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Friday, December 29, 2018

We left around 9, and after a short 5.1 miles, anchored outside of Hopetown Harbour on Elbow  Cay.  We dinghied to the Sailing Club dock, walked around, bought some still-hot bread, and went to a restaurant on the ocean side for lunch.  There we ran into Mack again (see post above), and bought him a drink.   Back to the boat around 3:00 when the winds picked up above 17 kt, so we decided to stay on the boat.  We were anchored where our chart indicated “poor holding”, but we had no trouble while we were here.

Saturday, December 30

We dinghied into Hopetown and visited the red and white spiraled lighthouse.  It claims to be the last kerosene powered lighthouse in the Bahamas, although there was a sodium vapor lamp hanging nearby, possibly for emergencies.  We went over to the ocean side for a snorkel dive.  Headed back to Olive Oyl for the short (8.4 nautical mile) trip to Marsh Harbour.  We picked up a mooring, since we were expecting a blow, and were planning to leave the boat unattended the following week.  We met up with Angie Wilson and went out for dinner at Colors by the Sea.  Angie has known us and our boat project from the very beginning.  We met her at Shipwright Harbor Marina, where we bought Olive Oyl (ex Marie).  She has seen both the “before” and the “after” of Olive Oyl.

At this point, we would like to apologize for the untimely posting we have done on this blog.  It was our original intention to make a slick presentation of text and pictures documenting our trip.  This has turned out to be difficult due to the poor internet connections we have had with 2G internet service,  and the fact that one of us does the pictures and the other, the narrative.  We have decided to quickly catch up to the present,  and to try to concentrate on keeping up to date at the expense of fewer pictures.  We may add pictures to posts after we post them, so each post may evolve over time.

Wednesday, December 27,  We left Green Turtle Cay bound for Man-O-War Cay,  two hours after low tide, and got out of Settlement Creek without touching bottom.   Shallow draft vessels can take a fairly direct route, but deeper vessels must go out into the Atlantic, briefly, to go “around the Whale”  We probably could have taken the shorter route, but the longer route was only a couple hours longer, and conditions were favorable for playing it safe.   We got to Man-O-War Cay, anchored outside the Harbor and went into town where a fellow named “Mack”, told us where the dinghy dock was and where we should eat (Hybiscus).  Man-O-War is a Loyalist town where much of the economy is based on boatbuilding and repair.   We found a restaurant, ordered a pizza, walked around a bit and headed back to the boat.  We had outboard trouble, and before I had time to do any troubleshooting, Mac showed up in his small fishing boat, and towed us back to Olive Oyl.  It turned out that the fuel hose had come loose from the engine, a simple fix.

Thursday, we went ashore again for a walk around town, and to mail a postcard.  We were told that the post office was only open one hour on either Tuesday or Thursday.  Lunch at Hibiscus, Showers, Laundry, and Dinner at the Marina.  Back to Olive Oyl, planning to leave for Hopetown the next day.

Wednesday, we left Crab Cay at sunrise for Green Turtle Cay, (35 miles and 7 hours away).

Due to navigational optimism, we were able to get into the, very shallow, Settlement Creek. Finding anchoring room for exactly one shallow draft sailboat, we decided it should be us.

Here we stayed, the whole time we were there, in the middle of New Plymouth settlement, 20 oar strokes from shore, restaurants, 2 hardware stores, and several food stores.

 

The settlement was decorated for Christmas, and folks were quite friendly, greeting us, helping us get purchases back to our boat, and once giving us a golf cart ride. Residents were in high Christmas mode, and there were Christmas carols (accompanied by drums) sung at 5:00 AM each morning leading up to the big day. Because of our close proximity to town, we were able to enjoy this music without leaving our boat.

One day we rented a golf cart and toured the whole cay (3 miles long). In Coco Bay, we saw stingrays (basically harmless), and turtles (watch your fingers).

 

 

Sunday, Christmas eve, we took an 8 hour boat tour, conducted by local diving character Brendal. We went to a beautiful Elk horn reef to snorkel where the water was so clear and the color of the fish so vivid.

Then we went over to Man Jack Cay where one of our guides did some lobster spear fishing. He and another member of our group caught about 8 lobsters. We then went to a quiet beach where we could sit in the water with stingrays. They would eat fish pieces from between our toes and seemed to enjoy being petted. Brendal was obviously acquainted with these stingrays claimed to know them by name. While we were watching Lemon sharks come up to the beach, Brendal was fixing us a wonderful lobster and snapper lunch. The weather was perfect and the company was great.

In spite of being tired, we attended Christmas Eve service at the Anglican church, a 30 oar stroke trip, pulling the dinghy up on the beach in front of the church.

The carols were familiar ones, but sung more primitively in unison with drums, and much enthusiasm. I believe we were the only ones to leave the service in a row boat.

Christmas day we went to a pot luck dinner for cruisers. One of the local restaurants (Sundowners) was closed for the day and allowed us to use their patio dining area right on the beach. Lots of great food and conversations.

It started getting a little windy Christmas night and Boxing Day started out partly cloudy. Our next leg of our trip takes us through “The Whale Cut” which is out in the ocean due to shallow waters between islands. We needed to wait another day for the wind to die down.

