Da Bahamas!

We had heard from our trusted sailing friends on “Jayana” that the Bahamas had incredible cruising. They were right!  The amazing wildlife, crystal clear water and endless anchorages make it a place that we could spend a lifetime. 

When we arrived here, we had a great opportunity to visit a very remote atoll in the southern Bahamas because of a stretch of very settled weather. It was called Hogsty Reef and it was an unprotected dot in the middle of the ocean. There were many wrecks to dive, fish to hunt and even a few sharks around.  All of this made for some very interesting snorkeling. 

The visibility in the water was unreal. We have never been able to see nearly this far underwater anywhere else that we have visited. 

We saw many sharks while we were anchored at Hogsty Reef. It was unnerving to see them while we were snorkeling, but we quickly got used to it. It helped to have a spear gun - just in case!  They are incredibly graceful and beautiful underneath the waters surface. We saw blacktip reef sharks and nurse sharks. None over 5-6 feet long.  After the swimming was done, the kids decided to tie a fish head to a rope and attract all the sharks at once.  It was a highlight for them. 

We managed to get some frightening close-up footage of the sharks with the GoPro as well. 

Next, we found a nice & remote stretch of beach to chill and have a marshmallow roast. The water was super warm and we saw rays right from the beach. 

The anchorages in the Bahamas are so vast. It is shallow for miles, so you can literally put your boat anywhere you like.  It’s pretty crazy. 

We have become comfortable with snorkeling and holding our breath, so we wanted to visit a “Blue Hole”.  These are narrow, very deep holes that are typically used by free divers to practice their craft. Dean’s Blue Hole is on Long Island in the Bahamas and is the second deepest blue hole on the planet. 

The blue hole was surrounded by a conical sand beach that sloped down briefly and then dropped off into the abyss. The hole itself was only about 15-20 meters across, but was over 200 meters deep!  The way that the sand fell slowly into the hole was mesmerizing. 

Stu tried to swim down as deep as possible, but only made it to 15-20 meters deep. Interestingly, once you reach that depth, you are no longer buoyant and you start to sink (because of the compression on your lungs). It’s an advantage for the free divers, but it’s a very creepy feeling.  While we were there, some pro free divers were practicing for an upcoming global competition. One diver made it down to 110 meters that day!

The free divers used this rope tethered to the bottom for safety. It was useful for the kids to pull themselves down to see how deep they could go. 

The kids are growing up so fast on this trip and seeing so many wonderful things along the way. Micah had her 9th Birthday and got a nice boat cake!  The candles spelled “Congrats”, but she wanted it to say “Goats” instead :). Eva from “Nahla” was there to celebrate with us. 

The Bahamas are where Christopher Columbus first made landfall in 1492. We anchored near where it’s believed he and his crew first sighted land. Conception Island is now a nature reserve and it was stunningly beautiful. 

We snorkeled near a tiny deserted island off of Conception Island and flew the drone for some scenic shots. 

At Conception Island, we dinghied up a tidal estuary and saw many rays and turtles. 

After a couple weeks of remote cruising, we were ready for some civilization. We sailed to Georgetown, the largest town in the Exuma Cays. It’s a place where a lot of Canadian and American cruisers spend the whole winter season. During our sail over, we got to practice our light wind sailing techniques, and flew the mizzen staysail. 

While we were in Georgetown, The Bahamian Annual Family Regatta was on. Teams come from all over the Bahamas to race traditional Bahamian Skiffs. The racing was awesome to see as we chased the sailboats around in our dinghy. 

At the cruisers restaurant called “Chat-n-Chill”, the stingrays have gotten very accustomed to people and would come by for a quick touch on the back. 

Near Georgetown was a defunct marina complex with a blasted-out canal for dinghy access. It was great for cliff jumping!

There were a few turtles in the canal as well and we got to swim with them too. 

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After Georgetown, we will continue to sail north up the chain of Exuma Cays. We will take our time in this part of the world because it is unbelievably beautiful.  We have plans to be in Nassau by the second week of May. Thanks for watching & reading!  Feel free to comment or send us an email :)

Walmart, horseback riding and flamingoes!

