Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

I’ve been banished. Exiled to the forepeak. Two years before the mast. 

And it’s my own fault.

Back in Vero Beach I had a brilliant idea for a birthday present for Ellen. The problem with planning surprises on a 36’ boat is that there is not a lot of space for secrecy. So when we arrived in Vero and Ellen went to the Dockmaster’s Office to pay for the mooring and fuel, I quickly made a phone call to order the gift. Ellen came back too soon, saw me on the phone and heard me repeating the credit card number. She’s no dummy: the jig was up.

The issue here is we agreed, months before starting this trip, that we don’t have the organizational skills to choose, collect, and hide birthday, Groundhog Day, anniversary, Columbus Day, Flag Day, Black Friday, etc. gifts for the year. Far easier to say the adventure is the gift and leave it at that. (Side note: Moss is happy with a couple of cans of olives for her birthday. If we can also find some sea-glass for her collection, she ought to be more than satisfied.)

But years ago Ellen mentioned that the builder’s plate on Cupcake looked shabby. The plate is a cracked and warped piece of crummy 1980s plastic. (Landlubbers: a builder’s plate is pretty much what it sounds like – a plate with the boat manufacturer’s name embossed on it and the boat’s hull number stamped into it.) Our builder’s plate is mounted right at the companionway…the front door. Makes a bad impression. A shiny new one would help distract attention from Cupcake’s many other dings and scrapes.

For some reason, back in early November I remembered out of the blue that a company in Rhode Island makes reproduction builder’s plates in bronze. So what I was up to in Vero Beach was placing an order. The owner of Bristol Bronze is a big Pearson fan and a great old-boat guy. We had a nice conversation and I was assured the plate would be shipped to the in-law’s place in Florida well before our arrival there for Thanksgiving so I would have it in plenty of time before Ellen’s birthday in February. He was even going to stamp our number, 90, on the plate and include two shiny bronze screws for attaching the plate.

But the girls figured out I had a surprise up my sleeve and panicked about my birthday (which is tomorrow, incidentally). So they are putting together some surprise for me. They have been diligently working on it since we got to Hollywood, but need this morning and the space in the cabin to complete things. That’s why I am banished to the v-berth.

Adding insult to injury, the plate never arrived in Florida. When I called Bristol Bronze last week to ask what happened, the owner told me he would be mailing the plate out soon. I told him he missed the window of opportunity for Florida, that it needed to go to D.C. so Simon can bring it to us when he comes next week. “No problem” I was told. But he asked me to send an email order to him, just to be safe.

“No problem,” I said back. But to be sure there was no misunderstanding, in the email order I asked him to reply when he got the order and to make sure the plate was shipped to D.C. in time for arrival no later than the 17th of December. A day later he replied, “Your e-mail/order came through fine. I will get your Builder’s Plate out to your son in time for Christmas.” Argh! Emailed back that the 17th was the cut off, haven’t heard back.

The best laid plans…

Speaking of mice, we had a terrifying experience yesterday afternoon.

Sea biscuit.

Took Mr. Flowerpot out for a little exploration. Wanted to sound the depth of the channel we would be taking as we exit the super shallow Little Harbour anchorage when we depart (more on that topic in a minute). Also wanted to check out Lizard Cay and the ruins of a burned mansion reported to be on the cay. As we were getting out of the dinghy on the Lizard Cay beach, Ellen spotted an enormous cockroach IN THE DINGHY among our jumbled gear. I got the better of my fear and mashed the bug with a Croc. (Side note: Zoë, Crocs are truly the best, most versatile footwear under the sun.)

One of our two biggest fears has been realized. The first is lice, but that’s mostly an Ellen phobia. (It’s not mine. If you look at the picture I posted yesterday of me in the water with Moss it’s clear there’s a burgeoning bald spot and I may just shave my head soon anyway.)

The second phobia is dock monsters: cockroaches. We take extreme measures to keep bugs off the boat, so the big guy in the dinghy freaked us out. It’s unlikely any DMs are hiding aboard the mother ship though. Ellen cleaned the head yesterday morning and saw none. At the same time, I vacuumed the bilges and floors and washed the floors yesterday and saw none. But still. High alert.

On a more pleasant note, we did some of our finest work as cruisers this morning. The wind has shifted out of the WNW as predicted. It’s blowing hard and is actually kind of chilly. The plan was to depart the anchorage on this morning’s high tide, anchor down near Cabbage Cay for the day and night, then ride the NE wind down to Nassau tomorrow. Birthday sail on the deep blue sea!

Pathway to nowhere on Lizard Cay.

But the wind was so strong this morning, we weren’t sure we could raise the two anchors, turn the boat, and safely make our way out the very shallow water without some catastrophic mishap.

