Friday February 17
From Allen Cay (home to our friends the Iguanas) to Rose Island east of New Providence Island (Nassau). Doing 5 knots in 5 knots of wind. The water is turquoise and wonderfully clear. Every now and then we have to dodge a coral head but they are easy to spot as dark patches on the water.
Thursday, February 16:
The Allen Cays are known for protected Iguanas and I finally saw one shambling across the beach this morning. But we had too much to do so we will leave the exploring ashore until tomorrow
Who knew there could be so much to do on a little 31 footer? Like stow garbage under the forward beam covers!! Genius.
The day threatened rain so the guys put the dodger on to keep our cockpit drier. It has plastic windows which zip into place. A nice compliment to the bimini for shade at the stern.
Paul did some sail strengthening with a needle and thread. He worked a good chunk of the day on his task when one of the other cruisers dinghied by and said “I have a sewing machine onboard if you need it.” Too late but very kind.
Jim worked on the plumbing systems… And there are a lot of them. Not sure how some of this was installed but wow is it difficult to access.
I did laundry in a 5 Gallon bucket. Not easy but I collected rainwater in a tub (thanks Mom) for rinsing. Fyi, as of a couple of days ago, my nickname is now Pinky Bob… Don’t ask.
Haven’t tried running the water maker yet. Maybe tomorrow. We are carrying a lotof freshwater. Fresh running water to the galley and the vanity in the head, not to mention having an actual head, are luxuries we are certainly not used to in our F-22.
One of our neighbours moved so we pulled the anchors and reset a bit farther out from the rocky shore. Our ground tackle consists of Rocky our 33lb Rocna and Bullwinkle the 22lb Bruce anchors. We haven’t the tiny Bruce anchor in the dinghy yetbut we will!
Just finished a lovely supper of barbequed steak which Paul cooked up for. Incidentally, the Magma BBQ works fine after the guys fixed a seized valve.
Holy smokes something just crashed into the rigging !!! We ran on deck with head lamps. It was a bird!! It hit the rig and splashed into the water. Poor thing. It floated away with its wings flapping. I think just stunned. We were kind of stunned ourselves! Paul thought it was a rogue shipping container and Jim thought it could have been a whale (we’re in four feet of water by the way).
Tonight we are having a drink in honour of our late friend Steve Clarke. He would have had a blast on this kind of adventure. We think about him a lot and we miss him. Fair winds Steve. You were a hell of a good guy.
Wednesday, February 15: Sailors need wind. But sometimes there can be too much and it causes the waves to increase, especially if the wind blows down a long fetch of water such as Exuma Sound.
We had a rolly night at anchor at Lighthouse Beach. The wind clocked around from the south and increased overnight. We knew it would but had nowhere else to go.
This morning we set off to cross Exuma Cay. We were hoping to get to Staniel Cay as Jim really wanted to see the swimming pigs on nearby Big Majors Spot. But of course the wind was right out of that direction. The waves were ok but soon the white horses were racing off their tops And wave heights grew to about 1.5m maybe more. It was at least 15-20 knots all day. We had our mainsail double-reefed which was a good thing. At one point the guys saw a school of flying fish but I missed them.
Bashing south became too uncomfortable so we decided to reach northward for Highbourne Cay Marina but they were full. So we zigzagged our way through the shallows to SW Allan’s Cay.
We are anchored off of a beautiful horseshoe-shaped beach in 4′ of water with two monohulls anchored behind us in deeper water. Paul and I swam to check our two anchors and made friends with a curious ray. It had a small fish hitchhiking on top of it. The ray came right up to me, I think looking for a handout as folks sometimes feed them. I will post pics as soon as I can from my underwater cam. They say there are also protected iguanas here so we hope to see them. So good to get out of the strong winds though there is enough breeze in here to keep the bugs down.
Tomorrow the wind is to blow even stronger so we are staying put for another day, then we’ll see.
Tuesday, February 14 Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. 💗
Didn’t get too far today. We woke up and immediately started doing chores like stowing gear better, etc.
Jim was the first in for a swim as it got hotter. There wasn’t much wind so the swim felt really refreshing.
We dinghied into the settlement of Deep Creek to meet Trevor Pinder of Pinder’s Marine. He texted that he would meet us at “the dock”. When we neared the settlement, all we could see from the water was a long rock jetty. Was this the dock? The tide was ebbing and we weren’t sure there was enough depth along the jetty even for our dinghy. But never fear, the water is dredged on one side and there was Trevor waving at us from halfway down the jetty where he’d parked his car. He had a few bulbs which he thought we could use for the blown ones up the mast or at the stern. Nice guy. He goes up and down Eleuthera to help boaters. We have lights enough to light us up at night so we likely won’t go up to install these
The settlement has a bunch of dogs running around. Two males adopted us and trotted along in front of us as we walked up to the convenience store for ice cream. Jim gave the toffee-coloured dog some water and they were fast friends.