We have had to make quick miles northwestwards because we have a lot of ground to cover. We want to spend at least a month in the Bahamas, so we brushed the surface of both Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. That involved some beautiful downwind sailing, and a couple overnight passages. 

We stopped in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It has a rich history of Spanish settlement, fortification and has a very European feel to it. We anchored in San Juan’s big natural harbour. The harbour was the main reason this place was a perfect transfer point for all of the plundered riches of Central & South America (on their way to Europe in the 1500’s & beyond). The Spanish-American War in the late 1800’s saw the US take over control of this island. We were now back into the world of Walmart and cheeseburgers!

Right next to our anchorage was an “urban park” with 100 foot wide, overhead screens and fake grass. It was very surreal. 

The old fort had an amazing setting looking out over the Atlantic Ocean with cemetery in the foreground. This tells the tale of a long history of European occupation.

The fortress was very impressive and was built in the 16th & 17th centuries. It was mainly used to defend attacks from rival European fleets and later from pirate attacks.  It had massive walls that eventually included a large part of the old town. 

Old Town San Juan was very cool with centuries of history and various eras of architecture. Touted as the “oldest city in the USA”, if feels very European because it was part of Spain until about 150 years ago. 

Many of the streets were beautifully decorated and the atmosphere was very festive.  Generally, San Juan felt very safe, clean and friendly. We took the opportunity to re-provision the boat, take the girls to a modern mall, and be proper tourists, in general.  It was a nice urban stop and our only landfall on Puerto Rico.

There was a small park where we could feed the local pigeons. They were very used to people and quite aggressive at times. It was fun!

 

San Juan has many feral cats which are well looked after by the locals. Micah stopped to visit all of the cats that would let her pet them. 

Next, we spent 48 hours on passage and landed in the Dominican Republic. Luperon is a favourite with cruisers for its protected anchorage, friendly people and cheap prices.  It did not disappoint, and had all of those things in spades. During our trip here, Stu almost amputated his right big toe by dropping a heavy hatch cover on it!  Luckily, it ended up just being badly bruised and he hobbled around for a few days while healing. 

The check in procedure was very extensive, but friendly. The naval officer who inspected our boat (Richard) had a father-in-law that had horses - Micah’s dream!  So we arranged some horseback riding through him. It all felt so welcoming and quaint.  Richard gave the crew a ride to the ranch on his motorcycle. 

The surrounding landscape was very dry and interesting at this time of year. The horses were great and the hosts were super friendly. 

The trails were right above the anchorage and you could get views down to the ocean all the time. 

Some of the trails would wind through surreal landscapes that looked like something out of “The Lord of the Rings”. 

The DR is very into baseball and softball. We watched a game one evening and were impressed by how skilled the players were. 

On our last day in Luperon we made friends with a family who had a Chihuahua puppy named “Dumbo”. He was the cutest little thing we had seen in a long time. He weighed about one pound and was very cuddly. 

After leaving Luperon, we sailed north to the Bahamas and checked in at Great Inagua Island. The Bahamas cover a huge area, so we will keep moving north towards Nassau every few days. 

We reunited with our Québécois friends aboard “Jayana” here and met some new friends aboard “Nahla”. With them, we did a back-of-truck tour of Great Inagua Island. It’s known for salt production, flamingoes and a huge lighthouse. 

There were mountains of salt as far as the eye could see!  It is harvested from evaporated sea water that sits in the enormous natural pools near the shoreline. 

The wild flamingo population is thriving here and was rehabilitated by naturalists many years ago. 

We also visited an old decommissioned lighthouse that was about 100 years old.  All of these islands are extremely low-lying and were very difficult to see in years past prior to modern GPS navigation. Before the lighthouses were built, shipwrecks were a regular occurrence around the Bahamas. 

Climbing the spiral staircase inside the lighthouse was a dizzying experience.  It was about 150 feet tall!

