Alabaster Bay

We left Hatchet Bay on May 18th right after my nephew’s livestreamed graduation from New Hampshire Technical Institute (his Associate’s degree in Animation & Gaming; I paraphrase the title). It was only a 2.5 hour cruise to Alabaster Bay and we had lunch after anchoring. There was only one other boat there. We got some hammock time before the rain started. It wasn’t heavy, but it kept us indoors the rest of the evening. Over dinner we had a video call with my family to celebrate Gabe’s graduation. It was so good to see their faces!

We’d come to Alabaster Bay because it was a lovely anchorage, it broke up the trip to Governor’s Harbor (the next major town) and we wanted to see the US Navy Experimental facility/Auxiliary Air Force Base ruins, which we did the day after we arrived at the anchorage. Mid-morning we parked dingy at the little beach and made the 1.5 mile trek to the ruins. You can click on the link for some more in depth background (that includes additional links). The basic timeline, however, is that the base was started in 1950 as a Navy test facility for a sound surveillance system for tracking Soviet subs in the Atlantic. The Auxiliary Air Force Base commenced operations in 1957 as part of the Air Force Missile Test Center’s Atlantic Missile Range. The base was decommissioned in March of 1980 because the US couldn’t secure favorable lease renewal terms from the Bahamian government. So, of course, we left everything to rot on someone else’s land. Back to the ruins…

There were mostly ruins of old housing, gate and guard houses, and huge oil storage tanks rusting. Near the latter the Bahamians have constructed what appeared to be a water treatment facility of some kind. It was posted “No Trespassing,” which we honored, so we could only see what we could from a distance. We didn’t spend too much time, but I did take quite a few pictures, which I’ve posted below as a link to a YouTube video (slideshow, really).

From one part of the ruins we walked down to the famed pink sand beach, which only looked pink where the water washed over it, otherwise it looked pretty white to me. We walked north a bit and encountered a fresh sea turtle nest, which I do not have pictures of because I’d left my camera with our stuff at our entry point to the beach. I had enough picture of beaches and figured I wouldn’t need it. So of course we saw something cool. A man we met on the beach told us of a beach bar/restaurant about a mile south with great burgers and cool vibe. So we headed south. En route we encountered the family from @sailingseadragon, whom we’d met earlier in the anchorage. We had a chat with them, then left them to continue their water play while we headed for lunch. We were greeted at The Deck by the friendly owner/cook. He does make an amazing cheeseburger and mahi burger. We ordered one of each and split them. He also makes a great rum punch with fresh coconut, mango, pineapple and orange to top it off. The place really does have an awesome island vibe (pictures included in the video below). You can snorkel the reef in front of the restaurant and he has a fresh water shower at the foot of the stairs for folks to rinse off before going up to sit. There is both completely outdoor and under-roof seating, but all open to the luscious breezes, with wooden shutters placed to block, if necessary, rain that may pass through. The décor is all tastefully recycled flotsam and jetsam (picture in the slideshow). We were the only ones there at the time and enjoyed ourselves. We later learned that he’s a pariah on the island, and had we known then what we learned later, we would not have ventured there. Nonetheless, we seemed to have caught him a good day and enjoyed the food and atmosphere.

On our walk back up the beach we met the family of Sea Dragon again and stopped to chat some more. They directed us to a path that took us past a part of the ruins we would have otherwise missed (largely the barracks I mentioned earlier). By the time we got back to Lady we were hot and tired, so we floated for a bit in the shade of Lady’s hulls and had a light, late dinner because we were still full from lunch.

The next morning we had some chores to do before setting out for Governor’s Harbor, and we wanted to snorkel around Alabaster Bluff a bit. After the snorkel we noticed the skies darkening to the south of us and our radar showed quite a mass of rain. We made lunch and waited. We were hailed by SV Sea Dragon during lunch. They had set out for an anchorage just south of Governor’s Harbor and hailed us to let us know a big squall had kicked up and they’d ducked into Governor’s Harbor to wait it out, suggesting we delay our departure if we hadn’t already left. So we decided to stay put for another night. 

Next stop, and next post- Governor’s Harbor! Until then, stay safe and take care of each other.

