02/15/2009 Nassau to Staniel Cay

02/14/2009 I spent the last couple of days provisioning the boat with fresh foods, water and fuel. I had also ordered up a replacement part for one of my outboard motors. I was happy to see that the part made it to Nassau and I was able to fix the motor.

I then left the marina and headed for an anchorage in the harbor and waiting for the weather to change. The weather has definitely changed from the last two weeks. I went from constant 20-25 knot winds to flat. The next front is suppose to come through Sunday afternoon.

As I was leaving the marina this sailboat came by me. This is a Bahamas racing boat. For you that have visited with me and were in Nassau, this was one of the boats in the parking lot down the street from the marina. It appears they use a crew of 4 to sail this and have boards that slide out from the top of the hulls that the men sit on to hike out. These boats need plenty of hiking due to the large main sails on them. I was able to take the dinghy and watch a start. It is different than anything I have ever seen. The boats started with their sails down and the boats anchored at the start line. There is no countdown. At the sound of the gun, the foredeck hand raised the anchor and then the main sail went up. It reminded me of a horse race. The boats are beautiful, as any sailboat under sail, as they raced for the windward mark. I was stopped by the harbor patrol while in my dinghy. They wanted to know what I was doing. I told them that I was watching the race. They told me not to go any closer or they would confiscate my dinghy for a day. I suspect that they take their racing serious around here and did not want any outside interference.

As I was reading, I heard an explosion. On the north side of the harbor, there was a fireworks display that I was able to catch this picture.

02/15/2009 I decided that one night in Nassau Harbor was enough. There is an island about five miles east of Nassau call Rose Island. I was planning on anchoring there the evening my parents and I ended up stuck anchoring on the banks on our way into Nassau. There is very little wind today and it would be a good place for me to stage to head back to the Exumas.

After anchored there, Phil in the boat next to me asked if I wanted to go fishing. He was going spear fishing. I indicated that I did not have the gear or had never done it, but I would tag along as an observer. We took the dinghy out of the cove and found a couple of reefs to swim around and look for fish. On our second dive I pointed out a grouper that Phil went after and he had dinner for the night. Phil is traveling with his wife Rosalee and their two young boys of 3 and 5 from Montreal. After he cleaned the fish, he left me with a couple of steaks. When I made it over to the beach to meet his wife and boys later, she said that all he talked about was getting that fish. It turns out to be his best catch since he has been in the Bahamas.

02/16/2009 It turns out I wasn’t the only boat staging for the Exumas out of Rose Island. A train of five monohulls left in front of me. We had good west winds to make it to the islands. It is a 40 mile sail and I headed to Shroud Cay. The racer in me kicked in. There were five boats ahead of me and two smaller boats catching me from behind. With 13 knots of wind, I raised the spinnaker and took off. It took me about 4 hours to catch the lead boat in the train and I was alos pulling away from the smaller boats that were catching me earlier. We have a front coming in and the wind died as the clouds started to build in the afternoon. The monohulls all dropped their sails and motored. It did not look like a comfortable ride as I was watching their masts swing back and forth. I was able to carry my sails all the way into the anchorage and arrived just as they did.

With time to myself, I played with a gift I received from my parents a couple of years ago, a sextant. With the little booklet that came with the sextant, I did my best at getting a noon sighting using the sun. It took 20 sightings with three minute intervals my first time out. In the future it should take less as I now have a better idea of true noon for the area I am in. After playing with the calculations, I was off by only twenty miles to the southeast. That is probably not too good if you are in a tight area, which this form of navigation probably would not work anyway, but in a passage, that is a pretty good ball park. I will keep working at it and see how accurate I can get.

02/17/2009 What a great day it has turned into after the lumpy night I had. I went to Shroud Cay to stop and see a cay I haven’t been to and also hoping to meet a group of cruisers that I had passed on the way down. The wind was expected to clock around towards the NNE and I was hoping for some protection from the rocks where I tied up to on a mooring. I did get some protection from the wind, but the wave chop was heavy. I don’t think I had been in that bouncy in an anchorage since my parents and I stayed on the banks the night before getting into Nassau.

Oh well, let’s make the best of it. I put the dinghy in the water and did a little hike on-shore to find any paths. The vegetation on these islands is incredibly thick. There is a path with a sign that points to a water well. I did find the well and the cruising indicates that the water is very good for drinking. As I was exploring around I came across this cactus. I find this strange being in the middle of an ocean, but the vegetation does make it look to be an arid area.

