We spent three days in Little San Salvador, walking on the island in the morning and snorkeling in the afternoon. The water there is astonishingly clear, and over the white sand bottom of the anchorage it is an incredible luminous blue. It's the color we associate with the Bahamas, and since the Abacos and Eleuthera tend to grassy bottoms which make the water look green, it wasn't until Little San Salvador that we really felt like yes, we are here, we are in the Bahamas.

The snorkeling was good but not great, with only a few really good structured heads coming up from the sand bottom. Since we had the mahi-mahi we caught off Eleuthera, we weren't hunting, so instead we worked on our free diving skills, pushing our depths deeper and deeper. By the third day we were diving to 50 feet. (Well, Britt was diving to 50 feet and hanging out. I was diving to 50 feet, taking a quick look around, then desperately heading to the surface for air.)

We did see several large hogfish, which are tasty and easy to spear and therefore a measure of local fishing pressure. Also grouper, including one very big one; a school of Atlantic Spadefish which let us get surprisingly close; and what looked like a lionfish, although to our knowledge they're Pacific, not Atlantic fish. It wasn't in our fish books, so we're really curious. It's a gorgeous fish, all showy stripes and "feathers", and our photo doesn't really do it justice, alas. (Photos to come,
I promise!)

Then on Tuesday morning the cruise ship came in, so it was time to go. We watched it anchor, then pulled out our own and set sail, playing the part of scenery for the passengers.

We sailed 40 miles that day, almost none of it actually toward our day's destination which was Bennett's Harbour on Cat Island, 16 miles away. The winds were obnoxious, not only out of the wrong direction but shifting frequently, and our GPS track looks like a drunkard's. On the other hand, we did a LOT of fishing.

But as any fisherman knows, fishing and catching are two different things. We lost three lures as fish broke the line; I had a fourth almost to the boat and it leapt up, slacking the line and looping it around our wind generator, which let it jerk away; Britt had a fifth all the way to the boat, and it butted the hull with its head and knocked free. But eventually we caught a mahi-mahi (good, because we'd just finished our previous one). Then Britt put out the barbless hooks and did catch-and-release
on purpose for the rest of the day.

The next day we sailed again, and this time the winds were less unfavorable, so it only took us about 35 miles of tacking to cover the 26 miles to New Bight. But it's a point of pride for us. We don't want to be a trawler with a mast, we are a sailboat, darn it! So even though Windom isn't exactly a demon into the wind, if we don't absolutely have to make the miles, we'd much rather tack than motor.

Today we climbed Mt. Alvernia, the highest mountain in the Bahamas. 231 feet! Aren't you impressed? The cool thing about Mt. Alvernia is that on its top is the Hermitage, a mini-monastery built by the famous Father Jerome when he retired there in 1937. (More about Father Jerome is in our earlier logs at http://windom.netrack.net/logs/2000/05.02.html.

He was an architect who became first an Anglican priest, then converted to Catholicism, and he built and rebuilt many churches in the Bahamas.)

The Hermitage is reached up a path with steps carved from the native limestone, punctuated with stations of the cross. At the top, the buildings are not quite full scale, barely large enough to squeeze a few people in at a time. It's an impressive structure in an unlikely location, proof of both the builder's skill and his faith.

After our arduous trek, we had lunch at the Bluebird Restaurant, which had been partly taken over by FNM party supporters in red t-shirts and hats; although the PLP candidate for MP from Cat Island won the election, overall FNM won more seats and therefore won the race for Prime Minister. We heard firecrackers and horn honking all night for two days as people celebrated!
- posted by S/V Windom @ 5/05/2007 [link]