Chub Cay

1.12.11

Our first day here we had another front roll through the area. It appears that in the winter, fronts come through every 3-4 days. We opted not to go into the marina and instead spent the day bobbing up and down out in the harbour. Although it was annoying and slightly uncomfortable, it was not unbearable. We were definitely welcoming the idea of a calm harbour and dry land though! We also encountered our first water spout while here – luckily it was from the safety of about 3 miles away. It was eerie how you could see it forming high in the clouds and then it just suddenly appeared, connected to the water. I got chills just watching it and sent up a silent prayer that we would never be in the near vicinity of one of those things.
We made it into Chub Cay yesterday. The boats before us had told us there was nothing there, but since it was our first Bahama anchorage, we wanted to see a small Bahamian town with our own eyes. Well, “nothing there” was a very adequate description. There was a very nice marina that had been recently bought and turned into a power boat marina – complete with pool, beach volleyball courts, small restaurant and bar area and laundry facilities. But, there were maybe 5 boats there, the restaurant didn't open until 1pm for lunch and the only Bahamians that lived there worked at the marina. We walked around a bit for the fun of it and then headed back out to the mothership.
We decided Koa had waited long enough to go ashore so we dinghied over to a neighboring deserted island and let him play on the beach for an hour or so. This was our first encounter with “gin clear” water and we were amazed by how shallow everything looked. You could see the same in 40 feet of water as you could in 4 feet. It was amazing! And there are conch shells EVERYWHERE! It seems that every Bahamian “conchs.” Conchs are found in about 20 feet of water, so they dive for them, load up their boats with their findings and then on the trip back into shallower water, they shell them and toss the shells overboard. So all of the conch shells that are on the beaches are deserted and empty shells that have been cracked by the Bahamians. It's a “don't shit where you eat” mentality – if other conchs see empty, broken shells around them they will not live there. So, they leave the conchs to their deep water and throw their ill-fated relatives' shells in the shallows.
The next morning we got up at 0400 and headed down to Nassau. Although the trip was only an easy 30 mile day sail, there was a front coming through that we were racing. We made it to Nassau by 1300 and were greeted by the overwhelming size of Atlantis resort and 5 large cruise ships. We motored right by the cruise ships and it was a bit daunting as their 20 decks towered over our one. Koa was undeterred and barked at them to tell them they were too large to be close to us – he likes to make sure everyone knows who is boss.
We attempted to anchor in a small, tight anchorage where the current was ripping, but we couldn't get the anchor to hold and when we weighed anchor to try another spot, we realized we had hooked an old canvas. Apparently the whole harbor is wrought with old trash and leftovers from previous boats and hurricanes. We finally settled on a great anchorage on the North side of the harbor and looked forward to an early evening.
Unfortunately that was not to be...
Around 9pm, we were watching a movie with all the lights out in our cabin, when a large spotlight caught our ship, blinding us through the windows. We both jumped up to see what was going on – a LARGE ferry boat was going by not 30 feet off our stern, spotlighting us as if we were in the channel. Which, as it turns out, he thought we were as he yelled to us as they passed by.
We decided to ignore him for the evening since boat traffic would be slim to none overnight and we would re-anchor in the morning. We like living on the edge, what can I say?!