Our sincerest thanks to Greg and Barbara Allard for sharing their thoughts and beautiful photography from their Bahamas cruises. These photos and descriptions will have you aching to follow in the Allard’s wake! Hopefully there will be more letters in the weeks ahead.

Letter # 6

Hello Everyone – This season the weather in the Bahamas has been challenging. For the last month we’ve had continuous high winds, repeated thunderstorms, heavy rain, and some nasty lightening; all of these are conditions which make it difficult to find shelter, or to move from one place to another.

We finally were able to find a “weather window” to leave Stella Maris marina on Long Island. Because of the water depth, we had to depart at full high tide, which was at 6:00 AM. That gave us only about a foot and a half under the keel, but enough to keep us from going aground.

(For the cruisers who read this letter, the Stella Maris marina is an excellent place to stop. While the marina is small and has been neglected, it’s part of the larger Stella Maris resort on the eastern side of Long Island, and visiting mariners have full access to all of the facilities. It also allows you to visit Long Island without making the trek down the east side to Clarence Town, which is open to the prevailing winds from the east. Just plan to enter and leave at high tide, which we observed to be about an hour and half after the Nassau projections. Tides are affected by the winds and phases of the moon, so take those into account.)

The winds were somewhat moderate the day we left Stella Maris, so we by-passed George Town and started up the Exuma chain to Cave Cay. We spent several days at Cave, and since we were now on the Exuma banks side (the western side of the Exuma cays), we were somewhat sheltered from the strong ESE winds. After exploring the area near Cave, we moved up to one of our favorite anchorages in the Staniel Cay area – Big Majors spot, which offers excellent protection from ESE winds. From there we went to Warderick Wells, one of the most beautiful places in the Bahamas.

This Letter covers our time at Cave, Staniel, Warderick, and our current location, Highbourne. Since some of those places have access to good coral reefs for diving, we’ll spend some time looking at their superb underwater sights.

Dinghy expeditions – one of our favorite pastimes. Our dinghy is our car. It takes us places we can’t go with the bigger boats. There are literally hundreds – if not thousands – of secluded beaches just like this one. We often take the dinghy ten or twenty miles from where we have left our larger boat. We look for islands and cays to explore, beaches to comb and coral reefs to dive on.

The beach combing is superb. Here are some colorful shells for the collection.

While walking the beaches, we found some beautiful pieces of black coral. We do not take live coral from the reef; we only take what nature has discarded.
These pieces were likely torn from the reef in a storm, and washed up on the beach where we found them. When this coral is growing on the reef, it looks very different – the branches are covered with different colors of outer coral. This black coral is actually the skeleton. It is often used for making jewelry.

A yellow fan coral, also found washed up on the beach. Both the black coral (above) and this fan coral were found on the beach at Highbourne,

It’s important to remember that within the boundaries of the Exuma Land and Sea Park (south of Highbourne), you are not permitted to fish, capture lobster, or even take any shells or coral (dead or alive) from anywhere in the park.

Running in the dinghy between Musha Cay and Rudder Cut Cay. The dark water is about 15-20’ deep. The lighter blue is 5-10’ and the very light colored water to the left is about 2’.

There are a number of sunken planes in the Bahamas. Some are from failed drug runs, years ago, and others are planes that just didn’t make it. The runways on the smaller out-islands are simple: mostly crushed coral, and not all that long. This plane is located just off Little Lansing Cay. One of the blades of the propellor is sticking up at the front of the plane.

The sea is quick to take over any foreign objects thrown its way. In this photo of the plane’s wing, several different corals have already taken root.

The Bahamas are not volcanic; all of the islands and cays are composed of limestone, which has tendency to be worn away and create blue holes, land caves, or sea caves. This one, at water level, was deep enough to drive the dingy inside.

A large Southern Sting Ray, skimming across the bottom. His barb sticks up about halfway down the tail. They only use the barb defensively and will not affirmatively attack you. The only risk is stepping on one who is sleeping in the sandy bottom which may cause the ray to whip you with his tail and barb; the injury is painful. For this reason, we use the “sting ray shuffle” when walking in shallow water: instead of stepping, we shuffle our feet across the bottom, which will move the ray along, rather than cause him to react badly. This ray was about 3’ across – small compared to the Spotted Eagle Rays which we will show you later.

On the west side of the Exuma chain (the banks) there are huge areas of shallow sandy water which cover and uncover with the tides. After I took this picture, two juvenile Black Tip Sharks (2’ and 3’ long) circled around me about 25’ away, in two feet of water. When I moved towards them with the camera, they scooted away. This shallow area is between two cays, which are owned by a celebrity….

The illusionist David Copperfield owns several cays in the area: the two main ones are Musha Cay, where he has a large home, and the adjacent Rudder Cut Cay, with his private airstrip.

We are always searching the charts for areas of coral, which make good diving spots. This small “patch reef”, in the cove just east of Musha (near to the small inlet) has some nice specimens of Elkhorn coral. The silvery area at the top of the photo is the underside of the surface of the water.

There is also a larger reef, with very good diving and more Elkhorn, just off the east-facing beach below the Copperfield house.

This school of Palometa, almost translucent, swam by near one of the Copperfield reefs. They are members of the Jacks family, and also known as Longfin Pompano.

