cruising – Life on Lady

Cheeseburgers in three different countries in seven days

I hope the title got your attention, and perhaps made you chuckle. Normally we eat local dishes when we eat out during our cruising season, but every now and then we crave comfort food, and we’ve needed it over the past seven days.

If you’ve been following along this year, you know we set out for Guadeloupe from Nevis on January 29^th and had to ditch at Montserrat due to generator issues. It had been a rough ride, and two stopped generators didn’t improve our mood. Lunch in Montserrat was cheeseburgers and fries. (We solved the generator issue fairly quickly, but you can read my last post on 2/1 for the details if you missed it.)

It was a bumpy ride to Montserrat on the 29^th, and it was an equally bumpy ride to Deshaies, Guadeloupe on the 30^th. We thought we might hang out on the west coast of Guadeloupe for about a week and a half. The weather gods had other plans. If we were going to make it to Dominica in time for the Salty Dawgs Rendezvous, we needed to take an early weather window on February 5^th. Yes, that’s today. It was going to be another of those “least adverse” windows, which means bumpy and salty. The second cheeseburger and fries lunch was consumed in Basse Terre, Guadeloupe yesterday in anticipation of today’s bumpy ride.

Yup, the crossing from Guadeloupe to Dominica today was bumpy and salty. In fact, it was bumpier and saltier than the prior two. We left Guadeloupe just after first light, about 6:15am. We arrived at Prince Rupert Bay at Portsmouth, Dominica around 11:45am. At least it was a fairly quick (for us) ride, averaging about 5.25 knots. The seas started out about 3-5’, building to 4-6’ and then eventually more like 6-8’. They were anywhere from just off our port bow to on our port beam. There were two notable waves. One washed over the port bow, up the galley window and onto the cabin roof (not all the way to the cockpit), but it did deposit some water on our stovetop. I closed that hatch firmly afterward. The other notable wave washed over the port bow up onto the solar panels on the solar roof, depositing a puddle in our “rain gutter,” which then proceeded, in the wind, to drip all over Dave at the helm for several minutes. There was a lot of splashing sea water, in fact, during the 28nm trip- over the bows, up the port side, splashing up through the teak slats on the rear walkway, and up from the sugar scoops at the stern. Indigo Lady and her crew were quite salted upon arrival. Dave would say we’d been “a-salted.” You can go ahead and groan now. Today’s lunch was the third cheeseburger and fries.

All that said, we are happy to be here in Dominica. We were greeted at the harbor entrance by one of the PAYS guys (Portsmouth Association of Yacht Safety). The association was created by a group of local tour guides to help cruisers enjoy their stay in Dominica and keep them safe. They do a lot. They greet arrivals, provide inexpensive moorings, help with boat issues, provide water taxi rides, do tours, and patrol the mooring field at night for security. Alexis was the one who met us at the harbor entrance, and his cousin, Kelvin, showed us to a mooring. We got to customs before they closed for lunch and then found immigration easily. We paid our mooring fee at the PAYS office and then enjoyed those cheeseburgers and fries right behind the office. One more quick trip into town got us a Digicel SIM card, so now we have data. We relaxed in our hammocks when we got back to Lady. We will start to listen to the Bruins game tonight, but we might not make it through the whole game.

Tomorrow we don’t have to get up at any particular time. We don’t have to check the sea conditions. We don’t have to go ashore. We’ll probably rinse Lady with fresh water if tonight’s rain doesn’t take care of that. We’ll dub around with boat chores and spend time resting up. We are here for about three weeks. Happy sigh of relief.

At some point, I’ll catch you up on what we actually did while in Nevis and Guadeloupe. Until then, stay safe and take care of each other!

What’s cruising without a few bumps in the road?

We’ve been back in St. Kitt’s for a week and the boat is still not in the water. The boat work we’d asked to have done started the day before we arrived. We told them what we needed done last June when we dropped her off for storage, and again in November, and December, and earlier this month. Last January, the boat work we’d asked for started on the day we arrived, so I suppose this year is an improvement. Island time.The big job that needed doing, which Dave and I could not do, was the bottom copper coat. Dave is extremelyallergic to the hardener in this epoxy-based paint. Before we launched last January, Dave spoke to the then yard manager about the job and learned there is a guy on the island who does it as an outside contractor. We’d buy the supplies in St. Martin and bring them back with us in June, which we did. Dave met the guy in June, at the boatyard, to discuss the job; all seemed good. When November rolled around, nobody could get in touch with him. When we still hadn’t heard anything after Christmas, Dave contacted the yard owner who put Dave in touch with another guy who could do it, I’ll call him Bob. Dave and Bob texted back and forth and Dave said it sounded like Bob knew what he was doing, so told him to go ahead.

