Happy St. Paddy’s Day from Irish Eyes anchored at Shroud
Cay. [That is when I wrote this. It has taken until now to upload it to the internet. ...and you think your internet is slow...]
When I last wrote we were anchored in Miami Beach. It took us about a week to buy our food, some
missing spare parts, and the things we had forgotten to bring from New Bern. We toured around Miami and Miami Beach, sent
our winter clothes to Julia, and had a few restaurant meals. I really enjoyed watching the crazy people in
Miami Beach. It was like watching the
animals in the zoo. But, after nine days
in Miami Beach I was tired of people watching.
The boat was ready to go, and so were we. So, we pulled up our anchor and headed just a
little farther south to No Name Harbor on the southern tip of Key Biscayne.
By anchoring outside No Name Harbor for our last night in
the US, we had a much shorter (and much straighter) trip in the dark to the
open ocean. To try something a little
different this year, rather than going to Bimini, we planned to sail all day then
all night to reach Morgan’s Bluff on the north tip of Andros Island in the mid-morning
of the next day.
The anchor was up, and we were underway at about 5:30am on
Monday, February 27. The moon had set by
the time we got underway, but the sun was scheduled to rise about 6:15. In the dim light before sunrise, the
navigation marks were easy to see as we motored out the Cape Florida Channel to
the ocean. I was much happier not having
to find our way down the channel by searching for the red and green daymarks
with a spotlight.
The crossing of the Gulf Stream was uneventful. We passed north around Bimini in the mid-afternoon
and kept on going. In the evening the
moon’s reflection on the water behind us was breathtaking and its later setting
was spectacular. The moonlight made it
much easier to identify the boats going by us and to see the several other boats anchored
on the shallow banks for the night.
When we got to Morgan’s Bluff the next morning, we had been
underway for 28 hours. Whew. Bill went ashore to check us into the
Bahamas. I stayed onboard Irish Eyes because
the Captain is the only one allowed on land ‘till we have been cleared into the
Bahamas. Bill got the paperwork done,
and the immigrations officer gave us leave to stay until July.
Several years ago, we met a couple who raved on and on about
Andros and Morgan’s Bluff. They spent a
large part of the winter there. The woman
in this couple told me how great it was to watch the Bahamian women make
Androsia batik fabric. The fabric is
sort of tie dyed in bright colors with motifs of shells, fish, pineapples, and
other tropical things. I would love to
see the fabric made. Well, the Morgan’s
Bluff we saw had three buildings; a bar, the harbor master’s office, and a filling
station. Google told us that the Androsia
factory was an hour’s drive south in Andros Town. It was far too far for us to walk.
Since we didn’t find much of interest in Morgan’s Bluff, and
since the weather was going to change and bring rain and strong winds, we
decided to move on to New Providence Island. In light wind we motored the 30 nautical miles
to New Providence’s Southwest Bay and anchored off the entrance to the Albany
Marina and Resort. Our guidebook says the
marina may be the most expensive in the world at $6.00 per foot per night (with
a 50 foot minimum) plus a $500 per day resort service charge plus the usual
7.5% VAT. Tiger Woods and some “friends”
own the place. It was almost dark by the
time our anchor was down, and we collapsed for a full night’s sleep while our
anchor held us safely in place for free.
Our destination the next day was Norman’s Cay. To get there before dark, we put up our sails
and ran the engine to keep up our speed. The boat heeled over until the starboard rail
was in the water. It was a rollicking
motorsail, but we managed to get the anchor down on the west side of Normans Cay
before sunset. While we were underway,
Bill was sitting at the navigation station and discovered that his feet were resting
in seawater. Somewhere in our quarter
berth (which was full of all sorts of boat things and small amounts of beer, wine, and liquor) there was a leak.
Bill spent the entire day Thursday taking the things out of
the quarter berth, finding and repairing the leak, and putting all the stuff
back in the quarter berth. The leak
appeared to come from two of the four screws that hold the antenna tuner for
the shortwave radio to the foot of the quarter berth. The screw ends go into our rear anchor locker
which fills with seawater when the boat heels to starboard. (Remember, we put that side of the boat
underwater?) Well, the water leaked in
around the screws. There is always
something to fix on a boat.
A cold front was approaching the Bahamas from the US. The wind would to be strong, first from the
southwest, then the west, then the northwest, and finally from the north. The Bahamas Meteorological Office forecast for
Sunday hilariously said, “Boaters should remain in port. Winds northerly at 20-25 knots in the
northwest Bahamas… …seas up to 20 feet in northerly swells across all areas,
across the ocean. No significant weather
expected.” While we laughed at the “No
significant weather...”, we decided to move into the Normans Cay Cut where we
would have protection from the west and north winds.
Friday, the wind picked up a little, but as the weather
gurus said there was more to come.
The number of boats anchored around us increased over the next two
days. Our Kingsport friends, Rob and
Minta Fannon, came in their boat, Caroline, and joined the anchored fleet on
Saturday. The wind continued to clock
around and blow about twenty knots. The
water in our anchorage was fairly smooth, not completely calm, but not too bad
either.
