Shroud Cay - Long Island

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1/9/18

Highbourne Cay - Shroud Cay

We left Highboure Cay Marina in the morning with John and Ann on Perspective. It was a beautiful motor over to Shroud Cay. Shroud Cay has rivers lined with mangroves that are a sanctuary to lots of baby turtles and lemon sharks. You can take the dinghy right through the entire island. We took our dinghy through the island and on the other side, there was a beautiful beach. After swimming for a little while, we decided to start heading back because we could see a squall coming. We were in the dinghy about halfway back when the cold front hit us. It started out just being a small amount of rain but, suddenly the temperature dropped about 20 degrees, the wind picked up, and it started pouring rain. I did not think that it was possible for there to be such a dramatic change in the weather because it had been hot and sunny only about a minute before. We had to move the boat into a safer anchoring spot in the pouring wind and rain because we did not feel safe about the close distance we were from the rocky shoreline. The wind shifted from the east to the west (where we had no protection) without warning and in a matter of minutes, the waves got huge. It was a rough and windy night and nobody got much sleep.

Beautiful beach on the other side of Shroud Cay

The entrance/exit of the mangrove river leading to the beautiful beach.

Even on the most beautiful beaches there is the ever present plastic pollution.

1/10/18

Shroud Cay

We woke up to yet another squall. It was not that bad and passed quickly. When we were eating breakfast a really bad squall hit us. There was a 60+ knot gust from a completely different wind direction that the prevailing wind had been blowing in. It heeled us over and sent all of our breakfast over onto Stanley's lap. The gust only lasted about 5 minutes and was so strong and short that our boat never even got the chance to swing around and face into the wind. We were stuck there the whole day and could not leave the boat.

1/11/18

Shroud Cay - Warderick Wells

In the morning we took the dinghy into the mangrove river again, this time with the 5 Gyres Manta Trawl. We decided to try towing it behind the dinghy on a long rope. It did not work. We thought that on such a long rope the prop wash from the dinghy would not affect it, but it did. Because it was so shallow the prop wash kicked up sand from the dinghy and the sand got inside the manta trawl as well. Because there was so much sand in the cod end, it ripped. Luckily, we had another cod end on the boat. We decided that the day was going to be calm enough to move into a more protected place before some more bad weather (another cold front) came in. We left for Warderick Wells which is part of the protected Exuma Land and Sea Park, where we had heard that there were lots of beautiful hiking trails and snorkeling spots. As soon as we got there we saw a group of giant spotted eagle rays, Ann's favorite animal. After we picked up a mooring, we went hiking and found a secret beach and went swimming. We went to Perspective for dinner that night.

Rainbow!

Dinghy trawl attempt in the Shroud Cay mangrove river!

A little bridge in Warderick Wells. Ann was playing with Stan and pretending to be the troll under the bridge.

John and Stan hiking.

Secret beach!

A 52 foot Sperm Whale skeleton, there is a sign next to it saying that it died from ingesting ocean plastics...

I don't know if you can tell what this says but it says that this whale died from eating plastics.

Spotted Eagle Ray!

1/17/18

Warderick Wells - Staniel Cay

We ended up being stuck in Warderick Wells for six days. It was beautiful there, but the weather was really bad all but two days, which we spent snorkeling and hiking. The hiking didn't turn out being much fun because there were Poison Wood trees everywhere that would give you a horrible rash if you touched them so this made hiking really stressful (especially with a 5 year old!) There was a hill called Boo Boo Hill where everyone leaves signs with their boat names as an offering to the wind gods. The snorkeling was amazing, we went twice in the harbor to look for eagle rays and once on the coral reef. The reef there was beautiful and there was a lot of biodiversity. We also met another family on a beautiful wood boat called Magic. They had two little girls, Claire and Amelia, and one boy, Evan.

Once there was a break in the weather, were excited to keep moving and explore a new place. We left for Staniel Cay/Big Majors Cay where the swimming pigs live. We anchored right off Big Majors Cay off of Pig Beach. It was not a very nice day, it was rough, overcast and a little rainy. While we were anchoring we saw a woman on the beach who was feeding the pigs get knocked over by a big one, yikes! We decided to go feed the pigs so we took some banana chips and celery into the beach in the dinghy and the pigs immediately came swimming out to us. We fed the pigs from the dinghy and one kept trying to get in! Mom was a little afraid of letting us go on shore because they were so big, and by that time we were the only ones there so all of them were swimming out to us and paying attention to us. We were afraid that if we went to the beach they all would come crowding over, looking for food. We decided to wait for a time when there were tour boats in there and lots of people to go to the beach.

Stan with our sign for Boo Boo Hill on Warderick Wells

Our sign taking its place on Boo Boo Hill!

