Marina Musings

Magothy River Anchorage, MD

Deciding to go cruising is a long process. Most people who decide to go cruising don't know anyone else doing it personally and have never been out cruising with friends, so the picture of what cruising actually is is pretty indistinct. This was certainly true for us as was evidenced by the fact that we never even thought about the ICW in our planning. We thought about long ocean passages, we thought about weather, we thought about equipment as related to passages and weather, but the idea that we would motor down the ICW some 1000 miles just never even entered our minds.

One of the biggest things we've learned about cruising in general this past year is that it's important to think about what kind of cruiser you want to be, and to be honest with yourself about whether you have the abilities and characteristics to be that kind of cruiser. It will impact the way you prepare to cruise, the things you purchase, the things you bring from your land life, and your expectations. We've said often on this blog in recent months that we always pictured ourselves as blue water cruisers, taking long passages and rarely sitting for long periods of time. This reasoning came as a result of our long passages around New England and with John Kretschmer in the Bahamas, passages where there was adequate crew to ease the load of passage making. The reality of it was that we suffered more from sea sickness than we thought we would, and sail changes at night in bad weather were more stressful than we were comfortable with. We simply didn't enjoy it when we were short handed.

Broad Creek Anchorage, NC

I never really began to think about what kind of cruiser I wanted to be until our friend Kacey came to visit for two weeks. He wanted to spend a prolonged time out “doing it” and toward the end when we had some long, ranging talks about his experiences he said he had decided he was more a liveaboard than a cruiser. It really got me on this train of thought and with every passing month, and with every additional experience, our “kind of cruiser” is being better defined.


So what does this have to do with the title of this blog post? Because for the last month we've been parked at a dock in a marina. It's a nice marina with great reviews on Active Captain, beautiful landscaping, a view of some incredible yachts, good dock mates, and all the conveniences of home. So why do I hate it? Because Kintala can't swing into the wind and the sun doesn't do its ripple reflection thing on the ceiling in the morning, the water is disgusting, there's no dolphins and I've gotten hurt not once, but twice getting on and off the boat at high tide. One kind of cruiser I definitely don't want to be is a marina rat.

Pungo River Anchorage NC

This is not to say that being a marina rat isn't a good thing. For some people. There are a half dozen people here who live full time in the marina, most of them on trawlers of some sort, although a few are on sailboats. If being a liveaboard is your thing then a marina is the place to be. A continuing flow of ice and clean clothes and long showers is not to be taken lightly, and we've been in a few really exceptional ones like Oak Harbor and Barefoot. But would I trade it for a mooring? In a heartbeat.


We've spent a good bit of time on the Vero Beach mooring field, and it's called Velcro Beach for a good reason. Great protection, excellent dinghy dock and lounge/shower/laundry facilities, free bus service, and a beautiful beach. The best beach, though was at Treasure Cay, Abacos. The moorings there are reasonable at $20 a day, and the facilities are great. St. Augustine was one of those places where the mooring field sucked because it's so exposed and the dinghy ride to the dock is long and wet, but the town made up for it with rich history everywhere. More recently we spent quite a bit of time in Coconut Grove at the Dinner Key Mooring Facility. As far as moorings go, the actual mooring field sucks like St. Augustine because it's so exposed. The exposure does give you a fantastic skyline view of downtown Miami and oncoming thunderstorms, fresh air and a nearly constant breeze abound, and the mosquitoes are few if you're out far enough. The reason we would go back there, though, is the staff. Patrick and his staff are without any doubt the most talented customer service division we've seen on a mooring field anywhere. They are helpful, polite, prompt, knowledgeable, and make you feel like you're the only reason they're there. And yet...

From the dock at Oriental, NC

We would still rather anchor out when given the choice. We are almost always happier when we are cozied up in a cove somewhere either by ourselves or with a couple other boats. It's best if the water is clear, the bottom sandy, and the weather warm, but we've equally enjoyed some cold, gray, stormy anchorages with cups of coffee and warm sweatshirts. We've anchored up rivers in Maryland, in inlets in South Carolina, in bays in North Carolina, along long stretches of beach in the Abacos, in a tiny cove in Egg Island, Eleuthra, in Middle River, FL, and right smack dab in the middle of Nassau. Each one has had its own flavor, each one serves to meet a mood.

