March 2014

It’s Saturday morning and, FINALLY, the wind has settled down.  After a few days of winds in the 20s and all the bumping around that comes with that, it’s wonderful to wake up to what feels, by comparison, like a gentle zephyr.  I listened to Chris Parker, the weather router again this morning at 06:30.  That’s pretty early and I have to say that I never thought that I would be setting an alarm each day I’m aboard.  I thought that alarms were a work thing…  However, Sunday Chris is off so I can sleep in tomorrow.  I’ll probably wake up early anyway.   Such is the trials of being a cruiser.  Feel sorry for me?  My brother Bill’s response might be something like “Shut up.  Are you F&^%$#@ nuts? It’s snowing here.”

I won’t think about that for now.  Did I say that the wind is less today?  Yahoo!!!  We were beginning to think that that the wind was NEVER going to drop to a reasonable level as it has been one front after another for the last two months that we have been in the Bahamas.  However, it seems that there’s light at the end of the tunnel as Chris said this morning that the coming week should be BEAUTIFUL with winds in the southern Bahamas from a reasonable direction and in the 15kt range with no major fronts likely to penetrate this far south. That’s good, very good.

With that in mind, it looks like we will be heading east to Thompson Bay Long Island on Sunday afternoon or Monday morning.  After that we will likely head southwest to the Jumentos as I talked about in yesterday’s post.

Today we’ll probably head back into town for a few chores and yet another visit to the BATELCO (Bahamas Telephone) store to try and sort out the problems of calling my mother.  She is the ONLY person I call that has a land line and for some reason I cannot get through to her number on my Bahamas cell phone.   Unfortunately, the BATELCO folks can’t seem to figure this out and we have tried everything to solve the problem.  For a while we thought it was the phone so I purchased a new one.  It worked in the store but not back at the boat.  Very frustrating.  And, to make matters worse, each time I try to call her and it doesn’t go through I still get charged for the call.

Anyway, such are details of the cruising life in a rural country.   Perhaps I am being punished for ditching my mother for a few months.  Hmm…

Speaking of traveling home to see my mother, I have been working on getting crew for the run from Nassau to Essex in May and after a month or so of corresponding with folks back in the States, I think I am about set.  As most folks have limits on the time they can be away,  I will likely make a crew change along the way, probably in Beaufort NC.  Last year I made the 1,000 mile run without stopping but this year I’d like to be a bit more leisurely about it as keeping Pandora on the run for nearly a week without a break is a bit tiring.   Perhaps I am getting old.  No, I prefer to think of it as “effort management”.   Yes, that’s better.

Well, the sun is up and getting higher and the day is getting away from me.  No exciting pix to share with you.   No, wait.  Here’s a nice shot of me and Brenda in front of the local beach bar when we visited last year.   Chat and Chill.  Now, doesn’t that sound like a “it’s the Bahamas mon” sort of place? And a view from the bar.  Yes, a good spot to “chat and chill” from.   And, of course, there are some very helpful signs to be sure you know how far you are from just about anywhere.  That’s very comforting.  

It’s Friday mid-morning and we are yet again sitting at anchor waiting for the wind to settle down as yet another cold front passes through the area.    I know it’s Friday because I listened to the Cruisheimer’s SSB radio Net today and they told me so and I also consulted with my calendar.  When you don’t have a weekend to look forward to, with two days off, it’s very easy to forget which day of the week it is. 

I am hopeful that it’s spending time aboard cruising that is causing me to loose track of what day of the week it is and not something more sinister.  I’m not going to focus on that right now.   “Quick Bob, what year is it?”  Uhh…..2014?  There, not so bad.  I guess you’ll have to take my word for it that I don’t have a tear-off calendar near the nav station on Pandora.

“Bob, Bob, where are you going with all this?  Snap out of it and get to the point.” Ok, OK, thanks, I needed that.

It’s Friday….. No wait, I already said that.

Yes, it’s plenty windy with sustained winds, let’s call them “fresh breezes” in the 20s with higher gusts.  That’s a bit much and with a wave fetch across the harbor, the water is kicking up a bit here in Georgetown.

