We’ve just returned from a two-month trip through the Exumas and Abacos, where we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and soaked up some beautiful scenery.  I’ve written previously about our love for kayaking, and a great way to explore the Bahamas is in a shallow-draft boat that can slip silently through mangrove tunnels or over blue holes. By shallow-draft, of course, I mean a few inches—one criterion for a good kayaking trip is that it’s too shallow for the dinghy. Here are my recommendations for great kayaking adventures in the Bahamas:

1. Shroud Cay. Hands down my favorite place to kayak on planet Earth (so far). This is a deserted, pristine island with lots of trails, beautiful white sandy beaches, and perfect swimming holes. As part of the Exuma Land and Sea Park, the island is uninhabited and protected. The combination of crystal-clear water mazes, lush green mangroves and white-sand beaches makes it irresistibly beautiful. With three trails (at least) that you can kayak, you could spend a week here happily paddling, hiking and swimming. The southern trail, my favorite, takes about an hour’s paddling to get from the anchorage to the ocean beach, and at high tide, the water flows all the way through. It is supposed to be closed to dinghy traffic, but sometimes people don’t know, or don’t follow, that rule. The middle trail is a lot longer, and at low tide it dries up long before you get to the ocean side, requiring a hike through mud flats if you want to see “what’s on the other side.” This is a shallow trail inaccessible to dinghies. The northern trail has a great swimming hole on the ocean side, but it is open to dinghy traffic, so a peaceful trip may be interrupted from time to time by the sound and wake of an outboard motor. While kayaking Shroud, we saw sharks and turtles, tropical fish along rocky ledges, conch, coral heads and lots of wading birds.

2. The Bight of Old Robinson. We returned to an old favorite just northwest of Little Harbor, Great Abaco Island. If anchored at Lynyard Cay, it would be a good idea to move for the day to the anchorage behind Tom Curry Point to explore by dinghy or kayak, but it’s also pretty easy to take a mooring ball in Little Harbor and tow a kayak or two behind a substantial dinghy (we have a 12-foot hard-bottom inflatable with a 25hp outboard) and head to the Bight for the day. There are more than a dozen blue holes, though I’ve only actually kayaked over two of them. Just to the northwest of the Riding Cays there is an entrance to a great kayaking trail, though timing is tricky, as it is very hard to navigate at low water or on an out-going tide. The entrance itself is beautiful, with coral heads in shallow water, upside-down jellyfish and huge, red-orange cushion stars. Once inside, the water is calm and the blue holes are easy to spot, but you have to know where to look. An easy one to find is just to the south of the entrance to the trail, and it is marked on shore with a plaque dedicated to some young people who died scuba-diving in the underwater passages. This discovery may put a damper on the trip, but it is still exciting to paddle around in a foot or two of water and then see the bottom drop away. Another hole lies to the west behind some rocky islets, but there’s no marker, so you have to search. It helps to look at a satellite picture and mark the approximate locations of the blue holes on the chart before you go exploring. The Bight is where we first saw the dark shapes zipping across the sandy patches near Man of War Bush which we would later come to call “Turbo Turtles.”

3. Snake Cay to Armstrong Cay. We anchored in Buckaroon Bay just north of Armstrong Cay, where there is a little lagoon perfect for a quick kayaking trip. At high tide, you can go into the mangrove trail to the southeast. Even better is a day trip behind the rocky islands south of Snake Cay. Tow the kayak behind the dinghy and have someone drop you off in the channel just past the ruins of the old mill. Heading south, you can meander for hours behind Deep Sea Cay, Mocking Bird Cay, and Iron Cay. The landscape here is decidedly different from anything you’ll see elsewhere because of the pine forest on the Abaco side, and the lush vegetation on the rocky islands. The water is a beautiful, clear green over a mottled bottom with rocks, coral, sand and turtle grass. If you’ve ever wondered where sea turtles go between the time when they hatch from their tiny eggs and crawl down the beach and when you see them huge, surfacing on the ocean like a submarine, I know where at least some of them spend their adolescence. The Abacos are just plumb full of mid-size turtles, and if you’re careful, you can sneak up on one and watch it zip away, faster than you ever thought a turtle could move.

