Invented islands
currently in: Little San Salvador, Bahamas
(see http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP for latest position)

We had an excellent ride from Rock Sound to Little San Salvador. For the first 13 miles the wind was mostly behind us, and we sailed "wing on wing," with the jib out to one side and the main out to the other. Sailing like this is relatively slow, very quiet, and incredibly smooth in the protected water on Eleuthera's lee.

The rest of the way we had to motorsail almost directly into the wind, which was bent by the island such that it was southwest as we rounded Powell Point and then southeast as we motored parallel to the island's southeast shore, but with such light wind the waves were tiny, and the windspeed kept dropping. By the time we turned due east for Little San Salvador the water was almost glassy.

We also had an incredible fishing day. We caught and released two large mutton snappers and a barracuda in the shallow water east of Powell Point; then in the deep water off southern Eleuthera, we caught THREE mahi-mahi. We kept only one, but it was fun to reel them in because they're extraordinary fighters and very pretty, with vivid blue and green flashing from their scales as they leap into the air. Both Britt and I got lots of exercise!

As we paralleled the southeast shoreline, we could see what looked like a huge apartment building in our path. It was the Star Princess cruise ship, anchored on the shelf off the Princess Cruise Line's "Princess Cay." I put that in quotes, because it's not actually a cay: it's a stretch of beach in southern Eleuthera owned by the cruise lines and operated as a day resort.

Through our binoculars we could see red-roofed pavilions, and cabanas, and row upon row of beach chairs. Small boats (well, the size of OUR boat!) ferried people back to the humongous mothership, which loomed above us like a city block mysteriously set afloat. I set our course to pass close to its stern; while we took pictures of the cruise ship, the people on it took pictures of us. Look, a charming tiny little sailboat!

Motoring toward Little San Salvador, which is ten miles east of the southern tip of Eleuthera, we looked behind us and saw the cruise ship, which must have collected all its passengers and lifted anchor shortly after we passed it. As we watched, it ponderously turned north, heading back to Florida.

This encounter was an appropriate harbinger for our destination, because Little San Salvador was bought in 1997 by Holland America cruise lines, and turned into a private island resort for their passengers. They renamed it Half Moon Cay, although the only place it's called that is on the T-shirts and postcards they sell in their gift shop; it's still unapologetically Little San Salvador on the charts and in the yachtie guidebooks.

When we were here in 2000, there hadn't been much development on the cay. Now there is a whole little fake villagelet, with open-air restaurants and bars, a gift shop, a castle-like facade complete with moat calling itself "Fort San Salvador," and even a "Bahamian church" which is essentially a 15x15 room with two benches and a steeple. There are paths along the beach and leading up to the ridge where visitors can walk or ride horses - yep, horses, which are stabled among the sand and scrub. And
of course there are the requisite beach cabanas and jetskis and kayaks and inflatable toys.

Fortunately, Holland America still allows yachts to anchor here (although we're supposed to stick to the corner of the bay farthest from the development), because it's a well-placed stopover between Eleuthera and Cat Island (although a somewhat rolly anchorage). They also don't mind if we walk around ashore when a cruise ship isn't in, so we hiked the trails and wandered through the weirdly empty pavilions and shop areas.

We've only seen a few employees, although one told us that there are about 30 who live there. The whole place has a kind of hush around it, tables with nobody sitting around them, empty booths marked "Hair Braiding" and "Souvenirs." A vacant village, quietly waiting for the right moment to spring to life. Waiting for the next ship to come in.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/29/2007 [link]  1 comments Post a Comment

 
Photos
currently in: Little San Salvador, Bahamas
(http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP)

I got a real internet connect in Rock Sound (for the princely sum of $5 for 15 minutes, in the gas station's convenience store, believe it or not!) and uploaded a bunch of photos via email, but apparently they never showed up on the blog. Fortunately, I suspected this might happen and also uploaded them directly to Flickr.

I'm not sure that html coding in text email will show up properly in the blog, so in case all you see is a bunch of html gobbledygook, I'm also giving plaintext links to the photos. (You can also see all of them, along with the most recent ones I've posted, at http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/)

Hopetown Harbor: http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472748888/
<a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472748888/><img src=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/210/472748888_bda266fc17_m.jpg></a>
Looking down from the Hopetown lighthouse.

Sailing along the Eleuthera coast: http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472763847/
<a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472763847/><img src=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/171/472763847_88fb22c955_m.jpg></a>
Sailing in the lee of Eleuthera.

Abandoned house on Cupid's Cay: http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472763395/
<a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472763395/><img src=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/201/472763395_c53fb4aae8_m.jpg></a>
This house sits on Cupid's Cay, which is connected to the rest of town by a causeway and forms the western edge of Governor's Harbour. On a previous trip to the Bahamas someone told us that if someone dies in a house, the house is abandoned and never used again.