We’re pretty sure our boat is the first one Bob has copper coated. First, the hull needs to be sanded and smooth and any pits that don’t sand smooth need to be filled. Our hull is still pitted in places. The time-sensitive, epoxy-based copper coat requires a crew of 3-4 to do it well. Bob had one other guy working with him who was less than dedicated to the work. Finally, the hardened copper coat needs to be sanded smooth. Bob and the other guy showed up Monday with one battery powered sander, no way to recharge it, and not enough sandpaper. By Tuesday morning, with only about one quarter of the final sanding done, Dave suggested buying electric sanders and more paper. Away Dave & Bob went and returned with the needed supplies. That helped, because the sanding was finished this afternoon. In speaking with Dave daily, Bob has acknowledged throughout the process what he should have done differently. If he ever does this type of job again, we’re sure he’ll do it even better. Bob is a good worker and learns from his efforts. The other guy did a lot of sitting and half-hearted sanding. It stinks to have to pay $45/hour/person for amateur work, but pay we shall.

On the upside, Dave and Bob bonded a little. On Friday, Dave had given Bob a spare solar panel we’d gotten for free but couldn’t use. When Dave bought the sanders, he told Bob he could keep one after the work was done. During their drive, they discovered a shared love of hunting. Bob hunts wild boar on the island, a lot of wild boar. He gifted us with 8 pounds of boar meat! We do meet some mighty nice folk on our travels.

That was just one bump in the road.

Our windlass needed attention. (For you non-boaters, the windlass raises and lowers our anchor and chain). Dave came prepared with a rebuild kit. The job took longer than anticipated. Dave not only did the anticipated rebuild, but also a lot of correcting of things that were poorly done when it was initially built. The windlass had also been installed poorly, so he improved that before reinstalling it. I even got to play a role in this, doing a small epoxy repair job on the mounting base. Monday night, just after sunset, it was reinstalled and we tested it. As Dave punched the up and down buttons, the lights inside Lady flickered on and off. In addition, the anchor went down, but not back up. It also made some unfortunate, complaining sounds. There’s also a way to crank the gypsy (the part the chain links sit in) manually with a handle should the motor die, and that wasn’t working. Ack! By early Tuesday afternoon, Dave had it sorted. Our windlass works now!

The flickering lights during our windlass test, were the result of another bump in the road. Our 12V golf cart batteries run the house load of fridge, freezer, lights, stereo, dinghy lift and windlass. Their capacity was basically non-existent, so the windlass calling for all that power tanked them, causing the lights to go off. Dave had purchased two 12V car batteries last year, so he switched the wiring to those. They’re temporary, because their capacity is not as high as a that of healthy golf cart batteries. Unfortunately, nobody sells golf cart batteries on this island, so we’ll probably have to buy those in Guadeloupe.

Still with me? I have two more bumps to go.

Bump #4 was our replacement multifunction display (the chart plotter that allows us to set routes and navigate, see our speed and depth). The original started delaminating last year, which turned out to be a warranty issue. So last June Dave removed it, lugged it home, and shipped it back to Garmin who sent us a new, bigger and better replacement for free! Too bad they sent us the wrong model. We have front and side scan sonar transducers and a depth sounder. The multifunction display they sent does not have the proper ports for these. Depth is an important thing to know, especially when traversing or anchoring in shallow areas. Dave was able to connect the front scan sonar which can also serve as a depth reader. It’s not ideal, but if Garmin can’t (or won’t) ship the correct display to the Caribbean on their dime, the exchange will have to wait until we’re back in the U.S.

The final (for now) bump in the road was the theft of the gas can out of our dinghy. Had we not stupidly left the gas can in our dinghy, unlocked, it wouldn’t have been stolen. Mea culpa. Fortunately for us, the local Budget Marine store had one in stock. Off we went to Basseterre today to purchase said gas can and requisite attachments, as well as a couple of unrelated items we needed. This trip also provided us with the opportunity to eat at one of our favorite local restaurants, El Freddo. It wasn’t a bad way to spend a few hours today.

