No bugs

We finally had a beautiful, clear, warm day to go lobster hunting.  The guys headed out in their wetsuits and the girls went looking for shells.  In total we got one bug (lobster) and lots of great shells.  We had a great time with good people and enjoyed the beautiful Bahamian waters.

Moon over Marsh Harbor

We enjoyed our stay in Marsh Harbor.  The full moon was spectacular,  even at sunrise, as you can see in the photo.  We finally got a chance to try the famous Bahamian coconut bread from Da Bes Yet  bakery....yum.  Also, a first for us, Rake n Scrape band with Brown Tip.  He cleans boat bottoms by day and entertains by night. Rake n Scrape is music with a saw and a grater. Wish I had his energy!  This little lizard joined us at the bar for happy hour.  We are now at Treasure Cay awaiting the Bahamian sunshine....its cold (61 degrees) and cloudy.

By the way, an update,  the Captain has fixed our generator and outboard dinghy engine (knock on wood). Great job, Bud jr.!

Holy Mackeral!

The weather has been unusual for Bahamas...lots of west winds.  On Monday we decided to head out the Whale passage to go south, an area with more choices for protection from west winds.  The passage can "rage" if the wind and sea conditions are just right (or just wrong).  Conditions were good so we headed out to sea and put out a lure...hopefully catch some dinner.  No luck outside but when we came in to the Sea of Abaco we switched to a smaller lure and......holy mackerel Ed caught a Spanish Mackeral!  Too small, we sent him back, but it was nice to finally catch one.   We are in Marsh Harbor...big town but only have internet at the restaurants and cafes.   TAke a look at the beautiful Marsh Harbor sunset.

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.

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.

V D 2013

It's Valentines Day here in New Plymouth Green Turtle Cay.

Time to don my traditional Valentines Day garb. A tradition started 26 years ago...

We spent the morning recuperating from a visit last evening to Miss Emily's Blue Bee bar, home of the Goombay Smash. Shared a few with new boat neighbors Bill & Linda from Annapolis. They were delish! (The drinks)

Chris made Blueberry Pecan Whole Wheat pancakes for breakfast. They were delish!

Sorry, no pix, too busy eating them up.

Later in the afternoon, we dinghied into town and walked around a bit, good exercise. We stopped at the Sundowner to watch the sunset and have a Kalik, the local Bahamian beer. They were delish.

 
Time for dinner at The Crazy Love Cafe...

Lobster & Shrimp Pasta, fried Grouper; delish. And a cocktail with dinner, another Bahamian specialty...

Fire In De Hole Erotic Rum!!! Guess what...............Delish!

Shared a table with Dave, Cathy & Gary from Baltimore; more cruisers. Having a great time in New Plymouth!

Happy Valentines Day!!

The Fix Is In!

We really rely on our dinghy. So getting the engine fixed was very important. We couldn't even raise the recommended outboard repair shop on the radio on Monday morning. We're getting a bit desperate.
Chris insists we try one guy we know is available. I think being readily available is a bad sign. Plus he has no parts inventory and I just do not have any confidence in this guy.
But Chris likes him, thinks he's handsome and charming. So what the heck, lets him give it a try. It's only money, right?

Here he is at work on the dinghy engine on the back deck of S/V Freedom

Here we can see him hard at work on the engine. We can also see why Chris was so enamored with him. Smart, funny, charming and damn good looking, eh?

AND, miracle of miracles, he fixed the dinghy engine!! It runs great! What a guy! Chris is sooo smart.

Maybe he can fix the Honda generator too!

Reality: I posted my problem to a few online forums. Got some good tips to check for fuel line leaks and that the float was level. I pulled the carb and noticed some wetness on the fuel lines. So there was some leaking at the fuel line connections. Pulled out some better hose clamps from my hose clamp inventory (plastic shoe box full of hose clamps) and changed the clamps. The float was sitting just a bit off level so I finessed it into a level position. Cleaned the needle valve again and blew compressed air through the needle seat.
The engine runs very good...for now. The long term prognosis is TBD.

Thankfully were we are, we do have open wifi we can use. It's very sporadic but like most things aboard, we make it work.

Threes

Chris says problems always come in threes. I hope so. Our third problem was easy to fix, the power plug for my laptop went bad. I have spare 12 volt plugs, so that was a quick fix. Problems one & two may be a bit more tricky. The Honda generator quit putting out A/C the day before we left Florida. I decided we can make do without it and maybe find a fix while in the Bahamas. Not great, but manageable. Problem two popped up yesterday. The outboard for our dinghy stalls after a minute of run time. Fouled plugs. I'm concerned about finding parts here. We NEED the dinghy so it has to get fixed. This might get tricky. There are outboard mechanics around here, but they don't specialize in Tohatsu. If they don't have parts for our motor, it could take a week or more to get them in. We think we'll leave Green Turtle and go to the larger town of Marsh Harbor where a bigger supply of parts should be available. I may also take a stab at fixing it myself. I'm soliciting some help on an outboard motor forum to see if I can garner any solid do-it-yourself tips. Internet access is intermittent which compounds the task of digging up information.
One thing we do know...rowing sucks!

