Great Loop Adventures Aboard Next Chapter: Running to the Exumas

Late Tuesday morning we headed out from Hoffmans 50 miles to the east end of a Nassau at an anchorage off Rose Island. We did a little early morning beach exploring as nobody had any interest to actually go into Nassau. Once in the deep water I dropped a line to see what we could catch. When we were in Great Harbor I was talking to a guy who lives in Bimini and does a lot of fishing. He handed me a couple of lures and said, “drag these around you will get your fill of fish’. Well don’t you know we managed to land a Cero Mackerel and a 15lb Skip Jack Tuna. That type of tuna is not a good eating so he went back into the sea. The Cero is an excellent fish both cooked and Sushi style. It was delicious. We were about five miles from the anchorage and we noticed that Liming had black smoke pouring out of his exhaust. All of our hearts sank as things like that can happen to anybody. They were in a couple thousand feet of water so an anchor is no good. Fortunately with the help of Rick on Inked Mermaid he was able to get one of the engines started and continue to the anchorage.

Turns out a clamp broke on the turbo. The great news was he had another one onboard and was able to solve the problem. What luck! By time all that was done it was 5 pm by time we got settled. The plan was to leave at first light and head for Norman Island which was about 55 miles to the south east. The forecast in the morning called for 1’ seas that would be on our nose with 10 mph of wind. Well there was 1’ waves and 2’ waves and some 3’ waves with winds closer to 15 mph. Sometimes they all get it wrong. Well we beat our way across the Bahama Bank and set anchor about 1:30 and then had some lunch. Norman Cay is actually a private island once reportedly owned by Pablo Escobar. It was also the original location for the famed Fyre Party that scammed tens of thousands of dollars out of many people. If you haven’t seen the Netflix show on it it is worth a look. Now some other Uber rich guy owns it and has a exclusive private marina for the mega rich. The marina caters to 200’+ club. As the winter cruising comes to a close the mega yachts are moving north and Norman island is on the circuit. Crazy enough there is nothing on the island.

The bigger yachts anchor off the south end of the Cay. There is also a private air strip that caters to the cruising elite and their private jets. Let me tell you it is quite busy. I spoke to an owner of one of the big yachts and he told me it cost $30,000 a week for him to dock his boat there. Yep you guessed it Next Chapter stayed at anchor. The only service on the island beyond the marina is a small overpriced restaurant called MacDuffs. We went there Thursday for lunch with eight other cruisers, Green Envy, Inked Mermaid, Saltwife, Liming and yours truly. Sue and I split a burger and a house special rum punch and the bill was $75. The price you pay to eat in paradise.

To be fair the atmosphere was awesome. We stayed for four nights exploring by dinghy and snorkeling. We even snorkeled an old drug running DC3 airplane that had crashed in the local waters. The winds had arrived and were blowing a steady 20 mph. Even at anchor in the lee of the island we were moving about quite a bit. One afternoon at happy hour on Green Envy, Ken gave us a presentation of the spots where they went in the southern Exumas.

It was very helpful. What was even more helpful is he lent me a pole spear to use on our trip down. Sue and Kris really hit it off as Kris is also a retired educator. Well once again I saw a weather window that would get us to our furthest point south that we would be going. Getting to Great Exuma Island meant we had to go on the outside with no protection. So the next morning we would pull off and begin moving again.

There was eight of these mega yachts anchored up here at one point. These are what the show, Below Deck is all about.They are all positioning to cross over to the Med for the summer season.

Sue following a couple of big blue rays. She hovered over them observing them eat. Their preferred diet being bony fish and crustaceans. They suck the food into their mouth and spit out what they don’t want. The stingrays Sue swam with get up to 6 feet in length and live to be 25 years old.