Normans Cay - Superbowl & Good Friends

"Welcome to Normans Cay" says it all. This is one of our favorite stops. Back in 2006, this was our last stop in the Exumas before heading back to Nassau and then the US.

On our last trip, we were very fortunate to arrive in Normans on the weekly potluck dinner on Friday night. Here we made some new friends "Steve, Juana and Conner(6)". Although MacDuffs was closed at the time, Stephan, Chris and Beth (the new business owners) made us feel welcome. Fast forward to 2009 and we accidently arrived on Superbowl Sunday, but once again, it turned out great. "The Beach Club at MacDuffs" is alive and well and was having a Superbowl party with all the residents of Normans Cay. This turned out to be a great time and we made lots of new friends.

Emma and Ally immediately caught up with Conner and made a new "Best" friend Leon. Isn't it funny how they couldn't remember Conner 5 minutes before they met him again, but then they were best friends for life 5 minutes later.

During the Superbowl party, the 4 kids started a "fresh coconut" company.

As fate would have it, the Satellite feed died with 53 seconds remaining in the game. So, we ended up not knowing who won until the following day. What an ending! We couldn't believe we missed it.

The following day, we moved around from MacDuffs to the Pond. This is protected from all directions and allowed us to ride out the upcoming fronts. From here, we had a front row seat watching the construction of our new friends Bruce and Kelly's new house. We ended up anchoring next to Doug and Debbie on the catamaran "Perigee". Jennie was in heaven to have the girls (Juana, Debbie and Kelly) to walk, run and bike with. Here is a picture of the "Girls" not looking too sweaty!

If you know Jennie, you know that she is an explorer at heart. Her daughters are a chip of the same block. So, they were determined to take the dinghy all the way to the South side of the island for lunch - the trip is an obstacle course of shallows. This turned into an episode right out of "Gilligans Island". The episode ended with a daring nightime rescue from almost all the resident men on the island. Bruce generously donated his boat and the nighttime rescue was underway. We found the wayward ladies exhausted and stuck in the sand somewhere behind "Boot Cay". Everyone was fine and now we have a great story to tell. My special thanks to Bruce, Steve and Jason for their heroic efforts.

During our time in Normans Cay, we ended up having a full moon. This turned out to be yet another excuse to get every single soul on the island together for a party. Our friends, Steve and Juana, have named their house "Full Moon", so how could we not have a celebration. The winds this night were pipping up close to 30 knots at "Full Moon", so the venue was moved to Bruce and Kelly's "The Nest". Here we were treated to pictures of the flight in Corky's plane earlier that day from Normans to Georgetown. Corky and Nancy visit Normans regularly from the states and doubled as an air taxi service while we were there. Here are pictures of Corky with the full moon and his awesome Piper Seneca.

During our stay, Ally fell in love with her passion of reading. Her new favorite books are Harry Potter. She consumes them. Emma is still diligently trying to document every detail of our trip in her journal. I think she is still writing about every animal in the Miami Zoo over a month ago.

While playing with Conner, Ally got the first injury on Normans. It was a good one. She fell off the stairs onto some rock below - breaking the fall with her chin.

Conner has upgraded his hiding spot to a 12 foot high tree house that OSHA would have a real problem with. The girls thought it was awesome.

Well, Normans Cay was definitely a highlight for the Sneadfamily! The island has a long and varied past with drug running from Columbia, failed developments, plane crashes. Now it is a warm and welcoming island.

Hi to all our friends. It was sad to leave.

Next stop, Warderwick Wells. . . .

Berry Islands - Devils - Hoffmans Cay

We were sad to leave our friends on Great Harbor Cay, but we can't stay in one piece of paradise for ever. Try explaining this to Emma and Ally. They never want to leave where we currently are. But, we entice them with what is to come at the next anchorage.

The passage down The Berry Islands to Devils Cay was great. We were back out in the Northwest Passage in deep water, so we threw the trolling lines in and the excitement began. We didn't have time to pull in the first fish before the next hit the line. In all, we caught 2 Gray Snappers, 1 Grouper and 1 King Mackerel. We released the Mackerel, but kept the others. Don't think that this was an easy job. At first, we had no idea what type of fish we had caught or whether they were safe to eat. Our fish identification book was of little use because it was mostly identifying reef fish. But, we finally pieced it together from other guides on board.

Since then, we have been eating tons of fresh fish. Jennie found a great recipe and prepared the snapper with garlic, ginger, basil, hot pepper and soy. We grilled it for a great dinner. The next day, we cooked the remainder of the snapper, that had been marinating all night, over a bonfire on a palm studded beach for an awesome lunch.

But, before we get ahead of ourselves, we have to let you know about our arrival and first night. After the snapper dinner, we retired to the beach for a bonfire and smores. The girls had collected the firewood during the afternoon. We were the only boat within miles and the sky without light noise pollution was studded with millions of stars. The weather has been pretty consistent with perfect temperatures, a few fluffy clouds, nice breeze, awesome sunsets and no rain.

