It’s All about Miss Grace – what it’s like cruising with an elderly dog.

We are travelling with The World’s Best Dog, Grace. She is a lab mix, rescued by our daughter who vowed to do all the work and then promptly left home for college! She is nearly thirteen years old. Last September our vet told us that Grace was a very poorly dog with weeks, not months, to live. With that bombshell we opted to do no further medical investigation, just enjoy what precious time there was left.

When we first envisioned this trip It was always our intention to bring Grace with us, but after getting the bad news we set about planning for it with the expectation that she would not be around when we set off in March. Grace however was not listening to the vet’s prognosis and like an Ever-Ready battery, and with a steroid every other day, she keeps on going, albeit at a slower pace. Our planning then changed to bringing her with us – but also included what our options were should she die mid-trip. We will not discuss those horrible options here as we are in the final two weeks of our trip and all is well (touch wood!).

So what is it like travelling on a boat with an aging dog?

See previous post about our attempts to have her do her business on board:  http://atanchor.com/?p=1079

Our anchorages are chosen with Grace in mind, is there a beach close to hand? Does it look suitable for the dinghy? Three times a day, and after checking for other dogs, we troop into shore, no matter what the weather. Mostly we have been very fortunate, occasionally not. Getting an elderly dog into a rocking dinghy is a challenge. We invested in a doggy life jacket with handles, mostly so we can lift her in and out. Often people ask me about the life jacket, I tell them it’s for my benefit more than hers.

Once on the shore it did not take Madam but a minute to realize the high water mark was a great place to find smelly things to eat. Resulting in her eating the remains of a bird and then an episode of vomiting and with blood in her urine many miles away from a vet. Luckily she survived but on shore we watch her closely and chase her away from the yucky stuff.

As diligent dog owners we leave the beach clean and bury poop under bushes or trees and away from where children might play, using a garden trowel that we brought along specifically for that purpose, and quickly before the flies swarm.

One thing we have noticed, for the first time in her life, Grace needs her nails clipped. Three months of only sandy beaches has left her with talons! We hear her clip-clopping on the deck and I think she finds these nails uncomfortable. I didn’t expect or prepare to clip her nails and improvising with a sandpaper just didn’t work! We will wait to get home for a day at the doggie spa!

Grace has taken to living on the boat and revels in the close quarters with her human pack, so much so that she believes she should never be left behind. And is very vocal in her objection to that happening! Sometimes in a quiet anchorage we have to take her with us on unsuitable dinghy rides just so our neighbors can have peace.  For example she came on the long ride with us to the Rocky Dundas cays where we snorkeled in caves. We had to anchor in deep water with no available beach and she had to sit in the boat, with just a short dunk in the sea to keep her cool. Thank goodness we do not have to worry about her jumping in! As far as she is concerned, as much as she didn’t enjoy the trip, anything is better than being left behind!

When it comes time for meal prep Grace can be found lying on the floor in the galley, in the most inconvenient spot there is. Not a crumb does she miss! We have all become adept at stepping over her!

She accompanies me for most of my chores, and is a vigilant supervisor when we lift or lower the anchor. As stairs have become a struggle we have a routine when we are underway. Once the anchor is secure I help her up to the flybridge where she tucks herself in the corner to ride out the swells. I close the door to the steps and if we are up there she stays put. A broken leg at this stage would be a significant problem for us all.

On our walks along the beach Grace can usually be spotted at our heels and I love the gentle pace of these walks. She paddles to cool down and swims which I presume feels good to her aging joints. Seeing how happy she is on the beach you cannot doubt she is loving life regardless. What a retirement she is having!

I have absolutely loved having Grace with us on this trip and could not have left her behind. However if you are thinking of cruising with a four legged friend do not kid yourself, it adds to the work load, and does affect your cruising plans.

Sian

Northern Exumas and back to Georgetown

Wednesday April 19^th through Monday May 1^st  

We left Emerald Rock and headed north to Hawksbill Cay. We had so liked the anchorage there we decided to return. We anchored right beside a nice 100+ foot yacht and watched the crew pamper their owners/guests.  We also got an awesome opportunity to swim with some turtles that had come to inspect us!

After two VERY relaxing days at Hawkbill we headed north again to Normans Cay. When we got out to the Exuma Bank and made our turn north the storm clouds rolled in with plenty of rain. We quickly headed below and ran the boat from the pilothouse*. We prefer to run the boat from the flybridge* as we have better all-around visibility, and it is easier to see the bottom, especially when navigating the shallows. Thankfully the storms had moved over before we made the turn east for Normans – which was a good thing because the approach to the anchorage was VPR*. The anchorage at Norman’s was wonderful. We were able to take Sonas practically up to the beach. We anchored just off the small resort there as we knew that there was a bar/restaurant there called McDuffs that we wanted to visit.

Since we got there at lunchtime we decided to go in for lunch. When we got to the beach there was a sign saying that the restaurant was closed. But…. we are in the islands, so we decided to walk over to the restaurant and check. Of course it was open and they were happily serving lunch! We did tell them about the sign and they just shrugged!

Norman’s used to be the headquarters for a large Medellin Cartel drug smuggling operation, with lots of bribes to local police and officials to turn a blind eye. In fact there is one of their planes still sitting in the shallow water where it crashed.

See the story here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman%27s_Cay

The next day we were joined by a pair of DeFevers who were travelling through the Exumas together – Escape, a 49 raised pilothouse and Aries, a 44+5. We would bump into them a couple more times.

We stayed at Norman’s for a couple of days, then decided to head south to Big Majors and start to slowly make our way to Georgetown to pick up our next guests. As we got back out to the Exuma Bank we were surprised by how much wind and waves there were. If we had known how bad it was we would probably have stayed at Normans until it blew over. Again we had to run the boat from the pilothouse. Soon after starting off a cupboard door flew open in the galley and all the plates and bowls came tumbling out. Since they are plastic it wasn’t the disaster it could have been, only one smashed bowl. After about an hour of pounding the waves Paul, watching the rear-facing camera on the monitor in the pilothouse, saw our dinghy floating away from the boat. The tow rope had snapped in half. Paul quickly turned Sonas, and managed to lay her against the dinghy so that the waves held us against it. Using a boat hook we were able to grab the stern rope we also had on the dinghy, and walk the dinghy back to the swim platform. As Sian held the stern line Paul was able to grab what remained of the tow line at the dinghy’s bow and the piece still attached to Sonas and connect them using a reef knot. With that done we got back on course again, hoping that the knot held! About thirty minutes later the red warning light came on indicating that our stabilizers were overheating due to the work that they were doing in the seas. Enough was enough so we made the decision to turn into the nearest cay, which happened to be Emerald Rock again, and lick our wounds!

Because the winds turned south during the night it blew straight into the anchorage and we had a pretty torrid and bumpy night – but safe. Poor Grace could not get ashore to do her business, eventually having to sneak away to the bow of the boat and go there.

The next morning we got the news that Tom (of Tom and Jane from Elizabear who we met and visited with at Black Point) had a stroke the previous day. He was fast-boated to Nassau and then emergency flighted to Miami. We have not yet had an update.

Since the weather had moderated slightly we continued on to Big Majors. When we got there the anchorage was very rough so we went through a very narrow opening between Big Majors and Fowl Cay and anchored behind Fowl Cay in what turned out to be a calm well sheltered spot – and with another nice beach for Grace to visit! While we were there we dinghy’d over to Staniel for some Kalik and Captain Morgan rum – which Paul has become very fond of! We also went to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club for lunch.

It was Tuesday and exactly one week from the arrival of our guests in Georgetown. The forecast YET AGAIN was calling for high winds (and seas) Friday through Sunday. Since we would have to go out into the deep Exuma Sound to get to the harbour we decided to get there on Thursday to avoid the bad weather. So we aimed for Cave Cay as a half-way point. The cruisers guide also said that there was a nice grotto to be visited. We got there and went over to the “grotto.” Suffice to say Sian’s description was “a grotty grotto.” It was simply an indentation in the limestone rock, and the water was green and murky.

That night, guess what, storms rolled through with plenty of thunder, lightning and rain.

The next day we decided to make the run to Georgetown. We saw a couple of sailboats going out through the cut. Paul waited for 15 minutes then radioed them to get a read on the conditions. We were told that they were seeing three-foot waves. Sounded OK. Bob on Mint Julep radioed us and said that they were anchored nearby and were also going to go out and head for Georgetown.

So off we went. The first sign of trouble was a standing wall of water at the mouth of the cut. We hammered through that (later finding out that we had a seat cushion blow overboard at that time). We tried staying close to land, but the seas were building, so we headed further east to find deeper water to see if the conditions would improve. We got to five-hundred feet but the seas did not change. We kept in touch with Mint Julep who were also getting pounded. These were more like six to seven foot seas on the nose, no three footers as reported. After about an hour Mint Julep radioed to say that he was turning back. He was only going down to Georgetown to watch the regatta that was being held, so had no pressing need to endure four hours of pounding seas. We decided to go on as the conditions were forecasted to get even worse through the weekend. There was nothing unsafe, and Sonas was handling everything well, it was just severely unpleasant.

About one hour out from Georgetown and Elizabeth Harbour we saw a small cruise ship. Looking ashore at Emerald Bay/Steventon there were hundreds of tents up on the shore. We later found out that this was where they were holding the Fyre Music Festival, which from all accounts was a disaster and had to be cancelled after everyone had arrived.

Around 4pm we entered Elizabeth Harbor. We crossed immediately to Georgetown and found a nice anchorage off the town. Because it was Thursday, the day the supply boat comes in, we hit the market and re-provisioned with fresh veggies, fruit and lots of milk!!! The next day we hit the booze store for beer, wine and, yes, a couple of bottles of Captain Morgan!

Over the weekend we watched the Bahamian Family Regatta races, which are an amazing sight. The colors of the boats and the number of people on planks holding the keel even – as many as 13 or 14 on board!

We later crossed the harbour and anchored off Sand Dollar beach. From there we went to Chat n’ Chill for their Sunday pig roast dinner.

We also took the opportunity to give the boat a scrub and get rid of the salt that covered her outside and the sand that had been tracked inside!

On Tuesday John and AnneMarie arrive and we will immediately head north again!

The great news is that the forecast for the next ten days call for winds under ten miles per hour and nothing but sun, sun and more sun! Happy days!

• Pilothouse: An enclosed area at the front of the boat from which we can navigate. We have big windows with wipers and air conditioning in there if necessary.
• Flybridge (in full flying bridge): An open area on top of the boat where there are a second set of controls from which to run the boat.
• VPR: Visual piloting required. This is where the charts do not care to have designated waypoints usually because of multiple challenges such as shifting sand, coral heads etc. Therefore we need to navigate the boat by sight.

Provisioning – Mid way through our Cruise

Here we are across the half way mark and it is time to review the provisions and how we are tracking for meals.

Not sure if I mentioned it earlier but the game plan was to have enough meat in the freezer and dried goods that we could get by with minimal desperate dashes to stores out in the Exumas. Partly to keep our time frame flexible and partly there just aren’t that many stores to call into! See sign below for an example!

So lists have been made, I have a meal plan for our next guests (arriving next week) and Paul and I are eating around it. I have enough meat in the freezer but will be happy to get fresh fruit and veg in GeorgeTown and DON’T FORGET THE MILK (see previous post on this:  http://atanchor.com/?p=1199)

True confessions time –some days I am delighted with myself that I am turning out decent meals, three times a day no less, and other times I am so fed up with what’s in the cupboard I could scream. I cannot tell you “Oh, I wish I had ……” I am just bored with the whole food prep thing. Maybe I should have done more complete dishes ahead of time, that way I could just pull out a meal on days where I hate the galley.

I am baking my own bread, I make the dough in the bread maker then knead it and bake it in the convection oven and so far have been very pleased with the results. Which probably means the next three loaves will have to be passed off as flat bread but such is life. I even made a loaf as a gift to another boater who had none and couldn’t find any in Black Point. Now that’s gutsy!

So, looking at the supplies, we should have brought more tea bags, cookies and paper towels (but don’t worry, I can get them in George Town) and will be taking 5lbs of sugar back home. Why I thought we needed 10lbs is one of life’s mysteries. All in all not too shabby an effort.

Water is also something to keep an eye on here. We have a big tank (350 gallons) and we are not forgoing showers or laundry but you need to monitor the levels so when you are somewhere with water supply you can fill up, not belatedly realize you should have done it yesterday. Many years ago we limped back to the U.S. from the Abacos with one gallon of distilled water between six of us, including the ability to flush the toilet, and I would be delighted to not repeat that day!

Anyway, this morning, feeling a little more like Martha Stewart, I have made potato salad and a pizza to freeze, I even remembered to use the fresh herbs! Did I mention that I planted and cultivated four herb pots before I left the US? Three have survived the salt air – the cilantro  unfortunately did not!

As an aside, teabags in Georgetown this time is a no-go, no “proper” tea so my sis in law is bringing some from Ireland. Phew!

More later!

Sian

Moving Through Central Exuma

Monday April 10 through Wednesday April 19th, including Easter

On Monday we looked at the charts and decided that Black Point did not seem too far from our anchorage so decided to walk into town. The main objective was to replenish our dwindling fresh milk supply. More on this saga later!

We walked up the beach and past the marina basin and abandoned construction equipment that we described in our last post. They really did just walk away from this project.

We followed the construction road into town. It was heavy going as the “road” was crushed limestone. Half way to town Jane from Elizabear came along in a golf cart with Gus their dog. She was trying to get her laundry done in town but the lady running the laundry had gone to Nassau, so she had “borrowed” a golf cart from a guy that was minding the store and was, in good Island attitude, trying to do what she could!

We got into Black Point, and found no milk or anything else that we needed. So we stopped by the Scorpio restaurant for lunch. We again heard the story – “we have no fish.” So we had a couple of burgers and Kaliks.

That evening Tom and Jane from Elizabear came over. Paul and Tom disappeared into the boat’s bowels for most of the time, discussing engines and “stuff.”