Not something you see everyday – an underwater sculpture of a Steinway grand piano, with a mermaid leaning against the bench. It is in 15’ of water off the southwest end of Rudder Cut Cay. It was placed there by David Copperfield.

Thunderball Cave is located near Staniel Cay, where the James Bond movie of that name was partially (about 20 seconds worth…) filmed. It is a great snorkeling spot, with a big cave which is easy to swim into at low tide, but the real beauty is in the coral formations which surround the little cay. This Purple Fan Coral is superb. In the right foreground is a light colored Symmetrical Brain Coral, and if our identification is correct, at the upper right are some Porous Sea Rods, olive green in color. Sometimes it is difficult to accurately identify the hundreds of types of coral, and while we have excellent guides with color photos, we are still learning.

A gap in the reef, showing the path to deeper water.

A Green Sea Turtle casually swam underneath me. Their name does not come from the color of their shell (which is brown), but from the green color of their fatty tissue. They are remarkably fast. This is a younger turtle; fully grown they are are 4’ long and weigh between 250 and 450 pounds. They are endangered.

In the middle of all the natural beauty, there is always something unusual or even strange, mostly man-generated.. On occasion in the U.S. smaller boats will sometimes raft together – that is, tie up to each other while anchored. In Big Majors Spot we came upon this raft-up: three large boats all tied together, sitting on one anchor; they stayed that way for several days and nights, during unsettled weather with periods of strong winds. We estimated the largest mega-yacht to be about 170’ long, the middle one about 100’, and the smaller sportfish boat at 70’. If the single anchor on the largest boat were to drag, the result could turn bad very quickly. Boats are note like cars, where you start it and go. There are preparations to be made before getting underway, the engines on all of the boats would have to be started and all of the lines connecting the boats untied before the raft-up can be split apart. Also notice that at the stern of the sport fish there was yet a fourth boat (a center console), rafted across the stern.

What was most surprising was that the small sailing catamaran, directly behind these three hulks, seemed happy to be anchored there for several days, breathing in the 24 hour-a-day fumes of at least three large generators, and taking the risk that they would not drag down on him in the middle of the night.

During one of the season’s endless rainstorms, this little frog fellow appeared on our windshield. We had seen him elsewhere around the boat, and figured that he had become a stow-away on Long Island, about ten days before.

While diving at the “Coral Garden” at Warderick Wells in the Exuma Land and Sea Park, we spotted these two massive Spotted Eagle Rays in the distance. Their wingspan looked to be eight feet across, and their overall length with the tail was about 20’. There was no way we could keep up with them while swimming, but we anticipated that they would swim around the rock formation on the right and circle back towards us.

The winds were rather high this day, and the resulting waves stirred things up, making the water clarity less than normal.

Circle back they did. The water here was approximately 25’ deep, so this photo does not convey how huge these animals are. While no real threat to us, swimming near a living creature so impressively large grants you a humble sense of perspective.

One of them swam right under our friend Jim Pope, who was close enough to take this beautiful photo showing the Spotted Eagle Ray’s distinctive markings.

Our next stop was Highbourne Cay. When you venture off the regular paths, you always discover something new – this man tends a growing herd of goats, and maintains a beautiful herb garden, helping the cay to be more self sufficient.

Walton Stephenson

While walking on one of the ocean-facing beaches on Highbourne, we came upon this Piping Plover nest. The nest had been built between the arms of a large branch of black coral, which drew our attention to it, and fortunately prevented us from stepping on it. The owners of the nest, the male and female piping plovers, immediately took action. They both ran away from the nest on the beach in different directions, feigning that they had broken wings, by dragging their wings in the sand as if they were injured – all in an attempt to make predators (us) think that they were easy pickings, and to draw us away from the nest and eggs.

A magnificent Queen Triggerfish, one of the most beautiful and distinctive fish on the reef.

Right now we are in the northern Exumas, dealing with a tropical weather system which has been developing in the Gulf of Mexico. Strong winds are forecast for the coming week, so we are monitoring that system closely.

Several years ago we included the following quote from Mark Twain. Many of you have seen it before; it has become common because it says it the best. Of course it does not just apply to being on a boat.
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain, 1835 – 1910

Warmest regards to you all.

Greg and Barbara

Our sincerest thanks to Greg and Barbara Allard for sharing their thoughts and beautiful photography from their Bahamas cruises. These photos and descriptions will have you aching to follow in the Allard’s wake! Hopefully there will be more letters in the weeks ahead.

Letter # 5

Hello everyone:
Once again we’ve had to send two Letters in close succession, to take advantage of the good internet connection at this marina. This is likely to be the last Letter for a couple of weeks.

Our report from Long Island continues.

Barbara and I both grew up on Long Island, the one in New York, which is 120 miles long and has a current population of 7.8 million.

The other Long Island, the one where we are at the moment, is in the Bahamas. It is 80 miles long, has a population of 3,500 people and there is not one traffic light on the entire island.


Once we entered the waters towards the southern end of Long Island, we had a small milestone event: we crossed the Tropic of Cancer. This sign on Long Island shows the location of the line, and once south of it, we were officially in tropical waters.

