March 2014

It’s Saturday morning and it’s laundry day here for Pandora in Black Point Settlement, Exumas.  You may recall that we were here a while back and I was raving about the terrific laundry and barber services of Ida.  Anyway, I won’t bore you with all that again except to say that we are looking forward to clean sheets.  No, don’t check back to that post to see how long it’s been since laundry.  We’re ready indeed.

Forgive the digression but clean laundry looms large.  However, the real point of this post is about getting around and paper and electronic navigation.  Sound boring?  Probably, but it’s my blog so there!

Some months ago “Active Captain” a well-regarded source of cruising information, announced that paper charts were dead and no longer needed due to the advances in electronic charting and the number of redundancies for onboard navigation.  I have to admit that I was skeptical at the time and really doubted that tossing out something as enduring as paper was a good idea.

On a personal note, for those that have been reading about our trials of getting around and staying in touch after the demise of our iPad, you may recall just how hard it has been for us to get this resolved.  Well, yesterday we finally received our new iPad after some three weeks of effort.  That’s a long time and once we had it in hand we spent nearly the entire day setting it up and getting everything reinstalled.  Happily, we are now “good to go” and all is back in working order.

What this whole effort has made me appreciate is the fragile nature of electronic devices.    One moment the iPad worked and the next…

I know that we are WAY over reliant on our easy-to-use electronic gadgets and have been so for many years.  However, I am happy to say that we were indeed able to get around without our electronic charts, using the good old paper chart books.  However, even with all systems functioning properly we have always keep paper charts handy and with “electro-problems” we really made sure that we were tuned into the paper world.

I have to say that when the iPad pooped, I was very concerned that we had become so reliant on electronics that would be stuck, paralyzed and unable to get around at all.  However, as it turned out, while we were slowed down, we were not stopped.  I found myself being much more aware of water color as a sign of water depth and I also did a lot of checking the lay of the surrounding islands against what I saw on paper with the hope that I was where I hoped I was.  Mostly, yes.

Anxious as we were, we did make it around fine so what’s the need for the fancy equipment?  Well, I guess that it’s more about confidence and comfort and knowing that we can double check what we think we see against what we see on the plotter.  Having electronic charts that show exactly where we are at any given moment is like having a “pilot” on board to validate what we see and provide reassurance that we are where safe and on the right track.  Winding between coral heads and sand banks takes real nerve when you are trying to do it without “real time” information from the plotter.  Yes, the water is famously clear but even though you can see the bottom most of the time, it’s still tough to be sure.  And, “almost right” isn’t quite good enough when you are at risk of crashing into a coral head.

What this process has reinforced for me is that the “old fashioned” paper is still great and surely not dead but that it’s just so nice to have an “extra set of eyes” from a plotter to confirm that “yes, Bob, you are on the right track, carry on”.

Another take away from all of this is that you can get anything you need in the Bahamas but that it might take weeks and cost a lot.   So, what are you willing to pay for peace of mind?  In the case of Pandora’s crew, plenty.

“Bob, OK, OK enough technical drivel.  Please show us some pictures!”

Yes, pictures are good.  While we were in Staniel Cay waiting for our packages to be flown in, we took some time to visit the pigs on nearby Big Majors Spot.  Yes, I have already posted about the local swine but wanted to show yet another picture of some of the little piglets.   They were so cute, if a bit salty and sandy.  And, how I know about this is because I couldn’t resist picking up the littlest piglet.  But, first I had to choose one.  How about the littlest?   Here piggy, piggy…  Just a little closer…

Gotcha!  He was fairly traumatized by the attention and squealed relentlessly in a very pathetic way.  I  was a bit fearful that mama was going to come to his rescue, all 600 lbs of her.  Happily, she wasn’t nearly that attentive.   He was very vocal and didn’t squirm at all as he was probably terrorized by the experience.  I preferred to think of him as “stoic” and just resigned to tolerating the indignity of it all.   Only the piggy knows…

Speaking of local wildlife…  Every afternoon the folks at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club (actually it’s not a club at all but I won’t quibble) clean fish and lobster in preparation for dinner.   The food there is very fresh and pretty good actually, and the scraps go into the water to feed the local fish population.  Sharks and rays come in from all over to enjoy the feast. 