Camp LeJeune Anchorage

After a year of thinking about this all, here's my Pros and Cons list for each. What kind of cruiser are you?

Marinas

Pros	Cons
Air conditioning in hot climates, heat in cold.	Noise: other boats, road and city traffic, neighbors
Easy access to groceries, trash, water, electricity, laundry, and sometimes (if you're very lucky) wifi	Wifi rarely works
You get to meet more people	You have to put up with people that you may not care for
Easier to work on the boat	Harder to go sailing since you're established in one place
Ice Cream Access: 10	Wakes from passing power boaters
	You spend WAY more money because everything is so accessible
No need for a dinghy dock	Hard to get on and off the boat when docks are not floating. Easy to get hurt.
No running the generator.	Power at the dock is low quality and we've had two shore power cords burn in 7 years.
	Services vary wildy for the same money. The best marina we ever stayed in cost 1/3 of our current dock.

Charleston, SC anchorage

Moorings

Pros	Cons
More stable ride since the boat always swings into the wind	Sometimes exposed
Good ventilation since the boat swings into the wind	Sometimes relatively expensive. Quality is inconsistent
Less worry about dragging in high winds	You need to know the quality of the mooring
Relatively accessible to services like groceries, banks, laundry, etc., depending on the mooring	You spend more money than anchoring
You can run the generator but...	Some people don't want to hear it
Most mooring fields have cruiser nets to facilitate getting to meet people	For some reason jet skis feel it is their personal duty to run high speed through mooring fields. Honestly. Every one we've been in.
Dinghy dock available
Ice Cream Access: 8

South Beach Miami Anchorage

Anchorages

Pros	Cons
Freedom. You rarely have anyone telling you what to do, anchoring well is a challenge and builds skill	You're totally responsible for your safety
You pick the view	Services vary depending on where you pick
Free	Sometimes harder to meet people
Ventilation is good since the boat always swings into the wind	Sometimes people can anchor too close or be obnoxious
Did I mention free?	Ice Cream Access: Dependent on location, but usually around a 4
4G cell internet available in most populated areas, even in the Bahamas. We were rarely without it	Wifi is rarely available without an extender, and even with one most wifi is password protected now
Privacy is excellent	Dinghy docks are hard to come by and usually cost
You can run the generator whenever you feel like it

No-Name Harbor, FL

Hatchet Bay, Eleuthra Anchorage

Dinner Key Mooring Facility, FL

Thanks, we needed that ...

Dawn at Hatchet Bay

Not too many people leaving this morning

Kintala dropped off the mooring ball at 0720. By 0733 we were through the inlet. At 0750 the jib and main were full and pulling hard; the WesterBeast was excused from further duty. As usual we were pretty hard on the wind, but this time the waves were a gentle two feet max with very little roll. Kintala put her port shoulder into the perfect blue water as Deb coaxed the wind vane to working flawlessly. For nearly eight hours a bit of perfection visited our little planet and centered itself on a lone Tartan 42 making her way southwest from Hatchet Bay. It hung around for nearly eight hours. During that time the only task was adding the stay sail to hold us a bit tighter on the wind. A minor thing since, this time, I was smart enough to rig the sail while still on the mooring this morning. The iPad cranked out some newly acquired Mountain with Crosby, Stills, and Nash offering a bit of balance to Lesli West's harder guitar riffs. We munched on crackers and cheese for lunch.

Bye Bye best dinghy dock ever...

By 1425 the winds had faded so the WesterBeast was put back to work pushing the boat, charging the batteries, and warming a bit of water the evening's shower. 1650 saw the hook set in a small gaggle of four boats anchored on the south side of Rose Island near Nassau. The deck monkey (that would be me) settled in with a large Rum & Coke and offered a heart felt "Thank You" to the setting sun.

And I remembered, THIS is why we came this way!

Leaving the 90ft cut in much more settled weather than we came in!

