Saturday, February 23, 2013

Walking the beach.

We anchored off Manjack Cay Abacos and took the dinghy to a beautiful secluded beach. We were all alone...or where we?  This Eagle Ray joined us for our stroll.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Thar She Blows

We survived the storm of the Millennium, er Century, er Decade, er Year, er Month. Well, around here it was the storm of the week anyway. Strong fronts blow through here about every 10 days to 2 weeks during the winter. This one came through Sunday night. Why always in the black of night?
The wind was steady in the upper 30's with plenty of gusts over 40. nearby boats with instrument recorders reported gusts to 50. That's about what we saw when hiding from hurricane Sandy.
I cat napped maybe an hour overnight. The boat was swinging quite severely back and forth on the mooring pendents. Each time we reached the limit of swing to one side we'd heel over quite a bit and then snap back and swing the other way, repeating the process all night. It is amazing how loud the wind can be, add in all the creaking of the boat, the rigging and the groaning of the 2 mooring lines and it's amazing SOMEBODY was able to sleep through it all! Our mooring block is a 4' concrete cube tethered to a 1.5" piece of rope. Reportedly it held fine during hurricane Sandy this last fall which was quite severe here. But I couldn't be sure if there was any wear on the line or on any other lines of other moored boats. Doesn't appear there were any issues here. Radio chatter in the morning did have a few reports of anchored boats dragging.
We should get about 2 weeks before the next big front comes in from the north.
Today we'll drop the mooring and say goodby for now to Black Sound and Green Turtle Cay. It's a great place to stop and visit but we want to get going to something else. We'll head north a few miles to Manjack Cay and anchor there. Weather should be mild the next few days which will make for good fishing conditions close by.