By Jennifer

We set sail from Ship Channel Cay to Royal Island, a protected anchorage about an hour outside of Spanish Wells. The daylong passage across the Yellow Banks was a bit treacherous. The Yellow Banks is an area of water riddled with coral heads. We had passed through this area a few months ago when sailing from Nassau without any issues. This time sailing through the eastern edge of the Yellow Banks wasn’t as straight forward. The sky was cloudy which makes for difficult visual navigation — everything that may look like a coral head may also resemble a cloud shadow.  We passed over what we thought was a cloud shadow and then “thud.” That did it, we hit a coral head. For the next three to four hours we checked the bilge to see if Real Life was taking on water. None, thank God. For the remainder of our passage through the Yellow Banks, we were maniacs dodging coral heads and cloud shadows. I couldn’t have been happier when we reached the Northeast Providence Channel, that is until the weather arrived in Royal Island.

For days, the single-side-band weather guru of the Bahamas, Chris Parker, had been forecasting an awful front entering the area. His warnings were clear — “get into a protected anchorage,” “winds will blow up to 40-50 knots.” It’s my job to listen to Parker’s weather forecast daily at 6:30 a.m. and this was the first time on our trip that I had heard him throw a 50-knot prediction into the forecast, not to mention the thunder and lightning that was supposed to come with it. We hadn’t seen thunder and lightning at all since we began our trip.  As the hours passed, finally the front arrived. It rained, it thundered, it lightninged. There was a lightning strike in the anchorage, but it didn’t hit any of the 10 or so boats anchored there.

After the dramas of the day, we were ready to head toward sunnier skies in Spanish Wells.

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By Jennifer

After sailing from Cambridge Cay, we stopped for the night at Ship Channel Cay. This was a jumping off point to Spanish Wells, which is an island located just off the northern tip of Eleuthera. Here, the kids are finishing up a day of school and hanging out on the boat until we set sail the following morning.

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By Jennifer

On our journey back north, we sailed from Black Point to Cambridge Cay. This is a Bahamian Sea and Water Park, where the beaches are pristine and the snorkeling is outstanding. Here, we snorkeled at the “Rocky Dundas.” This is a cool rock formation that lies between the cut from Exuma Sound to Cambridge Cay. Here we snorkeled and Kevin saw “the biggest manta ray of his life,” and what he believed to be a reef shark. We also snorkeled into the Rocky Dundas cave, which was pretty cool and similar to the snorkeling we did at Thunderball Grotto.

“Mom” drizzling a rum sauce over a large rum cake we purchased

By Jennifer

Throughout the Bahamas, bakeries are run out of people’s homes. On any given day you can walk up to the designated house, knock on the door, and pick up loaves of white bread. If you are lucky, you will run into small operations like “Mom’s Bakery” in Great Exuma, south of George Town, where she fires up her king-sized Viking double ovens and bakes white, wheat, raisin, banana, and coconut breads; rum cakes (my fav); and dinner rolls. We bought a large rum cake (among other things) that she drenched in a butter and rum sauce. We lingered over it for four to five days.

Point of interest: Next to Mom’s Bakery is Santana’s restaurant. After visiting the bakery we stopped for lunch — fried grouper. This small establishment boasts a connection to Johnny Depp. While we waited for our food, the owner pulled out her personal photo album and showed us dozens of pictures of a younger Johnny Depp at Santana’s during the filming of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” The film crew, according to the owners, built a wooden dock to the restaurant so they could access the place during filming.

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By Jennifer

We set sail from Cat Island 50 miles across the Exuma Sound to Black Point in the Exuma islands chain. You may recall we stopped in Black Point when we first arrived in the Exumas. We headed back this way because the wind was blowing in this direction and we needed to get some laundry done in the finest laundromat in the Exumas — Rockside Laundry run by Ida. In addition to getting laundry done there, you can purchase showers, donuts and carrot cake — which we did.