After I made it back to the boat, I had about 15 knots of wind out of the NE. I put in a reef in the main sail, released the boat from the mooring and took off. Once I cleared the protection of the rocks, the wind picked up and I put in a second reef in the main sail. Being a lake racer most of my sailing career, I have not reefed much. With cruising I have learned that the boat does like reefing and it really shows up in the steering. When the boat is over-powered by the main sail, it likes to turn up into the wind, which in turn puts more pressure on the auto-pilot. With the doubled reef main and jib I was still sailing along at 8 knots and surfing to 10 knots on the small waves.

I decided to head down to Staniel Cay to sit out the next few days of weather as it is. There are a couple of nice anchorages that are well protected and a cut that I can use once I make the jump back to George Town. After only four hours of easy sailing and 31 miles, I made it into Big Major Spot. It is an island just west of Staniel Cay that provides protection from the north and east. This is good as the winds will shift the east and southeast for the next couple of days. I am waiting for the next cold front that will bring north winds to take me down to George Town.

I worked on my noon sighting again using my sextant. I was able to get the longitude correctly today, but I was still off on my latitude by 16 miles. After playing with the formula I believe I am starting to see where my error is coming into. I will keep working with it while I am sitting on anchor and do my best to dial in the sextant and my abilities.

It is so calm here after last night. As I sat here and watched the sunset with my gin and tonic it was a surreal sunset. I do not believe I have seen a more beautiful sunset on my trip. The mixture of the clouds and the red in the sun was incredible. Please enjoy the photo. I wish you who are reading the blog could be here to enjoy these moments.

02/19/2009 What a small world it is, especially this sailing community. I decided go for a snorkel off of the back of the boat today. I was swimming on a real small reef when I saw another man doing some spear fishing. No luck for him here as all of the fish were less than 6” in length. I started to talk with him and he told me his boat name and where he was from. He was from Maryland and the name of the town sounded familiar. As I probed a little bit, I remembered meeting him when I was in Annapolis. We both were taking our Ham license exams at the same Ham club. His name is Robert and his wife’s name is Trish. They are sailing on Bristol Rose. You can find out about their adventure at BristolRose.blogspot.com. It amazes me here I am on this little reef no larger than a hundred square feet and run into another sailor I met 6 months ago and 1500 miles later. I do expect to cross paths with them many times as we both have our sites set on Grenada or Trinidad before hurricane season.

I also had some fruit that was spoiling. No need to throw it away today. I was able to feed the pigs that roam the local beach. There are about 6 pigs living on this beach. I went in the other day to see them and they rushed out in the water towards my dinghy. I would assume they are use to being fed from boaters. They really are calm and I saw people walking the beach around the pigs and they did not bother anyone, unless they are being fed.

The other reason I stayed here was I felt the need to enjoy Happy Hour at Club Thunderball. When you are in the central Exumas, you here a call everyday on the VHF radio for Happy Hour. I went to the club for $3.00 beers and a burger. On Tuesday nights they have all you can eat pasta and pizza, including a movie for $15.00. I met another solo sailor there named Jay from Lunatic Fringe. We had fun for the couple of hours sharing our travels. He has come in from Maine. Both Jay and Bob both left the East Coast a lot later than I did. They had extensive use of their on board heating systems.

Here is one more picture of the sunsets I have to deal with here. Well I should be off to George Town today. The weather is looking good for a sail back down there.

02/09/2009 Georgetown to Nassau

02/05/2009 today Mark Drummond and Roy Burley flew in to meet me in Georgetown. The plan is to sail to Nassau and they will catch a flight out from there. After a few days by myself getting a lay of the land, I worked on the boat cleaning and repairing. Keeping up with the rust is an endless task. After four months of listening to the auto-pilot squeaks, I remembered to work on it. It turned out to be a really easy task of taking the steering wheel off and washing down the drive belt and all of the wheels associated with the drive. On our run towards Nassau, it was such a joy not listening to squeak, squeak on every little adjustment made that I noticed it. After they arrived, we did our provisioning and put out our plans for making to Nassau in time. The biggest issue as always is the weather. We have had non-stop winds again, day and night.

02/06/2009 Today we took the boat across the bay and anchored off of Volleyball Beach. We went to check out the volleyball seen. Volleyball doesn’t start until 2:30 around here so we had lunch at the Chat and Chill, the local tiki hut. This was partly to help recover from a night of first day joining on the boat. We met Kenny, the owner of Chat and Chill and spoke with him for a few hours. He has an interesting background and plenty of stories to keep you there. We did get in one game of volleyball before weather started blowing in and we expected some rain. We went back to the boat and headed back across the bay.

