Casstaway Cruising Chronicles – Part One: Bimini or Bust – TnT's Adventures on the SV Casstaway

Casstaway and crew, along with our buddy boat Lily Belle, arrived at South Bimini, Bahamas on a beautiful sunny afternoon, Friday, March 1^st after an uneventful (thankfully) journey from Rodriquez Key, near Key Largo, Florida. Even though wind direction wasn’t conducive to raising sails, we still had a lovely day making our very first blue water ocean crossing.

Bimini Big Game Club Restaurant

We spent two nights at Bimini Sands Marina with a quick ferry ride to Alice Town on North Bimini, where we enjoyed a delicious lunch at Bimini Big Game Club, a favorite haunt of Ernest Hemingway, commemorated by photos adorning the restaurant wall.

View of the beach in Alice Town

From Bimini we began and ended our short exploration of the Berry Islands by heading to Frazer’s Hog Cay, a rocky anchorage that shares its island home with the more well-known Chub Cay. This was planned to be a stop to wait out a weather front, something we would soon find to be a recurring theme.

Because of distance we broke up the trip to Frazer by overnighting on Mackie Shoal, part of the Elbow Bank, a large, shallow sand bank in the Atlantic. But the anticipated weather front teased us with an early appearance and we experienced our first squall, which made anchoring a wet and windy challenge. This gave us a good opportunity to practice using our PDFs, tethers, and jack lines to secure ourselves to the boat, which kept me from peeing my pants at the helm while Todd was standing on the bow setting the anchor. And what a strange experience it was to be tucked in my cozy cabin bed while floating overnight in the ocean with absolutely no land in sight!

Me modeling my PFD

(Personal Flotation Device)

Side note – In the Bahamas the small, rocky islands are spelled “cay” but still pronounced key, like Key West, Key Largo, etc. in the US. The word cay is derived from the Spanish word cayo, which means small island.

After Frazer’s Hog Cay it was on to New Providence, an island often simply called Nassau, after its largest city. Our two-night anchorage was at West Bay, about 20 miles southwest of Nassau.

A highlight of West Bay was its proximity to a fabulous Fresh Market grocery. Our Lily Belle boat buddies did the shopping while we stayed behind to watch boats, dinghy them back and forth to shore, and save cab fare. Happily, we departed West Bay with fresh produce, a luxury we found very little of on our continued journey – once again I am grateful for all the dehydrated fruits and veggies I stocked in our provisions.

Canisters of dehydrated fruits and vegetables

From West Bay, we made a VERY rough crossing to Highbourne Cay, our first stop in the Exumas. This video doesn’t do it justice!

View from the bar at Highbourne Cay Marina

Happily, our trip the next day was uneventful and, after a tricky entrance navigation, we arrived at the beautiful Highbourne Cay Marina, where Casstaway and Lily Belle were the only sailboats in a neighborhood of mega yachts. After I managed to do a nice job backing Casstaway into our slip next to Lily Belle, the four of us celebrated with on board cocktails until we were prematurely driven inside by the plethora of no-see-ems. Later that evening Mama Shark stopped by to welcome us and say goodnight.

Mama Shark Shark Shark 🎵🎵🎵

Exploring and boat chores took up most of the day, after which we were ready to enjoy a pre-dinner drink at the marina restaurant’s bar where we soaked in the gorgeous view.

Our two nights at Highbourne left us refreshed and ready to once again hit the high seas. I was even able to restock with fresh eggs and celery from the ship’s store.

Side-note – Mega yachts are prolific in the Bahamas. Each time I think we can’t run across a bigger one, here it comes. We have fantasized mightily about who owns or charters these things. The largest ones come complete with uniformed crew, a fleet of jet skis and other water toys, and giant slides. While daunting in the daytime, they do look very pretty when all lit at night in an anchorage. A quick online search revealed that it can cost up to $800,000 a week to charter one of the largest. Of course, it has 20, 2-passenger staterooms, so it’s really only $40,000 per couple. What a bargain.

