March 31, 2009

Unlike the iguanas these birds will eat out of your hand without biting.

Waredrick Wells Cay is named after the natural wells that are on the cay. Some are as deep as 40 feet. Some like this one are filled with water. All go straight down into the solid rock.

Bill and I picked these sand dollars up in just a couple of minutes raking our fingers or toes through the sand in the shallow water off Staniel Cay.

Surrounded by fish, I am swimming into the Thunderball Grotto. The cave passes completely through a small island. There is air and light in the top and water with fish and coral in the bottom.

When I last wrote we had just gotten to the Exuma Cays Land & Sea Park Headquarters at Warderick Wells Cay. We spent 3 nights there on a mooring near Emerald Rock on the west side of the cay. Bill put a patch over a hole in the dinghy, and we had to wait 24 hours for the glue to set before inflating the dinghy again. That meant a lazy day of reading, knitting, puttering about on Irish Eyes, and making bread. I have just about perfected the “Boat Bread” recipe. Bill doesn’t complain. It is really quite good.
The next day, Wednesday March 24, after lunch we inflated the dinghy and went exploring. We dropped by the park office to pay for our mooring and buy a book on the local flora. We walked across the cay to the ocean side. The trail takes you to Booboo Hill (not really much of a hill to us East Tennesseans but a hill never the less). It was topped with a stack of driftwood graffiti left by boaters to memorialize their being there. Just north on the ridge were two blow holes. These were holes in the rock where the water blows up into the air like a geyser. It was extremely windy and the surf was strong but the tide wasn’t yet high enough to have a good blow. The wind was 25 knots from the east, so we didn’t stay long before we were tired of being blown away and were getting wet from the salt water spray that filled the air.
At the park office building the staff had put out several sugar feeders for the Bananaquits. These are small black and yellow birds that feed on nectar or sugar. I put a teaspoon of sugar in my palm and had as many as six birds eating out of my hand at once. These little guys dip their long beaks in the sugar and either lick it off or share with another bird by rubbing their beaks together. We saw them on the nearby hibiscus flowers dipping their beaks down to get the nectar like a hummingbird. Bill thinks I should try and train the hummingbirds in our yard to eat out of my hand when we get home. I can’t imagine!
We still had our map of the park’s hiking trails from last year. We decided on Thursday to walk some of the ones we hadn’t already walked. The map was very deceiving. The trails start on one beach and go to the next beach. What the map doesn’t show is you have to walk over lots of very sharp pointy jagged rocks before you get to the next beach. I hate the sharp pointy rocks! I also saw a snake, only a small harmless brown snake, but a snake is a snake is a snake to me. Bill left me on the last beach we reached and went back overland for the dinghy then returned to retrieve me saving me from the return trip. In the shallow water on our way back to the boat we saw several live conchs. Since the park is a no take zone we left them alone. Besides I have already found two large perfect conch shells that were empty.
During the night the wind shifted to the south making our mooring at Emerald Rock rocky. We decided to move south to an anchorage with better protection even though south was dead into the wind and waves. Motoring into a 20 kt wind is not my favorite way to spend the morning. Before we left we had the good sense to bring the dinghy on deck. It was a smart move because we had no islands upwind of us, and the waves were surprisingly large. The chart showed moorings off the marina dock at Sampson Cay, but they are gone allowing us to anchor in about 7 to 8 feet of water tucked deeply inside in the very pretty harbor. Several nurse sharks attracted to the fish cleaning station on the marina dock cruised below our boat casting their shadows across the bottom. The spot was perfectly protected from the rough water outside, so we had a restful calm night.
Over the VHF radio the staff at Sampson Cay announced that they were having a beach BBQ party from noon to 7pm on Saturday. We needed to get some diesel, and I needed a pair of flip flops. We went ashore to check out the party and get fuel and shoes. For Christmas I got a very nice pair of mesh and leather water shoes. They looked like the perfect shoe for hopping out of the dinghy into the water and walking the beach protecting my feet from the sharp rocks. Wrong! The water drained out of the shoes but left all the sand behind. The sand then rubbed my feet raw. I would rather have flip flops. Unfortunately, what would be a $1.99 pair from Target were $30 in the Bahamas! I now have a pretty pink pair of expensive flip flops. Getting diesel was another adventure. There seemed to be a dispute brewing among the several large motor vessels waiting for space at the fuel dock – too little space and too many