01/18/2009 Marsh Harbor to Nassau

01/14/2009 We are set in Marsh Harbour for at least today. We will relax and catch up on some work around the boat. I need to spend some time catching up on my writings for the blog. I haven’t put anything on since the week before Christmas and I have been real far behind. I was hoping to catch some wi-fi in town after I finish my writings. My dad needed to catch up on some rest after a rough night of power alarms going off on the boat due to low battery voltage.

We haven’t had much sun the last few days due to a couple of cold fronts rolling through. I took my mother onto shore so she could walk around and check out the shops. I told her I would meet her in a few hours to meet for lunch and walk around with her. Back on the boat I worked on the journal and a yellow catamaran came by and said hello. It was Richard and Jetti. I had met them back in Georgia and we tagged back and forth until we reached St. Augustine. There they had pulled their boat and worked on a new paint job. It looked good in the new colors. I had been looking for them as we are traveling.

After wrapping up most of my work, I cleaned up and met my mother. As I was walking along the water front to find her, I was a little disappointed. Almost everywhere I have traveled so far, the towns have worked to make their waterfronts very appealing. Marsh Harbour came across as an industrial town, without any real industry. I am sure tourism is a part of their economy, but there was very little effort into any beautification. There are a couple of nice restaurants and the Moorings Charter marina. There are also a couple of marinas, but overall, no real coordination. What Marsh Harbour did offer though was a protected harbor with very good holding for the anchor. There were also three large grocery stores, hardware stores, laundry and all types of businesses that are available and needed for everyday living of the local population and the cruiser. I decided I was in need of some American food and there was a KFC. We tried it out. We split a basket of BBQ wings and a couple of Pepsi's. I don’t miss fast food that much.

We then walked and found the largest of the grocery stores. It is a cross between a Sam’s or Costco and a regular grocery store. We picked up a couple canvas bags worth of fresh vegetables and snacks. The food has been holding up quite well on the boat.

01/15/2009 This morning I awoke to no power on the boat. I am having an issue with the batteries again. I determined that I would stay in Marsh Harbour until I could determine what the problem is. I pulled all of the batteries out and tested them for power and water density. Two of the batteries registered 12.5 volts and one registered 11.5 volts. The water density gave me readings all over the map and I decided that I did not trust that tool (and I never had). I decided to put all of them back, make sure I had good terminal connections and run the generator long enough to fully charge up the three batteries. I know that we have had marginal sun to provide good energy to the solar panels.

I have been listening to the Abacos Net. It is a volunteer broadcast on the VHF radio channel 68 at 8:15 every morning. They provide many good services including weather, water conditions, emergency email, sports, news, financial reports, local activities and a commercial service for local businesses. The most important to me is the weather report and water conditions. When it comes to weather and water conditions, I am still trying to learn or determine what is too much to travel in and what is ok. I do know perfect conditions. It is when the wind is picking up and the wave heights are growing. The conditions sounded marginal to make the five mile trip across the Abaco Sea to Hope Town, but I decided to push on. We all had enough of Marsh Harbour and looked forward to Hope Town.

There is a light house there that we wanted to explore and we were told that it is a beautiful little town. It turned out to be a great sail across. I had to put in two small tacks and we cruised right in. The harbor there is very crowded for its size. Mooring balls are offered for rent and we picked one up for the evening. They charge $20 a night. It is worth the peace of mind compared to trying to anchor in such tight quarters. After we hooked onto a mooring and paid the attendant that came to the boat by dinghy, we went ashore to check out the light house.

It is a pretty light house that is famous. It is still run using 19th century technology including a kerosene torch and a hand crank, weighted rotator for the light. My mother and I climbed to the top of the light house. This is the first time I have been up in a light house. It is also the first time in a long time that I was able to get into a tall structure that I had to climb by stairs. I had wanted to climb the Washington Memorial in Washington, DC and the Statue of Liberty and could not due to crowds. After that climb we took the dinghy across the harbor to the town side. We did not make it too far as we stopped in the local bar for a drink and taste their pies.

While we there we met Pete, Tony and Stan (or George). Pete owns a 58’ catamaran. We got talking with them and we were invited out to their boat for freshly caught Wahoo for dinner. My mom and dad passed on the invite, but I went out. The boat was very large in comparison to mine. It was 58’ in length and 31’ in beam. The mast was 83’ tall. To say the least, it was very roomy. Tony and Stan had met Pete through a web site that matches up people looking to sail with skippers/owners looking for someone to share the trip with. If you are interested in such an opportunity, go to Offshore Passage Opportunities (www.opo.com). I had a good time hanging out with fellow cruisers that night.

01/16/2009 Friday morning we all went ashore. My parents headed off for some sight-seeing around the Cay and I went off to the local Java Shop for some internet access. I have not had any serious net access since I left home. I wanted to catch up on some email and update the blog. I spent the good part of the morning sipping a four dollar glass of iced lemon tea in exchange for free net access. The Java Shop had a lot of interesting local art on the walls and good high speed.

Afterwards we headed back to the boat and set off for an afternoon sail to Little Harbour. This is a jump off point to leave the Abacos and head to the Grand Bahama Banks. The weather wasn’t looking to promising for crossing over the Northeast Providence Channel, but I wanted to be ready just in case. A concern of mine is the old adage of cruising, “most sailors that get in trouble are trying to meet a schedule”. Well I have a schedule. I am expecting to drop my parents off in Nassau on Thursday January 22nd and picking up two friends there on January 23rd. We had strong north winds that sent us straight down the Abaco Sea to Little Harbour. Two things that were recommended in Little Harbour were to use the moorings and eat at Pete’s.

