Finally left the dock in Bullocks Harbour, spent the first night on the anchor just outside of the harbour, such a good feeling to be away from a dock! We left early the next morning and headed down the Berrys making it as far as Frozen Cay. It is a private island with a Bone Fishing camp on it, luckily no one was around so we picked up Ken and Merydie and headed in for a swim and walk on the beach. The water was beautiful and the beach was loaded with live Conch, a lot of them were out of the water so we tossed them back in deeper.... Nothing smells worse than a rotting conch...except maybe the water in Riverside Marina;(.     After our swim, walk and a tour around in the dinghy we headed back to the boat, Richard hit the sack at 820... That's a record for him!
       We left early this morning for Nassau... 730 is early by our standards, Quick Sticks had a good jump on us as they were gone by 540 but we caught up to them just as they were entering Nassau Harbour! Saw four large cruise ships in the harbour, two we had seen in our travels. We took on some fuel then headed out to the anchorage, after securing everything we headed into town to pick up another gas can and an impeller for the outboard. Our new dinghy and motor are wonderful and Richard loves to get it up on a plane but it sure goes through fuel fast!
      Nassau is known for its high crime rate so for the first time we will be locking ourselves in our boat tonight, usually we sleep with just a bug net over the hatch and companionway but we will latch the hatch and put the boards in tonight. We also have ensured the motor is locked and dinghy is up on the Davits and cable locked to the boat...don't like feeling this insecure in a spot:( but there have been lots of reported of break ins...
    Tomorrow we hope to head for Allen's Cay and get some swimming in, bad weather is headed our way so need to get to some shelter in a few days...

It's been hard to keep the blog up with poor internet service:(  We made it to Lake Worth then Fort Lauderdale via the outside, stayed at Lake Sylvia to wait for a window to head outside again for Dinner Cay, just south of Miami.
    On the 11th the weather looked favourable so we decided to take the plunge and head straight to the Bahamas from Fort Lauderdale. It was motor sailing the entire way but the seas were only 2-3 feet at most and light winds. Saw a few squalls but thankfully they were not near us, also some lightening in the distance. Made it into Great Harbour Cay at 8am after a 22 hour crossing. We do not do assigned shifts on overnight passages, but put a cockpit cushion on the floor and sleep in the cockpit taking turns as required. We are both light sleepers, a skill we developed from years of sleeping on the job;)
    Surprisingly I got a bit seasick on this trip but Richard had no problems at all, I was below cooking supper a little too long:( felt fine after some fresh air and a nap!
     We cleared customs in Great Harbour Cay after tying up to the dock. The marina here is lovely, Hans is the manager and keeps it spotless and well organized. After we tied up a fellow came over to talk to the boat next to us and looked at Richard and recognized him right away.... Turns out they played hockey together in Greenwood.. Small world! Ken and Merydie from Quick Sticks arrived around 2pm so that night we shared a yummy pizza with them. The next day the four of us took a walk over to the beach which is about a mile away, it's nice to get off the boat and stretch our legs! That night there was a meal put on by the marina so we headed up to that, it was a great turn out and we met lots of people.
    Yesterday the four of us walked into town to the grocery store, it's a couple miles away and we managed to get caught in a downpour on the way home, at least it cooled us down:) We picked up a cabbage and red pepper at one store for $6 and at the next one picked up a dozen eggs for $4.50. Last night we went to a pot luck and jam session at the marina. Roy and Val from Valkyria brought their keyboard and guitars( they are on a huge motor yacht) and played, they are amazing musicians and singers. We had sat with them the previous night and they are such a delightful couple, they own a restaurant 'the oarhouse' in Pensecola Florida, both got their pilots licences about 7 years ago and have their own plane so go back and forth to Florida, lots of fun!

Dec 2 2015

       We are experiencing some technical difficulties with getting pictures on the blog from my ipad so I guess I'll have to use the laptop, any suggestions would be appreciated!

       We had planned on taking the dinghy to shore to do some exploring this morning but the noseeums were driving us batty and would have been worse in the mangroves so we decided to move on! As we were preparing to go the boat beside us started to head out only to become firmly grounded on a shoal so we stayed around to offer assistance. He was finally able to get off by dinghying an anchor out off his stern and with the help of a rising tide, this technique is called kedging.

