Cruising Adventures with S/V Temptation

Felt like Moses being denied the Promised Land

2011-07-21T19:12:00.001-04:00

Well maybe I've gone overboard with that statement -- but I felt it briefly today.

We had a nice night on the hook in terrible hot and humid conditions. I ran the Genset and both AC units aboard. I waited till dark to start to not annoy the neighbors too much. I know -- what a guy! It's nice but the noise drowns out everything else and I miss not being able to hear the ambient sounds of the night.

We left Cape Lookout at 7:30am this morning to see how far we could get in the forecast 110 degree heat index today. Damn the air was thick with humidity early this morning.

Anchor came up easily but the crossing to the inlet was rough. That 10 - 15kts from the South-Southwest had created short wind waves that rolled us terribly. Too much on the noise to put out a steadying sail. We just suffered for an hour and 20 minutes. Once in the inlet we had a favorable current all the way in and up Adams Creek.

WE hit Adams Creek number 1 at 12:15pm and thought briefly of going to Oriental for the night. It was hot but manageable so we pushed on. Then a favorable wind came up and we motor sailed through the Ferry crossing and on up to the Green 11 channel. BUT about 2 miles from the channel we heard thunder and saw lightning. The whole river ahead of us was dark with bright streaks of lightning going cloud to water.

I decided to anchor and wait. We headed to shore near Flanners Beach and dropped the hook and waited. Lots of lightning and a little rain -- no wind fortunately. We waited about 20 minutes in heat stifling conditions then after we hadn't seen any lightning awhile we pushed on through the light rain.

Near Hammonds shoal the rain stopped and we headed to the marina with the sound of distant thunder. WE got in and tied up before the next band hit. Paul asked how it was on the river and told us that Melinda's boat -- the marina charter boat was hit by lightning earlier. No one was injured but the boat suffered damage. Damn we were lucky!!

The heat took its toll on us. After turning on the air and taking showers we both had a 30 minute nap..

It's dinner on board tonight and early to bed. Maybe we will take a driving trip the Beaufort tomorrow -- another forecast heat index day of 110 degrees.

Flipped Out

2011-07-20T21:04:00.000-04:00

Another fine day at Cape Lookout.

It was down right hot on the coast at mid nineties but the high here was only 86 degrees -- 84 yesterday.

A nice 10 - 12 kt wind all day.

We made a few trips to the beach but nothing of real interest there -- just a fine feeling of being on the beach and walking barefoot in the surf.

Back on the boat I wanted to scrub the underside of the hull. However I broke one strap on one fin yesterday and my replacement strap does not fit... Grrr it was for my old fins.

I tried to force it to fit and it looked like it would work then would release. Then the strap on the other fin broke. I tried to scrub with no fins but that didn't work -- kept pushing away from the hull. Grrrr..

another incident of not following through with replacements in a timely manner. I knew the straps were cracked but didn't replace them.. Now I miss this great opportunity to scrub the boat in clean water.

The rest of the afternoon was spent reading and relaxing and practicing my knots. When we went to the beach I threw out the grappling anchor and as I walked away I noticed the bowline was coming undone!!! Eeeek.

I knew that knot didn't do well when wet but this ????

I practiced a new knot to me to use next time on that little anchor -- it is called a buntline. Works in wet and slimy conditions.. Just what the doctor ordered,

Well rain and storms on tap for tonight and I promised Karen I would run the AC for her. We powered up the GENSET at 8pm -- so the other boats wouldn't notice the cooling water coming from the boat -- and hopefully will run it all night. Right now it is Coool down below. First time I've had a T-shirt on all day.. I might need covers to sleep in tonight..

Eat your hearts out my cruising friends..

Go Fly a Kite!!

2011-07-19T18:11:00.000-04:00

Ahhh that was the watch word today.

After a nice leisure breakfast and morning of radio and position reporting I went to the beach and walked to the ATLANTIC SIDE -- found 3 very nice sea shells.

BAck on board I got out the scuba gear and dived on the boat. Thank goodness for the lycra rash guard.. I had several of these cabbage size jelly fish bounce off my arms and legs but no sting. I replaced the zinc on the prop and cleaned the strainers. Then one of my flipper straps broke and the replacement didn't fit. I tried to scrub the boat but it was a losing battle fighting the current with only one flipper. I packed it in.

I set up the riding sail and got more amps from the wind generator. It has done a yeoman's job today generating about 10 amps in the 15 kt breeze.

After lunch I got out my new kites and went to the beach. The fixed cellular flew great. I tried the generator rotating one but it would not fly by itself. Back on the boat I got out my original rotating kite with the new ball bearing end piece and it flew great. I attached the holder to the deck railing and just laid back and watched. I reeled it part warty in and tried to attach the generator about 20 feet below it but it did not work and then fouled the line.

Ohh well it has been a great afternoon of sun wind and flying and looking forward to a fine dinner tonight.

The weather has been great and the forecast storms have not appeared. The temps have been 84 degrees here with a report of 95 at New Barn. Ahhh love these temps at Lookout.

I hope to do some serious star gazing from the infamous hanging deck chair -- see spilled coffee report from this morning -- and enjoy the evening.

That tropical Storm Brent is still forecast to miss us by a lot but we can head in tomorrow if need be.. Right now we expect to leave the Cape on Thursday.

Knot Talking

2011-07-19T08:01:00.001-04:00

Let's start with early this morning and go back to yesterday.

I was up early -- before sunrise since I just love to watch the dawn beak at Lookout. I relaxed and took a few pictures. Sitting still is not my strong suit so after I poured the first cup of coffee I thought it would be grand to sit in the swinging chair on the fore deck. I set my coffee cup down near where I was working and felt it was good out of the way spot. I started to hook the chair up and I had to tie a bowline to the rolled up Genoa. AS I was cinching it up that knot said "pull a little more slack into me" I did and dumped my full cup of coffee on the deck. It flowed under the garbage bag and split into several riverlets maximizing the spread. Damn!! I grabbed my bucket and the closest line and tied a bowline on the handle. Hmmm those knots sometimes come out \when wet -- not for just a couple of throes I though. First throw -- full bucket of water thanks from learning how in the movie "Knife in the water". Second and third throw pretty good. Fourth throw not so god then -- the knot came out.. Ohh great my new bucket -- my only bucket!! I grabbed the boat hook and retrieved it with difficulty. Whewww - back to the chair install.

I got the chair up and was relaxing in it when one of the bowlines holding the chair up said "look at me -- no tail I'm coming undone!". I immediately got out and checked the knot -- yep no tail and just about ready to upset. I fixed that and thanked that knot.

Yesterday was a great ride to lookout. We left Cedar Creek at 7:30am and motored down the ICW. We had the current so were doing between 6.4 and 6.8 knots till we hit the Newport River then our speed went to 4.9 to 5.1. This held till the inlet and then picked up to 6.3. The inlet was fairly calm with occasional boat traffic. About 1 mile from Red 10 my turn -- come two derelict barges in side tow with big tugs. One down the red side and one down the green side. Neither is moving to center or the same side. I had to run between them --not cool but preferable to going out of the channel.

The ride over to Lookout was very nice. Just a slight swell running and no real waves. One of the calmest trips across and as usual -- wind on the nose so motored all the way. WE were in and hook down by 12 noon.

A nice afternoon relaxing and puttering around. Karen took a well deserved nap. Ohhh she worked all the way from the New Port river to Lookout on the computer uploading documents for a huge press release from FHI. Good Girl and compliments to the Verizon MiFi -- slow but got it done.

We had a nice chicken dinner and the air temp was comfortable. Slept well in the fine breeze that kept up all night.

The only thing of real note here at Lookout this trip is the multitude of Jelly Fish. They are the "cabbage" variety with no streamers -- still scary looking..

I checked the prop with snorkel and the Maxi Zinc is gone -- I'll install a new one with Scuba -- water is very clear here this time.

Time to check into the waterway net this morning.

ORIN ATTACK!!

2011-07-17T20:32:00.001-04:00

How else can you describe it?!

Karen and I started a one week vacation Friday night. Kourtney and 13 month old Orin joined us on the boat.

What a cute bundle of energy that Orin. HOWEVER -- he tests everything with those small but agile fingers. Looking for weakness.. Immediately he discovered that he could find the pull rings on the floor hatches and start pulling those up.. Wow wires and hoses in there -- let's pull on those. Ohh it went on and on but we didn't really mind -- not until he pulled on a string of accent lights in the V-berth.. Oh well easily fixed.

We had a good time and good eating. Orin had trouble going to sleep the first night but then slept through the guffaws of a game of Farkle Saturday night.

Saturday we went for a dinghy ride and thoroughly enjoyed that. I didn't think Orin was ready to overnight on the hook just yet after that cranky Friday night.

Jill and Wayne were down and we had a nice visit with them.

Saturday night we introduced Kourtney to the game of Farkle and she liked that. Karen was unstoppable though -- she won both games we played.

Kourtney decided to leave Sunday afternoon rather than Monday morning so after she left - we did -- we hot it footed it down to Cedar Creek for the night -- that's 4 hours closer to Lookout.

Nice ride but a difficult anchorage. There were several shrimp boats plying the waters -- in the Intracoastal channel and all over Cedar Creek. WE found some soft mud but easily got off then anchored easily. It's a great night with nice breezes. It also is "crowded" here -- 5 sail boats anchored.. I didn't expect that on a Sunday night. They all looked like they were heading North so should be lots of room at LookOut tomorrow..

Ahhh Lookout... Can't wait.

Happy 4th of July!!

2011-07-03T14:51:00.001-04:00

Ahhh on the boat again.. We started kind of early this year. We were going to come down Friday evening but the traffic news Thursday night was just horrible. Two multi vehicle wrecks on I40 and 85. One killed in first wreck then 3 in the second wreck involving 3 cars, one pickup, and a18 wheeler. The 18-wheeler just plowed into those vehicles killing one person in each vehicle. The pickup looked like a crumpled fender on the 18-wheeler -- truly catastrophic. The traffic was halted for hours.

After dinner we packed and left. WE both worked from the boat on Friday. It was nice but didn't hit the sack until midnight.

Friday I worked till about 2pm and Karen till 4pm. We had Filet Mignon for dinner - on the boat of course.

Jim and Barb came over later and we played non-stop Mexican Train. Great Evening.

Saturday we decided to sail down to a little cove just east of the Ferry Crossing - Jeff and Emily suggested it. I talked Craig into going and then Continuum and Hot Chocolate and Skinny Dippin showed up. We started with appetizers on Temptation then we move the party to Skinny Dippin. WOW - too much to drink. Bob brought some genuine Moonshine -- whew it was smooth and went down like water. I was careful to only take a few sips but couple with the Goombay smash -- I was toast. We stayed till almost midnight!!

The main reason for going there was to watch the fireworks from Oriental. They looked nice but we really needed to be closer.

Today we had a relaxing morning and a huge surprise when I hauled the anchor - it was squeaky clean!! Couldn't believe it - no mud at all..

Smoke from the wildfires west of here has been dogging us all day. The smoke is heavy at times and really stinks. Gosh it's terrible and no rain in the forecast either.

We went back to the Marina. Got the AC on and closed up because of heat and smoke. I did put up my party flags? Look great on this boat.

WE are planning an evening of Farkle tonight.

Ahh the 4th of July - love it.

Back on thr Trike

2011-06-05T12:33:00.001-04:00

I'm Back!!

Got lazy and stopped blogging for awhile. A long while.. but I'm back..

The spring has busy with projects. The biggest was replacing the forward cabin AC unit with a new one. Of course like all Marine equipment -- never a wow but subtle disappointment.

Oh well -- this weekend was supposed to be no work but play.

I had a nice drive down Friday afternoon. Poor Karen has to go to Washington, D.C. for a symposium on Saturday so she did not come.

The evening started with DEEP EMBARRASSMENT!! I had a hankering for a really cold beer while unloading the truck so I stopped at the Creek side Beverage store here at the marina. I looked for the interesting and tasty beer I bought there last time after the WRCC Picnic -- I called it "Hens and Chickens". They looked at me like I had 2 heads.. They said they never heard of it. I said sure you have I bought a six pack a few weeks ago -- the English ale.. Ohh they said -- you mean "Old Speckled Hen" -- damn I felt 2 inches tall... Oooops the burn of embarrassment. Oh well I recovered quickly and bought a six pack of Red Tail from the Mendocino Brewery -- bottled in Saratoga Springs, NY. Oh well it was cold -- and good.

Craig and Dovie were down though. Just visited Friday night and turned the AC off!! YAH Who-- supposed to get down to 58 degrees tonight... It got close and was nice sleeping with both hatches open.

Saturday morning dawned nice and mild. Forecast for light winds so I left the dock around 10am to just go next door to Upper Broad Creek fro the day and night. I was determined to leave the dock. My exit wasn't great but I was out of practice.

Boy was I out of practice!! As I approached the red marker to Broad Creek I thought it was going to be on my port -- no way -- soon I was in 6 feet of water and confused... A quick trip to the chart plotter and ohhhh nooo that mark is supposed to be to starboard -- what was I thinking.

After that no problems till I dropped the hook. A nice breeze and it was going to be a nice afternoon. I called Craig on the DSC and they had decided to join me and were on the way..

After a nice lunch I dumped the dinghy in the water and visited with Bubbles anchored behind me. Craig and I decided to take the dink to explore Black Beards sailing club -- Dovie wanted to stray and play with her wireless internet connection.

The trip over was exhilarating.. BUT when in Blackbeard's the motor would not idle. Then I smelled raw gas.

WE puled over and hung on the stern of Bomba Shack (which has deteriorated a bunch) -- sorry Boney -- and I pulled the dink motor cover while running. Holy crap ola!! Gas was spuming out of a small hole in the base of the carburetor. I shut it down...

An examination showed that the drain screw and vibrated out and luckily was still nearby in the base of the motor. I retrieved it and reinstalled as best I could with a knife blade. Looks like I need a Swiss army knife now.. DAmn it would not start!! What the hell. I was frantic -- couldn't believe it. Finally it fired with full choke. With a high idle speed I put it in gear and we sped back to the boat. When I approached Bubbles it behaved fine.. Nice idle and after stopping started easily. Go figure...

We chatted awhile and then it was over to Temptation to swim and check the prop. Craig offered to come and watch over me -- nice...

The water was great -- 83 degrees. First look at the prop was OH NO!! It was covered in Barnacles and streamers. No wonder my exit from the slip was not pretty. Glad I didn't go far on this prop. She cleaned up after about 6 dives. Either a lot of debris on prop or I'm getting older.

Craig left after that and I took a shower and enjoyed an afternoon of reading Hornblower and the "ATROPOS" and some cold Coronas. AFter dinner of steak and Salad I went to see Bubbles for a night of Games -- Mexican Train.

I was off to a great start -- won the first 2 games but no more after that. I think Craig won 3 and Dovie won one.

While playing the wind piped up out of the SW -- blowing 14 - 17 kts. It was supposed to be light and variable and maybe 10 after midnight. It was bouncy and a dicey ride back to Temptation in the dark -- just a tiny moon and moderate rollers on the nose.

I slept well in the cool breeze but it was bouncy -- Craig and Dovie didn't like it at all..

The forecast today was afternoon showers so should I have been surprised to see storm clouds to the NE at 7am today!??

I quickly packed the dinghy and motor away while my coffee water boiled then a quick breakfast. I was going to check in on the waterway net but they drowning on about boat watches and I lost patience just as the first rain drops hit me -- no wind fortunately.

I pulled the anchor easily and made a short trip back to the marina. It stopped raining when I got there and made a picture perfect landing into my slip -- clean prop really makes the difference. The rest of the morning was spent cleaning and t then about lunch time -- writing this blog..

Boy I'm out of practice but it is coming back -- this took 30 minutes versus my old time of 20 minutes per blog..

I will write more..

I'm back on the Trike now!!

Finally --- a great run on the rivers...

2010-10-09T17:43:00.001-04:00

Today was a great run down the Pamlico. We left early around 7:30am. Conditions were a "mill pond". I was glad to leave BATH.. That place like the Cape Fear just gives me the "creeps".

We made good time on the river - 6.2 - 6.5 kts. It was very nice in a cool light breeze. Actually did a little motor sailing.

Then we hit the ditch. Must be a current running there because we slowed down to 5.5kts. We had a few powerboats pass us but all the sailboats stayed behind us. We were leading the "migration South" through the ditch.

Just as we exited I hailed SKAT - Jim and Barb Thompson.. Wow great contact, then found out they were just a couple of miles ahead of us but "swimming against the flow". They were headed north for a few weeks while the rest of the folks were headed south..

We had a nice chat on the radio and made some big waves at each other as we passed. We will get together in several weeks when they return here for the winter.

Once we turned at the Neuse River Junction to head up the Neuse the wind was on the nose. Had to put the sails away and slog into the wind - speed down to 5.1 kts.

We made South River and had the hook down by 3pm - a long days run.

Conditions in the river are quite nice. At least 4 boats back here at Lukens tonight.

We will have Craig and Dovie over for dinner and games tonight then an early departure tomorrow so we can put the boat away and then face the 3 hour trip home by car.

Gosh hard to believe this mini cruise is nearly over ALREADY!!!

Bath -- Blackbeard's Home

2010-10-08T16:39:00.001-04:00

BATH - Bah Humbug.

I think it was 15 or 16 years ago we anchored here for a day and night and it was not much fun. That and someone tried to steal my dinghy and motor which were hanging off the stern. It was only because of the oppressive heat of that July evening I was sleeping in the cockpit that I thwarted the attempt.

Tuesday when we stopped here it was blowing too hard to take the dinghies into town. We cam early today arriving at noon for just that purpose. After lunch we went to the public dock and low and behold the land end of the dock was blocked by police tape. I motored close and there was a sheriffs deputy there. He said we could land but not leave the dock. A kindly lady told us to back down the stream and dock at her dock.

She said the tape was Crime Scene Tape. There had been the murder of a resident nearby and the sheriff had cordoned off a huge chuck of real estate to conduct their investigation.

Ohhh GREAT!!! We walked to town but unfortunately the cordoned off area was smack in the historic district. We visited the visitors center but everyone was just preoccupied with this murder. No details of how and when but it was a resident paraplegic that they all knew and liked.

We walked around a bit. It was noisy and dusty. I have never seen so many large 8K lawnmowers out dusting the gravel - there was no length of grass to cut.!!

The walked back to the dinghy we passed several nice Towncars and Cadillacs but all were in serious need of a wash. A trip through the marina here was equally dismal. Very poorly maintained docks and what a collection of old dirty boats.

Once again - Bath has proved to be a depressing destination.

The anchorage is fine and the star gazing is great so I'm at least looking forward to this evening. We will be grilling steaks and playing games with the Turners tonight.

Today has been an easy day but tomorrow will be a long day..

In fact we had perfect departure conditions from the dock this morning. Current was on the nose with a gentle breeze pushing us from the docks. We had a beam breeze most of the way and had a very nice ride down and into Bath.

A fine day in Washington

2010-10-08T07:34:00.001-04:00

The finest weather we have see this trip!! Today the 7th was beautiful. It started cool with little wind and warmed right up. We wore everything from long pants and sweaters to shorts today.

I took a couple of long walks this morning on search for a sweet roll and bread. I found the bakery which is at the end of Waters street but they had just made the dough and no finished bread expected till noon. The sweet rolls were simply sugar coatings and not what I really wanted.

I looked for a coffee shop and found one on Market street but they only offered "coffee, liquor, and tobacco - kind of a dismal place actually. What can you expect from a place that has a neon sign that says "give me my coffee and I won't hurt you".

I explored the road by the opening bridge (opens with 24 hour notice) and there was a convenient/store gas station about 23 blocks away -- I waited for the bakery.

Back on the boat to recover from the long walks and do some maintenance. I cleaned the filter on the fresh water pump, added 12 oz of oil to the engine and inspected and tightened the alternator belt. While investigating how to get more travel to tighten the belt further I found 2 more of Ol Al's kluges.. Maybe not Al but previous to my ownership.

The holder for the antifreeze reservoir was loose. I was going to try and tighten the mounting screws and found they were a combination of a too long screw that used an combination of nylon nuts and washers to effectively (not very) shorten the screws so they wouldn't punch through the wall into the cabin. Ohh and the screws were an assortment of head styles too. I can't imagine this was a factory install.

Karen went shopping/exploring with Dovie and Craig while I did this.

After lunch Karen and Dovie went shopping and Craig and I dumped the dinghy in the water and explored the water front. I discovered when turning on a river with current to not turn into the current sweeping my side into the current - got a wet butt a couple of times.

We saw the Railroad Bridge close across the waterway into Washington. We went there to watch it lock up and the train cross. We found that it was not automated but had an operator - a 70 year old retired engineer. He was quite talkative and explained a lot about this 104 year old trestle.

We got some pictures of the waterfront and boats from the river then put the dinghy away.

We then relaxed till 4:30 when Karen presented us all with "Fuzzy Navels" Around 6:15 we left for Pia'S for dinner. This was a much nicer place than the Main Street restaurant we went to last night. I had some Crab soup and the GROUPER - love the grouper.

Then back on the boat for some games.. Unfortunately Craig was greeted to his fresh water pump running dry and his bilge pump running wet - a hose connection had burst while at dinner and he had pumped 50 gallons of fresh water into the bilge.

He was able to effect a simple repair and then we played a couple of games of Farkle -- uhh I was not the LB last night!!

It was the end to a very nice day. Tomorrow we need to begin the trip back.

Warshington!!

2010-10-06T17:25:00.001-04:00

Washington, NC is the first city to be named after General Washington. A very old town it is..

I didn't misspell the title -- that's the way I say it. It's probably a bleed through of my Italian/Swedish accent.

We had a nice run from Bath to Washington this morning. Naturally the wind was on the nose and a LOT more than forecast or given in "conditions from around the area. NOAA said it was 14 kts in Washington. We had 17 with gusts to 20 and 22 with the highest just as we came into dock - NATURALLY!!!

Well we rubbed a few pilings not on the landing but because the dock master insisted I move forward 6 feet. The wind had us pinned to the dock. Was not pretty or me happy.

The Dock teem otherwise was very friendly and accommodating. What we saw of the town this afternoon was very nice. We expect to go out to dinner tonight and plan to stay the day tomorrow.

