A few days after returning from Nova Scotia, we sailed away from Georgetown after a two month stay there. The parts we brought back for the water maker got us up and running and we were excited to be on the move again. We left early in the morning and before sunset we were dropping anchor at Thompson Bay on Long Island.

We loved the community feeling of Georgetown and had fun spending so much time with new friends there but it was nice for us three to finally have some time alone together. Long Island was beautiful. Our first stop at Thompson Bay had us not far from Long Island Harbour Club. In a desperate attempt to escape the heat and humidity one day, we happily found relief there. On the second level of the club is a pretty little air-conditioned restaurant with lovely, friendly staff. Enjoying the air conditioning, we comfortably sipped drinks while playing a few games of Connect4 as we snacked on some yummy chicken and fries.

Back on the boat, we did our best to manage the heat, mosquitos and sand flies (failing on all three at times). I could spend this entire blog whining about the unbearable heat and miserable bugs but I won’t do that. I will just say that living in extreme heat without air conditioning has been very difficult. We have a thermometer inside the boat and we never see it go below +30 degrees anymore – day or night. We have fans that help so much as at night we each need one aimed right at us to help us sleep. We were keeping the hatches open with screens on in hopes that a breeze would blow through the boat but that rarely happens. The little, biting noseeums continue to find their way through our mosquito screens. I tell ya, very hot, no sleep nights with itchy bites all over me often had me mentally feeling pretty awful at times. 😔

It is always a great feeling of relief to swim off the boat! In the water my skin cools down and my itchy bites are somewhat soothed. Up to this point I had spent hours in the water in the afternoons during our time in Long Island. Unfortuantely, a huge barracuda had decided hanging out in the shade under our hull was a good idea. It was always there. I was hopeful that it would just ignore us but Dylan wasn’t so sure about that. One day while I swam, Dylan decided to stand guard in the dinghy ready to whack it with a paddle if it got too close. He did take a swing at it and maybe that got it mad as it charged at me! I screamed so loud that I expect family and friends back in Winnipeg must’ve heard me! Thankfully it did not chomp me and I was right at the stern ladder to make a quick escape, but let’s just say that ended swimming for me in that location. Dylan tried desperately to catch it and kill it without success. That’s okay as two days later we sailed away from it as we continued up Long Island towards Calabash Bay near Cape Santa Maria.

My long time friend, Peter, in Victoria, BC pointed out to me on text that Santa Maria was supposedly home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world so I was excited to go there. Without wind, we did the four hour motor to our anchorage. In an attempt to treat ourselves to another cold drink in air conditioning off the boat, we set out to shore. We were also desperate to find a place to drop our garbage. Landing the dinghy beside the Cape Santa Maria Beach Resort we were absolutely swarmed by mosquitos despite wearing spray. It was insane that they were so bad during the day! We ran to the resort. They happily let us dump our garbage – for a fee of course – and we went up to the little restaurant. This experience was not as nice as our time at the Long Island Harbour Club. There was no air conditioning and although the beer was chilled, it was no where near being as ice cold as we had hoped.

We decided we’d be best to continue our exploration of this part of Long Island via our dingy. A short ride took us to the Columbus Monument at the mouth of an inland bay. This monument is significant for two reasons. First, it commemorates Christopher Columbus making landfall on Long Island. The second reason I find quite tragic as it also acts as a memorial for peaceful Lucayan Indians that had inhabited the island before Christopher Columbus arrived. Once the European colonisers arrived, they used the Lucayans as miners and pearl-divers in a de facto slave system. As I continued to read up on this, I was saddened to not only learn that the Europeans worked them to death but that they also killed them for sport. Other Lucayans committed suicide or died from acute depression. I didn’t know this at the time we were there but now I am really glad we got to see the meaningful monument and I am glad Jas braved the mosquitos to walk up the white, rocky cliff to see it up close.  

As Jas was standing up at the second highest point in the Bahamas, Dylan and I watched him from the dinghy below. We were in clear and vibrant waters so looking over the side of the dinghy we could see reefs teeming with colourful fish. We were in a bay adjacent to the point where, at low tides, a canal flows through.

It was a cloudy day that was threatening to rain so we scoped out a beach for the next day and headed back to the boat. Dylan thought it was neat to see waterspouts coming down out of the sky that evening. Thankfully they were very far away from us.

We were so excited for a beach day as it had been awhile since we had done that. We found what I think is the prettiest beach we’ve ever been to! We loaded up with a picnic lunch, beach umbrella, snorkel gear, some good music and set off for the day. Right off the beach was terrific snorkelling. For most of the day the mosquitos left us alone but sadly, even in this beautiful spot, they found us. Burning dodo coils did not help. We did get to enjoy a good part of the day there before the mosquitos forced us to pack up a bit earlier than planned. This unfortunately is also where Jason discovered his bit of an ear infection was turning into a big deal.

