Past Halfway Around

We are pinned down in Spanish Wells by north winds preventing our further travel north. Yes, north.

We have been working north for about two weeks, having picked up friends Marty and Sue Wells at Staniel Cay, after leaving George Town for the last time on this cruise. Sue and Jennifer were roommates many moons ago at Northfield Mt Hermon. We had a great time time showing them the Exumas and at every hop the latitudes got a little bit higher. Now we are halfway through 25oN and heading for the Abacos to meet the Manta fleet for the first-ever reunion Migration of Mantas. But its a big run across big water via a tricky cut through coral and breaking seas, and we are less than willing to go bashing out under conditions that will make it harder than it has to be.

So, Spanish Wells. Turns out this is an outpost of Puritans who emigrated from Bermuda in 1648 (yes, 350 years ago) not long after our own batch arrived in Plymouth. Their ship was wrecked on arrival on the Devil's Backbone that runs along the top of Eleuthra. This is the reef that we may cross ourselves , but using GPS and good charts, and in good conditions it is not so scary. The “Eleuthran Adventurers” took refuge in a large cave with their clothes and very little food. Some help was received from England and a little from the colonies. Most settled on Spanish Wells and lived a subsistence living from 1650-1950, with power and city water only recently established. Spanish Wells is a charming town of quaint cottages and sturdy working waterfront, with a sustainable fishing and lobstering industry.

Welcome to Spanish Wells

where they work hard

at fishing and lobstering. 

The Point. 

Flowers everywhere.

 

The town is unique in the Bahamas in its culture and industry. Like all other Bahamians, they have had to carve a life for themselves out of these rocks and have done so with ingenuity and hard work to build a large and successful industry of commercial lobstering. They don't use traps, they use “hotels” which regenerate the populations that they are harvesting, and divers to do the harvesting of 4-8 adult bugs per hotel. GPS helps a lot in finding the hotels, roughly 15,000 of which they have planted all over Bahamian waters as far south as the Ragged Islands. Now at the end of lobster season, the town is waiting for the ships to come home. One already has come in with its string of divers' dories tagging along behind. And much of the catch goes to the Red Lobster restaurant chain.

Mother ship and her dories returning home.

Double Exposure under sail

We buddy boated too. We had been running into “Double Exposure” out of Ontario all along the way north and they had similar plans to work north. So we did the long run from Shroud Cay to Current Cut (55 miles and nearly 9 hrs) and then through the Cut up to Spanish Wells the next day as their side-kick boat. They have been doing the cruising thing for years and are now on their way up from St. Kitts to sell their boat and trade it in for a larger one. It feels great to have another boat along, and Sue and Marty were great crew! Marty is a long-time gearhead and helped with skills ranging from outboard problems to creativity in the galley, and Susan is a complete water baby. We were sad to see them go.

Sue and Marty on Pinder's water taxi to the airport. 

All in all, we are feeling like we might actually have a handle on things. This was especially apparent to me when, once we had left the Exumas. I reviewed some of those charts and found myself thinking “I know those cays, I know how to find anchorage regardless of weather.” We are getting there....