heading north

Hey Folks,
We're currently on a mooring ball in Vero Beach after a night at Peck Lake where a sportfish dragged anchor and ended up in the channel!  Tonight we celebrated St. Patrick's Day at the Riverside Cafe a short walk from the marina.  Tomorrow we'll anchor somewhere between Vero Beach and Titusville making our way to Titusville sometime Saturday afternoon.

Motoring up the ICW watching all the crazy boaters [stupidity should be painful] I keep thinking about another sailor's blog where his tag line reads; "Be safe, it's dumb out there...."

CHeeRS!
-m & d

Back in the States!

Hello from the states!!! 

Yup, we made it back to Lake Worth (N. west palm beach) and what a long ride it was crossing the stream.  We knew it would be long, 11 hours, but that does not make it any easier, luckily we had almost perfect weather and waves.  We left Westend settlement at 5:30 in total darkness, and I have to say; it was rather eerie for the first 90 minutes motoring along like I knew where we were going in total darkness….  We’re in the states and all is well, what can I say???

We did have an interesting incident as we approached the east coast of FL, we were boarded by the Coast Guard!!  Yikes!  They wanted to board our vessel for a ‘safety check’ while under way.  I’m beginning to think Mary has some mysterious history she’s been hiding from me all these years…...  Anyway, the boarding was interesting; the mother coast guard ship (with 2, 50 caliber machine guns in the deck) sends a small vessel (a dinghy on steroids) with 4 armed young men to “investigate’ us….. Okay, they are just doing their job and they were very young and professional (I’m surprised Mary didn’t offer them snacks and drinks- you know the mother instinct in her…).  After about 45 minutes of not finding any alien life forms and completing the ‘safety check’ they were gone and we were left struggling to get to the inlet.

Tomorrow we head to Publix for some much needed diet pepsi, hummus, fruit and other misc (did I mention some nice beer with lots of hops?).  After our Publix adventure we’re off to Peck Lake on our ride home. 

As we settled in for the evening (now that the worst was behind us) we reflected on the crossing that was not that bad after all.  Crossing is just one of those things you do to get to experience all that we were lucky enough to do.  Amazing how fast one can forget difficult struggles???

CHeeRS!

-m & d

The Coast Guard "mother ship" and dink on its approach to board us

They guys that did the "safety inspection"

Ya gotta to avoid these suckers!

Our last Bahamas Sunrise over Westend

Great Sale to Mangrove Cay

To say the trip from GSC to Mangrove Cay was a calm ride would be an understatement, though calm is good!  The lack of wind was an exception to most of our travel but the break gave us a chance to look at sea life on the bottom.  Mangrove Cay must have got its name from what is on the island, mangroves!  Our trip ashore to explore was halted when all we could see was mangroves and more mangroves – who wants to blaze a trail through that?  Besides, what kind of nasty insects might we anger?

In the morning it’s onto to West End on Grand Bahamas Island where we’ll take an overpriced slip to make preparations for our jump back to the states on early Tuesday morning.  Our plan is to leave around 5:00ish hoping to make land fall at Lake Worth late Tuesday afternoon.  Then Wed. morning it’s off to Publix to get all the stuff we’ve been craving!!

CHeeRS!

-m & d

The calm leaving Great Sale Cay

Still Calm but so what?

Sunrise at Mangrove

Allans-Pensacola to Great Sale Cay

Hey folks,

We left Green Turtle Cay and the Bluff House Marina Tuesday (3-8) bound for Allans-Pensacola Cay to start staging our crossing the gulf stream on Monday morning!  After an uneventful trip we found a sweet patch of sand to drop the hook and we were set for the night.  FWIW, Allans-Pensacola Cay was at one time two separate cays until a hurricane filled the gap between them.

A plug is needed here for Mary’s culinary creativity working in a small galley, with limited tools and a hodge-podge of ingredients….she has made some of the best dinners anyone could ask for!!  Tonight, she made pizzas that we cooked on the grill, outstanding!! 

Listening to Chris Parker (the weather guy) we learned that squalls were expected at our next destination by late afternoon.  Hearing this I almost choked on my morning cereal, we weighed anchor and make fast tracks for Great Sale Cay (about 35 NM south and west and it’s for sale!  Yup, for $8,000,000 you can have all 370 acres!).  We had plenty of time to get there but along the way you could see clouds building and who wants to set an anchor in the rain???

