capran
10-10-2004, 03:08 PM
The Summers Cruise of 2004
Week 1: Voyager was as we left her ten months ago. We change the filters, put the sails and canvas up and fill her with the supplies we will need for the summer. It’s a quick trip down the ICW to West Palm. We bump a shallow spot (luckily it’s soft sand)as we leave the Sailfish Marina and head out the inlet at 0600. The crossing is as it usually is. Winds are from the SE all day, from 10 to 20 knots. When the winds pick up the waves are about 3’ and the salt spay covers the boat. We see the water tower of West End when we’re 10.8 miles out and enter the breakwater at of Old Bahama Bay after 11 hours. We fuel up, clear customs and are amazed that for the first time in 12 years of cruising, because of the drought, there are no “no-see-ums” at West End. We motor out the breakwater and anchor. While we enjoy a cold one to celebrate an uneventful crossing, Ross tries his luck at fishing, and before long, manages to hook a 2 foot remora, which he carefully returns to the sea.
Week 2: A Beneteau 35, Sea Urchin, passes us in Indian Cay Channel as we motorsail East. We had planned to meet up at Great Sale, but as we neared Mangrove the wind shifted and gave us a favorable angle for heading up to Grand Cays. After dinner at Rosies we look over the charts and plan for the coming week. The next day we start off with a dive in the cut for dinner. We have found that at slack water there are a lot of hogfish in the area, and both Ross and I get one. We motor over to Double Breasted and anchor northeast of Sand Cay, in the crystal clear water. There are so many powerboats it reminds us of Peanut Island on a weekend. The first night, as darkness approaches, we are “entertained” by 5 boats rafted up, the largest of which drags anchor. Unfortunately they were dragging in our direction, and the owner of the 45 footer had left with his keys for dinner at Grand. In the mean time some locals showed up and sold a half dozen lobster to the group of boats rafted up. We were surprised at this obvious violation of fishing regs. He did get back and the group re-anchored a safe distance from Voyager. We spent the next few days lazing in the shallows of Double Breasted, enjoying hogfish, grouper and conch, and the beauty of the surrounding reefs.
Week 3: We decide to take advantage of the settled weather and make a few new stops. We first head to Strangers Cay and find it all but deserted except for two conching boats out of Nassau. At the end of each day they bring back small boats loaded with conch, poke holes in the shells and tie them together and drop them off near shore. After several weeks they say they will have 10,000 pounds in each of the two larger boats and will return to Nassau. We are in awe that we are still able to find conch quite easily given such commercial fishing. We also stop at Morraine Cay,which not only has a very beautiful reef just off shore, but the spear-fishing proves to be excellent. We did have one close encounter with a 6-7’ bull shark which swam by us nonchalantly. Unfortunately in our haste to get Ross’s big grouper into the dingy we put a pin prick size hole in the side of our dingy. It was easily patched a few days later. We finish up the week with a few days at Alans-Pensacola, diving, picking up a few shells on the beach of guinimanns cay and sharing our fish with some fellow boaters. A note of caution here: In walking the trail to the ocean side where there is a large collection of messages attached to bottles and floats, be aware, somewhere there is some poisonwood! Randy must have brushed up against it with his side, creating an itchy rash that lasted much of the summer. Still not more than 4 drops of rain have hit us so far. We stop off at Spanish Cay and enjoy a night of air-conditioned comfort and the rebuilt marina. The pool and ping pong table inside where it’s a little cooler is a nice diversion for a 15 year old bored being stuck with his parents 24-7. We manage a stop at Munjack, of course. And finally arrive at Green Turtle after the Cheeseburger in paradise party but in time to catch some of the race week and festivities. Of course, we’re not much partiers, so we observe more from a distance.
