2010 Log
12/16 to 12/31/2010
This is the current period 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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12/16/10 - Another freighter rolled me out of bed at 5:30a, about half an hour before my alarm was to go off. Awake, I got up, had breakfast and prepared for our 6:40 departure. As the outside boat on the raft I left first, noting as I rounded the bend that the water got shallow further out than I remembered. I called Sampatecho several times to alert them before seeing them ground (their radio was off). Big oops, the tide was falling fast. We were not successful pulling them off with AA so I went out and anchored off the mouth of the harbor while they waited for the tide to change. It was too windy for me to repair the batten pocket in the mainsail though I was able to dig out the sail cloth and cut the pieces I'll need for the repair. High tide was at 3pm, Sampatecho escaped at 2:30. After they anchored near me the fuel tanker that had be waiting for the tide headed in. Dinner at Sampatecho again. Pork tenderloin - yum! I brought mashed potatoes. Hey, they come in a packet and I do them well. 12/17/10 - Up at 5am for a 6am departure. We felt our way through the reef in twilight. At 6:55 the sun rose - beautiful pinks, purples, gold and red. The temperature is up and it was a tee shirt day all day long. We had 79 miles to cover. The first 50+ was a great sail. I had one bite and lost a lure. Given I was going 7 knots when it hit I'm guessing it was a Wahoo... ran out all my line and broke it at the leader; scratch one lure. We sailed to the Decca Channel and were pleasantly surprised to find it was a wide 18' deep channel that provided a clear path through the coral field - awesome! Dark overtook us 2 hours from the nearest anchorage so we dropped our hooks on the bank, in the middle of nowhere. No sense finding a coral head with the keel in the dark. I made rice, brought rum, and joined the crew of Sampatecho for Bradd's birthday. As I motored over in the dinghy I though of Ruth joining Alex (Pat's daughter) and Ruth's family in memory of brother Pat's birthday, also today. Ruth and I are looking forward to having Alex join us for some time while we are in the Bahamas. I motored back to AA, radioing Bradd on arrival to let him know I was safely aboard. Time for bed, it will be a bouncy night out here. 12/18/10 - Late morning, we didn't raise anchor until 8am, heading off to Sandy Cay and Staniel Cay. We used new-to-us channels across the banks. The first, Decca Channel, provided an excellent East-West 20' deep path from the Tongue of the Ocean to the Exumas. This was probably once a RDF channel, now only the naked towers stand. The second was an uncharted path of 17-20' water from the last Decca tower to Sandy Cay. We dove Thunderball Grotto before lunch. Echo wanted to know if she could spend the rest of her vacation here. After lunch we went hunting for lobster; no joy, I think others were here before us. Got a little chilled, next time I'll put on a wet suit. I also dove the bottom of AA - ugly. I don't think I've seen that many small barnacles and that much slime on her before; we've also lost the zinc on the propeller though the two on the shaft are still good. Interestingly the Desitin we put on the prop has kept the barnacles off the brass; I wonder if it would work smeared on the hull? About 3pm a front moved in with wind and showers. We're nice and snug anchored by the grotto. I again took offerings and joined Sampatecho for dinner... Thank you Maeve, Bradd & Echo. I had a very pleasant evening. Back at the boat I went through the painful process of trying to get our e-mails with a 1 bar connection. I managed to get half of them. 12/19/10 - Strong winds (32 knots+), heavy rain and lightning last night as a strong front moved in. In the relative blackness of these sparsely inhabited (read lit) islands the lightning seemed brighter and whiter than I've seen before. About 2am I remembered that when I anchored we were just going to sit here while we dove the grotto so I didn't anchor conservatively for a night. I went on deck in driving rain to let out another 25' of chain and put on the lines that take up the shock of waves. The last thing I needed was to drag ashore in the dark as the wind shifted. The wind continued unabated into morning; we have fronts dancing around us. I tried to get the rest of the e-mail early, but to no avail, later figuring out that the unsecured WiFi had a pay-in gateway. In that the signal is weak I'll wait until I get to the Exumas Park in a couple of days. The inverter is jumping on and off regularly again after a month of working okay; I think it may be a loose connection somewhere as the boat is rolling pretty good. I'll have to trace the circuits. At 10a we went out to sea, headed for the anchorage near Bell Island in the Exumas Park. Enroute I was in the head when Buddy started whistling and yelling... Echo had caught an 18" Almaco Jack and had her hands full. I throttled back the engine and adjusted the drag on the reel for her. After lunch we all took our dinghies to the sea aquarium for some snorkeling. The wind had