Homeward bound: The Abacos to Florida

We've been moving too fast for much reporting-if it's Thursday, it must be Daytona Beach. We thought we would spend a leisurely two or three weeks in the Abacos, but got a weather window to rush across the gulf stream and cut it short. We love the Abacos and usually start our Bahamas travels there at the beginning of the season. The sea of Abaco is like a big lake bordered by many islands which we can visit without weather worries. But the weather there is definitely colder and windier, so the southern route through the Exumas was the right choice this year. Most cruisers said it was the worst weather they could remember, no surprise to most Floridians, I'm sure.Once we arrived from Eleuthera at the southernmost cut into the sea of Abaco at Little Harbor, we hurried through all our favorite anchorages: one night at Lynyard Cay, one at Little Harbor looking for sea glass, on to Hope Town to visit with several boater friends who spend the season there. There was a festival that afternoon, a walk through town, ice cream!!, sundowners on a friend's boat, a real homecoming. We had to hurry over to Guana Cay for the dish-to-pass the next night (homeowners with kitchens as well as cruisers make this a real feast). Then we had to rush to Marsh Harbor for a cruiser's get-together, then on to Man O War Cay for an overnight with dinner out and a hike, back to Hopetown for a long bike ride down to Tahiti Beach and friends over for lasagna on Easter Sunday. Back to anchor at Guana and the weather report that had us sailing west all day on the first of the three days to Florida. It might have been weeks before another weather window as good, so once I calmed down at the prospect of racing through the next three days I was resigned to go. Usually I can only take one passage at a time and don't trust that the weather could behave for three days in a row.

At the end of day one, we anchored at Great Sale Cay just at sunset. , a deserted island (in more ways than one, since I made a pie to take over to a buddy boat "Te Amor" for dinner). Phil on Falcons Nest also came. It is so comforting when you're that far from anywhere to have a feast with neighbors. The next day we stopped for a few hours at Mangrove Cay where Lee scrubbed the boat bottom, just long enough for hundreds of flies to move aboard-they must have been shipwrecked there a long time and swatting them became our entertainment for the next few days. That night we anchored at Old Bahama Bay, Grand Bahama, at the edge of the gulf stream, ready to up the anchor at 5:30 for the crossing to Fort Pierce, FL. It was a little lumpy, after all it is the infamous gulf stream we're dealing with, but a good sail. Only one wave made it into the cockpit as we neared the inlet. Lee finally managed to catch a large Mahimahi on the crossing.

It went into the fridge in a plastic bag to be dealt with the next day when we were safely anchored at Fort Pierce. Notice the harness he's attached to and the gaff, no falling off the back deck for him. That happened to him once, thankfully not while I was crew.

We anchored and met our crossing buddies, who have a car at the marina where they keep their boat, and drove to a restaurant for PIZZA! It was too late for customs, so they gave us another ride the next morning to customs at the airport. This car thing is addictive.

On to Vero Beach for two nights with a crusier's party and free bus rides and walks to the beach.

We had a guest on board the next day who refused to leave until we gently approached him with a boat hook. He would have been welcome except for the problem of not being housebroken. He worked hard to stay balanced on the lifeline and then nestled into an even better space. It's a pelican!

Then another day brought us to Doris's dock where we made Doris dinner with our Mahimahi.

We can always recognize her house from the street.

Then on to New Smyrna, where we found a great Mexican restaurant and then Daytona, still on the Intracoastal Waterway with no weather worries, to visit my aunt and uncle. The view from their sunroom is a little different from what we're used to.

So today I catch a train to NYC to visit kids and Lee takes off with his crew to head north. Another cruising season is almost over.

Lee's turn: Just spoke with my on air shortwave radio weatherman. We were advised the ocean is uncomfortable seas today, we should motor to St Augustine and leave from there Friday early for a 2-3 day passage north to somewhere between Savannah, GA or Beaufort, NC. Wayne is here and he brought his friend Larry Bivens from Owensboro KY along as crew. He should be very helpful with the night passages.

Homeward bound:Eleuthera

Position of Alesto 2: Anchored off Lynyard Cay, near Great Abaco. N 26:22, W 76:59. (Degrees and Minutes)We just bounced over to the Abacos from Eleuthera for the last seven hours, full strength Atlantic Ocean. Lee says the waves were 6-8 feet, I tried not to look out. Our weather man doesn't work Sundays and conditions seemed worse than reported in yesterday's report. He probably would have said "some people might enjoy these conditions" which is my cue not to go. I'm adding never start a voyage on a Sunday to my checklist. Lee got the fishing out of the way early, with a ten pound something in the tuna mackerel family-they never quite match the pictures in our fish book.

