Spanish Wells to the Exumas

Spanish Wells - where to begin? It's a strange little place. Dave and I were a little afraid of going there, everything we'd read and heard about it was a little off-putting. We'd heard that it was a dry county, aka no selling of any alcohol. We'd heard that everyone there was really rude and unfriendly. We'd also heard that the genetic pool there is, well, let's say a little too close for comfort. One out of three of those facts was definitely not true; people there were unbelievably friendly. One of those facts was definitely true; there are no alcohol sales in Spanish Wells. As for the third, I'm not going to say which way I lean on that topic.

We pulled into Spanish Wells Yacht Club (meaning, I nearly crashed us into the dock and another boat, my docking skills aren't honed in yet). Within 10 minutes of our arrival, we were invited to a dinner party from some of the locals. We spent our evening at their awesome beach house, drinking red wine, eating delicious food, and enjoying great conversations. One of the other guest brought a couple sky lanterns, and we released them off the beach. We couldn't have timed it better, with a blood red moon and a tremendous meteorite to compliment the lantern floating up into the stratosphere. Hopefully, we'll be getting those pictures emailed to us.

(photo taken from nsri.org.za). For those who don't know what sky lanterns are, they're a biodegradable colored paper bag. They're popular in Asian cultures. The opening is ringed with aluminum wire to keep shape, with a fuel cell in the middle. You light the fuel cell and within minutes, the air inside the lantern is heated, causing it to rise. 

We re-provisioned in Spanish Wells. Unfortunately, we ran out of water in Little Harbour and had to refill that in Spanish Wells as well. This is unfortunate because the water there is brackish, and we've had terrible tasting water since. 

We tried to leave on May 9th, but after hours of beating in the wind and waves, had to turn our tails back. We anchored out in Royal Harbor, and got stuck there for a couple days from bad weather. Finally, we pushed onto the Exumas. A long and windless day of motoring for 9 hours against current.

We dropped anchor off of Ship Channel Cay for the night, then left again the next morning for a safe harbor. We'd heard rumors (Chris Parker, the SSB meteorologist) about a potential tropical storm forming and heading our way. Anchorage in the Exumas is great, as long as you have no wind or trade winds (coming from the east). We've had nothing but SE winds, which has left us open to surge and waves. Dave took this video, this has been our life in the Exumas since May 10th.

Maybe you can, or maybe you can't, from the video see that our boat is rocking between 25-35 degrees in both directions. We've both joked, that if you really wanted a means to torture someone, making them live in a rocking environment for days on end would be enough to break a person. It's worn on us, to say the very least. Plus, for every spectacular day of weather we've had since we arrive in the Bahamas, we've had a day of equal terrible weather as well. The good days here are wonderful, heaven couldn't be better than this. For the other days, well, just keeping our sanity is keeping us occupied. 

The Exumas Land and Sea Park is awesome. It's a reserve, 22 miles long and 8 miles wide. No fishing, no camping, no anchoring in many areas, no food, no fuel. But wonderful reefs and uninhabited Cays. A few days ago we spent a sunny day snorkeling through ripping currents, wading through mangrove channels that look like winding swimming pools. Some of the Cays have natural wells, though the one we've found so far looks like it was pollution from the last hurricane.

We have caves and reefs to look forward to. Hopefully, we have better weather to look forward to also.