It’s Monday mid morning and we are sailing along with a gentle breeze on our way to Nassau from Chub Cay, a distance of about 50 miles.  Actually, the engine has gotten a good workout since our arrival back in Florida and today is the first time that the sails have been out since my arrival in Florida way back in November. 

Since arriving in the Bahamas a few days ago we have hung out in Chub Cay, about 40 miles NW of Nassau.  We decided to stay put for a few days to wait for a weather window to make the run and stop in Nassau, along the way, in part because our son Christopher will be joining us there for a ten day visit.

Christoper is currently in Thailand decompressing from his graduate studies at Columbia.   It seems that he spent, by his count, something like 500 weeks on physics and is now ready for a change.  Yeah, no kidding.  So, how about heading to Thailand from New York City for a change of scenery?  Yep, that’s a change.

Anyway, he’s still not quite ready to re-enter the real world so is flying from Bangkok to JFK in NY and then on to Nassau where he will hook up with us.  That’s three non stop days of traveling so it will be interesting to see just how cranky and pooped he is when he arrives.  After he arrives on Thursday, we plan on making a run to Allen Cay at the northern end of the Exuma chain, home of ancient iguanas, the only indigenous population in the Bahamas.  This island was one of our first landfalls in the Bahamas last year so it will be fun to go back.  I have been using this photo as my Facebook photo since last year.  These critters are pretty fierce looking but they are quick to run away if you approach them.   They love to get handouts from visitors.  So much for wild but I wouldn’t want to try and pet one.

The closer you get, the fiercer they look.   I’ll bet that Christopher will love to see these guys. Yesterday we moved from one harbor on Chub to another and visited a little marina on the eastern shore.  It’s run by a Bahamian named Howard.  It’s clear that he works hard at keeping the modest place up and I have to think that running a business like that must be pretty challenging.  The place is simple but well kept.  I would have a tough time being in such an out of the way spot year round.   Like so many building in the islands, it’s brightly painted. We dropped by for a drink at the bar and took a mooring for the night.  We were the only folks in the bar and only one of three boats visiting.  We generally don’t take moorings as we prefer to use our own anchor.  However, the bottom there is pretty grassy and my Bruce anchor hook well into weed.  I haven’t run into much of a problem in the Bahamas south of Nassau but the northern areas are pretty weedy.  Perhaps it’s time for a different anchor. 

In the early evening a small skiff with some locals came by and began diving just off of his dock.  They had hand spears and kept swimming down, time after time.  After a few tries they came up with a good size lobster and then another.  Howard told me that some years ago a few pieces of machinery had been sunk off of the dock to provide hiding places for fish and lobsters.  These artificial “reefs” were actually an old pickup truck and a few pieces of heavy equipment.  Great idea as any sort of obstruction attracts plenty of sea-life. 

Had we stayed for another day I would have had to try my hand at spearing a lobster.

Speaking of diving, yesterday I dragged out my “hooka” compressor, an electric air compressor and long hose that allows me to stay underwater as long as needed.  I hook this unit up to my portable generator  for power.   By having this unit and long air hose, I can dive under the water to clean the bottom, something that has to be done periodically.  The process took me about an hour as it hadn’t been done since leaving Essex CT back in October.

The water here is so clear that you can see at least 100’ so it’s easy to see any “wildlife” that comes near.  Generally you don’t see much but yesterday there were two large 8’ long sharks that kept cruising by.  This is a not-so-great shot of one that kept coming very close to the boat.  Trust me when I say that he was really close, and BIG!  I am pretty sure that they weren’t the harmless nurse sharks. i say this becaues,  at one point, he/she came up to the surface and opened his mouth, I guess to take a gulp of air.  I saw lots of teeth, something that nurse sharks don’t have.  Anyway, I decided it would be prudent to wait a while before getting in the water to clean the hull.  After a while they wondered off so I decided to go in.  However, I did ask Brenda to stand watch and to tap on the deck if she saw anyone coming toward us.  Just in case, of course.

Alas, I was able to get the hull cleaned with no loss of fingers or worse.   However, I was still surrounded by plenty of observers.   A barracuda, perhaps 3’ long kept an eye on me the whole time, albeit from a discrete distance.  A 2’ remora, those fish with a sucker on the top of their heads, kept me company the entire time and he was never more than two to three feet away.  Pretty neat, actually.  A small ray with a larger fish tagging along kept cruising nearby and a very small and colorful puffer fish was also hanging around the entire time.