4. No Name Cay. Southeast of Green Turtle Cay is a beautiful little anchorage on the Sea of Abaco behind No Name Cay.  We anchored outside the entrance to the lagoon and took the kayaks in for a quick explore. We found mangroves to the north and a small, sandy beach to the south. We pulled the kayak up on the sand to see if we could get through the brush to see the ocean side of the island. What we found was a rough trail to a small, shallow, enclosed bay perfect for finding treasures like sea glass and shells. Back in the lagoon, we enjoyed drifting across the still water as the tide carried us toward the exit. It was perfectly quiet except for distant ocean breakers and bird calls.

5. Double Breasted Cay. I’ve saved the best for last. Many people traveling across the Banks stop at Great Sale Cay and miss one of the treasures of the northern Bahamas. Following the chain to the northeast of Green Turtle, past Manjack, Spanish, and Powell Cays, the islands grow smaller, more remote and less protected. About 45 nautical miles from the Crab Cay waypoint on Little Abaco Island you arrive at Double Breasted Cay, a gathering of small, narrow, uninhabited rocky islands. The current is tricky, so we entered and exited the anchorage at slack high water, but if you can get in behind Sand Cay, it’s worth it. This is kayaking at its best. The sandy flats around Sand Cay are known for shark sightings, and I saw several large sharks patrolling around dusk one evening. In the open water between the islands, there are lots of coral heads, easily visible from the water’s surface on a calm day. In the mangrove trail to the north, we saw more turbo turtles and wading birds. The stillness was only broken by the liquid warble of Red-winged Blackbirds. This is my new favorite place in the Bahamas, one I hope we’ll return to on a future trip.

One of our favorite places in the Abacos is Little Harbor, a sweet spot at the southern end of the Sea of Abaco. We’ve stopped there both coming and going—it’s either our first stop after crossing Northeast Providence Channel from Eleuthera and the Exumas or our last taste of Abaco before heading south. The area has a lot going for it—caves with stalactites, stalagmites, and bats, a beautiful protected cove filled with sea turtles, a nice hilly hike, an ocean beach with dramatic views and good waves, a bight with good snorkeling and excellent kayaking, blue holes, and, of course, Pete’s Pub and Foundry.

Pete Johnston came to the Bahamas on a boat with his parents in the 1950s. His father was a sculptor skilled in the art of lost-wax casting, and he built the foundry that is there to this day, open for tours daily. The last time we visited, Eli got an early Christmas present in the gallery: a bronze shark belt buckle on a leather belt made by none-other-than Pete himself. He even measured Eli and punched the holes. He does beautiful work, and also happens to run our favorite restaurant.

Pete’s Pub is the ultimate low-key beach bar. The food is always fabulous, with the fish and conch on the menu usually caught and cleaned that day. The burgers are a bit pricey, but better than you’ll find anywhere else in the Abacos, where good meat appears to be scarce. The sides are always a spicy version of the Bahamian standard, peas-n-rice, and a to-die-for pineapple cole slaw. We’ve never been disappointed. The atmosphere is special, too, with the picnic tables in the sand, little shady places to sit, a “porch” near the bar with Adirondack chairs to sink into with your cold Kalik or their famed fruity rum drink, “the Blaster” (why walk when you can crawl?). The whole place is lit with small lanterns and Christmas lights and festooned with tee-shirts donated and signed by past visitors. Add some good music and a hook-and-ring bar game and you have the perfect place to relax at the end of a long sail.

