Friday, March 15, 2013

There is an alligator underwater sneaking up on this egret.  Will the egret see it in time?

Usually, locks have underwater valves that are used to fill and empty the locks.  The Okeechobee Waterway locks don’t have valves.  The gates are cracked open, and the water gushes in.

With an opened vertical clearance of 49’ this Florida East coast railway bridge sets the height limit for the Okeechobee Waterway.  The tip of our masthead antenna is 45’-9” above the water.

This is Thomas Edison’s banyan tree.  It is taking over his yard.  I don’t know how you would prune it.

Sunset on Ft Myers Beach with a sailing ship offshore.  The spring breakers have left for the bars.

These are pictures of Ft Jefferson inside and out.  You have never seen so many bricks.  The fort covers almost all of Garden Key.  They could not have made it bigger.  Dr Mudd was imprisoned here.

Poor Bill.  He came all this way and the island was closed.  Actually, it was a nesting site, and we were not allowed to disturb the birds.

The end of the road in Key West, Florida.. You can’t go any farther.

Hello from Key West, Florida.  It is sunny and fairly warm, but boy has it been windy here.

I last wrote from Vero Beach. We spent our last full day in Vero Beach taking showers, doing laundry, having lunch with a friend from Kingsport, buying groceries, and finally ending the day at a cruiser’s potluck party at the marina.  It was a busy but fun day.

We left Vero Beach on Friday, February 22 headed for Stuart.  The weather forecast was for sunny skies and wind of 5-10 knots, so we decided to tow the dinghy.  We had the sunny skies, but the wind was more like 15-20 knots with gusts up to 24 knots.  Not good for towing the dinghy.  The little boat enjoyed (?) a wild ride.  The waterway to Stuart was narrow, shallow in spots, and had lots of Friday boat traffic.  Irish Eyes’ keel touched the bottom three times.  The sun was setting when we dropped our anchor across the St. Lucie River from the mooring field in Stuart.

Bill got me out of bed before sunrise.  We put the dinghy on deck since towing it through the locks of the Okeechobee Waterway would not be a particularly bright idea.  The second bridge on the waterway was a new 64 foot high-rise that was still under construction.  The bridge was closed to boat traffic from 10am to 4pm.  Since we were up well before 10am, this did not cause us any problems.  The first set of locks raised us 15 feet.  The locks on the Okeechobee Waterway were filled by cracking the upper gates and letting the water pour in.  Seeing a 15 foot high torrent of water cascading towards us through the partially open gates was quite impressive.  Irish Eyes and her crew did just fine as the water crashed and bubbled ahead of us.  The river after the locks was a canal with little to see except fields, cows, birds, and trees.  Our anchorage for the night was a little drainage ditch which branched off the side of the canal.  We reached it by 2pm.  It was a very nice spot, and it was refreshing to have a short day.

Sunday, February 24 dawned very foggy; pea soup foggy.  I managed to convince Bill to stay anchored till the fog lifted at least a little.  He got antsy; we pulled up the anchor and started down the canal.  Bill was washing off the anchor, and I was steering.  I could not see either bank of the canal from the middle, so I whined enough for Bill to agree to return to our drainage ditch and anchor for a while.  By 10 o’clock, the fog lifted, and we were off again.

The locks at Port Mayaca let us down a few inches, and we ventured out onto Lake Okeechobee.  It ended up being a warm clear day, and the trip across the lake was uneventful.  The lake was wide, and we felt like we were out at sea.  The shoreline was not visible until we entered the channel leading to the canal on the other side.  The canal was bordered on one side by a park built on the top of a high levee and bordered on the other by undeveloped land.  It was all much different from the east coast of Florida.  We anchored for the night just out of the main channel near an abandoned fish camp.  I watched an alligator try to catch a great egret, but the bird saw the stalking ‘gator and flew away squawking.  Whew, was I worried.

Passing through the third set of locks at Moore Haven and the fourth at Ortona took us from the level of Lake Okeechobee to the level of the upper Caloosahatchee River.  It was a non-event.