Sunset over Nassau from Rose Island

Sunset over Nassau from Rose Island

 

Exploring Bahamas Communication

Long Disclaimer: Communication and connectivity while cruising the Bahamas is a challenge at best. Before we left to come over here I spent a lot of time trying to collect information, and while I was able to get a good bit from the Women Who Sail Facebook group through various posts, there was some information not included so I decided to do this post on our own experience. Your communication and connectivity needs might be different so please understand that this is what works for us and while you might glean some useful information from it, it also largely depends on who your US carrier is. We have Verizon, and before you groan, we have been with Verizon since the very first cell phones came out and have never had a complaint. We have found their tech and customer service to be of the highest quality, although to be fair, we have attained VIP status on their customer list since we've been with them continuously for so long so we tend to get a little more prioritized service. While I have had varying degrees of satisfaction with certain physical equipment, that's a manufacturer issue. The Verizon network has been good for us with excellent coverage and speed. As a result, the information in this post is geared toward having a Verizon account and I have no idea how that differs with any other carrier. If you do have first hand information, please comment.

Being "off the grid" is a highly modified term in our cruising dictionary. If we didn't have 7-soon-to-be-8 grand kids back in the States it would be a non-issue, but since we do, we like our connectivity. What can I say? If I'm less of a cruiser for that, then so be it, but the expression on my grandson's face when we Skyped with him while going under a bridge on the ICW ("Dema you're going to hit the bridge!! No way are you going to fit!") was worth it all. So the communications challenges here in the Bahamas are a very personal thing to this grandma. After two months we've sort of made peace with it and here's what we found out.

If you're going to cruise the Bahamas with Verizon and you want internet, the first thing to find out is whether your phone is 1) global ready and 2) if it's unlocked and 3) if it has a sim card. My Droid Razr Maxx HD was all of those three, butTim's Droid X was not so we've been using only my phone. If you have a global ready phone that's not unlocked, you can get an unlock code from a lot of websites that are out there expressly for that purpose. Buyer beware though: a lot of times they'll sell you a code for a phone that can't be unlocked, and Verizon has very few unlocked phones. Needless to say, there's no refund. If you have a Verizon locked phone, the chance of getting it unlocked is pretty slim. If you don't have a global ready phone at all, you either have to get a new one via the internet or wait till you get to the Bahamas and buy one from them. Their prices are quite reasonable so I would recommend the latter. I saw a good selection of smart phones for under $100 outright in their display case.

Given that we had a global ready phone that was already unlocked, we were able to move onto the next choice in our journey toward connectivity which was the choice of 1) just continuing to pay our normal bill while we were gone even though we weren't using it 2) suspending the account for the two months and continuing to pay or 3) suspending the account for the two months and not receiving a bill to pay. We chose to just continue to pay our normal bill because I still have a contract on my phone and it would have extended two months if we had suspended the account without payment. We were also worried about Tim's phone if we suspended the account because he's grandfathered into the unlimited internet and we didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize that. Verizon assured us that it would not affect it, but I lost my grandfathered unlimited over a communication snafu and we didn't want to risk that.

We used my phone even 30 miles offshore sometimes for weather. Verizon's coverage is pretty amazing. We did have a dead zone between that offshore limit and acquiring a sim in the Bahamas but as soon as we got to a place that had a Batelco, we bought a Bahamian sim card. If you see a Batelco tower on an island, there is an office either directly beneath it or very near by. All of them have sims, but if your phone takes the micro sim (which mine does) it will have to be cut. The Bahamian cards are the SD size. Most but not all Batelco offices in the Bahamas have the sim card cutter which is like a hole punch, but the one we went to in Green Turtle Cay did not. You can get a template to cut the card online and it might be a good idea to print one out before you leave just in case. I had to cut mine, which I did with a good, sharp pair of scissors and then sanded the edges to fit with an emery board. It's not difficult but you do need to be precise and if you screw it up you're out the $15 for the sim. Be sure to keep your original Verizon sim in a safe place free of moisture so you can reinstall it when approaching the US. With your sim card you will be assigned a Bahamian phone number which will be yours as long as you have that sim. Once you get the sim installed, you're on to the next step.

