Bahamas April 30th - May 19th 2008
We touched down in Ft Lauderdale after
the arduous 44 hours journey back from Australia to Florida.
We were glad to be back and set about getting the boat ready
within two weeks to set sail too the Abaco's for some
warranty work for our clients
Mike and Rana off SV Raven.
We had just recently completed a rewire of their batteries
including the addition of a
Balmar Digital Duo Charge
custom building stainless steel dingy davits which also
served as the platform for the installation of 2
Kyocera 130 watt Solar Panels
and
Blue Sky Energy's Solar Boost 3024i.
We also installed a
LED TriAnchor by OGM. They had a mast head light issue and true to our customer
service reputation we said no problem we'll see you in Green
Turtle Bay.
This was the first time we had taken
the kids to the Bahamas (even though we had lived on the
boat for three years) so we were all very excited to be
taking SV Tranquility, Mitzy the big fat black cat and
ourselves to the clear blue waters of the Abaco's.
We left lake worth inlet around 12
midday hoping to have the westerly winds at our back and to
reach the banks before the winds turned around to the east.
Well you know, we got it most of the way before the winds
clocked around to the east and we had to motor the last few
miles heading into 25kt easterly winds and diminishing
daylight. We reached the banks at night and dropped anchor
just inside the cut, with the winds still a steady 20kts and
never being through this area before we were not going any
further.
The next morning we made our way
through the shallows with a great beam reach healing of 30
degrees and still enough of a wind to get the big hunk of
steel up and cruising along with 1.5 feet under us and 9.5kts of
hull speed. No problems with the reefs as I think that
we would just move the Coral Heads out of the way!!!
Reaching New Plymouth at night the kids
awoke to the crystal clear waters. Cam went into the customs
office three times trying to clear in but the officer wasn't
there or would be right back an hour ago, finally we were
cleared in (Mitzy too) and it was just in time to go into
White Sound on the high tide. Mike and Rana were there to greet us and we ended up having some cocktails
over a few good laughs listening to their rendition of
SV
Ravens crossing the gulf stream, and a beautiful Bahamian
sunset. We invited them to stay for dinner and found that we
had no propane in our tanks, bummer! and shock! as we had a
leak from the hose line and both bottles were empty, thank
goodness Mike said we could use their spare tank until we
could get ours refilled in Marsh Harbor
We had arrived during the annual
island roots festival the kids are so very excited,
especially today when Maya, Shawn, Rana and I go to have high
tea with Queen Elizabeth 1. Maya was a little disappointed
that the Queen didn't drink tea with her pinkie up and after
asking for an audience and spending most of the luncheon at
the Queens table decidedly exclaimed she wasn't sure if
Elizabeth was in fact a real queen after all, but the scones
were good.
We all went back to the Island Roots
festival the next day and immersed ourselves in the culture
of the colonials and Bahamians. we went to a couple of very
informative lectures about the local flora and fauna and
learned about bush medicine. I found a new shampoo made from
the "Love Vine" it grows all over the sides of the road,
Jack from SV Patty cakes was kind too bring me a big bag of
it, Cam just rolled his eyes and laughed at me, but hey it
works well enough if your in a pinch. The last day of the
festival they had a Junkanoo parade and fire show we had a
fabulous time enjoying the local delights of conch salad and
Kalik beer and watching the belly dancer captivating the
crowd with her hips and flaming stick.
Cruising Yoga session are really taking
off with both the crew's off
SV Raven
and SV Patty cakes
joining me on the beach for early morning Yoga, it's not
hard to enjoy being in the tranquil setting of White Sound.
We had the beach to ourselves most morning and found that
even the guys started joining us for the deep relaxing and
rejuvenation sense of self that comes with taking the time
to be at one with nature, breath and moving meditation under
the palm trees.
After spending more than a few days
exploring the beaches around Green Turtle island we picked
up anchor and set sail south going through the Whale Cut and
headed Marsh Harbor to pick up some parts that had been
ordered for Jack and Shawn's off of SV Patty cakes fresh water pump.
We thought it would be nice to check
out Man of War Cay since there was an approaching front and
it would be kicking up the famous rage conditions when all
channels are impassable, and we had a couple of days wait on
island time for parts. Unfortunately we went into the bay at
low tide and "May have" touched bottom, I learned the good
lesson of not to follow our Nobeltec and to use it only as a
reference. Then our roller furling seized when Cam tried to
unfurl the headsail to use the wind to get us off, so there
we were stuck, Cam then got the anchor and put it into the
tender and drove it way out as to help pulls us off when the
tide started too come in again.
With Cameron's quick thinking and
knowledge we got off about 8pm much to our embarrassment and
relief. It was times like these that we whish we didn't have our
website address plaster all over our boom.
We arrived in Marsh harbor the next
morning and were greeted by a metropolis of the Abaco chain,
cars dusty streets, hotels and lots of conch art and crafts
to be sold. We found the propane fill store thanks to the
cruisers net on channel 68 each morning at 8:30, any
questions you have can be answered by the local cruiser
community. Our parts hadn't arrived so we decided to set
sail for Bakers bay aka Treasure Island made famous by Walt
Disney's cruise ship that would visit there, now turned over
to developers for only the very rich to live on. Thank
goodness they don't own the beach and couldn't chase us away
from anchoring there. No other boats where there and we had
this breathtaking beautiful pink sand beach to ourselves, no
wonder this place was topped by national geographic as one
of the top ten beaches of the world, it's truly magical. I
hope the environment of Bakers Bay is protected
through the multimillion dollar development that is going
up. Money buys paradise and an influx of people and boats
will ruin it's natural essence.