On Tuesday we took a can of “Never Dull” to the stainless, buffing out all of the salt stains and other imperfections that tried to gain a foothold. Other than that we generally had a lazy day on the beach.

On Wednesday we made the difficult decision to switch to UHT milk for our coffee, with the aim of saving the fresh milk for our teas. We are aiming to go to Staniel Cay tomorrow to fill with water and to get milk as the Thursday supply boat will have come in – hurrah for the Thursday supply boat!

So on Thursday we lifted the anchor and slowly cruised to Staniel Cay. We hailed the fuel dock saying that we wanted to top up our water tanks and take on some diesel. We were instructed to wait until the fuel dock was cleared. This resulted in Paul keeping Sonas held off the dock in wind and current for nearly 45 minutes as boats moved around us. Mixed directions from the fuel dock also resulted in Sian changing fenders and lines twice – an annoyance which she soon expressed to the captain!

We finally got in and took on water and a small fuel top up. Sian went off to get milk and veggies, only to find that the supply boat had not come in and there was not much available. The grocery store even suggested that the boat may not come this week due to it being Holy Week!

We did think about anchoring off Staniel to see if the boat came in later that day, but decided to go as we had planned and visit Pipe Cay, about six miles to the north. Just as we finished anchoring at Pipe Cay we saw the supply boat heading for Staniel!!! Arrrgggghhhhh.

See the story of what we did next by reading here: http://atanchor.com/?p=1199

As we were coming into Big Major anchorage we aimed for a beach which did not have pigs so that we could easily take Grace ashore. After setting the hook off an appropriate beach we found that we had coincidentally anchored right beside Mint Julep – hull #2 of our own boat model, where we were hull #1.

As we were anchored right by the Fowl Cay Resort, and knew that they had a very nice restaurant we tried to get a table for dinner but they were fully booked. We did get our name on the list for the next day however- Easter Sunday!

On Sunday we got a glimpse of how the other half live as a sea plane landed in our anchorage, navigated its way through the anchored boats, and pulled right up to Pig Beach. The passengers hoped out to visit with the pigs, got back into the sea plane which then took off!

On Sunday evening we went up to the Hill Top House Restaurant on Fowl Cay Resort. It was a nice meal in a beautiful setting, but pretty expensive for what it was – even though it was an all-you-can-drink open bar! Staniel Cay Yacht Club was much better value.

On Monday we upped anchor to go island-hopping  in Northern Exuma. We dropped anchor just outside the mooring field* at Emerald Rock in the Exuma Sea And Land Park.  There was an absolutely beautiful beach just to our south which was a third of a mile of soft white sand and perfect for long exercise walks. First night there was a bit of a roll and some noise from doors rattling on board. So we used some ear plugs to resolve the issues- but not how they would usually be deployed.

We stayed at the Park until Wednesday, when we headed for Norman’s which has a very interesting history – more on that in the next post.

• Mooring field: fixed anchors, usually big multi-ton concrete blocks or steel beams, which have a buoy attached. So instead of dropping and retrieving your own anchor you pick up a mooring. There is usually a nominal payment to whomever owns and manages the mooring. A mooring field is where there are a number of moorings – in the case of the Exuma Land and Sea Park each field has a couple of dozen moorings.

Been a Funny few days!.

The weather forecast suggested another windy front coming in so we made a plan. Head up to Staniel Cay on Thursday, fill up with water and quick run to the grocery store (the mail boat comes on Thursday so fresh supplies) and then onto Hawksbill Cay to ride out the blustery weather.

Thursday dawns, walk the World’s Best Dog on the beach and off we go. Set up ahead of time for a starboard side tie-up at the fuel dock and feeling confident things are going our way. Ha! First the winds are kicking up when we get to Staniel and we have to hold off the fuel dock in the wind and current for other boats to finish fueling. But that’s ok. A wave from the dock hand to come on in and all of a sudden it’s a port side tie. Moving at speed to switch fenders and ropes assisted by said World’s Best Dog (not much help but good at getting in the way) we head in. “Oh wait” he says, “diesel or gas? “ “Diesel,” I shout. “Oh, other side”. What? WHAT? More scurrying and rope moving. Sweat dripping from my brow we tie up.

I hop off and trundle to the store. Closed. The weekly supply boat hasn’t come in yet, maybe tonight, maybe not this week.

We are almost out of milk which to an English woman is a crisis. What about the tea? Now, yes I know there is long life milk (disgusting) or long life half and half (okay in coffee but no good for tea) but anyone who has ever lived in Blighty* knows tea needs milk.

We head out and find a nice anchorage about six miles from town. Parse out the last of the milk, start drinking wine and wait for tomorrow.

The supply boat goes sailing by on it’s way to Staniel.

In the morning we three jump in the dingy and head into Staniel about a twenty minute trip by dingy and arrive soaking wet crashing through the waves as the only nutters running around. But hope dawns when I see a lady with shopping bags. ”If you run,” she says, ”you may catch her but she is on her way to church.” Of course, it’s Good Friday. I run. I do not catch her. I do not get milk. So we have another good soak on the six mile run back to Sonas and the island adventure is looking a little pale.

Eventually we move the Sonas closer to Staniel, and get a good sheltered spot to ride out the wind over the next few days. We return to Staniel to wait for the shop to open. Paul tells me not to return without milk, if not from the store then find a cow, a goat or a lactating mother! Advertised to open at 1.30 pm and open by 2pm. Not too shabby!

I buy milk, one for now and two for the freezer and, fist raised in triumph, I marched down the road to the dinghy. We return to Sonas for a nice cuppa tea. Ahhh!

If you are wondering, yes this did take all day. It’s hard work having this much fun don’t cha know!

Sian

*Blighty: derived from the Hindu word bilati, meaning foreign but specifically applied to the British.

Let’s Find As Many Quiet Anchorages as We Can!

Monday April 3rd through Sunday April 9th
Williams Cay was so beautiful and quiet that we decided to stay for a few days. We swam, walked, watched sunrises and sunsets, and generally chilled like we have not chilled in years. Most of the time we were on our own, but now and then another boat stopped by.

We had one annoying issue crop up and that was the starboard stabilizer* started to squeak while we were at anchor. Since this is right by the master cabin it disturbed our sleep. Paul hunted high and low for our can of WD40 but couldn’t find it – finally going over to another boat and borrowing theirs. He liberally doused the stabilizer and it worked for a while but then started squeaking again. This time he put the lock bar on it so it wouldn’t move at all. We just need to remember to unlock it each time we want to use the stabilizers.

Paul also used the time to get after some issues we had with both heads*, as they were not priming the vacuum properly. He was able to tighten the connections on the head for the master cabin and that is working fine now, but discovered that the vacuum bellows for the guest head may be punctured so it is not holding the vacuum. So that needs to be turned on and off at the battery breaker panel each time it will be used. Not a big issue as our next guests don’t arrive for another month. Both heads will need a good overhaul when we get back home.

Lee Stocking Cay used to be owned by John Perry, a rich newspaperman. He stared up a Marine Institute on the island to study Caribbean marine life. This was later taken over by NOAA. Around 2012 it was abandoned, supposedly because of lack of grant funding, and everything was just left there – including a pick-up truck! We tried to visit and walk around the ghost town but when we approached the dock there was a significant chop and lots of rusty bolts on the dock, so we decided not to risk the RIB*. We noticed a couple on men working on one of the buildings and later learned that the island has been purchased and was being refurbished.

The next day, Wednesday, we made the difficult decision to move on or we wouldn’t see anywhere else in the islands! We had planned on moving about an hour north to Rudder Cut Cay where there was a “pond” we could anchor in. It looked really interesting on the charts and on the satellite image, and somewhere that was well protected and quiet. The cruising guide did warn us, however, that it was well protected by sand bars on both sides of the approach and a shallow sand bar across the mouth. We did try to enter, but had not timed it well and arrived there at low tide. We started to churn up sand from our props so decided to give up on that idea and go further along to Little Farmer’s Cay which we had heard good things about. We will leave trying the pond for another day.

As we motored north towards Little Farmer’s we past the group of islands that are owned by David Copperfield. One of these, Musha, looks absolutely stunning, with palmed lined beaches and beautiful sand shallows.

We anchored off Little Farmer’s, just to the north of the Little Farmer’s Yacht Club, which is really just a jetty that could hold maybe five or six boats. There was a rusted ship wreck on the beach to the east of us. We went ashore and had a look around. Sian wanted a couple of post cards so we went to the grocery store. When we asked if they had any cards they simply said no. We then walked to the Ocean Cabin restaurant right behind the grocery store to find that he had plenty of cards for sale – why the lady in the grocery store could not have told us that! While at Ocean Cabin we ordered two grouper dinners for that evening and had a chat with Terry, the owner, who by all accounts, is a bit of a philosopher. The first thing he told us was that we should not have said “hello,” he would rather prefer “HeavenHigh!” We learned that Terry has worked in Libya for Gadafi in the 70s as a “facilitator.” We didn’t probe further as to what the actually meant!

We then walked down to the “post office” to get some stamps for the post cards. It turned out to be a small building that was securely padlocked. Asking further we were told to go to Little Jeff’s house as that’s where the post office now was. Sian poked her head in there and there was no one around. Then a guy turned up, she asked him if he had any stamps, he shouted to his wife and she said “no, we don’t have any stamps!”
We still have the postcards!

We went back in for dinner and found Terry mixing his secret cocktail at the bar. He poured Paul one, then Sian took a sip and was able to guess four out of the five ingredients, finally guessing the fifth after a clue. We think she left Terry with the impression that Sian liked a drink on a hot day!

We were the only two guests in the restaurant, and ate dinner as we chatted to Terry, as we were finishing six other arrived for dinner from another boat.

On the dinghy dock we bought a portion of conch salad, watching as it was prepared and the unused pieces of conch were thrown to the turtles and sting rays circling the dock.

Thursday we decided to move on to find another quiet anchorage. The forecast was for winds from the South East, so we tucked ourselves to the north of White Point in Jack’s Bay which would protect us from that wind. Surprise, surprise the wind came from the South West instead and brought a good swell for most of the day. It did quieten down some in the evening. But not as calm a spot as we thought. We rocked and rolled all night, and not in a good way. We were the only boat there though – so there was that!

Looking at the forecast on Friday morning we saw that the winds were going to move north and then east for at least the next week, so we had to move. We simply motored about four miles to the south side of Black Point. This would be a great anchorage in those winds and there were two beautiful beaches to play on. As we walked the beach we saw the remnants of a marina and resort development that they had started in the early 2000s, which was abandoned in 2006 as the global economy weakened. There is talk about it being started again.

At sunset on Friday a flotilla of a half dozen sailboats came into the anchorage. The next day it was clear that they all knew each other by the way their dinghies criss-crossed between the boats. That afternoon we were visited by a cruiser who invited us to drinks and food on the beach that evening. There were about a dozen folks there when we arrived, a fire was well under way and hot dogs were being prepared. We had or cooler of beer and rum with us and stayed for an hour or so, declining the food as we had sirloin steaks waiting for us back on board! A Californian couple who own a house right by the bay joined us and we heard the story about the unusual sandcastle design of their home, as well as what it was like living part of the year on the Cay.

On Sunday we decided to catch up on some of the never-ending chores that are a part of living on board. Sian got after the sand that had spread throughout the boat while Paul took fresh water and cleaning pads to the woodwork and stainless rails in an effort to hold off the impact of salt water!

Around lunchtime, Jan and Tom from the DeFever 49 Elizabear anchored by us came across and invited us over. So later on Sunday we dinghy’d over and had cocktails as we chatted about our boats, both designed by Art DeFever, our children and our health. All in all a very pleasant evening.

*Stabilizer: there are a number of different variations of stabilizers – all meant to help keep a boat stable in heavy seas. Ours are fins that protrude from the undersides that are controlled by gyros (for sensing the sea action) and a hydraulic system run off engine power.

*Heads: toilets on a boat. So named because in old sailing ships the toilets were placed in the head of the ship – in the bow.

*RIB: Rigid Inflatable Boat. This is an inflatable boat that also has a hard bottom, usually fiberglass.  Much more stable than an all-inflatable boat and also more protection from rocky bottom beaches.

Reducing Our Footprint

One of the things I wanted to pay attention to on this trip was keeping our boat trash to a minimum. In a small space trash and food waste become a real challenge.

Once we hit these pristine, beautiful waters the garbage issue took on a new meaning. In such clear waters (see any number of previous photos) it struck me forcibly that we have a responsibility to keep it that way. Previous cruisers in these waters have not always been diligent in waste disposal and have left a bad reputation, which takes time to overcome for those of us who follow. Some have seen a deserted island as an opportunity to leave a trash bag above the water line presumably thinking “what does one bag hurt?”

Here we pay for trash collection in some but not all places. Sometimes as much as $25 per bag so that certainly makes you think twice!

When provisioning before sailing, I took as much packing material off the boat as I possibly could. True it still is trash but I recycle cardboard and plastics back in the U.S.A. Here in the Exumas there is no recycling, so I feel a little better having done that responsibly.

One way to minimize trash is to buy in bigger sizes, think large bag of chips instead of individual packets. That is not wildly practical on a boat where shelf space has limitations and you also have to consider waste if you don’t use the whole supply before it spoils. Okay chips may be a bad example here as no one in the history of the world ever let a bag of chips sit to go stale! My compromise was to buy bigger and divide into usable portions

Which brings me to food storage bags. We use a lot of them. In the freezer, in the fridge, marinating tonight’s dinner, protecting money and phones on dinghy rides and so on. So how can we to reduce that? Out came the Tupperware, at least for the fridge, and whenever possible I reuse the bags. Yes I have even washed some bags and line dried them for another day! It makes me feel better and maybe helps just a little bit!

On board we have a trash compactor which we use frequently. I never thought I would find it useful, even suggesting at one point we could remove it and replace with a cupboard. But surprise, surprise, I find it very useful to shrink waste cans to a manageable size.

Degradable food waste is collected and when we transit deep water this is thrown overboard to feed the fish. One man’s waste is another fish’s dinner although I am probably promoting cannibalism when I feed them shrimp tails. Can you see how this is doing my head in?