This next step was the most confusing part of the whole Bahamian phone/internet thing for me because no one explained it to me and I had to figure it out by trial and error. If you want actual phone voice capabilities other than Skype, you have to buy a separate card for phone time. I bought just a $5.00 card so if I wanted to call a Bahamian business I could. We sometimes call ahead for mooring reservations. If you're calling in the Bahamas to another Bahama number the prices are reasonable, I believe it's $.27 per minute but don't be tempted to use this for calls to the US because it's expensive, I think somewhere around $.47 a minute. It's less than using Verizon ($2.00 per minute for calls originating from the Bahamas), but it's still better to use Skype for voice calls. I found that I can buy a monthly subscription on Skype for voice calls to land line phones and mobiles for $6.99 per month. Since my daughters are most easily reached on land line or mobile phones, I did that. One caveat: I did find that I can't call them on Skype when I'm using my phone as a USB internet tether. I have to do it on wifi. I can use Skype to do voice calls to other Skype users or video calls to other Skype users while tethered, just not voice to landlines or mobiles. As a point of information, we use the PdaNet Android app for tethering because it works with Tim's unlimited data plan. It works really well, well enough in fact to stream Netflix.

Another feature we recently discovered works well here in the Bahamas, once you get your internet card up and working, is the Facebook Messenger app. You can text through it as well as voice calls if the person on the other end is also on a smart phone with the app installed. Just look for the small phone icon in the window where you write the message. If it's there then you can call that person. The quality is good and it's free the same as Skype.

For internet access on your phone, you have to purchase separate internet datacards at a Batelco office or a designated outlet, of which there are many all over the islands. A lot of grocery store and gift shops and even some restaurants have them. Just look for the ever so visible “Top it Up” banners at your favorite retailer. During the season they cost $30 for 2 gigs, a price that is even lower than a lot of data in the US. In March we got them for $20 for 2 gigs, and now in April they're $15 for 2 gigs. As long as you don't activate them, they last till the expiration date printed on the cards. As an example, our cards purchased in April of 2014 had a July 2015 expiration date on them. Stock up at the end of the season, and bring them back the following year. If you register on their site for an account you can also top up online, although the two times I tried to do it the system was down and the outlets for the cards are so ubiquitous that it's really not difficult to buy another card.

Activating these cards is a two-fold process. You first must apply them to your account by dialing *202# and hitting send and following the menu. You will have to choose the Data option and then input your pin number which is under a scratch-off strip on the back of the data card you're activating. After you finish that portion, it will show you have $30 applied to your account and they will send you a text to let you know it was successful. OK here's the part no one seemed to find necessary to mention. After you have applied the $30 to your account, that total amount is good for 90 days, but you must put all or part of that into your “data wallet” to actually use it. You dial *205# and follow the menu to apply however much of the 2 gigs you want to use. Whatever you apply is only good for 30 days so if you're nearing the end of your time in the Bahamas but you're going to be back within the 90 days, you might only want to activate 1 gig or even less. Once it's in your data wallet it expires within 30 days. You can dial *201# to check your balance, but it will only show the balance on your account that you haven't applied to your data wallet, not the balance of what you've already put in your data wallet. They will send you a text to let you know when you have used 75% of your data in your data wallet, but they will not tell you when you've used it all so you have to keep track of it in your settings on your phone. If you run out of data but have phone time in your account, you'll see a strong phone signal in your status bar but no internet icon. That's one way you can know if you're out of data. Are you confused yet? Good because I was and I couldn't get a straight answer anywhere. If you have any trouble with your phone accepting the data balance (which I did), you may have to manually set your Mobile Network settings to Global and you may have to manually enter the Access Point Name which is internet.btcbahamas.com (which I did). You will also have to have the Mobile Data checked as on and roaming as off. If you need any help with this, find the nearest 8-year old or go to the nearest Batelco store and hope you get a good customer service rep.

In the beginning we were trying to find good wifi and were even paying mooring fees or going to restaurants and coffee shops and buying things just so we could be online. I generally find that the connectivity is at least as good and available on the Batelco card as it is on most wifi here, if not much faster. Most of the wifi in public places is slower than mud because there are so many people trying to use it at the same time. Here are a just a few of the wifi providers we used and our evaluation of them. Keep in mind that we don't have a wifi extender, but even without it we have rarely not been able to get online. There have been times we can't upoad a lot of pictures or video or Skype, but we were almost always able to get our emails and weather. The only main frustration was not being able to download new gribs on the iPads, but I understand if you can find someone to unlock your iPad you can get another Bahamian sim to put in there.
Marsh Harbour:

We found we had the fastest wifi at the Java Coffee Shop in Marsh Harbour, as well as the best quality, most reasonably priced coffee anywhere. The wifi there is fast enough that at one point we had 3 people on Skype at the same time with no problem. The owner, Kim, is very agreeable and supportive of cruisers.

