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.