Back to Spanish Wells

We left the Glass Window anchorage on May 3rd and retraced our steps through Current Cut back to the Spanish Wells area where we would stay through May 12th. We returned to this area for several reasons. First of all, Peter, whom we’d met just before my folks left, was returning to the area with some friends and we wanted to spend some time with them snorkeling the reefs near Gun Point because, and this is reason #2, the seas were going to be calm enough to snorkel these Atlantic-side reefs. The third reason was that we had ordered a part for our failed starboard generator and were waiting for it to arrive.

Our first night back in the area we anchored off a small island called Meek’s Patch, located between St. George’s Cay (Spanish Wells is the town on that island) and North Eleuthera. Peter and crew arrived just after us and we spent the afternoon and evening onboard getting to know his friends Michael, Nila and Wendy. We had a great time and they fed us freshly caught mahi! Who knows how long we would have stayed chatting if the thunderstorm hadn’t threatened and sent us scurrying back to our boat. It ultimately amounted to only a sprinkle.

Over the following five days we did some snorkeling together, took Nila to Preacher’s Cave with us, and shared dinner with First Edition four more times. It was usually them providing us with freshly caught fish from that day’s spearfishing. We contributed potato salad once. On our final night together, I made a chicken stew in our slow cooker and we brought it to their boat. After dinner we got to spend a mosquito-free night hanging out in the bow on Peter’s big boat bean bags, chatting the hours away. As always, it was a bittersweet farewell with the promise of seeing each other next season. We know we’ll connect with Peter at least, because he’s usually stationed in Georgetown and we will be heading there next season. Dave & I were up the morning they started their trek back to Georgetown, so we got to bid them fair winds and following seas with air hugs one more time. 

I mentioned Preacher’s Cave. The reef on the north side of North Eleuthera that wraps around toward Harbor Island to the east is called Devil’s Backbone. Many ships have wrecked there. In 1684, a group of British from Bermuda set out seeking religious freedom in the Bahamas. Their ship wrecked on the reef. Everyone survived and they slogged their way ashore and found refuge for many months in this cave and the surrounding area. One of their members salvaged their boat (or maybe it was their equivalent of a tender) and sailed to the Carolinas area of the US, got provisions and made it back safely to the Cave. These folks eventually created a settlement in the area. I find cruising challenging enough in this modern era; I can’t imagine leaving one’s home for foreign, unsettled areas like they did!

When we weren’t hanging out with the First Edition crew, Dave and I did some solo snorkeling, renewed our cruising permit at the Spanish Wells Customs office, got one of our propane tanks refilled, got some groceries and more liquor, used the WiFi at Wrecker’s (restaurant at Yacht Haven Marina) for Dave’s STEM Guitar meeting when the cell service went down on the island one afternoon, listened to a couple of Bruin’s playoff games, and I rested my back. I did a little too much snorkeling and my back was horrible for about 3 days (had to resort to taking Flexeril). Once First Edition left, we moved to an anchorage on the south side of Russell Island just outside the entrance to the Spanish Wells harbor (about a ½ mile dingy ride into the public dock). We were there for four days1h5 v doing boat chores, running errands ashore when necessary, had a lot of hammock time, ran into some friends we met in Bimini last season, and were constantly checking on the status of our generator part. It finally arrived the afternoon of the 12th! We picked it up, ran some final errands, returned to Lady and hauled anchor around 3:30 to head back to the anchorage above Current Cut. Anchored by 5:30pm and Dave installed the new part. It did not solve the problem. Damn! A whole bag of Doritoes and a movie in the hammocks as consolation. The next morning, Friday the 13th, we headed to Hatchet Bay. 

That wraps up Spanish Wells, and since I’ve already written about Hatchet Bay, my next post will probably pick up with the stop after that, which was Alabaster Bay, unless something else comes to mind. Until then, stay safe and take care of each other.

Egg Island, Queen’s Bath and Glass Window Bridge

I’m bombarding you with posts this season! I’ve been in the mood and have had the time. It’s a good use of passage-making time. Most of our passages have been 2-3 hours with an occasional longer one. Today we are cruising from South Palmetto Point to Rock Sound Harbor, about 23 nm and 6 hours. It’s a good time to get ahead.

I’m going to back up to late April/early May when we were still in the Spanish Wells area. If you’ve been following us this season, you know my folks left on April 26th to return home. After we saw them off, we dropped the dock lines at Yacht Haven Marina and cruised to the Atlantic side of Egg Island to do some snorkeling because the seas were actually calm on the ‘outside.’ We snorkeled a couple of times on our own. After our second day of snorkeling we stopped by a new catamaran in the anchorage, SV Breathe, and chatted with Jason & Monica for a bit, arranging to join them for appetizers and sundowners on their boat later in the day. We did do that, and had a great time with them and their buddy boat friends, Cindy & Ron on @SV Reef’n It! 

