Jessica's Vacation

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May 21, 2016 – Saturday – Jessica Arrives!

It was a long morning of waiting for Jessica to arrive at the Staniel Cay Airport.  We killed some time by working on the cockpit seat that Bill had installed earlier for fishing.  The seat worked but not well and some additional parts needed to be installed so the seat would close easier.  What was thought (by Bill) to be a short job ended up being a very long and complicated job (as usual).  In order for the seat to slide in and open easier some plastic slides needed to be installed.  This meant moving the seat about a ½ inch toward the wall of the boat.  When we did that, the seat now hits on the outside of the side step.  This is definitely a problem and not acceptable.  Thus it took Bill about an hour or more to figure out how to fix the problem, move the cabinet slightly and then reattach the seat.  Meanwhile I had to keep holding up the seat, which was very heavy so he could keep checking the measurements.  After all of that, we ran out of time so we went to Staniel Cay to meet Jessica without finishing the seat.  The seat is re-hung but the slides to make it open easier which was the original project is still incomplete.

Jessica finally arrived right on time.  It was great to see her!  Jessica said that they did not go into Black Point as the schedule indicated, but came directly from Nassau.  She got a kick out of taking the golf cart to the marina and then our tender to Compass Cay Marina which is about 7 miles away.  She immediately loved the water colors and the adventure.  Upon arriving back at the boat we all took a swim behind the boat and enjoyed the “aquarium-like” adventure and the nurse sharks. 

Staniel Cay Airport - Flamingo Air

 

Sunday, May 22 – Day 26

Today we took Stewart over to a sandy island on the southern end of the Land & Sea Exuma National Park and let him run.  To our surprise, Stew found the sun quite hot and decided that he was not interested in a flat out run today, walking was just fine.  He even decided to cool his feet in the water.  For those readers who are not aware, Stew hates water and never thrilled with getting wet so this was quite a surprise. 

After a few minutes at Stew beach we headed over to Rachael’s Bubble Bath on the northern end of Compass Cay.   We walked the creek to Rachael’s and enjoyed a cool swim. 

 

Rachael's Bubble Bath, Compass Cay

Monday, May 23 – Day 27

What a great day of fishing.  The seas were calm and in about an hour and a half we had 2 Blackfin Tuna and 2 large Dolphin (Mahi).

Black Tuna



Dolphin (Mahi Mahi)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, May 24 – Day 28

Morning we headed to Staniel to get fuel for both the Marlin Striker and the tender.  After that we headed out of Staniel to do a little more fishing.  This was not a very fishy day for dolphin or tuna.  We could not find a bird in sight and the seas were beginning to get rougher.  So after a couple of hours we headed in closer to shore to go after some Barracuda.  The barracuda make great bait for deep drop fishing which we hope to do in Abaco with our friends Glenn and Laurie.  We had great success.  Jessica caught her first barracuda. 

Wednesday, May 25 – Day 29

Today was off in the morning to the Sea Aquarium.  After the sea aquarium we went over to check out the caves.  These caves you have to swim underwater to get into them.  The wind and waves were pushing directing into the opening of the caves so Bill decided he would check it out before we all got in.  To his surprise it was not the waves that sent him back to the boat, but an about seven (7) foot barracuda that was guarding the entrance.  Given the circumstances we decide to try the caves another day and returned to Rachael’s once again.  Today the ocean waves were rolling right into Rachael’s so we thought it would be a little more interesting for Jessica.  She enjoyed the “bubbles” and crashing waves. 

After some threatening afternoon thunderstorms we headed back over to the caves for another try.  This time the tide was very low and there were many rocks showing along with the easterly wind and waves rolling into the entrance.  Tomorrow is another day and that may prove a better and safer experience. 

Thursday, May 26 – Day 30



Sea Aquarium between Soldier Cay and O'Brien Cay

The wind is still quite strong out of the east so we gave up on going to the caves again this morning.  We had a restful, quiet morning which bored Jessica but there was not much else we could do as we planned on leaving Compass Cay late morning and moving to Staniel Cay Yacht Club (Marina) for her last couple of nights.  Although we called to see if our slip was vacant before we left Compass, we ended up waiting over an hour idling once we arrived at Staniel.  While waiting for some people who had decided to pull in and go to the bar for the afternoon, we topped off our fuel and unloaded our tender.  Once we finally got our slip, we immediately headed over to Big Major with the tender to “feed the pigs”.  Jessica loved the swimming pigs. 

 

 

Big Major - Swimming Pigs

 

Friday, May 27 – Day 31

This was a full day of going back to Rocky Dundas caves.  The weather and seas were perfect today for this adventure.  We then cruised back to   Bitter Guana Cay where we got a lot of laughs watching the iguanas.  These are the endangered Cayman iguanas which now only exist in the Bahamas. 

Bitter Ghana Cay - Iguana Beach

 

 

Saturday, May 28 – Day 32

Jessica leaves to go back to New Hampshire at 8:50 AM and we are head to Hurricane Hole Marina in Nassau.