fetchinketch

On our way from the marina in Nassau back to Bottom Harbor south of Rose Island, we were treated to an afternoon race of the Bahamian Sloops that I mentioned yesterday.  To be very technical about it (and I KNOW I’d disappoint some people if I wasn’t very technical about it!) they are not sloops, but rather cat boats–sailboats with a single mast and a single sail set on a boom.  But no matter what you call them they are pretty…

From another world completely, anchored off Rose Island, is the Cristina O, that’s “O” as in Onassis…

At 315 feet long, she is 31st on the list of largest private yachts in the world. Look very closely at the picture and you will see the little tiny people on deck.  She is available for charter at about $560,000 a week. She has 13 cabins, so that works out to $6000 per cabin per day. For your trivia of the day… In the ship’s bar the stools are covered with leather made from whale penis.  There is lots more interesting stuff to know about this ship’s history if you look it up on Wikipedia.

We are tucked into Bottom Harbor safely anchored to wait out the weather for a few days.

After reviewing the weather forecast last night, we have had a change in our short term plans.  Weather for Sunday through Tuesday is supposed to be, in a word: Stinky. Thirty plus knots from the Northeast with rain.

Rather than poke around the Exumas trying to find a good spot to hid that out, we are going to hang here near Nassau in a harbor we know and are comfortable with until the next weather window.  So later today we’ll be heading over to Bottom Harbor south of Rose Cay where we were last week. Once the weather breaks we head off south and east.

Today was a busy day, we spent our morning touring Potters Cay, the local market and wharf.  The picture below shows the towers of  the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island (renamed from the less touristy label “Hog Cay”) in the distance, small local boats in the foreground, and Potters Cay is in the middle distance under the bridges.

Potters Cay is probably one of the least touristy places on the Nassau waterfront.  It is dominated by local fish and produce markets and is the loading point for many of the inter-island cargo boats.

The causeway to the island is lined with shacks in varying degrees of decrepitude. Each of them faces the street with a bar or food stand.  A few make the pretenses needed to attract tourists, but most cater primarily to locals.

Most of the space on the Cay itself is devoted to the fishing fleet. Many land conch, but there are other products too.  Some shell collectors, and several of the boats were selling whole frozen snapper.

A look down at the shell collector’s boat cleaning his catch.

Seems like whatever you need from the ocean you can get by calling Rasta Willie!

Cleaning the day’s conch catch.

A load of starfish drying in the sun.

I’m not sure what this boat did, but it was sure full of lots of “stuff”.

The outlying islands in the Bahamas are served by the Mailboats.  While I am sure they do carry the mail, they carry just about everything that is needed, as well as passengers.  Loading is a study in controlled chaos…

I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising that the citizens of this island nation have a passion for sailboat racing.  Racing not just any sailboats, but a distinct class of boats know as Bahamian Sloops.  They are about 28 feet long, wide, shallow draft, tall masted, long boomed boats descended from the traditional local fishing boat.  Some are lumpy and rough, others are sleek and smooth, but almost all sport great paint jobs and show pride of ownership.

A traditional Bahamian Sloop

Our afternoon was spent retrieving our mainsail from the sailmaker.  When we got there it was in the last stages of sail surgery, running the last seams through the sewing machine.  It’s now installed back on the mast where she belongs.

Harmonie’s mainsail being put back together.

We hauled our jerry jugs off to the local gas station to pick up some diesel fuel for the main engine and gasoline for the dinghy.  We are getting ready to head east to the Exumas hopefully tomorrow morning.

We came into Nassau to give the sail to the sailmaker for its repair, to get Kevan his connection for his flight back to Florida, and to have a bit of contrast for a few days. The sail should be done Thursday, and we can be on our way.

We are staying at the Nassau Harbor Club Marina.  The marina is in good repair, but the associated resort is a touch faded from its onetime glory.