The next day we all snorkeled together. There was a bit more swell and lower visibility, but we still saw some great stuff. Jason takes amazing underwater photos; check out his web page or Facebook page @BreatheSailDive. That evening we had them all over to Indigo Lady for appetizers and drinks and a tour of our boat. They were also able to give us some intel about things to see and do on our way along Eleuthera, which has paid off in spades. We exchanged social media contacts so we could stay in touch, and they headed back to their boats a little after 8pm. Cruisers lament- meet cool people and then have to part ways (I’m sure I’ve said that before). They were heading off for the Abacos the following morning. Sigh. Hopefully our paths will cross next season.

On the last day of April, we moved to anchor off Current Settlement on the southern end of North Eleuthera. This put us in position to pass through Current Cut, between North Eleuthera and Current Island, with the proper tide because it can have a wicked current a boat like ours doesn’t want to go against. We walked through the tiny settlement to sit outside their library, closed that day, to use their WiFi. We were still having data issues at the time, so we took any chance at free WiFi we could get. 

Passing through the cut the next morning was smooth, but the cruise to the Glass Window anchorage was a bit bumpy; not horrible, just not comfortable. It was a nice, calm anchorage though and we arrived in time for lunch followed by a walk ashore. We landed the dingy on the beach and followed a short trail to Queens Hwy to find we were directly across from one of the natural wonders we wanted to see- Queen’s Bath. This is a large area of basically very large tide pools carved out of the limestone from years of bashing by the sea. One can only go down into the baths at low tide and as long as the waves aren’t still crashing and spraying. We got the low tide, but the sea was quite active and we didn’t have the best footwear to climb down anyway, so we appreciated the beauty and awesome power of nature from the top. 

We next walked a little further north to Glass Window Bridge. This is a very narrow isthmus just north of Gregory Town and east of Lower Bogue where you can see simultaneously the Atlantic on one side and the Bight of Eleuthera on the other. The Atlantic side sports 80-foot cliffs. In the 1800s it was topped by a rocky ledge (Winslow Homer painted this), which has long since been destroyed by hurricanes. The succession of manmade bridges haven’t fared much better over time. There is no reef to break the waves from the Atlantic side, so storms at sea often create waves that funnel themselves into the narrow Atlantic-side cliffs throwing up waves that wash over the bridge to the Bight of Eleuthera on the other side. Over the years they have occasionally taken an unsuspecting car and/or person over with them (here’s one such story). We were fortunate to see it on a calm day, so we could safely walk across it to take pictures from both sides. My pictures don’t do it justice.

After Glass Window we started our walk back to dingy but decided to go a little past it to see if we could find the restaurant/bar rumored to be nearby. Half a mile later we were sitting at Daddy Joe’s enjoying conch fritters and mac ‘n cheese sticks, along with a drink called a Kerpunkle, which we learned is Bahamian slang for shit-faced. Aptly named, because the drink was strong with rum. Yum! Our ‘snack’ was large and late in the afternoon, so dinner on board was cheese and crackers and fruit.

We’d planned to go back to Queen’s Bath the next day, but dingy needed a patch repair and we wanted to give it a solid 24 hours to set before using it again. So we stayed aboard all day. I made English muffins and did three loads of laundry while Dave patched dingy and did some other stuff. We lazed away the afternoon in the hammocks. The following day, May 3, we moved back through Current Cut to the Spanish Wells side. More about that in my next post. For now, enjoy this video slideshow of the sights described here, stay safe and take care of each other.

Sweetings Pond

Our final excursion at Hatchet Bay was to Sweetings Pond, location of the proposed Seahorse National Park. It is a land-locked pond up to 45’ deep in some places, connected to the ocean somehow underground. It has a diverse array of sealife, minus the predators, which makes it an important refuge for the resident species, especially the seahorses. I found a 2020 Discover article about it that you can read if you like. It’s encouraging to know that the Bahamians are planning to protect this sensitive area and its life, while still allowing eco-sensitive use of it.