We tried the internet at the Lofty Fig, at Snappa's Bar, at Mangoe's, all of which were too slow to be useful.

Batelco was good in the harbor as long as you were in the cockpit. With an extender and router it would have been fine inside the boat.
Treasure Cay:
We tried the internet at the resort at the main dinghy dock and it was only fair strength when it came in at all, and it was “down” more than it was up. It was extremely frustrating until we discovered that the internet at La Florance Cafe and Bakery in the strip right by the dock was exceedingly fast and you could eat a cinnamon roll that feeds a family of 4 for $5 and tastes much better than Cinnabon. Florence also makes a fantastic sandwich that was big enough for us to split. She has shaded seating outside the cafe and small tables inside. She also sells the best ice cream of anywhere in the islands and the socio-political discussions with her husband, the Captain, are not to be missed. Connectivity in the islands is often a social event like this because everywhere you go to get wifi there are people sitting around engaging in something that the US has lost – the ability to have long, intelligent, non-threatening discussions about issues with people who have differing opinions.
Green Turtle Cay:
Batelco was OK in the harbour, but not great. You had to be out in the cockpit to use it.

Royal Harbour:
I was really surprised with the remoteness of this harbour that we got such a strong Batelco signal. I think maybe they had installed the tower for the development that was supposed to go in there and left the tower even though the development failed.
Spanish Wells:

You can get free wifi with no password at the smoothie shop on the main drag. The speed varies with the time of day and how many customers but it's almost always fast enough to Skype.

Batelco is very strong on the mooring field.Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera:Wifi at the Spot bar is very good and free. The bartender will put the password on your device for you. The only difficulty is that it's usually too loud to Skype unless you get there very early in the day.

Batelco is very strong in the bay.

The Long and Short of It:

It's a lot to digest, but for us the Batelco data cards are our primary source of online connectivity along with whatever free wifi we can come across at bars and restaurants. I find that I use the Facebook Messenger app the most, but that's because I tended to text in the US more than talk, and the Messenger texting is exactly like texting on Verizon in the States. It has a good, loud chime to notify you that a message has arrived, so it's easy to hear pretty much anywhere on the boat. It also allows attached pictures. Probably the biggest issue for us has been the lack of video capabilities. Video just uses too much data to indulge, and Tim is suffering because he can't watch his Moto GP races. We do miss the occasional Netflix movie on rainy days as well, but it just means we read more on our Kindles. The Kindles require wifi to download, but we just tend to download a bunch of books when we're on strong signal so that we have them later.

Hope this has been helpful. If you have any specific questions or experiences that are relevant, don't hesitate to post them here.

Echos ...

It seems my tender body is sensitive to Hatchet Bay bug bites. A long night passed with my right foot feeling like someone had set it on fire. Long after midnight until the wee hours just before dawn was spent in the cabin while I dabbed Benzocaine and tried not to scratch the skin any more open and raw than it was already. So come this morning my world was a muffled, fuzzy, puffy-eyed kind of place, the kind of place where one's thoughts are not very well anchored in the here or the now.

I was sitting in the cockpit sipping caffeine and trying to steer my day into some kind of usefulness when a quiet but distinct murmur washed over the boat; that of twin R-985 Pratt & Whitney radial engines pulling a freight Beech 18 through the sky. Like many pilots I have a soft spot for that old bird, a soft spot with a tint of sadness. The first friend I lost to aviation disappeared on a winter night freight run over the Great Lakes. He was flying a Beech 18.

I was a skinny white kid just out of tech school working at a small mod shop. (Mostly we built drug-runners for cash, but that is a whole 'nuther story.) Ian was a hulking, short-tempered Black Man with all of the ratings and positions I would eventually gather: A&P, IA, CFI, CFII, MEI, ATP, DOM, DOO, Chief Pilot, Check Pilot. He also had a handful of helicopter ratings but I ended up with some jet types, a low level Acro Card, and a stint as an Airline Captain. Yet I have never been able to picture myself as his equal.

