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Overdue Update

First off, I apologize for being remiss on this blog, but in our defense we have been rather busy.  Since our last posting, we have received and accepted a purchase offer on Serenity, Pollie visited the son in Reston, VA while I attended the survey and sea trial on the new boat in Florida, and we visited my sister and brother-in-law in Wilmington, NC while new motor mounts were installed.  Now we are delivering Serenity to Herrington Harbour in Deale, MD and are planning our return to Florida to pick up the new boat.

While moving Serenity north we did some traveling offshore, mainly missing Georgia and its “skinny” water, but most of our travels have been along the ICW.  The ICW is always interesting and diverse.  You get to see boats ranging from the mega-yachts:



  To the not so big:

The houses along the ICW range from the modest:



To very modest:

To the mansion:

And, the occasional very colorful:

Dealing with the bridges is an integral part of the ICW and sometimes can be smooth, while at other times it can be a challenge:

Sometimes the other traffic has the ability to get out of your way:

While other times you get out of their way:

Parts of the ICW are serene and unspoiled:

While other parts support heavy industry:

Most of the people along the ICW are friendly, even if they are strangers:

Then occasionally, you get to see friends:

Mark & Kathy

The fishing ranges from the professional:

To the other guys:

Same with the other boaters, you have the professional captains:

And, the weekend warriors:

We always enjoy the ICW, because you never know what is lurking around the next bend:

Moving to the Dark Side

Serenity our 1989 Nauticat 33 has been too successful. After 4 months cruising the Bahamas and 7 months living aboard, we have decided we love the lifestyle. While Serenity has been great, she will never be large enough to provide the amenities we are looking for to continue the lifestyle, i.e., freezer, ice maker, better guest accommodations with head, etc. So, we have purchased a trawler, and placed Serenity on the market.

We made an offer on an offer on a 2005 DeFever 44+5 that was accepted. Now we are waiting on surveys and sea trial before we go to closing.

Unfortunately, one of the ugly truths about cruising is that while we love to sail, when you are cruising you just don’t get to do enough of it to justify the hassle of the sticks and the accommodations that go along with them.

Our immediate plans are to take Serenity to Wilmington, NC where we will have some work done, while I fly back to Ft. Lauderdale for the survey and sea trial. Pollie is planning on flying to Virginia to visit the youngest son. Then we will take Serenity on up to the Chesapeake. By then we will probably will have closed on the DeFever and will need to move it north in avoidance of hurricane season. Of course all of these plans are set in Jell-O.

While there are certain aspects of Serenity we will miss, we are looking forward to adventures on our new boat. And, with 49’ to deal with, we will always be looking for crew to help us.

Lovebug

The lovebug, Plecia nearctica, is a member of the family of march flies. It is also known as the honeymoon fly, kissingbug or double-headedbug. The adult is a small, flying insect common to parts of Central America and the southeastern United States, especially along the Gulf Coast. During and after mating, adult pairs remain coupled, even in flight, for up to several days.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After enduring swarms of these little creatures turning Serenity into a hot-sheet motel, we had other names for the little buggers.  We started encountering them coming out of Vero Beach, FL, and found them most invasive at Cocoa, FL.  Now that we are at St Augustine all we are finding are a few leftover corpses.  Because they do not bite, they are mainly just a nuisance for a boat.  If a car hits a swarm at higher speeds they can clog a radiator, mess up the windshield, and if left on the paint they can cause pitting.  

Back in the USA

After Great Guana Cay (see previous posts), we ventured on to Treasure Cay.

Treasure Cay is basically a protected harbor connected to the main Abaco Island that provides good access to an airport and therefore is fairly well developed.

Great house

Great gate

Unlike the Exumas and the outer islands we previously cruised, the Abacos are sort of getting back to normal.  Restaurants do not require reservations hours in advance so they can procure the food, and a hamburger doesn’t cost $18.00.

We ran into quite a few cruisers that make the Abacos their cruising grounds, just because it is so easy.  Others, like our friends on a Nauticat 44, Wind Dust, end up spending a couple of weeks in a place like Treasure Cay because it is so enjoyable.

After Treasure Cay, we ventured on to Green Turtle Cay.  First we went into Black Sound on the southern end of the Cay.  From there we could easily visit the settlement of New Plymouth.  New Plymouth was very interesting with modest house built on very narrow streets.  Pictured below is the jail that had the second floor blown off in The Great Hurricane of 1932.  We were informed that this was before hurricanes received names. 

New Plymouth had several restaurants and a couple of lively drinking establishments.  Our favorite was Pineapples.

Yes, she is pouring booze down the straw of the frozen Rum Runner.

Careful what you ask for

We took a bike ride from Black Sound to White Sound on the northern part of the Cay.  It was uphill both ways and a few more miles than we bargained for.

This is now my life, waiting for my wife

After seeing the resorts in White Sound, we decided to move the boat 1.5 miles over to The Bluff House Club (http://www.bluffhouse.com/).  We took advantage of a special they are running to keep the place full of boats.

On Monday, May 2^nd we departed Green Turtle Cay for Great Sail Cay, then to the West End of Grand Bahama Island on Tuesday.  Wednesday, May 4^th we crossed the Gulf Stream back to the States.

