The story of our big trip.
There and back ! with pictures no less !
Sorry for the bad HTML, but my tools are poor…. When you click on a image, just use the back browser button to get back to the story.
Our tale begins many years ago when Mark dreamed of sailing his own boat to the Virgin Islands and taking some time off to live aboard and see how everyone would like it (ie: would anyone go nuts and try to kill the others). The trip was going to be out the great lakes and down to the VI. After more thought, the decision was made to sail the boat south as part of the Caribbean 1500 rally, and after more thought, it was decided to ship the boat to the East coast rather than sail it. This had to do with job logistics as well as the fear that just getting the boat to the East coast would drain the crew of any interest in actually getting the boat to the VI ! With this in mind, the safer choice was made and we arranged to ship the boat.
Planning began in earnest in January of 2002 as it became clear that the sale of Talarian would result in some free time for the Mahowald family (something about cutting the useless overhead gave me the idea my time was limited). With that in mind, we took some long trips in the summer and worked on finding any problems with the boat that needed to be fixed. We discovered a number of water related problems we felt we had fixed by sealing hatches and other areas, and spent the first 10 months of 2002 purchasing needed gear and making the boat ready. I knew I was buying too much stuff when the FedEx lady dropped one more load of gear off and said “More boat stuff for Mark”. The concern over missing some important piece of gear drove us to buy most things you could possibly need, many of which we will never use, but we have them !
At the end of September, the boat was hauled in Waukegan, and I started the work to prep the boat for shipping. It took a good deal of work to remove all the rigging and store everything inside the boat to ensure it would not move on a truck. After about three days of solid work, the boat was ready, and the truck arrived. It was loaded by Larsen’s on the truck.. It was a bumpy start: our boat yard said the truck driver sets up the boat cradle, and the truck driver thought the yard should do it. Since the boat yard guys walked away, the truck driver and I spent the next 5 hours blocking the boat on the truck and getting everything tight, and now we were ready to go.
The ride out to Norfolk was not completely smooth. The area was being hit by a sniper and the sniper struck again as the truck was trying to get past DC, this plus the constant rain caused the truck to arrive late Friday and we could not unload the truck until Saturday morning. Cobb’s marine was a quite, small marina, where the rates were very fair. They only charged me $130 to launch the boat and $9/day to store it in the water there. By far the best deal I would see on the trip ! I had one full week at Cobb’s Marina to get the boat back together before Cheryl and the boys arrived, and there was a lot of work to do ! After a few days, things were coming together and the boat was starting to look like a sailboat again. There was time to try out our new sails and I flew the Storm Jib to see what it looked like. Before I knew it, Saturday had arrived and Cheryl and the boys were here. On Sunday we took the boat over to Hampton where the Rally would start.
Once we got to Hampton, we started on our trip to visit Washington DC. This was a fun three day (2 night) trip where we saw a number of pretty cool sites. We started out at the Spy Museum and Mark Robert got a very clever spy kit ! (No one would ever notice it was even in use ) We then visited the mall area of Washington with time spent at the Washington Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial. We also visited an art Museum, and were tossed out for taking pictures soon after this shot….. Then it was on to bigger and better things as we visited the Smithsonian Museum. The highlight of the trip so far for Matthew was when he discovered the original Star Trek ship model. We saw a large number of very interesting sites, and this combined with the Virginia air and space museum made for a very well rounded air and space experience.
The weather was cold and rainy the entire time we were in Hampton, and Cheryl took a short break to visit Jennifer (who helped us with Mark Robert when he was young, and was one of the first employees of WhiteBarn) while I attended a blue water sailing seminar (who’s goal seemed to be to scare the you know what out of you !). There were some good ideas at the seminars and some even better lines. Two of my favorite lines were:
" No one who has been in jail will ever go to sea, because being in a ship is like being in jail except you can be drown, and in jail you have better food, more room and frequently better company"
"The people in this room provision their boats to go cruising. What you need to remember is many other people go cruising to provision their boats"
After they covered all the things that could go wrong with the engine, the sails, the boat, the crew (people going mad due to a reaction to the sea sickness patches), you started to wonder if it was safe to walk back to the boat !
Lucky for me, Cheryl and the boys returned in the Halloween spirit, and the boat was soon decorated accordingly. In a few more days, the fleet was gathering, and this gave us a chance to trick or treat the boats (we joked it was how we were provisioning for the trip, but when we were at sea, we ate the candy like it was the last food on earth !). In Hampton, after and exhaustive search, we also found the boat of Cheryl's dreams ! The Kids had lots of fun playing on the boat and things got even better when cousin Kris arrived.
There was a lot of last minute activity, and we could not have done it without Cheryl's help. There was a lot of provisioning to do and many last minute items to attend to. There were spare fuel jugs to buy and fill and then decide we don’t need after all. Things like that take a lot of time…. The boys both wanted to make the sail, but the crew was set. Given the weather we saw the next few days, this was not a bad decision. November 3rd came quickly and the crew was ready to set out. We received our final weather briefing (which turned out to be comically wrong !) and great parting greeting from the family.
The rally started on a bright and sunny, although pretty cold (maybe 50 degrees) day. I was told before the race that no one crowds the line and the best way to avoid boats was to be on the line at the start. Well, this year was different. I noticed a huge group of boats right at the committee boat (it turns out one of them hit the committee boat and a second one caught the anchor line) so we turned toward the pin end and got a nice start in clear air. It was not long before we had pulled away from all but three other boats, and after 10 miles, we had the bulk of the fleet well behind. We were only a few hours into the event when the wind died, and it was time to motor. We ended up motoring 9 of the first 12 hours of the Rally, and ˝ of our total motoring time came in the first 12 hours of the event. The key for the first few days is to get across the gulf stream as quickly as you can. We cross the gulf stream roughly around Cape Hatteras. Cape Hatteras is know as the graveyard of the Atlantic with somewhere between 600 and 1000 ship wrecks to it’s credit. To quote the November 2002 issue of Sail Magazine: “The Gulf Stream is probably the single most significant climatological feature on the face of the planet. While the gulf stream flows through the straits of Florida at 30 million cubic meters per second, off Hatteras it flows at a phenomenal 80 million cubic meters per second. This compares to 0.6 million cubic meters per second of flow for all the rivers flowing into the Atlantic including the Amazon and the Mississippi. The spread of the stream off Hatteras is 3 knots or more, and it is typically over 60 nautical miles wide. When there is a wind against the current there are dangerous waves formed, and the stream generates it own weather as it interacts with the cooler water around it”.
We tracked the water temperature and the expected position of the stream. When we were 25 miles away, the water was 59 degrees. At 4am Monday, we were 8 miles from the stream and the water temperature had risen to 65 degrees. By 7:30 we were in the gulf stream. You could tell by the dramatic rise in water temp (now over 80 degrees), the rise in air temperature, the tons of sea weed in the water, and the smell. The gulf stream had a definite odor, hard to describe, but heavy and humid. Our forecast called for light winds and motoring across the gulf stream. I was thinking it was too bad, we would have no real gulf stream story since motoring across a calm sea was not the stuff of good tales. Well, the forecast was wrong. We saw building winds and pretty soon it was blowing 25 to 35 from the North East (directly against the stream). We saw short steep waves – not unlike Lake Michigan waves, and heavy rain squalls. With the heavy rains, the reef in the main kept filling with water, it was so heavy with water it was hard to empty it, but it was easy to get it flooding into your foul weather gear as you tried to get it out! I went to check my e-mail and got an update from the weather guys: “Squalls and heavy winds possible on gulf stream today”, it was sent 5 hours after we entered the squalls. I could forecast the weather like that ! By 4pm Monday we were out of the Gulf Stream and the water temp was down to around 74 degrees. By late Monday we had the motor on again and motored for a couple of hours.
The Weather forecast Tuesday called for a low to hit the fleet and it recommended getting as far south as you could to minimize the impact. Onboard Strider, we listened to the weather and since the worst of the winds were forecast to be 25 to 35 knots, we decided there was nothing to worry about. We had seen these winds already in the Gulf Stream. We decided to stick to our plan: motor only when we were getting less than 4 knots made good toward the VI. Many other boats motored hard from Mid day Monday to Wednesday and got a good deal farther south. This got them clear of a good deal of the storms that we would see in the next two days… Never believe the weather guys ! One smart thing we did was take off our large Genoa, and put the #3 Jib on the head stay as we motored in the light air we saw during the day on Tuesday, we would fly the Jib the rest of the way. By 7pm Tuesday we are sailing under double reefed main and #3 jib with the wind at 50 degrees apparent, blowing about 25 knots. By Midnight we had put in the third reef in the main and it was blowing over 30 knots. On the Tuesday night check in, one of the Rally organizers said "Everyone should reads Hal Sutton's chapter on heavy weather sailing, and if they don't have Hal's book, they should read the Bible", comforting words to be sure ! All that evening, we were getting heavy water over the bow of the boat and we watched as the starboard running light started to flicker and died a salty death (too much spray forced its way into the lens and cracked the bulb). The water also found its way into the forward head through the mast step. In the squalls in the Gulf Stream, the mast was pumping in the mast step, so I lifted the boot to put in some wood wedges. I never re-seal the boot, and now I was getting a lot of water down the mast and into the head. Hard to fix in the middle of the night, but after some fussing the water flow was stopped. Soon after, the cabin lights shorted out, and I assumed it had to do with the water getting into the head light fixture. After I took apart the head light fixture a couple of times, it became clear it was not the problem, but I was only able to isolate the short to the port side of the boat on Wednesday and we spent the rest of the rally with no lights on the port side (so a dark fridge and heads, but lit nav station…) We were in the middle of nowhere, and it was a pitch dark night, but we saw a boat. It was the 78 foot wooden schooner Rain Dancer II, they were motor sailing trying to hold course and basically holding us. Our heading is roughly due East, which is Ok since you want to get pretty far east to avoid the trades when you near the VI.
By 3am Wednesday were had dropped the main and the winds had continued to build, now blowing around 35 knots on the nose. After a tough night, the winds continued to build and around 9am we took our first solid water into the cockpit. I was steering and Kris was resting in the cockpit with his legs in the air (perfect water scoops), I gave three “look out” warnings, and then BAM, the wave broke into the cockpit and flooded Kris, and the boat. We had been keeping the cabin closed and the main door in, so there was no water below. This pattern would continue for the next 24 hours, with roughly 20 cockpit dunking and one pretty good wave induced knock down. By the 7pm radio check in, we were seeing steady winds over 40 knots with gusts to 60knots. During the day, a nasty breaking wave torn the zipper teeth and three of the snap connectors that hold it to the boat out of the Starboard side dodger panel. When we went down wind to roll up some of the Jib, the panel caught a breeze blowing it away from the frame, and it was gone for good. We shortened sail to just 8 feet of the jib rolled out. The waves were becoming very large and it was quite the scene. We estimate the larger waves to be around 20 feet and the weather forecast for our area confirms seas 15-23 feet. All we can see is wind blown water and massive breaking seas. After much experimenting, we decide on a course of 120 degrees (Tom told me it was the best direction, but I really wanted to head more southerly… After repeated attempts to head more southerly – with bad results each time, it is clear Tom is right, and 120 is the course). This allows us to take the big waves off the quarter. We were having no trouble controlling the boat, but it was a very wet ride with frequent breaking waves and potential for a knockdown. Since the waves could flood into the cabin, we kept the boat completely closed up down below. I removed the Dorade Vents, and we kept the cabin hatch closed and the door in – zero ventilation below. The stream of wet bodies and gear going into the cabin ensured plenty of moisture with no way out. We had it all: Violent motion in a hot, drippy wet cabin – we were glad we were all taking sea sickness medicine. Many boats in our area have heaved too, but we can not see anyone. We are at 31.58.489 by 69.10.216. I try to get some shots of the weather, but it is hard to keep the cameras dry, so we only take one quick shot and 20 seconds of video. The winds build all afternoon, and by late day, we are seeing winds over 50knts with peak gusts hitting the high 60 knot range. As night fell, we were wondering how much heavier the winds would get. The winds blow steady well over 40 knots into the night and the front passes with one final, very nasty squall and punch around midnight Wednesday with Tom and Kris on watch taking their lumps. As night falls we can no longer see the waves coming. Except for the constant wind blown spray highlighted by the white stern light, the Ocean is just jet black, and only when you see a band of white water right next to the boat do you know you are about to get smacked. During one boarding wave, Kris’s self inflating life jacket inflates. It has decided he is basically underwater, which is not to far from the truth. In more than 30 years of sailing the great lakes, I remember having put on safety harnesses many times, but I can not remember being washed to the end of the tether by large waves. This happened to us repeatedly, it is the only time I really felt that a safety harness was needed to keep me in a boat. During the night, Tom get a flying fish in the chest, and it flops into our cockpit drain where it thrashes around for a while. It finally gets a nice ride back to the ocean with the next wet wave draining out the cockpit.