In spite of being in a busy marina, the water is incredibly clear.  It almost looks like they are just laying on rock.  No, there is some 4’ of water.  Really, really clear.There was quite a crowd looking for dinner.  So, now that we are all set with our new iPad, after three weeks of waiting, we are again working our way south.  Today, laundry and tomorrow we will head further down the Exuma chain and get ready to dodge the next cold front that’s due to drive through the area next week.

Yes, another front and this one is now bearing down on New England as a major noreaster (is that how you spell it?  Not in spell check).  Glad we are not there right now.  What a winter they have had.  Yuck.  Me?  I’d much rather be here enjoying another sunny warm day.    Have I said that it’s sunny in the Bahamas?  And warm?  Yes, thought so.

With all our equipment back in order it’s a new day so what better way to sign off than with a shot of yesterday’s sunrise in Staniel Cay.  Yes, a great day indeed.So, here I am finishing up on this post as our wash is swishing around getting clean.  The laundromat has free wifi too.  That’s Ida for you.  The best laundry and haircuts in the Bahamas and WIFI too!

And, of course, all this proves that paper charts are not dead.  Right?  No, not the best segue to end with.  Oh well.

But there’s more…

Today there is a big barbecue at the local school here in Black Point.  And, we certainly can’t miss that.  Hmm…

It’s 08:00 on Thursday and we are anchored, again, in Big Majors Spot; the home of the Bahamas piggies.  You recall, this island is the one that has “wild” pigs.  Wild is a relative term as they were clearly put here by someone as this is the only island in the Bahamas that boasts it’s own “native” population of swine.  I should also note that there are chickens and roosters here too so if you like to waken to the sound of a crowing rooster, Big Majors Spot is your kind of place.

What’s so unique about this morning, following a particularly beautiful sunrise, is that it’s completely calm.  With cold fronts coming through on a weekly cycle, and bringing strong winds from a variety of annoying directions, a day without wind is something to talk about.

The early morning light is a lovely soft yellow and to see all the boats, and there are plenty here, gently rocking on the water, is a calming sight.

I listened to Chris Parker, the weather router, today, as I always do, at 06:30and his forecast is for winds to be from the northeast for the next two days, perfect to send us down to Georgetown, our next destination.

I am hopeful that we will get there before the winds turn against us, which will happen this weekend or early in the week, but that depends on FedEx and Watermakers Air and getting our iPad delivered to staniel Cay, just around the corner.

It will actually be fine for us to wait here for a while if we miss this weather window as it’s a lovely place.  However, having been in the Bahamas for more than a month now, I am anxious to put some more miles on Pandora and head south.

Speaking of sailing, we had a wonderful sail yesterday from Warderick Wells, about 20 miles north of here.  The wind was in the low teens from the northeast, a perfect direction to head here.  It was nice to be able to set the autopilot and read a book.  A very nice sail indeed.

We had spent four days in Warderick Wells, which is very protected, to ride out the adverse winds from the last frontal passage.  Just as we were getting underway and Brenda was preparing the lunch that we would have while sailing to Big Majors Spot, I tossed some vegetable scraps over the side.  A moment later I heard some splashing just off the side of the boat.   I came up on deck and was amazed to see a number of really large, about 4′ long, ramoras eating our cast-offs.  They were darting this way and that, competing for onion skins and bits of broccoli.  Ramoras have a distinctive patch on the top of their heads that they use to “stick” to sharks and sometimes boats, going along for a free ride.  They eat most anything and by “sticking” with a larger shark “host”, I am sure that they have plenty of options.   Legend has it that if a remora stuck to the bottom of a sailing ship, that their presence would stop a boat dead in the water.   If that’s true, I hope that we don’t pick one up.

This shot clearly shows the “sucker”.   An amazing creature, the Remora.

So, today we will find out if there is room on the plane for our packages and if FedEx delivers early enough to make the afternoon flight from Ft Lauderdale.  Fingers crossed.  If not, perhaps Friday morning.  One way or the other, it will be good to have an iPad, a backup for navigation again.