Along the banks of the Caloosahatchee River were herds of cows.  The vegetation was green but not exactly lush.  The cows looked healthy enough, but I wondered what they really ate.  The town of LaBelle had a free city dock, and we decided to stop there for the night.  We needed a few groceries, and Bill wanted to check out the hardware store.  To tie to the dock, we had to “med moor”.  On a sailing trip in Greece twenty years ago, we had “med moored”, but we had never done it in Irish Eyes.  One hundred and fifty feet from the dock, Bill was to drop the anchor off the stern and motor bow first toward the dock feeding out anchor line as we went.  I was to grab the dock off the bow at exactly the instant Bill stopped the boat with the anchor.  Sounds easy, but I was nervous especially because we were trying to slip Irish Eyes in between two already moored boats.  Thankfully another boater on the dock took my line, and I did not have to hop off and tie our bow to the dock.  We walked into LaBelle to do our shopping.  The local honey merchant claims to have over 900 varieties of honey.  I am not sure about that, but I bought some wildflower flavor.  We spent a pleasant evening tied to the dock.

A cold front was to pass over western Florida the next day, so we decided to stay.  That was okay because the city allows docking for up to 72 hours.  Bill walked to the hardware store to look around while I lazed about on the boat.  The front came over us as the sun was going down.  It rained and the wind blew.

Wednesday, February 27 was beautifully clear, but it was a little cooler than the previous few days.  A manatee was swimming in the river behind Irish Eyes as we were getting ready to leave LaBelle.  The huge beast very slowly moved away, and we set off down the river.  We went through the fifth and last lock and through several draw bridges ending the day anchored in the Power Plant Sluice near Ft. Myers.  In spite of the name it was a nice place to anchor.  Surrounded by mangrove covered banks, we could neither see nor hear the nearby power plant.

It took us only a few hours to go the great distance of 15 miles to the Ft. Myers’ City Marina mooring field.  We tied to a ball and took our dinghy to the marina before noon.  We had a nice lunch at an outdoor café in the River District.  It was almost 80 degrees at long last.

Ft. Myers was the winter home of both Thomas Edison and Henry Ford.  Harvey Firestone was one of Edison’s friends and a frequent visitor to Ft. Myers.  We walked out to the Edison/Ford estate after lunch.  The houses were not mansions, but very nice Florida cottages.  The grounds were full of tropical plants.  Edison was interested in making synthetic rubber from plants, so he grew all sorts of things.  His wife was a keen gardener, and I think she kept things under control.  If you are ever in Ft. Myers, the estate is well worth a visit.

Once again a cold front was to pass over western Florida.  The captain made the decision to stay in Ft. Myers through the weekend.  That was fine with me.  The downwind dinghy ride to town was not bad, but the upwind (and up wave) return trip was wet and cold.  We did go back into town twice, but on Sunday it was very windy, and we just stayed on Irish Eyes.  I spent the day watching my DVD of Downton Abbey’s third season.  Bill read.

Monday morning March 4 was clear and cold.  We suited up in several layers of clothing, untied from the mooring ball, and headed downriver to Ft. Myers Beach.  The trip took us out into the Gulf of Mexico for a bit and then back into the river behind Estero Island.  When we got to the Ft. Myers Beach mooring field, we found it very confusing.  Captain Bill said “Go below and call the phone number on the bottom of the page in the open guidebook on the nav desk and find out what we need to do.”  (Now, you noticed that he did not say left page or right page?)  I went below and called the number on the bottom of the left page. It was highlighted, bold, and really stuck out.  I spoke with a very nice person in the Florida State Parks Office who did not have a clue what I was talking about.  After some consultation with the captain and an increasing amount of ‘marital bliss’, I found the correct number which was buried in a paragraph near the bottom of the right page.  While this slight misunderstanding was going on, we ran aground in a part of the mooring field that was too shallow for our 5 foot draft, backed off, and played dodgem in the current with a red daymark.  We finally picked up a mooring and each had a beer (or so) to ease the stress.

The winter weather in Florida changed as cold fronts blew down from the plain states.  It was warm for a couple of days, then cool for a couple of days.  Tuesday was warm and sunny.  We walked over to the beach to find lots and lots of people basking in the sun.  It was Spring Break somewhere (or more likely lots of places).  Wednesday was just as sunny, but it was windy with temperatures in the 60’s.  We rode the local bus first to the mainland and then from one end of the island to the other and back again jumping off twice to check things out.  It might have been windy and cool, but the girls on Spring Break were not admitting it.  They wore bikinis while we wore long pants and sweatshirts.  Late in the afternoon a friend from Tennessee, Clarke Lucas, arrived.  He was visiting his friend Bruce Bartlett on Bruce’s boat, Roamer.  We all spent the afternoon in the cockpit of Irish Eyes chatting.  Clarke also brought us our accumulated mail that Richard Barr had retrieved from the post office in Kingsport for us.

