Long Island to Great Inagua

 I spent the first week of February isolated in the forward stateroom, as once again, I contracted a virus while on an airplane!  Last August it was Covid, and this time it was Flu A…ugh…I was soooooo sick!!! Thankfully, Keith didn’t catch it, and his efforts to keep me alive were a success🥰

Once I felt better, we spent the next few weeks hanging out with the crew from Seaquel, and hiding from wind.

The sun and sand provide the energy I need to recharge!

A leisurely kayak was on the agenda…however, while this part was leisurely getting back to our boats was quite a workout!

Just before Valentine’s Day, we enjoyed a double date night, with Eddie and Gail.  The food and atmosphere, at Chez Pierre, are spectacular!

Someone in the anchorage took this picture and shared it with us😘

We found a little time for snorkeling

Finally, a weather window opened, and it was time for us to head south while Seaquel went north. Farewell our friends♥️

Our next stop was Acklins Island. For those of you who have been following us for a while…this is where Keith was flown out of last year.

It was wonderful to reconnect with Nurse Judy!

And finally, we were able to make good on our promise to deliver some much needed supplies for the clinic (we just used a Tito’s box…we did not deliver Tito’s).  Unfortunately, our time at Acklins was cut short, because a weather window opened allowing us to proceed to Great Inagua.  By this time we were getting into a bit of a time crunch.  Our cruising permit and visas were scheduled to expire on Feb. 28, and it would have cost $900 to extend both…even if we were only staying a few more days.  We were motivated to keep moving.

Great Inagua is the southernmost bohemian island. It measures approximately 15 x 50 miles, and lies only 55 miles from Cuba and 70 miles from Haiti.

The island has no natural harbors, which offer protection from the open ocean, but does feature a small manmade harbor that houses one of the patrol boats in the Royal Bahamas Defense Force.

This vessel entered the harbor, while we were there, and seemed to have an extremely difficult time docking.  The sailboats tied to a dock, on the other side of this ship, suffered some very tense moments while this ship was trying to get to the wall on the left.

We had a front row seat to some of the training conducted that week.😳

This young man needed help landing his catch. If you are not familiar with puffer fish, they only blow up like this when they feel threatened.  The fish picture, earlier in this post, is also a Balloonfish in the family of Porcupinefishes. However, in that picture the fish is relaxed…this picture shows the ‘fight or flight’ response, which actually has a poke and float result🤣

He also needed help releasing his catch🤣

Morning visitors were common.

A large portion, on the west side of the island is dedicated to salt production. They have a very elaborate internal lake system, with two pumping stations to move seawater into the system. The tan/white areas are salt pans where the final stages of the process happens. The brighter green areas are reservoirs where much of the evaporation takes place. The darker green, in the upper right, is part of the lake.  The entire process takes about two and a half years from the time the water is pumped from the sea…two years in the reservoirs, and six months in the salt pans.  

In October 2024, Hurricane Oscar dumped 10 inches of rain on Great Inagua…setting the evaporation process back almost a year! They don’t expect to be back to full production until August 2025.

However, there was some salt ready for transport. A pile like this got washed back into the sea by Oscar’s rains.  This salt is mainly sold to the U.S. East coast for use on winter roads, and water softening systems.

When the water has a very high salt concentration (brine) it appears to be pink.

The salt crystals are huge

Pink flamingos LOVE this place. At last count there were 18,000 flamingos that make the Inagua salt flats their home.

We left Great Inagua at 4:00 a.m. on February 27, with the destination of Luperon, Dominican Republic with an estimated arrival time of 10:00 a.m. February 28.

Spoiler alert…we did not make it on that attempt! The sea state was much worse than forecasted, and we had to divert.  No need to worry, we are safely in DR right now, but I will explain everything in the next post.

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