We are anchored very close to the beach where the pigs congregate and it is fun to watch them through binoculars as they trot down to the water as boaters come by to feed them.  It’s pretty funny to see them wade into the water and swim out to the dinks for handouts.  I am pretty sure that pigs don’t fly but it seems that they do swim.  Who knew?   I guess that fat is lighter than water.  Speaking of fat, I wonder if pigs suffer from cardiovascular disease.  They say that eating too much bacon can lead to heart disease.   I wonder if “being” too much bacon does the same thing.  For inquiring minds…

So, today, what’s in store…

Brenda has wanted to do some snorkeling but has been a bit timid about it given the 8′ sharks that always seem to be cruising by.  However, I suspect that this fear (a legitimate concern) is giving way to a desire to see the sights.  We did see that there is a nice little reef very nearby that is well protected.   We took our glass bottomed bucket (look bucket) there yesterday and took a “look”.  I expect a visit will be on the agenda today.

Well, it’s nearly time for Cruiseheimers on the radio.  That’s an SSB Net where folks check in each morning.  It’s a great way to hear where everyone is and to connect with friends.  It’s also a good way to learn about important issues such as what day of the week it is or if it’s time to move our clocks forward for daylight savings time.  As you know, folks who live aboard small boats often forget what day of the week it is.  Perhaps we should get one of those tear-off calendars, the type you see in hospital rooms, so we can always know.   But, we’d probably forget to tear off the pages each day.  As you may know, not knowing what day of the week it is can be a symptom of greater ills, or “cruiseheimers”.   Right?

So, now you know why I always begin my posts with something like “It’s Thursday morning and…”

Quick… What day of the week is it?  Thursday!!!  However, don’t ask me the date as I have absolutely no idea.

OK, OK, I checked.  It’s the 20th of March.  That’s what computers are for.  Right?

Well, it’s Tuesday morning and the winds are strong from the west, again.  That’s not a normal direction for this area of the Bahamas and certainly not this late in the season.  However the pattern of cold fronts penetrating into the area about every six days continues, unabated.  Fortunately, we are tucked into one of the few harbors in the Exumas that offers protection from the west so it’s very calm, even if it’s windy. However, there is hope that things are improving as this front isn’t as strong as the last few have been.

The unrelenting fronts have been the topic of discussion among cruisers here who say that they have not experienced adverse winds and fronts like this in the Bahamas in many years, with the exception of this year and last.  Of course, the last two years have been out total experience, so to us, the weather is always “like this”.

Don’t get me wrong as the “like this” weather is pretty good compared to good old New England.  While our friends are experiencing relentless snowfall, we see views of clear blue water and powder fine white sandy beaches.  Yes, there’s white here too but it’s not quite the same, somehow.   That’s good, very good.

Yes, there’s even a bit of white in this photo from yesterday when Brenda and I went for a walk on the beach with some friends.  Love the gentle lapping of wavelets on the beach.  I’ll take white puffy clouds and sand over drifts any day.  See the two dinks anchored in the shallows in the distance?  One’s ours. Pretty bucolic.

As I have mentioned, no actually whined about incessantly in past posts, we have been “e-challenged” with the demise of our iPad a few weeks ago.  We are hopeful that this will be resolved soon, perhaps in just a few days.  It’s expected to arrive in Staniel Cay  very soon.  Yahoo!!  Thanks to our son Rob for handling the logistics from “State Side”.

For the last few weeks Brenda and I have been “buddyboating” with our friends Loreen and Miles who live aboard Ariel, a wonderful boat.  They have been living aboard full time for about the last six years and spend their time running from the Bahamas to Maine and back each year with an occasional run back to Wisconsin, where they keep a “land home”.

We have been swapping off on dinner prep most nights.  It’s fun, sometimes too much fun actually, to spend evenings with them.  We hope to see them again in Essex in June.

After we pick up our iPad in Staniel in a few days, we hope to make a run down to Georgetown, a very popular cruisers hangout in the southern Bahamas.  We’ll be able to visit a “sort of real” market there to re-provision.  We haven’t been to a market that has any real choice since leaving Nassau a month ago. The lardor is pretty sparse, as you can imagine.

In April we are hoping to connect with our friends Maureen and Bill aboard Kaloona Moo.  They have been in the Caribbean since November and are currently in Puerto Rico.  They will be heading north towards the Bahamas on their way back to New York, where they spend summers.  We’ll likely hook up with them south of Georgetown.

We are very interested in hearing about their time in the Caribbean and what it’s been like.  As Brenda’s “guardian angel”, no make that “guard dog”, Maureen won’t let me take Brenda somewhere where she will be unhappy, so we should get a pretty good feel for what it is like down there for girls like Brenda, self-described “cream puffs”.

