Been there done that, but it was so good we had to do it again.

Exuma Cays, Bahamas to Ft. Lauderdale Florida

It was difficult to leave the excellent snorkeling at Wardrick Wells, but we knew that the islands ahead where outstanding as well, so we set off across the banks on the passage to Shroud Cay (all of 20 miles). Shroud did not disappoint us. It is a cay made up of mangroves connecting white sand beaches together. There were beautiful clear water channels through the mangroves making for excellent exploring and kayaking.

One afternoon we took the dinghy through the mangroves to Driftwood beach, on the Atlantic Ocean side of the island. The beach has some of the softest sand and a great view to the open ocean.

We also took a dinghy ride over to Norman Cay (notorious for its use as a staging point for smuggling drugs into the USA in the 1980’s) to have lunch at McDuffs. This restaurant is famous in the Bahamas and is reported to have the best hamburgers in the islands. While we planned on having a burger, when we saw the menu we had to have some of the local seafood. First an excellent cerviche with fish, conch and shrimp, followed by the best conch fritters we have ever had. Really, these fritters where excellent. They had very little breading in them and where mostly conch, peppers and onions lightly fried with a little flour to hold them together. We tried to get them to give us the recipe, but they just laughed. So we will try to duplicate them this summer.

After a few very relaxing days, we headed north another 20 or so miles to Highbourne Cay. Last year we couldn’t get enough of the snorkeling at Octopuses’ Garden, so we headed directly there, sort of. After searching around for a while, we found it again and it was as beautiful as last year. We tried a few other snorkel spots, but kept going back to Octopuses’ Garden as the corals were the best.

As we prepared Berkeley East to leave for Florida the next day, a small skiff pulled along side full of conch. Leroy had been out conching all morning and was selling his catch for $3 each. We purchased some and he agreed to clean them for us for the price of one cold beer. While he was cleaning them over the side of his skiff, large remoras ( a 3 foot long, spooky looking fish that usually attaches itself to sharks with a sucker on its head) where coming out of the water trying to take the conch out of his hands. Luckily, they only got the conch.

From Highbourne Cay, we started the trip back to the USA. We had the bug to move on, so in very light weather we motor sailed to Chubb Cay, then across the Grand Bahamas Bank and into Ft. Lauderdale, FL over the next 3 days. Last year, the banks were a big concern as they are very shallow and have lots of coral heads, but with a year under our belt, the trip was less stressful and down right boring. I guess we have come a long way. As we approached Florida Berkeley East was showing 10,000 nautical miles since we took delivery of her 2 ½ years ago.

The bad news was that we didn’t catch any fish. We need to refresh the fishing lures when we reach Florida. It has been a tough season on fishing tackle and most of our lures have been taken or chewed by sharks, marlin and other big fish.