June 23, 2012

These are the 50 or so sea biscuits and three of the small conch shells that we picked up on the Crab Cay beach.  I kept a dozen of the sea biscuits.  The rest I left.

While anchored in Mile Hammock Bay in the Camp Lejeune Marine base, we watched Osprey aircraft takeoff and land; again and again and again and again.  They did make a racket, but they stopped before bedtime.

This tug and barge passed us at Carolina Beach.  We overtook them near Sneads Ferry where they had stopped by leaning against a bridge while they waited for the tide to rise.  Finally, they passed us again while we were anchored in Mile Hammock Bay.  We never saw them again.

Looking back through this blog, I see that I have not had any pictures of the interior of the boat.  I thought I would add some now starting off with this picture from the boat’s brochure.  We have a vee berth in the bow, a head compartment, port and starboard settees with a table between, a galley, and a navigation desk.  The quarterberth behind the nav desk is used for storage.

The vee berth is as wide as a queen size bed at the head, but not so much at the foot.  Shelves along the sides are a handy place to put things.  The two louvered doors at the foot open into the locker that holds the anchor chains and ropes.

The head compartment has a sink and a toilet that you have to pump out to flush.  The whole thing becomes a shower, but it is inconvenient to use because everything gets wet.

The port and starboard settees look almost alike.  This is the port one.  We usually keep the table leaf raised on this side.  It is where we normally eat.  It can be made into a double bunk.

Like the port settee, the starboard settee has a bookshelf behind it.  We keep a CD player there.  Our TV/DVD player can be hung on the bar in front of the shelf.  This settee becomes a single bunk with a lee cloth.  It is where we each sleep when we sail at night.

This is my galley.  From this kitchen come all my wonderful meals.  There is a two burner propane stove with a Barbie-sized oven, a top opening fridge and freezer to the left, and double sinks for Bill to wash the dishes.  One chopping board can serve as a cover for one of the sinks.  Another chopping board is over the trash can.

The navigator’s desk has our radios, radar display, the chartplotter, an instrument display, and a tide clock.  Along the side is the electrical panel.  It is not the Starship Enterprise, but it’s close.

Greetings, not from the boat this time, but from Kingsport, Tennessee.  Bill and I are back in our land home.  It is quite a change from our water home.  Running water…  flush toilets…  long showers…  air conditioning…  a four burner stove…

Back on Sunday June 3, we left Marsh Harbour headed north.  The weather forecast was not good for sailing, but we were tired of city life.  (Marsh Harbour had the only stoplight we saw in the Bahamas.)  The wind was light, so we motorsailed around the ocean side of Whale Cay.  At times this can be a rough trip out into the Atlantic for a couple of miles and then back into the Sea of Abaco.  This time it wasn’t rough at all; a nice little trip.  We anchored off the uninhabited Crab Cay.  The night was peaceful with lots of bird noises and no human noises.

The next morning a dinghy trip to the island’s white sand beach was in order.  This beach was a little different from ones we had explored recently.  Turtle grass was growing under the water almost up to the water’s edge.  As soon as the dinghy touched shore, I found a sea biscuit.  It didn’t take long to discover that sea biscuits and conchs were plentiful on this beach and even more plentiful in the nearby turtle grass.  Bill and I collected 50 sea biscuits all bleached out and several live ones too.  I kept twelve which seemed like a nice round number and left the others behind.  We walked the length of the beach then took the dinghy around to the Atlantic side of the island before deciding it was time to return to Irish Eyes and get out of the sun. 

In the afternoon the wind changed direction and picked up speed making our previously peaceful anchorage rather rocky.  The wind was blowing across the Sea of Abaco and putting the rocky coast of Crab Cay just off our stern.  We sailed a few miles northwest and anchored off the settlement of Coopers Town on the mainland of Great Abaco Island.  It was much calmer there.  Dan and Carol on Lucky Stars, who we met in Rock Sound, came and anchored beside us.  Later, they came over in their dinghy to chat.  It was good to see them again.

The weather forecast was not good.  Too much was happening.  Two cold fronts were coming off the US east coast.  Warm moist air was flowing up from eastern Cuba.  Tropical storm Beryl was in north Florida.  All the activity gave us rain, thunderstorms, and winds that changed direction from day to day.  The Sea of Abaco was only a two miles wide between Coopers Town and Powell Cay.  We spent the next four days going back and forth between Coopers Town and Powell Cay.   When the wind was from the south or west, we anchored in the calm water off Coopers Town.  When the wind was from the north or east, Powell Cay was the place to be.  We spent time watching movies, reading, knitting, and doing boat chores.

Finally, on Saturday June 9 we had a good weather forecast.  The wind was to be about 15 knots from the southwest; perfect for sailing back to North Carolina.  Early on Saturday morning we picked up the dinghy, deflated it, and stowed in on the deck.  Our initial plan was to stop at Great Sail Cay for the night and then continue on.  But, in the evening the wind was right and we were comfortable, so we kept on going.  Beaufort, NC, 500 miles to the north, was getting closer by the hour.

The forecasted good weather did not hold.  It changed.  Still another front was coming off the Carolina coast.  It would bring thunderstorms and switch the wind to northeast.  Of course we wanted to go northeast; not good.  The captain and crew agreed we should cut the trip short and head for Charleston, SC instead.  We reached the Charleston entrance jetties at 6am on Tuesday June 12.  That was a record for us, a total of 70 hours from Powell Cay.  (Last year it took us 100 hours.)  We sailed some and motored some.  We saw a few ships, some of which we could not identify.  Their red and green navigation lights were hard to find among dozens of white deck lights.  Fortunately, we were able to avoid all of them.  (Thank you radar.)  We saw thunderstorms in the distance, but didn’t have any disturb our progress.

It took about two hours to get across Charleston Harbor to the Charleston City Marina and put the boat in a slip.  We called Customs and Immigration, and two officers were on board within an hour to admit us back in to the US.  The interview was painless, and by 10:00 we were both fast asleep.

Our friends Louis and Cathy Boyd live in Charleston.  Bill and I went to high school with Louis, and have known Cathy since we were in college. They came out to Irish Eyes for a SD G&T and then we all went out for a nice dinner.  It was a fun evening.

