I've been able to score a wi-fi signal so I've posted a picture of my surroundings. Hope you enjoy!

Capt Chris

Comments [1]

The forecast continues to be a complex one. I very well could be in this same spot for another week. That would not be pleasant, but what can I do. The wind is easterly at 15 to 20 knots and to get to Nassau, about 31 miles away I'd have to sail straight into it. It just ain't happening. Plus the further south you go the higher the wind speed. All kinds of weather things going on. I like my spot in terms of the easy access to Chub Cay Marina, a real bullet proof safe harbor, but at $2.80 a foot I don't want to pinned down in that harbor for long. So I will just keep on keeping on.

I thought I'd take the time to explain "saildocs" to the uninitiated. Saildocs is a free internet document retrieval service that is specific to the bandwidth impaired. Perfect for folks like me who are working on expensive sat phones that have limited bandwidth capability. I get alot of weather from them in different formats. If I send an mail to query@saildocs.com with no subject and in the body and put FZNT22.KWBC: Mid-Atlantic it retrieves the mid atlantic offshore forecast and sends it back in an email. Pretty cool. You can get weather for the entire world. You can ask for "spot forecasts" where you send in a lat and long and saildocs will extract a 7 day weather forecast for that area from NOAA's weather models. For those of you who are foaming at the mouth over this, send an email to query@saildocs.com and in the body put "send info" and it will send back everything you want to know. Not much else to report. The kids bivouacked.

Capt Chris

Comments [3]

Still hangin here at Frazier Hog Cay. I am still surprised at the lack of cruising traffic as I really thought I'd see more. Several people along the eastern seaboard had remarked to me that the volume of snowbirds was lackluster. There are two other sailboats here with me. Today I took the dink up to chat with the folks on Soul Searcher a Caliber 40 out of Fort Walton Beach FL. Matt and Joni had stopped at Bimini to check and mentioned that it to was dead. Could the retracting economy be to blame? No clue. The economy aboard Christa is doing just fine.

The wind continues at about 20 knots so I am in the same spot as yesterday. Today I dug into the cabinets in the galley area for a through cleaning and re-arranging. I threw some stuff away and each day seem to get better organized. I also plan later on today to do some spray painting on the Yanmar. In a salt water environment it's important to take on any showing rust immediately before it spreads like the bubonic plague. It takes some squirming around in the engine room to get to the rust spots. Most of the rust spots I have exist right under the exhaust elbow. The exhaust gases are cooled by circulating sea water and I guess I had some drips somewhere. Anyway these are the small mundane things that take up my day. You would think that the days drag on when not moving. But no, my days are completely filled. On to Google Earth.

My progress can be tracked in Google Earth. Google Earth is very powerful and adds an element of exploration to viewing my blog and others. Karen from North Louisiana was nice enough to email instructions on how to gain access to the Christa files on Google Earth. Thank you very much Karen! Here are Karen's words:

Probably the easiest way to follow Christa in Google Earth would be like this:

From your blog, click on "Current Position" map. When the map loads, you'll see a little box in the lower left corner that says "+ Google Earth". When you click on the "+ Google Earth" link it downloads the kml file for christa ( svchrista.kml). Click save to disk.

Right click on the svchrista.kml file you just downloaded and click "Open with Google Earth." Or with Google Earth already open, go to file, open and then open svchrista.kml .

When Google Earth loads you will see "Christian Allaire's Sailing Life in the PLACES area located on the left. Underneath you can find the options to view Placemarks with Blog Entries (you can read your blog entries right there from Google Earth) or you can view the Position Only Reports.

Anyone at least a little familiar with Google Earth should be able to figure it out. I also notice you can click on to your "Google Map Trip Itinerary" link and when it takes you to the Google Maps page there is a link at the top right that says "View in Google Earth" and when you click that it downloads your trip itinerary in a kml file that you can then load and view in Google Earth.

If anyone else is using Google Earth to track my progress please let me know. Exciting stuff! Later.