Upon our return to the boat yard this afternoon, we learned that the bottom work is finished, the power wash has been started and will be completed in the morning, and they can launch us tomorrow, although they have to schedule us around two other boats being launched. Bob needs about 2 hours while Lady is in the lift slings to copper coat the areas where she was resting on the jack stands. They won’t be able to be sanded smooth afterward, but it’s better than not having those areas coated at all. If all goes well, we should be in the water by late afternoon. They have an open slip at a rickety old dock that we can stay at for a night or two while we do our provisioning runs.

Perhaps by the next time I post, we’ll be someplace more interesting. This season we hope to visit, in no particular order, Nevis, Montserrat, Dominica, Guadeloupe and Antigua. I will, of course, keep you posted.

Until next time, stay safe and take care of each other!

A Tour of Indigo Lady

Howdy folks! Sorry I’ve been silent for so long. My life on land does not inspire me to post about cruising very often. We’ve been spending a lot of time on land, and also taking friends and family out on Dumbledore for day trips. No big New England cruising plans for us this season. But now I have something to share that I didn’t have to create. So here you go.

One of my favorite parts of cruising is meeting new people, both the locals in the countries we visit, and other cruisers. Dave & I enjoy meeting cruisers of all ages; it gives us different perspectives on cruising and just living life in general. I also follow a lot of cruisers on social media, and occasionally we run into one of them. That happened this spring when we were anchored in Brewers Bay on St. Thomas in the USVI.

One afternoon, a young man dinghied over to introduce himself. He’d seen our boat before in the Bahamas and had been curious about it. Turns out that the young man was Adventureman Dan, whom I follow on social media. He chatted with us a bit, then asked if we’d mind if he interviewed us for a full boat tour and discussion about our solar electric setup. Of course we said yes. So here’s installment one, the boat tour. In the next week or so he’ll be posting a second video where he talks with Dave about the details of our solar electric system.

The video is a little over an hour, but if click to watch it IN YouTube, Dan created a clickable table of contents that allows you to choose to watch certain segments of interest. The table of contents is in the description under the video (click …more and scroll down a bit).

Since Dan posted the video yesterday, Dave has received about 20 requests for information. We’re looking forward to seeing more solar electric boats out there!

Thanks, Dan, for the fabulous video!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=_rUUlnHr40c%3Fsi%3D0JJUlEiWiO1ZMc2M

If you’re interested in learning more about Adventureman Dan, check out the rest of his YouTube channel, Facebook, or his Instagram- adventureman_dan.

Until next time, stay safe and take care of each other!

Life on Lady- Making Granola

Okay, folks, this is our last day on Lady this year. Tomorrow we will pull into the boat yard’s harbor and move ourselves into the guest house. Lady gets hauled out for hurricane storage sometime in the next few days. We’ve been busy getting her prepped, and there’s more to do before we fly home Thursday, so I don’t have time to write much of a blog post. Instead, here’s a video in which I share the recipe I use to make granola onboard (complete with a blooper). If you want to know why I don’t just buy granola, you’ll have to watch the video. 😁

I will continue to post when I get home, because I have a bunch of stuff from this cruising season that I haven’t shared yet. Guaranteed I’ll post as consistently as I’ve been doing thus far this year. 😂

Until next time, stay safe and take care of each other!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4jJZb4epJWY%3Fsi%3DNpfsgK3L5_ki70IS

While we were waiting…

This cruising season has felt like a lot of waiting. We’re used to waiting for weather windows, of which we fortunately don’t need many this year, but this season has been about a different kind of waiting. While we waited for a weather window to get from St. Kitt’s to the USVI, we were simultaneously waiting for our new battery cells to arrive in St. Thomas. Once they were in the USVI, we waited for winds and waves in the harbor to die down enough to be able to get the batteries onboard safely. Then we waited for my folks to arrive. We waited for our new freezer to arrive. We waited for the Salty Dawgs meetup in the BVI to start. Just as the meetup was starting, we learned that our current boat insurance provider would be dropping Caribbean coverage. That launched us into four weeks of waiting for a new policy to pan out, which included waiting for various responses to our numerous emails requesting policy and survey quotes, waiting for the day of the insurance survey we eventually booked, and waiting for the survey report to be finished (the latter happened quickly). Then we waited for the final insurance approval, which, thankfully, also arrived quickly. Yes, we have a new insurance policy that will commence as soon as our current one expires. Yay! Now we’re just waiting for wire transfer information to pay them, but that’s the icing on the insurance cake at this point.