Bill and I spent the next day walking around Charleston, buying a few things at the hardware and grocery stores.  We left early on Thursday morning.  Because the wind was coming out of the northeast we chose to motor north in the ICW rather than bash our way northeast off shore.

We spent two nights in Little River, SC catching up with my sister Elaine, brother-in-law Jean Pierre, and niece Catherine.  The weather was cool and clear, but the wind was still out of the northeast.  We left Little River on Sunday June 19, once again choosing to motor north on the ICW rather than sail outside.  While it took twice as long to make the trip in the ICW, we anchored at night and getting 8+ hours of peaceful, uninterrupted sleep.  It beats three hour shifts.

After three and a half days of motoring, we arrived in New Bern, NC on Wednesday, June 20 around noon.  It was good to be back in our slip.  At 151 days and 2245 miles, this was the longest of our five Bahamas cruises.  We spent Wednesday and Thursday cleaning up the boat and packing our stuff.  We left New Bern Friday, June 22 and arrived in Kingsport in time for bed.

It was a great trip, although we had more windy days and more rain than previous years.

Now I get some well deserved land time.

We need to start planning for the next adventure.

June 2, 2012

The houses and buildings along the waterfront of Tarpum Bay are all brightly painted.  At the far right is the local office of the Free National Movement, losers in the just completed national elections.

These are some of the stone ruins at the abandoned town of Wilson City in the Abacos.  Bill crawled around in the bushes and thinks they are foundations for a steam engine, boiler, and saw.   There were lots more at other places along the shore.

We have been eating lobster in restaurants, but this fellow is safe from us.  The season ended March 31, and anyway he lives in the Sandy Cay Land and Sea Park.

This colorful fish is a damselfish.  I am not sure exactly what kind.  The guide books are full of different varieties.  All are strikingly colored.

Hello from Marsh Harbor, Abaco.  I wish I could say from sunny Marsh Harbor, but it has been raining and storming for the last 24 hours.  The Bahamas Met Office has announced that this has been the wettest May ever recorded in the Bahamas.

When I last wrote we were anchored at Bluff Settlement on Cat Island.  That night the wind switched to the southwest making most anchorages on the west coast of Cat Island very rolly.  That wasn’t bad during the day, but was very annoying at night.  We moved farther north on Cat Island anchoring off Bennett’s Settlement where the shore curves inward giving it good protection from waves coming from the southwest.  It was nice not to be rocked to sleep.

Windy weather was in the forecast, so it was time to leave Cat Island and head north to Rock Sound on Eleuthera where we would be well protected from wind and waves.  Our original plan was to break the 60 mile trip into two days by stopping at Little San Salvador.  Two things stopped us.  First, that island is now owned by Carnival Cruise Lines.  They operate it as Half Moon Bay with a fake Bahamian town for their guest to explore as a day trip.  We have been in real Bahamian towns, and anyway, Carnival would really rather us not anchor near their swimming and watersports area.  Second, the harbor is open to the south, and we were already tired of dealing with rolly anchorages.  We decided to make the long hop to Eleuthera in one day and bypass Little San Salvador.

We were up and away by 6am on May 15.  It was cloudy, but it was not raining, and the wind was good for sailing.  We would be underway for at least 12 hours.  To entertain ourselves along the way, we put out a fishing line.  It wasn’t long before we had a strike, and what a strike it was.  Bill worked with a large dolphin fish (mahi-mahi) for almost an hour before the fish shook off the hook and swam away.  The fish escaped by breaking the barb off the hook.  Somewhere in the Atlantic is a fish with a very sore lip.  The whole time Bill was fighting the fish I kept thinking, “Where in the world are we going to put this thing.”  Our freezer is small.  Bill changed from a black and red skirted lure to a green and yellow one.  In a matter of minutes we saw another dolphin fish race across the water surface from 100 yards away to take a bite.  This dolphin was much more manageable.  It was 42 inches long and weighed 11 pounds.  It gave us fish for 9 meals.

By afternoon the sun was out and the water off Cape Eleuthera was as clear as crystal.  A pod of dolphins (this time the mammals) came over to see what we were doing.  We could see their every move in the clear water, and we applauded when they jumped and flipped in the air.  They stayed with us for about 15 minutes before deciding we were boring and swimming away.  They put on a great show.  At suppertime we were anchored in Rock Sound and enjoying some FRESH fish.

We stayed in Rock Sound for a few days enjoying the calm anchorage and visiting the well stocked grocery store.  During most of our stay the weather was overcast and humid with little wind.  On May 18 we motored a few miles north to the artist town of Tarpum Bay.  The sun was out making it hot and humid.  We put up our sun awning and waited until it cooled down a bit (and it only cooled a bit) before walking around town and eating a restaurant dinner of fried conch and lobster.

Our next stop in Eleuthera was Governor’s Harbor.  We needed to extend our “leave to stay” in the Bahamas.  The Immigration Officer in Bimini had given us 90 days which would run out May 30.  Governor’s Harbor had an Immigration Office, grocery, laundry, and pretty much anything else we needed.  The Immigration Office was closed when we arrived on Saturday, May 19 so we settled in for a weekend anchored off the town. Sunday we decided to go to church.  After dressing in the best clothes we had, we dinghied to shore and walked to St. Patrick’s Anglican Church.  The service was a sung mass with lots of smells and bells but with something of a Bahamian rhythm.  It was a two hour service; long but nice.  We spent the rest of the day in our cockpit with the couple from a nearby anchored sailboat, Shadow.  We had beer and snacks all around.

Monday morning we went to the Immigration office and asked for a 21 day extension on our “leave to stay”.  They gave us 30 days.  We were good till June 30.  I did our laundry while Bill got water from the town faucet and some gasoline for the dinghy motor.  We stopped to eat at a tiny restaurant with three tables, tow fans to move the 90 degree air around, and a screened door to keep the flies inside.  But, the food was great.  On the way back to the dinghy, Bill bought a $10 bag of cleaned conch which fed us for four suppers with leftovers for a couple of lunches.  I made conch chowder and cracked (fried) conch.  Bill fixed cornbread muffins with diced conch in them.  He didn’t want me to try conch fritters.  He cleans the dishes, and he thinks frying makes too much of a mess.