The plan that night was to go to the local fish fry. This is a area with about 10 shacks that are the local restaurants. We expected to see around 1000 people there, but do to the cold weather, and I mean cold for around here, there were not many people at all. The temperature has been in the low sixties or even high fifties when throwing in the wind chill. People are just staying home. I had my first Bahamas fried fish. I wish I had a picture for you, but what they do is gut the fish and fry the whole fish including the skin and head. The fish was very good, even though it takes a little to learn how to get the meat from it, versus how we eat our fried fish where it is only meat and batter.

02/07/2009 The weather is not looking too good to leave the area. We have 20-25 knots of wind and they are calling for 9 foot seas. I decided to stay another day and play some more volleyball. We moved the boat back across the bay one more time. The good thing about being anchored off of Volleyball Beach is that we are in the lee of the island and there hardly any waves. We went ashore and took off hiking on the island. We made our way across the island and found the path to the Sound side with its enormous white sand beach. With all of the wind there were great breaking waves on the beach and as far as you could see white caps on the open water. This sealed the deal for the day, we are going to wait another day. We hiked the beach for awhile. The sand was clean, white and soft. We headed back towards the volleyball area and had lunch again at Chat and Chills. The hamburgers are addicting.

We did get in a good afternoon of volleyball. They have what I would call relaxed cruiser rules. These rules included: a) no one under the age of 15 is allowed to play on the adult courts, the receiving team must hit the ball at least twice before returning the serve, the games are played to 15 and you must win by 2 and the strangest one I ever saw was that the team is allowed to hit the ball as many times as needed to get the ball across the net. It is very relaxed and no one looses their temper. Just plain good fun. To get to play, when a game is done everyone clears the court and allows the people sitting on the bench to get on the court. If there are any empty positions, then someone can return to play another game. There are up to nine players on each side. We played one game that our team was down 14-4 and we ended up winning 20-18. It was one of the best games anyone said they saw played this year.

02/08/2009 Today I needed to make a decision about heading out. The wind was still blowing in the low 20s, but the weather report indicated the seas are down to 6 feet. I took the dinghy to the trail that we hiked the day before to check out the Sound. There wind was still strong and the waves were crashing, but the white caps seemed to be down a bit. With looking at the weather for the next few days, there did not seem to be much improvement. I decided, since I have experienced crew, I needed to find out how No Rush would take to this type of weather. We headed off with a double reef in the main and sailed up the harbor into the Sound. As always we had waves breaking around us as the cuts are usually very narrow. I was following my track that I made on the way in. That is a good function of the chart plotter. The seas were pretty steep as we left the cut, but then dropped down a bit once we were in deeper water. Today we had the wind and waves abeam.

The sailing was great and No Rush handled it just fine. I was having a problem with the auto-pilot though. It was the first time I had seen where the auto-pilot could not keep up with the boat wanting to go to weather. Every once in a while I would have to take over manual control to bring the boat back on-course. The way I resolved this issue was to let the traveler down all of the way and that took a lot of pressure off of the main sail. After that there was no problem. We discussed putting in the third reef. It was not due the heavy winds, which they weren’t. We only had about 20-22 knots, but I believe it was also because of the wave action. At this time, we could not put in the third reef, due to how the reefing lines are run. I will need to rethink the reefing system again anytime I go off-shore.

The excitement of the day was coming up when I needed to enter back through a cut onto the banks. We sailed up to Little Farmers Cay and I had a track to follow from our trip south. The good news is that we had an incoming tide with incoming winds, but had to deal with the currents and how narrow the cut is. I had Mark watching the chart-plotter and calling off how I was lined up on the old track and Roy calling off depths. We shot through the cut doing 10 knots over ground due to the wind and current while I was on motors only. We made it safely through again.

Later that afternoon we headed to shore to see if we could get any dinner at the shack I had dinner with Titus and Cliff, but it was closed. The island had a festival this weekend and I expect everyone was tired and called it a day. We walked up the hill to the yacht club and asked about dinner, but we were told the kitchen was closed. The owner did offer us a beer though. So we stayed and started chatting with him when one of his cousins showed up and then a crew from a German boat and then the cousin’s girl friend. We had a full bar again. I got talking with the German crew and Mark and Roy were in another conversation. The owner of the German boat is now living in North Carolina and had friends from Germany fly in for the “nice” weather. Christian has the same intentions of mine about running to Puerto Rico and to Trinidad. We will try to hook up in George Town on my way back. Well after a few hours of bartending, Terry, the owner, cooked up a pot of sheep tongue soup along with a piece of the local bread. It was a tasty meal from a local culture.

