April 2014

It’s Monday morning and we are anchored close to a lovely beach that is several miles long in an area of Cat Island known as New Bight.  The shoreline is very low and has a few simple, if brightly painted homes and businesses.  It is a small settlement and very modest, as is typical of the Bahamas out-islands.

Yesterday Brenda and I came here from Georgetown and made the 50 mile run after taking time to visit friends to say our goodbuys.  It’s going to be months, if not longer till we see some of them again.  Hopefully, some will make it to our three day SSCA gam (event) in Essex in late June.  It will be nice to see them again sooner or later.  Sooner would be better.

One couple that we visited were Mark and Kathy who live aboard Corina, a 41’ Manta brand catamaran.  Yes, those funny boats with two hulls do hold a real appeal.  They have so much room and sail flat.  That certainly beats 25 degrees of heel aboard Pandora.  However, that’s another topic.

Anyway, Mark and Kathy had spent a month in the Jumentos, a spot that we had hoped to visit but never got to this year due to the cold fronts that were coming through so often.  One of the best parts of visiting the Jumentos is walking the beaches to see what has washed up.  “Sea Beans” are a particularly special find there.  Sea beans are the large seeds of tropical plants that wash down rivers in South America  and Africa and are carried by the currents and finally come ashore on islands in the Bahamas.  The areas of the southern Bahamas tend to collect more of these “beans” and as there are so few visitors, there are lots to be found.  We have run into friends who have collected hundreds of these over a season.  Mark takes these beans and polishes them to make necklaces.  And, as an added bonus, he’s willing to part with them.  Mark doesn’t take money for his work, just wine.  And what a nice trade it is.  Brenda really wanted one of these necklaces as she had seen Mark’s work on our friend Anne, of the cat Nati.    Cathy is also very talented, and with sea glass she picks up along the way, makes very pretty earrings.  Happily, Brenda was able to get a very nice “matching” set of earrings and sea bean necklass.  The “bean” is called a “hamburger bean” as it has a light stripe with dark sides.  Very pretty.  Happy Brenda. The downside of all the goodbyes was that we left a couple of hours later than we should have to make the run to Cat.  50 miles is a long run to make in a single day and it turned out that while we were able to get to Cat while it was still light out, the sun was setting as we dropped anchor. 

While we were able to sail much of the way. we were hard on the wind most of the time, and with a few squalls passing us, we had to contend with some major wind shifts that made sailing impossible for part of the run.  All and all, we had a good run but a long day none the less.  Unfortunately, Brenda was feeling a bit seasick as the swells were running pretty high, especially in the beginning, so it wasn’t a great run for her.  And frankly, I don’t particularly like sailing hard on the wind either.

However, as we dropped the anchor close to shore we were treated to a beautiful sunset and, as an added plus, a lovely moon rise.   And a lovely moon rise in the eastern twilight.  I understand that there will be a partial eclipse of the moon tonight.  That will be neat.Today Brenda and I will likely do a bit of beach combing and perhaps exploring in “town”, such as it is. 

Our friends on Kaloonamoo, Bill and Maureen, are joining us here as they are currently underway from Georgetown..

Perhaps we’ll also head up to Father Gerome’s place nearby with them on Tuesday.

Happily, it looks like we will have several days of settled weather here so we will be able to relax and enjoy the solitude here at Cat Island for a bit.  Last year, when we visited, we had to run for cover ahead of a wind shift after only two nights.  Perhaps our luck will hold this year for a longer stay.

Fingers crossed…

It’s Sunday morning and, I can’t believe I am saying this, there’s not enough wind.  Go figure.  After months of TOO MUCH WIND, and constant fronts coming through the Bahamas, we are (fingers crossed) entering a week of moderate easterly trade winds and calm conditions. 

I am afraid to say it but as the weather router is saying the same thing, perhaps I won’t be jinxing it by wishing for the best.

Yesterday was unusual with rain and drizzle for much of the day.  Along with the rain came very light winds, something that I had been waiting for as I had to pull down my genoa (sail) for a minor repair as there was a small rip on the luff tape (if you know what a luff is that’s good, if not, don’t worry).   However I didn’t want to deal with 600 square feet of sail on the foredeck unless the wind was light.  So, after perhaps 6 weeks of waiting, yesterday was the day.  Sail down…As I didn’t bring my heavy duty sewing machine with me on this trip, I had to resort of hand sewing and adhesive sail cloth tape.  It was pretty crowded up forward with the sail down.  Happily, I was able to do much of the work prior to the light rain starting.  As you can imagine, the sail repair tape wouldn’t have stuck well to a wet sail.   Lots of sail to contend with.

