Saturday, March 27, 2010

Thursday 25 March –Lynyard Cay – Marsh Harbor, Abacos 21 Miles.

Sore heads on Querencia this morning! Weighed anchor at 09:30 and went for the Sail of The Century (pun intended).

The route from Lynyard Cay to Marsh Harbor is zig zaggy which meant that with Easterly winds of 10-15 knots we got to try every conceivable point of sail, close haul, close reach, nice beam reaches and some glorious wing on wings. We were flying!

We are finally learning to sail this boat now and Maria the Mad Helmswoman drove like a Princess while we absolutely smoked some boats (nice compliment Jorgen, 4 brownie points for Christmas gift).

Got into Marsh Harbor and took a marina at a cheap rate of $0.65 per foot. Parked Big Q in the narrowest slip ever. I think the slip is 13’5”, our beam is 13’6” – they assigned the narrowest slip to the fattest boat – go figure. We are not sure how our wide arse will make it back out again, steak dinner tonight is not going to help!!

Marsh Harbour is fun we had reunited with many of our friends and even met the previous owner of our boat by total chance, what a small world we live in!

Everybody is here – Dana, My Whim, Calyx, Boomerang and Innisfree….

Big Q under sail.... we heard there were cold Kaliks in Marsh Harbour.....




Look Ma we found cold beers........



Life's not too bad....



I like Jorgen.....

Wednesday 24 March –Royal Island – Lynyard Cay, Abacos 55 Miles.

Woke up 5:12 am and got up to brew some coffee and get the ship Q ready for the passage. Anchor up at 06:45 and headed out thru the cut and around Egg Island through the Northeast Providence Channel and out into the Atlantic, across to the Abacos.

It was uneventful passage with beautiful conditions and nice winds 30 º off our nose. We did close to 7 knots all the way across with a lift from the Ocean current. Querencia was the first boat leading the pack into the cut at Little Harbor and we were full of beans.

We headed up the west side of Lynyard Cay and dropped the hook in a sandy spot.

Cocktails on Querencia turned into to a major celebration! We made it to the Abacos lads. another whopper milestone. Although the passage is only 55 NM, you are about 200 miles away from the US Coast Guard should something got wrong…

Leaving Royal Island at first light...



Skipper on watch...

Tuesday 23 March –Spanish Wells – Royal Island 7 Miles.

The lads rented a golf cart and filled the diesel jerry jugs at the gas station. Meanwhile the women hiked to the supermarket for reprovisioning and had the lads pick them up in golf cart – its amazing what you can fit into a golf cart!
We detached ourselves from the dock and headed over to Royal Island, a few miles away. This is a good staging point for the passage across the open Atlantic to the Abacos. We got into the anchorage and for the second time ever, our anchor refused to set on the first attempt. The bottom was very grassy and scoured and after two failed attempts to set the anchor we moved across to the other side of the basin and backed the anchor down hard – she set just fine then in a sandy patch!

Wednesday was supposed to be a close to perfect day for the 55 mile open ocean passage to the Abacos. NE winds clocking to E at 10-15 and 3-5 footers over the ocean.

Jorgen cooked his famous spaghetti Bolognese that night with enough left over’s for lunch the next day ( 2 brownie points for the whisker pole on the Christmas wish list, 1998 points to go)

Edward da local Manatee hangin' out...



Streetscape in Spanish Wells...



Q at Spanish Wells Yacht haven, ready to depart for Royal Island...

Saturday 20 March –Hatchet Bay Eleuthera – Spanish Wells 20 Miles.

We departed Hatchet Bay and headed to Spanish Wells. This involved negotiating the dreaded Current Cut, a natural short cut which is located at Current Settlement 25º 23.00N, 76 º 47.40W . As the current rips through here, hence the name, it should only be attempted in favorable conditions. We have met people who have seen 10 foot standing waves in this cut, ouch. As it turned out we timed things very well and as we arrived at the entrance there were a plethora of boats heading north through the cut behind us.

