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It has been some time since we have been so far off the grid I needed to post using the Satphone, but here we are!

As we approached Great Sale Cay yesterday at about 3 in the afternoon, the anchorage was empty. It is a well protected anchorage with good holding in deep sand, beautiful clear water, surrounded by a fairly large, yet uninhabited, island. We were approaching from the southeast. Meanwhile, from the west, an invading armada motored ever closer… By 6PM, there were almost 20 boats, mostly motorboats and catamarans, packed in.

It turns out this is frequently the first stop for boats coming into the Bahamas from Florida. Judging by the chatter on the radio many of the boats that arrived were traveling together, and had all likely been waiting for some time for calm weather to make the 50 mile crossing. By 9AM the next morning, they are ALL gone–on a beeline to the bars and social entertainments of Marsh Harbour. One boat pulled his anchor in the pitch dark at 4AM! Really?

It is not fair to expect everybody to cruise the same way, but this is such a beautiful spot, the weather is perfect, and there is so much to see and explore, that to blast through like it was room in a Motel 6 seems to very much miss the point of coming to the Abacos in the first place. Oh well… if we understood people we probably wouldn’t be out here enjoying ourselves far away from civilization on a boat.

This morning we took advantage of the calm conditions. We dropped our mainsail and re- repaired (correctly this time!) our mainsail leech line. The weather is as warm and steamy as anything we have seen since last summer. In fact it is warm enough we are hoping the shower we can see in the distance is coming this way!

Right now we are trying to decide if this afternoon’s excursion will be snorkeling at the blue hole or exploring on shore… Decisions, decisions.

OK, we are not blowing up a lot of things…  just the dinghy.

We do like our dinghy.  Karen has christened it “Rhythm” (to go with Harmonie, get it?) Our inflatable dinghy is our local transportation wherever we go.  Since we inflate and deflate it a lot, we have had a lot of time to work out what works best for us.

The normal air pump used on most dinghies like ours is a foot bellows pump. They work, but I find them awkward and uncomfortable to use.  Pumping at full speed, it takes about 10 or 15 minutes to inflate our little boat.  Not awful, but if it’s hot and sunny, it can be sweaty work.

When Amel built the Super Maramu boats, they included an electric dinghy inflator pump.  As far as I know, these all died an early death, because it is really hard to find a well made unit on the market.  So many of them are little more than toys, built for inflating other toys.

After an extensive search, we think we have found the right answer.  An Italian company named Scoprega has an extensive line of both manual and electric air pumps sold under the “Bravo” brand name. We have found some of these to be well made and highly functional.

Our dinghy needs to be inflated to a fairly high pressure, about 3.5 P.S.I., so our inflation process is a two stage operation.  First, is a high speed electric inflation pump, a Bravo OV10.

Our “fast” air pump, a Bravo OV10

Bravo OV10 Air Pump West Marine sells the same pump with in a store-brand box.  Note that the adapter required to inflate most modern dinghies is NOT included, but must be obtained separately.

This pump runs off our 110V inverter and it is also available in a 220V version. It takes about 3 minutes to have the dinghy nearly full. Although it does suck a fair amount of power (1000W) it goes so fast it has no real impact on our batteries. Other than the vacuum cleaner-like whine, is is an easy and pleasant process.

I say nearly full, because while this pump is really fast, it doesn’t QUITE get the tubes to the full pressure they need to be. For that we used another Bravo brand product, a Bravo 101 hand pump.

We liked this hand pump for a couple of reasons.  The tube that runs to the dinghy is attached to a fixed point on the pump.  On most similar products it is attached to the handle, and goes up and down as you pump.  It also has an easily visible pressure gauge.

Bill puts the final puffs into the the dinghy with our hand pump.

About 10 to 20 strokes on each side, and the dinghy is fully inflated and ready to go.

At least for now, we think we have the dinghy inflation process as close to optimized as it is likely to get.

On a windy and rainy Monday afternoon, it is time to catch up on the blog!  We have been busy entertaining guests, and dealing with travel and weather.  The next week or so looks to be back to what passes for normal aboard Harmonie.