Another activity is moving plastic washed up on the shore to above the waterline. If you spend time around the water you will have seen the damage done to wildlife by thoughtless waste disposal. Fish choking on plastic can holders, pelicans unable to fly snared in fishing line etc. So again a little plastic removal on our morning walks has to help some, right?

Is it perfect? Not by a long way but if we as cruisers make small efforts I believe they will pay dividends in the future. Balance is what we strive for, and by becoming more focused on the issue of minimizing trash on this cruise I hope we can do just a little to help.

Sian

Fish! Fish!

As the line spools out, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, a cry goes up,”Fish,Fish!” and its action stations! I race to the helm and slow the boat down, Carolyn grabs the net, Paul runs back to help reel in the mighty beast and Hubert relays the instruction to slow down more as this one is a fighter! Even Grace, the Worlds’ Best Dog, is in on the act, peering through the hawser hole ready to serve in whatever capacity she is called upon.

We all knew what to do as this was our third fish of the day and by gum this one would be dinner! Hubert caught the first one, a healthy sized barracuda which we reeled in and let go to fight another day. The Bahamian guy on the fuel dock told us they were good eating but we wanted some mahi mahi or grouper, something we were more familiar with.

Fish number two was a no show when the line was pulled in. Grace meanwhile had a lovely time licking the deck where the barracuda lay, no wonder she was up for it when the line went the third time!

So here we are, fish number three. Great excitement all round, shouts of glee and huge effort from the men. The reeling goes on for a while until they catch sight of a beautiful bull dolphin fish (mahi mahi in Florida. No we were not catching dolphins!) and Carolyn grabs the camera to record it all for posterity. And then, in the wink of an eye he’s off the hook, dinner no more.

” What were you going to do with him if you caught him?” asked Carolyn. “Eat him!” they replied. ”Where were you going to clean him?” I asked. “In the galley“ came the reply. Not sure how I felt about that. I thought the swim platform would be a better option personally.

Alas, this is why it’s called fishing not catching.

I defrosted chicken.

Sian

Back to Great Exuma, then a month on our own.

Monday March 27^th through Sunday April 2nd

Hubert and Carolyn were on a flight out on the Friday, so we left Hawksbill Cay on Monday and headed further south, planning on getting to Elizabeth Harbour on Wednesday in plenty of time to see what was happening there before they needed to hop on a plane to the US.

Reading the Exuma Guide, we thought that Black Point Settlement would be an interesting place to visit and perhaps have a meal ashore. So we followed the waypoints south and took the channel into Black Point. Black Point in the second largest populated town in the Exumas after Georgetown. Based on the guide it had three or four restaurants serving “authentic Bahaman food”, plus a good anchorage and a couple of nice beaches.

Unfortunately the guide was again WAY off the mark. First the beaches were either protected by a good layer of rocks or, as was the case with the largest beach, a sand flat which meant you had to anchor your dinghy about 200 yards from shore and wade. Not ideal with a dog. We ended up taking her to the very small rocky beach by the government dock and walking her up the street.

After dealing with Grace we all went for a stroll through the town, the idea was to have a look at the menus in the “restaurants” and pick one to eat in that night. Suffice to say we ate on board that night. We found the settlement downright grubby, and that is a kindness.

The next day we took the cut right there by Black Point and headed south towards Georgetown and Elizabeth Harbour.

As we were headed through the deep Exuma Sound at a nice trolling speed of around nine knots, Hubert and Paul decided to put out a line and see if we could grab some fresh fish for dinner. Before we left the US we bought a couple of Penn rods and reels, one with 30# mono and the other with 50# mono. We put out a red and white lure on the 30# line and after about 30 minutes had a strike. It turned out to be a barracuda, which we sent back in. It was quiet for an hour and then we hit again. This time we had a nice size bull dolphin fish on the hook.

It took a while to reel the fish to the boat, Paul on the rod and Hubert by the cockpit gate with the gloves on ready to haul it onto the deck. We got it safely to the gate – and then it threw the hook as we went to pull in in. We do not want to have a gaff* on board as we are not “serious” fishermen and a gaff injury out here would be a real issue. We do have a net and both Hubert and Paul cannot answer why they did not use it! We are sure there will be other opportunities later.

Red Sian’s take on the whole episode in her blog entry here:

http://atanchor.com/?p=1143

We entered Elizabeth Harbour early Wednesday afternoon and paid meticulous attention to navigating the entrance due to the reefs at the mouth and the sandbars across the northern entry point. We anchored right across from the Monument on Stocking Island. After tidying Sonas up we decided to go have dinner at Chat n’ Chill to see what all the fuss was about the place. We had grilled ribs and rotisserie chicken. While the food was excellent, the abundance of big flies made the eating very tedious.

On Thursday, after the obligatory swim around the boat and walk on the beach, we called Elvis’s Water Taxi and paid our $15 per head for the round trip over to Georgetown for a look around. We looked over the straw market, had lunch at Blu, at the Exuma Yacht Club, bought some groceries at the market and headed back to the boat.

On Friday we took Sonas over to the Exuma Yacht Club dock to take on some diesel, gas (for the dinghy) and water. And to drop Hubert and Carolyn off to get their taxi to the airport. I asked them if their fuel dock was free as they had a big boat stuck there the day before due to having lines around her propellers. He told me everything was clear and to come on in. Approaching the fuel dock we saw that there were boats either side of it. There was about 50 foot of clearance, a challenge since we are a 53 foot boat! Paul had to get the boat parallel to the dock and then walk her sideways into the dock, with our bow overhanging the boat in front of us by a few feet, with a good size audience looking on as well! Sian had been limiting Paul to one cookie a day but announced that after that bit of boat handling he could have two next time!

The docks at Exuma Yacht Club are a one man show – and that includes the street gas station they have as well. He said that he had someone managing the street but that she had gone “walkabout.” With getting me the diesel hose, then the gas hose (to fill the tanks for the dinghy) and then the water hose to fill our water tank, as well as docking other boats and fueling boats and cars, it took a couple of hours before we were ready to leave. The epitome of “Island Time, Mon!” But we were cool with that and chilled out while everything as happening.

We even watched a small black tip shark tool around the docks as we were waiting.

We pulled away from the EYC and anchored just off the dock as we were going to go into Georgetown again the next day to re-provision. Especially on the booze stocks!

The next morning, we took the dinghy under the little arch bridge and into Victoria Lake in Georgetown where we able to tie up at the floating dock right behind the market. We walked to the hardware store – aptly named Top II Bottom, and bought a new tow rope for the dinghy, some paint brushes and boat cleaner. Chatting with the lady working there we learned that she orders everything from the US, and only places and received three orders a year. Now THAT takes some inventory management!

We then hit the grocery store for some fresh fruit and vegetables, then the liquor store for Kalik, a case of wine and a liter of Captain Morgan rum! We were ready for the off again!

We would now be on our own for a month with no timetable. We wanted to visit smaller, less popular spots for some solitude. Looking at the charts we saw that Lee Stocking/Williams Cay seemed a strong possibility. We retraced our path through the Elizabeth Harbour northern entrance and headed for Adderly Cut. While Sian was on the helm, Paul trolled a lure for a couple of hours with no luck.

After entering Adderly Cut we navigated the skinny* waters around to the north end of Williams where we anchored well away from the one other boat there. It was a very still day and Paul took advantage of the light winds to take some drone footage of Sonas at anchor off the beautiful cays.

The next day, Sunday, we caught up on some of the boat chores. We got busy washing and cleaning inside and out, caught up on some laundry, and touched up on the bright work* with some dabs of varnish.

After the chores were complete we went ashore and climbed up Williams Cay and watched the swell crashing in from the Exuma Sound side. Getting back to the boat we got our daily exercise in by swimming around the boat and generally had a wonderful quiet day on board.

*Gaff: a long pole with the sharp hook on the end, for grabbing fish to haul them on board. Extremely sharp tool, which some fishermen do not like to use as it can mess up the fish,or someone’s leg!

*Skinny: shallow

*Brightwork: The brightly varnished woodwork. Sonas has wood rails all around her deck. This need to be kept up or the wind and salt will get at the wood.

Exumas – Wind and more wind

Everyone we talk to or hear from out here tell us the same thing – they have never known it to blow so much in the Exumas in March!

Watching the weather forecast on Windfinder.com we saw that there was a serious blow coming in Thursday through Saturday. It would start off from the North East and then swing to the East. We had tried to get our name on the list for a mooring buoy at Warderick Wells, in the Exuma Land and Sea Park, which was well protected and safe from winds from that direction. We did manage to connect with them but they had no availability for the Wednesday. So we added our name to the list for Thursday in the hope that we would get in before the blow started.

We looked at the charts to find a good spot to spend the night. Compass Cay looked like it would work and the Cay itself looked interesting to visit. We worked our way around there to find the main anchorage, which is pretty small, already full. We then anchored in a secondary anchorage, but realized that there simply wasn’t enough swinging room* for our boat. So we lifted the anchor and revisited the charts.

Slightly south of Compass is Pipe Cay. While there weren’t any waypoints into the anchorage there it looked clear enough to navigate, so we headed to the south east side of that Cay. As we approached we saw some channel markers made out of steel beams.

Referring to the cruising guide we found that there used to be a US Navy DECCA base there, now abandoned. We anchored just off the beach south of the abandoned base.

We saw some small reefs that looked like they would be good for snorkeling so we got ready and dinghy’d over. Unfortunately the reefs were pretty immature and no fish of any kind were seen.

After a very calm night on the hook* we tuned into Exuma Park on the VHF at 9:00 to see if enough boats were leaving the mooring field so that we could get a spot! And we did!

We headed north to Warderick Wells, passing WHEELS 1, 2 and 3 just outside the anchorage. Now THAT is a way to had fun with all of your toys!

We entered the mooring field at Warderick and were directed to buoy number 17. There Sian and Hubert each grabbed a boat hook and attempted to grab the mooring ring. After a few tries and one dropped boat hook we managed to grab the line and make it secure. Because we had heavy winds coming in we double tied to the line. If one line should fail, the boat would lie to the second line until we again added a second.

Hubert later snorkeled to the spot where the hook was dropped and retrieved it. This was the second mooring buoy we attempted and the second hook that went into the water!

Once secure, we took Grace ashore to do her business, and check in at the park office, pay for the mooring and Internet. The mooring cost $40 per night (plus 5% if using a credit card), and the Internet $15 per day. We paid for two nights/days but told the lady that we would be watching the weather and may need to stay a third night. The Internet connection turned out to be next to useless!

We then decided we needed some exercise, so we decided to walk to the top of Boo Boo Hill. So named because a ship had wrecked off the island and all aboard were lost. It is said that, on a full moon, you can hear their souls crying from the hill.

The walk up was easy and the views of the anchorage and Cay were great. At the top there is a pile of wood with the names of visiting boats painted, burnt, or carved into them. We had not prepared for this so had not taken anything from Sonas. We will be going back before we leave the islands so will prepare next time.

Instead of turning back and going the way we came, we had a look at the trail map and decided to go back via Boo Boo Beach and the Causeway Trail. A mistake!

Going down to and along the beach was OK, but then returning from there to our starting point was across about a mile of limestone rock, which has been wind worn. It was jagged and sharp. This was made worse by the fact that we all had only water shoes on!

We got back tired and a bit sore!

Then Thursday evening the wind came in as forecast, and in it came! The wind gauge recorded gusts to 38 miles per hour. Even though we were in a protected anchorage it got a little rough and the boat swung about aggressively on the mooring like a race horse looking to be released! We watched the mouth of the cut and could see waves crashing high into the air from Exuma Sound.

We were boat bound all day Friday apart from getting Grace ashore to do her business. When leaving or returning to the boat we always had an extra person on the swim platform to release and receive the dinghy painter*, and the dinghy driver always wore a PFD* and the kill lanyard* around their wrist.

This would have been a great day to sit in front of the television and watch some of the DVDs that we had brought with us. However on one of our rough sea days we had not secured Rusty Wilson properly. And Rusty fell against the TV. The result was a smashed set. We weren’t overly upset as we had not planned on watching much TV, but it would have been handy on nasty days. So we will look to see if we can find a replacement when we get to Georgetown.

Rusty Wilson is our second “boat dog.” We came across him at the Fernandina Shrimp Festival last year. He now travels with us wherever we go, and can often be found on our swim platform when we are in marinas! Originally we just called him Rusty, but then we saw that one of his ears was a Wilson, so we renamed him Rusty Wilson!

During Friday night he winds calmed some and Saturday arrived still blustery but nothing like the winds we had Friday. However we decided to stay another night at Warderick to see out the last of this round of winds.

Sunday we headed north for Highbourne Cay. There is a direct route from the cut at Warderick to the Cut at Highbourne that knocks about 7 nautical miles* off the journey. But it was still blowing and the outside route using Exuma Sound looks extremely rough so we stayed on the bank. We arrived at Highbourne to find a beautiful long sandy beach with plenty of anchoring space (and later we found out why!).

We dinghy’d into Highbourne Marina. Were met by “tall,” who was there to greet visitors and give them the rules for visiting the private cay. One of which was $5 to use the beach right by the marina, $25per person to have the freedom to walk the island! So we hit the tore for milk, bread, potatoes and some fresh salad, then got out of dodge.

We swam, snorkeled, walked the beach and generally had a fine afternoon. Though Hubert did lose his prescription sunglasses somewhere between the boat and shore.

We bunked down early, but were all woken during the night by a rolling boat, and she kept rolling for hours. Seems this part of the anchorage gets wave motion from the Sound, which crosses the reef at the end of the cay, takes a left turn and swipes the anchored boats side on. Now we know why we had plenty of room to anchor off such a nice beach! Lesson learned. We will anchor further off shore on the next visit.

We got ready to leave on Monday morning, but before departing we decided to take one more last look on the beach for Hubert’s glasses. There had been a family ashore the evening before playing beach baseball and swimming, and right where they were playing we found the glasses! We suspect they found them and set them on the beach to be found.