Jerome Hawes was born in 1876, and studied for five years at the Royal Institute of British Architecture. He then undertook studies at the Lincoln Theological College, became Father Jerome, an Anglican priest, and in 1910 designed this church on a hill above Clarence Town on Long Island. He later went to Rome, studied for three more years to become a Catholic priest, and then in 1939 designed the Catholic church on the far hill, to the right rear of the photo. Local sources say that the Catholic church was not completed until 1946. Both churches were strongly built to survive the frequent hurricanes; they still stand proudly over the town.

Father Jerome’s Catholic church.

While we were looking at the Anglican church, the woman on the left came up to me and allowed us to go inside. She is a member of the congregation. She was also excited to show us her new home, and gave us directions to get there. Her name is Sandra Dean, and her husband is Jeremiah.

This is their new home, which sits on a beautiful hill overlooking the harbor and the ocean. They gave us a tour and we found it to be simply furnished and filled with beautiful breezes from the sea. This house was built to replace their prior one which was destroyed in a hurricane.

We stopped at the Glinton School in the northern part of Long Island, to drop off some school supplies. We met the principal, Ruth Smith, on the left, and her assistant Claudette Adderley. They gave us the warmest welcome.

No visit to a school is complete without some pictures of the children. The Bahamian educational system is excellent, the children are well disciplined, and many go on to higher education. There are 34 students enrolled at this school, and some of them are shown here and below.




One of the teachers, Tangela Bain.

We met Stanley Pinder, a farmer on Long Island. He gave us some of his beautiful just-picked peppers. He’s over 80 years of age, and has lived on the island his entire life, save for a few years in the U.S. as a farm worker. Long Island is one of the few Bahamian islands which has a flourishing agricultural industry. In fact, they grow enough produce to export it to other Bahamian islands.

A Bahamian “fast food” restaurant. Regular menu items would be chicken or ribs, mac and cheese, beans and rice, all served in a square styrofoam lidded box. These places do a good lunch business.

Alfred, who with his wife operates this small bake shop. We bought loaves of white bread, some cinnamon buns and a delicious piece of lemon cake.

It’s likely that a combination of old age and a hurricane or two destroyed this church. The Bahamians are a religious people – even the smallest of towns have at least one or two churches.

At the French restaurant, Chez Pierre. A fine lunch, good wine and a great companion.

St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, now in ruins, reported to have been built by the Spanish in the late 17th century. Hopefully, it will someday be restored.

We collect Bahamian baskets, first of all because we like them, but more importantly because the Bahamians who make them are skilled artisans who carry on a trade which may not last forever. Over the years we have visited Ena Majors’ shop in Clarence Town, where she showcases high quality baskets made by local people. Our friends and us bought the ones on the counter.

Ena Majors. She is 82 years of age.

Long Island is the home of Dean’s Blue Hole, a spectacular 660’ deep hole, reputed to be the deepest in the world. It is supposedly connected to the ocean at its bottom.
This is the site of yearly competitions with participants from all over the world, to see who can set a record by going down the deepest while holding their breath, without SCUBA, or any other devices. Some of the contestants reach 250+ feet. The white raft in the middle has a line which the divers use to guide them. It is an extremely dangerous sport. On the rock to the left of the picture, surrounded by three cherubs, is a plaque listing the people who have died while diving here. The cause their deaths, simply stated, is blacking out from lack of oxygen.
My task is to send Letters, not to make judgments.

We went looking for the delicious pineapples which are grown on Long Island, but it was a bit early in the season. In Turnbull, we met Leroy Gibson while he was walking along a road, and the conversation turned from pineapples to other subjects. He liked to verbally joust, and when I eventually asked to take his picture, he said: “I never want my picture taken, but you can take it.” This is the result.

DCIM100GOPROGOPR1279.

Life can be difficult in the Bahamas. Fishing is one of the main ways to earn a living. This fisherman’s boat, Lady Max, dragged her anchor, and came to rest in shallow water. It will be difficult to salvage the boat, and his livelihood.

There was one day where the sun poked out for a couple of hours, and we were rewarded with this view. Look carefully at the name of the boat.

Hopefully this rainbow is a sign that better weather is on the way. When that happens, we can head north again, back through the Exumas.

Warm regards-
Greg and Barbara
Copyright, Greg Allard

Our sincerest thanks to Greg and Barbara Allard for sharing their thoughts and beautiful photography from their Bahamas cruises. These photos and descriptions will have you aching to follow in the Allard’s wake! Stay tuned for more letters in the weeks ahead.

Letter # 4
Sometimes, in these letters, we may give the impression that cruising in the Bahamas is all about spectacular clear turquoise water, friendly and interesting local people, historic places, great food, and gentle winds. Yes, we often have those things. But not always.

The type of cruising we do is not for everyone. Right now we are hundreds of miles off the coast of the U.S., in a foreign country. Some people enjoy their boats by “coastal cruising”, where they stay close to home port, and go out for day trips. Over the years, we have often enjoyed boating that way. Non-boaters have a vision of what we do as similar to an experience on a 1000’ long cruise ship, where they are served lobster and steak and the finest wines. Of course, the beauty of a cruise ship experience is that, to use a Bahamian word, there is no “boderation” (“botheration”) – that is, the running and maintenance of the ship, the meals and entertainment and all of the other support work is done for you by other people.

