Monthly Archives: May 2013

Not a lot to report except that we are hanging out in Hope Town, a lovely spot here in the Abacos.

Yesterday we went for a walk up to the north end of the island, where there are a good number of really nice homes, estates actually.  It’s interesting as we walk on these islands and see homes that are so close to the water and yet seem to persist in spite of a number of strong hurricanes coming through the area year after year.  And, that’s all in the face of little or no hurricane coverage for homeowners.  As far as I am aware, there is no flood insurance program here in the Bahamas that’s comparable to what’s available in the US.

I expect that the main reason that homes survive here, storm after storm, is because most of the ocean front homes are built on land largely underpinned by a somewhat porous but very solid foundation of limestone rock.  That is very much different than the US eastern coastline that is mostly sand.  As you can imagine,  the homes built on rock in the Bahamas fare much better than those built on soft sand in the US.

With hurricane Sandy still so fresh in the minds of those who live on the eastern seaboard, the difference of how those in the Bahamas fared verses the east coast of the US is in stark contrast.  To have homes wrecked every few years and to be rebuilt over and over again, using the taxpayer subsidized flood insurance program, is foolhardy.  Thankfully, it seems that some are seeing that changes to this practice have to be made and Governor Cuomo in New York, for one, is recommending that some areas badly damaged by Sandy be condemned and converted to undeveloped coastline once and for all.   Don’t get me wrong, I love the coast and water but to build homes and wreck them and build again, and from an insurance fund that looses money, at taxpayers expense, just doesn’t make sense.

Well, enough ranting about that.  The coastline of Elbow Cay, where Hope Town is located, has some really nice homes and we enjoyed walking by them yesterday.   The north area of the island does not allow motor transportation beyond golf carts and that’s only for those who are residents of the island.  That keeps the dirt roads, sand actually, clear of unnecessary traffic and makes for a great place to spend a few hours walking and enjoying the sights.   As I have mentioned before, the Abacos are more lush and green than the southern parts of the Bahamas and now that we are into the spring “wet” season, things are really looking great.   Pruned hedges, or trees, are a very popular visual break along some of the homes here.   This shot shows how lush things are here.  There’s even grass.  And this is on stark contrast to this shot taken a month ago in the dryer southern Bahamas where short palms are the dominant vegetation.  Growing things in the Abacos is a lot easier, that’s for sure. 
The shoreline here is a lot more inviting.   Nice spot to have a picnic lunch.Great flowering bushes everywhere.   Brenda wants to get one of these hibiscus plants for our patio this summer.
I don’t know what this one is but talk about yellow.  These flowers, about the width of your hand, are on a bush about 15′ tall.  Pretty amazing.   It would have been fun to gather a bouquet although I expect I would have run afoul of the locals.   “Hey you, with the flowers, stop!!!”.The clouds were particularly dramatic yesterday.  How about this roof mounted deck or “widow’s walk” to view the ocean?Along the way we spied this lovely wood sloop.   The contrast in water colors was really dramatic.  What great lighting.
More great gardens along the way.  Everything is just so well kept.
Everyone loves a view of the water and this great spot on the harbor has a perfect spot complete with some comfy Adirondack chairs to enjoy the view.  I guess they have lots of friends or like to change chairs often for a different view.  And, of course, from their vantage point, a great shot of Pandora that those sitting in those great chairs would see of Pandora looking pretty tropical. What post about Hope Town is complete without yet another shot of the lighthouse.  This one is made even better by Pandora gracing the same frame. We spent some time at the marina resort yesterday and enjoyed a beer by the pool.  The resort has two pools and we loved this one which we had all to ourselves.   Love the planters.   The view of the clouds above was spectacular.   It will come as no surprise that with these came a few showers but not enough to dampen things too much.  Glad that we closed the hatches on Pandora when we headed ashore. We are certainly enjoying being in the Bahamas.  What a great shot of their flag flying proudly at one of the north end homes.  Here’s an idea?  We’ll come back next winter!!!We finished up the day with dinner at a local restaurant called Fire Fly.  They are located out of town and picked us up at the dock in a golf cart and a “stretch” cart that seats six at that.  We had a great table on the deck with a view of the sunset.So, today, what to do?  Here’s an idea!  Let’s visit the pool with a good book.  Yes, that’s the ticket.  How about the weather?  Sunny.  Go figure.

It’s Saturday morning and the sun is out.  For the last few days the weather has been uncharacteristically rainy and overcast.  It’s been nice to have Pandora’s decks rinsed clean of salt but having it rainy, overcast and windy hasn’t been too much fun.

A few days ago we decided to head back to Marsh Harbor, not my first choice of harbor as it’s more urban than I prefer, but the provisioning is very good here and we were running out of fresh food.   Throughout our four months in the Bahamas we have found that once you are outside of Nassau, Marsh Harbor and George Town, you can’t expect to find much fresh food.   The exception is that there are generally tomatoes, green peppers, onions, iceberg lettuce, potatoes and carrots.  However in some of the more remote areas we visited, the choice was limited to onions, potatoes and carrots if the mail boat had come in recently.  If not, nothing.  Yes, you can do a lot with those veggies but Brenda loves to add an avocado to that list to round out things from time to time and that just isn’t done outside of the three larger cities.  Interestingly, those particular vegetable types tend to be fairly reasonably priced, unlike most things here.  By comparison, while a head of widely available iceberg lettuce is less a bit more than two dollars, a package of three romaine heads run in the $10 range.  That’s lot of lettuce for lettuce, in my book.

