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…..
No comments:
Post a Comment