Mega Yacht Slip and Slide

This one comes with its own helicopter

From Highbourne we travelled to two stops in the Exuma Land and Sea Park – Shroud Cay and Warderick Wells. At Shroud we took a fun dinghy ride with our boat buddies – snaking through an inland river that led to a beautiful beach on the Sound side of the island where the mega yacht crews transport and serve fancy picnics on the beach for their passengers. We, on the other hand, enjoyed our peanut butter crackers. We also experienced our first anchor alarm “drill” when, in the wee morning hours, our alarm alerted us that our anchor might be dragging. Probably fine, but with other boats close by we decided to err on the side of caution and pull anchor to move to a more wide-open spot. That move was our first time anchoring in the pitch-dark so we were very grateful for our Bluetooth head phones that allow us to easily communicate with each other from bow to helm.

Warderick Wells was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

Casstaway is the first boat on the left

We swam, hiked, enjoyed a Sundowners party on the beach with park staff and other boaters, and added our own personal memento to those that others have left on the top of BooBoo Hill as an offering to Poseidon. Communications in the park were pretty non-existent, but we did find one small space on the deck of the ranger station where, if you stood just so and held your arms at crazy angles, you could get a faint cell signal.

Our offering to Poseidon is the small,

colorful painting buried in the middle

of the shrine

Sundowners Party

Atop BooBoo Hill

Another view on BooBoo Hill

Continuing to cruise through the Exumas, we made a beautiful sail to our next anchorage at Black Pointe Settlement on Great Guana Cay. (This video shows how Captain Todd passes the time during a smooth sail).

Black Pointe’s claims to fame are its fabulous laundry (hard to believe we could get so excited about getting to do laundry) and Lorraine’s Mom’s bread – we just knocked on her door and she welcomed us to her kitchen to choose from her selection of fresh-from-the-oven baked goods. Her coconut bread is all the rage – I made French toast the next morning with ours and it was oh so delicious! On Black Pointe I also conducted my own personal rum punch taste test, enjoying one from each of the three restaurants in town. I’m the one who came out the winner in
that contest. We also shared a pizza with our boat buddies, which they had to pre-order several hours before dinner, and some delicious fresh onion rings – quite a treat after the frozen rings so common in the US.

A stop during my rum punch taste-test research

On the flip side, not so pleasant were the dinghy docks. Because the tides have such a large swing at Black Pointe a dinghy dock can be eight feet or more above the water. Getting in and out of the dinghy entails a precarious climb up and down a straight ladder with little to grasp for security. I did not find this fun.

Sharks greeting us a one of the

Black Pointe docks

From Black Pointe it was on to a lovely anchorage nestled between Normans Pond Cay, Lee Stocking Island, and Leaf Cay, home of the famous pink iguanas. Here we planned to stay for two or three nights to once again wait out a weather front. Luckily, our anchor held fast even in the high winds. But our nearest neighbors did not, and we found ourselves simultaneously grabbing our horn, the VHF, and preparing to possibly fend off a 48-foot sailboat from our stern seats. Gratefully, we reached the other crew by radio, they had fast reaction time, and a collision was narrowly avoided. Can we say “anchor alarm” folks?!

“Iggy”

The last stop on our Exumas tour was Great Exuma Island where we had reservations at The Marina at Emerald Bay. The Marina is nicely situated near Grand Isle Resort and a Sandals resort.

The Marina at Emerald Bay Club House

The first afternoon was devoted to rum punch (once again) and fabulous cheeseburgers at Grand Isle’s pool side restaurant. The next two days we joined our boat buddies in renting a car and exploring more of the island including George Town, the largest settlement in the Exumas. Part of our exploration was a hunt for fresh produce, which required us to visit all six of the grocery stores on the island. Just our luck the supply boat had arrived that day and we came away successfully provisioned.

We found our special place on the road to Georgetown

We also spent a decadent day at Grand Isle lunching, sunning around the pool, and once again indulging in rum punch and other assorted frosty beverages.

Lounging around the pool at Grand Isle Resort

After five nights at Emerald Bay we sadly said goodbye to our boat buddies, Perry and Angela Covey. Perry was preparing to fly overseas for a month of work and Angela will be staying in Emerald Bay until he returns, when they will resume their Bahamas journey throughout June. But Casstaway must be back stateside for a family wedding in May and a much-needed grandchildren fix. However, do not despair, we anticipate much fun and adventure on the return journey, which we will detail in part two of these chronicles.