Homeschool in the Bahamas

 I’m sorry for leaving you hanging for the past month, but once you read this post you will understand why I was too busy to post sooner!

Our repairs to the crane cable went smoothly, and we were able to leave a few days later.  We checked into the Bahamas on January 1st.  We were so happy to be there, and in place, for the Jan. 8 arrival of two of our grandchildren.  Thanks to home schooling, Lucy and Maggie were able to spend three and a half weeks cruising the Berry Islands, and the islands in the northern Exuma chain.

I had an extensive itinerary planned for the girls, and just hoped the weather would cooperate…allowing us calm conditions for two ‘semi-large’ hops in open waters.

This shows the girls’ entire trip from Great Harbor to Staniel Cay.

Nicole accompanied Lucy and Maggie on the flight to Great Harbor, and only had two short days to enjoy the surroundings before returning home for work.

The day Nicole flew out, we moved the boat to Hoffman’s Cay to share one of our favorite spots with the girls.

We staged the boat at Soldier Cay in preparation for a decent weather window to get to Nassau, and we thoroughly enjoyed having the island to ourselves for the day!

 

Lucy and Maggie started their second day of snorkel practice in a shallow tidal pool left behind at low tide…perfect!

They quickly graduated to protected lagoon snorkeling. They both were naturals!

And I am so proud of how brave they were…both watched this nurse shark rest under our boat for more than 30 minutes, but when it was time to get in the water…they didn’t hesitate!

Our cruise from Soldiers to Nassau proved to be a bit rough, and Maggie was suffering from seasickness.  This was the perfect opportunity to try these special glasses I purchased, and I was amazed to see how quickly they seemed to work. Within a few minutes of putting the glasses on, Maggie’s color went from grey to pink, and her smile immediately returned!

Our trip from Nassau to Norman’s Cay was also a little rough, with 2-3 foot waves, but luckily this time we were taking them on the nose and the girls enjoyed the rodeo ride…no need for the glasses! Once we made it to the northern Exumas, our hops were short and the islands provided fabulous protection from the winds out of the east.

Norman Cay

The biggest ray we have ever seen!

Spirit Cay

Shroud Cay

They loved the ‘Wash Out’

Warderick Wells

East side of the island

West side of the island

O’Brien’s Cay

They loved snorkeling the Aquarium!

Compass Cay

They loved Rachel’s Bubble Bath!

While anchored near Staniel Cay, we found this awesome barrier island that offered great climbing rocks and amazing tidal pools.

Nature’s infinity pool.

Staniel Cay

They loved Thunderball Grotto!

I don’t want you to think that the only accomplishments were snorkeling and hiking!  A lot of learning happened during this time!  In addition to their online curriculum four days a week, there was cooking, navigation, poetry, and star gazing, as well as all of this…

Beginning construction of an underwater ROV.

Both girls journaled every day, and used field books to identify organisms seen during the day.

We explored the microscopic world.

They each completed a sewing project.

Together, we read ‘The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind’ and they built a wind generator.

We enjoyed art and music!

A LOT of reading happened!

Learning about circuits was a favorite activity for both girls!

The ROV provided the platform for learning a variety of skills, and everyone was thrilled with the success!

Twenty four days flew by, and on Feb 1 we hopped on a puddle jumper at Staniel Cay for the first leg of our journey to get them home. 

This flight was the perfect culmination, as it allowed us to see all of the islands we had just visited by boat.  This is Shroud Cay, and we could clearly identify the mangrove river and the Wash Out…COOL!

Grand Baby Train

 We are currently anchored in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.  We should be in the Bahamas right now, but a mechanical failure nixed our travel plans, one hour before departure…I’ll save that story for the end.

Since our last post, we have been very busy visiting our children and grandchildren, as we head south. For the most part, we have traveled on the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway), because the wind and waves in the ocean have been insane!  As we have traveled this route many times, I will not bore you with too many ICW pictures…that will give me room to bore you with grand daughter pictures🤣

The best part about the sun’s angle, this time of year, is that the ‘golden’ hour is much longer than an hour!

I love how the sunlight makes the teak interior glow!

Our first granddaughter (first born and the first one we come to) lives just outside of Atlanta.  Since we can’t take the boat there, this visit required a marina for the boat, and a rental car for us. 

Even though our visit was before Thanksgiving, Alexis was determined to have Christmas with us…so we helped decorate and had a wonderful Christmas Day filled with presents and a turkey dinner.