Governor's Harbour: http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472763485/
<a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472763485/><img src=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/185/472763485_8263731f52_m.jpg></a>
Looking down on the harbor and Cupid's Cay from a hill in town. Windom
is the sailboat in the lower center of the picture.

Windom at anchor in Governor's Harbour: http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472763617/
<a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472763617/><img src=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/182/472763617_1cb6b37acf_m.jpg></a>
View of the harbor from the waterfront street.

Rowboat and islands: http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472763777/
<a href=http://www.flickr.com/photos/svwindom/472763777/><img src=http://farm1.static.flickr.com/219/472763777_e5a172d2d9_m.jpg></a>
A small boat in the shallows just south of Cupid's Cay, Eleuthera.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/28/2007 [link]  0 comments Post a Comment

 
Underwater blue hole in Rock Sound, Eleuthera

This blue hole's sandy bottom is maybe 25 feet down, much deeper than the surrounding water which is only around 3 feet deep. On the side away from the shore a rocky crack goes even deeper, opening into a cave that stretches back and down into the unknown.

- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/27/2007 [link]  0 comments Post a Comment

 
Blue holes
currently in: Little San Salvador, Bahamas
(see http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP for latest position)

We had to spend several days in Rock Sound, waiting for the wind to pipe down, so we did a little exploration of some of the many blue holes in the large and mostly shallow bay. Blue holes are collapsed caverns which have filled with water; they can be either inland, taking the form of nearly circular lakes, or underwater, where they stand out as vivid deep blue circles distinct from the pale color of the shallower water around them.

The Bahamian islands are riddled with blue holes of both types. One glance at the "ironshore" - limestone that's so full of holes it resembles (very hard and pointy!) Swiss cheese - and you'll see why: limestone readily erodes into caves. We've visited a lot of caves and blue holes all over the islands on previous trips - check out our logbook archives for pictures and stories.

Rock Sound has a large inland blue hole, the saltwater "Ocean Hole." Fish swim in it, and Britt and I swam in it too on our previous visit seven years ago.

This time we decided to check out the underwater holes, which are shown on our charts of the sound. (Rock Sound is the name of the settlement - the largest in Eleuthera - but it's also the name of the 4-mile by 1.5-mile bay.)

We started out by dinghying to one of the visible caves on the shoreline. It went back into the cliff for maybe 30-40 feet, but there was no sign of habitation either by humans or bats. Then we returned to the dinghy and slowly made our way south along the shore. As we approached the indent of a small bay with a sand beach and a house, we immediately noticed that the aqua water turned a much deeper blue right in front of the beach - a blue hole!

When we got closer, we could see that it wasn't so much a hole as a crack. Imagine opening a can of soup, running the opener not quite all the way around the rim of the lid. Then push the lid inward: it's still attached at one end, so it slopes down into the can, and at the deepest end there's a curving crack between the lid and the side of the can that leads down into the dark murky recesses of...soup.

In the case of this blue hole, it was fish soup. We dropped the dinghy anchor in the sloping sand of the "tin can lid," drifted over the deep crack, put on our masks, snorkels and fins, and jumped in. We dove down about 25 feet, past two groupers, to where the crack revealed itself to be a cave - continuing down and back under the surface of the shallows, and here my can metaphor breaks down, because that's outside the can. We couldn't tell how deep or how far the cave went. Another, smaller
cave under the "tin can lid" headed back toward shore, and looking at the chart I wonder whether it connects to the ocean hole.

After both of us had gone into the mouth of the cavern as far as we dared (not far), we got back in the dinghy and headed out to another suspiciously dark and shimmering spot of blue. This second blue hole was far out in the sound, another tin-can-lid crack with an overhung cave stretching back into darkness. Lots of fish swarmed here, including a small school of Atlantic spadefish (really cool-looking stripy fish shaped like the Ace of Spades) and a curious Almaco jack who followed us around as
we dove and swam.

On the way back to the boat we saw two more blue holes, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are more scattered across the bay. They are distinct when you see them - the dark blue of 30-50 feet of water really stands out from the 8-foot surroundings - but unless you're looking down on them, they're hard to spot at a distance. But they're definitely worth finding!
- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/27/2007 [link]  0 comments Post a Comment

 
Fish in the Ocean Hole at Rock Sound

Ilana watches gray snapper swim around in the Ocean Hole in Rock Sound, Eleuthera. This deep inland blue hole shows tidal variation, so it's connected to the ocean (or more likely, to the large harbor on the west side of the island, where there are many underwater blue holes). The fish seem very tame and are obviously used to being fed.

- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/26/2007 [link]  2 comments Post a Comment

 
Red state, yellow state
currently in: Rock Sound, Eleuthera, Bahamas
(see http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP for latest position)

Britt and I are fascinated by politics, and have worked on local and national campaigns. So it's especially interesting for us that the Bahamas is having an election (for the national assembly, kind of like Congress, I guess) next Wednesday.

It's just like an election at home...but different. Instead of Democrats and Republicans, here there is the FNM and the PLP. I don't know what they stand for (either platforms or initials) but from seeing placards around the various settlements, I know that PLP is "the clear choice", while voting for FNM is a "matter of trust".

All of the placards look essentially alike. There's a colored border - yellow for PLP candidates, red for FNM. The candidate is a black man in his 40s or 50s (and yes, both the Abacos and Eleuthera have large white populations and are about 50% female, but on every poster I've seen, the candidate is a black man). He wears a suit and looks out of the picture with a benign, avuncular expression. The identical typeface is used for name and party affiliation. In fact, here in South Eleuthera the
candidates even have the same name: Hubert Ingraham of the FNM is challenging incumbent Oswald Ingraham of the PLP.

(I don't know if they're related. It's not uncommon in the Bahamas for there to be just a few surnames that dominate each island. The original black settlers were slaves, who took their former master's surname. And on the islands where descendants of the (white) Loyalists remained, everyone's related to each other, I suspect.)

The posters are all over the settlements, on telephone poles and walls and fences. There aren't many bumper stickers - we've seen a few, but I suspect that in a country where cars must last a long time, people are unwilling to put permanent advertising on them. Instead, nearly every car has two little flags mounted on plastic pieces that fit between the window and the door frame, one on the driver's side and one on the passenger's. Yellow and purple for PLP, red, white, and blue for FNM.

(At first, my American eye thought there were an awful lot of pizza delivery cars in the Bahamas! Then I realized what the flags were. I think it's a great idea and wish we had them in the US!)

We first noticed the political placards and flags in Marsh Harbour, but as the election approaches, things are getting to fever pitch. Earlier this afternoon, we heard honking and yelling; we poked our heads out of the boat to see a parade going by, evidently a political rally. (With binoculars we made out the colors: yellow and purple.)

It's all faintly bizarre to me, of course, because I am an outsider. I don't know anything about the parties or the candidates other than what they look like and which colors they wave. Which makes me realize that the American political process probably looks equally as weird to a non-American!
- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/25/2007 [link]  0 comments Post a Comment

 
Windward beach on Eleuthera

No Photoshop here, you be the judge. Does the sand look pink to you?

- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/24/2007 [link]  1 comments Post a Comment

 
Governor's Harbour
The chart claims that the harbor's name is Governor's Harbour, and the actual town is called Colebrook Town, but all the signs - including the one on the government building - say Governor's Harbour, so that's what I'm calling it. It's a small, pretty town in which Victorian-style wooden houses which wouldn't look out of place back in Durango sit cheek by jowl with more typical Bahamian brightly-painted cinderblock and concrete houses.

Governor's Harbour was the first Bahamian capital, and is one of the oldest towns in the Bahamas. Along with the rest of Eleuthera, it was settled in 1649 by the Eleutherian Adventurers, a group led by William Sayle, the former governor of Bermuda. (The expedition began none too auspiciously as they were shipwrecked on the reefs on the north coast.)

At the moment the primary occupants of Governor's Harbour appear to be film crews. Not one but two movies are being filmed at least partly here, and the government dock area on Cupid's Cay - a once-separate island joined to the "mainland" by a causeway - is covered with tents and trailers, shipping containers full of props and scuba gear, boats and vehicles and just generally stuff. A fancy motor yacht is tied to the seawall next to a Bahamian freighter that looks like it's being used as a filming
base, along with several smaller dive boats and jetskis and pontoon craft.

One of the movies is called "Sirens of Eleuthera" which sounds like either a skin flick or a tourism promotion film. The other is "Fool's Gold," which (thanks, Linda!) stars Donald Sutherland, Kate Hudson, and Matthew McConaughey, who I think smiled and said hello to us when we passed them walking on the beach today. (The only one I would recognize is Sutherland, and I *think* it was him...maybe...) They did most of their filming in Australia but are filming "ocean scenes" here, according to one
of the crew who was setting up on Sunday.

Apparently they're only going to be here for a few days, but it looks like a crazy amount of stuff and people for a tiny amount of film. (Although, admittedly, two different movies - we can't tell which equipment is for which!) We can't figure why they are even using this place for "Fool's Gold" - the water's not all that clear, and the logistical hassles of getting things here must be insane. It's not too far from Nassau, but still, everything has to be shipped in by freighter. After all, Australia
has plenty of water as well.