While we were waiting for insurance to pan out, it also meant waiting to determine the rest of our cruising plan before heading to wherever we would haul out the boat for hurricane season. This also meant waiting to book said haul out facility, as well as the lodging we’ll need during the boat closeup process. We are extremely lucky that our new policy allows us to keep our boat in St. Kitt’s again for hurricane season, so we don’t have to alter our original cruising plan. Hooray! This isn’t a cruising season where we’ve had to make a lot of miles, so we have had the luxury of being able to wait comfortably, and we have been enjoying ourselves. There are far worse places to be waiting.

There are some advantages to all this waiting. Since we’ve been staying close to good cell coverage areas in order to deal with insurance, we’ve been near easily accessible on shore WiFi where I’ve been able to do some data-intensive online stuff over WiFi rather than using our data. We’ve done a lot of snorkeling. We reconnected with cruising friends we made last year. A little over a week ago, we spent several lovely days in Brewer’s Bay where we made some new cruising friends, including Connor, Blake (@captain_blake_sparrow on IG) and Dan (Adventureman Dan on FB and IG). We’ve also had some of the best diving since Puerto Rico last April; three awesome dives in two days!

With the insurance monkey off our backs, we will continue our explorations, hopefully only with the typical waiting for the right weather conditions 🤞. Our current plan is to head to the BVIs for a few weeks, and from there to St. Martin for a few weeks before returning to St. Kitt’s. As always while cruising, we’ll see how that goes.

It will take me a while to sort through the dive pictures, but I’ll get to them eventually. For now, enjoy this slideshow compilation of our various snorkel excursions thus far. Until next time, stay safe and take care of each other!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=0fgMk069p08%3Fsi%3D90ems8NNcFwe36yb

George Town, Great Exuma, Bahamas

We left Little Farmers Cay about 6:30 AM on February 4^th and headed to George Town. We had a wonderful time in George Town. We’d planned to stay only 2-3 days, but the weather had other ideas, so we ended up staying 8 days. It was incredibly windy most of the time we were there, which made for some wet dinghy rides to and from land, and kept us aboard the boat a couple of day, but it was sunny and warm. I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again; there are worse places to get “stuck” because of disagreeable sea conditions.

George Town is a small town on Great Exuma Island, about 2/3 of the way down. Elizabeth Harbor is a very spacious, protected basin between Stocking Island, which is about 3.5 miles long, and Great Exuma Island, with myriad places to anchor. It has quite the cruiser community, many of whom winter there every season. They run a cruiser’s net, with a regular agenda, every morning at 8:00am on VHF 72. They bid farewell to departing boats, have business news, community news, general boater needs (looking for help with, looking for a part, etc.), taxi share, welcome new boats, and at the end of the official net, they answer people’s questions. We tuned in our first morning to chime in as new arrivals and to ask questions about trash, dingy landing, etc. We learned there was a Friday pig roast at Chat ‘n Chill, a restaurant/bar on Stocking Island, as well as a cruiser hangout/activity spot. There are all kinds of events that happen for adults, kids, and families. They have morning yoga at Chat ‘n Chill; one of the beaches has regular water aerobics; they have Sunday non-denominational, Christian worship beach service. There’s also volleyball, dominoes, impromptu and planned beach bonfires/pot lucks, seminars. It’s an amazing, welcoming community!

While at George Town, we participated in a few of the cruiser events at Chat ‘n Chill, did some provisioning, and a little dinghy adventuring. We attended the Sunday pig roast. Another day, my folks and I went to Chat ‘n Chill to make our own conch horn while Dave helped a couple of other cruisers trouble shoot their solar electric systems, a need he learned about on the net that morning. When he finished, he joined us at Chat ‘n Chill for lunch. Yum! Mom and I indulged in frozen mango daiquiris. Also yum! We also went to the Saturday “treasures from the bilge” white elephant/swap event where cruisers either give away or sell for cheap, items they no longer need or want. We came away with a good spatula, some 4’ long zip ties, and a couple of books. My dad gave away his old swim fins.