Happily, no sharks.  However, I must have stopped scrubbing at least 100 times to do a 360 scan to be sure that there wasn’t anyone thinking of making a snack of me.

After I finished I spied this beauty passing by to head into the marina.  We were too cheap to spring for the marina and anchored outside.  I expect that the owner of this yacht isn’t cleaning the bottom himself.  Actually, they had a “scout” boat heading in front of them to chart the depth to be sure that they wouldn’t run aground. Well, I am not totally cheap as Brenda and I did go into the marina to have lunch one day.  It was pretty good.

While we were ashore enjoying lunch, I took this photo of Pandora anchored off of the resort beach.  What a beautiful spot.  We’ll have to come back next year.  Perhaps we will spring for a visit to the marina too. So, here we are today making our run to Nassau where we will hang out for a few days.  Interestingly, the chef at Essex Yacht Club, Michael, has a son in the Marines, Brent, and he happens to be stationed in Nassau at the American Embassy.  We hope to connect with him while we are there.  Fingers crossed.

Our plan in Nassau will be to spend a few days till Christopher arrives.  We will rent a car to tour the island.  Meeting Christoper at the airport as he exits the terminal is also high on our list.  Nassau isn’t really that great a place to visit compared with everywhere else in the Bahamas but we are very much looking forward to a few days there.  Besides, one of the best groceries in the Bahamas is there so that’s good too.

For now, I think I’ll go back up into the cockpit to watch the water go by.  Oh yeah, the water here is really deep, over 7,000 feet actually.  And the color, the most perfect color of indigo blue.   Indigo water with the sun sparkling and an easy breeze.  Perfect.Yes, indeed, it’s good to be under sail again.  

It’s Saturday morning and we are here in the Bahamas at last.   We are anchored in a little harbor on the western side of Chub Cay,  an island in the Berry Island chain, about 40 miles northwest of Nassau.  It’s a beautiful cove with clear water.  It’s great to be here, finally.

We left Ft. Lauderdale on Thursday afternoon and headed out into the Atlantic and Gulf Stream headed over to the Bahamas.  The conditions were very benign with calm seas and only a light wind on the nose.  I would have preferred to sail and avoid 19 hours of motoring but it’s hard to get good sailing conditions that aren’t a a bit too exciting for Brenda.  Further, we would have likely had to wait a week or more to find an opportunity to cross with favorable winds.  Given those options, we bolted.  Good choice as here we are.

Last year, we were able to sail and it turned out to be a bit much for our first run to the Bahamas with fairly rough conditions and certainly more than Brenda had signed up for.   We had too much wind much of the time and were hit with a number of thunderstorms overnight.  Not great.  So, this year I promised her that we would try for an easy crossing and that’s what we got.

In crossing the Gulf Stream, you have to compensate for the current that pushes you north by steering toward a point south of where you want to end up and let the current sweep you north.   That point is calculated based on how much time you expect to be in the gulf stream and then estimating the average speed of the current.   So, I calculated a spot and adjusted our compass heading and off we went.

“So, what happened, where did you end up when you exited the Gulf Stream?”  Thanks for asking.  Actually, we came out within a 1 ½ miles of where I had hoped, just about perfect.  And, that’s after running about 8 hours and about 50 miles.  Pretty good, I think, actually.  At the center of the stream the current was pushing us north at about 5 knots.  That’s a huge amount of water moving north.

After crossing the stream, we entered the Grand Bahama Bank around 9 pm on Thursday.  It’s pretty amazing to be running along and see the depth go from about 2,500 ft deep to 25 in less than a mile which is what happens as you enter the banks.  So, after crossing onto the banks, we headed the rest of the way overnight in water that varied from 25’ to  15’ deep, typical depth for much of the Bahamas.  The water is so clear that you can easily see the bottom much of the time.   The moon was half full so the night was bright.  However, once it set, the stars were out in full splendor.  With no city light around you could see many more stars than what you’d normally enjoy.

We were also treated to a wonderful sunset and sunsets are typically pretty amazing here in the Bahamas, as we crossed the gulf stream.   Of course, we were out of sight of land so to see water all around you and these amazing clouds was a treat.

A very important event for us, especially for Brenda, was to spread her father’s ashes in the Gulf Stream.  Brenda’s father died three years ago this May and it was his wish that his ashes be spread out on the ocean.   Jack, Brenda’s father, loved the sea but he really didn’t like cold weather so it was very fitting that Brenda released his ashes in 80 degree water on such a beautiful day.  Brenda wrote a very touching post that says more than I can say about this special moment.