We decided to spend our last morning walking to Gillam Cove, a good place to find sand dollars. We walked a long, long way on the beach and found lots of great shells but no whole sand dollars.

We watched a squall come in and walked in the rain it brought with it. When we got back to the boat it rained quite heavily off and on all afternoon and we were able to collect 6 gallons of fresh rain water to fill up our tanks.

We left Grand Cay after walking around the small town and buying ice and the last loaf of bread in the small bakery.

We motored just a few miles to Double Breasted Cay, and after a few minutes, we noticed we were being followed by another sailboat, Aine. Double Breasted Cay, uninhabited, consists of two long strips of land with a small white sand island in between. We (Olive Oyl and Aine) anchored between the island and one of the strips, and adjusted our anchor twice to make sure we would have enough depth at low tide. The water here is such a wonderful color of turquoise and clear as glass. The beach has fine white sand.

Doug and I swam the few yards to the beach and walked the island. I found a perfect small conch shell about the size of my fist. We met up with Aine’s crew, Michael and his daughter Sarah and had a nice chat. The water was brisk but not too cold for swimming. The next morning was high tide. The island’s beach disappears during high tide so we had to wait a couple of hours to swim again.

Doug spent time snorkeling around the anchorage looking for lobsters or conch without any luck.

Monday, we left before sunrise for Allans-Pensacola Cay. There was little to no wind and the seas were smooth as glass. It was the kind of day where it was difficult to see where the sky ended and the water began.

It was a smooth enough ride that Doug was able to bake a loaf of sour dough bread. We enjoyed it hot out of the oven while we were underway.

Allans-Pensacola is another uninhabited cay. It has several nice white sand beaches and lots of mangrove trees and other brush.

We anchored, did a bit of exploring, fixed dinner and called it a night. Monday night was a bit of a challenge; around midnight, we became inundated by no-see’ums. We have these pests in Virginia, but they normally are only a problem in the hour after sunset. In this new country, they are much more persistent.

Tuesday, we went in search for the Signing Tree, a big tree where boaters over the years have left assorted items with their name or name of their boat. Some people used old buoys, drift wood or floats. Others were pretty elaborately painted. My friend Angie told us we needed to visit here and add our contribution to the tree as well as look for her boat’s name that she carved into an old float in 2013. It took us a couple of tries to find the tree. We dinghied around to the other side of the island, looked in 2 different coves before we found we had passed the tree on the way in, near a beautiful beach. We found Angie’s “Mary T” float and nearby, we hung our “Olive Oyl’ sign (made from leftover plywood from the galley, and leftover paint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we got back to Olive Oyl, we discussed ways we could avoid another night persecuted by tiny bugs, and decided we had enough time to motor over to Crab Cay for the night, where we had a magnificent sunset.

Thursday morning we set sail across the Gulf Stream, a trip that was uneventful.  4-5 foot waves, enough wind to sail about halfway across.  Dolphins, Flying Fish, and small Portuguese Man-of-Wars (Men-of War?) We got to the Little Bahama Bank after dark in the vicinity of  White Sand Bank, where we decided to anchor rather than continue on overnight.  Our anchorage was a bit rough, since the wind, current, and waves were all from different directions.  It made sleeping a bit rough, although not impossible.  We found out later that there was another boat, Aine (pronounced Anya) that was anchored nearby the same night.  We saw their green light, but thought it was from a vessel underway.

Friday, we sailed toward Grand Cay and started motor sailing around Noon, so we would get in before sunset.  Most of the trip was in 20+ feet, but the last 10 miles were less than 12, some less than 8.  Clearly a time to pay attention to detail.  Using Navionics SonarChart, we made it into the harbor without any trouble.  We talked to a couple fishermen, and tied ourselves up to the deepest, biggest slip in Rosie’s Marina.  No one contested our decision, so there we stayed all night.  We found a thriving fishing village,  half fishermen and half fishing trips for tourists.  There was one other sailboat (Aine) at anchor.  I must say Olive Oyl looked unusually, good tied up to a simple dock with no other sailboats in sight.

We cleared in with Customs, Immigration, and Health, all the same person, rather informal.  Did we come from anywhere that had the plague?  No.   We had dinner at Rosie’s Restaurant (Chicken, Conch or Lobster), Got our phones working on the Bahamian phone system, surfed the web a bit at slow speed, hoisted our Bahamian flag, and called it a night.

The people are very friendly and clearly do not see a lot of sailboats, at least at this time of year.  No one tried to sell us anything.  The water is very clear, allowing one to see to the bottom when the sun doesn’t reflect too much.  Navigation is done largely by sight by the experienced (nearly everyone but us) .  We can see every fish and beer can on the bottom of the marina.  I reflect on those times, I dropped some important piece of hardware overboard while in Virginia, to be left there forever.  Here, you would simply go in after it; the water temperature is 70 degrees F.

We left St Augustine on Saturday, December 2nd and headed down the coast to Lake Worth in West Palm Beach . We sailed past the Kennedy Space Center and one of the launch pads had a rocket in place. Picture isn’t great but the bright white light is the launch pad. 

