Sailing Ohana

We visited Long Island last season with about 10 other kid boats. This year it was just us, so it was a very different experience. We anchored in the Southernmost bay on the west side of the island after crossing from Crooked to Long and catching a couple of tunas along the way. The anchorage is a lovely bay with a very shallow section between the bay and the beach, and a small boat wrecked on the end. We took the boys wakeboarding and relaxed, and spent the night there. There is a colorfully painted restaurant on the beach called Gordon’s, which I read about in my book. We didn’t feel like going ashore and since we don’t have Morris this season, we didn’t have to.

Our next stop was to anchor after dark in Thompson Bay, where I got a great night’s sleep with the hatches open in the breeze, away from the bugs. The next morning I was happy to find out that the Farmer’s Market was happening in town. I quickly jumped in the dinghy and went ashore to the dinghy dock where I was able to toss a trash bag in one of the free trash receptacles they have there for boaters. The market was in a run-down building and had an eclectic mix of products for sale. There were old dvds and cds for sale for $1 apiece, flea market style purses and wallets, baked goods, jams, eggs, and local produce. I bought a lot of eggs, passion fruits, and some pineapple tarts for the boys. I also got a loaf of banana bread with craisins in it that wasn’t amazing on its own, but made superb french toast a couple of days later.

We rented a car by hailing the car rental guy on the VHF, and walked from the dinghy dock to his house where his wife checked the car out to us. We started by driving South, which is what she recommended. The first attraction that we pulled over for was the oldest church in the Bahamas. We have noticed that every little settlement has at least one church, and sometimes no other buildings. We wonder who attends the churches where they obviously don’t have the population to support them. We visited several abandoned old church ruins around the island that day. One that sticks in my mind had obviously been a beautiful structure that was built in 1940, according to the engraving on the front. It was falling apart and had hurricane damage. There was a rock placed on the altar on which the words “Have Mercy” were painted.

There is an inland cave that is home to some special shrimp, so we hiked to the cave to check it out. It was extremely hot with very high humidity, and since it was inland there was no breeze. The boys and I got several mosquito bites on the hike. Once we arrived at the shrimp cave, we realized it was infested with mosquitoes and even if we wanted to stay, none of us wanted to swim in the creepy, brackish water with some shrimp living on the bottom…. See previous post about Tommy’s dislike of dark water for further details.

Hopping back in the car, we continued South until we saw a farm stand on the side of the road, in front of a house. I bought some cucumbers and broccoli from the man there and his adorable little son came out, walking barefoot through their large garden to say hi. When I asked about the different varieties of peppers he had, the man gave me a few to try, and offered advice on how to use them in different dishes. I was excited because I had been looking for jalepeños and these were interesting local substitutes.

We made it to Clarence Town for lunch, but it was not as much of a town as we had expected. There were some homes and at least three churches (including a Greek Orthodox church), but no places to eat. We worked our way over to the marina where we found a beautiful restaurant overlooking the Atlantic side. We would never have gone to this side without a car because the East side ocean can be so rough, and the island is so long that we couldn’t easily swing back around in the boat to the protected West side. The restaurant was fancier and more expensive than we wanted, but we didn’t have any other options, and the food was good. They even made fresh squeezed lemonade for the boys. When we asked our server where they would go if they had a car for just one day, they said Gordon’s Beach because it’s such a  picturesque white sand beach, the shrimp Cave (“but you might get eaten by mosquitoes”), Dean’s Blue Hole, and the Columbus Monument on the North End (“even though Columbus was a dick”, they said). After marveling at the beautiful bathrooms at the restaurant, we headed off to Gordon’s Beach, forgetting that we had just anchored there two nights ago.

As we were driving South from the marina, we passed some salt ponds and Tommy abruptly pulled over…. Flamingos! There were just two of them hanging out, and they had no problem with us quietly approaching them and taking photos. The boys and I were so thrilled.

As soon as we pulled up to Gordon’s Beach, Tommy started laughing and pointed out that this was the colorful structure that we saw from our boat in the previous anchorage. It had taken us an entire day to sail up from Gordon’s to Thompson’s, but only about an hour to drive back down in a car. We got back in the car after a very brief stop.

Dean’s Blue Hole is the second deepest in the world (202 meters), and Jackson has wanted to go there since he heard about it last season. It is quite famous because free-diving competitions are held there, and records have been set there. It is tucked into one of the most beautiful beaches we have been to with very shallow water surrounding it, and the scenery around it is spectacular. We kind of forgot our masks and snorkel gear (I swear it wasn’t totally intentional), so Jackson couldn’t practice diving. He was really disappointed but it was for the best, because we wouldn’t let him without a safety diver, anyway. We played in the water and hung out, and watched the schools of fish we could see swimming around the edges. There is a memorial there for a 14 year old girl, her mom, and her aunt, who were locals and drown there in 2008. They were there for a picnic and the girl started to slip down the sandy edge she was walking on, towards the blue hole. The mother tried to save her, then the aunt went in to save them both, and they all drown. They didn’t know how to swim, and didn’t know that in salt water you can simply float, which is how the emergency responders found them. When we were there, some of the locals were jumping off the cliff over the hole, and couple of them ended up walking down because they could not swim…. What a tragedy to live here and not be able to feel safe in the water.

To end the day, we drove to Tiny’s for pizza. It was surreal to be back without the crowd that we were a part of last season. We ate delicious pizza, played on the swing and hammock, and the boys spotted a baby octopus under the dinghy dock.

The next day we motor-sailed to Calabash Bay where we only had a short stay last season, and we were looking forward to going back to spend more time there. We played almost all day at the beach the first day, the boys went paddleboarding, and we scoped out the nearby reefs for snorkeling, but they were mediocre at best. We watched movies on a stormy afternoon, I dyed Spencer’s hair, and we played poker for Oreos.