During our third night in Governor’s Harbor, we had a wicked wind squall.  Our anchor drug about 60 feet, and the harbor filled with waves making for a worrisome and uncomfortable night.  We left Governor’s Harbor the next morning.  The weather forecast was for one day of showers and isolated thunderstorms followed by two days of continuous rain with thunderstorms.  We were headed for Royal Island at the northern tip of Eleuthera.  The harbor there is protected from winds from all directions.  We hoped to get there before the more exciting weather started.  To reach Royal Island we had to go through the aptly named Current Cut.  Current Cut is shallow in places, unmarked, and has a strong current that reverses at each tide change.  The helmsman needs to have good light see the bottom and gauge the water depth, and the current needs to be slack to pass safely through the narrow cut.  It did not turn out that way.  Six miles from the cut it became obvious that our timing was way off.  We had been in pouring rain for two hours, we could only see a hundred yards ahead of us, the wind was blowing 15 to 20 knots pushing us toward the cut, the cloud covered sky would keep us from seeing into the water, the tide was rapidly falling making it especially dangerous if we were to run aground, and the current was running 5 knots in the cut.  It was obviously time for a rethink.  We had already passed Hatchet Bay, arguably the best protected harbor in Eleuthera.  It takes a lot for Captain Bill to turn around, but this time it was his idea to turn back and head for Hatchet Bay even though we would have to motor upwind into the waves for 10 miles to reach it.

Hatchet Bay Pond is reached by going through a 90 foot wide hole blasted through the rock shore into an inland lake.  Irish Eyes is only 10 feet wide, but the rock walls looked very close as we started into the pond.  We made it through safely, picked up a free government owned mooring ball, and settled in for a few windy rainy days.  And rain it did -- Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday with winds that reached 25 knots even down in our protected spot.  We were joined there by a large motor yacht and another sailboat.  A tanker, a freighter, and a ferry came and went from the government dock while we were there.  I watched them come and go.  How they made it through the gap in the rocks, I’ll never know.  From where we were on our mooring ball, they just seemed to appear from nowhere when they came into the pond and just as magically disappear when they left.  It kept me entertained as the rain came down on us.

Finally, on Saturday May 26 the rain stopped and the sun came out.  We sailed north again going through Current Cut without a hitch and anchoring at Royal Island by mid-afternoon.  It was hot, but a nice swim helped cool us down.  Sunday we left Royal Island for an all day sail to the Abacos.  We left early and had a rolly, wild, 12 hour motor sail to the North Bar Cut in Abaco.  Along the way we had to go two miles out of our way to avoid colliding with an oil tanker on its way from the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf coast.  As we approached Abaco the alternator belt on the engine broke making a horrible sound.  Bill had a spare and changed the belt while the boat bobbed like a cork in the waves.  I don’t know what we would do if Bill wasn’t so mechanically minded.  We anchored off the stone ruins of Wilson City.  It was a company town for a logging company that was abandoned in 1916 leaving behind the huge stone foundations for the docks and sawmill.  We spent the next few days walking the beaches, swimming on the reef at nearby Sandy Cay, and exploring the ruins.  All the while more things broke.  The alternator regulator grew green corrosion on its circuit board and quit, and I broke the foot pump that supplies drinking water in the head.  Bill had both a spare regulator tucked away to replace the corroded one, and he had the right kind of glue to stick the foot pump back together.  Way to go Bill!

We sailed north to Marsh Harbor on Wednesday May 30.  The sun was out, and we arrived in Marsh Harbor without incident.  The rain began again on Thursday afternoon. Fortunately, before the rain came we had already been to the grocery store, stopped by the liquor store, and gotten diesel fuel.  We have been reading, surfing the internet, and knitting for the last two days.  Bill has made several dinghy trips to town between rain storms.  Last night we had a terrific thunderstorm with lots of lightning and 35 knot winds.  The mast of the boat anchored next to us was struck by lightning showering their deck with the remains of their radio antenna.  The huge bang and flash make both Bill and me leap into the air.

All the rain means that we have not had to buy water this year.  In fact, we are running over with water.  Bill’s water catching has kept both our tanks and our collection of 5 gallon jugs full.  Lots of water means lots of baths!

We will head north as the weather clears.  Oh yes, Happy Beginning of Hurricane Season to you all.

May 14, 2012

The newest of the regatta boat classes is a small, youth class boat.  This is the first boat of that class to be built and launched in George Town.

Number 17, Lady Muriel, passes ahead of number 16, Tida Wave, in a race of the big A Class boats.  Lady Muriel went on to win the A class cup in the Family Island Regatta.  Tida Wave was, as always, a top contender.

Ed Sky was another of the A class boats.  The crew always seemed happy.

The Police Band with its starched white dress uniforms and leopard skin tunics is an impressive reminder of the Bahamas’ British colonial history.  In spite of the uniforms, they can boogie with the best of them.

At Conception Island I have this entire crescent shaped beach to myself.  Look closely.  I’m waving at you from the near end of the beach.

This is a frigate bird circling over us at Conception Island.  It is almost four feet from wing tip to wing tip.  Sometimes the bird books call it a ‘magnificent frigate bird’.  It truly is.

Bill is standing in front of The Hermitage built by Father Jerome atop Mt Alverna (206’) on Cat Island beginning in 1940.  It is a miniature monastery for one with a one seat church and a one bed adjoining building.  The almost vertical approach path takes you past the Stations of the Cross, a recreation of Christ’s tomb, and Fr. Jerome’s own tomb.  Nearby are a water catchment area, a cistern, and a separate kitchen building.

Greetings from the Bluff Setlement, Cat Island, Bahamas.  It has been a long time since I have written anything, and I have lots of excuses.  We were really busy in George Town, and we had both bad internet connections and computer problems… so much for my complaining.