His ear had started to bother him in Georgetown and snorkelling that day made it much worse. We enquired about the medical clinic on the island but it was a long car ride away and it was the weekend so it was closed anyways. We decided to wait it out with plans to go see a doctor when we get to Great Inagua Island.

Our next hop was an overnight sail that took us around the top tip of Long Island then south to Crooked Island. It was a nice and uneventful 100 nautical mile passage. The sunrise brought us a brief storm before our anchorage came into sight. We anchored in a huge, peaceful bay. Not long after, we had a local visitor come to us in a small fishing boat. His name was Fidel and he was kindly checking in on us to see if we needed anything. He offered to show Dylan and Jason some dive spots and that is when Jas filled him in on his ear trouble. Plans were then made for Fidel to come pick him up the next morning to take him to a nurse on the island. Dylan joined them while I stayed back to work. They returned with antibiotics as Jas reluctantly made plans to stay out of the water for quite some time now.

After I took this first picture Dylan said “Mom, before you picked up that old coconut and held it close to your head, you made sure there was nothing living in it right?” I didn’t think of that! 😲

Watching the weather, it was tricky to find a good window to continue our travels. Anxious to get going again on our push south, we set out in winds that were at the maximum we were comfortable with. The waves were pretty big too. Dylan was not pleased and desperately wanted us to go back to our anchorage. It was tough. Before we were able to put our sails up, we had to motor into the wind and waves and it was not pleasant at all. We felt so bad that Dylan was uncomfortable but Jason and I knew that things would be better once the sails were up. About an hour later we finally could cut the engine as the sails pulled us along on a beam reach. Starship found her groove in the wind and waves and finally Dylan started to relax.

The rest of the passage was pretty uneventful. It was hard to go below so, as usual, we spent most of our time together in the cockpit. That night on my watch I was surrounded by storms. As I watched the lightning, I thought for sure we were going to have one of the storms go over us but that never happened. After sailing about 115 nautical miles we arrived at what would be our very last stop in the beautiful Bahamas, Matthew Town.

Matthew Town is the capital of Great Inagua and is the only populated settlement on the island which is home to approximately 1,000 people. We were conveniently anchored very close to this friendly little town and were there for two weeks due to hurricane Beryl. Matthew Town is known for its solar-salt production facility and is famous for its bone fishing. Residents there also provide tours and do water-related activities (diving, snorkelling, etc.) to complement tourism efforts. We had hoped to do a tour to see the salt fields and flamingos but between struggling with the heat, surge, boat projects and Jason’s ear troubles, time slipped away on us.

That stay was longer than planned but it really gave us a chance to get to know some of the lovely people on the island. So many people would see us walking along the road and stop their car to check in with us; ‘welcome to Matthew Town’, ‘are you guys the ones on the blue sailboat?’, ‘do you need anything?’, ‘do you need a ride anywhere?’. ‘are you guys okay in this heat?’. The children often accompanying them had the brightest smiles and enjoyed talking with us too.

Just as we arrived there, a new coffee shop opened. Sub-Sip-N-All became our new hangout as it provided us with the relief we needed from the heat. With their amazing air conditioning units pumping glorious, icy air, we would stop by almost every day to sip their amazing smoothies and enjoy their sandwiches. The bread they used for their sandwiches was made locally and was so delicious! With it too hot to cook on the boat, frequently our stop there would be our only meal of the day. We are all finding our appetites dropping considerably as we live in the heat.

The absolute highlight to Matthew Town for us was the dolphins. We had three beautiful dolphins who came to the boat every day and we started swimming with them, two adults and one juvenile. Typically, one of the adults would swim off with the little one and the other one would stay to play. It was truly incredible. During one swim, the one adult ‘danced’ with me! We aren’t 100% sure but think we saw it to be a female. She would swim along right beside us and at one point I stopped and spun myself around in the water using my fins. Only a foot or so away from me, she started matching my spins as she swam around me over and over again. We were looking right at each other under water and she had these big, beautiful and peaceful eyes. In one of Jason’s experiences, this same dolphin seemed to ‘talk’ to him. Jason would nod his head several times and the dolphin would ‘reply’ by doing the same and nodding her head back to him. There was no doubt this dolphin was very content in our company. We were just blown away at the way she was interacting with us and we will never forget it. Often, she would enjoy swimming or laying on the bottom where the water was a bit cooler. I loved watching Dylan dive down the fifteen feet or so to hang out or swim beside her. Jas discovered she wasn’t keen on being touched so we kept our hands at our sides when she got really close.