Made It!

We crossed the Stream and made it to the Bahamas. A rather bland statement because it was a fairly benign crossing. We departed Palm Beach at 5 AM. The inlet there is deep, wide and well marked making that an easy task. We also had an outflowing tidal current pushing us along. The forecasts were for south winds and 2' seas. Well, early on there was no wind; but as we got a few miles out, there was a 6' swell. For us it was no big deal but it was definitely not forecast.

As the sun came up, the swell died down and we had a beautiful morning. Still no wind so we just motored.
Later in the morning we crossed paths with the US Navy. We took this as a very good luck sign, the ship is number 77! And you can see how smooth the seas are now.

 Later in the day the wind did pick up, but out of the ESE, not south. Fortunately I had chosen a slightly more southern direction when we first left the inlet. That was partially to compensate for the north flowing Gulf Stream but also to later in the day give us a better angle to the wind by turning ENE after leaving the Gulf Stream. And in the afternoon it paid off as we were able to put up both sails and pick up speed. It was a light wind so we kept motoring; motor-sailing.
Our depth sounder is good to about 600'. We were in 2500' most of the way across, and we thought Lake Huron was deep! But we would soon enough need the sounder back. In about 1 mile the depths go from over 1000' to about 20' as you cross onto the Little Bahama Bank. Our chartbook and our electronic chartplotter concurred on where there was good depth to cross. Much of the edge of the Bank is 2' to 4' but there are some gaps. Many charts are not accurate but our research led us to the Explorer charts which have a good reputation. We'd just had a report of a brand new catamaran ripping out its bottom following a recommended course line and hitting a 3' reef charted as over 8'. We don't have those charts!!
But still, it is rather disconcerting to clearly see the bottom rise up out of the deep. I had one eye glued to the depth sounder at all times. The other kept a watch on the chartplotter. The other kept an eye on the paper chartbook. The other watched engine gauges. The extra one took in the scenery.

We finally made it to our first stopping point, Mangrove Cay, a small uninhabited island that provides protection from the east winds. There is nothing within 50 miles, but there were 7 other boats with us anchored for the night.

There might have been a cocktail glass raised to toast our first Bahamian sunset.

The next morning we got going at 7AM after listening to the morning weather report on the SSB radio. AM, FM, TV, VHF don't pick up anything out here. SSB is the only way to go.
I decided to take the longer way east by going north of Great Sale Cay with deeper water on that route. Probably cost us an hour or two extra travel time. Didn't cost us anything in piece of mind though. Second night was spent behind Crab Cay. SSB weather report was for the wind to pick up overnight from the east and Crab Cay provided good protection from south to east. All that came to fruition and we had a comfortable night with 20 knot winds. The crescent moon provided very little light overnight so it was DARK! We had 2 other boats anchored nearby otherwise we would have had no reference points as to whether we were dragging anchor. Did I say it was dark? The stars were very bright. No pictures of that!

Our third morning of the crossing was still quite windy. But the islands and reefs that form the Sea of Abaco provided good protection all the way. So we only saw waves of around 2'. We had 20 miles to go to get to our check in destination at Green Turtle Cay and the town of New Plymouth. Unfortunately the wind was right on the nose, so once again we motored. We also saw a fair bit of rain along the way, great for washing off the salt spray. With perfect timing, the rain stopped and the wind died. The channel into Black Sound has only 5' at low tide so we anchored outside of New Plymouth around 2PM and launched the dink. I ran into the town dock and walked 2 blocks to the customs house to check in. I had a very pleasant time with the customs/immigration lady and got a fishing permit, a spear permit for lobster, a cast net permit for bait and of course our cruising permit. She gave me 120 days, usually they only give 60 to 90 days! $300. I zipped back to the boat just in time for the higher tide to enter Black Sound. But one last item to attend to before getting underway. We replaced our yellow Q, or quarantine flag for the courtesy flag of the Bahamas. We hoisted the Q flag when we entered Bahamas waters. We'll now fly the courtesy flag as long as we're in the Bahamas from the starboard spreader.

Here is a pic of the clear water where you can see a starfish next to our anchor in about 12' of calm water.

We squeezed into Black Sound and grabbed a mooring ball from Black Sound marina for only $10/day. We'll stay here for about a week. High winds are expected in a few days, remnants from the blizzard in the NE, USA. Time to go exploring the town and the surrounding area. Looking for a "Yo Taco" place for dinner next Thursday!!

