We spent Easter Weekend at Black Point with Sapphire (Mike, Kathy and Guest Dave and Debbie) and Kokomo.  Easter weekend is a very celebrated time in the Bahamas.  There are around 300 permanent residents at Black Point and 36 of these residents are children that attend the school on Black Point.  But for the Easter Weekend there must have been 500 plus people on the island and a bunch of them were children.  Most of them come from Nassau on the mail/supply boat.  Sounds simple right?  Not exactly.   The mail/supply boat makes a number of stops between Nassau and Black Point and travels at night.  The boat does have cots/beds but I am certain not enough to accommodate the number of people we saw getting off of the boat for the Easter Weekend.   It is a huge family event; it is great to see these people with their families.  A lot of the kids go off to Nassau and live with relatives or friends at the age of 12 and their parents stay on Black Point so as you can imagine everyone is so happy to be together. 

Friday (April 2) the church on Black Point was trying to raise money for new windows buy selling food.  Steve had Curried Mutton and I had Ribs.   Very good food.  We hung around and listened to music.  Saturday there was a fishing contest it was supposed to start at 8:00 but did not start until 9:00 everyone was supposed to be in at 1:00 but they were all in at 2:00 and they were supposed to come back to the government dock and instead they were at a different dock.  It is just Bahamian time.  You just kind of get used to it.  What else do we have to do…  There are a couple categories for the fishing contest, total number of fish and the biggest fish.  They bring their buckets of fish in and the fish get dumped in the rocks and they start counting out loud while we all stand around.  The fish has to be a certain length to count and the way they measure the fish is with a stick that is about 8 inches.  It is fun to listen to the fishermen and women banter back and forth.  The winner of the most fish caught 42 fish.  They share all the fish with their families.

Moved around from Big Majors (Pig Beach), Staniel Cay and Sampson Cay from April 5 through April 8.   We did the normal things, provisioned and got fuel.  Not too much going on.

Left Big Majors on April 9 and went to Pipe Creek.  In a previous update I believe I wrote that I would not go into Pipe Creek again.  Well this time we went into a different spot in Pipe Creek.  We did have to go in on a rising tide but we would have been fine on low tide.  The problem going into tight spots at low tide is if you happen to go aground (hopefully in the sand) you are stuck there until someone can pull you off.  If you go aground on a rising tide there is the chance that the water coming in will raise the boat and get you off the sand bar.   This area of Pipe Creek was very protected, the wind could come from any direction and it would be just fine.  The current does run through the creek which I am usually not too fond of, but it was great. 

While anchored at Pipe Creek we met up with Karen and Don on Draggin Lady (our Canadian friends) and their guests…son Marcus and Leslie.  We (Draggin Lady, Kokomo, Jus Dreaming, and Fine Lion) took the dinghies over to Compass Cay.   Compass Cay has always been a place Steve and I have wanted to go to but we would not take our boat in there and we had just never taken the time in past years to go.   We discovered that Compass has a great beach, we all swam for a while as it was a perfect day to be in the water.  After our time on the beach we had grilled burgers, which were very good.   Compass Cay also has many Nurse Sharks that people can swim with.   Nurse Sharks are very mellow.

During our stay at Pipe Creek Leta and Rolland on Kokomo kept us busy beach walking to find sea glass (we found quite a bit), sand flat walking and playing dominos.  I finally won a game of dominos.  Cool!  Steve has yet to win a game but he did come in second place.  Raised his hopes.  We have truly enjoyed the time we have spent with Leta and Rolland and just hope when I am their age (70 and 73) I will have the energy they both do.

April 16 we left Pipe Creek and parted ways with Sapphire.  Sapphire was heading to the Abacos and we are heading to Nassau.  We left Pipe and went to Shroud Cay.  Steve and I have always wanted to go to Shroud Cay and spend some time going up the creeks that are supposed to be pretty nice because of the Mangroves.  Maybe next year since once we got to Shroud it rained.  We were happy with the rain to clean off all the salt on the boat.  We had planned to stay at Shroud one more day but the weather was best to leave the day after we got to Shroud…so off we went to motor sail to Nassau.

Nassau is also another place I said we would never go to.   The old saying “Never say never”.    Rolland and Leta talked to so highly of a good place to anchor in Nassau we decided to give it a shot.  Plus Don and Karen (Draggin Lady) live in Nassau.   We anchored on the opposite side of where most people anchor, not a huge deal as long as the anchor holds.  When we dropped the anchor I had to be sure we did not drop the anchor on the huge blocks of cement on the bottom or the refrigerator.   A lot of stuff gets dumped into the water when there is no where else to put it. 

The grocery store in Nassau is a City Market it is over whelming to go into such a huge store after shopping for so long in a store that is probably as big as most people’s living rooms.  Plus, there is a Starbucks, KFC, Burger King, etc, here in Nassau.  It is almost like being in the US.   We definitely like the more remote places in the Bahamas.  I guess we are getting prepped to be back home. 

Left Nassau and went to Devil’s/Hoffman Cay in Berry Islands.  Took us four times to get the anchor to hold but turned out we were in a great spot.  It seemed the current just boiled all around us but for some reason did not affect the movement of the boat much at all.  It was a little unnerving to look over the side of you boat and see the anchor right below.   Wind and current against one another causes the boat not to go either direction.  Pretty sure there were times we did not need an anchor out to stay in one spot. 

We traveled to the Berries with Kokomo and Jus Dreaming.   The other two boats were planning to stay longer but had to leave after one night, they are on a time line to get back to the US and they either left the next day or they were going to be stuck for a week before they would be able to cross the Gulf Stream.  Our intentions were to leave the day after, we liked it so much in the Berries we stayed five days longer. 

The Berries have no amenities (at least where we were) and that is exactly what Steve and I like.  The hunting (spear hunting) was good and plentiful.  We got Grouper and Hogfish.  The biggest Conch I have ever seen.

We left the Berries on April 30 with following seas.  Who ever came up with the thought that following seas where a great way to travel was delusional.  It took us ten hours to get to Port Lucaya which we expected but we did not calculate the tides being low when we entered the cut.  Not just  low but low-low because it is close to full moon the high tide is very high and of course that means the low tide is very low.   Not a good thing.  We slowed down once we realized we would be going in the cut at low tide.  Finally we braved going through the cut at around 5:45, low tide was at 4:00.  It is always very quiet on our boat when we are in a tense situation.  The silence began as we passed the buoys outside the cut, we got through just fine.  Breathed a sigh of relief and went to our slip at the Port Lucaya Marina.  Last slip we were in was in this same marina Nov. 16.

We have 29 days of laundry to do and the best thing about that is the washing machines at the marina are broken so that means we have to send our laundry out to be done.  Yes, made my day.   Three set of sheets, tons of dish towels, bath towels, under garments, t-shirts, shorts, etc.    Who would not be excited about having some one else doing their laundry?  The cost is about the same, and it comes back all folded and smelling good.  Yippy!

As we come to a close for another season on “Fine Lion” it is bitter sweet.   We leave an incredible place, with the most beautiful water, great fishing, and great people.  I am anxious to be on land for a while though Steve could stay on the boat and never go to land.

Now for the crossing and the next update after we get to the states.

Kim and Steve