All Who Wander Are Not LOST

A long time ago, Bob and I decided that if we were making a purchasing decision, we should ask ourselves if this purchase would keep us in the house or get us outside and keep us active. We credit this one decision in life for a lot of what we have achieved including this trip. As many of you know, Finn was born with a cleft lip and palate. Our day-to-day existence for most of his first year greatly contrasted with our more normal routine and by the time we made it through his fourth month and first surgery, we were beginning to question our long-standing decision of no television.  We had watched most of our movie library (on a small laptop) and exhausted the SailTV clips on the internet.  It was at this time we heard on the news that people were upset about the State of the Nation showing at the same time as LOST.

Being completely ignorant of pop culture, we decided to see what LOST was all about. I reserved the first season DVD set from the library (yes, we are very cheap), we watched and were hooked. I reserved the second season from the library and we waited, and waited, and waited. I finally asked the librarian what was up. Turns out the member library that owned Season 2, wouldn’t share such a popular title to out-of-towners! So we broke our own rule and purchased Season 2. And then 3, 4,  5 and 6.

A mysterious animal at one of the abandoned residences

Our first trip to George Town wasn’t all that exciting and we left not too long after arriving.  We headed north with plans to slowly make our way through to the Abacos. Our first stop north of George Town was Lee Stocking island about 25 miles up the Exuma chain, a nice sized island with hiking trails, an abandoned laboratory (nearly 20 buildings), snorkeling, multiple beaches and almost-new moorings. We arrived at Lee Stocking on a Tuesday afternoon with enough time for a little exploration. The island is home to the now defunct Perry Institute of Marine Sciences. After a short walk through the abandoned lab site it was apparent that the island was straight from the set of LOST, complete with laboratories, abandoned food, mysterious animals and lurking strangers. 

Finn at the Perry Institute

Lee Stocking Island was purchased by businessman John Perry in 1957 and the Perry Institute of Marine Science was established in 1970. The early work at the laboratory included developing underwater or ‘hydrolabs’, Deepdiver submarines, and submersibles; they even provided the underwater car for the 1977 James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me. Over 40 years, there were multiple houses, laboratories, tanks, experiments and other oddities constructed on the Island. Exploring these, in an abandoned setting, was eerily LOST.

Notice those fresh tire tracks?

The day of our arrival, we dingied over to the main dock and clambered up while trying to prevent assorted nails and other sharp objects from puncturing our inflatable. The dock was missing some planks but we were soon on dry land, in the facility welcoming area. This included a small gift shop complete with posters for sale, a dive locker, what looked like a residential house, a large, unidentified piece of equipment (cement mixer?) and a laundry area, complete with a load of wash sitting on top of one of the washers. We headed south, passing a salt pond with sideways-swimming fish and found the airport runway. There were three storage buildings there. One had Home Depot scrawled across the side, another was packed with an odd assortment of equipment like office chairs and building supplies. We continued over the airstrip, up a rise, and emerged onto one of the most beautiful beaches we had ever seen.

Runway Beach

Upon our return to the main building area near the dock, we strolled down a waterfront path on the north side of the dock, passing residential houses, a commissary, food storage, laboratories and large out-door aquaculture facilities. The aquaculture tanks and systems (Bob studied aquaculture and worked in the closed-system aquaculture industry for years) also allowed us to clearly see the value of the infrastructure that has been lost and abandoned.

Aquaculture infrastructure

We continued back around the main ‘road’ and realized that a tractor that had been sitting in front of a garage was gone. Tire tracks led out towards the airstrip. As the days passed, we made several trips back to the island. We never saw anybody there when we were there but we continued to see evidence of use including a laptop and lamp on in one of the houses, the trash pit burning and items being removed from buildings. One building we peeked in had working battery and rain water collection systems. We waited at each corner for a LOST VW bus to come screaming around the corner, Hurley at the wheel.

We don’t know the real story of what happened at the facility but it is likely a sad story; a lot of money invested in infrastructure, now abandoned. Although we joked about the hardship of being a researcher living in paradise and the secret pot stashes that must be there from long-forgotten graduate students, we did see evidence elsewhere of the institute including informational posters on local Bahamian creatures including the Queen Conch and Nassau Grouper proudly displayed at the Laundromat in Black Point. The abandoned computers, pumps and gas grills all looked well-used and spoke of a glorious time at the facility. But these have been hard times financially for many and research does not sustain itself. We don’t know how long the facility has been closed or what really happened there, but reportedly, it all could now be yours for the meager price of $30.0M.

Exploring the island and research facility was great fun but we did a lot of other things during our stay at Lee Stocking including sitting out two cold fronts.  We visited a number of fantastic beaches where Finn started to learn to swim with various flotation devices.    We snorkeled and hiked.  We dinghied to Norman’s Pond Cay, an old salt island where seawater was evaporated for salt, to salt the cod, which fed the slaves, who grew the cane, to make the molasses, which made the rum, which kept the sailors going, transporting it all back and forth. This was a full day of school on the fly including a sighting of a spotted sea hare, a 12-inch long, yellow sea slug with purple spots. It definitely goes down in my book as the most amazing sea creature I’ve ever seen.  

Back on Lee Stocking we hiked the highest peak in the Exumas, a whopping 123 feet.   Anna water skied and Finn went tubing.  We went spear fishing and explored a mangrove swamp, we made some great new friends from Maine on board the Lady Nelson. 

The best part about our stay at Lee Stocking was that it was the first place we were where we weren’t trying to get someplace else. This allowed us to kick back, develop a routine and at the same time, go-with-the-flow. We took advantage of the weather, skiing when it was flat, fishing when we saw fish activity and even had two evenings of dinner and dominoes with Bob and Betty from Lady Nelson. 

We not only had a lot of playtime on Lee Stocking, we also got a lot of school and work accomplished. An approaching phone call to the states gave us pause and was the final straw that forced us to untie from the mooring ball. We had to update our internet data card and we were not all that sure what we would encounter for services going north. We also had a lot of other maintenance items that needed attention and decided a half-day sail back to George Town (largest town in the Exumas) would likely get us most of what we needed with the least running around. Given that we only had a little over a month until we meet Yaya and Papou and head back to the States, we decided a good phone call, a thorough provisioning and hoe-out of the boat would be worth the half-day backtrack.

We had a good two days in George Town including meeting back up with SV Chinook. Bob has been following a few family cruiser blogs over the past year and he was quite sure that one of those families was in George Town. After we had completed all of our chores near town, we pulled up anchor and went and found their boat. Just as we were finishing anchoring, the folks from SV Wildest Dreams came over to see us! We soon realized we had more in common than just being cruising families, which we are finding isn’t all that surprising any more. They are both Cornellians and Bob and Tig (the Dad) even had the same aquaculture major and advisor! We had a great evening with them, eating the nice jacks that Anna and Finn had caught, the kids playing, a lot of crafts discussed between the girls and nightmare anchoring stories, as always. We hope to meet with them again on our trip and beyond.

In other news…We have hit our half way point for the school year and we celebrated with a cake. We are also beginning to really learn how to live on the boat including onboard haircuts, saltwater laundry, rainwater collection and washing with Joy dish detergent (lathers in salt water). The boat is also beginning to look like we live in it. The pristine condition in which it was handed off to us has been dissolved. We have added our own nicks, scars and stains and I am not really sure how it smells anymore. Ah well.