02/09/2009 After a good night sleep with a full stomach of sheep’s tongue soup we set off early in the morning. I have to digress for a minute. When we were in the bar last night, as we were getting ready to leave, Oti from the German boat was talking with Christian. He was asking for a translation. At one point I heard Christian say “war with stomach”. I was not sure what they were talking about until the bar tender pulled out a bottle of Cuervo Gold tequilla. Terry slid down the bottle towards me and Christian, Oti and I had one more celebratory shot for the evening. There is nothing like a good translation sometimes.

As I have indicated earlier, the wind has been blowing non-stop. Our final destination planned for today is Pipe Cay, with a stop at Staniel Cay. We were averaging 8 knots of boat speed this morning as we made it into Staniel Cay at 11:15. We put the dinghy in and headed for the local town. We were in need of ice and Coke. After a quick drink at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, we walked the quaint little village to stretch our legs. We collected the $5.00 bag of ice and $8.00 eight pack of Coke and headed back to the boat for lunch. We needed to use the hot dog buns we bought last Friday.

The bakers down here don’t use many preservatives and the local breads need to be eaten as soon as possible. After lunch we went in search of the Thunderball Cave that was used for filming of James Bond movie Thunderball. Roy had been here before and was familiar with the location. He had not worked his nerve to go swimming in 69 degree water so Mark and I took off. This cave is really a tunnel because you swim through in. In the middle of the cave is a large dome with a chimney. There is plenty of light and air. We saw many schools of little fish and plenty of live coral around the little island where the cave is located. After that good snorkel we set the main sail, pulled the anchor and made our way towards Pipe Cay for the evening. We have had reaching winds the whole time except for when we turned east to Staniel Cay and had to put in a few tacks. I like it when the weather cooperates and we can go with the flow.

02/10/2009 After a fun evening of dinner, drinks and a movie, not necessarily in that order, we went for a snorkel in the morning. The last time I was here the water was clear as “gin” as described. This time it was different with all of the weather we have been having. The water was turned up and there was sentiment everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, the water was still enjoyable, but not as clear as before. The point here is that with changing conditions, when visiting someplace multiple times, there will always be something that changes. Sometimes for the good, sometimes not.

With the winds we have today, I am still sailing with a double reef in the main and full jib. I am very happy with the wind direction as we have not had to tack at all, except our trip into Staniel Cay. We sailed to Norman Cay today. I was planning on anchoring in the bay of Norman, but with the wind direction, strength and amount of waves, it worked out best to anchor on the west side of the cay. After setting the anchor, we took the dinghy in to check out the local establishment McDuff’s. While having a beer there, we had a chance to talk with the owner of the establishment. Right now it is very hard to make a living in the islands. The tourism from the US drives a lot of the business in the out islands and that has dropped off with the economy. I cannot imagine what it is like trying to make a living in these islands with the cost of products here.

02/11/2009 This morning after breakfast, Mark and I took the dinghy around to the east side of the island to snorkel on the DC-3. This was again a different experience as the tide was higher and it was easier to swim closer to the plane. After that swim, we set sails again and sails off to Allan’s Cay. I was able to shake out the reefs in the main and we set the spinnaker.

Off we went in a flurry and covered the 10 miles in a little over an hour. Allan’s Cay may be my favorite place I have snorkeled in the Bahamas. We went for a swim along the shore line where there are reefs, then across the channel to the beach with the iguanas. We did some hiking on the island and just hung out. Afterwards we swam back to the boat. Today the winds are down, the skies are clear and life is really good. I enjoyed just swimming around the area and looking for sand dollars. The water was so clear and calm, it was just relaxing, really relaxing.

02/12/2009 Today we head for Nassau. The weather man has been calling for 12 knot winds in the morning, diminishing to 5 knots in the afternoon. He was off a little, we left in five knots and it diminished to nothing. We had to motor the last 25 miles into Nassau. It was disappointing (ah too bad for us) after all of the wind and sailing we did, but the water was beautiful. The seas were so flat, that I was able to take this picture of a starfish with my camera from the deck of my boat in 20 feet of water.

We made it into Nassau around 1:30 in the afternoon and set about getting ready for the guys to take off for back home. There was the normal deck scrubbing in between a few beers. The temperature has shot up along with the humidity. This is a normal occurrence with a changing weather pattern. We will now have a few days of flat or calm weather with dropping pressure until the next cold front comes through.