boats. Bill talked to the dock guy and decided not to move our boat over to the dock but rather bring our three jugs in the dinghy and fill our fuel tank in two dinghy trips. Unfortunately, before Bill could get back for the second 15 gallons a motor boat came in to get 1300+ gallons. We had to wait until he was through. The captain on that boat, which I won’t name, was a prime example of the unlikeable American, all mouth and money, issuing commands to anyone and everyone within earshot while refusing to do the simple things he was asked to do. I waited on a chair in the shade of the porch outside the store while Bill was filling the diesel jugs and learned quite a bit. The reason for the beach party was to allow the restaurant to be closed all day for a large group. The NY Yacht Club was bringing in 12 boats for the night and had requested a private dinner for 39. The staff at Sampson Cay had ordered and prepared tons of food and drink. Remember everything has to be brought over from Nassau by air or by boat. It turned out only 3 boats showed up! Two boats were already in the marina that morning and the third finally came at 8pm. Granted the last one could have had 39 people on board; it was that large, but I never saw them. All this reminded me of Watauga Lake Sail Club events and trying to get a head count beforehand! Sampson Cay Marina has houses for rent too. This would be a lovely place for a real get away vacation. We walked all over the cay, spent some time at the beach party and had another restful night.
We left Sampson Cay on Sunday morning and sailed south for Staniel Cay. While the wind was still from the south, this time we were able to sail in two tacks, first to the southwest, then to the southeast. I guess I should explain what sailing on the wind in 20 knots was like. The boat was heeled over (leaned) about 40 degrees, one side was nearly underwater, and the waves were coming over the bow and washing down the deck with only the canvas dodger to keep them out of the cockpit. Going below to the head (bathroom) was a real exercise. Toilets were designed to be level, not leaning 40 degrees forward! Every time the bow went underwater, I was pitched off the seat and out the door. Think of a sailing movie where the boat is really moving along. Ever wonder why the scenes never include the toilet? Anyway it was only about 8 miles or two hours, so it was manageable.
Staniel Cay has several beaches and the famous Thunderball Grotto, a sky lit underwater cave where the James Bond movie, Thunderball, and Disney’s Splash were filmed. The day we arrived was not a bright sunny day because a cold front was passing to the north of us, so we put off snorkeling and walked around the settlement instead. We went out to the airport, just a landing strip and a gazebo for a terminal, and walked down several of the lanes in the village. While we have been told that the winter had been unusually windy and cool and that the Abacos were both windier and cooler than the Exumas, spring here has been near perfect for us - highs of about 80 and lows of maybe 70. Now, if the wind would settle down a bit.
Yesterday we had lunch at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, my first conch burger of the trip, and went walking on the nearby beach. Bill and I found a dozen or more sand dollars just in a minute or two by digging in the shallows with our fingers or toes. I left them behind, remembering that I am only taking great things, and I already have sand dollars at home. At slack low tide we went to the Thunderball Grotto. It was beautiful. We swam in through its main entrance ushered by a school of Sergeant Major fish. The interior was lit by sunlight streaming in through holes in the limestone roof. The floor of the cave was covered with different varieties of coral and loads of fish. Both of us swam completely through the cave and out another entrance on the other side of the island. It was spectacular. I was just floating along with the current and the fish, watching the sea fans when Bill asked if I was heading to Cuba. Swimming the other way back through the cave was a little hard as the tide had changed and the current was against us. After a short dinghy ride we were back in Irish Eyes’ cockpit in time for an evening G&T as the sun set behind Big Majors Spot. Not a bad day at all.
This morning Bill discovered that we had a leak in our propane system. This was a priority and something that had to be fixed NOW. He worked on it all morning, and he thinks it is fixed. I hope. We planned to go to Club Thunderball for their Tuesday evening “All You Can Eat Pizza and Pasta Supper with a Movie”, but alas, “Da mail boat didn’t come today”, so we went over there for a couple of drinks instead and enjoyed supper on our own boat. Such is island life; one disappointment after another.
Tomorrow may be Bitter Guana Cay, a protected iguana habitat, then the Black Point Settlement on Great Guana Cay to do laundry and buy some fresh vegetables, or then maybe we will just go around to Big Majors Spot and see the swimming pigs. So many things to do, so little time. Miss you all and wish you could be here too!