When we arrived in the harbor after a brisk sail, I was not sure about the moorings and decided to try and anchor. There were no regular mooring balls, just floating tires. As we were setting to drop the anchor, I noticed on one of the tires that is was a mooring for rent and to see Pete for a payment of $15.00 per night. At that point, we grabbed a mooring and were set for the night. I went ashore to pay Pete and find out about the restaurant. Pete it turns out is the main proprietor in Little Harbour. His family is well known for their art work, especially in bronzed sea life castings. He also has the only restaurant and owns the moorings. I went to the bar to pay for the moorings as indicated and checked into dinner for the evening.

The bar is an open air tiki hut with a sand floor and cold beers kept in an Igloo ice chest filled with ice. You have to make reservations of you plan on having dinner and home-made desserts. I was told that it was not too late to make reservations and I could pay for my mooring when I came in for dinner. I was also told that the menu would be available at 6:00pm. This was going to be interesting, no fixed menu, fresh food and different ideas every evening. I went back to the boat and indicated that we should plan on be there around 6:00 as I expect dinner will be like on a first class flight of an air plane, first to get in the order will likely have a better chance of receiving what you ask for. When we arrived, there was a crowd building. It turned out that the locals were there to celebrate January birthdays. It was a fun time being there and talking to people that live there full time and others that come down for winter. The food was excellent. It was probably the best food and had the best ambiance. My dad had a lobster cooked with a white sauce, my mother had a lime and tequila chicken and I had yellow tail rock fish with mango sauce. We did start out with the best ever tasting conch fritters. It is unfortunate for my mother that she is allergic to all fish and shell fish. After dinner and some music from a couple of local guys we headed back to the boat in the dark.

As we were crossing the harbor we were “flagged down” by another boat. We had wanted to talk with them at the bar as they had a boat registered from Cascade, CO. Image that, two boats moored in Little Harbour and both registered from Colorado. It turns out that they are using and friend’s boat and the reason they weren’t at the bar was their dinghy broke loose and went for a wander. I dropped of my parents and went and help round up the dinghy. Luckily the wind was blowing from the north and the entrance was in the north so the boat could only go to shore. We found in short order and all were happy.

01/17/2009 Decision time. I need to get to Nassau and we want to make a stop at Spanish Wells on the way. We have strong winds (15-20 knots from the northeast and the seas are expected to build to 6-9 feet. We also have to deal with making it off the banks through the Little Harbour cut. I believe I mentioned the Abaco Net that I listen to in the morning primarily for weather reports. I waited this morning to get the information of the weather to make my decision. The recommendation was that any trip onto the “pond” (Atlantic Ocean) would be rough. The problem was that weather did not show any better weather over the next few days. I would sit in Little Harbour if needed, and we would by-pass Spanish Wells, but even that had a risk of having to beat to weather to get to Nassau. We decided to go for it.

We made it through the cut with no problem. The cut itself had some low rollers coming and on both sides there were waves breaking on the reefs. The waves that were breaking even had the tops being blown off by the wind. We motored our way out and then I set the jib out full with no main. The problem was that we were only getting about 5 knots from the boat and at that rate it would take us 10 hours to make the fifty miles. I then rolled in the jib, took the boat to wind and raised the main with two reefs in, bore off and set the jib back out. Now we were traveling a consistent 7 knots. The seas started out at between 3-5 feet and were rollers, nothing breaking, few white caps and they weren’t steep. As the day went on the winds built and with the wind so did the seas. We started seeing 8-10 feet seas and winds hitting 20 knots gusting to 25. Then we started seeing 12 feet seas. The boat would surf on the waves and it was a rush. At one point we hit 16 knots of boat speed surfing on the waves. The fastest I have sailed on this boat up to this point was 14 knots on the Chesapeake in surfing conditions also. The good news is that he auto-pilot held very well. There was a few times I would control of the wheel to stall her when she started to surf, but most of the time our trusting auto-pilot kept it under control.

The next issue I was concerned about was entering the Grand Bahama Banks. As with the Little Banks and leaving against incoming waves, I was worried that I would enter the Grand Banks with incoming surf and shallow waters that create a dangerous situation. As I looked at the charts and where I expected to enter, it appeared that the inlet was sheltered, or in the lee, of a couple of cays and reefs. With that in mind, I figured that the surf would be minimal and all will be good. When we reached the inlet, all was as I expected and we entered with only the worry of a low tide and shallow banks that were indicated on the charts I use. All was for naught as we never saw the 5 feet depths, it never was less than 10 feet. After that we motored our way to Royal Island and ducked in the harbor for the night. There was a large are, with no sailboats and a few trawlers and good holding for the night out of the weather. Another successful crossing.

1/18/2009 Today we motored up to Spanish Wells. Spanish Wells is where my great-grandmother was from. I had tried to go here when Tim and I sailed to the Bahamas, but we did not make it that far. It is a fishing community that has prospered quite well in the islands over its history.

We arrived Sunday late morning and you would have thought it was a ghost town. We tied up on a local fishing and fuel dock. No one was around to give us an ok or kick us off. We then walked through the village looking for any clues of our family. We found a grave that had many Sweetings in it from the mid 1800s through today. As I said before there was nothing open and most everyone appeared to be in church. It was lunch time and we were on a hunt for a local restaurant. We found nothing open yet. As we walked along there appeared to be a couple of woman that had a bake sale going. Right before them was a road that took us to a beautiful beach. We headed down there to the beach and saw some great colors of blue in a calm sound behind the reef.

Afterwards I walked back up and looked to see what the women were selling. It was actually a roadside drive-up and they had fresh food for sale along with desserts. We ended up buying sweet and sour meatloaf with coleslaw, a coke and lemon meringue pie for each of us. It turns out they do this on Sundays as there are no open restaurants. Think of them as a glorified lemonade stand. As we sat there and ate on the curb, it was amazing the number of people that drove up for lunch. We started to talk with one of the women about my mother’s family history here and the woman indicated before marriage she is a Sweeting. She did not know of my great-grandmother, but there is a good chance that she is a distant relative of ours. After that, we tried to find a place to anchor, but all of the ground was hard. I could not get the anchor to grab. We were going to try and stay until the next day and try to visit the local museum. Due to the anchoring issue we went back to Royal Island for another night.