We spent a month in George Town; longer than we have ever stayed before.  The well sheltered harbor is huge.  It is bounded on the ocean side by the long and skinny Stocking Island and a string of smaller islands, rocks, and reefs.  The land side is Great Exuma Island, the mainland where George Town and the smaller towns are located.  Between them is Elizabeth Harbour, a body of water large enough to “float all the ships of the British Navy.”  Unlike most of the places we go in the Bahamas, there are good facilities here.  There are two banks, a couple of grocery stores, restaurants, a gas station, a hardware store, and all the things you would expect to find in a 1960s small American village, plus it has a commercial airport.  That makes George Town a great place for us to have guests aboard.

We arrived in George Town on April 4, and Robert and Susan Banks came into the harbor on Impetuous III the next day having stopped along the way from Great Galliot Cay to visit Lee Stocking Island and its Caribbean Marine Research Institute.  We all went to Big D’s Sand Bar, a collection of brightly painted open buildings on a nearby beach.  In addition to beer and booze, Big D’s served grilled grouper, grilled snapper, and grilled conch, or if you want one, a big juicy hamburger or hot dog.  The grilled seafood was seafood with potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, and plantains cooked on their grill in a foil pouch.  They also had a conch salad stand where the conch salad man did his work.  He made his conch salad by yanking a live conch from its shell, then skinning it and washing the slime off with salt and lime juice before dicing its meaty foot.  The meat was then mixed with freshly chopped tomatoes, peppers, and onions before being “cooked” by squeezing lime and orange juice over everything.  The salad could be spicy or mild.  Don’t ever ask for extra spicy.  The salad maker may put in half a goat pepper instead of a quarter.  I like hot, but a goat pepper is really, really hot.  I know it all sounds horrible, but Big D’s conch salad man did it right, and it was really good.  A full moon was expected the next day meaning the tide was extra high.  It flooded the sand under our thatched hut shaded outdoor table as we ate.  I just love eating in restaurants where I don’t have to wear shoes and the waves lap at my toes.

The next several days were spent both piddling about and readying the boat for Julia and her family’s arrival.  I restocked the boat with food from Exuma Markets.  Bill lugged 5 gallon jugs of diesel fuel out to the boat from the Shell gas station.  We both rearranged our things to free up some space in our tiny world for four more people.  Bill collected over 30 gallons of rainwater on our decks saving him from bringing it out to the boat from town in the dinghy in jugs.

Easter was celebrated with hot cross buns for breakfast, a walk to the tall concrete monument atop the highest hill on Stocking Island, and a shell collecting expedition on the Atlantic-side beach.  The storm that had given us the rainwater had also restocked the shells on the beach, and I filled my little nylon shell bag to its top.  In the evening I baked an onion tart, and Robert and Susan came over.  We all watched the tart disappear with a drink in hand.

On Wednesday, April 11 the Self family arrived.  Julia, Isabella, Olivia, and I walked to the straw market while Josh and Bill ferried the luggage to Irish Eyes.  Olivia with her very red hair and very fair six month old skin attracted lots of attention.  Several locals admonished us with “don’t sunburn that baby”.

Isabella wanted to go to the beach, so we moved Irish Eyes across Elizabeth Harbour to Sand Dollar Beach where we anchored for their stay.  We went to the beach that first day before supper.  Our routine was thus established; beach in the morning, beach in the afternoon, meals and noon time naps aboard Irish Eyes.

Isabella enjoyed swimming, digging in the sand, and walking the Stocking Island trails.  Olivia splashed in the water and took extra naps in the shade of her tent.  The adults tagged along for all the fun.  Julia and Josh snorkeled over a reef in the harbor where Julia found a milk conch shell.  Julia, Josh, Isabella, and I walked the sand flats looking for sand dollars with limited success, but Julia found a live queen conch.  The beast was quite ugly with long eye stalks and lots of slime.  Isabella said she wasn’t eating one.  We left the conch in the water.


Bill has a conch shell horn which he sometimes blows at sunset when he has an audience.  Isabella decided to give the horn a try.  She was most impressed with herself when, like a trumpet, the horn transformed her rude pursed lips noise into a clear loud tone.

Sadly, on Sunday April 15th it was time to put the Self family on a plane home.  Because it was windy enough to make the dinghy trip wet, I stayed dry on the boat and let Bill ferry our guests and their luggage into town.  Josh and Julia had arranged for the taxi driver that brought them from the airport to pick them up on Sunday for the return trip.  That taxi was a no show.  Another driver picking up his fare said, “She is in church.”  At the last minute Isabella spotted Rudy, the driver of last year’s taxi, passing by.  Bill waved him down saving the day.  (Isabella is a smart cookie!)  After some further delays at the George Town airport, the Self family made it home without any sunburn.

With our first guests gone, the boat suddenly became bigger.  We returned to our usual routine of walking the beaches for shells, knitting, reading, eating the occasional meal ashore, and doing the inevitable boat chores.  It is sometimes distressing to recount how many things have to be cleaned, oiled, resewn, tightened, patched, replaced, repaired, polished, and put away.  But, I think it could be expected because our home is basically a machine with lots of parts, sitting in the sun, floating in salt water, and always moving.

Tom and Susan Tipton flew in on April 22.  Unfortunately, the weather was not kind that morning.  The wind blew in gusts over 30 knots toward the town making the harbor rough and any dinghy trip into town a wet and miserable prospect.  Fortunately, their flight was delayed several times, and by the time they actually arrived the cold front had passed over us, the wind had changed direction, and the wind speed had dropped to a pleasant and steady 15 knots.  (By the way, cold fronts here are not cold.  They are just windy with the wind changing direction as they go by.)

We spent Monday and Tuesday doing our usual routine of walking the nearby beaches and island trails, picking up shells, and generally being lazy.  On Wednesday the Family Island Regatta began.  For the entire Bahamas this was the World Series and Super Bowl both rolled into one.  Ashore the George Town waterfront sprouted dozens of gaily painted plywood shacks erected in haste with wiring and plumbing that would horrify any building inspector.  Booze, beer, loud music, and fried food were freely dispensed into a milling throng of scantily dressed women, hip boys, Rastafarians, old men, and children.  Every coconut on the island was there ready to be converted into the local alcoholic concoction of gin and coconut water.  Piles of conch rested in the shallow water awaiting their doom.  Three ships were moored at the government dock having brought scores of people and race boats from both Nassau and the Out Islands for the event.  Beauty queens and bands were ready for the parades.