Chris Parker, the weather router we use said, on this morning’s weather forecast on the SSB radio, that this cold front is likely to be the last really strong one to hit us in the Bahamas this season.  Yes, there’s another one coming through on Sunday but it’s not likely to be anywhere near as strong as this and prior fronts have been.  It’s high time as April is just around the corner (see, I do know what day of the month is) and springtime calmer conditions should begin to dominate.   That’s good as we only have a month left on our cruise and I’d love to be able to move around a bit prior to heading back to Nassau and the US.

In particular, we would like to visit the Jumentos and Ragged islands which are south west from here.  This part of the Bahamas is much less traveled by cruisers as there very few good harbors and getting there can be challenging.  With no settlements along the chain, we will be on our own with know one to help us if we get into trouble.  We will actually have to travel southeast to Long Island when the winds shift to the west with the coming cold front on Sunday and then wait till the easterlies fill in again and then head to the southwest and on to the Jumentos.

These two lsland chains are about 50 miles long from one end to the other, not a very long distance and are laid out in a crescent that runs on a gentle curve in a northeast to southwest direction.  Once you get to Duncan Town, at the very most west portion of the Raggeds, you are within 50 miles of Cuba.  Now, that’s a spot we’d love to visit.  We have met quite a few Canadians and a few Americans who have visited there.  Perhaps we will soon be able to go.   Washington?  Are you listening?

Visiting Cuba is at the top of the list for Brenda.  Me too.

Anyway, here we sit, in the wind, waiting for things to settle down so we can get on with it.  Hope so…

Yesterday Brenda and I took some time to go ashore and had lunch a nice little resort here in Georgetown called St. Francis.  They serve simple lunch fare on a beautiful deck overlooking the water.   This view is pretty representative of just how beautiful it is.After lunch we headed out to the nearby ocean beach to watch the waves crash ashore.  The beach was about two miles long and we had most of it completely to ourselves.  Even with 100 boats anchored nearby, most everyone stayed aboard given the wind.

With the very strong onshore winds and waves, we were pretty well coated with salt when we returned to Pandora.  Happily, I had filled our water tanks with the reverse-osmosis (watermaker) earlier in the day so we were free to shower and clean up.  I love, LOVE, our watermaker.  Brenda?  Love isn’t strong enough to describe how she feels about it.

So, what’s on for today?  Not sure but I do have a good book.  Not too much on the agenda here in the warm and sunny Bahamas when the wind is blowing.  Good thing we aren’t in a rush.

Sorry though,  for not including any great shots of sunsets, turtles, shells…  You’ll just have to check old posts for more scintillating pix.

That’s my report and I’m sticking to it…

 

It’s Wednesday evening and I thought it would be good to do a short post prior to hitting the rack.  In the interest of truth, I had to look at the date on the computer to recall what day of the week it is.  I guess that’s good as I am not working these days.  Yes, it’s acceptable when you are in crusing mode not to know what day of the week it is.  However, if you are in a “land home” you are assumed  to be “confused”.   I prefer relaxed, personally.  Not quite ready to be “confused”.

As usual, I digress.

Today was the first day of the passing of the most recent cold front, a weekly occurence.   As we are further south, the effect was a lot less severe with the west winds only lasting for a few hours.  In the northern portions of the Bahamas the winds are a lot more nasty, stronger and from the west for longer.  I am happy to be in Georgetown as the passage of the front is a much less of an issue than up north.  That’s good.

Now that the front has passed the winds are back to the east which means that most all of the anchorages are protected but the winds are still very strong.  The forecast calls for winds gusting to near 30kts on Thursday and the strength of the winds are not expected to diminish until Sunday.  By that point we will be totally ready to “get out of Dodge” as Georgetown is a bit too organized for our taste.  They actually have announcements on the radio each morning here as there is so much to do.  It’s sort of like adult camp, or day care.  At least day care for retired “A” types, not always a nice combination.

Our next destination, once the weather improves and the wind strength becomes more reasonable, is likely to be the Jumentos as we have not yet visited that part of the Bahamas.  They are south and west of where we are now and quite close to Cuba.

The Jumentos are very remote with the smallest fishing settlements and only a hand full of people on any given island if there is anyone at all.  One key requirement, if you are going to visit this area, is to be fully self-sufficient.  This means that you have to bring all the food you will need along with all your own water.  Happily, we have a watermaker which will keep us going for a long time without a visit to any sort of water source.  Fresh food, that’s another issue as it only keeps so long.