Anyway, enough about salad, how about our trip through the Whale?  As I mentioned in a past post, this stretch of water can be pretty nasty when the seas kick up so coming back from Green Turtle Cay, and through The Whale, a few days ago was a bit anxiety producing for us.  We waited until the winds were forecast to be light and made the trip under engine power.   The seas in the ocean that day were running under five feet, I would guess.  But it was impressive to see them pile up in the passage as the water depth decreased from hundreds of feet to about twenty in a very short distance.  When waves enter shallow water they pile up and break which makes things a lot worse than the same waves would be in deeper water.

As we approached the passage we came close to these waves that were breaking over the shallow reefs on either side of the 800′ wide passage.  These waves, and they look more impressive in “real life”, were only a bit more than a hundred yards away.  As they say, “you had to be there” to appreciate them.  While an 800′ wide cut seems like plenty of space to aim for, there aren’t any markers or buoys to mark the rocky areas.  As is the case nearly everywhere in the Bahamas, rocks and shoals are not marked so you are expected to just see them through the clear water or see waves breaking over them.  Oh, that’s just so comforting.  Not!!!   While this still makes my mouth dry, it’s not nearly as anxiety producing as it was a few months ago, when we first entered the Bahamas.

As we went through the narrow cut and out into the ocean, we passed Whale Cut Cay.  This is where the waves, and they were pretty benign that day, really showed their stuff.  Again, these photos don’t do justice to the power of these waves.  I can only imagine what this series would look like in rough conditions.  We have not seen breaking waves like this in any other part of the Bahamas in a similar sea state.

The wave began to break. Then the full wave hit.  

And receded.  Yikes!!!  I’d hate to be stuck in that…  As you can imagine, putting in the way-point coordinates and staying on course is a GOOD IDEA!!!

These clouds certainly speak to the unsettled weather.  Really impressive.   Notice how flat the water is, until the waves enter the shallows and break on the reefs.This guy, who ran aground on the reef, wasn’t so lucky.  I understand that this landing craft has been on the reef for some time.  I expect a fiberglass eggshell like Pandora would’t hold up for very long in the waves.  

Happily, no such fate for Pandora and her crew.  Ending up like that boat would certainly do harm to my cruising plans and, as our son Rob would say, “that would be a career limiting move Dad.  Stay away from the CLMs with Mom”.  Agreed, good idea.  Cream puffs don’t like to be shipwrecked.

Here in Marsh Harbor the squally weather continued and last evening we had a really dramatic thunder storm.  Happily, we had made it back to Pandora from cocktails aboard this lovely catamaran from South Africa before it hit.  We had been invited by them and a couple off of another cat to talk about our trip down the ICW and the cruising areas of the Chesapeake and New England.  That’s a lot of territory to cover.  Interestingly, this cat was built in South Africa and the owner has sailed extensively.   After sailing the east coast this year they will head to the Panama Canal and on to the South Pacific.   We hope that they will keep a blog as it would be great fun to keep up with their whereabouts in the coming years.  This is a big boat.  She’s nearly 50′ long and 25′ wide, twice as wide as Pandora.   Their cockpit is more like a patio with several seating areas to choose from.  Stepping onto this boat is more like stepping on to a floating dock.  Really nice. The other couple, new to sailing and from Montana, of all places, were on the cat to the left in the photo below.  It has been fun to become more acquainted with cat sailing as they are  so different than mono-hulls.    Sailing on one of these is sort of like sailing around in a condo with a great back deck.  And amazingly, as they don’t heel, you can leave everything out on the counters, including your knife rack.

Not a bad view to wake up to today.  

Actually, these boats make Pandora, who isn’t small, look like a canoe.   As they say, “there’s always someone who is richer, and thinner, than you are”.    Or at least, has a bigger boat.

In less than a week Brenda heads back to the states and I will do a week of sailing with my friend Craig.  After he leaves on the 18th, it will be time for me to bring Pandora back to Essex.  Let’s hope that the weather gods will be supportive, and The Whale will be benign.

I too am looking forward to being home again.  Enough of paradise for one year, I guess.

It’s Wednesday morning and we are in for a fairly windless but beautiful day.  Today, uncharacteristically, I am happy to have no wind as we plan to move back down to Hope Town as our trip involves passing through a particularly tricky piece of water called Whale Cay Passage.  This short run of only about two miles will take us from inside the Sea of Abaco, the very shallow waters that run up the eastern part of the Abacos, out into the ocean side of Whale Cut Cay and back into the Sea of Abaco a short distance later.  We have to go through this “outside” cut as the waters inside are too shallow for Pandora, even at high tide.