We canceled our morning walk through Bath this morning and left for Washington instead. We expect to leave here Friday morning and overnight in Bath which will leave a warm comfortable afternoon to explore Bath.

Last night was an early night for all of us.. All that rocking and rolling wore us flat out. You don't realize how much energy the body expends subconsciously as you roll with boat.

I did do some star gazing last night around 8:30pm and then I was up at 3am and went on deck and really saw all my old favorite navigation starts and I was treated to a nice shooting star to boot..

Too much light pollution on the waterfront for tonight but maybe Friday night back in Bath Anchorage.

Time to shave for dinner and maybe - maybe a clean T.

A Welcome Bath

2010-10-05T19:29:00.001-04:00

L O N G DAY!!! Well we finally made some tracks today. The last couple of days we went about 12 miles each - today we went 40+. We left Broad Creek early this morning at 7am, it was a mill pond. Even the Neuse was flat for a mile or two then we had 2 foot waves and 15+kts on the nose. Not too bad but not a cake walk. The ride up the ditch was fine -- lots of snowbirds heading south - mostly trawlers. Then we hit the Pamlico. I thought we would get some wind protection but no it was straight down the river in our face. It was blowing 17 with gust to 20. The waves were not bad but the combination had us slogging along at about 4.7 kts. It was a long 12 miles to Bath Creek.

One memorable moment occurred. Out in the middle of the river with nothing around in 18 feet of water and the chart showing 18 feet suddenly the depth alarm goes off - 6.9', 6.3', 5.2', 3.9' - I throttle back and the depth goes back to 18'. Hit nothing but I was sure we were going to be aground.. Whew!!

We had a confused entry into Bath Creek but didn't bump. Plenty of room to anchor but the first attempt didn't hold. I ran about another 20 feet of chain then it did.

Whew - long day and I'm beat but it is only 3pm!!

It was showers all around, a quickie nap, then we had Craig and Dovie over for extended snacks - no dinner required tonight.

The wind has laid down and the sky is clearing. Should be some good star gazing tonight. I did some last night trying to re-acquaint myself with some navigation stars. Only about half I knew are up around 9pm he rest come out after midnight.. Maybe tonight I'll get for awhile and look for them.

Just 15 miles from Washington, NC but first we will visit Bath in the morning then go to Washington and maybe get a slip for a night or two.

Sleeping will be easy tonight.

Flexibility

2010-10-04T16:52:00.000-04:00

The key to successful cruising is flexibility. I was up early this morning to prepare for a 40+ mile run to Campbell Creek. Unfortunately the weather and forecast had changed overnight. There was a small craft advisory posted until this afternoon, Wind was 20 kts with frequent gusts to 25kts.

Hmm what to do. Ahhh yes - delay the departure.

I spoke with Craig and we decided to move our 8am departure to 9am. Then we moved to 10am. Good thing too. When we did leave the wind was right down Clubfoot and gusting to 22kts. The waves around green 3 were 3 foot and sloppy. We decided to push on to the North side to see if it was better. Heck half way across it was still windy but the motion was comfortable and waves were down to maybe a foot and half. We pressed on.

We were abeam of South River about 12pm. Campbell creek was 25 miles away or a 5pm arrival - Craig suggested we go in to Lower Broad Creek. Great idea. We entered easily, sailed past R4 and dropped the hook and 8 feet of water. It was a mill pond back in there so I waved Craig on and we rafted up. Time for a late lunch now - 1:30pm..

After lunch and a celebratory beer Craig and I launched the dinghy and went over to the River Dunes Marina. A first time for both of us --- Very nice. A great walled entrance channel, very nice floating docks, and all so pretty. Very nice.

We went back out into Broad Creek and zoomed around with that new 9.25 prop. Boy the dinghy is FAST now.

After "inspecting" some docks nearby we were back on the boat around 4:15pm to relax before dinner and GAMES night..

So what we are "late" getting to Washington, NC we are still having a very nice time.

A LAY DAY

2010-10-03T19:33:00.001-04:00

What's a lay day you ask?? It is day where you just essentially lay around doing nothing all day..

Now you ask what is Nothing?? Well today it was up early about 6:30am. Check on the position of the boat, gather the weather info and decide whether to travel on or not..

Weather is looking bad.. Small Craft Advisory beginning at 11am and periods of rain and drizzle throughout the day.. Well you asked for cooler weather and you got it along with the other stuff that goes with cooler weather.

I studied the charts to see if we could still make Manteo.. Yes we can but we will have a late arrival and have to leave early the following day - Naw - don't want to do that. Washington, NC is back on the table.

We had some rain last night and nothing leaked that leaked the last time - that is good. I had a leisurely breakfast then checked into the Waterway Net and Cruizheimers Net. The SSB is working very well since I reprogrammed the antenna tuner for those freqs.

Around 9am I heard from Craig and he reported he had an off night because he was feeling poorly. Slept little but was back to bed now - It is now a LAY DAY for sure.

I read a lot today - more than 100 pages in my latest ol time cruising book by John Calder - Family at Sea.. I became industrious and tore into my binnacle compass. It has plagued me since I bought the boat. A looseness in its installation and I couldn't see how to expose the screws properly. Well I now had the time to study and I did.. Ohh the night light on it is the key to disassembly - who would have thought. I took it all apart and cleaned and polished it surfaces and then reassembled. Looks good but I need to adjust the compensators next time I'm underway in mild conditions. No mysteries here any more.

More reading, a nice lunch, more reading, ran the genset to charge batteries and heat water for showers, then a visit to the Marina to visit Vic again. Craig just rested all day.

Back on board, talked to Craig and was feeling better and ready to continue in the morning. Upped the dinghy and made ready this afternoon - a nice dinner of Tortellini soup and Garlic toast then update this log and read till bed time.

Ohh the small craft advisory never happened today. The wind generator turned over a few times in 2 gusts and that was all the wind for the day - How do they get is SO WRONG so often.

Up early and away to Campbell Creek anchorage for tomorrow night.

It's now time to LAY ABOUT some more to practice before going to bed.

Feels good actually.

Cruising Again-- even if just for a week

2010-10-02T21:10:00.001-04:00

Ohh the mini cruise!!! Not exactly what we want but it is the best we can do for now.

Feels good to be back on the water plotting courses, following the course, evaluating the situation, modifying the plan, seeking safe harbour and finding it.

Ahh all the elements are there. LOVE IT..

Bubbles and we left the Marina near 8am this morning. Destination Campbell Creek anchorage near Hoboken around 4pm today.

We left the marina easily in a slight breeze. Motor sailed down the Neuse easily in 10+ kts. All was well till we passed the Ferry crossing then the wind piped up to near 20 with higher gusts. The water white capped around us. The waves grew to 2 - 3 feet and higher and NATURALLY - on the nose.. We where headed and dropped the sail and motored into it. Our enclosure protected us from the spray but Bubbles was taking it pretty hard. We decided to duck into Clubfoot Creek and then up into Mitchell Creek for protection from the North wind which was much higher than predicted.

The water was high in the anchorage area but the wind was gusting. We thought we could raft up but nixed the idea because of the gusts. We anchored just pass the bend in Mitchells and Bubbles just behind us - gosh only 11am..

I set to fixing a leak on the back stay strap. We had nearly 20 inches of rain here in the last 2 days from TS Nicole. I cleaned it out and recaulked it. One of the lights under the solar panel had filled with water so I drained it, dried it, and recaulked that light.

The deck light was not working so I pulled out the ol ATM Top Climber and had Craig come and back me up and I scaled the mast to the first spreader and wiggled the lamp - yeah it works again!! Unfortunately I'll have plenty of stiff muscles tomorrow from that exercise. The Top Climber is clearly a YOUNG MANS appliance.

Dovie and Karen played Quiddler and Craig and I talked. He was concerned about Bubbles dancing on the anchor so he went over and played with his main until the motion was acceptable. Then I picked him up and we went to Matthews Point and visited with Vic.. Ohh boy he was pumped and will be leaving on his 4th cruise to the Bahamas in 2 weeks. Damn I wish I was going again. Nice visit and we thoroughly enjoyed talking to Vic.

Dovie invited us to a spaghetti dinner on Bubbles tonight and it was very good. Afterwards it was Mexican Train and Farkle to the wee hour of 8:30pm. We were whipped and headed back to Temptation for the night.

Time to catch up on this log and read a little - I'm reading Family at Sea by John Caldwell -- very good.

Well back to the book and then an early bed tonight.

What a Ride..

2009-10-10T07:39:00.000-04:00

Thursday we left Ocracoke around 9am.. Wanted to wait for a favorable current up Big Foot Slough. We got it but also 20 kts on the nose so we plugged along at about 5.1 knots. Would have been very bad if the current was against us.

The ride was not bad until we hit the last 2 marks on Big Foot Slough. Suddenly the waves grew from about 1 - 2 foot to 6 foot or maybe a little better. My speed dropped to about 3 kts... The other 2 sailboats did not slow down -- don't know why. On top of this the Cedar Island Ferry was just arriving to come down the channel!!

I have to give credit to the Ferry Operator. He saw how we were struggling in these waves in the entrance and he waited until we cleared. I hailed him on channel 13 and thanked him. That was a very polite and seaman like maneuver on his part.

Once we cleared the mouth of the channel the waves dropped to 2 -3 foot with a quartering sea so it was rolly. Karen did not like it and we immediately recognized that we had not prepared properly for a rough ride as things started to fall down and around down below.. Caught again!!

Once we poked the Jib out a bit the boat steadied but still rolled a bit. It was uncomfortable until past Royal Shoals. Better approaching Brandt Isle Shoals then smooth the rest of the way to South River.

We made South River by 3pm and had the hook down and stowed by 3:30pm. Then we met Julie and Bob Norman on Quest. They are members of the WRCC. Julie is a weather reporter and Bob is a Fleet Captain. KE4OIM and KE4OIL. We had a nice visit with them and Craig and Dovie.. Ohhh Dovie was feeling better since she had a bit of seasickness on that passage.

Later we had a light supper of canned soup and called it an early night. Ohh but not before the fresh water system went down.

The pump came on but pumped nothing. The tank still had 50 gallons of water but I switched over to the full 80 gallon tank and still no output from the pump. I troubleshot and found that the pickup valve was clogged with that crusty while debris from inside the tanks -- I think it is aluminum Carbonate from chlorinated water in aluminum tanks. Must have broken up during the rough passage. I blew through the line and freed it and then sucked on the line and got a mouth full of the stuff. Tasteless but not pleasant. I reconnected but it still was not right. The pump ran fast and long and would shut off but obviously not working the way it should.

I saved further investigation for tomorrow.

First night of this trip where no one wanted to play games!! All that boat motion wears a body down..

Another fine day in Ocracoke

2009-10-08T07:10:00.001-04:00

Boy it did get windy last night... Glad I was at the dock. The strongest winds occurred between 6am and 9am.

We had a nice easy day. Wandered around the lake looked at the rough water in the sound, checked out the new "digs" of the welcome center here -- very nice but leaves another abandoned building (the old welcome center). Watched the ferries come and go and watched the tourists shoot their pictures and wander around.

LAte morning we went to the Preservation Society Museum with Craig and Dovie and had a nice time looking over the exhibits. Naturally Craig and I were taken with the photos of the "Beach Jumper" Navy photos -- all that cool old electronic equipment and the discussion of the psychological war fare they presented. All practiced here because of the relative isolation -- not anymore!!

After lunch -- and a stolen nap -- we went to the lighthouse and took a few pictures. Way cool because now they allow you to enter the lighthouse and look up the circular staircase.

LAte afternoon Craig and I had a nice visit with Mark from Liahona -- a 60 foot motor sailor.

HAd a light dinner then ended the day with some games of Farkle and Mexican Train Dominoes which I must admit -- I DOMINATED!! Didn't win all the games but most. I'm sure I'm cursed to never win again after writing this.

The day ended with light winds. Fitting... Forecast was 15 - 20 all day and night and 40% chance of rain and storms.

Saw no rain or storm and the winds laid down by evening.

I feel like Charley Brown kicking the football with Lucy holding when I listen to the NWS weather forecasts.

It's a Small Cruising World

2009-10-07T06:47:00.002-04:00

Time got away from me yesterday -- no excuse just too busy doing little.

The forecast looked ominous for Wednesday with strong winds and Silver Lake has a reputation for poor holding so we moved into one of the PArks slip. Not too bad. An easy landing, not crowded and only $1.25 a foot with $3 a day for electricity. We will stay 2 days.

Just puttered around the boat and went for some short walks around the lake since the skies looked like rain and the forecast was for 60% chance -- none came during the daylight hours but it stayed cloudy all day.

Craig came over a visited awhile and then about 3pm a large cruising ketch came in and anchored -- hey it was LIAHONA with Mark and Willie aboard. We crossed paths with them many times in the Abacos this last winter. In fact it was the first cruising boat I saw when Rachel, Diva, and I crossed into the Bahamas on December 21. Liahona had just cleared customs that day at Spanish CAy and passed us on our way to GTC.

Small world. I talked to them briefly and gave them the 30 second verbal tour of Silver Lake with a promise to meet up soon for a longer visit. They are on their way South after going all the way to Newfoundland this summer. Now that is a VERY long trip.

Karen fixed a couple of Fococcis for dinn er and Craig and Dovie came over and enjoyed it with us.

We then spent the rest of the evening playing Farkle. Oh I won 3 of the 4 games -- I was lucky!! And I didn't even keep score!!

I adjusted lines just before going to bed.. It was dead calm and the sky was clear!! We should have traveled today. The weatherman missed again.

This morning started with a "What the ...."

2009-10-05T15:37:00.000-04:00

Boy the ol weatherman is definitely asleep at the stick... AGAIN!!

Last night the wind was only supposed to be 5 -10kts. Back on the boat at 9:30pm it was blowing 17kts and gusting. Today was supposed to be a nice day with rain creeping back in tomorrow.. NAW!!! THE DAY STARTED WITH LIGHT RAIN. A look at the weather radar showed the lower half of the entire state in light rain this morning. Now how did they miss that??

Ohh well, we just made the best of it. Off and on again showers just let us poke out occasionally during the day. We did make one "foraging" trip to town and bought some fresh shrimp -- tonight's appetizer with sun downers. Ohh I was looking for some local Ocracoke color or natives. The ubiquitous community store is now staffed by Mexican immigrants rather than the previous older lady natives. What a disappointment and no local food available.

We went out to eat last night but the first restaurant we stopped at Dajio did not wait on us. We waited 5 minutes then left. Then it was obvious why they were not hustling -- only show (food service) besides the Jolly Rogers which was closed last night. We walked down the highway and came to a Pseudo sports bar and everyone but me ordered burgers. I had the fried oysters which did not digest very well.

Hopefully tonight we will find something better.

On the plus side -- Ocracoke is really laid back during the off season. The pace is much -- much slower than it is in the summer. Maybe the rain, maybe the clouds, but it is restful.

Good day to do some reading. I'm re-reading a first edition copy of Out Island Doctor -- Evans Cottman signed by the author. I found it online at a book seller in Great Britain -- not too expensive < than $30.

Temptation is riding pretty here in the harbour but the internet connection is very slow -- too slow to post pictures. They will come later so stop back.

Anchored in Silver Lake

2009-10-04T16:21:00.000-04:00

NICE DAY... Wasn't perfect but very nice.

We had a comfortable night on the hook in South River and got away on time this morning from South River to Ocracoke. The only complaint was the anchor mud. I have never seen it so thick and tenacious as it was this morning. It took 20 minutes to get the hook up and still I had a muddy mess.

I was trying to activate the route I had built for this leg and inadvertently deleted it!! Damn... Fat fingers!! Next time I'll put the routes in TWICE..

It is difficult to load routes into the Garmin. Requires changing the interface to Garmin/Garmin and then have to reboot the PC to get NMEA back.

I just wrote down the waypoints I had used in my first trip to Ocracoke in 19996 and used those. They still good -- got here!! I use EASY GPS to manage the waypoints and it works great..

It was a fast motor sail averaging 6.3 knots. Got stuck with the ferry coming in Big Foot Slew and he pushed me to the edge ... Then just as we were to enter Silver Lake here comes the Swan Quarter Ferry out!! I turned tail and waited on him.

The anchorage was nearly empty.; Two small boats on anchor and no one on them. We anchored. Bubbles took a slip at the PArk Service docks -- they were nearly empty too.

Tonight it is showers aboard and off to find a Restaurant meal. Then a night of Mexican train on Bubbles.

We played Farkle last night and that was fun but we quit early since Craig and I were very tired. He scuba dived on Bubbles and I snorkeled dived on Temptation. Temptation didn't need much -- pretty clean.

I did stay up for awhile to enjoy the nearly full moon last night in South River. It was glorious -- clear and cool but still an annoying mosquito or two.

Tonight hopefully it will be clear here in Silver Lake for the REAL Full Moon night.

Time to shave and head for dinner!!

Ahhhh on the water again!!

2009-10-03T16:12:00.000-04:00

We are BACK!!!! just for a week but we are still back..

Bubbles (Craig and Dovie) are accompanying us on a weeks cruise to Ocracoke and Washington, NC through Pamlico Sound and up the Pamlico River.

We started today. Left early just to get away from the dock and hundreds of dead fish floating in the Marina. There has been a huge fish kill going on for 3 weeks now and most are finding there way into the marina. It is very sad and odiferous!!.

They say it is low oxygen in the water but why does it continue!!

We had a nice motor to South River today. Very light winds -- not enough to fill a sail. We left at 9:30 and were in by 2:30pm. Played with all the toys... I was running a route uploaded to the GPS from the Coastal explorer software, had the monitor in the cockpit, played with the Gyro Mouse, and checked in with the Waterway Net once I remembered to tune my antenna. Used 2 meters all the way across the river to criticize what we saw. Great private line.

Craig and I both took time to dive on our boat bottoms to check them out. Temptation was looking great. Just light slime and no barnacles on the prop.

The weather forecast was for some rain and thunderstorms today but it seems they all passed early this morning before we left. It has been nice yet "too" warm day on the river -- low 80s. Should cool off nicely tonight with lows in the 50s.

Tomorrow we will make Ocracoke and should send some pictures from there. Looking forward to a nice moon lit night -- Full Moon is tomorrow!!

Gosh it's great to be back on the juice -- Neuse juice that is.

All good things must end --- DARN IT!!

2009-04-30T18:01:00.000-04:00

Darn – all good things must come to an end and this is the end of our 2008/2009 Bahamas cruise. Gosh seems rather abrupt now. We made it in at 2pm today to Slip 34 in SailCraft Marina in Oriental, NC.

On the bright side we had a great welcome from a familiar face – Gaylen from our former marina – Matthews point.. He was cruising the canal in his fishing boat and spotted us. Gosh it’s great to arrive with a familiar face. When I returned from my 2005/2006 cruise it was Bill Brinson that greeted me at the dock at Matthews Point.,

We had a pretty nice night at Cape Lookout until the wind piped up to 20 kts for awhile out of the NE – was not forecast of course!!. That is the only bad direction out there. Fortunately it didn’t last more than an hour and we had a quiet night. This morning I was so happy I chose to go in there after that long day yesterday rather than crowd into anchorage and then had to deal with all that wind last night.

We had a nice cruise of 33 miles from Cape Lookout to Oriental and sailed the last 2 miles in 5kts of wind. Wasn’t much but certainly welcomed when entering a new slip for the first time – darn the water levels seem low in here. I hope this is not the norm otherwise it seems a very nice protected marina.

We pushed hard these last several days and made a lot of miles to get home but now the feeling is bittersweet.

I had been getting tired of the long days, the questionable anchorages, the fluky weather, the shallow spots in the ICW, the bridge openings, etc. I really just want to tie up to a safe dock for awhile and just veg out. Now that I have enjoyed 4 hours of that – veg out NO --. I’m not sure this is what I really wanted. Hopefully the really crappy weather forecast for the coast this weekend will make me happy to be at the dock.

We plan to just clean boat for a few days and our Son Andy will come down Saturday to retrieve us and take us home on Sunday.

Until then we will explore – by foot and bike – our new second home here in Oriental, NC.

I’ll post one more blog in a week or two to summarize and extol the cruise. Maybe add a few pictures like Miss Kalik of MAY!!

GUESS where we are tonight???

2009-04-29T18:54:00.001-04:00

Guess where we are tonight?? You betcha – Cape Lookout Bight. The finest anchorage I have experienced anywhere. Nothing but good memories here.. I’ve erased all the bad ones!!

It is only fitting that we make this our last anchorage of the cruise barring something unforeseen tomorrow. That and we heard Beaufort was full of anchored cruisers – the TWOMORROWS – and the current would have been against us after this record 71 nm day!!

It was a GREAT day on the ocean. Just as soon as we left Masonboro Inlet I raised sail and we were doing 6.1 – 6.5 all day!! Unheard of. There was maybe a 2 foot swell and light wind chop. The wind hovered around 10 kts SW all day. Just perfect. N o sea breeze filled in so it was comfortable the whole day.. For the most part we were alone out there too.

We made Cape Lookout and there were only 3 boats already anchored. We took a gravy spot near the entrance and the light house. It is going to be a fine evening in the light of the light house and the glow of a great sailing day.

Tomorrow we will leave in the morning on a rising tide to speed us up Adams Creek to Oriental and our new home slip at Sailcraft Marina. We will be with our good friends the Jim and Barb Thompson who are in final preparations for their great cruise.

Much more later. I’m whipped tonight.

Welcome back to North Carolina!!!

2009-04-28T21:38:00.000-04:00

Yep we are almost home -- Anchored in Wrightsville Beach, NC tonight. It was a fairly long day but we really made tracks and had favorable current most of the way. Why?? I don’t know.. I haven’t been able to figure it out.

I expected to fight my way up the Cape Fear River on a falling tide and never saw anything less than 5.5 kts. I expected to be down to 3.3 kts through Snows Cut and held 8.5 kts!!

We expected to make the anchorage at Wrightsville about 6pm and actually had the hook down by 4pm.. Well welcome to NC!! I’ll take it!!

Our passage through the troublesome inlets of Shallotte and Lockwood Folly were both done near high tide and we had no problems. What a day…

Shortly after arriving we made a bee line to Robert’s Grocery for a little comfort food and ICE. Then back to the boat for dinner and later we played the Euchre game for the championship of the world between Ian, Sharon, Karen, and myself. Unfortunately we split 2 out of 3 games and we decided it was too late to continue since we will all leave early tomorrow so the final game still needs to be played. Ohhh when will it be??
\
We split up here. The Canadian contingent will continue up the ICW and we hope to go offshore tomorrow for Beaufort.

