Another day of gin clear blue water & then back to traffic....Mansions & Nassau!

If ya gotta leave...this is the way to end our winter in the Bahamas, the most beautiful weather imaginable... then entering the Nassau harbor you pass a few of the above mansions, then find our slip at Nassau Harbor Club where we will wait for Dan Himes to join us on Memorial Day, then we head off to explore the Berry Islands.  Dan was our delivery capt when we bought Veda L in 1999, now I call him Bob's playmate as they both love the boating, diving, lobstering life, his playdate will last a week until we go back to Coconut Grove where he lives.  The lower left photo shows small patch reefs and soft coral in about 15' of water as we leave Rock Sound a couple days ago. The aqua blue water was our approach to Nassau yesterday.

Veda L...You are not in Eleuthera anymore! Click our sandals together and take us home!

Buddy at 19 is such a trooper!  He very politely requests his bounce or bounces every morning with a gentle tap on my leg while he looks up at me with a soft mew....  He is saying "Excuse me Ma'm but could I have just a few moments of your time for a lovely little bounce?  He has to be over my left shoulder and I have to pat his bottom softly and whisper sweet nothings in his furry little ears....  Just saw that the oldest cat alive according to Guinness is only 25 years old.  Buddy can surpass that as we know that purring is like yoga....his secret to longevity!  Note his puddy paws...6 toes that would make the Hemingway cats in Key West hide their pathetic little paws in shame!

No, Bob did not pick up someone else's catch when their head was turned; he caught every one of these 13 Mahi Mahi and 4 Tuna with his own fishing gear on Veda L!  We firmly believed that fish purposely veered off their course not to go near us, the only fish we felt were caught by us were very old or demented fish who probably wanted to end their lives.

This is Bob with Lyndon on the left (duh..really?) who is our friend, boat detailer and fish finder!  We met Lyndon last year  as he cleaned our boat on a weekly basis, then would ask us if we wanted to go fishing with him, who needed a guide right??   We have a boat, there is the sea...here is our bait....then the fish will come....WRONG.  This year we gave Lyndon a chance at fishing and the photos above were the end result.  We have never come back empty handed with him. but this was the ultimate!  We were just laughing each time he would yell FISH ON!  FISH ON!   FISH ON! as sometimes we had a fish on all three lines.  I lost one large bull Mahi that I was reeling in, and was secretly happy as it looked like his mate was swimming with him, of course Lyndon said "then we catch her too, then they be together!"  Bob and I decided that he has the eyes equivalent of an eagle as he would see frigate birds that we couldn't find with our binoculars.   

Just one of the interesting sights we see while taking our early morning walk...a circular pile of soldier crabs probably about a foot wide, upon close inspection (and with my macro lens) you can see the beautiful shells that they have chosen as their home, and according to Wikipedia.....this is their reproduction method.  Sex orgy...very indiscriminate.

Veda L was very happy to call this slip at Davis Harbour her home sweet slip since last November, we did leave on occasion, to go home for Christmas and to travel to Aruba, but mostly we stayed at Davis Harbour...and why not?  Great windsurfing...(See Bob Fly!) I clocked him at 25mph!  Fishing is great between "home" and Little San Salvadore , an hour and a half cruise, a lovely creek is great for my SUP, and the staff are beyond friendly, they are truly our family.
 

No photo shop needed....but I did SCREAM when I looked out the window after dinner and saw this!  It was so beautiful and intense that it was almost scary.  I took this from atop Veda L's fly bridge for the birds eye view.

The most fun ever...giving our Grandgirls their fist Bahama experience!  Rachael (top left with the seaweed "do") just emailed me and said that little Evie (3yrs) below on top left, is always talking about the Ah-hamas and tells stories of her trip,which is what this trip was all about...building confidence in new experiences.  The last night on the boat we watched the sun drop into the sea and Evie said "there goes my sun!"  Ms.Amelia took to being surfer girl on my SUP while at Exuma Land and Sea Park and took turns on it with Mom Rachael.  That is Amelia (bottom right) who came walking down the beach proclaiming that she had mermaid hair...she turned 5 while with us and we had a wonderful party at Compass Cay with marina owner Tucker Rolle and his Brother Preston as her special invited guests.  She said "I want some friends to come!"  So they did!  The kids rented a home on Compass Cay called Mango House, the girls would walk down to the boat to see us, but would call first on the hand held radio to let us know to meet them at "the picnic table" Lots of new things...no cell phones...hand held radio communications!

