2010 Log
12/1 to 12/15/2010
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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12/1/10 - Another hot and humid one. I worked on our external speakers, cleaning up the effects of salt in the connectors. Mother Nature sure keeps us busy with a dash of salt. Took a couple of minutes to help Bradd with a similar issue on his bow lights. We started provisioning AA for the period when Ruth will be in WI. Key things like frozen meats and booze. She heads north Dec 8th and returns the Jan 3rd unless I go to the Bahamas for Junkanoo. If I do that we'll have to figure a date I can be back in Miami to pick her up. A good weather window will dictate that... I'll probably have to return and call her so she can book flights. Two of my crew candidates backed out and I'm not real thrilled about crossing alone though I have over a thousand miles solo on AA. 12/2/10 - Thursday morning dawn cool and clear, we have a 74 degree cold front... nice. This morning was a doctor and errand morning. Nothing happens in Boca unless you get in a car and drive and drive and drive.... I finished putting new wiring in the cockpit speakers, no joy. Either the speakers (both?) are bad or there is a wiring issue inside the hull - onward. I need to check the continuity from the CD player to the speakers. 12/3/10 - Sampatecho headed for Fort Lauderdale. From there they plan to sail to Miami and across to Nassau and the Exumas. They are twisting my air to cross with them to go to Junkanoo. We did diagnostics for Ruth, picked up our 3 month supply of meds so we can cruise again. I sanded the swim platform (the epoxy base was over two year old - not bad. Then a coat of varnish for a new look. Getting lots of little chores done. The boat needs a lot of little things done that are hard to do while we are traveling daily. 12/4/10 - A high is providing a great day. I put a second coat of varnish on the swim platform then sanded and put a coat of varnish on the cabin top handrails. Really cleaning up the looks of AA. An e-mail from Bradd indicates the 9th and 10 are good crossing days weather-wise. I need our chart-plotter master back before I can go anywhere. 12/5/10 - That high is really producing some beautiful weather - wish you were here. More small chores today, another coat of varnish on the brightwork (there will be 7 total before we're done), and 4 panels of the cabin sole were sanded and sprayed with polyurethane. Sure looks a lot better! 12/6/10 - Another cool day; not a cloud in the sky. My first chore was again sanding the brightwork and applying another coat of varnish bringing the count to 4. The bad news is that as I get each portion dressed up the rest of the teak starts looking shabby. Ruth attacked our upholstery today. She took her little green machine to all the seating... wow, what a difference. It came out so well she's committed to doing the seat backs tomorrow. Our hand held depth sound returned today but we're still trying to find the chart-plotter. Hopefully tomorrow. 12/7/10 - Frost inland on this bright sunny morning. 42 degrees in Boca. The chart-plotter master arrive sometime during the night. I installed it and it works. Lots of chores to do today as Ruth readies for her flight tomorrow. 12/8/10 - This is Florida? Brrrr! Drove Ruth to the Miami airport this morning. Two serious accidents made it a long run, fortunately we'd left early and Ruth arrived with time to spare. Next run was to the airport and West Palm Beach to pick up Rick, Marsha and the twins. All went well and we were back by 3pm. Ruth called to tell me her flight to Chicago went well and again to tell me she was safely in Appleton where it as really cold and snowy - hey, it's Wisconsin. I had dinner with Nelly, John and April. They had a great time o their new boat in the Abacos. We did our farewells as I leave with tomorrow's light. My next posting won't be for a few days due to WiFi access. 12/9/10 - Woke to brisk winds and rain - yuck! John came down at 7:30am to toss off my lines as I headed south to join Sampatecho. A weather forecast Miles forwarded to me indicated today would be a good day not to cross the gulf stream. Bradd called agreeing with Miles' assessment. Saturday is looking like the magic day. I worked my way south thru the land of 1,000 bridges, arriving at Lake Sylvan (Lauderdale) about 11am anchoring near Sampatecho. My first task was turning the heater on for Buddy. She was looking around the boat for Ruth figuring that girl was really sleeping in today. Later Buddy gave up and cuddled up on my lap while I learned how to use a digital recorder I purchased to help collect information for stories. I had dinner on Sampatecho... it