Ready or not, we're crossing in the morning

This has been a long time coming. We're crossing the Gulf Stream Tue morning, bound for the Abacos Bahamas for about 3 months. This has been a big part of our plans for a very long time. We skipped going last winter as we ran out of time.

I think we're ready!
Topped up diesel in the main tank and all 4 extra jugs.
Filled 2 gasoline jugs plus the dinghy tank.
Filled both water tanks, plus every water container and jug we have. That includes 4 brand new 5 gallon jugs and we discovered 2 have leaks!
Made yet another trip to the grocery store. We keep going back and buying more and finding we have more space left. Here are some of the provisions:
8 NY strip steaks
18 chicken breasts
3 pork tenderloins
14 hamburgers
6 veggie burger packs
8 bags cheese
24 cans diced tomatoes
12 cans tomato sauce
12 cans olives
12 cans chicken
10 boxes tofu
6 cans black beans
20 cans various vegatables
12 bags coffee
5 jars pepper rings
12 bottles soda syrup
120 soda co2 cartridges
34 rice mix boxes
6 large rolled oats packages
16 bags pretzels
4 chex mix
5 bags corn chips
9 boxes crackers
2 goldfish
5 cases beer
2 cases water
10 bottles wine
3 boxes wine
12 rolls paper towels
12 rolls toulet paper
8 boxes kleenex

And a lot more odds and ends!

I did some upgrades to the insulation and weather seal on the freezer and it seems to have helped. Our wind and solar seem to be doing better at keeping up. Plus the engine drive freezer compressor kicks some serious BTUs. It's a good thing too. Our Honda generator quit putting out 110 volts yesterday. It runs just fine, but no juice! We're pressing on anyway. We have multiple systems and so this is a relatively minor setback. I hope to diagnose the problem once we get to the Abacos. I may have to have a part brought in from USA. Shipping alone will run around $100. Parts in the Bahamas will likely run double the price. We'll see how it goes...

The weather reports are for south winds. That should be good for us. Anything north sets up nasty, rough seas against the north flowing gulf stream.

We'll need 3 days to cross the gulf and go along the empty north side of Grand Bahamas island to Green Turtle Cay where we'll check in with customs & immigration. Then 3 months of clear blue water, sandy beaches, lobster spearing, fishing, sailing and who knows what else!!

We will post to this blog when we have wifi available.

We've been in Stuart over a month now. Nice place to stop. We've met up with many friends, got more projects done on the boat, visited the town, and produced some videos for a local company. This past weekend, we rented a car and did a supermarket sweep. Spent almost $1000 on tons of stuff to take with us to the Bahamas. I keep finding more places to pack stuff but somethings just can't hide:

We're trying to keep the V berth usable for guests. We fill it up and then clean it out as best we can.

Here's one of the videos I produced for Mack Sails:

We should get out of here by the weekend. Last minute chores need wrapping up, including laundry, more groceries and boat washing. We'll head down to the Palm Beach area and will wait there for good weather to cross the Gulf Stream. You don't venture into the stream with north winds blowing and they are quite common in winter. So we might sit for a week or more waiting. Hard to say how it will go.

Enjoying Stuart, Florida

We are at Sunset Bay in Stuart Florida, hanging on the mooring ball, taking the dinghy to the dinghy dock and enjoying the courtesy bikes.  We had a great cruisers potluck for Christmas that I baked my country fair bread for.  Ed managed to wear his Christmas socks.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Some say Christmas is not the same without snow.  It's fine by me.

Beach time

We've been running from the cold for what seems like forever. We finally found some warm weather near Melbourne Fl. We anchored for a few days and took the dingy ashore. Great to just stroll on the beach. Tide was out, so the hard pack sand was exposed, making for easy walking. Great day!

St. Augustine

We took a mooring ball for a week in St. Augustine, Fl, the oldest city in America. The first few days were cold, damp and very windy. Miserable. But we got a few tasks accomplished. The sun finally broke out on Thanksgiving day! We bar hopped, looking for the Lions game on TV. They found yet another unique way to loose! Sigh.
We also got in some nice biking and walking tours of the city. These pictures are just scratching the surface of all the great sights to see there. I would recommend St. Augustine as a good vacation stp.
We celebrated Chris birthday a bit early on Friday by doing an appetizer tour around town. Yum! Also had a new tablet shipped in for her birthday. Happy birthday Chrissy!
It was a quick week stopover and we're pressing south. We dropped anchor in Daytona Beach tonight and should make Mosquito Lagoon tomorrow. It is reported to have fantastic fishing for Reds & Speckled Trout. Hope we have some luck! The weather looks good for this plan so far!

