Excellent Adventure 2

Today is March 31, however, the adventures contained in this post are from the week of March 9. Yes, once again I am a little behind in posting, but that’s probably a good thing because we are currently back in the US working our way up the Intracoastal in Florida, and since you’ve seen this leg of the journey several times it’s alright that I’m still working to share some of our Bahama adventures.  

Before going back in time, I will give a brief ‘real-time’ summary of our crossing.  

We left Spanish Wells, Eleuthera at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, March 28 with an itinerary of covering 220 miles in 27ish hours, straight through to Port St. Lucie, Florida.  Again, the weather forecasts (and Keith’s jury duty summons) were the driving factors behind this decision.  We were supposed to have calm conditions for 36 hours before a strong south wind moved in for several days.  The trip started out great, but the calm winds did not hold for the entire trip…and conditions deteriorated rather quickly…

The three things that best describe my 10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. helm duty are,

1) peace

2) tranquility

3) an amazing number of stars

The three things that best describe my 4:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. helm duty are,

1) vomit

2) blood

3) broken shit throughout the boat 

And that is all I have to say about our crossing!

Also, this post must start with a correction to the last post.  In the last post we ‘magically’ got from the beach to the lighthouse at the end of our 3 mile walk.  Even though I pointed out that the climb looked impossible from a half mile out, on the beach.

You might remember…

Of course, we never turned around, but 2+ miles in we could see the end of the beach, but we still did not see a lighthouse…and if there is a lighthouse would we have to scale those steep cliffs to reach it?  Eddie joked, there would be steps…

This is the picture I forgot to add…

He was right…there were steps!  Bahamian steps 😁 (Thanks for the pic, Eddie)

Now, on to the week of March 9…

We spent a few days in Governors Harbour before, once again, looking for protection from forecasted strong clocking winds.  The only place on the west side of Eleuthera that offers real protection from west winds is Hatchett Bay.  

Hatchet Bay is known as ‘the safest harbor in the Bahamas’ thanks to a man made cut during the 1940’s that turned a lake into a harbor.

Oh my, the entrance channel looks very small, but we can see Seaquel anchored inside so it must be big enough.  Thanks to the forecasted winds, Eddie and Gail decided to stay in Hatchet Bay…yippeee…we caught up with them!

Ahhh…much better from this angle, but still seems a little skinny.

The next day we joined Eddie and Gail on a bike tour of the area.  The agenda included cave exploration, and off-roading to ‘Surfer’s Beach’ for a picnic lunch.

This was unlike any cave we have previously explored.  Usually, we can see natural light at all times, but this cave was different.  It was a system of underground tunnels that felt more like descending into a coal mine (thinking of you Uncle Larry) than exploring a cave. 

This was the entrance, and this is where the light ended.

We each had our own flashlight, and quickly found ourselves climbing down a ladder.  At the time I wasn’t paying attention to the graffiti, but in this case I should have read the ‘writing on the wall’…literally!

There were some magnificent formations.

In some places the tunnel opened up into large caverns.  We thought it would be cool down here, but it was very humid and muggy.

This is what was over our heads on the ‘ceiling’.

This was an amazing stalagmite…wow!

After some time we came to what looked like the end, but the yellow ropes tied to stone features led to a new discovery.

A hole with a rope ladder that led down to another tunnel with a few inches of water at the bottom.  We did our usual ‘poll the crowd’…do you want to go down there…I don’t know, do you?  We finally agreed we might give it a try if Eddie went first😉. When his feet hit the third rung, the ladder swung under the ledge, leaving his head and shoulders visible, but the rest of his body vanished.  Nope, nope, nope…I’m out! We all agreed, in our younger days we would have gone down, but today this was far enough!

Now to find our way out of here.

While I did find the exploration of this cave very interesting, I don’t think I will add spelunking to my hobby list.

On the road again…all be it, a very rough road.

At times we had to push, pull, and carry our bikes.

But we made it to the destination!  

Yes, we all have the same bikes.  Eddie did the legwork of researching, and once they tested the bikes, and were happy with the purchase, we just piggybacked and bought the same bikes.  They have been a wonderful investment, and have expanded our adventures exponentially.  I wanted to write an article highlighting the adventures of our ‘Totum Tribe’ and send it to the company, but Keith pointed out that they would probably cancel our warranties.

Surfer’s Beach for lunch, a swim, and a rest on the beach…before starting our 6 mile journey back to the boat. Another exhausting day that will require the help of ibuprofen to regain full range of motion!