Miscellaneous Picture Catch Up

Just some photos that didn't get processed before the last post.

Going up the creek (with a paddle) in the Munjack/Crab anchorage with our friends Lesley and Hartley

The creek at the Manjack/Crab anchorage. We went before high tide and it was only 10" deep in most places.

One of the beaches on Crab Cay near the anchorage.

A feral pig from Crab Cay. She had a litter of 10 babies so we were trying not to agitate her. She was looking for food
but we didn't bring any because we didn't know they were on this cay. She was extremely skinny.

She wasn't sure what to think about Tim

Checking each other out.

Ive decided to be prudent about how many large shells I bring back so I've taken to doing photos of the big ones.

Are you tired of Bahamian sunsets yet??

Enjoying the sunset through our screen house. Boy are we glad to have it here in Green Turtle with the noseeums.

The Beast gets a break …

Crab Cay anchorage on Little Abaco Island

Kintala has pointed her bow westward and is starting the trek back toward the US of A. The disappointment of having to leave the Islands after barely a month is balanced by those we are sailing toward. Family awaits in Annapolis and Pittsburgh. Then there are Daughters (3), Son-in-Laws (2), and grand kids (soon to be 9) in Indianapolis and St. Louis. There is a chance to sell the condo, (hopefully a good chance) and to see some old friends at Carlyle as well as St. Louis.


We left Green Turtle and sailed back to Nunjack, spending four nights in our new favorite place. Then left Nunjack for Crab, spending two night in one of our favorite places from last year. From Crab we headed for Fox Town to do some provisioning in another of our favorite places. (Can you tell we like this part of the world?) That last leg was on Tuesday.

Did I mention light wind?

Even with the pole up the sail was challenged

We managed to sail off of the anchor to start the day, then on to the anchor to finish the day; thus giving the WesterBeast a break. Not a big deal in the sailing world, but a "no engine day" was a first for us on Kintala in water more open than Carlyle Lake. The wind was very light which required patience, nursing the most we could out of the sails, and keeping track of the arrival time to make sure we were in by nightfall. It was the second time in Fox Town and the approach is pretty open and easy. But there are shallow spots and rocks to avoid and the overcast sky would make, once the sun disappeared, for a dark hard to describe to city dwellers. We would have woken up the Beast rather than try the approach at night, but managed enough speed to arrive in the late afternoon.

By then the wind had picked up a little and we were doing four knots for the first time since leaving Crab. Getting into the cove brought us up ever more tightly on the wind, a perfect setup. We rolled in a bit of the head sail, than a bit more, than a bit more. Deb picked her spot and spun Kintala the rest of the way up into the wind. I rolled in the last of the jib then took a leisurely stroll up the deck. Just as the boat's forward speed bled away to nothing the Mantus splashed and grabbed hold of the bottom. The wind provided enough push to set the hook, and the day was done.

Sunset reward after a perfect day.

It was a normal day of sailing and a small accomplishment, but it gave us a sense that we are getting better at this. Still, we have a thousand nautical miles to go, across the Stream, up the East Coast, and through the Chesapeake, to get where we need to be. Again, not such a big deal in the world of cruising, a thousand boats will be doing the same thing in the next couple of months. But still a big enough deal to us to make patience and careful planning watch-words to keep close until we reach Oak Harbor.

Patience and careful planning are not new, particularly to someone who spent a career in aviation. But in my land life patience and careful planning could take a back seat once the front door was closed upon arriving home. Unless a tornado came by the house wasn't likely to go anywhere. The winds could blow, the rain and snow could fall, but inside all was safe and secure. The water “tanks” were always full, there was milk in the 'fridge and, if not, the store was only two blocks away. Unlike Island stores, US stores always have milk, and meat, and fresh fruit and veggies. The big screen TV always had ready access to a fast Internet connection. Good for entertainment but even better for checking weather. (Not the Big Screen but the Internet connection.)

