Merry Christmas to All! Shavago, our friend and dock assistant at Emerald Bay Marina also doubles as a photographer when need be! Granted I dropped the tree into the "drink" as I was getting all my props and cat on the dock, but ya gotta have a Christmas tree, even tho it was a little wet! Buddy had a wonderful flight home, once again stopped traffic at TSa as we carried him through the check point, everyone stops and you hear "look at that cat" "Oh My God, he is huge" etc, etc. He is really not a big cat, he is just fluffy! Diabetic, arthritic, but the love of our life!

Here is a shot of the Islands of the Bahamas, showing where we started in Miami, actually Coconut Grove/dinner Key marina, then crossing over to Bimini to clear customs. We were NOT impressed with Bimini regarding the marina, the people and the safety factor, we hope our experiences were an isolated incidence, but we will not return. We did have a great dinner of conch salad, and the sunrise was one of the best of our trip, so as usual my glass is half full as I do have some great memories after all....food and sunrises!! Not all bad, maybe we will give it a second chance.

Our trip back to Emerald Bay Marina on Jan. 5, 2010 will be the start of our return to the following islands and I am sure we will explore some new areas as well. The Acklins need to be visited again, Cat Island, Rum Cay, Conception, so keep checking back to see where we may end up and what adventures we experience! Of course Buddy will be with us, and I am going to start his own Blog, will let you know when it is up and running, a lot of cat lovers out there that will appreciate our crazy love for this fabulous feline!

Merry Christmas from these Christmas Tree Worms on coral. These Christmas Tree Worms are usually very shy and will not stay open when you are close and taking a photograph, but these guys were posing for a Christmas photo!

A Trumpet fish that thought he could hide in the soft coral, but I caught him! I had chased him a bit as I knew my first picture was not good, and then thought I lost him....but a sharp eye gave me the Ah ha moment and I got the shot. Amazing what Mother Nature has taught her children!

Veda L, very happy in her slip, she looks like a sizeable boat....right? That is until "BIG DADDY" is tied to the dock behind her....

Is Veda L the tender to "Big Daddy?" No, but she is our mansion on the Sea, and is really all that "these two amateurs" can handle, and still have time for fun. "Big Daddy" seemed to have a crew of about 10, plus scooters, jet skiis, fishing boat, tender, etc., etc. no heli pad however; that was on a different boat seen at Emerald Bay Marina however. They took a little helicopter ride over to the Golf Course to play a round, then flew back....it takes me 15 minutes to jog there. Ah, to witness the lifestyle of the rich, which is easy to do at Emerald Bay as we are almost always the smallest boat in the marina. We say that the further south we get.....the smaller we get! I love this picture!

A shot of my morning jogging trail...around the greens, but still keeps me off the pavement which gives me shin splints, but keeps me out of the taller grass where snakes may lurk....saw one yesterday and Jeez can I swear a blue streak when confronted with a serpent, an amazing/creative string of profantities that I can tie together smoothly.

We will be diving this in about an hour, Poor Betty's Reef is the name of it, and is a lovely little spot between our point and the Atlantic. Marina guests 2 years ago were collecting golf balls here and selling them back to the golf course, then donating the money to the local animal shelter. Being the golf course has not been in operation for a few months it will be interesting to see if there are any more there, there were HUNDREDS last time we dove here.

Life is Really Swell on Veda L as we have found our "Bahama/Exuma home" again on Great Exuma not far from Georgetown. Is it any wonder they named this area Emerald Bay? The Marina at Emerald Bay is The Top Destination for boaters who want to have a home base that has every possible amenity, yet feel like they are in a small town atmosphere due to the friendly staff that will not let their day end until all details are taken care of for their guests. Check out their new web site to see where Veda L. is living for a few weeks! www.MarinaAtEmeraldBay.com They were closed for a few months, but it made us happy to see that the slips are filling up fast! If we did not have The Marina at Emerald Bay in the Exumas to leave our boat (in great hands!) it would be nearly impossible for us to make trips home for visits with our family.