It has been another great trip with friends on the boat. This trip we set the record for the most amount of alcohol drank in one trip. It will take some real pros to beat this one. I have had someone on the boat almost non-stop since Thanksgiving. I will miss the company.

01/29/2009 Pipe Cay to Georgetown

01/28/2009 We need to start moving towards Georgetown with a little better speed. There is a cold front coming in late Friday and I want to be set up near Georgetown with only a day to get there in case we are stuck in an anchorage for a day while the front blows through.

Our destination today is Little Farmers Cay, but we are going to make a stop at Staniards Cay to check out the cave used in the James Bond movie Thunderball. We made the detour and headed for Club Thunderball. We were not sure where to find the cave and it is recommended to swim it at low tide with a slack current. We checked in with the club and we were given directions to the cave. We headed over to a real little cay to swim it and try for the cave. We were there though at high tide and a fast out-going current. As with the Exuma Park, I let Titus and Cliff go in and I stayed in the dinghy to allow them to swim and find the cave. They never found the cave, but saw a barracuda, turtle and a large array of long coral.

On the way to Little Farmers Cay, Cliff decided he wanted to take a wet ride in the nets. He is the first person to take a "bath". He was having so much fun almost getting thrown out of the nets when the waves crashed through, he caused me to laugh so hard I could not even breathe.

After that I swim we had to take off for Little Farmers Cay. We had the wind on our nose again and it would take a long time for sailing as we had to tack back and forth against the wind. It was a pleasant sail and with the wide open waters to tack in, it gave me some time to catch up on scrubbing the boat. Trying to keep up on the rust is a full time job in the salt water. We wanted to anchor on the north end, inside part of the cay. I had one chart that showed a possible path across the shoals to make it there. The normal passage is to go to the southern end of the cay and work your way north to the anchorage. We slowly worked our way via eyeball navigation, with one slight grounding in two and a half feet of water. We were able to back off of the sand and work our way through. We set the anchor and went for a quick swim. The tide was coming in and had about a 2 knot current. I could practically swim in place and not move due to the current.

After that we went ashore to see what the settlement had to offer. As we were walking along the quay, we met the crew from another catamaran that was anchored just in front of us. The boat is also registered in Colorado. The owner is from Bailey and she bought the boat in Panama and is circumnavigating the Caribbean. Her crew are also from Denver. They have a boat in Australia and crossed the Pacific. It sounded great and they recommend the trip. I need to make a plan. The crew recommend that we stop at the small building at the end of quay and stick our head in the screen door to find out what they have left for food for dinner. We did so. We met Tasha. She is the owner of the grocery store and restaurant. Her brother Ali owns and runs the liquor store/bar. For dinner tonight we had cold beer and fresh fried conch, fries and a salad. The people were so friendly and came over and chatted with us. We were invited to join in a marriage that is happening this weekend and next weekend they a three day festival. It is sort of like a homecoming for the settlement. Family and friends that are from the cay, but live in different areas now all come back and celebrate. The population of the cay is about 100 people now and they expect to have over three hundred next weekend. I hope I get a chance to stop back.

01/29/2009 During these next legs of the trip we will need to go into the Exuma Sound to make our way to Georgetown. We left this morning with the wind on our nose. I decided that there would be no sailing today and we would need to motor to Lee Stocking Island. The seas were 2-3 feet high and we made the 15 mile trip in three hours.

The exciting part of the trip today was making our way back onto the Banks at Adler Cut. I have my electronic charts that are the most up to date charts you are suppose to be able to get. I also have my paper charts that sometimes are over one hundred years old. My paper charts showed that there is a deep water channel in the cut and the electronic charts did not show anything at all. If it weren’t for the paper charts, I would have been blind. For me it was still a crap shoot on want I would encounter coming back on the banks. I had put out a broadcast request on the VHF radio for any information concerning the cut. The only information I was given was to contact the Caribbean Marine Research Center on Lee Stocking Island. When I was within a couple of miles of the cut, I contacted the center. They told me that they could not provide any navigation assistance and that I should refer to my charts. Nothing like a little CYA. We went for it based on the paper charts and found nothing shallower than 15 feet. I plan on hanging out here for a day. We may leave on Friday if the wind clocks to the west earlier than expected.

There is a cold front coming through the area Friday night and I want to be in a protected area for the west and north winds as the front passes through. Lee Stocking Island can provide that for us. The one incredible thing I saw here is the stars at night. There are two other sailboats with their anchor light on and that is the only light in the area. We had an early moon last night and then all was dark. It is amazing when there are so many stars that I cannot pick out the Big Dipper to find the North Star. The Milky Way is like a cloud it is so bright.