Great Sale provides the best (and only real) protection in this area of the Abacos and in less than an hour of arriving, we could see the weather guy was going to be right.  Squalls hit and hit us hard!  Everyone got on the VHF radio to make sure everyone was okay and one of the other cruisers reported a top winds speed of 36.5 knots (the most we’ve ever seen while anchored)!  We were rocking like a wild bull in white out conditions caused by the rain.  In about an hour the worst was over and you’d never known a storm like that had blown through.  The next day the winds were constantly in the 18 -22 knots per hour range but after the day before it was nothing to even notice.

Playing the weather game again after learning that Tuesday would be the most benign day for crossing the stream we opted to stay at Great Sale for another day and go for a Tuesday crossing.  On our morning exploration we found misc shells, nothing special so we took the car (dink) for a ride around the shore line.  On this little spin we saw 7 sea turtles in less than 30 minutes, several sea stars and a host of other wildlife.  I’ve seen Finding Nemo several times but it was not until we saw these turtles swimming [away] that we had any idea how fast they could go!

CHeeRS!

-m & d

the unoffical yacht club on Allans

Must have a been a hard day, eh?

What a surprise to see at sunset!!  Anyone know what was launched?

Hopetown

Hey,

We took an early morning ferry from Marsh Harbor to Hopetown to see the settlement and the ‘famous’ lighthouse.  The 20 minute ferry ride turned out to be another one of those unexpected high points of the trip.  From what we can surmise, taking a ferry to work, school or for dinner and drinks is very common place among the island residents. 

Hopetown itself is picturesque with lots of charming houses overlooking the harbor, narrow streets and has some fine dining/drinking establishments.  For us, one day was all we needed to enjoy the island and today’s visit reassured us going to Marsh Harbor was a better choice for us to wait out the wind.  As soon as the ferry landed in Hopetown, we recognized several boats in the harbor; one was owned by some folks we met in Titusville!

Speaking of the wind, it looks like Sunday the winds will lay down enough for us to move onto Great Gauna Cay, home of the famous (??) Nippers beach bar!  From what we’ve been told and read, you’ve got to visit it at least once; we’ll report back our findings soon!

CHeeRS!

-m & d

the 'famous' light as seen from where we had lunch

Is this really a famous light?

All the streets are like this and they allow cars on them!

Green Turtle

We needed Internet access for weather updates and wanted to visit New Plymouth on Green Turtle Cay so off we went.  Unable to reach anyone at the 2 places we identified as working into our plan, we went to plan sea and discovered a real jewel! 

We’re at the Bluff House marina where there is a laundry, a restaurant, a pub, and a private beach to name just a few of the details.  There are only 2 other sailboats here and a few large motor boats.  The best thing about this place is not the free wifi, or 100 gallons of free water (we’ve been paying $.50 a gallon for water), but anything you buy at the restaurant is deducted from your dockage bill!!  For us, this meant we had fish sandwiches and a fresh salad for free yesterday (Oh, I also had a kalik for good measure)!

The weather reports are showing favorable conditions for a Sat., Sun. or Monday Gulf Stream crossing so tomorrow (Wed, 3-9) we’ll head to Allans –Pensacola Cay, then on to Great Sale Cay, and then West End (Grand Bahamas) for the trip across the gulf stream.  We may also stop at Mangrove on the way to West End to make our trip to WE easier, we’ll just have to wait and see…..  This will be out last Internet access until West End.

CHeeRS!

-m & d

Looking towards the SEa of Abaco from Bluff House

A narrow [typical] street of New Plymouth

On route to Green Turtle Cay

Great Gauna Cay

Okay, we made it across the Sea of Abaco to Great Gauna Cay in 2 hours (ya it was a tough day) and just in time to grab the last mooring ball.  The mooring field/anchorage kept filling up with boats anchoring between moorings to the tune of 1 new boat ever 7 – 10 minutes.  Watching large boats ‘fish’ for a place to anchor while dodging other boats was nuts!