       Our destination was Peanut Island Anchorage in Lake Worth a distance of 25 miles, we do an average of about 6 knots  motoring so it would be an easy day. One of the frustrating things about the ICW (other than the possibility of running aground in the narrow channels or the inconsiderate big motor yachts that like to throw us a wake) is the numerous bridges, our mast is 53 feet so we can get under alot of the fixed bridges that are usually 65 feet, which is great. Today we had to go through 8 bridges, only 1 was a fixed bridge, three were on request so as we approached we asked for an opening, and the other 4 were restricted which means they are on a schedule usually every half hour so that usually means going full out to try to make it in time, we did great today except for one bridge... we were about a 1/4 mile back as it opened and he wouldn't keep it open for us :(  so we ended up having to wait 30 minutes for the next opening.

    Lot's of huge houses and boats along the way today, a fair share of derelict boats as well. Passed by a large nest in a tree, it looked like the tree would topple with the weight of it.

The lighthouse is Jupiter Inlet Light built in 1850, over 500 tons of material had to be brought in to build it. Since the inlet was too shallow for navigation, supplies had to be unloaded from larger sailing vessels and then ferried up river using shallow draft boats which was done in 50 trips, all while fending off insects and Indian raids. When the lighthouse was complete someone stole the lens, supposedly Confederate raiders hid the Fresnel lens as an attempt to confuse blockading Union ships. At the end of the Civil War the lighthouse keeper conveniently found the lens, buried in Juniper Creek…. Such interesting history!

  As we passed through Lake Worth Inlet we were hit by a squall with heavy rain and limited visability, thankfully it was short lived and was over by the time we entered our anchorage:)

  Ken and Merydie from Quick Sticks out of LaHave Yacht Club were already here so we got together on our boat after we were settled in, lots of other boats in the anchorage as well.

Dec 1st 2015

    It was a busy morning doing last minute errands, our daily trip to the bank for withdrawal as ATMs are few and far between in the Bahamas and pick up more pop even though we don't drink much of it I refuse to pay $48 for a case. While I was gone Richard was busy getting the boat ready for departure, stowing fenders and ropes, checking fluids and instruments and getting charts ready. As soon as I got back he took the car to get more rope and parts he needed as I stowed everything down below and gave the boat a quick wash down. After spending 9 months on board together last year we have our routine down pat. Richard dropped the car off at the storage facility and we finally pulled out from the dock at 130pm. It's nerve wracking getting out of marinas especially when you have a new propellor on and are unsure of how it will handle but Richard did an awesome job and we didn't even run into anybody this time;)
   It felt good to be back on the water and it wasn't long before Richard spotted the first dolphin playing off our bow! We planned a short day down the inter coastal waterway(ICW) to Peck Lake (around Stuart) about 20 nm. The weather was beautiful but since the ICW is narrow we motor most of the time.
      As I steered us into the anchorage Richard was busy getting the anchor ready, it was 5pm and there were 4 other boats already anchored. It was a little scary as I saw depths of 1 foot 2 inches under our keel but we set the anchor and put up the riding sail just before the heavens poured down!
     We are looking forward to our first night on the hook in seven months. We are well protected behind some mangroves but can hear the ocean breaking on the other side of them. The wind is picking up so we will undoubtably be lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking of the boat:)

Oct 17th

  Well the fall decorations are put away, the lawn furniture stored and Christmas gifts wrapped. The bags and car are packed as Richard and I head out in the morning on our next big adventure. We are off to visit Richards sister Linda in Sackville NB, his other sister Kathy in Carleton Place, Kyle and Kate in Peterborough then Christine, Phil and Connor in Pennsylvania before heading to Florida to prepare the boat for six months in the Bahamas and Cuba. Looking forward to the trip but as always will miss the kids and grand kids!




Oct 26th

Winter is officially over for us and it's back to sandals and shorts yay! We are in South Carolina and will be at the boat in Fort Pierce today. Had a great trip with visits to Richards sisters and Kyle Brodie and Kate Ayrheart and then to Pennsylvania to see Phil, Christine and Conner.

Oct 27th

finally made it to Fort Pierce Fl, we booked a room through Air B and B and it is a lovely spot at a great rate, highly recommend checking them out if you are traveling on a budget:) All is well at the boat, very little mildew thank goodness, all our efforts paid off before we left. Spent the day sanding and cleaning, needless  to say Richard never stopped as well checking everything out. Hopefully we will be ready to launch on the 31st.

Oct 31st
Salvation finally went in the water today! We motored through the Fort Pierce North Bridge over to Harbortown Marina where we will stay until we are ready to cross for the Bahamas and Cuba.

Nov 27th

We came back out of the water today to fix a leaking thru hull, put on a new Campbell Sailor prop and have have a piece welded on to mount our new dinghy motor. All went very smoothly and were back in our slip in no time.

