ratCATcher Cruises: Bahamas

Simply incredible. The colors in the ocean are enough to send one into raptures in an attempt to describe what we are seeing. But no words do it justice!

Gin clear waters, white talcum powder beaches and palm trees! What more can one want?

Two wrecks at our first anchorage were apparently on their way to Haiti with supplies, mattresses, clothing and such when they sprang a leak and had to ditch! The 'bones' of the old wooden ship lying in crystal clear water seems unbelievable! Miss Shirley the second wreck seems new. Ernest whom we met and chatted to as we explored the paths, said it's been there about seven months! An Ospry had built her nest in the rigging!

Heading up to Salt Pond we randomly picked the next anchorage in a deserted bay. Only to discover it wasn't always deserted and was a functioning Harbour! It has now been taken over by nature. The shrimp boat once proudly moored in the Harbour now stands on sand in the 'filled by nature' old Harbour. It was once a prosperous business supporting a whole community, then things in the USA started to go wrong and the controlling company was declared bankrupt, destroying a entire community. Schools, clinics and homes were closed down as desperate locals looked elsewhere for new jobs! The population dropped from 9000 to 3000.

Our exploration hike through the ruins of the salt factory and Harbour could only have one ending; sundowners in "talking heads" mode! We all had a quick stop to collect some beers, anchored the dinghies just off shore and sank into the warm clear water up to our chins. There sipping beer chatting and laughing we watched the sunset!

The next morning we set off early heading for Salt Pond, we wanted to visit and snorkel the 'Blue Hole' and this would be the best anchorage to do it from. More or less in the middle of Long Island we would hire a car and explore!

The 'problem' was getting there. Due to the shallow waters we would have to head out to sea, some 40nm around a huge sand bank and then beat 22nm back against tide and winds. The sail out was great, the wind behind us we rigged our second genoa and with the two head sails out we glided through the water beautifully. The 40 nm trip out took about 5 hours, the 22nm back in took us 5.5 hours!!!

It was hell on a boat! The wind was against us so we motored in about a meter very short chop. Everything in the boat was bouncing with the slam, things that had never moved before were leaping off of shelves! By the end of the 5.5 hours of constant slamming and bashing most of us were quite keen to get off the boat and not get back on........EVER! Our captains didn't take the chance of letting anyone ashore and after spoiling me with a dinner, my captain and I turned in for the night!

Feeling better the next morning we ventured ashore to the Long Island Resort and Yacht club. A warm welcome at most resorts for cruisers is not common! This was not the case here, Mike an Oz expat made us so welcome. He has built a great resort with facilities for cruisers too. We caught up on washing in his clean laundry, visited the nearby supermarket for fresh bread and eggs and arranged a hire car for the next day before taking advantage of the fresh water pool and beer bar! Dinner of hamburgers at the resort was a perfect end to the day!

The local tourist office reinforced what we have experienced right through the Bahamas, friendly, welcoming, helpful people. With there being 7 of us they arranged with a car hire up island to bring us a 'bus' as they called it to fit us all in. We asked to get it at 0800 expecting an 'Island Time' delivery ie late and an hour at least of admin as we had experienced before. Were we amazed; at 0800 on the dot as we walked into the car park the driver 'Olivia' was arriving. We had one piece of paper to sign handed over USD100 and we had a car for 24 hours! Simple!

We were off.

We first headed South in the direction of Deans Blue Hole. One thing there is not a shortage of here is churches! I would swear there is one every kilometer! How they fill them every Sunday is unknown! Maybe they stagger services so they can go from one to another!

We were hungry and asked at the museum, which was very interesting. Set up by the locals they had made scrap books of the different sections like marine history and fauna and flora, boat building, etc. nice to see a homely touch and that the whole community had obviously been involved bringing in personal photos and stories to add.

We were not quite sure what to expect when we were told the best place for breakfast was an establishment called "Swamp Thing". Nope not a joke. We HAD to go and eat there with a name like that! Breakfast was good!

Deans Blue Hole was everything we expected and more. Named after a local landowning family, we were lucky to find the world free driving champion Willian Trubridge, a New Zealander still busy with his morning training session when we got there. What a nice young man! His record is 101 meters deep in 4 minutes. I was tempted to check behind his ears for gills! That is just taking a breath and descending, no other air source, no fins nothing! Amazing!

Deans Blue hole is the deepest blue hole in the world with an underwater entrance and is 202 meters deep. The deepest one in the world is in Italy and is 392 meters. A Blue Hole is an underwater sinkhole or vertical cave. Deans is roughly circular at about 25 to 35 meters in diameter and after descending 20 meters opens to a cavern with a diameter of 100 meters. Diving down over the edge into the darkness then hanging there till your eyes adjust to the light to see the huge Tarpin swim by is amazing.