Hello All. We are near the southern end of Eleuthera in a place called Rock Sound. Rock Sound is a large natural harbor that is well protected from most directions. We plan to spend a day here to fuel up, and get water. Last night we gorged on Mackerel caught by Walt during the days sailing. We decided to just relax today as the next jump is a big one. Assuming the weather holds (10 to 20 knots from the ENE) we will leave here Saturday and head for the Exumas approximately 50 NM away. I think we’ll have a real interent connection later today, if so, I’ll try to post some pictures or videos.
I had just sent a friend Stacy an update, and then decided to include this, my first post included her bits.
We just landed in a small settlement called Hatchet Bay. It is in the next island group called Eluethera. VERY different from North Abaco. This is an out of the way location (yes, we had to slog through headwinds all day yesterday!!), and it is not touristy at all.
We had been sailing all day for the last two days i a group of three other boats (Laurie and Anthony on “Dog Gonnit”, Lynn and Walt on Ilyir(?), and us). Getting into this harbor was exciting in it’s own right. You motor up to what appears to be a rock ledge, and then when your only a few hundred feet from it you seen this tiny cut through the rocks. We held our breath as we went through.
The last few places had no internet and we stayed on the boats. Here in Hatchet bay there are services for locals. Last night we all went out to “Pamela’s place” No sign, just a door. Very simple inside, reminded me of growing up in Africa. Small TV in the corner, the menu had just two dinners, baked chicken or pork chops. With dinner you got water, veggies, rice, and cake. There were eight of us in all, and with drinks for the adults, and juice for the kids the bill came to $63. Afterwords we were saying that it was probably the best meal we had in the Bahamas.
Right now I’m out side of a small cement building that houses a “laundry-mat” and a eatery listening to gospel music cranked from a a small getto blaster. We have a ton of laundry going, and placed an order for rice and crab meat an hour ago. NOTHING happens quickly here. I have no doubt that laundry will take the rest of the day. I’m not sure how long we’ll be here, but Exumas is out next destination. It’s another open sea crossing so we’ll need to wait for a weather window and be smart about it.
Hello All. In early December we were living in Titusville Florida and I ordered a cheap underwater digital camera for a family Christmas present. Due to my own error, the camera never arrived in time for us to actually use it. Yesterday we finally received it.
We had just arrived back in Marsh Harbor (to pickup the mail) and on arrival we found two sets of friends in the anchorage (Gracia with Bob and Gracie, and Patrick on Thistle Dew). We invited them to go snorkeling with us and the entire group, with three dinghys headed over to the Jib Room for a hike to Mermaid Reef.
The weather was not exactly ideal for snorkeling, the winds were 20 plus, with bouncy seas. Winds were causing the waves to be a bit more than was comfortable. This also caused the water to be a bit could with sediment. All of us could only manage about half an hour in the water before we were all exhausted from fighting the water. I still managed to get a few shots. I do expect to get better pictures in the future. The water needs to be clear, and you need lots of sun to get nice underwater shots.
Two notable items in the side-show. For the first time I saw tiny norwall looking horned fish. You can see a few OK shots of this little guys, about 1 foot long. When your swimming with them, its quite amazing. They swim all around you and only get freaked if you try to touch them. It is amazing to have them literally swarming around you.
Secondly, I really wanted to get a shot of Kelly underwater. I tried, but she kept swimming toward me. Before I could explain to her that she needed to be at least 6 feet away, our time had run out. We’ll be looking for more opportunities to use the camera in the near future.
Hello All. I have a friend in the USVI. Well, acquaintance possibly, I’m not sure what to call him. We have spoken a number of times in the last few years, and our headspace is very similar. He writes a boating blog, and muses on other words of wisdom (and folly). Sunday he posted something as clear, and honest as I have read in a long time. I find it telling to get this type of information not from the “news” but from some high school grad living on a boat in some lagoon. Please take a moment to read what he has to say and reflect.
We are stuck in Hope Town Bahamas. It (of course) could be worse. Hope Town is a Disney World like little town. The little houses are all so colorful and homey. The beach here is nice with snorkeling just 100 feet from the beach. There are multiple restaurants and grocery stores too. Oh right, we’re stuck because of the weather. We have seen 50+ knot gusts at times and the wind has been in the 20 to 30 knot range for days. We expect that Monday/Tuesday things will calm down and allow us to escape the mooring field. Once it does diminish, we have some business in Marsh Harbour, and then we’re going to head south.
Once we do, we’ll be in Eleuthera and don’t expect to have access to the net for days or weeks. Once we leave there, we’ll head to the Exumas where we do expect to have net access. At some point we expect to get to Georgetown and will probably be there for a few weeks.
I had some videos of us crossing the Gulf Stream that I never uploaded. I would have liked to turn these videos into a “movie” but the internet connection in Hope Town would never hold up for a long video upload. So below are some videos I made as we crossed. Quite a heady time for us all. It all seems so long ago and far away. I hope you find them interesting
This is Kelly during the crossing. The confused seas of the Gulf Stream were not comfortable at all. She never did end up tossing her cookies. Since then the kids have taken to sailing and tend to tolerate the seas well
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This is us in the middle of the Gulf Stream. It was early in the morning, near sunrise. Sorry for the poor audio.
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The next video is as we approach the Bahama banks, mid morning. Kelly recovered from being sick, then Shane did get sick. Sometimes cruising is not at all comfortable.
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This is a short shot showing us approaching Memory Rocks. Many cruisers aim for memory rocks as it marks the Banks and shoals of the Bahamas. Aim for but DO NOT HIT the rocks!
I was on cloud nine when I took this video. We had been on the banks for a while and the water color was just stunning. The island in the video was called Mangrove Cay. We anchored there from early evening until about 3:00AM when we pulled up anchor to head to Green Turtle Cay. At this point we had expected the wind to veer around so we could do some real sailing, but it never happened. We had not yet figured out whether we were going to run out of gas if we continued to GTC. Little did we know!!!!!!!!!!
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This picture was taken as we approached Great Sail Cay. We were just now trying to figure out what to do about our low fuel “problem”. This is a shot of our chart-plotter. It shows our speed (5.5 KTS), the time of arrival (to Great Sail), our GPS heading, the distance to our target, and our actual bearing.
This video is still Friday as we approached Great Sail. Some of the audio is poor due to the wind.