After retrieving the anchor we quickly headed up to Allen’s Cay to show Hubert and Carolyn the iguanas. We anchored off their beach and left the engines running while Sian took them ashore. The assessment from Hubert; “the pigs had more personality!”

We then headed south to Hawksbill where we were spending the night. We anchored off the long beach to the north west which turned out to be a spectacular spot. When we got there we were the only boat there, in front of a golden beach about a half mile long. Shortly after another boat arrived and for some strange reason anchored right on top of us – with a huge anchorage to choose from. I never will understand why people do that.

There was a nice size coral grouping nearby which proved to be a great spot for snorkeling and fish watching. The evening brought light winds, calm water, and a very decent night’s rest.

Could it be that the winds were finally going away?

Next up: heading south to Elizabeth Harbour, Georgetown via Black Point Settlement.

*Swinging room: when a boat is on an anchor it will swing about as it is pushed by the wind. Also as the tide turns and the current changes direction, the boat will change the direction it is facing. So it will swing around the anchor pivot point. A boat therefore needs enough room between it and other boats, shallow water, or other solid areas like rocks, to move in.

*Hook: Slang term for the anchor as it “hooks” into the ground.

*Painter: name given to the rope at the front of a (usually small) boat that allows it to be tied up – either to a dock or to a larger boat.

*PFD: Personal Flotation Device. A lifejacket.

*Kill lanyard: A connecting wire that is put around your wrist or otherwise attached to you. The other end is connected to a tab that, when pulled from the engine ignition, kills the engine. So if the operator goes overboard the lanyard is pulled and the engine stops. This prevents the boat from continuing and stranding the operator, but even more importantly it stops the propeller so that there is no danger to the person in the water.

Nautical Mile (NM): 1.15 times the distance of a statute mile.

The World’s Best Dog who is Entirely Resistant to Boat Training…

…and her mother who is feeble.

So it’s time to talk about The Worlds’ Best Dog on a Boat. Grace is twelve years old and has spent all her life being a boat dog. When she was younger she mastered the boogie board with the children, rides in the dinghy and staying onboard. All these journeys were in fair weather or with marina tie-ups. Not bad for a lab mix who never swims voluntarily!

This however has been her first extended cruise which involves being “boat trained”. I mean, what are we to do in inclement weather? For goodness sake I held an umbrella over her during Hurricane Matthew last year so I couldn’t see how this would work if she could not get to shore. But other people can train their dogs so why not us?

In my usual fashion I delved into research, I read a book. Didn’t seem too difficult and Grace is a smart dog, right?

Here’s how it’s supposed to work. Buy a mat, a carpet square size, and “season” it with dog pee. Put it on the boat, show it to the dog who will recognize it as an acceptable place to pee, and Bobs your uncle. A dog is never too old to learn new tricks, right?
The reality is this portion of the adventure went somewhat off script.

At home every time Grace needed to pee I raced out with her and stuck the mat under her rear end. A move she totally ignored, as she should. Even involved my neighbor collecting samples from her dogs to add to the aroma. Finally considered the mat seasoned enough and took it to the boat. Now the hard part. Having decided today was the day and there is no going back – THAT dog does not leave the boat until the mission is a success!

So five hours into our first long day I put her leash on, walk her around the deck and point to the mat. “Go pee” I say encouragingly. Grace looks at me and says “what here?” Hour six, the same. I was even spotted by some folk who live on the Intercostal walking my dog on the fore deck on her leash, bet that gave them a chuckle! Hour seven no result. I am beginning to think I read the wrong book!

Maybe it’s me, I muse. Seem there is a pattern here, I once read a book on child-rearing which gave me some advice on how to take the argument out of a conversation. Don’t ask if they would, decide they are and give them a choice. “Claire, would you like the red pajamas or the blue ones?” Claire considers this and tells me very seriously she does not want pajamas, thank you very much.

Hour eight Grace finally heads to the bow of the boat, ignores the wretched mat and pees as far from us as she can get. She heads in, much more comfortable and defies me to mention it. After all we trained her not to “go” in the house and it’s a thin line between this boat house and the house house. So that’s it right?

Well no. The bow of the boat is no place for a pup in five foot seas, a fact she is well aware of,  so now I am convinced Grace is a camel in dog skin because she can hold on for ever for a nice sandy beach. I have rolled the mat up and may give it as a gift to a boat person who is training a new pup.

I will not, of course, mention my failures,  but wish her health and happiness with her new fur baby!

Exumas – The First Ten Days

We arrived on Allen’s Cay ten days ago and it has been fun and, sometimes, a wild and hairy ride!

Allen’s Cay is one of the more popular Exuma starting points from cruisers coming from the north and it is known for its Exuma Iguanas. As we sat at anchor dozens of tour boats brought people to pester the lives out of the poor creatures. Though from what we could see the vast majority of the visitors were well behaved towards them.

Paul did try and send up the drone,but it turned out that it was too windy. When bringing the drone back to the boat Paul had to catch it rather than try landing it – and one of the propellers got him nicely on the arm! He is waiting for someone to ask him what happened so that he can answer “got cut up by a prop!”

We spent a couple of night at anchor here before moving south in pleasant weather to Hawksbill Cay, using the shallower western side of the islands. The chart directions were “Visual Piloting Required, navigate around the coral heads!” We had read that this Cay was one of the most beautiful, if not THE most beautiful of the cays. Looking around while at anchor we couldn’t see much to wonder at, but then we climbed aboard the dinghy and motored around the south end of the cay to see beautiful long, sheltered, shallow, sandy beaches. And the water was gin clear.

Unfortunately that night the wind turned to the west and increased in intensity. This was now a strong on shore wind. We had our 75 pound anchor and 80 foot of chain out in 10 feet of water and our anchor snubber* on. We got pretty well tossed around all night. Paul sat up for about four hours during the worst of it to make sure we were not dragging the anchor towards shore. Two other boats had joined us and picked up moorings and were also being tossed around.

The wind was still howling from the west the next morning so we decided to head further south to find a better anchorage. We also had to be at Great Exuma Island by Friday to pick up guests that were flying into Georgetown Airport. After three hours of heavy seas we arrived at Staniel Cay and tucked ourselves in behind some rocks in a small anchorage right by the marina for shelter. After a few hours the winds died and Sonas sat comfortably.

Staniel Cay is a busy little place. We went up to the Bahama Telephone Company office and bought a Bahamian SIM card and a data plan so we could be connected. We initially got there at 1:45 to find an “out to lunch, back at 1:00” sign on the door. We finally got the card at 3:45!

We visited the two little grocery stores, got rid of a bag of boat trash, and swung by the Staniel Cay Yacht Club. While there we grabbed a dinner menu to take on board. We later called over on the VHF and booked ourselves in. We also had to give them our dinner order at that time as they cook to order. The food later that night was excellent and very good value!

WE remained at Staniel for another night. We had been watching the forecast and saw that there was a front coming through with more very strong winds. So we decided to high-tail it to Great Exuma and get there a day early for the arrival of our guests. We used the Big Rock Cut right there at Staniel through the island chain and turned south towards Emerald Bay and the marina there.

We arrived at Emerald Bay early afternoon on Thursday, backed into our assigned slip, and attached the power and water supplies. Unlike marinas in the US, marinas in the Bahamas charge for water by gallons consumed. This is due to the fact that water is not naturally plentiful in the islands and in most, if not all, of the islands it is made through reverse osmosis – i.e. water makers.

Unfortunately the description of the marina that we read on the cruising guide was not accurate. There was no restaurant, store, bar etc. at the marina, though it was obvious that the building was designed to include those. So we walked about a mile down the road to the little Emerald Bay bar and grill. We were warmly greeted by the waitress and handed menus with the advice that “we do not have a soup of the day, any salad, and no grouper.” So we had a couple of burgers!

On Friday Hubert and Carolyn arrived. We got them stowed away and a cup of tea on the table. Again another front had come through and the wind was howling nicely through the marina. Based on the forecast it would be best to stay at Emerald Bay until Sunday. So we took walks on the beautiful crescent shaped beach, walked to the liquor store for some rum, and generally took the time to catch up.

Sunday came with calm wind – initially! We filled our water tank, settled our bill at the marina, and headed north along Exuma Sound in around 3000-4000 feet of water! We were headed for back to Big Rock Cut Cut and Staniel Cay again. About half way there the wind, which was from the north and on our nose, got up again and we pounded along for a couple of hours. We made it through the cut safely and anchored behind the little rock islands, one of which was Thunderball Grotto, which we planned on snorkeling.

We ate on board and then settled down for the night. Unfortunately the wind got up again and for some reason the snubber did not do its job. As the boat moved around the anchorage it moved the chain along the sand making a grinding noise. Paul had to get up and reset the snubber, By then the noise had woken everyone up. We did get back to sleep though.

The next morning we decided that we were too close to a sailing catamaran that was nearby so we decided to move away and re-anchor. We started the engines, lifted the anchor, moved about 200 feet away and re-set the anchor. It was then that Paul looked around to see if we were now far enough away from the catamaran, to see our dinghy floating free! He ran through the salon peeling off his shirt, past a startled Carolyn, and dove into the water to chase down the wayward boat! He got to the dingy and then couldn’t get over the side and on board. So he abandoned the dinghy, swam to a nearby boat, climbed on board, and then they used their boat to go get the dinghy, which had been snagged by another boater in his dinghy! The day was saved! Later we took a bottle of wine to each boat as a thank you!

As we maneuvered the boat we had forgotten to shorten the line on the dinghy and it got around a prop. We have line cutters on our props and they did their job – severing the dinghy line! No damage apart from our pride!

It was only 10:0 am and already the day was full!

We went ashore, got some bread and milk from the grocery store, and booked in for dinner at the Yacht Club. We went back to Sonas and waited for slack tide*. We then dinghy’d across to Thunderball Grotto and snorkel into the cave. It was quite an experience. Thunderball Grotto received its name from the James Bond movie “Thunderball,” which, along with “Never Say Never Again,” was filmed there.

We had a very pleasant and good quality meal at the yacht club, then we introduced Hubert and Carolyn to the card game Sevens before turning in.

The next morning we tried to contact the Exuma Land and Sea Park over VHF to get our name on the list for a mooring ball. Unfortunately we were too far away and we could not contact them. So we upped anchor and moved around the corner from Staniel to Big Major Cay. We anchored above beautiful clear sandy water. Paul snorkeled out along our chain and inspected the anchor, which was well planted!

We watched as boats brought visitors to see the swimming pigs on the beach. Then when it was quieter we went ashore with some stale bread that we have saved to meet the pigs. See hilarious video below for the result!

More as we move north towards the Exuma Land and Sea Park and then Highborne Cay!

Video of Sian and Carolyn “feeding” the wild pigs!

*An anchor snubber is a rope, often with a rubber strip in the middle, that attaches to the anchor chain, and then is tightened to take the strain from the portion of the anchor on the bow of the boat and nearest the boat. This rope then takes any “bounce” and movement from the chain and does a number of things. First it holds the chain lower in the water giving a more horizontal pull of the anchor itself, allowing it to dig in better. It takes the energy from any wave movement of the boat so allowing the chain to stay steady and not impact the anchor. Finally it deadens any noise from coming along the steel chain and onto the boat, especially during sleep hours.

* Slack tide is that time where the tide is changing from going out to coming in, or vice versa, and the water is not moving.

We are in The Exumas!

We left Jacksonville on Saturday March 4^th, wearing the Sail Queen’s Harbour shirts we have been given as gifts, and made our way down through the Intra Coastal Waterway towards our jumping off location at Lake Worth. We stopped at Palm Coast on Saturday evening, Titusville Sunday evening, Vero Beach Monday evening and fetched up at Sailfish Marina in Lake Worth on Tuesday.

It was very windy all of the way down, winds averaging mid-twenties with gusts over 30.

We then watched for the weather to lay down for crossing the Gulf Stream to the Northern Bahamas. Wednesday brought strong winds so we waited for another day, using the time to hit Publix Supermarket one final time. Thursday the 9th gave us the window we were looking for and we crossed from Lake Worth Inlet to Lucaya, Grand Bahama. The crossing was uneventful and everything went to plan.  We entered Bahamian waters and hoisted a yellow quarantine flag, which indicates that we know that we have entered Bahamian waters but have not cleared immigration. We checked through immigration right at the Grand Bahama Yacht Club marina, swapped our yellow flag for the Bahamian courtesy flag on our starboard pole, then took the water taxi to the Lucaya Market for dinner.

On Friday we headed south towards Nassau. We thought that we could make Nassau in the one day, but as we progressed realized that it would be dark before we got there. Going into a busy working harbor, right around the time the huge cruise ships leave, was not on our to-do list. So we stopped late afternoon and anchored on the inside of Cabbage Cay in the Berries.

We did make Nassau late morning Saturday, calling Harbour Control and asking permission to transit, and then following the cruise ship Majesty Of The Seas into the harbor. We transited the harbor, passing by Atlantis and the cruise ship terminal.

We exited the east side of the harbor and headed across the Yellow Bank in flat calm conditions towards Northern Exumas. The water in the bank averaged 12 feet and was clear and calm the whole way to Allen’s Cay.

We anchored inside Allen’s Cay, well protected from the easterly breeze, and right off the beach with the iguanas. More on the iguanas and our first week in the Exumas in the next post!

Dolphins playing in our wake on the ICW

Saturday, March 11th, and we have arrived in The Exumas!

Power boating – What It’s Really Like.

We took a week to finally reach the Exumas. Left Jacksonville Florida in jeans and sweat shirts , approached Nassau in swimmers! That’s more like it!

Our trip down to Palm Beach was on The Intra-Coastal Waterway and uneventful, although in some of the No Wake zones rather tedious. A routine quickly developed, coffee on, dog walked, cast off and onward. Breakfast, tea and one cookie – yes dear one is a serving – at 10.30. Knit a little red hat for the heart foundation during the day, lunch a hand-held-of-some-sort and tied up again at 5. Taking full advantage of the marinas for me means no cooking because I shall be doing enough of that for the next three months thank you very much!