Won’t be long now – then again I may chicken out tomorrow morning and we will head up the ICW with them

Now an EASY day -- sort of

2009-04-27T16:04:00.001-04:00

Boy last night was not too bad. Once the wind died the boats just hung on the anchors and everyone had plenty of room.

After dinner we all congregated on Celtic Cross for a drink and some talk and called it a night by 9pm. It was a long day and everyone was whipped.

Today we got an early start – 6:45am and headed into the Waccamaw River and were immediately greeted with an adverse current 4.4 – 4.7 kts. This stayed with us all the way till we nearly hit the Little River Swing bridge and then we had a great current for the last 7 miles!!

We finally reached the Calabash Creek at R2 around 2pm. It was nearly low tide and quite shallow to enter – 6 feet!! We found a little more water inside and I anchored in 8 feet with the tide level expected to drop another foot. Celtic Cross made it in just fine but poor Waterparke grounded at the entrance. We went over to assist him but Boat US just happened to show up and offered assistance. He got him off with great difficulty and then escorted him to the anchorage and helped him anchor NEAR ME!! Ohhh shades of last night. This is a bit squirrelly here too where you go forward on the anchor but hopefully the current is not as bad as it was in Cow House Creek.

Sweet Chariot much to their credit decided to hand at a nearby marina. They draw 6 feet and could not enter here anyway at low tide and cannot leave until the tide comes up in the morning.

Celtic Cross invited everyone over for dinner tonight so I need to end this and clean up.. Boy it’s nice to have not such a long day today.

Tomorrow will be a long day and we hope to anchor at Wrightsville beach tomorrow night -- getting close to home now!!

The Longest Day

2009-04-27T05:47:00.002-04:00

OOO Wee it was a L O N G day. A new record for number of miles traveled in one daylight day – 68 miles.

We were underway by 6:40am. The tide was just 2 hours off of low and rising. We needed the tide to get through the possible trouble areas. The near areas were easy but the Minim Creek was going to be dicey since we would be there on the low side of high tide. Fortunately we had a favorable current all the way through Minim Creek and made it an hour early or half tide. No problem other than anxiety.

Then as we reached Winyah Bay the favorable current left and a strong adverse current was felt. Speed over ground dropped to 4.4 to 4.7 kts and stayed that way all afternoon. Motor sailing I could increase the speed to 4.9 – 5.0kts. It was a long afternoon.

We reached Cow House Creek across from the Wacca Wache Marina a little after 5pm and had the hook down by 5:30pm. Celtic Cross and Waterparke were already there. I anchored between them with no problem and just sat down to relax when we moved forward into the current over the anchor. Ohhh shades of Beaufort, SC again. What the heck!! I had a current coming into the creek and a mild wind behind but the boat moved into the current and very close to Waterparke. Then Sweet Chariot came in and ran aground on a falling tide??

I set my freshly opened beer down and launched the dinghy and mounted the outboard. I went over to assist Ian and Sweet Chariot to get off. It was tough and all we could do was pull up the anchor and move it to deeper water so they could get off once the tide rose. Then it was time to decide what to do about my closeness to Waterparke.

It looked very close but with the wind forecast to die I decided to leave it alone and Waterparke agreed too. It was not going to be a comfortable night and it had been such a LONG day already.

After a hasty dinner since I had a motor on a dinghy in the water I went around to Waterparke and Sweet Chariot and ferried crews to Celtic Cross for a little get together.

We all agreed that this might be an anchorage for one or two boats but not four. That and the proximity to the marina on a Weekend day was bad because of all the buzzing boat traffic from small outboards.

Sleep was welcome this night.

Better to anchor with a "hook" rather than the keel!!

2009-04-25T20:25:00.000-04:00

As you can tell from the title – not a good day. Yep it finally happened. Ran the boat HARD aground!! Ohhh the waiting is no fun..

The day started nice enough weatherwise but the crazy fisherman where moving in their articulated power boats around 4:30am and rocking and rolling the boats at the dock. After a long hot water wasteful shower we left towards Georgetown.. We delayed leaving to catch the falling tide. It was perfect for going offshore which I wanted to do but could convince no others so relegated to the ICW. We figured – actually I did – that giving the strong tide we would have half a fine ride then a slow ride to the Ben Sawyer bridge which opens only on the hour weekends and holidays. We targeted for the 11am opening and left at 9:15 am to go 7.2 miles. Well we got to the bridge 50 minutes before the next opening!! Had we left 15 minutes early we would have made the 10am. The boats I was gravelling with would not let it die!!

Several other boats joined the wait then at 11am it opened and we were last ones through. I was feeling feisty so I ran the engine into TURBO range of 2700 RPMs and motor sailed and passed boats. I was doing fine and had an unexpected favorable current till we hit Dewees Island – there is an inlet there and it dropped our progress to under 5kts. We plodded along with 5 boats behind me and 2 in front and I was down to normal cruise RPM of 2400. Everything went fine till we approached marker G103. Ohh did I say we were 2 hours from low tide?? Well suddenly the boats in front jogged to the red side. I checked the Skipper Bob updates and they said to favor the red through here so I moved over too rather aggressively – don’t do that. Suddenly the low water alarm went off. Only 6 feet. I figured I was still too close to the green and drove hard to red. No fast stop here – just slowed down and all forward motion stopped. I checked the marks closer – Damn – I was out of the channel on the RED side!! The current was fast and the water level dropping quickly. I tried to motor off and no avail. I dropped the dinghy and kedged out the main anchor but the chain proved too unwieldy. I grabbed the smaller delta and took it into the channel and dropped it but could not kedge off. Grrrr.
I then checked the tide tables and saw I was 2 hours from low tide and the low tide would be .5 feet lower than average… Aaaach!! Remember when I did well at low tide areas the tide was 1.6 feet above low average. Well I was hard aground now. The boat listed a little but the water level would only go down another .5 feet.

I thought – what the hell – call Boat US towing. You have bought the insurance for 16 years and never used it. I called – they said 45 minutes. Well 90 minutes later they show up but now my rudder is in the mud. I tell him I don’t want to be pulled off with the rudder in the mud. He said no problem he had 2 others to service and would be back. Oh this occurred at 12:05pm. N Well at 4 pm he returns and now the water is up 1.5 feet and I’m nearly floating but I have 3 anchors in the water. Another 2 hours and IO can pull myself off but then will have to gather all those anchors up. I let him pull me off and gather my anchors. It took maybe 20 minutes but went smoothly – only because I waited 4 hours!!

It was now 4:30pm and we were whipped. WE just went 2.5 miles to Whiteside Creek and anchored for the night. I had a whole lot of anchor mud to clean up and anchors to store.

Wow a full 8 hour day and only traveled 16 miles!!

Tomorrow we leave at 6:45am so we will have a rising to high tide for all the upcoming shallow spots.

Man I really wanted to go offshore today. Had we – we would have been in the Cape Fear River near Southport, NC rather than 16 miles north of Charleston..

Ohhh big news today.. I was hailed by Born to Cruise – they ahhh heard me call Boat US for the tow. They were coming in from running offshore from Allen Pennsicola in the Abacos to Charleston non-stop. They left Thursday and had a great mild crossing all the way – the lucky dogs!! They still may beat us back to the Oriental, NC area yet!!

Just a working on the dock

2009-04-22T17:01:00.004-04:00

It’s a nice day at the dock but way too much boat traffic past the Mega-dock. It is quite rough on the outside because of it. Must be fishing season because these darn boats start moving just after 4am!~!

Karen went to town with Ian and Sharon to wander around and I remained to clean the boat. I had a pretty good morning. I got the top sides washed, the Lighthouse Windlass polished, and the bow pulpit polished. I was able to clean and restore the Lucite windows on the sides and aft cabin of the boat. I was also able to clean and polish the full enclosure.

A little excitement this afternoon – a boat MAYDAY!! Boy hearing a MAYDAY really grabs your attention.

A large 56 foot trawler had just left the marina here and was just south of the Coast Guard station when they called a MAYDAY – Engine room fire!! He investigated further and reported the engine room full of smoke but no flames, said he would try to get back to marina then immediately reported loss of second engine!! He was towed in.

I wonder if anyone worked on the boat while it was here?? Could be very bad for someone other than the owner – eh?? Oops the Canadian influence showing.

I visited with a few other boaters in the afternoon and discussed going offshore from here but Karen still does not want to be on the ocean overnight. Thus back on the ICW./

The wild fire near Barefoot Landing has closed the ICW from mile marker 347 – 366 but is expected to reopen soon. We should be there in about 3 days. I guess worse case will have us going offshore at Georgetown if necessary.

We went out to dinner to Hymans Seafood in downtown Charleston. It was good but a long wait since we were a group of 10. We took the marina van there but had to call a taxi to return. The fare was only $4.75 for us.

It was a late night but because of the tidal current we don’t expect top leave the marina until around 10am. I hope I can sleep in in the morning.

Just a working on the dock

2009-04-22T17:01:00.003-04:00

It only gets better

2009-04-22T17:01:00.002-04:00

Sorry no blog yesterday – too busy.

We had a great cruise from Tom Point Creek to Charleston, SC where we tied up to the MEGA-dock and Charleston City Marina. For ONCE we had the current and tides with us. Transiented a couple of problem areas at low tide but since it was near high – no trouble seen. Then with the current with us we averaged better than 6.5 knots and actually hit 8.2 through Elliott’s cut.. We were all smiling ear to ear. Especially Graeme on Sweet Chariot – in the fall he went through there – about 2 miles long – and he fought the current and it took 1.5 hours!! This time it took only 10 minutes.

WE had an easy dockage and were secure by 11am. Then it was time for fuel and water, then lunch, setup the backs. Took care of some personal business then a van trip to Harris Teeter.

Back on the boat Karen discovered her purse missing!! Ohh how quickly a fine day can turn BAD. I raced to the office and the purse was not there, they checked the van and it wasn’t there!! Then we checked the communication office and we found it. Ohhh the sun came out then and it was a nice day except with the sea breeze coming in, boat traffic off the beam of the boat and strong current coming aft it was very bouncy on the boat. We dealt with it the best we could. We took showers and went out to dinner with the Canadian Armada -- the local marine restaurant.

When we returned the wind had died, boat traffic was minimal, the current switched and it was quite nice on the boat for the rest of the evening.

We expect to stay today – Friday then leave Saturday. This could be problematic since there is a large wildfire near Bare Foot Landing in myrtle Beach that has shut down the swing bridge there and essentially stopped traffic on the ICW.

The weather looks great for going offshore but can I talk Karen into spending a night at sea??

Enjoy the pics from Tom Point Creek.

Nightmare in Beaufort, SC!!

2009-04-22T17:01:00.001-04:00

Ohhhh what a night. I hinted it might be uncomfortable – well it was a NIGHTMARE!! I went to bed around 9pm, then around 10:30pm I was awakened by a strong wind gust. I went topsides to check boat positions – I have never seen such a picture. All the boats were in motion. Some moving forward, some back, some upstream, and some down stream and constantly moving. I had no point of reference. I checked my anchor and I was fully forward of it!! The anchor rode was streaming to the rear of the boat. The wind was gusting to 30 – 40 knots and then it started to rain. The closest boat was at first a couple of hundred feet away and then suddenly just 25 feet away. He was swinging in a very large circle coming close to several boats. At one point he hailed me and I asked how much chain he had out – he said 2 anchors!! Ohhh boy he was definitely going to lay differently than the other boats. Then I heard him running his windlass and motor and changing all kinds of anchoring parameters – this was not good. I was going to have to stay in the cockpit and fend him off till the wind settled – ohh did I say “this was NOT forecast!!!”

Well others yelled at him and he was able to pull both anchors up. He tried once to re-anchor then moved to the fuel dock of the marina. I was thinking of that too just to get out of the way but I needed more than this to pull an anchor and move in the dead of night with so much wind.

Unbelievably it was like someone turned a switch. He tied to the dock and the wind laid down to an acceptable level. I went to bed 20 minutes once seeing no other boats were close to me and VOWing never to anchor in Beaufort, SC again!!

Boy this was just the final coating to a rather anxious day anyway. All that shallow water to negotiate – it was bad.

Today started out pretty nice except we could no leave Beaufort until 9am. The Ladies Island Swing bridge is on a restricted schedule in the morning. Once through we had an adverse current – under 5 kts – until we reached the Coosaw River then we FLEW – Current and strong current had us going 7+ and at times 8 kts!!.. It was great but only for about 10 miles then we had to fight the current again. The Ashpoo cut was horrible. Going through low tide we had 6+ feet is spots where it should have been 10. Then all along to the North Edisto River we had shallow water of 8 feet or so. Then again low tide was 1:30pm today so we had 4 hours either side to navigate these terrible waters. Just the luck of the draw!!

We are anchored just 26 miles from Charleston tonight so we should be in before noon tomorrow and NOT have to fight any lousy shallow water.

Damn we need a break. Looking forward to a few lay days.

Every day for the last several the NOAA forecast for tomorrow is 5 – 10 kts then it blows 15 – 20 with higher gusts!! As a taxpayer – I need a refund!!!

Fields Cut -- BAH HUMBUG!!

2009-04-21T17:47:00.002-04:00

We had a nice evening in Herb River last nut. One big thunderstorm hit around 5pm and was all rain and a little flash and boom but no big wind. Another at 11pm and still not too bad. Definitely better than expected but we will take it!!

Graeme and Laura from Sweet Chariot came over just before the rain for GNTs and stuff and we had a nice visit in our full enclosure watching the storm unfold. Great protection in that Herb River.

Finally in South Carolina -- good riddance Georgia! I hate the waterway through Georgia except for maybe Cumberland Island.

It was a good passage today except for being on Pins and Needles through Fields Cut which is actually in SC but on the border – just North of the Savannah River. It was tense but we transited at 2 hours after high tide and had plenty of water. Later we heard there were 2 sailboats aground there at 2 hours before low tide!! What a bummer.. Remember I said there were 3 aground yesterday at low tide!!

We had adverse current most of the way but a favorable one and light winds to cross Port Royal Sound and slide pass Paris Island.

We anchored on the Beaufort water front in deep water. Usually not too bad but it was crowded and I short scoped it at 100 feet of chain for 22 feet of water. Then – the weather forecast was wrong and instead of 5 –10 SW – W today it has built to 15 – 20 SE late this afternoon and probably tonight. That will be uncomfortable in all this current and deep water. Ohhh well – we will be moving along in the morning.

Shortly after arrival at 2:45pm we launched the dinghy and went to tow to walk a bit. Haven’t been off the boat in a couple of days!! Felt good and almost didn’t buy anything except Karen found a book she just had to have.

Hopefully a quiet night but if this wind doesn’t die down – won’t be. Looking forward to a couple of days in Charleston – tied to the dock. Hope to get there Thursday morning and stay till Saturday morning.

An interesting observation this morning. While waiting for the 8am Causton Bluff bridge opening several sail boats congregated behind us. As the opening approached – 2 a hunter 44 and a Benneteau 47 passed in front of us and went through first – very discourteous. Well they had a lot of power and stayed ahead of us. In fact as the day wore on they disappeared from sight. I’m thinking – “boy they really want to travel a great distance today” -- NOT – as we pulled into the Beaufort Anchorage there they were sipping their drinks at 2:30pm.. We would have pushed on with a favorable current but there is no good anchorage for the next 18 miles and we had already down 45 for the day.

Cruisers as a group are a laid back set but when it comes to making anchorages and doing laundry – they are an especially aggressive crowd.
.

Lucky -- I guess -- beat the forecast weather

2009-04-20T16:07:00.001-04:00

Not a bad day. The weather forecast was the usual gloom and doom that did not come true. Such a pain to make plans based on these forecasts and then find that we could have done something differently. Like last night – 50% of Thunderstorms. I shortened a trip and went to a different anchorage than I wanted to and – no storms – no rain. Same forecast today with the addition of 15 – 25 kt winds and gust to 30. Hasn’t happened yet and it is almost 4pm and the sky is partly cloudy and no storm clouds in sight. I suspect bad weather is on the way but will be later than forecast.

Today we passed through the infamous Hells Gate channel and it was bad. We passed at mid tide – falling of course – and found 6.1 feet at G87. Ohh well we made it. We had a nice push to Hells gate from the falling tide and hit 8 kts for awhile but paid for it up the Vernon River at 5.2 kts but were able to motor sail or it would have been worst.

Ohhh well. We had a nice run from Kilkenny Creek to the Herb River this morning and were in just before noon. I felt safe and secure here in case of strong winds and thunderstorms ass forecast for today.

I put the easy day to use and changed the oil in the main engine – which is a 1.5 hour job including cleanup, and pulled the transducer for the knot meter and cleaned it – it hasn’t worked for a few days. Not critical because the GPS gives true Speed Over Ground reading but I like the gauge to work.

Other than that just some gentle cleaning and waiting for the big bad thunderstorms to arrive. No don’t think I’m making fun of the storms because I have a great respect for them – like 120 feet of chain rode down right now!!

Most of the Canadian contingent pushed on but Sweet Chariot came in here and they will be over in a little while for sundowners.

If the forecast holds then we will be across Port Royal Sound and Calibogue sound tomorrow and spend the night in Beaufort, SC. Actually we are just about 8 miles from the SC border but have to negotiate another terrible patch of water – Fields Cut just north of the Savannah River. Today near low tide we heard 3 sailboats were aground there. We hope to pass through tomorrow at 1 hour after high tide and should have no problem . Boy I will be glad to get this part of the ICW behind us.

LOTS OF SOUNDS!!

2009-04-19T19:29:00.001-04:00

Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it. That is how I felt today. We had four lay days due to weather last week and I really wanted to do some traveling but 10 hour days - is for the birds.

Wow - what a L O N G day. Mileage wise it was very respectable at 58 miles but no record. Unfortunately we had an adverse current for more than 4 hours at the start that really held us back. Mostly less than 5 kts for 4 hours!! Now we had some 7+ later in the day for an average of 5.8kts but still a very long day - 10 hrs for 58 miles.

On the plus side we traversed several Sounds - ocean frontage - the St. Simons, Buttermilk, Alatamaha, Doboy, Sapelo, and St Catherines. That is a LOT of sounds in one day. You must remember that when you traverse a sound the tides are with you part of the way than against you part of the way.

The other really bad part today is we had to traverse a couple of the worse sections of Georgia waterway at LOW tide. Namely the Buttermilk, Altamaha, and Mud River. We only bounced once on the bottom and that was at R209 on Altamaha Sound. We traversed the mud River at near low tide and had 6 - 7 feet most of the way - very slowly. My plan was if we hit bottom - drop anchor - wait 1 hour then go on.

Our Canadian friends were 20 miles ahead of us this morning but are now only 6 miles ahead. They anchored in the narrow RedBird Creek where with the threat of thunderstorms I opted for the wider Kilkenny Creek.

We all have to traverse the infamous Hells Gate tomorrow. They are an hour closer but I should be there 2 hours before low tide - not ideal but should manage it.

The forecast6 is for strong thunderstorms tomorrow afternoon from an approaching cold front and I hope to be into Herb Creek near Thunderbolt GA by 1pm. Hopefully before they start and well protected. Unfortunately the Canadian contingent want to head further on - but I am the captain of this boat.

Time for a late dinner and an early bedtime - we need to leave at first light tomorrow to make Hells Gate as early as possible.

It's Charleston or BUST by the weekend!!@

Patience is Rewarded!!

2009-04-18T16:08:00.000-04:00

Ahhh on the move again. I have learned to be patient while cruising. You cannot always do what you want to do when you want to do it. It just comes with the lifestyle. But – REALLY – 4 days in one week waiting on weather has been hard to take. I could really feel it yesterday when I wanted to get going but couldn’t.

Ahhh but patience is rewarded. Today we awoke to a “mill pond” – flat calm. Once on the river there was maybe 5 kts of wind and just a nice ripple. St Andrews Sound had about a 2 foot easy swell and a little ripple. It was nice – very nice. BUT there is always a snake in paradise that was Jekyll Creek today. The sailing directions indicate only 3.5 feet of water in some areas at low tide – remember I draw 5’ 3”. Well it just worked out that we would be right smack in the middle at low tide!! Prudence says to anchor and wait a couple of hours for the tide to rise. The marinas along it were all full – no one leaving just yet.

Well I thought yesterday I was losing my adventuresome spirit when I didn’t leave in all that wind or complete the alternate passage. Today I was going to try the unthinkable but with such mild conditions – If I bump I just stop and wait for the water to rise.

The creek is 3.5 miles long. We entered it and I traveled at a respectable 4 kts. Karen stayed glued to the navigation software and would CON me to the center of the stream. I adjusted for the shoals I could see. We did great!! Made it all the way. Never bumped and saw only 8.1 feet at the lowest point. Of course the moon affect had the MLW at 1.6 feet ABOVE datum which really helped.

We arrived at Golden Isle Marina in St Simons \Island and took a slip for the day. We immediately borrowed the courtesy car and went to the Harris Teeter Grocery here. Ohhh great selection and we loaded up on the fresh stuff. Then back to the boat for a late lunch and start the laundry -- it’s been 2 weeks. Karen stayed with it since there are only 2 machines and I returned to the boat to fill the water tanks, hose the top sides down and do some general exterior cleaning. I guess I’ll owe us dinner out at the restaurant at the Marina tonight. Hey we have been on the hook since Green Turtle Cay!!

Hopefully we will get away tomorrow and travel as far north as we can go before thunderstorms come in then the same on Monday. Hope to hit Charleston, SC by next weekend or before.

I think I’ll travel with the Canadian pack again. It was very lonely at Pine Island and Brickhill River. They are all moving about 20 miles north of us today but we should catch them tomorrow or Monday – weather permitting.

The Trip to No Where!!

2009-04-17T16:27:00.000-04:00

Just got to be flexible!! Today was a replay of the strong winds from yesterday. It never did really lay down last night so I knew that St Andrew Sound would be rough today. I thought maybe we could do the alternate route around the sound. I discussed it with the trawler (Castel Felice) that stayed here last night and he was game to try it first since he only drew 3.5 feet of water.

