Bahamas Bound

2006 - 2007

Another Adventure is in the Bahamas. We have Buddy's passport from the FWS.

We plan to post and update at least weekly. We move the older portions of the log to secondary pages accessible at the bottom of the page. Join our voyage!

Updated on 03/02/2007

2/11/07 - I'm thinking the bound in Bahamas Bound should be a reference to bondage as we sit tied to our anchor in Marathon. Not that this isn't a super place to be tied too. The boaters' community here is great. The Cruisers' Net each morning puts those with questions or in need of help together with answers and helpers. Today is a windy drizzly day, good for inside work. I spent 3 hours tearing out and re-installing the raw water pump that cools the diesel engine. I had to remove the alternator and one engine mount to get the pump out. In doing so I confirmed that I could replace the pump impeller another way in less than an hour. It's called learning. The impeller was shot and ready to cause problems, good call Barry! Referencing the new engine manuals I recently bought from Ames Point I learned I should be installing my 4th impeller by now - not my second. 2/12/07 - Another rainy Monday morning... actually we don't have that many rainy days, I'm just trying to dislodge the Walrus song Tedlie planted in my mind via e-mail. Dastardly deed Pete. Then on the other hand I have Miles asking if we ordered Buddy's papers from Finland and Bill Crane figuring we traded AA in on an RV and parked it in Marathon. Where has respect for the intrepid mariner gone? Speaking of parked, Ruth loves Marathon - especially the community of cruisers in the harbor. The 9am Marathon Cruisers' Net is a "must hear" daily event. Most anything you need to know can be learned just by asking. The landside community is also pretty convenient (though very long end to end) and we can find most of what we need given time. It is pouring today. Over 3.5" just north of us. We had tornado and waterspout warnings all morning. Our weekly "cold" front passing through (70's). 2/13/07 - It's the anniversary of Ruth's big mistake (she says tongue in check) and my good fortune... the day we married in front of the fireplace in a log lodge in Langlade, WI. Seems like yesterday! It looks like another rainy day, typical of the cycle of a cold front down here. By noon the front had passed and we enjoyed a warm sunny day. We spent early afternoon in a Florida Wildlife Services hearing on anchoring and mooring. Very interesting - they are trying to get it right. A big problem is folks who buy waterfront properties and then want to change things to suit them. It's like building a house in the country and then petitioning to have the farms removed. Derelict boats add fuel to the fire though those folks aren't inclined to follow regulations anyway. We celebrated our anniversary in an exclusive little waterfront restaurant with seating for 3, Ruth, Barry and Buddy. After sundowners, listening to Suzanne, we enjoyed a tender pork tenderloin flame seared on the outside slightly browned inside, a side of flame broiled garlic scalloped potatoes, spiced white whole kernel corn with carrot cake for dessert - the same flavor cake we had at our wedding. All cooked on the new gas grille we presented to each other as an anniversary gift. Unbeatable! 2/14/07 - Amy called last night wishing us a Happy Anniversary. She'd also sent an e-card that was such a bad pun she asked if I was writing for Hall Mark. Not! She noted that in our mail we had received a PRT number for Buddy meaning the FWS was working on his CITES (how it ended up in Appleton after all our e-mails and return addresses packets for Marathon can only be a tribute to the machinery that keeps our government grinding along). I went to a seminar on VHF radios and learned a lot about Selective Digital Calling and licensing. Well worth the time. 2/15/07 - We received a voice message from Bill & Jill last night wondering if they should be looking for hotel rooms in Nassau. I sure hope not. At least the Federal Wildlife Service acknowledges they are working on it... on what I have no idea. We were reading in the morning when Ruth said "look  at that" pointing skyward. I looked up to see a large biz jet and a single engine aircraft converging on their final approach to the Marathon Airport. As we watched they came within a couple hundred feet of each other before the biz jet swerved off and circled before landing. If they had hit the harbor would have been rained with plane parts. It was really scary to watch. 2/16/07 - A cool (60's) windy day. The Cruisers' Net was buzzing with discussions relative to anchoring rights and government boarding. Very hot topic down here and important to all boaters. We heard from FWS again today and had to do a little web research to identify Buddy's latin name (no, it's not El Buddo) to help them ID him. His page on our website also helped them research his species. They're hoping to get his papers out in 2 business days (Monday's a holiday for the government). Hurrah! After that we spent the balance of the day getting some materials from Home Depot (Barry), rebuilding a head (Barry), cleaning the boat interior (Ruth) and doing the wash (Ruth). Divide and conquer - five things done today. Wind is whistling, temperature is in the 50's and chili is simmering on the stove. Perfect evening to snuggle in! 2/17/07 - Fired up the diesel furnace last night... for Buddy, of course. Woke to a beautiful day, cool but bright and sunny. We paid our barnacle bill today after having a diver scrape the boat. Then we moved to the west end of the harbor to clear the east anchorage for the installation of mooring balls. Marathon does mooring fields right. Good equipment and regular inspection and maintenance. 2/18/07 - The front blew through today. We watched the drag races all morning - boats blowing off their anchors and racing across the harbor while the crews tried to re-anchor. With the number of boats that had to move yesterday there were a lot of anchors that had not yet found a home in the marl bottom of the harbor. After 2-3 hours of wind and rain it cleared up to a beautiful fall day with 20-25 knot winds. I spent the day assembling two plastic cylinders, each capable of storing two of the small propane canisters. This gets the little bombs out of our cockpit table and into properly ventilated storage while still protecting them from the elements. Cool idea, not mine. Forecast says 48 tonight. Gotta love that diesel heater! The day was actually a pleasant tee shirt day once the sun came out. 2/19/07 - Monday, again! Presidents' Day so the government won't be working on Buddy. Hopefully we'll have his passport in hand Thursday. I'm hot on a story I want to put together for Good Old Boat - a beautiful ferro cement sailing vessel (see photo). Hopefully I can sell Karen (editor) on the idea.  We went exploring by dinghy during the day - checking out the manmade channels that slice up the key. At dusk we went to Dockside for the weekly "meet and greet" pot luck meal. Had the chance to get to know some interesting folks and taste some delicious food. 2/20/07 - Today we need to get back on the trail of Buddy's passport. There is a crossing window today... hopefully one later this week so we don't toss our cookies crossing the Gulf Stream. We went to Publix and restocked, getting ready to move as soon as we can. Tomorrow we'll fuel and water - ready to cast off. No answers from the FWS relative to Buddy. Time is really getting short on this one. Hope we don't pay for it crossing in bad weather! Hell, I hope we survive it! 2/21/07 - We fueled and filled our water tanks today. Re anchoring in Boot Key Harbor. Nothing from FWS so Ruth called again and learned they'd forgotten about us but would try to get the overnight out today. We currently have a weather window if we get out of Dodge quickly. We're ready... just need that piece of paper! 2/22/07 - Another beautiful September morning, dew on the windows, a light breeze, cloudless blue sky. If FWS succeeded yesterday we'll be ready to move tomorrow - time to start pulling in the weather forecasts. The wind and solar are working well. When we fueled yesterday, the first time in a month, we took only 13 gallons of diesel. That's a trip to Key West and a month of generating when the solar and wind weren't enough. Another day passes with no packet from FWS. Ruth has tried to trace the tracking number to no avail so odds are the FWS hasn't sent it yet. In terms of dollars this is a real deal. For $75 we've gotten over 3 weeks of government employee time - Wow, better than we could do in China! This is really going to be tight - we'll have to go weather window or not, CITES or not. Nasty position to be in. 2/23/07 - Another sunny morning with light winds. We should be on the Bahamas Bank, not in Marathon. I spent most of the morning visiting boats anchored around us. The Smorgasboat stopped by to tell me Ruth was looking for me, our papers had arrived. A quick trip to the City Marina confirmed that Buddy's passport packet had indeed showed up at their office this morning. It included his "passport" and a night's reading relating to the regulations that govern CITES. Once we wade through that we should have a better understanding of the scope of the laws... something I'm sure we'll need to know before we clear into the Bahamas. We hoisted anchor and headed for Rodriquez Key, a 5 hour trip. Enroute we were passed by 3 northbound go-fasts screaming along at 100 mph plus. We'll anchor until about 3am then head for South Riding Rock on the Bahamas bank. The ideal weather window has passed but we should be okay with the conditions forecast. We are finally on our way. 2/24/07 - Up at 3am to head out. Just picked up the weather from SkyMate. A little iffy for this morning but improving during the day. Tomorrow looks good for crossing the Bahamas Bank. We talk about weather windows. The kind most mariners seek are the clean windows. Mild organized seas and favorable winds. There are other windows - dirty and storm. We selected a dirty window - winds from the East, seas from the north. As a result we went through the wash cycle of a laundry. Wave from the north were decaying but were still 4-6 feet with an occasional 8 footer. Crossing these waves were building 3-4 foot easterly waves. At 5 knots we corkscrewed through these for 12 hours hitting a wave every 2-6 seconds. Along the way we saw schools (or is it flocks) of flying fish. Would have been sporting with a 410 shotgun. A yellow finch stopped to rest aboard for a moment, just a couple of feet from Ruth, surprising her. A few gulls, 3 ships - that was all we saw of life crossing. By 6 pm we were in 20' of water over the Bahamas Bank. We dropped anchor with no land in sight and spent the night. 2/25/07 - We lazed around until 9am, waiting for the sun to rise enough that we could watch for coral heads as we crossed the Banks. We sailed (yes, sailed) all day in 14 - 18' of water driven by 12 knot winds. A GREAT day of sailing in ideal conditions. We have been out of sight of land since about 9am yesterday. Again we are anchoring out in 17 feet of water over a white sand bottom. We saw a couple of power boats late in the day; always a long distance away. We stopped early as more time wasn't going to get us to land anyway ant this spot was out of "traffic". Ruth's using the daylight to clean up some of the salt from yesterday's spray. An hour before sundown a sailboat passed about 3 miles away headed west. First sign of man we saw all day.