1/19/2009 Today we awoke to SE winds. This is the last thing I expected. The forecast was calling for winds to clock around to the south. With a south wind I would have had a tight reach across the Northeast Providence Channel to Nassau. I decided to run the inside behind some barrier islands and beat our way to Nassau. It was a good sail and as I was filling the tank on the generator, I hooked into my first fish. I did a catch and release on it. I will keep them in the future. I am looking forward to fresh fish on the grill. Later in the day we were motoring in light air behind a barrier island and my dad exclaimed “what happen to all of the water?” We were sailing into an unmarked reef area and the sea floor was working its way towards my boat. We slowly worked our way through the reef with me on the foredeck guiding us through the shallow water. At one point the water was a shallow as 4 feet. We did make it through and set the sails again.

It was slow going as we had the wind directly on our nose and we had to tack all of the way. I started checking out the charts and how much further we had to go. We may have been sailing between 6 and 7 knots, we were only making about 3 nautical miles towards Nassau due to all of the tacking we had to do. I decided to fire up the engines and try to motor for Nassau. The winds had built to about 20 knots and still directly on our nose. I could not make more than 3 knots with the engines in the waves and wind. I fought with the decision that I had to make, “where was I going to anchor the boat for the night?” I knew I could not make Nassau with boating until late in the night and the charts showed lots of shallow water and reefs around the east entrance to Nassau. All of the books said only pass during the day when you can see the water.

At 7:30 I decided to drop the anchor right where we were. It was designated as an anchorage. I believe it is an anchorage for large cargo boats waiting to come into the harbor. It was all open water and there was no protection from the winds and waves. The water is also 24 feet deep. That would make for a short rode in the winds and seas we had. I dropped 120’ of chain and anchor. Luckily the anchor grabbed immediately and held tight. I was not happy about staying here as the winds had built to 25 knots and the seas were as high as 4 feet. I was also worried about my parents in these wild seas for the night. They both decide to sleep in the salon around the table I headed off to my bunk. I set the alarm on my chart plotter to go off if the boat moved more that 200’ and I set my watch to wake me every hour to verify that the anchor was holding us in place. It was not a good night for sleeping, but the anchor held us right where we dropped. The next day we were not rested, but we were ready to go to Nassau.

01/20/2009 Happy Birthday Mom!!! (and Dorothy, my mother-in-law). It is also Inauguration Day for the 44th president of the US. I have decided that after the rough night of non-sleep, the concerns that are voiced about anchoring in Nassau Harbor and the continuous heavy winds, I have decided to put the boat in a marina until I leave with friends flying in Friday. We are staying in the Nassau Harbor Club. It is being remodeled and the staff is very helpful.

As we were on our way to lunch, we were asked if we wanted to join a crowd in one of the suites in the marina to watch the Inauguration. It was exciting to watch and see all of the people that attended. On my trip I watch the election as it was happening when I was in Charleston, SC and now watching the Inauguration. I do have high hopes for our president.

After lunch, my mom and I took off walking towards town. There are three large cruise ships in port and the tourists are all over. We did make a side trip through the open air market by one of the bridges. There many little food shacks cooking fresh fish dishes, fresh fish and vegetables for sale. When we made it to the docks where the cruise ships were docked, it reminded me of another port I was in last year, Juneau. All of the same perfume and jewelry stores. Later that night we celebrated my mother’s birthday at an Outback Steakhouse we found here in town.

1/21/2009 The big news today is how we are doing our best to stay warm. A cold front is rolling through and you would think it was getting ready to snow the way everyone is bundled up. The temperature has dropped to the low 60s/high50s. Not very pleasant for any of us. After dinner that night, parents started their packing as they are flying out tomorrow. I am very glad they joined me for this part of the trip. It was a fun time for all us. We would have liked to spend some time snorkeling and the water to have been a little bit warmer. We know for future trips now. I also learned that I need to slow down and that is the plan.

1/22/2009 Mom and Dad flew out today. The temperatures warmed up and life on the tropics is good again. I am sorry for them that we did not have this warmer weather for their last couple of days, but it has been a great trip. I am now waiting for Titus and Cliff to fly in Friday. I am working on a few projects, catching up on the blog and cleaning the boat. No rest for the weary :-)).

01/11/2009 Great Sale Cay to Marsh Harbor

01/08/2009 After a good night of sleep we awoke to a beautiful island and sat and enjoyed breakfast. For the day we planned a trip to Walker’s Cay to check in with customs and immigration. When you come into a foreign country you are required to fly the quarantine (yellow) flag. It is illegal for us to step ashore until we have cleared into customs. We headed off for Walker’s Cay with a good sail north past Great Sales Cay.

When we made it to the northern tip it was time to drop the motors again as our destination was directly in-line against the wind. I do not feel comfortable enough tacking the boat across the banks as there are many really shallow spots. As it was we were sailing in 6-10 feet deep water as it was. Me and my dad both saw that there is a Port of Entry notation on Grand Cay. It was less time than Walker’s and on the way. We decided to stop there and try to check in. After we anchored, I had to put the motor back on the dinghy. I had decided that with the motor left on the dinghy while making off-shore crossings, the dinghy took a beating from the weight and the waves. This was the reason I cut my trip from St Augustine short after the night of seas against the dinghy.