So, when will we leave to visit there?  Probably not till the weekend or early next week. That’s when the winds are supposed to subside and turn to favorable direction.  Due to the fact that much of the area in the Jumentos is very shallow, we will have to go quite a bit out of our way to get there as the more direct routes are just to shallow.  If we play the tides, making a point to move at high tide, we might make it through the closer route.  However, we might not and to run aground in shallow water would definitely ruin our day.   With that in mind, we will have to take the safer “long route”.

We have been told that the Jumentos are very beautiful but wild and quite remote.  If you are into spear fishing for lobster and fish, you have to be prepared to deal with sharks.  It’s not prudent to spear any fish if you are not close to your dink so you can get out of the water pronto when you catch something.  Spear a fish and you are sure to attract sharks within minutes.  Not my first choice as I’d prefer not to be fish food any time soon.  And, these sharks are the “real ones” with the pointy sharp shark teeth.  A friend told me he was fishing and when he got his “catch” to the boat all that was left was the head.   The rest of the fish was “shark bait”.  Better them than me.

Unfortunately, the lobster season closes March 31^st, just a few days from now, so fishing for lobster won’t be on the agenda.  I am told that there are many in the area so it is unfortunate that we will miss the season.  Perhaps next year we will go there earlier in the season.

I hope that the weather will support a run down to there as it’s a place that I really want to visit.  Fingers crossed.

On a more local note, today the wind in Georgetown was really strong and Pandora pulled hard on her anchor all day.   I spent a good deal of time reading in the cockpit, enjoying the view.   Several times a really big turtle, some 3’ across swam buy.  Getting a photo of these guys is notoriously difficult as they tend to stick their heads up and duck from sight in a blink of an eye.  However, I was able to get my first “turtle sighting” photo.  Here it is.  Not terribly exciting for you perhaps but it was for me, so there.Thursday we plan on doing a bit of beach combing and some shelling.  Perhaps lunch out at one of the local resorts.  Wind or not, I am looking forward to getting off of the boat for a few hours.  One thing for sure, it will be plenty windy with sustained winds in the mid 20s and gusts to 30.  That’s too much wind, actually.  However, at least these winds are in the 80 degree range.  It sure beats a winter storm with sub zero temps. 

Yes, warm is good.  And did I say that it’s sunny?  If not, I am saying it now. It’s sunny, really sunny.  Don’t forget your sunscreen.

It’s Tuesday and we are all the way down south in Georgetown, the largest “town” in the southern part of the Bahamas and a very popular harbor with cruisers.  At present I’d guess that there are perhaps 100 boats anchored here so, as you can imagine, there’s plenty going on.  While 100 boats may sound like a lot, it’s late in the season and many have already left.  A month ago I expect that there were three times that many boats hanging out but many have left to head north to the States or south to work their way down to the Caribbean.  Needless to say, with this many boats in one place for the winter, things are pretty organized.  Each morning there is a VHF radio net where local businesses announce their offerings and cruisers trade and sell spare items that they have on board.  It’s amazing how much extra stuff folks have on their boats that they don’t actually need.  I guess that boaters are packrats, just like land folks, but with less space. 

Anyway, as you might recall from past posts, I damaged my main anchor some time ago when I got it lodged under a ledge up near Staniel Cay.  The shaft was bent 90 degrees so the anchor is “mort”.  As I like to have a spare of many items myself, I announced, on the morning radio net today, that I was looking for an anchor.  Well… It seems that some folks collect anchors and, for the right price, might be willing to part with one.  Within a few minutes I got calls from a number of boats offering their wares.  I’ll have to check them out and settle on one.  One caller told me that he has six anchors on his boat.  That’s a lot of anchors as most boats have only two or three at most.  I wonder how much other stuff he has on board.  Lots, I’ll bet.

On Sunday night Brenda and I anchored off of a lovely Cay (that’s pronounced Key in the Bahamas, Kay in the US), Musha Cay.  Interestingly, the island, and others nearby, are owned by David Copperfield, the magician.  I guess that being a magician pays well, and let me tell you, this is a VERY nice spot.  And, along with being a talented magician, our “neighbor” David has very nice taste.   Beautiful.

