No Foreign Land

Every once in a while, you stumble upon some website or application that makes cruising life easier.  In the past I've written about a few.  On my current Bahamas trip, I was introduced to another that replaces an older standby that (in my humble opinion) isn't as good as it once was, so I thought I would share.

I don't remember when I had first learned of the old standby Active Captain, but when I did, it was a game changer.  It was quickly apparent that crowd-sourced data could be much more timely and up to date than relying on the limited guide books, paper charts, and other traditional sources of sailing information.

Unfortunately, as often happens when a large company finds out about a popular and good idea, they purchase it and try to figure out how to make it an advantage for themselves and not their competition.  And, in this case, I think the new owner effectively reduced the size of the "crowd" and the quality and timeliness of the data.  I don't blame the creator of Active Captain, he did a lot of work and deserved a reward.  So, while I occasionally still looked at Active Captain (when I could get the site to work), it was no longer a go-to place for good boating information.

In steps NoForeignLand.com

I was initially asked if I was on NoForeignLand by another cruising couple in Bimini.  I said I was not, and frankly, I thought to myself that I didn't really want another social platform to deal with.  I almost didn't bother looking into it.  But I was told it included the ability to provide position reports on a map and I thought "hmmm...well, maybe that would be good for our parents and friends to follow along on where we are".  So, I decided to give it a look.

Boy am I glad I did. It is a website with apps available for Android and Apple. Yes, it has a social function and can track where you are (if you want it to). But more useful to me, it has a wealth of crowd-sourced data on marinas, anchorages, places to visit, sources for supplies and provisions, boat yards, navigation hazards, and more.  Since we started using it, we have found a few nice anchorages and places to visit.  We also used it to find provisioning stops and parts.  I'm still learning all of its features, but so far I am quite impressed.

Screen capture of the NoForeignLand
site with our boat highlighted

The app and website were created and are maintained by a couple of active cruisers and seem to have many participants all over the world.  So, if you are looking for a replacement for what Active Captain used to be, I would highly recommend giving it a look.  Like me, I think you will be glad you did.

Smilin' Like Eleut'ra

 If there is one thing to say about the sailing lifestyle, it is dominated by the weather.  On a good day, it propels you to where you want to go with good speed and minimum turbulence.  On bad days, you hunker down and do your best to hide from it.  The rest of the time it wavers somewhere in between.  And most of the time, the wind seems to be coming from the direction you want to go.

Our short trip from the Glass Window anchorage to Hatchet Bay was no exception.  To sail straight there, the wind would be within 15 degrees of right on our nose.  Our boat can go about 40° into the wind, but is faster if you bear away to about 50°. If we wanted to go straight there, we would have to motor.  But we are a sailboat and diesel is around $6/gallon here, so we tacked our way down to Hatchet Bay.

The entrance to Hatchet Bay 

The Hatchet Bay entrance is interesting.  The "bay" was actually an inland salt water lake near the rocky shoreline, and someone decided to make a cut through the rock so it could be accessed by boat.  The cut is narrow, but once inside, there is excellent protection from the wind in all directions.  If memory serves, we decided to go there, in part, to hide from an approaching cold front.  We squeeze through the entrance and find a spot to drop the anchor, alongside several other boats that were doing the same.

Not a wide cut through the rocks

A fair amount of room once you are inside

There are a few interesting things to do here.  There is another inland salt water lake you can walk to and go snorkeling.  It was said there was some interesting life in this lake, including a large number of sea horses.  We made the walk and went snorkeling there.  After the walk on a warm day, the relatively cool water felt good.  We saw a number of starfish, some interesting coral, and other creatures.  I thought the seahorses would be easier to spot, but they were quite elusive.  I did see one, but our friends on ICat were better with the underwater photography and managed to snap a couple pictures of them.

Can you see the horse?

Alice Town, a small settlement, sits at the southern shore of the bay, and we decided to visit there.  We figured we would check out the town and grab dinner while we were out (we also needed to drop off a little trash while we were there...on a boat you try to minimize trash production,  but it can't be entirely eliminated).  Unfortunately, it was Sunday and just about everything was closed.  We wandered about town for a bit and ended back at the dinghy dock and one of the few places that opened around 4pm.  

Wandering the quiet streets
of Alice Town

Boaters Haven is a cruiser focused business that runs(?) the dinghy dock, a convenience store with some supplies, a small restaurant, and a bar with a patio that overlooks the bay.  The food and drink prices were quite reasonable, particularly by Bahamian standards: $2 sodas, $4 bottled adult beverages, and a $9 fish sandwich that was quite tasty.  But the best part of this place is Emmitt (the owner?).  In addition to running the business and apparently a small farm, he is also a musician.  He entertains his guests with some original songs and covers and truly makes an evening there memorable.  To Emmit and crew, thank you for a wonderful evening and meal!