Enough of watching people hunt for their perfect spot (there were none - we tried also), next adventure was finding the famous Nippers beach bar!  Finding our way to the bar was easy; just follow the swarms of people from the ferry (most everyone we saw already have a libation in hand).  All along the route to Nippers there were all kinds of places to grab your favorite beverages in case you couldn’t wait to get to the beach. 

Yes its true, Nippers turned out to be another one of those one of kind beach bars, where beer (I just had to have a Kalik to fit in) and rum drinks (Nipper Juice) were flowing like there was no tomorrow.  Folks were enjoying their drinks in the pools, in the hammocks over the pools, on the decks and that is not to mention the incredible ocean beach.  Great Gauna has the nicest ocean beach we’ve seen on the trip, miles of sand and beautiful blue water.  Back at the bar…. we were told that during the day (night??) the bar tenders start handing out free rum shots (“fire in the hole” brand), doesn’t take too much imagination to see what this and the notion that its spring break leads to??? Nippers also has a room for the ‘50+ Nippers’, ya got to love the experience.

As we walked back across the island to our dinghy, we bumped into some cruising friends (Mike and Angie from Lady of Lorien) at Grabbers (a beach restaurant with a sunset view overlooking our boat). For the next few hours we caught up with them and talked about plans for crossing back to the states.

CHeeRS!

-m & d

Grabbers!

Nippers!

another view of Nippers!

Marsh Harbor

Hey folks,

Marsh Harbor is the 3^rd largest city in the Bahamas and from all the cars and crazy drivers, we’d have to agree.  MH is not known for its nature beauty (they suggest you not swim in the harbor) but it is known for having everything a sailor might need.  On the recommendation of another cruiser we found a nice marina to stay at and it was also economical.

What we did manage to discover were two jewels in MH, Conky Joe’s seafood stand and Matilda’s snack stand.  We tried our first conch salad at CJ’s and not only was it great, but the conversation with the proprietor was another one of those Bahamian opportunities you don’t want to miss.  At Matilda’s snack shack we had the BEST homemade Guava ice cream ever!  The ice cream is not one of those wimpy, low fat, healthy types of frozen yogurt, it was sugar and cream and well worth the hit to our cholesterol numbers. 

CHeeRS!

-m & d

Home of some great seafood caught by her brother!



Comfort food... ice cream!!

The missing pictures

Hey folks,

I can't believe we forgot to add pics from Little Harbor and Pete's Pub!!

Enjoy!

-m & d

Pete's Pub, one of a kind!

The mooring field at Pete's

Just over the dunes from Pete's is the Atlantic and  if you look closely you can see the cut we used to get to the Sea of Abaco.

Marsh Harbor

Hey folks,

Looks like we’re going to be ‘holding up’ here in Marsh Harbor until at least Sunday, to say the winds have been brutal is an understatement!  We’re not the only ones holding up here, there are at least 300 boats in the harbor, some waiting to move, some just here for the winter but no one is moving.  Mangoes Marina is where we’re staying and is a small place with a special interest in customer care, a good place to stay.

So, if we are ‘trapped’ on our boat in a marina you must be asking; what do our adventurers do?  Go for a boat ride!!  Yup, tomorrow we’re taking the ferry to Hopetown for the day.  What a relief to be on a boat and not responsible for anything!!  Hopetown is one of those picturesque  postcard settlements.  We wanted to visit Hopetown and this is a quick and easy way to still include a visit in our travels that we would have to pass on visiting due to weather delays.

With all this time on our hands Dennis had a chance to run for the first time in months, it was good!  We’ve also checked out the local shops including a package store where we picked up some fine rum.  There is a Moorings and Sun Sail charter establishment here so we walked the docks looking at all the boats (okay, it was the catamarans that caught our eyes).  Oh ya, Dennis was also spotted reading & highlighting sabbatical research reports today.

CHeeRS!

-m & d

Conch anyone???

Bond Cay and Cross Harbor –> Little Harbor

We left Nassau ahead of schedule with moderate wind and waves only to have the waves increase to the 4’ to 5’ range after an hour into our jaunt (7 hours) up to Bonds Cay.  The wind got stronger and the waves grew so much I was wondering if I read the correct wind/waves report?!  We wearily persevered onward and got to our anchorage late afternoon.  This was a beautiful place to spend the night, not another soul to be found.  The anchorage was completely protected from the rough seas and high wind.