The girls were told to keep an eye out for orange spots in the water to see if they could find starfish, they found two HUGE star cushions,  Grandpa dove in to bring them up to pose for photos, and let the girls examine them, then Amelia said "it is alive, so we have to put it back now"  a good study she is!  Of course we had to go to Big Major's near Staniel Cay to feed the swimming pigs, and of course they tried to get in the tender...which made it fun!  Down Piggy!!   The girls have been in swimming lessons, but only used swim goggles.  We had kid sized mask/snorkel/fin sets for them and were more than surprised when Amelia was actually diving down under the water to count the nurse sharks that hang out at Compass Cay under the dock.  Amelia also went into the silver palm jungle growth to pick up this very large hermit crab, which did end up giving her a nip...and she gave it a flying lesson.......

Amelia says "my favorite color is sea foam blue"  and most often she was surrounded by it! We took a night off from Mango House and all spent the night on Veda L at the Exuma Land & Sea Park.  Headquarters shown on top.  The reconstructed bones of a whale show us what happens when plastic is ingested, as they have a bag of plastic items that was found in the whales stomach as it washed ashore.  Little Evie Rose is showing off the shell necklace that Grammy and her made while at the Sea Park.

Leaving Davis Harbour we spent the night anchored off Rock Sound after exploring Schooner Cays, the next day we enjoyed calm, gin clear water almost all the way to Shroud Cay where we picked up a mooring ball and spent the night.  We took a ride in the tender up the creek , through the middle of the Cay to the Sound,  as we went around the bend what should I see but a flippin' cairn.  I get cairns.  Being a hiker I was accustomed to seeing them along trails showing you the way, however.....  People building these piles of rocks just to show that they were there before you is to me a type of graffiti... I am a fan of leaving things as you find them in nature.  So, I did my thing and took it apart...there, fixed the view!  Thank you Bob for dropping me off on shore to do my thing!

Aruba!  We spent a month there during Carnaval so that I can once again "jump" in four of the parades, two of them being lighting parades and the others daytime events.  I think my feet are still tingling from all the dancing!  Strinda (who has been my very good friend since 1989) chooses the group with the best music and the sexiest costumes, a real good reason for me to keep working out for sure.  We had pleated wings that were lit for night time,  words cannot describe the feeling of the music, the beauty and the DANCING!  Even though we are in pain and tired, we don't want it to end. (there is not a shoe that feels good on your feet after dancing 6 hours)

Deep Creek Middle School is a very environmentally conscious school where the children design their own projects,such as recycling programs, reef protection ideas, conch & fishing sustainability,etc.   The main school building is shown upper left, below we have the recycling system shown to us by our student guides.  The next step these kids can take is to be involved in The Island School where they do hydro-planting, live in all solar powered dorms, and do research on eliminating lion fish from the reefs-which has been a huge cause of mine since they invaded the waters. At "graduation" they either swim 4 miles in the ocean or run a 10K....your choice!  Our guide at Island School was Luke who free dives 80' and is a student at MSU, down here doing research.  

Slipper Lobster brought up with just a glove for a photo op...pretty ugly, and very rare so we would never consider taking it.  The Lionfish on Bob's spear is our favorite way to serve them....fish kabob!  These little monsters can suck a reef dry of juveniles within a week, and you can see the damage they are doing with fewer fish on the reefs.  the boat load of Bahamians with not much freeboard were giving us "mercy conch" as we were not doing so well...and they were.  The other two photos were taken at "the bar" which is a shallow dive that I love, a sandbar that goes about 1/4 mile off shore and has depths of 2-15' is just a beautiful spot to find shells, sand dollars and such.  Bob follows me in the tender and collects the gems that I bring up.  One of my finds was a tulip shell that day.