Cupcake anchored in some very thin water.

The excellent cruiser work? We scuttled the plan to move and decided to stick here in the Berries until later in the week. Our schedule has the unfortunate feature of an actual time commitment: we need to pick the boys up at Nassau on the afternoon of December 18th. But we’ve baked in so much extra time there is room to change plans to keep us safe and sound.

So today we will pass the time reading, napping, making water and electricity, and perhaps fixing the odd thing or two.

Our revised schedule gives us space for at least another day or two in the Berries. Tomorrow morning the wind is predicted to be much more mild. We will take the opportunity to up anchor in the calm winds and then sail maybe five miles south and check out Alder Cay. The guidebook says the snorkeling at that anchorage is sublime. That sounds like a fine way to spend my 51st birthday.

Look at the long legs on that little mermaid!

Saw this strange mound in the foundation of the burned house. Any idea what it is? Termites? Aliens?

A little blurry, a little nutty, a little unwashed, here’s Ellie about to bake an apple pie. She made a delicious pepperoni pizza for dinner last night. The pie is just a warm-up for birthday cake tomorrow. We are fortunate to have an Ellen aboard.

Little Harbour Cay

Well, it has been a pretty eventful few days. We decided to head south from Great Harbor Cay to experience more of the Berries and to get out of that busy metropolitan environment. After all, we are country mice at heart.

The problem we made for ourselves was that a series of cold fronts are moving through the Bahamas and we needed to find an anchorage with protection from all directions and enough depth for Cupcake with her modest 4’ 6” draft. Not such an easy task in the Berries. (Don’t forget that we were in an anchorage with 360 degree protection and enough depth. The holding wasn’t ideal, however, and we got a little antsy.)

(Landlubbers: holding is what we say when we are talking about how good the bottom of an anchorage is for an anchor to grab. Some kinds of sand are great, some are less great. Grass is generally lousy. Rock is pretty awful. Mud is usually wonderful but almost always messy and sometimes awful. A great bottom can be ruined if there’s too much junk down there. (Get your mind out of the gutter, I’m talking about old chains and cinderblocks and stuff like that). Also, a cold front down here is not really cold…maybe the temperature will drop from the low 80s to the low to mid 70s. The real issue is the wind. It blows much harder than usual from all the points of the compass (but not all at once, of course).) 

For this series of fronts, we left Great Harbour Cay when the winds were predicted to be in the high teens from the east. Instead we found winds in the low 20s from the ESE. The reason that difference matters is that we were sailing south, so wind which was more east and less south would have made for better sailing. We had to go about 12 miles north then east before we could head south. Once we got to the outside of the protection of Stirrup Cay and Great Harbour Cay the waves were big and the wind was bigger. The sail down was lively and wet. Some crew members were more nervous than they would have preferred. We think we all need to toughen up and remember that this is what sailing on the open ocean is like. I don’t mean to sound like a martinet, I mean that we all have gotten a little complacent and comfortable, but this adventure of ours is not always rainbows and unicorns. To get the rainbows, sometimes we need to enjoy the challenges.

Check out how the dried salt on deck reflects the light of the camera flash. Our last two sails were pretty wet ones and when the seawater dried, the boat was left coated with salt. It rained early this morning so things are a little cleaner today.

We dropped anchor off tiny Fowl Cay between Hoffmans Cay and Devils Cay. There were about six other boats in the anchorage, all had made the same travel decision we did because the weather is predicted to deteriorate as the week progresses. We all needed to get somewhere safe from the strong west winds that were coming.

When Ellen and I dove on the anchor, it was clearly it not well set. (Landlubbers, a well set anchor is one that is buried in the bottom. Most of the time we don’t have the luxury of diving to take a look at the anchor, so we spend the night hoping for the best. In the Bahamas where the water is clear and warm and the depths at which we anchor are shallow, we dive pretty much every time.) Our pal Pablo was just caught on a piece of limestone at 15’, not dug into anything because the holding was lousy…it’s called a scoured bottom when the currents wash out all the sand and leave just the limestone bedrock behind.

So we (Ellen) hauled the anchor up and we moved to a sandy patch (we could tell it was a sandy patch because we could see the bottom was a more blue-white than grey-white…we are still refining our bottom-reading-skills). I dove on the anchor and it was set really well, but we were too close to a shallow spot. So up the anchor came again. The third time we backed on the anchor (landlubbers: backing on the anchor is when we put the boat into reverse after the anchor is down on the bottom and the chain is paid out. Reversing the boat pulls, gently, on the anchor and encourages it to set) we could feel it skittering over the rock, catching and then releasing. Suddenly it grabbed with such tenacity that it nearly knocked me off my feet. Well. Set.

