A Gulf of Mexico crossing is never complete without Dolphins coming along for playtime in your wake, this time a pod of Dolphins chose to glide along in our bow wake, switching from port to starboard as I crawled across the bow with my camera clicking away, this is a Mother and child, I see this quite a bit, and it is always touching as the Mom keeps her baby close to her within a fin's touch! We had a dreamy smooth crossing, never even used our stabilizers or had to alter course. Still a 24 hr crossing wears you out, so Apalachicola and their oysters were a welcome sight at lunch time when we arrived.

This picture was taken a couple of years ago during a Gulf of Mexico crossing, but I have yet to witness anything even close to it; I was in the pilot house and saw a dolphin leap high in the air, "Holy $@%!" and I ran for my camera, never thinking that I would get a repeat performance, not only did one jump but THREE dolphins jumped up, and they did it TWICE! The splash that followed was incredible as well. I did not have my camera set properly, and used the full telephoto, so it is not the clearest of photos, but what an experience to witness and capture! My comment was "did a dolphin show escape from Sea World during a hurricane?"

This was today! We were on our way from Apalachicola to Clearwater with a tummy full of oysters, we always see Dolphins in this area near Allanton in Wetappo Creek, and marked it as such on our chart; so I went out and started slapping the side of our hull with my hand to draw their attention to our boat, sure enough a pod of dolphins came along, and just when I thought that they were only going to glide alongside of us and depart, this one decided to give me a show! It is so exciting to capture the playfulness, and you can hear their chirping as they communicate. By the way, for every dolphin picture I get I miss 10 or more! Tough job being a dolphin photographer, almost as hard as taking pictures of sharks! (as you are fleeing!)

McKenzies! Always our first stop after leaving Compass Cay and arriving in Nassau, a short walk to Potters Cay for McKenzies conch salad, we have tried them all and they are the best! No sky juice today for Bob (or me), it is only $6.00 which seems like a real deal for the quantity you get...it comes in a very large cup, but is a mixture of coconut water, sweetened condensed milk and gin. Potters Cay is located under the bridge which leads from Nassau's downtown district to Atlantis on Paradise Island. As you walk along the waterfront it is amazing to see the half sunken boats and such on the Nassau side with the gleaming "Emerald City" type structure of Atlantis in the background.

As we left Nassau, passing all the cruise ships, and lastly the lighthouse on the point, we looked forward to a safe crossing over to Dinner Key Marina in Coconut Grove, just south of Miami proper. We were out in the Tongue of The Ocean during sunset, we cruised until about 2am at which time we were near Gun Cay and Cat Cay, we attempted to anchor in an area called Honeymoon Harbor which was not what we had in mind for a honeymoon....bad anchorage, hard bottom, as tired as we were we just wanted to get that anchor set and it refused to do it three times...finally on the fourth try we got it set. Thank God. Having all of your attention focused on what is in front of you in the dark and on the radar screen tires you out and we just needed sleep, gone on the days when we stay up past midnight! We crawled into bed at 3:30 and got up at 7am to start our crossing over to Dinner Key, some 4-5' seas as we passed through the cut between Gun and Cat, but then settled into a comfortable 3' the rest of the trip.

Stiltsville, I should google this to see who owns these, if they are Park Service owned or private. How they survive the hurricanes is beyond me, but are a welcome sight as we approach Key Biscayne, we know we are close to our destination.

Finally on May 6 we leave Miami...again. We left on May 5 but had a hose break and had to limp back to Dinner Key for repair. We had a beautiful ride past downtown Miami with the calm waters reflecting the tall buildings. Was early morning so we saw lots of joggers in the parks and trails surrounding the city. We saw a very old turtle pop his head up along the way to Pensacola, he was encrusted with barnacles and only peeked at us before descending into the waters.

Tucker, owner of Compass Cay Marina has these "pet" nurse sharks that come up on the dock at high tide (if you feed them!) so tonight Bob and I took left over fish scraps and lured them up on the dock, Bob was giving free massages to any takers. Guests are not allowed to feed them off their boats as it would draw in other varieties of sharks, if a Lemon or Tiger comes into the marina "nurse shark feeding area" Tucker has this long spiked handle that he pokes the rogues with and they seem to get the idea. I was snorkeling under the docks looking for Lionfish a while back and saw a lemon shark at the end of the pier, non-threatening, but needless to say I left his area... Tonight we saw crew chopping up fish off the "tender" to their 100+ yacht, and one of the family members was in the water with the sharks as they were being fed; Tucker told them not do feed off their yacht, and never, never get in the water when sharks are feeding, so Tucker said "oh well, just wait for the screams...they were warned"

This Flamingo Tongue was spotted by Bob while on our snorkel off Compass Cay cut, they are a shell/mollusk that you can find on sea fans.

Ahhhh, the joys of Bahama waters! Actually this was the small one, I was following Mama and Bob called me over to see "something" and it was this smaller one which at least stayed in one spot for me so I could take a few snapshots, he is missing the barb on the end of his tail, wonder who nabbed it, you can guess it was a shark.

I sent Bob down to take a picture of these fast little Chromis as he can hold his breath longer than I can, they move fast, I have been trying to get a clear picture of one of these pretty little neon blue fish the entire winter.... Bob had so much fun with my camera he said "do you think I could get to the point that I would just enjoy the water, take nothing and leave nothing but bubbles?" No. Picturing Bob with a camera and no spear is not even possible to conjur up.

Our last trip of the season back to Rum Cay, and Bob got us dinner for more than one night on a reef up by Flamingo Point. It is not easy to find good reefs around Rum Cay, but there is snorkeling....just not plentiful with fish and lobster, being out of season you would think you would see all kinds of little antennae sticking out from under ledges, but no. Plenty to do on the island though, if you like to surf they have boards and constant surfing adequate waves on the sound end near the creek to the salt pond.