Week 4: We spend a few days at Bakers Bay continuing to enjoy the dry, settled weather. We snorkel, walk the beaches and collect a few shells. We never cease to marvel at Spoil Island, remembering what it was like before they dredged and created it, as well as what it was like before any vegetation took hold. And we always enjoy the ruins of “Treasure Island”, remembering walking around and listening to live music when Ross was two. We decide to stop at Orchid Bay for another Marina splurge. After tying up and going for a walk to town we return and find warm air blowing from the A/C. It appeared the water pump went out, so we bid a hasty goodbye (the folks at the Marina didn’t even charge us for the 2 hours dockage) and headed to Marsh Harbor. The next day we connected with Burrows A/C service who confirmed our suspicions and I called Mermaid Marine and ordered a new pump. We spent the rest of the week at our favorite haunts- Tahiti Beach and Hopetown, waiting for the part to arrive. We ran into George from Lochinvar, whom we first met in 1986. He told us of a friend running into some whale bones somewhere out by the reefs off Johnnys Cays, but that his friend hadn’t been able to pin-point the spot or find it again. Randy got quite a birthday treat when he found the bones after only a half hour of being drug behind the dingy. There were some 7 foot ribs, vertebrae and even the blowhole! We gave the coordinates to George who shared them with some locals and, unfortunately, all the big bones were collected and gone after a week. We retuned to Marsh Harbor and after some negotiations with Fredrick’s Agency and Customs got our pump released from Freeport. We had made sure they had copies of our cruising permit and the pump confirmation order, but when the pump arrived, the copy of the invoice didn’t have the price noted so customs wanted to charge us a 40% duty. They did finally relent thanks to the folks at Fredrick’s. With the new pump installed we had our A/C back. Ahhhhh!
Week 5: We spend the week letting the weather determine where we go. We spend some time at Delias Cay by Guana, Treasure Cay, and Marsh Harbor. There are a few rain showers and Troy, of Dive Guana, clocks the wind at 42 knots, during one low pressure system. Ross takes advantage of civilization by using the Batelco card to call a few friends back in Spokane. We relent on the use of the inverter while anchored out so he can watch some movies and play Nintendo in an effort to prevent a mutiny.
Week 6: Our friends from Spokane arrive for a weeks visit. They bring their 17 year old daughter so that Ross finally has someone in his age range. We take them down to Little Harbor to show them the sights they missed on their first visit 2 years ago. The caves, Pete’s pub and the gallery are all on the must see list. We spend time on Lynyard, and also stop off at Sea Spray Marina and Tahiti Beach, showing Jan, Greg and Sarah the sights of the hub of Abaco. Sharing the beauty of the area with friends always enhances our appreciation of the Islands. We do get a few squalls during their visit, once of which hits us while we are rounding Sandy Cay, which made for a few tense moments as we dealt with lightening and limited visibility. Our guests treated us to Nippers Pig Roast which was an absolute delight. We also took them out to show them the few whale bones that remained. The week passed too quickly.
Week 7: The weather showed an appreciable change in early August. The winds picked up and rain storms increased in intensity and frequency. We spent time in the hub from Tilloo to Green Turtle. Ross and I played basketball at Hopetown and Man O War and Green Turtle and we tried to get alittle snorkeling in during the afternoons, which was alittle touch and go given the weather. The low that later became Alex hit the first of the month. Troy clocked winds on Aug 2 at 46. The mosquitoes and no-see-ums were becoming a problem but we tried to make the best of it. We anchored in White Sound, Green Turtle, and rented a golf cart to explore a few favorite beaches on the ocean side and started looking over the charts. By then “Bonnie” had formed and they were forecasting it to not only gain in strength and size, but for the track to pass only 50 miles East of the Abacos. We made the decision to start moving West with the first break in the weather.
Week 8: We had originally planned on Island hopping our way up to Grand but the weather was going downhill fast. We made it from Green Turtle to Great Sale in 12 hours, which made for a long day. The winds had been on the nose from the East much of the day, so we, along with quite o few others, anchored in the lee, south of Tom Johnsons harbor. Unfortunately, the winds picked up and blew from the SSE, which made for a bumpy night. We were only picking up broken weather forecasts, so we were not sure what Bonnie was doing. We went around the south end of Great Sale and picked up a favorable angle on the wind which allowed us to motor sail. As we reached Mangrove we were hit by a quall from the SW with 46 knot winds, lightening and rain that made for zero visibility. We hailed several of the boats including Snoopy and Knot a Rehersal to watch out for us as we dropped the anchor until the squall passed. As we neared Indian Cay channel all heck broke loose. Snoopy reported almost being swamped by 10 foot breaking seas as they exited the bank. Nautilus reported more of the same, so we made the decision to anchor out on the East side of Indian Cay Channel, which made for another bumpy night of poor sleep. In the morning I waited for a quarter incoming tide, reasoning that the seas wouldn’t be as bad if wind was blowing with the tide. I was right and we only had 5 foot breaking seas both exiting the bank and entering the breakwater at Old Bahama Bay. Unfortunately boats had been piling up and there was no room at the marina, but we lucked out and Snoopy let us spend the night tied to them (paying OBB the full moorage charge, of course!). By then we heard Charlie was to our south and that was the weather we were likely seeing. The waves were still breaking 4 feet as we went out and anchored off the breakwater, and then returned to the marina the following day when they got an opening. Some of the bigger boats had left and we thought we’d try to get some rest and let things settle down on the Gulf Stream before we tackled our crossing. Quite a few sailboats were thinking the same thing.