We understand that you can rent the island, Musha Cay for about $25,000 per day, and it would seem that plenty do as the place was hopping while we were there.  There are plenty of privately owned islands in the Bahamas, actually too many are private, but there are only a handful of spots that are as nice as this one.  The buildings are quite impressive.  Actually, i understand that this is the dining room area.   Check out the nearby dock.  No simple pressure treated pilings here.  They just won’t do For our David.  Check out the water color.The place is spectacular and it seems that there is much more here than meets the eye, as you would expect from a magician.  Check out this article from Forbes magazine.  It’s worth reading.   Yes, quite a place And you can even get fireworks for $25,000.

As a particular point of interest, David Copperfield had a full size grand piano with a reclining mermaid commissioned out of stainless steel and then sunk it off of his island.  I was able to dive on it with some new friends we met who were from France And Belgium.  They took me in their dink, complete with a 40hp motor, off to visit the piano.  The currents were fierce and swimming down to the piano was a bit challenging.  I took some videos but can’t post them.   Here’s a photo I pulled off of the Web.The “main” house is up on the hill and is quite a bit larger and has a commanding view of Exuma Sound.  This is a shot that I took from the ocean side as we headed down toward Georgetown yesterday.   I’ll bet that a G&T  or another “adult beverage” (of course included with the rental) would taste great on the deck in the evening.  I’d guess that sunrise isn’t too shabby either.And, don’t forget, all materials to build anything on one of these remote islands have to be brought in to the Bahamas and then reshipped to the island by landing craft.  It’s a complicated process and plenty expensive.  Expensive? I can only imagine.

I guess that as JP Morgan once quipped, “if you have to ask, you can’t afford it”.  David Copperfield, it seems, doesn’t have to ask.  However, he does rent out the island.  Only, of course, if you can afford it.  Me, I am one of those who DO have to ask what things cost so I’ll never know.

What a spot.   As the sun rose on Monday morning I watched a crew of three get out on the beach and rake every inch by hand to remove any seaweed that had washed up on shore overnight.  Pretty amazing.   And, at night the docks have blue underwater LED lights that flash in a very nice way all night.  I would expect nothing less from our buddy David.  Of course.

So, on Monday morning at 08:00 we headed out to make the run to Georgetown, the largest town in the central Bahamas to re-provision and to get ready for our last month out prior to meeting up with our son Rob and his girlfriend Kandice back in Staniel Cay in late April.

Our plan was to make the 40 mile ocean run down to Georgetown on a settled day.  While we were only able to sail less than half of the way as the wind died, we did have a really nice run.  One thing that I did, which seemed very decadent, was to crank up the watermaker (a desalinator that takes the salt out of seawater) and use a hose to wash off nearly two months of salt that had accumulated on the decks.  Believe it or not, we have not had any rain of consequence for all that time.   Things had become very salty, that’s for sure.  So, with the watermaker cranking away, I washed the salt off of the decks and scrubbed away, all while motoring along in the ocean in conditions that were as calm as you can imagine.  By the time we reached Georgetown a few hours later the tanks were full again.

As a point of clarification, on the “bank” side of the islands, away from the ocean, the water is less than 20 feet deep for thousands of square miles, but on the ocean side, the water depth goes from about 40’  deep to, believe it or not, 3,500 feet deeP or more.  That’s an impressive depth and what a drop off in only a short distance from shore.  That’s some drop-off of 3,500 deep in less than a mile.

Anyway, as usual, I digress.   So we motored along in perfectly calm conditions and I washed off the boat as the watermaker happily cranked away replacing what I was squirting all over the boat.  So, Pandora’s plenty clean now.  And, tonight Brenda and I sat up on the bow to enjoy an “adult beverage” while watching the sun go down.  Very nice.

Also, as we motored calmly down the Exumas chain toward Georgetown, we decided to throw out a line to see what we could catch and while we didn’t get a fish that we could eat, we did catch a pretty large Barracuda.  These guys are pretty nasty looking with big teeth, about ¾” long.  Intimidating.After some effort I was able to release him and still keep my lure, and my fingers…

All and all, a very nice day on the water, and even Brenda liked it.  Smooth and calm, her favorite.