was great to see Echo again. She gave us a visual presentation of the artwork she'd created since we last saw her. Fascinating work! 12/10/10 - What a difference a day makes. Though the heater ran all night the day dawned sunny and warmer outside. Echo took advantage of the relative warmth to go swimming- brrrrr, she's definitely a northern lady! Tried to find a WiFi hotspot and couldn't. Probably won't get to post until Nassau. We plan to leave at 3am, Sampatecho, Babe and AA will start for Bimini, passing by and anchoring on the Bahamas Bank overnight before going on to clear at Morgan's Bluff - a first for AA. As the temperature rose is seemed a good time to clean the rust stains off the bow. I launched the dinghy and took a rag with FSR quickly removing the awesome mess that the rust made. The galvanized chain we bought at West Marine two years and 3 months ago is totally rusted and stains the locker, bow and anything else that get near it... nothing a thousand dollars of new galvanized chain wouldn't solve. Went to town with the crew of Sampatecho. Bradd & I walked to West marine to check out their Port Supply customer appreciation day. I found a couple of small items I needed, other than that it was good exercise. Later at the raw bar it was decided Echo would crew for me tomorrow as we crossed the stream; that should make it a little easier on me. Back on AA I found the Link 2000 had lost monitoring on the starting battery bank and was flashing an annoying E-13 error. Twenty minutes later I identified a wire connection that had gotten wet in the bilge... I replaced it and everything is happy again. 12/11/10 - Up at 1:15am. It took me a while to find all our offshore safety gear with my mate in Wisconsin... how many hiding places can there be on a 42' boat? Echo arrived at 2:45 and we quickly hoisted anchor to make the 3am bridge... just. Past the bridge we circled back to the wind to hoist the main. I noted that the lower batten looked weird so I stopped hoisting to inspect it. The forward end of the batten pocket had failed and the batten was falling out. I retrieved it and stowed it under the rug in the cabin. We'd sail without it. Our crossing went smoothly. With a crew of two both Echo and I were able to stand watches allowing the other to sleep. It sure made the trip easier for me. The only negative was that we motor-sailed the whole 84 nautical miles. By noon we were enjoying a beautiful day on the Bahamas Bank. Echo was designing a website featuring her art, actually two sites - one English and the other French. Her original art is awesome (visit our Gemstones page for a link). After we anchored behind Mackie Shoal, in the middle of nowhere, Echo transferred to Sampatecho for the night. Bradd had caught a Wahoo during the crossing so we had a fresh fish dinner on Sampatecho. I brought frozen shrimp that Maeve prepared as an appetizer. Very enjoyable evening. 12/12/10 - Up at 5am for a 6am start. I hoisted the anchor and motored to Sampatecho to pick up Echo. Dawn broke with us heading directly at the rising sun. The bank was smooth with light air. The wind was forecast to rise during the day and it did. I trailed a fishing line as we entered the tongue of the ocean. Water depth rose from 14 to 1,400 feet. We had one strike but lost it before we could set the hook. As we ran the last 12 miles to Morgan's Bluff the wind started building fast. Soon we were screaming along in 20 knots of wind. Echo made great crew as she'd spent enough time of sailboats to helm, trim and handle lines... sure made life easier. Reaching the harbor channel we dropped our sails and headed in. The outer harbor wasn't all that big but Bradd wanted to check out the inner harbor - small. As they prepared to anchor a local offered we could raft off the wall as long as we left it tomorrow. That was great as we needed a customs boarding. About 6pm customs came aboard and cleared both vessels. After I had dinner on Sampatecho while we planned our next week. It will all be new cruising grounds for AA. Tomorrow will likely be a weather lay day. 12/13/10 - Woke at a civilized hour, 7:30am to blustery winds chasing towering clouds across the sky. The outer harbor was crowned with whitecaps while we experienced only a moderate swell in the inner harbor. Too windy to drop the sail and sew it. We added mooring lines as the wind is expected to get stronger through the day and night. No water boat for Nassau today, too windy. We hitch-hiked to Nicholl's Town / Pineville, going to a bank and BATELCO office so Bradd & Maeve could do some business, I wandered viewing the reservoirs, a water store (they sell bottle water from Nassau, naturally), the auditorium and town. Back at the boats that evening we had a pasta dish and fresh conch salad, learning that parts of the conch are tender and other portions tough as a Michelin tire. Fortunately there was a visible difference and the tender meat made up the majority of the delicious salad. 