Thursday, March 5,
2015. Depart the dock at 6 am. Dark. The sky just beginning to lighten. The wind is still strong , but is supposed to
die off during the course of the day. SE 15-20, Partly cloudy and 75 degrees. Adagio, Kachina leaving also. Sunshine says they will leave later in the
day. Everyone has issues getting off the
dock in this wind and the folks from Sunshine and Whisper are there to
help. Nice community effort. It is lumpy
coming out of the channel. Sails up on a
nice reach headed north to North Rock.
As we make the right hand turn heading east at North Rock, we are out of
the lee of the land and the wind build to 20-25, seas about 4 feet. What a ride!
As the wind comes more to the east, we douse the headsail and a
moptorsailing into wind and waves. Waves
now six feet, but we are making 6 knots.
9am, sunny, with ESE at 20-25, very lumpy. This is supposed to settle down, but has
shown no signs of doing so. Water over
the bow regularly.
Noon, sunny 80 degrees, the wind has died to 5-10
knots. Somewhere along the way one of
our fenders went overboard. Our second
anchor is loose (went on deck to secure) and the rubber strip in the rub rail
on the port side has come loose. We
manage to get it tied on so we don’t loose it.
3pm, a squall line passes over and the wind is back. We heard the weather folks swy that this cold
front would not come this far south.
Wrong again. Lisa is looking for
a cowboy had to help with the riding of this “bucking bronco”. Decks awash. Wind 20-25+.
5pm, we are just east of Chubb Key and the wind dies
completely. Rain clouds on the horizon,
but not here yet.
6pm anchor down on the banks in 13 feet of
water. Dinner of leftovers and refilled
fuel tank from jerry cans. 66.3 tough
Nautical Miles today. 79.6SM. 25° 31.89’W
078° 09.33’W
Friday, March
6, 2015. Anchor up at 5am.
Destination today is Rose Island, east of New Providence (Nassau). Wind
and waves stayed calm overnight. It is a
bit strange to be anchored in 13 feet of water in the middle of the ocean (on
the Grand Banks actually, with no land in sight and the only lights visible are
boats also anchored or still moving).
Very quiet!
9am, we pass Chubb Key. Sunny and 80 degrees. Wind East at 5-10. Waves 2 feet.
There is also a current running from the Tongue of the Ocean (deep
water) to the Banks (shallow water) and we are fighting that current as
well. We are only making 5 knots of
headway.
We can see a cell tower and are able to make some
necessary calls.
Noon – Sunny, 80 degrees, wind E 10-15, seas 1-2
feet, nice day. Adagio is fishing as we
go. We lost sight of Kachina yesterday
afternoon, but they too anchored on the banks and are headed to West Bay (west
end of New Providence). We are still
headed right into it, so we are motor sailing.
While we anchored in 13 feet of water last night, now
we are in 9000 feet (Tongue of the Ocean).
Lots of flying fish skimming the water.
Adagio has had three strikes and managed to get one to the boat – a 36
inch Bull Mahi, but he threw the hook right at the boat.
2:50pm, the current finally switches, now we are
making 7 knots over ground.
4:55pm anchor down in the anchorage south of Rose
Island. Adagio and 8 other boats are
here. Water is beautiful. The shore is rocky and looks more like Bermuda
(limestone). Marc is out swimming and
checking anchors. He says we are dug in
nicely. Almost no wind. Nice!
66.6 NM today, 79.9SM. 25°05.05’N
077°12.60’W
Saturday,
March 7, 2015. Refilled fuel tanks
from jerry cans. Thought we would pull
out the main prior to lifting the anchor this morning, and it is jammed. The main is on a roller-furler inside the
mast and if you are very careful rolling it in, then it jams on the way
out. Marc swam over from Adagio to
assist, and nothing we can do will free the sail. Part of the problem, is the
Delran (plastic) wheel (sheave) in the boom that the furling line has to pass
through has come apart. Probably a
result of sun, old age and us putting literally tons of pressure on it. So, we tried to call a couple of places in
Nassau (which we can see from the anchorage) for help, but it is Saturday. Interestingly enough we never got a return
call (even after 5 days!). We will try
to fix the issue when we get to Eleuthera.
We finally get the anchor up at 10am.
It is sunny, 80 degrees, the wind east at 5-10. We try to tack, but with only the head sail
and so little wind, we are back to motoring.
Here we are back on the “Bank” and the water is consistently 20-25 feet
deep and you can see the bottom clearly.
It looks like a swimming pool.
You can see fish and even star fish on the bottom.
Noon – there is no wind. The water is like glass as we head east to
Eleuthera. Benny repaired our life
lines, we will replace them this summer, looking a bit shabby, and put the rub
rail back together that came apart during the pounding we took on Thursday.
3pm – Eleuthera in sight – high cliffs and rural
setting – looks like Maine or maybe Scotland.
5:40pm – we are tied to one of the free moorings in
Hatchet Harbor. Adagio is already here
and so is Sea Horse (Mike and Pam). They
have a house here. Eleuthera is Greek
for Freedom – the first parliament and constitution in the New World was here. It has an interesting history.
This harbor was originally a salt pond that had an
entrance to the sea blasted out so they could ship and receive goods. The entrance is 90 feet wide, but seems much
narrower. They used to call this a
“hurricane hole”, but Hurricane Andrew disproved that idea. Lots of damage.