Back at Pinder’s shop, we shot the breeze with some townsfolk for a bit. When we made to leave, the two dogs alerted us to a pack of dogs up ahead and stayed close by our sides. The other dogs didn’t come near as we walked by. Amazing.
We said goodbye to the dogs and dinghied back out the not-so-Deep Creek through a route Trevor had suggested earlier as the tide was flowing out and parts of the Creek were drying out.
We hauled anchor after lunch and made for South Eleuthera hoping to get across to Little San Salvador but there just wasn’t enough wind. We sailed past Bannerman Town, which is the Princess Cruise Lines “desert island” where folks can come ashore to have a beach day or do excursions.
Checking the charts and the projected swing of the wind to South, we decided to anchor off Lighthouse Beach where it is nice and sandy.
Tomorrow it is supposed to be windy enough that we can sail over to Staniel Cay in the Exumas so we will try that. Cheers!
Anchored just outside of Deep Creek.
Meetin’ Trevor at the Deep Creek “dock”
Church at entrance to Deep Creek jetty.
Cemetery at a different church.
Our new friends.
Good bye friend.
View of our boat from inside the shallows of Deep Creek.
Bannerman Town below.
Monday, February 13:
Sorry if you were looking for our Tracker earlier. It was so busy getting all of our gear out of the cottage and getting underway that I forgot to turn it on!
We made MANY trips with the dinghy back and forth with our stuff (yikes have we got a lot of stuff!) and finally left the anchorage behind the house around noon.
We sailed out of the Sound and worked our way through the Shifting Sands off of Cape Eleuthera. Exciting stuff trying to figure out if those breakers we saw in the distance meant shallow water!!!! Or if the dark patches really were coral heads (yep) or if the really really light coloured water was really shallow water (yep). One really needs to navigate by eye and not trust the electronic charts. The key is the not have the sun in your eyes. I’d hate to round Cape Eleuthera in the dark! But all was good and we were very careful.
It was a beautiful afternoon of sailing around the Cape and south along the shore to Deep Creek. Light breeze, sunny but cool in the shade. We clipped along under main and Jib at about 6-8 knots. Going south we put the screecher up (the big light wind sail) as we headed for Deep Creek.
We crept our way into the well-charted entrance …which we knew was shallow, thinking we could drop the hook near the mouth when we touched bottom. Dang. No worries, it was all sand. Saw a sea turtle and some kind of big fish about 4′ long zooming around.
We turned out of the mouth and are now anchored just outside in about 6′ of shallow bottom.
The boys have the BBQ going and we’ll do supper soon.
By the way, we may soon be in areas with limited cell range but I will try to blog when I can.
Here is Jim looking pretty comfy at the helm. The deep water is indigo!
Paul having a well-earned rest in the shade earlier as we were sailing along.
The mouth of Deep Creek and our celebratory beverages on our solar panels.
First sunset at anchor.
We’ve got a sailboat! The first sail….minus the jib which was being scrubbed.
Trying to download some videos of the actual trip from Andy’s house to the “ramp”…then the launch and the craning of the mast…OMG what an adventure.
Today is Sunday the 12th but here is more info on Launch day yesterday after 4 days of:
Finally celebrated with some cold beverages at the end of a very long day! Videos coming…
We have hit the water and all is well so far. More pics and hopefully videos tomorrow about our activities today including the lift onto Andy’s own big powerboat trailer, the mile long drive down the narrow main road through town, the launch and the craning on of the mast, etc. In the picture above, the guys and some kids brought One Love to the town and anchored off of Andy’s house. Jim is in the shot coming to shore with the paddleboard.
“One Love” is now anchored behind our rental house and is glowing in the light of the full moon. We’re all exhausted so hitting the sack.
The Ocean Hole is an inland brackish water swimming hole in Rock Sound. It is a lovely spot next to the Elementary School and they have made it into a cute attraction with a visitor’s centre and a park. It is quite round and has roughly-eroded limestone edges about 20′ high.
We headed there after a long day of working on the electrical and plumbed systems of the boat. We met a local family there who helped to identify some of the fish which were schooling near the platform next to the water.. The fish come looking for handouts as many visitors bring bread and feed them by hand. I immediately slipped into the refreshing water and the little girl asked me if I was afraid to swim with all of those fish, some of which were maybe 12-14″ long. I said no. I took my underwater action cam (no it’s not a GoPro) and joined the school. It was so cool how curious/hungry the fish were. None touched me but the big French Angelfish (with white lips and small yellow fins) came within an inch or so.
Leaf Cay, Bahamas 2020
No they didn't capsize!
Leftovers on Fanshawe Lake
Thunderstruck at anchor, North Channel 2020
Trailer Tri Adventures 