Blog Archives

Late February - Long Island to Little San Salvador

2/28/2009

Dave and Fred chat at New Bight

As our last entry ended, we were at Long Island, contemplating whether to move onto Cat Island -- the next out island north of us and generally on a route to the Abacos, or Conception Island – due east of Long Island and a little more remote. Well, we made up our minds and have headed north to Eleuthera, where we’ll hopefully be able to post this update. As our last entry ended, we were at Long Island, contemplating whether to move onto Cat Island -- the next out island north of us and generally on a route to the Abacos, or Conception Island – due east of Long Island and a little more remote. Well, we made up our minds and have headed north to Eleuthera, where we’ll hopefully be able to post this update.

Cape Santa Maria Resort beach at Calabash Bay

North to Cat Island

With the weather forecast in mind, we decided to head toward Cat Island, leaving Conception Island for another visit. To break up the trip, we stopped first at Calabash Bay on the northern tip of Long Island, home of the Cape Santa Maria Resort. We were a little on guard for the surge warnings in the guides, which turned out to be well-founded. Although we were well protected from the east winds, the swells rolled into the anchorage from the west. As the winds shifted to the southeast, this put the swells on the beam and made for an uncomfortable night. The resort is lovely though, and we did manage to go ashore to see how the other half lives.

Marianna under sail from Long Island to Cat Island

We were up early the next morning and on our way across the Exuma Sound to Cat Island, watching with fascination as the sizable waves crashed on the reef on the tip of Long Island. The swells were now coming from the southeast, but their height was still up, making our downwind sail impractical. The boat was swinging too much with each swell. We decided to motorsail with just the headsail, taking a course 25o to starboard of our rhumb line course to take better advantage of the wind angle. By noon, we saw the startling emerald green line of shallow water that marked the banks off Cat Island, at the far edge of the very deep royal blue waters of Exuma Sound. The waves diminished as we rounded Hawk’s Nest Point. We cut the engine and sailed into New Bight, where we set the anchor in the shadow of the Hermitage, Father Jerome’s retreat, built on the highest hill in the Bahamas.

The water was calm and shallow enough that we decided to swim out and look at the anchor. What we saw was interesting. The anchor had obviously dropped and then dragged for about 30 feet before it finally set, with only one fluke buried in the sand. We were a little uncomfortable with the set, so we decided to try again in a little different place. This time, it set right away. Dave swam out to look at it again and found a better set. The winds were supposed to increase in a couple of days, so we wanted to be sure it would hold.

Marianna and Orion at anchor in New Bight

New Bight, Cat Island

The next day, we headed in to explore the island. Our first stop had to be the biggest attraction on Cat Island – Father Jerome’s Hermitage on Mt. Alvernia (aka Como Hill)(. Father Jerome had converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism and become a priest later in life. He asked for permission to retire here on Cat Island, and lived initially in a cave on the hill as he hauled the stone and built the structure that is now referred to as the Hermitage. Like the many churches he built throughout the Bahamas, the structure is solid and built to withstand the hurricanes that can visit the islands. It is also built on a scale for just one person -- although it looks much larger from a distance. We were anchored just off the road that led up the hill (the highest in the Bahamas at 206 ft), so we it was only about a 30 minute climb to the top.

On our return down to the Queens Highway, we visited the nearby bakery and the service station, which had fuel, propane, a convenience store with a decent variety of groceries and even cars for rent. It doesn’t get much more convenient than that. Although we took the longer walk to a larger grocery store the next day, we found that we would be satisfied with the nearer store. We also went in search of fresh conch and/or lobster, visiting Regatta Park, a row of small huts by the beach where short order meals were served. There was no lobster today, but maybe tomorrow. A familiar line in the Bahamas. We eventually hit the stand on the right day and had some great lobster and fish. We even bought one to cook back on the boat, which we combined with some precious steaks to have a rare evening of surf and turf on Marianna.

On Sunday, we managed to hitch a ride with the catholic priest up to the Holy Redeemer Church. He arrives every other week from Nassau by plane to perform services there. It was a small congregation and an unusual mix of nationalities that were in attendance, but the message was thoughtful and the singing enthusiastic for a small group.

We remained the only 2 boats in the harbor for a couple of days until Early Out arrived late Sunday,. On Monday, they joined us on Orion for hor d’ouvres. As they left, we reminded them that it was the responsibility of the newest boat in the harbor to host the “Cat Island Cruisers Net” in the morning – a tongue in cheek reference to the much more regimented Georgetown community. To our delight and amusement, we were greeted the next morning to an announcement of “please turn to channel 18 for the Cat Island Cruisers Net”. We were then treated to the weather (windy), the news (nothing good), a welcome of new arrivals (none reported), and a request for community announcements. We cruisers are nothing if not organized.