Our non Chat ‘n Chill excursions included trips into town for provisions, and a walk about town to look at some shops. One day, while Mom & I got groceries, Dave & Dad went to the tourism office to help troubleshoot their VHF radio. Mom & Dad got to attend Church that first Sunday. We ran into our friends, the Hunters and had a couple of chats with them. Dave, Dad and I made a very wet, 2-mile dinghy trip around a point north of George Town to beach dinghy, which Dad babysat, while Dave and I made a 2-mile round trip walk to an auto parts store and a pharmacy for stuff we needed. The return dinghy ride into town was just as wet. We were pretty soaked by the time we got back to Lady at 4:00 pm. On one of our stay aboard days, I did four loads of laundry, made granola and granola bars. Dave and Dad cleaned the hulls. After our last trip into town, we moved from our anchorage on the south side of Rolle Island to an anchorage a little south of Chat ‘n Chill. This made for a shorter, somewhat drier dinghy ride to Stocking Island. That same day we did a little dinghy excursion to the southernmost hurricane hole in Stocking Island and stopped at a tiny beach with a sign that read “Atlantic Beach path.” Dad stayed with dinghy while Dave, Mom and I walked to the Atlantic side and enjoyed a stroll on the very long, sandy beach. What a view! We rejoined Dad, who had been enjoying the sea life, including a good sized ray that cruised by.

Sunday the 12^th was the next weather window for continuing east. So that morning we hauled anchor during the morning cruiser’s net and bid our farewell to the community, thanking them for all they offered. We were on our way to Thomspon Bay on the west side of Long Island. That is where I will pick up with next weekend’s post. (If you’re interested in one of the parts of cruising I very much do NOT enjoy, read my mid-week post this coming Wednesday.)

Until next time, 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.

Which way to go from here?

Happy July!

We continue to enjoy our time here in the Abacos. Our friend, Ian, was with us for a little over a week. We did a bunch of diving and eating lunches ashore, enjoyed quiet anchorages, we even caught a tuna (and by “we” I mean Ian and Dave). It was wonderful to share an extended period of time with another human after more than a year of social distancing. (Thanks for coming, Ian!) He flew home this past Sunday. Dave and I did some boat chores, rested up a bit, then started planning our remaining time here in the Abacos. There is one more island we want to explore, Manjack Cay (also called Nunjack, locally), about 5-6 miles NW of Green Turtle Cay. We’re en route there now, but the timing of our arrival will depend on the path and timing of Tropical Storm Elsa. As with every day cruising, Mother Nature will decide.

It may seem a bit early, but even as we head for Manjack Cay, we’re already thinking about how we will return to the Berry Islands for August. Again, we work on Mother Nature’s schedule and that is ever changing. We can’t afford to miss a good weather window. At this point we’re just exploring route options. My goals are to pick a route that (a) l is ikely to provide the most comfortable ride, (b) minimizes the number of days we just “make miles,” and (c) isn’t boring. We are weighing the pros and cons of each route. If we are incredibly lucky, we’ll be able to accommodate both goals, but I’m not holding my breath. There are a couple of options north from Manjack, or we can return the way we came via the south route around Hole in the Wall. From Manjack, the route distances are similar.

Going back the way we came means going back down to the area of Little Harbor and possibly waiting there for the right weather window to make the trip around Hole in the Wall. It would be a comfortable place to wait. This route would require us retracing our path through the Sea of Abaco. This isn’t a bad thing, because this is where we’ve been hanging out for the past 5 weeks and we like it here. We could transit the area quickly or take our time and revisit some of our favorite spots one last time. We know the anchorages and harbors we can avail ourselves of on this route. This route is not remote, well, compared to the north routes. The route from Cross Harbor across the Northwest Providence Channel to the Berries is a good angle for the prevailing seas and winds this time of year, plus we have our track line to follow and know we can anchor in the dark at GHC, so timing isn’t an issue on that leg of the journey. A potential disadvantage is finding a good weather window for the first leg around Hole in the Wall. We’ll be traveling SSW from Little Harbor and then NW a short distance up to Cross Harbor. This time of year, the prevailing winds and seas are E-SE. Winds under 10 knots and seas under 4 feet with a long period from SSE would be ideal. The more south or the more east, the bumpier the ride gets, unless the wind and seas are so light as to not matter. If we choose this route, we’re committed, because the other routes are too far north from Little Harbor for us to change our minds.