On a more pedestrian note, along the way we spied many Portuguese Man-of-War jellyfish.  These are very unique jellyfish are about 6″ long and float along with a “sail” that pokes above the water.   I am unaware of any other jellyfish quite like these.   As pretty as they are “don’t touch” is the word as they are quite venomous.  The “business end” is below the surface with yards of poisonous filaments that catch small fish and other little creatures that the MOW feed on.  Even washed up on the beach, to touch one of these will cause a nasty sting.  Here’s what they look like drifting along.  Quite pretty actually, like a translucent bubble. The entire run from Ft. Lauderdale to here at Chub took about 19 hours and Brenda and took turns keeping watch as we motored along.  We took turns throughout the night but there wasn’t much to watch for as we didn’t pass a single boat overnight once we were on the banks. 

We checked into customs in Chub.  I took our dink ashore to a local marina where I retrieved the paperwork.  After filling it out I got a ride in an old pickup truck to the airport where I met with the customs and immigration officers.   To call it an airport is different than what we have in the US.  The “terminal” was a very small building on a single runway.   There is no control tower and the terminal is just for customs.  No snack shop or Starbucks here.  The process of clearing in was pretty straight forward but did involve lots of forms and plenty of loud “stamping” with ink pads and official looking seals.   $300 later we had our cruising and fishing permits and our three month visas and I went back to the marina with my “guide” Dave, a local Bahamian.  Pretty simple actually.   I should also mention that the airport has only one paved strip and its only long enough for small planes to land.  While I was there a great looking float plane landed.  The owner came in to clear customs too and then flew out again to head to his own private island in the Exumas, about 75 miles south.  We have visited near his island, Over Yonder Cay.  A pretty wealthy guy I’d say.

Last evening as Brenda and I were sitting up on Pandora’s fore-deck enjoying  an “adult beverage”, a gin and tonic, actually, a small boat with two Bahamas fisherman motored up to sell freshly caught lobsters and conch.   The Bahamas lobsters are very similar to our Maine lobsters, but without the big claws and conch are a really big snail.The fisherman stay out for weeks at a time and live on a somewhat larger boat while fishing during the day.   They catch lobster and chonch buy diving down in the clear water to find their catch on the bottom in the clear water.   They don’t use air tanks, just free dive down to grab their prey.  Believe me when I say that this is hard work.    Pretty tough guys.   We were happy to buy three lobsters and baked them for dinner.  They were delicous.

Having not gotten much sleep the prior night during our crossing, Brenda and I crashed early.  We were plenty tired.

Well, we’re finally here and the weather is terrific.  Our plan today is to visit the BATELCO (Bahamas Telephone) office today and sign up for a Bahamas cell phone to use for the time we are here.   Land lines are not used here and everyone has cell phones.  In many ways, the service here is better than in the US.  We will also get a chip for our i-pad so we can receive and send e-mail.

I had better sign off now as I think I need some coffee to wake up

Oh yea, as I was finishing up this post we had a mild rain squall that lasted all of 10 minutes.  The squall featured a neat little funnel cloud, sort of like a miniature tornado but over water.  They are generally harmless.   The rainbow left behind after the squall lasted longer than the rain. Perhaps we should head over to that island to retrieve our pot of gold.  If you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.

 

It’s Thursday morning and yes, indeed, as planned, we are heading out today for an overnight run to Chub Cay in the Bahamas.  We plan on leaving mid day, after stopping for fuel and water, to cross the Gulf Stream and then on across the Bahama Banks.  Brenda is a bit nervous about being out overnight but the weather is expected to be very mild with hardly any wind at all.  Under power, we will push along over smooth water for nearly 20 hours to get there.

As we don’t want to arrive in Chub in the dark, we can’t really leave until mid day to early afternoon.  At 6-7kts boat speed and the 150 mile distance, we can’t leave too soon lest we get there before daybreak.  However, if we go too fast, we can always slow down as we get closer to ensure a daylight arrival. You really don’t want enter a harbor in the Bahamas in the dark, as there aren’t many markers for channels, you have to be able to “read” the water.

Interestingly, the best way to tell the water depth is to observe the water color with the darker blue meaning deeper water.  This photo gives a good example of what this looks like.  Note the deep blue water where the boats are moored.  That’s pretty deep and the white area, very shallow, perhaps less than two feet deep.   Pandora “draws” just under 6′ so to stray into the white areas would mean a sudden stop.

This morning Brenda and I went for a walk before it got hot.  For those of you in New England, it’s plenty hot here, in the upper 80s I’d guess by mid day.  We took a ride to shore in our dink for a coffee run.

