Gosh I can’t believe how time is just flying by! And I can’t seem to keep up with this blog and the vast amount of travels we’ve done in just a few short weeks! Let me take you back to the beginning (or darn near close to the beginning) of the month. It was a warm February 3rd morning in the year of 2016 when this happened…

We have been having such a blast with Beans over the last several days! They’ve shown us so many wonderful nooks and crannies in these stunning Exumas, I can’t imagine having passed it all by so quickly. And yet we’ve barely scratched the surface.

After exploring nearly all of Rudder Cay’s underwater world, we moved a very short distance to The Darby’s; specifically between Little Darby & Big Darby Islands. Our current anchorage was starting to feel choppy this morning (with the 25+ knot winds I’m not surprised). Beans told us of a great spot just between the two Darby’s, which was only 2 miles south from our current spot.

When we were all ready to go, before 9AM, we noticed Beans had already left. We were hopeful they were already at the spot, since they warned us it might be a tricky entrance that they would help us navigate. We were also really thankful that we didn’t have to motor out into the Sound today. The winds were blowing something fierce (25+ knots out of East-Southeast). And we only had to motor about 2 miles south in the complete protection of the land, other than one exposed spot near the anchorage.

As we neared the bay between the two Darby’s the coral reef maze sprung up and we were really glad to see Mike from Beans in his dinghy ready to guide us in. It took a good 10 minutes to find the spot just in front of Beans in a nice bit of sand. We dropped our anchor in 4.8 feet of water! Holy moly that’s shallow – even for us. We were at dead-low-tide so that made us feel a little relief. It won’t get much shallower!

It was also amazing how much calmer it was over here. Near the Darby’s are three little chunks of rock that managed to block the entirety of the ocean surge and swell. So our anchorage was dead calm and flat (with the tall island blocking all of the wind. So much nicer!!!! This looked like it would be a very beautiful spot too, just spotting the islands around us and the crystal clear blues of the water. Simply stunning.

Mike and Jake wasted no time and got to the hunt for the perfect coconuts. We learned that the best ones are those that are brown on the outside, not green. If you shake them and hear the sound of liquid, then they are still in-tact. Otherwise they are either too hard to crack OR they are dried out from ants. Once we collected about 8 coconuts, we walked over to the “iron shore” and went to work cracking them open. Mike made it look easy. Basically you set up your coconut, get a huge rock and start pelting the coconut with the rock until it cracks enough to pull out the core (which is the coconut meat and milk). It took us awhile to get the hang of it – it definitely takes some strength! But we each took it in turns and ended up with 6 solid coconuts for ourselves (2 for Beans since they already had some).

By now, we were all feeling the heat of the day on us – Jake and I most of all. With our treasures in hand, we made our way back to the dinghy dock and to our respective boats. It was not even noon yet, but we felt EXHAUSTED! I guess that’s what the heat will do to ya! I was ready for a cold cocktail and a nap.

The afternoon flew by. It was so enjoyable to do nothing but relax on the boat, read books and actually take naps! Anne lent me another book, Wind of the Carolinas, which is all about the Bahamas. I got started on it right away and it quickly absorbed all of my spare time. It is really fascinating to read about the history of the Bahamas – and of its people. It is such a great read (and it really does explain a lot about the how and why people are the way they are here). I absolutely loved it!

Beans also gave us two extra tuna steaks from the tuna they caught yesterday. So we grilled those up with some yellow curry pad thai noodles with whatever fresh stuff we had left in our fridge…a can of peas, a little onion and some celery. I supplemented it with a few extras – leaks, garlic, yellow curry sauce. It actually looked super scrumptious and tasted phenomenal. That evening we enjoyed a movie night aboard Bosco and were passed out asleep before 9PM (we’re such old timers now haha).

Our second day in the Darbys (Jan 4) was another one full of adventure. We wasted no time this morning either. Both Jake and I were up early, and enjoyed hot brewed coffee out in the cockpit. Then Jake whipped up a super scrumptious pancake breakfast with the last of our bacon (mmmmmm bacon ahhhhhhh…..) and dehydrated raspberries (which are SO GOOD – they taste fresh).

We learned of a few good snorkel spots just a few hundred yards from us. Jake and I planned to visit those at the next slack-tide, which wasn’t until about 4PM this afternoon. So we had several hours to sit back and take in another relaxing day. I took another glorious nap and Jake spent the afternoon baking some homemade oatmeal bread for ourselves and a loaf for Beans, who have done so much for us – we wanted to show our thanks.

By 1pm, we learned that Beans planned to leave us and move to Farmer’s Cay, for the big 5F’s regatta that was happening tomorrow. Before they left we handed them a fresh-out-of-the-oven loaf of bread – we hope they would enjoy that with their fresh catch of the day! After we said our goodbye’s, Jake and I took in the rest of the afternoon solo.

We were antsy to see the fish, so we headed over to the first snorkel spot a bit before slack tide. This place was so pretty – I think I say that about every snorkel spot – but it seems like they just keep getting better and better. This spot had some super cool rock formations, tons of coral and a slew of fish – plus it was much shallower than the other spots we’ve been so far, so that made it easier to get up close and personal. But on the down side, the current was still strong and with the lateness of the day, it was actually cold without the sun to warm us up. So we didn’t linger too long, maybe 20 minutes before we moved over to the flats closer to our boat. Here we swam with about 10 sting rays which are probably the most magnificent water creatures we’ve seen (well besides dolphins of course).

We were in the water for maybe an hour total before Jake was done and ready to get back to the boat. Of course, i went reluctantly because its never enough – as soon as I get a taste I want more and more and more! I’m a snorkel addict! But it was getting cold and the sun was going to be down in less than an hour.

On the way back to our boat, we noticed a huge barracuda lingering under Bosco. We learned from Mike that this guy has been here for a very long time, and locals (and cruisers alike) call him the man-eater. I guess someone got bit when swimming around because the barracuda usually feeds on cruiser’s boat scraps. I thought he was super cool (and cute! I know fish are cute right). He definitely enjoyed our fish scraps from the last few nights so I can understand why he was hanging around. I took some video of him and he seemed happy as a clam just hanging out.

All-in-all it was a fantastic couple of days (or rather week). It feels so good to take things in slowly and absorb the surroundings. There’s so much to see and do sometimes its nice to give ourselves a chance to actually explore a little bit. I love these days of downtime – where we can do some exploring and lots more relaxing. Its definitely the best part of cruising – and of course our new friends as well.