A few days ago, as Cynthia and I sat and enjoyed coffee and tea, the inverter (source of all our household current) started smoking. So... we are now reduced to 12V only, like living in a car.
Cynthia caught a flight yesterday from Governors Harbor airport to Nassau, then flights from Nassau to MI. I think they were predicting a high of 15degF.
This morning I decided to get to work on fixing the broken fridge thermostat, ripped things apart... and then realized I have no power to drill an important hole.
A friend and his wife is coming to visit...and this is great... but they told me yesterday evening that they are arriving tomorrow. UGH! I was hoping to have them bring a small, but important exhaust fan for the composting head, but not enough time to get it sent to them. I also hoped to ship them some packing for the leaking seal around the rudder post and a few other little items. Ah well, such is life.
When I looked at the boat hull while snorkeling a few days ago, I found one side is quite fuzzy: poor quality bottom paint? Old paint? Whatever, it means I need to do more scrubbing and haul the boat out soon and paint the bottom. Maybe fall in NC?
Water seeps from the pantry ceiling if we heel over too far to the port and ruins whatever we have in there.
My ear seems to be far more problematic than before I blew out the eardrum a year or so back. If I dive down eight feet I experience dizziness and nausea for the next day. And the freedom of three-dimensional movement underwater is one of my big delights.
Sometimes I'm just disgusted with all the trouble and think I should sell the boat and do something else, but no idea what.
Still, even with all these frustrations (and I wrote down more somewhere), when I go out on deck at night and feel the breeze or see a wonderful falling star, bright enough to cast a shadow, it takes my breath away. The night before Cynthia left I found we needed another anchor, so went out in the dinghy in the dark to set it.... and the glowing, swirling clouds around my oars caused me to call out to Cynthia and we rowed about for ten minutes, exclaiming in wonder. Life is often good.
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
Thursday, February 21, 2019
heading back to Eleuthera
The last few days in the Exuma Land Sea Park has shown us that we need to spend far more time here: we have found wonderful corals and creatures, shallows and channels that remind me of Cape Cod, actual live conch (most have been fished out in the Bahamas and fisheries managers fear complete collapse in a few more years). I wonder if we might find that the north end of the Exumas or far down south in the Ragged Islands might be well worth the investment of a month or twelve of exploration.
Cynthia has been taking pics with her new underwater camera and the improvement in quality often takes our breath away.
Now we are heading off to Eleuthera on our way to drop Cynthia off at Nassau to fly back to MI to begin a new job. After that... well, I will practice sailing single handed, perhaps explore some of the easier bits of the Bahamas, or ???. We shall see.
Cynthia has been taking pics with her new underwater camera and the improvement in quality often takes our breath away.
Now we are heading off to Eleuthera on our way to drop Cynthia off at Nassau to fly back to MI to begin a new job. After that... well, I will practice sailing single handed, perhaps explore some of the easier bits of the Bahamas, or ???. We shall see.
Sunday, February 17, 2019
Running into friends
OK, not LITERALLY!
We've kept in touch with some friends in the Bahamas and the ones we have managed to meet with so far are Bob and Robin, our mooring partners in Vero Beach. A great couple, they finally got enough together to get back to sailing, gave notice, and followed us a couple weeks after we left.
So, they were working their way south along the Exumas, a long string of MANY little islands separated by channels, and we saw one last opportunity to meet up with them before we need to head back toward Florida for Cynthia to head back to work (Or maybe Nassau... we shall see: life is complicated).
The wind was supposed to die and stay nearly dead for days, but we had 1.5 days... and would be better sailing at night so we could safely enter shallows during daylight the next morning rather than trusting problematic charts. We spent a day photographing patch reefs and removing lionfish, then set out and entered the open deep water of Exuma Sound at sunset.
The wind should have been moderate....and was OK, although we were glad to have taken down the mainsail... but the waves were completely jumbled and wild and the boat bucked, jerked, and twisted, making sleep difficult, me uncomfortable, and Cynthia miserable. Finally we heaved-to and slept a few hours, then set out again as the sky lightened and the waves moderated.