I was too cold (and, frankly, demoralized) to dive on it again so Ellen did. She said that enough of Pablo’s point had dug into the bottom that we were hooked well enough for the night. But we were a little uncertain about long-term holding.

One of the reasons I was demoralized is that on the sail down, we couldn’t figure out why our speed wasn’t higher, given the strong wind we had. We also though we had a problem with the autopilot because it couldn’t steer straight, rather it kept veering to starboard. (Landlubbers, port is left…each word has four letters.) Turns out the shiny new chain stopper failed for some reason and so did the safety line Ellen ties to the anchor to keep it from jumping out of its place. So we sailed the whole way with Pablo dragging in the sea from 25’ of chain. We are extremely fortunate we didn’t lose all the chain and anchor, we are extremely fortunate Pablo didn’t hook on anything along the way, we are extremely fortunate Pablo didn’t hit the propeller or rudder. Yikes. Anyway, we are reassessing how we secure the anchor.

After speaking with a sailor at Fowl Cay, we learned we would be able to sneak Cupcake into the shallow, narrow, but very protected harbor at Little Harbour Cay. Bill (the sailor) offered to guide us in at high tide the next morning. So Ellen, Moss, and I woke up with the sun to catch the rising tide at Little Harbour Cay. Bill was there to meet us in his dinghy and he guided us in to what we though was a deep enough spot. At high tide, the route in to the anchorage brought us over some very skinny water. We saw some 5’6” spots. No big deal for our draft until you remember the tide would fall 3’ in another few hours. (Turns out, that 3’ tide was the biggest for a month. Getting out later in the week may be a little tricky.)

We hooked Pablo well, dove on the anchor, checked the depths around the boat and felt mostly good about it. Then we joined Bill for a tour of his boat and a walk on the island.

We have been asking people, “if you had a parrot, what phrase would it repeat because it hears it so much on your boat?” On Cupcake the parrot would say “I farted.”

Bill said his parrot says “Daddy.” Because he has a parrot. So we got to meet our first parrot of the trip. (Landlubbers and everyone else: if you have a bird on your boat, don’t let it fly around wherever it wants. Birds poop EVERYWHERE!”) Bill is a solo-sailor, if you hadn’t guessed.

We got back from our afternoon to find Cupcake hard aground. Hard. Aground. She was about 6” short on water. We dug out a trough so her rudder was free and then just waited for the tide to come in. And we kind of panicked about where we would move her because two groundings a day for several days was out of the question.

Taking Mr. Flowerpot we scoped out a deep spot a quarter mile away. After another fairly sleepless night, we woke up Sunday morning and moved with the rising tide to a spot that gives us about a 12” margin at low tide. But because the deep spot is so tiny, we needed to do some pretty tricky anchoring to ensure Cupcake stays in the safe spot.

We are hanging on what’s called a Bahamian moor. Pablo is set to the south to hold us in place as the wind blows from that direction. The second anchor (which Moss named Fortunata) is set to the west to hold us when the wind begins blowing from there. We have a third line running to some old mooring junk on the bottom, holding us against the south-flowing outgoing tide.

When we leave this anchorage, we will need to do so on a rising, nearly full tide. That’s stressful stuff. But as we just discussed with Moss, it is making us better, braver, tougher sailors. It will also make the wifi and hot showers we anticipate in Nassau when we pick up Simon and Zachary that much more of a treat.

Saturday night we joined Eyra and Charisma and Delta Phase at Flo’s Conch Shack for dinner. The company was excellent, the food was good enough. Traditional Bahamian fare seems to be mediocre, fried, and expensive. The beer was $6/bottle! I will stick with the culinary treats on Cupcake, thank you.

We’ve been doing a ton of swimming, saw a bunch of stingrays and sea turtles all day. Those turtles are speedy quick.

Now that we have our anchor setup squared away, we enjoyed our first good night’s sleep in a few days. Tuesday we think we will move out of Little Harbour on the high tide then anchor in the reasonably protected area near the harbor entrance until Wednesday when we will attempt the sail to Nassau. In the meantime we get to relax today and enjoy all our hard work. There are a few little beaches that need investigating.

There’s no wifi here and the cell connection is tenuous, so pictures in quantity will have to wait until Nassau. In the entire Berries island chain there are only two cell phone towers. One is on Great Harbour Cay and the other is on Chubb Cay. Right now we are centered between the two in a nearly dead zone. We are, however, close enough to Chubb Cay to pick up VHF radio traffic. It’s just garbled enough that we think “Chubb Cay, Chubb Cay, the is the vessel Knotty Boy” is actually someone hailing Cupcake.

Sunset Sunday evening.

