05/05/2009, Long Island, Bahamas
Today we raised anchor at 0645 and sailed out of Elizabeth Harbour towards Long Island. Long Island is a little under forty miles east of Elizabeth Harbour; an leisurely eight-hour motorsail.
We barely venture out into the deep water as we leave the south (east) entrance to Elizabeth Harbour, then duck back onto the shallow banks for the remainder of the trip to Long Island. I can't begin to explain the beauty of the water on these shallow (mostly sand) banks. It is absolutely captivating!
We chugged along under power and sail for most of the trip. We sailed without motor for a while, but the ladies wanted to get a move-on & get in to Salt Pond, Long Island early enough to arrange a car-rental for the next day to tour the island ... so I restarted the engine. It's been a long-time since I've flown our asymmetrical spinnaker so I thought I'd give it a try in the light-air. We weren't perfectly downwind & maybe a little too far off the wind for spinnaker flying (as it turned out). I rigged the spinnaker with the halyard, sheet, blocks and pole. As I was cranking in the sheet, I had to crank it over quite a ways & the pole hit one of the cable stays (cables that hold up the mast) & bent my spinnaker pole (kind of a big deal). I sure felt silly, bending my spinnaker pole.
I rigged several trolling lines for the trip over. The middle line we lost two lure-rigs, as they seem to have been hit by fish and broken off. After no-activity for a while, I finally looked back to see a fish flopping on the surface of the water; a small barracuda. Barracuda are good to eat, but are prone to ciguatera (a toxin that if enough is ingested, causes very nasty sickness). Supposedly, the smaller ones are okay to eat, but we are being cautious so threw him back anyway. Later I caught another much larger Barracuda. They are exciting to boat, as they've got large nasty teeth. Fun to grab the fish and get hook out of his mouth without killing it, nor losing a finger.
At Salt Pond, we anchored near the Long Island Breeze resort, where they have a dingy dock open to cruising boats ... a very friendly place really. The harbour is VERY shallow at low tide, so picking your way in and anchoring without hitting bottom requires one to pay attention.
| Main/Glenn |
|
Comments [2]
see www.watchmanjohn.com
Keep up the work. God Bless
05/04/2009, Georgetown, Exuma, Bahamas
The kids made a number of friends with other sailing kids in Georgetown. Most afternoons found them on one beach or another playing with their friends. It's been a highlight to have other kids to play with, as most places we've been, there've been few. A few days ago, most of their friends sailed away (& we are about to as well). Their friends departed for various islands; some working their way north, back to the United States and Canada while others are working their way towards the Dominican Republic to hunker down for hurricane season. It was pretty hard for for Jacquie & Ben to say good-bye to friends they may not see again.
Sue's good friend Lori arrived to visit for a couple weeks. The kids have been so looking forward to having Auntie Lori come. She'll be with us for a couple weeks, sailing around to different places & seeing the Bahamas.
We are planning to leave Georgetown on Tuesday morning for Salt Pond, Long Island; a little under forty miles to the ESE of our current location in Elizabeth Harbour. We should be able to rent a car and explore the island a bit.
We've enjoyed our stay in Georgetown, but as we've been here a month, we are SO looking forward to moving on. Georgetown is a VERY social place for cruisers. There are so MANY boats that there is an over abundance of social activities, art classes, bridge, volleyball, potlucks and bon fires. It's the first place we really did a lot of socializing with other cruisers vs. the local Bahamians.
| Main/Glenn |
|
04/20/2009, Stocking Island, Exuma Cays, Bahamas
Later this afternoon, after finishing hauling water and grocery shopping, I was sitting at a table on the beach, reading my Bible. Most of the usual crowd of boaters had left already. A small group of people decided they wanted to play volleyball & tried to press me into service as a player. Tony almost physically tried to drag me to the court. He saw I was reading my Bible and sat down to talk..we talked for a while. Tony now identifies himself as a Catholic, but has been involved with many things, including Harre Chrishna (sp?). We talked of sin and the day of judgment..had some trouble getting over his feelings of his own goodness. I think there is the beginning of some understanding of any sin, is sin before God and has to be answered for on the Day of Judgment.
They managed to get me to play volleyball..played some four games or so..was pretty fun really..haven't played in a long time. Just as the games were ending, my radio began crackling and I heard another boat calling Seawing and Sue answering. The kids had taken our dingy down to the next anchorage with some other kids in their dingy, pulled the dingies up on the beach, but when the tide came in, the waves washed over the sterns, totally swamping the dingies...swamping one motor and getting water in our fuel tank.