He left a little after 8am and said it was a bit rough out front of Brickhill River but quite calm in the alternate passage – begins at Floyd Creek. He called back later and reported nothing less than 10 feet as he approached the cut across St Andrews then said he had hit a patch of 4 foot – but it was low tide. I never heard back from him on the rest of the passage where the really shallow water was reported.

So around 9am – low tide – we left. We got out into the Cumberland River and took some spray on the windshield, then entered Floyd Creek and it calmed down but a lot of wind and no trees – we were on a slight heel. We stayed in the center but never saw the really deep water on the chart. Then as we approached the first hair pin turn we encountered crab pot floats which were very difficult to see in all the water foam that was occurring. The wind was blowing 25 plus. Darn – I wanted to try but if I ran aground this strong wind would just exacerbate the issue and could become dangerous. I decided to abort the attempt and go back to Brickhill River and re-anchor which we did with no problem. A nine mile trip to NO WHERE!!

Unfortunately this is the 4th day this week that we are sitting and waiting for the weather to improve – it’s going to take awhile to get home if this keeps up!! I’ll need to buddy up with another boat or boats to avoid this isolation in the future. It really makes the day go long when there is no other boat to commiserate with..

The wind is supposed to lay down tonight and be only 10 – 15 and dropping to 10 tomorrow. We will try and get across the sound in the morning. Unfortunately we have to delay the departure because we need a rising tide to get through Jekyll Creek due to shoaling. Georgia is the PITS for transienting the ICW.

On the radio today we heard at least 3 boats run aground near the same spot I had trouble with yesterday R60. Gosh I hope it moderates because I want to move again!! Plus I need a grocery store stop.

Back to the "Middle of No Where"

2009-04-16T16:45:00.002-04:00

Got to be flexible.. The weather forecast was for small craft advisory beginning at 3pm today and a lake wind advisory beginning at 11am. I thought we could make it across St Andrews sound before either event.

Well it didn’t happen. I knew we would have an adverse current at the start of the trip but it should get better. It didn’t. It wasn’t terrible but we were in the low 5s at the beginning. The wind was under 17 but on the nose. All was proceeding then near R60 where the Brickhill River empties into the ICW we bounced on the bottom a couple of times. No warning just 10 feet then 5 feet. Once you feel that sudden deceleration it just keeps coming at you for awhile. Almost simultaneously the wind piped up to 25 – 27 kts. Speed over ground dropped to 3.1 – 3.3 kts and the waves began to build and we were not even in the St Andrews Sound. It was uncomfortable. I checked the charts and we were about 2.5 miles from the mouth of Brickhill River which has an excellent sheltered anchorage area. We made for it. Once in it was like someone switched a switch off on the wind and waves. It was comfortable. I hailed some of the boats behind us but they plugged on – we went in and relaxed by 11:30am. Tomorrow we will try again to get across. We are just 20 miles from Golden Isle Marina now.

Unfortunately I have delivered Karen back to “in the middle of nowhere”. This is Cumberland Island and there is nothing but beautiful landscape/marsh scapes here. Some wild horses too. Here is where we stay for tonight.

The anchorage is sheltered by trees from the NE wind which is blowing in the 30s but less than 20 in here. Holding is good and just a ripple on the water. Not bad except for not being able to make the marina and grocery store today. Hopefully tomorrow but if it does not lay down tonight then we will be here again tomorrow.

Be sure to check the satellite view of our position report today and you will see – we are in the middle of nowhere.

I posted a picture of the waterway but they never do justice to how wild it can really get.

Just 2 more miles of Florida!!

2009-04-15T16:57:00.000-04:00

What a difference a day makes. Today was a very pleasant day with mild winds. Unfortunately the timing of the tides was terrible and we had an adverse current most of the day -- maybe 20 minutes it was favorable. As we approached the St Johns River from the South our Speed over ground dropped to 4.1 and avg 4.5 for several miles.

At any rate we made Fernandina FL by 3:30pm and anchored in Bells River just across from the mooring field of the Marina. We are just 2 miles from the Georgia border. Unfortunately the next several days are not good for going offshore so GULP -- we will take the ICW through Georgia.

Ohh we passed the site of that terrible boating accident that occurred a couple of days here near the Palm Bridge. A 22 foot power boat with 14 persons aboard (grossly overloaded) slammed into a parked tug working on a dock at 7pm – still full daylight – and injured all persons aboard and killed 5!! The site was pretty clean but the damaged tug was easy to spot. No reason – visibility is excellent here.

Winds are supposed to come back strong tomorrow afternoon 10 – 20 with gusts to 30 but we hope to be tied up at Golden Isle Marina on St Simons Island by that time. Time for fuel, water. Laundry, and fresh groceries – they have a courtesy car there.

Tonight it will be a Euchre game for the world championship between Ian and I and Karen and Sharon --- Boys against girls like it should be. Never Husband/wife against husband/wife!!

Should be a fun evening. Sand Castle and Sweet Chariot will join us too. It will be nice to have some company after 2 very isolated days at Pine Island.

WOW -- What a wind GUST!!

2009-04-14T16:18:00.003-04:00

Ohhh what a night!! It has been a long time since I have felt the grip of a 70 mile an hour wind gust. I felt it several times last night!!

It started about 11pm. Just sleeping comfortable and suddenly I was awakened by a violent jerk and roll from the boat and Karen rolled on top me. That was the first gust and it was long duration. The boat turned into the wind and righted itself and I got up and stuck my head in to the cockpit. Even with the full enclosure the wind driven rain was getting in. The wind and rain was so thick that I could see no lights on the boats around us. I could see nothing. Just feel the pull of the boat on the anchor and hoping it was not dragging. This went on for about 20 minutes then settled down after 30 minutes. Boy I hope that doesn’t happen again. Fortunately the night remained calm after that.

This morning the weather forecast had changed and they had a lake wind advisory again today from 11am to 1pm. Then around 8am another thunderstorm came in with strong winds but not 70kts. Unfortunately it never stopped. It blew hard and long with lots of rain for nearly 4 hours. There were occasional gusts to 50 but a steady 25 – 30kts for 4 hours.

I was turning the wind generator on and off to keep from overheating it when suddenly we heard the roar of an airplane propeller. I missed my timing and the wind generator had gone into free run mode and was screaming but not generating any power. I waited for a lull in rain and wind and then went and grabbed the control lines and feathered it so I could put a tether on the blade. I hate that sound. Supposedly it does not hurt it but amongst all the other high wind sounds it is best to avoid.

Our anchor held. Then around 10am we heard a mayday go out from the sailing yacht Brilliant. They were on a mooring near Jacksonville naval air station and it parted. They dropped an anchor but were blowing towards rocks. They called Coast Guard. They sent a helo to investigate!! The yacht skipper said he had 300 feet of chain out and was still blowing towards the rocks. He said once the boat grounded they would get off and walk ashore. Ohhh depressing. We heard later that 7 boats near that area had blown aground. I should have went into the marina yesterday!!

The winds and rain finally died down around noon and it was quite pleasant till about 1:30pm when the wind came back 20+ kts. They have another lake wind advisory till 7pm tonight.

Fortunately tomorrow looks quite mild as well as the next few days. We will get an early start and make Fernandina tomorrow.

I thought about moving on this afternoon but my anchor has been so well tested here (in the middle of nowhere as Karen likes to call Pine Island) that we will remain for tonight. A couple of boats have come in this afternoon so it should not be too lonely tonight. Gosh I wonder how the anchored boats in St Augustine faired last night and today?? Glad I left..

Enjoy some pics from Pine Island – this place grows on you after awhile then again Karen says it doesn’t.

Just Waiting Weather

2009-04-13T16:33:00.002-04:00

It was time to go.. That anchorage at St Augustine is okay but the derelict boats there really take something away. The one that was dragging around the first night we were there was re-anchored yesterday and it dragged again last night. I thought about going into the marina to sit out this weather system but why should I spend $200 for that!! After discussing the plans with the Canadian contingent and hearing thoughts of anchoring at different spots across the ICW on the way to Fernandina we decided to leave this morning and run 15 miles to Pine Island anchorage and anchor there. Funny thing happened though.. Almost all the Canadian cruisers changed their minds underway and all took slips at Palm Cove marina in Jackson beach. We are the only ones anchored here in Pine Island this afternoon. Now there are two other boats a smaller sailboat and a trawler anchored here too but none from my group.

Hopefully it will not be too bad. There has been a Lake Wind Advisory in effect since 11am this morning which surprisingly is when the winds really piped up and should be over by 7pm tonight. This afternoon it has been blowing a steady 20+ kts with gusts to 30. This anchorage is exposed but short fetch so not too bad. Just the usual anxiety of an anchor drag but it seems to be stuck well here – so far. Forecast is for thunderstorms later this afternoon and tonight with very heavy rain. We will see.

The Easter parade was interesting yesterday with the usual contingent of baton twirlers, motorcycle clubs, race cars (with bunny ears), and assorted other groups looking for any excuse to parade. It was all right.

There was a group of 16 cruisers gotten together for dinner at Harry’s on the waterfront and that was great fun and good food except just before ordering Ian and Sharon received a call that their boat was dragging anchor and had to leave to address that. What a bummer for them!! Fortunately nothing bad happened and they anchored near me!! They didn’t drag last night.

Tonight we will just sit tight and take what weather we get. Not one of the more fun days when cruising but all part of the experience. Depending on how fast this system moves through tonight we may stay again tomorrow or [possible leave mid to late morning and head for Fernandina. Time to leave Florida

Happy Easter

2009-04-12T14:20:00.002-04:00

Happy Easter all. Like my bunny picture??

Actually this is the Miss Kalik April 2009. I haven’t had good internet in awhile but I do now. Enjoy the pic – missed sending it on the 1st of the month.

Today has been pretty nice. Although disconcerting this morning. Some sail boat anchored behind us with clanging halyards had moved during the night – by itself!! I awoke this morning to halyard clanking coming from a different direction and that boat had moved during the night to a spot in front and to the side of us.. Ohhh grief!! It was very close to another derelict boat and eventually was bumping into it. I think/hope his anchor is fouled with that one and will stop moving.

When I checked into the marina office this morning to register the dinghy I mentioned the boat to the dockmaster and he was quite interested. When I pointed it out he said “Glad I moved my boat to the North Anchorage”. That was it!!

We wandered about town a bit this morning. The dinghy just barely made it into the marina. Ohhh I hate it when this stuff doesn’t work well!! They have a ships store here and I tried to buy new plugs for it. All they have are Champion plugs and mine are NGK. They had no cross reference chart or engine application chart. Damn you would think this was the Bahamas except the plugs were less than $4 each vs. $16 each in the Bahamas.

I called Andy and he got on the internet and looked the cross reference up. I bought 2 plugs and tried them in the engine. One at a time. Lo and Behold the first one made a HUGE improvement. My 15hp engine is now the equivalent of a 8hp motor vs. the ½ hp it was doing on our way in. I believe this is another Al gotcha. He left a gallon of no name 2-cycle oil I have been using and I think this stuff fouls the plugs. The previous set was new and only in for about a month till this happened. The motor is at least serviceable now.

This afternoon there is a parade planned at 3pm and the cruisers want to do dinner at 5:15pm tonight. We will head back in and do both. Maybe take some pictures too…

Not sure about the next couple of days. Forecast is for lots of storms and rain (2 – 3 inches) beginning tomorrow afternoon and then all day Tuesday. Might just stay here till Wednesday -- Decisions Decisions.

Time to get ready for the Easter parade today.

Slow Down Ol Man!!

2009-04-11T16:49:00.001-04:00

WOW - making great progress heading north. All the way from Vero Beach to St Augustine in just 4 days. We will hang here for a day or two to enjoy the place and rest a bit. Hey it's Easter Sunday tomorrow and Karen needs a new bunny!!

The wind finally died down after midnight last night and we had a peaceful evening on the hook in Daytona. Ian and Sharon braved the wind chop and came over for an evening of Euchre. It was cool to play with some veterans. Wayne and Jill - we have some tricks to show you now.

We left early to make the bridges in Daytona before their schedules kicked in and we had to run 54 miles which is a LONG day. We left in a pack of boats - probably a dozen in all spread into 3 groups. Unfortunately the morning was marred by Ian on Celtic Cross running aground at the main St bridge and had to call Boat/US to get off. Love that tow insurance!!

We had a nice run to Palm Coast where we went into the marina and filled with Diesel - 28 gallons and topped off water - about 50 gallons. Water is free here and diesel was $2.02 a gallon.

Back on the waterway we had both favorable wind for part of the way - to the Matanzas Inlet and current the rest of the way - 7+ kts!! We made St Augustine by 3:30pm. Not a bad run and a bit crowded but the hook stuck first time and the spacing looks good.

We will stay here certainly for tomorrow and maybe a day or 2 longer.

Everyone is whipped tonight plus the sea breeze is still blowing hard so we will wait till tomorrow to head to town and probably spend the whole day there.

Snow Birds -- Heading back North

2009-04-10T16:31:00.002-04:00

Another fine day on the ICW. The nice thing about Florida is that for every mile you go North or South it is nearly a full mile in that direction. Thus a 50 mile day is another 50 miles north where in Georgia you go only about one third the total distance traveled.

We left early this morning – m7am expecting to get to Daytona around 4 – 5pm. Well we had a GREAT following wind through the Mosquito Lagoon that powered us along at 7 kts at time. We entered an anchorage near R44 in Daytona at 2:30pm. WOW a great day.

Hey and the gang is all here!! It is a large pool here that accommodated the complete Canadian Contingent, ourselves and other boats. Try it some time when passing through Daytona.

Be forewarned that the holding is excellent mud yet the vagaries of wind and current have the boats going in all different directions. A bit disconcerting but no pesky tugs on the hook.

Tonight with so much time on our hands we plan to play Euchre with Celtic Cross. Should be fun.

Last night we had everyone aboard for drinks in snacks and it was a great time. Everyone enjoyed the conversation and time spent. We plan to all arrive in St Augustine tomorrow and stay for Easter – Hopefully we can finds a nice restaurant to feed us all – I don’t think anyone will want to cook for Easter.

Last night was a very nice evening in Titusville. Another clear sky and a HUGE moon rising over Cape Canaveral. Should be interesting here tonight.

Easy day in Titusville

2009-04-09T16:07:00.001-04:00

Last night was really nice on the hook. We had a beautiful full moon and clear sky. There were some folks on the beach setting off some fireworks which looked really cool in the moonlight although being RANK AMATEURS some of the fireworks took real erratic paths. I think one chased a couple of them on the berm.

We had a mild evening and left about 8am. It was a nice easy run of about 30 miles to Titusville and we anchored by 1pm. After a quick lunch I ruined the nice day by trying to work on the dinghy motor.

I took the carburetor off the engine and stripped it down to its components and cleaned all passages with spray carburetor cleaner. I reassembled it and - this is the hubris - put away the tools - then tried to start it. Ohhh man it did not want to start. Actually acted like the cylinders were full of gas and would not crank!! I checked the plugs and they were wet. There was also some gas in the water.

I took the carburetor back off and examined the fuel pump. I had marked it before taking off so I couldn't get it back together wrong --- WRONG!! One gasket was flipped 180 degrees. I reassembled and tried again. It fired up but ran no better than it did before I started. Darn. I hate it when that happens!!

We cleaned boat and got ready to host the Canadian contingent tonight. WE have the whole group coming over at 4:30pm today to trade stories, laugh at my dinghy engine, and plan the next couple of days.

It should be a great time and looking forward to the near full moon rising over the Vehicle Assemble Building at Cape Canaveral which is visible from this anchorage.

Got to run.

Finally heading North!!

2009-04-08T17:30:00.001-04:00

Ohh YEAH - On the move again. We finally pulled away from Velcro Beach this morning. It is tough because it is so comfortable. The only fly in the ointment was that I was waiting on a UPS shipment of a repair kit for a pump that is giving me some problems. I expected it Monday but it did not show up till 9:30am this morning so we delayed our departure.

We had a nice run up to the Causeway just pass Dragon Point. It is called Palm Shores and has protection from North/South Winds depending on the side you anchor - pretty much wide open but with 5kts from the SE to SW tonight - should be fine. It was 38 miles but a good run for a late departure.

Tomorrow we will make it to Titusville and meet our Canadian Contingent for some cocktails and tales - should be in early enough. We are currently traveling with Celtic Cross, Sand Castle, Sweet Chariot, and Water Parke.

Tonight we dropped the hook after 5pm so it will be showers, dinner, then bed and up early to get an early arrival at Titusville tomorrow.

Ohhh and my dinghy motor is now down to a 2HP motor.. It is running very poorly but is still running. I bought some carburetor cleaner the other day and when I have the time I'll tear it down and see if I can resuscitate. It., Wish me luck.

Windy Windy Windy

2009-04-07T16:20:00.001-04:00

NOAA got this one right. Darn it is windy today!! They have Lake advisory and Small Craft Advisory out today.

The day started pretty calm. In fact I was wondering why I had decided not to move today.. Around 9am we took the bus to the Publix grocery for one last provisioning run. Then when we got back it was really blowing hard. I had to angle the dinghy ride back to the boat so I took the waves perpendicular until I hit the tree line on the other side then ride to the boat.

We gathered up all the laundry and made a run in to do a couple of loads. Might be 2 weeks before we do laundry again.

That took awhile and then when we finished Karen had a hankering for some Thai food so we took the bus back to town for some Thai. It was very good at the Siam Orchid.

The wind laid down for awhile this afternoon but it is really honking again now as I write this. All the fenders are creaking against the boat I rafted to - Cherie. The other boat 'Homeward Bound' left today. Oh well when you want to go - you go.

Beginning tomorrow the weather will be better behaved for the next several days although the first 2 are forecast to be in the low 40s for the low but rising to near 70 each day. We expect to move for the next 4 days until we get to St. Augustine then stay an extra day there so Karen can do the museums she missed on the way down.

Not much else to report - just reviewing charts and directions for the next 4 cruising days, preparing to leave and I guess maybe another round of Mexican Train Dominoes with Celtic Cross tonight. In fact all the cruisers we are hanging with right now bought a set of Mexican Train Dominoes this week.

Should be a real traffic jam at the entrance to Vero Beach Marina as most of us leave to head north again tomorrow.

Gone Swim'im ALMOST!!

2009-04-06T16:51:00.000-04:00

Just sitting and waiting for the forecast STRONG cold front to come through. Like usual looks to be an after dark event. This is a mean one. We have heard several tornado watches north of here. Strong storms all the way from NC to Georgia descending on us.

In the mean time -- we made another run to grocery store this morning and Karen remained to get her hair cut and styled - looks very nice. We want to provision so we will be good to Charleston, SC or about a week and a few days.

The no seeums are terrible here. Even though we have screens we both were eaten alive in our sleep last night. For some reason they have a real liking to ankles and inside forearms. Hopefully this cold front will stop them for awhile.

Late this morning I went and topped off the water tanks. 40 gallons into the 80 gallon tank and 15 gallons in the 120 gallon tank. That should keep us awhile.

Late this afternoon I was going around the boat tightening up the mooring lines and looking to adjust things for possible strong squalls tonight. Took down the riding sail and adjusted fenders. Removed loose stuff form the dinghy and shortened the painter. I noticed the teak steps on the swim ladder looking pretty grubby so I got a stiff brush out and cleaned them. At one point I kneeled down on the sugar scoop to get the lowest rung and leaned out and lost my balance -- I was heading for the
water!! I quickly realized I was going in so I pushed sharply with my legs to propel myself towards the dinghy -0 got lucky. Top half entered the dinghy and lower half got wet but I could drag myself in. Just as I pulled in to the dinghy I heard a frantic woman's voice - "are you okay?" . I said yes thinking it was Karen below but when I went below she had no idea what had happened. Well someone got a show today.

I think it's time for a GNT and relax the rest of the afternoon now.

Ahhh Pizza Pie!!

2009-04-05T17:18:00.001-04:00

Ohhh we had a nice lunch today. Karen had a hankering for pizza so we decided to do lunch at Nina's on the Beach. A bit of a bike ride away. Well about the time I was going to land the bikes on the dock Ian and Sharon came by and said that a relative had loaned them the use of a car - a Cadillac no less. They needed to get some propane tanks filled and would be back to drive us to lunch.

We spent the rest of the morning installing the new Genoa control line and changing the direction of the roll to match the installation instructions to see if it would make the operation easier in a breeze. Unfortunately this puts the sun protection on the inside. For a few weeks should make difference and we can try the operation.

We had trouble pulling the sail up the other track on the furler track. About half way up I had to use low speed on the winch - that is just too much force. I brought the sail down with some difficulty and then we "greased" the sail bead with the zipper snap lubricant and it went all the way up with a lot loess force. Now to try it.

Ian and Sharon were back by noon and we all left for Nina's. Graeme and Laura came along and Laura went to the beach to sun bath and Graeme came along for lunch.

Well disappointment. Nina's doesn't open till 4pm on Sundays!! Well a helpful lady came by and gave us directions to another Nina's across town.. Ohh what the hey - everyone wanted pizza so we went. We saw an Advance Auto on the way and Ian graciously stopped so I could get some carburetor cleaner - try it on the outboard motor. We found the pizza parlor easily. The pizza was GREAT. Then off to the Publix for some beer. Bottles are easy to handle when you have a car and not riding a bus. Well that turned into a bit of a shopping trip so why not go to West Marine - Graeme's desire and hey the dive shop is next door.

Well I didn't buy anything from WM but ohhh I could not pass up a sale price on some Speedo swim trunks - picture will follow.

Just Putz'n and re-furling today and visiting

2009-04-04T16:02:00.001-04:00

Ohh it's been a nice day here in Vero. Didn't do much. Karen left with Sharon at 9am on the bus for a morning of shopping that turned into nearly a day's worth. Didn't get back till 2:45pm. She picked up our own box of Mexican Train Dominoes - you go girl.

I stayed back and went to the marina and made a couple of trips with Jerry cans to put 24 gallons of diesel in the tank and then another 24 gallons on the deck. The price of diesel here is $2.20 a gallon. Back at GTC it was $3.71 a gallon. I'll do the water tomorrow.

I visited with Ian awhile and he took me on a tour of his Catalina 322. WOW it really is laid out nice and great storage. The interior is very comfortable and roomy and lots of storage. I think he said that in one locker he had placed 22 18-packs of beer in it before departing to the Bahamas.

