So way back now. Wednesday was a complete write off. We were stuck on the dock in Bimini. The winds howled and the rain barely let up all day. It was hard to believe that all the boats in the marina actually had people living on them, because everyone was hiding down below. Luckily, our saviors, Gil and Diana invited us over for happy hour. We spent a few hours telling each other stories, swapping lies, and trying to solve the problems of the world, before we wondered back to Vita for some sleep.
Thursday dawned much brighter. The rest of the cruisers crawled out of their cocoons, us included. We were on a bit of a mission today, although not overly driven, after all, this is the islands. By the look of the weather, it made sense for us to leave the following day at low slack water, travel down to Cat Cay where we would spend the night and leave from there to cross the Great Bahama Bank to get to the Northwest Channel. That meant that anything we needed done before we left, needed to be done today. Serena left me at the gas stop, so that I could fill our diesel cans, and she headed to the laundry. After getting diesel, I pulled our empty propane tank. I grabbed Gil and Diana's two little tanks that needed a top up, and headed out to find Big Fred to get some propane. Everything works a little different here! After checking at the liquor store, I found out the Fred was already down at his truck filling someone else's tank. I hightailed it down to the end of the island and managed to get there just as he was finishing up. Perfect, fill up please. It was hardly worth the effort for the $15 worth of propane that it took, but that's 4 -5 weeks of cooking, barbecuing, and heating water, on both our boats. I dropped off the tanks back at the boats, and headed to the laundry to help Serena. $9 for a load of laundry, and you pay the lady attendant, then she activates the machine, it was a little weird, but the machines were nice and clean. Apparently the reason the price is so high is that they use propane to run the dryers, and that makes sense, plus, we are in the middle of freakin' nowhere.
Later on, our friend Diana was having a rough time getting her phone to talk to her computer so that she could use the data plan to access the internet with her laptop. I'm not much of an Apple guy, but I figured I might be able to help her out anyway. I hate to see people get frustrated with computers. After a few hours of tinkering around, doing some updates, changing a few settings, it finally worked. I am still not sure that I had too much to do with it, but she is happy, and that was the point. Now we could all enjoy happy hour. All the cruisers gathered for happy hour on land, and the talk of course was about; how to store food, the weather, boat systems and repairs, etc.... Our lives our now consumed by the work that it takes to live this lifestyle. I think that is the reason we do this, because it gives us something to do, but the older you get, the harder it is too learn new things, eh ol' dog.
Happy hour discussion groups. How to store food, and put up with the captain(below). Weather, maintenance, and where to go(above).
Friday we left as planned. We would have had a beautiful sail down to Cat Cay, but our batteries were really low, so we needed to run the engine to top them up. I left it out of gear though, just so we could sail. Travelling only a couple of hours, it gave us time to drop the hook and do a little snorkeling. Had showers and a nice dinner. It was good to be away from the dock.
Saturday we woke at 03:30. It was 60 nautical miles across the Banks, and we wanted to be anchor down before sundown at the other end. We were planning to leave, when we noticed that the chart plotter had no GPS data, which meant it was useless. Get out the handheld GPS, study the charts, lets go. It was nice to see that we could still navigate without the chart plotter, in shallow water, in the dark! By lunch time I had figured out to reset the internal RAM in the chart platter, and that seemed to do the trick. But what a beautiful sail. Sun shining, perfect wind, low waves. I laid in the cockpit reading our friend Marlese's book, "Trouble at the Cottage". It was her first book, and until now I had not had a chance to sit back and give it a read. Cute story, very well written, and even though it was intended for a much younger audience, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Here's hoping there is another one in the works.
We had chosen to anchor out on the banks before crossing the tongue of the ocean to New Providence, so I found a little spot just north of a sand bar a few miles above Andros Island that provided some protection from the waves. It was a little bumpy, but considering that there was no land in sight, only ocean, it was pretty good. We barbecued a nice steak dinner, sat in the cockpit enjoying the moonlight, had showers, and settled in for the night. In 18 feet of water we could still see the bottom from the moon light alone, that's cool.
Eventually s/v Serenada, s/v Romano, and s/v Slow Waltz showed up to our location around 11:00 at night, and dropped the hook. They had all left at 10 in the morning from Bimini, and decided to anchor on the banks before making the daytime run to New Providence.
Yesterday we woke early again, trying to make the Northwest Channel around slack water. Having a small/slow boat, we have to be careful about currents, and the effects that wind have on them. So we raised the anchor at 05:00 and headed out, leaving the rest of the boats asleep. They all left 2 hours later, but arrived in New Providence the same time we did, and that's why we leave early.
It was an awesome sail. The seas weren't too bad, 3-5 feet max, with a great wind just forward of the beam. We flew all sail and were hitting upwards of 6.5 knots. Later around lunch the wind died and we had to become a motor sailor, and eventually just a motor boat as we headed into West Bay in the afternoon. A great run. We saw flying fish, read in the cockpit, napped, and chatted with fellow cruisers who happened to be on the same piece of water. A great day. We anchored in 8 ft of crystal clear water. You can see everything on the bottom. Some days life is just worth livin'.
Last night we dingied over to Serenada, had a few adult beverages, and played a couple of games of cards. We dinghied back for showers, and bed time. Today promises to be a beaut! We are in paradise, with gorgeous water, good friends, and a very pretty view.
Needle fish. Serena took this picture in the marina in Bimini. The fish where everywhere. and the water was so clear. It was mesmerizing.
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