Week 9: We befriended Alan and Sharon of Orphalese, a Caliber 40, and they wanted to tag along for the crossing to Ft. Pierce. Charlie had moved more toward the gulf creating a small window in the weather. With seas 2-3 feet and scattered Thunderstorms we left West End. We motorsailed to keep our speed maxed out, as Ft Pierce is over 81 miles away. We had a few passing showers, the back side of one of the storms gave us a nice 15 knot WNW breeze to push us along with a max speed of 9.2 over the ground. (that Gulf Stream can be very helpful!) We had several schools of two types of dolphin as we approached the inlet and luckily caught the last of the incoming tide going into Ft Pierce. Believe me, you don’t want to be in the inlet when the tide is moving against the wind!!!). We tied up at Harbortown and cleared customs and the next day got a rental car to go out to clear immigration. (Interestingly, when we got to the airport, immigration said that who ever cleared us in the night before also cleared us in through immigration-mistakenly!) Later the forecast was calling for 80 knot winds associated with Charlie to hit Ft Pierce on Friday. We made the decision to hurriedly get Voyager cleaned up and put away for storage and hauled on Thursday, the day before Francis was to hit. It later turned out that Charlie shifted a little westward and the eye missed our hotel by 50 miles.
The rest is history, as they say. We spent an extra week hanging around Florida waiting for our flight home, since we had been chased back a week early. We went for long drives and long walks, saw some alligators, turtles and the devastation that Charlie wrought on Orlando. We even got a chance to try surfing before we left! And several weeks after returning home, Francis knocked Voyager down and filled her with water. Amazingly Hurricane Jeanne didn’t knock her down again. We are awaiting getting her shipped back to the Northwest so that we can repair her and start a new adventure, cruising the waters of the northwest, far from hurricanes. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend over 28 months cruising the Bahamas over a 12 year period. We may be back one day, but more likely chartering when hurricanes are less likely. We know that, despite these terrible storms, the Abacos will return to, and will always be, the most beautiful place on earth. My thoughts and prayers are with you all as you rebuild and recover.
Week 1: Voyager was as we left her ten months ago. We change the filters, put the sails and canvas up and fill her with the supplies we will need for the summer. It’s a quick trip down the ICW to West Palm. We bump a shallow spot (luckily it’s soft sand)as we leave the Sailfish Marina and head out the inlet at 0600. The crossing is as it usually is. Winds are from the SE all day, from 10 to 20 knots. When the winds pick up the waves are about 3’ and the salt spay covers the boat. We see the water tower of West End when we’re 10.8 miles out and enter the breakwater at of Old Bahama Bay after 11 hours. We fuel up, clear customs and are amazed that for the first time in 12 years of cruising, because of the drought, there are no “no-see-ums” at West End. We motor out the breakwater and anchor. While we enjoy a cold one to celebrate an uneventful crossing, Ross tries his luck at fishing, and before long, manages to hook a 2 foot remora, which he carefully returns to the sea.
Week 2: A Beneteau 35, Sea Urchin, passes us in Indian Cay Channel as we motorsail East. We had planned to meet up at Great Sale, but as we neared Mangrove the wind shifted and gave us a favorable angle for heading up to Grand Cays. After dinner at Rosies we look over the charts and plan for the coming week. The next day we start off with a dive in the cut for dinner. We have found that at slack water there are a lot of hogfish in the area, and both Ross and I get one. We motor over to Double Breasted and anchor northeast of Sand Cay, in the crystal clear water. There are so many powerboats it reminds us of Peanut Island on a weekend. The first night, as darkness approaches, we are “entertained” by 5 boats rafted up, the largest of which drags anchor. Unfortunately they were dragging in our direction, and the owner of the 45 footer had left with his keys for dinner at Grand. In the mean time some locals showed up and sold a half dozen lobster to the group of boats rafted up. We were surprised at this obvious violation of fishing regs. He did get back and the group re-anchored a safe distance from Voyager. We spent the next few days lazing in the shallows of Double Breasted, enjoying hogfish, grouper and conch, and the beauty of the surrounding reefs.