We like to head over in the dinghy around 6-ish, when the red-yellow-green traffic light on the beach comes on. You can go up on the rooftop balcony to see a great view of the sunset or the breakers on the ocean side. The kids bring things to play with (army guys, buckets and shovels, dominoes, coloring books, etc.) and we spend the whole evening enjoying a meal or drinks, meeting other boaters and talking to locals. It’s the sort of place that seems outside of time, unchanging, like the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

We often have a hankering for Pete’s Pub, but part of its charm may be that it’s so hard to get to. When we arrive, it is usually with weariness and joy in equal measures. Little Harbor is an easy place to pass up, with the washing-machine surge against Tom Curry Point and its shallow entrance, but once inside, it is a little slice of paradise, remote but not isolated, secluded yet welcoming. It’ll be awhile before we get back there, but, eventually, when the craving hits, we’ll untie the dock-lines and brave the ocean waves again, knowing that there’s a bright spot at the end of every journey.

I have written elsewhere about our homeschool, or rather, boatschool practices (see FAQ: Do You Homeschool the Children?), but from time to time I like to post an update about what we’re learning on Take Two. Now that we are traveling, formal schooling has taken a back seat to fun and exploration. Instead of doing the “Daily Dozen” (see footnote), we’re down to three: Reading, ‘Riting, and ‘Rithmatic. The children are still responsible for a page in their math workbooks, an entry in their journals, and a chapter in the book we are currently reading (we just finished the WWI autobiography Seargent York and the Great War and have moved on to Karen Hess’s Out of the Dust), but these tasks are usually done before noon. When the school-work and chores are done, the kids are free to pursue their own interests, and I am pleased to report that the choices they make for free time are both diverse and fascinating. Our key mission is to inspire our children to be life-long learners—after all, life is school—and we are beginning to see them independently take on challenging books and projects (yay!). Aside from the history and science they pick up as we travel, they are each exploring new areas on their own.

Eli, 11, is learning Small Basic. Jay set him up on an old computer and gave him a tutorial and a book, which he is working through as if it were a game instead of a new language. (I wish he felt that way about Spanish!) Earlier this year, Jay gave a mini-lesson on a base-two number system, and Eli took an interest and wrote a coded letter to a friend in binary. While we lived in Marathon, he picked up a new sport: tennis. He and I spent many a happy afternoon hitting and chasing little green balls. He reads like a fiend when given the chance, and is currently reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Aaron, 10, is our most mechanically-inclined child so far, and is teaching himself electronics. It started with a set of Snap Circuits he got for Christmas one year, but has quickly morphed into projects from Charles Platt’s Make: Electronics using chips, wires, a soldering gun, capacitors, resistors, LEDs, and some tiny little color-coded wires. Don’t even ask me what he’s doing, because I don’t understand it. He also got a neat Lego motorized loader/bulldozer set for his birthday last year and has been using gears from that set to build gear boxes that have six speeds and actually shift. While his brother was enjoying tennis, he was practicing the half-pipe on his skateboard and discovering a love for basketball. His favorite book is David Macaulay’s The New Way Things Work.

Sarah, 9, is a little like Ginger Rogers, who could do everything Fred Astaire could do, only backwards and in high heels. She’s working on her online test to get a Florida Boating Safety Education I.D. card so she can captain the dinghy and also doing some computer programming and electronic experiments in her spare time. She prefers learning French to Spanish, paints with acrylics, and writes stories for fun. She is always working on a new knitting project, and is also currently sewing her sister a nine-patch quilt. She’s taken to gardening, and even though we are short on space, she has a pot of carrots growing on deck and an assortment of herbs on my galley window sill. Given some alone time in her room, you can hear her playing her keyboard and it actually sounds like music. She’s always reading at least three books simultaneously, but loves Walter Farley’s Black Stallion series of books on her Kindle.

Sam, 6, is still learning to read, but seems to have a gift for numbers. He has excellent mental math for someone so young and seems to absorb math facts just by being in the same room as the older kids. He is learning to draw airplanes and WWII battle scenes, can play a mean game of chess, put together a 1000-piece puzzle, do complex dot-to-dots with hundreds of dots and really likes stories by Dr. Seuss. He has joined the bigger boys on their flight simulator and enjoys dogfights in his Spitfire.