During the week we watched the three daily races both from our boat and from town where the start and finish lines were just off shore.  The boats ranged from the 28 foot A class down to the dinghy sized E class, and the crews ranged from the serious racers to the fun loving partiers and from adults to kids.  No matter what the class, the boats were all designed in the form of a traditional Bahamas fishing smack and made from wood with a wooden mast, wooden boom, and cotton sails.  Winches, tell tails, Windexs and other modern aids were prohibited.  The larger boats had crews of ten or so and sported up to three pries, long boards sticking out from the side of the boats where most of the crew perched to keep the boat upright with its seriously oversized sail.  For the start the boats anchored in a line, and at the firing of a gun, each boat hauled in their anchor moving the boat forward as they raised the sails.  Collisions, yelling, and the occasional failing of a mast or tearing of a sail characterized the starts.  Motorboats filled with race officials, the police, and spectators darted in and out through the racing fleet during the entire race.  The VHF radio crackled with the race committee’s orders when the course was changed during the race.  Opinions about which marks should be left to port and which to starboard were freely given.  It was a hoot.  We ate two meals ashore, one in one of the shacks and another in a much quieter nearby restaurant.  We missed the parade of beauty queens which, typical of the Bahamas, started three hours behind schedule, but we did see the parade of marching bands.  The first was composed of musicians and dancers from the island’s schools, and the second was the national marching band, the Royal Bahamas Police Band.  Both were great.

Tom and Susan flew out on the 29th.  The 30 knot wind and rain returned on the 30th but by May 5th the weather had settled down and we left George Town going south to Salt Pond, Long Island.  The next day Robert and Susan on Impetuous III also left George Town  heading north up the Exumas on their way back to the states.


On Sunday in Salt Pond, we were anchored in Thompson Bay below the Anglican Church that we had attended a couple of years before.  We laid out our best clothes and waited all morning for the congregation to assemble, but they never came.  Bill went ashore after lunch only to find last month’s service schedule taped to the door but no mention of services in May.  Monday we took the dinghy to town and after walking on the ocean side beach and buying some groceries we stopped at the Long Island Breeze Resort for lunch.  Well, it was Election Day, they couldn’t sell beer, and they were using the occasion to clean the kitchen, all of which meant they were not serving lunch, so it was lunch on the boat for us.

The next day we sailed wing and wing downwind to Simms where we anchored and went ashore for a walk.  Our route took us unexpectedly into a PLP rally.  The Progressive Liberal Party had just won the election by a landslide throwing out the incumbent Free National Movement.  It was a gay party.  We sat in a small restaurant across from the party headquarters and had a couple of beers listening by radio to the swearing in ceremony in Nassau amid much back slapping and the occasional tear.  The owner of the restaurant gave us each a bright yellow PLP tee shirt.

From Long Island we motorsailed to the uninhabited Conception Island where we stayed two days until the wind stopped and millions of no-see-ums left the interior mangrove creek and came out to our boat to feed.  We hurriedly left and motored over a flat calm sea to Cat Island where we anchored off the village of New Bight.  We toured the nearby Hermitage atop the highest hill in the Bahamas.  On the way down we stopped to examine the ruins of the Henry Hawkins Armbrister plantation house at the foot of the hill.  Hot after a morning in the sun, we enjoyed a cold beer and lunch in the Blue Bird Restaurant & Bar sharing a table on the waterside with the people from the two other boats in the harbor.

Yesterday, we sailed up the coast to the Bluff Settlement.  The water was deep almost to the rocky shore, and we toured the nearby parts of the island with binoculars as we sailed along.  Later, from the dinghy we peered into several of the caves that dotted the shore.  Bill wanted to go into one or two, but I don’t like caves and besides it was too rough to bring our inflatable rubber dinghy against the sharp rocky shore.

Our plans are to continue north through the Bahamas over the next few weeks before returning to the states.

April 5, 2012

This is the Bahama Bank side beach at the north end of Hawksbill Cay.  The four tiny dots in the water waving at you are Pierre, Renee, Susan, and me.  The big long beach is ours alone.

Bill repaired our sign on Boo Boo Hill then carved another year in the board.  The sign reads, “Irish Eyes, Bill & Adair Murdoch, MMVIII MMIX MMX MMXI MMXII”.

Lion fish are an import to the Bahamas.  They are displacing the native fish.  They have poisonous spines, but treated carefully they are good to eat.

I wish the camera would take a 360° picture.  We are in our dinghy floating inside this cave room that is bigger than my den.  We came in through a low narrow opening that you can see reflected in the water.  The cave is lit by light coming up from the water and in through the entrance.

Another deserted beach.  This one is Jack's Bay Cove on Great Iguana Cay.  Bill found a full cylinder of propane floating in the water in the sound side cove across the island from this beach where the next picture was taken.

A huge amount of trash washes up on the ocean side beaches.  Most is plastic junk, rope, nets, bottles, and anything else that floats.  Last week a sailboat hit something in the water and sunk 4 miles offshore leaving the two people on board in their dinghy.  They don’t know what they hit, but it may have been a shipping container like this one.

Susan and I are exploring yet another deserted cove shaped beach.  This is on the ocean or sound side across Great Iguana Cay from Bay Rush Bay.  Bill found a kayak washed up here last year.  You can see some of the trash above the water line.

Our floating home, Irish Eyes, at anchor off the beach at Big Galliot Cay.

This dry cave was on big Farmers Cay.  It goes back quite a way.  When Bill first went in it a bird flew out, but we did not see its nest.

We are in George Town, Exuma.  At first it seemed that we had gotten here earlier this year than we have in the past, but checking our log, we are right on schedule.

The windy weather in Bimini finally broke after we had been there eight days.  Bill got a deal on the slip rent at Weech’s Dock; eight days for the price of seven.  On the way out of town, Bill dropped an inflatable fender into the harbor, but he picked it up on the second try leaning so far over the side that I was afraid that I would have to pick him up as well.  All that drama for a fender!

