Following crazy

It has been a bit interesting in these parts. The wind, as a friend of ours put it, “has been blowing the oysters off the rocks”... for the last four days. This is the third bout of this kind of wind we have had since getting to the islands. We sat out such a blow in West End, bailed out of Fox Town and rode the wind to Manjack Cay, bailed out of Manjack to hide in Green Turtle, and have now been holed up in Treasure Cay for the better part of a week. With a deadline to be back in the States for visits and work, we are starting to plot the routes to get us there in the brief weather windows it appears Mother Earth is going to offer this year. We are “holed up” in some of the prettiest places around so the weather is just something to plan around.



And to be fair, I should note that it would be entirely possible to move on if we wished. Today, while every single cruiser boat in the mooring field stayed put, three different charter cats motored in from the rumpled up waters of the Abaco sea. Admittedly they were big cats, two of them measuring 52 feet, the other just slightly shorter. A check of company's web sight showed a price tag of about $15,000 / week per boat; so I completely understand their crew's desire to make the most of their time here in the Islands. I will also state, in defense of us weenie cruiser types, that we are headed the other way, and that the cats sailed off the wind and on a following sea to get from their charter base to here. (I will not understand if they head out to take on the Whale in the morning. Even in a 50 foot cat that would be an ugly ride. But who knows? If they do go they will get an “adventure story” to take home when vacation is over.)

In any case, even though we need to get where we need to be, we will simply have to make plans based on the beating we are willing to take in accordance with what the wind and the weather are actually doing; in other words, accept the world for what it is, not insist that it is what we want it to be. Which, if the stories I hear about land dwellers are true, may be a dying skill. More and more people are insisting that the world is what they claim, even if there is considerable evidence to the contrary.

People who do that are, to me, at least a tiny bit insane. I'm not sure how they get that way. It isn't like one can stand out in 30 knot winds, boat bouncing around, hair (if one has some – which I don't) flying about, sheets flapping, waves streaked with white, and say, “I don't believe the wind is blowing, it is a nice, calm day.” Well, I guess one could, but any thinking person standing next to them would likely mumble something neutral while offering a “What is wrong with you?” look.
And if the crazy one decides that such a nice day is a good day for rolling out all of the sails for some reason, everyone in the anchorage (especially those down wind) are going to know there is a lunatic among them. Heads would shake, perhaps some comments would get traded on the VHF, and surely someone would post a picture of the madness on Facebook or make a comment on Twitter. (That is how Twitter works, right?)

Should that one then decide to go some place, manage to get out of the bay in one piece, and heads off into the elephants dancing on the horizon, no one in the anchorage is going to say to themselves, “Hey the wind really isn't blowing, I think I'll follow along.” After all, the ocean is a bit Darwinian in that way. The crazy, and those who follow the crazy, usually end up sharing the same, sad, fate.

In my experience the cruising tribe isn't big on crazy. Different? Sure. We live a different kind of life than most. Odd? Perhaps. But what counts for “normal”, long work weeks to earn enough money to finance stuff not really needed and not often used, doesn't seem to strike most of the tribe as attractive. Wanderers? Maybe. But the earth is a tiny speck of dust in a massive cosmos. In reality none of us ever gets too far away from “home.” Seeing some of what there is to see, learning something about ourselves, and getting to know others who share this little speck floating in the void, seems like a pretty fair deal. We also get a chance to experience a bit of that massive cosmos, feel a brush of the magic, and learn what the word “awe”really means. No cruiser I have ever known or heard about thinks that the time they spent on the water made them less of a person, diminished them in some way, or shrunk the size of their heart or spirit.

But ignoring what the world is really doing, pretending it is something it isn't? No, not our thing. We are also not big on following. Almost by definition a cruiser is someone who has gone off on their own way.

And following crazy? That is definitely not our thing.

0630...

... too early to wake up; particularly when it had been near midnight when I climbed into the berth. Though it was a travel day, high tide would not arrive for four more hours. There would be no trying to get through the Black Sound inlet until we were within a hour of that tide. It would take only an hour to prep the boat and be on our way so going back to sleep for a bit would be a good choice. But it was not to be.

A mild hum in the rigging suggested the wind had already outrun the forecast, which did not make me happy. The task for the day was to pass though the Whale, that bit of open water that separates the northwestern part of the Abaco sea from the southeastern part. It can be a finicky bit of ocean that will administer a thorough thrashing to the careless. We had waited an extra day in Green Turtle to take advantage of the forecast for light winds; us, and about a dozen others as well. The light winds were supposed to mark the last day of a weather window to move around the Abacos, followed by four days of winds reaching toward 40 knots. Our plan was to make it to Treasure Cay for the show. We have a long way to go and the calendar now says “March”. Time to get a move on.

