1 March 2004

News No 7:

Royal Harbour to the Exumas

Hi Guys,

It's me again, Barry's pen is not yet engaged so I will continue the saga. We weighed anchor from Royal Harbour, and the enchanted ruins, and motor-sailed the couple of miles to Spannis Wells. We had learned our lesson from our Hopetown experience, and this time radio'd ahead and booked a mooring from Cinnabar in the Quaint little settlement of Spanish Wells. The entrance is quite narrow and extremely shallow at low tide, so we picked our way slowly up the estuary to our mooring at the end of the canal, passing the Hardware, the General Dealer, the Mailboat and Ferry stops on the way, and picked up a mooring like old professionals, settled Inspiration comfortably on her mooring and climbed into the duck to explore.

A very friendly Canadian yacht had welcomed us on our way in, and we stopped to chat for a few minutes, and were informed as to where the dingy dock was and the fact that the water wasn't too potable, we thanked them and made our way down the estuary and out onto a vast and beautiful beach, which was quickly drying into a huge expanse of the shallowest aquamarine water, miles of beach and a tiny channel into the sea, unnavigable by yachts.

We had recently securend the dingy anchor in place in the dingy, and so deciced to anchor her in the shallows and go for a swim and a walk, exploring the upside down seawead that turns into jellyfish types of sea creatures when disturbed, and I'm told can give a nasty sting, which I took at face value, and decided not to test out this theory.

Later we motored back upstream, taking photographs and nibbling on packet of cheesy snacks and sharing a bud-light which I'd slipped into the napsack, we pulled up at the dingy dock, secured the dingy, and threw out our newly recommissioned anchor, to secure the rear of the dingy, at which stage it parted company, the head from the shaft, and dissapeared into the water in numerous pieces. "Good idea that was mumbled Barry," and disapeared into the shallows to retrieve the pieces, in the now not too crystal waters of the channel. Well luckily he had kept his beady eye on the pieces and managed to retrieve all of them, and then a little sheepisly rinse himself off with the hosepipe, at the fuel dock, dried himself off put his shirt back on, followed by the mandatory cap and dark glasses, and off we ambled along the keyside, as if nothing amiss had occurred. Now having worked up a fine appetite we stoped at "GiGi's" for a well earned Hot Dog, coke light, followed by a rum and raison ice-cream cup, mmm it certainly was the nicest hot dog We'd tasted in years.

This town is all pinks, and yellows, and turquoise,wooden houses, and the locals all very pale skinned and wizened village folk, the only dark faces to be found we're tourists, or a few workers on the dock. There is an all ages school, and a Museum which we believe is never open, the town we were told is dry although we never got a chance to try it out. As we were invited over for a beer by the Friendly Canadians. We gladly accepted, telling them we'd just dump our shopping and would be back, at which stage a dolphin jumped accross the bow of the rubber duck, we were enchanted as a pod or about seven, including one very tiny fellow, proceeded to give a display around the fleet of moored yachts, enraptured everyone about sat transfixed, except for a very large brown and white spotted dog who lived on the adjacent yacht, who barked incessantly, wanting to leap off the boat and into the water to join the act, which we were later told he had done from the rubber duck the day before. Barry couldn't resist and slipped into the water armed with snorkel and mask and fins, and proceed to swim amongst them, they passed lazily beneath him and some swam up as if half interested and then ducked off quite unperturbed by his presence, even with the little one in the vicinity.

The next day broke calm and beautiful, we had been having a dilemma over whether to meet Kevin by ferry, but on the spur of the moment and because the weather was so favourable we decided to up anchor and take Inspiration and meet him. We were however worried that he'd receive a message on his cell from us before his flight left Cape Town, about us not being able to get there as the ferry would only get in after Kev had landed, and we sugested that he just fly on and meet us in Spanish Wells, cause the ferry only ran once a day, and it would mean we'd have to stay over, the cost of which would be in rand terms too exhorbitant, over R3 0000 PLUS(once converted.) Anyway to cut a long story short, Sunday dawned calm and beautiful, and we decided to make a dash for it on "Inspiration" and be there to meet Kevie, as we'd arranged prior to our last sms, which we were not sure he'd received. Anyway we arrived 1hr after he'd touched down, but Kev being the laid back soul that he is, had only just sat down to look for the skyphones number - when Barry dashed passed him, frantically looking for his mate, fully expecting to drag him off a connecting flight. Happily all's well that ends well, and needless to say Kevin was very happy to see us there, and likewise us him after a mad dash, anchoring the yacht, getting the duckie in the water, hiring a car and getting to the airport to find that the flight had arrived early.