As we popped out the other side we had a smooth ride to Spanish Wells. This is a lovely little fishing town, apparently the lobster capital of the Bahamas, yet there wasn’t any lobster on the menus in town (!?). Speaking of which, we found the Anchor Snack Bar, which served the best food in town, right in the harbor. We met Crazy Roy who was heading out for a 3 week fishing trip off the coast of Cuba in his South Carolina shrimping boat, what a character.

Sunday we chilled out and walked the island and headed back to the Anchor Snack for dinner.

The next day we decided to visit Dunmore Town on Harbour Island by high speed ferry. We decided the ferry was the best option as the weather was cruddy and blowing 20+ from the west, and then there was of course the famous Devil’s Backbone, made up of jaggedy craggy nasty coral heads and reef.

Mister fast ferry driver dude zipped through there with no problems. Once we landed in Dunmore town the rain started to lash down. We opted for golf carts rentals and luckily crew Querencia got the one with the wind screen. Dana with My Whim crew got the windscreen less version (oh boy). We divided and conquered the town and hooked up for lunch at the Sands Resort Beach Bar – great tucker but we all had soggy arses.

We headed back across the island and dropped in Valentines Resort and marina for a cocktail before departure. Boy we were glad that we didn’t take our sailboats here as the marina is totally exposed to the west. The boats were hobby horsing in theirs slips.

Heading through Current Cut...giddy up



Mad Ferry Ride through Devils BackBone



Heading out of Spanish Wells view from ferry......

Monday- Tuesday 15-16 March –Rock Sound Eleuthera 0 Miles.

We hunkered down in the NW corner of Rock Sound for a couple of days to hide out from some north westerly winds. The harbour is wide and the dinghy ride to town is about 2 miles, not recommended if the waves are kicking up. Monday was spent playing Yatzsee and drinking Heinekens in the cockpit. Maria is the Yachtzee champ! Later we had a Mexican Train Dominoes tournament on My Whim that went on until the wee hours, Jorgen the rookie won, making up for his Yatzee spanking.

You're dead right Jimbo...... Jim s/v Dana



Local Flora .........



Watchout this one will eat ya!

Wednesday 17 March –Rock Sound – Hatchet bay 35 Miles.

We decided to head up to Alice Town / Hatchet Bay which is located half way up the Eleuthera west coast and affords good all around protected anchorage. We timed this well as the winds were going to clock to the west and there is zero protection in Eleuthera apart from Rock Sound and Hatchet Bay. We took a free mooring ball and headed into town to check things out. With two minutes we discovered the best bar, The Front Porch, run by Francis and Gina and two year old Rain. They are great folks and helped us arrange a taxi to tour part of the island as there were no rental cars available. The next day we were picked up by Daniel our Taxi driver and we zoomed through Gregory town to see the Glass Window. This is a very narrow section of the island, about 10’ wide, were one has a great view of the Atlantic to the East and the banks to the West. The waves here are nuts, like a giant blender. A rogue wave moved the natural bridge 7’ to the east not so long along.

Daniel then dropped us off at the path to Surfers Beach. The short stroll on the jagged path brought us to the surfer’s hideout. Some youngsters came along with their boards and we hung around until one finally got up on a wave. Worth the walk though! As we headed back to meet Daniel, we see our taxi down the road being towed by a pick up truck. Seeing we were miles from base we jumped in and got a tow back to the Front Porch. I felt bad for Daniel as he was going to get more business from us as we had planned to see more of his island, but the part would take a while to arrive.. They really need the clunkers for cash incentive in Eleuthera. Thank you Daniel for showing us your lovely island.


Leaving Rock Sound at dawn........careful Admiral is helming :)



Entering Hatchet Bay - yikes suck it in lads...



Querencia moored in Hatchet Bay....