Emmitt entertaining at Boaters Haven

One other thing we wanted to check out after the weather passed was a small cave you could dinghy into if the weather and tides were right.  It sits outside and just south of the bay.  It was interesting to take a dinghy into a hole in the side of the island.

A dinghy in a cave

After a few days in Hatchet Bay, we decided we wanted to find a bit less crowded anchorage and left to visit the Pineapple Cays just off of South Palmetto Point.

 

Spanish Wells, Windows, and Baths

We moved the boat from the more protected anchorage by Hoffman's Blue Hole and back to where we anchored the first day so we could get an early start heading for Eleuthera.  We made our way out the cut between Hoffman's and Devils cays, raised the sails, and pointed the bow towards Eleuthera.

Since arriving in Bimini, we have done our best to sail and not motor, and this was no exception.  The ideal wind would be from the side, or beam, of the boat.  This day, like many, it was a little forward of that, but still a decent angle and we made reasonable time without having to burn any diesel.  Still, we sailed a bit slower than we wanted, perhaps because we are a bit loaded down with supplies or that the bottom of the hull could stand a light cleaning.  This wouldn't have been bad, except a bit of a thunderstorm had developed and moved in right as we got into the shallow waters on the approach to Spanish Wells.  At one point, we considered diverting to an alternate anchorage, but decided to push on through so we would be near the town in the morning.

The winds clocked around until they were right on our nose, so we dropped the sails and started the motors.  Then the heavy rain started.  It reduced visibility to about a quarter mile and we were using sound signals and the chartplotter to navigate through it.  I was starting to wonder if we had made a mistake by not diverting, but the storm eventually passed and we were able to see boats and the Meeks Patch island where we intended to anchor.  The storm had further slowed us, so we dropped anchor at dusk and settled in for the night.  It wasn't until we were done that we noticed we actually anchored about 200 yards from iCat.

The weather improved overnight and in the morning we repositioned our boats to an anchorage just outside the entrance to Spanish Wells harbor.  From there we launched the dinghy to explore town with the crew of iCat and do a little shopping.  Spanish Wells, although smaller than Bimini, had much more to offer.  A couple grocery stores (one very well stocked and reasonable prices, at least by Bahamas standards), hardware store, liquor store, and several restaurants. They even had a boatyard and 2 marine stores, one of which had the hose I was looking for.  In addition to the hose, we picked up some fresh produce, eggs, and a couple other items on our excursion.  We had lunch at a local restaurant on the waterfront.  It was a successful trip.

The next day we left Spanish Wells and headed south around Current Cay to Glass Window and the Queen's Baths.  We unfortunately got a late start and missed slack tide at Current Cut and had to go the long way around through Flemming Channel.  Although wider than Current Cut, the current and wind made the channel a bit of a rough ride as the current opposed the wind direction.  We arrived late at the anchorage after once again sailing all the way (except for a brief bit in the channel), dropped the hook, had dinner, and went to bed.

Glass Window Bridge

The following day we visited the Glass Window Bridge and the Queen's Baths.  The bridge is the thinnest point on the island and shows the vast difference between the shallow waters of the Bight of Eleuthera to the west and the deep Atlantic ocean to the east. The Queen's Baths are pools formed in the rocky shoreline that are heated by the sun.  The water in the pools is saltwater, although I'm not sure how they are filled as many seem to be well above the coastline.  I guess I could see a queen taking a soak here, there were several visitors doing the same.

The crew of Rover and ICat

Small pools at the Baths

The waves crash at the Baths

Since the anchorage we were at had nice clean water surrounding the boat, we also decided it was time to break out the watermaker and replenish our fresh water supply.  We last filled our tanks a couple days before leaving Bimini and one was now empty.  Since it had been a while since we used the watermaker, I also wanted to make sure it was working.  We fired up the generator and proceeded to slowly turn Seawater into fresh until our tanks were once again full.  I wondered if the inverter could run the Rainman watermaker, but it didn't work.  Too bad, it would be nice to be able to make a little water when we had excess solar power to burn.  We also gave the underside a little cleaning.  There was some soft growth and our friends suggested using cut-resistant gloves to brush it off and that worked well.

Pretty water at the anchorage 

Next we decided to check out Hatchet Bay and Alice Town....