Thank you to SV Breath and SV Reef’n It for the intel on how to find this place and what to expect when we got there. There is no signage for Sweetings Pond on the main road and they gave us landmarks to look for. They also told us about the snorkeling rules we couldn’t have known about otherwise until it was too late and we were on site.

We walked the 1.5 miles to the pond, read the rules, then carefully got in. It was not the best day to snorkel due to the solid overcast, but it was still quite enjoyable. We spent about 40 minutes tooling around along the edges where it was shallowest, about 10’ (Dave went a little deeper). We saw one seahorse. Technically, Dave saw it. Despite his shining the dive light on it and pointing at it, I couldn’t discern it as a seahorse separate from the plant life it was hiding in. Alas! We did see numerous fish like we’ve seen diving some of the reefs; bivalves with bright orange, feathery mantles; fast-moving brittle stars; lovely, white nudibranchs; large crabs hiding under the overhangs; good-sized gastropods. A very worthwhile trip!

Every once in a while, we’d poke our heads above the surface to track the dark clouds that had been fairly far off when we started. They got closer, kicking up the wind and creating a bit of chop on the surface, the darker clouds reducing visibility. We got out of the water, put all our wet gear in the canvas bag we brought, stowed anything we wanted to keep dry in the drybag, donned our coverup gear, and then it started raining just as we set off back toward town. We knew this was a possibility when we set out on this adventure and decided that getting caught in the rain before or after snorkeling wasn’t a bad thing. In fact, we appreciated the free fresh-water rinse. Two very kind people stopped to ask if we wanted a ride, but we declined. No sense soaking their car when it was a fairly short walk. It only rained for about half of the walk back and started again just as we reached the dingy, a sprinkle really. We rinsed our gear and the rain got heavier, so I stayed out to hang our salty clothing and sandy towels and got my hair good and rinsed of the salt. 

When I was done, I dried off, changed and Dave made us hot cocoa with dark rum, which we enjoyed while munching on banana bread and playing cribbage. It rained most of the rest of the evening, so we spent it inside playing cribbage, listening to the news, eating yummy pizza, and watching a movie.

I got a handful of decent pictures and put them in this slide show. I struggle with free-diving, so my photos are all from the surface, which limits what I can capture. Enjoy, stay safe, and take care of each other.

Hatchet Bay Cave (and a little more)

First, the ‘little more’…

We spent the equivalent of four days anchored in Hatchet Bay. The surrounding settlement is Alice Town. It is a calm anchorage with all around protection from big winds and seas. Aside of the loud music on the Friday we arrived, it was also a peaceful anchorage. 

The afternoon of the rotten potatoes (see my last post), Saturday the 14th, we made our first excursion into Alice Town. Our goal was to walk the town a bit and find the farm ruins rumored to be about 2/3 of the way across the island toward the Atlantic side. It’s a good-sized town with a lovely public dock in front of Farrington’s Boat Haven (bar, restaurant, convenience store) on the SW side of the bay, and a big cement government dock on the NE side where the Island Link ferry pulls up occasionally (we saw it just the Friday night). There’s a big sandy beach about mid bay on the N side where Masters Marine Boatyard is located. It looks fairly new, I’m glad we didn’t try to land our dingy on that beach, though, because the entire plot is surrounded by high chain link fencing with razor wire on top. Guess they take their security seriously.

Alice Town was hit hard by Hurricane Andrew, and many ruined buildings remain- most abandoned, some patched a bit and still inhabited. Many buildings were either rebuilt or replaced, because overall the town looks good. We found the road leading toward the farm ruins. In 2005 the remaining farm buildings were torn down to discourage the squatters who had taken up residence, mostly Haitian illegal immigrants. All that is left are a bunch of overgrown cement silos and a few metallic and cement odds and ends visible from the road. We’d read that there are still foundations and remnants of other farm equipment, but we were not interested in bushwhacking through the extensive growth to see those. (Thanks to our friends on SV Seas the Moment, who turned us onto the Project Eleuthera website that provided this information.) It was a lovely walk, nonetheless, and we were accompanied by a cute female pooch who’d greeted us as the dock when we first got ashore. She stayed with us until we got back into town.

