We left Chub Cay on January 21st and spent most of the day sailing north to Hoffman’s Cay. It was a comfortable, relaxing sail. The boys all found comfortable spots to read, Brandon caught and cooked lunch, and I did most of the sailing.
We arrived late in the afternoon and anchored between Hoffman’s Cay and Little Gaulding Cay. Right away, we set out for Hoffman’s Blue Hole, a large, underwater sink hold in the middle of the island. It’s about 600 feet in diameter and over 500 feet deep. We took our dinghy to the beach and spent an hour trying to navigate trails swarming with mosquitos before finding ourselves on a cliff overlooking the blue hole.
We spent several hours swimming in the blue hole. Gabriel and Isaiah practiced freediving. They are getting pretty good, making it more than 40 feet deep on a single breath of air.
Back on the boat, it was time to address a big abscess on Gabriel’s foot. A month ago at Highborne Cay, he was running barefoot on an old wooden dock and got a huge splinter in his foot. We’d pulled it out with pliers and thought we’d removed all of it, but over the past week a large, white lump had appeared around the area, and he was beginning to have trouble walking on it. After cleaning and attempting to numb his foot, Brandon lanced it open with a scalpel. After draining lots of nasty pus we eventually found and removed another piece of wood from deep inside his foot. It was nearly an inch long. We couldn’t believe he’d been walking around with it for the past month.
While the medical supplies were out, Brandon also removed a cyst in Isaiah’s wrist that had grown around a palm thorn. We were hesitant to make incisions on our children, but after seeing a couple questionable clinics in the Bahamas we decided that our boat was probably a more sterile location.
Once everyone was bandaged up, we ate fish curry (recipe here) for dinner and prepared to leave the next day.
Those toes on Gabriel…. Like fingers 😂
Oh my gosh that’s scary stuff! Great job Brandon. Gabriel and Isaiah what a brave boys you are. Ashley how do you like sailing the boat? Do you guys have to stay up all night when you are sailing?
I love sailing during the day and when the weather is nice, but someone does need to be awake at all times when we are at sea. Brandon and I usually split the nights and the boys help during daylight hours. The lack of sleep on multi-day passages can be pretty miserable. Overall, I enjoy the destinations a lot more than the voyage!😊