Day 8 & 9, Fowl Cay and Scotland Cay

Wind is good for us today, so sails up and we are headed to Fowl Cay. Fowl Cay is a quarter mile reef located on the ocean side. It is a great place to dive and snorkel. It is well known among divers for its tunnels and wide variety of fish. On the opposite side is a small sand spit, great for relaxing and picnics.
We walked a bit on the little beach, that is really a little slice of heaven. Mostly it was our own, but every once in a while we had guests come to visit.
It was a little rough so we didn't snorkel the reef but we did go just inside of that. We saw a large school of what we believe are Bermuda chubs. It was pretty cool swimming with them all.
After snorkeling with the fish we swam on some more and found some conch to harvest. The limit is 6 in your boat and they have to be large enough to have a lip. We harvested 3. When we got back up to the boat we had to process them to get to the meat. You do this by cutting 3 notches up on the end of the shell and hammering a line of a hole about an inch and a half long. Then take your knife and cut along the inside of the hole until you release a muscle like piece from the shell and the conch. This will release the conch from the shell and you should be able to pull him out with his one claw. You then cut all of the colored stuff off including the claw. Cut a slit in the skin and filet off the colored skin as well, leaving a thick hamburger patty sized piece of white meat. The meat should be tenderized for everything but conch salad. You can do this by hammering the crud out of it. Quite fun actually. In the end it will look like shredded conch. We left ours a like less hammered, cut it into small strips, battered and fried it. They call this conch fritters. I call it deliciius. It was a lot like fried calamari. The meat has a sweetness to it.
Foul Cay started to get a little more wind so we motor sailed a short distance to Scotland Cay. We dropped anchor (also referred to as being on the hook), caught some wifi from the houses on shore and settled in for the night.

Day 7, time to move on. The life of the gypsies.

We woke up the next morning with the looks of sun in the sky and the hopes that most of the rain has passed. I am looking forward to hanging up all of our wet laundry and towels on the lifelines to dry.
On our motor over, 5 miles with no wind, we saw a nurse shark in the water below us. It was about 7 ft. in length. We circled back around to get a longer look. What a beautiful mammal.
We are headed on to Great Guana Cay. It is the home for the famous Grabbers and Nippers. Two bar and grills that are talked about among the cruisers. Both of the bars have swimming pools so that you can soak and drink. We were pretty excited to get into them and rinse off but were surprised to find out they were salt water. Ha! That figures. The drinks are expensive. $14 for a bottle of Sands beer and a rum and diet coke. We didn't stay to party it up with everyone there. it would break the bank. Lol! But I took lots of pictures. We did meet a pilot who has a house there that gave us directions to a gorgeous beach and it has a great reef to dive on. So we headed out in search of the beach on foot.
The town is very small. Only about 300 people live here. It took us maybe 5 minutes to walk to the beach and we oohed and ahhed when it came into view. The sand is creamy white and so delicate beneath your feet. It feels like sugar, small grain. The water is aqua and you can see right through it.
We walked the length of the beach until we came to Nippers. We got a drink there each, to say that we did, and headed out to walk the town. There isn't a lot to see here and the bugs are  everywhere. The noseeums were bighting us up. This was the worst place for them so far. And dang they hurt.
We grabbed a few groceries and headed back to the boat to unload and grab our snorkel gear. We went back to the same beach we walked and went out for a dive, we saw all kinds of fish. We used the Go Pro as well and got some great footage. We need to figure out how to load that. We saw a sea turtle as well. He was really neat. Life under water is calm, quiet and rythmic.
We headed back to the boat , made dinner and turned in. The sun, swimming and walking about really is more tiring then I would ever expect.

Day 6, Green Turtle Cay

It didn' t get better, it got worse. It is now 90%  chance of rain and they say they say not to cross the  Whale cut. Ok. So we ventured over to the dock to pay for another day and got caught in another HUGE thunder and lightening storm. We were on the dock with " dock master" Kevin. He was a little quiet and cocky at first but he warmed right up to me after a bit. He was showing me all of the pictures on his phone. But it all started out with The Pigs. He had told us they had flown in some pigs to put onto No Name Island next to Pelican Cay. It is a great place to go diving/ snorkeling. We headed out there in the dinghy and had a great time snorkeling. We tried to get some conch but we had to find them with a lip on the shell to be able to harvest them. Dang, ours were too small. How far out do we have to go? We did see 2 stingrays. That was pretty cool.
Kevin gave us a tour of Green Turtle Cay. He has 13 brothers and sisters and they are all on the island but one. He is very proud of his heritage and has many family members here. We walked around the island some more taking more pictures. This is a beautiful place. They rent licensed golf carts for people to drive around. The streets are only wide enough for one car so everything is one way, done in a circle pattern. We had lunch at his 2 sisters place called 2 Shortys. Really good food and a good price. There is also free wifi with the password that they give you, which is, password.
He is in the best band on the Abaco Island called the Gully Roosters. They say wherever the Roosters are playing there is a good time.  He invited us to hear him play at the Leeward Marina. We had a fabulous time dancing and visiting. He gave us a copy of his cd.