Not on “Meander”. We are self sufficient, and we have to do it all: Barbara and I must function as navigators and pilots, ship’s engineers and mechanics, weather analysts, route planners, and still have time to do cooking, laundry, and repair any one of the dozens of onboard systems. (We carry many spare parts.)

Our boat is not simple. We have two Detroit Diesel propulsion engines, each rated at 735 HP. They need fuel, and we track their usage carefully, since fueling locations in the remote Bahamas are limited, and the few suppliers that exist often run out – if for instance the fuel barge cannot make it to their location because of bad weather.

On board, we can make two of the three critical things we need: water and electricity. We can’t make fuel. For electricity, we have two generators (which like the engines need to be maintained), and we have a watermaker, which takes salt water and using a high pressure pump pushes it through a membrane to remove the salt. (It makes the best drinking water you’ve ever tasted.) Good water is critical for us; many Bahamians do not even drink their own municipal water, and rely instead on bottled water.

Provisioning (stocking the boat with food) is critical, since in the remote parts of the Bahamas there are few stores, and selection is often limited. We have three freezers aboard, and bring an assortment of frozen foods from the U.S.

The most difficult challenge we face is the weather. When we have internet access (which is better every year in the Bahamas) we can use a number of excellent marine weather sites which help us make good decisions about whether to go or not to go, and where to go. If we don’t have internet access, we rely upon our Sirius XM Marine Weather receiver which obtains extensive weather reports for us by satellite; this means we can access that information far from land. “Meander” also has two radars aboard, which can help us see approaching storms up to 48 miles away.

As we near hurricane season, we have to give extra attention to any reports of tropical storm activity, and make preparations if needed.


This is one of the weather reports we received a several days ago. The yellow “X” marking a troubling weather system is exactly where we are. As you can see from the legend at the bottom, there is less than a 40% chance of a cyclone (hurricane) formation. Great. Not quite the odds we wanted. Since this report was issued, the projections are that it will not develop further, which is good news. Nevertheless, this is still a huge disturbance which has been with us for about ten days: high winds, lightening and thunder, and torrential rains, all of which are part of this system. It shows no signs of letting up.

We were in George Town (for the Regatta) when this system first approached. George Town was not a good place to ride out this mess, so we had to go either north or south. After analyzing the projections, and meeting with Jim and Ellen on the boat traveling with us, we decided to go south to Long Island, to a place called Thompson’s Bay, which would provide protection for us from the projected week-long 30+ knot NE winds.

We left while the weather was still good. Here, Barbara pilots us south, through the shallow waters of the banks west of Long Island.

The trip to Long Island was uneventful; winds were still calm, and our course brought us through some spectacular waters.

We anchored in Thompson’s; the holding was good – which means the anchor dug in and held us quite well. (That doesn’t always happen – often the bottom is rock or thick weeds, and the anchor has a hard time holding in those kinds of bottoms.)

After a couple of days there, the weather information projected that conditions would deteriorate even further, so we pulled up our anchors and travelled about two hours along the west coast of Long Island to a little marina at Stella Maris. The plan was to seek shelter in their enclosed basin.

This is an aerial view of the marina from their website, taken on a nice day.

One problem with the Stella Maris marina: there are over three miles of extremely shallow water leading into the marina. At low tide there is not sufficient water to float our boats, which draw about 4’10”, and at low tide there is only 4’ of water. So we had to time our entry into the marina at full high tide.

It’s a small run-down facility, with only a few slips for larger boats. We guess it was built in the 70’s, and has not been well maintained, probably because access to the marina over the three miles of really shallow water discourages most boats from attempting the passage. At one time it’s likely that a channel was dredged for the three miles, but the first hurricane would have filled that in, and it is just too expensive to do after every storm.

We timed the approach correctly, and we had about 1’7” of water under our keel, just enough to squeak into the basin. As I write this, “Meander” is docked in the lower part of the basin, in the “L” just behind the tree. “Latitude” is just behind us.

The move to this marina turned out to be a prudent one: we’ve been here over a week now, and we’ve had continued high winds, with repeated thunderstorms and driving rain. The owners and staff at this marina have been superb, and we recommend it to any cruiser.

A view from our boat, docked inside the marina. Once in a while the sun poked through the clouds, but only for a minute or two. Each wave of thunderstorms brought heavy gusts of wind.

It has rained so much that Jim (on “Latitude”) said:
“Think we need a cruise meeting this AM, or why bother… all we need to do is start getting two of each of the local animals on board?”

The advantages of weathering stormy weather while tied to a dock are significant; it provides an opportunity to go ashore and explore the island you came to visit. It also gives you the confidence of knowing that your boat will be there when you return. We’ve have friends who left their boat anchored off shore, and when they returned the anchor line had been cut through from sharp coral on the bottom of the harbor, and their 40’ boat wound up on a rocky shore.

Our marina is part of a large resort which is on the east side of the island, and since we are guests at the marina, we have full use of the resort’s beautiful property. There, we saw first hand parts of the large storm we were evading. The waves offshore were 6-8’ in height.

We then came upon something strange, as shown in this photo. The resort had created a salt water swimming pool carved out of the rock along the shore. Off to the left is a set of stairs leading down into the pool. The fresh ocean water comes in from the right side, and flows out the far end. They put tons of sand into the pool, to make it comfortable to walk on. The pool never has to be cleaned, vacuumed or treated with chemicals. The natural flow of the ocean provides a constant source of clean water.