We use the wind shift to head due south after 1 am Thursday, but this puts the big waves on our beam (I was sick of heading east and the seas seemed hard to read, so we just went for it) and we get more frequent dunkings and take a pretty good knock down (the whole boat was lifted and slammed on the port side) that pops the screens from the port side windows and tosses everything from the navigation station to leeward. When the winds lighten to 30 to 35, it feels calm and we no longer get breaking waves on the boat (once they dropped below 40 knots, we did not have the breaking crests). It is funny how you get used to things. Normally, 30 knots would have been seen as really heavy winds, but after the heavy weather, we feel relived to be in 30 knots. By Thursday morning, things are better, but we feel like we have been through a battle. Kris is very interested in hearing the 7:30am radio check ins, sits down beside the nav station (to keep the bunks dry) at 7:15, but before they start, he is asleep ! Since we are so tired, we spend Thursday under full jib, running before 25 knot winds, making 7 knots over the bottom. We take the day to rest and assess the damage. Our dodger frame is bend on both sides, one panel missing, shorted cabin lights, some water below (we later trace it to the aft lockers leaking) but overall, we have done fairly well. We hand steered through the storm, and everyone did a great job. Tom took the helm as the front and line squalls passed and he and Kris had maybe the nastiest weather of the whole storm. Larry did a great job and with four good helmsmen, we were able to take what came our way. In the post race discussion, Steve Black, who organizes the Rally, said it was the worst weather the rally has faced (in terms of length of time with heavy winds) in the 12 years they have done it. I found out later that two weather routers who we were not using called the storm and the winds, predicting gusts to 60 knots, if we had listened to them, we would have gotten farther south to avoid the storm. Now that it is over, we are glad for the experience. Although we took Thursday as something of a rest day, we were still gaining on many of the boats ahead of us. During the day Thursday we welcomed a bird who flew by. Then the little bugger dive bombed us, and narrowly missed with a load of droppings ! We saw some very talented flying fish who could fly for long distances and seemed to like to jump from wave top to wave top. They seemed the most active the when the seas were high. We briefly hoist the main during the day Thursday, but this turns out to be a little more trouble than it is worth, and we fairly quickly take it back down.
Friday at 1am we hoisted the main, it had been just the jib for the last 48 hours, but the winds were now down to 20 knots or so and it was clocking around to a close reach. We had a great run on Friday. From 6am Friday to 6am Saturday we covered 192 nautical miles at a very steady 8 knts on the GPS. It was a wet run though, with constant spray and the crew hiding out behind the dodger. The winds had build to 25 knots plus and we were using the third reef. At this point, we only used the second and third reef. In the great lakes, I had only reefed once, and it was the first reef. Out here, we skipped the first reef altogether and stayed with the second and third reef. By Saturday we are sailing close hauled (as close to the wind as we can) and this stays the basic plan the rest of the way. We never tack again, but we are always close on the wind. The #3 jib is doing a great job and we are clipping along. By 9am Sunday we again drop the main due to building winds and are sailing under Jib alone. We are roughly at 25.29.956 by 65.13 925 (degrees, minutes, seconds in thousands)
Saturday brings the need to put some trash in the aft lockers and the discovery that we have been leaking badly through the propane locker and the aft locker. The water has been nailing the auto pilot and the auto pilot electronics. Not much we can do to fix these problems (we try duck tape, but to no avail) until we get to port. Early Sunday morning, the auto pilot bolt breaks (the bolt that connects the ram drive to the rudder). After a few hours of work, we have it mostly fixed (good enough till we get to port), and later that day we discover a jib sheet mostly chafed through. More fun ! Sunday is Kris’s birthday and we celebrate as best we can (we let him take a shower !) Saturday was the first day without constant spray, and although we are still sailing with a triple reefed main, we are not getting as wet today, and it is a beautiful day. We do see the occasional squall, which are cool to watch, and not too bad to sail into. Kris is studying sail trim materials when time allows…. Saturday, Sunday and Monday were great sailing days and we enjoy the home stretch in nice warm weather and good winds.
Monday, we are getting close, and Kris spends the day studying the GPS Lat Lon readouts like they were a life support system. Keeping us exactly on course and tweaking the sails. We enjoy being out of our foul weather gear for a couple of days, and since it is now clear we will have fresh water to spare, we can even shower ! About 9pm Monday I put the 6 “finish line beers” into the fridge (we had been a dry boat on the trip down) so they would be cold at the finish. We round Beef Island just after Midnight Tuesday morning, and since we have now gone 6 straight days without motoring we decide to motor the last 5 miles down wind to the finish. Things are going well until we over shoot the harbor (it was really dark, and all the lights look the same… really !) and have to motor back, adding around 30 minutes to our motoring time and finish time. If we had sailed to the finish, we would have had the lowest motoring total in the fleet, as it was, only two of 49 boats motored less than us.
We finished at 1am Tuesday and had a hard time finding the small marina in the dark night, lucky for us, a dock hand came out and guided us in. Once we stepped on the dock, we could hardly walk. The concrete dock felt very unsteady to us after 8 days at sea, and for the first few nights, each of us swore the bed we were on was leaning (I kept waking up thinking the boat was in a storm for the first few nights, with legs braced against the far wall – something Cheryl found to be pretty irritating!). The finish was at Road Town in Tortola and we needed to get things dry and ready to leave for our cruise. We enjoyed talking with the other boats and made some new friends as we waited for the awards dinner on Friday night. We did well in the Rally, finishing 3rd in fleet and 1st in out section. Grand awards were given and drinks consumed (well that happened all the time anyway …). One boat was particularly nice to us and shared a good deal of cruising tips for the trip back. They were this way the whole race and won the sportsmanship award for they great attitude and talent they showed. They were sailing a 47 foot Cat called Simpatica and are in the middle of a multi year trip which started in France. They have three kids, one boy and two girls aged between 10 and 4 years old. They are having a fine time and we ended up cruising some with them at the start of our VI adventures. The boys are quite pleased with our finish (as we all are) and it is nice to have done well given the weather and the fact it was our first open Ocean trip. Boats are still drifting in on Friday and Saturday, and 4 boats are still out trying to make the finish when we start cruising Saturday morning.
November fifteenth, 2002
Today we stayed at Tortola and swam at the pool some more, I was able to practice my Spanish with some of the Islanders hanging out at the pool. Later that evening, at about four we went over to the forty-seven foot catamaran Simpatica. They have a "trampoline" spread from the front left of the hull to the front right. You can see through the netting and look at the water-it gives you the impression of flying. Later that evening, we went to the awards ceremony. We came third in fleet, first in our class out of about 45 finishing boats..
We head out Saturday, November 16th, for Norman Island. We enjoy the caves and the nice snorkeling. We are sadly disappointed to learn that Billy Bones (Matthews favorite T-shirt place) has been taken over and re-named Pirates Cove. We reluctantly buy a shirt, but it is not the same ! The weather is sunny with rain every day…. There are frequent rain squalls that hit an area and leave the nearby spots dry.
Today we sailed over to Norman Island, formerly the home of Billy Bones, my favorite restaurant in the VI so far. However, now Billy Bones is owned by a group of Islanders who renamed it "Pirate's Blight." It's just not the same now. We snorkeled for a while off the boat before meeting up with Simpatica again. Together, we dingied over to the caves. The caves are just that, caves. They are filled with fish and other underwater things. I practiced my dive some more. Altogether, the day was a success.
On Sunday Morning, we head over to Little Harbor on Peter Island. This is it, there are few boats in the anchorage, and it settles in that we have made it here ! The gang is off to shore, and there is time for Matthew to practice his high speed work, and Mark Robert to do some rowing. Around 4pm, our quite spot is invaded by 12 Moorings boats who all anchor too close, and in general make a scene. It is interesting to watch, but we are trying to find the spots they don’t like to visit ! Funny, since the last 7 times I was down here, we were them (the guy in the charter boat, coming in late, and anchoring and parting too close !). It is still a week before high season, so things will get more crowded as we stay here.
November seventeenth
Today we sailed from Normon Island to Peter Island, several rough miles upwind from our previous location. Fortunately, the trip was short. The snorkeling in the bay was excellent. I saw a flatfish(fishes that swim sideways and, when laying on the ground, look like they're dead) fight. I swam with a swarm of medium-sized silver fish. I also saw someone's boiler and a towel in the water. Our anchor was situated next to an abandoned huge six foot ocean-cruiser anchor that was rusted over. I spent almost all day snorkeling and diving. I think I can dive 25 or 30 feet now. We also saw tons of spiny black urchins.
We have learned a few secrets of the cruising crowd. There are a couple of weather guys who you pay for a year, and they give you a dedicated forecast over the SSB radio every morning. We will use them to plan our trip to the Bahamas and it is fun listening to the boats underway going to exotic ports. It is nice to have the radio, now that I figured out how to use it and what it is good for !
November eighteenth
Today we sailed from Peter Island to Virgin Gorda and the Bitter End. On the way there, I saw a sea turtle swimming in the water. The motor upwind caused so much spray that you could see rainbows in the misty water flying off our boat. Upon our arrival, we met up with Simpatica again. Sam( a ten-year old from Simpatica) and I tried to catch fish under their boat. Afterwards, everyone from both boats went to the Bitter End for dinner. Last time I was there, they had sharks in this cage in between the dingy docks and you could look down and see them. Now they are gone, though. The Bitter End had lots of popcorn.
On Tuesday (11/19) we moved the boat a little down the bay to a nice little beach bar, owned by a guy from Portland, it is on an island: Prickly Pear Island for those looking at a chart, and it had a volley ball net and lots of sand. The owner was walking around seeing if things were OK. They have a nice beach and Mark Robert was very pleased to be able to play Frisbee volleyball and make sand castles all in the same spot. I figure he will not have too many birthdays in the sun (rumor has it that it snowed a little in Chicago a few days back) so we enjoy the beach. We have had a few small maintenance issues with the salt water, one is everything is rusting (stainless steel my ###) the other is our sacrificial Zinc on the prop shaft has gotten much smaller and is loose on the shaft. In all the years of sailing lake Michigan we never worried about the Zincs (in fact the Ericson – our previous boat- did not have one at all until I put it on 7 years after the boat was launched). Down here they seem to wear fast, and the one I have is mostly shot. I need to find a marine store and get a replacement. At least the water is warm and I can snorkel down to replace it. Anyway, all in all, Mark’s birthday went well, and now we are off to shore to enjoy a dinner at the bitter end. Next to her garden, Cheryl says this is her favorite spot on the planet, so dinner is not to be skipped ! The boys have been doing a nice job on their school work each morning and now it is my time to start with the science lessons. I am supposed to show Matthew celestial navigation. My plan was to use all my free time on the sail down to figure it out myself. Since I had no free time, I am thinking I will give Matthew the books and he can teach me once he gets it all figured out ! Either way, he learns it ….
November nineteenth
Happy birthday to Mark Robert!(my brother) Today started with a windy, rainy storm that began at nine-thirty last night and continued to seven this morning. Mark's birthday party was started when he woke up. He got a GameBoy Advance and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3. We sailed across the bay to Prickly Pear plant preserve(lots of alliteration). They had a nice beach and a small restaurant. I saw a lizard in the bushes there. Afterwards, I swam around the boat a little before returning for lunch, a peanut-butter sandwich. Later, we went to the Bitter End for dinner.
On Wednesday, we motored over to the Baths on Virgin Gorda. The Baths are a large natural rock formation of large Granite rocks dumped on top of each other. They form neat little pools to play and swim in. Everyone had a great time climbing the rocks (although I cut my foot and limped around…). The climbing champ was Matthew as usual. Cheryl and I also had fun in the sand and Matthew snapped a shot of us to prove we are here. While we were sitting at anchor off the Baths, we saw our sister ship the J42 8-bells. They sailed down from Bermuda and it was funny to bump into them. At the end of the day we took a short trip over to Trellis Bay and anchored off a small island bar called the Last Resort (funny how we always seem to be anchored off a bar… No wonder the money is not lasting the way we planned : -) The only downside to Trellis bay is that the Airport is right next door so there are a constant stream of planes rumbling overhead. We enjoyed a nice sunset and some cool cloud formations and a rare night of no rain.
November twentieth
Today we sailed from Virgin Gorda to the Baths. The Baths are a huge island of rocks piled on top of each other. The snorkeling, spelunking, and rock-climbing is great, however I occupied my self solely with climbing to the top of the tallest rock. Afterwards, Dad pulled up the anchor and I steered us out and to Trellus bay, home of the last resort. After we(Dad and I) anchored, we(Dad and I again) took a dingy ride around the harbor and discovered, through collision, a small shallow reef near the Bitter End.
On Thursday (11/21) we tried to get lunch at the last resort, only to discover that they don’t serve lunch… So we headed off to Cooper Island. We anchored at Manchioneel Bay and then took the dingy up to Cistern Point where there was some pretty good snorkeling. The best we have seen so far. This is not saying much since the area has such heavy use, much of the snorkeling has been heavily picked over and shows signs of use. I expect the Bahamas to have better snorkeling since it is a wide area and less traveled. Still, it was a great scenic spot and we made good use of Tom’s grill to have chicken shish-ka-bobs and French fries on the Barbie… A tough life to be sure. The small propane tank for the grill is one more thing that does not like salt water (and it saw plenty in the propane locker). It now lets out a slow leaking sound when disconnected from the grill, so we are leaving it attached. The salt water has corroded the sealing mechanism in a way that even my new best friends WD-40 and Boeing T-9 can not fix.
November twenty-first
Today, well so far today, all I have done is my schoolwork and this email. For lunch, I think we are going to the bitter end.
21st
Today we stayed at Trellis Bay for a short period of time, visiting the Last Resort. The Last Resort is a resteraunt island, situated on a reef. They have several animals there, a donkey, two dogs, a cat, and two parrots. Unfortunately, the restaurant was closed for lunch, so we ate at the boat instead. Supposably, the donkey will drink beer and other drinks. We didn't see it do anything, though. Afterwards, we sailed over to Cooper Island again. We snorkeled the rock formation out a ways.