the water stirred up but we still saw Sergeant Majors, Neons, Grouper and a wide variety of other colorful fish. Bradd saw a nice sized lobster; naturally, the park is off limits for fishing and hunting. The jack was our appetizer for dinner. The meat was white though the fish was hard to clean yielding small fillets. Maeve cooked it in oil with pepper and lemon; the texture was like swordfish with a delicate fish flavor. We'll add this species to our keeper list. 12/20/10 - The 20-25 knot wind howled all yesterday and all night. I woke to the same sky we had yesterday. Clear and sunny by us and a towering bank of clouds over Eleuthera Island to the east. After listening on VHF to the Exumas Park 9am roll call and learning we had been assigned moorings in the North anchorage, I slipped from the mooring and picked up Echo. We motored out Bell Cut toward the bank, feeling our way along in the shallow water (we almost grounded in front of Sampatecho charging under sail leading to a few tense moments). There were two false channels before we identified the one that ran through the blow sand plumes. At the Warderick Wells North anchorage we had trouble picking up our mooring. The wind was still howling and the boat wouldn't stay bow to the mooring long enough for Echo to retrieve the pendant. Bradd came over by dinghy and assisted by feeding our mooring line through the eye of the pendant. After lunch we got together and went into the park headquarters to register with Darcy, renew our annual membership and buy some WiFi bandwidth. Then we took the obligatory hike up Boo-Boo hill so Echo could see the beautiful blue crescent harbor edged with white sand. No matter how many times I've been there I still find the view stunning. I've lost track of Ruth. I think she's house-sitting at her sister's house but have no way to contact her. Hopefully she's looking at the blog. 12/21/10 - Sunny with broken clouds... our eastern cloud bank seems to have broken up. The wind is down to 10 knots but expected to approach 15 knots later. Cold fronts and backing cold front continue to dictate wind weather over the Bahamas. This is the earliest we've been here so the weather pattern is new to us. We took advantage of clearing skies and snorkeled the coral heads around the anchorage seeing dozens of large lobster, a 4' barracuda, several big grouper and a wide variety of brilliantly colored reef fish. We tried the dinghy boarding ladder Ruth bought at the Annapolis boat show - she is going to love it! It is so easy to get back in the dinghy one feels like they are cheating. We dove another reef this afternoon seeing more large lobster than I've ever seen underwater. The water was crystal clear and teeming with fish. Unfortunately the lionfish were among them. This invasive species has spread through-out the Bahamas; pretty, but threatening the food chain on the reefs. I've been told they are good eating but you have to know how to handle their toxic spines. 12/22/10 - Woke this morning before sunrise, feeling that something was missing. It took a while before I realized it was the howl of wind in the rigging. I turned on the heat for a few minutes to take the chill out of the air for Buddy. We headed for the ocean, the Exuma Sound, for the 21 mile run to Allen's Cay. At the Allen's Cut Echo transferred to AA to help pick our way through a narrow channel neither boat had used before. It turned out to be a piece of cake. By noon we were anchored, really anchored as Echo had misunderstood me on the headsets and backed down at 3,000 rpm. I think the anchor is in China. Bradd and Echo went hunting. I think I spent too much time in the cold water yesterday and felt out of sorts all day with pain in my hands and wrists... I don't do cold well anymore. After a nap to warm up I rebuild the rewind on the dinghy engine. The only meal I did today was dinner on Sampatecho. 12/23/10 - Rock 'n roll is here to stay. The wind is 90 degrees to the tide and waves making AA a carnival ride at anchor, rolling from side to side. After a night of the sweats I'm feeling better today though my wrists still hurt. Dawn revealed broken overcast against an azure sky. After a day of respite the wind is back at 15+ knots. Our first leg to Nassau is 21 miles at 316 true. Some days on the boat are fantastic, some good, others fair and few nasty... today was fairly nasty. We started with on wind on our nose, gradually building to 25 knots as the seas rose in short 5-6' chop. About half way across the yellow bank my engine quit. I figured the pounding had stirred up gunk and blocked the primary filter. I quickly found that to be true. The problem was it was too rough to pre-fill the filter with diesel so I chanced that the system would purge the air. The engine started. ran 4 minutes and stopped. I checked the filet, it looked good so I changed the secondary filter. Again I couldn't pre-fill it. Again the diesel ran a couple of minutes and died. I hoisted sail and took the longer dog-leg course, there was no way I was tacking through the yellow bank in high waves, rain showers and alone. Two reefs in the mainsail and a 50% furled jib and the boat was still overpowered. A simple 