Mike
03/29/2008, Rock Sound, Eleuthera

March 28th...Little San Salvador to Rock Sound, Eluthera

We left Half Moon Bay at about 7:30 and motor sailed most of the day . The first 10 miles were not protected from the Ocean and there were some good sized swells but otherwise the trip was no eventful. We did not catch any fish although Steve caught another Barracuda.

The weather is going to prohibit traveling next week so we came here mostly for protection. There are well stocked stores and internet access ... although at $12 an hour we won't be spending too much time there. The cold fronts that bring us bad weather are supposed to slack off in March but so far that has not been the case.

One of the largest Cruise Ships in the world passed us yesterday... it looked like sideways building floating on the water. It crossed the path our friends Barry and Susan on "Night Hawk" and we got a couple of neat photos.

We arrived in port at around 1:30 and took a dinghy ride / walk to the store which the nicest that we've seen in a while. The produce was picked over but the shelves were well stocked and there seemed to be enough business to insure stock rotation. There is a hardware and NAPA in the same area so we'll go back tomorrow to search for fishing lures and transmission fluid.

There were squalls today and a water spout formed out in the bay, not far from our boat. It was pretty cool! We saw several rainbows also.

We grilled some burgers and listened to updates of basketball games on Fox sports. We gave up on the Spartans at halftime down 30. But all in all, a Sweet 16 appearance was more than we anticipated this season.

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Mike
03/29/2008, Half Moon Bay, Little San Salvador

March 27... Bluff, Cat Island to Half Moon Bay, Little San Salvadore.

We left Bluff without going ashore, at about 8:30 and sailed wing on wing in 20 knots for two hours before hitting deep water and turning north. Our lines were in water as we approached the drop off when I noticed that one our boat poles was twitching. There was a fish on but it wasn't big enough to take any drag out. After no fight at all, we boated the monster and got the book out to identify the poor thing. In a few minutes it became obvious that it was a Almaco Jack (forgot to take a picture!) and the book said it was excellent table fare. It took two swipes to detach the fillets from the carcass and then two more to get rid of the skin before sticking them in the refrigerator. Try as we may, there were no more fish to be had.

The island of Little San Salvador is owned by the Holland America Cruise Line and used as a stop on their runs. We are allowed to anchor here if we stay to the west end of the bay and stay aboard when there is a cruise ship in port. We arrived around one and spent the afternoon watching the cruise people play. They have stables and lead groups riding on the beaches. There are cabanas large and small, bars, restaurants, small sailboats, para-sailing.... just about any water sport imaginable. The ship itself anchors off shore about a mile and the passengers are ferried ashore.

At around 6 pm everyone was back aboard, they weighed anchor and are gone.

I fried some potatoes and the fish while Kathy made a salad.... the fish was very good.

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Mike
03/29/2008, Bluff, Cat Islalnd

March 26th... New Bight to Bluff, Cat Island


We left New Bight, Cat Island at around nine and sailed north to the village of Bluff which was only about 20 miles to the north but offered some protection from both the northeast and south east. The winds were above 20 knots all day and the boat got salty. Until the last hour or so we ran with just the mizzen and staysail. We were fishing and wanted to remain in a more up-right position. With our two smallest sails we made between 5.5 and 6 knots for the trip but didn't catch any fish.

Sapphire has recently developed a VHF radio problem and when we anchored I began the process of tracking it down. With the help of every on in the anchorage... there were 5 boats, and Steve's electrical equipment, we found that our battery bank was severely depleted and the low power caused the radio to malfunction. There voltmeter that monitors our house bank of batteries is defective and has been leading us to believe that there was more charge in them that there actually was.... on top of that my electrical tester was not working correctly either... it also showed voltages much higher than they actually were.

The odds of two pieces of equipment pointing in the same incorrect direction has to be staggering. Anyway, we immediately began the process of charging our battery bank, which will take days. Ideally, we should go to a marina somewhere and plug in for the night, Unfortunately, there don't seem to be too many such places on Cat or Eleuthera Islands.

At 5pm we went over to "Voyager" and had snacks and drinks with Charlie and Terry as well as "Restless" and "Tilt." We made a dinner of the snacks and had a very nice time with everyone.

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