February 09 – February 16, 2024; 12670 nm and 1793 days after departure from La Rochelle

When we left the marina in the Dominican Republic (DR) we had to tack out of Samaná bay as the wind was right on our nose at the beginning of our 3 day trip. Though it took us a bit longer to pass the first 12 nm out of the bay with our zigzag course, it was just our luck! We saw a water fountain. Wait, what? Of course that must have been a blow, silly us! Shortly after we realised our fortune we saw the big animals. Yesssss, we were greeted by several huge humpback whales. And due to our zigzag we kept passing them😁. OMG can you imagine sailing in your own little boat and watching those big beautiful creatures majestically swimming by only a few meters next to you? I was so excited that El Capitano had to remind me that I still needed to watch the helm. I was almost screaming the whole time for excitement when seeing the blows or their fins. Especially because we both somehow had given up the chance of seeing the whales. Even though it was THE time of the year for watching them. As from mid January through mid March the North Atlantic Humpback Whales overwinter in the warm marine sanctuary of the bay before they begin their long migration to their summer grounds – as far away as Greenland and Iceland! We were both so happy to have had the chance to see the giant beauties that the first sailing day passed by in a blink. Just a pity that we didn’t manage to get a nice shot🙈.

The rest of our trip was not as exciting but fairly fast which let us arrive late at the 11th of Feb. Thanks to the open bay at Matthew Town in Great Inagua we dared to anchor at night and were a little proud that we did so. Great Inagua belongs to the southernmost district of The Bahamas, Inagua. Checking the maps I was surprised that we were so close to Cuba only about 50 nm from its eastern tip. Anyway the next morning we were eager and curious to go ashore. Via “Click2clear” we had already done all the online paperwork and paid our fees for the check in. Still we had to go to customs and immigration to get our passports stamped. Matthew Town sounded so much bigger than it actually was. One main street with some houses, a small supermarket and somewhere customs and immigration. On our way there we run into a Canadian sailor couple and had a chat for quite a while. They mentioned that they had to pay another 80$ for the further check in formalities. Immigration and Customs is always an experience as one never know what to expect. In Matthew Town it seemed rather funny. While we were still talking to the Canadian couple, a government officer passed by in a car, stopped and asked us whether we needed to check in. (We must have looked strongly like wanting to check in sailors.) As we confirmed, he asked us to wait next to the dinghy dock, where he would send somebody. First the customs officer showed up with his car, handing over the cruising permit and customs papers which we had to sign and off he went again. After about 15 min an official looking woman (immigration) came by, asked us to fill out some more papers and took our passports. She asked us to wait and drove back. Always a strange feeling when somebody takes your passport and drives off. But hey, so far we always got them back😉. Another 15 min and she was back with our stamped passports and a cruising permit. Easy, peasy, perfect👍. The best part was that we only had to pay 40$. We have no clue why. Maybe we were looking so good or the sun was shining? Who knows? We probably just got lucky!

As it was still early we decided to stretch our legs a little and walked to one of the highlights of the town and island, the lighthouse. It was a pleasant half an hour walk where we got an impression of the sleepy village and the amazing colours of the bahamian waters. It made us want to see more and get fast into the beautiful crystal clear water to snorkle. Back on Altimate we lifted the anchor and headed to a nicer and calmer anchorage 8nm further north to a bay with the common name “Man of war” bay. Even anchoring in those beautiful clear waters was a delight. The anchore slides down to the sand and you can see it smoothly digging into the perfect white ground. Checking the anchor was just a reason to jump immediately into the water. We had a short snorkle and at the very first coral head El Capitano had already sighted 5 spiny lobsters hiding in a whole. We have not seen so many lobster in one spot ever before. And just like that the hunting fever was triggered. We had already heard there were a lot of spiny lobsters in the Bahamas but we wouldn’t have thought that we would see them at the very first coral head. In the marina in Samaná a Canadian couple were so kind to give us as a present their lobster sling as they never used it. So we were kind of prepared to start lobstering. Meanwhile Cathy and Joe from Lady Seagull, the couple we met at Matthew Town earlier that day as well arrived in the anchorage. When we told them about the many lobsters we had seen, Joe was also very keen on soon starting his hunting career.
The next morning was hunting lobster time for the two of us. Highly motivated we jumped into the beautiful blue water and started chasing. The funny and also exciting part was that El Capitano managed to catch one lobster on his very first attempt. Both of us rather astonished about the early success didn’t know what to do now. Oops a lobster🤣.After only a few moments the lucky clever lobster freed himself and was gone. Nooooo! Well, we figured one problem was, Norbert caught him on his antennae as he didn’t know better how or where to put the sling around. The second problem was, we had not thought about what to do with the lobster when caught. A steep learning curve! We were not well prepared on our first hunting day! Nope! A bag would have been the solution to keep the lobster in. But who thinks about such important things when your hunting fever just has started? Not us. At least it was a good day for the lobster. Still that didn’t stop El Capitano from further hunting. We, well El Capitano spent two more hours trying to catch one. (I was only there to get a video of him when he would have managed to catch one.) Now knowing that they were chased, the lobsters were highly alert and kept hiding deeper in the cave of the coral. Norbert tried to annoy them from one side so that sometimes they came out of the coral on the other side. Somehow all that didn’t really help. The sling seemed to be too small to put it around the tail and on the other hand the sling was too big for the antennaes. We needed another strategy or just more experience?

Nevertheless, the almost catching-one-experience triggered our hunting mood even more and made us go back the next morning. Who would have thought that hunting could be so constagious? I felt a bit ashamed🙈, but only a bit. This time Joe and Cathy joined us. Joe didn’t have a sling but he fortunately had at a proper bag to keep the lobster in case of being successful. Much smarter than us he had also checked the internet for information how to catch a lobster with a sling. I know it does sound logical that the sling was supposed to go around the tail but for us it did seem muuuuuch too small. Now, much better equipped and informed we started the hunting again. Norbert had the sling, Joe had a stick, I had the bag and was prepared to put the lobster in the bag and Cathy was ready to take pics. Even so well prepared it took a while until the boys finally caught one. Joe was the lucky first one to get the sling correctly around the tail of one lobster. Yeah!!! Success. I dared to hold it and put it in the bag. I was so brave!!! Now we needed another one as we were two families. So the hunting went on. It took ages and we almost gave up but then Norbert said he would try it only once more. That was his lucky approach. He as well managed to get the sling around a lobster tail and pulled it tight before the lobster could swim away. I tell you, catching your own food is hard work! Believe us! But it is also very satisfying and makes us appreciate food much more. Proud about our accomplishment we celebrated our first successful lobster hunting day together with Lady Seagull. They brought rum punch and a fish curry as a starter we prepared the lobsters and grilled them. What a yummi feast😋. The Bahamas started nice!

Even though we thought Great Inagua was kind of cool we only went there to check in to the country. Our further goal was to explore the Ragged islands chain. We heard that those were the most remote islands of the Bahamas with plenty of fish life and many lobsters. That sounded very attractive to us, not only because of our new hobby, the lobstering. Lady Seagull had the same plan but the trouble that their auto pilot didn’t work. A real bummer! That meant hand steering 142 nm to the first island of the Ragged chain. It reminded us of our own auto pilot issue. We were even more happy that we were able to fix it in the DR.
The next morning we left Great Inagua with Lady Seagull as our buddy boat. It was a nice sail for us and an of course tiring one for Lady Seagull. Yet we both arrived a day later in the early afternoon at Southside bay. An anchorage at the southmost island of the Ragged chain.