I stitched the damaged area as best I could and then applied sail repair tape over the stitching.  After that, more stitching.The finished work.  Not great to look at but it should hold till I get a proper repair done at a sail loft.  I usually take the sails to a loft each winter for washing and repair.  As I am no longer putting the boat into storage in the winter, I didn’t do that last fall.  My mistake as the problem would have shown up and been repaired correctly.   Well, good enough for now.It seems that there are always problems, big and little on a boat and Pandora’s no different.  As I had mentioned the other day, I had to sort through an electrical problem a few days ago.  I was able to track down the problem but still don’t know how it happened.  Here I am working away on a solution.  Q: Did anyone notice that I have become a bit grey?  Hmm… We are still contemplating whether we will leave for Cat Island today or tomorrow. We’ll have to think about it for a few more hours and see how the breezes develop.    It could be a nice easy sail today.  That would be great. 

Our friends Russell and Lynn, aboard Blue Highway, got an early start today and sailed past us as I was sitting in the cockpit having a cup of coffee in my jammies.   Nice people.Off into the sunset, er, sunrise…Perhaps we will be out soon.  If not today, tomorrow.  Happily, no repairs to do today.  No, wait, I might jinx it…  Never mind. 

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…

It’s Thursday morning and it’s the “morning after” from yesterday’s front.  Actually, it’s been pretty windy for several days with what Chris Parker, the weather router, calls “pre-frontal” winds.

However, as the “actual” front approached mid-day yesterday, we were anchored off of town, across the harbor, a location that was fairly protected when the pre-frontal winds were blowing from the south.  As the front approached, the wind shifted, within just a few hours, from the south to the southwest, west, northwest and finally north.  All this happened in pretty short order accompanied by winds that gusted into the 30kt range accompanied by squalls.  It wasn’t particularly fun, actually.

As you can imagine, things got a bit bumpy and finally, (sort of) between squalls we decided to move over to the other side of the harbor to find a more sheltered spot.

Pulling up the anchor, in a chop that was pushing 4 feet, was a bit challenging but we got it done with a minimum of problems.  However, once we headed over to the other side of the harbor, anchoring in so much wind proved to be tough.

As you may recall, some time back I damaged my Bruce anchor and had switched to a large Fortress anchor that I have had aboard for use in storm conditions.  I hadn’t really used it much but it took the place of my damaged Bruce.

I have to say that, after several weeks of use, I am not all that impressed with it as a primary anchor.  When it sets, it sets hard and fast but so often I found that in weedy conditions it tended to skip along the bottom gathering up loads of weed and not really setting.  There’s nothing quite as frustrating as trying to anchor in strong winds when the anchor won’t hold.    In the interest of fairness, I have also had the same problem with my Bruce in the past.

In the “anchor doesn’t set” department, yesterday was one of those days.  We did quite a tour of the harbor, trying to drop the hook a total of five times and in several locations, until we finally found a good spot.  The problem is that much of Georgetown harbor is moderately weedy and in strong winds anchors tend to load up with weed before they can set properly.  This isn’t as much of a problem when the winds are lighter as the anchor can dig through the weeds and into sand when there is less pressure on the anchor.  That was not the case yesterday.  Not at all.

The Fortress is billed as a sort of “last resort” anchor and many boats carry one on board for storm conditions.  With the exception of powerboats that rarely anchor anyway, you almost never see one used on a sailboat as a primary anchor.  After a month of use, I can now see that the anchor has some limitations. The problem is that it’s hinged and when it’s deployed in very fine sand or mud, the hinge sometimes gets gummed up and won’t move properly.   What this means is that it gets stuck, with the flukes in the “up” position, and just skips along the bottom not hooking at all.   When I pulled up the anchor yesterday, I was shocked to see that one of the flukes and the shaft were slightly bent.  Amazing for such a “tough” anchor.  I have been told that there is a lifetime warrantee on Fortress anchors.  I’ll have to test that when I get home in May.