Back in December, we had bought three updated chart cartridges for our chartplotter giving us charts from Norfolk to Lake Pontchartrain including the Bahamas and Bermuda.  Just out of New Bern, we found the first card to be bad.  It was replaced by a set of new cards sent to us in Vero Beach.  Crossing the Okeechobee we switched to the second new card and found it also to be bad.  C-Map agreed the software was again not correct and sent another set of replacement cards to Ft Myers Beach.  We had to wait on them to arrive Thursday morning before we could leave, but finally we were underway by 1pm.

Our destination was Ft. Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas which would be a 26 hour trip.  The wind was forecast to be from the northeast which would make the southwest trip easy.  NOAA got it wrong.  The wind was from west making the trip to the Dry Tortugas a beat.  We briefly considered skipping the Dry Tortugas and going instead to Key West, but we did not.  We hoisted a reefed main and the genoa, buried the port rail in the water, and sailed for the Dry Tortugas… spray flying and sailing on our ear; not what I like.  As the afternoon wore on and continuing through the night, the wind slowly shifted around to the northeast.  Sailing downwind would have been great, but the waves kept coming from the west or northwest and rolled us from side to side and back again.  It was really hard to sleep.   I would just drop off to sleep and the boat would roll and startle me awake.  It was cold.  On watch I had to wear long underwear, socks, and my winter coat.  The waves were forecast to be 2 feet high, but they ended up being more like 4 feet.  It was rolly, rolly, rolly.  There were lots of stars to see, but I still am not a fan of sailing in the dark.

We arrived at Ft. Jefferson in the early afternoon and went straight to sleep.  Ft. Jefferson is a large pile of 16 million 19^th century bricks in the middle of nowhere.  There are two major keys there, Garden Key on which Ft. Jefferson sits and Bush Key which is a bird sanctuary.  The two islands used to be separate, but sand has filled the gap, and they have become one.  A flock of sooty terns and the brown boobies nest on Bush Key this time of year.  Thousands of them along with dozens of frigate birds that eat the hatchlings kept up a constant din.  It sounded like the soundtrack from Hitchcock’s film, The Birds.  We spent three days walking around the fort and enjoying the scenery.  One night as the sun was setting a commercial fishing boat came along side and said they would trade fish for a six pack of beer.  I quickly put a plastic grocery bag filled with six of Bill's beers on the end of their boathook; they replaced it with another bag filled with 6 whole yellow tailed snappers.  So far, we have eaten just one which made two meals; baked fish with veggies one night then fish stew with veggies the next.

Our plan was to leave Ft. Jefferson for Key West.  We planned to stop at the Marquesas Keys to break the 70 mile trip into two near equal lazy days.  The Marquesas Keys are just some little mangrove covered islands in the middle of the ocean, and we could spend a few hours exploring them.  But, there was the weather.  It did not like our plan.  A cold front was coming.  High winds and high seas were predicated.  Our plans changed, and Tuesday morning at sunrise we were underway bound for Key West without a stop.  Key West came into view long before we arrived.  We first went generally south in the Northwest Channel, then north in the Ship Channel and through Man of War Harbor, the finally south again in the Garrison Bight Channel.  I think we spent three hours arriving.  It felt like driving into New York City and getting stuck in a traffic jam; so near yet so far. It was a long day, but at sunset we were tied to a mooring ball in Garrison Bight at Key West.

The wind blew for two days, but today it calmed down quite a bit.  It was cool but not cold.  The Key West natives act like 65 degrees is 32 degrees below zero.  The radio is full of whining about the weather.  Bill and I have made a couple of walking trips through town.  A Carnival Line cruise ship was here along with all the kids on Spring Break, so it was crowded.  The shops all had Spring Break 2013 tee-shirts for sale.  I was just happy to be warm and lucky enough to be sailing along with my sweet husband.

The plan is to head north through the Florida Keys to Miami and then head to the Bahamas.

Stay warm and think SPRING.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

I’m on the Cumberland Island Beach with palm trees, white sand, and sun.  Finally, we are far enough south here in the southern corner of Georgia to be warm.