Day 5, still Green Turtle Cay

The rain storms just keep coming. Last night when we anchored we put up both of our "sun shades". We never expected they would become rain tents. Our boat leaks. We have now discovered that our boat leaks A LOT. My bunk was soaking wet from the waist down to my toes. So, I made up my my bed on the dinette. It was wet too but it was the drier of the 2. I was woken up quite a few times in the night, by slapping halyards, tiller handle banging, Mark snoring and just the weather. Though we had everything secured down they still found a way to make noise.  So, I put in my ear plugs, Mark came over and cuddled with me, and I went back to sleep.
Morning came with new hopes and excitement for the day. The weather report predicts 90% chance of rain and 70% tomorrow. Oh boy did the skies ever open up. Rain is still drenching us inside the boat. We are not going anywhere sailing for the day so we prepared a bag with everything in zip loc bags (I bought XL ones for our computers) and bed sheets in a plastic bag to put into the dryer. We will wait for the rain to slow then we will head for shore and get some things done there while we wait. 
We went to the library which was an old building with I am sure a lot of history. In the one wall I see what once was possibly a fire oven. A bakery or a blacksmith? The place has 3 small rooms. You can check out books for 2 weeks or exchange 1 for 1 paperback books. Ours are so water logged I doubt they would accept ours on trade. They also had internet but it was secured and the volunteer who worked there left and we had no way to sign on. The hours of all of the businesses here are on "island time" , 10 till ???. I wish that my work schedule was like that. And if it rains they just close and go home.
We went and had lunch at McIntosh. We were told they had wifi if you purchased a meal. So we did purchase our first meal on an island here and we were both disappointed. My conch chowder tasted like Cambells soup, literally, with the tiniest pieces of conch. And that wifi thing? No longer offered. Grrrr! Not a place I will suggest to anyone on Trip Advisor. Across the street was the over ground graveyard with a ton of history and memories in there.
The pink building pictured is ye olde gaol. That is what the sign says. Lol.
We went to the Leeward marina for laundry. It cost us $4 to dry our soggy sheets. So worth it. Now we are not part of the marina so we are kind of crashing the place. The guy was cleaning the bathroom and walked away for a bit, so I dunked my head into the sink and washed my hair with the liquid hand soap. OMG! It felt so good having clean hair. I threw it back into a ponytail, threw on my hat. When I get back to the boat I will put in hair conditioner and have Mark rinse me.
We made it back to the boat and we were told by the cruiser next to us, a mom with here 3 boys , that Pineapple's bar and grill has wifi. So we threw our stuff into LG again and tried to beat the arriving rain storm. We didn't make it though. We made it part way to the dock and the sky opened up again. There is so much rain coming down. Amazing.  We stood and waited for what seemed like forever. Mark ran over to Pineapples in the rain and got a little bit sent. I will try tomorrow.
We are stuck here again tomorrow due to the weather unless it gets better.

Day 4, destination Green Turtle Cay

It is Tuesday morning. I know this only because my vitamins are in one of those weekly organizers. We awake to a partly cloudy sky. I make coffee, oatmeal with raisins, brown sugar and butter for me and eggs and buttered bread for Mark. We have no refrigeration on the boat. We are using up what perishables we bought in Florida. We had them in the boat cooler with ice but the ice kept melting so fast. We realized that the sea water was coming in the cooler on a port tack. The water is about 84* and melting what we have.  So we are eating ham meat, cheese and eggs that  have not been refrigerated for 3 days now. Pray for strong stomaches.
We got into LG and motored to the dock in Fox Town. We are on a mission for fuel for NG. We have an outboard motor on NG, 9.9 hp, that helps to push us along. We feel that this is whimpy and we should rely on our sails. But this area is so big and you are in the open ocean, you would never get any where if you relied only on the wind. Regular gasoline is $6.25 a gallon. Deiesel is cheaper here. It costs $40 to fill 2 tanks. That will last us  a 1/2 gallon of fuel per hour. The gas station was run by a mom and pop. They were a 60 year old Bahamian couple  We chatted with her for a while. She showed me all their Bahamian paper money. They are so colorful and there are beautiful artistic  scenes that are different on each denomination. 
I tried to hook up to wifi to send my first couple of posts here but the signal wasn't strong enough. Green Turtle Cay is supposed to have wifi so I am trying to get caught up by then.
We got back to NG, put LG on the bow and set sail at 10 am for Green Turtle Cay. The first place we pass along the way is Coopers Town, it is a straight line on the ocean of brightly colored houses. Just what you would think of when you think Bahamas. Lilac, yellow, orange, turquoise, pink and hot pink, sand  and lime green. There is a pyramid behind it all. Anyone want to search that for us on the internet and tell us what this is? It looks so out of place in this charming settlement.
The sail over was great in the morning but soon we were caught in some horrific thunderstorms that started to have lightening. A sailboat with a large metal mast sticking out the top of it is not the best place to be. I lowered the sails, Mark set the auto pilot and we both went below to ride out the storm. It is very unsettling being in a boat below, going full forward and not being able to see where you are headed. This is even worse, in my opinion, than sailing at night. We went through three of these storms. The first storm tore our main head sail 10' long from the luff. That is really not good. I brought that sail down and put up our storm sail to continue on. We messaged Cindy, a sailing mentor, and asked her to send some sail repair tape to the office so that Rachel can bring it with her on her trip over from the states. She will be here come tuesday morning.  Can't waIt to have her aboard.
We made it to Green Turtle Cay around 7:30. We made some dinner and hunkered in for the evening, wet again.