On Friday we motored over to Village Cay marina at Road Town Tortola. Here we re-stocked the food and water supply on the boat and the kids did some more swimming in the pool.
My job (besides pushing the cart in the grocery store), was to search out a marine store and buy a replacement Zinc (for the one that has decayed badly on the propeller shaft). I spent an hour walking down alleys looking for the place. I was told it was around this corner, then follow this building… I asked repeatedly for directions (I asked each time I was sure I was lost again), and continued to get lost. Finally, I got close enough that someone was able to point the store out to me. No, I’m sure I don’t look like a tourist… well, after all that searching, I got a replacement Zinc, a spare replacement Zinc, a cool fish Zinc that I can drape over the side in a marina with nice little alligator clip to attach to my ground system, and a nice tube of Stainless Steel polish. Yes, they sure saw me coming… The part I needed was only $8, but I managed to spend $80 anyway. The fish Zinc was just too neat to pass up (and should help in the marina’s), and now we have all the Zinc’s I could ever need (plus a spare !) The last item on my list was the Stainless Steel polish. After shooting my budget on the Zincs, I told the clerk I needed a good bargain on the Stainless polish. The store guy just smiled (he knew I had already bought a Zinc fish for $40, so he went for the kill) and said they had polish that did not work very well, was hard to apply, but was pretty cheap, or this really nice stuff that was $25 a tube, but easy to use and worked great… It is tough when my cheap side has to fight my lazy side, but this time the lazy side won out. We plan to leave RoadTown Saturday morning and visit a few more islands, then come back here one last time to stock up before we head to the Turks maybe Wednesday morning. It feels good to have a plan, we will see how it really works out.
One other neat thing about where we are today is the company of boats. When we docked, the boat in the slip next to us was 8 Bells (the J42 that raced the rally last year), and one slip over was a J-46 named Aragorn (for those who follow the lord of the rings, Aragorn was the real name of the guy called Strider by many – and the guy we named the boat after). I took it as a sign that we need to buy a J46, but it may take many years to act on this divine inspiration. We also looked around for a cyber Café so we could load up some of the images from the trip. These should really be called just phone line café’s, since all they offered was a phone line where you could call your ISP (at $3/minute) and login. Since I have 20 Meg to upload at this point and would need to do it at 28.8 or worse, I decided the full web story could wait until January ! By then, beer, time and too much sun will have made many of the tales better anyway.
22nd
Today we sailed from Cooper island back to Roadtown, Tortola. We are docked at the same marina as last time, village cay. We are moored next to one of our sister ships, Eight Bells. Two slips away was a J46(by the same people who designed our boat) called Aragorn. This is the other name for Strider, the guy we named our boat after. For a while, it felt like the entire J fleet was here, at least until a boat called Stagger Lee pulled into the slip next to us. Other than that, we didn't do much that day.
Saturday November 23, we headed out for Jost Van Dyke. The day got off to a slow start when we filled our water tanks. They charge for the water down here and I was below watching the tank level when it seemed to not be rising very fast anymore. I poked my head on deck, and there was the hose being held carefully over the side, dumping fresh water full speed into the harbor…. ”Dad, I thought I heard you say stop” was the reply to my question of “What the …. Are you doing ?”. In lake Michigan, we always put the hose over the side to keep water from the deck (and dirt form the deck) from getting into an open tank fill, so since they did not know any different, it is hard to do much but moan (which, of course, I did). We then had a nice sail (the first time we sailed since we finished the rally) to Jost Van Dyke. We anchored in little Harbor at Jost, and I took apart three more winches (one was not working when we sailed over, so I decided it is time to clean them all). I also installed my nice new Zinc at Jost. With my very poor ability to hold my breath underwater, this fairly simple job became a series of short dives with me gasping for air at the end of each one… Later Matthew showed me how he could hold his breath twice as long as I can (I should have had him put on the Zinc). It was a very pretty night, and we shared the anchorage with two other J42’s (now there are only 59 of them in the world, so three in the same small bay seems pretty neat to me).
23rd
Today we sailed from Roadtown to Jost Van Dyke island's Little Harbour. It was a slow two hour crossing in which Mark and I did almost all the steering. We alternated 1 hour watches. After a failed attempt to anchor without using the engine, we anchored normally in about 27 feet of water. We saw Eight Bells again at Little Harbour. It seems that they are following us around. Once the boat was anchored, Dad dived in to put the Zinc on, and Mark and I soon followed with our snorkels. Mark Robert got his snorkel to work and was soon able to dive about 7 feet. Feeling pressure to dive myself, I followed the anchor chain down 'till it hit bottom. I then dived down the farthest I've ever dived-about 27 feet- to the bottom. I most likely won't do that again as I was running out of breath on the way up. I would have taken a picture of the bottom but my camera is only waterproof until 14 feet.
On Sunday, we headed over to Sand Cay, a short ride from little harbor. This is a great little island with a wide sand beach. Everyone had a lot of fun playing on the beach for a few hours, and it rates as one of our best beach stops so far. It has not rained during the day for the past 5 days, and the weather overall has been very good. After the lunch stop at Sand Cay, we went over to Cane Garden Bay Tortola (I believe it is featured in a Jimmy Buffet song… It get better, or so they say, as soon as you make it to Cane Garden Bay..). It is a nice harbor/anchorage with a set of small bars and restaurants catering to the charter and cruising crowd. Overall, a very nice day. We did try to figure out the Sextant and discovered, and I quote Matthew here: “Dad, it will be a lot easier if we just use the GPS”. Anyone can get a nice site of the sun, and both Matthew and I were feeling pretty good with our quality Sun sights until we discovered that the easy part is taking a sight (determining what angle the sun is to the horizon with the Sextant). The hard part is figuring out all the tables and calculations needed to turn the angle of the sun, and the time of day into something that will provide any clues as to where you really are. We are not beaten, but we now know this will take more than a couple of hours and a quick skim of the books to understand. Part of me realizes that time spent on this is basically wasted since I will never use a sextant again, and at the end of the day, we are going to use a GPS anyway, but part of me thinks learning useless skills is really all sailing is about, so why not add the sextant to the list of useless skills. It is just one more things I can bring up at parties that will cause people to start looking for ways to leave the room, or praying their pager will go off !
24th
Today we motered over to Sandy Cay, off of Jost Van Dyke. I saw a sandy colored fish that resembled an angel fish in the water there. I have a picture of it, so ask me if you want to see it. The tidal forces at work near shore are tremendous; while trying to remove my flippers I was flipped on to my knees and pulled out into the cay, then flipped onto my back and swept back onto the beach. I managed to rake my back on the hard rocks underwater, causing several large scratches. Then, I drove us across the way to Cane Garden Bay. There, Dad and I fumbled with the Sextant before deciding it wasn't worth learning because we were just going to use the GPS anyway.(Global Positioning System)
That's all we've done so far. The Sextant really is an interesting device. It measures the angle of the sun(which I can do), then, taking the time of your sun shot, you reference that with this huge book of tables that tell you some equation to find the stupid longitude and latitude using both your best guess(DR or dead reckoning) and the actual angle.
Hope all is well, and I'd like to hear from you,
Matthew
Monday (11/25) we headed back toward the Pussers beach bar at Marina Cay. It was an interesting trip since a very heavy squall hit us when we were heading between Little Camanoe and Great Camanoe (which is a fairly narrow channel). The squall had very heavy rain – the kind that hurts when you stand in it, and makes it hard to look forward. We used the radar to make sure we were staying centered in the channel, and slowed down to wait out the rains (they typically last less than 15 minutes). The rest of the day was mostly sunny, and we had a very nice dinner at Marina Cay. Matthew helped get a few things fixed, and still found time to play ! There was some free time, and Matthew spent some of it building a complete board game of his own creation from scratch.
November 25th
Today we had an uneventful trip from Cane Garden Bay to Marina Cay, next to Great Camanoe and Scrub Islands. Marina Cay is home to Pussers', a famous bar and restaurant known for its rum. We calibrated our depth sounder and portable depth sounder in the reef near by. Then, we dingyed over to Pussers' for a late lunch/early dinner. Anchored near us is a huge 150 ft. power boat, one of the largest I have ever seen. This powerboat's dingy is about 20 feet long and nicer than our speedboat.
On Tuesday we headed over to Road Town for one last provisioning stop, and to get the boat ready for the passage to the Turks (about 410 nautical miles). We put the Dingy down below, and filled the fuel and water tanks. We also made one last trip to the local market, and two more full grocery carts of junk food were loaded onto the boat. We have no place to sleep, but we have all the Pringles one could ever use ! Our current plan is to check out of the British VI Wednesday morning and head for the Turks, planning a Saturday Morning arrival. We are plugged in and using the AC heavy tonight since we will not likely get to plug in again for a while. The kids also got one last good time in the pool. Both Matthew and Mark Robert are quite the swimmers these days.
Mark Robert wrote the following entry in his log for the 25th,
he was happy for me to add it here, so here goes:
” Dear Log,
Today was a good day. We looked up at the sky and all could see were dark clouds ! It was a short squall day ! It was hard rain too. However, the night was great ! Good winds, clear sky, and lots of stars all at once. This was what I thought when I saw this: the winds do there howl at night as I see the stars as clear as sky. I find Taurus the bull in the sky. Then I see Orion’s belt then Orion himself. I try to find the Big Dipper in the great Bear, to lead me to the north star. Yet I haven’t found it, I still try; I will find it.”
Anyway, both Mark and Matthew have been keeping logs so we will have a number of views of the trip.
November 26th
Today we sailed back to Roadtown to stock up on supplies. We mandaged to vacuum the entire boat and clean the heads. Afterwards, we went to the pool at the Marina. Later in the afternoon, Dad, Mom and I walked over to Bobby's, a grocery store. There, we stocked up on every kind of food and snack imaginable. Once we arrived at the boat, we set to work deflating all the rafts so we could stow them on our boat. Dad went to the marine store to buy a dingy anchor. My brother then bought that anchor, along with chain, from my Dad.
**************
Wednesday (11/27) morning we all walked over to customs in RoadTown and cleared out of the country. We did some last minute shopping, filled the tanks and departed without incident (departing without incident is always note worthy). We were sailing down wind under just the main (it was blowing about 25 knts) when we saw this nice big mega power yacht. Time to get an image of this big guy I thought… So I snap a few shots, and then we notice this nice big boat makes a huge wave. We slam into it and mutter a few words, glad the hatches and ports were all shut for the voyage ahead… Well, they would have been shut except Matthew and I needed some air when we made lunch and we opened the port over the stove. Yup, you guessed it, lots of water came in that open port, and I had to clean out and dis-assemble the burners on the stove before they would be happy given all the salt water they took. Oh well…. The rest of the day was very uneventful as we sailed out of the Islands under slowly decreasing winds.
November 27th
Today we cleared out of customs and got ready for sail. We are heading about 430 miles from the BVI to the Turks. We left at noon, sailing out by saint thomas. We saw a monster power boat that swamped us with its wake. After clearing the islands, I saw hundreds of baby Flying Fish. They jump out of the water and soar 20 feet before plunging down into the depths of the ocean. Dad says these are just the baby ones, though.
On Thursday, we puttered most of the day with different sail combinations trying to figure out how to make good speed with the light wind right behind us. There was some left over seas, so the waves and roll of the boat would slat the wind out off the sail unless we headed about 30 to 40 degrees high of course. This made for slow going, and although I had built some time into our schedule by around 4pm, it was time to motor since we want to arrive at the TURKS sometime fairly early Saturday morning (good light so we can see any reefs and hazards). This passage could not be much more different than our trip down. We are seeing ever shrinking seas, now around 3 feet with a gentle swell (looks a lot like a calm day on Lake Michigan today except for the cool flying fish who fly hundreds of feet at a time). The winds are light, under 10 knots now, and the nights are spent staring at the incredible number of stars and wondering where all the cruise ships come from (we saw 8 of them Thursday Night). We motored most of the night, and I was presently surprised when Mark Robert popped his head up at 2AM Friday morning for his watch (he had promised he would stand the 2-6 watch this morning, but had not made it last night). He set his watch, and got up. We wrote in our logs, hung the anchor light in the cockpit and played crazy 8’s and in general had a good time. He is excited about doing a Mac race, but I will have to mention the watches are not the same as this during the race !
November 28th
Yesterday was my first completely open ocean day. The wind was-and still is- directly from behind, making for a bad sail. The wind is slow too, usually less than ten knots. With the spinaker and mainsail up, the best we can do is 5.50 knots. Later on in the day, the wind died completely. We motored for most of the night. Mark R. and I watched Star Trek: Insurrection before going on watch. When the boat splashes at night, little specks of glowing green light flash in the water, giving the illusion of underwater fireworks.