Our Cat Buddy, (don't tell him that...he thinks he is a little boy in a cat suit!) asked Ericka if she would join him at the bar for a Kitty Cocktail. Wahoo's is a great little bar/restaurant with fabulous chowder just steps from our dock. Ericka, the office manager was kind enough to cat sit for Buddy while we took a two week trip home, that was two years ago and they have been friends ever since. Ericka lives on Great Exuma but this year has taken a job managing a private island, their new office manager came over from the Four-Seasons Resort and is highly skilled in public relations.

When we came back to Emerald Bay/Exumas after a 2 week excursion to Cat Island, Rum Cay and other Cays nearby we were greeted by Shavago, Ericka and Leonard, shown with Capt Bob...they brought down two Kaliks in brown paper wrappers as a special "welcome home Uncle Bob!" Yes, they have become family to us! It has been two years since we have been here due to health issues and the death of my Mother, but we had a sort of family reunion as we walked into the office to see all the smiling faces, and so great to see the upgrades that have taken place in our absence. Wow.....

A full moon over Compass Cay brings beauty and remembrances of our neighbor Jeanne Lyner, who was such a major part of so many lives, we are reminded of her every full moon as that is when she left us.

Rachaels Bubblebath is what they call this natural pool that gets ocean waves coming in thru a cut, this is a picture as the bubbles dissipated....otherwise you would not have seen me! The wave comes in, pushes out out about 10 feet and bubbles up all around you, a fun ride, and cold as the ocean water hits the warm pool water. Sea Urchins cling to the rock walls so we must be careful where we step. Heaven. Just Heaven.

This is the rotten dirty scoundrel posing as a beautiful fish that you would never want to kill. If you look closely however, you will see 3 prongs sticking out of his left side, eat a baby scrawled file fish will you? Not if we can help it! Bob pulled the file fish from the poisonous Lion fish mouth and let it go...just in time we hope!

Ahhh, beauty. Simple Queen Angel fish beauty. I think she is smiling at me.
Reef at Compass Cay. Google Compass Cay, a slice of heaven for sure. We are the only boat here now for 3 days, we have the place to ourselves. Did I say heaven?

Here is the beautiful and poisonous Lionfish that we found on the reef that we enjoyed yesterday, the Giant Sea Anemone below is one of my favorites with the purple tips waving at you!

The hunter walking down the beach to swim out to the reef to search for dinner...lobster or grouper, he is not choosy. As it turned out, the lobster he had his eye on disapeared while he went a little further out; do not miss opportunity is his mantra of the day!

This is me, reading a New Yorker magazine and looking out into the Atlantic looking for my husbands fins and snorkel. I stood in the shallow water, read a page...find husband...read a page...find husband...I would panic if I did not see him for over 3 minutes, started imagining things...horrid things.

Just one of the very cool little additions that Tucker has added to his island, on Crescent Beach. Today Veda L is the only boat in the marina, we even tended the office for awhile so Tucker could go to Staniel Cay to get a haircut. I started my day today by running all the trails around the island, took me 45 minutes and have no idea how far, but a lot of the sand trail was high above Crescent Beach, so it was a beautiful run.

The "no-seeum's" are out in full force, as the marina is surrounded by mangroves. We sprayed ourselves heavily so we could sit out on the bow to watch the sunset. A beautiful, still night. We took our canoe up the mangrove creek today to look for little fish, conch, etc in the "nursery"/shallow warm waters. No words to describe the water, reflections, and fish.

We prepare to leave Warderick Wells and I just had to take one more picture that really shows the channel that the current had "dredged" over the years creating this perfect mooring field for boaters. The eastern shore of the Cay is home to reefs formed by stromotolites, the oldest evidence of life on earth. These fragile, flat gray reefs date back to 3.5 billion years and were thought to be extinct until discovered in 1983.

Today we leave for Compass Cay (Key), weather is great and it will only be about an hour ride, our friend Tucker owns the place and has called us on the radio to say "will be good to have you back!" Bob is anxious to get on the edge of the Sea Park so we can cross over the boundary in order to do some "reef shopping" for dinner! Our Thanksgiving Day treat was to dive a reef that we had not been on for awhile within Warderick Wells, this good sized grouper was just settling into a perfect sized serving bowl...according to Bob's fish fantasy! This area is a spot that I call the Fan Garden as there are every variety of sea fans and corals that you can imagine.