We will continue northwards in the Bahama Island Chain. With its stunning azure-coloured water and its endless number of protected anchorages, we really think we’re going to love it here in the Bahamas.  We will take our time and explore this water world before heading to Nassau by mid May.  There, we will wait for a suitable weather window to make it up the Chesapeake Bay by early June. 

Antigua & The Virgin Islands

 We are finally catching up (in the blog) to where we currently are right now… The Virgin Islands.  We didn’t know this, but there are British, US AND Spanish Virgin Islands (the latter are part of Puerto Rico).

After we left Guadeloupe, we headed due north to Antigua, which had a very British vibe to it.  We had to say goodbye to some close friends that we have loved traveling with over the past few months.  James, Kathy, Max & Bea aboard “Luna” have ended their boating adventure in Antigua and plan to travel around Central and North America before heading home to the UK in the summer. Simon, Penny, Oscar & Skye aboard “Starry Knight” were slowing their progress north because they aren’t heading to the USA as we are.  They will go back south for Hurricane Season.

We had so much fun with all of them. Here Officer Micah has Pirate Max prisoner at Nelson’s Dockyard, on Antigua.

Nelson’s Dockyard was a very interesting British Naval Outpost which was established in the 1700’s to protect England’s Caribbean interests.  The site is extremely well fortified and preserved with a great museum. 

The dockyard is still active today and has a marina, sail loft and lots of interesting things going on. Aria & Micah got along really well with Max & Bea which made traveling together so fun!

At the marina in Jolly Harbour, Antigua, Micah got to go up the mast to help with some lines that are led up there. 

Unfortunately, the time had come when we had to say goodbye to all of our amazing friends from “Luna” & “Starry Knight”. Until next time!

Next, we did a 48 hour sail to the British Virgin Islands. We checked in at Soper’s Hole and headed to the north side of Tortola where we found some surf!  This is Cane Garden Bay, but we couldn’t stay there because the anchorage didn’t feel very secure.  We headed further around the coast and found an amazing, quiet bay with perfect 2 foot waves. Stu caught a few nice waves on the inflatable SUP!

The bay with nice, small surf was called Long Bay, and the beach had a sign pointing to Tofino. 

We stopped in Road Harbour for the day and found a wonderful bookstore (and got really, really close to a moving cruise ship!).

Next, we sailed over to Norman Island (everything is super close in the BVIs), and went to a floating restaurant/pirate ship called Willy T’s.  Aria & Stu jumped off the back of the restaurant many, many times. 

Around the corner from this anchorage were some breathtaking caves that we snorkelled into

The life around the reefs down in the Caribbean continually blows us away. Here is a video of some really cool needle fish. 

We are starting to feel a bit of pressure to push northwest towards the Bahamas, so we moved onto the US Virgin Islands after only 5 days in the BVIs.  The USVIs have a very different feel, but we enjoyed them a lot. We anchored in the main harbour of Charlotte Amalie, the city on St. Thomas. There is quite a bit of pirate history here and we dove right into it.  There was a great pirate museum in town. 

We checked out Blackbeards Castle which was originally built by the Danish in the 1600s, but later used by the famous pirate as a lookout. 

It rained really hard one day and gave the boat a good rinse. The rainbow at then end of the storm was spectacular!

Before we arrived in Charlotte Amalie, we had been in contact with another kid boat on a WhatsApp Group especially for connecting kids.  They also had 2 girls, 13 and 8 years old. Our kids became fast friends and hung out together a lot while we were there. This life on boats is so interesting that way… total strangers can quickly become friends with so little effort because you already share similar interests. 

Today we sailed over to Culebra, one of the Spanish Virgin Islands.  We will stick around here for a few days before heading to San Juan, Puerto Rico.  There was a low bridge in the dinghy channel and Aria decided to grab the rope swing hanging off of it. 

We are really looking forward to getting back out to sea and doing more overnight passages to the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas.  We will then make our way slowly north through the Bahamas and really savour those amazing Islands and Cays. 

Martinique, Dominica & Guadeloupe!