(Early this morning, while I sat out in the cockpit combing my hair, I watched a small boat towing a bright yellow airplane tail section, artfully angled to look like it had wrecked, out into the harbor entrance. Hee!)

In addition to watching the antics of the film crews, Britt and I mounted an expedition to hike across the entire width of the island. It took about half an hour. On the windward side we walked along one of Eleuthera's fabled pink sand beaches; the pinkness is more a marketing ploy than anything else, but in bright sunlight the wet sand does have a pinkish cast, and when you look close you can see flecks of pink coral.

We saw lots of rental houses and cottages, and a new multi-bazillion dollar development going in where the Club Med used to be. On the chart, the bay along one of those windward beaches is called "Stinky Bay"; we predict it will be renamed something more mellifluous, akin to the renaming of Hog Island near Nassau to "Paradise Island."

In the afternoon we got into the water for our first snorkel of the cruise. Not much in the way of coral around here, but we swam around some old pilings and some underwater rocks that had broken off the cliff. A few fish - some even tasty eating size - but they were skittish and we are still out of shape, so although each of us took a few shots we didn't spear anything.

We did get a meal out of it though, as Britt found a large channel crab which he grabbed (and it grabbed back!) and stuck in the dinghy. It was a little disconcerting sharing the dinghy with something resembling a very very big spider - with BIG PINCHY CLAWS YIKES! - but it was worth it - lots of delicious meat on those crab legs, and we had ourselves some seafood at last.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/24/2007 [link]  0 comments Post a Comment

 
Our first sea meal

Britt poses with our first Bahamian catch - a channel crab, caught on our first snorkel expedition on some underwater rocks on the edge of Governor's Harbour.

- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/23/2007 [link]  2 comments Post a Comment

 
That's what those white flappy cloth things are for!
currently in: Governor's Harbour, Eleuthera, Bahamas
(see http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP for latest position)

In the last several days, we've come a long way, baby, and we've hardly used the engine, which is a happy state of affairs when it comes to sailboats. From Marsh Harbour we sailed down to the bottom of the Abacos, the Bight of Old Robinson (don't ask me who he is!) by Lynyard Cay. The next morning we got moving shortly after 6:30 am and immediately hoisted sail. Yes, even before coffee. I'm amazed I managed to point the boat in the right direction, considering.

We sailed through the southernmost cut in the Abacos and headed south across the open water for Royal Island, at the northern tip of Eleuthera. With wind out of the northeast, it was a fairly comfortable ride. As the wind started to die off toward late afternoon we were reluctant to motor. So we didn't: we sailed slowly all the way through Egg Island Cut, only motoring the last bit directly into the breeze as we approached the anchorage at 6 pm.

The first time we came to the Bahamas, we spent a few days at Royal Island exploring the ruins of a fabulous estate that had been built in the 1930s (http://windom.netrack.net/logs/2000/05.08.html). Now someone's bought the island. Generators run all night, construction crews work all day, and the ruins are off limits. We didn't even bother dropping the dinghy.

In the morning there wasn't much wind, so we motored for Current Cut. Since the tide had just begun to turn, we had only a few knots of current with us - not like the wild ride we'd had on our first visit. Then the wind picked up, and we put out the white flappy things again.

Sailing in the lee of Eleuthera is a real joy. The water's deep enough that you can go anywhere, and you don't have to keep an eye out for coral or shoals. The island keeps the waves small, but isn't high or wide enough to block the wind. A few small storm cells rained on the land, but never got close enough to us to do more than sprinkle (a shame - Windom could use the wash!)

Because of the storms, though, the wind couldn't make up its mind whether it wanted to be out of the northeast, the southeast, or somewhere between those two points. Sometimes it nearly died away, sometimes it gusted hard. It was not a day where we lounged and read in the cockpit; we were kept busy cranking in, letting out, reefing, unreefing, tacking, and then doing it all over again.

It was fun, though. The only thing better would be if we got to alternate our sail-handling activities with fish-reeling-in activities, but alas, a few nibbles and one stupid barracuda were all that showed interest in our lines.

The forecast is for nearly a week of strong easterlies, the wind slowly clocking ever more toward due east, which will make it easy to get to Rock Sound but hard to get to our next island, Little San Salvador, which is pretty much directly east of the southern tip of Eleuthera. This wind regime is likely to end with a cold front, and there's not much protection from those once we're past Rock Sound.