Now for the cave part…

Sunday afternoon was overcast; a perfect time for the 3-mile walk to Hatchet Bay Cave. We packed our dry bag with a towel, water bottles, granola bars, 3 headlamps and a hand-held flashlight, donned our sneakers, and set out. A little over an hour later we saw the sign for the cave on Queens Highway and turned down the wide dirt road. Ten minutes after that we arrived at a clearing with a short, narrow stone wall with a gap and what looked like the head of a railing. We’d found the nondescript cave entrance. Before we got to it, we were greeted by…puppies! They’d come out of the cave. We counted 8 healthy-looking puppies, but no sign of their mother. We carefully dodged puppies as we walked down the steps into the cave and came to a wooden ladder that led down into the abyss. Fortunately, the puppies didn’t follow us this far; they stayed near the entrance. We spent the next 45 minutes ‘ooh-ing’ and ‘ahh-ing’ our way through the approximately ½ mile of cave. It was the most amazing cave I’ve been in that I didn’t have to pay an entrance fee for. The main portion of the cave would be difficult to get lost in, still, someone had left a long line from one end to the other; comforting as a ‘just in case.’  There was an abundance of stalactites (coming down from the ceiling) and stalagmites (coming up from the ground), and often they joined to form pillars. From the shiny damp surfaces, it was clear that more of these structures are in the process of being built. We found a larger cavern with an even higher roof filled with tiny bats (I read later that they are probably leaf-nosed bats). At one point we turned off all our lights to experience the total blackness of the cave. Impressive! We’ve read that there are other branches to explore, but it looked like they would have required a fair amount of crawling, and the main portion was plenty for us. There was lots of graffiti, which is a bit sad, but the geology was awesome! I want to find more information about the cave’s formation and discovery. 

We were very glad Dave brought the high-powered hand-held flashlight, because our headlamps wouldn’t have done the cave justice. We produced just enough light for me to capture some decent photos which I’ve put in this album for you to view. Eventually we saw the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Dave followed the light to find a rope ladder leading out, but he said it would be a muddy climb, so we decided to go back the way we came. Besides, we had no idea where the back entrance would put us and the walk from the primary entrance was long enough. The rear entrance was just after a large hole with another ladder. Before heading back, Dave looked down into the hole and wiggled the sketchy ladder, but we decided that since it was just the two of us it wasn’t worth the risk. (I read later that it can be very muddy down there and that water comes in depending on the tide, so really good decision on our part.) It took all of 10 minutes to get back to the main entrance. We stopped to love on the puppies once more, then headed back out into the fresh air. We got out just in time to help a couple of carloads of people with some information about what they’d find inside, then we set off on the long walk back. At this point, the skies had cleared and the sun was out, so it was a hot walk, but the 6 mile round trip was totally worth it!!!

By the time we got back to the boat we were exhausted, sweaty and our clothes were filthy. We showered, changed, made fruity rum drinks and zoned out in the hammocks until we decided to dingy to Boat Haven for dinner where we enjoyed delicious conch burgers and hand-cut French fries, plus another drink each (okay, Dave had two more). When we returned from dinner, we crawled back into the hammocks to listen to Tom Waits’ Nighthawks at the Diner before bed. We slept really well that night!We made one more excursion while at Hatchet Bay, but this post is already long enough, so I’ll leave Sweetings Pond for next time. Until then, enjoy the slide show, stay safe and take care of each other.

Rotten Produce and Other Disagreeable Things

Although I’m sure you prefer reading about the beautiful side of our liveaboard experience, I feel an occasional dose of the messy side is warranted. So today I will regale you with rotten potatoes and some other recent unpleasantness. I may as well condense the recent sob stories into a single post and get it all done at once.

The potato saga…

Dave mounted five wire baskets in the starboard, forward companionway to allow for more food storage. I refer to this as our ‘pantry.’ Three of these baskets are dedicated to produce that keeps well without refrigeration. This includes citrus, apples, potatoes, cabbage, and an occasional butternut squash or underripe tomatoes. The wire bottoms are padded with a piece of foam from some part we had shipped once, and the sides are lined with that cheap shelf liner stuff people use in drawers or to prevent items from sliding around on counters. This prevents produce from becoming damaged from the pressure of the wires, especially if we’re under way and bouncing around. While at home on land I will buy less than beautiful produce- a bruise or blemish here or there, but that won’t do onboard if I want it to last as long as possible. I wrap each piece of citrus in aluminum foil. I cover other produce with a light cotton towel, and I have mounted a small fan over the baskets that I can use to circulate air every once in awhile. I keep apples, citrus and potatoes in separate baskets so they don’t impact each other’s ripening. I check and rotate individual pieces, though probably not as frequently as I should. Yet despite all these efforts, something still goes bad on occasion, like the two red potatoes this past week. 