I did get a note from them a few days ago and have spoken to them on the SSB radio as well.  One thing that they did mention is that the weather is a lot more settled down south as the fronts that have been vexing us here just don’t come down that far.  Yes, the trade winds are quite strong with winds blowing in the 20s each day.  However, when you anchor you are sheltered behind volcanic islands that soar thousands of feet into the air.  As a result, the winds are blocked and anchorages are calm and settled.
After months in the Bahamas with unrelenting winds we are probably ready for “settled”.  Perhaps that should be our destination next year.   I guess we will soon learn more when we hook up with Bill and Maureen to get the “download”.

Don’t get me wrong, the Bahamas are beautiful and WARM and it’s certainly better than being in the grips of a sub-zero winter.
Am I sounding a bit whiny?  Perhaps, but I am told that writers with angst are more interesting.  I guess  you’ll have to be the judge.

Oh yeah, I should mention that this post was set to our son Chris, who is now in San Francisco making some contacts in the tech area.  The routine, given our “e-challenges”, is for me to send the text and a single picture to him via our long range radio, the SSB.  Chris then takes the text and photo and posts them on my blog.  Interestingly, the “node” that I am using to connect to send this to Chris is located in Panama as that location has the best “propagation”, or signal, this time of the day.  The way it works is for my radio to send out a signal that “bounces” off of the upper atmosphere and then back down to the receiver in Panama. Pretty amazing, actually.  Thanks Chris.

It’s Saturday morning and we are once again anchored near Staniel Cay.  On the one hand, I am not unhappy to be in what is a very nice spot having already been here twice this season.

However, we are still trying to get the problem with our “mort” iPad resolved.  If you recall, we use this as an important navigation device here in the Bahamas and having it die some two weeks ago has left us with no good backup and anxiety about getting around with confidence.

Yes, we have a plotter with charts as well as the paper chart books.  However, for close in work, in narrow channels, it’s nice to have the extra detail that shows on the i-Pad.

After a week of messing around with an order from Apple, we discovered that they won’t ship to a “re-shipper” and canceled our order.  The package was supposed to be mailed to an air-freight company in Ft Lauderdale and then to be flown to Staniel Cay in the Bahamas.  As we were receiving e-mail via our iPad, we were unaware of the cancellation until we saw their cancellation notice a week later, very frustrating.  Frustrating indeed.

So, we lost a week waiting for something to arrive that hadn’t even been shipped.  Ugh…
Now what?

First we scratched our heads trying to decide what the best option was.  Then we sent a note to our son Rob in MD and he agreed to order an i-Pad and to ship it to Watermakers Air Airfreight, the “re-shipper” that Apple wouldn’t send to, in Ft Lauderdale.  They run flights to Staniel Cay daily and can drop the package there for us.

Alas, it seems that it’s not that simple as I have been frustrated in getting them to respond to my messages.  Given the starts and stops of the iPad order, I guess that they have decided that this order has become too complicated and confusing.  Whatever the reason, they have not been very responsive and getting an answer from them has been spotty at best.

One way or the other, I am anxious to put this episode behind me and to get on with our run south to Georgetown and the southern Bahamas.

Yes, yes, I do realize that this sounds very whiny given the fact that we are sailing in some of the most beautiful waters in the world.  However, it can be treacherous making our way around without good charts.  Shifting shoals and lots of “hard stuff” to bump into make getting around here iffy at times.  That’s why we need to have access to good charts and a way to see exactly where we are.  And, the iPad app, Garmin Blue Charts, gives that.  Besides, having backups for key systems is critical.   I realize that we have become perhaps over-reliant on electronic charts, but it’s just easier and less stressful to use them than to rely on paper charts as the primary course of getting around.  I can do it but would prefer not to have it be any harder than necessary.

What I have learned from this exercise is that for some systems having a backup to a backup is important and that some who have called for the end of paper charts are just barking up the wrong tree.

Enough whining about charts for now and I hope that we will be back on track (chart wise) by next week.

Today is a beautiful day and we are expecting, yet again,  a front to hit us, albeit less powerful than the one we “enjoyed” the other day, to pass through here early next week.  With that in mind, we are headed back to Warderick Wells again this afternoon so we will be in a well protected spot when the wind veers west for a bit.