Buddy finally got shore leave at Conception, we always let him go ashore at least once a season, he isn't allowed off at docks due to dogs and island cats that would surely pick on our domesticated "pussy" but Conception didn't have any dogs being let loose on shore due to only 2 boats in the anchorage, one being us. Buddy kept wanting to explore the jungle like brush however, so his shore leave had to be cut short. He doesn't mind riding in the tender at all, actually seems to enjoy it, letting the air blow through his hair!

Veda L at her anchorage at Conception, truly a beautiful spot, pristine clear waters offering view from your boat deck of dolphins surfacing in the bay, rays gliding through the waters beneath your boat, and then when you go snorkeling you get to experience being chased off the reef by lemon sharks whether you are spearing dinner or not. The Lemons are very prevelent here, so if you go I suggest letting the spear fishermen go in their direction on another reef and the snorkelers/photographers stay close together (so you can race each other back to the boat) and chose a different reef. Even so, we saw lemon sharks constantly, even within 2-3 feet of the shoreline and above reefs. A local divemaster in Exuma said that the warmer the water the closer they come in. Great. Conception is the only place in the Exumas where we have had these experiences.

Ah....the fronts have either stalled out or quit all together, giving us a reprieve from the dock at The Marina at Emerald Bay, now don't get us wrong...we love it there, but we came to the Bahamas to cruise, discover, and have adventures in the beautiful waters! Veda L is pictured here anchored at The Bight, off Freetown, Cat Island. Shallow waters to anchor in, and the crescent beach giving us a beautiful view of the island. Not only did we take the hike 206' up Mt Alvernia to visit The Hermitage which is a replica of a monestary built by Father Jerome, (Google history of Cat Island) but we also discovered The Catholic Church nearby that was also designed by him, anyone going to The Bight must walk the short distance to see it's Spanish architecture which is not common on the islands, step inside, it's open.

This is Lula's Place, in New Bight, Cat Island, one of many little "shacks" that line the beach, which we lovingly referred to as "the strip mall" Lula specializes in coconut treats, pies, cakes and homemade bread. She picks the coconuts and shreds them, I asked her how many she shreds a day and she said "oh about 7 or 8" She MUST have a cuisinart! We had a wonderful time here, she gave me a Kalik as change for my purchases, and her friend Pompei told us very interesting stories about the island's history, showing us where the first Dr, photographer and teacher lived in the settlement.

We left The Bight after two days and went around the island to Hawksnest Marina, the entrance shown above, where we found "courtesy bikes" to ride over to the restaurant for dinner, and internet service by the pool. We strolled the beach and found hammocks between palm trees that if we had gotten there earlier would have been a treat to hang out in with a good book by the sea. After our dinner we kept having near collisions while biking "home" as it was pitch dark out on this clear, moonless night and the stars above were putting on a fabulous show that we kept having to look at!

After Rum Cay we finally made it to Conception! This is surely my favorite spot in the Bahamas as it is totally uninhabited, has many coral reefs to dive on, a creek that you can dingy up (we took our canoe in) to see turtles basking in the clear warm shallows. We saw more juvenile Lemon Sharks than turtles however, which gave us the inkling that we would probably see the Mama and Papa sharks while diving the reefs....we did. A 6' Lemon Shark decided to pay us a visit while snorkeling/spearfishing a reef not far offshore. Richard, my friend and co-worker, who was cruising with us and I had a race to the boat to see who could propell themself into it first....so much for teamwork! Every man for himself. I don't mind them at a distance, you can see when a shark is showing signs of agressive behavior by arching it's back, lowering pectoral fins, etc., and this guy was just there for a cruise through the "supermarket" to see what we were shopping for. But,as we approached our tender, and we saw him on the other side of our tender while we were about 15' from it, and he made a U-Turn...that's when we made like rockets and launched! Yes, the Dr. says we should always get our heart rates up at least once a day!

"Uncle Bob and Mama Linda" as the Water Sports kids call us, they didn't know what to "name" me, so I told them what my son's friends call me, so now I'm Mama Linda! Bob has really enjoyed working with this great bunch of kids, between the water sports group and those who work at Emerald Bay Marina, we are surrounded by a fun group of young adults who not only work hard to make our stay fabulous, but have big hearts and will be friends forever. We have such a great time while our weather window is closed that it makes being "stuck" (a real misnomer) at Emerald Bay Marina just as fun as being out cruising!

The Straw Market in Georgetown, another fun stop. While looking for a bathroom, Deary, a merchant from the strawmarket said she would show me, she was going there too. Deary says "you will need some of this tissue that I keep in my boozum, and I will let you have the stall with the door, here is how you have to flush" Deary was a dear, and she happened to have the perfect basket that was a perfect fit for Buddy! I told her I was buying a basket to fit my cat, she said it took her a week to make it, $55, but as they say...."for Buddy....PRICELESS"











Buddy shows his appreciation by actually getting into his new basket and spending the afternoon there! He is thinking "It was about time folks!"




















Capt Dan and Bob dropped the tender into the water and were out of the marina within 15 minutes of returning from Compass Cay. This was to be Dan's last dip... after getting into the water and looking in holes and ledges for lobsters for only about 15 minutes, they found this prize lobster! Yes...very yummy too! Our neighbor who has not spearfished as yet now thinks this is real easy...you just get in the boat, go out for 30 minutes and come back with this.....yeah, right!

We are on our way to MN for two weeks, when we get back we really hope to make our way to Conception. Those turtles that breed in the creek really beckon me!

As always...LIFE IS SWELL ON VEDA L!