Biggest challenge is lack of sleep. Various reasons and truth be told I am never a good sleeper for whom nothing is improved by being shattered. Mr. Party Hearty on the boat next to us in West Palm Beach cranking out his tunes at 3 am does not know how close to bodily injury he came!

And then we crossed from Florida to Lucaya, a ten hour trip.  With a lot of water and not much else. Saw the odd cruise ship in the distance but it really is vast when you are out on the ocean. The swells made for a lumpy ride but at no time did we feel in any peril. Unless you are wildly interested in fuel gauges, radar, and engine room checks it makes for a long , long day, but the beautiful crystal clear waters upon arrival make it all worthwhile.

Since we arrived we have been anchoring out out,  which involved the dinghy launch. We have The World’s Best Dog (who is resisting boat training) which makes the dinghy essential to get her ashore. So far, in one twelve hour period I have fallen into the dingy, fallen over in the dingy (think turtle), and fallen out of the dingy! Who knew power boating was such an extreme sport! My advice to other newbies, train hard!!

Also the excitement of setting the anchor. Sometimes It takes a couple of goes to get the anchor set, grass bottoms and rocks we are unfamiliar with, but our confidence will improve. Sorry, let me rephrase, MY confidence will improve, himself is as happy as a clam. Then every time you turn over in the night and listen to the waves, are they different? Check the anchor then lay there hoping for the best. No wonder I am so tired!

Excuse me I must have a nap, it is 9.38 am after all!

Sian

Well it has been a VERY busy month of February!

We have had (and completed) a long list of To-Dos. Paul created a Word document  that listed everything we had to buy, fix, maintain, and just simply do!

The new bow thruster motor has been installed and tested. The Glendinning controls have been upgraded to 24 volt, installed and tested. The engines and generator have been serviced.

We have topped all of the batteries up with distilled water. We have repainted the anchor chain at 25 foot intervals, we have had the bottom cleaned and new zincs installed.

We have installed two wireless cameras feeding video to the pilothouse and flybridge monitors. We can now watch the engine room while underway as well as see what is behind us while in the pilothouse.

All of the appropriate charts and cruising guides are on board. Paul has added all of his navigation and boating bookmarks to the laptop.

We have cleaned the dinghy, painted on the new Florida registration numbers, and had the outboard serviced. We have bought two gas cans and filled these with non-ethanol gas to supply the dinghy.

All of the spares are on board as are the new rods and reels. Lures and extra tackle have been bought and stored. We have bought new snorkel gear, including full face masks.

We have topped up the fuel tanks. including 100 gallons in the smaller third tank which will be our emergency supply in case we get contamination in the main tanks. There is now approximately 900 gallons on board.

The life raft has been serviced and stowed on the deck, and the new EPIRB installed.

Provisioning has been completed, meats frozen, all foods in cardboard has been repacked in baggies and all cardboard removed from the boat. Wine and beer all stowed in cupboards, under beds and on the salon floor!

And finally Paul has packed all of his camera and drone gear. Which is pretty substantial!

So off we go!

Twas the night before sailing and all through the boat
Nothing was stirring, it was all in the totes
The beer and the wine are all stowed away
We’re ready to go, come break of day!

We know our first aid, thanks to the Red Cross
So if called upon not all will be lost
But it wont come to that, there will be no mishaps
Now is the time to don our boat caps!

The engines are tested, the water topped up
Even  food on board for Grace the pup
Our float plan is filed,  our AIS system is on
Which allows you and others to see where we’ve gone.

So onwards Sonas, show us your stuff,
To the islands we go. Speed? – Fast enough.
Pray for fair winds and calm crossings a plenty
And we will see you again when the freezer is empty!

With sincere apologies to Clement Clark Moore for this play on his poem.

Sian

Navigation

Reefs and shoals everywhere and not a gap to be seen!

Well it certainly looks like it when you glance at the charts for most locations in the Bahamas. We found it when previously planning for the Abacos, and the Exumas chain seems to be no different, in fact I would say the reefs look more dense there. Our experience has been, though, that once there, navigating the hazards with good planning, everything will work out.

Even before you get to your Bahamian destination you have to make your way to a good jumping off location in Florida, and then you get to cross the mighty Gulf Stream! This great body of water  moves 30 million cubic meters of water per second. The stream moves north at between 3 and 4 knots, and is 4,000 feet deep in parts.

So where do you start, and even more important, where do you aim? And when you get there, where do you want to go, what do you want to see, and how do you avoid the shallows and reefs?

The secret to success is in the planning. With the tools available to boaters today, a lot of the course planning can be done in the home on a laptop, and then taken on board and either uploaded into the electronics or manually entered, depending on the interface available on your equipment. Most GPS manufacturers have provided, at no or little cost, software that is compatible with their GPS systems. There are many Internet sites where you can plan your route using in-line charts, which are overlaid with marinas, fuel locations and prices, reviews of anchorages and other useful navigation information added by other boaters.

We also use paper charts and cruising guides. The downside to these is that they may not be as up to date as the electronic versions. However this mostly impacts how shoaling (or shifting sands) are shown. You usually don’t find land, reefs, or rocks moving very often!

The other benefit of charts and cruising guides is that they come with way points already notated. These are the compass headings and distances you can use that will take you to your destinations using deep water while avoiding any obstacles. They also include details on safe anchorages, and provide additional information on marinas and towns, plus interesting  places to visit ashore.

Once the way points are put into the GPS and we are in open water we can set the auto pilot to follow the route, or allow the GPS to feed points to the autopilot and let the boat direct itself. The autopilot has a built in compass and takes control of the steering. By inputting  a direction or feeding coordinates from the GPS it will keep the boat on course. It is actually much more effective and efficient than a human. Sonas has redundant (that is two of each) GPS and AutoPilot systems.

We have planned our route and layovers to the point of arriving in the northern Exumas. After that we will simply take it day-to-day. Previous crossing have been while I have been working, so had to be speedy, meaning long days to get there and back quickly. Because I am now retired we  have time on our hands. Plus this time we have Grace, our lab mix pooch, who prefers regular stops along the route as well as nightly doing-her-business ashore.

So our plan, and because things can and do happen it is just a plan that we can change if needs be, is as follows:

Day 1:  Home port to Palm Coast, 61 miles.

Day 2: Palm Coast to Titusville, 75 miles.

Day 3: Titusville to Vero Beach, 74 miles.

Day 4: Vero Beach to Palm Beach, 65 miles.

Day 5: Crossing to Lucaya, Grand Bahamas, ~80 miles.

Day 6: Lucaya to Nassau, ~110 miles.

Day 7: Nassau to northern Exumas, 45 miles.

The very first time we crossed to the Bahamas, on a trip to  the Abacos , we made the decision to cross at the shortest point between Florida and the Islands. This was from Palm Beach to West End Grand Bahama Island. A distance of approximately 56 nautical miles, or 64 statute miles. Because it was our first time we also found a buddy-boat to cross with.

The second time, having more confidence and knowing where we wanted to go, we left further north at Fort Pierce and ran to Walker’s Cay. That time on our own. That was around 102 nautical miles, or 117 statute miles.

Because we are heading for Lucaya this time, Palm Beach is again a good jumping off point and minimizes the effect of the Gulf stream when crossing. And crossing the gulf stream requires planning in itself.

There are formulas and settings that you can use, however you are always guessing at the effect of the stream and how fast it is actually moving, plus wind offset. We will set our waypoint for Lucaya, but take the stream into account and aim further south and then as we cross let her come gradually up on the mark. For example, if we will be in the Stream for four hours and estimate a 3 NM impact each hour we will start off aiming 12 NM south of our Stream exit point. After an hour we will check and make the exit point 9 NM south of where we want to exit. And so on. It won’t be a completely straight line, but certainly not the curve which would have been created by taking direct aim and adjusting when getting pushed north.

The navigational purists reading this will say but…but,,, if you do this, then that, then you will end up with a rhumb line. OK, but I estimate what the current is, estimate how long we will be in that current and therefore roughly its impact to us, and then head that much further south, adjusting my aim north towards the actual point I want to arrive at as we cross the Stream. To date I have not been far off with my approach! When we first crossed from Palm Beach to West End the course was pretty much due east and meant we crossed with the stream on our beam (that is, against the broadest side of our boat), so the effect was greater. Going from Fort Pierce and now to Lucaya, we will be somewhat more bow into the stream, reducing the impact of the current .

[BTW, a rhumb line is that virtual line that plots two points on the earth’s curved surface in the most direct way.]

Once in Lucaya we will overnight at the Grand Bahama Yacht Club, and then the next day we will head pretty much south east. Here we have two choices. Head for the Berries or Nassau, Providence Island. Right now we are planning on Nassau, after which it is a short hop across to the northern part of the Exumas chain!

And once there the fun begins. We will use the charts and cruising guides to plan our time there. The chain is approximately 100 miles long, and since we will be there for around three months, we can stay in locations as long as we want, or move on. Even when moving on we are only talking about a journey of an hour or two to the next anchorage. Our aim is to anchor out as much as we can, using the boat the way she was intended to be used and is equipped for.

Next up: Boat and Equipment.

While Sian focusing on provisioning the galley Paul has been doing an inventory of safety equipment, navigation tools, engines and equipment,  and, of course, fishing!

SAFETY

First up is a review of our safety profile.

Before I get into specifics I want to say this; it simply does not matter what the quality and the quantity of the safety equipment you have on board if you are attempting to go to sea in an ill-equipped vessel. Yes, when the inevitable happens, the equipment will give you a fighting chance at survival, but why spend all of that time and resources on equipment when the biggest piece of equipment, the boat beneath your feet, is not well found? Make sure that the boat you have is the right boat for the journey. Make sure that the hull is sound, that the through-hulls, fuel lines, and anything in the engine room that may spark, is ship-shape and secure. Make sure that the engines and running gear are well maintained and will get you to and from your destination. And make sure you have fuel in abundance to do the same.

Tightly linked to this is to make sure that the captain and crew are also up to the task.  Is the experience on board up to the journey, and able to deal with whatever is thrown at them? Help is not always around the corner! First-time crossers should consider a buddy-boat for that first experience.  Part of our reparation for this trip is to complete a full day first aid/CPR course with the Red Cross, which we have scheduled for mid-February. We have also updated our first aid kit, as well as doing an inventory of additional things that we are going to add over and above the standard kit. So more medicines such as hydrogen peroxide, any ointment not in the kit, burn spray, aloe vera, Benedryl tablet and cream, heat pads, Aleve or Motrin, cold and decongestants, indigestion, etc. Bottom line, we aren’t going to be able to prepare for everything thrown at us, especially the major medical stuff, but we are going to do our best.

One last point. We did consider adding a personal defibrillator. But on researching this we learned some things that we were not aware of – including when you use it. Our thinking was, even though we currently have no heart issues, this would cover heart attacks and other first time heart events. But defibrillators are for regulating hearts, those that go into defib. They are pretty worthless in the event of a heart attack because of the myriad of other causes. so we decided not to get one at this point.

That said, here are the safety preparations we have made on Sonas for this trip.

The first thing that needs to be checked is our ability to prevent or stop the thing that every boater fears – fire!

Sonas has an automatic halon system in the engine room. The certification must be up to date, and on checking it is. This system can also be manually triggered from either helm station, or a location in the aft cockpit.

We also need a number of extinguishers throughout the boat should we encounter an issue elsewhere, such as the galley, or in the bow thruster compartment. Every crew member are aware of the locations. Sonas has four additional handheld extinguishers that are capable of handling A, B and C type fires – which are wood/material, liquid, and electrical. Paul decided to go ahead and add another large handheld extinguisher under the premise that you can’t have too many!

The other issue boaters face is a man-overboard, or a sinking/other event that may require us to abandon the vessel. Sonas came equipped with a Revere Coastal Commander six-person life raft. It was past time for it’s five-year recertification so Paul took it along to the Revere facility here in Jacksonville for maintenance and to be recertified. This sits on the side deck, ready to be directly deployed to the water if needed.

Another key piece of safety equipment is an Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon – or EPIRB.  This is used to alert search and rescue services in the event of an emergency. This is achieved by transmitting  on the 406 MHz distress frequency via satellite and earth stations to the nearest rescue co-ordination center. The message gives our unique identifier and our precise location. By using the identified the rescue service knows our from a database look up – our names, name of vessel, description of vessel, how many could be on board, what life raft we have, etc.

Sonas came with an EPIRB but this too was out of date, meaning that the battery had past it’s dating. While it is possible to replace the battery, Paul decided to acquire a new Category 1 EPIRB for Sonas so that we has a baseline on age and condition. A Category 1 EPIRB is one that is triggered automatically on submersion.

The EPIRB is attached to the boat in a location where, when it is activated and needs to float free, it can do so without being caught up by canvas or other equipment.

Flares are another important piece of safety equipment and, like many of the others discussed, are a Coast Guard requirement. During the past summer we purchased a set of both handheld and pistol fired flares. As many boaters do we also retained the older flares which are out of date, as these too can be used if we run out of the newer flares. Again the flares are kept in a location known to all on board and where they can be easily retrieved and deployed.

While in fog or other low-visibility a sound device is critical, as well as knowing the proper way to use it. Sonas has a air-pressure driven dual horn system that is more than up to the task. [RADAR, a good VHF radio, lights fit for the purpose, and solid ground tackle are also important here, but I will cover that in future posts on electronics and equipment].

We also need to make sure that we have suitable Personal Flotation Devices (PFDs/life jackets) on board. There needs to be one of the correct size and type for all on board the vessel. Since we are going offshore we need to have Type 1 PFDs for everyone. These bright orange life jackets are designed to turn a person’s face out of the water in the likelihood that they go overboard and may be unconscious. We have eight Type 1 on board under the flybridge seating, clear of anything on top of them. We also have inflatable PFDs on board – these are the automatic PFDs that inflate with CO2 when immersed in water. They may only be used inshore and we will use them when using the dingy to go ashore from Sonas.

Finally, we need to make sure that we have a quality “throwable” that can be tossed to anyone who has gone overboard. Sonas is equipped with both a throwable ring and a “horseshoe” recovery strap that is affixed to a side railing.