The companionway on Kintala isn't anything like the front door of the house. That isn't to say we never feel safe and secure “out here”. With the Mantus well set in the placid and clear water of a protected yet sparsely populated anchorage, cold one in hand as the sun sets on a perfect day, it is hard to feel any more safe and secure. There is no TV blaring the latest bad news, no sirens in the streets or helicopters hunting overhead. Sometimes after the sun goes down, particularly on a clear night with the sky ablaze, it is so quiet that the stars themselves seem to be whispering. (Which, I will admit, takes a little getting used to.)

Yet, even then, there is a little bit of guard left up. If you don't think so, make a loud noise that can't instantly be identified, then watch how fast the cold drink gets set aside and the crew jumps to.

After much debate it was decided that, rather than racing an impending cold front to Great Sale this morning, a slightly better choice would be to wait it out here in Fox Town. Kintala is going to be pretty exposed to the west winds the rest of today and most of tonight, so it remains to be seen if it was a good call or no. Green Turtle is the only really protected spot in this part of the Abacos, but is too far away and in the wrong direction to be of any use to us for the upcoming weather. Buy a ticket, take the ride.

The next few stops will(?) be Great Sale, Mangrove, West End, and the US, maybe Fernandina Beach off the St. Mary's Entrance. At roughly 275nm, West End to Fernandina would be the longest passage we have made, so we are still thinking about it. Another one of those “not a big deal in the cruising world...but”, and the Beast will likely have to get up for at least part of that one.

More Bahamian water pictures, these of the faint ripples on nearly flat water...

Looks a bit like a Windows 7 wallpaper, no?

 

Sailing Bucket

...as in Bucket List. A lot of sailors have bucket lists. I guess it comes with the territory. Selling off everything and going cruising is, after all, a big bucket list item itself. Most sailors' bucket lists are places they want to sail, distances they want to cover, etc. Mine? Well...so I confess, I'm a sailing geek. My bucket list is slightly different. It consists of sailing skills I want to master.

The Crab Cay Anchorage

One of the skills I have always wanted to perform seamlessly is sailing on and off the anchor. I've watched a good many people sail off the anchor and Tim and I got that pretty much down pat while we were still sailing on the lake. Now, before you go on thinking that I'm saying I've mastered all the sailing skills on my bucket list, I haven't. But I've at least tackled them and am continuing to attempt to master them. All except one. Sailing onto the anchor was something that I was always too afraid to even try. The "what-ifs" drilled fear into my head and kept me from tackling this last major item on my bucket list.

A week ago we were anchored in the Manjack / Crab anchorage north of Green Turtle and this sailboat came screaming in to the anchorage under jib alone, swept between us and the boat next to us, carried on well in to the cove, spun up and the crew kicked the anchor overboard while the jib luffed. A few seconds later the jib was rolled up, and the wind was pushing the boat back on it to set it. Tim looked over at me and said, "That guy's my hero." Every day the niggling thought poked its way into my consciousness. Wanna try it. Gotta try it.

After a couple days at Green Turtle we returned to the same anchorage and decided to try to anchor under sail, but outside the anchorage where there were no boats to crash into, just to practice. There really wasn't enough wind to pull it off, but we were encouraged. We motored in to the anchorage and the thought continued to pester.

Today we sailed in some perfectly brisk breeze under the genoa alone, heading to the other Crab Cay anchorage (If you ever sail in the Bahamas you'll quickly learn that there are hundreds of Crab Cays). The wind was perfect to tack around Angelfish Point and into the anchorage, all under sail. When we tacked we rolled in the big genoa and rolled out the staysail to slow the speed a bit. At 3.5 knots we sailed straight into the anchorage, turned Kintala's nose up into the wind, and Tim kicked the anchor off the bow. While Tim tended to the very slow release of chain and some very careful snubbing of the rode with the clutch, I rolled in the staysail and within a few minutes the Mantus was set pretty as you please. I was grinning like a toddler with an double-decker ice cream cone.

Next? Sailing off the anchor, sailing all day, sailing on to the anchor, no Westerbeast required. Stay tuned...

A Schucker 436 motor sailor we crossed paths with several times.

Not sure of the make of this one. Beautiful boat though!

A Catalina 42 that we chatted with on the radio.