Friday (11/29) found us with light Southerly winds which allowed us to motor sail (more for looks than effect I’m afraid, since the winds are light). We have been motoring at 6.6 knots to conserve fuel and I am hopeful we will get about 8 or 9 nautical miles to the gallon of fuel. On this trip we are going over and to some amazing natural features. The Ocean depth where we were Thursday night and early Friday is between 7,000 to 8,962 meters. This is called the Puerto Rico Trench on the charts and the deepest water in the Northern half of the Atlantic. The Turks themselves and the three shallow banks that lead to them (when coming from the East) rise very sharply out of over 5,000 meters of water. The cruising guide gives a flowery description of the Turks and Caicos: “ Reportage has it that two natural features and one man made feature, given clear skies, head the list of the most stunning sites from space. The great Wall of China is the man made one, the stark terracotta beauty of the barren wind blown sand formations of the Saharan Africa (you can tell I am not writing this myself !), The other is the stunning site of the Turks and Caicos, brilliant in their shallow water colors, set in the indigo blue of the deepest water in the north Atlantic. … I skip some because it is boring to type…”Let’s describe the Caicos Bank. It is an atoll, almost circular, some 60nm across, something like 6-12 feet deep, peppered with reefs and coral head (for this reason, you must cross in daylight and don’t tempt fate by heading straight across…). Imagine anchoring 30 miles from land, in the middle of no where, in 10 feet of water” (Since hitting something and damaging the boat would wreck my day, I think we may skip this thrill, but we shall see.)
The harbors on the deep ocean side typically have steep depth changes (in 1/2 a mile the water goes from 3,000 meters deep to 10 feet), and many areas have good to great cliff diving for SCUBA.
The boys (all three of them) are enjoying the passage, but Cheryl finds it a little boring and the nights long. Given the choice of boring, or heavy storms, we are all happy to have a mellow motor and sail to the TURKS !
Every morning there is a cruisers radio net which talks about what was stolen where and passes other stories around. It reminds me of Jimmy Buffets “coconut telegraph” song in that I am sure it is the main source of news for many (we get no news at all since I am too lazy to listen to the BBC, and they had no American newspapers in the BVI that were easy for me to find). The lady who runs the security net says “ Lock it or lose it” so many times, I wonder if she every forgets her own name…. Roger Roger on that….
As I plan our next passage and think about the generator Tom talked me into buying one day in the future, I am reading books on great voyages in small boats. These guys were nuts, heading around the world in 20 foot boats with no engines and no cold beer… I am thinking with a generator, we could run the Air conditioner underway and keep the cabin cool. That would be living !
One more note for Friday is we got somewhere with the Sextant. It turns out that when the sun is highest, it is due south of you (in our hemisphere). This makes it fairly easy (well, compared to anything else with celestial navigation) to get your Latitude by taking a “noon” sight. We did this, and it produced a latitude reading of only 20 miles from where we were. Given I skipped all the small calibration steps and it was my first try at a real site, we were very pleased with the results. Now we have made some progress, we will try to get both Lat and Log… That is harder.
We can see the rain squalls coming with the radar, they show up as big blobs, larger than a ship, it is nice to be able to measure the distance to them and see where they are going. We are getting a number of squalls today (Friday afternoon). The squalls passed and so did our nice, easy weather, we got a strong breeze on the nose (about 25 knots) that slowly clocked toward the North East, this produced a nice, fast close reach under just the jib (sounds like the Rally again..) and later the jib and double reefed main. We were clocking a steady 8 knts for hours, but the ride was wet and the skies very dark with clouds. We also got a flying fish in the cockpit (which I tossed over the side before it died) and in general stayed busy.
Nov. 29th
Today we sailed all day. Tommorrow we will hopefully arrive at the Turks. In the morning the wind was horrible. We motored on slowly rolling waves making little time. Fortunately, the wind picked up later in the day. Our highest gusts were about twenty five knots. Now we are doing seven to eight knots, traveling between 3.9 and 4 knots every half hour. The wind was hard tonight, but other than that is was an uneventful night.
On Saturday, we checked in with the weather guy via SSB (he heard us better today – 400 miles away, than he did yesterday – 220 miles away) and since the swells were going to continue, we decide to head to South Caicos which adds about 25 miles to the trip. South Caicos has a easier harbor to enter and more shelter, and is a port of entry for customs so we give it a try. We arrive around 1pm on Saturday after a roughly 450 nm passage (the longest ever for Cheryl and the boys, and the outside the Rally, the longest for me as well). The “harbor” is pretty weird, the water goes from 3,000 feet deep to 20 feet deep in about ˝ a mile. They have great cliff diving here for SCUBA and the snorkeling is great. We anchor near a ship wrecked freighter (maybe 150 feet long) and see a lot of cool fish in very clear water. There is not much of a town here, and the place is pretty beat up. The “Marina” has 12 boats in it, but only 2 of them were floating, the others are half sunk or mostly broken on the beach. There is one broken down pier and the water is too shallow for us to go there anyway. The two boats that floated were beat up old fishing boats. We do not go a shore, but just swim and explore on Saturday.
Some notes on the trip: we motored about 34 hours on the 3 day trip, about 6 hours were to charge the batteries, the rest were to move the boat. We traveled about 450nm so we covered 150 miles a day. At the end of the trip, we had consumed slightly less than 20 gallons of fuel. I figure at 2200 rpm, we were making 6.6 knts and only using about .66 gallons of fuel per hour. This translates into about 10 nm per gallon or about 12 land miles to the gallon, or just about what we get in the Suburban ! Our worn ZINC came loose during the trip, and I have now removed it. The new one I put on is still looking good (I know, deep down, you all wanted to know how the ZINC’s were doing !)
Nov. 30th
Today we decided to add another hour to our trip, heading to the caicos instead of the turks. OUr harbor is fairly nice, allthough we are anchored near a derelict ship. The water is only twelve feet deep, easily diveable even for Mark R. The water is amazingly clear, too, at the VI the water was always dusty. In the water, I saw a total of 4 different Great Barracudas, known for their danger to swimmers. I, of course, didn't know this till later. I also saw a stingray.
Sunday (12/1) arrives with the crew deciding it would be fun to dingy around and explore the place more (translation: we have no interest in moving the boat today, so don’t even think about it !). After a rousing game of crazy 8’s between Mom and Mark Robert (which drags on for 30 minutes), we start to visit the area via dingy. We met with a fellow who had been cruising down here for 4 years. He recommended we “just yellow flag it through” and go to the Bahamas. When you come into a new country, you are supposed to fly a yellow “quarantine” flag until you check in. He though no one would care much if we never checked in if we were only staying a few days. We also got to test our PC navigation software. It worked very well, and even in the fairly unpopulated area we are now, it had the depths and this harbor dead on.
Dec. 1st
Today we swam a lot. Then, we snorkeled a little more. I took the dingy out for a spin and ran out of gas. Fortunately, I had the spare gas can with me. Later on, we dingyied over to the entrance. I saw two squid, two more barracuda, and several schools of yellow-colored small fish, along with some corral. I practiced diving some more, and once we get home I'm going to get certified for scuba diving.
Monday we head out to Mayaguana.. We were planning to cross the Caicos Bank and head to Provo, but it is raining and cloudy in the morning and we decide it is too dangerous to cross without good light to see the reefs and so we decide to head off shore. This forces us to take a 24 hour sail since there is nothing we can reach in the same day. The day is windy but nice, we are heading exactly down wind and we get the jib and main flying wing on wing with Tom’s pole. We are now going too fast since we do not want to get to Mayaguana until 10am or later so we have good light to see the reefs. We roll in the Jib and reef down the main to get us to a speed that will work for a 10am landfall. We have some fun in the middle of the night as a freighter is on a collision course with us. They are moving slow, but heading right toward us. We change course and motor to get out of the way. At 2am, there are suddenly 4 ships around us after we saw nothing all day and most of the night. Makes the watches more interesting.
Dec. 2nd
Today we left for a place called Mayaguana, a nearby island only 130 or so miles away. We spent most of the day sailing, along with all night. I slept through my watch, though. Next time I will stay up until my watch so I don't miss it.
We enter Mayaguana around 9:30 am, Tuesday morning (12-3). Mayaguana has an incredible harbor, we are at the “harbor mouth” and it does not look like we are close, we are 1 mile from land, the barrier reef extends 6 miles or more and the harbor is up to 2 miles wide. We go through a gap in the reef and anchor. It looks like you decided to anchor in the middle of the Ocean, but the water is only 9 feet deep and you can see bottom very clearly. The harbor is littered with coral heads, but they show black in the water if the sun is overhead and are easy to miss. It is a sunny day, 85 degrees and the water is nice and warm. We do lots of swimming.
The water in this reef protected harbor is crystal clear, between 0 and 16 feet deep, just outside the reef it is 1000 feet. After a quick snorkel expedition to the reef nearest to us, we decide to transit up the bay in good light so we can check into customs (it would have been a six mile dingy ride up wind, not good in our dinghy.
We transit the 6 miles up the bay slowly, with Matthew as a scout in the dingy, taking to hours to pick our way up the bay, dodging shoals, both real and imagined… (Hey, its our first try !). Later that day, right before sunset, a second boat come blasting up the bay and anchors near us. What a putz we must be the way we went so slow. I dinghy over to say hi and he says “Boy, I must have hit the only rock in this place, lifted the boat up a foot before we came off the other side. But she’s a tough boat so I don’t worry”. Made me feel good about taking our time. After a second snorkel trip, where a large number of shells and other items are found, Cheryl and I head into town. The water gets to less than 1 foot 500 yards from the “City Pier” there is a 2 foot wide dinghy channel cut to the pier, but we, of course, don’t notice the wood sticks shoved in the sand to mark it until later…. We take the short walk to the government offices. It is a two room building about the size of a two car garage, and the administrator who could check us in is not on the island. They suggest we check in at Georgetown (250 miles away !) They told us not to worry about not having checked in, as long as we did it somewhere, everyone would be happy. We had left the boys on the boat, so Cheryl and I head back out.
After a careful discussion of where to go next, given there is a front expected Thursday night and Friday, we decided we should set out Wednesday for Rum Cay (about 140 miles away). This will put us in a nice spot (good snorkeling) and put us in range of Georgetown when we need to get more water and food (we went 6 days on one 50 gallon water tank, and the food is lasting pretty well, but these islands have nothing, so we need to plan a shopping stop somewhere).
Dec. 3rd
Today we arrived at Mayaguana. The breakwater at Mayaguana is a huge coral reef. We anchored by the entrance we came through, and then we snorkeled the coral reef. After that, we took up anchor and headed towards the "town."(A group of huts about the size of a garage) I scouted ahead in the dingy with the lead line to measure a safe channel in to shore. This took an hour or so.
Wednesday morning (12-4) arrives and after school work, we start our way back down the
“harbor”. We have to break it into three tries since we are hit with two nice squall lines as we are leaving, and re-anchor before
each one to get clear sun again before we move on. The boys have not stepped off the boat
since Road Town Tortola last Wed. They may
get to leave the boat Thursday (if we stop at the marina). They are happy as long as they
can play with the computer (two favorite games), and eat junk food. In honor of our
planned overnight to Rum Cay, we watched castaway that night to get in the mood !
Cheryl does not like long sails. Not afraid of them, just finds 24 hours or more straight a pain, boring, not fun, and she likes her sleep. Back in Warrenville, I promised we would have one long sail (VI to the Turks) and then day hops. It looks good when you are planning from a desk at home, but when you consider that you have to enter these harbors in good light to see the reefs (navigational markers do not exist, and you are warned to be distrustful of the ones you may see), and many times you have to exit in good light. In addition, once a week or two there is a “Northern front” which comes through with heavy north winds and makes many anchorages not as safe (they are good for the prevailing conditions). With all these variables, you can either make a bunch of short hops, leaving at Midnight to arrive the next day (nothing is real close), but spending the day staging to a spot you can leave at midnight from (no sleep this way). Or, taking things in 150 to 200 mile chucks and sailing all night. Since last Wednesday, we have been sailing 5 of the 8 nights. I am counting on the short memory women have for painful experiences (if they did not have a short memory, there would never be a second child…) to get me through. In a few days, this will all be forgotten.
It would have helped if the weather Wednesday night was nice, but it was a series of rain squalls with gusting and shifting winds. The crew, as always, was ready for the job at hand, and the weather did generate some very pretty cloud formations at Sunset though ! Matthew watched the squalls on the radar (while I sit in the rain and get soaked !) “you’re 80% of the way through this one Dad !”. Sort of nice to know what is going on. Double reefed main and Jib to start, then just the Jib. Then, around 3am, the wind lightened, leaving us in a rolly sea, with not enough wind. Not perfect. When we started the sail, we noticed a funny smell which we traced to the fridge. The fridge has a cold plate which is battery driven and we also some times toss in Ice when we can get it to help things along (beer needs to be kept cold!). Well, something was living in the drain water, when I put bleach in the drain; it foamed back at me and produced a weird smelly compound. We cleared that out, and things smell better now ! I have decided that the seasickness scare we were given in Hampton was not worth it. The boys have been down below in rough seas with no ventilation, reading away, just like on the great lakes, and no seas sickness problems. No one has taken anything, and no one has had a problem. I think if you get sick on the lakes, you will on the Ocean, and if you don’t get sick on the lakes, you are fine on the Ocean (one more opinion I guess, but our stash of Bromine will not be used this trip)
We are using the SSB more and more. We are able to reach the weather man in Tortola clearly even though he is 650nm away. He hooked us up with a boat who is already in Rum Cay who will held lead us in if needed. It is nice how the cruising folks help each other out. A lot different than the racing world was it seems to me.