This is an intimidating move because the cut that joins the ocean to the Sea of Abaco is only 20′ deep and is open to the swells of the North Atlantic.   When there is a good sea running, say more than 5′, which isn’t much, the cut can have breaking waves.  As you can imagine, that’s not particularly fun at all.

When we came through this stretch of water last week, it was pretty bumpy but not dangerous.  I understand that there are many times in the winter months that this pass isn’t navigable at all and to make the run would be very risky to small boats.

Even in the most calm weather with little wind and small seas, it’s still distressing to see waves breaking on reefs on either side of the cut, a short distance from the boat.  As the cut is only a few hundred yards wide, it looks like you are heading directly into a surf area as you run through the cut.  The reality is that many boats pass through there and a real problem is rare, especially in the spring when the ocean swells are smaller.  However, passing through any piece of water where there are breaking waves nearby isn’t to be taken lightly.  

There is enough anxiety about this cut that there is a local VHF radio net each morning where the conditions at “The Whale” are discussed.  Unfortunately, where we are now, we are too far away from those who manage the net to hear them on the radio. 

Today, with very light winds and seas of under 5′, this should be quite an easy run.  With the weather forecast calling for strong thunderstorms later today we’d like to get back to Hope Town as soon as we can.  Unfortunately, we will have to wait till around noon to leave Green Turtle Cay as the tide is not high enough till mid day for us to make it out of the harbor.

These clouds are pretty well developed so early in the morning so they do seem to suggest some drama later in the afternoon.   At least the salt will be washed off of Pandora’s decks. This is the view out in front of Pandora.  More developing thunderheads in this direction too.  
I expect that we way be racing a squall with the hope of getting back to Hope Town in time to get settled prior to more “interesting” weather.

With just over a week till Brenda heads out, we plan to take it easy in Hope Town and will probably eat out a few more times and spend time hanging out at the marina there that has a great pool that’s open to all, even if you aren’t staying in their facility.  Unlike this place, most marinas don’t let “non-tenants” use their facility.  I think that this is a mistake as sitting around a pool tends to lead to us ordering food and drink.  I’ll bet that’s what others would do too.

With so little time left of our first visit to the Bahamas I find myself reflecting on how the trip has been.  It was interesting last evening when we had two women, Diane and Jan of Nora over for dinner.  We had just met them earlier in the day when they stopped by Pandora to introduce themselves.   They seemed so nice we invited them for dinner.

They told us that they had just purchased their boat Nora, a Passport 40, a few years ago and were just getting their feet wet with their first cruise to the Bahamas.  It seems that Diane had grown up on boats but sailing was a new thing for Jan so this was their “shakedown” year of cruising.  Because of this they decided to pick the Abacos, a relatively easy cruising area.

Jan asked us which areas we had enjoyed the most in the Bahamas and, once again, I found myself thinking about what I liked and what I was less enchanted with.

I still have to say that I liked the Exumas and other more southerly islands the best as they still seemed more “real” to me.  Here in the Abacos, the distances are short, there are fewer islands, and it’s just a smaller and more built up place.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s very nice here, but it seems more like the US and less like the Bahamas.  Heck, they even take credit cards, easy, but not “real”.  Cash is “real”.  Forget the fact that there are precious few banks to get cash.   However, that’s another story.

To me, a big part of the Bahamas experience is sailing and as the areas here are so short, between islands, there isn’t much sailing, beyond a few hours here and there.  It’s hard for me to sit still so being here for a month in such a compact area has made me a bit restless.  I am also a bit concerned that, when my crew arrives later this month, that the weather will not be good to head north.

While I can motor up the coast for three or four days with the fuel I have on board, I’d certainly prefer to sail.  Having said that, my crew will not have all the time in the world to hang around waiting for the perfect weather window, so we may very well have to leave because of time constraints.    Having said that, the ocean can get pretty nasty so we will still have to be very mindful of what’s out there and plan our trip accordingly.  They say that the most dangerous piece of equipment on a boat is a clock.  Better to wait till good weather and to leave because of time constraints.

In thinking about the weather for heading north, I have been listening to Chris Parker, the weather router, each morning and am now looking at grib files each day to see what the winds between the Bahamas and Cape Hatteras are like.  Of course, what’s out there now is likely to have little bearing on what we will experience in a few weeks but at least I can become familiar with broad weather patterns on the eastern seaboard of the US this time of year.

We have enjoyed our time here in Green Turtle Cay.   Just for fun, here’s shots of two barracuda that we spied at one of the marinas when we went ashore a few days ago.  This one was about 5′ long.  He was just sitting there waiting for something tasty to cruise by, I guess.This guy was only about 3′ long but I was able to get a better picture as the angle was better.  These fish look pretty fierce with big canine teeth sticking out of their lower jaws.  If we are lucky with the weather on our trip north we could have some of the best sailing of the season as we make our way north toward Essex.  I am hopeful that the nearly 1,000 mile run will be one to remember, in a good way.

Just for fun, here’s a link to a webcam from one of the marinas near where we are anchored in Green Turtle Cay.  If we are still here when you click on this link, Pandora is to the far right, the one with the double head stays.

Well, I’ll sign off for now.