Unexcused Absences

March 24 – March 28, 2016. The cruise up from Big Majors to Shroud Cay was windy but pleasant, with bright skies and a following sea. We anchored in shallow sand right off the entrance to the southern creek. “Creek” isn’t quite the right word because it’s actually a saltwater ditch that cuts straight through the island at sea level, but for these purposes, “creek” it is.

Once we settled in we pumped up our awesome two-person inflatable kayak and paddled all the way through to the ocean side. It’s a bit “Apocalypse Now”, with the mangrove trees and rocky shoreline, although there was limited likelihood that the natives would jump out of the bushes and start shooting at us.

Anchored at Shroud Cay

Along the way we came upon a very puzzling fish, one that is in none of our three guidebooks. It made one attempt to hide from us as we pulled alongside, then went limp (possibly from fright, or maybe just apathy) while we scooped it up with a paddle for a closeup picture. We spent some time on the eastern beach looking for sea beans (actually large brown seeds that have floated all the way from Africa), then paddled back to Miss Adventure.

Our strange little fish

The next morning we weighed anchor (44 pounds!) and cruised about 400 yards to our north, to anchor off Shroud Cay’s middle creek. Once again we kayaked the twisty passage through the mangroves and across the sand flats, but this creek didn’t actually cut through to the ocean. Much less current.

Paddling the southern creek

A few big boats pulled up and anchored to the west, and by “big”, I mean “enormous”. The “Silver Fast,” a 252 foot yacht easily mistaken for a battleship, was the closest, and a couple miles out, too far to read the name, was an even bigger one. Spring break is high season for big yachts in the Exumas, since the kids can easily fly to Nassau and be in the Northern Exumas a few hours later.

The aptly named “Silver Fast,” whose dinghy is bigger than our whole boat

The next day we moved another few hundred yards to our north, this time to the entrance of the northern creek. We packed a picnic lunch and loaded the dinghy for a day at the beach, then at high tide motored through and beached the dinghy at the inlet.

Dinghy trip through the northern creek

Up a short trail from the beach was Camp Driftwood, a hilltop lookout post used in the 1980’s by Drug Enforcement Agency folks to keep track of the comings and goings at Norman’s Cay, just to the north. Normans Cay was infamous in the late 70’s and 80’s as the main trans-shipment point for Carlos Lehder’s drug smuggling empire. He chased away the handful of residents, expanded the airstrip, and set up his own little fiefdom. He used big planes to bring in cocaine from South America and then repacked the cargo into small planes for quick flights to Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. His operation was so lucrative that at one point he offered to pay down the Colombian national debt.

Shroud Cay creeks seen from Camp Driftwood

A character based on Lehder has a small part in the movie Blow, starring Johnny Depp. The movie is actually about Lehder’s business partner, George Jung, and includes a scene on an island purporting to be Norman’s, although oddly the location used in the movie was in the Caribbean, not the Bahamas – a bit ironic since Mr. Depp owns a Bahamian island only a couple dozen miles south of Norman’s.

Sand flat by the middle creek

So back to the inlet; during a falling tide it is possible to jump in the water upstream of the ocean and then let the current sweep you east, through the narrow rock cut, and out into Exuma Sound. There’s a big crescent sandbar that keeps you from going out to sea, and allows you to walk back to the beach and do it again. Which we did, probably half a dozen times.

Northern creek ocean inlet

Sunday we left early for the short cruise up to an anchorage off Norman’s Cay to visit the famous “drug plane,” a C-46 Commando cargo plane that ditched in the lagoon on November 15, 1980. This aircraft is quite a bit bigger than the other wrecked planes around the Bahamas, and was Curtiss Aviation’s answer to the Douglas DC-3. The plane sits in about six feet of water, and up until recently the top half of the fuselage and vertical stabilizer were visible above the water, but several decades of storms and salt water have done their work and now the best way to see the plane is by snorkel.

The famous Norman’s Cay C-46 plane wreck

After lunch we cruised across the very shallow bar to the west and north of Norman’s, and just barely got through a narrow channel and into a tight anchorage between Saddleback Cay and the northern end of Norman’s. For happy hour we saw some folks gathering on a low-tide sandbar nearby, and dinghied over to join them. We met a couple and their grown daughters who live on Norman’s Cay, and if I got the story right the mom’s father was one of the ones who developed Norman’s back in the 1970’s, so they had lots of fun stories about the Carlos Lehder days.

Anchored off Saddleback Cay

Monday we left early and took the direct route, a four hour shot straight from Norman’s to the cut between Soldier Cay and Little Hall’s Pond, otherwise known locally as Johnny Depp’s Island. As soon as we hit the deep water we put out our fishing lines, and landed an 8 pound Mahi within the first 20 minutes. Just as we were about to wrap up our fishing, off the Soldier Cay cut, we landed a second Mahi of the same size. We now had dinner (and then some).

Mahi number two

Mahi number one as fillets

Showing off our Mahi to “Good Morning Vietnam”

We had premeditated a rendezvous with Brian and Susan of Good Morning Vietnam, so it was not a surprise to see them anchored off Little Halls Pond when we came around the corner. They had also caught a Mahi on their cruise up from Staniel that morning, so we were now in a fish-rich environment. That afternoon we all enjoyed a nice snorkel at the Sea Aquarium, a tiny island between Soldier Cay and O’Brien’s Cay.

“Miss Adventure” anchored at Little Halls Pond

Dinner that night was grilled Mahi (shocker) onboard GMV with their friends Jay and Carol. From here they will continue north to drop off their visitors in Nassau, while we plan to head back to the center of our universe, Staniel Cay. Weather-permitting, we should have one final rendezvous with GMV and our mutual friends on Z-Raye in a week or so, before they all start their trek back to the USA.

Bahamas 2016 Cruise – Northern Exumas 3

• Engine Hours: 12
• Generator Hours:18
• Miles Traveled: 71
• Fish Caught: Mahi (2)
• Marina and Mooring Fees: $0

Bahamas 2016 Cruise – Total Numbers

• Engine Hours: 155
• Generator Hours: 250
• Miles Traveled: 920
• Fish Caught: Mahi (3), Tuna (1), “Fast Grouper” (1)
• Marina and Mooring Fees: $1,425 (includes one month of parking on Grand Bahama during the holidays)

Bahamas 2016 Cruise – Northern Exumas 3

The Norman’s Cay C-46

The Sea Aquarium

A sport-fisherman raft-up at Shroud Cay

Saddleback Cay anchorage

Mahi number one

Mahi number two with our lucky pink lure

Southern creek ocean cut at Shroud Cay