We sailed (actually mostly motored) all day, all night, and all day to arrive at Highborne Cay Saturday March 10 with Robert and Susan Banks close behind.  A Canadian couple we met at Weech’s , Pierre and Renee Renauld, left Bimini at the same time but chose to anchor on the Bahama Bank for the night then go on to Nassau for some shopping.  At Highborne Cay Robert and Susan came aboard Irish Eyes for a day trip north to Allens Cay to see (and feed) the iguanas who live there in their “protected iguana habitat.”  They are really nasty looking animals.

Highborne Cay is privately owned and access is limited to guests in the rental houses or the marina.  It was time to go elsewhere.  We sailed down to Norman’s Cay in hopes of a hamburger at the Beach Club, but alas they didn’t have any food!  We walked the beaches, finding some shells and hoping for a supply plane to arrive.  After two days and no airplane, we gave up and headed south.  Robert and Susan followed our lead.

From Norman’s Cay we traveled south to Shroud Cay where Pierre and Renee caught up with us.  We all six took a dinghy tour of the north creek passing over to the ocean side.  To our surprise when we arrived at the ocean side beach, there was a party going on.  The owner of the motor megayacht Cakewalk (try Googling that) was hosting his high school class reunion.  They were having a picnic – tent, chairs, BBQ grills, coolers, tables with centerpieces, and lots of handsome uniformed 20 somethings scurrying about looking after all the arrangements while talking on walkie-talkies.  I don’t think anyone in my high school  class will host a reunion on his yacht.  Later, we went to the stone lined well on the island and got some water to top off our tanks.  Saturday, March 17, was Robert’s birthday.  Susan made a pound cake and hosted Pierre, Renee, Bill, and me for a party on Impetuous III.  It was good to be in the Bahamas with both old and new friends.

The next morning all three boats left Shroud Cay and sailed south to Hawksbill Cay.  We dinghied to the beach and walked across the island to the Exuma Sound side.  The trail was not long, but the rocks were very sharp.  The wind was strong out of the east making the sound side spectacular with big crashing waves.  Our group returned to the far calmer west side of the island for a great swim off the beautiful beach.

On Monday March 19 we watched Pierre and Renee sail south to Warderick Wells, the cay where the Exuma Land and Sea Park Headquarters is located.  Their time in the Bahamas was limited, so they were trying to see as much as they could before they returned to Canada.  Robert, Susan, Bill, and I took a dinghy and walking trip to see the Loyalists plantation ruins on Hawksbill Cay.  Loyalists were those colonists who were allied with the losing side in the American Revolutionary War.  The terrain in the Exumas is very rocky and without good soil.  I can’t imagine who convinced planters from the Carolinas that they could have a profitable farm here…must have been some salesman.  Bill wondered what they wrote home to Momma.  No doubt their letters were more positive than reality.  We found a cave nearby at the water’s edge that had some pretty fish swimming just outside.  In the afternoon we motored about a mile down to the southern Hawksbill Cay anchorage.

The next morning we four walked across the island to the sound side’s long wide beautiful beach.  The trail is a serious cross country trip.  Some of the trail is on sharp rocks, some is wading small creeks, and some is going through mangroves.  I truly believe mangrove plants are the hardiest things alive.  They grow in salt water sending out long roots with what appear to be tender shoots of new growth.  Just step on a tender shoot with your bare foot!  Not tender at all.  Bill and Robert scoured the beach amongst the washed up plastic trash.  Susan and I looked for pretty shells.  We left in the early afternoon for the Emerald Rock mooring field at Warderick Wells dodging all the squalls but one as we sailed along.

On top of Boo Boo Hill at Warderick Wells there is a huge pile of drift wood signs boaters have left to show they have been there.  Bill went over to the hill early Wednesday to see if our sign was still in the pile.  It was, but had been broken into two pieces.  While he was gone, I waited at the Park Headquarters browsing in the gift shop and taking in the view.  There I ran into Pierre and Renee.  They had decided Warderick Wells was going to be as far south as could go.  For them it was time to go home.  Bill and I spent the rest of the day beach combing looking for a scrap of plywood to repair our sign.

The next morning with our sign repaired and MMXII carved among the other four years, we joined Robert, Susan, Pierre, and Renee for a walk to the top of Boo Boo Hill to replace our sign.  It was our last visit with Pierre and Renee; we were heading south and they were heading north.  I really enjoy meeting new friends on our trips.

We sailed south to Sampson Cay the next morning.  Sampson Cay is very pretty.  It has houses to rent, beautiful water and beaches, a restaurant, a marina and a store.  Bill and I dinghied into the fuel dock to get some diesel.  No luck.  No fuel except gasoline.  Good thing we weren’t desperate.  I did buy a bag of romaine lettuce and a carton of orange juice from the store ($18).  We made restaurant reservations, but finding out that they could not do a hamburger, we cancelled them.  We walked out to the gazebo at the southern tip of the island with Robert and Susan before returning to Irish Eyes for the evening.

The weather forecast on Saturday, March 24 was for a cold front to pass over us on Sunday afternoon.  A cold front doesn’t mean the temperature will fall, just that the wind will increase and veer from the normal southeast to the west for a day or so.  Not great as there are few places to anchor with protection from wind and waves from the west.  Wind from the west can create large waves in the long stretch of open water to the west.  We left Sampson Cay and motored the few miles to Staniel Cay.  The All Age School, 1^st through 9^th grades, was having a noon time fund raising cook out.  A feast of the long awaited hamburgers with fries along with macaroni and chicken wings was served to us on the public beach.  To work off some calories we walked over to Isles General Store for a few groceries and ended up in the Staniel Cay Yacht Club for a fortifying rum punch before going for a swim in the Thunderball Grotto.  The next morning we motored the mile or so to Big Major’s Spot to wait out the anticipated cold front.

The cold front brought the expected west wind, so we spent a night and a day bouncing up and down in Irish Eyes.  Fortunately, it only lasted Sunday night and Monday.  By nightfall on Monday the normal southeast trade winds were back, and we were much calmer.  We left Big Major’s Spot on Tuesday headed for Black Point.

Black Point has the best laundromat ever – clean, inexpensive, with a million dollar view across the turquoise palm fringed harbor.  Bill and I loaded our dirty clothes into the dinghy and met Robert and Susan at the Rockside Laundry dock.  After conch burgers and beer at Scorpio’s Bar, we all did our washing.  Not a bad way to spend a day.