Island economies are always strange things.  Frequently there is no obvious explanation for the prices of things.  Just by way of some simple examples, the cost of the sail repair is similar to what I’d expect to pay in the States, $75/hour of skilled work.

A visit to the grocery store is eye-opening…  Chicken, $18/pound.  Milk, $8/gallon. And my favorite–toilet paper, 4 rolls for $18!!!

Having seen those prices, we were a bit worried about the cost of a dinner out. It turned out that was surprising the other way. A dinner (which was delicious) for three with drinks came to just over $100.  Not much more, if any, than you would pay for a similar place in the US.  So if you are ever in Nassau, we can recommend The Poop Deck on Bay Street. Good food and good service.

Where are we?

And just a reminder for those of you who get this by email and don’t go to the website, you can get an update on our location anytime by going to this link:

http://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Fetchinketch

There you will find a record of our location for the last three months.

Update…

It turns out that the initially reported prices from the grocery weren’t quite right… the shelf tags at the store were a bit confusing and out of alignment with the products.  Here is the real scoop…  Chicken $4.50, Milk $5.50, TP, $18 for 12 rolls.

We are bouncing around anchorages around New Providence Island, while avoiding the touristy kitsch of Nassau–at least for now.

On Sunday afternoon we thought we had found a great place , except the ocean waves came around the point and set the boat up to roll, a lot, all night. None of us got very much sleep. It was an easy and unanimous decision yesterday morning to move again.

This time we found a sweet spot. Clifton Bay. All the way on the west end of New Providence. Not crowded, well protected, good holding for the anchor. There is even easy shore access at a local park with a dock for the dinghy. The only thing missing is WiFi.

We’ll likely stay here until we sort out the sail repair, or the weather changes.

Today’s weather in Paradise, 81, Sunny, with an 8 knot breeze. Water temperature in the mid seventies.  Yeah… Rough.

What happens when we are at anchor in a place like this?  A few hours in the morning doing “boat chores” to keep everything working as it should. Then after lunch we take a chance to explore a bit.  Today our exploration consisted of snorkeling and swimming in the waters around boat.  .

We broke out our Brownie Third Lung for it’s initial testing today.  It’s an engine and a compressor on a float that pumps air down to a couple divers underwater.  It seems a well designed unit, and worked pretty much as expected.  I am taking it slow getting comfortable with it.  It’s a bit different than diving with tanks, but not in any dramatic ways.  It gives us the freedom to dive anywhere without having to worry about getting tanks filled or storing them on the boat.

Tomorrow morning we we are expecting a cold front to blow through, and drop the temperatures all the way to 78 or so…

The weather has been moderating.  Which means here that it has gone from pleasant, all the way to delightful. So yesterday morning we sailed down from our anchorage at Chub Cay down to a new spot about three miles east of Nassau.  Near the city, but still quiet and peaceful. It was in most ways a delightful day’s sail.  Only a few small issues blemished the day.  First was we did not catch a fish.  Second was when we went to unfurl our mainsail, we found this…

It’s not quite as bad as it might look, it is just a torn seam.  We sailed all day making good time with just our mizzen and jib. We need to get the sail down for repairs, and before we can get it down, we need to get it unfurled.  The problem is with a tear in the sail like this, it will not unfurl without help.  “Help” in this case being someone going up the mast to pull the cloth out as the foil turns.  “Someone” in this case being, yours truly.

Each little bit of sail has to be pulled out by hand. This is one of the downsides of having a sail that rolls up inside the mast. It makes sailing very easy, but when things go wrong, it can get ugly…

All the way to the very top of the mast…

Once out, the sail was lowered without further incident.  We are close to a local resort who has a wifi hotspot, so a quick search turned up a sailmaker in Nassau who can do the repairs for us–once they come back from holiday on January 3. (Where does someone who lives in the Bahamas go on vacation?) There are worse places to be stuck for a week.  Like, just about anywhere!