The day has been nice and sunny and in the 70s with light 5 - 10 knot winds. Very nice. I did make up a new control line for the Genoa today. I had bought a 100' of ½ inch line several years ago for Luna Sea but never used it. I was able to use that line for the new control line. The control line is 76' long with the core removed from the first 39' so it will all fit on the drum when the sail is fully deployed.

I'm going to install it later today or tomorrow And try wrapping it in the other direction - the direction preferred in the installation manual and see if it works better. Unfortunately that will put the sun-protecting strip on the inside, but for a few weeks that will be fine.

No plans for the evening yet but we will do something - hmmmm maybe Mexican Train Dominoes ehhh!

Getting fat -- again -- in Vero Beach

2009-04-04T07:01:00.001-04:00

Ahhh the living is easy here at the Vero Beach Marina.

We dashed out early this morning to run to the grocery and TJ Max and the Dive shop this morning. There is a weak cold front with rain in it coming through today. Would like to have those chores finished before the rain.

The dive shop is called the Deep Six and is a lot of fun. In addition to the dive stuff they have a huge assortment of beach wear - more beach footwear than anyplace I've seen. TJ MAX is just TJ MAX but what strikes you if you sit outside and wait on the wife to shop is all the people - woman - who bring back all the returns. Their bags have lots of stuff in them not a single item. One wonders whether they just wear stuff one time and return or really find that much defective or are such poor shoppers to always buy the wrong size. Returns of good are unheard of in the Bahamas. It is just not done or accepted. You buy it - you bought it.

Loaded up on more comfort foods at the grocery that you can't buy in the Bahamas. WE certainly don't need it and we have both lost some weight without it and should probably just not eat it - but we do. Ummmm good.

Europeans and Canadians included have a saying that it is always easy to spot the Americans in a crowd of foreigners --- they have the widest rear ends!

The rest of the afternoon was spent puttering on the boat and watching a steady parade of cruisers coming in - most returning from the Bahamas.

We visited with Ian and Sharon from Celtic Cross and had a great time.

The NOAA weather forecast was full of doom and gloom - small tornadoes possible, wind gusts to 40kts, torrential rain, and flooding. None if it happened. Just a short 5-minute lightning storm a little rain and no big wind gusts. Had to run the diesel generator to charge batteries since the solar panel and wind generator had such weak output.

Ahhhhh Back in Velcro Beach

2009-04-02T19:12:00.000-04:00

We had a nice night in Hobe Sound near Jupiter Florida last night. That big ol wind just died away and it was very pleasant.

Today we wanted to make Vero Beach Marina and latch onto a mooring ball for a few days. We have shopper's withdrawal and grocery store envy. We pushed hard to make the last bus from the marina to the Publix. I just had to have a fine shrimp cocktail tonight plus one of those ubiquitous rotisserie chickens. Ohh I was drooling coming up the waterway today.

The trip was pretty uneventful. Certainly less boat traffic than yesterday and most pretty well behaved. We left the anchorage around 7:45am and made the Marina about 3pm. They assigned us to a mooring just across from the Gas dock and we are to raft to one boat already there. Well naturally the wind picked up and the current was running strong through here. I hailed the boat 'Cherie' on 16 and got no response. There was a dinghy trailing off the back so I hailed him on the hailer - Karen didn't like it but it seemed the thing to do.

Well I should trust first impressions and ask for a different mooring. The boat was a bit disheveled and so was the captain. I sailed near by and shouted my instructions - he just kept cupping his ear like he couldn't understand and had a dumb look about him. We got the fenders in order and the lines ready and pulled up next to him and Karen gave him the bow line. He just held it and didn't cleat it. Thus the strong current started to pull us back and he kept letting out more line. I grabbed a stern line and then reached over into his cockpit and tied one end to his winch and that stopped our reverse motion. He then weakly pulls on the bow line. I tell him to cleat it and I pull us over. I give him a spring line and he doesn't know how to attach or where.

Looking at his lines going to the mooring ring it is obvious that he has been here quite awhile and since he left no fenders out - he didn't really want to share. As a group cruisers are a great bunch but still there is a curmudgeon in every flock.

Once all was secured we dashed for the bus and caught the 3:45pm which actually goes to the beach, then back to the marina, then on to the grocery. What the hell - the bus is clean and great air-conditioning so we took the long trip to cool off.

We picked up some favorite foods - not too much - then back to the boat to munch on a shrimp cocktail and that fine rotisserie chicken. The Bahamas are great but something to be said for relatively cheap food.

Excuse me while I stuff my face again.

Back in the good ol USA!!

2009-04-01T16:54:00.001-04:00

Ohhhh boy - don't expect much we are dog-tired.

We crossed from Great Sale Cay Grand Bahama Island to Lake Worth yesterday. Eighteen hours!! Most of it was very pleasant except for the last 25 miles to the Florida Coast. The wind piped up to a steady 18 with gusts to 22 (not forecast!) and it was rough. It can certainly get a lot worse but for us cruisers - it was rough.

We arrived of the Lake Worth Inlet about midnight because I was having problems rectifying my GPS course parms. I had a bearing of 249, I was on magnetic 244 and the GPS track kept saying 273!! Obviously a current affect but so close to the shore I didn't expect it. I finally gave up on the GPS track and navigated by compass to the outer mark. Tough ion the DARK!!

Once there I realized that I had not approached from the direction I thought I was coming from and was experiencing a lot of flood tide current.

We got in with difficulty and trepidation - the night vision is not as good as it once was. Found the anchorage which was quite full and had trouble finding a spot since distance was so difficult i9n the dark and several boats had no anchor light. We were finally secure by 1am!! Hit the sack shortly after that.

This morning I was up at 7am and cleaned up from the crossing and checked in with Homeland Security. We still had to present ourselves to their office at Rivera Beach. That was a JOKE. I had to pay $10 dollars to dock the dinghy that is not running well, the wind is blowing 20 kts this morning with a lot of fetch.

We went in to the office just as an officer finished with a customer. We made eye contact and he left. I expected him back. After a couple of minutes I noticed a bell on the desk. I thought about ringing it but that would probably make him mad so I waited a few more minutes. Then another officer came and took a startled look at us. He said you had to ring the bell to get service!!?? I suspect the first guy is playing a game. He probably sits there during the day and pulls his gun on the other agent!! What a BOZO!!
I suspect this type of work is what causes folks to "go postal".

We left soon after returning to the boat. We had both got completely soaked from the spray of the dinghy. We made reservations for Vero Beach tomorrow then motored to Hobe Sound this afternoon to anchor. We made 6 bridges!! It was not pretty. The wind was blowing 20+kts and we had a favorable current except forcing us into the bridges while we waited. Several Bridge Tenders asked us to bunch up before they opened but in these conditions it was terrible. Several us had to spin at the last minute to hit anything. We need to complain top the folks that have instructed these tenders to act like boat captains!!

Should sleep well tonight. It is still blowing 20+ this afternoon but the fetch is slight and the holding is great here in Hobe sound and the closest anchored boat is a ¼ mile away.

Were BACKKKKK!!!

ON OUR WAY!!

2009-03-30T10:17:00.000-04:00

Sorry about missing yesterdays blog but between farewell parties and card playing and watching the boats dance in the stiff wind -- I just missed it. I'll make it up later.

We left Green Turtle Cay this morning and are heading back to the USA. Not sure of exact timing yet because of different weather forecasts. Could be in Fort Pierce as early as tomorrow morning or maybe Lake Worth by the weekend.

Keep tuned and I'll let you know -- watch position reports too during the day as I'll try to send more \than one a day.

Living is easy -- at the DOCK!

2009-03-28T17:31:00.000-04:00

It's a better day. The forecast high winds never materialized overnight. It was windier in the afternoon. Ohh well at least everyone slept well last night. This morning the wind piped up around 9am and started to blow pretty stiff. In the next 2 hours 3 boats began to drag anchor and had to reset. One little motor boat that was tied to a dock was swamped by waves - tied stern to the wind/waves.

On the radio we heard one sailboat had "broke" his mast - as reported by a large motor yacht in the Whale Cay Passage - but waved off assistance.

We had a nice easy morning. I played radio and propagation once again was terrible. I checked in no where today. Later we did 3 loads of laundry and while Karen was supervising that I worked on the dinghy motor. I had found a crack in the old fuel line and replaced with a new spare. Made no difference. I then removed the carburetor and drained all fuel thinking possibly water trapped and found none. I checked some passages and all looked clean. Reassembled and made no difference. I then checked the sparks plugs again and made no difference. It is useable but runs fairly slow. Will have to wait till in Florida before troubleshooting further. Suspect the ignition control module or spark coil.

We had lunch at the restaurant - have to eat our dockage!! We are a little behind but will have dinner tonight. No drinks though - the expense is a killer. Yesterday we had one Tipsy Turtle and a Margarita and it was $17.25 for the pair. We will be drinking water tonight.

After lunch and a little nap I tackled the main engine primary fuel filter. I want to change it before crossing the Gulf Stream. The removal went well and it had debris in it but the suction had only risen to 8lbs. With the new filter the suction starts at 2 lbs so it was not bad. Generally you replace when the suction reaches 15 lbs.

I ran the engine for 20 minutes to be sure no air had got into the system, which would have required bleeding the system. This main engine has a mechanical pump that will self bleed the input line but if air gets past it then the system must be bled or she no runny.

I filled the filter assembly before installing it thus eliminating a long start up on the pump. I got lucky - no air and we should be good to go..

It's blowing hard this afternoon but the anchored boats and ours on the T-dock are behaving. Dinner tonight at the restaurant and then cards on Born to Cruise later on.. Ohhh yes and let's not forget -- real high pressure high water volume showers.. If you never lived on a boat you don't understand this simple pleasure that dirt dwellers take for granted.

This is going to be tough to leave!!

Near Disaster!!

2009-03-27T18:42:00.001-04:00

Whooooa that was a close one today. You just never know when an innocent task could turn very bad!!

We have some very strong winds coming in tonight and through the weekend so we decided we wanted a safe harbour. Thus we left for White Sound GTC this morning to either anchor or get a slip. The Sea of Abaco was in a snit with 3 foot wind chop. All the cuts to the ocean were suggested to be unusable. It was rough out there today. Fortunately we had to cover only 4 miles on the Sea of Abaco.

We entered White Sound on the high tide and it was fine except for meeting an outgoing large power vessel that was intent on keeping the center of the narrow channel and not sharing. What a BOZO. Well with the high tide I could hug one edge with no problem. The anchorage looked manageable but I was thinking with the dinghy motor on the fritz, lots of laundry, and a need to get some provisions, water and fuel before leaving for Florida we should go to the marina. That and the holding is not ideal in White Sound, it was crowded, and lots of wind 20 -25 SW - S - WNW predicted to begin tonight through Saturday and early Sunday - let's go to a Marina..

Well I called the Green Turtle Club and they had a spot on a T-dock for me - usually an easy access. Well there was a large mega yacht already there but room in front of it. The wind had died down to 10 or less so I just went right for it with the wind to my back which is not really bad but preferably you want it on the nose. Well we eased in and Karen threw a bow line to the dock master, I stopped the boat and left the cockpit to throw a stern line. The dock master says I'm still moving foreword - because of wing and he is leading the bow line forward like leading a horse.; He should have taken the line aft to stop and hold me. I jump back and reverse hard. The stern kicks away from the dock so I throw a midship line onto the dock. He is still fussing with the bow line, I say "you better grab that line before it pulls off the dock. He saunters to it grabs it and tries to pull me back but a big gust (20 kts reported by the boat waiting to come in behind me) catches me and is putting me perpendicular to the dock. I now about ready to wrap around the bow of the mega yacht. I yell to cast the line off and for Karen to cast off the bow line. I need to leave and in a HURRY!!. We are just inches from the bow of the mega yacht when my prop finally digs in and pulls me away - perpendicular - from the dock. Whew that was too close!! Even the dock master had big eyes!!

I turn around a lightly run aground just off the dock. I power away stirring up mud then come from behind the mega yacht and into the wind and work the boat into the dock where the dock master and friendly boaters catch our lines and problem solved.

Two things went terribly wrong and both were the dock master fault. First he should have taken that bow line and lead it aft to a cleat/piling and fasten it. That would have stopped my forward motion and allow me to power the stern into the dock. With that not done right he could have taken the midship line and fasten it rather than hold it and that would have stopped me from going forward and moving further from the dock. Grrrrr just total lack of experience and really knowing NOTHING about docking. NO TIP WAS PRESENTED.

Once in and relaxed we rented a golf cart with Born to Cruise and went to town for groceries and stuff. It was just too rough for a long dinghy ride and min e is not working very well. It was only $35 for a half day on a golf cart and we split it. Then after depositing the groceries we rode around a bit and visited different beach overlooks to watch the spectacular large waves coming in from the ocean and the real wind has not even arrived yet!!

Boy the showers here at Green Turtle Club are really nice and it felt GREAT. It has been a month since I took a real shower. Boy I smell good now..

Tomorrow will be dinghy motor work and changing diesel fuel filters in anticipation of a gulf stream crossing mid week next week. We will stay here till Sunday or Monday.

I'm going to sleep well to night tied to the dock!!

Ohh it is a bit expensive but they have a special on till the end of the month were I can subtract whatever I owe from the dockage from anything we spend in the restaurant or bar -- We will be eating out but not much. Food and drinks are quite expensive here. For example a Tipsy Turtle and a Margarita was $17.25 tonight -- that's just one of each!! Maybe we can afford lunch tomorrow.

Sea Glass Bonanza!!

2009-03-26T16:37:00.000-04:00

Sea Glass Galore!!! We hit the "mother lode" today.

The day started a little bouncy. The wind laid down a bit but there was a surge in the anchorage that became irritating. Later in the morning Born to Cruise suggested moving near Rat Cay - just about ¼ mile to the East and try that. It was a good idea. Not only would it relieve the surge but we could test the fix to the prop shaft coupler.

I tested the prop shaft before pulling the anchor. Then we tested reverse and moved the boat. Anchor dropped easily and we backed it down smartly. A quick check of shaft and fasteners showed all in order.

During the morning we monitored the progress of several boats trying to get around the Whale today and up here to Manjack and GTC to stage for a crossing early next week. It was interesting hearing everyone's comments and none found it too difficult but certainly a handful.

Celtic Cross and Sweet Chariot joined us here at Manjack. Sand Castle went into White Sound.

After lunch we took dinghies to the beach - a "sweet spot" Jill and Wayne knew about. Ohhh it was sweet. The amount of Sea Glass was huge. Very nice large thick pieces and lots of colors. Ohhh we could not pull Jill and Karen away. Sharon from Celtic Cross and Laura from Sweet Chariot joined us. There was glass for everyone..

It was a difficult wet ride over in the dinghies but worth it. Or so I thought!!

The dinghy performed great going over but on the way back it would not come up to full power. It would go but rather slowly and it took awhile to get back. The cover is off and it is cooling right now. I suspect either clogged spark plugs or water in the carburetor. I'll check in a bit.

Tonight should be great fun. We are having dinner again with Born to Cruise but on their boat and then later the crews from Celtic Cross - Ian and Sharon and also the crew from Sweet Chariot will join us for some Mexican Train Dominoes.. Should be a great night - just need to get the dinghy going better first. Always something it seems.

Ahhhh Success -- Engine Drive train repaired!!

2009-03-25T16:17:00.000-04:00

Whoa -- the wind has really piped up today. Actually it blew strong all night and I was a bit anxious and all seeing how I had no reverse gear in my boat in case we needed to do an emergency re-anchor.

Well it worked out just fine. Just like 99.995% of the time where these fears are really just that -- fears.

We had an enjoyable night playing dominoes over at Born to Cruise with Jill and Wayne and the crew from Whisper -- Pattie and Ray. Very enjoyable evening.

Today I did little this morning. With the wind blowing 20+ on my little Delta Anchor - which has never failed yet - I was uncomfortable working on the shaft coupler incase we needed to more abruptly. After lunch with no abatement in the wind and everything holding fine I went ahead and disassembled the coupler to see if possibly I could "finesse" it back into position rather than using my perceived brute force method of just driving the boat HARD until it reseated. I had little hope since last summer I had to drive the shaft into the coupler from the outside using a 3lb Ball Peen hammer.

Well I disassembled it and cleaned the shaft and hub with solvent. Then using a fine sand paper I polished the shaft and inside hub. I found a slight burr on the edge of the prop shaft so I removed it with light filing. Then I greased all surfaces using that white lithium grease with Teflon and tried to reassemble. It would only go on about ½ inch by hand. Then I found that if I took a 16" wonder bar and lightly tapped the face of the hub it slowly moved on the shaft. Surprisingly using only light taps I was able to get it all the way into position for the setscrews - ALL RIGHT!!

To avoid this problem in the future I got Wayne to come and advise me in how to safety wire the setscrews. Ohh I had done that wrong originally.. He showed me how to do it and with the help of some loctite on the threads this problem should not recur. I hope so.

After a celebratory beer or two it was back to reading for the afternoon. It is just too windy to leave the boat this afternoon. Fortunately moderation of wind is predicted for tonight and it will be downright nice tomorrow. Unfortunately listening to the VHF there is a whole pass ale of boats waiting to cross the Whale and come up here and GTC to wait for the next weather window to head back to the US.

There is a small window today through Friday but it is not ideal with a 7 foot swell and 3 foot wind chop so we will wait a little longer. That and I want to test my fix to the prop shaft a bit first before heading out across the Atlantic.

Even though it is windy - we plan another night of games with the crew of Born to Cruise, and Celtic Cross hopes to be here tomorrow night for even more games.. Yahoo -- I fell better now that my prop shaft coupling has been repaired!!

Mark of the Beast 6 6 6

2009-03-24T16:35:00.001-04:00

Sailors as a lot are a superstitious bunch. I try not to but I'm doubly affected because of my Italian heritage. Now Italians are superstitious - big TIME.

This morning started innocently enough until I took my readings from my weather station for reporting on the Basra Weather net at 7am. The outside temperature was 66.6 degrees Fahrenheit or as the superstitious think "mark of the BEAST". I didn't think much of it at the time but as this day unfolded - maybe there was something there..

We left White Sound this morning at 7:15am to get away on the high tide and that went well. I tried dragging the dinghy using 2 lines and that worked pretty good but I wouldn't do it for more than a couple of miles. Manjack is only 4 miles away so why not.

We arrived in the anchorage around 8:30am and it was looking good. Nice spot near Born to Cruise. We dropped the hook - the CQR - backed down and damn - just drug back and would not set. Ohh well - pulled the hook up and dropped the Delta. It was biting easily and we backed it down but the line never went taunt. Karen said "Ahhh we have a problem here". She had reversed but no load on the prop. A quick look at the prop shaft showed the engine turning but the prop shaft Not Damn - it had backed out of the coupler and thus no longer connected to the engine but fortunately it stopped just shy of the coupler and had not pulled out all the way - whew!!!

We had a good breeze which seemed to set the anchor. I jumped in the dinghy and pulled with it against the boat and all seemed right. Ohhh well it happens.

Gosh it was only 9am so we just settled in. I opened the engine compartment to cool it and we visited with Born to Cruise. They said they found the mother lode of sea glass yesterday. Karen was excited so she left later with Jill and Wayne to hunt sea glass. I stayed to work on the engine.

The real gothcha once I removed the coupling hub was the shaft key was missing. Ohhh that is bad since there is no way to lock the coupler to the shaft. Aaaack!!.. I looked around thinking it was thrown when the shaft pulled out. I finally reached under the engine and just felt with my fingers since I couldn't see anything and - oh boy - I found it!!

I then tried to put the hub back on the shaft. It would start about ½ inch then stop. When I had it off before I had to beat it on with a 3lb Ball Peen from the outside - that option was not available today. I tried to work it on but it just would not go.

I had a little light lunch then put the wet suit on and headed for the water. Damn - I could wedge myself between the rudder and the prop but still no movement. Unfortunately no one available to help since they all went sea glass hunting.

Ohh well a couple of beers and my new Barefoot Man CD and the issue was not so bad anymore. Heck - the shaft is started and will turn from the engine so even though it is not locked I still can go forward but no reverse - that will work in an emergency.

Since the prop pulled out while in reverse maybe I can drive it back in by going forward. Hell it's worth a try and I'll try it when the glass hunters return. Gosh hunting must be great because it is 4:30pmn and nobody back yet!!

Ohh the other issue was when I sent the position report this morning and tried to shut the PC down it would not turn off. I had to force it down via the 6 second power switch.

I sure hope bad things are not happening in 3s today. I'm one short right now.

Shellin' on Gilliam Bay --- GTC

2009-03-23T16:34:00.002-04:00

Another fine day in Green Turtle Cay (GTC). The weather forecast has stiff winds of 20+ coming most of the week. We decided to stay another day at GTC. We could have left but I had to make the decision by 8am because of the tide and I was not comfortable leaving just yet. Later in the day I was but then I would need to wait until 5pm before leaving tonight --- so we should leave tomorrow unless there is a drastic change in the forecast.

Several boats did leave this morning with plans to cross on Wednesday back to the US but with a 7 foot northerly swell and 15 kt SE winds (opposing) – we will stay put a bit longer.

This morning I topped off the dinghy fuel tank – we burn a lot here at GTC with that long ride to town and we did some grocery and souvenir shopping this morning. I had it in the back of my mind to do laundry but since it seems we will need to be back here by Saturday for a cold front – we will do it later.

Low tide didn’t come till 1pm today so we went over to Black Sound by dinghy and docked at the pseudo public dock and walked down to Gilliam Bay to hunt shells. It was beautiful but quite windy. We had a very long but enjoyable walk and found a few shells. Mostly we found Frenchies!! You can spot them a mile away – 50 something and they wear very compact Speedos for men and European cut bikinis for women. Karen would not look.

We walked the beach for a couple of hours and got plumb wore out. Back on the boat by 4pm and time to veg out till I cook some burgers on the grill tonight. Time to get back to simple fare.

We did go to the Green Turtle Club restaurant for dinner last night and it was great. But my simple tastes do not allow me to comfortably digest these fancy sauces they use so I had an uncomfortable night sleeping – that and the wind blew pretty hard again last night.

Tonight the wind should be milder but still fresh – near 20kts. Great for the wind generator but bothersome to those who have to listen to all the creaks in the boat.

