Black Point to
Georgetown to Black Point
Wednesday, March 30,
2016. Partly Cloudy, 80 degrees at
8am. Wind NE @ 20. We walked to the beach on the Sound side of the island with Jaz and Stella Maris, looking for sea beans and shells. Sea Beans are actually beans that fell from a
pod in South or Central America, found their way to a river and out to sea,
where the currents carry them along to far away places. They have a very hard shell and are light so
you tend to fid them in the flotsam at the top of the tide mark. The most collectable are hamburger, purse and
heart beans. All of these are dark brown. Hamburger and purse beans are about
an inch in diameter, with a dark stripe in the middle so they look a bit like a
hamburger. The purse beans look the
same, but are fatter. The heart beans
are generally shaped like a heart and about 1-2 inches across. It is good luck to find one and if one is
kept on the boat, it is supposed to keep the boat from sinking. Janet (Stella Maris) found a heart bean right
away (her first sea bean), but no one else found any on this beach.
We all had lunch at DeShamons. Before our sandwiches arrived, we had to
hurry back to the boats to close them up as they sky got very dark and you
could see lightening and hear thunder.
We made it back to the restaurant just in time for the food to arrive,
but it never did rain. In the afternoon,
we visited “The Garden of Eden” and were given a tour by Willie. He finds pieces and decides what they look
like, then displays them in on his property.
It takes some imagination (and maybe some rum) to be able to see what
Willie sees in his “statuary”. He also
does “pot hole farming”. The land is
basically rock, and wherever there is a pot hole to collect water, he has
something planted. Quite an amazing
garden.
Jaz came by after an early dinner for a game of Mexican
Train.
Thursday, March 31,
2016. Wind still howling. From the
east today 20+. Sunny, 85 degrees. Lisa spent the better part of the day
cleaning and cooking. I went into town
to use the wifi at the laundry to make some plane reservations. We plan to fly home from Marsh Harbor (in the
Abacos) for Jeff’s graduation, then fly back with Jeff and (girlfriend) Carly
afterwards. We will spend a couple of
weeks in the Abacos, then bring the boat back to Brunswick, GA, where she will
spend the summer. The internet at the
laundromat was not working, so I walked down to Larraine’s café. Lorraine has remodeled the inside of the café
(very nicely done) and added a big deck outside. Lots of people here doing the same thing, so
it is slow going.
When I went back to the laundry to get the dingy, Miss Ida
was in a panic because one of the pipes on her reverse osmosis water system had
burst. It was spraying water everywhere
and she did not know how to shut it off.
I helped her close valves and turn off pumps and we finally got it
stopped. Both of us were soaking
wet. Her husband is going to come by
this evening and replace the broken plumbing.
We met lots of people at Scorpios for happy hour and then
had dinner at Lorraine’s.
Friday, April 1,
2016. We spent the morning updating
our float plan with US Customs and Border Patrol so we can get back into the US
with Jeff and Carly aboard. Not an easy web site to navigate.
Anchor up at 11:40am.
Sunny, 80 degrees, wind SE at 10-15.
Stella Maris left at 10am
headed to Lee Stocking Island. They are
trying to meet up with some German friends who are leaving Georgetown headed
north. Arrive at Little Farmer’s Cay at 3pm and pick up a mooring on the east
side of the harbor. Very protected here,
but the moorings are sketchy. Jaz here
also. Visited Ocean Cabin (restaurant)
to pay for Jaz’s mooring and met Terry (one of the owners). He spent 9 years working in Liberia (oil
field work) and came home to by this restaurant with wife Earnestine (who
prepares the food). We walked up the
road to JR’s. He’s a wood carver and has
some beautiful pieces, but they are pricey. He is actually the nephew of Willie (Garden of
Eden on Black Point) and also does “pot hole farming”. He, too, has an extensive garden with all
manner of fruit trees. The “dillys” (sapodilla) are ripening now and are very
sweet, like a sweet fig. Click here for
more information on the sapodilla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manilkara_zapota
The tamarind trees are everywhere and also their fruit is
ripening. Click here for more information on tamarind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamarind
We had dinner at the Ocean Cabin (conch chowder and grilled
grouper). The food was the best we have
had on the trip so far.