I then made my way to shore and pulled up at the fuel dock and asked where the customs office is. They told me there was no customs office on the cay and I needed to go to Walker’s Cay. I went back to the boat and made ready to go to Walker’s Cay. As we were leaving the harbor, a couple from another cruising boat came rushing over in their dinghy and offered us three lobsters. They had been given a bunch of short lobster tails from local fishermen. It took about another hour or so to make it to Walker’s Cay. Walker’s Cay had at one time been a major sport fishing spot with a hotel and marina. The hotel and part of the marina were destroyed by Hurricane Floyd in 2004. It had not been rebuilt. The marina had definitely been built for sport fishing boats and not sailing catamarans with a 19.5 foot beam. I tied up on the sea wall in the entrance channel and took off to find the customs officer.

It turns out there are only a couple of people living on the island. The cruising guide indicated that it was the customs officer and a policeman. I saw two fishing men and a man on some sort of a working boat. The way I can describe the marina and grounds is the same as a ghost town in the western US. It appeared the hurricane came through, damaged the buildings and grounds and everyone just left. The hurricane buckled the concrete sidewalks and blew out windows on the buildings. The docks were still much intact. There was a houseboat that appeared blown up on the aircraft ramp that has been blocked up and someone is living in it. The cay also has an airstrip. This airstrip is still used for planes checking into the country and that is where the customs office is located. I met Mr. Barry Morris there and he was a pleasant customs officer and we worked through all of the documentation. I had to fill out a declaration form for the boat, a medical survey and declaration forms for all three of us. I then needed to run back down to the water and around the marina to have my parents sign the personal declaration forms. I then ran back up. I was not sure what time Barry worked to and he we needed to make our way back to Grand Cay with a setting sun. I then handed over the $150.00US for the fees and we were officially entered in the country.

After I made my way back to the boat, I lowered the yellow flag and now fly the Bahamian Courtesy flag. We then headed back to Grand cay. I knew we weren’t going to make it back before sunset and I would need to rely on the chart plotter. There is track function that shows where you have traveled. I used that as a bread trail and followed that back as we needed to make our way around a shoal area that would only be a couple of feet deep as the tide was going out. We made it back in around 6:30 that evening and settled in for the evening. Unfortunately my mother cannot eat any fish at all, including shell fish. She is highly allergic and can have her throat swell up and not breathe. My dad and I split the three lobster tails for dinner that night. They were wonderful.

01/09/2009 Today we are heading for Moraine Cay. It is a privately owned island as many islands in the Bahamas are. Before we pulled anchor I went over and thanked the crew of Debi Doll for the lobsters. They are an older couple that have been traveling together for many years. They spent five years on the 38’ Irwin circumnavigating the Caribbean. They are now living ashore again, but come over and are spending three months in the Abacos. My dad and I went through the calendar this morning and determined that we only have one week to stay in the Abacos before heading south. As I meet these other cruisers that take real time to stay and enjoy the different sites, islands and people, I have to laugh at the name of my boat No Rush. I am still trying to slow down and I still have not found the answer. I know I feel a lot less stressed now that I am in the Bahamas, but I still have a way to go to slowing down.

We had a great sail that day all of the way to Moraine Cay. We were able to fly the spinnaker a good portion of the trip and she loves to go. It was a great ride. We had a pod of dolphins join us for about fifteen minutes. There were five of them playing all around the boat as we cruised along. I am sure they were saying “make this go faster so we can play in your wake”. They are beautiful creatures. We worked our way into the cove at Moraine Cay. It had complete protection around it due to the cay itself, a couple of small rocks and a reef that protected wave action from the Atlantic Ocean. It was a little bit of paradise. The owner has built a home on a couple of cottages on the cay. They are a simple, but charming design. As the evening went on, we had another great sunset.

01/10/2009 This morning after finished our jigsaw puzzle that we had been working on for the last three days, we had a good breakfast and went exploring on the cay. The beaches are beautiful. We went in at low tide and found tidal pools to look around in. We found some small fish, crustaceans and small crabs. After we made it back to the boat we had lunch set the main sail pulled the anchor and then the fun started. I was using only one motor, instead of two and it turned us to our left and we ran aground. I have usually been able to back the boat off of a grounding using both motors, but not this time. The good news was that it was a sandy bottom and low tide. We would not need to wait too long for the water to rise and float us off. I swam an anchor off of the stern and we winched it tight using the sailing winch and then took the dinghy with the main anchor and chain and set it off of the starboard bow to keep us from drifting into shallower water when the tide came in.

While we were waiting for the tide my parents tested out the snorkeling gear in the shallow water. It wasn’t long and the anchor lines started to slack as the tide came in and the boat started to float again. My parents made it back on the boat and I went for a swim to collect the stern anchor. After I had it aboard, we started both engines this time, pulled the main anchor and set off Allens-Pensacola Cay. At one time, this was two cays, but a hurricane silted in between the two cays and makes for a nice protected cove.

01/11/2009 Today I made this a lay-over day. I feel I have been rushing this trip much to much and I need to slow down. My dad and I worked on running the cables for the HAM radio and getting it all hooked up. My mother was in cleaning mode and worked on small areas of rust stains on the boat. Later in the afternoon my mother and I took off in the dinghy and toured the shoreline of the bay we stayed in. She is an excellent beach-comber. She found many shells and a couple of good looking smaller conch shells just buried under the sand.

Later that evening we made dinner. My mother made a rice salad dish that is a favorite of my dad’s and I cooked up some chicken for her and boiled shrimp for my dad and I. After the dished were done, my dad read his book and me and my mother played another game of cards. This is the best way I have found to stay awake until at least 10:00 so that I sleep until five or five-thirty. If I go to sleep early, then I am waking up that much earlier in middle of the night.