March 24, 2009

On the north side of Highborne Cay is a beach. Someone put this piece of washed up lumber between two of the casurina pines above the beach. It made a good resting place.

The sign is at the entrance to the north creek that passes through the mangroves in the interior of Shroud Cay to the beach on the ocean side. Barcardi paid for the sign. Good people.

Bill found these plastic fishing floats on the beach. We left them behind.

Our dinghy on the Exuma Bank side beach at Hawksbill Cay with Irish Eyes (the sailboat) in the background.

Hey. We are currently moored at Warderick Wells Cay. The water is as clear as gin and the sky as blue as anyone can imagine. Our only problem is the wind which has been blowing from the east at 20 to 25 knots for several days and is expected to continue to do so for the few days.
We left Allen’s Cay and made the three hour trip, under sail, to Highborne Cay. Highborne has a marina and a couple of houses. We anchored on the Exumas Bank side (shallow water, western side, in the lee of the island, and out of the 20 kt east winds) with five or ten other boats for two nights. The landscape here is very stark deeply etched limestone with vegetation above the high water line with deeply blue water up to the limestone. Shortly after we had our anchor set, a beat up johnboat with two Bahamian fishermen aboard came along side and asked us if we wanted some lobster. We took two! Sure beats looking for them on our own! We decided to take a short island tour and went to both of the two closest beaches for a stroll. We grilled one of the lobsters which with a bit of garlic butter made for a fabulous dinner.
Our friends on Dot’s Way showed up the next evening, and we enjoyed a couple of beers with them on our boat. After they left we grilled two steaks for dinner. Before dark a large motor yacht (maybe 150 ft), Bad Girl, anchored behind us. The large crew from Bad Girl made several trips to the beach that was 200 yards in front of us. They proceeded to gather wood for a fire then erected two tents, several umbrellas, tiki lanterns, chairs, tables, a grill, a music system, and began working on preparing food for dinner. Around 8pm the dozen or so VIPs from Bad Girl got on one of their three dinghies (all 16 to 20' boats) and went to the beach party. It was all very interesting. The female to male ratio was at least 3 to 1and the age ratio was about the opposite! We got bored with watching until they started the fireworks show! The fireworks were good and entertained the whole anchorage. One fellow on a Canadian registered boat hailed Bad Girl, registered in Bermuda, to thank him for the show. The Canadian asked leading questions about Bad Girl, but the English accented captain was quite secretive never saying much more that she was a privately owned vessel. Maybe it was a rock star, a movie actor, a royal, or perhaps an AIG executive; who knows. Oh well, it was fun to watch and speculate.
Irish Eyes made the long trip, about 5 miles, to Norman’s Cay, the ex home and business location of the drug baron Carlos Lehder. We went into the Beach Club, McDuff’s, for a drink and dinner. Norman’s Cay has 5 year-round residents and about 45 part-time residents. The staff at McDuff’s are usually there for a week and off for a week. Some go to Nassau and some go back to various points in the US or UK. Our waitress told us that some of the young guys are there for a few months; make of that what you may. The food was good and the booze flowed in the evenings for both the staff and guests.
We left Norman’s and headed south for another 5 miles to Shroud Cay which is the northernmost cay in the Exumas National Park where we picked up one of their ($15/night) mooring balls. This is the island with a natural fresh water well where we stayed last year. Bill made three trips in the dinghy bringing us about 40 gallons of water. That was enough for me to wash underwear and refill our forward water tank. Peanuts was wrong, happiness is a full drawer of clean underwear! Shroud Cay was a great place to explore. The island is basically two land masses, one on the banks side and one on the ocean side, with mangrove swamps and tidal creeks in the middle. We took two three-hour dinghy exploration trips through the mangroves to the sound beaches, one through the northernmost creek and one through a southern creek. The scenery was spectacular. At times the water was very shallow and we had to walk pulling the dinghy behind, but the views and the beach were worth the effort. Our little Tohatsu outboard motor was a trooper going through water we thought was deep but really was not. I found pretty things; Bill found stuff. The amount of plastic junk on a deserted beach is mind boggling. Sorry all you plastic guys at Eastman, but it’s enough to make a person want to ban plastic! Bill’s best find was the electronics from some sort of weather balloon. It was a Styrofoam case with a circuit board and battery inside and with lots of wires sticking out. The thing looked like a bomb but was too water logged to be scary. I would also ban Styrofoam if I were in charge.
Today we made a reservation on the VHF for a mooring buoy at Warderick Wells Cay, the headquarters for the Exuma Land and Sea Park. We put the dinghy on the deck, dropped the mooring ball, and sailed southeast from Hawksbill Cay until Warderick Wells was east of us. Then we started motoring, slowly, into the 25 knot east wind that we have had since leaving Florida. It was not fun. The boat’s instruments said it would take 2 hours, then when we almost stopped after hitting a wave and water went all over the boat, 3 hours, then 2 hours as we started moving again. Well, we got here, finally. Near the shore and protected by the cay between us and the wind it is nearly calm if you forget the singing of the rigging overhead. We took the American flag down; it was making too much noise. We got the WiFi working and Bill is re-patching the dinghy. It’s nearly time for a SDG&T. Got to go.

March 16, 2009

When we arrived in the Bahamas we have to attest to the good health of the vessel and her crew. Fortuantely, we had no cases of plague, cholera, yellow fever or small pox during our ten hour voyage from Florida.

Sailing north around Bimini. The covered jugs are diesel and gas.

Bill thinks the iguana will come over and take the grape from his hand. The iguana plans to bite hell out of him, make him drop the grape, then pick it up. Bill does this twice before setting the grapes on the sand for the iguanas to pick up.

The view from the driftwood bench at the top of Allens Cay west over the Exuma Bank.