Of all the machines I have operated over the years, sailboats still strike me as the most tender, the most susceptible, to bad weather. In reality I am the one who is tender. Though I have ridden motorcycles through the dying remains of a hurricane, driven in snow that had most people looking for a hotel, and flown contently through stuff some people would consider a pure nightmare, I am still unsure of my footing on big water in a 42 foot boot. It is the only machine that has ever made me motion sick to the point of not being able to function, the only machine where – sometimes – I am just not sure of the next thing to do. It frustrates me that this is so.

A check of the weather showed the incoming cold front still a hundred miles away, the forecast even suggesting that the winds would now hang in the low 30s, and fade by early next week. Boats with shallower drafts than Kintala were pulling out all around us. Deb started the coffee. I started to prep the boat for departure. An hour before high tide we dropped the mooring ball and headed off. I pretended to be comfortable and sure; though Deb doubtless knew I was faking.

We slipped though the Whale without a care.

Treasure Cay is different than it was two years ago. It is a full-fledged mooring field now, with just one little spot left clear for anchoring, big enough for maybe four or five boats. We debated a bit, but ended up picking up one of the mooring balls. I am sure it will be fine, but I am not impressed. The balls are small and cheap. The chains running to the bottom are not as big as the one we use to anchor Kintala. The ball we picked up had its pennant chewed about half way through. The bleach bottle float was split and we had to fish the dangling line out of the water. We affixed two of our own lines to the ball, only to be informed when checking in that the rings on top of the balls will not hold up in a blow. We went back to the boat and, using a shackle of our own, fixed our lines to the shackle at the bottom of the ball. It was an awkward little dance, Deb on deck, me in the Ding, to get it set up where we were comfortable. Several of the boats around us have their lines run from a cleat, through the painter, back to the other cleat; a set up likely to chafe badly if the winds blow as forecast. Others are fastened to the ring on top of the ball. I hope the rings are stronger than suggested, and the winds less.

Still, tonight I am content, if a bit embarrassed by this morning's unease. The trip here was short and uneventful, the waters sparking and clear, the little whitecaps of no concern at all. Kintala's newly installed, rebuilt water pump worked fine, though our wind instrument is, once again, on the fritz. We made the right decisions, handled the boat, and are settled in. I am determined to get comfortable doing this, to be at ease in this world.

But it looks like that will be a while yet.

For some reason this sign made me think of our good friend Paul of Lat 43 fame

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.

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.

A couple more days ...

The much anticipated cold front bashed its way through the Abacos today. Starting yesterday the winds were pretty consistently in the low 20 knot range, which lasted through last night while adding splashes of rain. Kintala has 2 big hatches, 2 smaller hatches, 10 opening ports in the main cabin and 3 in the aft cabin, the vast majority of which are pretty much open all the time. Rain falling though the V-berth hatch always wakes Deb (sometimes me as well, though usually she has to thump me to life as she exits the berth) and the scramble is on to get the boat closed up. Come this morning, and in spite of the winds ramping up enough to churn even the protected waters in Treasure Cay, we took to doing boat cores. After which getting off the boat for a while seemed like a good idea, even if the dinking was wet and bumpy.


We walked across the Cay to check out the "Big Pond" (what the locals call the Atlantic Ocean). It was surprisingly smooth given the lashing we were getting; proving that I have a lot to learn about big water conditions. Back sitting around the pool to get some Wifi we chatted with another crew working their way south toward Nassau on their Manta cat. Most everyone else seems to be going the other way so it was reassuring to talk to experienced cruisers with a plan similar to ours.

We had noticed several Manta cats these last few days and learned why; there is a Manta gathering going on in the Abacos soon. (We noticed because the Manta is a boat we once thought in our price range; not sure where that illusion came from.) While chatting I noticed the sky darkening up so we headed back to Kintala on another wet and bumpy dinking. Soon after the winds ramped up to 30 plus to stir up the waves, then the rains came and pounded them back down. It was quite a show for a while. We were glad to be tucked away on a well set hook but both of us were surprised had how few boats had found there way here. We had settled in on Saturday afternoon expecting to have a lot of company, but the place is only moderately crowded. (We heard other protected spots in the area were chock full with people scrambling to find a place to avoid getting a spanking. Waiting to the last minute to make a decision on a craft that moves at a slow trot at best? Not sure that is a good idea.)