Road Shift at Glass Window with blender effect below....



Chillin' at Surfers Beach



Look - it's the Irish Flag! Happy St Paddy's Day from Eleuthera.....

Sunday 15 March –Highborne Cay Exumas – Rock Sound Eleuthera 37 Miles.

We left Highbourne Cay at about 08:30 for a honking downwind sail across the Exuma Sound. This was another huge milestone for us. Conditions were close to perfect with 10-17 knots from the NW and 3-4’ long period waves. We broad reached for close to 20 miles and then wing on wing towards Powell Point as the wind clocked WSW. We wiggled around Powell Point and settled on our rhumb line through the narrow Davis channel to Rock Sound. Another fantastic wing on wing sail for 6 miles down Davis Channel, what are the chances of having the wind at this point of sail, we were stoked.

The only downside is that we got absolutely spanked by out buddy boat Dana, Jim and Bonnie are experienced sailors and had set a whisker pole with halyard, aft and fore guys and smoked us down wind. A whisker pole is on my Christmas 2010 wish list (I must cook more dinners for the wife).

Q under full sail crossing the Exuma Sound...



The local at Rock Sound



Heading to the supermarket in Rock Sound........



A fixer upper in the town......... our next summer home maybe....



The Admirals at Happy Hour.......sent the skippers to retrieve the dinghies hehe..

Thursday 11 March –Shroud Cay – Highborne Cay 20 miles

Another front was due to arrive during the weekend and Highborne Cay, at the northern end of the Exumas, is an excellent jump off point for the passage across to Eleuthera. We decided to head in to Highborne Cay Marina and dodge the front. Highbourne is a quaint island with a fantastic beach on the Sound side. There is development taking place on the island, a restaurant and rental cottages are under construction. Currently there is no restaurant on the island but Chef Joel has a cook out every Saturday night on the beach, all you can eat ribs, chicken, fish – very yummy. Needless to say we partook and enjoyed the food and entertainment. We would recommend this place

The wait for public transportation would kill ya..........



Hectic intersection...



Carlos is out of business...



Q Crew...

Wednesday 10 March –Hawksbill Cay – Shroud Cay 10 miles

We got up early and dinghied into the north mooring field at Hawksbill and hiked around to the eastern beaches to the Loyalist ruins. The Loyalists were English colonists that fled the USA and settled in the Bahamas after their defeat of the US War of Independence.

We headed back to the boats and weighed anchors. Our destination Shroud Cay mooring field. The sail was accelerating as we steamed along on a beam reach at 7 knots. We snagged a good ball and settled into the cockpit for the entertainment to follow. A 50’ charter Beneteau, with 300 French Canadanians, try to hook up to a ball. After about 10 failed attempts one of the crew decided to dive in and swim up to the ball to get the pennant and unsuccessfully hand it to crew at the bow. Someone on board discovered an extendable boat hook and low and behold the ball was snagged. What a mess, Hilarious! Normally we jump in the dinghy and help our fellow sailors, but this situation was more like a Chinese Fire drill and we probably would have been run over, instead, giving them space was the appropriate action.

In the afternoon with went for a great dinghy ops through the mangrove canals of Shroud Cay – amazing. The northern creek is the only one that the Park allows motorized boats to use. The mangroves are shallow in places so the trip should be timed on a rising tide. The mangroves open up to a beautiful lagoon on the Sound side and a wonderful beach. At the top of the hill is Camp Driftwood, a man made hut in Robinson Crusoe style. Don’t miss this trip!

Dinghy Ops driver - mangroves beyond......



The caravan through the mangroves........



Admirals meeting at the lagoon.........



Bonnie from s/v Dana and Q Crew at Beach...

Tuesday 09 March –White Point – Hawksbill Cay 35 miles.