47 NM, 56.4SM today.
25°20.99’N 76°29.52’W
Sunday, March
8, 2015. Many places are closed here
on Sunday. After Adagio went to mass at
the local Catholic Church, Marc came over to help get our jammed main squared
away. We swapped the topping lift with
the outhaul (line that pulls the main out) so that we could use that pulley
(remember we broke the one for the main).
Once that was done, Marc had read something on line that said if you
change the angle at which you pull the sail out, then that some times helps –
so, we pulled the boom all the way to starboard and then down to the
lifelines. Lisa was ready in a Bosun’s
chair to go up the mast and assist the main out of the mast, and we began to
gently pull the sail out of the mast and Voila! It came right out! Nice!
Of course this all took longer than planned, but it worked! Cocktail Time! Must be 5 o’clock somewhere!
Monday, March
9, 2015. We heard from Kachina that they are in Normans Cay in Exumas. Adagio rented a car and we went
exploring. First to Mike’s (Sea Horse)
house and then to his neighbor’s house “Sea Cliff” built right on the cliff
over looking (over hanging) the cliffs.
Beautiful spot and views (see pictures).
Then to Gregory Town for ice cream at Ida's Delight and shopping at Island Made Gift Shop a store specializing in Bahamian made items. Lisa bought a pair of
earrings made from shells, beautiful. We went to Thompson's for pineapple tarts, but they were out for today. We
then went to the “Glass Window” and then to a beach Mike knows to hunt for sand
dollars. The kids found several, but we
did not.
Back at Hatchet Bay, we tried to go out to dinner,
but both the “Twin Brothers” and the "Front Porch” were closed. Back to the boat and Benny made George and
Susan Barlow’s Chicken and Pear Curry for dinner.
Yum. Thinking of you guys George
and Susan!
Tuesday, March
10, 2015. Today we did boat chores and went to the grocery. The store here had some fresh fruit (pears and
grapefruit) and veggies (carrots, lettuce, 1 cucumber, zuchinni, potatoes and
onions) and quite a lot of meat (mainly chicken and pork, but some beef also –
all frozen).
Wednesday,
March 11, 2015. We rode with the
Adagio crew in their rented mini-van down to Governor’s Harbor. The town is a bit nicer than Alice Town (Hatchet
Bay), but the harbor is not as well protected.
In the harbor, we saw a “raft” that had sailed across the Atlantic to her. Apparently, there is an article in one of the
Cruising World issues about it (see pictures).
We tried the hardware store for a new sheave for our mainsail, but no
sailboat hardware. Went went across the
island to the “pink sand beaches”. Found
a little restaurant not open yet and they said we could park in their lot and
use their beach access – nice! The water
and the beaches are beautiful, and the sand is soft and pink, but not as pink
as the sand in Bermuda. We had a nice
beach day and lunch at Tippy’s – the restaurant that let us use their
access. They even had a fresh water shower
to wash the sand off when you came off the beach. This area is definitely a high rent district,
nice homes facing the ocean and the real estate agents are Sotheby’s and
Christies’. We stopped on the way back
to the boat at a farm stand/nursery.
They had quite a selection of fresh vegies – nice!
Thursday,
March 12, 2015. Adagio came by this
morning to wish us safe travels as we are headed to Cape Eleuthera Marina and
then across to Warderick Wells in the Exumas.
Marc has a bandaged finger that we got trying to chip ice off the fridge
– and punching a hole in it (finger and fridge) Freon all gone. His dingy also has a hole in it. Our friend Stan (Rhumb Runner-now a
land-lubber) says cruising is fixing your boat in exotic places.
Partly cloudy, 80 degrees, wind SE at 10-15. The main is working as it should and we try
to sail, but we are headed right into the wind.
If we tack, we will be 12 hours getting to Cape Eleuthera. 10am we are motor sailing with just the main
up and the wind continues to build out of the SE.
Noon wind 25+, water over the bow, 6 foot seas close
together. This is shallow water (20 ft.) and the waves build quickly.
2pm. We are able to change course to the west and the
ride is much more comfortable going down wind.
3:30pm Tied to the fuel dock at Cape Eleuthera
Marina. Then into a slip for the night.
43NM, 51.6SM today.
24°50.13’N 076°20.57’W
Friday, March
13, 2015. Woke up to howling winds. Blowing 20+ here in the marina. Adagio tried to cross from Hatchet Bay this
morning and had to turn back due to some engine issues. By noon, it is gusting to 30 and we will stay
put today.
A lot of the “fresh” water in the Bahamas is created
by reverse osmosis. Sometimes these
facilities have issues with the process. When we filled with water in Bimini,
it turns out it still tastes “salty”. We
will dump that water and refill here. We
will now taste and “fresh” water before putting it on board.
Met two "pot cakes" on the beach. A "pot cake" is the residue in the bottom of the pot when you make rice and over cook it. The Bahamians feed this to the local (homeless) dogs. The dogs are called "pot cakes".
This is a very nice facility. Originally supposed to have a golf course or
two, marina, condos, and 5,000 ½ acre lots.
A few condos and the marina are finished. Dinner at Pascals' here at the marina. Lisa had conch fritter and I had a club snadwich Bahamian style. Both were excellent. Hopefully, we will be able to cross Exuma
Sound to Warderick Wells tomorrow.
Warderick Wells is the beginning of the Bahamas Land and Sea Park.