Here is the channel which was dug out of the rock to supply water to the pool. This was a clever approach to providing a good, protected place to swim on a rocky coast.

No place to be in a boat.

We rented a car, and at the end of a horrendously potholed half-mile mud-dirt road, we came upon a small house. This woman, Sarah Adderley, is a basket maker, upholding a fine but declining tradition.

Sarah Adderley

The Bahamas are home to huge land crabs. They normally hide in the woods and come out at night, but this one decided to cross the road in front of our car. If he stretched his claws out, he would be at least a foot and a half wide. Some Bahamians eat them, but they need to be purged for several days or else they taste foul.

Over the years we have collected a number of quality Bahamian baskets, but until we met this man, we had never known a male basket maker. This basket was $18, and was an unusually good design.

Charles Wallace of Dunmore, Long Island, The Bahamas. Proud basketmaker.

The rains continued. We passed this church and saw a group of smart Bahamian goats, who had taken shelter under the portico. We didn’t think the pastor would be too happy when he saw the mess they made.

We drove a mile down another muddy, soaked, potholed road, in search of – believe it or not – a French restaurant we’d heard about. There are only a dozen or so “restaurants” on this island of 3,500 people and many of those are take-out places – serving the Bahamian version of fast food. So when we heard of a fine French restaurant, we just had to find it.

It took this French-Canadian, Pierre, fifteen years to build his restaurant which is in the middle of nowhere. He performs the exceptional cooking, waits on the tables, and washes the dishes. All alone.

Dining on the porch at Chez Pierre restaurant, with Jim and Ellen. We had quite simply one of the best meals in a very long time. Even if it was raining!

“I really don’t know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it’s because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it’s because we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears. We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea – whether it is to sail or to watch it – we are going back from whence we came.” John F. Kennedy

As of this writing, we are still docked at the small marina on Long Island, as the thunderstorms still roll in and the winds howl. It looks as if we may not have an opening in the weather for at least several more days. There are many worse places to be. In our next Letter we will cover more of this interesting and diverse island.

Warmest regards
Greg and Barbara
Copyright, Greg Allard

Our sincerest thanks to Greg and Barbara Allard for sharing their thoughts and beautiful photography from their Bahamas cruises. These photos and descriptions will have you aching to follow in the Allard’s wake! Stay tuned for more letters in the weeks ahead.

Letter # 3

Our next stop on this year’s Bahamas cruise was George Town, on Great Exuma Island in the most southerly part of the Exumas.
George Town is a milestone destination for many cruisers. In the winter and early spring up to 500 boats spend several months in the huge harbor. There is decent provisioning (places to buy food and boat parts), good anchorages, and shoreside facilities better than anywhere else in this remote area.

The Bahamas are a series of 750 islands and cays, spread out in an archipelago 590 miles long and 185 miles wide. For centuries the Bahamians depended solely upon wooden sailing boats for travel between islands, and for earning a living through activities such as fishing, sponge harvesting, and trade.

George Town is the site of the annual Family Islands Regatta, the Bahamian world-series of sailboat racing. In the 1950’s a group of people recognized that the “age of working sail” was drawing to an end, and they looked for a way to preserve the boat building and sailing skills of the Bahamian people. Their plans resulted in the first Family Islands Regatta, first run in 1954. Steven Pavlidis in The Exuma Guide describes the guidelines:

“The rules that govern Bahamian sloop racing are quite clear: competing boats must be designed, built, owned and skippered by Bahamians. The overall length (LOA) may not be more than 28’3”, the sails must be of canvas, the hull must be of wood, and the single wooden mast may not bend. The rules do not permit vertical transoms, bowsprits, spreaders, winches, or any sort of wind or speed instruments including tell-tales.”

If you are a sailor, you will appreciate that these rules are quite strict, and eliminate many features found on modern sailing vessels.

“The sloops race three times around a triangular course…As the boats take the wind and heel they must shift their ballast….Each boat has prys, wooden planks which extend about 4’ or so on the windward side of the boat. The crew then climbs out onto the prys to balance the boat…..” It does happen that sometimes a crew member falls off the pry, and “any boat that does not stop for a MOB (man over board) is disqualified.” (Pavlides)

The last time we were in George Town for the Regatta was in 2011, and we had enjoyed it so much we wanted to see it again this year.

This is the boat we always root for: Tida Wave, which hails from Staniel Cay. (Boats come from all over the Bahamas to participate.)

The first thing to notice is the size of the “sail plan”. The sails are huge compared to the size of the boat. That feature makes the boats sail really fast, but it also makes them difficult to control. More on that later.

The original captain of Tida Wave was Rolly Gray, a legend of sailing in the Bahamas. He won (at least according to most people on Staniel Cay) all of his races. He died in 2007, and is buried on Staniel Cay.

Rolly Gray is so revered in the Bahamas they named one of their largest Royal Bahamas Defense Force cruisers after him. One of the most famous Bahamian pieces of music is “Sailor Man Song” by Basil Smith, which is about Rolly Gray.