Click here for more information on Ocean Cabin http://www.oceancbn.com/default.cfm
When we got back to the boats, Jaz was aground on the
sandbar just west of the moorings. The
deepest part of Jaz is her rudder and that is what’s stuck. Luckily no damage and the tide is on the way
in. Chris and Margaret move everything
they could forward and the rudder popped out of the sand. Only 8 NM today. 23°57.86’N
076°19.09’W
Saturday, April 2,
2016. 8am. Sunny 80 degrees. Showers occasionally. Chris and I check the depth on the other
moorings and then moved Jaz to
another mooring in deeper water. We
heard from Greenstone and Saber Tooth. They are anchored on the west side of Little
Farmers! We pick up Jaz in our dingy and
head around the northern tip of Little Farmers to Ty’s Grill on the western
shore where we met Bob and Judy (Greenstone),
their guests Dave and Janet, and John and Nora (Saber Tooth). Lisa presented
Judy with a throw she had crocheted for her as a remembrance of best friend who
has recently passed on. Very nice lunch and great to see old friends.
3pm, off the moorings and Jaz and us head south to Rudder Cut Cay. It is a very circuitous route dodging the
coral and sand bars. Both Musha Cay and
Rudder Cut Cay are private and owned by the magician David Copperfield. He has turned Musha Cay into a resort. You can stay there for $37,000 per night,
including dinner. I don’t know if that
includes a magic show. It is a beautiful
area. David even commissioned a statue
of a mermaid and a grand piano and had them sunk off shore so his guests would
have something special to see. Nice.
It’s not like there’s not enough beautiful things to see here! There are security cameras everywhere, so
it’s not very inviting to go ashore on these two islands. As we pull into the anchorage, Outbound is here (Steve and Deb). They spent the summer in the slip across from
us in Brunswick. Outbound and Jaz came for cocktails and we had a
gorgeous sunset – then the mosquitos came out in force. Most of these island have little fresh water
to breed mosquitos, but this one must have a pond.
8.2 NM today. 23°52.26’N 076°14.32’W
Sunday, April 3,
2016. 7:30am, pc, 75 degrees, wind SW@10.
We awoke to the sound of Outbound
hauling his anchor. The
wind/current/? had shifted during the
night and we were very close to Outbound. A short time later, Jaz is also underway. The
wind has gone a bit west and it is very rough in the anchorage. It is 80 degrees, wind SSW at 10-15. We stow the dingy motor (it has a mount on
the rear rail when not in use), raise the dingy, put 11 gallons of fuel in the
diesel tank and at 8:45am we are under way heading south to Georgetown. At 9:15 we are through Rudder Cut and into
Exuma Sound. There is what’s called a
“standing wave” at the cut. When the
wind is blowing one direction and the tide is moving in the opposite direction,
rip currents build up and the waves seem to stand still and keep growing larger
over time. The one today was only a
couple of feet. At the “whale” in the
Abacos, there have been standing waves reported of over 10 feet – a wall of
water! As we turn south, the fore sail
is out and we are making 6 knots.
Noon – we are motor sailing, wind has slackened to 4 knots.
We are also charging the batteries, which got quite low last night. Puffy clouds, 82 degrees, almost flat
seas. At 3:15pm, we have the anchor down
at Sand Dollar Beach, Stocking Island, Georgetown. It is partly cloudy, 82 degrees, wind NW @ 6.
Still lots of boats here, maybe 150 or so, but nothing like at the peak of the
season when they had almost 400. There
were two big storms here this winter, one of them with straight-line winds of
over 90 mph. Over 100 boats drug their
anchors and went aground. Many way up
the beach. The big mega yacht with the
“super slide” off the 4th deck is here. We saw him a couple of times last year and
once this year in Nassau.
34NM today. 23°30.86’N 075°44.71’W.
This is a far south and east as we
will go on this trip. We are about ½
mile north of the Tropic of Cancer, 133 NM south of Miami, 305 miles east of
Miami. We are due south of Trenton, NJ.
Jaz came to
dinner. Lisa made cheese raviolis with
homemade sauce and salad. Yummy. After dark, the fish a jumping where the
solar lights in the cockpit cast light on the water. The night is crystal clear, no ambient light
and there are a million stars domed overhead.
The sky is like this in Vermont, where we used to go to ski in the
winter. There is a glow on the horizon
to the south. Aliens have landed???
The wind is supposed to pipe up to 25 out of the north, then
northeast tonight. A lot of boats are moving here because it is protected from
those directions. One of the boats is
Last Boat (Nelson and Ondra). We met
them in Marathon 3 years ago. You might remember that Nelson and Lisa rescued a
pelican tangled in fishing line and with a lure stuck into its beak and
chest. They did a great job removing all
that and then the pelican rescue folks came and got the bird. He recovered and was released. Nice story.