Boo Boo Hill

Pigs!

This one almost got in our dinghy!

Piglets! So cute!

1/19/18

Staniel Cay - Black Point, Great Guana Cay

The whole time we were in Staniel Cay it was windy and overcast. We did not get another chance to see the pigs, and we also did not get to snorkel Thunderball Grotto. We could not do the grotto because the waves were too high and the tides were never right. It was a little rainy when we left Staniel Cay for the settlement of Black Point on Great Guana Cay. There were a lot of boats in the anchorage there. There was also a nice laundromat there that had free wifi and food. While we were doing our four hours of laundry there I caught up on some schoolwork and downloaded some schoolwork for when we left.

1/21/18

Black Point, Great Guana Cay

We went to Lorraine's Cafe to watch the football game. The locals got really exited about it and it was really loud. The TVs were on top volume and I still couldn't hear them.

Lorraine's Cafe

1/22/18

Black Point, Great Guana Cay - Little Farmers Cay

We had a lot of fun at Black Point. We found our own little secret beach where we hung out with the kids from Magic and got we coconut bread from Lorraine's, Mom a lovely woman named Peermon who makes fresh loaves in her house everyday (it made the best French toast!) We left for Little Farmers Cay, where we heard that there were friendly turtles you could pet? After we circled the island, which was an adventure in itself, we finally anchored at a spot called "Oven Rock" between Great Guana and Little Farmers Cay. After anchoring, we took a long wet dinghy ride right into where it said the turtles were, a place called Little Harbor. When we got in there, just from in the dinghy, we saw three turtles. The whole family is crazy about turtles. There were 2 fisherman standing in the water up to their waist opening conch. We tied up the dinghy and started walking along the shore and met a 20 something-year-old guy named Kimble who said he had trained the turtles to come to him and eat conch out of his hands and he would take us to swim with them for 5 dollars a conch. Kimble told us that the turtles have been coming into the harbor for over 20 years and eating conch scraps....even though they are green turtles and supposed to be vegetarian. He said that about 3-4 years ago he and his cousin started hand feeding/taming the turtles. He "called" the turtles over first by banging a hammer on the dock, we saw one swim right over, then he opened a conch and we all got into the water with him. It was absolutely amazing! We got to pet and feed two different turtles. One was older and totally trusted us, but the other one was younger and a little bit skittish. There also were a bunch of stingrays there, one of which had no tail and was very friendly. There were also schools of jacks, pufferfish and hog fish. None of the marine life in this harbor seemed afraid of humans. It was like being IN an aquarium. We decided that we would bring our friends Ann and John from Perspective the next day.

Plastic art on the dock at Little Harbor - Little Farmers Cay

Green sea turtle from the dock - Little Farmers Cay

They loved the conch! You have to be really careful because they could easily bite your finger off.

Smiley turtle! This is mom's favorite pic...

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Kimble and the Flying Fish crew!

1/23/18

Little Farmers Cay

We went back to Little Harbor, where the turtles are, with a lot of people. We brought Ann and John from Perspective and Catherine, Chris, and their kids Jeremy and Serena from the boat, Serena, that we had met earlier that day. It was not as awesome as it had been the day before because there were so many people. The bottom got very stirred up and there were fewer turtles because they kept on getting scared and swimming away. There was a really big pufferfish there that stole a whole piece of conch from dad. It had big eyes, a square mouth, and looked really silly. Dad, Ann, John, and Stan went and found a cave on Great Guana that was filled with stalactites, stalagmites and bats while Jessie and I worked on schoolwork on the boat and mom made bread. When Dad shone the flashlight inside to look around inside the cave, it disturbed the bats and they started flying around. I'm ok with missing that.

The bat cave

Dad found an osprey nest full of plastic pollution

1/24/18

Little Farmers Cay - George Town, Exuma

We left Little Farmers Cay/Oven Rock at sunrise for for Georgetown, Great Exuma, a big cruisers hang out. We were headed to Elizabeth Harbor which is HUGE, in the winter there are sometimes over 500 boats there from all over the world, the harbor is between Great Exuma/Georgetown and Stocking Island. It was a beautiful day, we went though a cut called Galliot that had big breaking waves on either side of us and a strong current. It was very different being out in the deep ocean after spending so much time in the clear shallow water of the Bahamas bank. It was an all day motor sail. We had called the night before and reserved three moorings in the very protected Hurricane Hole 2 for us, Perspective, and Magic. There was another big blow coming. It was tricky getting inside the hole, and Perspective ran aground. They backed right off and were fine. The night we got there-there was a dance at Chat and Chill, the restaurant on Stocking Island that everyone hangs out at, and Jessie taught everyone there the Macarena.