Saturday morning, May 14th, Dave was working on troubleshooting the starboard generator and asked me to get a tool for him in the workshop. As I passed the ‘pantry’ to do this, I smelled something off. That can’t be good. I delivered the tool then checked the baskets. Yup, two red potatoes had started oozing to the point where some of it dripped down onto the packaged items in the two baskets below. It stunk! Over the next 1.5 hours I emptied out the potato basket, putting the two offending spuds in the sink and checking the others for contamination then set them aside. I dutifully chopped the rotten spuds into tiny bits, rinsing the gooey parts down the drain (and therefore overboard) but put the diced bits in our compost container. We dump that when we’re offshore, not in enclosed bays like the one we were in. I then proceeded to empty the two lower baskets, spraying each package with a vinegar-water solution then wiping them down and laying them aside to completely dry. I removed the basket liner and soaked it in soapy water in the sink, then hung it on the lifelines to get a few days of rain/sun before seeing if they’re usable because they still smelled after their soapy soak. Then I sprayed and wiped each of the three impacted baskets plus the surrounding wall and floor and let them air dry before returning items to them. The potato basket is temporarily lined with towels until I can reclaim or replace the other lining material. And just like that- poof- a good portion of the morning lost to rotten potatoes. 

Now for the additional unpleasantness… 

The above happened the morning after we arrived in Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera. Just before sunrise the prior morning, Friday the 13th, we departed our quiet anchorage on the west side of Current Settlement on the south end of North Eleuthera to pass through Current Cut to the sound beyond and a 17 nm trek to Hatchet Bay. It wasn’t pretty. The seas were much worse than forecast. This happens to us a lot when we’re traveling on inner, shallow bays like this part of Exuma Sound. It doesn’t help that wave forecasts are really meant for open ocean, but one has to add local conditions to the estimates and we’re still not good at that. We were in mostly 6’ seas just off our starboard bow with very short period. Read that as very bumpy. Our bows were washed over many times. The wind was also pretty much just off our nose at about 17-20 kts. We were making about 3 kts of speed. Dave changed our course to bring us within ¼ mile of shore where the water stayed deep right up to the rock cliffs and closer to the point we were heading for. This cut down the seas to about 4-5’ feet and gave us a slightly better angle so we were bouncing around less and not washing our bows for about 1/3 of the trip. We were about 1.5 nm from the entrance to Hatchet Bay and had to turn into those seas and winds to get around the point that precedes the entrance. At the same time, a rainless squall kicked up the winds to about 30 kts and the seas to 6-8’. Now we were making about 2 kts. Two catamarans passed us en route to the same safe haven of Hatchet Bay. Dave was very glad they did, because he got to watch them maneuver to enter the very narrow, 50-60’ wide, cliff-lined cut into the bay. Following their example, he passed the entrance a bit, turned to line us up with it, and slowly steered us through with the seas pushing us from behind. As soon as we were through the cut, the bay was practically flat. Salvation! We were anchored by around 12:30pm and were thinking about lunch when we realized we had a mess to clean up. We had forgotten to close the portholes! The rough seas from starboard splashed water all over the aft cabin on that side. So we spent 45 minutes removing, drying, rinsing, wiping. Ugh! We were beat! We had a simple lunch of sandwiches and spent the rest of the afternoon in the hammocks; rum was involved, and a virtual (Zoom) sundowner meeting with our boat club. We had leftovers for dinner and managed a movie before crashing for the night. Only we didn’t sleep well…

First of all, the restaurant/bar we were anchored in front of played loud music until well after midnight. On top of that, the wind was very gusty. A nice steady wind makes for comfortable, peaceful sleeping, but gusts interrupt our sleep by triggering the part of our boater brains that registers changes that may need our attention. Then, at some point in the wee hours of the morning it started raining. I think I got up 3 or 4 times that night to check our anchor circle and the boats around us, closing hatches, lowering our hatch a bit to cut down on the gusts, closing it for rain, reopening it for airflow. So much for sleep! 

I’ll end this diatribe by bringing it full circle. To do that, I need to back up to Thursday the 12th. After one and a half weeks of delay in Spanish Wells and over $400 in shipping fees, the generator part we had been waiting for finally arrived. Dave installed it Thursday evening at our Current Settlement anchorage, the day before we left for Hatchet Bay. The part did not solve the problem, so we still have a non-functioning starboard generator. Dave was troubleshooting the wiring of said generator Saturday morning when he asked for that part that led me to discover the rotten potatoes. There you go, full circle. 