The next morning, we decided to explore White Cay.

This is the small island were were anchored behind. Here is a great shot of the girls out on a towering pillar of rock off the seaward side of the island.

We moved Miakoda around to the back side of Devils Cay to be more protected from the surge and found a beautiful little beach with palm trees full of coconuts. After harvesting some fresh coconut, we cooked the remaining snapper on a bonfire. For dinner this night, we made fresh grouper fish fingers.

The next day, we decided to explore Hoffmans Cay where there is a blue hole. This was a real highlight. After a short hike up a hillside covered with trees, you arrive at a cliff towering over a deep blue lake. This is extremely deep and sheer. You can jump off the cliff into the beautiful water. It was too high for the girls, but Brian jumped several times and even Jen overcame her fear and did the jump!!It is a little unnerving with the water being so deep that it seems to go on forever.

Of course, after working up an appetite swimming, Jennie made some great lobster salad. For dinner at Hoffmans, we found a recipe for curried lobster - to die for!

Next order of business, find some Internet. We have been without cellphone or Internet for several days now. Finally, we picked up a signal on a nearby island and have moved there to update the blog. Our plan is to post these updates and then move on south to Whale Cay tonight and leave at the crack of dawn for Nassau on Friday.

Until then . . .

Great Harbor Cay - Berry Islands

Monday morning Jan 19th, was a beautiful clear day. We raised our yellow quarantine flag to indicate that we had not cleared customs and immigration yet. A call to the marina on the VHF for a slip assignment and we were ready to make our first landfall in the Bahamas. The marina has to call the local airstrip to have the customs officer come to the marina. Nathan arrived fairly quickly and the check was painless. The immigration officer was delayed and didn't arrive until later afternoon.

While waiting for immigration, the girls found a local bahamian that was trimming the palm trees and collecting coconut milk. It always seems that Emma and Ally are attracted to locals with machettes.

Next, Kenny aka. "Bubba" shows up with his catch of fish and lobster. He is a mainstay at the marina and is known for his abilities at spearfishing. We hired him to take Brian out for a day and teach him how to catch and clean fish.

Brian and Bubba made quite a haul (4 porgies, 2 marget, 1 hog fish, 33 lobsters, 10 conch). We have been eating fresh fish and lobster for almost every meal.

Emma, just like her sister and mother, is determined to sink the boat with shells. Here she is showing off a nice conch shell given to her by Bubba.

We found the people on Great Harbor Cay to be warm and friendly. Everyone waves and life is laid back. The girls were invited to attend the local school for a few days. They fit right in and loved it. Ally read books to the class and Emma taught the children how to make paper snowflakes. The local children always wanted to hug the girls or touch their blond hair. The girls would have loved to stay in school here. Here is a picture of the second grade class.

Great Harbor Cay has some beautiful beaches. Here is Emma and Ally's first beach / shelling experience in the Bahamas. They are yelling "We finally made it!"This beach is called "Shell Beach". You can see the first haul of sand dollars. The girls are getting spoiled. Just look at the setting for school today.

It is almost time for us to leave the marina, but not before one more surprise. We have been looking for Manatees for months. We finally had a mother, father and baby cruise by. Here is a picture of the father.

Until next time, goodbye from the crew of Miakoda.

The Crossing

We finally got a window of opportunity to leave No Name Harbor on Sunday morning. A front had just passed and we enjoyed light South and South East winds for the majority of the day. Crossing the Gulf Stream was uneventful. Our plan was to either bail out in Bimini to clear in, or continue on to the Berry Islands to clear in at Great Harbor Cay.

This passage was our first attempt at fishing since we left in July '08 and it paid off. The girlies were very excited about trolling across the Gulf Stream. As we approached North Bimini at sunset and the water was sh0aling from 700+ feet to 50-60 feet, we finally got our first catch. The excitement was palpable.
We were rewarded with a small blue fin tuna. OK, this is where our lack of experience really showed. The boat was total confusion. How do we bring it aboard? How do we kill it? How do we clean it? How do we cook it? And most important, what kind of fish is it?

Finally, we figured out that it was a Tuna. It had already died by the time I was ready to clean it.And Jennie made up a great sauce to sear it it.

On full stomachs and with a beautiful sunset over the Atlantic, we decided to continue on to the Berry Islands instead of stopping in Bimini. Customs was already closed in Bimini, so we might as well venture on. It was a very dark night with no lights. During the passage, we didn't see any other vessels.

In the wee hours of the morning, Jennie was standing watch when she started yelling for me to come up that she had a problem. There was a strange light we were about to hit. I quickly looked around and then imparted the wisdom that "the next time she felt she was going to hit the moon, don't! Just enjoy the view." The moon was a huge cresent laid on it's side just coming over the horizon and it looked like you could touch it. So cool!!!


Around 3:30 am, we were approaching Great Harbor Cay and decided to anchor outside until the morning. Once the sun came up, we realized how glad we were that we waited. The cut is very narrow and it was extremely dark. Here is a picture of the cut.





Until later . . .