West Bay, NPI

We left Chub Cay and decided to spend a few days in West Bay, New Providence Island. It was recommended to us by some friends as a quiet and secluded alternative to Nassau, with access to the airport so Capt Jen could fly back home to Miami. Before she left we took our exams and officially passed ASA 105 and 106 ! We stayed for a few days, just to spend some time relaxing and regrouping before taking off again.

If you zoom in you can see Wonderstruck in the center of this anchorage. To the right is Clifton Heritage Park which has hiking trails, great snorkeling, and public access beach where we can catch a taxi to the airport or city of Nassau if needed. The park has underwater statues near some coral heads that we checked out once the dive tours left and we had the place all to ourselves.

While there we also decided to get some boat projects done. I’ve heard it said that “cruising is doing boat projects in exotic places”, and so far that is true for us. One of the projects on my to-do list was replacing the main halyard. This involved going to the very top of the mast and removing the old line and then tying the new line. While on my way up I also fixed the line holding the Bahamas courtesy flag that had gotten tangled, lubricated the track for the mainsail, and inspected the roller furling for the jib. But what took the longest was removing the knot for the old mainsail. Before going up I thought the whole job would take an hour–tops. Actually it took much longer than that–entire job 5 hours. For one thing I hate heights and the wind would gust and the boat start start bobbing and the mast swinging and I would have to hold on so tight with my legs and one arm bracing myself against the movement. The old line was so old and stiff I couldn’t untie the knot even using Kim’s marlin spike. I rigged a way to tie the tools and the old main halyard to my wrist and bosun’s chair so when it released it didn’t fall down to the cabin top on the boat. Then I used Kim’s leatherman to remove the shackle and slide the old knot off in one piece. The knot was one I was unfamiliar with–I was expecting a bowline– so I got to deconstruct the old knot to learn how to tie the new one –one-handed 63 feet up in the air! This is the closest I’ll ever get to a space walk.

One morning, Kim was snorkeling around our boat checking the anchor and found a nest of tiny hermit crabs in a shell.

Since being in the Bahamas we have been using Island Wifi for internet access, and so far I’m really impressed. Even in Florida on land we never had this fast of a connection. We were even able to stream the Sunday church service from our anchorage.