Bill stopped on his way back to the boat on this Cumberland Island trail amid the palms and Spanish moss covered live oak trees.

Anchored in Florida at last, but the weather in Fernandina Beach did not match the latitude.  In the evening the town’s waterfront disappeared in the fog.  The next day brought both tornado and thunderstorm warnings.

The bridge across the ICW in St Augustine is called the Bridge of Lions.  This is one of the lions.

Outside Stewart’s Market in St Augustine a truck of oranges waits to be unloaded.  Stewart’s is a grocery store like they were before they became supermarkets.

I am typing this as we motor down the Indian River between Melbourne and Vero Beach Florida.

First, let me tell you part of the water pump pulley story.

Bill was worried about the superglued together pulley on the raw water pump on the engine.  He called three Yanmar dealers along the way looking for a replacement.  In Myrtle Beach, Hague Marina didn’t have one in stock.  In Georgetown, Hazard Marine did not return two phone calls and did not answer the radio as we cruised by their dock.  In Charleston, Charleston Boatyard did not have one in stock either.  Bill gave up looking and ordered a pulley from an internet dealer to be delivered to Beaufort, SC.  For good measure he also ordered a complete pump assembly from a boatyard in Massachusetts to be delivered to us in Vero Beach, Florida.

Now with that out of the way, I’ll go back to our 2013 cruise where I left the story in the Coquina Yacht Club in Little River, SC.

A spot off the ICW behind Butler Island in the Waccamaw River north of Georgetown was both scenic and an easy day’s travel from Little River.  It was our first stop on this next leg.  Our second stop after Little River did not go as well.  We pushed on until sundown to reach Seven Reaches Creek north of Charleston.  That did not work out at all.  With the tide nearly low but still falling and the sun going down, we hit the bottom twice trying to enter the creek where the chart plainly showed 7 feet.  Abort.  We backtracked and anchored in the familiar-to-us spot in Dewees Creek not far from the Dewees Island ferry dock.  The sunset was spectacular, but the air temperature dropped like a stone as the sun went down.

Sunday morning, February 3 was clear but very windy.  NOAA had small craft advisories for Charleston Harbor.  We, being the aforementioned small craft, stayed safely anchored for the day.  I knitted and read.  Bill, who could not cruise south, cruised the internet instead.  As forecasted, it was cold and windy.  It was a day much better spent at anchor than motoring south.

Our third night was anchored in another familiar spot, just off the ICW along the banks of the South Edisto River near Fenwick Island.  Everything was fine until Bill logged onto the internet only to discover that the pulley from the internet dealer had not been shipped because the credit card had failed.  Oooh, was he mad.  There was nothing he could do till morning.  After two phone calls to the dealer, the credit card number that had not worked before worked.  The pulley would be a day late getting to Beaufort.  We would have to spend the night there rather than just stop, pick up the pulley, fuel the boat, and go on.  It all worked out better than he thought it would.  February 5 was his 62^nd birthday.  I gave him his present (a fancy hand held GPS), he got a nice meal at a waterfront restaurant in town, and he got to go shopping for the list of things that he had left Kingsport without.  The phone rang with friends and family wishing him a happy birthday.  Not a bad outcome.  For my part I bought postcards and mailed then to the grandchildren.  Then, I visited the local knitting store buying yarn for another project that I had been thinking about.  (One can never have too much yarn.)

With full fuel and water tanks and with the new pulley firmly bolted in place, we were off to Georgia.  It was warm enough not to wear a coat.  We passed Hilton Head Island and anchored in a beautiful spot on the New River just north of the Georgia state line.  All we could see for miles was marsh grass with the industrial works along Savannah River rising above the grass in the distance.  Just as the sun was setting, we watched two tugs and their barges, one northbound and the other southbound, maneuvering through a skinny spot in the ICW behind us.  It was impressive to watch the skillful captains as we listened to them talking on the VHF radio.

Thursday, February 7 dawned gray and cloudy.  NOAA predicted rain off and on all day.  Bummer.  I like the warm sunshine better.  We pulled up the anchor early in the morning to catch high tide in a shallow spot in Field’s Cut just before the Savannah River.  Across miles of marsh grass we watched one ship pass down the river in front of us, and on the VHF radio we listened to another headed our way up the river.  We got across the river and back into the ICW without a hitch.  I would like there to be traffic lights at river intersections.  Irish Eyes is so small; the ships are so big.