Born to Cruise left this morning for Manjack Cay and we expect to join them tomorrow morning for a few days before darting back into here.

Blowing in the Wind

2009-03-22T17:09:00.000-04:00

Windy, Windy, Windy -- boy the night really piped up. It was not too bad but it was difficult to sleep because of all the noises coming from the enclosure last night. It was definitely blowing mid 20s around midnight and for a couple of hours but then settled down to just a nice breeze by morning. Surprisingly the morning was not as forecast at all. Shouyld have been blowinbg hard but was not.

We took a nice walk on the Bluff House Beach and the Sea of Abaco was just flat - no white caps. Surprising. We took some pictures of Jill and Wayne around the Bluff House with the Sea of Abaco as a back drop then over to the Green Turtle Club to see what was on the menu for dinner tonight. We just feel like splurging tonight.

The weather forecast has the winds moderating but still strong most of the week. With a direction of NE - E it will be okay to island hop so we will most likely leave early in the morning tomorrow. High tide is 6:45am so I need to be through the entrance by 7:30am. Plan is to anchor off the Settlement here and do a minor provisioning run then head up to Manjack Cay for a day or so, then Powel Cay for another day or so. Depending on the weather we will either head to the USA after that or come
back to GTC and await another weather window. Chris is saying don't go till the weekend.

This afternoon I jerry jugged 40 gallons of water and 12 gallons of diesel to top everything off. Then a little shopping at the Green Turtle Club gift shop (Karen's idea) then back on the boat for showers and get ready for dinner out tonight. Ohhh they have a dress code here and shorts are fine but need a colored shirt. I believe I have one but it is wrinkled!! Maybe most will come out by dinner time.

I can stop the RAIN!!

2009-03-21T16:46:00.000-04:00

I have developed a rain shield. It was originally intended to be a rain collector but it is actually a rain shield. When I built it a few days ago during a driving 1-inch frog strangler down pour the rain ended as soon as I had it deployed. Once it dried I put it away. This morning we had a light shower and I thought I should set it up again but I delayed. Then another 1-inch frog strangler hit and I could kick myself for not setting it up. At 20 cents a gallon for water I was not adequately motivated to deploy during the storm. When the rain let up I set it up. Then the rain stopped and has been stopped ALL day!! Thus a rain shield.

I tried to buy some coconut bread yesterday in town but all was gone when we looked. So this morning I opened one of the coconuts I had extracted from the coconut husk. I successfully drained the juice, which was delicious and removed the excellent meat. Karen found a recipe for bread with nuts and we modified it for the coconut meal. It turned out pretty good with just a hint of coconut flavor in it.

The wind has been blowing continuously in the 20 kt range all day with higher gusts. The boat is dancing but feels in control – no jerks. All the boats here on anchor seem to be behaving nicely today. Unfortunately it is just too uncomfortable to get off and with the wind chill it is probably in the mid 60s so we postponed the Bocci Ball tournament today.

On the plus side the wind generator is feeling quite prodigious with its amp output and has behaved and not overheated so we may watch a movie tonight since we have excess power today. I have spent most of the day reading so I don’t think I want to continue reading tonight. We will see.

The weather forecast is not good. In Chris’s forecast today he has the windings staying in the 20 + kt range through Thursday and he sees the seas building each day. He even noted today that he thinks the Whale Cay passage will be impassable until next Saturday!! Doesn’t look good for our weather window next week. Oh well this is a good place to stage and wait. We will definitely get off the boat tomorrow but today I think we will just keep sitting tight.

Island Gas Truck

2009-03-20T17:11:00.001-04:00

Life is different on an Island. Like when the fuel truck comes to the gas station it is actually a fuel barge that comes in. It is big and hulking and kind of scary but it does make it through the windy entrance to White Sound. Today it came in and fueled up the Green Turtle Club. At $6.17 a gallon they still have plenty of gas over at the Bluff House. As he approached one boat just after the channel entrance they yelled that he was in the channel and had to move. Then they easily maneuvered around him. I think someone has a little Napoleon attitude here.

It was a nice day. Flat calm this morning but is supposed to be blowing 20 – 25 after midnight tonight and for the next several days. Always it’s the middle of the night!!

We went to the ocean side of the beach across from Black Sound near low tide. It sure didn’t look like low tide so must have been wind – wave – swell conditions. At any rate we had a nice walk about town. I tried to get a case of Kalik Gold at the liquor store and they were already sold out. No more till next Thursday!!

After lunch we returned and went to the Library and the grocery. With the forecast winds it will be a few days before we can dinghy back to town. But hey – unless it is raining we can still get off the boat here in White sound and walk the roads around the Green Turtle Club and the Bluff House.

I think tomorrow it will be a Bocci Ball tournament on the beach at the Green Turtle Club!!

The long range forecast has a possible really good weather window coming in next week Thursday through Sunday. If it holds then that will be our window to return.

Make Lemonade

2009-03-19T16:45:00.001-04:00

What's that saying? "When life throws lemons at you - make lemonade". Well that is what I tried to do today.

We have had nearly nonstop rain today and very heavy at times. Gosh I thought - at .20 cents a gallon wouldn't it be nice to collect that rain?? Well I'm trying. I made a rain catcher today out of some scrap Sunbrella and a plastic thru hull I had. I sewed the scraps together and put the thru hull in the center and attached a spare hose to it. Then the rain slowed to a drizzle.. Ohhh well I'll test it later.

Earlier we had a LOT of rain because the dinghy was fully 1/3 full!! It took awhile to pump that out but none of that went into the water tank.

Other than that nothing much else going on today. Two boats left and none arrived. I finished another Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt novel and tried to get a more reliable connection to the internet here. For some reason when it rains - the WiFi just goes to hell.

If I get a good connection I'll attach a picture of the rain catcher to this Blog.

Hopefully it will stop raining tomorrow and we can go to town. I heard Abaco Seafood has Lobster for $12 a pound and the season will end in just about 10 days - time to stock up.

On that note I defrosted the freezer and it took about 1.5 hours. It was a mess. Nearly everything was in cased in a solid block of ice. I think this occurs when I put the new bags of ice in that don't quite fit right and they partially melt. I'll just have to throw the excess ice away in the future. That is hard to do at $4.50 a 10lb bag!!

Rain Rain Go Away

2009-03-18T15:58:00.000-04:00

This is different - a rainy day in paradise!! Yes we have had a couple of trace rain showers over the last 3 months but this is the first full day of overcast skies and off again on again rain showers - albeit light. It's different.

I took the time to organize and consolidate stuff stored above in the V-berth and store some things in the area under the V-berth now that provisions are being used and space is opening up..

I also changed the engine oil in the genset today. It has been 108 hours and it was ready to be refreshed. It has been working great on this trip 200 + hours without an issue. I like it - hope it continues.

A fellow boater who is known to the readers but will remain nameless for fear of embarrassment decided to move into the Bluff House Marina this afternoon and got into a little trouble. The wind was blowing strong and he tried to back into one of their slips and the wind caught him before he secured a line on an outside piling and was then blown broadside to the docks crossing a couple of slips. With the help of many hands and me in my dinghy we got him right in the slip. Ohhh so embarrassing
but hey could happen to any of us.

The rest of the afternoon has been spent reading some fiction and reading the small engine repair manual on my Yamaha Outboard motor. It is working okay but just doesn't develop as much power as it used to before that guy in Hope Town worked on my carburetor. I suspect I need to put a rebuild kit in the carburetor or just replace it. I'll do that once back in the USA. It works acceptably but could be better.

Not much planned for tonight. This rain will probably keep us all boat bound for the evening. Hmmm that dock is not looking so bad right now especially since they are still running the special on "dockage for food".. Dream on - it will be left overs tonight and besides we had a feast last night with Born To Cruise with barbecued chicken from the grill.

Barbeque in GTC

2009-03-17T16:41:00.000-04:00

Just another nice day in GTC. This place is just so pleasant. This morning just after sunrise we could hear songbirds chirping melodiously. The ubiquitous rooster crowing in the distant. I was reluctant to start the generator to charge batteries and heat water. Just every thing seems right with the world here. Except for real estate prices!!

We went for a walk on the ocean side beach this morning and passed a low spot in the road – probably marshy during the rainy season. It had a for sale sign – 100’ by 199’ for $199,000 Gross!! That is GROSS!! Not water front not even water view property.

The beach was very clean. We only found one piece of Sea Glass and some assorted shells.

Later in the morning I decided to fill the Aft water tank – it was nearly empty and I hate pulling the anchor just to top off water and fuel so I jerry jugged about 60 gallons of water. One has a better appreciation for water conservation when one has to heft about 60lbs of water over the side of the boat – each jerry can near overflow weighs that much.

A check on fuel and water prices showed the following:

Bluff House: Gas $6.17, diesel $3.07, and water $.20.

Green Turtle Club: $Gas 3.98, $diesel 3.08, and water $.25.

Don’t just fuel – ask prices first!!

Just a relaxing afternoon watching several b oats coming in to anchor in advance of this next weather system. The forecast does not look good through Sunday – in fact Chris was forecasting sustained 25 kt winds on Sunday. Ohh well this is a great place to be “Stuck”.

Tonight is Barbecue Chicken night and some new rummy game with the Born to Cruise crew. Who says cruising is boring?!!

I Love GTC

2009-03-16T17:00:00.000-04:00

Ahhhh back in Green Turtle again. I can’t pin it down but there is some things about this place that makes it most comfortable – except for the endless parade of BOZOS that have to run their little stink pot boats through the anchorage at full throttle and many do not even realize that they have not trimmed the boats – genuine BOZOS.

Today we took a couple of long dinghy rides to the southern beaches of GTC and to the area just below the Bluff House and did some beach combing. Except for a handful of very nice shells nothing interesting was found. After lunch we went to town to see if we could get our Visas extended. The customs office was closed – hmmm no hours posted. I stopped next door at the Post Office but the Post Mistress pleaded ignorance and knew nothing.. except the officer had just left..

I ran into a couple on the street and they gave me the straight skinny. Then have been non a mooring all winter on White sound and extended their visas. You can NOT do it at the regional offices. You have to go to an airport – they had had good luck with the Treasure Cay airport and on the day their visas expired. We will see.

We did some grocery shopping and hardware store browsing. It is just so comfortable walking around GTC. I think it is all the wild chickens running around and the constant distance crow of the roosters that I like. No big engine cars or trucks – just a noisy motorboat once in a while.

We will stay a couple of days till this next weather system passes. It is coming in tomorrow and the weather looks dicey through Thursday so we will probably leave on Friday for Island exploring here North of the Whale.

Ohhh yes we stopped at the library in town this afternoon – very neat and large selection of cruisers books for 1 – 1 exchange. They were impressed with my donations of Clive Cussler Hardback books that I picked up in Treasure Cay Library. They indicated those would not go into the exchange shelves but would be on the resident loaner shelves. I’m glad I made her day.

Born to Cruise came in and anchored today so it will be another night of wild dominoes!! Wuuu Huuuu.

Gone Whaling!!

2009-03-15T16:39:00.000-04:00

We are now back in Green Turtle Cay anchored in White Sound. We had an easy passage around the Whale Cay Passage this morning. It was impassable for the last couple of days but really settled down yesterday and was just a "pussy cat" today. I was careful to time our passage when wind and waves were together and near slack water to make for an easy crossing.

It's been a nice day but again windier than forecast - so what else is new??

We have a weather system coming in Monday - Tuesday so we decided to anchor in White Sound until it passes. Then we will explore Manjack and Powell Cays.

Today is just a relaxing day enjoying the fresh breeze on the hook and charging the batteries via the wind generator.

I went over and visited with Evert on Capricious. He will be here till the 28th then back to Ontario (Canada -- for you Ohio readers). He is the resident BASRA Weather forecaster from here so I will just check in and not report while staying in White Sound.

Not much else to report just reading and enjoying the fine weather here. There really isn't much going on in GTC on a Sunday anyway. We will do the town tomorrow and donate a PILE of books to the local library here. Who knows - might even be able to get our VISAS extended too although most cruisers have reported problems with getting extensions. Everyone is hearing a different story it seems. I'll report mine later.

A day one problem!!

2009-03-14T16:19:00.000-04:00

Aaaaack!! I found the problem in my roller furling.. It has been there since day one!!

I took out the instruction manual this morning to see if the furling line was sized correctly. While reading the installation instructions I found out that the furling line is lead off the WRONG side of the drum and this is because they put the UV sacrificial strip on the wrong side of the sail… To correct I need to move the UV protection strip to the Starboard side of the sail and wrap the drum in the correct direction.. Uuuuck.. Not something to do while underway and since 2 previous owners dealt with it I guess it can wait till I get home. There I can move the UV protection myself utilizing my industrial grade sewing machines. At least another mystery solved. In the mean time I will just go forward to furl the sail, which worked very well yesterday in 20+ kt winds.

The water system is continuing to plug along with no problems since completely bleeding it and replacing the pump. No definite cause found but I’ll take it so don’t be surprised if I start gripping about that again.

The wind is still up today although it did die last night for a peaceful night and should be light tomorrow. We hope to make the big move around the Whale Cay and head to Manjack Cay for a couple of days but the cold front forecast for Monday may have us going into Green Turtle Cay early but that is okay.

We avoided the beach because of the large crowd of beachcombers over there – they keep it swept clean of anything interesting. We wanted to go for Sand dollars today at the mouth of Treasure Cay entrance but it is too windy this afternoon.

We did go to the library today for their annual book sale and well – the water line is lower on the boat now. We bought about 15 books for $7 today. That should keep us till we get back to Vero Beach and we will have a ton of books to exchange then. Why so many books?? We don’t watch TV over here.

Born to Cruse came into the anchorage here this afternoon and we have an evening of food and games planned tonight. Should be fun.

If any of you have been monitoring the SSB frequencies in the morning for my BASRA Weather report don’t be alarmed if you don’t hear me. Propagation has been terrible since we went to Daylight Savings time. Should improve greatly in about 3 weeks.

Heading North but not USA YET!!

2009-03-13T18:18:00.000-04:00

We are underway again - no moss growing on this pair of cruisers!! The local weather forecast was calling for winds of 10 - 15 kts but 9 - 12 feet seas (generated by a low pressure east of here). Chris had a forecast of 18kts. Well it was favorable for Treasure Cay and the seas forecast was Unfavorable for the Whale Cay Passage so we opted to head to Treasure till the Whale subsides. Good THING!!

Once on the Sea of Abaco the winds were 10 - 15 but after a couple of miles built to near 20 then 27. WOW that is a lot of wind anywhere. Well we were on a broad reach so it was not bad but I wondered how I was going to pull the Genoa in with that much wind. It has been giving me fits when the wind is near or just above 20.

Well I learned something today. As we approached Treasure I went forward after luffing the sail slightly and I pulled on the retrieval line just a few feet from the drum. Karen tailed me and pulled in the slack I created. It worked like a charm. It was easy to pull in even with all that wind. Thus I thought I had a problem in the Roller furling mechanism but it is actually in the retrieval line. I can troubleshoot that when the conditions moderate to between 10 and 15.

We made Treasure with little difficulty in all that wind and picked a spot and anchored on first attempt. The holding is great here. I am a little close to the power boat channel but they just have to get over that. Most these dern fellows like motoring through all the anchored boats anyway rather than use a channel.

Not too crowded and only 15 boats when we arrived. Now the count is up to 23 but that trawler that dragged last time here is not here now so hopefully it will be a quiet night. It should be the wind is down to 10 kts now at 6pm.

We went to central business area here and I mailed my response to a jury summons of all things. It was just two printed pages in a business size envelope (just a note that I can't make it but to re-schedule me later). I gave it to the postmistress here and said it was a letter to the US. She said .65 cents then hefted it and said " ohhh that's heavy - that will be $1.30!! And she used no scale!! I know better than to question so I just pays it and lets it go.

Nice walk on the beach this afternoon but we found nothing. Looks like lots of folks here for Spring Break and they are combing the beach too. Well tomorrow if the winds lay down which they are forecast too we can dinghy to area/channel near the entrance to Treasure Cay and look for Sand Dollars. It is reported to be many there.

Right now I think we will head north around the Whale Cay either Sunday or Monday. Note there were RAGE conditions reported in the Whale this morning. First time this season I heard that term used. Glad to be tucked in here tonight and tomorrow.

Ohhh the Internet has been down all day. When we attempt to connect here at Treasure we see a message indicating Fiber Optic Cable problems and try again later. Well it's the Bahamas!!

Even Cruisers need to stop and do laundry once in awhile

2009-03-12T16:31:00.002-04:00

Just a lay day. We decided to do laundry and just relax today so not much happening. Although we did do a lot of laundry. Generally we have 2 machines worth and today we did 4 machines – I suspect someone, who I will not name, is changing her clothes more often than necessary!!

Interestingly we met an older couple at the Laundromat and just struck up a casual conversation on real estate prices in the Bahamas. They own a place near Little Harbour. Surprisingly he said his daughter had just built a reasonably priced place in Ohio. I asked where in Ohio – he said Mansfield. WOW that is my hometown. He said he still has a house there on Cook Rd. His last name was Chambers and used to be a general contractor. Wow what a small world!!

After the laundry we went to Curly Tails and tied the dinghy up and I got a Scuba Tank fill at Dive Abaco for $9 and Karen went down to the Conch Pearl to get one of her finer sea glass pieces mounted to wear on a chain – looks great.

It was late for lunch so we stopped at the Curly Tail Restaurant and had lunch – boy it has been several weeks since we last ate out. It was okay. I just don’t seem to relish the food here. Looking forward to getting back to Florida and eating some Chinese Food – that is very rare here although there is one small restaurant that advertises Italian – Chinese- Bahamian food. I haven’t tried it.

Well the Internet is really a pain here so I’m still not posting pictures. It takes 20 minutes to connect and then 3 tries to upload a picture if you are lucky. Maybe it will be better at another OII location.

Ahhhh on the move again..

2009-03-11T18:10:00.001-04:00

We are on the move again. That is the beauty of cruising. Stay in spot for awhile – leave – go to another spot – leave – go back to a favorite spot. Well Marsh Harbour is not a favorite but it is convenient and has all the provisions at nearly the lowest prices.

We have been on the hook for more than 2 weeks now and made several trips along the hub of the Abaco. I stopped at the Marsh Harbour Marina when we got here today and took on 31.2 gallons of diesel, 3.6 gallons of gas for the dinghy and about 170 gallons of water – not bad. Diesel prices have fallen to $3.08 a gallon and gas is now 3.90 here.

For some reason we are tired. It took nearly 1.5 hours to fuel, water and dump trash at the Jib Room, then anchored easily just off the Jib Room (Marsh Harbour Marina) and found NO INTERNET!!! Apparently OII is having troubles today. We heard several folks complain on the net this morning about OII over in Hope Town. Maybe tonight it will work!?

Well after a run of nearly 30 miles from Lynyard Cay here and a major provisioning run to the grocery store – mostly fresh stuff we are just sitting here this afternoon. Too lazy to do laundry today as we thought we would. We will do it tomorrow and either leave right after --- or maybe stay awhile yet. We do want to spend a couple of weeks exploring north of the Whale Cay passage before heading back to the US.

That’s about it -- I’m just going back to the cockpit and keeping an eye on a really large Beneteau that came in and ran aground just in front of me and set the anchor vis the dinghy to see what he does once he starts floating again.. Today is the full moon and the low tides are lower and the high tides are than average on this day…

Life is good on Lynyard Cay

2009-03-10T17:03:00.000-04:00

Another fine day at Lynyard Cay tempered with a bit of hard work. Karen and Jill went Sea Glass hunting and I stayed on the beach working to open 2 ripe coconuts and trying not to lop off a hand or foot with the 20-inch machete. It was a bit dull and a dull tool is a dangerous tool. Well I was successful and excised the 2 nuts without breaking them and I drew no blood much to the disappointment to the crowd that gathered around me.

I then cleaned a little on the boat and readied my gear to scuba dive on the boat and clean the bottom this afternoon. Karen returned late for lunch but afterwards I slipped into the water and scrubbed - and scrubbed. There was a thick coat of a flocculent slime that I'm sure has been slowing us down. It came off with moderate brush force and no barnacles. It took about an hour and I used most of an air tank - pressure was down to 400lbs when I finished.

After a brief rest I joined Wayne and Jill on the reef we discovered yesterday and used the underwater case with our Canon S80 camera and took some pictures. I'm still waiting for the case to be completely dry before opening so I Haven 't seen how they turned out yet. Later dudes!!

Karen went back to the beach this afternoon for another 2+ hours hunting sea glass - the pickings are phenomenal here and we plan to leave early tomorrow morning for Marsh - need water, fuel laundry and a few groceries. Then we will stage to go north of the Whale Cay first opportunity but linger on some Islands up there before heading back to Florida.

Ohhh yeah - had a great wedding anniversary celebration last night. Jill and Wayne from Born to Cruise came over as well as John and Madeline from Chanceux. They just arrived from Eleuthera yesterday. We had champagne and a lemon cake that Karen just whipped up after baking the 2 loaves of bread. Life is good.

Should have an internet connection tomorrow night and I'll post a few pics if I can.

Happy 35th Anniversary

2009-03-09T17:15:00.000-04:00

Yep it's been 35 years. That's right Thirty Five years that we have been married. Who would have thought on that cool March 9th Saturday in Galion Ohio that we would be here off of a tropical island hunting sea glass, snorkeling, and hunting the every desirable Lobster - known as crawfish here.

Well Wayne and I had a great time snorkeling and hunting but tonight dinner will be a couple of frozen lobsters bought at Milos on Great Guana Cay a few weeks ago.

Karen has had a great day hunting Sea Glass, baking bread, and a cake to celebrate with tonight - the champagne will flow to the strings of Barry White. But maybe a game of Farkle and Mexican Train Dominoes with Jill and Wayne first.

This is place is great and mainly because the weather is soooo wonderful right now. Light and variable winds, flat seas, water is now 72 degrees, and we are near a full moon and the view is spectacular.

The water system continues to VEX me. This morning the flow for coffee nearly stopped and the pump did not come on. I just went and replaced a fuse and still it did not come on. A check of another faucet showed good pressure. A check of the nozzle on the kitchen faucet showed it clogged with tiny crystals --- Grrrr always something different. Once that was cleaned it is working pretty well but we are down to about 40 gallons so just another day here. Diesel is down 27 gallons too so it will
be time to head back to Marsh on Wednesday.