This Bad Boy is a Lion fish, they damage reefs and are not indigenous to the Bahamas, however......as beautiful as butterflies as their fins flutter like feathers as they swim. We only saw one in the Sea Park two years ago, this year we have located at least 5 of them. The Park Warden may start capturing them and giving them to the government to decide if they should be given to aquariums, but they need to be removed from the Bahamian reef system.

Our Warderick Wells Cay home, as viewed from the top of Boo Boo Hill. Such an amazing phenomenon this safe "harbor" is! You can see the deep water that we sit in, about 15' deep which curves in a half moon surrounded by just enough small cays (pronounced keys) to give shelter. At low tide we still have plenty of water beneath us but we look out at just a couple feet of water covering the white sand bottom giving us a view of the lightest aquamarine waters! We dropped some scraps into the water after our Thanksgiving dinner and had a really display of jumping Jacks...the Horse-Eye Jack variety that is! Fish look about 25% larger underwater, but they had to be at least 2' long.

This is the 3+ ft Black Grouper that Bob will dream of tonight, I was taking a second picture of it when in the background I saw a good sized reef shark gliding into the frame...guess it's time to go back to the boat! Once back on Veda L we cleaned some shrimp on the aft deck and drew in a nurse shark along with "Bubba and The Jacks" the friendly barracuda named Bubba and his friends the Jacks.

This is one of 30+ good sized lobsters on a small reef which we have named Dinner Plate Reef, although protected we still think "melted butter" when we watch them scurry around. When they say "thick as cockroaches" it describes the lobsters on this reef. We also saw a Lion Fish which are very damaging to the reef eco-system, they are beautiful however, I will download a picture of one on my Picasa Photos.

Ahhhhh yes.... Tranquility and a slice of heaven; aquamarine waters, huge groupers, too many lobsters to count on a reef! I was going to get a second picture of a very large black grouper when what to my wondering eyes should appear but a nice sized reef shark just beyond my "subject" needless to say I did not take the second picture. What was funny is that the first time I got back into our tender after our first dive I had a hard time remembering how I would easily get back into the boat without the ladder; a good swift kick of the fins, grabbing the appropriate bar of the steering console, and whoosh I would be in! the second reef that we visited and Mr. Shark was in the water, I had no trouble remembering technique. Bob laughed and said "no problem getting in fast that time!" While cleaning shrimp for dinner off the aft deck we had a lot of splashing in the water below. we got out the spotlight thinking that my pal Mr. Reef Shark may be paying us a visit, but it was just Bubba the Barracuda and his pals the Jacks (Bubba and the Jacks) and a Nurse Shark.

We are now located in the Exuma Land and Sea Park, zoom in and have a look...

http://lindabesk.blogspot.com/

Life is Swell on Veda L!

We arrived at Warderick Wells Exuma Land and Sea Park yesterday just in time to celebrate Capt Bob's birthday! Today we did our first dive, at least 30 huge lobsters on the first reef we dove, they are all protected within the park of course, just look and not take! Then we went to the second reef and saw the biggest Black Grouper that we have seen in a long while...pictures only, Bob said "it was almost too big to take even if we were not in the park...it would feed us for a month". The park is surreal, we have been here probably 10 times in the past and feel like we just came home to tranquility and a slice of heaven.

Sunset we were inspired by as we cruised from Bimini to Nassau...good things to come! Now we are on our way to the Exuma land and Sea park in Wardrick Wells.

The water was swimming pool blue and clear as well.....water! Best part; it was smooth! We could see starfish along the bottom as we passed over them.

This profile of Veda L was taken at the dock in Bimini, I was in my jammies running down to dock so as not to miss it....crazzzy tourists!!!

This is the sunrise that made me jet out of bed in Bimini...

new photos!

I have updated my Picasa albums and "where in the world are Bob and Linda?"  Check us out at http://lindabesk.blogspot.com/

and Happy Thanksgiving to you all! 

Fwd: Nassau at 7:30 am Sunday

Whoo Hoo...Veda L is happy as she is in the right color of water....Aqua swimming pool blue!