The forecasted rain began as we passed the cemetery at Causton Bluff.  The cemetery was beautiful from the water.  The live oak trees were huge and the Spanish moss was everywhere.  One of our guide books said John Muir thought it the most beautiful spot in Georgia.  Beautiful or not, it was still raining.  We passed Moon River, and it was still raining.  I did not sing the song.  It was pretty miserable; wet and cold.  We decided to turn off the ICW and into the Vernon River.  We anchored even though it was just lunchtime.  Bill did some boat chores.  I knitted, read, and cooked chicken with apples and sweet potatoes for supper.

The next morning was gray.  The top of the nearby cell tower was invisible in the low hanging clouds.  It was just gray, gray, gray.  We motored through the shallow spots at Hell Gate, The Florida Passage, and Creighton Narrows making it to the South River near Darien, Ga. at sunset.  That put us just north of the shallow and aptly named Little Mud River.

Saturday, February 9 was clear but cool.  The tide was high and we transited the Little Mud River without a problem.  We stopped at the south end of St Simon Island outside of Brunswick early in the afternoon to wait until the next day’s high tide to go down the shallow Jekyll Creek.  Bill did some more boat wiring chores.  I often wonder if he will ever run out of boat chores.  What will he then do for entertainment on these trips?

We motored through Jekyll Creek never coming close to striking the bottom.  As we went out into St. Andrew’s Sound, we unfurled the genoa and motorsailed behind Cumberland Island and into the Brickhill River.  We anchored just off the Park Service dock at Plum Orchard Plantation, one of the remaining Carnegie mansions on the island.  The weather was sunny and much warmer.  We took the dinghy ashore and walked the two miles across the island to the ocean side beach.  I even took off my shoes!  We found several whelk shells, actually lots and lots of whelk shells, but I left some behind.  We had the place almost to ourselves.  It was a nice day.

For a change of scenery we moved to a spot off the Greyfield Inn at the southern end of the island.  The guidebook recommended the position to anchor and spoke eloquently of the inn – the most exclusive inn in the country, the spot where John F. Kennedy, Jr. was secretly married.  The inn may have been great (we never went), but the anchorage was lousy.  It was narrow and deep, and the water flushed through like a river.  Being ourselves less patrician and more egalitarian, we moved to a much better spot off the Boy Scout Sea Base Dock.  We again went ashore walking over to the beach on one trail and back by the ruins of Dungeness on another.  It was a very nice walk.  The south end of the island had more visitors than the north end.  We saw several tour groups.

This was our sixth trip south through this part of the ICW in Irish Eyes, and if you add our trip on Canary, our 22 foot sailboat, it’s seven times we have passed Fernandina Beach without stopping.  We decided to stop this year.  We walked through the restored town centre looking in the shops and at all the stuff we did not need.  Two of the things we did need were lunch and something to drink.  An Irish Pub promised both, so in we went.  A little farther along (and not matching the early 1900s theme of the restored downtown) we came to the discount store Fred’s and bought a few groceries.  It started raining, so back to Irish Eyes we went.  The rain did not last long, so we made a late afternoon trip back to town just for exercise.  It was seriously foggy by the time we got back to Irish Eyes.  We had a movie night aboard the boat -- Lawrence of Arabia.

On the 13^th, the weather forecast had a tornado watch in the morning and high winds and thunderstorms in the afternoon.   We were chickens; we stayed where we were anchored.

Valentine’s Day dawned rainy but not as windy as the day before.  Bill gave me a small box of chocolates.  I was impressed he had managed to buy it without me knowing and keep it hidden on this small boat.  Way to go Bill.  We motored in the intermittent drizzle to Vilano Beach just north of St Augustine.  Just after we anchored the rain began in earnest.  We were chilled from the rain and wind, so I made potato soup for supper.  It really hit the spot.