Cruising tip of the day: learn the difference between windward and leeward, particularly when you are tossing a bowl of dried oatmeal overboard. Moss might have more to say about this issue in her next blog post.

Ellie’s selfie.

Snubber

Moss has the pictures but I’ll give the details. A few days ago I noticed that the eye in our snubber was working itself loose. I forgot all about it until yesterday when I saw the mess it created. The eye had slipped off the line allowing the shackle to chafe nearly all the way through.

Ellen and I swapped in the old, too-short snubber while I rigged a permanent replacement. All this snubbery took place while the sun was setting and the wind was blowing pretty briskly.

Because of the new direction the wind was blowing from (a cold front was roaring through), we had swung into fairly shallow water…just 5’ 2” at low tide. All this anchor-related excitement had us on edge. The wind was gusting into the high 20s, then a boat came by yesterday morning and mentioned that the holding in this bay is poor. That information spooked us even though we know better. Anyway, we had a somewhat sleepless night.

This morning the wind is a little more calm, the sun is out, it is a gorgeous day, and we are formulating our plans for moving on. We anticipate a day or two of reasonable winds from the northeast, then the wind will start to clock around to the south and west and really start to howl. We would like to be somewhere both safe and interesting for the coming week and a half.

We realize that we need to realign our expectations of what normal winds are around here. After months of predominantly calm winds and seas on the ICW, the Bahamian trades and cold fronts with their 20-30 knot gusts and steady 18-20 breezes take a little getting used to. Cupcake and Pablo don’t care about 25 or 30 knots of wind, but the crew gets plenty edgy.

So tomorrow morning we will head to Fowl Cay/White Cay at the northern end of Hoffmans Cay. If the holding and protection look good, we will probably stay in that neighborhood until we head to Nassau to collect Simon and nephew Zachary on the 18th. If prospects don’t look good, we will either scurry back up here or see if we can get our boat with its 4.5’ draft into a harbor with only 3’ of water. That’s a tricky business, but we are up to the challenge. (At high tide.)

Food update: Ellen tried her hand at fried okra last night and the results were fabulous. Unfortunately, we don’t foresee a whole lot more okra in our future because Bahamian fresh vegetables don’t tend to be particularly exotic. Ellen says, “I think it’s: Bahamian markets don’t tend to stock vegetables.”

Update disclaimer: we don’t know if we will have cell service for the next week. If you don’t hear from us, don’t panic.

Sugar Beach

Today we walked the 3/4 mile across the cay to Sugar Beach on the east side of the island. On the way we explored the ruins of what must have been a pretty fancy hotel in the 1960s and 1970s. It is a strange thing to stand in the deep end of a drained swimming pool. From the look of things, we guessed someone had a spooky Halloween party in the ruins. Creepy creepy. 

After a tiny bit of confusion about where to go, we found Sugar Beach. It is, without a doubt, the most beautiful beach we have ever seen. The color of the clear clear water defies description, the pink sand is the texture of fine flour, and the crescent of the beach curves forever. Just gorgeous. We swam, built sand castles, went for a long walk, swam, built more sand castles. 

You would never guess that guy is almost 51! (And I’m not even holding my stomach in.)

At one point two little sharks (maybe 2.5’ long) cruised along the beach, looking for trouble. Later we saw a good-sized barracuda doing the same thing, making little fishies jump. The water is so clear and warm, the apex-predators can be seen from far off. (Plus, these were little guys, no real threat to us.) We also saw some starfish that, when we held them in our palms, gently muckled onto our skin with their starfish suckers. 

Last night we made legit latkes with potatoes and onions we bought at the little store near the marina. For the first time in years, I used a hand-grater instead of a Cuisine-Art. Pleased to report there were no grated knuckles. We rounded out the heart-healthy meal with a steak and grilled peppers and, for dessert, pomegranate. The dinner was delicious, but between the fried potato and the steak, we have had a surfeit of oily food. Hanukkah miracle indeed. The real miracle is that our arteries didn’t clog immediately. So today’s long walk was a good thing. Tonight we are having pressure cooker chicken with artichoke hearts and (more) potatoes.

Our afternoon routine has been to manufacture a reason to dinghy to the marina so we can get some groceries, enjoy a beer on the dock, and have an ice cream bar. Today the woman in the little ice cream/grocery store didn’t want to break our $50 bill so she just told us to come back and pay her tomorrow. Ice cream on credit, spectacular beaches, hot sunny weather, and delicious food. This place is paradise.