Day 4, destination Green Turtle Cay

It is Tuesday morning. I know this only because my vitamins are in one of those weekly organizers. We awake to a partly cloudy sky. I make coffee, oatmeal with raisins, brown sugar and butter for me and eggs and buttered bread for Mark. We have no refrigeration on the boat. We are using up what perishables we bought in Florida. We had them in the boat cooler with ice but the ice kept melting so fast. We realized that the sea water was coming in the cooler on a port tack. The water is about 84* and melting what we have.  So we are eating ham meat, cheese and eggs that  have not been refrigerated for 3 days now. Pray for strong stomaches.
We got into LG and motored to the dock in Fox Town. We are on a mission for fuel for NG. We have an outboard motor on NG, 9.9 hp, that helps to push us along. We feel that this is whimpy and we should rely on our sails. But this area is so big and you are in the open ocean, you would never get any where if you relied only on the wind. Regular gasoline is $6.25 a gallon. Deiesel is cheaper here. It costs $40 to fill 2 tanks. That will last us  a 1/2 gallon of fuel per hour. The gas station was run by a mom and pop. They were a 60 year old Bahamian couple  We chatted with her for a while. She showed me all their Bahamian paper money. They are so colorful and there are beautiful artistic  scenes that are different on each denomination. 
I tried to hook up to wifi to send my first couple of posts here but the signal wasn't strong enough. Green Turtle Cay is supposed to have wifi so I am trying to get caught up by then.
We got back to NG, put LG on the bow and set sail at 10 am for Green Turtle Cay. The first place we pass along the way is Coopers Town, it is a straight line on the ocean of brightly colored houses. Just what you would think of when you think Bahamas. Lilac, yellow, orange, turquoise, pink and hot pink, sand  and lime green. There is a pyramid behind it all. Anyone want to search that for us on the internet and tell us what this is? It looks so out of place in this charming settlement.
The sail over was great in the morning but soon we were caught in some horrific thunderstorms that started to have lightening. A sailboat with a large metal mast sticking out the top of it is not the best place to be. I lowered the sails, Mark set the auto pilot and we both went below to ride out the storm. It is very unsettling being in a boat below, going full forward and not being able to see where you are headed. This is even worse, in my opinion, than sailing at night. We went through three of these storms. The first storm tore our main head sail 10' long from the luff. That is really not good. I brought that sail down and put up our storm sail to continue on. We messaged Cindy, a sailing mentor, and asked her to send some sail repair tape to the office so that Rachel can bring it with her on her trip over from the states. She will be here come tuesday morning.  Can't waIt to have her aboard.
We made it to Green Turtle Cay around 7:30. We made some dinner and hunkered in for the evening, wet again.

Day 3, destination Fox Town

We haven't been on land now for a couple of days. I am looking forward to using our dinghy tonight, Little Girl, to go into town. Sailing is much the same. The day is overcast though and the seas are a little more rough. We have about 25 miles to go, but add tacking in there and it makes it much longer.
We caught another amber jack for lunch. He was a good fighter. We cooked it up on the outside grill. It is white meat and medium dense. It didn't have a ton of flavor so I like the barracuda better.
We made it into Fox Town to anchor around 7pm. Two other boats are anchored beside us. We hop up onto the bow and drop the dinghy (LG) into the water, put the 2 hp motor on it, grabbed 2 pfd's and went to check our anchor hold. We have a glass bottom bucket for this. We made it ourselves. It is A 3 gallon white honey bucket that I got from work, cut almost the entire bottom out but leave a 1/2" lip. Place on the lip a ring of 4200 marine sealant. Cut a piece of  clear Lexan to fit so that it sits inside the bottom of the bucket with the lip holding it. Push down firmly to get a nice seal. Put something heavy inside of it for the night so it can dry. Our neighbor boat at the Las Olas marina, Jim and Ellie on Finnirish called it a "lookey bucket". Love it! So we took our lookey bucket and motored out to above the end of the anchor, placed the bottom of the bucket in the water and I'll be darned, it worked! That is so cool.
We were going to have leftovers for dinner with the 5 ears of corn on the cob that we had left over. But after we cooked it all up we found out that the leftovers didn't taste right. We had just corn on the cob for dinner, with a rum and diet for Mark and a glass of wine for myself. We also had popcorn with our remainder of the movie. Lol! Pretty healthy eating right there.
I guess we will go to town tomorrow morning.