3 hour run now became an 11 hour beat. Tacking directly upwind across the roads off Nassau against the tide I wore myself out. Sampatecho took a side trip and checked out the passage to Rose Island, calling to say I could safely sail in. Given that our anchor windlass doesn't run unless the engine does I figured I could turn on the ignition and defeat it. I tested it while the boat sailed under autopilot - yes! I furled the headsail and turned into the wind behind Sampatecho. Bradd boarded from their dinghy as I dropped the anchor he handled the wheel. The anchor went looking for China, stripping chain off the windlass as the boat slowed. We were hooked! Bradd and I spent about 40 minutes with the engine before I told him to go have supper, we'd deal with it in the morning. I was too tired to do much more than grill a small steak and reheat some mashed potatoes... in keeping with the day I overcooked the steak - definitely a fairly nasty day. Buddy offers that it was a good day, no diesel noise, the boat bobbed like a tree limb in the wind, we had mashed potatoes and Bradd came to say hi. 12/24/10 - Woke where I anchored last night, always a good way to the start the day! The wind is 90 degrees to the waves so we have a nice side to side rock - not as bad as it could be but enough to make playing with fuel in small containers a challenge. The first order of business was to get the diesel running. Good news - bad news. Found that the pick-up hose was plugged and was able to blow it clear. The bad news was I broke a hose-to-thread fitting while disconnecting the pick-up line and didn't have one on board. Bradd offered to get one in town and run it back in his dinghy after docking Sampatecho. I think the next boat improvement will be a second primary filter and a way to back-blow the line to the fuel tank. With that set-up a plugged filter would be simple to deal with at sea; just switch to the clean one after blowing the line. I primed filters while the stereo played Christmas carols; I guess it's time. Bradd returned black and blue from the 5 mile run back from Nassau in his dinghy with a Christmas present, two fuel fittings. We quickly installed one, and used a hand pump to push fuel through the system... boy did that diesel sound nice when it kicked in! I gave Bradd a ride back to Nassau, it was the least I could do. Besides, he helped me anchor just east of the harbor Club Marina. As I was listening to the water boat from Andros radio for clearance to enter the Nassau harbor I decided to do a little research... turns out that Andros is supplying Nassau with 4.5-5 million gallons per day (about 50% of their demand). A plan to put in a deep water pipeline is pending approval of a contract to supply a minimum 10 million gallon a day (2013 forecasts call for as much as 18 million). It's not unreasonable to see Nassau needing 30-40 million gallons/day from Andros in the next decade. It's hard to believe the island's water lens can support that. Nassau's own water supply is tapped out at 6 -7 million gallons/day and showing signs of salt contamination. Had dinner on Sampatecho with Bradd, Maeve, Echo and their guests Peter and Mimi. Afterward we joined an ongoing impromptu party of cruisers at the Nassau Harbor Club Marina buildings. Got to meet some interesting folks, several were boat sitting while their spouse returned home for the Holidays. We left early, about 10pm and I returned to AA lying at anchor off the marina. Tried to use internet tonight but it was acting very funky, like everyone in the world was on Skype. I did get some e-mail in and out. 12/25/10 - Merry Christmas everyone. Especially to my family and my mate. Christmas morning was heralded by light scattered high clouds. No snow. No cold. The internet had thawed and I was able to research a project, get e-mail and confirm through CNN that the world was still out there. I moved into a slip at Harbor Club Marina so I'd have a secure place to return to after Junkanoo. I washed down the boat to rid it of the salt accumulated the past week. While doing so I found a small piece of casting on the deck. A quick examination led me to believe it part of a mast light. Bradd explored further while Echo cut my hair. He found the reefing line tack point had split and was off the mast. Ouch - another repair project. This one will be for tomorrow. After lunch we learned from several sources that Junkanoo was being postponed one day because of Boxing Day falling on a Sunday (kinda like the old blue laws). Instead of tonight at midnight it will start tomorrow night. Bradd and I both had to extend our slip agreements one night... hadn't planned on that expense. For Echo it meant scrambling to change flights as her travel plans had been made around Junkanoo. You'd have thought the Bahamas Tourism Board would have noted the change on the website, but no. We had a great Christmas Day turkey dinner on Sampatecho in the evening. It was fun having Peter and Mimi to add another dimension to the dinnertime conversations. 