A week ago we had a calm trip across the Exuma Sound from Staniel Cay, Exuma to Rock Sound, Eleuthera. The only mishap was discovering I had left my backpack under the table at the Staniel Cay yacht club, only when it was 50 miles away. Thus began a saga involving some twenty boats on the VHF radio discussing who could pick up my bag and deliver it to some unknown destination in either Eleuthera or the Abacos. Bill on Long Winded had it for awhile, only he was headed to Nassau. Some more frantic communications got it transferred to Finnesterre, who finally pulled into our anchorage last night. For the rest of my cruising days, I'll probably be known for this little mishap.There's a cruise ship stop at the southern end of Eleuthera and we just happened to get to a restaurant last Sunday in time to see a couple of buses from the ship bringing in tourists for lunch on their island tour. We had fun being local color (scruffy cruisers) and watched the entertainment: preparation of conch salad and a little Junkanoo parade. On Monday we shared a car with new friends and toured southern Eleuthera. We revisited the Island School, where mostly American high school students can spend a semester doing academics as well as ocean related projects. It was interesting to see the tanks of farm raised cobia and tilapia, as well as lettuces raised on the tank runoff. They're trying for self sufficiency with cars running on fryer oil from the cruise ship stop and local restaurants, pigs eating table scraps, wind mills, solar, gardens mulched with seaweed, poopoo gardens from sewage. We had a great tour this year, the guide being a technical person. On our way back we spotted a giant pile of perfect red tomatoes in a back yard and stopped to see if we could buy some. The lady insisted on giving some to us and showed us her beautiful garden. It's surprising what seems to grow out of rock and sand. Linda showed us a beach a local lady had taken her to the day before and we got in an hour of shelling before returning the car.We headed up to Governor's Harbor and spent an afternoon finding the bakery (for Lee) and a shelling beach (for Sherry). We met a family from Rhinebeck, NY on the walk back and discovered a mutual acquaintance. This was not a good anchorage for west winds, so we had to move on the next morning up to Spanish Wells. This village fills up its own little island with streets numbered 1 through 31, 2000 -3000 inhabitants, all with the same nine last names, all blond and efficient, descendents of an English vessel that crashed here in 1648. Lobstering is the main industry, now that refrigerated boats can deliver 1,000,000 pounds a year that they catch. The local museum explained that prior to the late 50s, all freight to and from Bahamas was by sail. Fish and lobsters would not keep that long and at the time lobsters were $.10 and the locals used them for bait. Now, they have a new method of lobster farming, "Lobster Motels". They build a 4'X 4' piece of tin roof on 2 2X6 boards and place them in 20-60' of water, the lobsters like to stay under them. One large boat may tend 15,000 of these twice a year. Their location is recorded on their GPS and kept secret. They dive on them with a compressed air hose, just lift the box and sort eligible lobsters. The alternative, Finding and removing lobsters from coral holes is slow, difficult work. Recently they discovered a needed motel renovation: a second set of legs on top. It seems that dolphins wait for the divers to catch the fish that swim out as the diver collects lobsters. The dolphins then learned to tip the motel over on their own, thus the need for legs on both sides. Cruisers Jean and Tom bought a house here in 1996 and welcome visitors to a Happy Hour on their porch every evening, complete with a book exchange and lots of local knowledge. We found out why collections of people were grouped on the docks every day, always with someone standing in the water. Seems a pregnant Florida manatee, now named Rita, has taken up residency. The vet from Nassau did an ultrasound on her Thursday and thinks birth is immanent. Meanwhile she is being hand fed the recommended diet of lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, and not too much celery (it binds her up). We were glad to find out why fully clothed women were standing in the water up to their necks. Golf carts are the primary transportation and we felt safe biking. We made it all the way over the bridge and out to the end of Russell Island, the new suburbs of Spanish Wells. We could have spent a few more days admiring all the gardens, but our supposed weather window came along and we took the leap. Every detail of this cruising life is weather dependent, so different from land travels. We positioned at Royal Island for our ocean crossing to the Abacos and had dinner aboard Finnesterre. They delivered my missing backpack, which still contained my camera and money: always our experience in the Bahamas. The crossing was bouncy, as usual for this year, and Lee asked at one point if I wanted to turn back. But I just stayed below and tried to ignore it: better the devil you know. The biggest worry was the cut at Little Harbor. It's always a worry that the waves might be breaking all the way across, then where do we go? But as usual, nothing bad happened. To misquote Will Rogers "I must be a very effective worrier, because nothing I worry about ever happens. Note there are no pictures of Eleuthera because my camera was travelling separately. I thought it should have been sending me postcards of its adventures, but nothing!