12/14/10 - Got up at 7am and turned on the heater. I noticed the wind had gone down a little (as had the temperature) and a water boat was at the wharf in the outer harbor. Maeve, Echo and I walked back to the beach by the water boat to look for more sea urchins. The beach had more urchins in a wider variety of color patterns than any we'd seen before. It didn't disappoint us again today... Ruthie would be sick if she knew what she'd missed. I'm sure not going to tell her. It got colder during the morning. Back at the boat I started a big pot of chili for dinner, inviting the Sampatecho crew. We walked most of the way back into Nicholl's Town to use BATELCO's WiFi. I could not connect using the internal card in the computer; finally figured how to initialize the internal WiFi card (never used it before). The connection was so bad I downloaded first 3, then 6, then 12 of 150 e-mails after three successive tries. Attempts to publish a web page stalled every time I tried. I made a big pot of chili for supper, the Sampatecho crew joined me for the evening. 12/15/10 - We left Morgan's Bluff at 7am. Buddy and I flew solo today. The winds and seas had moderated so we had a nice sail to Fresh Creek, a distance of about 39 miles. Bradd caught a little tuna and I caught a painter mackerel (Cero) - looks like fish for supper. In Fresh Creek we were told we could, could not, could and couldn't anchor. Bradd, Maeve and Echo went to town to visit the Batik factory while I tried (unsuccessfully) to find WiFi. I found a couple but the signals were too weak to use. George (harbormaster?) waved me ashore to note he had two ships coming in at 6am tomorrow and we could not anchor but could pick up a mooring; that wouldn't work, less than 5' of water. The other options were a slip in a small marina or anchor outside the harbor. Fresh Creek is not really suited for cruisers; just not enough water. George did find us a place to raft on the government dock, giving us a place to snuggle in for the night. We enjoyed a fish feast on Sampatecho for dinner. Afterward I returned to AA and finally got our e-mails. I obviously also got the blog publish. Whoopie! Time for bed, too much excitement and we have an early departure for Staniel Cay, about 80 miles away. |
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Ruth's sea urchin forest
North Rock, our Bimini Bahamas landfall - looks like a sub sitting out in the ocean
Echo working on her website as we crossed the Bahamas Bank; Sampatecho is in the background.
5:30am and Echo is trying to capture a shot of Sampatecho in the sunrise
The ecological right thing to do was to pick the balloons out of the water; besides Bradd's birthday is only a few days away - save some fish and killed two birds with one stone. Welcome to Andros The largest of the Bahamian islands is inhabited by approximately 25,000 people, about 1 per square mile. Their main blacktop road, Queen's Way, stretches 105 miles from the north to south ends of the land. While they have schools there is no fire brigade, no ambulance, no hospital and no doctor. They have a police station, clinic, water control board, tourism office, a little tourism, a US submarine listening range, and fresh water - Andros supplies around 5 millon gallons of fresh water a day by barge to Nassau, 35 miles away. The harbor at Morgan's Bluff is designed primarily to accommodate the water barges. A corner of the harbor appears to be the elephant burial ground for boats; everything from runabouts to 50' cruisers. At the water dock a tugboat was slowly settling deeper into the water as the whitecaps broke over her fantail. Morgan's Bluff is the highest point on Andros at about 66 feet. Near the bluff is a series of shallow caves that one can easily picture inhabited by the early island peoples. Echo entered with us, disappeared and popped out another cave entrance; or would that be another exit?
Sampatecho and AA snuggled in Morgan's Bluff inner harbor
Morgan's Bluff bluff, highest point on Andros
Bradd, Maeve & Echo at...
Neat cave entrance
An interesting cave
Boat graveyard
Captain Hard Ass demonstrates the art of obtaining the prime ingredient of a fresh conch salad (you eat the part in his left hand)
Loading water for Nassau
Behold, a termite hotel
Painted Mackerel caught in the tongue of the ocean
AA at anchor near the Chickcharnies Hotel in Fresh Creek, Andros |
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