Nov 30th

Richards Birthday! We haven't been posting as it's been really busy getting the boat ready for our trip and it's taken far longer than we expected, seems like it's been one step forward and two steps back!  Richard has done some great upgrades this year such as new dinghy Davits complete with more solar panels bringing our solar power up to almost 600 watts! Fridge upgrade, new antenna wire, purchase of a new 9 foot dinghy and 15hp motor not to mention tons of little jobs that needed doing including fixing a leaking water tank!
   Even though we still have lots of things that need doing its time to leave so we will be departing Fort Pierce tomorrow heading southbound. We really haven't set a destination or timeframe, just southbound then cross over to Bahamas enjoy the sun and sand then to Cuba sometime in January. We are excited to get underway again and start another adventure together!

Haulout

Well this final blog of ours has been a while in coming due to being a very busy week. We stayed out in the anchorage on Friday after our arrival and a quick check in at customs. The anchorage was rolly, lots of traffic and has high currents so it is not a fun spot to be for long. Fortunately early Saturday morning we were able to get a dock in Harbourtown Marina, not far from Ken and Merydie. The next few days were busy getting a storage unit (a 5’ X 10’ size) and filling it with stuff from the boat so that it and the boat could breathe and not get moldy. We thought a 5’ X 5’ unit would do us, but all they had was the bigger sizes. The funny part is that we were hoping to rent out the other half – but as you see by the picture, it is full! How did the boat float!!!!

We had fun getting together with other cruisers during this week, the weather was very hot so the end of the workday was mid afternoon when we would retire to the pool. We were fortunate to have Ken and Merydie around as we borrowed their car way too much until we got our own. They were scheduled for haulout on the next Friday and we were to be 5 days later. There were many trips to Riverside Marina to ask/beg/plead to come out earlier…….

On Friday morning I went with Ken and Marydie on their boat for their haulout, while there, I was told to bring over our boat to be ready – excellent! Here are some pictures of getting ready to be hauled. Notice the fellow in the mask – no he is not a terrorist with a bomb to blow up the boat, he is the operator of the lift and is using a remote control unit to emulate the controls on the lift. The mask? not sure – I didn’t want to ask, especially when lifting our boat :) We were hauled fairly quick and were out by early afternoon. Note the filthy bottom, no wonder we were not motoring as fast as we should have been, of course we had been in the water for 11 months. Our water line was the worst even though I had cleaned it many times already. We will need to raise the water line next year (due to all the extra gear on board…..) so I told the pressure washer guy to not to worry about peeling off the water line paint.

The next 3 days were spent “summerizing” the boat, which is new to us. I took the “winterization” list and modified it, hope I got everything but it is definitely easier. One of the biggest issues is that it is very hot when doing any work….of course we are not complaining after the winter most places have had this year.

Besides all the stuff in the storage shed these are the bags in our hotel room to come home – where did we put all this stuff on the boat? How did it float? We also have another 3 - 4 bags at Marg and Jacks to come back as well!

Anyways, the plan is to drive a vehicle back to Nova Scotia with one of the “drive away” services so we will see how much we can bring…

Well this concludes our trip of 2014/2015, we hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed sharing it with you. Hopefully we were able to pass on some new and interesting information – so until next time……. Fair Winds,

Richard and Heather

Florida

What I can’t figure out is how we can send a man to the moon (45 years ago unless you believe the conspiracy theorists!) but yet we can’t predict the weather! How the winds, which were to be 10-15 from the southwest in the morning could change so much in 24 hours!!! The latest info was no winds until night time. With that in mind and contrary to the last blog I decided to take the more southern route on the hope that the gulf stream would make up for the low winds. Anyways the winds were non existent for 10 hours so we had to motor to the stream (55 NM away). We were however able to sail over half way of the next 70 NM which was great, the moon was full and the sky was mostly clear. Between the banks and Florida is a fairly busy area and I think we saw (on AIS) 3 huge super tankers and a cruise ship which basically looks like a floating city. In fact they are so big at night that it throws off your perception of them.

Neither one of us sleeps well on a night crossing but is just one of the things you have to do and then suffer for it the next day. We were greeted to both an amazing sunset and sunrise! We made it in at 9:30, which was great for the tide and lack of current in the inlet. When you arrive you must call US customs (put up yellow quarantine flag) and not leave the boat until they tell you to report to them, which in this case is at the municipal airport. Ken Houldsworth drove us there and the check in procedure went well.

We are going to try to get hauled out on Tuesday, which is earlier than planned but we are here now and ready to start putting the boat away.

Great Sale Cay

Well, this is our last night in the Bahamas, there are lots of other boats here (counted 18!) waiting to go as well. There are some going to Ft Pierce like us but others are carrying on farther north into Florida and the Carolinas.