Capt Chris

Comments [6]

I had a really good burger last night at the Berry Islands Club. This is my first interaction with Bahamians and as I mentioned the Resort is dead business wide. Apparently next month the place will be packed. So anyway the Bahamians are extremely kind and they have told me over and over "make da island your home mon." I sat at the bar watching Direct TV with the locals and I just couldn't understand a word they said. It is an english dialect I've never heard. So when I converse with them they will adapt to my lack of Bahamianess. I have quickly picked up on the fact that they all drink pretty much all day long. They were all pretty amazed that I was a non drinker and couldn't really understand such a lifestyle choice. Case in point.

This morning I headed ashore to see about a wi-fi signal and do some exploring. Ramone was on scene pouring a concoction of Guinness Stout, Ginger Ale and Red Bull. He was heading over to "da Chub Cay side mon" and asked if I'd like to come. Now he seemed to have his faculties and besides the roads are all holes and you can't go over 25 mph. Even then if we had a brush with the edge of the road we'd just hit shrubs. Pretty soon I had met everyone on the island. Everyone of them all smiles with plenty to say, of course I couldn't understand much. What I did gather was the fact that there are only 15 women on the whole island and life on the island swirl around these 15 women and what they may or may not be doing. We picked up a couple of passengers along the way and made three stops at the island grocery store for more Red Bull and Guinness. After returning to the club Ramone filled up my gasoline jug I use for the outboard and Honda generator. Cost? 5 dollars a gallon. Ouch.

It has been nice to slow down. I really didn't do much today. I studied some charts and did some reading in the cruising guides. I did get an email from Jose the Maui Jim repair tech. He can repair my shades for $60 beans plus shipping. I need my Maui Jim's! I am also adjusting my weather gathering and weather studying habits. The Offshore Forecasts cover large areas and use coordinates for fronts ridges and troughs and the like. All forecasts are formatted the same and take some getting used to. The weather features need to be plotted out to get a visual on what is happening. With everything in motion, including me, it takes practice. I also like to check the forecasts from days back and compare the predictions to the actual conditions experienced. The current forecast is not really all that good and appears I may be pinned down here at Frazier Hog or Chub Cay for a few days. Generally a tropical wave is moving through the Virgin Islands and Windward Passage. This is butting up against a large expanding high pressure system coming off the east coast of the US. The southern Bahamas and Turks & Caicos is really in a compression zone with gale warnings up. Where I sit is also in a compression zone, just not as bad. Winds east at 25 to 30 kts late Sunday through Tuesday. If things become tough on my mooring I will head back to Chub Cay and get a slip. So I'll hunker down with ships projects. Hope all are well.

Capt Chris

Comments [1]

Lots to talk about today. First off you will probably notice I will mention the clarity of the water over and over again. Upon ascending to deck this morning I literally was on an emerald sea. It is just crazy to jump in the 6 feet of water and snorkel around. Christa's hull is exposed in all her glory with the keel just a foot from the bottom. Speaking of the bottom and my anchor dragging. I read in one of my cruising guides that the holding in the bight in Chub Cay is suspect. It mentioned that the bottom was "scoured" out. I believe this to mean that a thin coating of sand hides a more harder coral bottom preventing proper digging. Anchors work by worming themselves in. Since I've been anchoring my hole life in mud, dragging has never been a real problem. Now with the conditions changing I think I'll need to learn which anchor is suited to the type of bottom condition. Anyway onward we go.