A close up of Tida Wave under sail, with the ballast (men) out on the pry bars to help keep the boat level. If the boat tacks (turns into the wind to sail in a different direction), the men scamper down the pry boards into the boat, drag the boards to the other side, and climb out on them….all in a matter of ten seconds or so!

The concentration of the crew is intense.

Yes, there are collisions, and here – a near collision.

Three in a row, on the same point of sail.

Some of the crew on Tida Wave give course directions to the helmsman.

Sometimes the boats encounter significant wind gusts. In this dramatic moment the crew of Tida Wave struggles to move as much of their weight to the end the pry boards as possible, to keep the boat from tipping over on her side. Simultaneously one of the crew at the stern lets out the main sail to help keep the boat from foundering. The sail is out so far that it is dragging in the water.

Later in the day the rains arrived, but the race continued. This is a view from our boat, of ghost ships sailing in the rainstorm.

Unfortunately, Tida Wave did not take first place this year, but a boat from our next stop south, Long Island, did.

Not all of the fun is out in the harbour. The event triggers shoreside parties, food, and yes, some drinking. Kalik (rhymes with “click”) is the national beer.

Food stalls offer the best of traditional Bahamian cooking: cracked conch (conch which has been pounded and tenderized with a mallet and then deep fried); conch salad, macaroni and cheese, and peas and rice. With music loud enough to lift you off the ground.

There’s an old nautical saying: “Red sky at night, sailors’ delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning.” This was a night sky, but….

When doing this type of cruising, hundreds of miles from the U.S. coast, it’s “all about the weather.” We are at the mercy of what mother nature throws at us, and sometimes it is not pretty. We have been watching a bad weather system which is approaching the Bahamas, with winds forecast for 30+ knots. That series of fronts is north of us, so we and our friends on Latitude have decided to run south four hours to Long Island, where there is a good anchorage at Thompson’s Bay, protected from the NE winds, and a small marina nearby if necessary. That choice is not without risk, since we may wind up being pinned down there for a while.

More to follow in the next Letter.

Warm regards,
Greg and Barbara

Copyright, Greg Allard

Our sincerest thanks to Greg and Barbara Allard for sharing their thoughts and beautiful photography from their Bahamas cruises. These photos and descriptions will have you aching to follow in the Allard’s wake! Stay tuned for more letters in the weeks ahead.

Letter # 2
Hello Everyone,
After we departed Nassau, we worked our way south, down through the Exumas – a string of cays which is one of the most beautiful areas of the Bahamas.

One of our favorite places in the Exumas is Highbourne Cay. (The Bahamians pronounce “cay” to rhyme with “key.”) Highbourne is a private island with a small, well run marina, beautiful beaches and a single restaurant.

The week before we arrived there, an Austrian had rented the entire island and marina for his 60th birthday party – for 150 people. Everything (literally) had to be brought to the island on a big workboat: food, generators, extra water, portable lavatories, and dozens of workers. While we were there, the workboat was re-loaded with all of the items (including two huge containers) which were being returned to Nassau.

We watched the boat as it left the marina. It is a tricky exit, since the current runs sideways to the channel, and there are sandbars and coral reefs everywhere. Well, the captain ran the boat aground. In this photo you can see that he has powered-up his engines in an attempt to break free. All he did was to dig a deeper channel behind him, while shoving the boat harder aground. Fortunately the tide was rising, so after about three hours the boat floated off, and was finally able to get underway.

As we do our cruising, we do make mistakes on occasion; it was refreshing to see that a professional captain can also make them.

There is a fish-cleaning station at Highbourne, on the end of the jetty. After the fish are cleaned, the carcasses are thrown into the water, attracting many sharks. These are nurse sharks, and many people say they are totally harmless – in fact we have seen people swimming with them. However, when the fish carcasses were thrown to these “tame” sharks, a wild frenzy ensued as the sharks tore into the fish remains. Tame? Swim with them?

Seagulls too must eat. These two were waiting for the sharks to be done so they could get to the scraps.

It is a tradition on some of the cays that cruising boats leave a board with their boat name and date of visit. Here is “Meander’s board, showing that we have been there a number of times; our companion boat on this trip, “Latitude”, also put up a name board last year, as did our friends on “Soul Asset” in 2014 who used a coconut!

On a dinghy exploration we traveled to the eponymously named “Two Trees” cay, a great diving spot. The French sailboat to the left was working her way through the shallow water looking for a good place to anchor.

After we secure the bigger boats, either by anchor on in a marina, exploring by dingy is one of our favorite activities. This photo, of our friend Jim Pope (from the vessel “Latitude”) is off a small cay called “Tea Table” which is good for beach combing.

Barbara and our friend Ellen Pope return to the dinghy with their finds including some beautiful shells and a fan coral.
You are only allowed to take coral which has washed up on shore; taking live coral from a reef is
prohibited as it will destroy a reef.

The fantail of a beautiful old wooden boat, “Freedom”, built in 1926. She hails from Newport, RI.

Over Yonder Cay, owned by an interesting entrepreneur, Mr. Ed Bosarge. The island has four villas, and is 96% powered by solar and wind. You can rent the island for $44,000 a day. Mr. Bosarge has a fascinating background and it is worth reading about his career. Here’s a link to one of his bio sheets from a conference he attended.
http://www.worldstemcellsummit.com/speakers/ed-bosarge-phd/

While anchored in “Big Majors Spot” at Staniel Cay, we saw this ominous looking boat. While it looked like a military craft, it is actually an 84’ Italian-built Arcadia yacht.

