First two weeks in The Bahamas

(Announcer): When last we left our intrepid voyagers, they were setting out for the Bahamas, promising to keep in touch via satellite phone technology and posting to sailblog! Now, back to the madmen!

Well.... I knew the satellite phone was finicky, so multiply that by two or three (the number of additional bits of electronica involved) and add in my serious lack of motivation while tired and damp and nervous and I should have predicted no posts. Sorry...I DO feel bad about it. If only I had an easy way of simply posting my location, something built-in to Iridium but lacking with Inmarsat.

The weather forecast looked weird, turbulent, highly variable depending on a few tens of miles change in location.. but OK... and I felt bad about keeping Cynthia in Florida longer. So we departed and headed south, hugging the coast, trying to get far enough south to cross the Gulf Stream without ending up in South Carolina. The wind (or lack thereof) didn't help.... we finally tried crossing and ended up twenty miles north of Abaco, a south wind that could have helped us cross twelve hours earlier becoming stronger and stronger and pushing us north. This sucked and grew rougher and rougher, but we did what we could and Cynthia even studied for her boards....

and then the main halyard snapped and the sail dropped....and the broken line fell into the water and fouled the propeller.

Well, wasn't THIS delightful! I really didn't want to sail into a strange harbor without a working engine, although I would have if I couldn't figure a safe way to handle it. We continued to sail for the Man-O-War entrance at Abaco Island sound and contemplated methods, then put the best into action.

Heaving-to during a brief lull in the wind (down to perhaps fifteen knots?) left the boat moving along at about a knot or so, slow enough that I could keep up by swimming if needed. With Cynthia as safety engineer and general assistant, a line in one hand, and a dive knife strapped to a leg, I snorkeled down, cut and unwrapped the line from the propeller shaft, and climbed back aboard. Easy!

We made our way to Marsh Harbor and called out on the radio for any marinas that could take a boat with our length and draft (everything in the Bahamas is SHALLOW) and a fellow responded and guided us in... to a shoal. And then onto another.. Enough: we dropped anchor and rowed over, checked in through Customs and Immigration, and headed back to the boat.

I could go on. Our outboard engine won't start and we need to put some effort into that. We replaced the main halyard and it chafed again (but we caught it in time. We smoothed the spot we guessed might be causing the chafing, but to no avail and will need to climb again and get more line. A leak developed again along the rudder post, so I tightened the compression nut. A couple fellows befriended us in Marsh Harbor and showed us the ropes, even helping get my spare phone set up for the Bahamas. We sailed south toward George Town in Great Exuma, but changed our minds part way and ducked in to Rock Sound Harbor in the south end of Eleuthra, enjoying the people there and hunting lionfish (Cynthia got eight)

on the way out Wednesday noon. We sailed for Great Inagua, but stopped at Cat Island instead... and were visited by a couple out for a hour or so in a cat boat!

The weather is FINALLY getting warm as we travel south. And the stars are SO bright. And dolphins played around the bow as we approached Cat Island today

and did acrobatics as we headed toward Eleuthra last week. And sunrises and sunsets delight.

And we both love cranberry pancakes for breakfast...

Tomorrow we should see what we can do about finding more lionfish, installing collars on the masts, fixing the fridge, solving the chafing halyard issue, etc, etc, etc.