01/12/2009 We have decided to move on today. This is based on the weather reports coming in of a cold front with heavy winds rolling in Tuesday evening. We also need water. We have been doing pretty well with the fresh water. The three of us go through about 3 gallons of water a day per person. That is what has been typical since I have been on the boat since July. We headed south for Green Turtle Cay. There is a small town with several marinas that we should be able to get water, ice, fuel and dispose of our trash. It is a no to low wind day so we motored on. The Sea of Abaco was like a mirror today. We came across this area where the bottom had no grass and was sand only. The water was about 15 feet deep. The color was so clear and blue, I thought I was sailing in a swimming pool.

We made it to Green Turtle Cay and worked our way Blackwater Sound. The charts showed an anchorage there and there were also multiple marinas we expected that we could get the items we needed. I called Blackwater Sound Marina on the VHF and indicated we would like to get some water. The owner indicated that the water was for people staying in the marina, but he would sell us water at $.30/gallon. I tied up and he met us at the end of the dock. His name is Carol and is fifth generation Bahamian. His family came over after the American Revolutionary war. He had great stories of the activities he has done working for cruise ship companies throughout his life. It was taking a long time to fill the tank. I needed about sixty gallons. We checked the hose after about 40 gallons and found just a dribble coming out. It turned out that the electricity had gone out on the island and the water we put in our tanks was from his pressure tanks. Most of the water on the cay is from reverse-osmosis, which requires electricity to run the pumps. It gave us enough to make it onto the next town we come across. Since there was no electricity, we could not get any gas either.

We were going to anchor in the sound, but Carol recommended against it as the grass is very thick and there is no good holding. Major concern if the weather picks up. We then went and try to anchor just outside of the sound where there were a few other boats anchored. We tried for almost an hour and could not get the anchor to stick. We then headed north up the island to an area they call the Bluffs. There was good sand there and the anchoring was good. My concern was that if the wind shifted, if the anchor slipped, we could end up bashing against the cliffs. I was tired and frustrated after all of anchoring so I decided we would stay for a couple of hours. My mom and I took off in the dinghy for a little exploring and went up the other cove. There were many boats anchored there, but the boat was the same problem with grass. After our trip, I decided to go back to the entrance of Blackwater Sound and get the anchor to set. This would allow us easy access to the local town, New Plymouth, and get us away from the cliffs. After about another 45 minutes of trying to set the anchor, I put on my mask, snorkel and fins and dove on the anchor to set it in deep as my dad worked the controls to back down the anchor. We were finally set.

We finally made it into a town. We had not walked on a road since we left Key Biscayne a week ago. We were on the hunt for the restaurant MacIntoshes. We found it out on the edge of town across from the cemetery. After a good dinner of cracked conch and fried grouper, we walked the street and checked out the store fronts on our way back to the boat.

01/13/2009 This morning we headed back into town to see it in the light of day. New Plymouth is a beautiful, well maintained and clean town. They have one lane concrete streets throughout the town. We stopped in to see a new church being built there. There were four churches, four grocery stores, two hardware stores and many restaurants.

We made it back to the boat about 12:00 and the wind picked up as the front that has been called for was starting to roll in. We left the anchorage in about 20 knits of wind with a reef tucked in the main sail. We sailed across the sea to the shore of Great Abaco Island and tacked south. With the shortened main and full jib we were making 8+ knots of boat speed and cruising along. My mother was having the time of her life with the boat moving as it was. She had never sailed for such a time in this kind of weather.

I had one shoal area I needed to cross, or go out a channel into the Atlantic Ocean, around Whale Cay and back in the channel on the south side of the cay. The books said you should not try the shoal area if you draw more than 4’ and I draw 3.3’. I expected it to be touch and go, luckily it was more go than touch. I dropped the main sail and set a motor along with the jib so as to slow down through the shoal area that was about 1 mile wide. My mother stood the watch on the front deck and did her best, and it was good enough, to get us through the area. We bumped the bottom one time in the chop and that was it. After we cleared, I set the main sail again and off we flew. We saw wind speeds of 30 knots at one point and No Rush just jumped along with the wind. We blew past a couple of monohulls on our way towards Marsh Harbor. We made it into the harbor around four o’clock and after moving the boat once, we settled into the anchorage for the night. I expect we will stay here for a couple of days.

01/08/2009 Key Largo to Bahamas (Great Sale Cay)

01/05/2009 All the shopping is finished, the boat is fueled and watered up and the rental car is turned back in. I am ready to cut the final lines to the shore and head off. It has been a frantic week and half getting ready. There is always something and I am sure I could have stayed for another month and I would still not be ready.

This morning included a trip to the propane office to determine if there is an issue with one of my propane tanks. I have 10lb (or 2.2 gallons of LP gas) cans for the boat and each provides about 3 weeks worth fuel. I am having a problem with one that when it is out of fuel, it only takes a little over 1 gal of fuel, which only provides about a week of use. We could not determine any issues and when both tanks are full, they both weight in at 20 lbs. I will try this again and see how it works out.

From there it was a trip to the laundromat for the final cleaning, fuel for the boat, stop at the dive shop for a dry bag in case I need to abandon the boat in an emergency, stop at the library to get on-line once more and a stop at the Yamaha boat dealer to pick up parts for the motor, oil filters and oil for another two to three more hours of engine support.

I then made a dinghy trip with all of the day’s purchases and laundry to drop off and then back on the road again to drop off the rental car. The rental agency was about ten miles from the yacht club. I stopped and filled up the tank and turned the car back in on time. The courtesy van was off in the opposite direction so I headed up the road hitch hiking. I was lucky to get picked up by a surgeon, Dr Orlando, that gave me a ride back to Key Largo. It turns out he is somewhat a celebrity. On the show, The Anatomy of a Shark Bite, he performed the trauma surgery of a shark bite victim that was flown into Fort Lauderdale from the Bahamas.

After I made it back to the yacht club, I shuttle water back and forth with using the two five gallon water jugs I have to fill up the water tank. My parents had taken a walk to have lunch. When I was done, I sat in the yacht club and had a couple of cold beers and talked with a couple of the members of their experiences sailing multihulls in the early days. It was relaxing and I felt I was as ready as ever to take off.