The wind, however, had moved around a bit and we were now attempting to sail into the wind, a real no-no with this boat as it does not cooperate. Finally, we said the heck with it and motored straight to our destination, cutting off an hour by running the engine an hour: a decent trade-off even though we both prefer the quiet of sailing.
We entered the channel north of Bitter Guana Cay, turned south around the corner of the island, and saw Robin and Bob's boat sitting there, rocking a bit in the onshore wind.
We hailed them, came alongside, and dropped anchor. Then we dropped kayak and headed to shore to explore, chat, and visit the numerous and hungry rock iguanas.
After that we had drinks, dinner, and a movie (Shaun of the Dead), then slept soundly while rain fell and lightning flashed. Very nice.
The next day we headed south a few miles to Black Point, a great place to do laundry and see sharks, rays, and fish congregate while fishermen clean their catch. We spent a day there, walked across to the outside coast of the island and snorkeled, enjoyed a nice sunset and another sociable evening, then parted ways the next morning.
Wonderful to see them again. I hope and expect to meet and spend a bit of time again.
Current location: anchored just south of Conch Cut, contemplating a sail in the open, back north to Eleuthera. Here is our boat at anchor a few days ago, alone at Bitter Inagua.
We've kept in touch with some friends in the Bahamas and the ones we have managed to meet with so far are Bob and Robin, our mooring partners in Vero Beach. A great couple, they finally got enough together to get back to sailing, gave notice, and followed us a couple weeks after we left.
So, they were working their way south along the Exumas, a long string of MANY little islands separated by channels, and we saw one last opportunity to meet up with them before we need to head back toward Florida for Cynthia to head back to work (Or maybe Nassau... we shall see: life is complicated).
The wind was supposed to die and stay nearly dead for days, but we had 1.5 days... and would be better sailing at night so we could safely enter shallows during daylight the next morning rather than trusting problematic charts. We spent a day photographing patch reefs and removing lionfish, then set out and entered the open deep water of Exuma Sound at sunset.
The wind should have been moderate....and was OK, although we were glad to have taken down the mainsail... but the waves were completely jumbled and wild and the boat bucked, jerked, and twisted, making sleep difficult, me uncomfortable, and Cynthia miserable. Finally we heaved-to and slept a few hours, then set out again as the sky lightened and the waves moderated.
The wind, however, had moved around a bit and we were now attempting to sail into the wind, a real no-no with this boat as it does not cooperate. Finally, we said the heck with it and motored straight to our destination, cutting off an hour by running the engine an hour: a decent trade-off even though we both prefer the quiet of sailing.
We entered the channel north of Bitter Guana Cay, turned south around the corner of the island, and saw Robin and Bob's boat sitting there, rocking a bit in the onshore wind.
After that we had drinks, dinner, and a movie (Shaun of the Dead), then slept soundly while rain fell and lightning flashed. Very nice.
The next day we headed south a few miles to Black Point, a great place to do laundry and see sharks, rays, and fish congregate while fishermen clean their catch. We spent a day there, walked across to the outside coast of the island and snorkeled, enjoyed a nice sunset and another sociable evening, then parted ways the next morning.
Wonderful to see them again. I hope and expect to meet and spend a bit of time again.
Current location: anchored just south of Conch Cut, contemplating a sail in the open, back north to Eleuthera. Here is our boat at anchor a few days ago, alone at Bitter Inagua.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Virgin Island trip goes onto the back burner
"The Great Plan" stated that we would depart from NC and bring the boat down to the Virgin Islands. Frankly, we only went to Florida since we were short on time to make the passage... and because there are some interesting places to see down in the Bahamas, like Cay Sal Bank... and because I didn't really know how this boat would sail. But as we made our way to FL and found pretty significant leaks as well as weakness in the lower bobstay fitting, I lost some confidence in the boat... but regained it with good repairs.