In the meantime, we are enjoying our anchorage…

Time: 19:20 local
Lat: 25 25.2′ N
Log: 77 50.1′ W
At anchor, Chub Cay, Bahamas

Christmas Day we anchored up from Cat Cay with the objective of crossing the Great Bahamas Bank. The cruising guide describes it as the “longest, and most boring, passage” in the islands.

We sailed north, around Bimini, to cross the deeper part of the Bank at night, planning to take advantage of the lighter winds forecast for the overnight hours. The only problem was the winds didn’t listen to the forecast, so they kept blowing at 20 to 25 all night pretty much right on the nose. It made for a long, slow, wet slog, motorsailing almost all the way. The 57 miles took all night.

Since we cleared the bank later in the morning than we expected, our ultimate objective down near Nassau was out of reach before dark, so we elected to drop anchor midday near Chub Cay. Actually, we dropped the anchor about five times before we found a patch of sand deep enough to dig into and hold the boat. Here we are the only boat in sight, and the shores of the surrounding Cays are very sparsely lit at night.

Right now it is still windy, although it is (again) forecast to drop over night. If the early morning finds us with favorable winds, we’ll head off again, hopefully finding a place relax and enjoy for a few days.

Time: 16:20 local
Lat: 25 33.5′ N
Log: 79 16.6′ W
At anchor, Cat Cay, Bahamas

We left Hollywood, Florida yesterday afternoon, at about 4 PM. From Hollywood we motored up the Intercoastal Waterway to the inlet at Port Everglades. Just as we arrived there, it was time for the Cruise Ship Port to empty out. While we hovered in a holding pattern for half an hour three huge cruise ships set off with their holds full of Christmas vacationers primed for a week of gluttony and wallet thickness reduction.

Just as the sun was setting, the channel was finally clear for our own departure out into the ocean.

Our crossing was uneventful. The wind was brisk, and moved us along at good speed. The waves were choppy, but never scary. We regularly were moving at over 9 knots through the water, cut to 7 or less by the contrary current of the Gulf Stream.

We arrived on the western shore of Gun Cay at sunrise. We found a sandy patch to anchor in, and had a nap. Once we were more or less recovered from our “red-eye” sail, we weighed anchor, and uneventfully checked in with Bahamas customs and immigration at the marina on Cat Cay.

Every time I look out of the cabin I have to do a double take at the beautiful color of the water. The temperature is in the low 80’s, with a delightful tropical breeze blowing. The closest thing to snow is the white sand on the empty beach.

Merry Christmas to all.

We have been chaffing here, ready to go, but not quite completely ready… waiting for that ONE last thing… always that one last thing… and then one more…

It is really frustrating to have always ONE more thing.  A common theme with people who are sailing away is that there is ALWAYS one more thing.  Eventually you have to just pick a day and GO.

Well… we have finally made arrangements for that ONE last thing…

If the weather is supportive, tomorrow we are off in the evening for a morning arrival in the Bahamas.  I am excited…

Of course, there is always a story to tell:

Tuesday morning we are quietly at anchor, minding our own business.  A line of showers blows through, with a bit of breeze.  Fifteen knots, maybe twenty for a minute or two.  Nothing of any consequence–I thought.  Karen is on deck on the phone. She suddenly alerts me that a boat is drifting across the harbor towards us.  A large ketch we had noticed the day before while underway.  We noted them as the kind of cruising boat we hope to never be, junk piled high on deck, looking just this side of derelict.

Here they come… anchor broken loose, drifting free, hatches open (remember, it has been raining!), generator running, but nobody home.  In a few minutes they have drifted right up alongside us.

Fenders out, we tie them up alongside and call the Coast Guard on the radio.  Fifteen minutes later, the local police boat responds, and manages to contact the owner who, eventually, shows up to reclaim his boat and move it back to anchor again on the other side of the harbor with an anchor rather unsuited to the size of the boat…

Anchoring is a combination of having good gear, and good technique.  The boat we interacted with had neither.  When anchored around other boats you have to also be aware of how those other boats are anchored.  They can be the most dangerous things around.