Near-Real Time Update – Sat July 11 2026
Yes, it is I, the George R.R Martin of blogging.
I’m sitting in our new-to-us truck camper, off-grid, on the shoulder of Mt McKinnon near Woodruff, Utah. We are 1 week into a 6 week (terrestrial) loop of the western US states.
Terri is sitting across from me at the dinette table, with her laptop open as well, planning our next big trip. (She is VERY good at this).
Let’s cut to the chase. We sold Luthien in January 2026. Much more on that in a separate blog. Our permanent home base is now back at the modest house we kept on Cherryhurst Lane in Highlands Ranch. CO.
I thought I’d close out the Luthien volume – it feels too large to call it merely a chapter – in this blog, then move on to a little more in depth, and personal, discussion of how the decision to sell Luthien and move back onto land came about, in a subsequent blog.
Finally, we’re on to a whole new set of adventures in the truck camper, Luthien II. I plan to restart blogging and posting about those travels, from here on out.
A Quick Visit To The Exumas
Let’s get in the way-back machine to the end of May, 2025.
As our month in Eleuthra wound down, it was getting into late May and it was starting to get hot and buggy. A lot of cruisers actually clear out of the Bahamas and start heading back north in March and April. Since we got a late start to the season, we decided to brave the bugs and heat and stay just a little longer than experienced cruisers would normally advise.
We left Cape Eleuthera on my birthday, May 28th, and headed across Exuma Sound to the northern tip of the Exumas chain – Highborne Cay. This was one of the best sailing days of our 8 month adventure. We had a cloudless day with azure blue skies, very kind 3 ft seas, and 15 knots of wind on the beam – enough to get moving at a zippy 8 knots. The conditions were beautiful. This was what sailors call a “champagne sailing” day.
Under Sail Across Exuma Sound
We had brought a few New York strip steaks with us when we provisioned up in the US back in February, and kept those in the freezer for special occasions. We grilled up the last one of those steaks on our outdoor grill, after we anchored that night. And we had one more bottle of Tempranillo on board to go with that. I did indeed, have a great day on my birthday.
As mentioned, Highborne Cay is one of the northern-most cays in the so-called Exumas chain. The Exumas are widely considered one of the world’s premier cruising destinations. Stretching more than 120 miles and comprising over 365 cays, they’re famous for impossibly clear turquoise water, powder-white sand beaches, and countless protected anchorages.
Compared with the more developed Abacos or the rugged coastline of Eleuthera, the Exumas are wonderfully wild. Beach bars are few and far between. The reefs are healthier, sea life is more abundant, and the anchorages and beaches are even more secluded. One can find several videos on YouTube where cruisers in the Exumas have an anchorage and the nearby beach, all to themselves. Here’s one of our favorites (and incidentally, these guys have the same model of boat as us):
YouTube – “The O’Kellys” – Best Secluded Anchorages in the Exumas
HOWEVER, we didn’t get to do any of that. 😢 I was greatly saddened that we were nearing the end of our cruising season and would only get a few days in the Exumas. Had we kept Luthien and done another season, we would definitely be heading straight to the Exumas next season and spend a month or two there exploring all of its nooks and crannies.
We ended up anchoring off the west coast of Highborne Cay for the evening. This wasn’t a great spot. It’s only about 30 miles from Nassau to here, so there is a lot of day-tripper tourist traffic going hither and thither in fast boats that create a lot of wake. But it was getting late in the day and we just needed somewhere to stop for one night.
Next morning, we decided we’d head to the next cay north, Allen’s Cay, and see if we could find a quiet anchorage to hang out for a few days. And did we! It was kind of tricky getting in there, one had to keep an eye on the depth meter and put a scout on the bow (ie Terri) to eye-ball for shallow spots. We did run aground in there, although softly, and we were able to reverse engines and pull ourselves off the sand bar relatively easily.
Fortunately, the mild risk paid off and we ended up in the cutest little horseshoe shaped bay. There was one other cruising catamaran in there when we first arrived, and a few tourist boats during the day, but mostly we had the place to ourselves. We stayed at that little anchorage for several nights.
The south end of that bay had a nice beach which was populated by iguanas! Terrestrial, not the aquatic ones like you find in the Galapagos, and black, not the usual green like you see in Mexico. We did a little googling and found out these were Bahamian Rock Iguanas, indigenous to the Bahamas, and only found there. And apparently Allen’s Cay is one of their main big colonies.
They were clearly habituated to tourists and cautiously broke cover from the tree line when we landed on the beach, but kept a healthy distance. We had come prepared with some best-days-behind-it lettuce and entertained ourselves watching the iguanas work up enough courage to come a little closer and grab the lettuce pieces.
There was not exactly a reef, but a lot of underwater rock in various places around us, and where there is rock, there are fish. We had a few snorkel swims over the next couple of days and saw all the usual Bahamas suspects – sergeant majors, blue tangs, tobacco fish, etc etc. There was one remarkable denizen I hadn’t seen before, a good sized grouper, probably a good 3 – 4 ft long and as big as a small ham in diameter, hanging out in the deepest part of the channel. Looking at various fish identification cards, I figure maybe a Nassau Grouper?
Sooo… at the beginning of this blog, I said I was going to break this up into 2 pieces, “The Voyage Home”, and “why back on dry land”Why Are We Back On Dry Land”. I’m at two pages of text already and we’re still in the Exumas. Let’s call this a wrap for today, and I’ll write a separate entry about the voyage back.
Next blog will be out … “Soon, mon” 😄