Alternately, we could continue northwest from Manjack Cay and then west across the top of Little Abaco and West End Cay, down into the Bight of Abaco to Mores Island, then from Mores Island cross the Northwest Providence Channel to Great Harbor Cay. This is a more remote route with many small, uninhabited islands. Remote and quiet can be very nice, when the conditions are good. This is also an exposed area with fewer anchoring options if winds shift in different directions. How much we would get to enjoy these quiet areas would depend on the weather. If we get a stretch of calm, we could dub our way to the Bight, otherwise we’ll find ourselves just making miles so we can get to the next protected area. A big advantage to this route is that the prevailing wind and sea directions this time of year would be in our favor, and the Bight tends to be calm unless winds are over 15 kts. One of the challenges of this route is the need to time our entry into the Bight with the tide at Spence Rock before continuing another 38 miles to Morse Island, with no option to stop in between. If mid tide rising isn’t early enough we’ll be trying to anchor at Mores Island in the dark. We’ve also heard that the Bight of Abaco is a thunderstorm magnet this time of year. Mores Island sounds like a reasonable place to wait for a weather window to cross to Great Harbor Cay, should that be necessary, and the route from Mores island to GHC is pretty good for the prevailing winds and seas.

If we didn’t want to take the south route and didn’t want to risk the shallow Bight of Abaco and its potential thunderstorms, we could continue about 50 miles past Little Abaco and then turn south to enter the north end of the Grand Lucayan Waterway, a canal system that bisects Grand Bahama Island. Again, prevailing winds and seas are likely to be helpful, which is an advantage. We’d have to time our entrance across the shallow north entrance of the canal with the tide again, but once inside the canal system there are numerous offshoots in which we can safely anchor if we can’t transit the entire canal the same day. The angle from the south end of the canal system to Great Harbor Cay is less likely to provide a comfortable ride given the prevailing winds and seas. It would seem less likely we would choose this route.

So there you have it, more information than you need about routes you probably don’t care much about. Dave and I keep wavering about which to choose. When we’re driving a car we will often return from a destination via a route different than that which we took to get there. Why go back the way we came when we can explore something else? It would be nice to check out the northern reaches of the Abacos, if the conditions were right. Alas, there’s no guarantee of the “right conditions” on the water, especially in a slow boat during hurricane season. Our decision point is Manjack Cay. When we’re done exploring there, we will have to commit to a route. Stay tuned!

Berry Islands to Abacos

Two weeks ago we were anchored in Bullocks Harbor off Great Harbor Cay in the Berry Islands, waiting out a big blow of indeterminate time. The winds lasted about a week, so we had extra time at GHC. Since I’m catching up on two weeks, you might want to grab a drink or snack and settle down someplace comfy before you continue reading; this is a long one.

We spent a couple of days exploring by bike. Those folding bikes we’ve been hauling around since 2019 finally earned their keep. We found Shell Beach, which despite its name had no shells, at least not the day we visited. It did provide a lovely walk on a soft, white sand beach, however. It’s on the Atlantic side of the island, so we could see the impact of the big winds on the seas. We also found the resort ruins up the hill from the marina. It must have been quite something back in the day. There was one cement staircase we were able to climb for a more top-down view. The remains of the courtyard include the old pool filled with accumulated rain water now. There’s another ruined resort at the north end of the island that we want to check out when we go back in August, Sugar Beach Resort. We’ll also have to talk to the locals and find out the history of these abandoned resorts.

We had lunch one day at Brown’s Garden and had a long conversation with the wonderful owner, Ronnie. His wife cooks a delicious meal! We’d hoped for lunch another day at Hammerheads, but it was closed, so we got a quick takeout lunch at the Whitewater Grocery & Restaurant. We both ordered a club sandwich. It was kind of comical. The woman taking our order was telling us it had turkey, ham and bacon, oh, but they were out of bacon. No problem, we can live without bacon. About 5 minutes later she found us in the grocery aisles to tell us they were also out of tomato. I said, “That’s okay, we’re out of tomatoes on our boat, too. We can do without.” Because of the big winds, the mailboat, which also brings food to the island from Nassau (which gets it from the U.S. mostly), had been unable to deliver. That has to be very difficult on the locals when that happens, especially with there being only two tiny grocery stores on the island.