George Town

We spent almost three weeks in George Town, so I am not going to write about it day by day. It is a beautiful place. We did lots of hiking, swimming, and socializing in there. We spent lots of time at Chat and Chill on volleyball beach, swimming, petting the stingrays, swinging on the rope swing, climbing trees, and meeting new people. We went hiking on some of the many trails they have on Stocking Island. We climbed up Monument Hill. It was a little bit of a long hike but the view was beautiful. Mom flew home for Dancing with the Docs on January 30 and flew back on February 5. We spent a lot of time with Ann and John. We swung from the mast and spinnaker pole on our boat. We listened to the cruisers net every morning, which was great. Feb 10 - Mom, Jessie, Stan, and I flew up to Abaco to visit our family friends who were vacationing in Abaco. We would be there on my birthday so we had a birthday party for me at our boat with Dad, John and Ann. They had a birthday party there in Abaco on my real birthday, February 12. It was so great to see our friends from home and be in a house with normal beds and real showers! It was a lot of fun. While we were in Abaco, John and Ann left Georgetown. We were all really sad to be parting because buddy-boating with them was so much fun. We had been with them everyday since Christmas. The Bahamas would not have been the same without them. Ann got me to go snorkeling so many times, even when I was a little scared, and John helped me so much with math. I had such a good time with them and will miss them. We left Georgetown two days after we got back from Abaco.

Another rainbow!

Mom leaving on the water taxi for Dancing with the Docs.

Trail map for Stocking Island

Dad played with the drone a lot.

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On top of Monument Hill

Stan hiking!

John on the rope swing we set up on the spinnaker pole!

Jessie on the rope swing!

The view from monument hill

Hurricane hole 2 and 3

One of our many taco nights with Ann and John!

2/16/17

George Town, Exuma - Long Island

Dad announced that we were leaving on the cruisers net and afterward a bunch of people hailed us on the VHF to say goodbye. It is such a sweet community there. Our friends on the kid boat Irish Rose, who we met in Georgetown, Georgia, came over our boat to give me birthday cards and bracelets that they had made. It was really sweet. The cards were hilarious and we will keep them for sure. The first part of our trip to Long Island was quite bouncy and not that nice. Then, about halfway through, it was like we went into this magical bubble, it got really calm, we could see right to the bottom where there were huge sea stars, and a dolphin came and rode our bow wake. The dolphin was so cute! We did a Manta Trawl and found only one piece plastic. The whole thing was amazing. We caught three barracuda on our way, but let them all go, because barracuda can sometimes be poisonous and make you really sick, and we did not want to take any chances. We anchored in an area called Salt Pond and went to a small restaurant called Sou' Side for dinner, and we met two other kid boats there. It was Molly, who had two teenage boys, and Soulshine, who had a girl about our age named Sailor. They told us about fun things to do on the island, including the shrimp hole and Deans Blue Hole. There were also some cruisers from the catamaran Salty Paws playing music there. The food was pretty good, and it was fun.

Mantatrawling in the magical weather bubble

2/17/18

Long Island

We went for a walk to the ocean side beach, which we thought would be pristine and beautiful. Mom said "let's just have a fun family day at the beach and not think about ocean plastics or work or school!"...when we get there it was covered in plastics. The most any of us had seen anywhere (even worse than Sandy Hook New Jersey). It was heartbreaking because it was such a beautiful beach. We all got quiet for a while. There was a big rock there that had been beautifully shaped by the waves and wind. We climbed up on it and took a bunch of pictures. We also met a dog there who was really friendly. At first, we were kind of afraid of him, because he did not look that nice. There was lots of polystyrene (styrofoam), plastic bottles, random fragments of plastic, and microplastics. That beach had the most plastics on it that I have ever seen.

We climbed up onto the big rock.

Some of the microplastics from the beach.