Dec. 4th
Today we packed up again, preparing to journey to Rum Cay because a major cold front is through. We managed to safely navigate our way out of Mayaguana. Then, we set sail. We cruised north up out of the lee of the island before falling off a few degrees once we reached our desired course. We sailed at a brisk pace through what seemed like an endless wall of squalls and storms. I had the 10pm-2am watch, so I stayed up for the 6-10 and 1/4 of the 2-6 because my brother was sleeping through it.
Thursday morning has us closing in on Rum Cay. We navigated through the twisting channel around the reef near high tide and docked at Sumners Marina. It is a small place but the owner (who is easy to meet since he is one of three employees) is working on a number of additions and they hope to get a small subdivision with 20 or 30 houses. Still lots of room for growth, but the people are very nice and it was a nice stop. Cheryl and I wander into “town” (since there are only 50 residents, town is not very large) and had a beer at the local beach bar, sand covered the front room, but the dinning room (4 tables) was sand free. Most of the cruisers we anchored off the beach near town, and they were at the bar. It is interesting to talk with them, everyone has a very different story.
Dec. 5th
Today we arrived at Rum Cay. Rum Cay has a small town, Port Nelson, and a very small marina called Sumnet Point. The snorkeling here is supposed to be great at the reefs, but I'm not sure I will swim here. The water is shark-infested because fishermen here just toss the heads back into the water. Apparently, they have both Bull Sharks and Sand Sharks. Bull Sharks are known to be very dangerous and aggressive.
Have any of you swam with sharks before? I could use some advice for later on.
On Friday (12/6), Mark Robert got off the boat and made friends with the four dogs hanging out around the pier. They then followed us on the 25 minute walk to the “Last Chance” food mart. There had fresh stuff since the mail boat came in yesterday from Nassua (and it brings food as well). We got some bread, milk etc and the dogs happily followed us back. Water here is $.5/gallon and we filled up. In 9 days, we have used only 70 gallons, so we are using roughly 2 gal/person/day. Not bad. In the afternoon, we dingied around to check out the beach and snorkeling. It is a neat place and things are very laid back here. Not sure I could live here, but it is nice to visit. Later in the day 2 large motor yachts came in for fuel. I talked to one of the crew and one of the boats is used for charter. They charge $40,000 per week, and can take up to 8 guests. Not a cheap vacation, but they guy said “most of the people who charter the boat have more money than they know what to do with” so business is good. Cheryl and I are going to have dinner at the local restaurant. The cook (the owner of the marina) decides if enough people want dinner and then cooks stuff up. It is easy for Cheryl to get her Lobster, but I have to look pathetic to get him to agree to make me a steak. Dinner turned out to be great, and after taking on 80 gallons of water, we are ready to leave Saturday at high tide.
Dec. 6th
Today we spent at Rum Cay. The owners of the island have several dogs, one of which seems to have bonded with Mark Robert. We've played fetch with them using a coconut. Mark Robert, Mom, and Dad went to a beach but I stayed behind because I needed to catch up on school. Later, I worked on decorating for Christmas and the Star Trek Nemesis premeire(the 13th). Hopefully, we can see the movie in Nassau.
By popular request, I will start this entry with a segment of Mark Robert’s log covering Friday Dec 6th, and the 7th.
12/6/02
“Dear Log
I guess I’ve found a new buddy. A dog named Marly has gotten found of me. He will fetch coconuts. He is a big puppy ! he was almost as big as me !… Mark.”
12/7/02
“Dear Log
We left Run Cay. Also the dog too. But the place were at is good. The beach is awesome ! the snorkeling is good too! This place rocks !. Mark “
Now back to my logs…..
On Saturday (12/7), we sail to Conception Island. It is a great sailing day, very close reach, 10 knots of wind and we have a very pleasant sail over. We arrive around 1:30 and anchor is clear water about 18 feet deep, with light NE winds. The Island is perfect, great, rock free beach, with very fine, white sand. Close by, there is great snorkeling and we decide at once to make this a two day stop. We have a great day, enjoy one more great sunset (this one had some nice effects) and we grill potatoes and Sausages for dinner. After dinner the wind picks up and blows hard (20 to 25knts) it is still from the NE (which is rare normally, but typical with a front passage which is what we are getting). The wind moves slowly to the East overnight. Matthew gets into the holiday spirit and starts to decorate the boat, he also counts the days until we can see Star Trek Nemesis in a theater.
Dec. 7th
Today we left from Rum Cay for Conception Island, a national park. Conception Island is perfect-the beach is sandy with no rocks or corral, the snorkeling to the north is excellent while the floor by the beach is all sand. The water is crystal clear. We will spend several days here. Before we left we played with the dogs at Rum Cay. It was sad to say goodbye to Marley, Farley and Barley(for all of us).
Sunday morning, I put out a second anchor (not really needed since our large anchor has not moved, but it can not hurt) since we are fairly exposed if the winds shift to the SW. As expected, putting out a second anchor has calmed the winds (you never need it if you put it out !) and by noon, things have calmed down some and the Sun is shining. We head to the beach for an active day of sand castle building and swimming. I spend the time thinking of new ventures for 29West and place a nice logo in the sand as an advertisement so future travelers will know who to call (I wonder if this makes the whole trip deductible …). It was a very pleasant day and we spent the afternoon resting up from our hard morning of play… Due to some potential bad weather coming Tuesday, we decide we will head to GeorgeTown on Monday morning.
GeorgeTown is on Great Exuma Island and is not really a harbor as much as the area between Stocking Island and that section of Great Exuma. There are a few other smaller islands as well, and people tend to pick one and anchor there for a long time. The vast majority of boats drop anchor and don’t move from that spot for 6 months or more. From the cruising guides: “ February through May, Georgetown acts as the terminus for the apprehensive, who go back home, and for the adventurous, who strike out for the Caribbean”. The entrance has some reefs, so we decide to leave early in the morning to arrive at high sun and high tide.
Dec. 8th
Today was spent at the scenic Conception Island. I constructed a huge sandcastle from the perfect white sand. It was huge with a yellowish hue. (see sketch one) Later, we came back to the boat and had a queit evening. Then, we turned in for the night. Tommorrow we will set out for George town.
Monday morning (12/9), we leave around 5am and we head to Georgetown with the winds blowing from the East around 20 knots. We have a very nice sail with just the #3 Jib to Georgetown and get a nice sunrise. The crew did a fine job, although the boys spent time wrestling below. The entrance was very weird since we had to basically head toward a set of rocks and turn sharply North once we got within 1/10 of a mile of them (which seems pretty close when the wind is blowing you hard toward the rocks and they are creating a nice, dramatic set of spray as each large wave slams into them. You start to wonder if maybe you are not taking to much on faith with the whole chart thing! After all, it could be some weird joke, and there could be something bad father up the way (everyday, I am more impressed with Columbus.. How he managed not to ship wreck is beyond me))…. We press on, and the entrance seems more straight forward the farther we go. We anchor outside the main part of town and head in via dingy to clear into the country. With the heavy winds, and the out flowing tide, the ride in the dingy is very rough, there are 2 foot seas, very steep and very close together as you go under this little bridge into the dingy lagoon inside. Cheryl and I make it through (we left the boys on the boat), and after a couple hours of waiting and paperwork, we are cleared into the Bahamas. We had to stake out the immigration office. It was locked the three different times we tried it (over 90 minutes) and we waited until we saw someone go near the door, and begged them to check us into the country (which she reluctantly did, commenting the whole time that someone should be here and she was just trying to get one piece of paper !)
We had been looking forward to Georgetown, a real city… It was a big disappointment as a big city goes. The town is basically one mile of road with a few small hotels (the Peace and Plenty Hotel is the biggest one) and a couple of stores. No fancy dining in Georgetown, we will have to wait until Nassua. There are three main areas the cruising boats hang out: Volley Ball Beach (off of Stocking Island), Hamburger Beach (off of monument anchorage), and the Redshanks Yacht and Tennis Club (off a small set of islands called Redshanks – the “club” is a very small beach were the boats have happy hour each day, no building, no nothing). After deciding we have been traveling too fast (at this rate, we would be in FLA before Christmas), we decide to sample each community, stopping first at Volley Ball Beach.
Dec. 9th
Today we left Conception Island for George Town. The arrival at George Town was a tricky one requiring both my navigating from my computer and the eyeball navigation expertise of the rest of the family. Combined with a little luck, soon we were in. We stopped off of George Town for a little bit, then we picked up and headed in to the famous "Volley Ball Beach."
Tuesday morning a number of people stop by and tell us that the kids get together on the beach around 2pm and there are volley ball games. We decide to eat lunch at the “Chat and Chill” Bar on Volley Ball Beach (it is a open air beach bar with three tables, and satellite TV (I hear that the bears got crushed by Wanny and the fish on Monday night…. Too many people from Florida down here J We have very tasty cheeseburgers and fries and Cheryl is drawn into a 3 hour game of dominoes with about 6 to 8 other people (one of whom knew the Breitungs). Mark Robert hangs around the V-ball courts (they have three sand courts) and is playing v-ball pretty quick. Matthew and I head back to the boat so he can finish his school work, complaining the whole way how Mark Robert does not have as much home work, and how his is harder. Most of the people we meet are here for the season and have no great plans to head farther south. Everyone is very nice and make a real effort to welcome you to the neighborhood. They are disappointed that we “are just passing through”.
Today was spent at the Volleyball Beach. The beach has a beach bar, the chat 'n chill. The chat 'n chill has a good burger and excellent fries(jimmy). Then Dad and I dinghied across the channel to get gas, bread, and other important stuff. I carried the gas can and other stuff while Dad got the important stuff. Today was the first time I've tasted a frozen food since November seventh.
Wednesday morning (12/11), Cheryl and I head to town (about 15 minutes by dingy now that we have moved) and get some groceries. They are not giving the beer away here: $42/case and there are a few other sticker shock prices, but anchoring is free ! Mark Robert and Cheryl enjoyed the V-ball beach so we decide to stay at least one more day. The weather is perfect: 85, sunny, warm water (80 degrees), and a nice atmosphere at the beach bar. Still, we feel a little lazy not going anywhere for a couple of days in a row. This last month, we have only about 350 miles to cover. In the last two weeks, we covered 750 miles. This will give us a chance to sample the slow cruising style, and also I will get a chance to read some redwall books (Matthew and Mark Robert have read 20 or more of these, and say they are good, so I need to read at least one). We are thinking we will stay here till around 12/19 or so, and then try to get to Nassua sometime after Christmas but before New Years. Mark Robert is in a hurry to play v-ball, so he goes ahead (can’t keep waiting for Mom !)
Today was agian spent at Volleyball Beach. The beach has multiple ropes hanging from trees to climb or swing, along with two huge bumpers hanging from a tall fur tree. With precise and careful aim, I was able to swing from rope to rope or rope to bumper. However, besides the ropes, the beach isn't that great. The burrs mentioned on November 3rd are quite common -or more truthfully run rampant(Wordly Wise word)- on this island.
We spent more than a week in Georgetown and on Thursday we head up Stocking island to a section of beach that no one was at for a private day of playing in the sand. We spent the morning on school work, and spent the afternoon swimming, lounging, and building sand castles. As usual, there were multiple efforts, with Matthew building a nice, multi-purpose castle, and Mark Robert and I built an impressive fort (one that could dominate Matthew’s kingdon !).
Today we picked up anchor and headed down the island. We were aiming to head to a nice sandy beach. We found one. Upon dropping anchor, Mark and I completed our school. Afterwards, we dingied ashore. I built a wonderful sand city. It had one mansion/castle on it's own island with a bridge to the surrounding 17 building town which is on its own island. The town is complete with a power plant and a large tree(a tree branch wedged in the ground).
On Friday (12/13) we went back to the same beach and built more castles. Not much else to report !
Today we stayed at the beach. In the morning, MR and I went in to build sand castle. Unfortunately, the bucket we were using to make turrets broke part of the way through. Later on, my Dad and I made a huge mountain of sand using plastic cups. Using the same cups, we created towers out of the mountain sides. My towers were built into the side of the mountain, while my dad's stood out on ledges. We built our mountain much too close to the water, but it still survived the tide.
Weather: sunny, 82 degrees
On Saturday, we went back to GeorgeTown (the town itself) – moving from anchorage to anchorage is called the “Georgetown Shuffle” by some. We went ashore and Cheryl visited some of the small shops. I bought the “explorer charts” for the Bahamas areas we have not yet visited. These charts have much better detail, and many GPS way points for the tricky areas and will make it much easier to cruise the Exumas than the charts I had on board. One more thing no one told me before we left, but the charts I got are not used much down here since they are lacking details and they are from old surveys.
Today we left the special beach and headed back to George town because a front was coming through. We stopped to provision at George town and found personal pan frozen pizzas which we were able to transport to the boat. I was hoisted up the mast to look around today, and I saw a small channel through a rock wall that lead to a pond.(which I later discovered was Chim Pond) Mom and I checked it out. The water in the pond is very shallow, though.
Weather: sunny, 76 degrees
On Sunday we went back to VolleyBall Beach. I watched the Bears beat the Jets and Cheryl and MR played V-ball on the beach all day. It was the first football game I watched since early October. It feels funny watching football from an open air beach bar. There are some boats that have Christmas lights up and down the masts, without the cold rainy/snowy weather, it does not feel much like Christmas time to me. We will likely spent the holiday at some uninhabited Cay in the Exumas. Although Mark Robert and Cheryl are enjoying the VolleyBall, we decide to head out Tuesday Morning to cruise up the Exumas.