Rachel, 2, is the smartest toddler we’ve ever produced, a fact I credit with the time Sarah spends reading to her and teaching her every day. She talks in complete sentences, is potty-trained, sings nursery rhymes, counts to ten, and surprises us with her accuracy when naming shapes, colors, and even some numbers and letters. She can dress and undress herself, brush her own teeth, and blow her own nose. She has impeccable manners and loves to have stories read to her. She’s learning to swim, but I’d like to see that skill really solidify this summer, as it will increase her joy and our peace of mind.

Jay and I don’t seem to find a lot of “spare” or “free” time, but when we do find those moments, we love to read. Jay is experimenting with Arduino microcontrollers, and is rereading the Hornblower series by C.S. Forrester for pleasure. He just finished a WWII memoir, With the Old Breed: at Peleliu and Okinawa by E.B. Sledge. As an English major, I read lots of dead white guys in college, but missed a lot of the American authors, so I’m trying to cover some lost ground. I started with Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, and enjoyed it more than I expected to. I took a break and read James Mitchener’s Chesapeake, which led logically into a reading of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

While Jay fiddles with electronics projects with Aaron, Sarah and I experiment with new recipes. We made a skillet coffee cake from Robbie Johnson’s Gourmet Underway. I love it when learning becomes a whole-family venture, and one of my favorite things about homeschooling is that everything at home becomes an opportunity to learn, whether it’s peaceful conflict resolution or how to mix a Goombay Smash for sunset visitors.

Note: The Daily Dozen replaces a project-based curriculum while we have a toddler on the loose. It’s an experiment to see if we can do school in five-minute increments between potty-training and temper-tantrums. The dozen mini-lessons cover these areas: Bible/Family Devotions, Music, Math, Science/Nature, Spanish/French, Vocabulary/Grammar, Geography, Logic/Brain Teasers, Art History, Navigation/Seamanship, Poetry, and History/Literature.

We love this remote and rugged island chain for its clear blue water, its dramatic rocky terrain, and its idyllic deserted beaches. It is rare that you share a beach (and sometimes a whole island) with another person, and if you do see someone else, you merely hop in your dinghy and zip over to the next, less-crowded beach. What follows is a summary of our stops on this trip.

March 22, Highborne Cay—We picked up where we left off two years ago, at a familiar anchorage with a pretty beach, good snorkeling, and plenty of calm, clear, shallow water for swimming. Our kids have a great love for two things: swimming and climbing. The Bahamas has plenty of both, so sometimes it feels like a giant playground made just for us.

March 25, Warderick Wells—The Exumas Land and Sea Park is probably one of my favorite places on planet Earth. We anchored at Emerald Rock and returned to the park headquarters on Warderick Wells. We did some hiking on familiar trails, actually saw a hutia on Hutia Hill (it looks like a giant hamster), looked for friends’ boat names on driftwood up on Boo Boo Hill, climbed around near the Blowholes, and spent some time on one of those idyllic beaches. There we found the biggest hermit crab we have ever seen.

March 26, Hog Cay—Hoping to branch out from the familiar, we decided to spend a day exploring the southern end of Warderick Wells. We hiked to the Davis ruins, a Loyalist settlement dating from the late 1700’s—two stone walls and the foundations of a few buildings—up on a hilltop. Great view, but I found myself wondering how anyone could survive on an island where nothing grows and the only fresh water is rain that gathers in the natural indentations or “wells” in the limestone bedrock. I’m guessing they ate a lot of seafood. Rumor has it that they were attacked by the pirates that occupied the southern tip of the island. There is a simply breathtaking harbor (aptly called “Pirate’s Lair”) where a ship could lie in wait in the deep harbor hidden between Warderick Wells and Hog Cay and attack passing ships. “Capture Beach” was a favorite hangout of these ne’er-do-wells, and “Escape Beach” on Hog Cay was where we parked our dinghy to stop for picnic lunch and play. The kids disappeared immediately, having found cliffs and boulders to climb. Hog Cay has some beautiful features—large rocky ledges, a tunnel where the water flows from Exuma sound into the harbor, tide pools, hilltop vistas and sandy beaches. Even though we didn’t find any pirate treasure, it was a gorgeous spring day and perfect for this kind of exploring.