So we're taking our time getting there, since we're likely to be stuck for a while once we do. We spent last night in Alabaster Bay, anchored off the pretty sand beach of a small resort. This morning we sailed (another gorgeous run!) a grand total of 6.4 miles to Governor's Harbour. We'll spend a day or so here before moving down the coast again.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/22/2007 [link]  0 comments Post a Comment

 
Let's try that again, shall we?
Currently in: Marsh Harbour, Abaco, Bahamas
(http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP)

This morning, Britt took the outboard back in to the mechanic, who poked and prodded and decided that the pathway for the fuel at idle speed is just going to get gummed up periodically until all the salt is washed out of the system, so Britt learned how to clean it out, which it will need for a while, we guess.  So we're going to take what we can from this weather window and stage back down to Snake Cay for a bleary-eyed early morning start for the long run to Royal Island at the north end of Eleuthera. 

I am in a much better mood right now, which is in part due to the outboard outlook, and in part due to the excellent slice of coconut key lime pie I just ate at this internet bar cafe.  The cruising life is kind of like having bipolar disorder, I think: things are either awesomely excellent or dismal and horrid, with very little middle ground.

Anyway, cross your fingers for an awesomely excellent passage tomorrow.  The plan is two long days, to Royal Island and then to Rock Sound, and then we'll re-evaluate the weather for the next bit of moving south.

- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/19/2007 [link]  2 comments Post a Comment

 
Grrr
Cancel that last. We sailed south to Snake Cay, and then went out to Sandy Cay intending to do a little snorkeling before leaving tomorrow for Eleuthera...and the outboard decided it wasn't fixed after all. So here we are, back in lovely, scenic Marsh Harbour, where we will either get to the bottom of this problem or shell out the major $$ for a new outboard. I guess we'll miss this weather window for going south. Life sucks. Grrr.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/18/2007 [link]  1 comments Post a Comment

 
Yay fixed outboard!
currently in: Snake Cay, Abacos, Bahamas
(http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP)

The guy we took our motor to this morning was literally a shadetree mechanic: his shop was crammed full of parts and catalogs, so he works just outside his shop, under a big tree. He does all sorts of small engines, lawnmowers and motorcycles as well as outboards, and it looks like he does a good business.

His verdict was that salt water had gotten into the carburetor and gunked it up. The carburetor is not easy to get to on our motor, but he opened it up and cleaned things out, and did all sorts of arcane stuff - I don't know, maybe he sacrificed a goat, I went to run errands in town while Britt watched and helped and took notes. After the second test run they pronounced it fixed, and so it seems to be.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/17/2007 [link]  1 comments Post a Comment

 
Misery and woe
currently in: Marsh Harbour, Abaco, Bahamas
(http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP)

The wind started howling last night around dusk, and true to form, somewhere around 3 am it got truly nasty.  Here someone reported 40-45 knots steady gusting to 50s, with a high wind of 55 (we saw a high of 32 on our broken anemometer) and on a nearby island someone reported 60 knots!

The wind didn't shift as far north as we expected, and as this harbor is not very protected from the west, it got bumpy.  Bumpy enough to raise waves that made our 8 inches or so of low-tide clearance zero.  Naturally, low tide was around 3 am.  Needless to say, sleeping while your boat's keel gently thumps against the bottom isn't very easy.  (Fortunately the bottom here is soft mud, so it wasn't damaging.)

Today it is still windy and bouncy.  Nothing to do today other than chores and reading.  Even if our outboard worked well, I'd be reluctant to dinghy anywhere because the ride would be so rough - and no way will I risk having to row in this. The wireless internet is so marginal as to be worthless, so we can't connect to the net.   We can't go elsewhere, because we've got to bring the outboard in at 8:30 am tomorrow. We're tired and cranky. Did someone say this is paradise?  I want a refund.

(I'm sure my mood will improve later this week.  But right now we're remembering why we always went to the Exumas, farther south where the weather isn't so severe, rather than the Abacos.)


- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/16/2007 [link]  1 comments Post a Comment

 
The definition of cruising
currently in: Marsh Harbour, Abaco, Bahamas
(see http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP for latest position)

Marsh Harbour has none of the charm of Hopetown.  It's not a resort island, it's the third largest city in the Bahamas, and it shows.  Instead of a calm and quiet landlocked yacht harbor, it has a commercial dock where big ships come and go.  Instead of pastel rental houses, it has shopping centers; instead of - well, in addition to - waterside patio restaurants, it has KFC and Subway.  Instead of sharing narrow concrete pathways only with other pedestrians and the occasional bicycle or golf cart, we have to squeeze to the side on the roads - no sidewalks or shoulders - to avoid being hit by drivers who think that the proper response to a pedestrian is to speed up, honk the horn, and try to pass as closely as possible. 

What it does have is a Suzuki mechanic.  Which, alas, we have decided we need, as our outboard seems to not have recovered from its dunking.  Britt's usually pretty good at figuring out the mechanical stuff, but he's baffled.  It's not idling, it's dying randomly, there's either gas or water getting into the oil, but he can't figure out where.

