Waking in Paradise

Traveling is always a tiring experience.  Whether you are traveling by car, bus, train, plane, or boat (more likely cruise ship for most of you)…putting miles behind you, and getting there can be a taxing experience.  However, once you get on the plane, or cruise ship, you might be able to close your eyes and wake up in paradise.  I knew it wouldn’t be quite that easy for us, but I thought after the 17 hours of travel I would be lazily napping at anchor off the beach of Chub Cay (pronounced ‘key’ in the Bahamas). That’s not exactly how it played out.

Our original plan was to leave Biscayne Bay at 1:00 am to be able to pass through the cut at Cat Cay in the early morning light.  The forecast was improving and the guru of Caribbean weather forecasts (Chris Parker) moved his ‘go’ call from 10:00 pm to 8:00 pm.  After discussing the possibility of passing through the cut in the dark, we decided to move up our departure time, and actually left Biscayne Bay at 6:00 pm.  As the sun was setting, we headed out.  

Does anyone really think two hours will make much of a difference in conditions?  We will never know the answer to that question, but I do know the Gulf Stream was very rough from 8-11 pm.  Rough enough that for the second time in the past two and a half years I was VERY seasick.  Both times have been in the Gulf Stream in the dark. Unfortunately, my helm duty (9-12) coincided with the rough conditions so sleeping through it was not an option, but conditions were much improved by 11:00 and the final 12 hours of the trip were very nice.  My 3:00-6:00 a.m. helm shift was fabulous, with no visits to the outside rail!

We arrived at Chub Cay before noon, and I could envision a nap in my hammock as soon as the anchor was down.  Unfortunately, that’s not how it played out.  We tried numerous times to set our anchor, but could not get it to hold…UGH!  Eddie and Gail had no problem, so I couldn’t understand what was happening.  Eddie dove on his anchor and reported that he was snagged on a rock, but there was very little sand on top of a very hard bottom.  Finally, Keith and I decided to wave the flag of surrender, and called the marina to add a night to our reservation. We were planning to check into the marina on Monday anyway, to make the process of clearing Customs and Immigration easier.

Little did we know that they would make us go to Customs as soon as we docked, and with boats coming and going (with incredibly loud bow thrusters) a nap was not a possibility! If only I had ventured out for a walk (once we were checked in and legal), I would have come upon this very nap-able beach!  We did take full advantage of these beach chairs the next day.

After a good nights sleep we off-loaded the bikes to explore the island.  These bikes have really expanded our world!

And almost instantly my soul was restored…a day later than expected, but now paradise was all around us!! We came upon a secluded beach that appeared to be a conch nursery.  Every conch shell in this picture (I counted 30) had a live creature inside, and there were hundreds of them on this beach. This might be one of my all time favorite pictures!

Once we got away from the marina, Chub Cay turned out to be a real gem. Don’t get me wrong…the marina was VERY nice, but this is where my heart sings!

Wednesday mornings departure was scheduled for ‘O dark 30’ to travel 75 miles to Highbourne.  Seaquel’s silhouette in the sunrise was spectacular!

The reality of where we are, and the beauty of this place, really started to settle in our minds while anchored at Highborne.

Our next stop was just 12 miles south to Spirit Cay, where Eddie and Gail have friends who have lived here as caretakers, of this privately owned island, for 20 years.  WOW! Can you imagine living here?  We joined Bob and Mary, in their amazing island home, for dinner that evening. It was a remarkable experience meeting such interesting and welcoming people!

We decided to stay an extra day to snorkel the local reefs.

I had to get a picture of these freaky eyes, which was no easy task!  We decided to snorkel a stretch that ran a half mile on the north end of the island.  We were only a few hundred feet off the shore, but the current was screaming out to sea. Luckily, Eddie having experience as a dive master, suggested that one person should stay in the boat while the rest of us did a drift snorkel.  It was AMAZING!!  There was so much to see, but we were drifting so fast that I spent a significant amount of time swimming against the current.  It took me 4 attempts to get a picture of this fish.

The sponge and coral structures were incredible!


Bowl coral seem to thrive here!

There were small communities of tropical fish, but I’m thinking most were tucked into cracks and crevices waiting for the tide to slack.

Keith wanted to be towed back to the boat so he could look for conch.

Clearly he hasn’t lost his touch, because in the distance of about half a mile he collected two helmet conch, one horse conch, and 3 queen conch.  The queen conch became a delicious cracked conch dinner, but the others were returned to their original (close to original) locations.

Goodbye Spirit Cay, and thanks to Bob and Mary for sharing their piece of paradise!