After my parents made it back to the club, we hoisted the dinghy on the davits, raised the main sail and pulled the anchor. We sailed off across the sound to follow the ICW back north to Key Biscayne for our launch point to the Bahamas. As we passed through a cut between two of the sounds we saw a manatee. It has been an animal I have wanted to see. It swam slowly along the edge of the mangrove trees gently. Listening to the weather it appeared Tuesday or Wednesday was going to be the best days to make the crossing to the Bahamas as there was a cold front bringing in north winds early Thursday morning. We sailed on that day until about 4:00 and dropped anchor in Little Card Sound. We had a nice sunset and I had a SG&T for a relaxing drink.

01/06/2009 We pulled anchor about 8:00 and had a great sail up through Biscayne Bay on a south-westerly wind. We were able to fly the spinnaker most of the trip. We made it to Key Biscayne by 12:00. I decided earlier that day we would leave this evening for our crossing and I wanted to stop to finalize a few things on the boat before we left the shores. We pulled into No Name Harbor in Bill Baggs State Park on the southern end of Key Biscayne. This is my fourth time staging a trip out of this area.

As we came into the park we motored towards the end of the harbor and I dropped anchor. There was a large power cruiser tied up on the wall 40 feet from me. The owner yelled over where I lived in Colorado as he recognized the state registration on my boat. I told him I was Littleton and then he asked me my name. He turned out to be Tom Mitchell. Tom was from Boulder, Colorado. Not only was he from Boulder, but I knew Tom for the fifteen or more years. We both worked for Motorola and at Cisco, based in Colorado. He has been retired since 2001 and now is living in Fort Lauderdale with his family. What a small world.

While on anchor there, I needed to put on the new registration boards on the dinghy, hailing port sign on the back of No Rush, pull the motor off of the dinghy for the crossing, make sure we have all of the documentation and collect it all, pump-out the holding tank and buy a bag of ice. While my dad and I were doing that, my mother walked into town to drop off some mail and she hiked to the local Winn-Dixie to pick up a couple small items. When she made it back, she and I took a hike to find the light house on Cape Florida. As I said earlier, this is my fourth time to this park and I never made the time to visit the light house and climb it. My mother is a fan of light houses and was excited to have someone climb the tower. We finally made it there and it was closed. Oh-well. I guess I need to visit another time.

The last task I had before we left was to pump-out the holding talk. We made it to the pump just in time as the tank was full and reached to the top of the outlet that I hook the hose into to basically vacuum out the holding tank.

With that all clear we headed out to the Atlantic Ocean and cross the “dreaded” Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is a current that basically laps the North Atlantic Ocean. It runs north along the coast of the United States bringing the warm waters from the Caribbean. The current will run as high as three and a half knots which is good if it is pushing you and rough if you need to go against it. The other factor that will determine the condition of the seas is the wind. All the books that ever talk about crossing the Gulf Stream is never ever try to cross with any north winds. The north winds travel against the current and through wind-water friction will build large steep waves. This is never fun and the books say it is very dangerous, even life threatening. One thing I did not want to do on this trip was threaten my parents lives. It appeared we had all of the conditions in our favor. The winds were at10-12 knots from the southeast. For the direction we were heading, I couldn’t expect better conditions. We had a beam wind, which is fastest for and most comfortable for a sailboat, and we were sailing northeast, which had the current carrying us. The seas were 1-2 feet and we had great sailing in these conditions until midnight.

We were making such good time in these conditions I needed to slow the boat down. For quite a while when we were in the middle of the Gulf Stream we were covering 10.5 nautical miles an hour. That was 7.5 knots of boat speed and 3.0 knots of Gulf Stream current. We had a little under a hundred miles to cover from leaving Key Biscayne and entering the Little Bahamas Banks at West End. I was planning at least fourteen hours, but we were covering it and at this speed and could have entered the banks in about ten hours, or three o’clock in the morning. The problem with this is that the banks are very shallow (7-10 feet) and there was a very small channel that is not mark to enter on. I did not want to enter until the sun came up. Around midnight I took down the main sail. It is the primary power for the boat, but we were still moving at 7.5 nautical miles an hour and cruising along.

We took two hour shifts each of us. My dad took the 8-10, I took the 10-12 and my mother took the 12-2. She had the most activity with boat traffic (two boats and they always seem to be on your track for collision) and a crossing sailboat headed south that wanted to chat on the VHF radio. Around midnight the winds clocked more towards the south as was expected and the seas started to grow higher. I believe this was because we sailed past the main channel between the Bahamas Banks that provided open water and different wave action. The seas built to 4-6 feet and a little disorganized. It made for a choppy ride that did not sit well with my parents. This was the most calm I have felt in traveling off-shore on this trip. Everything seemed to line up right in the weather and timing. My dad then took the 2-4 shift and we shortened the jib down also to slow the boat even more. We were down to basically a hanky of sail cloth and the boat was still moving at 5 knots. I then took watch for the rest of the morning until we were on the banks.

As I still a couple of hours to kill before the sun rose, I jibed the boat away from the banks and kept her stalled so that I did not over shoot the cut I planned on entering the banks at. At 7:00 I jibed the boat again and set for the cut at Indian Rocks. My mother was sleeping at the salon table and I did not wake her until we were on the Banks. I needed to trust my chart plotter to determine the correct place to enter the banks as the channel was less than a hundred feet wide with rocks and sandy shoals less than 4 feet deep on both sides. I was also riding six feet surf into the cut. I had waves breaking on both sides where the rocks are. At 7:45AM we made it onto the Banks and everything went calm. Once on the Banks, the seas went flat as the water is to shallow to allow much more than 1-2 feet seas and we had a beam wind again as I was not traveling east. I raised the yellow quarantine flag that indicates I am a foreigner that has not checked into Customs yet.