2/18/18

Long Island

We rented a car to drive around Long Island because it is more than 80 miles long. We followed Molly and Soulshine's directions on how to get to the Red Shrimp Cave. The red shrimp that live there are critically endangered. It was behind an old church with no roof. The church was beautiful. Behind the church, there was a sign that said "Red Shrimp Hole" and an arrow pointing to a path into the woods. After a short walk, you came to a cave with a bunch of water in the bottom. You had to climb over some rocks to get to the cave entrance, but it wasn't too tricky. I do not really like caves, but I went in snorkeling because I wanted to see the red shrimp. The shrimp were really beautiful. They were bright red and had long flowy legs. We went to find a place to eat lunch after that, and we found a perfect place. It was a concrete platform right next to a beach, with a roof over it. It really was a perfect spot for us to eat the lunch mom had packed for us and Stanley entertained us with some very enthusiastic dancing. After we ate lunch, we went to Flying Fish Marina, to take some pictures. It was all sportfishing boats in the marina, there were no sailboats. Then, we went for a drive around and saw some more old beautiful churches. After that, we went to Dean's Blue Hole, the deepest saltwater blue hole in the world. It is 663 feet deep. It was really cool, and a little freaky. The first time I swam over the blue hole I freaked out a little bit because it was so deep and it just looked like an endless dropoff. I got more comfortable with it after a little while and tried diving down as deep as I could. I got down deep, for me, but not deep at all, compared to the depth of the blue hole. We saw 3 cuttlefish that changed colors, it looked like they were electric lights! We also saw jacks, pufferfish, blue tangs (Dory fish) and so many floating plastic bags. On one side of the blue hole, where the beach is closest I couldn't touch until I was practically on the beach. Mom picked up about 1,000 of these little plastic bags that probably floated over from Haiti. They are filled with water for people to drink and usually end up getting discarded into the ocean. There are companies that make millions of dollars selling impoverished people water in these little clear plastic bags, that then threaten marine life (especially sea turtles) and trash the beaches.

After about two hours at Dean's Blue Hole, which is pretty far south on the island, we decided to drive north. We went pretty far north but then decided to turn around because someone was burning trash and the smell was so awful that we turned around and headed in the other direction. We went to Tiny's Beach Bar for dinner. We met Jackie and Cameron from the boat Terrapin, and Cameron worked on Naushon Island off of Cape Cod, with our family friend, Jay Cournoyer in the 80's. We posted a picture of him and dad on Instagram, and Chrissy Pearson commented that she knew him from Oregon!

Heading to the shrimp cave!

The shrimp cave

Stan in the shrimp cave

The old church in front of the shrimp cave

Inside the old church

Behind the old church

Our lunch spot!

Deans Blue hole! People (not us) jump off of the high ledge behind us

Me coming back up from the deepest dive I did.

Diving from the platform in the middle of the Blue hole.

Plastic was coming through the Blue Hole from the ocean side and floats up onto the beach there.

Bagged water, either from Haiti or Africa. They were everywhere on the beaches.

While we were snorkeling mom filled a whole bag full of those plastic water bags.

Dad and Cameron at Tiny's

2/20/18

Long Island

We stayed at the boat and did schoolwork and I worked on the blog all morning. Jackie and Cameron on Terrapin had rented a car and they offered to let us use it. We decided to go back to the ocean side beach that was covered with plastic to do a time lapse of us doing a cleanup and to do a 5 Gyres Beach sample. Jackie came with us to help. We decided to take 30 minutes to pick up as much trash as we could and put it in a big pile. We made a time lapse of it. It was crazy how much trash we got. After that Dad, Mom, Jackie, and I did the beach sample. It is amazing how much plastic we found, we got so many plastic nurdles, which are little plastic pellets, that are later melted down into other plastics. They also are sometimes also used to stuff Beanie Boos and other stuffed animals. I had never seen more nurdles on a beach before, the plastic we found in the beach sample was mostly made up of microplastics. There were very few plastics over two inches, and most were pieces of things that we could not tell what they were. It was crazy. We met up with Cameron at the Sou' Side for dinner. We played hide and seek with another kid boat and some local kids named Kayden and Sebastian. After dinner, when we went back to the boat, we started categorizing the plastics and putting them on 5mm grids to photograph them. When we put them out on our table it covered the whole thing. We had 17 sheets full of plastics. It was amazing (in a really bad way).

The pile of plastic we collected in 30 minutes.Imagine how big it would get in an hour or two. We barely made a dent in how much was there.

Doing the 5 Gyres beach sample.

A nurdle.

We found this much plastic in a 3x3ft square, only going one inch down in the sand.

2/21/18

Long Island

We were going to leave but decided to stay another day or two because of the weather. There was a squall with the top wind gust being 43 knots. I am glad that we did not leave. I worked on schoolwork and the blog all day. Terrapin came over for dinner and brought their instruments and brownies. Jackie plays mandolin and Cameron plays bass. It was really fun.

Mom, Jackie, and Cameron with their instruments.

How YOU can help with ocean plastics:

1. Reduce your use of plastics! There is no away for plastics, so we have to stop the manufacturing and use of plastics.

2. Educate others. Educate others about the harm plastics are doing to our ecosystem and hopefully, they will stop using plastics as well!

3. Beach cleanups. Beach cleanups help reduce the number of plastics already in our oceans but do not think that if you do beach cleanups you can still use plastics!

4. Citizen science! Contribute to scientific databases with programs such as the 5 Gyres Trawlshare program and beach sampling programs. This will help create proof of the quantity and harm of plastics.