A few minutes later, while I was still reminiscing about Ian and the long line of friends that followed him West, the Island ferry plowed its way through the Bay and passed just a few boat lengths (ours, not his) off Kintala's port side. Once settled in at the pier with the gate down, the roar unique to a large group of motorcycles burst from the cargo deck. The thump of big-bore cruisers, the air-shredding rip of sport bike revs, and the growl of dual-sports washed across the sailboats as a big rally / ride of some kind unloaded off the Island Link, milled around for a bit, then thundered off down the Island somewhere. Deb and I attended dozens of rallies and rides over the decades we rode. Some of my fondest memories are days in a pack of howling race-replicas trying to tear the asphalt off the AK mountain roads. Days followed by nights around the campfire surrounded by the now quiet road assault weapons, sharing stories and cold ones with others still clad in riding leathers and boots.

Most lives go through phases; non-married to married (sometimes more than once), kid to kid-less to parent to Grampy T, school to workplace to unemployment to ... (that's a crap shoot there), healthy to life threatening illness and (hopefully) back to healthy again. These are all BIG DEALS and I don't think becoming a cruiser ranks among them.

Our bikes and 2 of our good friends from our AR rides.

But surely it is a Little Deal. It must be because things that once upon a time defined a good portion of my life are now just echos of a life once lived. A life that seems even further in the past than just the nine months that have passed since Kintala put the good friends of Boulder Marina to her stern. Tired, sore, hot, and a long way from kids and grand kids, this morning was one of those times where it wouldn't seem likely that the new life would compare very well with the old. Yet I was surprised to discover that was not so. There is very little I would do different if I had my life to live again, including making the choice to lighten up, get on a boat, and head out over the horizon to see what we can see.

Though I could do without the bug bites.

Important stuff ...

Deb did such a good job on the equipment review that I should just keep my mouth shut. (Yeah, like that's going to happen.) But I am going to touch on just one item, and I will say right up front that Deb completely disagrees with me. (Happens all the time yet she loves me anyway.)

I am not a big fan of our windvane. If I had to do it over again I would spend the money on an auto-pilot. The windvane holds a point of sail which sounds all well and good since (so we were told) the wind on open water is nice and steady, same tack for weeks, yadda yadda yadda. Our experience sailing down the coast and in the islands is that the wind swings back and forth through 15 to 25 degrees while gusting and fading 10 to 20 knots. (We sail for hours, not weeks.) The apparent wind is anything but steady and that is what a windvane sails to. It is cool that it doesn't make any noise, doesn't use any power, and doesn't have anything that cares about getting wet with salt water. But at $5000+, a seriously miserable installation process, the fact that it doesn't seem to work that well under sail, and doesn't work at all as an auto-pilot under power ... I'm not sure it was the right way to go. If you hit the lottery get a boat big enough for windvane (1) and auto-pilots (2) and live happily ever after.

On a more important matter I have been debating: if Spanish Wells is better with its $20 / day mooring ball than is Hatchet Bay with its $0 / day mooring ball. Spanish Wells is a clean little working town with a couple of places to eat, WiFi at the snack shop, store, very limited laundry; it's a good place for cruisers. Hatchet Bay is poverty stricken, trashed out, one really great bar with okay WiFi, a store with good prices (and questionable shelf times), a couple of shacks for food (which have been pretty good) a resort restaurant (which we haven't tried yet) and no laundry at all. The Bay of Hatchet Bay is really pretty, has more marine life in it than anywhere else we have parked, hasn't been very crowded, and is perfectly protected. Mmmm ... if Spanish Wells was $10 / day it would win, but we are both growing very fond of Hatchet Bay.

And both of us still like Treasure Key the best.

We will be here a few more days which may give us a chance to finish up a couple of projects. Slackerville still reigns but when the water runs out one must abandon the cockpit and hump some H₂O onto the boat. That got me all hot and sweaty so jumping in the water seemed a good idea. Unfortunately, that gave me a good look at Kintala's increasingly fuzzy bottom, so scraping and cleaning was in order. Deb joined in the fun but we ran out of energy long before we ran out of fuzzies to scrape. I trust the water will be just as clear and warm tomorrow and we can work on it some more.