The retail situation ashore near the marina is interesting. There is a restaurant that always seems to have the door open and one or two staff on site but never seems to be preparing or serving food. There are two wee grocery stores within about 75’ of each other. One is just big enough for an ice cream cooler and a cash register, and is jam-packed with stuff. The big store is maybe 350 square feet. There is also what amounts to a closet with a beer cooler in it next to the little grocery. We think it is a sort of bar. In any event, the two establishments are somehow related. 

When Ellen and I asked to buy two cold beers yesterday, the owner of the grocery was a little squirrelly about selling to us. Turns out, she is a Christian and refuses to sell alcohol. Since her husband was out fishing, there was a problem with Cupcake beer-procurement. She ultimately had a friend hand us the beer (she still took the money). Problem solved.

Ellen has been eager to try a Bahamian Sands beer, having enjoyed the Corona and Budweiser aboard and the local Kalik ashore. She had a Sands Radler yesterday. It was grapefruit flavored and was delicious. Alas, only 2.5% alcohol.

Speaking of problems solved, today was a great day for making electricity. When we returned to the boat after our afternoon ashore, the battery bank was charged from unlimited sun and no shade from the rigging all day. The batteries were full enough that they are now taking all the power the alternator is putting out. Because we are expecting a few cloudy days and because I wanted to make some more water and because we wanted to get the batteries as charged as was reasonable, we are running the engine. Nobody is happy about the noise, the burning of diesel, the heat it puts into the boat, but at this time of year it seems necessary. Also, I may get up the energy to shave this evening since we will have hot water.

Moss just said, “Math is so much fun because it is so much fun.” Tautology aside, that’s pretty good stuff. 

Little starfish.

Little water baby.

Ok, so it’s not the selfie you were waiting for, but doesn’t Ellen look a little like a nursing mother?

Happy Hanukkah!

We had a slight miscalculation last night and almost missed the first night of Hanukkah. Thanks to a text from Pinky, we realized our error and changed course in time. Unfortunately, we didn’t have prime latke fixings on board because we were planning on getting them today so they would be fresh. (Cruising tip of the day: don’t store your potatoes and onions in the same bin or else they will quickly and nastily liquefy. We learned that unpleasant lesson the last time we sailed down here.) We made do with a latke-in-a-box mix. 

Thank goodness the weather has been Maximum Hatch lately or else the whole boat would smell like oil and onions today. 

The little store at the marina has both potatoes and onions, so we should be set for the real-deal latkes this evening. 

Last night we had a first ever: the candles on the menorah were adding too much heat to the house. Not something we ever thought about in New England.

This morning we listened to the short wave radio weather broadcast at 6:30 and learned there’s a norther coming through the area mid week, so we will stay put until Thursday morning when we will head down to Hoffmans Cay or thereabouts for a week or so.

After the broadcast I got up the enthusiasm, barely, for a run. Took Mr. Flowerpot to shore and set out. I waited about an hour longer to start than I ought because the day was already blazing by the time I got on shore at 8am or so. Live and learn. I also thought I mapped out a solid 5k, but when I double checked back on Cupcake it turned out to be more of a 3k. It’s the thought that counts.

[Warning: wonky electrical problem ahead. TLDR – the engine does not charge the batteries like we think it should, and the sun isn’t as strong as we would like in the dead of winter.]

One electrical issue we’ve just noticed now that we are not charging the batteries nearly every day with the engine because we no longer constantly motor and motor sail from place to place is the angle of the sun. Last summer I crowed about how much electricity we were making each day. Well I did not take into account the low winter sun and the short winter days. Where we had seen peak power generation in the 12 to 13 amp/hour range for several hours mid-day in July and August, today we have not been able to do better than 10.8 at high noon. And we are closer to the Equator down here, too! 

The fact that the past few days have been partly cloudy and the mast has shadowed the panels during peak sun added to our deficit.

So this morning the batteries were at 66% and we needed to make water to boot. Although it is against my principles of parsimony, while I was on shore and the girls were lounging aboard in their pajamas, we ran the engine to power the water maker. 

Here’s an interesting thing we’ve noticed: if the battery bank drops below around 70% or so, running the engine does not efficiently charge it. The alternator cycles on, pumps 30 or 40 amps into the bank for maybe 15 seconds, then the alternator shuts off and puts no power into the bank for maybe 30 or 45 seconds. Then the whole cycle starts again. 

Over a few hours we can very slowly gain on the battery bank. Once we charge it to more than around 70%, the alternator can put a steady 15 or 20 amps into the bank without interruption. So for maybe two hours of engine running this morning we were not able to fill the bank at all, only hold steady while the water maker and fridge did their thing. 

Now the water maker is off, the engine is off, and the panels are putting out 10+ amps so we are steadily filling the battery bank, but I have no expectation that we will be near 100% when the sun goes down. If there’s anyone out there who has an idea what’s going on, shoot me an email. If you know what I can do to fix the problem (if it is a problem) I’d love to hear about that as well.