Green Turtle Picture Post

A collection of pictures from Green Turtle Cay, Donnie's Docks, and the Manjack / Crab Cay anchorage.

A pirate ship anchored in Black Sound next to Donnie's Docks and there was a guy dressed up as a pirate on it. Our grandsons would have gone simply bonkers over this.

Black Sound  in Green Turtle from Donnie's Docks

This jelly fish floated by our boat. Not sure what type it is because it's not in my nature book.

The azaleas in New Plymouth at Green Turtle Cay are amazing.

An interesting cat ketch we saw in the harbour at New Plymouth on Green Turtle

This was taken through 3 feet of water from the surface. It's impossible to describe how clear the water is here.

There was no wind on our way out of Green Turtle. This is 13 feet deep water.

There are hundreds of catamarans everywhere down here.

Can't see the anchor in this picture? Yeah. That's why we love our Mantus anchor.

We took a dinghy exploration trip up a creek that runs between Manjack and Crab Cays. We were tol there were a bunch of green turtles up there and we were not disappointed. We saw over a dozen of them, but they moved too fast to catch on film. There is one hiding in one of these pictures if you can find him.

We motored all the way to the end of the creek in the mangroves and then drifted back with oars in the quiet.

At the very end there was this small pond with a 43 foot sailboat. It must be a centerboard with shallow draft because the creek is less than 3 feet deep even at high tide in some places.

And the weirdest thing to ever find on a beach award goes to...the plastic piggy bank.

Not sure what these are either. I need a new guidebook!

Kintala at anchor in Manjack / Crab

This bird landed about 5 feet from Tim. He was very curious. Any takers on the type?

The water here still looks like modern art to me. This is clumps of sea grass through 2 feet of rippling water

Just for the fun of it

Fresh water levels on Kintala were getting to the extremely critical level this morning so we reluctantly weighed anchor from our newly appointed favorite place in the Abacos, the Munjack/Crab Cay anchorage and headed to Green Turtle. We needed to wait until nearly 4:00 in the afternoon to have enough water to get in to Black Sound through the shallow entry, but we sailed out of the anchorage at about 11:00 in the morning to see if the forecast 8 knots of wind was really there and if Kintala could coax enough juice out of it to ghost her way down to Green Turtle. As we rounded the corner, the wind picked up to nearly 12 knots and, with just her jib flying, Kintala pointed her nose South across the bay for the beginning of what turned out to be one of the best days of sailing we've had in awhile.

The bay around Green Turtle is one of the best places to sail around here. It's wide, free of any obstructions or shallow places, the water is crystal clear, and the wind is pretty steady. We tacked back and forth, sometimes ghosting along at only 2.8 knots when the wind began to die down after lunch. It returned slowly and we were once again sailing, right up until the point when the tide was high enough to attempt the channel.

Deck Monkey's day off

Too often, cruisers get a case of get-there-itis, making their way from one anchorage to another with a time schedule. I admit that we've fallen prey to this condition on occasion, especially when we have to beat incoming weather or darkness, but it was nice to spend the day just sailing today for the fun of it like we used to do at our lake in Illinois. Sure, we had a place to get to, but it was the only job we had for the day and it was only five miles away. I was at the helm most of the day while the Deck Monkey enjoyed a rare day off from endless rigorous sail handling and I spent the whole day reminiscing about our years sailing on Carlyle Lake. Other than the fact that the water is clear here and a startling turquoise color, the size and shape of the bay is almost exactly the size of Carlyle, giving us the notion to name our newfound favorite anchorage cove Coles Creek, Bahamas (Coles Creek was our favorite cove to anchor in on the lake). It was an unbelievably pleasant day which ended with some nice conversation over a shared drink with our fellow dock dwellers here at Donnie's Docks. This is a place we came last year and it was a very weird sensation to realize that we've now been doing this for enough time to be coming back to places again. What a difference a year makes in how it feels. I'm looking forward to coming back again and again.

The anchorage at Munjack/Crab Cays, our new "Coles Creek" in the Bahamas

Green Turtle, Abacos

 

A house along the shore across from Green Turtle. Someone's living life large...