Nights, antics, and time ...

Kintala has had a couple of one-night-stands; one night in Allan's Pensacola, one night in Powell. Both places were too pretty to be treated that way and deserved more time. But the boat is nearly out of fresh water and Green Turtle is the next place for a fill-up. The third night we cozied up with the Crab Cay end of the Nunjack anchorage. Don't let the names fool you, sometimes the prettiest girl at the dance is called “George”. And while I am generally of the opinion that beauty is only skin deep, around here beauty goes all the way to the bottom. Every place seems like the water is crystal clear, then the next place it is clearer still. Its like saying this pole is vertical, and the next is more vertical. Can't be … but it is.

The anchorage at Allen's Pensacola

As might be expected with a one night stand, somewhere far into the evening there was a bunch of moaning going on. Last night's was the wind, picking up again to hover in the 20+ knot range to caress our rigging. It also set the boat to dancing and had her tugging hard against the anchor chain. (Okay – some one night stands are kinkier than others.) By all accounts we can expect the wind to keep us company until Sunday morning, with the little barbs on the GRIB files pointing directly up the short path to Green Turtle. Flags for 5 feet worth of waves accompany the barbs and while those are not “no-go” conditions, they don't make for a fun day either. Green Turtle is only 5 miles away. We still have some water. Not sure how much, (the gauge on the 79 gallon tank has become one of those “we should fix that” things that will probably bug us until it gets done) but even if we run dry there is enough beverage on board to see us through. Heated salt water will serve for washing both dishes and bodies for a day if necessary. All told there is no reason to push that hard, so we decided not to and will spend a little more quality time enjoying the caresses of Nunjack Cay.

A well-appointed cruising ketch we passed on the way to Nunjack

We are close enough to Marsh Harbor that several of the boats around us are charter Cats and Beneteaus. I have stated before that many of the best sailors I know are regular charter types, but we finally got to see some charter boat antics here in Nunjack. The first was as we set up to drop our sails off of a starboard tack on the way in . A charter Cat was closing in on our starboard side, under power even though she was on the perfect point of sail to let fly her jib and make the fast tracks that big Cats can make. The only person visible on board was standing half way forward on the starboard side hull, on the other side from us. There was no one at the helm. The boat was clearly being driven by the auto-helm while her captain (?) gazed at the anchored boats off his starboard side. We checked up since it was clear there would be no change of course on the part off the Cat.

Kintala would have been doubled T-boned about the time her main fell into the lazy jacks.

The guy did wave to as we passed his stern, though I am not sure exactly how he managed that. With one hand wrapped around the stay and the thumb of his other hand clearly wedged in his butt, waving was quite a trick. Then again, maybe it was his head wedged in his butt, in which case how could he see which way to wave? In any case, any of the charter sailors from home would have slapped this guy silly for his complete lack of water-going competence. Pam would likely have just tossed him overboard. (No harm to be done since it was an easy swim to shore. From there he could catch a ride back to the airport and go deep inland, back where he apparently belongs.)

A couple of hours later another charter Cat pulled several boat lengths off Kintala's port side, dropping her hook onto the clean sand bottom. She then backed down on the short rode with both of her engines running hard, promptly dragging said hook a couple of hundred feet along the bottom. (At least this guy was looking around and standing at the helm.) Some more chain was played out and the boat stood fast as her engines came up to power yet again. It must be some new anchoring technique they are teaching at charter captain school. Maybe the idea is to pile a big mound of sand in front of the anchor? Yeah, that must be it. Since they came to their final resting place well down-wind of us, it made no difference to my world.

An abandoned wreck off the Hog Cays. She was beautiful once.

That world is noticeably less tense than it was last year. These are familiar waters and the Abacos really are, as was once described to me by a long time visitor, a “Dude ranch for sailors”. Sure, accidents can happen anywhere. Any big body of water can play harder than humans and their boats can stand. And we are still learning. But this is not an accident prone kind of place. There are lots of spots - really pretty spots - to sit out a blow (hurricane season is months away yet). And we are comfortable making the boat go in an ever widening set of conditions. Year one of cruising was no walk in the park. Year two got off to a rough start. But things are coming together and we are having a lot of fun. Somewhere, someone should suggest that, anyone who is thinking of doing this, needs to give it at least a two year chance.