I have a minor navigation triumph to report. As I wrote a few months back I use two different nav systems with two different types of electronic charts. In tight areas I use both at the same time, but since my chartplotter uses much less electricity to run I use it always and exclusively in open ocean. It runs on C-MAP NT cartography. The other system is run on a laptop called THE CAPN. I have used it for years and like it very much and admit I pirated a copy several years back while the Chief on Morgenthau. The CAPN is what I use for all transit planning, laying down Routes and all that kind of jazz. Well when I went to load up and view my Maptech Bahamas charts several weeks ago they would load but I could not view them. I tried everything, spoke with Maptech support several times and just could not get it figured out. One last call to Maptech support while in Key Biscayne yielded results. I casually mentioned that I had an older version of CAPN and then he hit me with it. Since CAPN was bought out by Maptech the newest version of the Bahamian charts (Region 9 for those who care) cannot be viewed by the older version of CAPN. I thought $275 dollars was down the drain. But no, Maptech provided Maptech navigation software with Region 9 called Offshore Navigator. After I went through the Product ID and secret code stuff with tech boy I was in business. It was a challenge to load as I had to download a "patch" and install it on the laptop before Offshore Navigator would load. Yesterday I finally successfully installed the program and charts. I used it today departing Chub and entering Frazier Hog Cay. System is awesome and better than CAPN. I'm really pleased. I am finding that with boats and generally in life persistence is really important ingredient to success. When I am stymied by things I will generally stop for awhile and pick back up on the project with fresh eyes and attitude later on. Generally I get things worked out.

After pumping up the dingy, really one of my least favorite things to do. Takes me about a half hour to get the dingy launched. I headed into Chub Cay which is a private island with a resort specific to bone fishing. It has an airstrip that caters to folks with plenty of money. The docks are beautiful and generally the resort was beautiful, but empty. The two Bahamian dock boys informed me I'd need to bring in the boat and lash off to the fuel dock and they would call Customs. They also informed me of the $100 dollar fee the resort charges for the use of the dock to check in. Fine. I get Christa all tied up and ask to fill my two gallon gas jugg. "Sure mon and since you be using da services we wave da $100 fee." Really? "Yup mon" and then they went straight back to a intense game of Backgammon. So I filled out the blizzard of paperwork and the Customs man made his appearance. He was very nice, very professional and was patient with all the missed items in the paperwork. So then he asked me if i want a fishing license? I said well "I brought some poles along" and he said "well unless you plan on dancing around them I suggest a fishing license." The whole room really broke up over that one. A real knee slapper. I got my passport stamped, a 3 month cruising permit and fishing license for $150 dollars. All in all a pleasant experience. The dock boys even let me fill up my water tank for free. The charge for water is 35 cents per gallon but "since I've known you for so long mon, we can waive da fee." Beautiful.

I weighted anchor around lunch time and motored about five miles to Frazier Hog Cay which really is the other side of Chub Cay. The cruising guide showed a place called the Berry Islands Club with moorings and a restaurant. I arrived to a ghost town and only one lone mooring. It looked in fairly decent shape in 15 feet of water so I tied up to it. I strapped on the mask and flippers to give it a good going over. I was met at the bottom with a tractor and fairly decent chain. But the real news is it was like an aquarium. All kinds of beautiful tropical fish had made said tractor there home. Just amazing scenery. I quickly took the dink ashore to find out who owed the mooring and what the deal was. Berry Islands Club was empty, wide open with a radio playing and a desalinization plant humming. I was rather confused. Later in the afternoon I could see a pickup truck had arrived. I dinked on in and met Ramone who got me all squared away. $15 a night for the mooring and the restaurant bar opens around 8pm. I think I'll head ashore this evening for a burger.

One last thing to mention. I have been futzin around with the shortwave radio I bought while in Fort Pierce and I finally was able to hear Herb Hilgenberg on 12 megs. He is a famous Ham radio operator and weather man. Each day at 3pm many boats check in with him, they give there current position, current on scene weather and intentions. Herb then gives weather forecasts to them and routing recommendations. He has been doing this for years and is a very trusted man. I only can hear, I cannot transmit but was able to get a sense of the broader weather picture. The problem is I had to put my portable radio antenna half way up the mast and even then the reception was tough sometimes. I'm still learning about this technology.

Looks like I may be here in Fraziers Hog Cay for the weekend as the wind is supposed to pick up from the east at a good clip this weekend. I think I'm safe on the mooring but fear that the area I'm in could develop an uncomfortable chop. I'm here to enjoy the sights and weather while waiting for a window to move to Nassau, about 40 nm or so away. As soon as I get a wi-fi signal I'll be sure to upload some pictures. More later.



Capt Chris

Comments [5]