Other highlights on this stop included:

• Watching the local teenagers enjoy their spring break. They come home from high school from Nassau. The island hosts a DJ and activities for the teens.
• We ate pizza at our favorite Bahamian pizza place — De Sharmon’s for Easter.
• We had an Easter Egg hunt on the boat. OK. Not quite like home. We only had six eggs left and Kevin and I wanted to eat them sunnyside up for breakfast. So, I told the kids they should color and cut out paper Easter Eggs. This went over very well with Madeline, but came up quite short for Zach who was disappointed that there were no plastic colored eggs filled with gobs of candy. I tried to explain that those plastic eggs are only available to the Easter Bunny from Target, not at the produce stands in the Bahamas! EB came through for the kiddos assigning a monetary amount for each colored egg they found. Ka-ching!
• Meeting a young man we endearingly call “Shell Boy.” Kevin and I were on our way to “Sandra’s Fruit Stand” when Shell Boy stopped us on the street and invited us to come and see his shells for sale. We weren’t exactly in the market for buying shells since we have been collecting them along the way, but we humored him. Once he knew he had our attention, he said with a big smile, “Ok. Walk fast!” We did. And when we arrived at his stand on the edge of town he unveiled his shell inventory which was kept in a three-quart sauce pan. The selection amounted to your everyday clam-shaped shells, about 100 of them. Afraid to ask and not wanting to offend Shell Boy, I gently inquired, “How much are they each…?” “Two dollars,” he replied. Well it wasn’t going to break me, so I picked one shell and he enthusiastically supplied a ziploc bag for me to carry it in. He was thrilled closing the sale.
• Finding our previous boat owner’s boat card on the wall at Rockside Laundry. Look closely at the middle card — Fantasy Island. Frank and JoAnne had been there and now so have we — on the same boat!

Zach catches his third mahi-mahi while crossing the Exuma Sound from Cat Island

By Jennifer

This was a proud moment for Zach and mom and dad as this catch renewed Zach’s faith in fishing.

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By Jennifer

We rented a car to tool around Cat Island with our main objective to see the historic Hermitage and Arthur’s Town, Sidney Poitier’s childhood home.

In this slideshow, you’ll see at the top of the 206 ft Como Hill is Mt. Alvernia Hermitage on Mount Alvernia, the highest point in The Bahamas. This small stone monastery built by hand by the architect hermit, Father Jerome, is at the peak and was worth the trek up the steep rocking incline, as well as the awe inspiring view.

You’ll also see the ruins of Armbrister Plantation.

A little background on Cat Island: The first European settlers were Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, who arrived in 1783. The island may have been named after Arthur Catt, a pirate, or the name may refer to its one-time large population of feralcats.^{[citation needed]}

Historically, the island gained wealth from cotton plantations, but slash and burn farming is now the main way of life for Cat Islanders. An economic crop is cascarilla bark, which is gathered and shipped to Italy where it becomes a main ingredient in medicines, scents and Campari.

By Jennifer

After our stay at Calabash Bay we set sail for Cat Island — about 35 miles north on the Exuma Sound. We anchored outside of Hawks Nest Marina in a narrow creek to protect us from several days of strong, cold, northerly winds. Hawks Nest Creek was quiet and calm. The no-see-ums didn’t seem to mind sharing their habitat with us. We zipped in the screens for the duration of our stay.

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By Kevin

For the second time in the past week, we took the dinghy for a ride up a creek. This time it was the Hawks Nest Creek that Real Life was anchored in during our stay at Cat Island.

The creek changes direction twice a day because of the tides so we had to deploy two anchors so that one anchor was always upstream holding us in place no matter which direction the current was flowing. Unfortunately, the bottom at Hawks Nest Creek is rocks on top of a thin layer of sand on top of more rock. We got lucky in that our primary anchor got firmly wedged behind a good sized boulder and held us for the four nights we were there.

Bonefishing on the Creek

Bonefishing on the Creek

Bonefishing on the Creek

Pulling us off the sand

Real Life Anchored in the Background

Anchored in the Creek

Anchored in the Creek

By Kevin

Zach and I caught a 5-6 pound mahi mahi on our sail from Long Island to Cat Island. We caught it about an hour after leaving, about 9 a.m. with a 6″ cedar plug. It provided two separate dinners for four while we were anchored at Cat Island.