On Sunday we had planned a dinghy exploration trip with the
Fannons. But, with twenty knot winds,
spray flying, and an air temperature of 69 degrees, we instead spent the
afternoon chatting in the cabin of Irish Eyes rather than riding around in a
wet dinghy.
Our bad weather came from a couple of cold fronts that had dumped
snow over the eastern United States and had spawned a severe nor’easter in New
York and Boston. We stayed anchored in
the Normans Cay Cut for a week. We did
move the boat around in the anchorage twice.
Once because another boat anchored too closely to us, and once again for
better protection from the choppy waves.
During calmer periods we went exploring. Bill began his hideous habit of collecting beach
trash. So far, he has brought back to
our boat a small blue ball, a diver down flag on a float, a sandy baseball hat,
and a medium sized cone shaped Styrofoam fishing float. Unlike Bill and his random junk collecting, I
am trying to be very discerning in my shell collecting. I have only saved a single perfect large top snail.
One afternoon while Bill was piddling about, he opened the
cover to the bilge. The bilge is the
nasty, dirty underworld of the boat where the 36 gallon fuel tank lives. Bill saw diesel fuel floating on the bilge
water. We got out the garden hose we use
to wash off the anchor when it is muddy, attached it to the wash down pump, and
washed the oil out the bilge with seawater and detergent. Twelve hours later there was oil in the bilge
again. There was a leak in the aluminum fuel
tank. The tank was as old as the boat,
and for a couple of years Bill had talked about taking it out and inspecting it. It seems he waited just a little too long.
We decided it would be best to go to a Nassau marina to work
on the tank. The boat would be safe with
the engine inoperable, we could find most things we might need to repair the
tank, and we could take the tank off the boat to work on it. Palm Cay Marina on New Providence was the
closest cruiser friendly marina. To slow
the leak, Bill pumped 20 gallons of fuel out of the tank and into the five
gallon fuel jugs we carry on deck. On
Friday, March 9 we motorsailed from Normans Cay to Palm Cay Marina. By supper time we were tied up in a slip at
one of their docks.
Saturday morning Bill began the task of removing the fuel
tank from the boat. First, he made a
couple of trips to a grocery store to buy gallon jugs of water; not for the
water, but for the jugs. The last of our
fuel went into the emptied jugs and the inside of the tank was wiped out with
paper towels. Then, we unbolted our
table from the floor and tied it in place on top of one of the settees. We removed the salon floor, set it aside, and
took out the tank. The outside of the
tank was a filthy, greasy, gross mess. We
put it in the cockpit on top of a sheet of plastic. Bill scraped off most of the mess, then he
wiped off the rest of the crud with a whole roll of paper towels wet with clean
diesel fuel. Next, we moved the tank to
the dock where Bill scrubbed it with a wire brush and paint thinner. He pressurized the tank with our dinghy foot
pump and found the tiny leak by painting Joy detergent and water over the
bottom of the tank. The lowest part of
the tank was corroded, and the leak was in one of the corroded spots. Bill put some epoxy putty on all the corroded
areas and left the putty to harden.
Early Monday morning, the remains of another cold front
passed over us. We had 4.8 inches of rain
with thunder, lightning, and lots of wind.
I was glad we were safely in the marina.
Palm Cay had several courtesy cars available for marina visitors to
borrow. In the Bahamas they drive on the
left-hand side of the road. Fortunately,
the courtesy cars are right hand drive (the British kind). Bill drove while I navigated on a trip to three
of the marine supply stores in downtown Nassau to buy the things to patch the
tank. With all the rain, the streets
were full of standing water. The rain
continued on and off all day, so we got only a little more work done.
Tuesday, Bill painted the whole bottom of the fuel tank with
epoxy resin and put fiberglass cloth and epoxy on the lowest part of the tank. That done, Bill decided to clean the area of
the bilge that was under the tank. I did
not offer to help with that nasty job! I
admit the bilge looked (and smelled) much better when he finished. Wednesday, we put the tank back in the
boat. Bill attached all the hoses, and
we filled the tank with diesel fuel. We
watched and did not see any oil in the bilge. Hooray!!
The engine started and ran just fine.
We were free to leave the marina.
While the tank was out, the cabin was in chaos. The dining table was atop one of our settees,
and the settee cushions and Bill’s tools were everywhere. I was glad when it was all over. If Bill had not been able to fix the fuel
tank, I do not know what we would have done.
Our two daughters, their husbands, and all five grandchildren plan to meet
us in Blackpoint the first week in April.
They will stay in a rented a house because all eleven of us will not fit
on the little ol’ Irish Eyes. Just the
thought of our having to go back to the US to get the tank replaced was
devasting to me. I have to be in
Blackpoint that week! I can’t miss the
kids and grandkids.
We left Palm Cay Marina Thursday morning sailing to
Highbourne Cay for the night. After a
peaceful night anchored there, we left Highbourne and sailed the ten miles to
Shroud Cay, one of our favorite places in the Exumas. We will explore the creeks around Shroud Cay
for the next couple of days. Another
cold front is to pass over us next week, so we will move then to find better
protection from the expected winds.
Hope those of you with snow soon see some Spring Green. It was an unusually cool 63 degrees this
morning. I have on a sweatshirt, but my
feet are still bare.