Friday we made the short trip to St Augustine’s municipal marina mooring field where we tied to a mooring ball.  We made our shopping lists and set off in the dinghy for town.  The first stop, of course, was Sailor’s Exchange - a building filled with unwanted, used, and broken boat stuff.  I looked at the water wrinkled and sun bleached used books while Bill wandered amongst the junk.  Amazingly, the store did not have anything Bill wanted!  He bought nothing.  We walked to the Winn-Dixie and West Marine stores for groceries and more boat stuff.  On the way back, we stopped at a roadside produce stand and bought strawberries and tomatoes.  I do not think I’ve ever been to a market where you picked out each strawberry or each cherry tomato you wanted.  I bought some of both, and they were really good.  It was about 3pm by this time, and we had not had lunch.  Both lunch and supper were accomplished in a single meal of a huge pizza and two large beers.

NOAA said it was to be very cold in Northeast Florida the next day. The wind was to blow almost gale force (30 knots), and the temperature was to fall into the 20s.  Well, they were right.  We left Irish Eyes in the warm breezy morning and walked across the Bridge of Lions to Anastasia Island.  We found a seafood restaurant some friends had recommended, but it was too early for lunch.  The local grocery store was the old fashioned kind with bushels of clams and oysters in boxes, unwrapped produce, a meat counter manned by a butcher, and unlevel floors.  The pickup truck full of oranges parked in front of the store ready to be unloaded was the crowning touch.  As the wind picked up and the temperature fell, we went walking around the touristy parts of St Augustine and its art district.  To get out of the weather we dropped in for a late lunch at a bar across the street from the marina.  We washed down two hot sandwiches with Brooklyn Brewery dark beer.  I believe the young Tom Price works for Brooklyn Brewery.  Even if he doesn’t, the beer was good, and we toasted the Price family.  It was time to head back for a long wet dinghy ride to Irish Eyes.  We managed to arrive at our floating home mostly dry but still wind whipped and chilly.

Sunday morning it was cold.  It was back to long underwear, heavy coats, and wool socks.  We motored to Daytona Beach where we saw the blimps circling the speedway.  It was cold, so we didn’t spend any time in the cockpit once the anchor was down.  It was time to shut ourselves inside.

Our next leg took us through the Mosquito Lagoon.  There were houses along one side of the waterway and little mangrove covered islands along the other.  Birds seemed to like the islands.  We saw American Oystercatchers, Great Blue Herons, Egrets, White Pelicans, and our first Rosette Spoonbills.  The temperature warmed up steadily into the upper 60s.  Things were looking up.  Just past Titusville, at 4pm, we had to stop at the NASA Causeway Bridge.  The bridge doesn’t open for water traffic between 3:30 and 5:00pm.  Rather than waiting until 5 then pressing on, we anchored on the north side of the busy bridge.  Like a vagrant, I slept to the sound of bridge traffic rumbling by outside.

Yesterday, Tuesday, February 19, was much warmer.  It was warm enough for no socks, shorter pants, and only one shirt.  We stopped for lunch in Cocoa, anchored off the city park and visited the S.F. Travis Hardware Store.  The hardware store was huge, old, dirty, and to my eye disorganized.  It didn’t seem to bother the workers.  They knew where to find anything you wanted.  Bill got a couple of things on his list.  I just browsed.  After lunch we continued on to Eau Gallie where Bill once again anchored us near a bridge where we could be lulled to sleep by the traffic.

Today we got to Vero Beach.  We stopped at the city marina, filled the fuel and water tanks, emptied the holding tank, and picked up all the presents UPS and FedEx had left for us.  We got the water pump Bill ordered from Massachusetts, a new battery charger for the camera batteries, and two replacement C-map memory cards for the chart plotter.  I got a DVD of Downton Abbey’s third season.  Yes, I know what happens in the end, but I missed some episodes when we could not get a PBS TV station on Sunday nights.  We will spend a couple of days in Vero Beach doing laundry, restocking the pantry, and doing the never ending boat chores.  The plan is to then head across Florida via the Okeechobee Canal to the west coast then south to the Florida Keys.  This will be a new territory and a new adventure for us.

Stay happy and warm.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

The view across the lake in front of our house was pretty, but it was also time for us to go to a warmer place.

It was cold and gray in the Neuse River on our first day out.  I would have been happier had I been flying south in a heated airplane.

This was one of several dredges we saw removing shallow spots from the Intracoastal Waterway.

Greetings from Irish Eyes.  At long last we are underway for the sixth year headed south.

