As you will see below, the last few weeks have been pretty boring, I thought I would give a brief overview of my view of the Bahamas.
Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
The People
The people are incredibly friendly here in the Bahamas. The Bahamas are not in the Caribbean, but if you lump them in with the Caribbean, as people often do, in my experience the Bahamian people are the friendliest of them all. I cannot think of one interaction with a local that was not wonderful.
On one instance in a pretty remote stretch of cays we came across a local Bahamian fisherman that was having outboard trouble and needed a tow. We towed him a few miles to a friends house and he gave us two beautiful lane snapper for dinner. He didn’t have to do that and we didn’t expect it.
We didn’t go to Nassau, I’m told there is a lot of crime there, in the out islands the Bahamian people are extremely hospitable and friendly. There is much beauty in the Bahamas, and the Bahamian culture is one of the most beautiful aspects of this country.
One of the most interesting thing about the Bahamas is it is so spread out and there are so many islands and cays that each area has their own history, customs, origins and culture. Spanish Wells for example was founded by British loyalists, the people from Rock Sound, although very friendly, are not likely to engage in lots of conversation because their work ethic is so strong. We found some settlements to be extremely tidy and devoid of any trash, and some had lots of trash.
You could spend half a lifetime sailing and exploring the Bahamas and still find more to do.
Prices
The prices here in the Bahamas are unreal. We have seen avocados for $8 a piece, a case of beer is $70 at most places. A bargain is $45. A can of chili is $5. Bread is $8 for a loaf of white bread. This is a small sampling of what the prices of groceries are here. Luckily we did a very heavy provision before leaving the East Coast of the US.
Interestingly rum is cheaper than you can get in the US, if you can find it.
Weather
Most everyone we talk to that have been sailing the Bahamas for a decade or more have told us that this winter the weather has been exceptionally difficult. Apparently El Niño is causing stronger cold fronts to move in from the Atlantic with more frequency. We’ve seen 50 knots of wind during some of these fronts. So they’re nothing to trifle with.
The Bahamas has very few all-weather anchorages, and when the fronts come through the wind clocks around a full 360 degrees over the course of a few days. So finding good protection from the wind and waves has been a real challenge.
If I were going to give my former self some advice I probably would have told him to hit the Bahamas and look for a weather window to the Caribbean. The wind blows from the East 98% of the time in the Caribbean.
The best time to be in the Bahamas is in the spring. The water is warmer and you don’t have to worry about as many cold fronts and they won’t be as strong. I’m not sure if we’ll ever make it back here, but if we do it will be during a non El Niño year and it will be in the spring time.
Natural Beauty
The Bahamas is a truly beautiful place. The water is crystal clear, the beaches are made of powdery soft white sand, some of the bluest blues I’ve ever seen in nature have been in the Bahamas. There are plenty of fish, lobsters and conch to catch and endless amounts of cays and islands to explore.
For anyone considering coming to the Bahamas, go to one of the out islands or better yet, rent a sailboat and get out of the touristy areas.
Plastic Trash
You can lump me in with the climate change skeptics, the climate has always changed.
In my opinion the great scourge to the environment at this time is plastic trash. I have seen bits of plastic and ghost nets hundreds of miles out at sea. You can walk on just about any beach anywhere in the world and you will find hundreds of bits of trash and lost commercial fishing gear. It is a blight on our natural world.
When walking on a beach in the Bahamas I wonder where it all comes from. They burn their trash here, and the gulf stream would carry away any trash from the US into the North Atlantic. I guess it may come from Africa carried across the ocean by the currents produced by the trade wind, that is just a guess. If you know where it all comes from let me know.
Needless to say it is everywhere. Many third world countries have no refuse infrastructure and they dump it in the ocean. We can definitely do better.
Shallow Water
Before sailing to the Bahamas we would think anything below 12 feet was pretty shallow. Oh were we quickly baptized into shallow water sailing. Most of the Bahamas is very shallow. After getting more and more used to operating in shallow waters we regularly moved across areas that were charted at 6 feet or less. Sometimes we transited waters that were charted at 3.5 feet. Our boat takes 4 feet two inches to float. It’s a little hair raising to be out in the middle of nowhere going a cross a sand bank that is charted less than what we need to float, especially when the chart says “shifting sand.”
The real challenge with operating in these shallow waters is that the charts here are somewhat unreliable and although we have two sets of digital charts and a chart book, none of them really match up with each other, especially in remote areas. So you have to use visual navigation. This also offers a challenge because the bottom is mostly white sand with crystal clear water. It’s hard to distinguish 8 feet of depth from 4 feet of depth. Also visual navigation is supposed to be done with no clouds and the sun overhead and/or slightly behind you. This is just sometimes impossible because you can’t get the tide to match up with the sun and clouds, plus you’re turning to avoid reefs, cays and sand bars.
Needless to say, you go across those areas on a rising tide or at high tide. I am pretty surprised that we haven’t touched bottom yet. The more we do it the more comfortable we get with it, to a point. The nice thing is for those of us willing to push the envelope a little is we get to some remote anchorages that offer peace and solitude.
Medical Care
I am hopefully wrapping up a three week adventure of a pretty significant case of cellulitis. It started on the area where I had achilles repair surgery, so initially I thought it was tendonitis. Luckily we carry several antibiotics on board, so under guidance from the outfit that did my achilles surgery I started a course. I was advised to seek local medical care, so we made our way to a marina to get close to a local clinic. There isn’t much out here in the southern Exumas, so I was not feeling great about the prospect of medical care out here.
Once tied up to the dock we got a rental car and an appointment with Dr. Rolle, the only physician within a couple hundred miles. Dr. Rolle quickly diagnosed the issue and started me on some pretty heavy IV antibiotics for three days in a row, plus two different oral antibiotics. Once the infection turned into an abscess and popped she had to cut it open to get the remaining gunk out. Unfortunately, the two syringes of lidocaine she was using didn’t work so I had to get a one inch incision with no anesthetic. That hurts like hell.
To make a long painful story short, the wound is closing up slowly but surely and the swelling is all but gone, hopefully I will be back in the water in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately there was a great weather window to the Virgin Islands we had to miss because I’m still not fully healed and thought it wouldn’t be prudent to head hundreds of miles out to sea still dealing with the end remnants of the infection.
Thank you Dr. Rolle for taking great care of me, even when I was cussing you out when you cut me open with no anesthetic. I’m forever grateful. Also thank you to my lovely Wife, Nancy, for taking care of me and listening to me bitch about my leg.
Looking for Virgins
Our time here is coming to a close. We’re trying to get to Grenada for hurricane season starting in July, and we need to get a move on towards the Virgin Islands so we can island hop our way down to the southern Caribbean. The problem is we have to fight the trade winds from the Exumas to the Virgin Islands. Weather windows are few and far between, so we’ll keep you posted on our progress.
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