Our Adventures have continued in the beautiful Caribbean. We have moved north through the islands of Martinique, Dominica & Guadeloupe. Martinique and Guadeloupe are part of France, but Dominica (right in the middle) is independent. The history is fascinating because the indigenous Carib people (originally from the Amazon area) successfully fought off the various Europeans who were continually squabbling over the islands in this area. 

Let’s start in Martinique and try to have as much fun as humanly possible!  

We had a date with a potential buyer for Oyai and a survey & haul out scheduled. We cleaned and tidied, but had lots of fun along the way. Micah’s dream came true and there was some great horseback riding. 

We worked hard during our time in Martinique and did a few boat jobs, including painting the bottom. 

We were lucky to be in Martinique (Fort-de-France, to be exact) during “Festival”. It’s a week-long celebration that goes 24/7 and includes theme days. This day was the colourful day…

We caught an incredible parade that was so rich in culture and history.  Many of the performers were telling a story through their dances and actions. 

While anchored in St. Anne off Martinique, the kids were learning how to wingfoil with borrowed gear from our sailing friends. Aria was doing really well and had tons of fun!

We sailed to the northwest tip of Martinique to a town called St. Pierre that was wiped out by a volcano in the early 1900’s. Over 30,000 lives were lost and the reminders of the tragedy are still visible throughout town.  There was a great little zoo in this small town and we spent the morning there. 

At the zoo, we found a proper Tarzan vine to swing from and everyone had a go. In this video, a great friend and boat dad, James, got some amazing hang time.

Next up on our adventure was a short 5 hour sail to beautiful Dominica. The vibe there was much more wild and Caribbean with unlimited natural beauty. The people were incredibly welcoming and friendly as well. This has been one of our favourite places on this entire trip!  On day one in Dominica, we did a 7 hour hike to a huge boiling lake in the caldera of a volcano. Words can’t describe how spectacular it was. 

The cloud forest hike was unlike anything we had seen in the Caribbean so far.  We were so thrilled to be hiking with our new close friends from “Luna” and “Starry Knight”.  Here, Lana and Kathy are all smiles during the descent down to the caldera. 

Of course, there were also some natural hot springs to soak in during the hike as well. Paradise!

We have been so fortunate to be traveling on & off with superb friends who we crossed in the ARC with. We have regular gatherings and bond over “sundowners”.

We moved up to the northwest corner of Dominica and experienced a National Park called the Indian River.  We got to see so many cool animals, plants and beautiful scenery. 

This was the site of one of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie scenes and the shack they built is still there. 

On our last night in Dominica, the kids had an “Emergency Survival Drill” and used an expired liferaft from “Alchemy”. They spent hours getting to shore, making shelter, building a fire and cooking for themselves. They LOVED it!

In amongst all of the sailing and adventures, the girls have been thriving with their “boat school”. They usually do 2-3 hours, 5 days per week of focused learning. Math, language arts, science and history are part of their learning which is facilitated by Lana and their distance education teacher Lisa. It’s been a very positive experience and has taught them a lot, including self-motivation.  Here Micah demonstrates a science experiment they did to discover which common liquids are acids (or bases).

So much of our daily lives revolves around learning in this unique environment as well. We are so proud of our kids for embracing this life and learning as much as possible during our year away. 

We kept moving north and had a few days in Guadeloupe, another French island. It had a nice feel as well, but very different than Dominica. We were anchored in a bay and had close encounters with some wild dolphins!  The kids eventually were able to put on masks and go swimming with the dolphins - a truly magical experience. 

Oyai had to stick around Guadeloupe for a couple of extra days while we waited for a part to be delivered from Martinique. There is no customs between these islands and flights are frequent, so the delay was minimal.  We made the most of it with our friends (one of whom has the exact same boat as us!). 

Simon, Penny, Skye & Oscar hosted all of us aboard their beautiful catamaran “Starry Knight” for a day sail in Guadeloupe. It was super cool. 

From Guadeloupe, we will head to Antigua and the British Virgin Islands. This will mean we are starting to head west towards the Bahamas (and eventually the east coast of the USA). Follow along over the next few weeks!