Chub Cay (Berry Islands)

After exploring the Sapona Shipwreck we found a quiet little spot to anchor on the east side of North Cat Cay to get some rest for our 80 mile journey to the Berry Islands the next day. Again, trying to make landfall before dark, we planned and executed a 3AM departure from our anchorage off Cat Cay. Thankfully this was just before high tide, giving us a little buffer under our keel to work with in the dark. The whole 80 miles from Cat Cay to the Berry Islands was in very shallow water across the great Bahama bank. We never had more than 10 feet below the keel. And it was often as close as 2-3 feet from scraping bottom! However, we followed our guidebooks and charts closely and came out unscathed. The winds were favorable for most of the sail and we made great time. Since the water was so shallow, the seas didn’t have room to build and the livin was easy. One of the better sails we’ve had on the trip so far!

MVI_1277

We made it to Chub Cay with plenty of time to find safe anchorage and enjoy a sundowner. We also had time to do some twilight snorkeling to investigate the consistency of the bottom we were anchoring in (something we’re getting used to doing now that the water is warmer). Not too much going on at Chub Cay so we left the next day to make a 7 mile journey to Frazers Hog Cay. This new anchorage gave us more protection against the NW winds building over the next couple days.

On our way, Andy set out a trolling line as he always does except this time he actually had some luck. It’s pretty embarrassing to report that it took us this long to land our 1^st fish of the whole trip. He hooked into a beautiful 13lb Wahoo! It gave a tremendous fight at first but gave up after a few minutes. Andy reeled her in and gaffed it while I bashed its head with the club before bringing it aboard. It was a nice looking fish, but much smaller than a normal Wahoo. Fine with us though, we have little room for refrigerating/freezing fish. We have already enjoyed two meals and have about 3 more to go before this gift of the sea is gone.

14 lb Wahoo! Finally caught a fish while trolling behind the sailboat.

He was delicious, provided 4 awesome meals and our freezer is still full of the rest 

We made it to our next anchorage with the whole day remaining to explore Frazer’s Hog Cay. This was even a bit more off the beaten path than Chub. We cleaned up our catch and had some Wahoo & Eggs for breakfast. We dinghied to shore, left our stuff on the beach and walked about a half mile or so to the nearest civilization which was only a bar. We had a cold one then walked back to the beach and did some more snorkeling, ate some more fish and relaxed for a while. The fishguts we threw overboard earlier attracted a couple Remoras. Not knowing what they were other than “big fish”, and in haste, we threw a line in the water to try and catch one of them. Sure enough they took the bait and we had another big fish on the line. Andy fought with it for a few minutes until it somehow got stuck on the bottom of our boat?! We were perplexed as to what the hook (or fish) could be stuck on… Turns out the Remora has an appendage on its head for attaching itself to other larger fish (usually sharks) and waiting for the crumbs of its host’s meal to fall back. This thing, after being hooked, managed to attach itself to the bottom of our boat and it was holding on so tight we couldn’t pull it off with 60# test line! Finally it let go after several minutes and we were able to land it and identify it only to find out this kind of fish is inedible. But it was fun!

This was a Remora we caught at anchor.  Weird looking but not edible so we released

We awoke at sunrise this morning to get a good start on our 35 mile passage to The capitol city of Nassau on New Providence Island. We just arrived and it is here where I am updating our blog. I’m sure there will be a lot to write about from Nassau. For now, McDonalds is closing and so is my free internet. Stay tuned!

Oh ya... GO DUCKS! Civil War game today and I'm missing it.