Next up: Navigation; how are we going to get to The Exumas, and what we will use to find our way!

Now that Christmas and New Year are out of the way and the decorations have all been stored, we now move on to planning for our upcoming trip to The Exumas, in the Bahamas. We will share some of this planning with you as we go along. First Sian will share what she is up to with the provisioning for Sonas.

So, you don’t often hear from me on this blog but as I outfit the galley for our first extended cruise I thought, novice that I am, some of those adventures might at least make you smile.

We plan to cruise for three months, and while we are not headed for the back of beyond, we are going somewhere we have never been, with little idea of what grocery options are available. Checking TripAdvisor there are only seventeen restaurants featured across the chain of over 300 islands, which sounds like a lot of home cooking!

So, what kind of cook am I? Basic, definitely. No frills and someone who does not want to spend too much time cooking while missing beautiful tropical beaches. And yet….. I do get pleasure from turning out a yummy meal on board, and that is the dilemma. Planning food for three months is quite overwhelming as it rattles around in my head, so the only thing to do is start. Reading some books and getting good tips on food storage (like bay leaves in flour to avoid weevils, who knew?) and talking to cruisers who have gone before me, I start making lists. And then make lists of the lists!

Then I remind myself that some folks do this without the luxury of the space and equipment that our home away from home offers. First up we have a full size fridge freezer so no worries about storing meat, frozen veggies and fruit. So stop over-thinking this and get back to the list! Google is becoming my best resource; ” Google, can you freeze celery?'” The answer is yes. ” Google, how long can you store spaghetti squash?” Four weeks if you are interested. ”Google do you have one hundred and one ideas for one pot meals?” Certainly!

Secondly we do have a lot of storage space, although I have never heard a boater say they have too much space! I can fit in the slow cooker and the bread maker. Martha Stewart here I come! Keeping ingredients dry seems to present challenges so storage bags and plastic totes abound. Cardboard attracts bugs so everything that comes cloaked in cardboard needs to be removed and stored another way. Soda cans are going in 7” high totes, wine bottles inside socks in plastic milk crates.

It would be wonderful to think all this planning will result in no spills or infestations but realistically that has to be prepared for too. Advice from the experts? Deal with the mishaps as soon as you see them, the only thing assured is they will not improve with time!

That brings me to the next point .Every time I get too fancy Paul brings me back with the KISS principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) and much as it pains me to say so, he is right. No one on a boat has ever said “I don’t want that”, when presented with a meal, every one scarfs down everything on offer and licks the plate if no one is looking! A day’s boating always leads to a good appetite!

Part of the list is detailing what my go-to meals are, then breaking down the ingredients. Adding in other necessities as I write, (dog food, how could I forget dog food…)

A food inventory sheet is a great idea. I chose to detail what is on board, quantity, location. Dates for rotation were not so important as I hope to come back with very little left over in the way of cans and frozen food. Fresh food rotation will be pretty much when and where we can find it, I hope often!

We have also bought backpacks so we can carry food back from the store to Sonas on the bicycles more easily, and a cold bag for the stuff that needs to stay cool.

I will keep you posted, more later!

Sian

As you have probably read in the lighted boat parade post we had an issue with our bow thruster and port engine. Our mechanic got to the boat on the Friday after the boat parade and started to troubleshoot the issues.
We had two separate but linked issues.
First the bow thruster had continued running and would not respond to the helm control. It eventually had to be turned off at the battery switch in the engine room. By then smoke and a strong burning smell had blown through the boat.
The mechanic pulled the motor and reported back that the thruster solenoids had fused with the result that the thruster ran continuously. A secondary failure was that the thermal override had also failed allowing power to continue to the thruster. The heat on the thruster had melted the plastic housing and also melted the rubber coating on the battery cables to the thruster. This had caused the wires in the battery cables to touch and had caused arching. He believed that we were very lucky to avoid a fire.

The motor will have to be replaced and has been ordered. Paul has also requested that a cut off switch be added to the circuit so that the thruster can be turned off without anyone needing to enter the engine room while the engines are running. We will add that to a location in the forward guest stateroom, above the thruster..

The second issue was understanding why the port engine powered down. There had been no alarm at the helm suggesting that it was not an overheat or oil pressure issue.

The mechanic found the engine in gear and the port Glendinning electronic controls inoperable. On putting a meter on the control power source he found 26volts. He took off the controls cover and discovered that they were 12v motors. These control had only been installed 12 months ago, and somehow the yard used by the previous owner had installed 12volt control motors on a 24volt system.
The mechanic is guessing that the touching wires at the thruster sent a spike through the DC system and the port Glendinning motor was blown.He pulled both control units and sent them back to Glendinning to have the motors switched out. He also is speaking to Glendienning as they will be able to tell from the serial numbers on the units who ordered and installed these.
I will update this post as we resolve these issues.

Well, we decided to do the lighted boat parade this year for the first time ever. It was in our neighborhood lagoon and run by the Queens Harbour Yacht Club. 30 boats signed up. Prizes for Big Boat, Medium Boat, Small Boat, Best Overall Entry, Best Costumes and Best Lighted Dock!

The theme was Mickey And Friends, Holiday Harbour Treasures! There was an after parade party at the Country Club where  over  250 had signed up!

So Paul decided that most would go for the obvious, and dress their boats and themselves as Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy and Donald! He wanted to go a bit outside the box and decided on Its A Small World After All. The idea was to light up the boat with plenty of Disney, but dress those on board in costumes from around the world. We also has the music from Its A Small World After All blaring from our boat speakers!

Video of Sonas all ready to go here:

We had a Spanish lady, a Dutch girl, a Frenchman with beret, onions, garlic and bread, a Mexican, and an Indian couple resplendent in sari and robes! We had ten on board enjoying the parade. We also had Disney decals on the hull.

We set off as soon as it got dark and headed through the lagoon. The music played and we blew the horn at regular intervals.

There were parties underway at many of the houses on the water. And a very large crowd along the banks. We were having fun and enjoying ourselves.

A video of us going by a neighbor’s dock!

Near the end of the parade route we bumped aground. Not knowing how shallow it was at that end of the lagoon Paul decided to use the engines and bow thruster to turn around and head back. It was then that Sian, who was on the bow, felt the bow thruster run but instead of turning off, stay on. Paul tried to turn it off at the helm but it kept running, pushing us to port.

We were both on our wireless headsets, and during the next twenty minutes we had to navigate our way through the fleet coming behind us as our bow thruster pushed us to port and Paul gunned the port engine to keep us on line. It was interesting to say the least.

Then, as we got nearer our dock, we had smoke and a burning smell come from below. Paul managed to get us parallel to our dock and ran down and turned off the battery switch for the thruster which was burning up. At that time the port  engine quit on us. Paul got back on the bridge and cut the starboard engine while he worked out what happened. Since there was a breeze gently pushing us towards our dock we waiting until we bumped against the dock and tied Sonas off.

All in all everyone had fun on the parade, though we knew we had some issues with the thruster and engine that we would have to look at in the coming days.

We headed off for the party where we won Best Costumes!!

For a report on the mechanical issues and resolution see this page:

Thruster and Glendinning Issues.

It was 2:00pm on the Friday before Thanksgiving and Paul had just finished the last work meeting of the week. The Queen’s Harbour Yacht Club had been trying to organize a cruise to St Augustine for the beginning of Nights Of Lights, but the damage from Hurricane Matthew had left all three main marinas short of slips so we had to cancel the trip.

During Thanksgiving week we would be decorating Sonas for the lighted Boat Parade on December 3rd. That would mean not being able to use her until the new year. So rather than sit there we decided to throw some food and wine on Sonas and head up to our favorite anchorage for the evening, and squeeze in one more little trip.

The weather was spectacular, it was in the mid seventies, which meant a little chill in the air as we motored along. We were all settled at the anchorage by 3:30. Paul had actually brought a book with him since it got dark pretty early and he could settle down to read for once rather than catching up on boat chores!

We watched as around 4:30 a trawler came into the anchorage and slowly went past us further up into the river. We wondered if they knew the layout of the river as there are some tricky shoaling up there. Sure enough they hit the sandbar. Paul quickly jumped into the RIB and went down to see if he could get them off. The tide was flooding out and if they didn’t get off they would be there for another five hours or so.

Unfortunately they were not successful in getting her off.  Paul helped the other captain lay an anchor so when the tide came in the boat would rise and be directed into deeper water.  When he got back to Sonas he grumbled: “so much for sitting down to read that book!”

We had a nice dinner of filet mignon from the grill, a glass or two of our new favorite grape Carmenere, and watch Grumpy Old Men on the DVD player, before bunking down.

Paul awoke in the middle of the night and looked at the clock to see what time it was and the clock was off. That meant that the inverter (which makes AC electricity out of DC battery power) was not making electricity. He got up to see what the problem was and discovered that, by running all day from the batteries (including the big household fridge/freezer) we had drawn the batteries too low. So he cranked up the generator to recharge the batteries and came back to bed.

The next morning brought some chill with it, but an absolutely gorgeous daybreak. Sian took Grace for a morning walk as Paul got the coffee going. David, the captain of the trawler that Paul helped, came on board and we chatted for a while. They were from York, Pennsylvania and kept their boat on the Maryland section of the Chesapeake Bay. They were on their first real cruise aboard their boat, and were on their way to spend a few weeks in St Augustine and then head down to Vero Beach for the winter.

Around noon we took Grace for a walk around Kingsley Plantation then upped anchor and headed back to home dock.

We feel so blessed to be able to enjoy the nature around us on Sonas and with Paul retiring at the end of the year we look forward to lots of time on board in 2017.

[Make sure to use the Email Subscription link on the left to sign up to receive notifications of new posts]

The marina in Queen’s Harbour has a number of open slips so the Harbour Committee asked if we would do a marketing piece for the community. The aim was to make people aware of the great assets we have here in the lagoon, lock and marina.

We shot the footage using the Phantom 3 Advanced drone and Sian did the narration.

Enjoy!

Every year the Queen’s Harbour Yacht Club Commodore plans a trip. This year our Commodore organized a trip to the 1000 Islands, on the St Lawrence River, between Canada and New York State.

16 yacht club members signed up. Most would arrive on Sunday October 16th, with a few arriving later based on plans to add on to the trip before and/or afterwards.

The Commodore did a great job planning out our itineary. We would be staying a wonderful hotel, just three years old, in Clayton, right on the river and a stone’s throw from the places we would be visiting. The 1000 Islands Harbor Hotel in Clayton is a AAA Four Diamond hotel and it certainly lived up to that. The food was very good, and the evenings by the outdoor fire pits even better! We also had two wonderful tour guides in Beth and Debbie from Clayton Island Tours.

We got there on Saturday, a day before everyone else. We flew into Syracuse, picked up our rental and drove the 80 miles to Clayton and had a meal and drinks in the bar.

On Sunday we walked through the small town to find somewhere for breakfast. We walked past some interesting contraptions and then saw a sign saying that we had just missed the Pumpkin Chunkin’ competition the day before. This is where teams design and build slings that throw pumpkins into the St Lawrence River, with the winner being the team who chunked it the furthest!

We also went down to Alexandria Bay and boarded one of Uncle Tom’s boats across to Boldt Castle. This was the last day of the season for the castle, so we had timed it just right. The history of the castle is interesting, though sad. He was building it as a gift for his wife, who died before it was finished. He immediately sent a telegram to the workers telling them to cease. He never went back to the island. The building then lay at the mercy of the elements and vandals for 78 years. They have now refurbished the lower two floors and some of the third floor. The rest of the castle is still in significant ruin. We also had the opportunity to go across to The Yacht House where Boldt kept his boats.

www.BoldtCastle.com

Many of the group arrived later on Sunday and we had a very sociable dinner at the hotel.

On Monday our formal program began. We had a walking tour of Clayton, followed by cocktails and dinner at the Wooden Boat Brewery!

On Tuesday we had a full day planned. We visited a number of wineries – Coyote Moon, Northern Flow, Thousand Islands, and Dark Island Spirits. In the middle of that we visited Wooden Boat Sales, which has over 100 wooden boats on site for sale, and hundreds more on their web site. We also visited a wooden boat restoration business and the St Lawrence Pottery.

And all during the day we enjoyed the beautiful fall colors!

Most of the group went on to dinner at Bonnie Castle, however we retreated to the hotel for light appetizers! Just too much food and wine!

Wednesday gave us a wonderful present – clear blue skies and temperatures in the 70s. Unusual for this time of the year in upstate New York. This was just as well as we had an all-day boat trip planned on the St Lawrence Seaway!

We all hopped aboard our boat and took off on a “Two Nation” tour of the 1000 Islands. Our guide gave us as detailed history of the region, told us the names of the islands, and narrated the life of those who lived on the islands and on both shores of the river. We weaved between Canadian and US waters as we went upriver on the St Lawrence. The colors were magnificent!

We also had the opportunity to visit Singer Castle, which was opened just for our group.

Returning to Clayton we freshened up and then headed off to the Antique Boat Museum in Clayton where we were able to relive the history of water speed records and see the boats that raced in the early days of the 20th century. Afterwards we were treated to a traditional “Shore Dinner”  at the museum.

Thursday was a free day, and the weather broke with torrential rain and chilly temperatures. We drove down to Cape Vincent and had a look at the Tibbetts Point Lighthouse as well as a drive through the small town.

Friday we headed back to the warmth of Florida! We had an awesome time, but as always, it was good to be home!

See the full trip video here:

Paul was in Prague on business.

Sian was in Jacksonville!

And Matthew had decided to come up the east coast of Florida!

While Paul worked to find a way to get home before the storm, Sian got busy doubling the lines on Sonas, putting out every fender we had and getting all of the loose stuff off the decks – and from around the house.

Paul managed to get a flight from Prague to Brussels, from Brussels to Chicago, and then from Chicago to Jacksonville on Thursday. He was on the very last flight out of Chicago to Jacksonville, the flights afterwards were cancelled.