01/30/2009 After listening to Chris Parker for the weather forecast, I decided that we needed to leave today and head to Georgetown. Chris Parker provides a weather tracking service via the Marine SSB Radio for the Western Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. I listen to him every morning at 6:30. There is a large cold front passing through around 2:00AM Saturday morning that will bring north winds at about 20-25 knots and gusting to 30. If we leave on Saturday, we will have following winds and seas, which are good for sailing, but the wind will be real high and maybe dangerous entering into the harbor at George Town. We started off motoring and then on and off we could sail.

The highlight of the trip was when we caught a Mahi. It is a beautifully colored fish. We will have fresh fish for dinner tonight. The fish was 35” and 8 lbs. We will have two dinners from it. Titus took the honors of bringing it to the boat and Cliff and I landed it. We took our time as we are using light tackle for the ocean with 25lb. test line. After we had it landed, we filleted it up with some good steaks.

We made it to George Town at 1:30 that afternoon with a whole parade of boats also making a run for the safety of the anchorage. George Town is like the mecca of east coast cruisers. At the height of the season, there will be between 200 and 400 boats here. There is a cruisers’ net that announces activities in the area such as volleyball (on volleyball beach), church services, assistance with engines, training for Ham Licenses and many other activities.

01/31/2009 Today we are on the boat due to heavy winds. It was a good day of cleaning the boat and playing plenty of cards, dice and dominoes. We did finally venture to shore to get information for wi-fi access. Oh the priorities.

02/02/2009 Happy birthday Dad. Today we moved the boat across the harbor to Stocking Island. Titus had told us of an island he visited for work over twenty years ago. It turns out that it is Stocking Island. This is where most of the cruisers that spend the winter here anchor and hang out. After anchoring and having breakfast, we went ashore for a beach church service on Volleyball Beach. It is a church service run by cruisers. They had a choir and a preacher that are all cruisers.

After service we jumped in the dinghy and headed into a couple of coves trying to find where Titus stayed on his last visit here. We could not find the exact location and we could not get ashore as it was all privately owned. After that we went back to Volleyball Beach to hang out. It appears that this beach is a gathering place for all vacationers in the area. There were plenty water taxis bringing in people to hang out here. It has a lot of sand, volleyball pits and The Chat-and-Chill Bar and Grill. We had a cheese-burger in paradise while sitting there.

After that we headed back to the boat for the afternoon and readied ourselves for the big game. While we were waiting for the game, Titus and I started to play with my mast climber. It is an ATN Top Climber. This is a device that hooks onto a halyard and with one-way jammers allows you lift yourself up the line safely. The seas had some chop in them and the wind was blowing about 15 knots. I tried it once to make sure it was all working and then Titus headed up the line. As you see in the picture he made it to the second spreader on the mast.

Superbowl Sunday. It is fun to see my Steelers in the big game again. We went to St Francis to watch the game. They had plenty of drinks and one dish. The dish was onion rings, fried macaroni cheese and chicken wings. They also had four TVs set up and pleasant weather to sit on the deck and watch the game. I do not think my stress level has been any higher on this trip than while watching the fourth quarter of the game. Well the Steelers have a ring for the other thumb now.

02/02/2009 We pulled the anchor early in the morning and headed back across the bay. The good news is that we have a more easterly wind that will allow me to take Titus and Cliff to the dinghy dock to catch a cab and keep them relatively dry. We made several runs today before they needed to leave to fill the fuel tanks and water tank. I carry two 5 gallon fuel jugs and two 5 gallon water jugs. We burnt through about 15 gallons of fuel on the trip and 70 gallons of water. When you are hauling fuel and water, you learn how to conserve. It is not like driving up to your local gas station or turning on a faucet in your home and expect to have water flowing.

02/04/2009 Today and yesterday have been maintenance days. It has been a lot of scrubbing and fixing small things here and there on the boat.

Today I planned on joining in a couple of the community activities. I met Bob from Signet at the Steeler game. He is a Ham operator and puts on a clinic Wednesdays at lunch on Hamburger beach and then afterwards I was going to join in some volleyball on Volleyball Beach. Well after doing some cleaning and repair work, I cleaned up, loaded my dry bag with needed items and jumped in the dinghy. I have been having some problems with the dinghy the last few days so I did a test ride. Good thing. The engine was acting up again. I did not make it to any of the activities, and that may have been a good thing. I spent the afternoon working on the motor. I believe I finally found the problem that has been plaguing me. One of the connections on the fuel line from the tank to the motor was loose and I was taking air into the fuel and the engine was being starved. While I was working on the problem, the wind kicked up as we had a front come through last night. The beaches are about two miles away and I would have been in for a real wet ride trying to make it back to my boat. I enjoyed a good nap instead.