Bill’s brother, Jim, sister-in-law, Laura, and their son, Mike, were visiting aboard Harmonie for the past week. We had a carefully planned and researched itinerary for their visit. You can guess what the weather gods did to us when they heard we had a plan and schedule!  After they finished laughing, they stirred the weather pot to be sure nothing went as planned.  Fortunately, all aboard were flexible and good natured as we responded to changes.

Our plan for Wednesday afternoon was to head into the large lagoon that goes by the name of the “Sea of Abaco” via the North Bar Channel. The string of large winter storms that pounded the Northeast coast of the USA had generated a large swell here, almost thousand miles to the south. When that large swell ran up against the reef on the east coast of Great Abaco Island, the resulting huge breaking waves rendered the channel passage to the calm interior far too dangerous to consider entering.  Since the forecast was for the size of the swells to decrease over night, we sailed out to the east until about midnight, then turned around and then sailed back toward the coast.  Come morning, it was true the waves WERE smaller, but not nearly small enough.  Time for a “Plan B.” A wider, deeper channel was 15 miles to the north.  Man-O-War Channel was our fall back plan.

As we approached, we tuned in to the VHF radio to hear the local “cruiser’s net.” This is a daily cross between a call-in radio program and a telephone party-line where information of interest to the local sailors is exchanged.  We heard a report on the conditions at Man-O-War Channel, “Rough and turbulent.  Two on a scale of zero to five.”  Two out of five sounded promising, so we pressed on, especially after seeing the local mailboat take the passage without problems.  Still, there was a strong offshore wind of 20 to 25 knots that was ripping the tops off the breaking waves and dramatically blowing spray back out to sea.

The actual channel runs through the reef at a slight angle, so when you first start in you have to take it on faith that there WILL be a break in the waves.

It is always very hard to get a photo that captures the drama of an ocean wave. I think this give you an idea of what we had to sail through on either side of the Man-O-War Channel.

We (obviously) made it though without serious problems.  I think Jim summed it up best when he said, “If this was a ‘2’ I would not want to be here on a day when it ranked a ‘3’!”

Our first plan was to anchor or pick up a mooring, but it was windy and rough enough we decided that a marina would be the comfy choice for all concerned. Fortunately, Orchid Bay Marina is centrally located on Great Guana Cay, and had a spot for us.

Harmonie docked at Orchid Bay Marina, Great Guana Cay, Bahamas

Putting Harmonie in her assigned slip in 25 to 30 knots of wind was a…challenge.  But we got her in place without breaking anything, and without embarrassing ourselves. So that was all good!

The Orchid Bay Marina has all the comforts.

The marina/resort runs it’s own ornamental plant nursery.

One of the things that has become obvious to us is the physical damage that was done by last year’s hurricanes is mostly gone here.  The real lasting damage to the local economy is from the people who are staying away because they think (incorrectly!) everything is broken.  While it is nice to have an uncrowded experience, it is disturbing to see facilities in good shape, sitting mostly empty during what should be their high season.

Great Guana Cay just continues to impress with stunning scenery.

Give Karen half a chance and she’ll find them… the local wild orchids. A species of Encyclia growing in the mangroves.

We will be out and about cruising the Sea of Abaco again tomorrow now that the weather looks to be settling in to a calm period.  Hopefully the snorkeling and fishing will quickly improve!

On the very southern tip of Great Abaco Island is the settlement of Sandy Point. Not much happens here, it is quite remote, but also beautiful.

On all of the outer islands in the Bahamas you quickly get used to every car that passes  (and there are not many!) honks and waves in greeting. People are always friendly, if not always effusive about it.  Last time we were here, the weather made it a hassle to get to shore, so this time we made a point of getting to the beach and walking around town.

Here are some pictures:

The Beach

More Beach

More Beach

And More Beach

Rush hour on the road to Marsh Harbor

Ripening Sea Grapes

Just a beautiful roadside wildflower

The town’s fire company. I did mention it was a small town, right?

Tree snails are common in spots. Some of the ones with more exotic colored shells are quite rare.

If you are going to sit by the dock of the bay, you need a chair, right?