We spent a lovely day there the following day, sightseeing, provisioning, and eating out, we saw Sol's beautiful aquarium on Paradise Island Hotel "Atlantis" very like sun city but with an Atlantis Theme. We had burgers at crockodiles, a yachtie restaurant with Happy hour and a dingy dock!! These are quite scarce around here and we seem always to be climbing up walls and sneaking through hotels or restaurants to get off the water. A Boer MAAK 'N PLAN!!

The following morning we left for Allan's Cay, and saw the famous Bahama Iguana's, they are almost tame, and rush out to see if you have any food for them. The Bahama's haven't heard of the concept of not feeding wild animals, anyway there really ugly but sooo cute!

There's been not too much dancing going on around here, am waiting for you guys, to joll with, these men are soo serious, we need some loose cannons around here. The gumbay juice, voodoo juice, etc. however is fabulous, and I have a recipe called Rum Buckets, 3 kinds of rum and three fruit juices on ice and then thrown down the throat at speed cause they taste soo nice.

Our next stop was Normans pond, shallow calm remote isolated and beautiful. Then came a night at The Exuma Park headquarters, at Warderick Wells, where we spent a rolley night on their last mooring, but the island is beautiful, the boys went for a hike around Boo Boo hill, while I sat at the Clubhouse and read about the hike, as the previous evening when exploring Normans Pond, I picked up a minuture Conk shell, still inhabited and took him home, put him in a container of seawater, to see if h'd come out, and I could then get a good look at what this shy but very tasty creature looks like, when he's not served up on your plate as conch burger, or chowder, or fritters, all of which I have sampled and enjoyed. He however got one back on me for the Conch population, as later that evening I stepped off the cockpit, into his container, and speared the bottom of my foot, tried to save myself from this excrutiating pain, and ended up twisting my ankle as well and damaging a few of the fragile little bones on top of my foot! (yeah Jeff, only your mom could perform a feat as spectacular as this!)

We left early the next morning and sailed down to Staniel Cay, which is a beauty, and has the added attraction of The ThunderBall Cave, which in slack tide can be snorkeled, and has the reputation of being a real gem, lit by holes in the roof of the cave, as the sunlight illuminates this underwater paradise. Unfortunately the tide was too high and the conditions too rough, so we had to be content with a dive outside the cave, where Kevin and Barry enjoyed a game of catch with a very shy but very beautiful big blue yellow and black specimen of fish, and watched as an enormous shark cruised by, luckily giving them scant interest. The weather was right to take an opportunity of making some good easting, so after a fabulous lunch at the Staniel Yacht Club, we were off on our way again on an overnighter to Rum Cay.

I missed the hike at Waderick Wells, but am glad to report that 3 days later with only a little swelling left on the top of my right foot, I was quite capable of walking round to explore the Local celebration of Rum Cay Day (on the Island of Rum Cay, naturally) and did even do a little dance at the establishment of Kay's place, owned by her mum Doloris Wilson, a writer and natural historian, who I'm sure popped in for a boogie, but we didn't get to chat to. We unfortunately had booked and ordered supper (which incidently was okay but exhorbitant) and so had to give the local fare which looked and smelled scrumptuos, a miss. Next time maybe.

Keep well all you guys at home, drop us a line, we'd love to here from you, the rest of the world is totally cut off from us, we havent seen a paper since Kevie brought one from Heathrow, we only listen to the radio for weather reports, so the rest of the World could have gone up in smoke and we would be none the wiser. So lets have some news! Get your pencils sharpened and drop us a line. The Inspiration website is up and running at www.inspiration.org.za so take a look, our computer crashed in America, and we lost our Adobe Photoshop Programme, so Pete has to wait for our photos when Kev returns, but hopefully J will be able to get the original discs from Pete and we can get back up to speed as far as transporting photos to him to update the site more often. Anyway I believe Suzie's photos have all been updated onto it and look good so have a squiz.

Barry and Kev send salaams

Write soon lots of love

Anna