If the winds keep up with this direction and speed, we will probably get another chance to play some volleyball on Friday. I will not leave until the wind clocks to the east. That is suppose to happen Friday or maybe Saturday. The weather has been crazy down here this winter. I was told the other day that the cold fronts coming out of the US usually do not affect this area. They may only see 3-4 fronts that cause the wind to clock. We are seeing this at least once a week. I heard on the radio that Lakeland, FL might see a low temp of 18 degrees tonight. We might see the low temps tomorrow or Friday. They won’t be that low, but cold is cold.

01/26/2009 Nassau to Pipe Cay

01/23/2009 Titus and Cliff make it safely into Nassau today. They actually made to the boat by at least an hour earlier than I expected. I figured they would be stuck in customs for awhile. No problems there and a 30 minute taxi ride to the boat. I had our favorite Pain Killers waiting for them. For you that are not aware of the Caribbean Rum drink made popular in the British Virgin Islands, it is a mix of 1 part Cream of Coconut, 1 part orange juice, 4 parts pineapple juice and 2 parts of your favorite rum. This drink has been our tradition on all of the trips we have done together. Later that day we made a trip to the grocery and liquor store to provision for the 10 days they will be with me. We had steak tonight for dinner. The reason I bring it up is that grocery prices as most stuff in the Bahamas is more expensive. Steak is cheaper and more tender than anything I have bought in the US for a long time. It is US beef. It is my great find on this trip.

1/24/2009 I checked out of the marina, cleared our passage with Nassau Harbor Control and off we went to explore the Exumas for the next week or so. We have a few light goals on this trip. We want to eat fresh fish every night for dinner and get two snorkel trips in a day. We had a light wind as we left the harbor that was about 35 degrees off of the bow of the boat. It was a tight reach and we were making about 5 knots. We left the harbor with another Seawind. It is called Imagine and it is the larger boat.

They raised their main sail after we had our sails set. I kept watching as the pulled away from us faster and faster. As the day went on, the winds began to build and clock more out of the north with allowed us to crack off the sails a little and go straight for our destination of Allans Cay. We started to build into the 6 knots, 7 knots and starting 8 knots as we approached the cay. I had predicted that we would anchor at 3:30. I was wrong, we anchored at 3:40. The guys are amazed at the beauty of the water. I will include some pictures on the blog, but I guess you need to be here to really believe it. As for our goals, we did catch one fish today. It was some form of a jack that we filleted for dinner tonight and Cliff did go for a snorkel after we dropped the anchor.

Titus and I jumped in the dinghy to go over and meet the couple on the Seawind that we left Nassau with. When we made it down to their boat, they had already taken off in the dinghy for some exploring. We headed off for a little beach where a lot of cruisers are hanging out. It turns out that this is one of the high lights of this cay. There are iguanas all over the little island and they come down the beach for hand outs. While we there, we met Jim and Liz. They are the owners of the Seawind. It turns out they were motor-sailing in the light airs and that is how they pulled away so fast.

1/25/2009 Good morning. What to do? Do we eat breakfast or go for a snorkel. Cliff cooked up some pancakes for us. Fantastic job. We cleaned up and into the flippers we went. This cay is actually and few cays with channels between them. The bottom is real interesting as the sand stacks up like a sand dune due to the currents running through here. As we started to swim along the wall we saw some great live coral and plenty of fish. I did take pictures with a film camera and I hope to show these after they are developed. After a game of cards and some lunch, we pulled the anchor and sailed away from Allans Cay heading for Normans Cay.

There is a little bit of history at Normans Cay. Probably its most famous for being a major compound for a drug lord in the 70s when the Columbians were shipping cocaine into the US. We had great winds from the northeast so we were able to set the spinnaker and make 8 knots the whole way down. As we were closing in on our destination, the water began to get very shallow. There was nothing on the charts that indicated this. We dropped the spinnaker as fast as possible and eye-balled our way through the maze. We had come within less than a foot of water under the keel.

After making it safely to the anchorage, we set off in the dinghy. There is supposed to be a sunken plane somewhere around this island. We made it into a back lagoon and started looking around. We could not find anything so we went ashore to do a little bit of hiking. We found the drug lord’s compound. It is all falling apart. We also walked down a road looking for the old runway. We found a dump. I guess they have trash in the Bahamas also. After no luck on the shore we were heading back to the boat when we stop and asked another cruiser is he knew where the plane was. He pointed to something sticking out of the water on the other side of the lagoon. There she is.