Greetings from Allens Cay, Exuma Cays, the Bahamas.
We left No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne Monday morning March 9 in the dark headed for Bimini. I have such poor night vision that getting out of the harbor and through the shallow Cape Florida Channel between Biscayne Bay and the ocean was scary. I was steering and Bill navigating. It didn’t help that the full moon set an hour before we left, that we had to go around some anchored boats, and that one of marks that was supposed to be lit was not. We cleared the last of the marks about 6:10am and were in the deep water of the Gulf Stream until we got to the channel into Bimini. This was our third crossing of the Gulf Stream. It was the middle one; not too rough or windy but not dead calm either. Four or five ships crossed our path heading south as we went east. We had a pod of the small spotted porpoises with us for about half an hour as the sun rose. We can’t ask for anything better than that.
Around midday, we heard a dive boat, Pirates Lady, calling the US Coast Guard from near Cat Cay which is just south of Bimini. They were reporting a missing diver. There was lots of radio talk about the search which involved two USCG helicopters and a number of pleasure craft. A large ship finally reported he could see something in the water. The heavily accented captain said he could not get close enough to make sure what he saw was the diver and was having trouble getting smaller boats to go take a look. We listened to the radio until we got to Bimini around 3pm, then switched it off. Bill was filling out the paperwork for the customs and immigrations while I breathed a sigh of relief that we were out of the Gulf Stream and firmly tied to Weech’s Dock. Ahead of us on the dock was Dot’s Way, a sailboat we had seen on and off in the ICW since Savannah. I was enjoying the warm temperature, clear water, blue sky, and a well deserved sundowner while Bill was meeting with officialdom ashore when Pirate’s Lady pulled into Weech’s. Pirates Lady is a 60 foot sailboat from Turk Island. She takes people out for a week of sailing and diving. Bill had finished with Customs and was on his way back from the Immigration Office when he saw a crowd of Bahamian police and rescue workers arriving at our dock. I think Bill was afraid I had gotten into trouble while he was gone and that Irish Eyes was about to be searched! Very regretfully they were there to retrieve the body of the missing diver. It was surmised the fellow had died of a heart attack. It was a fairly sober evening for us and probably a long week to come for the charter party on Pirates Lady.
Irish Eyes and Dot’s Way left about the same time both headed toward Nassau, and we were in sight of each other most of that day. It was a beautiful day with good wind for sailing in the morning before we turned east into the wind and started the engine. It was calm enough on the shallow Bahama Bank for me to make a loaf of bread. The sky was perfectly clear and at sunset we saw our first green flash. As the sun dropped below the horizon, the very last bit turned from the usual red-orange to a very bright pure green for the final second or two before disappearing. Spectacular! Bill had convinced me to sail overnight to Nassau, but Dot’s Way decided to anchor overnight ‘on the bank’. They dropped anchor in the middle of nowhere around midnight as we plowed on. Skipper Bob’s guide “Bahamas Bound” says beware of the 20 foot waves kicked up by an easterly wind in the much deeper Northwest Channel leading to Nassau. He wasn’t kidding. There was very little wind but lots of waves coming straight at us. I thought we would never reach West Bay on New Providence Island, but around 10:30am almost exactly 24 hours after our departure we did arrive and finally got our anchor down. A flying fish had landed on our deck during the night, and after tossing him overboard, both of us immediately took a much needed nap.
Anchored with us in this bay were two motor vessels and one large sailing catamaran. One of the motor boats was what we call a spaceship; white, sleek, fiberglass, lots of art deco windows, 60+ feet in length. This one was flagged (no doubt for tax reasons) in the Marshall Islands. It had an ultralight seaplane as one of its toys. The plane landed behind the boat, the pilot tossed a line to the deck hand and stepped off onto the yacht. An hour or so later he got back on the plane along with a passenger. They had a difficult time taking off, making several attempts, but finally after briefly returning to the mother ship they made it and flew off towards Nassau’s nearby airport. Shortly afterwards the boat pulled anchor and followed. I think I need a seaplane and pilot to take me to the next stop so I don’t have to sail over night.
We left West Bay around 9:30am and sailed southeast on the wind till we were past all the shallow spots around New Providence, then we turned dead into the wind and motored east across the Great Bahama Bank to Ship Channel Cay, another long motoring into the east wind. Sunset brought our second green flash every bit as spectacular as the first. We didn’t get to Ship Channel Cay ‘till after dark which does not make me comfortable, even with Bill watching the radar. But now we are in the Exumas and can go from anchorage to anchorage most of which are less than 5 miles apart. I like that! We spent two nights anchored behind Ship Channel Cay just resting up. The next day we went to Roberts Cay about a half mile south and spent the night. Yesterday, we sailed the 5 miles down to Allens Cay and into the anchorage between Allens Cay, Southwest Allens Cay, and Leaf Cay.
The Allens Cay area has iguanas. They are creepy looking big lizards some as long as three or four feet. We came here last year so the novelty is gone. The iguanas are just as ugly as I remember. Bill insisted on feeding the beasts grapes and got his finger bitten twice in the process! Does anybody else, other than Ann and Julia, remember the black racer snake that bit his finger? The iguanas got the same one. I really hope he doesn’t get some dreaded tropical iguana disease. We walked over the top of Leaf Cay, where most of the Iguanas live, to the ocean side beach. The water is so blue and the sand so white; can't beat that! I found a West Indian Top Snail shell. It was very pretty. I have vowed not to pick up just any shell, only the really great ones. We shall see how long that promise lasts!
When we anchored here yesterday it was high tide and we were closer to a sand bar than we wanted to be last night. There was not much we could do about it then because at low tide the boat would not float over the anchor so we could not retrieve it. This morning we picked up the anchor and moved a few feet to a better spot. Later, we took the dinghy to a small beach on Allens Cay itself and walked up a path to the high spot on the island to take in the view. Bill found a dead iguana, a decayed bird, and a large rotting bird’s egg, but the views were nice from a well placed driftwood bench someone had built. Two Canadian couples joined us and we talked with them for a while before returning to the boat.
All is peaceful tonight with us. We feel very fortunate to be here. God has been good to us! Hope you are all well.

March 8, 2009

The restored Cape Florida Lighthouse at the southern tip of Key Biscayne. We can anchor in the nearby harbor for $15 a night. Not bad for such a pretty place. I bet the hotel rooms in town are a bit more!

Isabella with her hat and new umbrella stroller taking in the sights on the beach.

Mother daughter and grandaughter sitting in the cockpit. We are anchored. Notice how close the mangrove lined shoreline is behind us. It got closer as the wind shifted and the boat pivoted around its anchor.

This creature, a green iguana, was resting on the ever closer rocks under the mangroves behind us. He is not a spectacularly large one, only three feet. The guidebook says they grow to five feet and can stand up and run on their hind legs. It doesn't say anything about swimming - thank goodness.