We headed out as soon as possible to our next stop getting us closer to the Abacos, Cross Harbor on the southern tip of the Great Abaco Island.  What a difference a day makes, we had light winds and seas in the 1’ to 2’ range, these conditions made us much more rested by the time we arrived at another desolate anchorage!  Not seeing any other boats makes ya wonder if they know something we don’t??

Oh ya, today (Saturday) Dennis turns 58, wohooo and is celebrating with a cold Kalik and we’re having lobster tails (thanks Gunter)!

Tomorrow we move onto to Little Harbor, home of Pete’s pub, foundry and hopefully some INTERNET access!!

**UPDATE from Little Harbor…. Today we caught our first FISH (while in 4000’ of water), goes to show ya that even a blind squirrel can find a nut!  The fish was an Almaco Jack and it was landed, cleaned and in the freezer and frig in less than thirty minutes.  You guessed it, we had one fillet for dinner and it was great!! 

CHeeRS!

m & d

Abaco Lighthouse

Our first fish!!

Nassau

On our run into Nassau there was absolutely no wind so we could really look closely at the bottom for sea life.  Much to our surprise we saw lots of activity including: 22 large star fish, 2 sea turtles and too many different types of fish and other marine life to even start mentioning.  We both had to keep an eye out for boat crushing coral heads along the way while trying not to miss our surroundings.

Nassau is a large seaport for the Bahamas and it was busy to say the least!  Somehow we dodged all the crazies and found our marina without too much fuss.  After tying up we started going down our list making the best use of or time in the city.  Coming back to Nassau this time was fun, we were busy yet did not have all the drama of our last visit.  We used the buses and they gave us a chance to see a part of Nassau most never see (you can only guess what it was like…) though we were told not to take the bus at night.

Mary hard her insect bite checked by a local physician that said it was looking good, ordered some additional creams to speed the healing and sent us on our way.  Since this sucker will leave a nice scar, we are lovingly calling this; “Mary’s Bahamian tattoo”.

With our pantry stocked, errands completed, propane tanks filled and additional fuel in the tanks, we are leaving Nassau early for the Berrys.

CHeeRS!

-m & d

Lighthouse leaving Nassau Harbor

Atlantis from the harbor

Starfish in 18 feet of water

Good bye ECLSP

Okay, Friday was a busy day getting ready to leave ECLSP.  We changed oil, cleaned the windows, changed the fuel filter, inventoried our food for the Nassau provisioning trip and got our final Internet coupon to do a final check on the weather…. Hold on sailor, the weather for leaving was okay but not looking good for Nassau 2 days down the road (65 nautical miles across the great Bahamas bank).  Okay we’re flexible, we’ll leave Sunday.  But wait, again the weather would be more settled for anchoring if we waited until Monday to leave (16 knots at night versus 23 knots – see “weather game” below).  So, we ARE leaving (or did leave by the time you read this) for Normans Cay in the morning (home of nasty insect bites - Mary has officially ruled no one will go ashore at Normans!!) and with nice winds behind us we’ll be at Rose Island (near Nassau) on Tuesday evening.

Since we extended our stay (have I mentioned lately how beautiful it is here???) we have done our best to visit at least one new beach every day, tough work but someone’s got to do it!  Our disappointment came early when yesterday (Saturday) we ventured to loyalist beach not only to find foot prints in the sand, but people on the beach!!  We’ll just have try harder today.  We did trek over the island to the sounds side where we caught a glimpse of Johnny Depp’s island and his mansion under construction.

The ECLSP has a Saturday night happy hour (HH) with the park ranger – just a reason to share snacks and swap stories.  The big news is that at the HH, we got to see one of the ‘endangered’ Hutia.  They may be endangered elsewhere, but to this untrained cruiser, there are signs of them everywhere and it looks like they are destroying the native vegetation.  At the HH one lady was just going gaga over how cute they are, I hated to do it but I did…. burst her bubble by remaindering her they are just glorified rats. *smirk*

Also on our last day we checked out the work of some of our good friends; Mike, Angie and Bruce.  These folks volunteered to reassemble the remains of a beached pilot whale.  As you can see, it was like a 3-D jigsaw puzzle with many of the pieces missing.   The end result will make a nice display addition to the park.