March 27, Cambridge Cay—We moved on to Cambridge Cay, where there were more climbing opportunities and an even more beautiful, deserted white sand beach. We took a park mooring ball for a night and watched a spectacular moonrise from a calm bay. We kept the family tradition of storytelling and stargazing on the trampolines. The next morning we went to the south end of Cambridge to snorkel right off the beach. There were some rare and beautiful Elkhorn coral formations, but we were also sad to see a lot of damage and bleaching. The beach itself was perfection, and the water like an endless swimming pool. We chose this setting to baptize the four oldest children (which was something they had been talking about for a long time) and then went back to the boat for cake to celebrate.

March 28, Compass Cay—Our next stop was Compass Cay, home of the Compass Cay Marina where you can jump off the dock and “Swim with the Sharks” (for a small landing fee of $10/person). The kids were nonplussed, as they were tame nurse sharks—they swim with nurse sharks that hang out under our boat all the time (for free). We anchored near Pipe Cay and witnessed a huge wildfire just after sundown, the cause of which was a stray spark from fireworks set off by one of the marina guests. And we thought the fireworks were exciting! The next day we spent cleaning the boat and preparing for Passover, which we celebrate as part of our family’s Easter tradition. The morning of the 30th we explored Compass Cay by dinghy and found it to be as beautiful as the guide book said, with a crystal-clear mangrove creek, a hike up to Compass Point (elevation 92 ft.), pristine beaches and a really unique feature called “Rachel’s Bubble Bath.” This is a tidal area with sandy flats that flood during high tide. The ocean’s surge passes into a limestone bowl through a crack in the rocks and all the sea foam gathers in the bowl and looks like (you’ll never guess) a bubble bath. On a warmer and less-windy day, it would be a perfect swimming hole.

March 30, Sampson Cay—Looking for protection from the wind, we moved to Sampson Cay. There is a popular marina and club there, but it seemed very quiet for Easter weekend and we saw almost no other people. We scoped out a few of the small islands nearby and found one with a hidden beach. As it had no name on our chart, we decided to claim it for our family and dubbed it “Robinson Island” after the Swiss Family and Robinson Crusoe, of course. We enjoyed a day of sandy, salty play on our very own private island.

April 1, Staniel Cay—Hoping to make it to the Batelco station to pick up a local phone/SIM card and try out their new network, we went ashore at Staniel Cay. No luck with the phone—it was a holiday. No, not April Fool’s, but Easter Monday. We expect this sort of thing to happen in the islands. We did have good luck at Pink and Blue, however, the two grocery stores on the hill. They are more like tiny cottages than supermarkets, but if you get there just after the mail boat comes, they have eggs, butter, cheese and fresh produce in addition to the canned goods they usually carry. I found everything I needed to refresh my supplies on the boat at Blue, so we waved to the ladies at Pink and headed back to the boat.

April 2, Black Point Settlement, Great Guana Cay—We left Staniel, which we really don’t like and headed for Black Point, which feels more like a family place. We had been here before, and when I took laundry ashore at Rockside, the owner, Ida, remembered our family. This is my favorite Laundromat anywhere. Ida always has a freshly-baked cake in her welcoming store, and keeps the Laundromat impeccably clean. And you can’t beat the view. It becomes the popular gathering place for cruisers with clothes to wash and stories to unload. Jay tried the Batelco station around 11 AM, but it was locked, with hours posted as 9-12 on Tuesdays. Island time, I guess. While the laundry was drying, we headed to Lorraine’s Café for burgers and fish sandwiches. I also bought two loaves of still-warm coconut bread from Lorraine’s mom—the best I’ve had anywhere in the Bahamas. We collected some sea glass from the ocean beach on the East side of the island, spending another beautiful afternoon on a deserted strand.