In order to find a replacement for my Bruce, I made an announcement on the radio net here in Georgetown and there’s a guy with a spare CQR anchor that will fit Pandora nicely.  The CQR is an old style design, but pretty good anchor and works well in most conditions. I plan on visiting that boat today or tomorrow to see if we can work something out.

Anyway, yesterday was pretty rough as the front came through, and I hope that we won’t have conditions like that again anytime soon.   Some folks I was talking to this morning said that yesterday’s frontal passage was the roughest they have ever seen in years of Bahamas cruising.

However, today is a new day and what a beautiful one it is.  The wind is still a bit brisk but the sun is out and shining brightly.  And, we are now in a protected location off of a beautiful beach.

Interestingly, when we finally anchored yesterday (Did I mention that we had some difficulty anchoring?) I noticed that our friends on Cat’s Meow were anchored nearby.  We met them last winter in the Bahamas and really enjoyed their company.  Cat’s Meow is a HUGE catamaran, 80’ long.  La Vonne and Don live aboard and travel up and down the east coast.

We’d love to have them visit us in Essex  but their mast is 102’ tall and they can’t fit under the I-95 CT highway bridge which is (only) about 90’ tall.  That’s a very tall mast.  Their boat is so wide, at 45’, that there are only three boatyards on the entire east coast that can haul them out of the water.  I’ll bet it’s tough to shop for the best price when choice is that limited.  Perhaps folks with 80’ boats aren’t that price sensitive.

There is an interesting story behind Cat’s Meow as they purchased the boat at auction from the DEA who had seized the boat from a drug dealer a while back.  I wonder if the Coast Guard has them on a “watch list”.

What a boat.  HUGE, doesn’t begin to describe it.  For a stove they have a 6 burner Wolf oven, the type you might find in a commercial kitchen.  It’s quite a stove.  And, they have a “butler’s pantry” off of their cabin.  Alas, no butler aboard.  “Get your own ice.” Speaking of the Coast Guard, back in February, a sailboat from Canada had gone up on a reef off of Cuba and was in danger.  Some local fishing boats helped get them off and the boat was repaired.  As the hull was steel, the damage was minimal. However, in the process of trying to get help, they had contacted the US Coast Guard who, as you can imagine, declined to help them as they were in Cuban waters.  

So, fast forward a few months, to when they tried to clear customs in Florida and they ran into real difficulty as they had been put on a “list” as someone who had “traded with the enemy” in Cuba.  As a result, their boat was denied entry into the US and were told that they could continue up the coast to their home port in Canada but that they could no longer leave the boat in the US for the summer, as they have done for the last few years.

I know that Americans are not allowed to visit Cuba but thought that it was OK for citizens from countries that do not have a trade embargo with them to visit and then come to the US.  It seems that as they had decided to visit the US directly from Cuba, they were somehow in violation of American law.  Oops…

I don’t know much about the finer points of the law but it seems that they are in a bit of a fix as to get just about anywhere south from Canada requires being able to stop in US waters.  Perhaps if they had cleared into the Bahamas instead of going to the US directly from Cuba they might have been better off. Who knows.  Not a good situation to be in at all.  It would be interesting to hear more.

Brenda and I would love to visit Cuba but have no interest in running afoul of Customs in the US.  Perhaps in time, we’ll have an opportunity.  (That’s to visit Cuba, not to run afoul of US customs, just to be clear.)

Now for a particularly jarring change of topic…. There’s a very “interesting” boat anchored nearby.  Jumbo, and it’s anything but…  If form follows function, I wonder what the function of Jumbo is.    So, if Cat’s Meow is huge than Jumbo isn’t.  Perhaps they should trade names.  Jumbo looks more like a Tylenol capsule than a boat.   I hope Jumbo‘s owners don’t see this post as I wouldn’t want them to be offended.  Jumbo is quite cute, actually.  I wonder where their home port is.  Probably not France, although it would be quite at home on a canal there but perhaps less at home on the open ocean getting there.I have to say that yesterday was the nastiest day we’ve had in our two winters in the Bahamas.  However, today, the morning after, is a new day and what a beautiful day it is.   Here’s  a shot of Pandora off of Monument Beach.   It’s named after the “monument” on top of the hill which shows just to the right of Pandora.  Perhaps we’ll take a walk up there later today.I’ll close with a picture we took last winter when our son’s Rob and Chris, along with Rob’s girlfriend Kandice, visited the monument with us.    Now that was a great day.