We were also able to see the town’s Christmas parade.  My favorite part of the parade was the tractors!

After returning to the boat, we continued south the visit granddaughters #2 and #3 just outside of Charleston, SC.

It was a treat to see Maggie’s choir perform in the ‘Celebration of Lights’ event at their local park.

The weather wasn’t great, but Lucy and Maggie still enjoyed their boat time! They thoroughly enjoyed helping to decorate the boat.

And…they organized all of our Caribbean flags, in the order we will need them as we hop down the island chain.  Lucy thinks the Martinique flag is the coolest of them all!

The image on the left is what we woke up to, and the image on the right was 90 minutes later.

This anchorage provided several beautiful photo opportunities.

It is a rare occurrence when my whole clan is together.  Matthew and Beth traveled to Nicole’s so we could all be together to celebrate Maggie’s birthday!  Are you wondering why there is a chicken in my family photo…🤷‍♀️ I’m wondering that too😂

With another wonderful visit behind us, we are off to see Anna (4th and final😂, our kids have told us we aren’t getting any more) just outside of Jacksonville, FL

The weather was still chilly and windy, but Anna enjoyed her time on the boat.

And once again, we had perfect timing to enjoy the town’s Christmas celebration!

  

It did warm up on one day, and Anna took full advantage of the opportunity to take a swim.

We even had a great view of the drone laser show from our anchorage.  It wasn’t until the end that we realized we were watching the ‘back’ side of the show😂

Anna selected Elf as her ‘big screen’ movie. 

After another wonderful visit, and another wonderful Christmas celebration it was time for us to get the boat south to prepare to cross to the Bahamas.

Not funny, but this guy was passing us😂

 

Saw this beauty in the ICW.  The Honey Fitz was a presidential yacht from 1945 to 1971, serving five     U. S. presidents.  John F. Kennedy reportedly gave it this name in honor of his maternal grandfather John F. Fitzgerald.  The yacht has been recently restored, and is currently in Palm Beach.

And now, let’s talk about this week.  We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale on Christmas Day, and planned to do some final provisioning of fresh fruits and veggies before leaving to cross to the Bahamas.  Finally, there was a decent weather window forecasted for Wednesday.  We planned to leave around noon on Wednesday and arrive at Great Harbour Cay early Thursday morning.

Our friends Eddie and Gail, on Seaquel, were staged just south of us, and were heading our way so we could cross together.  Our last task, before heading to the inlet, was to lift Alma Joy to the top deck to be strapped down for the journey.  During the lift, a boat blasted past us and hit us with a series of large waves.  Alma Joy got lifted and slammed several times, resulting in this…

The cable on our crane snapped, and our hopes of leaving in this weather window were dashed.  We had to convince Seaquel’s crew to go without us, as they wanted to come and help. However, there was nothing they could do to remedy our situation, and we didn’t want them to miss the weather window.

Yesterday, Dec. 28, we had a repair man scheduled to come out to the boat to replace the cable.  We woke up to this beautiful sunrise.  I’m sure you have heard the saying “Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.”

The bank of storm clouds moved in quickly, and it proceeded to rain heavily all day.  This prompted our repair guy to reschedule.

After raining all day yesterday, the clouds moved off just in time to capture an amazing sunset. This is actually the sunset reflecting off the clouds to the east.

It is now 3:00 on Dec 29, and our repair guy has called to tell us his truck broke down😬. I am very close to panicking, because we have grandchildren flying into Great Harbour on Jan 8, to spend three weeks cruising with us.  The only weather window between now and Jan 8 will be this coming Sunday/Monday. We MUST cross the Gulf Stream this week!!!

Normally, we would never depend on someone else to fix something on the boat.  This cable is an item that we are capable of fixing ourselves, if we had the materials and specialty tools required for the job. Keith has spent all afternoon searching for the tool and materials needed, in every hardware and boat store within a 30 mile radius…with no luck.

Plan B…worst case scenario, Amazon will be delivering all materials and tools needed for the job, to a pick up box nearby.  If the repair guy shows up (we have offered to pay for an Uber to get him here) we will have spare materials and tools onboard in the event this ever happens again.  If he doesn’t show, we will be in a mad dash to fix the cable ourselves between Saturday afternoon (hopefully Amazon delivers early) and Sunday morning…ugh!