Paul arrived home to find Sian ready to evacuate. The TV stations were busy working everyone up into a frenzy. The storm was not due to get serious until early afternoon Friday so we were able to do a walk around both Sonas and the house to make sure we had everything secure. The last piece of business was to remove the bimini canvas from Sonas.

We then hunkered down and waited for Matthew. The power went out at 10am Friday, which was surprising given that it had hardly started blowing at that stage. It would remain out for 25 hours. We removed everything from the house fridge/freezer and put it into  the fridge/freezer on Sonas which was running off the 4KW inverter. We would watch the batteries and run the boat generator if needed.

Around 3pm Friday the wind started to get up there. The eye passed by offshore around 5pm, Sonas rode the storm well at the dock, and, apart from some water leaks from the tile roof, the house was fine. Our landscaping in all palm trees so we did not have any tree damage.

Around 4pm Paul started out for a neighbors house to check on their boat as they were away. He encountered a large number of very big trees down so decided to turn back.

The storm passed late Friday night. On Saturday morning we started the generator on Sonas to charge up the batteries. We then ventured out into the neighborhood and found that many house had suffered major hardwood tree damage. Three of our immediate neighbors had multiple trees down, one with severe roof damage.

Hurricane Matthew

It was Paul’s birthday this past Saturday and he said that he wanted to spend it on the boat – so on the boat we went!

Saturday started out a bit windy, with a steady 16-18 mile wind from the north east. We left the lock by 9:30 and headed up the ICW towards Fort George. We were towing the big RIB as we have starting problems with the tender (we think water in the fuel and it went into the shop on Monday).

At the BAE shipyard we passed this beauty. Later we Googled Fountainhead and discovered that it belonged to Mark Cuban!

Due to the full moon and the North East wind pushing the water into the river the tides were pretty high. There were plenty of boats out and lots of folk right up into the flats.

We got ourselves well anchored before eleven. We had a number of small chores to do around the boat after which we took the RIB across to the Kingsley Plantation dock and took Grace for a walk around the grounds.  Grace was very disinterested in the peacock who came to inspect us – not surprising given the awful noise the thing makes!

Getting back to Sonas Paul broke out the fishing rod and Sian broke out the cruising Guide to the Exumas! Paul did not have much luck, landing only a catfish- though it was a decent size. Back in it went, even though Grace was interested in investigating it some more!

For Paul’s birthday Sian had planned a very nice dinner. Filet mignon steaks and fingerling potatoes on the grill and almond Brussel sprouts from the galley. Along with a couple of glasses of red, it all tasted very nice.

Sunday morning started off very calm, with no breeze to speak of. Sian took Grace for a morning walk and Paul flew the drone over the anchorage right at sunrise. See the video here:

[click the little square bottom right for full screen, then escape to return]

We left the anchorage before eleven am as we wanted to take a slow cruise back and enter the lock at near high tide.  All in all a very relaxing time.

The rest of the photos from the weekend here:

[click the little square bottom right for full screen, then escape to return]

The original plan was for about eight boats from the Queen’s Harbour Yacht Club to make the trip down to Palm Coast, tie up at the Hammock Dunes Resort Marina, docktail party, pool fun, dinners out, and a resultant good time had by all!  Hurricane Hermine put paid to that!

It wasn’t that we got to enjoy Hermine in all of her glory, only the very windy eastern side of her, which meant no Thursday or Friday departures. When we went to call the marina in Palm Coast to cancel due to the weather, they told us that they had already cancelled us!

So we watched the weather and since Saturday through Monday looked doable three boats decided to make a trip down to St Augustine for what was left of the weekend.

So Sonas left the Queen’s Harbour Lock around 9:30am on Saturday morning and had a very enjoyable ride south through Palm Valley, past Pine Island, into South Ponte Vedra and Vilando Beaches, took a hard right at the St Augustine Inlet, through the Bridge of Lions and hailed the St Augustine Municipal Marina for our slip assignment. M&M with Marian and Martin on board passed us just south of Pine Island.

After checking in and paying for our dockage, we walked Grace and put her back into the air conditioning on Sonas, and headed off to walk St George Street and grab an ice cream! As we were walking back down the dock Knot DrS backed into her slip signalling the arrival of Donald and Robin Spence.

We got a text from the Marian and Martin saying that they had planted themselves at Meehan’s Irish Pub and to get up there! So off we went for a couple of Saturday afternoon Smithwicks, Harps and Guinnesses!

After a quick shower we headed off to Catch 27, a small seafood restaurant on  Charlotte Street for dinner and, yes, more booze! Afterwards we wandered back to the dock and invited all on board Sonas for a night cap (or two). A nice end to a very enjoyable and full day. And I guess this is why St Augustine is known as that quaint little drinking village with a fishing problem!

On Sunday M&M was leaving early to get back for a previous engagement. After walking Grace we headed off to the Cathedral Basilica of St Augustine for 9am Mass. After Mass we hit a favorite breakfast spot, The Athena Restaurant where we pretty much have breakfast every time we come to St Augustine. Creatures of habit!

We returned to Sonas to get changed into our shorts and Ts and then went back into town to do some shopping. For those that haven’t been to St Augustine, there are hundreds of stores selling everything from your usual souvenir fair, to interesting seaside knick-knacks, to high end galleries. This trip we were looking for some inexpensive artwork for Sonas, as the previous owners had taken all of their artwork off, leaving empty walls. However, after a couple of hours looking, we still did not find anything that took our fancy. Plenty of very nice art for our home, but not suitable for the warm environment of a boat. Ah well, next time!

We spent the afternoon on Sonas at the dock watching the tourists play on the pirate ship and the local aquatic wild life!

We had previously invited Donald and Robin over to Sonas for dinner, where we had a couple of nice rib eyes with all the fixins’ in the fridge. But by dinner time we decided no one needed to be cooking so changed the plans and had dinner out. We settled on a small restaurant on a side street off King Street.

The menu for Cellar 6 looked interesting when we Googled it. And it did not disappoint. We sat at an outside table and watched the horse drawn carriages go by as well as a ghost tour.

After dinner we all returned to Sonas, sat up on the fly bridge and told our yarns (and drank) until after midnight!

On Monday morning we had planned to leave around 9am. This would get us to the Queens Harbour Lock right on high tide for an easy entry up the channel. As we were preparing to leave we had a gentleman in the slip across from us express an interest in having a look around Sonas. So Paul took him and his son through the boat, equipment, electronics and engine room. Then they stood BS’ing about boats for a time!

We did get off before 10am, headed down towards the inlet and retraced our path back to home port. Arriving home around 1:30pm.

A glorious weekend after all – no thanks to Hermine! The rest of the photos are here, music by the Barefoot Man. Click on the little square at the bottom right for full screen:

We had been watching the weather all week wondering if the tropical depressions stirring in the Caribbean were going to spoil things, but by Friday morning it looks like the weather would cooperate, if a little windy.

On Friday morning our canvas guy showed up and installed the canvas he was making for us – helm chair covers, dingy cover, cockpit bench seat cover and windlass cover. All looked great.

We left late afternoon on Friday, cleared the lock and headed north on the ICW. After crossing the St John’s River we approached the Sister Creek drawbridge which is now permanently open as they have replaced it with a new bridge. We were a bit worried about the barge under the bridge as the space left for boats was, shall we say, a bit skinny! The barge operator told us to come on up and if it didn’t look like it would work he would move the barge. We decided we would be OK so went through with about two feet to spare on each side.

As we expected for a Friday Fort George anchorage was empty, so we had the freedom to pick our spot. Right at sunset a center console came out of the Little Talbot Island side of the river and promptly tried to cross the sandbar and went aground. We watched as the two people on board tried to push off without success. Since we were only at the two hour mark of an outgoing tide they would be spending most of the night. So Paul jumped into the RIB and headed down to see if he could help. They got it floating and Paul, knowing the river very well, told them where to get deeper water. He jumped back in the RIB only to see them hit again. Again he helped get it off, but they went aground a third time! This time when they got it off Paul went ahead of them in the RIB and brought them around the sandbars and out! By this time is was dark and as you can imagine they were more than thankful.

On Saturday we had some friends come up, park at Kingsley Plantation and come on board for some water fun and lunch. We were entertained by some peacocks and a gaze of raccoon on the shoreline.

We had an enjoyable evening at anchor, marinated flank steak on the grill and a bottle of red with some Billy Joel and Rod Stewart on the Bose!

We had not yet decided when to head back on Sunday. Given the tides we either had to leave at 8 am or stay until 3 pm. We decided to see what time we fell out of our bunks and go from there. Suffice to say we decided to stay until the afternoon! In fact we were glad we did as it was a glorious day. Still windy but sunny and warm. We walked the sandbars, did some chores on the boat and just simply relaxed sunbathing on the foredeck. We also pulled out the charts for the Bahamas and started planning our spring trip to the Exumas!

Getting ready to leave Paul was on the bow taking off the anchor snubber when he heard a “HELP!” Turned around and there was a man and a child of around 10 floating by in the middle of the river holding on to a skim board. Paul shouted to them asking if they needed help and the man said he wasn’t able to swim against the current. Paul quickly jumped into the RIB and went and lifted them out of the river and took them back to the sandbar. We are definitely owed some Karma after this weekend!

We arrived back at home dock around five, cooled off in the pool and decided that we had another great weekend!

All of the photos are in the attached YouTube video. Enjoy!

Sonas was built with one helm chair on the fly bridge. So when under way, depending on who is on the helm, one of us has to sit on the bench seat. This is much lower and visibility is not great.

So we decided to add a second matching STIDD helm chair. This was ordered through Lambs Yachting Center back in April and had finally arrived. So we took Sonas up the St John’s River, through down town Jacksonville to the yard. We also asked for a new fly bridge VHF radio to be installed as the current one was acting up, and for the Pilothouse A/C unit to be cleaned up.

All this was completed, so on Friday we went over and picked her up planning to go straight up to Fort George River for an overnight stay. Before we left the house we called the yard to make sure that Sonas was ready and were advised that all of the work was completed but they found that the water coming from the faucets was grey and smelly. Did we want to hold off until they could clear all of that up? We decided to go ahead with our plans and handle that ourselves.

As we arrived at Sonas Sian said “close your eyes,” aimed Paul at the side of the boat and there was a nice surprise. Sian had arranged for the yard to add names plates to both sides of Sonas in the same style as on the transom, shamrocks included!

We arrived at Fort George anchorage around 2:30, dropped the hook, started the generator for the A/C, and launched the dingy to take Grace ashore. This was the first time we had launched it since we had the engine serviced back in June. And it wouldn’t start! So Paul used the emergency paddle to take Grace ashore. We suspect water in the fuel so we are going to drain the tank, dry it off, replace the filters, and see if that helps improve things.

The light winds died away to a whisper in the evening. We grilled a couple of steaks and watched some Olympic coverage before bunking down.

The next morning we ran the water to see if we could identify the issue. After about 10 minutes the water ran clear. We suspect it was just that the water had been sitting in the lines and went bad given we had not run the boat since June.  we will treat the water in the tank to help avoid that in future. Plus using the boat more will help!

Around lunchtime we ran the boat down to Palm Cove Marina to pick up some fuel in preparation for the Labor Day Holiday Weekend trip down to Hammock Dunes in Palm Coast. We arrived back through the Queens Harbour lock and home dock around 3:00.

The rest of the weekend’s photos are below.

Queens’s Harbour Past Commodore’s Trip 2016.

Day 1.  Friday June 10th. Jacksonville to St Simon’s. 57km/57km.

We left our home dock on  Thursday evening as we wanted to get an early start the next morning. The tides were not great for leaving the lock and navigating  the channel into the ICW on Friday at a time that suited. We took SONAS to Sister’s Creek, just north of the St John’s River, and tied up at the public dock there. Soon after tying up we got a visit from Captain Browne Altman. Captain Altman lives near the public dock and when he sees a boat tie up he comes over and offers his services – should you want a ride to the store, or just information on the area.

On Friday morning we departed the dock at 7:00am and entered the St John’s River via the short run on the ICW. We headed east to the Atlantic, passing Mayport and the naval base there. Once we were able to make our turn north we set a course for Brunswick Harbor, St Simon’s Range, at 10 degrees from the mouth of the St John’s.  The winds were calm, with only the usual Atlantic swell for the stabilizers to deal with. We passed through the shrimper fleet as they worked the shallows, and had a pleasant trip north.

We entered the Brunswick channel and turned  north into the Morningstar Marina/Golden Isles, and were all tied up and engines off at 1:30pm. George and Carolyn on September Morn had already checked in, and the other Queen’s Harbor boats soon followed, having come up through the ICW. There were Escape with Frank and Julie, Last Call with Bob and Eileen, M&M with Martin and Marilyn, and Aquavit with Dick and Marilyn. Dan and Lydia had driven up for the evening and stayed with us in our guest cabin. So there were 14 for Docktails and dinner.

At 5pm we took the Queen’s Harbour Yacht Club mobile bar ashore and set up for the Docktail party. After that Dinner at Coastal  Kitchen, before retiring to the boats for the night and another planned early start in the morning.

Day 2.  Saturday June 11th. St Simon’s to Hilton Head. 85km/142km

We had the boat awake at 6am, and sent Dan and Lydia off on their car journey back to Jacksonville with travel mugs full of coffee. We retraced our route back out into the Atlantic and made the turn north towards the Tybee Roads Range which would take us into the mouth of the Savannah River, leading to Hilton Head.

We had another calm start to the day. The sun gave us a wonderful display as it rose behind some low lying clouds, which soon burnt off leaving blue skies. Rusty Wilson, took in the sights of St Simon’s as we passed by the lighthouse and pier!

We had estimated that the day’s trip would take us around 10 hours, so we planned for 11 just in case. We got to Shelter Cover Marina around 3:30, meaning we had made good time and got there after nine hours running.  Our Lugger 174hp engines are rated for 2400 RPM, with continuous duty at 2200. We ran them an 1800 and averaged ~9 knots. One lesson learned that day was to make sure you do not leave the fridge door open for even a second! Sian was getting some milk out and left the door open as we took a swell. All of the beer and wine came crashing out! Nothing broken or  spilled though!