Dec. 15th
Today we headed over to Volleyball beach again. Before leaving, Mark and I cruised around in the dingy. We visited Chim Pond, although through an interesting series of events which are much to complex to describe in detail*, the engine wouldn't start once we left the pond. Mark Robert and I ended up rowing back out to the boat, at least until a nice man from a catamaran drove up in a sweet 15 horse "caribe" dingy and gave us a tow. (real nice dingy) Fortunately, we were able to fix the engine problem and now the engine works fine. We ate lunch at the Chat 'n Chill.
Weather: sunny, 72 degrees, BP 30.12
*See Scott Adam's explanation of human behavior in "The Dilbert Principle"
******Dad's note, since I almost forgot, Matthew had turned off the fuel when he got to shallow water, and then forgot to turn it back on when he tried to return to us, resulting in the "engine problems". I noticed it one second after I got inthe dinghy, and Matthew learned we can all be stupid at times... Mark Robert was mad I did not bring the boat into shallow water to get them, he wanted me to run it aground !!! ****
On Monday (12/16) we get more Gas for the Dingy and generator, more groceries for us, change the engine oil and fill the water tanks from the beach at Chat-N-Chill ($.6/gallon) – basically get ready for the last legs of the trip. I spent some time talking to the guy who owns the Chat-N-Chill. He is a native Bahamas guy who got an MBA from U of Chicago and has a couple of other economic degrees. He has some interesting problems since the island has no services. He generates his own power, uses Reverse Osmosis to create his own drinking water and propane for fuel to cook. He has two generators, one he runs at night, and one in the day time. He gets Diesel for the generators each day from George town by taking his “boat” – it is sort of a pontoon boat, crossed with a small barge, over each day. Everything he needs or sells, he has to carry over. He said that business is good for six months (November – April) then pretty dead May – Oct. He has plans to dig out a marina one day. As it is, I had to anchor real close to shore (within 70 feet) to get my hose to reach his hose so I could fill my water tanks. Filling the water tanks and changing the oil became a half day, 2 beer job ! Mark Robert has found his place on the beach, he is one of the best kid Volley Ball players and is playing with the teen-age kids and holding his own. He told me today, if we can’t stay here, we should just go home !
Late Monday, the author of the book “The Gentleman’s Guide to Passages South” anchored next to us. We have found his book the best by far of the guides we got, so I dinghied over to tell him we liked his book. Like pretty much everyone we have met, he was real nice, invited me on board for a drink and was happy to talk with me for a while. The people here have been very nice and the community side of the boating here is pretty impressive. The Chat-n-chill bar is the local club house for the people here. It has been a nice stop, but we are ready to move on.
Today was spent at Volleyball Beach. We have stayed at Volleyball Beach for a total of six days now. Today was the day to fill our water tanks. To fill up the tanks, we first have to move the boat within seventy feet of the Chat 'n Chill(not an easy feat!). We draw about six feet and it is real shallow close to shore. After anchoring the boat off of the Chat 'n Chill, I dingy over to the Chat 'n Chill with the other end of the hose and hook it up to the Chat 'n Chill's hose. Then, we start the water. We must be careful not to waste water because unlike in Lake Michigan(and I assume in any large body of freshwater), freshwater is not free in saltwater ports.
Weather: sunny, 72 degrees
Tuesday morning we are ready to head out but the winds are blowing pretty good (20 knots plus) from the North East. This makes some of the cuts we were going to go through more dangerous due to breaking seas hitting the shoals. Since we have become lazy slackers in the last week, we decided to simply move the boat to “Hamburger Beach” which is one place we have not anchored yet… This decision was pushed by Cheryl, which is a little surprising since she does not like to stay in one place very long. What slugs we have become in one short week… I knew I should have kept the boat moving !
It turns into a fun day and we accomplish a lot: Matthew climbs the mountain at Monument harbor, we sample the cheese burgers and refreshments at the “peace-n-plenty” beach bar off of Hamburger Beach (they were very good), we walk over to the Ocean side and enjoy miles of beach (no one around as usual). The beach off of Hamburger Beach has a tide pool that is very large and had some neat effect. We also saw a ton of hermit crabs walking around in old sea shells.
Dec 17th
Today we left Volleyball Beach. We were going to head to Galiot Cut, but instead we went to monument beach.(Galiot Cut was 40 miles away in bad weather), Monument beach is cool- it has a large monument at the top of a steep, rocky mountain with a large cliff facing the bay in front of the beach. Since I like mountain climbing(and I didn't know that there were hiking trails to the top) I chose to scale the cliff face(I probably should use climbing equipment next time, but I didn't think of that at the time). After a 10-15 minute climb, I was at the top and enjoying the view. You could see for miles and miles in any direction. I saw the boats in the anchorages in and near Volleyball beach to the left, and the ocean behind me.
Weather: Sunny, 71 degrees, BP 30.15
Wednesday Morning is very cloudy, but we head out anyway and Matthew does a great job navigating us out using the computer and waypoints from the explorer charts (there are 4 shoals you have to zig zap around to get out into the ocean). We have a very pleasant sail, with 15 to 20 knots of wind on the beam, out on the Ocean side of Great Exuma, and head the 40 miles to Galliot Cut. This is one of the cuts between the islands in the Exuma chain that allows you to safely (hopefully) go from the Ocean side, between some islands and over to the Bahamas Banks side. The Bahamas banks are very large areas of shallow water (0-15 feet) that cover a large portion of the Bahamas and will be a big part of our trip between now and Bimini (our last expected stop before FT Lauderdale). The water is very clear and there are many shoals, so you have to keep a look out all the time, but the area is covered with islands and reefs and most people we have met said the Exuma chain is the best cruising area in the Bahamas. We shall see. We make the entrance to the cut right after low tide so the water flow into the cut is slow and any grounding would be assisted by a rising tide (helping us get back off !). All goes smoothly and we anchor right outside Big Galliot Cay (roughly 23.55.55 N, 76.17.80 W). The water is very calm on the banks, and the wind seems lighter as well (we had 3 to 6 foot seas on the Exuma Sound side). The computer chart program makes navigating between waypoints a breeze and we use it heavily. Matthew and Mark do much of the sailing to get here, and I can’t help but think that by the end of the trip, we may really know what we are doing ! The sky gets cloudy in the evening, but the Sun tries to poke through.
Dec. 18th
Today we actually headed to Galiot Cut. It was a five-hour sail with the wind mostly from the beam, so we were on port tack most of the way there. After we hoisted the sails, the rolly-polly motion stopped completely. The place we are headed to-Galiot Cut- is on the Great Bahama Bank, a huge plateau rising 300 meters up from the depths of the ocean. In a distance of about 10 feet, the depth goes from 900 feet to a mere 12 feet. The Great Bahama Bank is nearly one quarter the size of Florida.
Weather: clods, overcast, winds 15-20 knots.
The winds get heavy Thursday (12-19-02), and the current against the wind created closely packed steep little two foot wave hitting us beam on and making the anchorage uncomfortable, so we move the boat a little to get tucked in behind Big Galliot Cay and get out of the swell. The current is so strong, we were lying beam to the wind in 20 knots of breeze. This is a pattern that will repeat itself often in the bank side, and make anchoring much trickier. Everyday we are glad we have a very oversized anchor and chain rode. It makes us hold in situations where smaller ground tackle would fail. The Moon was full and so bright it cast a shadow. In the middle of the night you could still see the bottom with the bright moon and clear water. In the afternoon, we dingied over to the beach and played in the sand. Matthew decided to cover himself with sand, and more castles were built: Mark Robert built a castle and also the tower of Salamandastron (out of the redwall books), and Matthew built a fancy castle. Alas, they were all built below the tide line, so they have a life expectancy of less than 6 hours….. The water is very clear, like a clean pool, and it is easy to see star fish on the bottom as well as fish and coral. As usual, we enjoy a very nice sunset, and a bright full moon rise as well. The moon is so bright it casts shadows and you could read by it. We plan to head to Stanley Cay tomorrow. This is where they filmed the James Bond Movie Thunderball and there are supposed to be some nice caves.
Today was spent at Galiot Cut. Galiot cut is an opening between the Exumas and the bank. The Exumas are a series of islands bunched close together on the east side of the Great Bahama Bank. Because there are few breaks between the island chain, when the tide comes in in or out it flows fast through these cuts. This flowing of thousands of gallons of water creates a powerful current in the cuts, especially fun to watch(though not fun to motor through) when the waves are going against the tide.
Weather: Sunny, winds 15- 20 knots, BP 30.15
Friday Morning we head out on the Bahamas Banks for the trip up to Stanley Cay. This will be our first big trip on a shallow bank (we never really crossed the Caicos Bank). The charts we have give detailed waypoints and we follow the waypoints very carefully. We are not the only ones doing this since all the boat traffic we see seems to want to take the same line (we see 4 boats during our trip). But about 7 miles into the trip, cruising along at 6.5 knots, we are shocked out of our lazy trance by a loud “Holy Crap” from the mouth of Mark Robert. Mark was sitting on the bow when he spotted 2 dolphins who proceeded to swim in front of the boat. I was moving the kids to the side to get a good shot of them with the camera when they took off and along comes a 20 foot whale cruising by within 10 feet of the boat. I had read a few stories of how boats had been sunk by whales and I was backing away toward the mast (so someone would be able to go back and get the kids who were leaning over the side pointing at the Whale – I was sure they would fall in if the whale hit us) as I snapped a shot of this big guy. He just swam right by us, at close range, and then kept going. We did not see him, or the Dolphins again, although we spent the rest of the trip looking for them. I did get a couple of pretty good shots for the archives, but they do not do the whale justice.
The water depth was steady between 12 and 18 feet much of the way, but we had to cross an area of 8 feet (at high tide) water to get to Stanley Cay (at low tide, we would not be able to cross this shoal). We made it in, but watched a couple of boats a few hours behind us ground as they tried to get in the same channel. We anchor outside of “Club Thunderball” only to discover they don’t open until around new years day. Two days later, I was at the Staniel Cay YC gas dock when one of the boats that grounded was calling on the radio asking for help docking at the Yacht Club. The Yacht Club guy just mumbles back at his radio (never touching it..). It went something like this… “Staniel Cay Yacht Club, this is Leprachuan, looking for some help with our dock lines”, the guy in the club house mutters to himself “well, I don’t care, I don’t work at the dock, I’m not going to answer”…. I go over and help with the dock lines, and the wife tells me a few times how they ran aground the other day and they tend to hit docks a lot if no one helps them. She tells me it is a new boat, but will not look new much longer if they keep hitting things…… If Cheryl was this talkative, I’d would have to lock her below when we docked ! I now know when no one answers the VHF radio call, they may hear you, but just don’t care !
Cheryl and I go ashore to the Stanley Cay Yacht Club for a Lobster dinner Friday night. They take your order hours ahead of time, and then you wait at the bar until they ring the dinner bell, they then serve everyone at once. It is sort of neat. I got to watch the weather channel for a while at the bar, looks like snow up North !
Today we went to Thunderball Cave(from the James Bond movie "Thunderball"), The most interesting part so far, however, was the trip there. As we were moving along, two Bottle nosed Dolphins swam up alongside the boat, then headed toward our bow. Once there, the two dolphins amused themselves by surfing in our bow waves. They did this for five or ten minutes. The easily swam ahead of the boat, streaking through the water. Unfortunately, when Dad came with the camera the dolphins dived under the boat and sped away behind us. I guess they don't like having their pictures taken! Fortunately, we still got two good dolphin shots, one of each dolphin. Another thing was soon to happen, though. After the dolphins left, I noticed a huge black spot in the water speeding towards us. As it got closer, I was able to get a glimpse of the creature's shape. The best was still to come, though. The black spot flew towards the boat, then surfaced once while passing us-it was a young Humpback Whale about 20 feet long!
Weather: Sunny, winds 10-15 knots, BP 30.15, 76 degrees
Saturday (12/21) we walk around town, the town is not too big but it has a pretty busy airport (maybe 10 flights a day, small planes…Hmmm). When we went back to the dingy, we saw a large number of nurse sharks and a large stingray swimming around the dock at low tide. We decide to be careful getting into the dingy ! The water is very shallow, and there is almost a 3 foot tide range. At low tide, we are anchored in only about 7 feet of water, and if the winds come around (like the forecast says they will – this means it is not likely) we would be moved into areas that are too shallow for us, so we move the boat a little (just trying to give you a feel for how we manage to kill a whole day and accomplish little). We are well protected and very close to the “Thunderball Cave” but the currents in here are very strong as the tide changes and it makes anchoring tricky. In addition, it was supposed to blow heavy from the SW, but it has been blowing heavy from the NE for the past 36 hours… Hard to figure. I try two anchors (it is called a “Bahamas anchoring technique” – set one anchor upwind, the other 180 degrees away, in the direction of the fastest current), but the lines get twisted as the boat does slow loops with the current, so I decide to stay with one big anchor and anchor in slightly deeper water (a boat who had a nice spot just left, so I took his spot). Matthew and I snorkel the Thunderball Cave in the afternoon. The guide books say bring bread and feed the fish. We did not do it, but clearly other people did because as soon as we jumped in the water we were surrounded by hundreds of fish. They kept pecking at my hands and my underwater camera. Even if you moved suddenly and tried to get them to go away, they were all over you. You swim through a little tunnel and there opens up a large cave. The whole island is hollow and there are holes in the roof so the sun shines through. There are plant roots dangling from the roof high overhead. The bottom has coral and there are a few exits below the water line that let light in and the effect is very cool. We got a lot of underwater camera shots in the caves, we shall see if any of them turn out ! The whole gang will go back to visit it tomorrow. Now we have to rent the James Bond Movie “Thunderball” to see the caves in the movie setting. Tonight there is heavy cloud cover and it is incredibly dark. You can not see anything, the town is only about 30 buildings and houses with no real lights, so there is no general light in the area. It is a very big contrast to the brightness of two night ago.