Uncle!

We give up!
One of the most highly touted stops on the intracoastal waterway is Cumberland Island. Canopied trails lead to miles of beautiful sand beach. Wild ponies roam the entire island. We got there on Tuesday afternoon in calm weather expecting to spend a few days exploring. Moma nature had other ideas. The wind picked up out of the northeast and started blowing hard accompanied by rain. A dingy ride ashore would have been cold and wet. We hung on the hook for a day expecting things to get a bit better. They got worse. The wind shifted to the northwest and we lost the protection of the island. So rock n roll we did; for a whole night. The new weather reports showed the wind would keep blowing out of the north forever. Well, at least a week. We could hear the horses, we were that close.

So we threw in the towel and moved on. We just beat the coast guard blockade for a nuke sub preparing to depart Kings Bay. They shut down all traffic in the area once boomer is underway.

We're now in Florida, still a bit chilly with lows in the 50's. Seems like we're always runnin from the weather! But things could be worse, we have friends  much further north, including one still on the Erie canal.

A nice reward

We motored in calm flat seas overnight from Beaufort, NC to Charleston, SC; taking about 34 hours. We were going to fuel up and anchor for the night. But the seas on Monday were predicted to get sloppy so we decided to get moving again. This was around 4PM and it would be a 24 hour run to St. Simons Island in southern Georgia. Sometime around midnight, the seas started to get going again. Not real bad, but on our beam with no wind. When on the beam with some breeze, the sails will hold us steady, but with no wind we rolled quite a bit all night long. Yuck.
But at first light, we were rewarded very nicely by a visiting pod of dolphins. The first sighting was of the largest dolphin shooting up 5 feet into the air 3 times in succession. Very impressive. They stayed with us for almost a half hour, dancing all around the boat, mostly at the bow. I finally stopped being mesmerized long enough to grab the video camera and shoot a short clip just before they swam off. Maybe they're camera shy? This is just a very short slice of the entertainment they provided...

We made St. Simons about 1 hour before sunset to find our friends Jeff & Mary on Echo anchored here. Their plan was to go straight to central Florida, I guess they can't get enough of our company! We've been here before and will go ashore by dinghy with bikes to enjoy the place once more.

On The Move

We stayed put in a very well protected cove for the reported Nor'easter. We saw nothing more than 10 knots. It must be the tropics, right? We saw some palm trees and dolphins again. But we froze our @sses off! It got down into the low 30's. We ran the generator to power the electric heaters, but not all night.We are vowing to make sure we head south a month earlier next year.

So we hustled down to Beaufort NC today because the weather is looking good Fri/Sat/Sun. We're going to do at least one overnight to Charleston SC and hopefully the weather holds and we can do 2 nights to St. Simon's Island in southern Georgia.

We'll have the spot tracker running.

Freedom to the Rescue

Today's weather was much nicer. Sunshine makes a BIG difference. Our cockpit is fully enclosed and the sun warms it up very nicely. The last few days were cloudy & cold, no fun!
As we motored along the Alligator-Pungo Canal we came upon a sailboat that had strayed onto a sandbar in the canal. We slowed down and Chris chatted with the 2 guys aboard the sailboat. They asked if we could pull them off the bar by their stern. One guy was already in their dingy with a line so it was quick work by Chris to grab the line and tie it to our stern cleat. They came off easy, thankfully. If they were hard aground I'm not sure I could have helped. We were surprised how many other boats had passed them without an offer of help before we came along. Our good deed for the month. Sorry, no pictures, we were kind of busy.

New rag!

Although there was some liquid sunshine this morning, the wind was calm. So we bundled up and got to work hoisting me up the mast early before the wind picked up. The pin that worked itself out of the furler foil was easy to press back into place. I was also able to retape some rigging while up there. I decided to skip replacing our anchor light with our new LED light. Cold wet hands could have led to an expensive masthead tri-color light fixture taking a nose dive for Chris' head.
So finally, down came the old sail and up went the new, crisp Mack Sails Genoa. No drama, piece of cake. We were done early enough to still get underway back on our track south. Another storm is reportedly headed for us mid-week and we want to be inland again for better protection from wind & waves.
We were able to unfurl the new sail while motorsailing and we could definitely see a big improvement. Rasberries to Doyle in Detroit for telling me our old sail was fine and didn't need recutting. Cudos to Craig H for cluing me in on the advantages of getting a new sail.
We were motorsailing today so the engine would radiate heat this evening at anchor! So far, so good. Much warmer this evening than yesterday.
While underway today, we passed Jeff & Mary on Echo again! They are former dock neighbors from Jeff Beach Marina. I'm sure we'll be seeing them again as we move south. It's hopscotch cruising!