Berries, Beaches, Blue Holes and Cruise Ships

The weather was calling for light winds during the morning and early afternoon that would pick up overnight, so we decided to leave Bimini around noon.  Our choice was to sail to Mackie Shoal, anchor there (in the middle of the Great Bahama Bank) with no land in sight, and then continue on to Great Harbour Cay in the Berries...or...to sail overnight and arrive in the Berries the following day without the stop at Mackie.  Since the wind was supposed to pick up a bit overnight, I wasn't sure we wanted to anchor on the shoal and decided to make the overnight passage.  The winds were mostly as predicted and the first half of the sail was slow, but picked up overnight as we passed north of the shoal, and we had better winds the rest of the way to the Berries.

We hadn't decided if we wanted to stop at a marina or just anchor out, but as we listened to the radio traffic in Great Harbour, we found the decision was made for us.  The marina was booked and they had a waiting list.  We made our way around the north end and anchored behind Great Stirrup Cay in a location where we should have decent protection from the higher winds expected the following day.  This is where we got to experience the impact the cruise lines have had on The Bahamas.

Royal Carribean and Norwegian Cruise Ships

Great Stirrup Cay was purchased by Norwegian Cruise Lines, and its little neighbor to the east was renamed Coco Cay and is owned or leased by Royal Caribbean.  These are the private stops the cruise lines advertise about.  The Royal Caribbean island looks like a carnival with amusement park rides and all sorts of other entertainment.  The Norwegian setup was a bit more subdued.  They obviously had jet ski rentals, and there was a brigade of them that circled the more protected anchorage any time a cruise ship was present.

We found one other boat, Féale, there when we arrived.  As we searched for a good spot to drop the hook, the other captain came out on deck and shouted over to us that the whole area had about 10 foot depths and sand with some grass spots (we were trying to determine if the dark spots were coral or grass...still getting used to even seeing the bottom as it is uncommon on the eastern US coast) which was very helpful.  We dropped anchor in a nice sandy spot.  The  crew of the other boat came by and introduced themselves.  We chatted for a bit.  They are a French Canadian couple out cruising.  Stéphane and Brigitte, it was very nice to meet you.

A short time later, Whisper also showed up.  When they left Bimini, their plan was to anchor on Mackie Shoal and then continue on to Chub cay, so it was a nice surprise to see them again.  The next morning, we all repositioned our boats closer to Great Stirrup as it would better protect us from the forecast winds and waves that day.  Before Whisper had moved, we saw a bunch of jet skis zipping past their boat...it almost looked like a rodeo.  When they moved, I don't think they ran over any of them, but I don't know that I would have blamed them if they did.

After repositioning the boats, Stéphane and Brigitte joined us to go check out the lighthouse on Great Stirrup as several guides said it was a nice walk.  Shortly after we landed the dinghies on the beach, two security guards stopped by and informed us that the entire island was now private and we could not.  Thanks Norwegian.  They did say we could stay on the beach for a bit (and took our pictures), so we sat there on the beach and chatted a bit more.  A second security guard came by, took our names, and told us again (a bit more politely than the first) that it was private and we were only allowed to be there up to the high water line.  Before a third round of security might show up, we decided to go back to our boats.  Later that evening we invited them and the crew of Whisper over for sundowners.  We had a nice evening in good company as the sun set.

Petit Cay

With the cruise ship circus, the crews of Whisper and Rover decided to sail around the east side of Great Harbor and anchor behind Petit Cay before heading further down the island chain to Hoffman's Cay.  This proved to be a good decision.  No cruise ships in sight and Petit wasn't private, so we could go ashore and enjoy the beach.  The anchorage was calm and there were only a few cruising boats anchored at the other side of the bay.  We took the dinghy to shore and stretched our legs walking along the beach.

The next day we continued on to Hoffman's Cay.  Whisper arrived first but couldn't determine how to go in safely so they headed to an alternate anchorage to the south.  When we arrived, we were able to enter the cut and weighed anchor behind the adjacent Gaulding Cay.  We wanted to get to a different anchorage that was better protected, but it was low tide and we weren't sure we could make it until the next days high tide.  We also wanted to go to that anchorage, in part, because the Swiss friends we met in Charleston were there.  A short time after anchoring, Stéphane rowed over in his kayak and said hi and that they too decided to come to Hoffman's. He said he was able to skirt near the southwest shore of the key and saw reasonable water depth.