Sadly, Jason quickly determined that he did not wait long enough before getting back into the water. He now had very painful infections in both of his ears despite the antibiotics. We ended up making two visits to the clinic on the island for more antibiotics, drops and to have his ears syringed many times. They quickly started to feel a bit better but we know now that he will not be able to do any snorkelling or diving for several weeks and perhaps not until we get to Panama.

As we watched developments on The National Hurricane Centre website, concern for hurricane Beryl started to become the talk of the town. The path of the hurricane was not predicted to hit Matthew Town but it was close enough that, should it alter course east, it could’ve come very close. Some locals tried to encourage us to go to the marina. At the time our anchor was buried so deep in the sand that we could not see it. We were also on the west side of the island and knew we were well protected should the winds come up. At the same time, we were prepared to pull anchor and sail back north if Beryl started to change its path. Thankfully it didn’t and the highest winds we saw were about 20 knots.

As many of you witnessed online and in news reports, hurricane Beryl was an atypical and very dangerous hurricane. On record, it was the earliest forming category 5 hurricane for the Altantic. As if that wasn’t bad enough, as it cut its path, it continued to break meteorological records regarding where it occured and its intensity level. With the way weather patterns are changing, we are not sure there is a place for us anywhere in the Carribean Sea this summer that will be 100% hurricane free but we feel Panama will be our safest place. Our next stop will be Jamaica where we plan to spend no more than two weeks enjoying the scenic mountains, rainforests, beaches, culture and food. From Jamaica we will be doing a four to five day passage to an anchorage near Puerto Lindo, Panama.

Beryl did give us some grief though…surge. Surge on a boat happens when the natural waves of the ocean run perpendicular to the wind causing a rocking motion when at anchor. We are now able to live comfortably on the boat in surge causing waves up to one foot in height. Once Beryl passed on the other side of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, waves around the southwest side of Great Inagua Island brought us surge measuring two to three feet. This was more than we could handle living in. Jason tried to create stabilizers on each side of the boat. On the port side we had a big, heavy tire dangling in the water and on the starboard side he put out our sea anchor (a triangle shaped canvas cone designed to create drag). To add even more weight, he put our Danforth anchor into the tire and his dive weight belt into the sea anchor. Despite his efforts, we did not win out against the surge. The tire became nothing but a hang out for colourful little fish and the dive weights punched a hole in the sea anchor and fell to rest on the ocean floor. That afternoon we quickly decided we needed to get off the boat. There was a cute little inn I had my eye on so I called and booked us in for the night. My Ko-fi funds and my casual remote work are allowing us the flexibility to treat ourselves to occasionally step off the boat to keep ourselves sane.

Arriving at Enrica’s Inn we settled into our beautifully air-conditioned room that had two queen sized beds. Making use of the communal kitchen, I cooked us up an easy meat, pasta and veggie supper as we relaxed. It was so nice to not have our world rocking back and forth for a night. After supper we curled up in our beds and put on a movie. We had already decided at that point that when we checked out the next morning, we would move the boat into the marina to get out of the surge.

Back at the boat that day, Dylan was our hero! He dove down and ran a rope through the weight belt so we could pull it up to retrieve it.

Matthew Town Dock is the only marina in Great Inagua and we had been reluctant to go into the marina as the docks are so high up. The ladder we used to get on and off the boat was quite sketchy, but in the end, we were happy we made the move. Docked in the marina was a big, brand new catamaran as well. The guys on board were delivering it from Clearwater, Florida all the way to its owner in Tahiti! One night the younger crew member, Taylor, joined us on the dock for sun downers. He enjoyed my homemade chocolate cake as we all chatted into the night while Dylan fished off the dock. Taylor is from Australia and is new to sailing but anxious to learn. The ambition in his eyes reminded me of Alex. The next morning, they were leaving to sail straight to Panama and that, by far, was to be his longest passage he’s ever done. It was easy to see how excited he was to have this opportunity. The next day a third crew member arrived and we wished them all well as the left the marina.

At the marina we also met the US Coast Guard pilots from the helicopter I had seen fly over us a few times. We chatted with them for a bit and, of course, I proudly told them about Alex’s career with the Canadian Coast Guard. They asked if we had an epirb (emergency position indicating radio beacon) on board they were happy to hear we had several. We have one main one as well as units inside our lifejackets. They said that they have seen epirbs be the difference between life and death for sailors. They wished us a continued safe journey and jokingly said that they hope to never have any reason to come see us on the water. 

