Better weather on the way. Pandora on the move again, soon.

It’s Saturday morning and I just listened to Chris Parker, the weather router to hear what’s in store for the weather for the next few days.  Yes, there’s yet another cold front coming but it doesn’t look like it will penetrate far into the Bahamas.  That’s good as we would very much like to leave Georgetown and head up to Cat Island, about 50 miles NE from here.  

While the wind angle is not particularly favorable for a run to Cat, it looks like we will have better conditions by Sunday or Monday to Make the run.   Another consideration about going to Cat is to find out how long the winds will continue out of the east as we would like to stay  there for a few days, at least.  The winds have to have an easterly component the entire time we are there as there is NO protection from any sort of clocking winds, such as we have lived with much of the winter.

Now that spring is here, it seems that we are seeing some more moderate conditions.  Let’s hope that it holds.  That’s not to say that all is easy on the east coast of the US as there will be gales off of Cape Hatteras later in the week.  Fortunately, the conditions that are causing those strong winds won’t be a big factor here in the Bahamas.  Hopefully, when it’s time for me to run Pandora back up to CT the weather will cooperate.  Gales aren’t much fun and getting home with a minimum of fuss would be nice.

Last evening Brenda and I were invited over to Cat’s Meow, the 80’ catamaran that I mentioned in my last post.  Don and LaVonne, were great hosts.  They also invited two couples from other boats in the harbor, one from Annapolis and the other from Belgium to join the festivities.

It was a very pleasant evening and listening to heavily accented English spoken by the couple who’s native tongue was French was very interesting.  Brenda and I have been talking about visiting that part of Europe later this year but have been having difficulty finding how we will fit it into our plans.  It would be great fun to visit there in the summer but we really don’t want to be away from our land home during the time of year that the weather is so wonderful.  Alas, such are the trials…

While we were aboard Cat’s Meow, I was offered the opportunity to take a look around the boat and what a boat she is.   To head up onto the bow is like stepping onto a basketball court.  As the boat is 40’ wide.  It’s just massive.

We had cocktails and dinner on the aft deck and the 8 of us were not cramped at all.  I mentioned that they have a Wolf oven on board and to see such a massive stove on a boat is amazing.  I had mentioned that it was 6 burners but it’s actually 8 or perhaps 9.   Huge.

Their master sleeping cabin is quite large, about the same size as our bedroom at home. Bigger actually.  And, they have multiple cabins, several with queen size beds, in the two hulls.   And, all are beautifully decorated with wall hangings.

I can only imagine how much machinery is tucked away behind panels and under the decks to run a yacht of this complexity.   Oh yeah, the mast is so high, at more than 100’, that they are required to put a red 360 light at the top of the mast to warn away low flying planes from bumping into them.

It’s a really big boat, no, make that a really big yacht.  I have heard that the definition of a “yacht” is any boat that is bigger than yours.  Well, I expect that most, would say that Cat’s Meow is a yacht, for sure.   It’s BIG and there’s just so much room and then some more.

When it came time to help clear dinner, I had to ask if the dirty glasses were to go in the galley or in the butler’s pantry.  So much choice…  Cat’s Meow is clearly the largest yacht, and it is clearly a yacht, here in the harbor.   It’s amazing to think of handing such a large “ship” with just two adults.  I asked Don about that and his answer was that they just have to be very careful.  No kidding.

It was a lovely evening and with such an eclectic group of guests, very entertaining.   And, once again, it was fun to have old friends, yet again, enter our lives.   It’s these chance encounters that are such a wonderful part of the cruising lifestyle.

We are looking forward to what I expect will be a good run over to Cat Island.  It will be nice to do a bit of sailing again.  Perhaps we’ll do some fishing along the way.  It would be nice to catch something for dinner.

We’ll likely head the 50 miles to Cat tomorrow.  There’s a very nice resort, Fernandez Bay Resort, where we hope to have dinner.  In case you’re in the mood to have your own island retreat, the resort is currently for sale for $4,900,000. What do you think?  Good deal?  You can always rent a room for about $400 per night.  It would take a LOT of nights at that rate to total up to the purchase price. Hmm…

Last winter we anchored off of the resort and enjoyed a lovely lunch with our friends on Ariel.   Nice place.  There’s Pandora on the right.   Great view.

We’ll also likely visit the Hermitage again, the retirement home of Father Gerome.  When we last visited,  we hiked up the path to where his home was located, the highest point in all of the Bahamas.   My post last year spoke at some length about the history of Father Gerome and his home.  His story is quite entertaining. 

Well, it’s still early and I am hopeful that we’ll be able to go for a walk on the ocean beach later today.   Perhaps with all the wind of the last few days there will be some good shells to pick up.

Oh yeah, yesterday I had a healthy dose of “boat repair in exotic places” when I spent several hours tracking down the cause of an electrical problem that affected one of the pumps on our watermaker and a seemingly unrelated battery monitor.  I won’t bore you with the details except to say that even once I fixed it, I still had no idea how the problem happened at all.  Alas, fixed…

I also took my bent anchor in to town, a 20 minute run, each way, across a very bumpy harbor, to a machine shop to see about having it “unbent”.   After talking to the shop owner I decided to “donate” it for scrap.  Recall that I bent the stock a while back in Staniel Cay.   Nice shot of me “post recovery” earlier in the season.   If you missed that gory details of that debachle, check it out here.Anyway, I had a line on a recently re-galvanized CQR anchor that someone on another boat in the harbor wanted to sell so I bought it.   It took some doing to take off the Fortress anchor that I have been using and replace it with the “new” anchor but I got it done.  I won’t bore you with the details but my back is a bit sore today.

Well, as usual, an eclectic mix of ramblings.  Perhaps it’s time to break for coffee.  Enjoy your day.

Ok, ok, one more photo, taken from on top of my radar arch, a precarios perch.  Now that’s clear water.    And, that’s why the Bahamas are a great place to visit, fronts or not…

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