Thursday, June 26, 2014

Calabash Bay, Long Island, Bahamas

This has been a very hard trip on the two captains' electronics!  In addition to what was stolen in the. BVI, I broke my Kindle by pressing on the screen when the boat lurched, and now my trusty Canon camera is having a lens error and won't work.  

This means no pictures for the Blog.  Or no easy pictures for the Blog.  We do try to get some shots directly with the iPad and with Don's phone, but I'm unwilling to expose the iPad to much adventure and getting the pictures from Don's phone to my iPad is not easy.  Wish this iPad had the new Air Drop feature! 

So I have no photos to share of our lovely stop in Calabash Bay, Long Island.  All the way at the north end of Long Island and on the way to Georgetown, it was a logical stopover.  It turned out to be a beautiful bay!  A huge white sand beach curving in an arc of several miles had a very lovely resort - Cape Santa Maria Resort -- tucked into the north corner with casuarina pines softening the horizon.

The anchorage was huge.  An interesting formation of parallel rocks bedecked the bottom in 20-30 feet of water on our approach, and looking through the shallow clear water was like sailing in over some giant river bottom.  To the left of the resort, a huge, but shallow lagoon opened up, which we later explored by dinghy. It is so unusual to see such a body of water be crystal clear!

In the afternoon we did our dinghy exploration of the hidden lagoon, then dropped the hook in a little cove near the mouth of the main bay to snorkle.  This was a precious cove, with a battered house all closed up with a for sale sign on it, prompting a few fantasies. 

When we rolled into the water we discovered -- zowie --at rest on the bottom the largest stingray any of us had ever seen!  His body had to be a full four feet in diameter and his tail disappeared into the sand behind him.  Most eye catching were eye sockets that had to be the size of fists!  

When we tired of admiring the stingray, we snorkeled around the tip of the point, finding a nice assortment of fish and a rock formation with giant potholes scooped out of it!  The guidebook says all rock in the Bahamas is limestone.  If so, it sure takes some different forms!  

On this Atlantic side of the Bahamas at least, there is not much coral growth.  We are north of the Tropic of Cancer, now, generally considered the limit for coral (except where the Gulf Stream warms the water temps), but on this swim we did see scattered small but perfect coral formations, trying to make it in the shallows.

In the evening we dinghied ashore to dine at The Beach House, the resort's handsome restaurant.  We were surprised how small the restaurant was for the size of the resort, but then we saw lost of room service orders going out.  Our waitress explained that  the resort has villas many of which are privately owned, and many people dine at home!  Not us!  Tom and Bette had lobster, Don and I had ahi tuna in pineapple salsa.  

When we left in the dark, (after availing ourselves of their Internet), we were besieged by mozzies and no-see-ums by the zillions and we fled back to the boat, put in screens and lit mosquito coils.

In the morning, we decided to motor around to the west side of Long Island so that Tom and Bette could check out Stella Maris Marina.  by car, this would have been a very short drive, but by boat it was a several hour arc owing to various capes and shoals that had to be gotten around.  In the Chartkit, this marina boasts of being able to haul out multihulls up to 100' so it seemed worth the effort to check out, but it was a very stressful approach through water barely deep enough for our boat, with a stiff breeze complicating things by whipping up the surface making it hard to see the bottom. 

Well....once again, the guidebook was somewhat of a misrepresentation.   The approach channel was poorly marked with sticks only, so we dropped the hook while still a mile out.  Then Tom and Bette dinghied in -- a long wet ride -- only to find  the facility, when they finally reached it, somewhat underwhelming.  

Don and I stayed behind on the boat for that adventure, in part to lighten the load in the dinghy.  Don continued to work on boat projects, mostly electrical, and I did some cleaning, reading and writing.  But Tom and Bette were back quickly and, it was unanimous that we didn't want to stay there for the night.  So motored right back to Calabash Bay.  

This time we anchored much farther out to discourage visits by the biting critters.  In addition, the easterly breeze that had so stirred things up at Stella Maris, here bathed the boat in cooling breezes without the sea getting rough.  Since the summer solstice a few days before which was about the same time we lost the trade winds, we have all been uncomfortably hot a lot of the time, so this renewed breeze was very welcome.  

As the sun headed for the horizon, we were hopeful for a green flash.  It would be our last chance, we figured, before being surrounded by the Exuma islands.  in the last hour before sunset, though  we grew pessimistic as a hidden cloud bank swallowed the setting sun.  However, at the very last minute, Ina kind of miracle the big orange ball of sun seemed to find a slot just big enough to slip its fat self though and amazingly, we got our flash!  

Later, before bed, Don and I sat out forward on the tramps enjoying the breeze and the clear night sky.  Incredibly, between the moon, summer haze, and cloud cover, this was the first really good star watching night we'd had in the whole month!  While lying back and trying to pick out the summer constellations (I am much better at winter ones), we were amazed to see two starts suddenly split and move rapidly in opposite directions!!!!  Not planes...perhaps the space station?

The next morning we made an early departure, bound for Georgetown and Exumas.

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