Lorraine of Lorraine’s Café in Black Point was having a “Cruiser’s Appreciation Happy Hour” on Wednesday night, so we decided to stay a second night.  Lorraine is the nicest lady and is very good cook.  We had a seafood platter of conch fritters, fried conch bits, fresh fish fingers, and fried shrimp. What a feast!  We could not eat it all.  Lorraine gave me a post card to send to my grandchildren.

Thursday we moved down the west coast of Great Guana Cay from Blackpoint to Jack’s Bay Cove and began our beach-a-day-or-two tour.  The cove has a gorgeous 100 yd long sand beach between rocky headlands and no people.  We dinghied around the rocky coast line and found a limestone cave at the water level.  It was very pretty with lots of hanging waterstones.  I walked the west beach, and Bill found a trail across to the Exuma Sound side.  The ocean side cove was full of tons and tons of washed up plastic trash.  Among the junk Bill found an aluminum cylinder labeled “bombette, anti-sonar”.  He thankfully did not bring it back even though I am sure he would have liked to have set it off!

After a peaceful night we once again went to the beach.  Both of us walked over to the Sound side.  Bill was just sure I needed to see the trash.  During the night a full fiberglass propane cylinder had floated into the cove.  It was like Christmas for him.  He had to bring it back.  I just found sea beans, floating seeds, and a really pretty cone shell.   Later in the afternoon Bill transferred most of the propane from the fiberglass cylinder into one of our two aluminum ones on Irish Eyes.  His new cylinder still containing four pounds of propane (a real eyesore and shin buster) is now lashed to our deck.

We motored south about a mile to White Point where there are a pair of back-to-back beautiful vacant beaches separated by a high sand hill.  We walked the length of the north beach and across the hill to the south beach.  I found lots of shells.  We met a group of ten or so in a motorboat who were taking a day trip from the Emerald Bay Resort in George Town.  They were envious of our ability to stay here in paradise for five months.  Life is pretty good.

Monday we motored south to Bay Rush Bay.  Remember the glass bottom kayak Bill found washed up on the beach last year?  This is where we left it.  Sadly, it wasn’t there this year.  Hopefully whoever found it enjoyed it a lot.  I found a good conch shell without a conch.  That always makes my day.  Bill, Robert, and Susan explored the large nearby cave with its water pool.

We left Great Guana Cay and motored to Big Galliot Cay.  We had never been there before, so we decided to stop and anchor off still another pretty beach.  At low tide I walked along the small beach and found several really good shells while Bill hiked over to the rocky sound side of the island.  In the afternoon Bill and I dinghied a little bit north to Big Farmer’s Cay checking out its beaches, sand flats, and cave.  As is our usual, we ended the day with a swim and a fresh water cockpit shower.

The weather forecast for the upcoming Easter weekend was not good.  Chris Parker, the shortwave weather guru, said to expect a cold front with some rain, an increase in the wind speed, and the usual change in the wind direction.  We decided on Wednesday morning, April 4 to leave for George Town with its well protected harbor.  This is an all day trip out in the Exuma Sound.  The wind was light and right on our nose, so we motored all the way – boring.  Exuma Sound is very deep but good for fishing.  We trolled a line and hooked one mahi-mahi, but he threw off the hook.  Another fish with teeth bit through the nylon leader and got our lure.  I am actually glad we didn’t get the toothy thing on board.

We are here in George Town for a while.  Julia, Joshua, Isabella, and Olivia arrive on Wednesday for a visit.  I get to be Mommy’s Mommy for little bit.  Fun!  Then later in the month, Tom and Susan Tipton from Kingsport will join us for the Family Islands Regatta.  That will be fun too.

A Blessed Easter everyone.

March 6, 2012

Disney must own Florida.  A surprising number of the draw bridges in Florida have this sort of Neuschwanstein lookalike architecture.

It was time to leave Miami and go to Key Biscayne to spend the night before leaving for the Bahamas.  This was the “Red sky at night” the evening before we left Miami.

The sunset at Key Biscayne was again a good red one.  We would leave in the early morning hours to cross the Gulf Stream for Bimini.

We stopped at Weech’s Bimini Dock to clear in through Customs and Immigrations in Alice Town, but windy weather has kept us there.

We are in a marina enjoying 75°, sunny Bimini.  That is the good news.  The bad news is that is blowing a stink today, has been for the last five days, and will continue to blow for the next few days.  Chris Parker (the short wave weather guru) has called the cold front that just passed through and the high winds we have now “the weather event of the winter.”  I wish it would go away so we could leave.

Bill and I spent the Presidents’ Day weekend anchored in Lake Worth, Palm Beach, Florida.  We shopped at the nearby Publix replenishing our food.  Of course, Bill made a trip to the local West Marine store.  I thought he could smell them out, but this time he failed.  He walked a mile north on US 1 to the spot where the store was last year only to find that they had moved to a new location one and a half miles south.  He ended up walking a total of 3 miles to buy his things.  Bill finished installing his new short wave radio while I unpacked my spring clothes.

On Presidents’ Day we took our dinghy to a nearby spot on the shore where it would be just a short walk to the John D. MacArthur Beach State Park.  We found a place to land the dinghy among the mangroves along the shoulder of the road leading to the park.  The bottom there was rock where it was rock and mud where it was mud… hard, sharp, marl limestone and black, deep, gooshy, sticky, nasty mud almost to the shore, if you can call a jungle of mangrove bushes and roots a shore.  We tied the dinghy to a downed tree then walked through the mangrove muck, through the woods, and down the sidewalk along highway A1A to the park.  We walked out to the beach, got our feet wet, then bought a Diet Coke and two packages of chips for lunch.  The Florida sun was quickly changing our pale winter skins to a brilliant pink color, so we headed back to the dinghy.  Unfortunately, the tide had gone out while we were gone and our dinghy was 30 yards from the water.  The rocks meant we had to pick the dinghy up rather than slide it along, and the mud meant I often had no place to stand without my feet sinking out of sight and the mud stealing my shoes.  I am not a fan of yucky, gross, possibly snake filled mud especially when it is spread all over me and our dinghy.  Bill and I were not speaking to each other when Robert and Susan Banks on Impetuous III invited us over for drinks and snacks.  That let us end the day in a good mood – and speaking to each another again.