A one year stand is not enough time to learn one's way around.

In a pinch

A lot of times when we're sailing I can hear our instructor's voice in the background from our early ASA101 and ASA103 courses on Lake Carlyle. One of the things she talked to us about a lot was not "pinching up", a term (for you  non-sailors) that means turning the bow of the boat until it's too close to the direction the wind is coming from. It causes you to lose speed in a hurry and it can damage the sails from them "slatting" all over the place since they're not efficiently full of wind. It's a common mistake that new sailors make, determined that they can actually sail where they want, not where the wind says they can go.

Most boats can sail reasonably well anwhere except from 60° off the wind on one side to 60° off the wind on the other side. Again, for you non-sailors, picture an analog clock face: most boats simply can't sail from 10:30 to 2:30 on the dial, having to tack back and forth in a zig-zag to get to the destination. Kintala happens to be one of the better boats in this regard. With all three sails flying she can happily sail 35° off the wind as long as there's any wind at all and as long as the waves aren't 5 feet tall. The tradeoff  is the bit of speed lost, but some times this is a tradeoff you need to make. It becomes extremely handy on a day like today, when you need to thread your way through some shallow spots and the wind is blowing in such a direction that you can't go 60° off the wind and still keep from plowing into Mother Earth, something we try to avoid at all costs.

So off we went from the Powell Cay anchorage, fully expecting to motor the whole day since the wind was forecast to be out of the direction we were headed. As is wont to happen, we found the wind to be a few degrees better than what was forecast and, if we were very very diligent on the helm, we could pinch up between 30° and 35° and just make it through the shallow spots sailing instead of motoring. Nighty night Mr. Westerbeast. A few times we dipped below 3 knots, but for most of the day we had a romping sail over 5 knots and heeled over at 15° slicing through the waves like nobody's business. For you sailors, 5 knots is pretty good when you're pinching to 30° off the wind and you only have the staysail and a reefed main up.

The Westerbeast had a good rest, Tim had a good deck-monkey workout, and we all had an unexpectedly terrific sail, quite possibly the best one we've had in the Abacos so far. It just doesn't get much better than this.

School Day …

After getting up this morning I made sure my shirt was clean and there were no big stains on my pants. Coffee, breakfast, brush teeth, shave close, generally making myself as presentable as possible. Load up, dink into shore, head down the road. Destination? Fox Town Preparatory school. Once there Deb was introduced to the students in the First / Second grade classroom as an Author from America (which she is), and then she read the class “Mr. Sun and the Super Sleepy Sunday”. After the story she answered questions from the kids and then left a signed copy of the book for their library.

It was the coolest thing we have done since setting out. The children were as polite as could be and nearly as cute as my own grand kids. The Principal and Teachers were friendly, professional, and clearly dedicated to the little ones in their charge. It was a real honor to be a part of their lives for just a little while, and Fox Town is now on our “must visit” list whenever we come this way.


In addition to the school visit we found fruit, milk, and even ICE CREAM while shopping the three small stores in the town. Everyone greeted us with a smile and a wave. A 10 pound block of ice was ours for just $5. The only shortfall was water, 5 gallons cost $6.50 and you had to return the bottle. Since we have a few days left in our tanks we decided to pass on the water, though we are in full conservation mode until finding some place to fill the tanks. (Yes, a water maker would make life easier right now, but this is the first time in 18 months where water on board is a concern.)

Principal Curry with the teacher and assistant.

One more thing about Fox Town. The anchorage is one of the prettiest ones we have been in. It is surrounded by little islands of rock, reminding me of the northeast coast of the US. The water isn't that deep, it is a bit of a dink ride to the dock, and there is enough fetch to make the place a little bumpy when the winds clock up to 20+ out of the east. It is still better than Dinner Key for most wind directions, and Kintala had no problem finding a good place to sit for a few days.

Kintala in the background.