We have an appointment Tuesday morning, the earliest the mechanic could fit us in.  Until then we are accomplishing a few big-city chores like laundry and grocery shopping (yes, I have lots of provisions, but I can't pass up the opportunity to buy more fresh veggies!) and hanging out reading and trying to get on the internet (which works about 10% of the time). 

At the moment we're hunkered down while the wind blows like stink from the southwest.  Britt repaired our flaky VHF by making a new cord for the microphone and did some epoxy work; I cooked up a batch of ginger fizz (see our recipes page) and did some cleaning; and together we figured out exactly how the autopilot is being screwed up when we transmit on the HF radio, which hopefully will give us a clue as to how to fix the problem.  So I guess we're "cruising" - that is, using the classic tongue in cheek definition, "fixing your boat in exotic places."  But we're anxious to get moving again to the beautiful and isolated places we prefer.

- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/15/2007 [link]  2 comments Post a Comment

 
Hopetown lighthouse

Windom posing in front of the Hopetown lighthouse, a candy-striped
concrete tower with an old kerosene-burning light that is still operated
by a keeper.

- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/14/2007 [link]  0 comments Post a Comment

 
Storms always hit at 3 am
currently in:  Hopetown, Abacos, Bahamas

For a cruising sailor, a dinghy is a critical piece of equipment.  It's what allows him to get to shore if he's anchored out.  It's how he visits other boats.  It's the way he gets to reefs for snorkeling.  In other words, if the cruising boat is the house, the dink is basically the family car.

Which is why we were hanging off Windom's stern platform at 3 am Wednesday, naked under rainjackets in howling wind and pouring rain, fighting to turn the dinghy back right side up.

Okay, let me start from the beginning.  The reason we're in Hopetown - in addition to it being an interesting destination that we'd not visited on our previous trip to the Abacos - is that it has a very well-protected harbor.  The entrance channel makes a dogleg, so from inside the harbor it looks completely land-locked.  The weather forecasts had warned that Tuesday night and Wednesday morning a low pressure center would pass north of the Abacos, bringing very strong south or southwest winds: 30 knots was forecast, and up to 50 knots from winds associated with thunderstorms, which could be in any direction.

On Tuesday we sailed from Baker's Bay on Great Guana Cay, where we'd spent the night.  The wind was just east of south, and we were going southeast, so we had to cover the distance in long tacks to the east-southeast and short tacks to the southwest.  But it was nicely doable, as we had only a few small islets and shoals to dodge around until the last few miles, where we had to motorsail into the building winds, nervously watching the dark clouds gather behind us.  A rain shower sprinkled us a little, but the skies didn't cut loose until after we had entered the harbor and picked up one of the moorings there.  (The harbor is so tight that there's no room to anchor.  The moorings are spaced so closely that it almost looks as though with a running start you could jump off your boat and land on the one next to you.)

It rained a few times on and off that afternoon and evening, but the winds didn't really pick up until after midnight.  And then they really picked up.  Britt and I were rudely awakened when Windom suddenly skidded sideways and heeled over hard, farther over than we'd been heeled sailing that day.  The dishes in the drying rack clattered loudly against the side of the boat, and we both scrambled to our feet and headed for the cockpit, terrified that the mooring we were on had given way or our line had chafed through, and we were free and about to smash into all the other boats on our way to a hard landing on shore.  But under us the boat twisted and straightened, coming bow to the wind again.

And the wind was howling, the rain coming down in sheets.  Lights flickered around us as everyone in the other boats got up to check on things, and every few seconds a bright flash of lightning would illuminate everything in a weird bleached-out sort of light.  After one such flash, Britt turned to me and yelled, so as to be heard over the wind, "The dinghy's upside down!"

"Oh, shit!" I yelled back.

Because with the dinghy upside down, the wrong part of the outboard engine is in the water, and engines don't like swimming, particularly not in salt water.  And all the things in the dink - anchor, oars, gas tank, seat - might have gone swimming, too, which would be a pain to recover.  And most of all, because it meant we were not going to get back to sleep any time soon, because in order to minimize loss and damage, we had to right the dinghy, pronto.

Now, our dinghy's a 12-foot RIB (rigid bottom inflatable), and weighs about 135 pounds.  Our 15-hp four-stroke outboard weighs another 100 pounds.  Add on the 5-gallon gas tank, the anchor, chain, and line, the oars and cables and whatnot, and the whole mess probably weighs around 275 pounds.  And of course the wind is still blowing hard. 