I promise my next post will be about something more pleasant. We did a couple of very fun things while at Hatchet Bay, so stay tuned!

Until then, stay safe and take care of each other.

Yes, we’re still here

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted. When I was in the mood I didn’t have the time, and when I had the time I wasn’t in the mood. Go figure.

The two coincided today- my mood and time, that is. Dave and I are sitting on Wrecker’s deck enjoying some yummy conch fritters and fruity rum drinks while we steal their WiFi so Dave can attend a meeting. The BTC tower (their cell service) went down sometime today, so we couldn’t connect to anything from Indigo Lady, who is anchored between Gun Point and Ridley Head. So here we are and I’m killing time, productively.

Wreckers is the restaurant for Yacht Haven Marina in Spanish Wells, St. George’s Cay Bahamas (part of the Eleuthra string of islands, at the northwest end). We’ve actually been here quite a while. Let me back up and fill you in.

Dave and I and my parents flew from Boston to Nassau April 6th, stayed the night, then caught the AM flight to Great Harbor Cay (Berry Islands) to rejoin Indigo Lady on the 7th. Yay! We were in the marina 5 days doing boat work, then moved to anchor off Bullocks Harbor on the west end of the island for a couple of days. We moved around to Great Harbor (below the Stirrup Cays, owned by Royal Caribbean and Norwegian cruise lines) for another couple of nights. On Easter Sunday we crossed to the west side of the southern end of Great Abaco Island and anchored in Cross Harbor (not a harbor in the real sense) for the night. Monday we headed southwest-ish to the Eleuthra chain. We anchored off Royal Island for the night and the next day headed into Spanish Wells harbor and picked up a mooring for 6 nights. Great town with enough stuff to do ashore as the wind blew hard. We enjoyed several lunches ashore and a couple of take-out dinners. We toured the island by golf cart, swam at the beach on the north end of the island, got a tour of the tiny historical museum, and relaxed. The night of the 25th we left the mooring and picked up a dockside spot at the marina to make it easy (and dry) to get my folks ashore for their flight next day. We availed ourselves of the laundry and the gorgeous shower facilities.

While still on the mooring we met Peter who stopped by to ask about our solar electric catamaran. Small world- he has a solar electric catamaran, built that way, not converted like ours. Small world! His was on the lift in the boatyard while work was done to it, by both him and some folks he hired to help. We shared dinner at Wreckers one night, and we made him pizza aboard Lady another night. He is a kindred spirits, so we have spent a bit of time with him in this area, but more about that in another post, because Dave’s meeting is almost done.

We saw my folks off on the 26th. Their trip home entailed a ferry-taxi-plane-taxi-taxi-plane-bus-car over two days. A ferry and a taxi got them to North Eleuthra Airport. A taxi got them to their Nassau hotel that night and another back to the Nassau airport the next morning. They flew to Boston, took the bus to Portsmouth and drove our car to their house (we left it there at the start of the trip).

And I’m out of time! I’ll give you all some more detail about our experiences in a future post. Until then, enjoy the sunset picture, stay safe, and take care of each other!

Diving in the Abacos: Part 1- Fowl Cay National Park

General Overview of Our Dives

While in the Abacos from late May through mid July of 2021, we dove 10 times on 5 different reef systems. Two were small reefs inside the Sea of Abaco, that’s between Great Abaco Island and the small barrier islands to its east. The other three reefs were on the Atlantic side of those barrier islands, but we always dove the leeward sides (facing the barrier islands) because the conditions on the Atlantic side were either too choppy, or there was no place for us to anchor Indigo Lady and it was too far to dingy.

I always enjoy being under the sea watching the fish school along the coral heads, but this series of dives seemed more desolate than our Florida Keys dives back in August of 2020. I went back through the videos from our Florida Keys dives and finally realized what had been missing in the Abacos- fish! Okay, we saw fish in the Abacos, as you’ll see in the video, but we saw far fewer fish, less variety, and rarely any large fish or sharks. I would say the coral was about in the same condition both in the Abacos and Florida Keys, though perhaps a little worse off in the Abacos. I suspect Hurricane Dorian (early September 2019) had something to do with that. Still, there were fish to see, and I do find it peaceful to watch them from inside the fish tank, so to speak.