After our school visit there was still enough time in the day to get underway. The plan was to sail to Powell Cay today, roughly 20 NM. The forecast for the Abacos is in a bit of a rut, ENE winds 15 to 20 with seas of 3 to 5 feet. It has been that way for nearly two weeks, and is forecast for the same as far into the future as the forecast goes. So, if one wants to get anywhere, 20 knots and five foot seas is what one gets to go in. Of course, the course to Powell Cay put the wind and waves directly on the bow.

Kintala's crew has gotten used to 5 foot seas breaking over the bow. Kintala herself doesn't mind 5 foot waves breaking over the bow so long as she has enough push to shoulder them aside. Ah, but the WesterBeast... The Beast and I have come to an uneasy kind of truce. I check it every single day we are under way, keep the revs down, and basically treat it like some kind of temperamental VIP who demands all the green M&Ms be taken from the bowl and the bottled water be shipped directly from France. In return the Beast has rumbled along with no complaints. It isn't using any coolant, isn't using any oil, and runs at a constant 178°. (Amazing what a heat exchanger overhaul will do. But hp is not the Beast's forté. It will get us in and out of an anchorage and motor us along, so long as we don't task it with too many 5 foot hills to climb. Insist on that and boat speed will fall by a third in each 5 footer, bringing Kintala to a stop with the third hit in a row. A fourth will have her backing up, Beast or no Beast. Three, four, and even five consecutive hits greeted the bow once we turned on course. Twenty miles is a long, long way in those kinds of conditions.

The medical center in town. My granddaughters would love this!

So the decision was made to abort to Crab Cay instead. Roughly the same heading but half the distance away. An hour or so later it was still nearly half the distance away. The Beast was just no match for the waves, and there was no point of sail that would work to cover the distance, even with multiple tacks. Even it there were, time was running out of the day for making multiple tacks.

Off the wind lay Allan's Pensacola Cay, only four miles away and with an anchorage that would offer some protection for the night. Also a place we skipped last year and wanted to see, so changing destinations yet again was an easy call. Deb turned Kintala off the wind and I spun out the staysail. Where we had been struggling to keep the average speed above 2 knots, now we were making 5+. Definitely an easy call. An added bonus was that the waves were not quite as tight to the bow, though we were still running sluices of water down the toe rail to pour off the side decks. Within two hours the hook was down, the deck set up for the night, and I had a sandwich and cold Rum & Coke in hand – complete with ice.

The colors here are stunning. There is simply no way to capture them on film.

Tomorrow we will try and get a little further east by leaving in the morning before the winds start their daily ramp up. That is the plan anyway.

Kintala swinging in the light wind.

Kacey this one's for you. One of the local bars with the ever-present Kalik sign.

The anchorage at Allen's Pensacola

My wish for you

Forty years ago on this night I was laying in bed trying unsuccessfully to sleep. In addition to me, my soon-to-be in-laws' house was full of overnight guests crashing on every available sleeping surface in preparation for the wedding the following day. My wedding. I was 18, Tim was 19 and we were embarking on an adventure the likes of which we couldn't even imagine. We'd been best friends for three years by then, a friendship cultivated by hours of talking while driving through the countryside in his parents' wood-paneled station wagon powered by fifty cent per gallon gasoline.

The years after the wedding weren't always kind, but the friendship persisted. Moves to Wichita Kansas, Bentleyville Pennsylvania, Washington Pennsylvania, Kingman Arizona, St. Charles Missouri and St. Louis Missouri followed, mostly prompted by the ever-changing aviation job market. Cars, planes and motorcycles came and went, some more dramatically than others. Children came, pets wandered in, pets wandered out, children wandered out and back in. We survived a critical car accident, loss of family members, losses of multiple jobs, political and religious ideology shifts and cancer scares. Grandchildren came and brought smiles and laughter. The friendship persisted.