So, in the morning we tried their route, but the water got uncomfortably shallow for our wide boat and then we ran aground trying to back out (after the port engine developed a lack-of-thrust problem).  A good samaritan helped pull us off the sandbar with their dinghy, and we motored on the other engine back to the spot we just left.  I let the engine cool down a bit and go investigate.  The shaft coupler had loosened and while the transmission would turn, the shaft was not.  I check the shaft and retighten the coupler and it was once again behaving normally.  We debate if we should attempt to go to that anchorage again or just stay put.  Whisper arrived a short time later and anchored near us.

Hoffman's Blue Hole Anchorage with iCat

Eventually we did try again, but this time we took a longer route that our friends on iCat used and we successfully anchored behind Hoffman's near a beach and a blue hole. We spent the next few days exploring the island and hosted a couple dinners for our friends.  

Dinghy ride to the Blue Hole
trailhead on Hoffman's

A few interesting things on the beach

Hoffman's Blue Hole

The eastern shore of Hoffman's Cay

On one excursion, we came upon a wrecked boat that had been washed up on shore for a while.  There wasn't much left of the boat, but surprisingly, it had a piece of hose that might work should my radiator hose patch fail. So we made a second trip to do a little beach savenger "shopping" and returned with a piece of hose that isn't in too bad of shape.  Amazing what you can find laying around on a beach.

This was more like it.  Beautiful water, tropical islands to explore, friends to share with, and no pesky cruise ships. We did find out that several of the islands, including Hoffman's Cay, were for sale.  I do hope the Bahamas doesn't sell off all their islands as this is the attraction for cruisers visiting this place.

After several days, it was time to move on, weather permitting of course.  We, and the crew of iCat, decided the winds would allow us to head to Spanish Wells on Eleuthera.  Our original plan...if you can call our musings a plan...was to head to the Exumas, but that would be directly into the wind, so next stop Eleuthera.

A Few Days in Bimini

I can't say I was all that impressed with North Bimini.  The water is the clear blue and turquoise that you see in pictures of the Bahamas.  The island itself seems to serve two purposes.  It is a convenient place for cruisers to clear in with customs and immigration and a relatively easy weekend getaway for those in Southern Florida.

The beach at the south end of North Bimini

The southern half of North Bimini is the older town.  Several marinas, liquor stores,  bars, and a few grocery and other stores.  The northern end of the island is being developed as a resort.  The Hilton, the cruise ship port, a couple of nicer marinas (including where we checked in), the passenger ferry terminal, and the sea plane base are all there.  There is a definite and visible difference in the economic status of the two ends of the island.  Money is being spent to make improvements in the north, and much of the south is being left behind.  The north end shops and some of the touristy south end shops are only open when a cruise ship is in port.  There was a bar at Fisherman's Village that closed at 4pm after the ferry and cruise ship left.

Not every day you get waked by a plane
...in a no wake zone.

There is a small store called Dolphin Electronics that we visited first.  This is more of a cell phone store than electronics shop.  We were there to pick up an Aliv wifi hotspot device and a BTC sim card for the phone.  The hotspot was reported as being an economical option for internet ($90 for the device and $90/month for 125gb of data) with decent coverage in the Bahamas.  Starlink seems to be the better choice for internet, but at $500 for the device and $150/month, it is less economical.

My quest to find a replacement radiator hose did not go well.  Despite there being numerous cars, boats, and golf carts on the island and many transportation options for delivery of merchandise, I was unable to find any suitable hose.  The hardware store, two general stores, a place called Moon Glow (which, despite what the name might suggest, is the closest thing they have to an auto parts store) had none. I even found a couple of 'shade tree car mechanics" who tried their best but didn't have anything appropriate.  Fortunately the rescue tape repair was holding up well, so it will continue to be used until a better replacement can be found.

The "main road" in North Bimini, near
The electronics store.

The highlight of the stop here were the nice locals we met.  The customs and immigration people were professional, yet friendly and welcoming. Josh, at Fisherman's Village marina was very helpful on our arrival with advice and recommendations.  Al, at the second marina we stayed at (after determining the first marina was no bargain once all the resort fees were added to the dockage rate), was very friendly and chill.  And then there was Anton at Smitty's Beach bar, who wins the award for hospitality.

The crew of Whisper and us went to Smitty's the second night and had a few drinks and a nice dinner.  Toward the end of the evening a crazy wind started blowing everything around and we pitched in to help him get things secured and chase menus and placemats around.  As a thanks for the help, he bought us a round and then insisted we not walk back to the marina and instead drove us there after closing up shop.  Anton, thank you!

After a few days in Bimini, it was feeling that it was time to move on and find the real Bahamas...next stop, the Berry islands.