Fowl Cay National Park

The video that follows is a compilation of five dives done in Fowl Cay National Park over three days in June (two in early June, one in late June). The picture at the top of this post shows the area we explored.

The park was established in 2009. It used to have around twenty dive moorings one could pick up (with a small boat, not Lady’s size), but Hurricane Dorian removed many of them. There were about 6-8 left, or reinstalled, on the Grouper Alley/Flywheel Bay side, labeled in purple on the picture above. We dingied to these from Indigo Lady, which was anchored on the inside of the north end of Fowl Cay. When we dove the Twin Reefs/Tombstone area, labeled in green, we anchored Indigo Lady in a tongue of sand near the anchor mark in the picture and launched hookah from her sugar scoops (the stern steps).

Now settle back and listen to me breathe through my regulator as you as you enjoy the giant fishbowl of Fowl Cay National Park.

Boat Chores Flashback- Doing Laundry Onboard

We’re still home. We hope to be able to return to Lady in early April; fingers crossed. Until then, I plan to post once a month.

This month is a flashback to this past July when we were in the Bahamas and I had the idea that it might amuse you to see how I do laundry on Indigo Lady. At this point you’re either going to keep reading and then watch the video, or close your browser and wait for my next post. I won’t be offended if you opt for the latter.

Doing laundry on the boat requires some planning. It takes more of my time and attention, and it requires the right timing and weather conditions. Unlike doing laundry at home, I cannot just load the washing machine, go do something else for an hour, switch to the dryer and leave the dried load there until I need the dryer again. Washing the laundry onboard requires my full attention for 60-90 minutes per load, or at least setting timers so I don’t forget what I’m doing. Then there’s the fact that our “dryer” is the sun. The whole process needs to happen during daylight hours on a single day so everything is dry before the sun goes down.

These are my basic criteria.

  • We need to have enough fresh water in our tanks or I need to do laundry when we’re running the water maker. Each load uses about 20 gallons (maybe someday I’ll actually measure this). Our tanks hold 160 gallons.
  • I need a sunny morning and afternoon, preferably with a breeze but not a big wind. Less than 10 kts of wind is preferable, though sometimes I don’t have much of a choice. The more wind, the more clothespins I need to use and the more I worry that something will blow overboard (it’s happened).
  • I like to start around 9 or 10 am, especially if I have to do more than one load. Even if rain isn’t forecast, there can still be showers in the late afternoon/early evening due to local heating/cooling cycles, so I want the laundry dry and back inside by then.

This video demonstrates the actual process of doing laundry with our setup. I squeezed it into 2.5 minutes thanks to iMovie’s speed feature. If I left out anything you’re wondering about, ask in the comments.

Enjoy the show!

Coming out of radio silence

Greetings from New Hampshire! Yes, you read that right; we’re still in NH.

We were supposed to have rejoined Indigo Lady in the Bahamas at the beginning of this month, but yet again, we find ourselves delayed. Dave is in need of another surgery, poor guy. It’s not an emergency, but it is important. This morning he was finally able to schedule a surgery date for early March. It’s a day surgery, but he has to follow-up in person three weeks later. If all goes according to plan, we should be able to go to the Bahamas in April. Until then, he’s been instructed not to travel out of country, just in case. That means no Bahamas until he’s done and given the all-clear. So we wait.

I find it difficult to blog about travel and living on a boat when I’m stuck on land. At home in the fall of 2020, your may recall, I bombarded you with videos of our diving in the Florida Keys from August of that year. This past fall, however, I just wasn’t in the mood. I figured I’d take a four-month hiatus and restart in early January, back in the Bahamas. Well, it’s now late January and I’m not in the Bahamas, but I finally felt inspired to sort through the photos and videos from our short 2021 cruising season and that inspired me to restart my blog.

First up, a slide show of the artist trail we found on Manjack Cay, Abacos. I wrote about Manjack cay and the art trail and posted a handful of pictures from the trail this past July, but that was only a tiny fraction of the pictures I’d taken. I’ve whittled it down to 95 pictures and let the Photos app on my Mac create the slideshow. Don’t worry; it’s not 95 separate slides. I chose the origami theme, so you get several at once, and it’s set to music.

Enjoy the show, and until next time, stay safe and take care of each other!