We planned to head up to Fowl Cay, a very up scale resort island ($2,000 per day to rent a cottage…) to have their famous 5 course dinner with open bar for $100 per person. Maria called them to make reservations and, as it turned out, we managed to pick the one day of the year when the chef had a day off. We were so looking forward to a big spread so no big nose bag was had by the Querencia Crew.

Change of plan again, we knew another mild front was due in a couple of days so we decided to head north to Hawksbill Cay, one of our favorite places. We had moored here before during Christmas with good protection from the fronts.

About 10 miles from the destination we heard s/v Dana chatting on the VHF radio. We had first met Dana on out first day of our cruise in the Dismal Swamp on the Virginia & North Carolina border. We hailed Dana and it turned out that they were in the southern mooring field at Hawksbill, along with s/v My Whim. We promptly changed our plans again and headed to the southern field.

Cocktails on Dana at 5:00 after a long day at sea.

Explorers...




We better get back to the boat lads, looks like rain........



Dana & My Whim at South Mooring field...

Monday 08 March –Lee Stocking Island – White Point 35 miles.

We had some major timing issues in order to leave Lee Stocking on a rising tide. The cuts in the Bahamas, especially in the Exumas, should not be attempted in adverse conditions. An ebbing tide and on-shore winds can create nasty standing waves in the cuts. The cuts are generally also quiet narrow so it can be a bit hairy to get in and out.

We had to leave Lee Stocking close to high due to our draft and we wanted to exit the cut close to slack tide, at the same time we wanted to enter cave Cay cut close to slack tide. High tide was at 14:00. Left Lee stocking at 11:30 passed thru the cut at 12:00 and made Cave Cay at a perfect time of 14:00. Yehhhhaaaa!

We had planned to anchor inside Cave Cay or maybe Musha Cay but when we got there, we thought the island looked kind of boring. We had great conditions for a sail on the banks so we promptly decided to keep on keeping on and had a fantastic beam reach up to White Point. Dropped the hook in a pristine anchorage around 16:30 and celebrated with cocktails and a steak dinner

Sunset at White Point...



Squally times...

Friday 05 March –Emerald Bay, Great Exuma - Lee Stocking Island 15 miles.

Time to get out of Velcro Bay! The fronts finally subsided with suitable conditions to head out into Exuma Sound and north to Lee Stocking Island. We left the dock at 08:30 and headed over to the fuel dock. After refueling with gas and diesel we headed out the Cut and into the Sound. As it turned out conditions were not quite as favorable as we had hoped for. We were in for a bumpy ride and took a lot of water over the bow while coming out of the Cut into the Sound. The trip north was, of course, straight into the wind and into some 5-6 foot steep waves with some 7-8 footers thrown in for additional entertainment. Oh well, we made good head way up to Aderley Cut at Lee Stocking and timed our entry at slack tide to lessen the punishment of these notorious Cuts.

The Perry Institute of Marine Science, (PIMS) is located on Lee Stocking, a private island. We were invited on to the island for a tour of the facilities. In all honesty, the tour was quite unexciting but it was interesting to see the decompression chamber that Perry had built in the 70’s. The chamber is still in working order but there is no staff on the island trained to use the equipment, should there be an unfortunate diver with a dose of the bends. Instead, the victim is flown at low altitude to Nassau for treatment. The natural beauty of the island and its surrounding waters are breathtaking

Saturday we took the dinghy in to explore the rest of the island. We beached on Coconut Island and hiked up to Perry’s Peak, the highest point in the Exumas at about 160 feet above sea level. Stunning 360 degree views over the sound and the banks. We decided to be dare devils and climb without oxygen.

Saturday night we joined our friends from Innisfree for cocktails and a bonfire on the beach. Maria the Pyromaniac narrowly avoided burning down the island as the dried palm fronds burn like dried out Christmas trees. Gwenn forgot to pack the marshmallows.

The next day a couple of boats tried to leave but the conditions in the cut was too rough.