Exuma Banks from Georgetown to Staniel

The locals are advertising St Patrick Day specials on the VHF radio, so it must be. We didn't exactly leave Georgetown as promised in the last report. We debated, talked to the weatherman, debated some more and then decided to wait for slightly better weather the next day. That didn't happen and Lee lamented about the bird in hand. So we had a few more beach sundowner parties and one last dance party with rake and scrape music. It's always intriguing to find out where the non-boaters at these gatherings come from. One large group flew in on two planes from their runway community in Texas. They were curious about the boating life and we marveled that they arrived from Texas that day at about 30 times our speed. It took them about two minutes to start dancing, with their teenaged daughter finally noticing and yelling "MOM!" in a scandalized voice. Another couple described taking an around-the-world cruise of 114 days and deciding to buy a house in Georgetown, the best place in the world. It must have been the fact that we were leaving the next day or else the beer, but we became incredible dancers on our last night there, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Rake and scrape, with a saw, wash tub, several guitars and drums, will get anyone dancing. I'm hoping we can find a CD to take home with us.

We headed north up the Exuma Chain of islands in Exuma Sound with 13 knots of wind on the nose and porpoised our way north for about six hours, heading into Adderly Cut to anchor near Lee Stocking Island. Once we got through the cut, it was peaceful banks water, seen above, a picture postcard setting with only our boat on the west side of Norman's Cay...except for the large barge and workboat (no picture included). We launched the dingy for our beach walk and noted other footprints on an otherwise uninhabited island. We tracked them for a mile or so and found four ocean kayaks, tents, beach kitchen, lounging people: more tourists off the beaten path. Seems you can get outfitted and kayak your way up the banks from Georgetown, who knew? In this uninhabited area, there are thousands of young Conch (Live) lying along the beach. It is said that in years past the whole Bahamas was covered with conch like this. The conch somehow migrate to deeper waters as they age, not sure how, we have never actually seen one move, we have seen trails left by them, but possibly only 50 feet per day may be their rate of travel, they are a huge snail like critter with one finger claw. Try a web search for "Queen Conch" for details.
In the interest of research, we decided to take the shallow banks route up the chain, rather than go back out into Exuma Sound. Another boat with our depth said they had done it several times. I marked the depth at each section from the guidebook and we left at high tide. It was still nervewracking with the depth sounder beeping and some concern that we might have to anchor and wait for the next high tide. Most of the tiny islands between Georgetown and Farmer's Cay are private and we've heard stories about over zealous caretakers who ward off cruisers. David Copperfield and country music stars are said to have enclaves on several of these islets. We didn't know where we could go ashore and had time/tide constraints, so we made no landfalls. But the pictures show what a paradise this area is.

So here we are at Little Farmer's with no damage to the bottom, ready to go out and eat corned beef and cabbage (not)! Later..an hour of walking took us to every corner of the island and we were ready for dinner at Ocean Cabin. Terry Bain, the proprietor, served us the most expensive dinner in memorable history, but it was worth it with his one-man comedy hour which followed, most of the jokes involving clergy. The rays were still eating the remains of our freshly caught dinner when we walked back down to the dock following dinner.

Lee's additions: Georgetown has a VHF marine radio net, 8AM every morning there is business, community and then general announcements. For my announcement, I advertised my lost Teva sandal, which fortunately floats, and it was found immediately, saved by another boat.

We have been motoring against the winds lately, which are at least moderate, but the sea motion is quite BAD, fuel use is worse than average at probably 1.2 gal/hour, as we need to use both engines to power against the wind and waves. Tomorrow (Sat) we intend to head for Rock Sound Eleuthera, light winds are predicted, but on the beam (side) which will provide a nicer ride, but will probably require a small amount of engine power added to the sails to do the 50 miles in daylight. Anytime the sails can be kept filled with wind, the ride is MUCH better, fuel use motorsailing is less, .5 Gal/Hour or less. Today (Fri)we are at Staniel Cay, we will be doing a circumnavigation of this small island by foot this morning. We bought a book about the history of the island written by a woman who came here with her husband in the early 70s. He disappeared from the narrative without another mention and we want to know the details. We will research that ashore today.

Above is the view over the shallow lagoon with the airport runway visible behind it, taken on our walk. We never solved the mystery of the missing husband. We stayed a few days longer than planned waiting for weather, but had dinner with friends on Salsa and had a calm ride to Eleuthera, so all was well.