For a few hours this evening wind faded to nothing and it is an excellent night to be living on a boat. Cooler, dryer air moved in and the harbour was as still as a pond. But the wind is forecast to be back in the 20s tomorrow with 6 foot seas in the Abaco sound, and it is already back in the low teens. Things happening with family have made it important that we not delay our return to the States past the current plan (if possible), and we would really like to be moving south. But the forecast has given us some pause and we may be here a couple of more days.

Gee, a couple more days at Treasure Cay in the Abaco Islands ...

A typical Bahamas travel day

Yesterday we moved from Great Guana back to Treasure Cay. We sailed 10.5 miles, an easy day by anyone's standards. We had a great downwind sail straight across the bay, going a steady 4-5 knots over crystal clear water. We lined up behind three boats headed into Treasure, only to turn around and see a whole parade of other boats coming in to avoid the string of cold fronts as well. There was an easy anchor spot way in the back of the harbour, and even after straightening up the deck we had plenty 

of time left to spend an afternoon in the cockpit reading and doing some crafts, and even a bit more time to convert a bag of softening apples into some warm crusty apple pie. The pie, by the way, was a concession to Tim because I was serving him leftover hot dogs and boxed macaroni and cheese for his gourmet dining pleasure.  The end of the sailing day was some good Joe Cocker tunes. This happy camper can't complain. 

Keeping on ...

Well, the coolant level didn't change overnight, so it isn't going anywhere when the engine isn't running. Not a sure sign that all is well, but at least things are not as bad as they could be. Keeping on ...

I distinctly remember reading, or being told, or maybe it was just a part of sailboat lore, that sailors spend many more days dealing with light winds then they do heavy winds. I'm sure that's true (since sailors never lie) but it hasn't been our experience so far. We came down the ICW battered every few days by howling cold fronts. Many of the days of motoring weren't prompted by no wind, but by channels and cuts too narrow to sail in. Once in FL we had more days of wind (and thus bounce on mooring balls) than we did calm. We spent more time hiding out in No Name Harbor. And now, in the Bahamas, light or no-wind days are the exceptions. We sailed into Black Sound to hide from winds, ended up spending most of a week there waiting for them to lie down for a rest. We sailed into Treasure Cay to hide from winds, and they have blown a steady 20 plus, occasionally touching 30, for the better part of four days now. (That would be knots, by the way, not those wimpy MPH numbers.) Boats are still coming in and going out, but it would be uncomfortable anchored out anywhere the wind could get a good hold on the water. We are in one of the better protected anchorages in the Abaco Islands, and we spent last night rocking and rolling hard enough to wake Deb a couple of times. (After engine work I spent the afternoon removing at least some of the oxidation on our starboard cabin exterior, so I slept like a tired deck monkey.) Tomorrow might be a good day to head to Marsh Harbor. We want to see a couple of the other Cays, all getting rave reviews as places over-civilized people can stop to find a cure. Depending on concessions that may be demanded by the WesterBeast, we may leave Marsh Harbor heading north west again, just to see of of those places. But the winds are forecast to blow all next week from directions not conducive to comfort or sleeping in some of those places. so it may or may not be wise to try. Keeping on ...

We didn't make the pizza party last night. Word got around that sometimes the pizza isn't as good as advertised. Since Deb makes the world's best pizza right here on Kintala, sub-par pizza isn't much of a draw. And it is Spring Break Week. The Abaco Islands are now chock full of charter boats being crewed by enthusiastic young people shedding energy at a furious rate; lots of noise, lots of motion, lots of music. It is all rather fun to watch, from a bit of a distance. Being in the middle of gyrating partiers all roughly 1/3 my age, particularly after weeks of moving softly through some of the least party like places on the planet? We decided to let the kids have their fun without us. Keeping on ...

Lots of cruisers are working their way back to the States. We aren't planning on going that way for nearly two more months. (Truth be told, if it wasn't for hurricanes, Daughters, and Grand Kids, I wouldn't see any reason to go back at all.) I wonder if they know something I don't? Plans are very fluid right now as in, beyond the next couple of days, we don't really have any. There are lots of currents running through our lives, and the lives of those we care about most, right now ... currents that may influence which direction Kintala sails and how long she stays in one place for a while. It will all work out so long as we are keeping on ...

The look out my galley window a few days ago

A beach of a place

(Photo note: Sorry about the fuzzy pics. Wifi is so bad that I had to dumb them down just to get them on here.)
 