On to Little San Salvador

After spending a little over a week at New Bight, we finally got the right weather to start moving north to Eleuthera. We had a good sail with the winds finally down to a manageable level (although we had both sails furled partially), as we headed north to West Bay on Little San Salvador, the island that the current cruise line owners have renamed Half Moon Cay for their passengers. The cruise line staff greeted us as we were about to anchor, telling that we could go ashore once the cruise ship left.

West Bay is a crescent shaped beach open to the Exuma Sound on the west. Within a mile from shore, the water depths are over 1000 feet deep. The difference in water color is once again very dramatic. It was fascinating to watch the cruise ship activities both on shore and on and around the ship. The biggest negative was that, once again, the swells coming in from Exuma Sound were mild, but on the beam and made for a not so restful night.

We were up the next morning and off for another good sail -- this time with full main and headsail -- to Rock Sound, Eleuthera, where we planned to wait out a cold front and maybe do some exploring of another Bahamas Out Island.

Early February - Leaving Georgetown Behind

2/15/2009

After almost 2 weeks of sustained 20+ knot winds, the Georgetown harbor finally calmed down to make it possible to get off the boat without getting drenched. We then got busy provisioning with water, fuel and groceries and made ready to head out to Long Island.

Anchoring drama comes to an end

In our last update, we described the entanglement that resulted in our chain being wrapped on another boat’s drive shaft. The chain was successfully removed, but we weren’t yet using it again. We now needed to re-assemble it and anchor on our primary anchor and chain. This required a little planning because we had the rope part of our rode spliced to the chain that had been loaned to us by another cruiser. That chain was already attached to our primary anchor. Also, the bridle plate was configured into a new longer bridle to compensate for the shorter, borrowed chain. We needed to get the rope spliced to our chain, the chain shackled to the primary anchor, the bridle reconfigured with its standard 15ft 3-strand nylon lines, and the anchor hauled and then re-deployed. We needed to do all this preferably without spending too much time motoring around in the harbor in the process and without getting all of the line and chain tangled.

So, we developed a plan.

While still anchored on our borrowed chain, Dave would remove the end of the rope rode from its fitting in the anchor locker. He would then splice this onto the end of our chain. At this point, our ground tackle would consist of a Delta anchor, 91 ft of borrowed chain, 200 ft of rope and then 130 ft of chain. A little odd, but it wouldn’t stay that way long. At this point, Cathy would start the engine. We would then ease up on the anchor so that Dave could retrieve the anchor bridle. He would then re-work the bridle to its original configuration. At this point, we would pull the anchor up. Cathy would then motor downwind (the winds and seas were still up in the harbor at this point), so that Dave could remove the anchor from the existing chain and re-shackle it to the other end of our chain, and stow our chain in the locker to position it to be redeployed. We would move back over to Volleyball Beach and anchor off Marianna. Once anchored, Dave could remove the borrowed chain from the now reverse end of the rope rode, stow the rope back in the anchor locker and re-attach it to the fitting in the anchor locker. We would finally be back on our own anchor and in a position to return the chain to the generous donor.

Amazingly, we managed to pull it off without losing an anchor, chain or other ground tackle hardware in the process. With Fred’s help, we returned the chain the next day and were grateful to put the whole incident behind us for now and enjoy Georgetown – if we could just get off the boat.

Doing Georgetown

It’s all about the wind. For over a week, it churned up the waters in Elizabeth Harbor off Georgetown, causing us (along with the many other cruisers in the harbor) to hunker down on the boat. It took something significant to draw us out, since we were guaranteed to get pretty soaked along with anything we took along in the dinghy with us. In addition to the high winds, the temperatures hovered in the sixties to low 70’s. Hatches were kept closed. Enclosures sealed. This isn’t exactly the weather everyone envisions when they think of the sunny Bahamas.

We managed to brave the elements one night to head across the harbor for games on Marianna. Later in the week, after re-anchoring closer to Stocking Island, we suited up in our foul weather gear and headed up to Honeymoon Beach for a cookout one evening with Eleanor M and several other boats in the harbor. And then a week after arriving, we finally made it into Georgetown proper, buying some coconut bread from Mom’s Bakery van, seeing the Exuma Market, the Straw Market and the Peace and Plenty. We managed to get to the Batelco office to buy more phone cards, since only a few phone calls home had depleted our initial investment. (We still can’t figure out how much it costs a minute to make these calls.) Later we headed over to St. Francis Resort and Marina on Stocking Island for lunch – and some internet. (Having been long over a week since pulling our mail, it was a relief to finally catch up with it.)