One day I had a dream to go sailing and live on a boat. He never even batted an eye. Friends do that, encourage one another's dreams and do whatever is necessary to facilitate their realization, and here we are, sitting on beautiful crystal-clear Bahamian water in a well-founded sailing yacht celebrating our fortieth anniversary. Someone asked me the other day on Facebook what our secret was. It's simple. We're best friends first, husband and wife second. We genuinely like each other and would rather spend time with each other than anybody else. So this anniversary, I'd like to offer you a gift, my wish for you that you find a friendship as deep and fulfilling as the one we celebrate tomorrow. Happy Anniversary, to my best friend and a wish for forty more.

House sitting

It's not always sun and sand in the Bahamas...

We launched the Dink this morning with the thought of getting off the boat and visiting Fox Town. Fox Town is a place we skipped last year, and it looks like an interesting little burg. Also, it has been several weeks since the Merc was run, which usually leads to some starting reluctance on its part. Depending on how much reluctance, it could make for a long day of coaxing it back into service for yours truly. With the Dink in the water and the Merc hanging on its transom, I took a deep breath and pulled. Zoom-zoom on the second pull, and it even settled into a reasonable excuse for an idle. I may have to change my mind about the Merc.

And so there we were, going-ashore stuff loaded, both on board, Merc putting away, and bouncing hard against the Big Boat with water slopping over the bow tube. Hmmm, exactly what is so imperative that we are thinking of doing this? Its a long Dink ride in, we don't know where the dock is yet, and it will be an even longer ride back into the building winds and seas. We expected a little weather this weekend, but this? Perhaps we should wait and see what is going on here?

The forecast for today called for winds 10 to 15 out of the north east. The forecast on the GRIB file for this very instant, as I type, is for 13 knots of wind out of 031 degrees. They got the direction correct, but there is 26 knots of wind out there, gusting to just shy of 30. That may not sound like much to those who live in brick homes resting on Mother Earth, but for those of us who live floating, tethered by a length of chain to keep us away from rocks and shallow bits, it makes for a completely different take on the day. In our case, one where we watch the Dink tug and thrash at the end of its double painter, keep an eye on the ground tackle, and find things to do on the boat. Tomorrow's winds were supposed to be higher than today's. Did the higher winds get here a day early? Even if, they were never forecast for near 30. Maybe this whole system is honking and puffing with more enthusiasm than the weather gurus figured? We are going to find out, and Fox Town may have to wait until Monday.

The Mantus took its usual good set yesterday when we got here, and we are resting on 80 feet of chain in seven feet of water – so we are not too concerned about dragging. Still, if I was on shore looking out at Kintala, sitting alone in the whitecaps and straining against her snubbing lines, that would not be the case. I have to admit that it never occurred to me cruising would mean spending as many days as we do thinking about our house taking off without us. Back in St. Louis that only happened when a big tornado was in the area. Then we were mostly concerned about NOT being around, quite content to let the house take off without us.

On a completely different note: Tomorrow is Deb's and my 40th wedding anniversary. (I'm not sure why she has put up with me this long. I wouldn't have put up with me this long if I wasn't attached, but I am glad she has!) Some really wealthy people would celebrate by taking a trip to the Bahamas on a PRIVATE YACHT, noodling around pristine beaches washed by a stunning turquoise sea, and exploring interesting places. We are on a yacht, a little one, but a yacht none the less. It is private. And we are noodling around pristine beaches washed by a stunning turquoise sea. When the wind finally lies down a little, we will go back to exploring interesting places. So, while we can't make the claim of being wealthy people, we are certainly doing okay.

Bimini photo essay

Just some shots I haven't been able to upload since we've been off the grid for a few days.

A study of Bahamian water

One of the most interesting things about the Bahamas is the colors of everything, but particularly the water. I've tried to capture the turquoise color of the water but somewhere between the eye and the digital camera the color is changed. I've been experimenting with different exposures and maybe some day I'll get it, but in the mean time I've found the water here to be absolutely fascinating. Sometimes when the wind is low, the water takes on this "oily" look to it, almost like it's molten metal. There simply is no way to get this on film. Since we were sailing pretty slowly today I did some random shots, and some of my attempts to get this "oily" look actually don't even look like pictures, but rather paintings. Very very weird. Hope you enjoy. If "artsy fartsy" (as a good friend of mine likes to say) doesn't interest you, then standby for more beach pictures in a bit.