We are anchored in No Name Harbor, on Key Biscayne in Florida having arrived here on the 26th. This is a most interesting place. The harbor is part of the Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park which is at the southern tip of Key Biscayne. The park is a natural area with walking paths, nature trails, bicycle paths, a beach, two very nice restaurants, and the beautiful white Cape Florida Lighthouse with its reconstructed keeper’s cottage. Just outside the park gates and down the sidewalk past really expensive houses and condos are a grocery, hardware, post office, drug store, and library with all the things I need, and lots of shops with things I don’t need but which are no doubt necessary for the people who live in the expensive houses and condos.
Bill and I discovered shortly after we arrived that on Key Biscayne English is the second language. People on the street and in the shops speak Spanish first and English second. The local folks are doing more than fine with their incomes, and the place is beautiful. The streets are lined with palm trees set among tropical plantings, the sidewalks are pink, and the soccer fields in the park look like golf course greens. They don’t need our WalMart, K-Mart, Target or other discount stores. CVS, Winn-Dixie, and Ace Hardware seem to be the only chain stores on the island.
Julia, Josh, and Isabella joined us our first Friday night here. Isabella didn’t mind her life jacket, but her ear infection kept her from feeling her best. She was a trooper and viewed the lighthouse and wildlife then spent two nights on the sailboat. Julia brought Bill his birthday present, a 2009 Defender catalogue which he has gone to sleep reading every night since, and a couple of replacement parts for the head (toilet) that is absolutely necessary for me. Josh treated us all to a delicious dinner at the Boater’s Grill.
No Name Harbor is not far from Miami, so on the weekend lots and lots of boats came into the harbor to enjoy the park and dine at the Boater’s Grill at the head of the basin. In spite of the signs saying no tying to the wall between 11pm and 8am, dozens and dozens of boats were rafted up three and four deep Saturday night with their engines idling, blue lights shining underwater, playing Spanish rap while everyone milled about and had a good time until the sun came up the next morning.
Sunday, after Julia, Josh, and Isabella left, we did our usual daily running of the engine to freeze the refrigerator’s holding plate and charge the batteries, only to discover an injector was loose, leaking exhaust and soot into the engine compartment. Bill, the fixer of all things mechanical, tightened the injector hold-down bolts to stop the leak. He said we needed some new gaskets for the injector in case it started to leak again. Those things are not in our spare parts inventory. Bill did an internet search and found the Yanmar dealer in Miami, Anchor Marine. He even found a way to get there with public transportation and just a little walking. On Tuesday we took the bus from Key Biscayne to Miami then the train across Miami to within six or eight blocks of the store. We managed the bus/train part of the trip flawlessly. We got off the train and started walking to the parts store. Little did we know we would be walking through Little Havana! The substandard housing, trash in the streets, cars randomly parked with dudes discussing whatever, barred windows, growling dogs, and razor wire on the top of the chain link fences let me know that I wasn’t in my kind of neighborhood! The internet map also didn’t show that we would need to cross both a canal and a river. The nearest bridge over the canal was barricaded and located in the middle of a fenced off construction area. Bill asked one of the fellows in a hard hat if we could walk through, and we did… right in front of an advancing bulldozer pushing a pile of gravel. To find a bridge over the river, we called the store, and they gave us directions for a six block detour to a four lane drawbridge with traffic whizzing both ways, but eventually we did make it to the shop although we were both dusty and hot. I was shocked to find the two little copper parts that we spent a whole day getting were the size of coins and cost a grand total of $3.00! We safely made it to a somewhat closer train station then back to our bus stop amid the skyscrapers of downtown Miami. Being hungry and thirsty, we decided to have lunch in a pizza restaurant before taking the bus to Key Biscayne. It was a very nice place, a mere stone’s throw from the ghetto. We enjoyed our $20 sandwiches while being served by three waiters. It was an entirely different world. I was happy because the sandwich was delicious, the glass was heavily frosted, and the beer was very cold! A walking trip with Bill is always an adventure, and so far they have all turned out all right in the end.
We have entertained ourselves nosing around the park, walking to the local stores, reading, and, in my case, knitting. I just finished an argyle sweater for Ann’s son Ely and put in the mail to him along with sheet of stickers for his sister, Kaelyn. For mid-week entertainment, Wednesday night, after the rangers left for home, the boaters had a cocktail party in the nearby picnic shelter. It is always fun to meet fellow cruisers. I have never met a boater I didn’t find interesting (and a few are too interesting); Americans, Canadians, couples, singles, people without a nickel to their names, owners of gold plated boats, the sane and the insane, dreamers and doers. I wonder if they find me similarly interesting.
The weather forecast is for the wind to slow down and shift to the southeast Sunday night as an area of high pressure spreads out over us. That should let the seas drop to two feet or less although the wind and waves will still be on our nose. So, we may get to make our crossing to Bimini either Monday morning or maybe Tuesday morning. Anyway, that is today’s plan. We will keep you all posted.

February 25, 2009 The small beach below the bridge at the north end of Lake Worth is a convienent place to beach a dinghy. Shopping and a state park on the beach are both nearby. Our dinghy is the leftmost one.

Nice little boat, huh? We are waiting fora bridge to open and the wind is slowly blowing him down on us.

We motored out of the gap and around to her stern. Can you make out her name, hailing port, and flag?