Although we made it into Beach Church on Sunday, it wasn’t until Monday afternoon that we finally visited the famous Volleyball Beach in the afternoon when folks were actually playing volleyball. On Tuesday, Pat served as our guide on a long walk exploring the beach on the Exuma Sound side of Stocking Island and up to the high point of Monument Hill. Wednesday night, as the winds began to die, we actually traveled over to Marianna in our dinghy (instead of hitching a ride with Fred) to play games with the folks on Pride and Tradition. We stayed pretty dry and enjoyed the evening of Dominoes and conversation.

Dave is half-way through his effort to bail out our dinghy, which completely filled with water on a run into town. It’s not a trip for the faint of heart.

Boat Stuff

Being stuck on the boat for days on end, we were cut off from the services we were used to on shore. Wash was piling up, we were running out of fresh foods, like fruit and bread. Internet wasn’t an option. So, we made use of the time to do things the old fashioned way. Dave risked swamping the dinghy to haul 3 jugs of water from town. We used some of this to wash some of the piles of dirty clothes, using the abundant wind to dry them fast, as we hung them on every inch of lifeline, boom, cockpit seats, etc. Cathy dusted off her bread recipes and made some loaves to let us have sandwiches and toast.

Sunsaver regulator installed in engine room.

Dave did some projects on the boat, wiring the solar panels into a regulator which would prevent the batteries from getting overcharged in the hope that that this might actually be a problem. He wired the panels more permanently together as well.

Nancy from Finisterre, James from Sunsweet, Dave, Pat and Fred converse on Volleyball Beach.

Despite the difficult beginning of the relationship, we developed a friendship with Graham and Nancy on Finisterre. Dave helped them take advantage of the capabilities of their Garmin chartplotter, wiring in a buzzer like ours that would sound if an alarm went off. Then he showed them how we enabled the anchor drag to help them get a heads up is they started to drag again. Later on the beach, Cathy and Nancy played a few games of Scrabble, something they both love to play. In a strange twist, the afternoon before we left Georgetown, we were all gathered in conversation on Volleyball Beach: Nancy from Finisterre, James from Sunsweet who had loaned us the chain, and Pat and Fred from Marianna.

Maybe that’s making lemonade from the lemons.

St. Josephs Church overlooks Thompson Bay

Long Island

An interesting fact that we learned just before leaving Georgetown is that it lies just north of the Tropic of Cancer (Lat. 23o30’). So, when we left on Valentine’s Day, we would be crossing this line that we learned about in grade school geography and entering the “tropics”. Cool!

Our next destination was initially uncertain, since we wanted to see whether we could sail to either Conception or Long Island. As it turned out, we couldn’t sail to either, so we motored to Thompson Bay, Long Island, which was a new destination for all of us and a good staging point for either Cat or Conception as a next stop.

Spanish church ruins near Salt Pond

The huge bay was nearly empty when we arrived, so we had our choice of anchoring spots. The next day we rented a car to see as much of the island as we could squeeze in. We traveled north as far as Simms, which is where the Tropic of Cancer passes through. However, we were disappointed to see that they make very little of this fact. If we hadn’t taken our own GPS, we wouldn’t have known where it was. So, we turned back south to see the sites on the lower island. We made it as far south as Clarencetown, where we saw the 2 famous Father Jerome churches and had some lunch at the marina near the harbor entrance.

By far the highlight of the day was Dean’s Blue Hole, the deepest blue hole (660’) in the world. Although we didn’t explore its depths, the snorkeling at its edge was good, if a little eerie as the bank sloped quickly down into the dark blue deep water. There were some braver individuals doing “free dive” training which was taking them for long minutes deep into the dark blue water before resurfacing. Our only disappointment was the presence of a lot of seaweed, which the locals were telling us is usually not there.

Graham, Val, Fred and Dave on Long Island

The next day, Bonnie Lass arrived, and we joined them for a walk just across to the ocean from Thompson Bay. The winds had shifted to the west overnight and the ocean was calm and inviting once we made it over the hill to the beach. After cooling off in the water, we trekked back to the dinghy, to arrive just ahead of a storm. Like true cruisers, we stayed out on deck in the rare downpour, showering, washing the deck and anything else that needed washing with fresh water. It was great!

More Out Islands to See

We plan to stop at more of the “out islands” in the far Bahamas as we make our way gradually north, so our time in the “tropics” will be brief, but it won’t be getting cold any time soon.