So as happy as we were with our decision to go into the marina, the heat cranked on us on the boat. Sheltered from the wind, we were suffering as we also needing to close the hatches at night to prevent the noseeums from coming in. It was down right awful but we were getting so close to being ready to set sail on our passage to Jamaica. After a brief discussion, Jason and I made the call to spend another night off the boat. The night before we left Matthew Town we booked ourselves into the Red Knot Manor based on recommendation from Chrissy at Sub-Sip-N-All. We knew this decision would allow us to relax and have a good, restful sleep before we did our two and half day sail to Jamaica. As much as we enjoyed Enrica’s Inn, Red Knot Manor we definitely a step up and was absolutely gorgeous! It was very spacious and again, had a communal kitchen but we were the only ones there. We had the whole place to ourselves and it was incredible.

Cooking up a nice pork chop supper, we immensely enjoyed our lovely and spacious ‘home’ for the night. The hosts, Patty and Stephen, visited with us for a little bit. Stephen was once the mayor of Matthew Town and when we met, he unexpectantly delivered to us a well prepared, official welcome speech that was very warm and included some of the history of the island. I really liked that!

After dinner we tucked into our cozy beds and watched movies again. The next morning, I made us a big bacon and eggs breakfast as I felt a fun but nervous energy about starting our sail to Jamaica that afternoon. We had a lovely weather window of favourable winds and waves so I was happy about that. My concern was about possibly sailing into thunderstorms. We’d have to be very lucky for us to go the two and half days without being hit with at least one.

As we untied our lines from the dock and waved goodbye to Matthew Town, we couldn’t help being sad to leave the dolphins we spent so much time with. Maybe it’s silly but we truly felt affection for that one in particular. Her eyes just seemed so gentle and intelligent and she frequently seemed to be at the boat as if she was looking for us. We were so excited that they came over to see us one last time as we motored out of the marina!

The trip from Matthew Town to Jamaica was approximately 230 nautical miles. We had lovely winds for the first day and were flying along at seven knots at times! The winds unfortunately died out for the rest of the passage though and we had to motor. We had seen that forecasted but we were hopeful that there would be enough wind to keep our sails full. It was a comfortable passage though as by motoring we were able to go below more than we normally do. We passed the time playing cards and just hanging out together in the cockpit. At night we could see the lights of Cuba on our starboard side. We knew that Haiti was to our port but we were too far off shore to see it.

Not being able to see Haiti on the horizon was okay with me as years ago we had a very difficult two-week sail along the coast. That’s a story I will never write about on this website. I will say though that, in my opinion, Haitians have no choice but to be as desperate as they are. Seeing first hand their political instability and knowing they also deal with events like devastating earthquakes and hurricanes, I can’t imagine the challenges of having to live or raise a family there. Although scary at times, we understand why we experienced some of the things we did as we sailed the Haitian coast for two weeks in 2017. When we got to Ile a Vache, we got the opportunity to sit down and talk with several Haitians. It was very interesting to hear them open up about their life and express their distress about their political situation. Jason and I learned a lot from our Haitian experience that I know will help keep us safe as we continue on the Big Trip.  

On the second night of our passage to Jamaica, I saw lightning on the horizon just as my night watch was ending. I started to track the clouds to see what direction the storm was going. By identifying certain stars and seeing them start to disappear behind thick, dark clouds, I saw it was coming our way. When Jason came up, we turned on the radar and saw a big system all around us. We were not going to be so lucky this time, we were going to experience this one. With both sails down and Starship under motor, we were well prepared to ride it out. If the waves and wind got too high, we would alter course as needed to keep things as smooth as possible. The lightning was intense and all around us so my biggest  fear was that we’d be struck. As the storm moved over us, we did not see high winds or increasing waves thankfully. It was mostly insanely bright lightning with a bit of rain. Just to be on the safe side, we tossed our cell phones into the oven to protect them should we get struck. Next time we will do the same also with our handheld VHF radio and laptops as a precaution. A direct lightning strike would fry all of Starship’s electronics. By putting those few things in the oven we could at least save those and still have navigation and communication abilities.

Thanks to having the radar, we had the information needed to alter course allowing us to go through the narrowest part of the storm as quickly as possible. With Dylan asleep below, Jason and I cuddled up in the centre seat of the cockpit in an attempt to stay out of the rain. We held hands and started to relax together as we let ourselves enjoy the light show. Eventually the storm started to fade around 4 AM. I was very tired at that point and went down below to sleep. Later that morning Dylan excitedly yelled ‘land ho’ as the gorgeous, mountainous Jamaican landscape came into view on the horizon!

The blog below talks about why we have decided to add the above Coffee button. 😊

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