The section of the waterway through Miami is a little more developed than the parts in Georgia, but there is actually less boat traffic. It is Wednesday and everyone must be at work. Poor people.

Hello from the Venetian Causeway Islands in Biscayne Bay near Miami, Florida. Since my last blog entry, Bill and I have moved the boat from the Matanzas River to Miami, 300 miles farther south! We have motored most of the way but still sailed a fair distance in the waterway when the wind was behind us.
We anchored off Daytona Beach one night, and we spent the next in the Titusville Municipal Marina where I caught up on our laundry and Bill went to West Marine. In Jensen Beach we had one more cold night, or at least a forecasted cold night. With forecast lows in the forties it was cold enough for the local freeze shelters to open for homeless folks and those living on unheated boats. We decided we would survive on our unheated boat. The low on the thermometer inside the boat was that night 57° which was higher than the in-the-boat high of 53° while we were in Carolina Beach. I will have to admit that we did put on our light weight long underwear in the morning for the trip to Lake Worth. But, by the time we arrived in Lake Worth (Palm Beach Gardens) it was warm enough for just a short sleeve shirt, long pants, and no socks! What joy!
We spent two days in Palm Springs stocking up on the groceries, beer, liquor, and the sundries we need for the next few months. The Lake Worth anchorage had a great little beach for landing dinghies with a wonderful Publix Supermarket just across the road and a block away. I made two trips for groceries, and Bill made numerous trips for beer. Remember he can only carry two cases at a time, one in his left hand and one in his right. The dinghy outboard motor was running poorly, so Bill cleaned the fuel filter and carburetor and replaced its spark plug restoring it to health.
We left Lake Worth Tuesday morning headed as far south as we could go in a day. The guide book said there were 28 drawbridges between Palm Beach and Miami. Most had restricted opening schedules that caused us to stop for up to half an hour waiting for an opening, so there was no way we could make the whole trip in one day. The scenery was varied only by the size of the houses along the way. In Palm Beach itself there were actual estates bordering the waterway. These houses were more than large with several acres of manicured lawns and gardens bordering the waterway... think of Biltmore House but with palms. Continuing south, we saw the now usual overly large houses, the typical Florida trailer parks, the large neo-Spanish style houses, the modern high rise condos, and everything in between.
Irish Eyes had been cruising along without any mechanical problems on this trip until we went under the Atlantic Ave Bridge in Delray Beach. All hell broke loose while we were under the open span. The motor suddenly began shaking enough to jar the teeth from out of my head! I was in the process of making a loaf of bread and said, “What the heck(?) is wrong”. Bill, being more mechanically minded, opened the cover at the front of the engine and announced, “The damn thing is jumping off its mounts. Shut it down”. We coasted through the bridge which closed behind us. Bill pulled up the floor in the cockpit and discovered the coupling between the transmission and the propeller shaft had come apart. Three of its four bolts were in the bilge and the last was holding the two halves of the coupling split, one to the left and one to the right, and the engines was cranking itself around and around the propeller shaft. We tossed out an anchor in the middle of the ICW and Bill disappeared with wrenches into the engine compartment while I waved at the all the boats that went past. Bill got the coupling bolted back together in under half an hour, and we were on our way; no damage done! We anchored that night in Lettuce Lake, actually just a wide spot in the ICW for the night. Bill worked on the shaft packing which was badly treated by the errant engine and was leaking water into the bilge at a good clip.
This morning we began the canal trip to Miami looking at the colorful variety of houses and waterside businesses along the way. It was early with very little traffic which was good because the concrete retaining walls on both sides of the canal make the motor boat wakes bounce back and forth. The total effect can be worse than Boone Lake on a summer weekend. We arrived at the Sunrise Bridge drawbridge all alone with a thirty minute wait and no other boats to go under the bridge with us. Just beside the bridge was Sunrise Marina. We had been circling around waiting for the bridge to open when a 156 foot yacht, Vajolioja (pronounced like The Jolly Roger), home port Bikini and flying a Marshall Islands flag, came out of the marina and into the ICW to wait too. Vajoliroja was absolutely beautiful! We have seen any number of large yachts, but this one was spectacular. Not a spot on her, gleaming white, all wood varnished within an inch of its life, a really beautiful boat. We admired the boat from all sides as the wind blew it slowly sideways down on us squeezing us in the gap between it and a similar size Australian yacht tied to the marina’s outside dock. Bill at the helm got us out of the hole to give the big boys lots of room. The bridge finally opened, and we followed in the stern wake of Vajoliroja to Ft Lauderdale where it went out to sea and we stopped for fuel. In talking to the dock hand I learned the Vajoliroja belongs to Johnny Depp, thus the name. The dock hand was impressed by the $30 an hour wage being paid to the boat’s wood varnishers, one of whom is kept on board as a permanent member of the crew of eight! It really was a beautiful boat.
Irish Eyes continued down the ICW through the northern beaches of Miami with their suburbs full of high rise dwellings set among the older beach houses they are replacing. By late afternoon we had gotten to the Venetian Causeway Islands just north of the port of Miami where we anchored between San Marino and Di Lido Islands. We are planning to go through the last Florida drawbridge in the morning then on to No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne to wait for good weather to cross to Bimini. Julia, Josh and Isabella will meet us there on Saturday. They are to take away our winter coat, hats, gloves, scarves & long underwear. I am looking forward to Isabella’s first stay on Irish Eyes. With a baby on board I’ll be a grandmother for sure!