After about an hour of calm sailing and allow the nerves to calm, I put the main sail back up and we started sailing for Great Sale Cay. This is located in the middle of the banks as is a place that was recommended to me for a good stop before checking in with customs and immigration at Walker’s Cay on the north end of the Banks. We dropped anchor at Great Sales Cay at 4:00PM after 145 nautical miles of sailing, the longest trip of my journey so far.

01/01/2008 Key Largo

12/29/2008 I flew in last night to Fort Lauderdale and made it to the boat around 1:00 AM. I awoke this morning to a fresh breeze blowing in the hatch and the temperature is 70 degrees. I knew where I was supposed to be.

I had a good time when I was home for Christmas. I saw my oldest daughter, Sara, graduate with Honors from Colorado University. I am real proud of her. As anyone that wants to accomplish a major goal, she dug in and worked hard. I see in her also her happiness in accomplishing this goal. I had a great time with Tim and Amanda and catching up with them. I also had a busy schedule catching up with many of my friends and all of my family while back there. Carolyn and I had some time together. I was also busy getting any paperwork together and wrapping up any issues before I left again and readied for my trip out of the US.

12/30/2008 This week is a flurry of activity. Today I moved my boat off of the dock at Jerry’s house and motored south through Snake Creek into the Florida Sound. This is the water on the inside of the Keys. It was a gorgeous trip. The water is incredible. I took the boat to the Upper Keys Sailing Club. This is the club where Wes and Jerry belong. I anchored off of the beach. This made it easy for me to get around while working on the boat.

12/31/2008 After a hard day’s work, I readied for the New Years Eve party at the yacht club. There were many nice people there that I met. The two I spent the most time with were Inger and Stewart. They live in Baco Raton and spend weekends in Key Largo. Inger is from Norway and Stewart from England. They were fun to hang out with. I also met Don. He sat at our table and we had some good discussions on multihulls as he has been a fan for many years. He has a large trimaran that had a wing sail that has been modified. Unfortunately later that night, Don passed out and the EMTs were called in and Don was taken to the hospital. Don is doing well and there are no major issues.

01/01/2009 Happy New Years!!!! Today I drove to Miami to pick up my parents. They flew in last night and celebrate New Year’s midnight in the Miami airport. We were going to go shopping, but all of the stores were closed for the holiday. What a concept. I have been use to stores forsaking all of the holidays in Colorado. It made for an extra trip to Miami the next day, but I was happy to see that most employees had a day off.

While we were at lunch, I received an urgent call from Wes. My boat had slipped the anchor as the wind clocked around and she was adrift. The club was getting ready for their Hangover Race, when my boat decided to drift right through the starting area. Many members of the club set off to the rescue of my boat and reset the anchor. This is always one of the biggest fears of a boater anywhere. The boat did not drift into shore and thankfully, there were people that were able to safely reset the anchor for me. The boat drifted about a ¼ mile from its original spot. Inger wrote this special poem below to record the activity.
Key Largo, Florida, New Years day - 2009.

I heard the news today, Oh boy.
Bill Edwards boat, No Rush, let go.
Southward she was drifting
while the winds were shifting;
The Cat was moving with the winds on Buttonwood Sound, real slow.

Bill Edwards was not in sight.
He had headed north to Miami to catch a flight.
Family was coming to town,
and the boat had been anchored down;
Seven fathoms out and a hook to the right, the anchor was meant to be tight.

On shore the Club was discussing the wind in the Bay.
Trying to get the hangover regatta underway
But the sailors were moving slow
and there had been a delay in the show;
When they discovered the Cat was astray,
There was now clearly a better reason for the delay!

The hangover regatta crew was suddenly alive,
assembling the chase boat to take for a drive.

Race committee Bill Standard and Leah White took charge
Run Aground crew’s Ginnette Hughes and John Bliss joined the rescue barge
The chase crew arrived at last and made the boat fast.

Thanks to the hangover rescue crew, Bill Edward’s Cat No Rush survived. Leah White, Bill Standard, John Bliss and Run Aground Crew’s Ginnette Hughes

01/02-05/2009 These four days were a flurry of activity to get ready for the crossing. We were constantly provisioning with food, fuel, water, spare parts and other activities. I did receive the new remote controls for the engine throttles and Dad and I installed them. They went in fairly easy and I only needed to make a few minor modifications.

12/07/2008 Key West to Key Largo

I want to thank you all that have been checking in on the blog over the last month with my lack of time and energy to keep things up to date. I have been frantic with traveling back to Denver, seeing family and friends and working to get the boat ready for her next phase in the journey.

12/03/2008 Transitioning guests. The Thanksgiving crew has left and I now have Jim Ulatowski and Alecia Cope joining the boat for a little over a week. We have all raced against each other for many years in the Denver Area. I was on a mooring buoy behind Fleming Key on the east end of Key West. I met them at the marina after a dinghy ride in through the chop. I have had three days of heavy winds. I made a stop at the post office to pick up some mail from home and then off to the grocery store to provision for the next week. Then the fun started with a dinghy ride back to the boat. It is about a mile ride through heavy winds and deep chop. Sort of like riding the Log Jammer at an amusement park.

12/04/2008 Our original plans were to make a run for the Dry Tortugas, about 60 miles west of Key West and then we would head back a sail up to Key Largo where I am going to leave the boat for Christmas. Oh the best laid plans of mice and men. The weather did not appear to be cooperating so we decided to hang out in Key West for another day. We went back into the marina so it would easier and drier to visit town. We had a good time. Jim and Alecia took off for the Conch Train tour ride and I went off to find the library to register my last entry onto the blog. I then went and took the tour of Mel Fisher’s Maritime Museum. Mel Fisher is the treasure hunter that has found many wrecks including his most famous that brought in over $200M worth of silver, gold, jewels and other artifacts from a Spanish galleon. After that we met and started our Duval Crawl. We visited many of the bars along the major street of Key West and sampled many rum drinks, listened to many bands along the street and had dinner at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaretville. It was a fun night and we woke up better the next day that we felt when we went to bed. A successful party night.