Week 3: We decide to take advantage of the settled weather and make a few new stops. We first head to Strangers Cay and find it all but deserted except for two conching boats out of Nassau. At the end of each day they bring back small boats loaded with conch, poke holes in the shells and tie them together and drop them off near shore. After several weeks they say they will have 10,000 pounds in each of the two larger boats and will return to Nassau. We are in awe that we are still able to find conch quite easily given such commercial fishing. We also stop at Morraine Cay,which not only has a very beautiful reef just off shore, but the spear-fishing proves to be excellent. We did have one close encounter with a 6-7’ bull shark which swam by us nonchalantly. Unfortunately in our haste to get Ross’s big grouper into the dingy we put a pin prick size hole in the side of our dingy. It was easily patched a few days later. We finish up the week with a few days at Alans-Pensacola, diving, picking up a few shells on the beach of guinimanns cay and sharing our fish with some fellow boaters. A note of caution here: In walking the trail to the ocean side where there is a large collection of messages attached to bottles and floats, be aware, somewhere there is some poisonwood! Randy must have brushed up against it with his side, creating an itchy rash that lasted much of the summer. Still not more than 4 drops of rain have hit us so far. We stop off at Spanish Cay and enjoy a night of air-conditioned comfort and the rebuilt marina. The pool and ping pong table inside where it’s a little cooler is a nice diversion for a 15 year old bored being stuck with his parents 24-7. We manage a stop at Munjack, of course. And finally arrive at Green Turtle after the Cheeseburger in paradise party but in time to catch some of the race week and festivities. Of course, we’re not much partiers, so we observe more from a distance.
Week 4: We spend a few days at Bakers Bay continuing to enjoy the dry, settled weather. We snorkel, walk the beaches and collect a few shells. We never cease to marvel at Spoil Island, remembering what it was like before they dredged and created it, as well as what it was like before any vegetation took hold. And we always enjoy the ruins of “Treasure Island”, remembering walking around and listening to live music when Ross was two. We decide to stop at Orchid Bay for another Marina splurge. After tying up and going for a walk to town we return and find warm air blowing from the A/C. It appeared the water pump went out, so we bid a hasty goodbye (the folks at the Marina didn’t even charge us for the 2 hours dockage) and headed to Marsh Harbor. The next day we connected with Burrows A/C service who confirmed our suspicions and I called Mermaid Marine and ordered a new pump. We spent the rest of the week at our favorite haunts- Tahiti Beach and Hopetown, waiting for the part to arrive. We ran into George from Lochinvar, whom we first met in 1986. He told us of a friend running into some whale bones somewhere out by the reefs off Johnnys Cays, but that his friend hadn’t been able to pin-point the spot or find it again. Randy got quite a birthday treat when he found the bones after only a half hour of being drug behind the dingy. There were some 7 foot ribs, vertebrae and even the blowhole! We gave the coordinates to George who shared them with some locals and, unfortunately, all the big bones were collected and gone after a week. We retuned to Marsh Harbor and after some negotiations with Fredrick’s Agency and Customs got our pump released from Freeport. We had made sure they had copies of our cruising permit and the pump confirmation order, but when the pump arrived, the copy of the invoice didn’t have the price noted so customs wanted to charge us a 40% duty. They did finally relent thanks to the folks at Fredrick’s. With the new pump installed we had our A/C back. Ahhhhh!
Week 5: We spend the week letting the weather determine where we go. We spend some time at Delias Cay by Guana, Treasure Cay, and Marsh Harbor. There are a few rain showers and Troy, of Dive Guana, clocks the wind at 42 knots, during one low pressure system. Ross takes advantage of civilization by using the Batelco card to call a few friends back in Spokane. We relent on the use of the inverter while anchored out so he can watch some movies and play Nintendo in an effort to prevent a mutiny.
Week 6: Our friends from Spokane arrive for a weeks visit. They bring their 17 year old daughter so that Ross finally has someone in his age range. We take them down to Little Harbor to show them the sights they missed on their first visit 2 years ago. The caves, Pete’s pub and the gallery are all on the must see list. We spend time on Lynyard, and also stop off at Sea Spray Marina and Tahiti Beach, showing Jan, Greg and Sarah the sights of the hub of Abaco. Sharing the beauty of the area with friends always enhances our appreciation of the Islands. We do get a few squalls during their visit, once of which hits us while we are rounding Sandy Cay, which made for a few tense moments as we dealt with lightening and limited visibility. Our guests treated us to Nippers Pig Roast which was an absolute delight. We also took them out to show them the few whale bones that remained. The week passed too quickly.
