2010 Log
5/1 to 5/15/2010
This is two weeks of our log for 2010. At the bottom of the page are links to this year's pass weeks; our earlier voyages are in Prior Voyages.
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Updated on 01/28/2011
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5/1/10 - Sunny, balmy and breezy at dawn. About 7:30am the mooring master was around to collect. We'd not had any luck trying to find him last night. $15 for a secure night in this small harbor was a good buy and makes room for more boats. We sailed to Bakers Cay and on to Green turtle Cay, our destination for the day. We anchored just off Black Sound by the grounds of the Island Heritage Festival, going in for the afternoon. It was a cute event with handicrafts, food, music and information on the geniality of the island. Ruth bought a basket, custom made for her while she watch. I walked to the hardware store for a couple of brushes so I could recoat the varnish on our deck teak. Back at the boat we grilled our tuna fillets, umm. Great dinner with peas and rice. 5/2/10 - Yup, another beautiful Bahamas morning. I applied a coat of varnish then we joined the gang from Our Way exploring the Black Sound and the White Sound via dinghy. We stopped at the Green Turtle Inn for a snack along the way. .. of course we had a couple of stops for beaching along the way. Ruth found a nice collection of sea urchins. We've totally enjoyed our time with Wenche and Steinar; thanks to John and Nell for the chance to meet them. We will probably not have an internet connection for a week as we push sail along the northeastern islands of the Abacos and across the gulf stream enroute to Boca Raton. Our SkyMate system will be functional in this area. We grilled a couple of great rib eyes for dinner... why would one go to a restaurant? The steaks had been vacuum packed and in our freezer since Boca; tonight seemed a the perfect day to have them. 5/3/10 - Another beautiful morning! Sunny, balmy and a 10-15 knot breeze. We hoisted anchor at 9, headed for Manjack Cay. The chart promised very skinny water so we timed our passage to do the shallow part at high tide. Whoops, the chart was wrong and we never saw anything under 9'. We can handle that. John noted that the harbor at the north end of Manjack was secluded and seldom visited 10 years ago. We entered finding a new home, 3 tri-marans, a pair of trawlers, and 4 catamarans... so much for secluded. The beaches were great, Ruth found more sea urchins than at anywhere else we've been. We walked for hours on the sand and in the 80 degree water. I didn't have a tee shirt on and got royally pink - biggest lobster Ruth's seen in the islands. 5/4/10 - A few light cotton balls were gliding across the pale blue sky when we woke. Another beautiful day to be on the boat. Got a SkyMate from Miles; they are screaming up the east coast. He wrote:
I asked him if he'd packed long johns; he's going to catch up with winter. We sailed to uninhabited Allans-Pensacola Cay and explored the beaches, crossing the island to see the signing tree and old US tracking station. We needed a tracker to find the station as mangroves had overrun the site leaving only an antennae pylon visible. The signing tree(s) were easier to find as they we on the beach bedecked in driftwood, floats, lines and anything else that people could put their boat name and date on. Back on AA we were visited by the skipper of Fundy Passage. We'd first met Phillip two years ago in Portland. He's a great guy, sailing solo on a 30 footer. Ruth invited the crew of Our Way to dinner on AA. What a great evening... I wouldn't be surprised if Buddy picked up a few Norwegian words. 5/5/10 - Power was down only 85 amp-hours this morning. That has been pretty consistent the past few weeks with our longer days and windy nights. We sailed for 5 hours and motor sailed for two hours to Mangrove Cay. Enroute Ruth caught 3 Barracuda over 4' in length (catch and release), a Cero (a member of the Mackerel family that we filleted and froze), a Blue runner (released) and 2 small fish that Ruth released to grow bigger. At Mangrove Cay we anchored for the night, 50 nm behind us. Tomorrow we need high tide to cross the banks to West End. Ruth gave me a haircut tonight: I really needed it. Thank you Rutie. 5/6/10 - It was a quiet night in the lee of Mangrove Cay, a 3/4 mile long strip of mangroves on the Bahamas Bank. When we went to bed their were three sailboats anchored here... we woke to find a trawler had joined us during the night. We waited until 9:30am to depart so we'd have high tide to help us over the shallow sands of the bank at West End. We anchored north of West End with a monohull and two cats. Our Way took a slip in the marina to gain access to power, pool and the village. We have more breeze but they'll have access to air conditioning. Ruth thinks we have the better deal. Tomorrow we head for Boca Raton, 52 miles across the sea.... 5/7/10 - Dead calm at sunrise this morning. The wind came up dead on our nose as we motored out of the anchorage. Nothing goes to weather like a Yanmar so we left the sails down and motored toward Florida trailing our fishing lures. Later a breeze came up and we motor-sailed a couple of hours before it went aft and the heat settled in... sweatsville! Got a SkyMate from Miles. They are near Norfolk on the ICW, running tonight to get to Annapolis ahead of weather tomorrow. He sure made great time! By 8pm we were on the wall behind John's home. One of the smoothest gulf stream crossings we've had. Now it's time to fix a couple of minor issues (like no running lights and the autopilot) before we head north. 