We had this issue back in North Carolina after we left Oriental…the engine took forever to charge the batteries and it was clear the alternator was cycling off more than it was cycling on. But keeping the batteries in a decent state of charge more recently has allowed the alternator to charge efficiently until today when things dropped to their current (pun) sorry state. We can manage, but I suspect there is a solution that will let the engine charge more efficiently.

In other news, Moss is nearly done with the first of her two math workbooks. She has been busy making headway with the goal of earning a long winter break once the book is finished. Right now she is plotting ordered pairs on an x/y axis. 

Ellen is basking in the afterglow she gets when she makes a batch of yogurt. She has been threatening to break out her yogurt maker for weeks, and now she has made good. If this is my last post, you will know why.

We are still anchored in the secret spot inside the Great Harbour Cay cut, but over the past two days, several big catamarans have snuck in to stay at the marina (where they probably just hook up a water hose to their tanks and plug their boats in to shore power).

I’m still a little gun-shy about swimming after the business with the bull sharks at Bimini. But because I have not seen any sharks here (only a 2’ stingray yesterday when we were at the beach) and because I have not showered or gone swimming since my run, I’m about to jump in here at the boat. If this is my last post, you have another reason why.

Jolification

Although we have only been anchored here in our secret Great Harbor Cay anchorage for two nights, I am already losing track of the days. Yesterday we went for a walk about a mile and a half up the road to find a tiny little beach on the west side of the cay. Played in the sand for a bit, splashed around for a bit, then headed back to the marina where we had tied up Mr. Flowerpot. 

At the marina we checked out the two little stores. Between them, they have a surprising selection of things a sailor might need, and even more things a sailor wants. In particular, ice cream. Moss and I each enjoyed an ice cream bar. Poor Ellen is struggling with a significant sugar addiction and has been cold-turkey on sweets for quite a while now. Anyway, the ice cream was delicious.

We also picked up a big conch shell from a pile of discards at the conch stand. Once we get it cleaned up a bit and knock a hole in the end, we will be able to use it as a musical instrument/signaling device. And as soon as we can get a stick sharpened on both ends we can play Lord of the Flies. Just kidding. The conch horn is typically blown to signal the sunset. Roosters at sunrise, conch at sunset in the Bahamas.

At the marina we met a couple on a big 39’ pilothouse sailboat. They have been staying at the marina since August. There’s so little going on around here, I’ll bet they got lots and lots of reading done. And crossword puzzles. And sudoku. Even knitting. The wife is working on an afghan and, like Penelope, won’t leave until it is finished.

We saw a flyer for a “Jolification and Junkanoo” at 6pm and decided that would be our evening’s entertainment. The event was a party and fundraiser for the local school, also a “get in the Christmas spirit” kind of thing. We had our first conch fritters of the trip (delicious), our first Kalik beer of the trip (delicious), and watched a bunch of guys jam on some big drums (excellent) by a bonfire of pallet wood (plenty warm). In addition to the drums, there was just the right amount of cowbell.

The water is clear, but the bottom is grassy (and surprisingly, the holding seems great). We are in about 6.5’ of water. Saw a manatee this morning.

This morning I went up the mast again to reset the wifi antenna. It stopped working in Bimini, tech support said it probably needed to have its memory reset. Unfortunately, this model has the reset button on the antenna at the top of the mast. No big deal, I got to take some nice aerial photos. And anyway, it has been a couple of weeks since anyone went up the stick, so it was about time,

Ellen decided this morning that because the avocados are getting fully ripe it might be fun for her to experiment with making corn tortillas and guacamole. So that is the activity she’s working on right now. Moss is rotting her brain with video games. 

The view from the top. That’s the marina and its condos. The rumor is that this whole area was developed in the 1960s and 70s by the Rat Pack.

After lunch we will hop in Mr. Flowerpot and, if the seas aren’t too rough outside the cut, check out the settlement of Bullocks Harbour and perhaps see if we can snorkel at a wreck of a small plane that is charted in shallow water nearby.

Cruising tip of the day: The AM dial is where it’s at for local news, weather, and music. The newsreaders are modeling a broadcast style that is very 1972 Walter Cronkite.

Group portrait?

Lizard tracks.

Stretching my back.

Here you go.

Stage Two

Points for even knowing an apostrophe was an option. But…

With hurricane season ending on December 1 and with our landfall in the Berry Islands we have moved into Stage Two of our sailing adventure. Stage One was getting from home to the Bahamas. That stage was a lot of hard work and constant movement. Now that we are across the Gulf Stream and across the Great Bahama Bank and anchored at our first cay (in this case, Great Harbour Cay) our adventure has shifted from covering ground to just sailing, exploring, and chilling.