12/26/10 - Got great news last night, Ruth found a $59 flight from Miami the 3rd. Be great having her back with us! Our coffee pot decided to croak this morning. Made a little coffee, gave out a couple of loud pops and started smoking. We sure have bad luck with those beasts. My big project for the day was to repair the tack point our mainsail furling system uses. As I started working on it I realized the reason it sheared off was that the two main fasteners were aluminum pop rivets. The third point was a 1/4" bolt that bent before the casting snapped. I used epoxy and a SS washer to repair the casting where it broke and prepared for installing tapped bolts to the mast. Now I need to buy fasteners. While I was on a repair rip I replace connectors for the little red cockpit light Ruth likes. Hey, I'm almost back to the to-do list I had a week ago. We had heavy rain and now have strong 20+ knot winds slowly clocking around. I'm hoping that Junkanoo goes okay tonight. It's the reason I came to the Bahamas on this Christmas Holiday. 12/27/10 - We bought tickets to view Junkanoo from the balcony of a restaurant that was closed for the event. Staffers from the American embassy had the adjoining balcony. We brought drink and snacks, arriving at 10:30 for a 12:30 kick-off that materialized about 1am with the comedy act. It was windy (20-25 knots) and cold. The folks in the bleachers looked like Packer fans, blankets and all. Junkanoo was different than I expected. I envisioned masses of people continually moving in the street like Marti Gras. Instead the crowd was orderly, in bleachers and on balconies while organized troupes of float, dancers and musicians slowly danced by. The street had a large contingent of judges who placed their scorecards in a police escorted ballot box trailing each group - this is serious business as significant prize money is at stake. The dancers wore magnificent costumes made of paper, feathers, beads... you name it. In the areas where the wind blasted across the route officials had to act as anchors to keep the floats and dancers from being blown over or down the street. I'm sure it was scary for the participants. Some of the costumes were literally small (or not so small) floats carried by the handler. Larger ones had wheels but were still worn like a horse in traces. They towered as much as 1-1/2 stories above the street. Each major troupe (by major I mean as many as 1,000 members) had a theme supported by floats, dancers and a Junkanoo band of brass, kazoos, couch, metallic rattles and large drums. The effect was intoxicating; you literally felt the music. We left at dawn's twilight, cold with exhausted senses (I wonder if you can get a second hand high from second hand smoke of the cannabis variety?). Glad I came? You bet! Thanks for twisting my arm Bradd. Looks like another day in a slip. The wind continues at 25 knots+ and I can't get the parts to remount my reefing tack until tomorrow when the stores re-open. I likely couldn't get out of the slip if I tried. Back to bed is looking good! Joined the gang on Sampatecho for a great pot roast dinner. Really fitting for weather like this. I picked up some great photos that Bradd took with his new stabilized 24x zoom camera. One or two will go with the story I just finished writing today. Spent some time on WiFi trying to connect with Ruth... we keep missing each other as she's sharing Dave's account and sometimes he picks up the mail on the west coast. 12/28/10 - Woke to find the wind still strong, but more from the north and cold. I found the machine screws I needed at Brown's and tapped the old pop rivet holes to a 5/16" thread, remounted the reef tack hardware with the exception of a hole I've yet to drill and tap, fueled and headed out of the harbor by 10am. We had a great sail half the way, then a short motor-sail followed by great sailing to Normans Cay arriving just before sundown to find the anchorage jammed. We backtracked a mile to a small anchorage I'd not used before by McDuffy's. We lay in 10' of water just west of the middle of the cay. The wind had clocked east and the water in our anchorage smoothed out during dinner. A very nice day to be on the water other than the cold - like a nice autumn sail in WI. 12/29/10 - Grey dawn and cool, however the wind was only 5 knots and our anchorage was smooth. I got up and wrote in spite of a lack of good hot coffee (gotta take a look at our smoking coffee maker). During the 9am roll call from Warderick Wells we learned that both boats had been assigned moorings in the North anchorage, kewl! While the Sampatecho group went snorkeling and hunting I drilled and tapped the last hole in the reefing tack, making the system whole again (I'm almost back to the to-do list I had at Boca). I also disassemble the coffee maker to see if I could repair or modify it. No joy, the circuit board was fried (what ever happened to the good old turn it on, turn it off, devices? It's only 4 months old! They came back to report they'd seen a lobster but couldn't figure out how to get to him. We packed up and headed to Warderick Wells so Peter and Mimi would get a chance to snorkel the park. I was ready to get a WiFi connection to promote an article and hopefully hear from Ruth. We were at the park by 2:30. I went in and registered while the group snorkeled. I wanted to get back and final proof my story so I can submit it tomorrow. 