Innisfree being a shallow draft catamaran managed to take the inside route across the Galliot Bank. Querencia with a draft of 5’9” would never make this route so we had to stay put another day. No worries, the view was great so we spent Sunday lazing around on the boat and doing some more hikes on the island over to the Sound side.

Querencia at anchor behind Lee Stocking Island.........view from Coconut Beach



View from Perry's Peak



Perry's Peak ......... we reached the summit without use of oxygen



Bonfire time.........don't ignite the skipper



Sound Side Beach at end of hiking trail with bubblegum guide........

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Monday 15 February – March 03, Little Farmers Cay to Emerald Bay, Great Exuma, 25 miles.

We left Little Farmers Cay at slack tide to reduce the potential “rage” exiting the cut to the Sound. It’s a tricky route out with plenty of coral reef to spoil your day. Thankfully we exited without any dramas thanks to Jorgen’s great driving skills. We sailed southwards in the Exuma Sound, our destination Emerald Bay Marina. Formerly a Four Seasons Resort the marina was acquired by Sandals (upscale resort) and had just reopened. The beauty with this place is that they have cheap rates for the docks without shore power $0.50/ft or $20/days for our 40’ boat (as opposed to a standard rate of maybe $2.50-$3.00/ft in the rest of the Exuma marinas).

In addition to the inexpensive marina fees, Emerald Bay is also a good place to re-provision with a good grocery store and an excellent liquor store which incidentally delivers you beer, wine and whisky directly to the cockpit of your boat – talk about convenient………

We rented a car one day and headed south to Georgetown and collected my box of Swedish Snus that the kind fella Anders Person had sent via UPS, thanks Anders –you saved the cruise! (Thanks Jamie for the UPSing!).

While in Georgetown we attended a weather seminar that was hosted by Chris Parker the weather forecast guru. It was very interesting and educational. Everybody, including Chris, agrees that this has been the windiest winter in memory with more fronts than ever before – go figure; we cruise for one year hit El Nino weather! Oh well, sure beats the office and we hear that Virginia is getting more snow than Vancouver.

The good news according to Chris Parker is that after the blow on Wednesday March 03 we should be returning to more stable, normal weather with less severe and less frequent FRONTS and more of the traditional NE trade winds.

We traveled around the island by car and came across Momas Bakery, just as she was pulling hot bread, coconut pies, chocolate rum cakes and cinnamon rolls out of the oven.
Innisfree and Querencia were stocked up with goodies. We also visited the old Salt Ponds that were harvested for sea salt, back in the day. We stumbled across old Loyalist ruins and crossed the Tropic of Cancer! We headed north to Barretarre and dropped into Big Cheese’s for a couple of rums on the way back to our floating home.

We have been here for 2 ½ weeks now and the plan is to head north to Lee Stocking on Friday March 5th after this current FRONT has passed, Front No. 642. The local beach is fantastic and the only decent place to dine out is Palappas Bar and grill located in the Grand Isles resort, 3 mins walk away. The Marina and Sandals Resort are wrapped by a Greg Norman Signature golf course, which looks extremely difficult. We have walked the course (while no one was golfing), and the room for error is 6” either side of the fairway. A round of golf is $265.00, which does¬ not include club rental, shoes, golf cart, beers, balls etc – ouch.
Another great perk to this Marina is the wonderful club house, laundry and shower facilities included in or 50c rate . So we got to see some of the Winter Olympics and closing ceremony and enjoyed the pool room.

We are looking forward to moving on but have enjoyed our pampered stay at Emerald Bay. Since we have already seen Georgetown twice by car we feel no need to head south and mess with clubheimers.

Sailing south to Great Exuma... Innisfree leading the way...



The Coconut Chic...



Lunch at Chantelle's beachside Cafe ... Forgot to hold my breath for this photo...



Re-Re-provisioning...



Freshly baked goodies at Moma's...



Rum at Big Cheese's with Jim & Gwenn from Innisfree - crazy kids............