Along the way, in the middle of downtown Ft. Lauderdale, we spied a whole neighborhood of iguanas lounging around waiting for something tasty to present itself.  They look pretty fierce and the biggest ones are up to 4′ long.  It’s a good thing they don’t get bigger than that as I can only imagine what sort of mischief they would get into if they were 100lbs or more.  They do look fierce though and I don’t think that they would take kindly to anyone disturbing their vigil. It seems that the largest ones had the best real estate.  I guess that’s what life is all about.

It looks like he, and it’s definitely a “he”, is behind bars.  Not so.  It’s just that he happens to be on the other side of the fence.  What’s more remarkable is that he spends his time right across the street from a major shopping mall.   Where else in American can you see a Macy’s and Iguanas at the same time? Some of the smaller ones were spending their time up in a tree.  This guy was one of perhaps a dozen hanging out in a single tree over the water.   Looks pretty comfy, doesn’t he?Well, signing off for now.  Next post, Chub Cay.  Wish us luck.

It’s Wednesday evening, dinner’s done and the dishes put away.  So now my thoughts are turning to our crossing to the Bahamas tomorrow on Thursday afternoon.

The original plan was to leave Ft. Lauderdale early on Thursday morning and clear in to the Bahamas at Bimini, a mere 50 miles from Florida.  However, when it comes to weather, it’s up to God to decide and he has determined that the “window” for getting to the Bahamas is going to be short.   This means that instead of a more leisurely run to Bimini, a run of about 50 miles, followed by a second day run to Chub Cay, another 75 miles, we will have to do a run to Chub from Ft. Lauderdale as a single overnight run.  The problem is that the “benign weather we want for the crossing will only last for a short time and if we stop in Bimini along the way, the weather will likely turn against us.

The problem is that the “prevailing” or “normal” winds for this area are from the east and that’s the direction we need to go.  You can’t sail into the wind so that means that we will need to motor all of the way.  That’s not bad except when the wind is blowing hard against us.  And, believe me, we don’t want to motor into strong easterlies. That would make Brenda sad.  And, we don’t want a sad Brenda.  Not good at all.

As Pandora’s normal cruising speed will only allow us to complete a run of about  75 miles in a single day of daylight, we will have to make this run overnight in order to make about double that distance.  Brenda’s not too keen about being under way in the overnight hours, but it makes sense given the weather.  While we are expecting light winds and a motor boat ride, there are supposed to be strong winds filling in from the east (a bad direction) by Friday afternoon.  If we were to stop at Bimini instead of continuing overnight, we would miss the light winds and end up stranded at Bimini for days, perhaps longer while waiting for good conditions to return.  Last winter our friends stopped in Bimini and were stuck there for a full week.  We’d like to avoid that.

As we want to be further along on our trip without a long wait in Bimini, we decided to just go for it and motor overnight.

So, the plan is for us to get fuel and water on Thursday morning here in Ft Lauderdale and head out shortly after noon.  Given a speed of about 7kts, we should be able to complete the run by mid morning on Friday.

I have made a reservation at Chub Cay marina, the only business in Chub Cay, for Friday night so it will be fun to clear customs there.  I understand that customs is located at the airport and that the marina staff will take us there via golf cart to visit the customs officials.  That should be an experience.  So many of the islands in the Bahamas have only a few inhabitants and the only water and electricity available is precious and made on the island itself.  Not like the US where electricity and water is taken for granted. 

Today we finished provisioning Pandora with all the food we could stuff in the fridge.  Our fridge is more like an icebox with a small freezer that will hold about 25lbs of frozen meat.  The fridge is a top opening deal so it’s more like diving for food than in a normal refrigerator at home.   And, don’t forget, that all the electricity for keeping food is made by our solar panels.  In both the fridge and freezer you have to eat your way from top to bottom, very unlike in a home fridge where you can see about everything at once when you open the door.

This is a photo of our solar panels which measure about 8′ by 8′ and produce about 10 times the power of a car battery each day.  That’s not a lot of power by  “home standards” but the equipment is so efficient that this is still a lot of electricity and plenty for our purposes.

This photo was taken on the CT River not far from our “summer home” and clearly shows the solar panels on the top of the “bimini”.  Anyway, wish us luck on our trip.  I hope to post again once we clear in in Chub.

It’s hard to believe that it’s possible to pass through 40 miles of water and have to go through over 20 bridges, and to do all of that in one day.  As Iwrite this it’s Tuesday evening and while it’s not even 9:00, Brenda’s snoozing.  It may seem odd to you but motoring along all day and constantly having to adjust the speed of Pandora to arrive at a given bridge in time for them to open, is very tiring. 