Today we went to town. The town isn't very big, just a usual island town. However, it did have two important things:ice cream bars and a food store, so we restocked. The docks here have a thriving nurse shark population beneath them. Later on, Dad and I scouted out Thunderball Cave. The entrances to the cave are well-hidden and only exposed during low tide-the perfect environment for a James Bond flick.
Weather: overcast, cloudy, 73 degrees
On Sunday (12-22-02), we climb the peaks (just 70 feet high) of Staniel Cay and get a very cool view of the Exuma Sound and waves breaking along the rocks of the nearby Exuma islands. We see a small shark swim by as we play in the sand, and now we have to convince Mark Robert that there will be no Sharks in the caves (he was already not to keen on the idea of the fish pecking at him for food…). We swim the caves and Mark does very well – despite smashing his head going into the caves (we did not go at low tide and you had to duck and dodge to get into the caves). The snorkeling was great and was the best we have seen so far. We saw a couple of stingrays, tons of fish, the cave effects were very cool with the sunlight and we saw no sharks ! We are in need of groceries and want some water so we will stay here Monday to get supplies for the next week until we get to Nassua.
As a side note, it is interesting to see the names of the islands here (Cay’s – pronounced Key’s – not sure why..). They clearly ran out of the good names early. For example, within 7 miles of our current position are islands called: Big Majors Spot, Little Majors Spot, Overyonder Cay, Rat Cay, Kemp Cay, Joe Cay, Fowl Cay, Thomas Cay, Sandy Cay, Bitter Guana Cay and Harvey Cay – to name a few…. Don’t believe me, go get a chart and see !
Today we went to a beach. The beach is on a small inlet of the island, just a ways away from the open ocean. Reefs form break walls protecting the bay from huge ocean waves. Here there is another mountain(though not even one-quarter the size of the one at monument beach). It's only about 70 feet tall, but the mountain has a cliff facing the open ocean, so you look down and see huge waves breaking on the rocks below. These waves throw up spray high above your head, and then it comes crashing down on you as mist. After that, everyone(including Mom and Mark) went to Thunderball Cave. Thunderball Cave is amazing-it is host to a huge population of fish. The cave itself is inside a small island(which I have called Thunderball Island) and is very large. The top of the cave has openings in it to let light through so you don't need a flashlight. The sides of the cave tower up beside you, tapering up to the vine-draped cuts in the rock that shine down on the center of the cave. It is quite a sight! (and I have pictures) Unfortunately, Mark bumped his head on the rocks on the way in. The Thunderball fish for which the cave is named after must number in the thousands, and they are not the least bit shy. They swarm around you and bump into you. The Thunderball fish especially like my dad, when he is swimming it looks like there's just a cloud of yellow fish-you can't see him. The cave has other fish too, though they mind their own business.
Matthew Mahowald
Strider, somewhere in the Atlantic !
On Monday (12-23-02) we head into the town of Staniel Cay to get our food and other supplies for the next leg of the trip. The guide book said “Staniel Cay has long been the cruising mecca of the central Bahamas because good facilities, two marinas and adequate though simple stores”. The books tend to see a store like a 7-11 in the US as a “Well stocked supermarket”, so we were kept our expectations down as we went shopping. The grocery business had been carved up between two stores. One handled cans of beer, wine and pop and the other handled more pure food stuff. Each store was a one room house about 20 feet by 20 feet. They had two home style freezers with frozen meats in them and one home style fridge that had milk and cheese etc. There was not a great selection. We bought out all the milk (one half gallon !), found frozen hamburger in a round sausage type package and got some more Pringles (no matter where you are, if they have anything, they seem to have Pringles potato chips). Since there was not much to buy, it was cheap, but Cheryl found enough stuff to make a few dozen sugar cookies (that Mark Robert ate before they could cool). We drifted by the other store since we are out of beer. They wanted $74 a case. Little did I realize I should have stocked up at Georgetown when it was only $42 a case ! We decided we would pass on the beer and see how things looked in Nassua. We also got 40 gallons of water (made 4 trips in the dingy with camping style 5 gallon containers) which topped up our tanks since we do not think we can get water again until Nassua. We then moved the boat over to “Big Majors Spot” which is about a mile away and is the main anchorage for the boats in this area. There were a number of Mega-Yachts in the anchorage and a couple more showed up at the Staniel Cay YC. I mentioned this to Matthew and he said: “ Maybe that’s why this is called Big Majors Spot”, could be right… The wind never stops blowing here and it is blowin 15 to 20 today. I moved the boat at high tide, which was noon, and this move cheated Cheryl and the boys out of the lunch I promised them on shore. I suggested we could dingy the 1.5 miles over to the YC and have lunch. Our dingy is small and in waves with strong winds, it splashes lots of water, plus it is slow with all of us in it, so 1.5 miles is a 15 minute trip. I knew it would be dicey, and Cheryl knew it was going to be wet, but I promise Cheryl I can keep the boat dry, and she agrees to come. Matthew stays behind and we carry in our empty propane cylinder to get it refilled as well. The ride is dry for the first 5 minutes, but then we hit more open water between the islands and we get drenched…. To far away to turn back, and we are already soaked, so we plug on. Cheryl mentions that lunch had better be worth it ! Lucky for me it was good, by the end of it we were sort of dry, but the ride back took care of that…. Need a better dingy for the next time. Since she was soaked anyway, Cheryl and the boys go to the beach, and I make a solo return trip to get the propane tank (they would not fill it while we waited) and more gas for the dingy. This time I wore my foul weather gear jacket and swimming suit, at least the water is warm ! The dingy may not be the best, but it has been very dependable and we have used it a great deal (we have use 20 gallons of gas since we left the VI, we have only used about 30 gallons of diesel, in a normal summer, 5 gallons of gas last all season).
Today we moved the boat to Big Major Spot, the island of the beach pigs. There are tons of boats here, several of which are mega-yachts(maybe this is why they call it Big Major spot). The pigs roam wild on this island; we saw several on the way in. Later that day, we went in to build sandcastles. Every few seconds while building, I'd look up to make sure no pigs were near or charging me.
Weather: sunny, winds 5-10 knots, 82 degrees
On Tuesday morning we head out to Warderick Wells Marine Park. It is only 17 miles away, and we just motor over to charge the batteries (I also will have too much fuel when we get to Florida, I would like to ship the boat with the fuel tanks near empty, but we are using so little diesel that might not work out). The water depth can be gauged some what by the water color, and when you cross from deeper water to more shallow water, sometimes it is like crossing a painted line, the color change is so large. We get a mooring ball in the park (the area of deep water is too narrow to anchor, so they put in mooring balls you pick up instead), it is the first time we have not anchored out since we left Rum Cay about 17 days ago. It looks like we may go over three weeks between stops at a dock (if we get a slip in Nassua around new years). There are a lot of interesting things to do here, and we take the afternoon to climb the Cay until we are on top of the rock wall that faces the Exuma Sound. The steady wave action hitting these cliffs has caused a few holes to be worn into the rocks and they act like blow holes (in the image, it is right behind Matthews feet). When waves hit the rocks below, a very strong rush of air is forced out the holes (if it is real wavy, water comes out as well, this is about 36 feet above sea level). The air comes out at 30 to 40 knts for two or three seconds and then goes away for 10 to 15 seconds. It is pretty cool and the boys enjoy standing over the holes. Further up the hill (it is names “Boo Boo Hill”) there is a cairn of stuff left by other boaters who have visited here. Many boats leave behind something with the boat name and when they were here and sometimes clever slogans… We give serious thought to leaving a WhiteBarn drink holder, but decided to pass… Without the images, it is hard to image this pile of stuff. From the hill, you get a nice view of the narrow channel we are in as well as the Exuma Sound. By the time we climbed down, the tide had left our dingy in a large, very shallow sand pond and we had to walk back almost all the way to the boat pulling the dingy. The people at the park center are volunteers. The lady who checked us in said she and her husband came to volunteer two weeks of time in the summer and never left. They are having a Christmas dinner tomorrow at 2pm for all the boats (there are 13 in the anchorage) and each boat is to bring a dish – I picked up a box of instant mash potatoes in the VI, and now we can use them ! We go back to the boat and after a nice dinner we let the kids open the presents we had stashed on the boat before we left Virginia. Since they were nervous we had not gotten them anything, they were pleased when presents appeared ! We also enjoyed the premier of the game Matthew had been working on for weeks. No surprise, it was a Star Trek based game, but it was fun to play – although, as with any prototype, there were a few bugs to work out !
Dec. 24th
Today we sailed to the Warderick Wells National Land and Sea Park. In the afternoon, we hiked several of the trails. After you get out of the woods, the are resembles an alien planet-strange towering rock formations stretch up from sand and rock, water rushes up the side and splashes, flinging spray on the lower levels of the cliff. The cliffs are entirely open and rocky, with sand all over the low parts and scraggly plants arching up in weird directions. There are several "Blow Holes"(tunnels through the rock that air is forced up through by waves). These blow about 40 knots.
Weather: sunny, 80 degrees, winds 5-10 knots
Wednesday (Christmas Day) was a nice sunny day so we went snorkeling in the morning on the nearby reef. This reef had very very large Spiny Lobsters in it. There were 8 that I counted. The front arms or pointers were six feet end to end and the body of the lobster was as thick as an adults leg. The park ranger said you could easily feed four people with each lobster body. The fish are protected here, and the rest of the Bahamas is over fished so they have to use armed rangers to keep people from grabbing the big guys out of the park (the park is 160 square miles). At 2 O’clock, everyone from every boat in the park, got into their dingy and went ashore with a dish to pass at the big meal. The Park Ranger and his wife cooked a Turkey and a Ham, and the boaters brought side dishes and there was big meal. The people we met at the park are volunteers, but they do get a house with a great view ! They had a wrap around deck with a great view of the park and the Bahamas Banks. As always down here, there were dogs running free, and they had one big dog who did not like sharks. There was a Nurse Shark that would come by the dock and the dog would see it from the second floor and run down the stairs barking and chase the shark away. If the shark was farther away, the dog would just bark at it. Most of the cruisers here are headed South, most of these to Georgetown, but some hope to get farther South to the VI or beyond.
Today was Christmas Day, so we celebrated in the morning. We exchanged presents and such- Mark and I recieved computer games and the Monsters, inc. DVD. I made little booklets for Mom, Mark, and Dad. Afterwards, everyone snorkeled a reef nearby. Lunch consisted of a sandwich, then we headed over to the warden's house for an annual Christmas party. The day really didn't fell like Christmas- no snow or drizzle, no legion of parties to attend, but I guessss that's okay.
Weather: sunny, 81 degrees, 10-15 knots wind
Thursday we hiked around the Island and it was interesting to see the large variety of terrain in a short distance. One minute you had open beaches, and then a little farther up the trail there was Palm Tree forests. The views from the top of the hills were pretty good, and the hike was fun. When we got back to the boat, there were a few visitors hanging around. We had a 3 foot or more barracuda along side the boat, and a little latter we had the company of a small shark. Some on the boat blame the fish Zinc hanging in the water for the regular occurrence of Barracuda hanging out below our boat…
Today's morning was spent recovering from yesterday. About ten we left to hike some more trails, this time winding through the hot, humid jungle(an alien world in its own right). The paths seemed to wind in and out of tidal creeks, rock formations, and wave-smashed cliff faces. After climbing, walking, and trudging through half the islandwe managed to find a path(thanks in part to my excellent navigational leadership) that would lead back to the dingy. Later that afternoon, fish started hanging out at our boat. First it was a barracuda, then a four-foot long yellow finned fish, and even a large, gold shark came by.
Weather: sunny, 81 degrees, winds 10-15 knots, BP 30.30
On Friday morning we head out to Allen Cay, about 24 miles away. We have a nice sail - a close reach with about 15 knts of breeze, and make very good time. The crew worked hard, as usual, and we were anchored in Allen Cay by 1pm. Allen’s Cay is famous for its native Iguanas, and we were not disappointed. You could see the Iguanas from the boat, and the boys quickly headed to shore to say hello. There were tons of the little beasts, and Mark Robert went back to the boat to get a sketch pad to draw some of them. It was fun, the only downside was Cheryl got her last dry pair of shorts wet on the ride back to the boat. It is a good thing our next stop is Nassua (and a laundry mat). It was sort of fun to watch a tour boat full of people pull into to a empty beach. They scared the Iguanas away when they came blasting up. The tour boats were from Nassua and we are clearly getting closer to civilization !
Today we left for Allen Cay, home of a rare species of iguana. The trip was five hours, but it was worth it. The iguanas here cover the beach to such an extent that you have to watch your step. These iguanas are about 2 feet long, with a dark brown-grey skin and a red throat tissue and spikes. They are an endangered species, found only on these islands. The iguanas are very fast for lizards, and can sprint fast and far.
Weather: Sunny, 79 degrees.