On Tuesday, February 21 we left Lake Worth and headed for South Miami Beach.  This two day stretch had twenty-seven drawbridges, most of which opened on restricted schedules.  In the built up areas the concrete sea walls made the ICW a wake reflecting canal.  On previous trips we have had to wait at every bridge and have been rocked terribly by passing motor boats, but this year’s trip was fairly easy.  Halfway through, we anchored in Lake Boca Raton well before 5pm.  The second day, one bridge closed in our face as we approached it, but two others were graciously held open for us long after they should have closed.  We anchored in the evening just south of Belle Isle in South Miami Beach.  I felt like we had cleared a major hurdle when we arrived at South Beach. We were almost to the Bahamas.

After we put the outboard motor on the dinghy, we spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday doing laundry, shipping our winter clothes to Julia, getting water, filling the fuel tank, and buying the electronic bits Bill needed to hook the shortwave radio to the computer.  We walked around town doing some serious people watching and having lunch; one day on Lincoln Road and another at Mango’s Tropical Café in the Art Deco district.  A cold front went by on Saturday night increasing the wind speed a bit.  Robert and Susan on Impetuous III arrived in South Beach a day after us.  Sunday morning they had to re-anchor when they found themselves too close to another boat.  They hosted a Bloody Mary party to celebrate the successful re-anchoring.  Anything for a party, right?

Monday we stayed on Irish Eyes doing chores, reading, and knitting (my favorite).  On Tuesday we began the provisioning for the next few months.  The drill went like this:  Bill dropped me off at the Police Station Dock.  I walked to the more distant but larger Publix.  Bill took the dinghy up the Collins Canal to the smaller Publix which is just across the street from the dinghy landing spot.  He bought all the heavier Cokes and beer he could carry on our hand truck, took them to Irish Eyes, came back to the Police Dock, and walked to the larger Publix to help me carry the things I had bought the four blocks back to the dinghy.  We brought my purchases back to Irish Eyes, put everything away, and repeated it all over again.  It took us two days of this routine before we were ready to go.

Impetuous III’s crew had been working hard too.  An evening on the town was in order.  We all boarded the South Beach local bus, dropped a quarter each in the till, and rode out to the Art Deco District.  It was Happy Hour everywhere.  The sidewalk was covered with the outdoor tables from all the restaurants along Ocean Avenue.  The staff at each restaurant tried to get us to stop, but we were bound for Mango’s Tropical Café with its live music, dancers, booze, and food.  All four of us had a blast. The music was good, the dancers even better.  We each had our two-for-one Happy Hour drinks plus one more before deciding it was time for us to go.  If we had stayed any longer a two drinks an hour minimum would apply… too much for these old sailors.

We walked down Washington Avenue window shopping the tattoo parlors and stopping to check out the restaurants and bright lights along Espanola Way.  We were a little hungry and stopped for some pizza before catching the return bus.  After the short dinghy ride back to our boats, we were sound asleep by 10pm.  It was a lovely old folks evening.
The weather forecast for Thursday sounded just about perfect for crossing the Gulf Stream.  A quick trip into town for forgotten items and we were ready to bring the dinghy on board and move out to our departure point south of Key Biscayne.  The trip was pretty, but we had lots more boat traffic than we would have expected for a weekday afternoon.  One last task remained.  In the middle of Biscayne Bay we steered Irish Eyes around in slow circles as the electronic compass recalibrated itself.   I’m sure we looked a little odd to the passing boats.

The anchorage near the National Park at Key Biscayne was very quiet compared to the hubbub of South Beach.  The sunset was beautiful.  Impetuous III anchored near us after stopping along the way for fuel and water.  It was early to bed because we had to be up soon.

On Thursday, March 1 we were awake at 3 am and away in the moonless dark by 4.  Later when the sun came up in the Gulf Stream it was clear, not too windy, and the waves were about 2 feet in height.  It was a nice day to motorsail to Bimini.  We arrived in Alice Town and tied up to Weech’s Bimini Dock just before 3pm.  Bill headed to Customs and Immigration, cleared us in, and replaced our yellow quarantine flag with a Bahamas courtesy ensign.  Impetuous came into Weech’s behind us, cleared in, and the celebration began.  It was another early night for all of us.

The weather forecast on Saturday informed us that a serious weather event was to unfold during the next week.  The wind was expected to blow at about 25-30 knots all week.  In spite of Bill’s reluctance, we decided we were better off tied to Weech’s dock then trying to find a place to hide at anchor from the near gale force winds from the northeast.  We took a walk around town, bought some bread and ran into the lobsterman.  We bought a dozen lobster tails.  Late in the afternoon I made the trip to the liquor store for rum.  A Canadian boat with Pierre and Renee aboard came into Weech’s as well as an American boat with its single hander Gill.  We all had a Rum Punch or two aboard Impetuous.  Robert and Susan later joined us on Irish Eyes for lobster, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, and Susan’s homemade bread.  Yummy.

Sunday the cold front passed over us at 2pm.  It got dark and cloudy, and it rained some.  The wind blew first from the south, and then from the north.  When the wind changed, the temperature dropped almost instantly from 85 to 75.  Susan was the clear winner of the afternoon’s fishing tournament catching a blue runner and a lizard fish.  The others didn’t catch a thing.  Bill and Robert isolated Robert’s leaking water heater.  Monday was sunny and cool with a still strong but decreasing wind.  We walked the beach a bit and had a hamburger at CJ’s. Somehow a hamburger and fries eaten in the shade of a casuarina pine with a beach view tastes better.  The boats at Weech’s Dock had a community happy hour sheltered from the wind on the patio.  In spite of the weather it was a very good day in paradise.

This morning the wind was really howling.  It was warming up but windy. Did I say it was windy?  The Bahamas Met Office weather forecast didn’t have its usual small craft caution or a small craft advisory; it said, “Operators of small craft should remain in port.”  We took that advice.  We may get away from Bimini on Friday, or on Saturday, or…  We shall see.  We are in the Bahamas.

Stay safe and happy!