slope, pink sand, and the greens and blues…. the juxtaposition was intense. The girls were in heaven, racing and rolling in the waves, and Andy and I were happy to be stretching our legs and cooling our feet in the water. A mile or so later, we parked our butts in our chairs while V made another cafe from which to ‘feed’ us, while Lily collected various beach treasures and roamed back and forth, happy as a beach trash collector collecting…. beach trash.
This morning we left early to continue our ‘climb’ up the west coast of Eleuthera. We had a beautiful sail, and while Andy manned the helm, my day was packed with work (good wifi meant it was a easy day to accomplish some emailing and research), cleaning projects, crafting (Violet is working on a new ‘stuffy’ situation and I worked on bracelets), eating (as always), reading (I’ve been reading in the cockpit to the girls on our sailing days), and gaming (Lily kicked my cribbage butt). Once we dropped anchor, I hauled each of them aloft, and they monkeyed around the shrouds and had a blast while our neighbors dinghied by and no doubt thought that they were being punished. On Lily’s second go-round she sat just below the spreader for an hour flying a kite, and would have been happy to stay up there for the night, had V not urged her down to go for a dinghy exploration. These are some lucky and happy kids, which makes for some seriously grateful and happy parents.
Tomorrow is back to school and weekday routine before heading across the Devil’s Backbone north of Eleuthera to an anchorage off of Harbour Island for a few days. Once we pick our way through the coral heads (that’s the hopeful plan anyway!), we’ll wait out some winds there, and will take a breather for a bit before shoving off for the Abacos. Until then!