12/05/2008 Since we decided to pass on the Dry Tortugas, that allowed us to take a slow trip up the Keys towards Key Largo and stop for snorkeling. We sailed out to Sandy Key light house and went for a snorkel. It was the first on the trip with Jim and Alecia. We had good winds to get us there. When we arrived the water was churned from all of the weather we sat through and was a little murky. We did see some fish, including barracuda as always, and a black tip reef shark. It has amazed me that almost every time I have snorkeled on this trip I have seen a shark.

After some lunch we pulled the anchor and headed for Saddlebunch Harbor on Sugarloaf Key. We needed to motor most of the way in the light air on our nose to make to there as the sun was setting. I have never been in this cove before. There are very few good anchorages along the Keys on the ocean side and I believe I have been in most of them as I look through the cruising guides. The issue with this anchorage was that it is very shallow. We hit ground once as we were coming in. The bottom is soft and we were able to back the boat off, but we needed to weave our way in and find a spot to set the anchor. The channel was marked more for locals. We ended up anchoring on the edge of the channel. This worked out ok as there wasn’t much traffic and we left early the next morning.

12/06/2008 We left this morning in a light misty rain and headed for Loew Key. This is considered one of the best snorkeling reefs in the Florida Keys. I had seen my first shark on this reef three years before on the Boy Scout trip down here. There hasn’t been much traffic on the reefs since we have been sailing down here. We made it to the reef and went for a swim. It was pretty wavy there with the wind. We had an encounter with the largest barracuda I ever saw. I believe it was at least five foot in length and had a girth of 18-24”. It was sitting in a hole in the reef and there wasn’t another fish in the area. We were able to stay on the edge of the hole and watch the barracuda and it just hovered there as I expect barracuda to do. I was happy that this one didn’t follow me around like we saw on Molasses Reef. Just as we made it back to the boat there was a large Nurse Shark resting on the bottom. It did not move and just laid there. It was one of the biggest sharks I ever saw.

From there we sailed over to Bahia Honda State Park and dropped the anchor for the night. I stayed here when Sara and I did our trip with Tri-to-Fly. An issue with anchoring here is the road noise from the bridge across the inlet there. Other than that it was a nice place to spend the night.

12/07/2008 This morning we went ashore to explore the state park. They have a wonderful sandy beach, nature center, dive/gift shop and a walk way up on the old bridge. After we left the park we sailed to Coffin Patch for a snorkel. This was a high light snorkel for me as I had never seen so much live coral before. It was like a garden under water there. I am disappointed I do not have any pictures to share with you from this place. We also saw a huge ray lying on the bottom. It’s wing span must have been at least 4 feet across and had a tail that stretch 5 feet. The other interesting thing was that the schools of fish would follow us all around while we swam. After that we sailed to Long Key Bight for the night. This would be an open water anchorage for us.

That night after a couple of cocktails, dinner and a bottle of wine, we cleared the aft deck of No Rush and turned it into a dance floor listening to KBIL. KBIL is my iPod turned onto shuffle mode and we would skip to songs through out the extensive list I have built up. We then improved it by taking the covers off of the cockpit and dance under the moonlight of the clear sky. It was a great evening.

12/08/2008 Today we had heavier winds out of the NE. Today was going to be a sailing day and the water was to rough for snorkeling. We sailed into the wind the whole trip to Rodriquez Key, located just south of Key Largo. This was the most physical sail I have done so far on the trip. I was spent at the end of the day. We had tacking the boat all day long and readjusting the sails like we were in racing mode. After that day, I knew my mentality had changed from racer to cruiser. We made 42 miles up the Keys this day. Trying to find and anchorage it tough with winds out of the NE. Rodriquez Key runs NE-SW. I was trying to decide whether to and on the SW side or the NW side. I finally decided to anchor on the NE where I have anchored in the past, hoping that the wind might shift more toward North or East. We had steady winds that night, but the seas weren’t too bad.

12/09/2008 Today we sailed to John Penacamp State Park. The creek to get the main park is a beautiful ride through the mangroves. The water is clear and there are a few birds there. We made it to the main docking area, but they are not set up for catamarans in and form or fashion. I was planning on using a mooring buoy in the lagoon, but I was told the water was too shallow for my boat. We walked around the park and checked out the aquarium in the nature center. It has many of the different fishes and wild life of the area.

We decided to head over to Key Largo to Jerry’s dock. I call Wes and we met. We needed to rearrange the powerboat that Jerry has and put it on the trailer before we could dock. I am very thankful to Jerry for allowing me to leave my boat at his house while I would travel back to Colorado for the holidays.

12/10/2008 Today was readying the boat for my departure off of her for 18 days. We cleaned her up and started on making a major repair that was needed. I have had problems with the remote throttle controls for the starboard engine since I bought her. I could barely shift the engine into reverse and due to the strain, broke the shifting arm. We set off to pick up our rental car and made a stop at a Yamaha dealer and purchased a new throttle cable and looked into replacement parts for the shifting mechanism. There are no replacement parts and they wanted almost $950 for a replacement unit. I later found the same parts at West Marine for $600. After a great lunch at a recommended bar on the water, Jim and I replaced the cable. This definitely made life much better. It also allowed me to understand what I needed to do to replace the whole shifting console when I came back to the boat after Christmas.

We had dinner that night with Karen and Wes and had a great time together. I am also very thankful to build the friendship with Karen and Wes through this trip. They have been most generous and helping in all matters.