We left Bimini around 2:00, and could not believe the beauty below us as we went around the north end of the island, over the Bahama banks (typcial 12-15' of water I suppose), the "bank" is shallow and then you get to the Tongue of the Ocean which is the abyss!  While cruising the banks it was light the whole way, you could see starfish on the bottom as we cruised over them, the water was like jello, unbelievable beauty.  Then the sunset came which certainly equaled if not surpassed the sunrise that morning.  Bimini has great beginnings and endings to days!  I went to bed right after sunset so I could take the helm at 10pm.  

I got up at 10:30, but Bob wanted to do the way points which had been previously set on his navagational system at Chubb Cay himself so I did not start my spell at the wheel until 12:00. Thank you Teddy for putting some great tunes on my Ipod which got me through the night, as we were passing Chubb Cay I saw a shooting star just as George Thoroughgood was having "one bourbon-one scotch-and one beer" quite the moment!  My battery power went dead at 4:00 and I gave myself a goal that if I could stay awake while my Ipod charged (always have to set goals....ya know!) I would reward myself with a Kalik beer so when Bob got up I would be extra sleepy to go to bed, so battery got charged and I had a 4:30 Kalik while enjoying the peace of a dark pilot house looking out at a gazillion stars dotting the skies.  Something very decadent about that.

Buddy is now sporting some new jewelry...after he jumped ship twice while coming south while docked, I bought him a safe collar when I was home, it has an auto release should he get hung up on something, it says "if I am out, I am lost" on the back I wrote "EMCY-life sustaining injections daily!" with our info.  I wanted something that would deter anyone from keeping him if found. Hopefully the rascal will keep his furry feet on the boat and not be such an escape artist from now on, but he scared me to pieces as I saw his furry backside going down the dock at Venice Florida. Guess he had heard they had a great restaurant....

Anyway...we entered the channel coming into Nassau around 6:30am, had to radio the harbor in order to get in line with the cruise ships that were coming in, and got to the dock at 7am.  We were both exhausted after the long night, and it really took both of us to concentrate on the markers and to make a safe landing at the dock, the same dock incidentally that we "bought" a light post for as we "took it out" upon leaving the last time....oooops.  We have worked on that particular technique since and hopefully when we leave today we won't take the light post with us.

After taking a well deserved nap we took a walk to McKenzies conch shack under the bridge that takes you to Paradise Island, Atlantis.  What disparity as you walk along the levee wall taking in the poverty of Nassau with Atlantis looming in the distance.  Once back to Veda L another nap seemed like the thing to do, then a good boat cleaning and early to bed.

Bob's goal was to be in Exuma Land and Sea Park for his birthday, and "Today is his Birthday...we're going to have a Good time!!!"  We should be in the Sea Park later this afternoon.  Google the park and have a look at it, a very special place but you can only look at large groupers, lobsters and such...no taking! 

As always....Life is Swell on Veda L! 

 

HOT DAMN DADDY...WE'RE GOIN' BOAT'N! That was the cry this morning from our bed as Bob announced at 5am that the wind had shifted and was now easterly. We will be off the dock by 6am and will be in Bimini around 2pm. I am excited as we have not been into Bimini before, we only anchored on the Bank, which was lovely shallow clear turqoise waters, but this is a new adventure. And "No, we did not trade in our boat to do cross-country, vs. cross-water...."
Our friend Dan Himes let us try out his Suzuki for a minute last night.

Even though I may need a jacket as it is a little cooler than Miami.....this little girl's smile surely warms my heart!

While Capt Bob is waiting for the weather to turn around so we can start our cruise across the Gulf Stream and Bahamas Bank and hopefully reach Exuma Sea Park by Thanksgiving, I get to enjoy this sweet face! Amelia, my my 7mth old grandaughter, and she is as sweet as she looks!

Buddy started digging into his gift bag from Stillwater Vet Clinic as soon as we secured Veda L to the dock in Miami, he said "for goodness sake Mom, the sun is hot, do I have to get my sunscreen out myself?

Buddy enjoys his bow seating while cruising through the canals of Pompano Beach past waterfront mansions wondering if there are any "rich cats" around.

The bow of Veda L enters downtown Miami, pretty weird boating through Miami, but very cool!