Catamaran delivery from Puerto Rico to Charleston - Bahamas

 

Next step after Dominican Republic was Bahamas. We managed to listen to Chris Parker at 6h30 in the morning; Heiner was the navigator and was very diligent in his duties, making sure that we did not run into bad weather during our passages. This one was to bring us from Luperon, passing Turks and Caicos, Mayaguana, Rum Cay to finally stop at Conception Island.  We had good wind, and by the time we arrived at Conception, it was blowing 25 knots. This black-headed gull took shelter from the wind by flying close to our boat...

The blue waters of Bahamas came to reality with sunrise and we had no problem getting to Conception island and anchoring in the lee of the island. Stunning colours, white beach, salty air, Conception was as beautiful a we remembered it.

 

 One of the thrills at Conception is to get to the inner river crossing the island by dinghy. It is truly an amazing scenery. We entered at low tide, and Heiner pulled the dinghy into deeper water as the 20hp Yamaha was too deep in the water.









During our 2010 visit here, we saw several sharks and barracudas crisscrossing the shallow waters of the river and some turtles.  This time, the (hawk bills) turtles were in majority and we sighted only one barracuda and one shark during the whole morning!






Next stop in the Bahamas was in the Exhumas, entering at Conch Cut Cay.  Oh, the Bahamas they are changing...a large luxury resort on one of the (private) isdland had very noisy generators that polluted our serenity...private planes and helicopters delivering the "rich and beautiful" to their yacht and houses.  And as we continued our way up the Exumas chain, an increasing number of mega yachts appeared in the anchorages.  Staniel Cay has docks for these yachts now...luckily, the little cruisers bar is still there.  We had a Kalik beer, for memories sake...a fish cleaning station attracted the wild life of the area...nurse sharks and rays.

 And of course, the pigs were there...in 2010, there was one, large one, swimming to the dinghys; it was quite an attraction. Now, there are 3 adults and 5 piglets..all well fed by tourists! Mega yachts demand mega pigs, I guess!!! We did not take pictures but other cruisers did...check out this fun link!!!http://www.thefeaturedcreature.com/2011/02/incredible-swimming-pigs-photos.html

And, that was it for the Exumas...good that we had visited these islands extensively in our previous cruises because this time, there was no time to really do it...

Next step was Nassau; sailing over the yellow bank was easy, as there was a very light breeze which pushed the catamaran gently over the crystalline waters. Anchoring in Nassau was easy: very few boats in the anchorage, zero wind, perfect conditions for Bahamas beginners (our friends).  In Nassau, we all went ashore to Dunkin Donuts for Internet purposes and buying rum. Heiner and I went for a short dinghy ride to the Atlantis complex remembering our 2010 visit...

 

Next morning we left for another 30+ hours passage to Florida....