12/30/10 - The wind came up again last night though we're so snug in the north anchorage only the sound in the sky told us it was windy. Woke to a gray day as about 90% of the sky was covered by fluffy clouds. I submitted a story last night; now the wait starts. If the first magazine rejects it I have two others I can submit to. While the Sampatecho crew attacked Boo-Boo hill I cleaned up my computer, unstuck corroded backpack zippers and boiled water for coffee. Hey, only 4-1/2 days until that blonde lady returns, what's her name again? How quickly we forget. Miles noted that he and Laureen tried to phone Ruth to invite her to a get-together with some couples we know in the valley. No answer on her cell. (Can you believe they actually make a phone you can carry with you?) We snorkeled two different sites at the North Anchorage seeing a couple of large barracuda and dozens of lobster along with a wide variety of colorful fish. The water temperature was pleasant, nicer than the air. 12/31/10 - Our winds are back, friendlier though from the East at 15-20 knots; makes for great sailing on the banks. We headed south for Big Majors Spot, just above Staniel Cay. From here I may head back to Nassau to pick up Ruth. I haven't heard yet if she's coming. I arrived at Big Majors just in time to make a burger for lunch; yes, Buddy got her share. Sent Amy a SkyMate trying to learn Ruth's plans as I've no other way to reach her. We went ashore on Staniel, watching a bit of the match races between two island boats crewed by visitors. Then we walked up to the bread store and grocery stores. The pink store is slowly fading away but the blue store was well stocked, obviously thriving. Ruth would have been pleased to see they cleared the lot around the oldest house on the cay, now their library. The building gleamed under a fresh coat of white paint. Very neat! The Staniel Cay Yacht Club was having a big New Year's gala dinner and party. We agreed it would be too late and too far to dinghy back to Big Majors. We had a pasta dinner on Sampatecho, followed by a toast to the new year... it had to be midnight somewhere. Then home to AA and Buddy and bed. Ruth may be back in 2-1/2 days to somewhere in the Bahamas. I'm 1/2 day from some and 2 days from where trying to guess where I should be. By the time this gets posted I'll know if I guessed right.
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Fresh Creek light to left, derelict boat at entrance, Sampatecho in background
Fuel tanker carefully enters Fresh Creek at high tide; they'd waited 3 hours
This is one way to keep the Christmas tree needles out of the house
Overlooking the park's Emerald Rock anchorage from Boo-Boo hill (the hill is named for the ghostly sounds the blow holes make, believed to be the voices of ghosts of the souls lost when a schooner floundered off Warderick Wells with no survivors)
This land was once forested with lignum vita, beech and other trees. In the late 1700's settlers cut down the trees, the soil washed away and the islands became deserts - dah!
Sampatecho and AA on moorings in the park's north anchorage - is this nice or what?
We left Warderick Wells as the sun was lighting the sky
The anchorage at Allen's Cay was as busy as I've ever seen it in sharp contrast to the other places we've been the past week
The beach at Allen's Cay is a gathering place for cruisers and iguanas - position a little over a half day from Nassau makes it a natural stopping place
I sailed to anchor in the lee of Rose Island, hooking near a classic schooner.
Rose Island was to be the site of an island paradise resort built by a major hotel chain. The recession shoaled that project - paradise lost? Hmmmm?
Junkanoo The origins of the name for this Bahamian festival vary with many believing it was established by John Canoe, a legendary West African Prince, who outwitted the English and became a local hero; others suspecting it comes from the French ‘gens inconnus,’ which translates as 'unknown' or 'masked people', referring to the masks the dancers wear; yet another faction believes it's derived from "junk enoo," the Scottish settlers' reference to the parades, meaning "junk enough" No matter - it's unreal.
Waiting for the kick-off... not for the Packers but just as cold for the fans
A comedy act starts working the crowd as the pallbearers take to dancing with the coffin
The first of the larger floats - keep in mind all floats are human propelled
Wind and dancing sets forth a kaleidoscope of color (look at the dancer's face)
The colors overwhelm you...
while the detail is awesome
The street was a swirl of color
The deep bass of the drums made your body throb
Yes, like all the floats it is rolled down the street by hand
Simple colors in an elegant display
With a little old driver so lively and quick... you knew in a moment his name wasn't Nick
This unit is carried by one man, look for his white painted face in the middle
A dancer pauses while his costume dances in the wind
Bradd captured this awesome tiger costume
Peter, Mimi and Bradd enroute to snorkeling at Warderick Wells |
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