We’ve always said that we would never own a boat that wasn’t beautiful to look at. I guess we’ll never buy one of these.

A night time view from the top deck of “Meander”, looking down on our dingy. Our underwater lights were on, and the water is so clear that it makes the dinghy look as if it is suspended in air. The water in this picture was about 12’ deep.

Some of you will remember “Shark”, the dockmaster on Cave Cay.

People ask us why we cruise to the Bahamas. Yes, the waters are some of the most beautiful on earth, but the real reason is to meet the people, the friendliest and warmest folks anywhere.

Shark led us on a tour of one of the many caves on the cay.

In one of the caves, we came upon this huge hermit crab, the biggest we had ever seen. Its shell was the size of a softball.

Our next stop was Little Farmers Cay. Many of you remember our friend Ali, who used to run a small liquor store and bar on the island. Three or four years ago he suffered a massive stroke, and when we saw him two years ago he was not doing well. At that time we wondered if we would ever see him again.

When we returned to Little Farmers this year, we were excited to find Ali, and see that he had improved tremendously. He even drew us an accurate map, from memory, showing a good snorkeling site.

Ali is on the left, and his wife Brenda is on my other side. Brenda was the key person who helped in Ali’s recovery.

This is J.R., a woodcarver on Little Farmers. He often works in wild tamarind wood, as he is doing here. In this photo he is finishing a beautiful dolphin (mahi-mahi) carving, which our friends purchased.

Also on Little Farmers, we saw that a yellow building had been erected next to the government dock. We went inside, and found that it was a new bar, with a restaurant to come.

The woman owner who served us is on the left, Katie, and the man on the right is Barry, who built the new structure. We then learned that they were engaged. I asked to take their picture, and Barry just couldn’t look at the camera; he was mesmerized by Katie. After about six photos I finally got him to look at the camera, but this photo is much better when you understand the background.

A woman giving a young girl a swim.

We had lunch at Ocean Cabin, hosted by old friends Ernestine and Terry Bain. Ernestine is an excellent cook, and Terry – one of the most well-spoken, thoughtful thinkers in the Bahamas.

Ernestine Bain

Our companion boat “Latitude” at anchor.

Warmest regards to you all.

Greg and Barbara

Copyright, Greg Allard

Our sincerest thanks to Greg and Barbara Allard for sharing their thoughts and beautiful photography from their Bahamas cruises. These photos and descriptions will have you aching to follow in the Allard’s wake! Stay tuned for more letters in the weeks ahead.

Letter # 1

We left our home dock in Palmetto, Florida in mid February. We’ve owned Meander for five years, and she has served us well.

As we did last year, we are traveling with another boat, Latitude, owned by Jim and Ellen Pope; they are wonderful cruising friends.

On the west coast of Florida on Gasparilla island, we saw this small rowing boat. It doesn’t have quite the comfort of a larger cruising boat, but we imagine that the rower is having just as much fun. We couldn’t tell whether there was a child or a pet under the smaller umbrella.

Lake Okeechobee is a huge lake in the middle of the state. To move our boat from the west coast of Florida to the east coast (before we continue to the Bahamas), we cross Florida by using a series of rivers and man-made canals which connect the lake to each coast, a total journey of 150 miles. The Okeechobee Waterway was created in 1937 for commercial boats, but now is used mostly by recreational vessels.

In this photo Meander is traveling in one of the man-made canals which run along the southern side of the lake.

Ahead of us we spotted this huge fire, which dumped ash on the decks of the boat. Such fires are a regular occurrence in late winter and early spring: they are related to the sugar cane industry. In Florida, the sugar cane is burned just before harvesting to remove dead leaves. The burning does not harm the stalks of cane. From friends in Louisiana, we learned that there is another reason: sugar cane can be harvested yearly (from the same plantings.) However, after five years or so, the plants are exhausted, and they must be burned so that new plantings can be made in the field.

As you might imagine, there is serious pressure on the sugar cane industry to stop such burnings, which deposit soot and ash as far east as Palm Beach. But there are equal pressures based on the economics of the industry. Florida is the second largest producer of sugar cane in the U.S.

Lake Okeechobee is usually 13’ or so above sea level. A series of five locks lift the boats up as they approach the lake, and then lower the boats back down to sea level on the other side.

The locks can be tricky. This is the St. Lucie lock in Stuart, Florida. It has the highest lift or fall (depending on which way you are traveling) of all the locks, at about 12’. As you enter the lock, there are lines hanging down from the sides, and to reach them you have to carefully maneuver the boat towards the hard concrete wall. We have fenders (bumpers) hanging over the sides of the boat to prevent damage. Then one of us has to grab the bow line (at the front of the boat, temporarily tie it off, and then move quickly to the back of the boat to reach for a stern line. At that point each of us is positioned at one of the lines, and we have undone the temporary knots to the cleats.

In this photo, the lockmaster has opened the doors of the lock to lower us down; the rush of water out of the lock is tremendous, and it causes the boat to lurch and tug at its lines. You have to be careful not to actually secure the line to the cleat of the boat, because as the boat falls, you must gradually let out more line. Each of us carries a knife, in case the line gets hung-up; cutting the line is preferable to having the cleats literally ripped off the boat.