We should have a very nice sail this afternoon, even if this means heading north when we ultimately want to head south.  One way or the other, we will get a nice sail out of it and will still be fairly close to Staniel Cay to pick up our packages (Did I mention that we have packages coming to Staniel later in the week?  Thought so)

Anyway, perhaps I will close with a photo of us feeing the wild piggies near Staniel.  Actually, they look pretty wild from close up.  Ok, ok, they not so “wild” but they are piggies, never the less, and very close.

Here’s to hoping that we will be free to move on soon and have our navigation “issues” resolved, once and for all.  Fingers crossed.  No make that “piggies” crossed.

Oh yea, thanks to our son Christopher who has been posting these for me since we have been “Net-compromised”.  Thanks Chris!!!

One of the things that Brenda and I really enjoy doing is shell hunting.   It is just so pleasant to wander onto a new beach and wade through the shallow warm waters, to see what has washed up on the beach.  We have found, over the last two winters, that each beach has it’s own characteristics that make every day of shell hunting a unique experience.

You’d think that shelling on the ocean side would be great but that’s actually not the case.   It would seem logical that the surf would wash up shells.  However, we have found that on beaches with big surf that the shells are mostly broken up and those that you do find are quite damaged or worn down by the constant action of the waves.  As the surf rolls in and tumbles shells in the churning sand, what you find is pretty well worn.  Of course, one exception is sea glass, pieces of broken bottles that are worn smooth by the surf.  However, we actually find very little glass bits.

The one thing that washes up in great quantities on the ocean side, however, is plastic trash.  It’s pretty depressing actually to see literally hundreds of plastic oil cans and other non-biodegradable items strewn along the beach.  In many areas, cruisers gather up the trash into piles which helps minimize the mess.  Unfortunately, any plastic that finds it’s way onto beaches will persist for dozens of years.  Even after a long time plastic bottles are still around even if they have become brittle from exposure to the sun.  Over time they become brittle from sunlight and break into tiny bits but they never really go away.

It’s unfortunate that people are so casual in tossing things overboard.  Given the number of items that wash up on beaches here have writing in Spanish, I suspect that much of the trash floating around has probably come up from the Caribbean via the prevailing winds and the Gulf Stream.   Someone told me that in Haiti trash is just pushed into the water where it floats away with the wind and current.  I don’t know if that’s accurate but it’s certainly not good to hear.

Interestingly, you don’t find much trash on beaches that are west facing, away from the ocean here.  That suggests that the Bahamians and visitors are pretty good about not tossing garbage into the water.  That’s encouraging.

Well, back to shelling.  No, you don’t find great shells often on the ocean side but on the west facing Bahamas Banks, the shelling can be quite good.  As the wave action is minimal those shells that wash ashore tend to be in quite good shape.

The great variety of shells is amazing.  Interestingly though, you tend to find many shells of the same kind on any given beach with little variety at a particular location.   In some spots sand dollars are very common and on others colorful “tellins”, which come on yellow, red and purple are everywhere.  These little “clams” are, not surprisingly, called “sunrise” tellins if they are yellow and “sunset” if they are purple.  This photo shows the shell diversity from one of our recent outings.

We particularly love the small or juvenile conch shells, the ones with the points on them, but finding them isn’t all that easy and most of the time they are alive, so we put them back.  This photo has a number of really nice little juvenile conch.   We tend to find the little ones on exposed sandbars at low tide.  I suspect that these little guys wandered into shallow water and were exposed to the sun for too long at low tide.  The juvenile conch look similar to the adult but much more delicate.  When conch are about 1′ long they are harvested as a major food source here in the Bahamas.

As I finish up this post it’s mid-morning on Wednesday and were are expecting the wind to increase a lot over the next 24 hours and swing around to the west for a bit as the cold front passes  through the area.  After the winds settle down, from forecasted speeds in the high 20s, we will head down to Staniel Cay, a short distance away, to pick up our new iPad and parts for the watermaker.

After that, we hope to head south to Georgetown and our next opportunity for a “real” food market.  However, with one cold front after another coming through these days, we may have trouble finding a “weather window” long enough to make the 75 mile run south to Georgetown.

Well, I guess I should be getting on with my day so I’ll sign off now.