Last Boat is traveling with 4 other boats from New Bern, NC.
Monday, April 4,
2016. We went over and visited with
Nelson and Ondra (Last Boat). It is sunny and 82 degrees and the wind is East at
15-20. We went to town (a one mile dingy
ride across the harbor (but with the wind).
The dingy dock is inside a lake called Lake Victoria and you must
negotiate a narrow bridge with a current running to get there. There is a gas station there for fuel, a
liquor store, restaurants, a grocery and most everything you would need. Tranee’s Hair Salon has fresh fish. There are stands selling local fruit and
vegies. Submit (with granddaughter), Windsome, and Aftermath at the dingy dock.
We also met Capt. Sugar, a local fisherman, who told us the fish we are
seeing under the lights at night are Jacks, that are chasing “fry” (little
fish) that are attracted to the light.
He said you could probably catch the jacks with a net with a net.
We had lunch at the Red Boone Café. The burgers were excellent, the internet
works, and the ambiance “rustic”.
There are two major breweries in the Bahamas, Sands and Kalik (pronounced Kă
– lick). Each of them has come out with
a “Radler”, which is similar to a “Shandy”, in that they have fruit juice mixed
in with the beer. Kalik’s has lemon
juice, Sands has grapefruit juice. The
sands is “Pink Sands”, like “pink sands on the beach”, and is yummy. Click here for more information on Sands
Brewery www.bahamianbrewery.com
Lisa and Margaret (Jaz)
walk the beach in the afternoon. Dinner
on board Jaz with Outbound. Coconut curry fish, BBQ chicken, Caprese
Salad (Fresh tomato, mozzarella, and basil (sometimes onion), with olive oil,
balsamic reduction, salt, pepper (sometimes on toast points). We had actually found fresh mozzarella at the
Exuma Market (grocery), but it (and all the other cheeses) were unlabeled.
We battened down everything for the big wind that is
predicted for tonight. More boats arrive
to hide next to this beach. Wind is
supposed to come NE and E.
Tuesday, April 5,
2016. Beautiful morning in
paradise. Wind N @10, cool and dry. 70 degrees, sunny. Wind now predicted to build during the course
of the day. At noon, we met Last Boat, Jaz, Outbound and two
other boats on the beach for a walk. Saw
a cave where someone had left mementos and built a fire pit (for those cold
winter nights?). We followed a trail
across the island to a beach the sound side and looked for sea beans and
shells. We then followed another trail along the ridge line east to another
beach. No sea beans, but a beautiful walk.
The wind has built to 20 from the NE.
Dinner on board Outbound, with Jaz. Deb made baked pasta, very nice. We brought a salad made from fresh spinach,
red bell pepper, onion, cucumber, tomato (nice to have fresh vegies from the
grocery when the mail/supply boat comes in).
We added purslane to the salad, which grows wild on the beach and is a
bit sour and salty.
Click here for more info on ‘Sea Purslane”
Wind howling 20-25 NE.
Flat where we are.
Wednesday, April 6,
2016. Sunny, 70 degrees, wind E @
20+. Outbound
and Jaz come to Rhiannon to discuss travel thoughts. Outbound
is here until April 28, when Deb flies home and crew flies in. They would like to go to Long Island, Rum
Cay, and Conception Island before Deb leaves – if the wind changes
direction. Also, the Family Regatta is
here the last week in April and they want to be here for that. We can’t stay that long as we have to catch a
flight out of Marsh Harbor (north of here in the Abacos) on May 5 and we would
like to catch up with Down Time, who is currently with Greenstone and Saber
Tooth currently in Cambridge Cay (also north of here). Nothing is really decided, but at least
everyone’s priorities are known. The
Family Regatta is a huge event. The
boats have to be built of wood, canvas sails, and owned and captained by
Bahamians. Sometimes you can get a place
as crew if you know the right people. Maybe next year we will plan to be here
for that. There is also a Cruising
Regatta in late February that the cruising boats can be a part of. Click here for information on the Family
Regatta
We are still smelling an odor from
the forward head. When we check the air
vent and the
charcoal filter, we find it is full of water. We dismantle the forward berth to check the
holding tank beneath and find the tank expanded significantly. The Y-valve which controls whether you pump
he tank out overboard through the macerator or whether it gets pumped out
through the deck (to a pump out facility or pump-out boat) is not functioning
correctly, which means we were not actually emptying the tank when we thought
we were (which may be why the macerator pump had to be replaced). We got the Y-valve in the position so we can
pump out through the macerator. It will
have to be replace d when we can find a new one. Cleaned everything again…………….