 

It’s Wednesday morning early and I have the SSB radio on and am waiting for Chris Parker, the weather router to begin his 06:30 broadcast.  Yesterday was pretty windy and quite a chop built up here in Georgetown Harbor.  Georgetown is quite a large harbor and while it is protected from all directions, the distances are quite long as the harbor is one mile wide and ten long.   As a result, when the wind directions change, folks move from one side of the harbor to the other and then back again.  It’s called the “Georgetown Shuffle”.  How quaint.

However, if you have to weather a front, and we have one coming, yet again, Georgetown is a pretty good place to do it.

During the broadcast, Chris Parker had lots to say about the front that’s coming through now, which is a pretty strong one in spite of it being fairly late in the season.  Normally, spring is the time when things settle down here from a weather standpoint.  However, this season continues with one nasty cold front after another penetrating the area on a more or less weekly basis.  Have I mentioned that there have been a LOT of fronts this winter?

As of today Chris noted that he expects that we will have yet ANOTHER front early next week and even ANOTHER the following week.  As Rob and Kandice are going to be with us beginning in about two weeks, I sure hope that things begin to settle down by that time.  As nice as it is to be in the Bahamas in the winter, this front-after-front deal, for months on end, is becomming a bit tiresome.

You may recall that I wrote a few weeks ago about my trials with assembling crew for the run north in May.  Getting folks to commit to heading 1,000 miles aboard is always tough and this year has not been an exception.  When the departure date is far out in the future, it’s easy to get crew to say yes but as the departure date nears, things come up and plans change.

I have been moving boats around with crew since the early 80s and getting crew then was tough then and is still tough now.   However the distances that I move boats now is much further as way back when, a 100 mile run was a long way.

As you can imagine, getting people with busy schedules to commit to be aboard, with weather delays, for as much as two weeks, to make a run from the Bahamas to CT is a big deal.  And, as the date for departure approaches schedules change.  It’s no surprise that it’s easy to say YES in February when winter winds are blowing snow around.  ANYONE would say yes to heading south.  Right?

However, in spite of changes in schedules and family obligations from crew, I was able to arrange for crew this year as well.  SUCCESS!!

Here’s the plan.  (Take notes as there will be a quiz)  Here goes… On May 5^th, Brenda flies out of Nassau to Baltimore to visit Rob’s home for a few days prior to heading to CT after that.  The same day Rich, one of my crew, flies to Nassau.  It’s possible that Rob will stick around, following our week with him and Kandice in the Bahamas, and make the run with me and Rich aboard Pandora to Charleston where we will meet up with George.  Rob would then fly home from Charleston with Rich and George continuing on to Essex with me.

Of course, this is all dependent on good weather for leaving Nassau on the 6^th as planned.  If we are delayed, and that could easily happen (think cold fronts), Rob will just head out from Nassau with Brenda and Kandice.  In that case, me and Rich will take Pandora to Charleston, as soon as we are able, to meet up with George.  George’s plans don’t put him in Charleston till a week after Rich meets me in Nassau.   Following this so far?  I think I do.

One way or the other, we will make it home and I am very much looking forward to the trip.  It’s just not certain how long it’s going to take.

While Charleston is a bit out of the way to head home, I am excited about a visit as it’s a beautiful city and getting reasonably priced flights from there is easy.

Brenda and I spent a week there on our trip down the ICW in fall of 2012.  How about a few pictures from our visit there?

We’ll likely tie up at the city Marina.  There’s Pandora on the dock.  I expect you are so busy looking at Pandora you missed the bridge.  Beautiful.Lots of huge oak trees.  A bit of a contrast to the Bahamas.  The islands of the Bahamas once had trees of this scale but they were all cut down by early settlers following the American Revolution in an ill fated attempt to grow cotton and other crops as they had in the southern US.Lovely homes everywhere.  And white, the color of choice. And, the Bahamas, with “world class” sunsets, doesn’t have a lock on beautiful ways to end the day.  How about a stately schooner and the setting sun as the day winds down?So, here’s the deal.  Winters in the south and summers in tbe north.  Works for me, fronts and all.  

And, as we continue the “Georgtown Shuffle” my thoughts are indeed turning to spring and our home up north.   Yes, something to look forward to.  Spring is here.