The forecast 20 knots worth of wind for today are now gusting to 30. The forecast for tonight was 30, so the winds are early or we are in for a night of anchor watch. Sail boats coming in today have headsails that look like barber poles, one was torn, another got loose after they got on the anchor, others had sheets tangled up like spaghetti. One of the big power yachts came in with crew at the bow in life vests. Me thinks it would be a good bet that it was a bit exciting out on the Sea of Abaco today.


The anchorage is pretty full with boats sailing around rodes in any direction up to 90 degrees off of west. Mooring lines have been doubled, anchor snubbers are being checked regularly, and most boats have someone keeping an eye on which way everyone around them is swinging; sailors going about the business of living with the sea. The last half dozen of the last boats to come in made a beeline for a dock.

For all of the wind the sky is blue, the temperature warm, and the sun will put a serious burn on a bald head. (As it did mine as I spent a few hours cleaning up the cockpit.) But I suspect there is some rain in our near future. We will be buttoned up tight tonight.

We went ashore for a while this morning, paid for WiFi, (which is still pretty weak out here in the anchorage) did a little shopping, and checked out the beach. There are millions of beaches in the world so claiming that this one is one of the top ten might sound like the marketing department has gotten off its leash again. But it is certainly in the top 1 or 2 of those on which I have left a footprint. If glittering waters, clean white sand, and mouth watering beauty are your thing, this is a place that should not be missed.

All added together this may well be another Velcro spot, a place too pretty and interesting to be in a hurry to leave. Rumor has it there is a pizza party tomorrow by the pool (assuming the weather isn't completely out of control by then). Prices at the store are not the heart stopping excess we had been led to believe, and it is pretty well stocked. (Though we did snag the last gallon of milk off the shelf.) Friends met along the way are here. And it is weeks yet before we need to think about heading west. One of the reasons to go cruising is to find a place (or two) where a heart can be kneaded back into a human shape after too many years of being subjected to "civilization". This looks like it could be such a place.

 

Tribes hiding together

I have heard it said that cruisers (who sometimes have little good to say about charter folks) find a place to hide whenever the wind blows past 20 knots, while charter folks (who sometimes have little good to say about cruisers) go out sailing. One couldn't prove that this evening in Treasure Cay. It would be impossible to swing a dead cat around in here without hitting a Sun Sail charter Cat. That is after it had bounced off a cruiser boat. All of us are hiding out from the 20 knot winds that are supposed to arrive tomorrow around mid-day. The first of a double-header frontal passage event that may last into next week.

(By the way, most of the better sailors I know are regular charter folks, so I don't have a dog in that fight. Since we made it to the Bahamas we have seen three different boats crash into a dock. All were cruiser boats. And the boat that bounced off of us in No Name Harbor was a cruiser boat as well. So I'm thinking us cruisers don't have a lot of room for talking smack about charter boat drivers. Besides, there is some serious eye-candy adorning the bows of Charter Cats and I've never heard of a good reason to criticise pretty girls working on their tans.)

 

Kintala was heading for Treasure Cay anyway. It gets mixed reviews but everyone says the beach is not to be missed. The original plan was to sail here yesterday but we anchored out by a place called Water Cay instead. Not sure why it is called that since it is attached to Grand Abaco Island and isn't a Cay at all. Then again, neither is this place. I guess its all in the marketing. Anyway, it was good to be on the hook again in a less traveled place. That's the problem with sailing in paradise, everyone else wants to sail here as well.


This morning we let the wind drift us off the anchor, spun out the head sail and ghosted all of 7.4 NM to this place. It was tempting to go play for a while, but we suspected things would fill up pretty quickly. By 1300 we had settled into a good spot and then the parade began. One review I read suggested maybe 20 boats would fit in here. At last count there where 27 nodding to their bow rollers, and I think a few more could squeeze in without much problem. It doesn't look like Back Creek in Annapolis yet, so there must be room for a few more. For some reason everyone has an anchor light on even though we are in a marked anchorage inside a harbor. With all of these boats around it looks kind of cool.

While we were sliding along today, head sail only, doing about 4 easy knots, in this staggeringly beautiful place, I had to shake off the feeling that we couldn't really have made it here. For a moment it was like a surreal daydream had invaded my cubicle back in St. Louis. For any working toward this same goal let me say that all the effort, all the heartache and boat problems, all of the hassle downsizing and trying to explain to the uninitiated, all the expense, was, for us, worth it. This is not (in spite of the marketing) an easy way to live. It is sometimes uncomfortable, occasionally even a tiny bit scary. The decisions made can have immediate and potentially disastrous consequences. But sometimes, maybe even for a couple of weeks in a row, it can be pure magic. And that is just something that didn't happen back on land.