The best part of being stuck at GHC for 10 days was that we finally caught up with a couple we met in the Dismal Swamp back in mid-November of 2019. We met Alex & Corey of Wildly Intrepid on a clear, chilly afternoon when eight boats transited from the north lock to the Visitor Center dock and tied up for the night. We chit chatted a bit that evening and again the following frosty, 31^oF morning. We’ve followed each other on social media since then, but the pandemic had prevented us from meeting up again, at least until the big blow at GHC. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we were finally on the same island chain! They were down at Hoffman Cay (where we had spent two pandemic weeks in March 2020) and were heading to GHC to be out of the winds and to stage to cross back to the U.S. Over the week that we shared the anchorage, we snorkeled a couple of times, walked ashore a bit, and shared several dinners and late nights talking. It was so fun to get to know Alex and Corey beyond their social media (which you can check out yourself on their Wildly Intrepid YouTube channel or their Instagram @Wildlyintrepid). This is one of my favorite parts of cruising, meeting interesting and fun people. It’s always a bit sad to say goodbye, but who knows, our paths may cross again in some unexpected place.

On Saturday, May 22^nd, Dave and I were taking the dingy into the marina to ask a question, when another couple we met in the anchorage waved us over (hello Bob & Pam on Porkpie!). They had just heard that the island was going into lockdown for two weeks and if you went ashore you were stuck. So back to Lady we went and turned on our VHF. Early afternoon, the Royal Bahamas Defense Force (RBDF) broadcast that all boats in the marina or harbor were prohibited from leaving, they even put a military vessel at the mouth of the harbor to emphasize the point. We were told to hail the RBDF with questions, so we did. They gave us instructions to call the local police to get their okay to leave. Okey dokey, we called the police. They were fine with us leaving and told us to hail the RBDF again and tell Lt. Cox that we were okay to leave. Right-O, back on the VHF to hail the RBDF. We relayed the message from the police, but since we weren’t leaving until Monday, we were instructed to hail them right before we left. Dizzy yet? We felt fairly confident that we’d be allowed to leave Monday, but we had one additional step we needed to take anyway. Cruisers are supposed to submit domestic travel health visas when they move from one island group to another. Sunday morning I submitted ours to move from the Berries to the Abacos. They were immediately approved; one more piece of documentation that we were allowed to move. Monday arrive and we saw that Wildly Intrepid had already left for the U.S. Surely we’d be allowed to move, too. Dave hailed the RBDF at 6:00 (before coffee!), gave them the spiel of everything we’d done to get approval and they approved us to leave. Sweet! Not two minutes after our approval, four other boats hailed the RBDF also seeking approval to move on. We started something.

We had a lovely cruise Monday across the Northwest Providence Channel to Cross Harbor on the west side of the south end of Great Abaco Island. It’s not really a harbor, but it was a great anchorage for the calm night, in crystal blue water. We were up early again Tuesday and on our way around Hole in the Wall, the southernmost point of the island, and up the east coast to Little Harbor. About 10 minutes out, we were joined by several dolphins who played in our bow waves for about 15 minutes! I never get tired of watching dolphins do that. Unfortunately, that was the only good part of this leg of the trip. As we neared the point, the seas were not as forecast and it was a miserable 10 hours for me. The seas and winds were almost on our nose, a little to starboard, but the seas were a bit confused and from a couple of directions, so it felt like we were in a washing machine. I was mildly seasick most of the final 8 hours. I never used to get seasick, grrrrrr. The seasickness was exacerbated by the spasms in my midback, which alone can make me feel a little off. I munched on crackers and other carbs all day. I got a couple of hours reprieve when we got to a point where we could change course about 50^o to port, aiming toward land while still making forward progress to our destination. This put the wind and waves more on our stern, which doesn’t bother me. Eventually we had to beat back into the seas and winds to get around the next point of land before the cut we needed to pass into. A couple of hours after that we were turning west into the cut for Little Harbor and soon thereafter the reefs and small outer islands cut down the swells and my tummy settled. We anchored off Lynard Cay for the night, a couple of miles north of Little Harbor. Lesson learned, take seasick medications before any long, open-water crossing, just in case, and keep more seasick meds onboard.

