Peggy’s Trail, Tubing and Games in Warderick Wells Cay, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

On Thursday, March 19, we pulled up anchor first thing in the morning. As had been forecast, it was raining with no wind. The lack of wind meant there was a lot of slack in the chain, so it was easy to get the snubber off and the anchor up, and we didn’t have to be out in the rain for long. Because there was no wind, we’d been doing circles around the anchor.

We left near high tide, on the rising tide. We were following the previous track that we’d taken in, so there wasn’t the anxiety going through the pass today that there had been on Monday when we weren’t 100% sure of the depths. Thanks to the lack of wind, it was a comfortable 2.5 hour ride to Warderick Wells Cay, though it did rain lightly the whole time.

The catamarans we were meeting had anchored in the same area that we’d anchored in at Christmas. The water in that anchorage was, for the most part, too shallow for us. Eric managed to thread through the narrow, slightly deeper channel to score the lone deep spot amongst them. We had to go out in the rain to anchor.

By the time Keith and Christi had finished schoolwork, the rain had stopped. Zimovia took all 9 kids (between the four boats) tubing. They ran two tubes at a time to maximize the number of kids being pulled per run.

Afterwards, the kids hung out of the beach for a little while.

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Snorkeling The Aquarium and a Small Plane Wreck, Then Back to Big Major

Even at 1/4 full, the moon was amazingly bright on Wednesday, March 11

Dawn

Yesterday morning, Tiki Tour arrived in the anchorage. After all the kids had finished school, the other four families took their dinghies to Rachel’s Bubble Bath. Keith tagged along with them. Eric and Christi stayed aboard Kosmos. They worked on getting things ready for Keith’s upcoming birthday party, including baking more cupcakes. Christi also worked on her land life project, and was thrilled about accomplishing something important (or so she thought). It felt like the anchorage was a bit rollier today than it had been yesterday.  

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Trying to get to Thunderbolt Grotto, Staniel Cay, Exuma Islands, The Bahamas

The moon was not full anymore, but still shone vividly at dawn on Thursday, March 5

We’d arranged to meet two of the families at Thunderball Grotto at 0900, which was slack high tide. We were leery about getting in and out of the cave at high tide, but they assured us that it would not be a problem and said they thought it was better to go when there was no current. 

We left Kosmos at 8:40, figuring it would take us 20-minutes to get there. But even though it was supposed to be nearly slack tide, the current was strong and our little 3 hp electric motor struggled. For a portion of the time, we were only going a little over one knot. It took 40-minutes to get there. Eric was frustrated. He’s been contemplating switching to a fast gas motor for the last few months, and he announced that this was the last straw – he was buying a new motor. When we got to the cave, we could barely see the entrance. We don’t think we would have been able to find it at all had we not been there before.

As our friends had assured us, getting in was not difficult. Here was a selfie with a view of the entrance from the inside.

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Hiking to a Viewpoint in Hog Cay, Ragged Islands, The Bahamas

Sunrise on Tuesday, February 17

Our friends on Tiki Tour were at an anchorage a couple miles away from us. This morning, they sent a text saying that they were coming over to visit in their dinghy. Since we’d last seen them, they’d picked up another set of guests, who were a family that used to cruise on a boat called Betsy. Betsy came, too. Sadly, their timing was terrible because all of the other families in the anchorage had taken their dinghies to town today to meet the supply ship. The other families would have been thrilled to see Tiki and Betsy again.

Tiki arrived armed with paint because they’d heard through the grapevine that their sign had faded. The first thing they did was refresh their sign.

Then they loaned us their paint and Eric painted a Kosmos sign.

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Keith’s Perspective on Long Island and Trekking Through the Exumas/Le point de vue de Keith sur Long Island et la randonnée dans les Exumas

Saturday, February 7 – Friday, February 13 – This week has been very fun. On Saturday, all of the families rented cars. We went in a van with Blue Heeler. We went to a cave and a few other boring places, then went to Dean’s Blue Hole, one of the deepest blue holes in the world. We met up with Tiki Tour, Zimovia and Another Summer there. 

The people who rented the cars brought them to us at Tiny’s

Cette semaine était très amusante. Samedi, toutes les familles ont loué des voitures. Nous sommes allés dans un van avec Blue Heeler. Nous sommes allés à une grotte et d’autres endroits ennuyants, puis nous sommes allés à Dean’s Blue Hole, un des blue hole les plus profond en monde. On y a vu Tiki Tour, Zimovia et Another Summer.

Inside Hamilton Cave
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