The kids learned to really snorkel here
and we dived down and picked up sand dollars to look at and
realized just how brittle they are. Back at the boat Cam
Maya and myself dived off the back of the boat and got our
legal limit of conch for dinner, and shells to clean. Maya
was doing so well diving down at least 9 feet, she's our own
little mermaid of the sea.
"Happy Mothers Day" We woke up earlier
than intended as the
Four Winds ii Wind Generator,
alerted us to the fact that the winds had increased and was blowing
from the west and we were being pushed onto a lee shore.
So we
picked up anchor and headed to the opposite island 'shell
island" We met the Family Crew off SV Pickles and Maya and Fynn
were delighted to finally meet other kids to play with. They
invited us for dinner on their 49' Aluminum Sloop, a very
comfortable boat and with the winds still at about 15kts it
was lovely to have dinner in an enclosed cockpit. Any vessel
that can entertain 4 Adults and 6 kids under 8 is my
idea of a fantastic cruising boat.
We made it back to Marsh Harbor the
next day under 25-30kts anchoring in a now tight anchorage
was more than a tad stressful, but by 6:30pm it had all
calmed down to what would the norm now for the next three
days of waiting in the harbor with no wind and brown harbor
water waiting on customs. Thank goodness there were more
than a few colourful characters to have meet and greets with
during the hot and humid afternoons. Kevin and Erica off SV
One World had us over for drinks and inquiries into solar
panels and what it will take to get them up, That's the
wonderful thing about our business we are casual enough to
have a drink and let you know what will work for you on your
boat with no sales pitch at the end of sundown.
Finally parts in hand and we were
picking up anchor and heading for Guana Cay but changed our
minds and decided to take on the man of war channel as the
rage conditions had subsided enough for us to get up the
courage to go through the cut and make our way back up to
Green Turtle Cay to install the water pump for Patty Cakes
and the
TriAnchor for
Raven before they had to head back to Florida.
Our luck with the winds and sailing in
the Abaco's hasn't been in our favour and we ended up
turning on the engine to make Whale Cut before sunset.
The Whale was still pretty intense from
the rage conditions and we didn't have the choice of not
taking it on as there is now where we could comfortably
anchor till the next morning. We had a huge following swell
following us through and this made us very alert. Especially
when Cameron said "all the safety gear is easily
accessible right"? I love it when he does that just put's me
right on my toes! SV Tranquility got us through safe and
sound tuff girl she is. Made it to New Plymouth harbor
dropped the hook and slept till the next morning when we'd
once again follow the tide back into White Sound. It was
great to see all our friends again, Cam set to work straight
away giving out and fixing what was needed aboard
Raven and
Patty cakes. Maya, Fynn and I went to the beach, where they
set about catching jellyfish and snorkeling about. That
night we had a BBQ a shore by the hotel with all the gang
and met some new cruisers Deb and Dan off SV About Time. We
had wonderful food and great laughs. Even had three good
sized nurse sharks come into the dock to feed off the scraps
the fishermen where cleaning at the weigh in station. Thank
goodness I'd told the kids to get out of the water since the
sun was setting it definitely was feeding time, and we'd
already had a close enough brush with a bronze whaler shark
in NZ and to be sensible around fish bait is safer than
becoming fish bait.
Don't get me wrong though I love sharks
and am about the education and protection, and not the
media hype and bad wrap they get as a species. It was just
little legs would look just as good as the fish carcass.
The night kept going as we moved to
Tranquility for dancing and drinks and yes a bit of falling
over, kept the small anchorage up till midnight "Sorry
everyone" but we were leaving in the morning. We had a good
giggle at Jack and Shawn trying to make their way back to
their boat with Fatty Knee's Yes there is a pun in that, and
the yelling of "STOP ROWING" poor Jack has a great scar from
that night and we have a scar on our transom (and our boat
is steel).
Couldn't believe it though we still had
a team of people the next morning for Cruising Yoga, mind
you it was only the girls, Rana, Sean ,Deb and Brie that
made it, the boys were far to dusty. I will fully admit I
was not on it 100% myself and apologized for it before
leading the class into some much needed kidney and toxin
asana flushing's, ahhhhhhhhh! and by the end of our class we
all felt much better for it.
SV Tranquility and her crew set sail on
the high tide turning north and heading for Fox town, on the
way we found that we actually had been in dated with nits
nice....... Now I realized we hadn't been having a reaction
to the shampoo, Fynn and Daddy had their head's shaved
straight away and then Cam proceed to put alcohol through
our hair to kill the little buggers. Take note! when
traveling to the islands with kids, have nit cream on board
just in case! We had a lot of washing to do in West Palm
Beach when we got back and only a small amount of time to
get it all done before heading north to Long Island for our
summer adventure.