Bill and I got away from Kingsport on Friday, January 18.  Bill had destroyed his glasses while working on the Appalachian Trail.  We waited two weeks for a new pair.  Then on the day before he was to pick up his glasses, it snowed.  Captain Bill was really antsy to leave, almost unmanageable.  He had to wait two more hours for the optician to get to work.  We drove out of the parking lot and straight to the interstate highway.  The drive through the Virginia mountains was Christmas card pretty with lots of snowy landscapes to admire.  But, one snow per winter is enough for me!  It was time to head south.

We spent the next week tied to the dock in New Bern working on boat chores and buying both our groceries and the stuff we forgot.  We were ready to leave the next Friday.  But then… New Bern had a winter storm.  It rained, the wind blew, the temperature dropped, it sleeted for a while, and the rain became freezing rain.  Irish Eyes was coated with ice; drippy wet icicle ice.  When we woke up on Saturday morning, Captain Bly, I mean Captain Bill, was determined to leave even though it was foggy, cold, and generally miserable.  So we did.  If it had not been for the fog, the four hour trip down the Neuse River to Adams Creek would have been boring.  But actually, it was terrifying.  The sky was gray, the water was gray, it was cold, and the Minnesott Beach ferry crossing ahead of us showed up on radar long before we saw it with our eyes.  Pieces of ice kept melting, falling off the rigging, and landing on me.  What a way to begin a tropical trip!

Saturday night was cold, but it was not quite as cold as the night before.  Sunday dawned bright and sunny, but it was still cold.  Our planned destination for the day was Mile Hammock Bay in the Marine Corp’s Camp Lejeune about 50 miles south.  The sun helped warm things a bit, so the day was not totally unpleasant.  Before getting to Mile Hammock Bay, we had to go through the Onslow Beach Drawbridge.  When Bill hailed the bridge tender on the radio, the tender told us the bridge was slow in opening, but it would open.  He was right.  It was slow.  We got through just fine and made it to Mile Hammock Bay before dark.  (The next two days the bridge was closed for repairs.  Weren't we lucky?  We could have been stuck anchored at the bridge for two days.)

Monday morning the temperature was warmer than it had been, but it was not tropical yet.  I shed layer after layer of clothes as the day went on. We were headed to Carolina Beach.  We saw our first (and so far only) moving sailboat just before Surf City, NC.  The boat traffic was light in January.  Not too many other nuts were out for a cruise.  The moon was full, so the high tides were extra high and the low tides were extra low.  At low tide our depth sounder showed 7 feet as we passed the Carolina Beach Inlet where we have been stuck before.  We did see several dredges near Wrightsville Beach helping keep the ICW nice and deep.  We anchored in Carolina Beach, one of my favorite spots.  It is a quiet spot although there are houses and boats along the shore.  As usual we had dolphins playing around the boat most of the night.

The next stretch of the Intracoastal Waterway went down the Cape Fear River then turned right behind Oak Island.  That part would be fine.  The worry was the next two bits that pass behind Lockwoods Folly and Shallotte Inlets.  Both can be very shallow at the best of times, and we would go through them at a full moon low tide; not good.  The Army Corps of Engineers reported the depth at Lockwood’s Folly to be 0 to 4 feet at low tide.  We needed 5 to float the boat.  The sun was shining and the forecast was favorable, so we decided to go out the Cape Fear River and make the 25 mile trip to Little River Inlet in the ocean.  That route would avoid the shallow two spots on the ICW.

The day was warm, and we both shed our coats.  The wind was not strong enough to sail, so we motored with the mainsail up to the Little River Inlet.  We came through the inlet without a problem, letting the casino ship, which had been at sea for a gambling cruise, go in first.  We got to Coquina Yacht Club in Little River, SC in time to have dinner with my sister Elaine and my brother-in-law JP at their home that night.

The next day Bill changed the engine oil and cleaned the boat while I fed quarter after quarter into the washers and dryers at the marina.  We visited with a couple from New Bern who are moving to Calabash and bringing their Pacific Seacraft to this marina.  In the evening we went to dinner with Elaine and J.P. along with my aunt Mary Ellen and my uncle Kenny.

Last night a cold front brought us rain and lots of wind.  This morning we decided we would hang out here another day until the wind dies down, and then we will be on our way south.  Today Bill set the valves on the engine only to discover that the hole in the center of the v-belt pulley on the engine's sea water pump was “wallered” out.  He has superglued a washer over the too big hole to make it smaller and put everything back together.  Will it last until we can get a replacement?  What do you think?  Stay tuned.

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.