In this part of Florida, the bridges are very close together and all are too low for Pandora with her 65’ tall mast, to get under.   As a result, we have to time our approach to each bridge so that we arrive at the appointed opening time.  Some only open up once per hour, some each half hour and some on the quarter hour.  The problem is that there is barely enough time to get from one to the next in the time alowed.  Pandora’s comfortable cruising speed is about  7 knots, about the equivalent of 7.7 MPH.  This isn’t very fast but typical for a boat such as ours.   This is a picture of one of the better looking bridges.  The bridge operators are plenty friendly but they won’t stray from their appointed schedule by much more than a minute and, if you are even two minutes late, you will have to wait till the next opening which will be at least 30 minutes later.  That doesn’t sound like much but you can loose hours in a day and spend a lot of time circling in the water with the boat while waiting for the next opening.

Happily, we timed most of our bridges pretty well and made it all the way to Ft. Lauderdale where we are now in a day.  40 miles doesn’t sound like much but when you combine that with so many bridges, it’s a long way and plenty of tiring as we had to be “on” every minute.

Enough about the difficulties of bridges.    At least it’s not snowing.  Did I mention that it was in the 80s and sunny?  I probably shouldn’t have.

This is the view that greeted me today when the sun rose.  Pretty nice. As we passed along the waterway, we spied an endless number of magnificent yachts.  I feel pretty good about Pandora but she’s a canoe compared to these babies.   This one is classified as an “expedition yacht” which means that she can go about anywhere in the world.  Some of these yachts even have their own submarines aboard.  We even saw one with a helicopter perched on the back deck.  Hard to believe that one person owns these. 

This beautiful yacht is more for coastal cruising as opposed to ocean crossing.  I also saw this one in Newport RI a few years ago.  She really gets around. This sailboat, Rambler, is quite famous on the ocean racing circuit.  She wins many races  and has competed in some of the world’s most difficult events.  In the “Fastnet” race off of England, a few years ago, she her keel fell off and she turned over in the water instantly. Pretty amazing boat though.  She’s about 100’ long. The keel is a massive lead part under the boat that helps balance the boat and provide resistance to the wind in the sails.  Without it, any sailboat will turn turtle right away.  Pandora weighs about 25,000 pounds and nearly 10,000 pounds of the weight is in the lead keel. Fortunately, when Rambler turned over she didn’t sink and was salvaged so she could race again.  Also, thankfully, none of the crew was hurt.  The odds of a keel falling off are very slim and thankfully, no boat like Pandora has ever lost a keel.

Along the waterway we passed one amazing home after another.  Some tacky and some grand but all really expensive.   I wonder what folks to do earn that much money.  

This is a typical home and we saw plenty.This one was particularly impressive.  Quite modern.This earth mover was toiling away on a little sand island.  I have no idea how they got it out there as it was perched on the mound and yet there was no way to get to shore without going in the water.  I doubt that they float well.  I guess he will have to pile up sand to make his own island all the way to shore.With all the sunshine here in Florida, you’d expect to see solar panels.   We didn’t really see any but did see these wind generators or mills on the top of an apartment tower.  They look pretty wacky but were churning away making electricity.  Pandora doesn’t have a wind generator but she does have large solar panels that supply all of her electrical needs when we are at anchor.   The panels put out enough power each day to run our refrigerator, freezer, computers etc along with enough left over to power our desalination unit which makes fresh water from salt water.  In the Bahamas, fresh water is very precious and if you don’t have your own desalinization equipment you have to purchase water for about $.50 a gallon. That may sound like a lot for water but believe me, it’s a lot cheaper than making your own as the equipment is very expensive.  However, cost aside, having enough fresh water is worth most anything to Brenda who loves here daily shower.  And remember, keeping Brenda happy is job one.  As they say “a happy wife makes for a happy ship”.  Works for me.

We are now anchored in a small harbor in Ft Lauderdale and tomorrow we will head out for some last minute shopping as it looks like we will be able to head over to the Bahamas on Thursday.   The wind will likely be light so it will be a motorboat ride.  That’s fine as Brenda prefers that to more exciting sailing.  We will likely make Bimini our first stop.  Bimini became famous as the winter home of Ernest Hemingway.   I guess they still have plenty of rum there.

Well, I had better wrap this up and get to bed myself as after going through 21 bridges today I am ready for 20 winks and now’s a good time for that.