SkyMate Communications We are sending position data to a few folks via the SkyMate 100 satellite communication system we recently installed. The system sends an e-mail with a link to a MapTech website that depicts the boat's location on a chart. We ask that you don't e-mail us to that address unless it is urgent you reach us (satellite charges by the letter). It also allows no attachments or photos. When we use it we never append to the original message and we keep our text minimal. For example: Subject: Moving on We left Miami last night and have safely arrived at South Riding Rocks, Bahamas. Ruth and Barry becomes Subject: Mvg Lft Mia lst nite & arr S Rdng Rck. R&B" Ruth looking at our new vista - Boot Key Harbor East from the West end Latest project - grille propane canister storage (holds 2) Each twist in the lines represents a cold front passage (we had 7 wraps in our lines) Woo Ha, a beautiful ferro-cement schooner Bahamas communications I expect that we will loose much of our communication capability when we cross to the Bahamas. There are locations with WIFI and we'll use them to pick up e-mail when we find them. All of our e-mail forwards to rbhammer.com making the task simpler. We do have SkyMate satellite so we'll never be totally cut off - it just gets expensive. Our past experience with digital cell phones is that they sometimes work in some places. Never did figure out why. Website updates will be less frequent as they will be done only when we have a WIFI connection. Spectator, 1974 steel junk rigged schooner Chub Cay construction - unchanged in a year. Cay houses perched on white sand beach

Visit earlier portions of the Bahamas Bound trip log...