We again had a bright moon each night but none as pretty as the super moon on Sunday . We had dolphins swimming with us everyday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had great wind for running wing on wing most of the day and evening on Sunday.

We arrived Monday morning before dawn so had to heave too and wait for daylight. We anchored in the north end of Lake Worth which didn’t have a marina that would let us dock our dinghy. We had to leave it under a bridge by a road which didn’t feel very safe. A friend suggested we check out the Palm Beach Sailing Club on the south end of the lake. They are very cruiser friendly, providing a dinghy dock, showers and laundry facilities for a small fee. We moved the boat and have been very happy. Doug says it is a yacht club for regular people.

OOn the sail down the coast Doug noticed a transmission oil leak. So the last couple of days have been spent researching where to get the right gaskets and seals for our 40 year old engine. Doug spent about 4 hours traveling around town on the bus getting the parts he needed. Things should be back together tomorrow.

We get to spend the day with our daughter, Amanda tomorrow as she has the day off from work. It will be great to spend time with her and be off the boat for a while.

Once the transmission leak is fixed we will wait for the right weather window to cross the Gulf Stream heading to the Bahamas.

We left Beaufort, N.C. on Sunday, 11/25 with great wind for sailing. Seas were pretty mild until Tuesday when waves were about 4 feet. No cooking was done on that day.It was cheese and crackers for dinner. We averaged about 110 miles each day which for our little boat is pretty good.

We caught our first fish on Monday it was a little Tunny which did not taste great.

We saw dolphins everyday. We did 3 hour watches each night and had a beautiful bright 1/2 moon following us. We arrived in St. Augustine, Florida yesterday evening at dusk and are now on a mooring ball at the Municipal Marina. The best part is that it is warm!! I was in shorts today. St Augustine is a beautiful little city that seems very friendly to cruisers. We even had a sea turtle swimming around our dinghy. Our tachometer stopped working reliably on this trip but we found a perfect, hardly used one at Sailor Exchange for only $20. Doug is installing it as I type this.  Today we walked around town and did some sight seeing. We will probably stay another day or 2 then head down the coast to West Palm Beach or Fort Lauderdale to prepare for crossing to the Bahamas. Stay tuned.

We sailed out of our slip in Elizabeth City Wednesday morning with good wind for sailing across the Albemarle sound into the Alligator river where we lost cell phone coverage. We anchored in the Alligator River Wednesday night then motored for another 9 hours on Thursday to Goose Creek on the Pamblico River. I made a Cherry Pie enroute for our Thanksgiving dinner. Both days were overcast and cold. Friday motored down the Neuse River to Oriental, N.C. where we have a slip in a Marina. Good friends Paul and Emily picked us up and brought us to their home in New Bern for the night. Plenty of warmth and good company. After consulting the weather gurus we’ve decided to continue south off shore. We will leave Beaufort, N.C. Sunday morning and make our way down the coast. This will be faster than having to stop every evening to anchor and get us to warmer weather sooner.

It went below freezing last night. We woke up to frost on sail covers and beautiful eerie mist rising from the water.

We motored on to Elizabeth City, North Carolina and docked at the free city docks around 11 AM. Got out and walked to visitors center then had a seafood lunch. Finished some boat chores and enjoyed nice hot showers.

Yesterday morning as we were leaving Norfolk and coming to a bridge,  we were approached by a very fast, armed Coast Guard boat. The man at the machine gun was very polite and explained that they were escorting a large ship and asked us to move to a small cove area and wait for it to pass. About 15 minutes later as we motored around in circles with 2 other sailboats this big tanker passed under the bridge with another armed coast guard boat behind it and then we were on our way to the Dismal Swamp section of the ICW.

Entering Deep Creek lock. In the lock you have 2 lines around yellow bollards then the lock tender lets in the water to raise the boat to the next level.

Before entering the lock the lock tender, Robert very strongly suggested we turn around and go another way as they had a huge duck weed outbreak in the canal that was so thick it was stopping boats. Boats were over heating because the weed was clogging their water cooling system and or wrapping around the propeller. The worst was at the southern end of the canal. We decided to take the risk and went on through.

It was a beautiful sunny day, we saw bald eagles and great blue herons flying around. There was still some fall color on the trees.

There were patches of duck weed, some pretty thick, along the way. Olive Oyl motored through it without a problem.

As we got closer to the South Mills lock Doug called and spoke to it’s tender, Tammy. She told him the worst of the duck weed was in between the South Mills bridge and the lock (about 1/4 mile) she suggested getting through the bridge then gunning the engine to get to the lock.We did as she suggested. The duck weed definitely slowed the boat down but didn’t overheat the engine.

This is what it looked like approaching the lock. It looked like a thick grass lawn.Tammy told us it was 12 inches thick this summer and the frogs and turtles would walk across the top.

This lock lowers the boat down. You can see the thick duck weed on the wall as we were lowered.

We made it through. The duck weed was pretty much gone on the other side of the lock. We tied up to these posts and celebrated Doug’s birthday with a chili dinner. Going down the ICW was not our first choice but I am really enjoying the slower pace and the scenery.