On Saturday Morning, we head across the shallows of the Yellow Banks on our way to Nassua. The winds are mostly on the nose, so we end up motoring much of the way. We get to Nassua around 2pm and dock at the Nassua Yacht Haven. The place is interesting. There is tons of security measures, most every store has locked doors and they buzz you in if you look OK – or if you look like you will spend money. The only exception was the grocery store, which was a nice large store just like back home. Many of the boats in the Marina are locked with chain to their slips and there is lots of razor barbed wire on the tops of fences as you walk the main road in front of the harbor. We are on the other side of the harbor from the Atlantis resort, but in the main part of Nassua. We have no trouble but all the security measures make us a little more careful as we walk around. They charge you a flat fee for water no matter what you use, so I took the opportunity to rinse the boat. Since one of the ports was open, I also managed to wash a little more of the boat than I planned as I got Matthew’s bunk wet !
Dec. 28th
Today we left for Nassau, the capitol of the Bahamas. Nassau is a real city-complete with paved roads, supermarkets, and a high crime rate. The grocery store there is an actual fully stocked and employed company, not just a 25 foot by 25 foot box with a freezer. There are two or tree-story buildings along with some 5 or 6-story ones, and Atlantis(a resort hotel) has probably 20 stories. We really did very little today- this drives my mom nuts. She feels that sitting on the boat all day isn't productive. Of course, Dad, MR, and I are happy to sit around all day and do nothing.
Weather: sunny, 80 degrees
The Kids needed some exercise so on Sunday we walk over the big bridges to see Atlantis and the mega boats in the Atlantis Yacht harbor. The Atlantis hotel and Casino is a big, Las Vegas style themed hotel with lots of detail. Their big attraction is a very large water area with a vast array of fish, sharks etc. They take water in from the Ocean and pump it through this multi acre tank area. You can walk along the sides of the tank and see fish, you can walk in a tube through the middle of the tank and see fish overhead as well as the sky. Some of the cool fish included a large Ray, and a saw fish. They have tons of restaurants and the whole thing was pretty cool to see. I was asked to move along as I tried to explain some of the games to Matthew (Minors are not allowed to hang out on the gaming floor, especially with cheap parents who are not gambling !), so we left. I got a ton of very nice images of the place and the kids with the fish.
Dec. 29th
Today we went to Atlantis. Atlantis is a resort/hotel/casino twice the size of River Oaks(a neighborhood that I used to live in) and probably 10 times as tall. Atlantis has the world's largest and most complex aquarium- it surrounds everything in Atlantis. All the inside's lower levels are wall-to-wall aquarium with no boundaries except the one seperating the predator section from the others. They have a Manta Ray with a 14 foot wingspan swimming amid hordes of smaller fish. In one section, they have several huge Jewfish(they grow to 7 feet and are really wide). We saw or encountered most of the predators in Atlantis's Predator Lagoon(Bull Sharks, Great Barracudas, Stingrays) but they had some we hadn't seen yet-a 17 foot long sawfish, piranhas, some other sharks, and several really big fish, along with two Leopard sharks in the shallow walk-over part(the aquarium has two levels, the wall-to-wall one and a series of platforms and bridges above the tank).
Weather: sunny, 81 degrees, winds 5-10
On Monday (12-30-02) we listen to weather forecast, and they are predicting heavy weather for Tuesday night and Wednesday (although listening to the weather has not helped us so far, we continue to do it !), based on that, we decide to head to the Berry Islands early Tuesday, so we are anchored when the front comes through. We spend the day cleaning the boat and getting groceries for the last 2 weeks. Matthew and I wax the topsides and Mark Robert and I get the deck waxed. Everything is shiny and the tanks are full. Since the beer is back to $40/case, we get some beer and wine and get Mark Robert a hair cut. Overall, a pretty boring day !
Dec. 30th
Today Dad and I waxed the side of the boat. To do this, we sat in the dingy and one of us waxed(we took turns) while the other held on. It's tough work putting the wax on everything and then not missing anything when you wipe it off. We also washed the boat before waxing so Strider will look tip-top shape. Wax also helps protect the hull against damaging sun rays and corosion. There is less then three weeks until we get back, and then it'll be back to the old routine.
Weather: Sunny, winds 15-20 knots, BP 30.30, 81 degrees
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!
Matthew Mahowald
Strider, somewhere in the Atlantic !
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Tuesday we head to the Berry Islands, we leave at 8:30 hoping to get across before the winds build any more, and as we are leaving we get to watch a cruise ship come in and dock. There are two tugs helping it and it makes 4 cruise ships tied up in port for New Years Eve in Nassua. Our weather luck continues sort of, the good news is the winds are dead behind, the bad news is we see the heavy winds predicted for late in the day early. It starts out at around 20knts, and by 1pm, it is blowing a steady 30knts with gusts to 35. We are averaging over 7knts over the bottom with a small adverse current and only the #3 Jib up going dead down wind. We have had a number of passages like this, where the winds are dead behind and blowing pretty hard. If we were headed the other direction, it would be very painful to pound upwind into these waves and winds (of course, we would not have left today if we wanted to go South !). There is a second front coming through Friday, and we need to start lining up our path to Ft Lauderdale, plus, we did not love hanging around Nassua, so we figured it was a good window to move in. The boat handles the weather pretty well, but we are rolling some in the larger swells (the big ones are 8-11 feet). The sun is shining, and with the exception of some very light, short showers a couple of times at night, we have not been rained on since early in our stay in the VI, more than 6 weeks ago. The weather has gotten a little cooler, a few nights back it was 65- 70 degrees, and with the breeze, you wanted to wear a light jacket. Otherwise, it has been shorts and T-shirts the whole trip.
It is a little scary going into the channel as the water gets pretty shallow – 7 feet at one point, and we are being driven into the lee shore by strong winds, and we are not sure if the water will get deeper (the chart says it should, but you never know !) or we are being driven into a bad spot. We arrive at low tide, which does not help us much. The water does get deeper after a couple of shoals and we anchor in 10 feet of water. The winds continue to build, and it is blowing steady 30knots with gusts to 35 all night. We set the big, storm “fortress” anchor as a back up, but it does not hold in the weedy bottom. The big Bruce holds us well, and at 5am, I pull the fortress up on deck by hand – without moving the boat – clearly the anchor was not holding very well ! The spot we anchored at is exposed to the sea from the SW, but the many shoals break up the waves before they can get to us. We get a short little 2 foot chop, and the full force of the winds, but not any nasty big waves. We are fairly comfortable, but the only boat for miles decides to anchor right up wind of us, so we have to watch him all night to be sure he does not drag down on us.
Wednesday was still windy in the morning, and I spend some time getting the Fotress to set (it is very large, but very light – high tech so they can charge a lot !), it does not easily settle in weeds and is not easy to get to dig in, but after two more tries, it holds. By then, the winds are dying, and it is only blowing 15 knts by afternoon. We mainly putter around on the boat since it was too windy in the morning to go ashore, and by afternoon, we were too lazy. During the night, there are lots of storms to the North of us, and we can see the lightening in the clouds, but we get a gentle night.
Thursday brings some decisions. There is supposed to be a nasty front on Friday morning, and then heavy winds from the NW for a few days then a second front on Monday. This would mean we could either hang around these islands until Tuesday and hope the weather is good to get across the banks. This seems risky since the weather could be bad Tuesday and we need to get to Ft Lauderdale by Friday of next week. Plus, there is not much to do in the Berry Islands if there are regular storms (except not sleep well !), so we decide to transit the Great Bahama Bank today. The winds are light and the conditions should be good for 12 hours or so, before the next front hits. This will have us anchoring at night on the far side, but before the front passes (hopefully). The trip starts out fine, but within an hour, the clouds build ahead, and it looks like heavy rain. This clears up, and we get onto the banks with light winds. It is very neat since you are in 12-15 feet of water and can see the bottom very clearly. There are tons of Conch shells and star fish, and some fan coral, but no dolphins ! We see lots of boats, all power boats who can make the trip faster than us and who will get in before dark of course ! After a couple more hours on the bank, it becomes very foggy. We can track traffic with the Radar, and since everyone follows one of three routes across the banks, there is lots of traffic to track. The radar has a collision watch feature that tracks targets to see if they are on a collision course. I don’t remember how to use it of course, so out comes the users manual. Matthew and I spend the next 8 hours watching the radar as we pass more than 20 boats, most pass within a mile, and we don’t see a single one. We try to hold our course and see if boats are going to clear us. We track them from six miles out to see if they are on collision courses. Three guys were definitely going to hit us (or come very very close) if we did not change course to dodge them. It would be very dangerous to run a foggy leg like this without radar. We figured the traffic coming towards us would slow down once we get closer to Bimini since people try to stay off the banks at night, and we will be far enough East that even a fast power boat could not get off the banks in daylight. This does not prove out, as we are still dodging west bound boats at 6PM (after the sun has gone down). With the fog came calm winds, so the water is very smooth and you can see every detail on the bottom. We arrive at Cat Cay around 9pm, and anchor at the recommended anchorage. The guide books we have disagree on the anchorages around here, one says East of Gun Cay is good, one says its bad. We decide to play it safe and anchor off of Cat Cay since we can not see anything, and there should be a storm in the morning.
Friday morning, 5am, the heavy rains come for our front. Our first real rain since the VI (good thing we were not counting on rain water to fill our tanks). In the morning light, we also discover 15 boats anchored about 2 miles away (east of Gun Cay !). Since we are the only ones where we are, we come over to join them. The beach here is sort of neat since in many places the island is only 30 feet wide and you can look out on the Bahamas Bank while getting splashed with waves from the Atlantic. You can tell you are near the US since this is the first beach we have seen that was littered with junk: quart oil cans, broken garbage cans, other junk. It was not terrible, but you could tell you were getting closer to the US !
During the night Friday night and early Saturday morning, we noticed we were slowly dragging the anchor. We were not in the path of any boats, so we could wait until the morning to reset the anchor. In the morning we tried the Fortress and the Danford anchors and neither would set in the grass bottom, so we were back to the Bruce. I’m sure the Fortress would hold great somewhere, it was a little surprising that we were not able to get our storm anchor to set either of the times we tried it. One more lesion I guess. The winds were going to lighten and Sunday looked like a good day to cross the Gulf Stream and get to Florida. This is a few days earlier than planned back in October, but the weather window looked good, and so we made a few calls to line up an earlier arrival in Florida and quickly shifted into end of trip mode. Cleaning and deflating the dingies, and moving the outboard on board and in getting things ready to cross the stream.
Sunday morning is very calm, and we head out around 7:30am, we have 6 foot rolling waves left over from the heavy winds of the past two days, but no real wind today. The Gulf Stream is pretty much a non-event. We can detect a small current of maybe 1 to 2 knots, but there is nothing like the dramatic changes we saw when we crossed at Hatteress. The water temp changes only a couple of degrees, and the current itself is much less noticeable. We have a sloppy sea with NE winds from 5-15 knots, but the biggest factor is the left over swells which cause us to roll the whole way over. It was a fairly simple crossing. We get lots of VHF radio traffic from Miami almost from the start, and it is interesting to be approaching a US city from the Sea. It is much like coming to Chicago, but since Miami and Ft Lauderdale sort of run together, the sky line is much longer and spread out. It is a little over three months since the boat left the US, and it is fun to be coming back to the US again. There is lots of freighter and cruise ship traffic, but the clear weather makes it easy to track. We enjoyed the last half hour "alone" on the Atlantic, knowing this basiccally ends the trip. It is a zoo as we enter the Ft Lauderdale harbor, there are 8 or more big cruise ships, one of which is leaving as we come in, there are a large number of boats moving in and out, most of the large power boats seem to focus on kicking up large wakes and passing close by.
We are met at the harbor by my brother Paul and his family (FT Lauderdale residents) and the kids get their first fast food since mid November thanks Uncle Paul !!
We spent the night at Bel Mair Yatch Club. In the small world category, it is funny to note that we are docked right behind the row of fishing boats that took the Talarian sales and management team on our deep sea fishing trip where we successfully hunted Hammerhead Sharks back in Oct 2001.
On Monday morning we headed up the new river to Summerfields Marina. We will ship the boat back from this Marina. The trip up the river was pretty neat. There was row after row of boats, of every size, the river had many side channels all packed with more boats, and there were many power boats larger than 100 feet well up the river. We had to pay a good deal of attention to the chart to make sure we made all the right turns... We did not want to be up the wrong river, without a paddle, if you know what I mean! After a pleasent couple of hour trip up the river, waiting out some bridges in naror parts of the channel where you had little room to manuver (wish I had a max-prop), we got to Summerfeilds. It was time to start taking the boat apart, the Mast, the life lines, the dodger and bimini etc, all had to go. As usual, there was time for a well earned beer howerver. The crew was pleased with a successful adventure which would not have been possible without Cheryl, Matthew and Mark Robert. After some fast prep work, everyone was ready, and to keep me out of the way, they had me hold the roller furler as they lifted the mast. The crew at Summerfields was very effective and without much fuss, the mast was pulled within hours of when we arrived. Later that day, we moved the boat over to a shed where we begin the process of getting the boat winterized and ready to ship back, hopefully next week on Monday. We decide to spend a couple of days in a hotel to make it easier to pack the boat, since the best sleeping spots are now prime packing space. It has been a very interesting trip, the company could not have been better and I can't wait to do it again !