The dink had been floating behind us, tied on by its painter (a line attached to the bow) and the forward lifting line, which is set up with block and tackle to make it relatively easy to lift up to the arch davits.  We attached the aft lifting line on the dinghy's side, I hauled on them both, and Britt stood on the swim platform and hung onto the boat with one arm and used the other - and his feet - to push the dinghy over.  This makes it sound simple, doesn't it!  But it took us at least twenty minutes, and a lot of oomph from both of us, to set up and accomplish.

Once we had the dinghy righted, Britt took off the top part of the outboard case so that the copious rain would help wash the saltwater out of all the mechanical parts.  We pulled the dinghy tight to the stern so it wouldn't happen again, but the wind had definitely slacked to a less outrageous intensity, and we had no further problems (although we discovered a seam on the dodger - the canvas "windshield" that is in front of the cockpit - had ripped loose).  It turned out that at least half a dozen dinghies had flipped in the storm, and the next morning on the VHF net, one person with a land weather station reported he'd seen winds of 50 miles an hour.  Another cruiser whose dink flipped, and who also experienced the same near-knockdown that we did, opined that we might have been hit by a small tornado/waterspout.  I don't know - but it was pretty darn intense.

We had to dump the entire five gallons in the gas jug, as it was no longer gas but some combination of gasoline, seawater, and rain water.  Amazingly, we lost nothing in the dink - everything was either attached or wedged in well enough that it didn't come loose.  And once washed and dried out, the engine started up again after a couple of tries. 

It's supposed to be a calm day Thursday, so we'll (finally!) get into town and explore.  Maybe we'll take the dinghy out and go snorkeling.  We have a few days before the next cold front hits, and it's supposed to be another doozy.  So since we know this mooring will hold us in a blow, we might as well stick around.

- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/12/2007 [link]  2 comments Post a Comment

 
Photos!
currently in: Hopetown, Abacos, Bahamas

We're at a mooring in the protected harbor of Hopetown, a picturesque town with a lighthouse that stars in a lot of Abacos photography. No, I don't have a picture of it - yet. But as there's wireless internet here, I've uploaded a few photos we took over the last few days. As usual, each picture is a link to its Flickr page, where you can see a bigger version:



This pretty house sits out on the windward side of Spanish Cay, a private island in the Abacos.



View from the veranda of the house on Spanish Cay in the photo above.



Britt stands out on the bow pulpit as we sail slowly toward Powell Cay. Light winds + smooth and protected seas + nowhere to be in a hurry = yay!


- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/10/2007 [link]  1 comments Post a Comment

 
Spanish Cay, Powell Cay
currently in: Powell Cay, Abacos, Bahamas
(http://www.findu.com/cgi-bin/winlink.cgi?KG4EYP)

The winds kicked up from the northwest in the night while we were anchored at Great Sale, so we waited for them to slack a little before lifting anchor and heading for Spanish Cay late Saturday morning. (Not that we are sure what the winds actually were. In the early morning, while it was howling, our anemometer read 13-17 knots, but then a bit later it was stuck on zero again. I called another boat for a check, and he was reading 16 when I called, and 22-25 that morning. So we figure we have
a binary wind instrument: if it reads ANYTHING, there's too much wind!)

We motored out to the entrance waypoint, motorsailed the next mile north to clear the edge of the island, and then were able to put up some jib and turn off the engine. Hard on the wind for the first four miles or so, but then we turned basically straight downwind and it was lovely. The mainsail was rolled in and the jib, completely unfurled, ballooned out in front of us like a giant parachute. Protected as we were by islands and reefs to the north, the waves weren't big enough to rock us around
much, and we scooted quickly along, hour after hour.

At Spanish Cay we splurged on dockage at the marina, where we had to pull in anyway to clear customs. The customs official was a cheerful young woman who did not seem at all bothered by our arrival at nearly 6 pm on a Saturday, and we chit-chatted in our cockpit as we filled out forms and signed here and there.

As a second splurge we decided to have dinner at the marina restaurant. We provided two big hunks of the mahi-mahi we caught during the crossing, and the chef cooked it in a really nice cream sauce with tomatoes and yellow peppers. Of course, we were charged for their fish entree. And we brought our own wine and were charged $10 corkage, and even with no electricity or water the boat slip was still nearly $100. But hey. It was our 16th wedding anniversary, so. Splurge. And we did have a pleasant
soak in the marina hot tub!

Yesterday's light winds meant a very slow sail, but sail we did to Powell Cay, a huge distance of about five and a half miles. Then we spent an hour and covered another .2 miles just trying to anchor; finally, Britt dove in and set the anchor by hand, which (as we discovered when we looked at our logbook) he did the previous time we were here, in 2000.