Warning – technical stuff next…..There are 3 main routes from here to hit the outer banks before the gulf stream, lots of different ideas on which is best, stay in the stream longer so you must enter it further south or get across on a shorter route, esp if the weather is not perfect. I choose the middle route as the further south one added 10 NM more (but may be able to make up for it when you hit the stream….). The stream flows at 2.5 to 3 NM northbound and the dimensions constantly change but for our distance and speed (bit of a guess here too) we will be in it about 13 hours which should push us 30 NM north of our course if you steered for your target! So instead of steering 290 degrees we will steering about 260 or so when in the stream – will see how this works out. Slack tide at Ft Pierce is at 10:30 so would like to arrive around then, so will leave around 10:00 tomorrow morning.

Great Sale Cay

Well this is our final island in the Bahamas before heading to Florida in a few days. The island is uninhabited (Great Sale Cay) but is a main stop for boats to/from the US. The normal anchorage is “North West Harbour” but contrary to what it is called, it is located on the south western side of the island – guess somebody failed compass reading 101….

Anyways the winds are going to come from the south west tonight so there is a big bay to the east (Tom Johnson Sound) that we decided to try as it should be less rolly than North West Harbour. The neat thing is, we have it to ourselves, this is the first time since we have been down here that this has happened – and now we are going back :(

The beach looks nice from the boat but when you go to shore it is anything but pristine! It is littered with junk from the sea that has washed up, it is mostly plastic products with the 1 litre oil bottles being by far the most prevalent! I can’t believe people would still be throwing this stuff out, but with plastic it could have been here for 30 years, so it may not be new. We haven’t seen a lot of garbage on the shores, which makes me think that it normally gets cleaned by somebody.

Tomorrow morning after the wind dies out we will head over to the other anchorage.

Foxtown

We arrived in Foxtown after a 6 hour motor – yuck! The town is laidback and has more of a local flavor than most of the Abacos, a nice change. Fishing is the main livelihood here, inside the local bar was lots of pictures to prove it, this big “black tipped gruper” being one of them.

The area surrounding the approach to the harbour was filled with small rock islands, totally different than we have seen so far in the Bahamas. Tomorrow we head to our last stop before crossing to Florida.  

Manjack Cay

Manjack Cay is a neat little island that is privately owned. The owners like us “cruisers” and have opened up the island to them! They have lawn chairs, tables etc set up on the main beach when you go in. There are also well marked trails that go to beautiful beaches but to get to them you must go through their back yard where there is laundry on the line, sort of strange! The water is very clear here, you can see lots of turtles and rays swimming around.

This catamaran that we are anchored beside has three permanent furlers on board, no way to tack without furling them in…

Green Turtle Cay (White Sound #2)

We stayed in White Sound another 4 days as there was some nasty weather coming our way.  Gusts of 30-40 knots were predicated for Friday night. I had the riding sail out and our 40 lb kellet on the anchor chain to do everything I could to ease the load on the anchor. About 7 PM the lightning show started, it was quite impressive; of course we would have been much more impressed if we weren’t sitting on the water only a few feet from a large lightning rod!!! Fortunately most of it went from west to east and was just to the north of us. That didn’t stop the gusts of high winds from coming – up to 36 knots then steady for the rest of the night at about 25-30 knots. For a short period of time I put the engine in gear to ease some of the load on the anchor. We took some shifts watching things and keeping an eye on other boats but unlike the other day nobody seemed to break free.

Besides the storms, it has been fairly quiet here and we see a window (April 1^st eek!) to go back across to Florida although it looks like it will be a motoring crossing. We left this morning and went 5 NM to Manjack Cay to get ready for tomorrow morning.

Green Turtle Cay (White Sound)

Well it was a quick jaunt to White Sound from Black Sound. There is a bit more room in here than the other harbour for anchoring but still there are a lot of mooring balls in the way. This area here is not known for good holding but when you bring up the anchor there can be a lot of mud on it soooo it appears like the anchor sets ok. Our friends Scott and Michelle on Malaika are here, Scott is quite a good lobster hunter and has agreed to bring me out when the weather settles. Speaking of weather, there are another few fronts coming through in the coming week and there is not a lot of good hiding spots in the northern Abacos after this so we have decided to stay put. Also a large barge sunk in the Ft Pierce inlet (where we are checking into Florida) a few weeks ago and they are still trying to remove it. Right now there are restrictions in place for vessels coming through the inlet so delaying a bit would not hurt – plus there is still that nasty white stuff at home…….