February 16, 2009


Turkeys on Cumberland Island. We must have seen 20 or more; some on the ground, some in the trees.

These things are just plane dumb. Bill threatened to hit one in the head with a stick and have me cook it.

Some of the shells I left behind on the beach. In fact, I left them all behind.

Flora of Cumberland Island. Actually, yellow jasmine. Especially pretty in February.

The blue thing in front of the Kingsley Plantatation house is Bill. The house originally had two symetrical chimneys, but the yankeys who bought it tore one down. The next winter they discovered why there were two.

We are in Florida! Yippee! I should be warm, but I’m not. The wind has been blowing from the north at about 20 knots. The temperature would have to be about 90 degrees right now for me to feel warm… and it is not 90.
We made it through all the shallow spots in Georgia: Hell’s Gate, the Florida Passage and the Little Mud River. We timed our passages to be on a half tide or better and rising to help us stay off the bottom. We arrived at Cumberland Island, Georgia on February 13th. The trip down the Brickhill River behind the island was lovely – birds, trees, marsh, water, and not a house or other soul in sight except for a pack of a dozen or so kayakers who we figure paid more for the experience than we.
You may have been asking yourself, what exactly do I do all day while Irish Eyes travels along? Bill gave me a super deluxe pair of binoculars for Christmas, so I find all the unusual birds spending the winter in the south. Some of these birds are really smart to come to Dixieland for the winter; it’s even colder up north. The 14 power binoculars have gyroscopes in them. All I have to do is press the correct button, and the bird I am looking at stops shaking, well, not the bird but its image in the binoculars. I can actually look at the bird and compare it to its picture in the bird book and be sure I saw what I thought I saw. Anyway, it keeps me entertained. (She also reads the For Sale signs, checks out the couples on the beach, spies on the passing boats, and examines the houses along the way. Bill)
We spent two nights anchored off Cumberland Island. On February 14th, Valentine’s Day, we took the dinghy to the Park Service Dock off Plum Orchard, a large house built by some of the Carnages. The house wasn’t open to the public, but we could wander the portion of the island owned by the National Park Service to our hearts’ content. We walked over the Atlantic Beach side. We saw turkeys, armadillos and lots of flora. When we got to the beach, I found several conch shells (some with very recently deceased with smelly animals inside), sand dollars and other lovely shells. I decided we didn’t need smelly shells for the next four months on board, so I left it all behind on the beach. Just as we started our walk back to the other side of the island, it began to rain. It rained pretty hard, but being hardy sailors, we arrived back to Irish Eyes wet, cold, muddy, but not daunted. It was a very nice way to spend Valentine’s Day. All you Boy Scouts, parents, or such; there isn’t enough money in the world for me to sleep on the ground on Cumberland Island. Too many creatures were crawling about for my taste.
Sunday morning we made our way into Florida stopping for the night between Fernandina Beach and Jacksonville in the Ft. George River opposite Kingsley Plantation. Bill and I had been there years before in Canary, our 22 foot sailboat. We inflated the dinghy and went ashore for a brief tour of the buildings and grounds. Not much had changed since our last visit in 2003. The ranger said they were in need of funds to complete the restoration of the main house and open it to the public. Still, it is a nice place for a visit.
Tonight finds us anchored in the Matanzas River near its inlet to the ocean. There is an ancient Spanish Fort off our stern. I can’t imagine why there should be a fort here. If we go to the exhibit tomorrow, maybe I will find out why this miserable, shallow, current infested area needed defending. For tonight we have two anchors down, supper and a warm bed.

2009 Greetings from Onboard Irish Eyes.

Bill lights the 'Yacht Lamp' in a vain effort to warm the inside of the boat while it snowed outside in Carolina Beach.

This is the last pontoon bridge on the ICW. The part with white house has been floated off to the side. Now that we have passed, it will be moved back into place connecting Sunset Beach with the N. C. mainland.

The Marines keep this old landing craft tied up in Mile Hammock Bay. It must have some historical value.

The Ben Sawyer Bridge to Sullivans Island is typical of the swing bridges on the ICW.

We passed from the Cooper to the Ashley Rivers in front of the Battery in Charleston.

The Wapoo Creek Bridge south of Charleston is a bascule bridge. These are the quickest opening of the bridges.

Bill and I had so much fun in the Bahamas last year; we decided to go again this year. We are on our way to the Exumas, as far south in the Bahamas as we got last year.

We left Kingsport January 26th. We passed through Salsibury, NC spending the night with Bill’s Dad before making our way to New Bern.

Bill did boat maintenance while I did the boat provisioning (shopped). That means I was away from the boat while he pulled out at least one thing from every locker on the boat and made a great mess of everything. It was a good thing for our relationship that I was not there. While we were in New Bern, we had a lovely dinner with Jamie Mills and his roommate John. Jamie has become a very good cook, and John is a sailor, so we had a wonderful evening.

We agreed on Saturday, January 31 as our departure date. That was fine except the temperature was about 28° then we left the dock. Now, 28° is not too bad when we have 120v electricity, but it is entirely another thing when we cannot plug in our little heater.
We had a lovely three hour downwind sail on the Neuse River to the Intracoastal Waterway and Adams Creek where we anchored for our first night out. It was cold, so we were to bed early which was exactly what we needed… warm and restful.