Damn - so many folks are heading back to the states already. The weather nets are full of folks planning trips back to the US. Today 3 boats left here and headed south to Eleuthera and we have seen at least 6 boats come through the channel here today coming up from Eleuthera!! We expect to stay at least another 2 weeks but might leave on the third week but I won't say anything more about leaving - we will enjoy this NOW.

Sorry no internet so no pictures to post but we are taking pictures here. Tomorrow I'll take a few underwater pictures at the reef.

Water System from HELL

2009-03-08T16:32:00.000-04:00

Lynyard Cay - a very nice anchorage. We had a nice evening on the hook last night. Born to Cruise had us over for dinner and games - a great evening.

This morning was not as nice. The fresh water system failed and would not pump water. I spent the entire morning troubleshooting it and came very close to crying for the first time while troubleshooting the system. It just didn't make sense.

I determined that I had at least 2 problems that were unrelated - the manual foot pump and electric pump. I isolated the manual foot pump and still had trouble. After trying various configurations of hose and vessels I determined the pump would not pump - runs FAST but doesn't pump. I cut out the old pump and installed a spare pump. I tried it with a hose going from a jerry can directly to the pump and it worked. I then moved the hose to the other side of the filter and it did not pump. I connected
it directly again and it did NOT work. Made no sense. I then disconnected the output from the pump and ran a hose to a bucket and it worked!!! Hooked it all up again and it works??? Fixed??? I don't know but it is working now. Unfortunately my water supply is getting low and none available here so I can do limited testing.

Karen went to the beach with Jill and Wayne and had a great sea glass hunting trip while I slaved over the water issue. After lunch and the water working I went to the beach and helped hunt shells. While searching around some rock ledges I spotted the antennae - very large -- of a couple of lobsters. Unfortunately I had no spear and attempts to catch them via the antennae did not work. I'll be back!!

Back on the boat I had to have a little nap. This daylight savings time plus the anxiety of the water system ahs taken a toll on me. The radio propagation was bad this morning and we had real trouble participating in the BASRA weather net and the WRCC net. It will be bad for another 3 - 4 weeks.

Looking forward to a relaxing night here on the hook and early to bed. Not too crowded here - only 9 boats along the cay.

Sea Glass Hunting on Lynyard Cay

2009-03-07T16:38:00.000-05:00

Good news today - Karen's foot is much improved. Apparently shaking a leg at the Barefoot Man concert was good for her foot.

A long travel day by Abaco standards - 25 nm from Great Guana Cay to Lynyard Cay. Karen wants more Sea Glass and Jill and Wayne on Born to cruise offered to show us the "good stuff", and they did - we found a bunch!!

The trip down was okay - left Great Guana around 9 am then 7 nm of on the nose motoring then we motor sailed down to the Pelican Cays, then pulled in the sail and motored across the north bar - pretty rolly with 4 - 5 foot rollers but it was only about 2 miles.

Anchored easily at Lynyard just off the sailors signing beach (a place where flotsam and jetsam is hung in a tree with the sailor's names and boat name and date signed on the piece. We have one hanging there from a previous trip.

No internet connection down here so it will be a couple of days before we get one - probably Monday. If you need to contact me use the SSB Radio email address - wd0etl@winlink.org.

There are actually about 10 boats strung along the Cay this afternoon - thought we would have it all to ourselves.. Ohh well plenty of room.

Should be a great night with a ¾ moon and clear skies and NO light pollution. Just need to get to bed earlier. Jill and Wayne had us up till nearly 10:30pm playing Farkle and Mexican Train Dominoes - p

Barefootman concert

2009-03-06T17:16:00.002-05:00

Made it to the Barefoot Man concert. This is a big deal in the Abacos. Never heard of him before we came and never heard of him after but he is good. Fortunately it was not too crowded probably because it was cool and also on a weekday.

We met the crews from Celtic Cross and Born to cruise and Flash II over there. Stone McCuen opened and was pretty good but the Barefootman was the real draw.

Folks were pretty well behaved and nothing outrageous occurred but we didn’t stay till the end. We left around 3:30pm and stopped at Milos fruit stand for some fresh veggies and fruits --- Milos has the best.

We are planning to fix dinner for the crew of Born to cruise and maybe have a “Games night” over here tonight.

I would write more but I need to help with dinner and this PC is giving me problems tonight., Hopefully the pictures will display.. Enjoy.

Ghost town in Marsh Harbour Anchorage

2009-03-05T16:28:00.002-05:00

Hmmm something bad happened to yesterdays BLOG entry... I didn't see it this time and I looked for it in the edit area and found it listed under February 27th "Some days are better than others".. I'll see if I can get it put in the right area...

Just a quiet day here in the anchorage. The wind is strong but the fetch is small. Comfortable on the boat but rough at the dinghy landing. The anchorage has cleared out quite a bit too since so many boats went to Guana Cay yesterday and today to wait for the Barefootman concert tomorrow.

I made a trip to town to get an ACE bandage for Karen’s foot. Seems to be better than yesterday but still favoring it.

I tried to buy some Conch Salad but my Conch man George still has not shone up!! I guess he just doesn’t like the wind.

Speaking of the wind -- it is getting monotonous and on top of that the radio is full of talk from folks planning to stage to head back to Florida – Grrrr – it is too early to start that mindset. Unfortunately once the “seed” of going home is planted it is difficult to think of anything else.

Not sure if we will make it to the Barefootman concert now. If Karen’s foot is still sore we probably won’t go. That and the anchorage has cleared out here in Marsh and I have a great spot that has been tested by strong winds so I’m inclined to leave the hook down especially if Karen’s foot needs some professional attention – too early to tell yet.

Also it is blowing 15 – 20kts and the ride up to Guana Cay will be rough and it is already crowded and the holding is POOR. Better to stay put here today and head up tomorrow morning with forecast 10 –15 kt winds. We will just have to watch the forecast though.

Now this Cold front was COLD!!

2009-03-03T16:48:00.000-05:00

Brrrrr - coldest day of the year I believe. It was 55 degrees this morning when I got up!!

What a night - dead calm.. Great contrast to all the wind that came yesterday. The weather forecast looks great for the rest of the week although I should have thought about that wind direction a little more before making our plans today.

We left about 9 am with the intention of running the whole length of the hub of Abacos - Treasure Cay to near Little Harbour. We intended to go to Tiloo Pond for the night and do some sea glass hunting. We had a nice light wind aft of us leaving Treasure Cay a little more west in it than I expected but it was supposed to go North then NE. Once we got down past Boat Harbour near Witch Point the wind was still W-NW at 300 degrees and increasing. Lots of white caps and heading into Tiloo Pond -
thus we will be on a lee shore with the swell coming at us. Not good. We diverted to the Turret under Tavern Cay on Tiloo Cay but found it very inhospitable. Bouncing and rocks all around. We thought about Snake Cay but if the wind does go N to NE then that will be bad and the holding is not good there.

Thus I swallowed my pride and backed up 6 miles and anchored in the NW corner near Boat Harbour. Quite sheltered in this wind. Unfortunately it was now 3pm and most of the day has gone by. Ohh well at least it should be a quiet night.

There were already 4 boats here so plenty of room to anchor. I dropped the CQR into the sand and grass and it did not connect. Ohh well fool me once shame on me fool me twice shame on you. I retrieved the anchor then dropped the 22lb Delta and it bit immediately.. Ohhh well we are secure for the night.

I thought internet would be good here because of the proximity to Boat Harbour but it is not. Karen is not impressed. The only good thing is we have an excellent view of the Out Island Doctor's Castle in the air from here. The book is great and I recommend it to all sailors coming to the Bahamas - "Out Island Doctor" by Evans Cottman.

Now to rethink the plans for this week!!!

Weathering Cold front passage in Treasure Cay

2009-03-02T16:41:00.002-05:00

Fortunately the cold front did not pack much of a punch when it got here – no strong squalls just a little rain. The holding in Treasure Cay is very good although one large trawler kept resetting an anchor in the wee hours this morning. I was awakened about 1 am by the sound of a bow thruster near my head. Then I heard the low rumble of a diesel just outside. A quick look and sure enough a trawler that had been anchored behind us was trying to re-anchor next to us – not doing very well watching him drag back on the anchor. I watched awhile and felt sorry for him because it is tough to anchor in a crowed anchorage and to do it the dark and rain – just miserable.

He moved off and tried another location and when his motor sounded distant I went back to bed. Ten minutes later he was back trying next to me again. It was bad. Finally he moved out in the channel and dropped the hook. I suspect he worked at it for more than an hour. At one point I saw he was using a Danforth style anchor and was clearing grass from it before trying again. I don’t think the Danforth style is appropriate her in sand and rock. Need something with a point that you can bury.

It has been a moderate blow all day but no really big gusts. Probably 14 – 17 with an infrequent gust to 20. The temps have turned chilly – low to mid 60s so we are just relaxing on board and Karen made some bread today – ohhh smells good.

We made one trip to town to mail some letters to the USA – 1st class postage is .65 cents to USA. Hit the grocery store for a minor provisioning run and get ready to go to the lesser-visited areas here in the hub of the Abacos. Plan to be back to Fishers Bay by Friday morning so we can go to the Barefootman concert in the afternoon.

As a long shot – if the weather is right then head across Whale Cay passage to Green Turtle Cay and spend the remainder of March up in that area planning to head back to the USA late March or early April . Gosh I can’t believe I said that. Scared myself. Ohhh well still plenty of time to enjoy the Abacos yet.

Some days are better than others

2009-02-27T16:47:00.005-05:00

Some days you wake up and you just know it is not going to be a good day. Well today is one of those days…

It started when I drew water for coffee this morning. The water ran then stopped. The pump would not come on. A quick investigation showed a fuse had blown… I replaced the fuse and it worked okay then. Wonder what happened??

It was a restless sleep last night. After dark the wind increased and it got kind of bouncy in the anchorage -- more a surge than waves. Not terrible just irritating. The wind finally seemed to lay down after midnight and it wasn’t too bad. Just glad we didn’t try one of our alternative anchorages down south – it would have been bad.

Once I got moving this morning and did the BASRA weather net I realized there is going to be more wind than previously forecast – thus plans needed to be changed. We decided to head back to Marsh Harbour where it would be protected and we could do some provisioning in case we go north of Whale Cay this weekend.

I had trouble getting the anchor up. First the chain wrapped on the stub of the CQR that I had hanging and I had to clear that. Then I pulled the Delta in using the windlass until I reached the chain and then had to go hand over hand with the help from the helm. It did not go well and at one point I pulled the chain from the bow roller into the space between the 2 bow rollers and the chain jammed. I couldn’t free it so I just bypassed and pulled the chain up without the bow roller. Once underway I still couldn’t clear the jammed chain and had to resort to a hammer!!

AS we passed by Matt Lowe Cay the water was calm but once facing South MOW cut we saw 20 – 22 kts of wind and 2 –3 foot seas nearly on the bow. We were splashing a lot of water on the enclosure – this was unexpected.

We continued on and it was rough to Point Set Rock then we turned for Marsh and had it all on the stern and it was just a bit rolly. Once in the harbour it was relatively calm.

The anchorage was not crowded because several boats had already left for Great Guana Cay to anchor for the Barefootman concert on Friday – good luck it would have been rough today and more wind is expected tonight and tomorrow now.

We anchored with no difficulty and the big ol CQR stuck the first time here in Marsh. Good thing because I did not want that headache.

I tried to get my conch salad but the conch man had taken the day off. For some reason he doesn’t like working when it blows hard or is cold.

We relaxed and had a leisurely lunch. Then Karen noticed the water flow in the aft head sink was no go. Hmmm worked everywhere else – I’ll investigate later. Also the fresh water pump was not pumping like it used to and the foot pump was acting strange.

We went to the grocery and picked up a few things. On the way Karen stepped in a depression along the road and hurt her foot!! Not terrible and she walked it off.

Back on the boat I troubleshot the water system – made no sense. Would not pump now at all, even the foot pump would not pump, and the aft head sink faucet was clogged with fine sediment… I disconnected hoses and blew into them and verified a clear path and put it all back together and it works fine.. What’s going on??? Time will tell.

Now that Karen relaxed her foot hurts – what’s wrong with that?? I told you it is just not a good day.. That and on the radio we here the alert going up at Great Guana Cay for a boat already dragging anchor up there and it is not crowded yet!!

I suspect our plans are changing again now.

Just Blowing in the Wind

2009-02-27T16:47:00.004-05:00

Ahhhh it is that time of the month and time to display another Miss Kalik – March – enjoy..

This is an interesting cold front passage. The day started calm and the wind has built steadily from 5 knots to 25 kts then back to 15 kts right now. The squalls and actually frontal passage is not expected for another 6 hours. Currently everyone here in the anchorage is just hunkered down. Most boats have folks in the cockpits relaxing and reading and watching other boats – looking for that first sign of a boat dragging. Unbelievably – because the holding is so good here – one boat did drag early on this afternoon but re-anchored with no difficulty. We all keep our VHFs on and on channel 68 so if something happens we are all alerted early.;

I’ve also posted a picture of a great example of a “Stacked Pack Sail” enjoy Craig.. This is probably the type of sail system I’ll go to on this boat. I really dislike the Dutchman system that is on here now.

Other than that we are just doing odds and ends today – repairing hems on flags, light cleaning and a lot of reading. In advance of forecast strong rain squalls we have already stored the dinghy in the davits and will just stay aboard tonight however it does seem to be quieting down right now – probably the calm before the storm. One thing I have learned is that if the wind is blowing strong and then suddenly lightens up - it is because there is a wind shift occurring and it will be back in a vengeance post haste.

Tomorrow is forecast to be quite windy then calm in the late afternoon. We expect if the forecast holds that we will leave Tuesday and head down to Tillo Cay to do some shell/sea glass hunting.

Great Beach Combing

2009-02-27T16:47:00.002-05:00

First off HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our daughter Kourtney. We miss you and owe you cake. We will celebrate in June.

Finally the wind died down for a bit. As sailors we like wind but too much too long really takes it out of you. The wind died shortly after dark last night and we had a delightful rock and roll free night to sleep through. Really enjoyed it. Should be another nice one tonight then all hell breaks loose tomorrow afternoon and evening. Strong cold front coming through late tomorrow with some 40 kt rain squalls. This will be a good place to weather it provided it does not get too crowded. This morning we had 21 boats on anchor here and tonight we have 14. I suspect more will join us during the early part of the day tomorrow.

This looks like a Canadian Jamboree here tonight. All but 3 boats are flying Canadian flags. Amazing how many Canadians are able to bring their boats here to enjoy winter in the Bahamas.

We had an easy day – did little to no work. Used Born to Cruises “looky bucket” to check my anchor and all I see is chain going into the sandy bottom. Anchor completely pulled in – that’s a good thing.

This afternoon near low tide we walked the entire length of the beach hunting for whatever we could find. Found several very nice sand dollars and some corkscrew shells – very small but very pretty.

We had a pleasant walk back and then DISASTER nearly struck!! We had climbed into the dinghy which was difficult given near low tide and climbing 8 feet down a straight ladder. Karen was getting in after me and releasing the dinghy painter while I was prepping the outboard when I hear “help me!!”.. The dinghy had slide away from the ladder and she was hanging on to the ladder and feet in the dinghy and just about laid out horizontally over the water. My first thought was “She’s going in!!”. I grabbed the edge of the ladder in one hand and grab her with the other and pulled the boat back under her and she dropped in – whew. Boy she will be sore and black and blue tomorrow. Fortunately no splinters.

Well I’ll upload some pictures tomorrow. We have to get ready for “Game night” over on Born to Cruise tonight.

JoJo has got his GROOVE back!!

2009-02-27T16:47:00.001-05:00

Yep -- got my “groove” back.. Once one has problems with a sailing skill it takes time and effort to regain the confidence. I had so much trouble with that CQR at Fishers Bay the other day I was beginning to wonder if it would ever set again..

Well we have some nasty weather coming in Sunday and Monday and the wind direction will be uncomfortable in Marsh Harbour so we decided Treasure cay is our place and we can have fun on the beach and just relax there for a few days. Plus we need some more books and their library is GREAT..

Thus we pulled up anchor this morning and the Delta was not too bad to retrieve and store – first time I had done that with that anchor and we had a nice easy motor sail to Treasure Cay across the Sea of Abaco. We hit the entrance just 1.5 hours after high tide and had plenty of water to get in. Anchorage was not too crowded when we got here – only nine boats so I picked an easy spot and dropped the CQR. We backed up and I tested it a couple of times while laying out 70 feet of chain. Then the chain stiffened –-- moment of truth – and damn – nearly jerked me off my feet it set so quickly and so firmly. Even Wayne on Born to Cruise was surprised to see me have to catch my balance when it set. We slowly pulled back on it and ran the engine up to 1800 RPM in reverse and it held just fine. Ahhhh I feel better now.,

We just plan a couple of lazy days here, weather the next strong cold front then head possible down to Tiloo Cay for shelling and glass hunting. Rumor has it that at low tide the sand dollars and curly shells are plentiful here so we will check that out tomorrow.

Time to relax in the cockpit with my all chain rode out.. Ohh yes my rope to chain splice worked fine on the Delta. No signs of stretch or chafe and it was tested pretty well with those 20 kt winds at Fishers Bay.

Two other successes. The dinghy leak is now fixed – no air needed after 2 days and the errant current readings on house battery 2 are gone. It is behaving very well after cleaning and tightening the cables and monitor sense lines to the battery. I love these no cost fixes.

Back in Cruising Mode

2009-02-26T17:02:00.002-05:00

MMMM mmmm good. As I write this I'm munching on a handful of coconut meats I extracted from my first coconut the other day.. boy they are GOOD!!

Boy the wind blew hard last night but the lil 22lb Delta and my chain-rope splice seems to have held well. I’m still in the same place. I wasn’t comfortable but I did get some sleep.

Today has been pretty windy and again no problems. Didn’t do much – just hunkered down for the blow.

I adjusted the cables on the steering quadrature to quiet a clanging sound in the pedestal and cleaned and retightened the battery connections to House Battery 2 – it has been recording some wild current draws lately.

Overall the batteries behaved very well overnight and obviously like being equalized in the marina the other day.

The rest of the day was spent reading and relaxing and a long beach walk over at Nipper’s. Gosh during the week the place is quiet. There were only 2 people at the bar and we did NOT join them. Sea glass hunting was the pits at low tide – only one pretty shell offered itself.

The Pot Luck last night was not so good. Obviously the professional eaters have discovered and use and abuse the occasion. When they rang the bell to line up it had already been formed by the “professionals” and we were way back near the end. There was a lot of food offered. It looked promising until we saw little ol ladies leaving the tables with 2 and 3 plates heaping high in food. The early birds obviously loaded up on the “worms”. When we got to the table it was only vegetarian pickings. Still good but a disappointment for a meat eater. I’ll doubt we will be back.. Ohhh yes – all my deviled eggs were gone (20 of them) before we got there so we enjoyed NONE.

We ate with the crews of Born to Cruise, Celtic Cross, and Cyprea and agreed to meet on Born to Cruise tonight after dinner for a night of games – Farkle and Mexican train Dominoes and maybe some other games

Should be an enjoyable night now that the wind is dying done and will be a pleasant ride in the dinghy over there.

Ohhh the dinghy ride last night. When we first left the dinghy dock in the deep dark we only went about 20 yards and the motor quit.. Grrrr what was wrong?? Wouldn’t start then under a flashlight Karen noticed the fuel line had popped off the motor. Reconnected and we were on our way but not before Ian and Sharon came by and offered us a tow. Great folks. There were 35 boats here last night and it was DARK when we came back from the Pot No Luck. I was worried about trying to find Temptation then Karen noticed a catamaran all lit up like an airport runway – Born to Cruise. We knew where we were then. Successful find.

Anchoring INSANITY!!

2009-02-25T16:31:00.002-05:00

Today my CQR FAILED me!! It was anchoring insanity here at Fishers Bay on Great Guana Cay. Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome!

I talked Celtic Cross and Born to Cruise to join us here tonight for the Wednesday cruisers pot luck at Grabbers. In the past it was great and we have heard good things about it this year so – we need to try it.

We left Mangoes Marina this morning – easily and had a bit of a lumpy motor sail to Great Guana Cay. Not too bad wind 10 –15. Then just as we rounded the point to head in and bring the Genoa down it gusted up to 22 kts and held. Ohhh it was not nice bringing that Genoa in all that wind. It did not let up either – mayb down to 18.

Finally the sail was stored and I went to one of my favorite (just used it twice) anchor spots and dropped the CQR. Hmmm didn’t hold. Pulled it and tried again. Still no luck. Then again – no dice. We moved to another location and tried again – no luck. Ian on Celtic Cross came over in the dinghy and found a sandy spot – twice no luck. Ohhh it had been nearly an hour of attempts now!!! One more time – no good!!.

Hmmm what to do. I’ve never seen it this bad before. Hell everyone else got it to stick on one try!!! Ian insisted I use my 22 lb Delta anchor. I’ve never used it and it has a rope to chain splice I did and never tested under conditions. Dropped it – held right away!! I laid down 60 feet of chain and 30 feet of line. Looks amateurish with all that scope out but I want to sleep tonight – fat chance ehhh. When you have a failure like this it will be awhile before the confidence returns.

Well after a couple of therapeutic beers and some lunch I made my world famous deviled eggs for the pot luck tonight. Hopefully it will be GREAT. The wind is laying down and the tide will work with us to get us on and off the dock here at Fisher’s Bay.

Not sure about the Internet since I anchored far away from my usual spot but if I have it I’ll include a picture of the CQR – still in the bow roller tonight – with the sand blasted polished edges.

COCONUTS!!!

2009-02-24T16:59:00.001-05:00

I opened my first coconut today. It was not pretty.. Fortunately I did not hurt myself although the potential was there..

Ian and Sharon came by early this afternoon and Sharon mentioned that she had found a coconut that she wanted to open later today. I told her I had bought a machete for that purpose but had not tried it yet and I would be happy to try and open her coconut. It was not pretty. The first blow bounced off the husk. The second missed the first whack area by a good inch. Then the jokes came about how lightning never hits twice in the same spot. Well I wailed away and slowly loosened the husk but no nut was yet visible when they asked that I stop and they would finish the job with a hammer and screwdriver. Grrrr.