We crossed the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas in early April. We passed close to this container ship just off Freeport on Grand Bahama island. The small black boat on the left is the Pilot boat; it will drop off an experienced pilot from the area, who will assist the captain in bringing the boat safely into the harbor.

Approximately 90% of the world’s goods are shipped by sea, and 75% are in “containerized cargo.” Containers are large steel boxes (often transported on land as part of a “tractor-trailer” combination). Their design make it easy to load and unload them from the ship by crane. The containers are stacked quite high on the deck, and are held together with strong (?) connectors.

Why is there a question mark after “strong”? On March 5, 2018, off the coast of North Carolina, a sister-ship to this one, also owned by Maersk Lines, lost between 70 and 73 containers off its deck due to high winds and heavy seas in a bad storm. The simple explanation is that the connectors broke, or had been improperly installed. The U.S. Coast Guard issued an alert: some of the containers sank, but others were floating end-on-end, with as little as one foot sticking out of the water. This situation creates a huge risk. A container floating at or just below the surface would severely damage – or sink – any smaller boats who struck it.

This picturesque boat house (with residence) is at Port Lucaya on Grand Bahama. If there were no palm trees, it would look very much like something that Jay Gatsby would have built on the north shore of Long Island. We may not be the only ones who thought that: take a close look at the name of the boat inside.

We went for dinner on Chub Cay, at the southern end of the Berry Islands, and this man was our waiter. His name tag read, simply, “Remedy.” He is originally from Nassau, but has worked on Chub Cay since 1976. He came to Chub looking for a temporary job as a waiter, and stayed there as a waiter for his career. He is 67 years old. We had a wonderful conversation with him, so good that we forgot to ask him about his name.

In front of the club house at Chub there was a bronze sculpture of a woman holding up a dolphin.
Barbara just couldn’t resist mimicking the pose.

Chub Cay is in an area of the Bahamas which has some excellent fishing. As a result, sport fishing boats congregate there, and in the evening each of them tries to outdo the others with dramatic displays of lights, both above and under water. The mega-yacht at the bottom of the dock, La Sirena, is 43 meters long (141’).

Nature always surprises us.

During one of our open water ocean crossings to the Berry Islands, we saw a huge disturbance in the water ahead of us, which is usually a school of fish.

It is not uncommon to see dolphins as we travel. They are usually in pods of 4-6.
As we got closer we were astonished to see that the disturbance was caused by around 150-200 dolphins! They were in an area about the size of a basketball court. We thought at first that they were feeding on a school of fish, but there were no fish around. They were just traveling together, and playing. There were many small dolphin calves in the group. As we proceeded, the group moved towards us, until it completely surrounded our boat. Dolphins were jumping in the air everywhere, and a large one jumped three feet from the boat, about ten feet into the air. I immediately slowed the boat down, but they are so quick that there is no risk that they will be hit by the boat. I couldn’t get to my camera fast enough to record the initial bedlam, and within a minute or so they started to move along.

The dolphin in this photo ran along side of our boat and made a spectacular leap; at the top right of the photo is a disturbance in the water which was from another group of perhaps six dolphins.

Another photo of our dolphin meeting. Two leaping at the left, two at the surface in the middle, and a third group underwater to the right.

Sometimes the best photos are accidental. This is David, who makes conch salad at Great Harbor Cay. It was not until I looked at this photo later that day that I saw the sign to the right. The sign refers to manatees, but having met David, the cautions could apply equally to his independent spirit.

On our way south to the Exuma islands, we stopped in Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas. One day we came upon this Bahamian wedding. Very much like any wedding we would have attended in the U.S. except for one thing.
The outfits are so much more colorful.

Just down the street from the wedding, and directly across from Parliament, was this public service sign. It’s playful, in that the Bahamians are making fun of their habit of dropping “th” from many words. So “thing” becomes “ting”.

In Downtown Nassau there is a shop that specializes in white clothing made from Egyptian and Turkish cotton.

These three sales women were just as they appear – warm, Bahamian people; yes, the one on the right was a handful! The one in the middle was named “Peachy” and the woman on the left appeared to be the voice of reason.

We were in Nassau while we waited for some strong winds to lay-down, docked at the Palm Cay marina on the southeast corner of New Providence island, about 10 miles from downtown Nassau.

This sailboat had left the marina a couple of hours earlier, in heavy southeast winds. It was owned by a Canadian, who had just bought it. We are not quite sure how much experience he had, but he wanted to go, so he went.

Somewhere offshore, in heavy seas, his rudder failed, which means that while his engine worked, he could no longer steer the boat. The channel coming back into the marina is narrow, it makes a hard turn left and then an immediate turn right. Three dinghies went out to meet him, and acted as mini tug boats to push his boat back and forth to keep him in the channel, while the 20+ knot winds threw the boat all over. As his boat was corralled into marina there were many close calls, including narrowly avoiding several yachts worth millions of dollars.

His boat was an older one, and with many untried systems it was foolhardy for him to have departed in such conditions.

God protects fools.

The end of the day, and the end of this Letter. We’ll be back again soon.

Warmest regards

Greg and Barbara

Copyright, Greg Allard