As we were motoring over to the plane, we spotted sting rays swimming below us. Cliff would put on his mask and stick his head over the front of the dinghy like if a poor man’s glass bottom boat. He thought it was the coolest thing he ever saw. We made it over to the plane and dropped the dinghy anchor. Into the water we went. There was a strong current against us as we swam towards what was left of the plane. It was an old DC-3. A lot of the main body was still there with the wings still intact with both engines and most of the prop blades. The tail section had fallen off as was lying next to the plane. There were many small fish around the plane. It has amazed me that I haven’t seen any large fish like barracuda or sharks when I have been in the water.

After we swam around the plane for awhile, we made it back into the dinghy and were heading back to the boat. We then saw the sting rays again. Titus then did the mask and snorkel trick this time. After a few more sightings they told me to try it. I put on my mask and just went right into the water. The sting ray is a beautiful graceful ocean flyer. As I watched the ray swim away, it never had to flap its wings once. It just glided along like an eagle on a thermal. Well today we got in our two snorkels, but no fish. I was afraid we would catch something with the spinnaker up. I would not have been able to slow the boat down.

01/26/2009 Today we headed off to Warderick Wells. It is the headquarters for the Exuma Land and Sea Park. This park is a Bahamas National Park. The waters sailing along are just incredible. The different shades of blue always put me in a state of awe. We needed to check in early in the morning with Exuma Park to arrange a mooring for the night. They have a real good system in setting up moorings for the cruisers. You can put in your reservation up to two days in advance. First thing in the morning they check in with any boaters that expect to leave that day and then ask for requests for the day. They then take about a fifteen minute break and then come back on the air and provide assignments for the day. They were able to accommodate us. After we had our reservation with the park, we set off and had a great sail. I have never before experienced the winds I have in the last month. It has been almost non-stop, day and night. We did not need the spinnaker and we were still hitting 8 knots with a reaching wind. When we came to the channel to head east into the park, we had to tack the boat all of the way up. It is good to have crew that is willing, can and want to work on the boat. We were able to sail the whole way to the anchorage, into the wind.

After getting the boat set up on the mooring, we headed to the park office to find out what there is to do in the park. We had to dinghy about three quarters of a mile to the office. The park consists of many islands, but it appeared that most of the activity is based here. This is a picture of the north mooring field, located directly off of the park office. We were located in the south mooring field. There are over four miles of hiking trails and several areas for snorkeling. Today we headed off to check out the Boo-Boo trail. This trail took us on a loop around the northern and central part of the cay. This trail took us through a low basin and up the hill to a couple blow holes. We were there at low tide, so there was no water in the basin and the blow holes only had air blowing through them as the ocean side must have been too high for water based on the low tide.

We then headed south and came across the highest point of the cay. Located there is a place that the park allows cruisers to leave a low impact reminder that they have been there. It is mostly driftwood with etchings or carvings listing the boat and sometimes crew. Pictured here is one of them. If you check out the rest of my blog, you will notice the Slapdash insignia. From there we hiked down to the ocean side beach and across the cay back to the office and dinghy. This was a day to shake off the sea legs for a change.

01/27/2009 This morning we set off to check out some snorkeling areas. The first was a rock near our mooring. It has some shear walls and a few coral heads located around it. There were conch, star fish and many different types of little fish. I still have not seen any large fish. That is probably due to the shallow water. We then headed towards the office again. The map showed a snorkel area in the channel at the office. The tide was going out with a heavy current. I stayed in the dinghy and let Cliff and Titus drift in the current and I flowed them in the dinghy. They saw a turtle and a couple of rays. We then made it back to the boat and raised the sails.

Today we are heading off to Pipe Cay. It claimed of fame in the cruisers guide is that it has the clearest water in the world. We had another great three hour sail making our way to the cay. We worked our way through the shallows and found a place to drop the anchor. We shared this whole area with one other boat. I am sure they weren’t too happy when we disturbed their perfect anchorage. We jumped in the dinghy with our snorkel gear and headed off to find some areas to do some swimming. We found an area that had some great structure and plenty of fish. I would agree with the description of the clearest water I have ever seen. It was like looking into a very clean aquarium. It is just incredible. We then moved around to different areas looking for small reefs to dive on. We found large hermit crabs taking over conch shells as their home. We also saw many fish and three squid. This is a beautiful setting and I believe I could stay here for a week.