At
5, we dingied with Jaz over to the
St. Francis Yacht Club for dinner and the weekly jam session. The place was
packed, but we managed to find a table.
I guess you need to get there a couple of hours early to get a prime
table. The entertainment was good, some
excellent. There was even a “rake and
scrape” band playing saws, washboards and the like. Lisa had a Caesar salad with grilled shrimp,
Margaret had the largest BLT we have ever seen and Chris and I had conch
chowder and wings. The wings were just
OK and the conch chowder tasted and looked like Campbell’s Minestrone with some
conch cut up in it. The conch chowder we
had at Ocean Cabin on Little Farmers was far superior and Ernestine even told
us how to make it.
We
saw some folks we met in Bimini (Abby
Singer, Windsome, Southern Cross) as well as Manana (who we met in Brunswick).
Afterward,
we stopped at the famous Chat & Chill Grill. It is on the same little harbor on Stocking
Island. This place was a
disappointment. I am sure some of the
issue is the two storms that came through here a couple of months ago. They had 90 mph straight line winds and over
100 boats went aground. They were
closing at sundown today because everyone went to St. Francis. The building looks like it is on its last
legs and was incredibly dirty – even for a rustic beach bar. Their location is great tho’ facing the
sunset on the beach.
The
temperature is only 70 degrees and the wind and occasional rain make it
chilly. We got back to the boat just as
it started.
Thursday, April 7, 2016. Sunny, 80
degrees, wind S @ 10. At 10am, we lifted
the anchor and moved across the bay to anchor close to Georgetown (about 1 ½
miles). We took the laundry to The Corner Laundry and dropped it off. They have a wash and fold service that is
very inexpensive. We talked to BTC about the fact that we cannot send email via
Benny’s email account. They referred the
issue to technical support and are supposed to call us back. We also called Metrocast in the US and they
checked everything from their end and said it was OK. We refilled the water cans with jerry cans
filled at the dingy dock and refilled the diesel from jerry cans filled at the
local Shell station. There is a marina
here, but you never know if they will have gas or diesel and the docks are
reputed to be “shaky”.
At 4:30 we met Windsome
(Gary and Janet), Southern Cross
(Steve), Jaz (Margaret and Chris), Manana (Tom and Ginny) and Outbound (Steve and Deb) at Peace and
Plenty for a BBQ buffet and a Rake and Scrape band. Peace and Plenty is a nice hotel and
restaurant facing the harbor in Georgetown.
The BBQ did not start until 7 and the band (which was not a Rake and
Scrape) did not start until 8:30. We
left at nine (aka boater’s midnight).
The wind had died completely and the Elizabeth Harbor was like a pond. The food was good and the company was great!
1.5 miles today 23°30.32’N
075°45.86’W
Friday, April 8,
2016. Anchor up at 8:00am. Sunny, 80
degrees, wind SSE @ 5. Jaz has already
left and Outbound is staying. We probably won’t see them again until
Brunswick, GA. Last Boat left yesterday for Nassau, then home to North Carolina. Our
batteries are very low. The solar panel
does a good job of keeping up with demand during the day, but we are running
two refrigerators and they deplete the house batteries overnight. The VHF is even complaining. The chart plotter also will not boot up, but
a call to Raymarine and they told us how to reboot the unit. Working fine now. They did suggest that we not turn items on
until the engine was running, especially when the power is low, so we do not
create a power surge.
8:45am, out of Georgetown (Elizabeth Harbor) and heading
north. Wind SW@5, seas flat. We left at the same time as a Catalina 47
(High Priority) which has a dark blue hull.
Very pretty.
Noon – sunny, wind NNW@5.
3:30pm – Farmers Cut, by Little Farmers Cay, and we cross from Exuma
Sound (very deep water) to Exuma Banks (shallow water). We take the southern route around Little
Farmers. It is low tide and in some
spots on 6 ½ feet of water (we need at least 5). This is common in the Bahamas. We talked to Stella Maris. They are still in Black Point and finally met
up with their German friends. They are
leaving tomorrow for Black Point, then on to Bermuda (directly) and then the
Chesapeake.
5pm, anchor down at Hetty’s Land about 5 miles south of
Black Point (Great Guana Cay). Jaz is here and we are the only 2 boats
except for a couple of kayakers. 49.2
miles today.