CHeeRS!

m & d

*the weather game

Planning around weather is much like a game of chess, it’s not this move you’re concerned about, its how this move sets you up for the next series of moves.  In our case, the weather maybe just fine today (or not) but what about 2, 3 or 4 days down the road?  We’re trying to look at the best places to be when the weather really turns nasty and knowing we can find shelter after the 3^rd or 4^th move. 

Carins at the park

Guess who?

Pilot whale team, Angie, Mike and Bruce

One of the lives Mary saved today!

ECLSP 2-16

Hey folks,

Reporting in from ECLSP, we’ve been here a week now and seems like it was just yesterday we picked up a mooring.  I guess that’s a good thing! 

FWIW, our newest plan is to leave here Friday and head up to Highborne Cay then head west for Rose Island and Nassau.  This officially starts our homeward trek and from Nassau we’ll continue trekking home via the Abacos.

CHeeRS!

m & d

Another beach to explore!

ECLSP 2-13

Hey folks we’re still alive and well at the land and sea park and we’re glad to be here!!  Our plan was to wait out a series of fronts that were predicted to bring some serious winds and the weather man was right.  Yesterday, we had winds hit 25 knots (FWIW, 25 knots = 28.8 mph) in this very protected harbor and today more of the same.   We’ve heard over the radio reports of 29 knot winds along with boats dragging and bumping each other. I can’t image what the winds might be like in the unprotected areas.  Since we’re on a mooring (a ball connected to a large rope that is screwed into the bottom) we can relax and enjoy the winds with no worries of an anchor dragging (ours or someone else’s).  Of course these winds make leaving the boat a little interesting so we’ve been boat bound now for 2 days. 

Remembering this is a small boat, you can understand that we’ve gotten all of our boat projects done, lots of reading and I’ve been working on my sabbatical research report.  From what we’ve heard and read, the weather front and its associated winds will be with us until at least the middle of the week.  

Before the front arrived we had several happy hour gatherings on other boats (one was a 42’ catamaran with a washer, dryer, freezer, etc!) going over charts, sipping libations and swapping stories. 

CHeeRS!
m & d

Waves just outside the ECLSP this morning

Farmers Cay > BP >Staniel > ECLSP >>we're moving again!

Farmers Cay

After our trip to Nassau we hopped down to Farmers Cay to connect with friends and watch the second day of the 5F (Farmers cay First Friday in February Festival).  Here we watched Bahamian sailors sail their C class boats through the anchorage with gusto, while racing for island pride.  FWIW, these guys (4 -5 crew per boat) are absolutely nuts!  They hike out on 2x10’s to balance the boat and slide back in just quickly as they tack [change direction for you non-sailors] or when they need less leverage to balance the boat.  The pictures do not capture the excitement between islands or the crazy drive of these sailors and their fans.

While on Farmers Cay we learned that Georgetown our next destination was without fuel!!  With that news we decided that it was time to reassess our plans, a.k.a. another change!   We’re heading back up the Exuma island chain with a ‘plan’ to hop over to Eleuthera and then onto the Abacos.  Heck, the whole Georgetown thing was way too organized for us anyway.  We wished our southerly bound friends good luck as we headed back to BP.

Back to  Black Point

We are NOT football fans in any sense of the term but we had to check out the Super Bowl happy hour and pre-game frenzy at a local BP pub, the Scorpio bar and restaurant.  If our friends on Salty Surfer had not already ‘camped out’ there we might have found another establishment for the festivities.  But, here at the Scorpio we experienced some real Bahamian football fever, nothing like what one might find in the states.  In addition to happy hour specials, the Scorpio had some free locally prepared foods and Bahamian enthusiasm (they love this sport and they all had a favorite team – heck we weren’t sure who was even playing!).

Staniel again???

Yup, one last time to visit the clinic, get some local homemade bread and a chance to refuel for our travels.  We’ve spent more time here than any one settlement and though not a favorite island, this time it had an almost home coming feeling. 