After supper the first night we started seeing some lightening in the distance – this is the first lightening we have seen since arriving in the Bahamas! The weather up here in the Abacos is more like Florida than what we are used to, a lot more cloud and rain. We had just settled down to a movie when the winds picked up from nothing to maybe 30-40 knots. We started the engine to warm it up in case we had to reset anchor and if needed to use it to ease the load on the anchor. Heather watched the GPS and I watched the boats around me but fortunately we didn’t move. This micro burst only lasted about 10 minutes but one big catamaran on a mooring broke free (some of the mooring balls are not well maintained…) and drifted behind us to the shore, fortunately it never hit any other boats. Also two other boats dragged as one left the harbour to go somewhere else (it was fully dark) and another circled the harbour many times before finding a new spot. The owner of the cat was on the boat but the hired captain (I don’t understand it either…) was on shore having supper. After a few frantic calls on VHF 16, the hired captain proceeded back out to the boat. Myself and another cruiser from Canada (who also has a Tartan 37!!!) arrived in our dinghies to lend a hand, it was raining hard but the wind had calmed down quite a bit. There was some damage to their steering but they were able to get off the shore under their own power and steer using the two engines. The large waterproof spotlight that Kevin give me as a Christmas gift worked great and I was able to help lead them to a open spot to drop anchor once they figured out how to steer and to miss all the other boats.

The next day was flat calm so Scott, Greg (from Kelowna) and I went to the other side of the island to go after lobster/fish. It wasn’t long before Scott found a lobster and he gave me the first chance to get it. I got most of the way down but it was just too deep for me to get my ears equalized quick enough and to hold my breath that long. I can do about 20 ft of depth now but this was deeper. He went down and speared it - probably a 2-3 lb lobster! I did find my own lobster however, managed to hurt it enough that I couldn’t get it out of it’s little cave. Scott was back to the rescue and managed to fish it out! He also got another two lobsters after this and gave us two of them for supper! At one point Scott got a hog fish which quickly bled, he got it out of the water, but in no time there was a couple of sharks circling us from a distance! Time to get out of the water and move to another spot!!! Getting lobster doesn’t attract the sharks but when fish bleed they are there within seconds. EEK!

Later in the afternoon I tried a new sport that Scott made up called “derfboarding”. Basically using a dingy to pull you around while trying to stand on a surfboard. For some odd reason I got up the first time, sort of like water skiing with one ski but there is nothing to put your feet into – hard on the legs but it was fun!

Heather was occupied cleaning up the boat while I was out playing most of the day and even washed the floor! There is a wood polish that she uses that is orange in colour that works well, however later in the evening when I asked what the orange “goo gone” bottle was doing out….well you can guess what happened! On a side note the floors looked good and have a great grip – maybe we should write the “goo gone” company…..

   

Green Turtle Cay (Black Sound)

The trip to Green Turtle Cay went well, we had to go thru a cut (Loggerhead channel), outside of Whale Cay and then back inside Whale Cut. These cuts are prone to nasty waves and current when there is any sort of wind opposing any sort of tide (called a “rage” when it is bad). Fortunately our preplanning was on and we had a good passage. There are two distinct parts to Green Turtle Cay,  “Black Sound” to the south and “White Sound” to the north. We choose to go to Black Sound for the first day as it was closer to the town, which is New Plymouth.  The town is very colourful with each house painted different. Sort of reminds us of Lunenburg but with more pastels.  

In town is the Memorial Sculpture Garden, it is full of busts of important men and women of the Bahamas. Some of these busts are quite old and were made in the 1800’s as the dates are inscribed on the back of each one.

This tree seemed to be a combination of many trees growing together, take a look at the large thorns on the branches, guess there is no climbing that tree. The roots were also unique in that they were very oval shaped as oppose to round.

In the harbour is a small area with lots of mangroves, these boats must not have moved since the last big storm and are well tied to the trees.

Treasure Cay

We left Guana Cay and motored to the lee of Fishers Cay. There looked to be some coral there, so our idea was that we could anchor near by and go snorkeling. As it happened the coral was not very interesting so we just swam for a while and had an early lunch. About 1:00 PM we left for Treasure Cay and could actually sail!

Unfortunately we arrived at the windy and shallow harbour just after low tide. We made it in ok but had a few local boats come up behind us as they were more familiar with the approach but there was no room for them to pass. The harbour was man made many years ago with 3 main arms going off from the center. There are many condos/villas and a large marina in here. There is also a beautiful beach (rated #4 in the world – not sure who or how they rate these things….) but we did a walk on it and it was pretty amazing. Tomorrow we are heading to Green Turtle Cay.