Cruising off - 2006 - Selby and Judy

My brother Selby and his wife Judy joined us in Florida and after a little bit of land-based activity we headed off to the Bahamas. Our first stop was Bimini to clear customs and immigration. From there we headed around to Concrete Ship Bay and spent a few days snorkelling on the wreck of the Soprano. The weather at this time of the year was little more cloudy and windy, so we decided to head up to great Isaac Island and do some snorkelling. We had found an unexploded bomb on the reef that appeared to be Second World War. I thought I would tie a rope on it and lifted up, then I thought "No, dumb idea", so it still sits there today. The wind got up in the night so in the middle of the night we headed down to Stirrup Cay where we found several cruise ships had made it their home. What we thought would have been a deserted anchorage was actually a stopover for cruise ships. There were jetskis, paragliding, canoeing, swimming, sunbathers and beach bars. Not us really.

Time to move on and we headed down to Frasers Hog Cay, about a 40 nautical mile journey. On the way down we found we were getting into some rougher weather and decided to hop in to Cabbage Cay to get out of it. As we got into the Cay we found two other boats there. They were very helpful and we managed to sneak in beside them. While we thought the weather wouldn't turn we still spent time putting out stern anchors, as we are in a small channel between two reefs.We ended up spending a few days there waiting for the wind to ease. Considering we were in the tropics that was quite cold. However once the sun came out we were back to barbecuing on the back deck. The next morning we had a good sail to Frasers Hog Cay.We had a couple of days there and then it was on to Nassau. The crossing over to Nassau was choppy, however we found the entrance through the reef to Lyford Cay Marina. It was a nice little Marina with several mega yachts. We watched with interest as one yacht had approximately 12 staff who got up each morning and cleaned the boat. After talking to the crew we were told it only goes out from about three weeks a year. Bizarre!! The Marina was reasonably upmarket and it was fun having the use of a golf cart to nip to the laundry or down the road to the supermarket.
A couple of days later we made the trip into Nassau to visit Atlantis. Atlantis was a huge development which was a conference centre and casino. It had a huge aquarium in the glass walls were probably 18 feet high. We were also going in to meet our new crew Dan and Ali who are planning to crew back to New Zealand with us. There was also my 50th birthday which needed to be celebrated.
A few days later Selby and Judy left the yacht and flew back to the States and Dan and Ali joined us on Cool Bananas. After a day for them to settle in we fuelled up and headed around the western end of Nassau and out onto the Great Bahama Bank.