24°01.61’N 075°21.61’W
Saturday, April 9,
2016. Sunny 70 degrees at 8am. Wind
went calm overnight. We walked across
the island to the Sound (east) side with Margaret (Jaz). Chris went
snorkeling. We trekked about a mile
through a mangrove pond, and up and over some large rock formations to reach a
spot on the other side where flotsam collects.
We’re not sure why, but certain formations of the shore tend to collect
large quantities of stuff. We hope to
find some sea beans here, we did last year.
Sure enough, Margaret found two heart shaped ones and I found
another. Legend has it that if you have
one of these on board, your boat will not sink.
We saw Stella Maris sail by on their way to Georgetown and were able to
raise them on the handheld VHF to say “sayonara”.
Jaz left at noon
for Black Point, trying to sail, but the wind out of the north on the nose
making it challenging. The wind is
supposed to pick up to 20+ out of the NE tonight and Black point will be an ok
anchorage in the wind.
We had lunch and a swim.
We talked to High Priority as he passed by on his way to Black Point. At
2pm, we raised the anchor and headed the 8 miles to Black Point. Sunny, 80 degrees, wind North at 5. 3:30pm, anchor down at Black Point not too
far east of the Government dock. Chris
and I made a run into town to deposit trash, get bread at Lorraine’s mom’s and
ice from DeShammon’s restaurant. We had
a couple of those Pink Sands while waiting for the ice machine to fill the
bags.
Dinner on board Jaz. Margaret made vegetarian chili with sweet potatoes. We made another of the salads
like we did on Tuesday, using the last of the purslane. Plenty more on the beach. Glorious sunset tonight – more spectacular
than usual.
8 miles today. 24°06.01’N 076°24.14’W
The wind came up overnight.
Waves sneaking around the point make the anchorage rocky and rolly. Wind constant 15-20 from the northeast. Not very comfortable for sleeping.
For some reason, our VHF is acting up again. We can transmit 20 miles, but have trouble
receiving.
Sunday, April 10,
2016. Wind howling NE20-25+, sunny, 75 degrees. Lisa’s back has been bothering her for a
while, so today is a good day to lay low.
She is making flowers (ala Ember Stokes). Margaret and Chris (Jaz) come to visit and Margaret makes some flowers also. I am trying to figure out the VHF issue and
work on this blog. Dinner on board this
evening.
Monday, April 11,
2016. 8am, wind still howling. Gusts
hit 30+ overnight. Chris and I made
another trash run, ice, milk, eggs and Miss Ida’s (Rockside Laundry) carrot
cake. Chris wanted a block of ice, so
Miss Ida gave us a ride to her house in her golf cart to get the ice from the
shed out back. Very nice house.
Anchor up at noon, wind ENE @15-25. I managed to slam the anchor hatch on my big
toe. Ouch! That’s why you are supposed to wear shoes on
deck! We head around to the south side
of Black Point, close to the beach by the pink house and the Castle (or the
house that looks like one). The VHF
seems to be working fine today. Go figure!
1 pm anchor down.
We talked to Saber
Tooth today. They have met up with Down Time (we traveled with them in the
Abacos last year) and they are headed to Eleuthera with Greenstone. They are
currently at Cambridge Cay. We hope to
get there tomorrow and see all of them before they leave. We also talked to Majestic Phoenix. They are
headed to Black Point to do laundry and then may meet us at Cambridge. Lisle
is also on their way to Black Point. We
may also meet them back at Cambridge.
The toe finally stopped bleeding and we kept ice on it all
afternoon. Chris and Margaret went
exploring and found a secluded beach.
Margaret found her first hamburger bean.
We talked to Uniden and they could not figure out the issue
with the ship’s vhf radio. They do not
repair the radio we have, but it would be nice to find a spare, because when it
is working correctly, it has a strong signal and reception. It also has wireless remote microphone, which
we like a lot. Maybe ebay. Uniden asked
if we were running anything that might cause interference. We did have the inverter on, but can’t
remember if it was at the same time we were having the reception issue. We know
that when talking to Greenstone at
one point, he had his inverter on and we could not hear him. Have to experiment
with that.
2.5 miles today 24°04.83’N 076°23.26’W
By
dusk, there were 13 boats anchored here out of the wind and the waves. This is supposed to die down overnight. Triumph,
who was here, moved over to the north side Black Point, so boats are moving
from one side to the other to find the best spot to get out of the wind.