Early next week the winds are supposed to give us a good ride to Nassau; first stop on the trip States Bound. By this time next month I am going to be very far away from enjoying the Islands Mon. I'm starting to miss it already and I haven't even left yet.

Slackerville Revisited

Our good friend Paul once talked about how he succumbed to Slackerville, that inability to get motivated when living on a boat. We're here in Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera for a few days waiting out weather so we can head to Nassau to pick up our friend and I admit, Paul, I have sunk deep into Slackerville. I find myself quite content to read, knit, cook, and just sit for hours on end looking at the water. One of these days I might find some motivation to get busy with a boat project...


...or not...

Hatchet Bay, Eleuthera

We came here in the hopes of hiding out for awhile and resting. It's an almost completely enclosed harbor with just a narrow cut to get in. It's fairly well protected from the 25kt winds we're having at the moment, with just a slight bit of rolling on the mooring ball. The wind was light enough this afternoon to head into the very small town and attend their "festival" which amounted to a series of live music bands and a few food and drink vendors. We spent the time before the festival touring the small town and had a chance to feel what, to us, is by far the most foreign country feeling place we've been to so far. This is a place of substantial poverty. Everywhere the homes are tiny and crumbling. Wrecked boats from hurricane Andrew in August of 1992 lie everywhere in varying stages of deterioration. Trash litters the yards, the beach, and the many empty lots. Yet, every person we met was once again smiling and courteous. We were walking through the town with some newly met friends, one of which has a beautiful white lab name Butter. The kids all over town came tumbling out of front doors to come pet him and he's a very friendly dog so he was quite pleased with all the attention. One young lady asked me to take her picture. Big smiles abound here. As you walk along the road that encircles the harbor, you have the feeling that this is the town that was forgotten. It's a beautiful bay capable of holding 30 or more cruising boats, yet there were only 10. No resorts like Treasure Cay, no bustling traffic like Marsh Harbour. Just local folks going about their daily business of trying to survive. I guess we fit right in.

Kintala on the mooring at Hatchet Bay

The Spot, a bar in Hatchet Bay. The palm leaf ceiling keeps the place cool, a welcome relief today.

Bashing along ...

Sailing on Lake Carlyle was mostly fun, occasionally challenging, and rarely a chore. Open water sailing is mostly a chore, usually challenging, and only rarely fun. Our biggest challenge at the moment is handling Kintala upwind into 20+ knots. Concerned about having too much sail flying we end up without enough power to shoulder aside the waves. Setting and reefing the main is tough work on a bouncing deck, at night it is downright scary, and I'm still not sure how much sail the boat will carry when the apparent wind is reaching toward 30 knots.

The cut into Hatchet Bay. 90ft wide. Try that in 4 foot waves...

Motor sailing has become our default option in those conditions, but 47 tired ponies is simply not enough to shove 23,000 pounds up a wave. And, I am not sure how well the engine handles being run in those conditions either. We are talking a lot of motion, rolling and pitching, that are not normally associated with engine operation. The WesterBeast has done yeoman's duties so far, but I listen for every compression stroke, every chuff of water, and every sound. Each moment we are hung out depending on that thing is a moment I dread.

It is a problem because more than half of our days (and nights) have been on the wind to a large degree. It wasn't supposed to work out this way. Waiting on the "right" conditions is part of having your house with you and no schedule to keep, right? But if we tried to work it that way we would still be in Charleston, maybe Norfolk.

It is also a concern because Kintala (like us) is not as young as she used to be. We have been giving her (and ourselves) a real beating. Down below she makes an ugly variety of noises when bashing like that, none of them confidence inspiring. Then again, I have pounded to open water weather in exactly four boats, so it isn't like I have a large sampling to compare.