Earlier this week on our second full day in Bimini we walked the length of the island to check out the fancy Hilton development at the north end of the island. I am still getting used to the fact that cars drive on opposite sides of the road here. Almost got squashed by a little Honda. Anyway the new development is very lovely, perhaps a little (ok, a lot) sterile. And crazy expensive. They wanted $4 for a can of Coke. Funny thing, as we were exploring, one of the security guards stopped us and asked what we were up to (which was looking for a restaurant). He told us the place we were in was private. But instead of kicking us out, he gave us each wrist bands that identified us as property owners so we could go anywhere. That’s some fine security!

After checking out how the Europeans vacation on Bimini, we walked back towards Cupcake and Alice Town and our own type. Stopped for lunch and a cool drink at a hole-in-the-wall place called “Sammy’s.” We chose the place for several reasons. First, it was open. Second, it was right next door to the Ministry of Health. Seemed like a good sign. And it was: the food was delicious (because it was fried) and the place was clean and bright. The owner was friendly and when Ellen commented about the color-scheme in the restaurant, we were all buddies. Moss had her first Goombay Smash. A delicious local soda.

Narrow channel.

Now, two days later, we are in our anchorage for the next…we don’t know how long. It is the tiny and difficult to find Bay of Five Pirates just south of Bullocks Harbour on Great Harbour Cay. From sea, it is nearly impossible to find the 50’ wide entrance channel. Skillful navigation, charts, and common sense got us here, and this spot is remarkably safe. There is protection all around and we are the only boat anchored here. Even better, there’s a little grocery store and ice-cream shop just a bit further in the harbor.

My offshore baby.

Yesterday we decided that rather than get on the water at 2am to make the 80 mile crossing from Bimini to Great Harbour in one long long day, we would just get underway at sunrise and motorsail until dusk. That had us anchoring in the crazy shallow water of the Bank (we were in a 30’ spot) but farther from land than we have been in years. Thirty six miles from the nearest piece of dry land. That’s a really strange place to stay for the night. Fortunately (well, we did choose the days to cross based on weather reports) despite hundreds or thousands of miles of fetch, the seas were pretty sedate. I’m not going to pretend it was a night for building card houses aboard, but it was much calmer than we expected. Everyone was in bed by 8 and then slept more or less straight through the night until just before dawn. Ellen and I wore anti-seasickness patches and felt great for the two days. Moss is like a rock and needed nothing.

Motorboat ride today for the remaining 36 miles and here we are in Paradise. It has been a busy few months and we are really looking forward to embracing a much much slower pace.

Who knew these things grew on trees?

That’s not a pine.

Selfie Ellie.

More Bimini

Well. Today was a day for learning new things. Here are a few of the things we learned:

1. The holding in the anchorage we chose is poor. That’s what it means when the chart says “POOR HOLDING” right where you’ve dropped anchor. 

2. Sometimes shark-infested waters really means shark-infested waters.

This morning Ellen and I took Mr. Flowerpot to shore so Ellen could give me a much-needed haircut. After the haircut we rode back to the mother ship so I could jump in the water to get the hair off me where it had stuck to my sunscreen. I checked on the anchor and found it was not well set and had fouled on a wad of seagrass. I dove down and set it by hand.

The water was so clear and warm, I got Moss to jump in with me. Together we checked out the anchor, looked at some fishies, and swam around. Then a uniformed guy on shore shouted to us that we were not allowed to swim in the harbour. (That’s how they spell it down here, I am not being pretentious).

It’s their country, so we follow their rules. Once we were out of the water he shouted to us that it’s because of sharks, and that he wants us alive. Moss and I showered off and we all went ashore to check out Bimini. (By the way, I know you want to know about the haircut…it looks excellent. Ellen has been my only barber since 1995.)

We stopped by the Bimini Blue Water Marina to chat with some cruisers who arrived yesterday shortly before we did. They told us there had been a shark attack at Bimini Big Game Club this spring when a boy fell off the dock and got bitten by a bull shark. The theory is that all the sport fishermen who come to Bimini Big Game clean their fish and throw the guts in the water for the sharks to eat. This behavior trains the sharks that tasty treats can be had at the docks of the Bimini Big Game Club. The Club is a stone’s throw from our anchorage. Oh boy.

As we were being told this information, we watched about half a dozen 6’ bull sharks cruising around the docks looking for something to eat. 

Happy to be on Bimini.

After our walk to the ocean side of the island where we saw the wreck of an old freighter, the bigger seas that we are glad we did not have to deal with yesterday, and the first of many lovely beaches, we headed back to Cupcake. She was not exactly where we left her – the anchor dragged a few dozen feet. So Ellen hauled Pablo up, cleaned off the sea grass, and we anchored again.