Today, in Georgetown we did provisioning and  will be waiting for the next cold front to blow through.  Hopefully, we will be able to head out by the weekend or early next week.  Destination?  Perhaps the Jumentos.  Fortunately, we ran into a few of our friends who just got back from a month there.  Very remote and beautiful, we were told.

More to come on that, I would expect.   It seems to me that there is plenty of magi pic in the Bahamas, David Copperfield aside.

 

It’s Sunday morning and a lovely one at that.  Brenda got up early enough today to even see the sunrise.  How novel.  Usually it’s me taking photos of a sunrise so I can show them to her later.  Today she saw it herself.

I should note that Brenda loves sleep.  She says that sleep is her “natural state”. Perhaps it’s a girl thing.  If I were to sleep in too late I expect she would call EMS.

Forgive me.  I digress…

Yesterday afternoon I happened to remark to Brenda that it seemed to me that we had not done much socializing on Pandora with other couples this season when compared to last winter in the Bahamas.  Meeting up with like minded folks is one of the best parts of the cruising lifestyle and I was feeling a bit “under-exposed”.

Amazingly, less than ten minutes later a dink pulled up to Pandora and there was Jerry, the friend and crew member of yet another Jerry, a guy that we had met on our way south in the fall of 2012, in Oriental NC.

When we met “Oriental” Jerry over a year ago, he was planning to fly to the Canary Islands, off of Africa, to look at a boat that he was thinking of purchasing.  Well, Jerry ultimately did purchase that boat and he, along with the “other” or “new” Jerry, who had stopped by to say HI,  took delivery of his new boat, a catamaran, and sailed it to the Caribbean and recently up to the Bahamas.

So, last evening we found ourselves in the same harbor with Jerry who we haven’t seen for over a year.  What a small world it is.

When “friend” Jerry, as opposed to “Oriental NC” Jerry stopped by, we were comparing notes about a small boat that had sailed into the anchorage earlier in the afternoon and anchored, all without turning on their engine.   Most folks, including me and Brenda, pull our sails down before we get into a crowded anchorage.  No need to complicate things in a tight field, by our way of thinking.

So, to see a boat with two young people wind their way, under sail, through the other anchored boats and confidently drop their hook, was something we all noticed.  I expect that’s why they did it, actually.  A bit of hotdogging.  And done well, I should add.

It turns out that the “hotdoggers” were none other than a young couple we had spent time with in Rum Cay last winter.  Rainbow Connection, a Bayfield 35, is owned by Jamel and Tania who are probably in their early 30s. Tania was born (literally born, I think) aboard and grew up on a sailboat as her parents sailed here and there, I believe around the world at least once.   It seems that they are on their way to hook up with her parents who are still sailing around and are currently in Staniel Cay not far from here.

Here’s Tania working the foredeck and looking right at home. And Jamal at the helm.Looking very comfortable winding their way through the anchorage.  Jamal and Tania spend winters sailing aboard their boat and summers working on a commercial salmon fishing boat in Alaska.    Now, that’s not a combination that we see every day.  Most couples we meet are retired or are taking a year off from work. However, we almost never see young folks who have managed to find a way to cruise and work in a way that seems sustainable.   What these two have done is pretty neat.

I couldn’t resist and took the dink over to say HI and invite them to visit us for drinks.   We also had Jerry and Jerry visit too.  It was a lovely time.

And, as the sun set, Brenda did a terrific job of saluting the sunset by blowing the conch.  And that was particularly fitting as we had acquired that conch when we were in Rum Cay with Jamal and Tanya last winter.

I have written before about the “community” of cruisers and how they enter, leave and re-enter our lives, sometimes at the least expected moments.  I’d say that yesterday was about as perfect an example of how this works as we have encountered yet.

Today Jerry visited again to talk with us, over coffee, to offer tips about cruising in the Jumentos Cays, an area that we have wanted to visit but haven’t yet gone to.  It’s off the beaten path and not visited by many cruisers as it’s a bit tough to get to.  Perhaps we’ll visit now.Whether, it’s  a few weeks or years later, folks we have met come and go from our lives, sometimes having crossed oceans or continents since we last toasted a sunset together.  And that’s one of the greatest pleasures of cruising for us.

I like that.