For the next couple of days we are going to hang out in Hatchet Harbor and lick our wounds. A 6 hour slam fest, a night's endless rolling in the worst anchorage we have found so far, and yesterday morning's motor /sail bash into 3, 4, and 5 foot waves on a 2 to 3 second period (honest, I counted) has taken its toll. Sleep deprived, short on meals, missing a dorad that got tossed overboard by a sheet, fittings loose on the Bimini, and a pressure water leak that appeared in the night, we need another "stand down" and will likely be here a few days. Like the tide, my enthusiasm for open water sailing is at a bit of an ebb.

My enthusiasm for this lifestyle however, continues to grow. Anchored alone in some remote location or nodding to a mooring ball in "Velcro Beach" are equally enjoyable. I could easily make the Abacos my second – water based – home. Less so the Eleutheras. These Islands have not been kind, though Spanish Wells is near the top of my favorite places so far. I love living on a sailboat and being a member of the tribe "cruisers". I love living outside of "American Consumer Normal". Being light and mobile and unencumbered by anything more than living smart today so I will be around to do the same tomorrow, is just fine.

Now if I can just learn to sail this thing to weather without breaking it or me, life would be near perfect.

A day of weirdness

Usually when we sit down to write a post there is some pervading theme that calls out to be summed up, or some one thing that begs to be dealt with. Not today. Today was a day or weirdness, an odd mix of new things and good things and tough things and unexpected things and beautiful things, a day that defies summing up. I guess that's what makes cruising so captivating. Where to start?

First, can anybody identify this bird? We've never seen one like it and would like to know what it is. Sorry about the quality of the pictures but I was trying to use a long lens while he was soaring overhead. He soared over our boat for at least an hour, dipping occasionally to catch a fish. As you can see, he has a split tail, a white spot on his chest, and a curved tip beak. He spent most of the time gliding and not flapping very much. He was completely quiet. Any ideas are greatly appreciate as our bird book doesn't have anything very close to him.

Next to our boat at the mooring field this morning there was another visitor, this one pecking the bugs and crabs and little fish out of the newly exposed sand from the low tide. Not sure what he was either. 


 Shortly after that, the incoming tide brought a host of unwelcome guests, some jelly fish that they call "thimbles" because they're about that size. There were literally millions of them floating around the boat.  Not a good picture, I know, but try taking a picture of something that small through the water from the deck of a boat. Yeah. Right.


 While we were waiting for our water tanks to fill and we were looking at the thimbles, along floated this giant thing through them that we were told was a web of fish eggs. Anybody ever see anything like this? It was several feet long. You can see compared to the thimbles which are each about an inch across.

Approaching Current Cut

After waiting nearly all morning for a fishing boat to clear the dock so we could get water and gas, we were finally on our way. The first part of our sail was fantastic - almost downwind with the headsail out full, surfing the waves and going 6 knots. It was fantastic. Right up to the point where we had to turn toward Current Cut. From then on, we beat hard to windward in 3-4 foot waves at 4 second periods. As we approached Current Cut we rolled in the headsail and motored through. The cut is a pretty serious piece of navigating, a 250ft wide cut through rock, a current of 6-8 knots, and several zig-zag turns through spots of coral reef and rocks. You have to plan this venture to have slack tide coincide with the wind direction or you will simply get your butt kicked. Tim did a fantastic job of navigating through with Garmin. After clearing the cut the wind picked up to nearly 25 and the waves were right on the nose, 4+feet and 4 seconds. We flew just the staysail to stabilize the boat while we motored. It was a pretty brutal 6 hours. We had originally planned to sail to Hatchet Bay, but  and the entrance into Hatchet is very narrow and unlit and we were no way going to make it before dark since every set of three waves was leaving us less than 3 knots of forward speed. We opted instead to head for an easy approach anchorage north of Hatchet called Annie Bight. It's kind of a cool place with cliffs all around it and a few houses. We dropped the hook at 6:00 exactly, both of us exhausted. We had a chance to eat before the wind picked up again and brought with it a surge wrapping around the point south of us. It's hard to believe that we're rolling the way that we are because we're tucked in behind some 60ft cliffs but the wind has been howling for days now over 20 and the water is just piled up wave after wave, even in here. Tomorrow we'll be looking for a new place to stay. A calm place. I gotta say that so far we've liked the Abacos a whole lot more than Eleuthra.

The East side of Current Cut

The cliff at the south side of our anchorage from around which the surge is beating us up

It is a beautiful place