Long Island

We are back in Long Island. We had a great trip to the Jumentos Cays and Ragged Islands. When we return, sometime in the distant future, we will spend much more time exploring that area.

When we left off, we were at Raccoon Cay. From there we headed north to Buena Vista Cay to hide from strong east winds. After leaving Buena Vista, we stopped in Jamaica Cay, then back to Water Cay where we met up with friends John and Denise on Sloop John Dee II surprisingly anchored right around the corner. From Water Cay, we jumped back to Long Island to refuel and reprovision for our journey to the unknown. You can follow our track by clicking on the position report tab at the top of the page. Clicking on the pictures should enlarge them to full size.

We spend lots of time beachcombing for sea beans and we’re lucky if we find one. While combing the beach at Raccoon Cay, we found 14 in about five minutes, several heart shaped, some round, one hamburger. They need to be polished up a bit but it was a good haul in such a short time.

The Jumentos are rich fishing grounds and there are many commercial boats around. The large boat will anchor for days while the crews use smaller boats to comb the surrounding waters for fish, conch and lobster. This boat passed us towing seven smaller boats:

Jamaica Cay in the distance:

Some type of failed endeavor:

Looking north in the anchorage:

Dea Latis. We had the place to ourselves until sunset when one other boat dropped in for the night:

Walking up to the ruins:

Outbuilding:

Main building:

Pool tables:

Equipment:

This has to be several decades old, even the Bahamas would not allow fuel storage like this in the present day:

Looking northwest:

The island is beautiful and has many coconut palms. When I think of tropical islands, I picture coconut palms swaying in the warm breeze, they’re my favorite:

I don’t think many people visit here because there were many conch close by and the trees were full of coconuts:

Great, a welcome sign:

Maybe not, we walked up and counter clockwise around the island, this was the last thing we came across:

So after a swim and happy hour on the beach, we went back to the boat for the night. Next morning we pulled up anchor and headed for Water Cay:

We anchored in a small cove right in front of a tiny beach. Our friends were anchored just around this point of land to the north, it was nice to reconnect:

The water is so clear – our anchor chain in 10 feet of water:

Sunset Water Cay:

From Water Cay, we sailed back to Long Island where we met up once again with Escapade:

And made good use of the coconuts from Jamaica Cay. Coconut water and rum, mmmm:

Not all fun and games, we spent the next day refueling and reprovisioning:

When we buy white vinegar it has to be “Fancy”, anything less would be…uncivilized:

We ran across our friends on Morning Tide and later met up for happy hour at Sou’Side Bar and Grill:

Fun:

While at happy hour a nasty squall blew by to the west. A water spout formed and spun for several minutes. If you look at the lowest clump of power lines that are tied together in the middle, follow the lowest line angled down to the left, the water spout is in the middle and slices down the left edge of the blurry sunset:

 Our time in the Bahamas is rapidly coming to a close and we must move on quickly. During tourist season in our hometown it is nearly impossible to turn left because of the solid stream of traffic, “you have to turn right to go left”, so a similar rule is written for our journey. Because of the constant easterly trade winds, “you have to go north to head east”. Well we’re heading east (eventually south) so we are heading north to get a better angle on the wind. Our plan is to head up the west coast of Long Island over the next few days while waiting out another bout of strong east winds. Once the winds and seas subside we will jump northeast to Conception Island. Positioned that far north, we should have a decent angle on the winds to start our journey south east to the Turks and Caicos Islands with stops in between. From TCI we will head to the Dominican Republic and points east, all depending on weather.

We will update when we can!