The next day we made it past Beaufort, Morehead City, and Swansboro to Mile Hammock Bay in Camp Lejeune only touching the bottom twice. Score: Bill – 1, Adair - 1. After another full day motoring, (I say we go sunup to sundown, Bill just says quit whining) we anchored Monday night at Carolina Beach. Our next hurdle was to go down the Cape Fear River. That trip is twelve miles of open water exposed to the wind and twice daily tidal currents. Being the cautious sailors that we are, we actually listened to the weather forecast before we left. What a surprise! The high temperature for Tuesday was to be 34°, and on Wednesday NOAA said snow showers and a high of 32°!! And I thought I left the nasty snow stuff behind in Tennessee! We decided to stay put for two days. It wasn’t too bad inside Irish Eyes. Bill worked on the boat, and I read and knitted. If cold old Tuesday was not bad enough, we awoke on Wednesday to gray skies & snow showers! Yuck! The high temperature inside Irish Eyes was 51° which occurred while I had the stove lit cooking supper. I am not sure what Bill did that day, but I spent the day sitting in the vee berth under the covers with my hat on, reading & knitting. Nights weren’t bad at all until we looked up in the morning to see our frozen breath hanging as icicles from the metal frame of the hatch over our heads. I don’t know which is worse, having the cold drops of water fall in to my ear or looking up to see ice looking back down at me.

Bill’s 58th birthday was February 5th. The day dawned bright & sunny. The forecast was for 10-15 knot winds from the northwest. Great wind for a run down the Cape Fear River, and even better, the current in the morning would be with us. The only problem was the temperature! After much discussion, we decided to go on to Little River, SC. The prospect of seeing my sister Elaine & my brother-in-law, Jean Pierre, a hot shower, and electricity for our heater spurred us on. I had on two pairs of long underwear; Bill had three. We each had three shirts, heavy pants, coats, and hats. In addition for me, an ear warmer, gloves, heavy coat, numerous pairs of socks and my coat’s hood. The Cape Fear was a piece of cake, and in the afternoon we made it through the two shallow inlets between Southport and Little River with only one light bounce on the bottom even though it was dead low tide.

We tied up at Coquina Yacht Club and plugged in the heater. We had a great birthday dinner for Bill with Elaine and J.P. at the Mongolian Grill with dessert and drinks later at their house. The next day, Bill changed the engine oil while I had a girly lunch with Elaine and her friends. While I made good use of their washing machine, JP cooked us a spectacular dinner delivering us back to Irish Eyes where the heater was already running and life was good.

It was not nearly as cold on Saturday morning when we got underway. Elaine & JP waved goodbye to us from the road overhead as we passed through the Little River Swing Bridge and began our motor trip down the ICW and Waccamaw River to Georgetown. I made our first loaf of boat bread on the trip while we were underway. We anchored in the Georgetown harbor to warming temperatures. The next day’s journey from Georgetown to Dewees Creek (north of Charleston) was fairly uneventful except for a slow couple of miles around McClellanville where the water was shallow and the tide low. We saw more than a couple or 6 foot spots and never more than 8 in one two mile stretch. (We draw 5 feet.) At low tide it was hard to tell where the mud ended and the water began. Sunday’s anchorage in Dewees Creek was pretty. The porpoises were frolicking around while on one side of the boat the sun was setting and on the other side the full moon was rising.

Monday, we came through Charleston harbor with warming temperatures and clear skies. We could see the bridges across the marsh grass from miles away, and the houses on the Battery shown in the morning light. Bill was even barefoot for a while. We both took off even our light long underwear. We are headed south toward that place where Jimmy Buffett says “the weather suits our clothes”, well not these clothes. That night, we anchored in the South Edisto River off the side of the channel behind marker 157. The forecast was for highs in the seventies the rest of the week, but rain Wednesday and Friday.

The names of Tuesday’s places roll off your tongue. South Edisto River, Fenwick Island Cut, Ashepoo River, Ashepoo-Coosaw Cutoff, and Coosaw River. Suddenly, we are in Beaufort and Paris Island with its underpaid Marines in their barracks, then after a quick sail up Port Royal Sound to the channel behind Hilton Head Island and Calibogue Sound where we are within rifle shot of the overly wealthy in their grand mansions. Past Daufuskie Island, but before Georgia, is the Cooper River, abandoned by the Intracoastal Waterway, where we anchored among the salt marshes with the day’s freshly baked bread, roast chicken, vegetables, salad and wine for supper and the night.

Wednesday took us into Georgia across the Savannah River after a monster container ship crossed ahead of us going downriver. There are two drawbridges in Georgia and we passed through both of them today. In Thunderbolt we fueled the boat, topped off our water tanks, and emptied the trash. We get about 10 nautical miles per gallon. The aptly named Hell Gate connects the Vernon and Ogeechee Rivers. Our guidebook says that the water depth is 2 ft in the centerline of the channel at low tide. We need 3+ feet of tide to get our 5 ft draft through it. Our timing was bad. The tide was +3 ft and falling as we approached, so we have anchored for the night in the Vernon River near some houses in a place the chart calls Montgomery. Tomorrow morning should be a better time to go through. It is the 11th of February and we are four days ahead of ourselves last year.