We spent 4 months cruising the Bahamas.  While it was a great adventure, we were ready to return to the U.S. for a while.  There are certain things we will miss about the Bahamas, such as little crime, fewer regulations, beautiful water, and a slower pace.  We won’t miss the high prices, lack of efficiency, and areas that are trashed.

It Must Have Been Our Deodorant

We arrived at Great Sale Cay (26 58.60N/078 13.80W) in the evening of May 2^nd to find 32 sailboats and 2 trawlers anchored in the harbor on the leeward side of the island.

Forty minutes later, 19 of them lifted their anchors and departed.

We would have been offended if we hadn’t previously listened to their impromptu cruising net.  A couple of the boats realized that most of the boats had listened to Chris Parker, the cruising weather guru, and therefore had essentially the same game plan.  Some organization was needed.  They quickly did a role call to find who was going where and in what timeframe.  The 19 boats were headed for the Ft Pierce, FL inlet, and wanted to get there during high tide.

From Great Sale Cay to the Ft Pierce inlet is about 115 NM on an approximately a 290 heading.  Their plan was to cross the Little Bahama Bank on a 270 heading until they hit deep water, then turn north towards Ft Pierce and get the maximum push from the Gulf Stream in the Strait of Florida.  In their impromptu net they coordinated future weather updates and communication protocol.  All of this was very impressive, but I hope they did not encourage any cruisers to attempt something above their competency, i.e., a night crossing of the Gulf Stream.

Serenity travels during day light hours and only will attempt a night passage when there are no other options.  We watched them all leave, and then had sunset services complete with Pollie blowing her conch horn.

The next day we departed early for the West End, where we again stopped for the night.  I once asked a professional captain about night passages in the Bahamas.  He responded by saying there are only two kinds of people who boat at night in the Bahamas, fools and drug runners. 

Kids for Sail

The early cruising gurus, Herb Payson, Steve Dashew, and Tom Neale, write about sailing with kids.  All three believe that it made for a stronger family and that the kids benefited from the experience. 

Although we read the cruising books by Herb, Steve, Tom and others, we were a little surprised by the number of boats we see with kids.  Don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of cruisers look like us, old retired couple out spending their kid’s inheritance, and love to have the grandkids come for a visit.

Some of the younger cruising families we have talked to say they decided to take a year off from their jobs and enjoy their kids while they are young.

Kids share in the boat jobs

One couple we met in the Exumas on a large ketch rig had three teenagers aboard and had been cruising for a long time. The wife joked that they started out on a smaller boat, but the kids just kept growing.

The parents reported that with the Internet, home schooling had gotten much easier.  On one occasion we saw a young man scrambling to find an Internet connection because he had an assignment due.  We suspected that some procrastination had preceded the angst.  Usually what you see are kids sitting in the cockpit of the boat reading or working on a laptop in the morning, and then out hiking or swimming in the afternoon. 

We also noticed that boats with kids tend to “buddy boat” more that the rest of us.  One young lady joked that she was the fourth kid of the family with three teenagers.  Every morning at 9 AM there is a cruiser’s net on VHF radio in George Town, Exuma.  Following the regular net, there was a net for kids to arrange their day’s activities.  It was always preceded by a cheery announcement, “kids for sail, kids for sail.”  We were relieved to discover that they really weren’t selling kids. 

They spoke French, but were working on their English

The cruising kids we have met have all been very polite, articulate, and fun to be around.  Don’t know if I could say that about the “dirt kids” I have met.       

Great Guana Cay

Before Pollie and I left on this little adventure, a colleague of mine at MITRE Corp told me, “DON’T MISS GREAT GUANA CAY.”  She was right, of all of the cays and islands we have visited, Great Guana Cay rates in the top five, if not the top.  It’s not so much the infrastructure as the feeling.  We arrived at Settlement Harbour hoping to score a mooring ball, but all were taken.  So, we did a quick negotiation by radio and went into Orchid Bay Yacht Club and Marina.

By reading the local newspapers, we had learned that Orchid Bay had fallen on hard times and the electricity for the marina had been cutoff for non-payment, the restaurant was closed, no fuel at the fuel dock, and the people that had bought vacation homes in the compound were not happy campers.  It looked to us that the management was scurrying to make amends, and they gave us a slip for $1 a foot.  On the second day, the electricity came back and on the third day a fuel barge showed up.  The staff was very friendly, the grounds were great, and the pool was clean even though it had unexpected visitors.

But, the real reason cruisers visit Great Guana Cay is for the legendary Nippers Bar.

More than just a bar, Nippers has two pools, an outside and inside restaurant, and beach access.

We went snorkeling from the beach, and enjoyed the pools.

Of course, we had to try out those rope swings.

While there, we made a few new friends.

Besides Nippers, there was Grabbers, a great place for dinner while watching the sunset.

North of Settlement Bay is Baker’s Bay where a high end, controversial development is being built on a failed Disney cruise boat landing site.  Pollie and I biked up there for a quick look-see.

If you could only visit one place in the Bahamas, you might want to consider Great Guana Cay.