And…. landed.

After a few beautiful days on the water, we’ve landed back on our home shores. The crossing itself was uneventful- a too-light wind was behind us, so we motored across, with only the main up for steadying purposes in the softly rolling cobalt swells. No fish caught our line, but there was plenty of rummy and Old Maid played, books read, a few movies watched by the girls, and tasty vittles consumed. Such is passage-making aboard Chickadee.

Our jump from Green Turtle to Powell Cay turned out to be a jump to Manjack Cay instead, which was a boon in that it didn’t put us on the still-roiling sea for longer than we needed, but also because the pregnant goat we had met on our previous trip to Manjack had had her babies, and it was then that we discovered that everything is better with a baby goat nearby.

The island denizens who offer their beach as a landing pad, their yard and spaces as quiet refuges (and their workshop for sailors who need one) invited us to walk to the western point of the island with the goats and their people for their afternoon stroll. Mom-goat, auntie-goat and the two kids walked with their human parents and the eight of us on a gnarled road/path through the woods to the bluffs, delighting in watching the little babies leap and twist with no apparent cause or reason, as if they had misfiring springs in their hooves. Once at the shore, the four goats ran and barreled down paths like their tails were on fire, and we sat on the deck and listened to them bleating back and forth; stranded babies calling for help, and elders wondering where in the heck those babies went off to.

On Wednesday we left Ruach at Manjack, and headed west to make our way to our ‘jumping off’ point. We have more of a time crunch than they do, since our haul schedule is set for Monday, and we were hoping to get to Stuart in time for the canvas people to get a template for our bimini supports on Friday. We had an incredible sail with 25 knots on our quarter, and apart from making miles and enjoying the day, it was wonderful not to hear the drone of the engine at all. Since we’d had little sleep for the past few nights listening to the wind howling through the hatches, we decided for a more comfortable anchorage at Great Sale Cay as opposed to the more exposed Mangrove- the winds were taking their time dying down. We learned en route that our canvas ‘meeting’ wasn’t happening, so our timeframe opened up enough to allow us to wait for a day for Ruach to catch up. Before meeting them at Mangrove, however, we decided to explore Great Sale Cay a bit, since we only had 20nm to sail.

Our Great Sale adventure began auspiciously enough, with us traipsing across the lava-like ancient coral beds looking for a path through the mangroves to what we saw on the chart was a beautiful beach on the opposite side. The casuarinas were in sight (always a good beach sign), whistling in the breeze, but the getting to them part was proving to be tricky. After a bit of bush-whacking, we came upon a road of yore, crumbling and grown in, but a road nonetheless. The island was used by NASA in the 60’s to track rockets, and sites of ruins on the beach were also mentioned on the charts. Following the road we came upon some scat, which we first thought disgustingly was human. More pieces, more investigation (mmm, up close!) told us that it ate some serious vegetation, and the images of wild boars chasing us down the beach commenced. Once we made it to the beach itself, the ruins were beside the point, because all I could focus on were the hoof prints and large tunnels and holes dug through the high tide rack. There were plenty of prints, and fresh as well (as a newly self-proclaimed animal tracker I simply noticed that the wakes of upturned sand weren’t yet dry from the heat of the day, which was drying our tracks with haste. Field note #3: they were LARGE, whatever they were.)

Fully endorphined now, picturing myself throwing each child up a casuarina to climb (easy low branches for them to start!) for their lives while I wrestled the beast to the ground (I’m not actually sure what Andy would have been doing in this image of mine), I was ready to turn around, but tried my best to play it cool for the sake of Lily, who was equally spooked. “Are wild boar aggressive?” she asked. “Ohhh, nooooo….” we said before catching each other’s eyes and picking up our speed. Violet, on the other hand, self-assured as always, was more upset about not getting the beach time to swim that we had suggested might be a possibility. She was lagging behind, enhancing my reel by the frame of a vicious animal leaping from the mangroves to snag the smallest prey first. Maaaaaybe it’s time for me to meet civilization again, lest my imagination knot my skull with crazywork.

We beat feet back to the dinghy, where we realized that we forgot to set the geocache we had brought, so we hauled anchor, motored around, dropped anchor again and sent Andy back to the beach on Boar/Beast Island to do so. He lived to tell the tale, amazingly enough, and some adventurous soul may find our cache and the treasure we left. (Or the boar will snarf it out and see how a friendship bracelet in the Bahamian flag colors tastes.)

Mangrove was a lazy sail away, and while we waited for Ruach to arrive, we dinghied around to explore what was shown to be a small plane wreck on the chart, but what we found to be was an island impenetrable due to mangroves, plenty of stingrays along the coast, and a blue hole that was both beautiful and eerie at the same time. (Later research showed that the plane is actually underwater, and requires a snorkeling expedition: next time.)

We pulled into Loggerhead Marina for a ‘swanky’ weekend of boat cleaning and decommissioning earlier this afternoon, and have already hit the pool (heated, freshwater) and have had a perfect reunion/catch up dinner with our friends next door in Jensen Beach, who were kind enough to put up with our car-less ways and drive us to and fro while also feeding us. (How do we land these amazing types of friends, anyway?!)

There is a lot on our list to do before we haul on Monday, and still more after that, since our crane is scheduled to pull our rig just two hours after we’re on the hard. Lines and sails to be rinsed and stowed, covers and blankets to be washed, a salty boat to be doused with fresh water, and derigging as best we can for now. Plus we’ll be planning for next year’s projects, ordering parts to replace those now broken, lost or dysfunctional, and the general packing and repacking of any sort of gear that all boat projects require. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that time at the marina pool for the girls is on the list as well, so it’s not all a slog now, is it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Follow up ‘field note’: while our photos of the poo did indeed match with the wild boar scat that Google had to offer, I could not find any mention of boar sightings on Great Sale Cay, despite its many mentions in travel blogs, sailor’s journals, or the island’s listing (for $10 million it could be yours!), though that last bit doesn’t surprise me. I DID, however, find plenty of gnarly aggressive wild boar videos, opposing the one Bahamian (I think?) home video boar sighting, where the toothy boar basically flops in the surf on the beach next to the frat boy filming it, not caring a lick about anything (i.e. not attacking said frat boy). The Bahamas are becoming well known for their swimming pigs- are ‘tame’ boars the next step up in attractions? And is buying Great Sale Cay Step One in capturing this market?! Ten mil could tell, people, just ten mil.