The plan is to meander slowly southward and hit Hopetown on Tuesday, when the winds are supposed to get quite strong from the south in advance of another front. We'll tuck in then and wait for the north winds that come after, and use them to make more progress south and east.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/09/2007 [link]  3 comments Post a Comment

 
Ships pass (in the day)

Sorry for the tiny photo, but the connection's quite slow. A container ship passes behind us as we cross the Gulf Stream.

- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/06/2007 [link]  0 comments Post a Comment

 
In the islands
currently in: Great Sale Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

We snuck into the Bahamas on the tail end of the weather window. Great Gulf Stream crossing, motorboating on glassy calm seas, and we even caught a lovely big mahi-mahi, so the fridge is full of fish. But then the front came through like a hammer, faster and meaner than we were expecting, and we ended up having a rough night anchored on the Little Bahama Bank with no real protection. (Which we've done before. And actually, we joked that it wasn't nearly as bad as a few anchorages we've been in,
which is perfectly true. One night at Samana Cay, for example, I thought I was going to get seasick at anchor!) Really, the only scary part was seeing the flashes in the surrounding squalls. When you're the only thing above sea level for miles around - with a 56-foot high aluminum rod sticking up - you can't imagine how any lightning in the area WON'T hit you!

This morning started out with winds strong enough to actually break our anemometer loose for a while, and we sailed fast and heeled over even with our sails reefed down to tiny handkerchiefs, but during the day the winds slacked and we arrived at Great Sale Cay with full canvas and a pleasant breeze. (A breeze of 0.0kt, since after that first shake, the wind indicator froze up again.)

There are about fifteen boats here. Some are flying Bahamian courtesy flags, which means they've either checked in at West End, or are finishing up their cruise and staging back to the US; others, like us, have their yellow Q flags up indicating they have just arrived and are yet to check in. Tomorrow, weather permitting, we will head for Spanish Cay for the formalities of official entry to the Bahamas.
- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/06/2007 [link]  0 comments Post a Comment

 
Lake Worth anchorage

Here's a view from our cockpit of the anchorage here. It's not nearly
as crowded as it was the first time we were here, in November 1999, when
the basin was filled with boats waiting to cross to the Bahamas.

- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/03/2007 [link]  1 comments Post a Comment

 
Hurry up and wait
currently still in: Lake Worth, Florida

Over the weekend we watched the weather, and it looked as though a window for crossing to the Bahamas - the period of light southerlies and westerlies before a frontal passage - was nicely shaping up for Wednesday or so.  We hit the grocery store and West Marine, got our mail delivered to a local marina, and started getting excited about heading out.  And then we found a crack in our watermaker.

We didn't test our watermaker - a reverse-osmosis thingy that turns saltwater into fresh - until our offshore passage.  Part of this is because water is free and easy to obtain along the ICW, so we won't need it until the Bahamas, but the main reason is that the muddy, tannic waters of the ICW aren't good for the watermaker membrane.  We'd just replaced a part in it at the end of our previous cruise, so we figured it was a pretty good bet that it would work fine.  But when we fired it up in the middle of the second day, it leaked all over the place.  It was obvious where the leak was coming from, a fitting in the high-pressure Clark pump that's central to Spectra watermakers, so we decided to try tightening it up when we got to Florida, and then see if it worked okay or if we'd need to buy parts.

Well, on Friday Britt pulled out the leaky fitting and found it was badly corroded.  Worse, the place in the pump where it screwed in had a big crack. Cleaning up the fitting and slathering it with sealant before screwing it back in didn't solve the problem, so we phoned Spectra's tech support line, but I guess they must have knocked off early, because nobody was there.

On Monday we called again.  "Looks like you need a new Clark pump."  Fortunately, Spectra has a lifetime warranty on them.  (We've had various things go wrong with our watermaker over the years we've had it, and although clearly it's not as durable as we'd like, we have to say that Spectra's customer service has always been spectacularly good.) They gave us the number of their local dealer, but there was no answer when we called, so we called Spectra again and arranged for them to UPS a new pump to us. We sprang for two-day air, not wanting to wait around for any longer than we have to, but still, the pump's not going to arrive until tomorrow, and we're almost certain to miss our weather window.

There are quite a few things that need fixing, but that we're putting off until next cruise (when we will be smart and arrange for all the parts we need before arrival at the boat!): our wind indicator reads zero in anything short of a gale, our wind generator doesn't make nearly as much power as it used to, our refrigerator box really ought to have better insulation.  We could put off the watermaker repair too, but we wouldn't be able to do the kind of Bahamas cruising we enjoy.  We'd have to limit our showers - which isn't fun when you're snorkeling daily - and stay close to the inhabited islands where we can get more water, instead of spending long stretches of time in the remoter areas.  Hopefully another weather window will open up soon, and we'll be on our way.

- posted by S/V Windom @ 4/03/2007 [link]  1 comments Post a Comment