Well I have 2 husks I have been saving so I wailed away on one of mine. Not pretty. The I busted the nut and lost the juice. Grrrr. Well then 2 full strength blows had the husk and nut in two halves. Hmmm I wonder how the store is able to just offer the nuts??? Mine would not come out of the husk.

Well not to be deterred I hacked the meat out of the 2 halves with a paring knife – again not pretty. I apparently have a lot to learn about opening coconuts. However – the meat was delicious.

I spent the day working on the boat some more. I have a new patch applied to the dinghy and replaced an oar holder and installed a mounting base to the bow for attaching a red/green navigation light which is required in Florida but no where else when running at night.

We did a provisioning run to the grocery and drug store and did a couple of loads of laundry. I went next dolor to Harbor View Marina and filled my diesel deck cans (12 gallons) and topped off the dinghy gas. We are ready to leave in the morning and enjoy life on the hook again. Life is better on the hook rather than the marina.

The air is better, it is not as noisy, and the SSB works a lot better. A lot of static on the radio when in a marina and the WiFi is better on the hook.

Tentative plans are to head to Great Guana Cay tomorrow for the Wednesday Cruisers pot luck dinner there, then down to Lynyard Cay Thursday or Friday to do some sea glass hunting on the ocean side beach. Possibly Born to Cruise and Celtic Cross will accompany us to either one or both places.

Hmmm might find another coconut to open too!!

Sorry – again lousy Internet connection so no pics tonight.

Just Work Work Work

2009-02-23T16:42:00.000-05:00

Just another day of work – cruising on hold for a couple of days. I really felt I had dropped out of cruising mode when a dinghy with a couple from an Endeavour 33 came by and asked me to go play pickle ball with them and I declined – had stainless to polish!!

Work was easy since the internet was just crap today – not sure where the problem is but we expected much better once tied up in the marina.

The weather is unusual as usual. Another cold front came through today – a little late and the temps dropped from 73 to 65 but with overcast skies it felt a lot cooler today.

Thus no pictures from the Junkanoo exhibition yet – maybe tomorrow.

Karen found an excellent book on Sea Glass and has determined that she has already found some real “jewels”. She is tickled by that.

Me I’m just in work mode. Boat is cleaned and problem areas have been waxed. The dinghy is cleaned and ready for a couple of patches but waiting till tomorrow with a less chance of rain. Tonight I’ll set the battery charger up for Equalization and that should breathe new life into the batteries.

That’s it – a pretty lackluster day but a day nevertheless.

Working like a Dog Today!!

2009-02-22T17:14:00.000-05:00

Work Work Work!!! Gosh is today really Sunday??

We headed into Mangoes Marina this morning early - 7:45. It was just an hour after high tide but we need the depth to make the approach. Conditions were ideal - nearly calm wind and bright and sunny. Ray was on the dock just like he said he would be - they are usually closed on Sundays. HE took our lines and we made an okay arrival but I did need to adjust the Magna Grill after a brush with a piling. Hey it has been weeks since I was in a slip. Wayne from Born to Cruise was also on the dock
giving us a hand.

Once checked in I hooked up the power cord and the hose and proceeded to wash the boat down and really charge the batteries up. I don't know why the difference but the charger works harder from shore power than the generator. I could hear the cooling fans running hard.

We were supposed to get a little rain today but that didn't happen. I concentrated on cleaning the windlass area and bow pulpit. The pulpit was nearly brown from rust stains and the windlass wasn't far behind. The deck was stained like from Neuse Juice so I had to do an Oxalic acid treatment to make it white again.

Then spent the afternoon cleaning decks, and polishing some of the stainless steel. Karen did some laundry and we have fresh bedding tonight. Boy won't know how to behave now!!

Then polished off the afternoon with a LONG HOT shower in a large shower stall. Ohhh the little things feel so good.

We will have a quiet evening tonight. We were up way past cruisers midnight last night. Went to the Junkanoo Exhibition and watched 3 of 5 groups perform. It was pretty good but just not the electricity in the air as with a real Junkanoo parade.

Unfortunately there are internet problems so I'll send pictures hopefully tomorrow. This post is via the SSB tonight.

MERMAID!!

2009-02-21T15:35:00.003-05:00

Ahhhhh Mermaid Reef. One can’t go to Marsh Harbour without a visit to Mermaid Reef. Unfortunately the water is too cold (for me) to snorkel today – 68 degrees – so we just visited it. Just beautiful.

The Junior Junkanoo was okay last night but started much too late. It was supposed to start at 6:30pm but didn’t start until 8:30pm . It was 65 degrees with a stiff breeze so we were very cold. Sorry blood thinned by tropical sun has 65 degrees as COLD!!

I took a few pictures but they were just so so. Tonight is the senior exhibition but I’m not sure if we will go. We will see.

This morning we did some provisioning – sewing buttons, beer and rum – just the essentials. I bought some Gosling Black Seal and some ginger beer (Old Jamaica) and will try my first “Dark and Stormy” tonight – 2 oz Gosling, 3 oz ginger beer.

The day has been quite windy and cool so it was great for walking around town and the reef but kind of chilly on the boat.

The weather forecast has some unsettled weather coming in tomorrow night so I made arrangements to go into a marina – Mangoes Marina for a couple of days. It is time to clean the boat and fully charge the batteries as well as ourselves. Haven’t been to a marina for a stay since before Christmas at GTC.

Well enjoy the pics of Mermaid Reef.

Real Salty trip today

2009-02-18T16:08:00.004-05:00

On the move again… Finally left Hope Town. It is difficult to leave a secure harbour once you have been there awhile.

That cold front last night came in late and had just passed this morning when we needed to leave Hope Town on a favorable tide. It was blowing 17 kts from the W-NW and should have been N-NW at 20. Hmmm good reason to stay?? No we left any way. It was time for a different view.

We had no problem leaving but the 2 foot wind chop nearly on the nose was creating a lot of spray. Our enclosure kept us dry but ohhh the windows – just salt encrusted!! We only went 7 miles but ohh the crust was worse than we got in a 26 hour 155 mile\crossing of the Gulf Stream!!

Once into Marsh Harbour everything laid down.. The anchorage was sparsely populated and we got a primo spot in front of the Jib Room marina. Great WiFi There.

After sorting thing out we went to town and did some light grocery shopping. On the way back we cruised over to Hollywood Georges Conch Salad stand to get some Conch Salad. He was just in the process of whipping up a new batch. We watched him extract the conch from the shells and dice all the fixins for the salad —he is a virtuoso with the chef knife.

Back on the boat for some lunch and of course – conch salad – ummmm good.

Then later in the afternoon we went over to Mangoes Marina and made a reservation for a slip for a few days beginning Sunday. We need to clean the boat, charge and equalize the batteries, and weather another strong cold front coming in Sunday night.

Tonight some light entertainment of the crew from Celtic Cross then on to the Junkanoo Exhibition of the juniors tonight. Seniors tomorrow night.

A Beach'n day

2009-02-18T16:08:00.003-05:00

For a “Strong frontal passage” today has been a fine day. I don’t think the wind ever reached 20 kts today.. Forecast was for 20 – 25kts. Well the day is not over yet but it is bright, sunny, and warm.

We spent the day on a couple of long beach walks. The sea was kicking up a bit but for the most part very nice. The sea glass hunt was dismal though. Only a couple of pieces found.

We spent a good part of the day reading also. Late this afternoon we went on a dinghy ride to see who was here and we found a boat with the hailing port Galion, OHIO!! You don’t see that very often. We hailed the boat Lee-Ann. We met the couple Gary and Janet Stoffer and shared some stories about Galion and Ohio. We had never met these folks when we lived in Galion. We left in 1975 and they arrived in 1979. Ships passing in the night I guess. It was a nice visit.

Other than that I just fretted over the weather to decide what to do next… This cold front is supposed to actually pass in the early hours of tomorrow and blow strong but be down to 10 by late tomorrow. The tide has us trapped here because low is at 11am tomorrow and I need to be 3 hours before or after to et enough water. Thus leave before 8am or after 2pm tomorrow. I guess we will opt for the later and just head to Marsh for Junkanoo on Friday night and Saturday night. Friday is the Junior competition and Saturday is the senior. I’ll see if I can get some pictures of these “seniors” performing in Junkanoo. I suspect “Senior” is 16 and over.

Enjoy the beach pictures from today.

Double Sunday's this week

2009-02-18T16:08:00.002-05:00

Who says there is only one Sunday in a week?? Today – Wednesday – feels like Sunday. At least we treated it like one until I went to the grocery and bought the fixins for some Chicken Souse tonight – store is closed on Sunday.

Today was a lazy day. After reviewing the weather forecasts for the upcoming week we decided to just stay put. Another cold front comes in tonight into tomorrow and again on Sunday. Thus only one day – Saturday to get around the Whale Cay and that will be questionable. So we will stay here 2 more days, then head to Marsh Friday and go to the Junkanoo exhibitions Saturday night.

Today we just did some beach combing on a new to us beach and found only a corroded penny. We came to a very neat and old cemetery and walked through it and then went back to Karen’s most productive beach and found one piece of sea glass.

The rest of the day is just enjoying Hope Town and planning a fine dinner of Chicken Souse tonight – Karen made fresh bread yesterday.

Ohh we did stumble over a sail boat at the Harbour Town Marina that hails from Galion, Ohio – you don’t see that very often. In fact it is the only one we have seen. Unfortunately no one was aboard.

Should be a quiet evening tonight until the cold front approaches. Supposed to be blowing 20 –25 out of the SW by morning. Right now it is just 15 and getting lighter.

Still Here!!

2009-02-17T16:37:00.000-05:00

Wellll we decided to stay another day here in Hope Town. The wind was marginal, the seas were lumpy and what can I say – tomorrow should be a cake walk to Treasure Cay. A short one though because another strong cold front is forecast to come in tomorrow night so we need to be in by then. Then a big blow Thursday then what looks like very moderate weather for several days.

Thus just cooling our heels in Hope Town today.

We did take the time to go back to the Wyannie Malone museum and watch the 30-minute show that was not available when we previously visited it. It was worth it. Always learning more about this place and the Abacos. Really very colorful history.

We took time on this cool day of a high of 68 degrees to make some more bread and restock the larder with some pasta. Made sure we gave our business to Vernon’s Grocery too. Vernon is a very honest man.. The other day on the VHF he announced that someone had been to his store and dropped their grocery list and money. He said both were available to the appropriate person. What a guy!!

We also picked up some more Red wine. There are 2 Spirit stores here –Lighthouse Liquor and Lighthouse Marina liquor. The one in town has a better selection and slightly lower prices.

Not much else happening. Just spending time listening to the various nets in the morning and reporting conditions on the BASRA weather net at 7am on 4003 USB -- those with SSB can listen for me. This is a 7 day a week volunteer job. I think tomorrow I’ll join the Cruizenheimers net at 8:30am on 6227 USB. The propagation is pretty good now.

Lasts night visit to the dirt dwellers in the cottage ‘Crows Nest’ was very nice. The cottage is much nicer inside than I thought it would be. We visited with the dwellers Jack and Jane and the crew from Celtic Cross. It was so nice we skipped playing Jacks at Captains Jacks.

No plans for tonight – just munch on home made bread I guess.

What Cold Front??

2009-02-16T16:08:00.001-05:00

That was anticlimactically!!! No cold front last night!! It was dead calm all night into the morning. However around 9:30am the wind did pick up and blew pretty moderately 18 –20 with some gusts higher and a little rain shower. Now it has cleared off and is just blowing nicely. The wind speed is marginal for the wind generator. It is producing nice current flow 10 – 20 amps and just below overheating so a good day I would say.

Karen went for a long walk on the beach this morning at low tide (before 9:30am) and found a bunch of sea glass today. I did some cleaning on the boat and changed the spar plugs in the Outboard – it is definitely running smoother.

Not much else happening today. Saw a sailboat come in near high tide and tried to dock at the Light House marina and ran squarely aground under power. It is amazing to see a big sailboat –probably 40 feet – just suddenly stop with a lurch forward. Fortunately he got off and landed safely at the dock.

Only one boat left the mooring field today and not others than the run that ran aground came in. Everyone pretty much hunkered down for this frontal passage.

The harbour is not bad with this wind and we can get around easily in the dinghy. We have been invited to a happy hour at a cottage of a friends of Ian’s and Sharon’s on Celtic Cross later this afternoon and we thought later we would try a game or two of Jacks over at Captain Jacks tonight to see if my luck at dice carries over to JACKS—really modified Bingo.

Wish me luck.

Lazy Hazy Sunday in Hope Town

2009-02-13T16:09:00.005-05:00

Ohhh it has been just a real nice Sunday in Hope Town. It’s just an old fashioned town where everything is closed except 3 restaurants. You just have to slow down but the fun never slows.

The sailing club here is unbelievably active. They sponsor and run usually 2 races a week. Big boats on Wednesdays and dinghies on Sunday.

We just enjoyed the day and watched the dinghy racers a bit. We even had a little rain shower today which has been unusual – it has been very dry here this winter. Karen went on a long beach walk and collected more sea glass.

The storm system coming off Florida this afternoon and evening is forecast to really shake things up here tonight (always the middle of the night) and tomorrow. So far the winds have been pretty gentle today but will definitely be romping by tonight.

Not much else done today. Just some light boat cleaning, removing the flags so they don’t flog themselves to death in strong winds, and putting chaffing protection on the mooring lines.

We did run the generator for an extended time this morning and produced new social cards and played Internet and watched the gallows humor YOUTUBE videos on Nortel’s demise. Well-done spoof with a lot of truth in them and you have to feel so sorry for the employees that are being impacted. What a debacle and shameful way for such a proud company to find itself today. I won’t say anymore.

Got fleas???

2009-02-13T16:09:00.003-05:00

Today the weather started fine. We decided to go to the Man-O-War flea market which is an annual BIG DEAL here in the Abacos.

We pulled the anchor about 8:15am and had the hook down in MOW by 9:30am -- had to drop it twice. It is tough to get the hook to set in sand and grass. Born to Cruise was right behind us and anchored nearby. They gave us a ride into the flea market in their dinghy. Good thing because it was crowded.

It was a warm sunny day too – almost HOT. This tropical sun is becoming intense now – you can see and feel the difference. The festival was centered at the marina grounds which were very shady. You found the usual stuff you would expect at a Flea Market. We bought just a couple of books then really spent some money buying food and drink. It is all for a good cause – the public school on MOW.

The market was not the big attraction it was really socializing with all the cruisers we have been meeting here. Wayne thinks the cruisers outnumbered the locals at this fair.

We stayed till around noon then left. I wanted to catch the trailing high tide to see if I could get back into Hope Town and a mooring for the next expected Cold Front, which begins tomorrow night. Once moored and after visiting briefly with Celtic Cross, Karen and I went to the beach and took a long walk and she collected a bunch of sea glass today – some very nice pieces.

This morning Chris said this weather system would be a doozy. He said if meteorology was your interest then this series of low pressures would be very interesting. The low is expected to drop to 980 millibars near Bermuda – you usually see that low only in hurricanes – thus expect hurricane force winds up there. The winds will not be that strong here but will definitely be romping in the 30-knot range Monday into Tuesday as well as some stout rain – thus reason for seeking safe harbour and peace of mind.

We are on the same mooring we had last time here so should be not much to worry about. Looking forward to a pleasant night tonight.

Ohhh Happy Valentines Day to everyone. Karen is enjoying her dark chocolates with truffles today.

Must be Friday the 13th

2009-02-13T16:09:00.001-05:00

Yep – must be Friday the thirteenth!!! Nothing bad has happened today (yet) but just weird. Like this morning when I came up to the cockpit to make my weather observations for the net we had reduced visibility. First time that has happened in the Bahamas!! It was a mixture of fog and smoke from brush fires on Great Abaco Island. Really stunk of smoke too. However it did make for a nice sunrise picture in Marsh Harbour.

We decided, given the weather forecast, that we would do laundry here then go this afternoon and anchor off Man-O-War for the flea market tomorrow then head around the Whale Cay Passage and into Green Turtle Cay Sunday morning ahead of the next strong front. Today a cold front was passing but they said we would hardly notice it.

Well we got to the laundry and that went well except the machines will not accept any Bahamian money – only U.S. Quarters!! How about that. Wasn’t too bad -- $2.50 to wash and $2.00 to dry. Good commercial quality machines and FAST.

Then on the way back to the boat – dark clouds on the horizon. Hmmm maybe a passing shower.. No it rained and misted and stayed overcast all afternoon even this evening. Well we didn’t go to MOW today although several boats did and had problems anchoring. Everyone seemed to know of that cable I hooked when I was over there but no one told me. Its not on the most recent charts either but because the water was so still folks could see it in the water.. It was ROUGH when I anchored over there..

Any way we will enjoy another day and evening here in Marsh Harbour – especially since so many boats left for MOW today and we will decide on a plan tomorrow.

I have a feeling of trepidation since the weather forecast was off by so much today. My plan called for pretty close accounting of wind speeds for my plan. Like when I go to GTC tomorrow I will have to anchor off the Island and then enter White Sound in the morning on Sunday. There is no protection for strong S and SW winds off the Island but I could handle less than 10.

Decisions decisions…

A busy day -- real busy -- in Marsh Harbour

2009-02-12T16:29:00.002-05:00

Today was a better day in Marsh Harbour. However – very busy.

When I did the weather report for the BASRA weather net this morning the boat count was 50 which is the greatest that I have seen here this winter.

I started the day by running the propane tank into the hardware store to have it filled. They say in by 9 ready by 12pm. I was there at 8:45am and they said it would be ready by 10 am and it was. The price of propane here is not bad. A 20lb tank is $25.
While waiting for that I changed the oil and filter on the main engine -- the book says every 250 hours but I like 100 hours. I pushed it this time and changed at 129 hours and it did not look bad. However – no way you can do it neatly. Black stuff all over my legs and feet – how??? I don’t know.

After cooling off we did a provisioning run to the wholesale grocery at Skaggs. Whoops cash only no credit cards so it took two trips. Bought Karen some dark Dove chocolates with truffles for Valentines day – a 2lb’R. Her suggestion – I never think of these things.

Then onto to Hollywood George’s stand for some dynamite Conch Salad. He has great quality control all batches are delicious!!

After lunch it was to the grocery store and beer store and fabric store to feed our habits. Then back on the boat to put it all away and take some well deserved Sun showers – Yooow the water was HOT.

Now it’s time to put together an appetizer to share and go to the cruisers appetizer happy hour at the Jib room tonight. Looking forward to it – we are taking some homemade meatballs and sauce.

The plans from here?? I don’t know. Chris pains a pretty changeable weather picture for the next 2 weeks – don’t expect any 2 days to be alike for a while and virtually no East winds.

Hunker down and stay put?? Move to another anchorage?? Go to a marina?? Don’t know. Maybe I’ll be move decisive tomorrow after discussing this with the cruisers at the appetizer pot luck tonight.

Mad Dogs and the Bahamas

2009-02-11T17:02:00.000-05:00

Back in Marsh Harbour again…

Treasure Cay is nice but we have been gone 2 weeks again and it was time to reprovision again. We had staged to head north but the forecast for the next week and half has a lot of south and west winds, which are no good for anchoring off the cays north of the whale. It is best to use North to SE for that purpose. The prevailing winds here are East but not this week or next. Sooo back to Marsh Harbour. On the plus side we can now go to the 23rd annual flea market on Man-O-War Cay which is a big deal here in the Abacos.

When we left Treasure cay we stopped at the fuel dock and filled up – not bad for 2 weeks on the hook/mooring I had used 11 gallons of diesel, 3 gallons of gas, and 130 gallons of water. Now water was a bargain there at a fill up price of only $7.

Now we have not spent but a couple of days here the other 2 times we were here and that may happen again. I really wanted to spend a week here but the events from this afternoon have clouded that.

Once we landed at the public dinghy dock we were accosted by a young drunk Bahamian who just rambled on and on how he was going to protect our stuff and would fight anyone that might mess with it. Ohhh boy I just wanted to leave. Than just a couple of minutes later on the road we encounter another young drunk fearsome looking Bahamian – hair and beard like a young Castro – and he is just swearing up a storm and wildly gesturing and looking right at us. We froze and looked like we had just seen a rabid dog!!!

Well we turned around and took a different path and fortunately he did not follow.

This is really a great place – ABACOS – but Marsh Harbour is not as friendly or comfortable as the other places. Although the best shopping and provisioning is here.

We will give it another couple of days and see if things improve – otherwise we will be “out of here”.!!

ATTACK of the Coconuts!!!

2009-02-10T16:47:00.005-05:00

No the opening picture is not the coconuts. That was taken over at Nippers the day before yesterday. Crews from Musoka Moon, Celtic Cross, and Temptation.

The coconuts have heard of my purchase yesterday. They attacked in force this morning!! While observing weather conditions for the BASRA weather net this morning just after sun up. I noticed several objects in the water that looked like brown floats. Closer inspection proved they were actually coconuts and a dozen of them all floating towards me. I’ve never seen that before – must be an omen..

Just a nice day in Treasure Cay Abacos. The weather turned out better than forecast. Several boats left and a few arrived leaving the entire anchorage only lightly crowded.

We had a lazy morning and did a bunch of radio work on the SSB. Went into the beach and had a nice walk but nothing found. The beach is magnificent but just devoid of beach combing artifacts.

Ohhh I’m bad – I forgot to follow up on the letter in the bottle that the crew from Born to Cruise found on the beach at Great Guana Cay. All the details and a picture of the letter are on their web blog page – check it out --- it was very coool: www.borntocruise.com.

Just going with the easy day today so not much else to report.

What else – hmmm. Ohh I got my scuba tank filled here at the dive shop here at the marina. Nice shop and very friendly crew there. Wayne on Born to cruise helped me get the tank on the dock. I went this morning at near high tide and had no trouble getting the tank on the dock – unfortunately they were all out on a dive and said to return around 2pm. Well then it was near low tide and a l o n g way up to the dock for the tank. Wayne assisted – thank You.

On the way back to the boat I told Wayne I was concerned that my anchor might be dragging back a bit but confused since all my reference points -- boats around me had left. He brought his glass bottomed bucket over and we looked for that anchor. Well we found the chain and it just disappears in the sand – anchor completely buried – thus no reason for concern. I like that.