Since then we've had the mainsail drop when the halyard wore through, then the replacement wore partly through twice, so I need to go up the mast AGAIN.... and (once the chafing is solved) will buy and install new line. We've found the water tank empty when the water line leaked, so I should run new water lines... and test them as I used to do when plumbing a home (although most homes never experience this sort of shaking!). We have run into a storm at night that left us only able to steer by compass and failed at doing so, finding ourselves running the engine and flopping in circles... with about ten termites landing on our faces as they flew to our headlamps!... (Solution: next time we will simply heave-to for the storm and let the natural stability lent by the sails and wind steady us. Not sure what to do about termites and have seen none since.). And the traveler for the main keeps locking itself into place for reasons too complex to detail, but that I solved yesterday. The jib sheets are too fat for the self-tailing winches (I looked up the specs yesterday and they are far outside spec). And I STILL have not replaced the fridge thermostat, turning it on and off with a switch instead.... although our main issue there is too little cooling rather than too much. And "improvements" by earlier owners have created issues. And the weather is so much more rough and unpredictable than we are used to having in the Virgins. And so much more... And poor Cynthia has to deal with THIS:
On the other hand, I just read this article to Cynthia (https://www.cruisingworld.com/good-times-and-smooth-sailing-while-crossing-atlantic) and it makes both of us far less hard on ourselves: it seems that a lot of stuff just happens. And we are really learning to become comfortable with the shallows, with the boat, and with the Bahamas weather: like a wild animal that has a very low survival rate when transplanted to a new location as they have not grown up there and learned all the details, we are finding learning all this new stuff to be uncomfortable, even painful, but are getting to the point where the joys outweigh the frustration, pain, and uncertainty. For example, Cynthia dove in a blue hole yesterday for the first time and really enjoyed it... and we have found some great reefs... and sunrises and sunsets always deserve attention.
So... we plan to continue sailing the Bahamas until we have ironed out the rough patches on our boat and our comfort level improves. Then we may sail south... or it may be time to sail north and away from hurricanes for the summer.
We shall see.
PS: does anyone want to come assist in sailing during the bits when Cynthia has to work? Drop me a line! We have room for at least five to sleep aboard...
Since then we've had the mainsail drop when the halyard wore through, then the replacement wore partly through twice, so I need to go up the mast AGAIN.... and (once the chafing is solved) will buy and install new line. We've found the water tank empty when the water line leaked, so I should run new water lines... and test them as I used to do when plumbing a home (although most homes never experience this sort of shaking!). We have run into a storm at night that left us only able to steer by compass and failed at doing so, finding ourselves running the engine and flopping in circles... with about ten termites landing on our faces as they flew to our headlamps!... (Solution: next time we will simply heave-to for the storm and let the natural stability lent by the sails and wind steady us. Not sure what to do about termites and have seen none since.). And the traveler for the main keeps locking itself into place for reasons too complex to detail, but that I solved yesterday. The jib sheets are too fat for the self-tailing winches (I looked up the specs yesterday and they are far outside spec). And I STILL have not replaced the fridge thermostat, turning it on and off with a switch instead.... although our main issue there is too little cooling rather than too much. And "improvements" by earlier owners have created issues. And the weather is so much more rough and unpredictable than we are used to having in the Virgins. And so much more... And poor Cynthia has to deal with THIS:
On the other hand, I just read this article to Cynthia (https://www.cruisingworld.com/good-times-and-smooth-sailing-while-crossing-atlantic) and it makes both of us far less hard on ourselves: it seems that a lot of stuff just happens. And we are really learning to become comfortable with the shallows, with the boat, and with the Bahamas weather: like a wild animal that has a very low survival rate when transplanted to a new location as they have not grown up there and learned all the details, we are finding learning all this new stuff to be uncomfortable, even painful, but are getting to the point where the joys outweigh the frustration, pain, and uncertainty. For example, Cynthia dove in a blue hole yesterday for the first time and really enjoyed it... and we have found some great reefs... and sunrises and sunsets always deserve attention.
So... we plan to continue sailing the Bahamas until we have ironed out the rough patches on our boat and our comfort level improves. Then we may sail south... or it may be time to sail north and away from hurricanes for the summer.
We shall see.
PS: does anyone want to come assist in sailing during the bits when Cynthia has to work? Drop me a line! We have room for at least five to sleep aboard...
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