April 2, Robinson Island—We returned to our own private paradise to anchor for the night, with hopes that it would be calm enough to have a bit of fireside fun. It was a perfect evening. I made a pot of chili, packed up tortilla chips, cheese, a bottle of wine, and S’mores supplies and we headed to our little beach just before sunset. There was just enough daylight left for gathering firewood and setting up dinner around the fire. This has to be our favorite part about finding deserted beaches—no signs, no rules, no one to tell you “No.” After witnessing the fire on Compass, we were especially careful. We stayed until we had burned every stick we’d gathered, and the fire was nothing but gently glowing embers. We covered the fire with damp sand, and tried to erase all evidence that we had been there. We hope to keep our island in pristine condition.

April 3, Shroud Cay—A perfect breeze made for a gorgeous sail north to Shroud Cay, what is, to me at least, the crowning glory of the Exumas Land and Sea Park. With miles of mangrove trails, long, white ocean beaches, and beautiful swimming holes, it has something to offer everyone. Immediately upon setting the hook, Jay launched the kayaks (twin yellow Ocean Kayak Malibu Two’s) and the kids and I geared up for an explore. While I love the deep, dark, swampy tangles that make up Florida mangroves, nothing compares to the beautiful contrast of Shroud Cay’s crystal blue channels and lush green leaves topping red arched roots. We took the southern trail which connects the Western side of the island to Exuma sound. The beach sand there is so fine it squeaks when you walk on it, and the deep tidal channel is perfect for cooling off after the hard work of paddling upwind. The downwind paddle was relaxing, though we missed a turnoff and ended up paddling home through an alternate outlet and across choppy open water to the boat.

April 4, Shroud Cay—Another beautiful day, another kayak trail to explore. The other kids being tuckered out from our previous paddle, Eli and I hopped in one kayak to explore the trail across the middle of Shroud Cay while the others took the dinghy on the trail to the north. They found what they said was the perfect swimming hole, with a steeply inclining beach for big-kid swimming and a shallow sand bar where Rachel could safely play. Eli and I found a long, clear trail that got gradually shallower and shallower until we were walking alongside the kayak through sandy shallows. We pulled the kayak out onto the sandy bank at low water and tied it to a mangrove root. A hike over tidal flats and through Casuarina forest revealed (yet another) deserted white sand beach. After a long walk, a cooling swim, and a drink and a snack, we hiked back to where we had left the kayak and found it floating on an incoming tide. Though the tide was rushing in, the wind was at our backs, so the paddle back was easy and pleasant. We found a swimming hole on the way out where we could jump off the rocks into deeper water, so we cooled off there before heading out of the mangroves and back to the boat for lunch and a nap.

April 4 Highborne Cay—We returned to what has unexpectedly become our favorite anchorage in the Bahamas, the north cove of Highborne Cay. With a cold front coming, we needed a protected place to spend a couple of nights. The front brought only some gusty wind, but dumped buckets of rain, so we got a free de-salting wash-down. We awoke April 6th find a big beautiful blue day before us.

April 6, Leaf Cay—We took Take Two over to Leaf Cay for some beach fun and iguana chasing. After lunch and birthday cake (for Jay’s 38th), we went ashore with beach toys and chairs and some Romaine lettuce. Jay hadn’t even secured the dinghy before Eli had caught a Rock Iguana. Evidently they aren’t very smart, though they are pretty quick. Sarah managed to trick one as well, though she got scratched up a bit in the attempt. By the time Aaron got into the game, the wary iguanas were coming close enough to nibble the edge of the lettuce but not close enough to get caught, much to his chagrin. Sam and Rachel seemed content to throw lettuce and then back away as several iguanas would scuffle for the offering. Jay and I sat in beach chairs and talked about what we’d like to do next. No sooner discussed than enacted—the next posts will be from the Abacos!