Travelling here and there

As Lori reached the end of her vacation time, we sailed north to Hatchet Bay so she could catch her flight.

We made it a night sail for various reasons, three of which were sunrise, sunset, and phosphorescence. Timing and wind also factored in and all five worked out well.

Once we reached the bay, Larry rowed her ashore

and she flew back home, leaving Larry with me. We prepared the boat for wind and water, moved the anchors to keep up off shore in the changing winds predicted for the night, and loaded the dinghy and kayak and tied them securely.

Morning brought strong winds and we made our way out of the harbor, holding our breath as we threaded the needle eye of the entrance of Hatchet Bay (too tight for me to take pics), and exhaled once we reached the open water.

The winds took us swiftly to the west, toward Current Cut, a notorious passage between Current Cay and Eleuthera (and another place that kept me too busy to take photos, but you can certainly google it). Pretty darned cool....and the high tide was just receding and sweeping us west with it. Soon we entered the open Atlantic, threaded our way between a few last rocks, and entered the deeps well before sunset.

Strong winds were forecast, but we reduced sail to mizzen+reefed jib and stayed fairly comfortable the whole trip, through the night, the next day until the wind reduced and we raised all sail and continued the following night, across the Gulf Stream.

Wind died ten miles before we entered Fort Pierce and we didn't start the engine soon enough to beat the turning tide, so had to fight the current the whole time we motored and sailed toward Vero Beach City Marina, but we arrived, signed in, and moored before dark.

One of the coolest things we used was a US Customs app that scans our passports and takes boat and other data, then allows Customs to do a video interview! Very nice and convenient!


Larry and I discussed things (I need to return a car from NC marina to MA, he was ready to head home, Cynthia's schedule, work required on the boat) and decided the best option would be to rent a car and head north asap, pick up the car in NC, and drive Larry home to NJ. Then I'd drive to MA, visit relatives there for a day, fly to CA to see my folks, then back to FL where Cynthia could meet at the airport and share a car back to the boat. Then we could spend ten days or so working on the boat and seeing David and Georgia (we enjoy them and Cynthia would like to learn from Georgia)

Great plans, but as soon as we made all reservations Cynthia called to tell me her work schedule had been changed without discussion or telling her about it until she told them of her plans. She is not free until the 4th, so this lays waste to our idea of doing one nice period together in FL and a later one in the Bahamas. Now we are busy refiguring our return to the south... maybe I will do a few essentials on the boat, sail out to the Bahamas, and she will meet me there.

So, Larry and I have driven to NC where we got in rather late, but (to my delight) found three of my friends and three of my favorite dogs enjoying a chat and some wine in the lounge.

The next day we drove to Larry's place in NJ,

where I have just finished a delicious breakfast of their free-range chicken eggs, scratched the horses, and beaten the dogs.

And soon I will continue on... MA tonight, CA Thursday night, back to FL March 26, and meet Cynthia in the Bahamas after April 4th.

Frustrations (sorry, no pics)

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

Out of Florida, heading ... south? east?

The new cable bobstay in place of the old chain looks great and ready for adventure.

I don't think the bilge pump has turned on more than a time or two since we repaired things, at least I've never caught it in action. The new alternator belt is finally tight enough.. I hope... that we will no longer open the engine room to find piles of rubber dust and a loose belt. Cynthia has packed every space in the boat with goodies and I have no idea where most things are, but I'll find them. Yesterday she even made a fitted sheet for our bed in the aft stateroom. And we've done so many more things! I think we are ready, finally, to depart....even though the dinghy leaks abominably (I'll fix it as we sail).

And, of course, when one is ready, the weather has to butt-in with issues.... it looks QUITE interesting, enough so that I even considered odd options. I think we will simply head south, spend a day on Cay Sal Bank, then continue southeast toward the Virgin Islands. Possibly we may stop in the Bahamas or Turks and Caicos, or we may push on through. We shall see.

I've found a good blog site and an email service that will work over my satellite phone, but it is all plain text: even signing into gmail would take hours at the slow data rate available. So, if you want to follow us, go to https://www.sailblogs.com/member/hydrophilia/
or contact us at hydrophilia@satxgate.com

I'll post our location and a few words at least once per day, probably twice. We may go fast and get to St John in ten days, but more likely will mess about and get there in a matter of three or four weeks.

Adventure!