Lifeless in paradise

 The Whale was asleep so we motored through. With little to no wind putting up a sail would have been a waste of effort. Too bad really, as it was an otherwise perfect day for sailing. It would also have been nice to put on a slight heel to steady the boat. Even with no wind the swell off the wide open Atlantic to our east lined up to roll the boat pretty hard, just once in a while, making sure we were paying attention. Wind or no, this is still really big water for a couple of lake sailors from IL. The swell also made for breaking waves on each side of us as we transited the channel, which was kind of cool. For a while it kind of looked like we were back on the ICW. (Well, except for the empty horizon, breath taking colors, breakers, 5 foot swell, cays, tropical sun, seeing the bottom through 20 feet of water … I guess it didn't look much like the ICW after all). A whole parade of boats was making the trip today, a line of sticks all taking advantage of a quiet and cooperative ocean. It has been a while since I navigated basically by just following along.

The day was so nice that we didn't make it to Treasure Cay. After nearly a week of living on a dock a night anchored at a less traveled spot was a treat not to be passed. Water Cay really isn't a Cay at all. It is a little point of land sticking out into the Sound off the east side of Grand Abaco Island. We are tucked in with a couple of other boats, though this place really isn't that well protected. Wind out of the west will be okay, but any out of the north, east, or south will have a lot of fetch to work with. The weather forecast (which is right so far) calls for light winds out of the WNW, fading to nothing as the night goes on. Tomorrow we will find our way to Treasure Cay ahead of the incoming front.


This bit of ocean looks like a sailor's paradise. The numerous SunSail charter boats suggest that we are not the only ones who feel that way. There sure seem to be a bunch of them around these parts. We are both a bit surprised that the clear, sparkling water appears to be completely devoid of life. There are no fish around the boat; not even the minnows we have seen nearly everywhere else. Only 3 or 4 dolphins have dropped by for a half-hearted visit since we crossed the Gulf Stream, and we have seen only one since leaving Crab Cay. None were around today. There have been no turtles, hardly any birds, a couple of barracuda in Black Harbor, and a few stray jelly fish. I can't help but wonder if we haven't broken our world worse than we yet realize.

Waiting to see

Newbies though we be, we have definitely become a part of this wonderful band of sailboat wandering gypsies. Today Kim & Kenny on Loon, and Stephen and Dorothy on Marigot, part of the little tribe that formed here in Black Sound over the last couple of days, headed off through the Whale and on to places south. Though we had been planning to head back west and north to visit places passed by, it look like Kintala will be following along behind them tomorrow. The next bit of weather is close on the heels of the one just passed, suggesting that the prudent be tucked away no later then Tuesday night. To the west and north and within reach by Tuesday night given the light winds forecast, there wouldn't appear to be any place to sit out the weather. However, Treasure Cay lies barely 20 miles to the south and east, on the other side of the Whale, and offers just such a tucking.

The Whale is a channel out of the Sea of Abaco though a barrier reef, into the Atlantic, and back into more protected waters that may still be the Sea of Abaco, or the Abaco Sea, or Abaco Sound, or maybe Marsh Harbor ... I can't really tell from the charts and it isn't like the ocean has lines painted on it. Passing through the Whale can be a problem depending on what kind of ocean swell from the deep Atlantic is plowing into the shallow bottom of the channel, and we haven't done anything quite like this before. So, though the plan is to cross the Whale and head to places south, it may be that we end up back in Black Sound to wait out the weather. It all depends on what mood the Whale is in tomorrow.

When it comes to sailboat gypsies that is what passes for a plan; we may do this, if that, depending on the other, maybe ... we'll just have to see. It is the way most of humanity has lived for most of history. We could plan to do some things when we got to some place, but getting to that place was subject to all kinds of changes and delays.

But then we got all industrial and smart and created tools (trains, planes and automobiles – and really big boats) that could handle more and more weather. Our plans got much more intricate and elaborate, and usually work out pretty much as we intend. People all over drive 20 miles to work and back every day, not often wondering if it will be possible to go that far today. Others fly hundreds of miles and arrive just hours before a meeting. Just in time inventory goes by container ship and truck, and generally gets there just in time. This constant fulfilling of plans drives society and dominates lives, and all of it depends on things and people moving to given places at set times.

Sailboat gypsies get there whenever, if at all. Plans are really just intentions, and not very dearly held ones at that. Allens – Pensacola Cay is a place we want to visit, but that may not happen this year. From where we are at the moment it is the wrong way with the wrong wind and weather. Treasure Cay is another place we want to visit, and it looks like it might be the right way with the right wind and weather.

We'll just have to see.