When we got to the marina we headed to slip I6 as instructed by the harbormaster.  After we had threaded our way through the pretty tight marina he decided we would not fit into that slip and directed us to another slip. Sian had already set everything up for a port-side tie and the new slip was a starboard-side tie. Seeing this the harbormaster directed us to go back to Dock C, which was right at the entrance to the marina. Since there was no turning space in the marina, we had to reverse back through the marina to Dock C, where we finally made SONAS secure. The end result was very satisfying at Dock C was in a much better location for all of the shops, restaurants and shuttle bus to the beach!

Since the last of the fleet was not arriving until the next day we were waiting until then to have the next Docktail. So those that were present met up at Scott’s Fish Market for dinner and drinks.

Day 3.  Sunday June 12th. Shelter Cove Marina, Hilton Head.

Our plans were to have us stay at Shelter Cove with the fleet until Wednesday, at which time the boats were splitting up and going their own way, wither back home to Jacksonville, or to other destinations for the rest of the week.

Today Sian and I took the shuttle, called the Dune Buggy, to the Palmetto Dunes Beach. The temperatures were starting to get up into the mid-ninties and would stay there all week. We walked along the water’s edge for an hour before going swimming and then lunch at the beach-side bar.

We got back to SONAS, had a shower and prepared for the Docktail party which would be on the dock by the boat. Everyone arrived, including some guests staying with Bob and Elaine. We laid out the traveling bar, put out the food everyone had prepared and Captain Frank fired up the grill for burgers and sausages! We took the opportunity to chat with the neighboring boaters on the dock and had a very pleasant evening’s entertainment.

Days 4 – 5.  Monday June 13th – Tuesday June 14th. Shelter Cove Marina, Hilton Head.

We spent a couple of relaxing days on Hilton Head. We launched the bicycles and rode to the town center, enjoyed the beach, and beach-side bar, again, joined the group for dinner at Bucci’s Italian restaurant, and watched the weekly Tuesday fireworks from the fly bridge.

Day 6 – 7.  Wednesday June 15th – Thursday June 16th. Hilton Head to Savannah. 28km/160km

Since we were only doing the short run from Hilton Head to Savannah today we started later, leaving the marina around 9am. We estimated that it would take around three hours to make the trip. We retraced our route to the Tybee Roads Range and then turned up the Savannah River. We then realized that we were bucking against an outgoing tide which took about two knots off our speed. This added an extra 30-45 minutes to the trip.

We very soon met with what would become the norm for the next couple of days. A huge container ship coming down river. Savannah is now the third largest port in the US after LA and New York and these large vessels would pass us day and night as we sat at the dock. Unfortunately some of them chose to salute the Waving Girl at 6 am in the morning, as and we were docked right beside her it was a bit of a rude awakening!

Read the story of The Waving Girl here:

http://gosoutheast.about.com/od/savannahgaattractions/a/waving_girl.htm

We also passed Old Fort Jackson guarding the river. As we approached the fort they made us jump by firing off their big gun. I looked at my watch and, given that it was the unusual time of 12:21, I realized that they had fired it at us!

We had planned on doing plenty of sight seeing while in Savannah. Unfortunately it got very hot during the two days we were there. In fact Thursday it got to 98f with a “feels like” 106f. That’s 41C for those on the celcius scale!

We did manage some walks, visiting some art galleries. We also took an organized tour of the many squares in Savannah and learned some of the long history. We saw where Forrest Gump sat on his bench and told his story ( although his bench is not there as it was causing a traffic hazzard), the house where the Midnight in the Garden of  Good and Evil was set, and learned that the people buried under many, if not all, of the city’s monuments are not the same people memorialized by the monuments themselves! We had used Trip Advisor to identify a couple of good restaurants and ate in Circa 1875, a French-style bistro and Chive Seafood bar. Both of which we highly recommend.

Day 8.  Friday June 17th. Savannah to St Simon’s. 89km/249km

At first light Friday morning we cast off and started our trip back to Jacksonville. We went back down the Savannah River and out through the Tybee Road Range, where we headed south towards St Simons.

As we passed the waving girl we gave her the customary salute.

At sea we encountered some heavy swells on the bow being kicked up by the wind which had turned south. These made things a little uncomfortable as the side-stabilizers could not fully offset the impact. Sian declared the food and beverage service suspended until we had better conditions! After about three hours the seas did flatten out somewhat and the trip became quite enjoyable again.

We arrived at St Simon’s around 4:30, tied off and washed the substantial salt off the boat. We decided to change our dinner plans and called the restaurant and booked in. As we were eating a substantial front came it and along with it some fierce wind squalls. When we got back to SONAS we saw that our cockpit seat cover had been torn off and was no where to be found. This was surprising as it is fastened by a runner along the top and six fasteners. We walked up and down the marina hoping to find it, but it was long gone.

Day 9.  Saturday June 18th. St Simon’s to Jacksonville. 68km/317km (365 statute miles).

We had been watching the NOAA forecast for Saturday since we saw that there was a couple of fronts coming through in quick succession. The forecast was for 20-25 knots from the north with seas rising to eight feet. So we made the decision to run the ICW back to home port.

As we left the marina the winds were fairly calm and we started second-guessing ourselves and wondered if we could indeed go outside. We decided that discretion was the better part of valor and stayed with the ICW. The tide was up and we went through Jekyll Island cut, which is pretty skinny at lower tides.

We then had to head out to the mouth of St Andrews Sound south of Jekyll to avoid the large shoal there. As we went out we noticed that the winds were no where as forecast. Still we stayed inside. We passed the Kings Bay Submarine Base and Fernandina before arriving home. It did add about an hour to our last leg.

We arrived at home dock at 12:45pm. During the trip we burned 246 gallons of diesel excluding generator, giving us a running rate of approximately 1.5 miles to a gallon. Average speed was ~ 9kts.

Video of all of the photographs here:

[As with all posts on AtAnchor.com, click on the photos to enlarge]

It was Sian’s birthday on Friday so we stayed ashore and played with her birthday gift. Sian got the hang of it very quickly. But Paul? Well let’s just say it was all very wobbly!

On Saturday we headed out on Sonas for the weekend. We headed north on the ICW, across the St John’s, past Fort George River and on past  Fernandina on Amelia Island. We looked up into the Fort George River as we passed and were shocked at just how many boats were there!

We finally anchored off the west side of Cumberland Island. We went ashore with Grace and walked around in the heat for a while before taking her back to Sonas for some cooling. We then headed back to the south end of the island for a longer walk.

We saw a herd of the wild horses that live on the island, including a young foal and a mare that was obviously pregnant.

I looked at Sian and said, “well we have a  just born foal and a pregnant mare, there has to be a stallion around here somewhere?” And within a half second she replied, “probably that guy over there”, and then she fell about laughing! My wife can be a bit smutty sometimes!

That evening we motored over to Fernandina and anchored just outside the mooring field. Our son Matthew was driving up from Orlando to surprise his mother on her birthday. So at the appointed time I suggested that we go ashore for ice cream. As we were finishing up Matthew turned up! A nice surprise for his mother.

On Sunday the three of us went ashore and had breakfast at 29 South. After which we left Matthew wandering the many art stores while we returned to Sonas, lifted the anchor and headed south to Fort George River. We arrived later afternoon as most of the day boaters were leaving.  Matthew followed on by car later and I went and picked him up on the RIB. He stayed for the rest of the day and left after dinner to return to Orlando. By eight pm the anchorage and sandbar had emptied out of all but the few boaters that were staying overnight. Some obviously had a great time!

We has a pleasant evening on board, we watched The Intern with Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway. Which turned out to be a pretty decent, light movie for watching on the boat.

On Sunday the day started hot going on hotter. Low tide was around 10:30 so we were able to walk the sandbars with Grace. Soon after the day boats started arriving. We waiting until about two hours after low water to ensure that we had enough water at the river entrance, before upping anchor and heading back home to avoid the madness.

It was great to see so many Star and Stripes flying on this weekend dedicated to remembering our fallen.

We went through the lock and tied up at home dock. We had planned on tidying up and hosing Sonas down with fresh water. But our neighbors had watched us come in, called and said that the ribs and sweet corn were ready, come on over and jump in the pool.

Sonas had to wait until Tuesday to get a tidy-up!

The photos from the weekend are here in this video. Click on the little square at bottom right to watch full screen.

Another beautiful weekend in North East Florida.

We had planned to go out of Friday evening with two other couples for a dinner cruise. But the weather forecast was so dire that we entertained at home instead. Of course, as is always the case, the bad weather never materialized!

On Saturday we left the dock late morning, cleared the lock and were at anchorage around noon. As soon as we got the anchor squared away Paul got the FA Cup Final up on the TV  and poor Grace had to cross her legs and wait for regulation time and then 30 minutes of extra time before she got to go ashore! The good news is that Manchester United won!

We got to use a few thing on the boat this weekend that we hadn’t before. We worked out how to deploy the swim steps – not that straightforward as it turned out. We also got to use the new Magma grill that we installed, grilling burgers and sausage. We will probably shy away from doing burgers in the future as they tend to be messy.

On Sunday we had planned to leave after doggie-walks on the beach and a couple of cups of coffee. The Queen’s Harbour Yacht Club were having brunch at Billy’s Boat House Grill, so we wanted to get back to home dock, tie Sonas up, and then head back out on the RIB for brunch.

We had around 40 members at the brunch and as always had great company and great food.

Once back at the home dock we went shopping – and added to our fleet! We had been thinking for some time that we would like a couple of small sit-in kayaks to use while at anchorage. So we went to Academy Sports where they were having a sale, and bought them – the excuse was that Sian wanted them for her upcoming birthday! So next weekend we get to try those out!

All in all a very busy, but fun, weekend on the water!

All the photos from the weekend are right here! Move your mouse over the video and click on the box in the bottom right for full screen.

What an awesome weekend on the water in North East Florida!

The Players Championship was in town at the TPC Sawgrass. We have a couple of friends who used to live right here in Jacksonville, and who moved away to Louisiana. They come back every year to volunteer as marshalls at the tournament. They worked Thursday and Friday this year, and were going to watch the golf on Sunday. So on Saturday we got to take them up to or favorite anchorage for lunch and some island music!

On the way to the anchorage we heard the coast guard issue a “boat on fire” warning for Palm Valley. We soon saw the police and Sea Tow boats heading fast that way with lights blazing. We later learned that a dock with a boat had caught fire and the boat dropped onto the ICW in Palm Valley and drifted onto another dock and set that alight.

Fort George was busy, but everyone was having fun in the sun!

After the day out we came back to the home dock and had dinner ashore.

Sunday afternoon we continued what has become somewhat of a tradition. When not anchored out somewhere we take the opportunity to hit Billy’s Boathouse Grill for some beer and shrimp, and to enjoy the live music!

And of course we had the company of some beautiful mammals!

See below for more photos and videos of our fun time at Billy’s Boat House Grill!

Photos

Billy’s party!

We set out intending  to anchor off the Kingsley Plantation and stay for the night. It was a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the North East Florida sky and a nice light breeze from the west.

We passed Invictus just as she was pulling away from the BAE ship yard after an overhaul. You can rent her for a week for $476,000 per week plus expenses!

We got to the anchorage and put down the anchor and snubber. We sat on the fore deck seats and had a cup of English Breakfast tea, after applying the sun lotion of course.

Around 3:30 we launched the dingy off the aft flybridge to take Grace ashore for a pee. And found we had a flat engine battery for the 25HP outboard. Paul swapped out a fully charged genset battery and the engine cranked strongly – but it did not start. It did run fine the last time we were out – the one and only other time we started and ran it since we got Sonas.

We suspect the fuel filters. So on Sunday Paul is going to change out the spin-on fuel filter and the one  under the cowling. We will also replace the battery with a new one.

We decided that , since Grace couldn’t get ashore, we would come back to our home dock for the night!  Ah well, there will be plenty of other days on board – the year is yet young!

Some photos of the day:

The fleet left on Friday and headed up to Fernandina. We all had reserved slips at Oyster Bay Harbor Yacht Club and were all assigned slips on Dock C. We dressed Sonas with our flags after tying up.

We had a fun Docktail party followed by a cook-out with our hosts on Friday night.

On Saturday we headed over to Fernandina and walked the festival, looked at the shrimp boats, the art stalls and ate some, what else, shrimp!!

We came across one guy selling animals made of old scrap. He had dinosaurs, sheep, and dogs. We loved one particular dog and brought him back to Sonas. Since he was made of old metal parts we initially called him Rusty. Then we noticed that one of his golf club ears was a Wilson, with the name on the top, so he was renamed Rusty Wilson!

Saturday night we had dinner at the Oyster Bay Club – a very nice location overlooking the natural areas of North East Florida. The food, wine, dancing and company were all first class.

We spent a lazy Sunday morning at the dock. Queen’s Habour boats left at their leisure during the morning. The Proctor’s invited us over to ESCAPE for lunch, after which we untied and headed off for home, arriving back an home dock around four!

A wonderful weekend!

The YouTube video with all of the photos is here, Enjoy. [Click on the square box on the bottom right corner to watch full screen]

Went up on Friday just for the one night at anchor.

Video and photos from our overnight at Fort George River.

Video of the anchorage.

AIS Track

Photos of the weekend – click on the thumbnail to enlarge.

A glass of Bogle Essential Red.

A warming fire. My admiral beside me.

And Sonas on the dock

The blessing of the lock after the ten year refurbishment. Followed by a low country boil!

The yard work is all completed, and we brought SONAS home today.  The forecast was for very strong winds with lots of rain. Since the morning forecast was slightly better we went over early to get her. The wind was blowing between 27 and 30 knots with gusts to 37-40 knots. She handled the wind with no issues and fortunately the rain stayed away completely. So we were able to sit up top for the three hours it took us to get to Queen’s Harbour.

So she now sits at our dock. She needs a good wash down and inside polish, which we will do tomorrow morning, Saturday. Then, if the forecast is somewhat settled, we may go up to Fort George river for the night.