5/8/10 - Buddy was excited to be in Boca, couldn't shut her whistling up after 8am. Miles sent a e-mail that they had arrived in Annapolis safe and sound after their 1 week 825 mile trip. Received a position report from Brad Abbott and family showing them about half way between Bermuda and the Virgin Islands. Looks like they are headed north for Martha's Vineyard. I found the problem with our running lights, dirty contact on the circuit ground. I fixed it and moved the terminal to a safer place. Next, I need to find out what's bugging the auto pilot. We had dinner with the Our Way crew, had the last half of that large red snapper they caught on the Bahamas Bank... it was delicious! 5/9/10 - Today is a beautiful Mother's Day! We had a quiet day. Ruth talked to Angie a couple of times catching up on her life. With Ruth's help I went up the mast of Our Way, inspecting the rigging and drilling a hole in an upper spreader to stop a crack from propagating - warning John that he needs to replace of weld the spreader. I won't go up a mast without Ruth on a headset on the lines below. I have no desire to go splat on a deck. Back on AA I enjoyed the air conditioning until late morning, then joined Ruth and John on a West marine run. I got Ruth a new fan for our bedroom and installed it. Works great, why did I wait so long? We laid low most of the day, reading and thanking the power that be for air conditioning. 5/10/10 - Up the mast again. This time to replace a broken block for Our Way's spinnaker halyard. Things got a little tense when the lines fouled inside the mast but we got it remedied. Ruth stayed on the boat while I went to Ft Lauderdale with John to pick up Bradd at the airport. After several stops for parts we arrived back at Marina Sol Bu in time for sundowners. Chuck, Chris and Bob joined us, great group and interesting conversation. This is a pretty high powered group of folks with a lot of varied experiences - pick a subject! 5/11/10 - Today Ruth and I started repairs on Our Way's sails, replacing damaged thread on the sun cover. This involves a lot of sewing and will take a couple of days. Bradd and I did a little initial work on trying to find the parts to install an Espar heater on Sampatecho II. The east coast distributor refuses to see us the parts because Bradd bought the heater from another source. Folks with small minds shouldn't be in business. I tried to do business with these folks two years ago when I needed service parts. They wouldn't sell them to me unless they did the service. We had Bradd aboard for burgers and a movie, he commented it was just like being in Elizabeth City. 5/12/10 - Very nice morning. Ruth and I went to work on Our Way's sails, finishing the genoa and mainsail repairs. John's ready to go again. We closed the sail loft in their living room and put away the machine aboard AA. Pool time, we had our sundowners in the pool. Patrick and Lara had come to visit Bradd so they joined in the conversations. Chris was there too, adding his expertise on many boating issues. John dug out a pile of sausages and Bradd contributed chicken for a grill session. Fun evening! 5/13/10 - Beautiful day in the neighborhood. Ruth and I walked to the shopping center for a few items and New Jersey Sub meatball sandwiches. We received our forwarded mail today. Kept Ruth busy a good part of the afternoon sorting out junk mail and classifying the piles that require action. Kinda fun to see the birthday and anniversary cards. I spent most of the day on the autohelm system. I started with wiring and voltages finding them to be okay. Finally we took the Raymarine Series 25 linear actuator out as we suspect it is jamming or at least dragging hard enough to kick the system out. Now comes the search to repair it (a new one is $1,900). 5/14/10 - Got up early to say goodbye to John, Nell, Wenka, and Steinar. Bradd was driving them to the airport. When they got all their luggage together we decided Bradd was driving one car and John another; I went along to bring a car back. On the way back we stopped at a shop to have the linear actuator tested. They called later in the day saying it passed the bench test and our autopilot problem was likely the corepack (computer); a $2,600 package (ouch - not in the budget). After shopping around we found that the X30 corepack was very hard to find... Raymarine wouldn't have any until late July. We have to decide our next step - one option is to travel without an autopilot until they become more available. It will make the long passages with one person on watch a lot harder but doable. We stopped at Costco, got a membership, ordered new glasses to replace my broken pair, and did most of our provisioning for the trip north. 5/15/10 - It's Saturday and it's beautiful out this morning. We finished a little provisioning at Publix and the boat is full. I tied in place all the wiring and hoses in the back port locker; part of the helm project. David and Donna returned from a race tired and ready to chill out at home. They had three tickets to the yacht club regatta lobster dinner that they decided not to use and asked Bradd, Ruth and I if we wanted to go. Sounded like fun and it was. We had a good meal and enjoyed the sailor's debating their races while supporting the hospice movement in Fort Lauderdale. At the party I learned that the reason we couldn't find a Raymarine Corepack for our pilot was that the company was in financial trouble and had ceased production. Supposedly Flir just bought them and they will be restarting manufacturing. |
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Manjack proved to be fertile ground for shelling
Ruth's sea biscuits surrounded by sea urchins
Ruth caught me reading... styling in a swimsuit (gift from Mike) and t-shirt (gift from Angie). They share the same colors, looking like a designer set. Peggy, Ruth wants you to show this one to Mike.
The signing tree on Allans-Pensacola Cay
Ruth's Cero (mackerel) yielded two nice fillets
We carefully watched this ship approach from the right trying to determine its precise course to we could avoid it. Amazingly the ship adjusted course to pass immediately behind us... very nice
Bradd and Buddy with a little vino before lasagna |
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View our prior 2010 Logs