We are out exploring again and we are giving a few places we visited before a more complete look over.  We sailed from Freeport, to the southern tip of Abaco yesterday.  Well… to be completely fair we sailed half way when the wind stopped and we fired up  the trusty Volvo diesel.  We trolled lines most of the way, and had nary a bite.

The highlight of the trip over:  Karen saw her first Green Flash. Like many people, she was a bit skeptical about the actual existence of this phenomenon she had heard described. If you have a perfectly clear view of the horizon, no hills, or trees, or buildings, and there are no clouds at all between you and the setting sun, then just as the last tiny bit of the upper limb of the sun slides below the horizon, it turns from orange-yellow to brilliant emerald green and then–it is gone.  It lasts no more than a half second or so.  So if you have never seen it, or heard of it, or are skeptical of the story, we can now both now assure you it is a “thing”.  Karen’s comment: “It was definitely green!”

As we approached our destination after sunset, in the dark, a brown-footed booby began circling the boat.  Round, and round he went.  He had picked out his perfect roosting place on the main mast spreader.  At least a dozen tries to land.  They aren’t know as “boobies” because they are smart and graceful!  Finally he got a foothold, and proceeded to “decorate” our deck and cockpit with whatever fish he had eaten earlier than day.  Yuck.  We HATE boobies.  As soon as we got our anchor down, we whacked his tail with a line and sent him looking for a roost with more welcoming neighbors.

The anchorage was beautiful in the moonlight. With calm, crystal-clear water we could easily see bottom.  We could have picked out a penny on the sand.  For our evening’s entertainment we turned on the flood light on the back of the boat.  After an hour or so, we had a large collection of assorted small fish hanging around, and a barracuda cruising by as well. But the coolest visitor of all, was a Caribbean Reef Squid who entertained us while hunting the smaller fish. Really fascinating.  I have never seen a squid hunting in the wild before.

Today was a fishing day.  It was almost flat calm, and brilliantly sunny.  Colors that just occur nowhere outside the tropical oceans.

How calm and clear was it? That is the shadow of the boat on the bottom of the Bight of Abaco this morning…

We trolled over to Hole in the Wall Reef.  Our fishing luck today was different…  Not a whole lot better… just different.  We had no less than five hard strikes from wahoo… without hooking one. Very frustrating!

As we approached the reef, we were treated to a small group of humpback whales repeatedly breeching as they migrated south toward their breeding grounds close to Hispaniola.  Tails, flippers, heads, bodies, all thrown up out of the water and splashing back down. They put on a great display–right up to the point I picked up the camera, then they disappeared.

We arrived at the reef, and experimented with a type of fishing new to me: “deep drop” fishing.  This is bottom fishing in VERY deep water, 600 feet or more.  I picked a likely looking spot 800 feet deep, and dropped five hooks baited with squid and a 4 pound sinker down… and down…  and down. Almost 4 minutes to reach bottom.  As soon as I tensioned the line, I felt the friendly tap, tap, tap of a fish.  Hey!  This is easy!  I let the bait sit down there for a few minutes, hoping for multiple hookups.  Now comes the fun part… reeling all that line back in! I start cranking… and cranking, and cranking.  The line is heavy, and it is hard work. I can feel the fish struggling, but I certainly wouldn’t describe it as an epic battle.  This is meat fishing, not high end sportfishing.

Less than half way up, something dramatic happens…  Suddenly the rod bends deeply, and line starts peeling off the reel, very fast, and straight back down to the bottom.  There is nothing I can do but hold on as my catch heads back toward where they came from. Then…. suddenly… nothing.  Broken off.  What happened? Did a larger than expected hooked fish suddenly realize it was in trouble?  Or did a large shark, marlin or swordfish grab the fish struggling on the hook?  I’ll never know what happened 600 feet under the boat…

We did manage to bring one yellow eye snapper up from the depths.  Like many of the fish that live in the deep, cold, dark waters, he made a VERY tasty dinner.

Not huge, but really good on the table.  A yellow eye snapper.

Then, something changed, and the bite stopped.  Reeling in the better part of a quarter mile of line is hard work, and without the ready promise of a fish on the end, I quickly lost enthusiasm.

Our trip back to the anchorage netted us one small barracuda on the trolled lures.  Not a dramatically productive fishing day, but fun all the same.