Compass Cay and Pipe Creek

We’ve said this already too many times, but the beaches of Compass Cay (Exuma Banks side) are the most beautiful beaches [yet].  We visited many different beaches here and on all of them, ours were the only foot prints to be found.  We also got to see some beautiful coral, fish of all sorts (Mark they would have been ‘keepers’) and a very large sea turtle.  The best part was where we were anchored there were no other boats around making us the only boat (along with our friends on Salty Surfer) enjoying the place! 

ECLSP

We’re now back at the Exuma Cay Land and Sea Park where we’ll wait out a front (winds are predicted to be 25 – 29 knots) before venturing off to Eleuthera. Keep an eye on our ‘spot tracker’ since we’re not sure when we’ll get Internet again.

CHeeRS!

-m & d

Bananaquits at ECLSP

One of the Compass Cay beaches

 Looking towards the Exuma Banks from Compass Cay

One of the C class boats going for the line

Another C class racing through the anchorage!

 Bahamian low tide channel marker near Staniel Cay!

Back in Staniel Cay!!!

Ah, back from a successful trip to Nassau and we’re happy to say the remote out islands are what we love to visit.  Nassau is a large city on New Providence but simply way too much of the sterile Disney look and feel.

We leave for Farmers Cay tomorrow and then on to Georgetown, a mecca for boaters in the Bahamas (http://www.georgetowncruising.com/).  Some boaters spend their entire winters playing in G’town, as of now we’re planning on staying until the structure of the place drives us out.

Well, here are some pics to catch you up on some of the sites.

CHeeRS!

m & d

A beach on Staniel Cay

Black Point Anchorage

Leaving the BP anchorage

Beth and Rich on 'Salty Surfer' at BP anchorage

The Airport Terminal at Staniel Cay

Our plane to Nassau

Black Point -> Staniel Cay -> Nassau???

Our plans changed (remember they are written in sand), Mary's bite got real nasty and we opted for a hospital ER. The good news is we'll be back in Staniel on Friday and sailing again soon.

The flight to Nassau made 2 island stops and it was the best flight we've ever had! What a beautiful view of this special place flying at low level! The entire staff at Doctor's Hospital have been incredible, we can't say enough about all they've done for us.

By the way, the Black Point anchorage is breath taking and we hope to return soon. While in BP we caught up with old friends (old by cruiser's standards) and made new friends.

Pics will follow soon.

CHeeRS!
m & d

Staniel Cay

We had a great sail from ECSLP (Friday)  to Staniel Cay reaching 8 knots in a fresh breeze ‘racing’ friends on another cat [Salty Surfer] and friends on a 40’ monohull  [Spirit].  We were clearly leading the other boats until the waves grew (3 – 4 feet) and got the best of us while the monohull pulled away.   Ya just can’t out reach something that carries that much sail, has a longer waterline and outweighs us in that kind of waves.

We anchored across from Club Thunderball for a rolly night amongst a dozen other boats.  This is right next to the grotto where the James Bond movie, Thunderball , was recorded.  For the next few days we’ve opted for a slip to help Mary get the rest she needs to get over this bug bite and for the next leg of the adventure.  The place we’re staying at sounds high end  (Staniel Cay Yacht Club) but it’s far from that! 

Staniel  Cay is very different from Bimini, there is lots of construction here, few ruins and less obvious poverty.  The people are equally kind and generous.   One of the pics shows a recreation hot spot, where highly competitive games of dominos are played.

The next leg means heading south to Black Point, the largest settlement in the north and central Exumas.   Here we hope to get a Bahamian cell phone, rum (!!!) and have the clinic nurse look at Mary’s bite.  Our plan for now is to stay in BP for several days and slow down the pace.

Lost items….  Ya gotta ask yourself, how can you constantly lose stuff in a boat with less than 200 square feet of living space?  Somehow we regularly lose ‘stuff’ that is often found while hunting for the currently immediately needed stuff.  After much research and consideration we’ve decided boats have lives of their own and enjoy watching the humans shuffle stuff around.

CHeeRS!
m & d

Yes, kids, those are sharks under our boat.... and Mary told me go for a swim!

This is a picture shows the area where we anchored Friday.

Yesterday, the locals had a VERY serious game of dominos going on here in the settlement center.