It’s almost 5pm and Dave has been in the hammock for about 20 minutes with his drink while I sip mine and type this. Something is wrong with this picture! This is long enough already, so I’m going to stop here and pick it up later with a bonus mid-week post, so stay tuned. I promise to try to post weekly from now on, somewhere between Friday-Sunday.

Stay safe and take care of each other!

Bimini to Great Harbor Cay, Berry Islands

We met a cool couple our first evening in Bimini (if you’re reading this, hi Craig & Roxanne!). We chatted with them for quite a while on our back porch and planned to hook up the next day to ride around the island. Thankfully, Dave & I had leftovers to warm up because we were beat from the passage from the U.S. We slept well that night!

After breakfast Wednesday morning we met up with Craig & Roxanne, rented a golf cart for a couple of hours and tooled around Bimini. The first stop we made was at Nate’s bakery for some coconut bread and cinnamon raisin bread. (Dave made French toast out of the coconut bread next morning- yum!) We all had lunch at CJ’s up the hill from Blue Water Marina- conch all around in one form or another. I had the conch fritters- yum! After lunch we got a tour of their awesome boat. After that, Dave & I went for a swim at a nearby beach, took showers and walked down the road to Big John’s for dinner. I bet that place is hopping in a non-pandemic year. On this night there were just two couples and a guy at the bar. Lovely view, good food, wonderful service.

We caught up with our new friends after dinner and had them over for rum and conversation. They helped us with some planning for our trip to the Abacos and shared a lot of their knowledge of Bahamas to the Virgin Islands when we told them about our plans for next season. Thursday morning we tossed the lines a little after 8am. Craig & Roxanne saw us off. Hopefully we’ll stay in touch. That’s one sad part of cruising, meeting great people and having to part because you’re on different tracks.

We had a plan A and plan B for our crossing to the Berry Islands. Plan A was to go about halfway, anchor off Mackie Shoal for the night and finish the trip to the Berries on Friday. Plan B was to just go straight through to Great Harbor Cay and drop the hook in the dark in the same area we anchored in March 2020. The cruising conditions were gorgeous, so we opted for Plan B. We made good speed, averaging 5.5 knots. Just after the halfway point we started passing clusters of anchored and dormant cruise ships. We passed at least two dozen! Sixteen hours later, just before midnight, we were anchored. We thanked the weather gods with an offering of rum, had some ourselves, then hit the hay.

When we got up Friday morning, Dave grilled cinnamon swirl bread for himself and the coconut bread for me (I’m addicted!). We were very thankful we’d decided to cruise straight through Thursday, because Friday morning a band of showers came through. I don’t think it would have been as serene a cruise from Mackie Shoal to GHC had we opted for Plan A. We busied ourselves with some minor boat tasks during the rain. Right around lunch we dingied to the marina to arrange for a slip for the latter half of hurricane season. We had lunch at their little restaurant shack then dinghied over to the dock near the actual town to explore a bit. We found the local liquor store and bought a bottle of Bahamian dark rum. Then we came across a well stocked, small grocery store and bought a few items, then headed back to Lady for hammock time followed by dinner and a movie.

Today we had to dinghy to the marina for 8am to meet the guy at the marina who could approve and arrange for our hurricane season slip. We had a nice talk with him and headed back to Lady shortly after. Today was boat chore day. I was in the mood. I did some laundry (clean sheets!), thoroughly cleaned our cabin and head, which I’d been aching to do, and thoroughly cleaned the salon and galley. Dave helped clean the spots I couldn’t reach easily. Dave made water, made bread, cleaned the hulls (again), fixed a couple of rattling cabin fans, dried out the bilges and got dinner going in the Instant Pot. By 3:30pm we were cooling off in the water off our stern and shortly thereafter were in our hammocks with drinks. We opted for Dark & Stormies today. It’s neither dark nor stormy here, but the wind did kick up as predicted as a front settles into the area.

The big winds are from the direction we wish to head next. How long they will last is uncertain at this point, according to the forecasts. It’s windy but not bouncy in the harbor (we’re on the lee of the island- the west side, while the winds are from the ENE). Beating into the wind and waves to get to the Abacos would not be a comfortable ride, and we’d probably only make about 4 kts, so we will bide our time here in this very protected harbor and move on to the Abacos when the conditions are more comfortable. Until then, we will spend time exploring the island.

Be safe and take care of each other!