I was able to get one of the volleyball players to give me a ride in his dingy down to Sand Dollar beach to s/v Freespirit (a schooner where the dingies were towed). I arrived to find the captain of the schooner had just about finished filtering my fuel for the second time, through a special filter to remove water. I was able then to bleed the fuel hose, connect to engine and fire her up..ran good all the way home. The kids were afraid they'd be in big trouble & would never again be allowed to dingy off places by themselves..fears that were unfounded. Another day, another adventure.
I believe we will begin to see Regatta action tomorrow.
|
04/19/2009, Stocking Island, Exuma Cays, Bahamas
Sunday the harbour was a little bumpy, for a ride across to church & as there was no beach church, we had church on the boat. We spend some time showing the kids messianic prophesies. It is so amazing to see that there are hundreds of prophesies written in the Old Testament, in the thousand years before Christ, predicting the coming messiah..the coming saviour from God...and that every one was fulfilled perfectly in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Amazing!
I know it was Sunday, but we had some stuff that needed fixing, so I spent some of the afternoon fixing the water maker and such, while Sue and the kids went in to shore with the other sailors. At one point, I was repositioning an anchor and the generator; looking up to see some young Bahamian men hotdoging in a fast sporty powerboat..the hit the throttle, flew up on a wave and broadsided an anchored sailboat hard, riding up over the towrail, hitting the stanchions and ricocheting back into the water. They paused, looked around and began to slowly drive across the harbour towards Georgetown.
We started a flurry of activity on the radio, identifying witnesses, others tracking the offending boat's whereabouts, while I went to shore on this side (very close) to summon police. I was shocked to find a police boat at the dock hundreds of feet away & a cop watching the whole thing, without getting up from his table at the bar. I went and got him & then the sailboat's owner showed up too. He and the cop went out to the damaged boat, surveyed the damage & then the cop began to return to the bar. I went over and told him that we were hearing other cruisers watching the powerboat being winched onto a trailer in Georgetown with no cops in sight..and some of the guys even threatening to run over the cruisers watching them and radioing reports back here. The policeman finally got out his cellphone and made a call. How a cop can watch an accident like that, see the offending party drive away..a fast boat at his disposal, but do nothing. Makes one wonder about the effectiveness and dedication of the Bahamian police.
|
04/18/2009, Sand Dollar Beach, Exuma Cays, Bahamas
A nice brisk breeze blowing this morning....keeps the bugs down and a heat-sensitive wife happier. We are anchored (still) in the shelter of Stocking Island....just off the conch salad stand at Volleyball Beach (more-or-less in front of the Chat n' Chill).
Last night we all went to a pot-lock & bonfire off Sand Dollar Beach (next large beach/anchorage to the south....well, ESE). It was mostly, but not all, families with kids. Some of the kids had discovered a large cave, so the kids brought all kinds of paint for the kids to do aboriginal cave paintings (complete with "Kids Only" signs). It wasn't long, however, before the kids began to paint each other. I suspect the kids all had fun with the evening, but the squeals and yells & running up and down the beach, back and forth to the cave, and over the island to the ocean side and back. The last bon fire was a kids only affair. We dropped the kids, stayed for a while, then Sue and I went to Georgetown, as I was to preach at a Street Meeting that night (Good Friday). We arrived back much later, to find a happy group of kids with a large bon fire and no adults in attendance for the past couple hours or so.
Yesterday there was quite a bit more chop on the harbour. It was Saturday morning, I NEVER do this, but was tired, so after everyone was fed and all taken care of, I laid down for a nap in bed. Just nicely drifting off, when Ben comes charging in informing me that I need to go to town to get yeast for Mommy (she's baking awesome boat bread). The trip into town was bumpy, but the dingy is empty and I'm somewhat with the waves. The trip home, the waves seem a little bigger, I'm headed into them and I have groceries plus two-hundred pounds of water aboard (never go to town without bringing more fresh water home). The dingy was pounding into the waves, regularly taking sheets of warm salty water over the bow (& in my face). I ended up having to turn away from the wind and waves (& further away from home) and work my way across the harbour into more sheltered waters, before turning towards Seawing. (home). Even though I was wearing my foul-weather jacket, I was soaked when I arrived...though the groceries where dry, snug in the heavy black garbage bag and grocery cart.