Week 7: The weather showed an appreciable change in early August. The winds picked up and rain storms increased in intensity and frequency. We spent time in the hub from Tilloo to Green Turtle. Ross and I played basketball at Hopetown and Man O War and Green Turtle and we tried to get alittle snorkeling in during the afternoons, which was alittle touch and go given the weather. The low that later became Alex hit the first of the month. Troy clocked winds on Aug 2 at 46. The mosquitoes and no-see-ums were becoming a problem but we tried to make the best of it. We anchored in White Sound, Green Turtle, and rented a golf cart to explore a few favorite beaches on the ocean side and started looking over the charts. By then “Bonnie” had formed and they were forecasting it to not only gain in strength and size, but for the track to pass only 50 miles East of the Abacos. We made the decision to start moving West with the first break in the weather.
Week 8: We had originally planned on Island hopping our way up to Grand but the weather was going downhill fast. We made it from Green Turtle to Great Sale in 12 hours, which made for a long day. The winds had been on the nose from the East much of the day, so we, along with quite o few others, anchored in the lee, south of Tom Johnsons harbor. Unfortunately, the winds picked up and blew from the SSE, which made for a bumpy night. We were only picking up broken weather forecasts, so we were not sure what Bonnie was doing. We went around the south end of Great Sale and picked up a favorable angle on the wind which allowed us to motor sail. As we reached Mangrove we were hit by a quall from the SW with 46 knot winds, lightening and rain that made for zero visibility. We hailed several of the boats including Snoopy and Knot a Rehersal to watch out for us as we dropped the anchor until the squall passed. As we neared Indian Cay channel all heck broke loose. Snoopy reported almost being swamped by 10 foot breaking seas as they exited the bank. Nautilus reported more of the same, so we made the decision to anchor out on the East side of Indian Cay Channel, which made for another bumpy night of poor sleep. In the morning I waited for a quarter incoming tide, reasoning that the seas wouldn’t be as bad if wind was blowing with the tide. I was right and we only had 5 foot breaking seas both exiting the bank and entering the breakwater at Old Bahama Bay. Unfortunately boats had been piling up and there was no room at the marina, but we lucked out and Snoopy let us spend the night tied to them (paying OBB the full moorage charge, of course!). By then we heard Charlie was to our south and that was the weather we were likely seeing. The waves were still breaking 4 feet as we went out and anchored off the breakwater, and then returned to the marina the following day when they got an opening. Some of the bigger boats had left and we thought we’d try to get some rest and let things settle down on the Gulf Stream before we tackled our crossing. Quite a few sailboats were thinking the same thing.
Week 9: We befriended Alan and Sharon of Orphalese, a Caliber 40, and they wanted to tag along for the crossing to Ft. Pierce. Charlie had moved more toward the gulf creating a small window in the weather. With seas 2-3 feet and scattered Thunderstorms we left West End. We motorsailed to keep our speed maxed out, as Ft Pierce is over 81 miles away. We had a few passing showers, the back side of one of the storms gave us a nice 15 knot WNW breeze to push us along with a max speed of 9.2 over the ground. (that Gulf Stream can be very helpful!) We had several schools of two types of dolphin as we approached the inlet and luckily caught the last of the incoming tide going into Ft Pierce. Believe me, you don’t want to be in the inlet when the tide is moving against the wind!!!). We tied up at Harbortown and cleared customs and the next day got a rental car to go out to clear immigration. (Interestingly, when we got to the airport, immigration said that who ever cleared us in the night before also cleared us in through immigration-mistakenly!) Later the forecast was calling for 80 knot winds associated with Charlie to hit Ft Pierce on Friday. We made the decision to hurriedly get Voyager cleaned up and put away for storage and hauled on Thursday, the day before Francis was to hit. It later turned out that Charlie shifted a little westward and the eye missed our hotel by 50 miles.
The rest is history, as they say. We spent an extra week hanging around Florida waiting for our flight home, since we had been chased back a week early. We went for long drives and long walks, saw some alligators, turtles and the devastation that Charlie wrought on Orlando. We even got a chance to try surfing before we left! And several weeks after returning home, Francis knocked Voyager down and filled her with water. Amazingly Hurricane Jeanne didn’t knock her down again. We are awaiting getting her shipped back to the Northwest so that we can repair her and start a new adventure, cruising the waters of the northwest, far from hurricanes. We consider ourselves very fortunate to have had the opportunity to spend over 28 months cruising the Bahamas over a 12 year period. We may be back one day, but more likely chartering when hurricanes are less likely. We know that, despite these terrible storms, the Abacos will return to, and will always be, the most beautiful place on earth. My thoughts and prayers are with you all as you rebuild and recover.