Yesterday, I was able to get a replacement auxillary pump for our water-maker. I installed an additional filter-kit to filter out finer particulate in the water, to protect our water-maker membrane. When you do this, it takes too much suction to draw seawater through both the primary and secondary filter, for the water-maker to do it alone, so a secondary filter is installed to help. Our secondary pump failed, so were unable to use the secondary filter. It turns out, there is a Katadyne(sp?) Water Maker representative, anchored in the harbour here right now. Yesterday, we were finally able to get a copy of the proof of purchase for our system & he replaced the pump for us....VERY cool, as we are rather beyond normally having any sort of specialty replacement parts available here. I am planning to install the pump this afternoon....yes, I kow it's Sunday, but we need a reliable water supply.
We are planning to attend the local Baptist Church this morning (if the weather holds....see come clouds blowing in; might be squalls coming with). There is not church on the beach this morning. Someone asked at the potluck last night if we were having church this morning & mentioned they enjoyed last week (where I was able to preach a clear Law & Gospel message). It's making me think that maybe we should take the initiative to organize services in coming weeks....not sure.
It seems like there is a lull in the head problems. For the uninitiated, a marine 'head' is the toilet. Over the past couple weeks, we've had 'issues'. The forward head got plugged.....really plugged. The head empties into a holding tank, the contents of which are macerated and pumped overboard when appropriate (i.e. night time when no-one's swimming, or at sea). Well, the kid's head plugged....seems about where the pipe turns and dumps into the tank. I tried everything to unblock it. Remember, when I began to disassemble to work on it, the contents o the 1.5" X 5'-6' hose (several gallons) come running back to where I'm working....NASTY! I can't begin to describe just how nasty this is....had to do it TWICE (& in tropical heat)!!! It is one of the worst jobs I've ever had to do. I finally gave-up attempts to unblock, 'till we return to Florida. I plumbed the head directly overboard, so...don't swim on the port side when someone's sitting on the throne.
(rain squalls blowing in now...just had to run around and close up boat...not sure we're going to dingy the mile or so across the open harbour to church this morning, unless this blows over in the next 30-45 minutes.)
The generator began causing problems this week. One day it was REALLY hard to start, and for a Honda, this is VERY peculiar....usually the first cylinder over fires. One day, it just up and quit while running to charge the batteries; alarming, to say the least. We are able to run the main diesel and charge the house-bank off of the oversized alternator, but it is slower, way nosier and causes extra use (i.e. wear) for the far more expensive Perkins diesel. I began to go through the Honda generator and try to identify what the problem might be. I removed and cleaned the carburator float bowl, the sediment bowl, cleared the carboon out of the exhaust spark arrestor and checked the spark plug. I cleaned up and suspicious-looking spark plug & dried to get it to spark against the block (out of the engine)...no spark. We were able to dingy up the island the next day to the NaPa dealer and get a couple new plugs. Amazing...the silly thing fired right up; problem solved...yea!!! Well....problem solved....until it wouldn't start again the next morning. I did get it started with a little starting fluid, but added a liberal amount of fuel system cleaner to the gas tank & ran for a long time...now it seems to start right up and be in a rather good mood again....welcome to boat-life....fix, fix, fix, fix, rest, play, fix, fix fix....
Blue & Pink jobs. The other night, we were for dinner with several families on an Australian catamaran (the crew are originally from S. Africa). It was fun & the bbq meat awesome. Durring the evening, the discussiong of 'blue' & 'pink' jobs came up. Our host, was explaining that all boat jobs fall under either 'blue' (male) or 'pink' (female) and never should the two meet. That generated lots of enthusiastic discussion & laughs, as you can imagine. We're still joking about it....figuring that we have alot of purple jobs here....Sue thinks they should all be blue jobs....(in the words of Winnie-The-Pooh) O bother.
Every afternoon, around 2:30 or so, folks meet on the beach for vollyball, bridge and whatever other social activities. Jacquie had become sought-after as a volleyball player (thanks Gunnery Road Academy) & both her and Ben are often seen climbing trees and swinging wildly out of them on ropes....wearing the skin off their hands in the mean time. I (Glenn) have mostly been too tired to go hang-out. for some reason, I've been rather exhausted most of the time lately...not sure why.
Anyway...Ben's asking for pancakes for breakfast....gotta go cook. Later!
Glenn.
|
04/07/2009, Stocking Island, Exuma Cays, Bahamas
This place has been very, very different for us. We've mostly been meeting, socializing & visiting with Bahamians up 'till here, but now we are in a large group of anchored cruising boats. We are now mostly socializing with other cruisers. The kids are pretty stoked to find other boat-kids (or bilge rats..as we like to call them). Almost every afternoon they are playing together on the beach, running the trails around Stocking Island, building forts from palm fronds and swinging wildly from ropes in trees...not to mention beach volleyball.
|