The weather app is predicting north winds in the mid-20 knot range with gusts to 35 tonight. I kept looking at our position and wondered how soon we would drag again. I was not eager to re-anchor  at 1am when the winds are predicted to be most fierce. 

So we agreed it made good sense to bring up the anchor (Ellen is a monster) and pay for a dock for the night. 

It is a very dark night tonight.

As we were heading to the Blue Water Marina (only $1/foot) Moss remembered that the fuel-delivery freighter was tied up about 150’ off the fuel-dock and had a fuel hose spanning the distance. I was disinclined to tangle with that potential catastrophe in the dark with wind building. So we quickly decided to tie up at the Bimini Big Game Club dock ($1.75/foot).

After two unsuccessful attempts (remember, it’s dark and windy and there’s a wicked current running) we got tied up and are now all enjoying the post-adrenaline crash.

“Moss, that’s a pay phone. They were sort of like cell phones…”

Another day, another gazebo.

Cupcake is packed to the gills with groceries.

Bimini

Our trip across the Gulf Stream was utterly uneventful. That’s the way we like it. 

Sunrise over the Gulf Stream.

Got out of bed at 3:45am, Ellen had the anchor up by 4am and off we went. Our tricky route worked out pretty well and we caught the Stream and were moving along at a nice 6.5 knot average. Of course, that was a motorboat ride for us because the wind was too light for real sailing. In any event, we arrived in Bimini at about 1:30pm.

As we made our way from the deep blue waters to the more shallow water, Moss acknowledged that the rave reviews of the water with which I have been regaling her for months are all true.

The water color was a mesmerizing indigo. The seas were super flat: just a long, low swell of around 2’ from the north. We ran the water maker on the ride over. The fact that the water maker was one of the more exciting parts of the passage shows how uneventful it was. There were plenty of flying fish too.

These are the Gulf Stream waters you hear about in song.

At 1,300 feet of depth our depth sounder gave up trying to see how far away the bottom of the ocean was because the water was just too deep, but the charts indicated we were passing over spots that were 2,800 feet deep. Yow! When we got into the heart of the Gulf Stream we saw the water temperature jump from 77F to 81F. Fascinating.

As we left the US coast, we were monitoring, as usual, Coast Guard broadcasts. We could hear alerts from both the Miami Coast Guard base and the Key West Coast Guard base. All along the coast we have heard announcements, alerts, and warnings from the various Coast Guard sectors as we drew near. In Maine we generally hear Rockland, then Boston. It was a thrill to hear Jacksonville when we were still in Georgia. So now we’ve pretty much heard from all the Coasties on the east side of the country.

Sighting land!

Got to Bimini without a need to call any Coast Guard, tied up at the Bimini Blue Water Resort for fuel and then I went to slay the twin bureaucratic dragons of Customs and Immigration. No problem.

Preparing to hoist the Q flag.

As soon as we cleared in we moved Cupcake to a protected spot and dropped anchor in about 7’ of clear water.

We got ourselves that Batelco SIM card for my phone so now we’ve got a Bahamian phone number and a data plan (both are significantly cheaper than what we pay in the US…just like healthcare in the rest of the world.) American exceptionalism indeed.

Because we are anchored close enough to a marina (Bimini Big Game Club) to grab their unsecured guest wifi, we are all connected via the wonderful Internets once again.

Sunday I was asked by a friend to blog about food more (an activity that does not come naturally for me). Monday was not a gourmet kind of an experience. We wore our anti-seasickness patches first thing upon waking up. Then I ate a bowl of instant oatmeal (ugh), then about sixty gallons of water to keep myself hydrated. One Red Bull to keep myself awake. Two Gatorades to keep myself electrolyted. Our passage lunch was peanut butter and Fluff sandwiches (Fluffernutter sandwiches to those in the know). Easy to prepare beforehand, easy to eat underway (in case the passage proved rougher than anticipated). We did not fish because Ellen says there is no room for anything else in the fridge or freezer. That’s a bummer. And we had a crackers and sopressata salami snack. This morning Ellen made pancakes for Moss, I made myself an egg, over-easy, on a bed of fried rice.

Quarantined aboard until the Captain returns with clearance from Customs and Immigration.

Lots of people (landlubbers) seem a little confused about how we sail at night (the few times we do) and how we secure the boat when we stop traveling for the day. When we sail at night, we take turns keeping watch so someone is awake and at the helm on lookout at all times. The boat doesn’t stop just because the sun goes down. 

It can be scary (can’t really see what may be lying in the water ahead of the boat) but we don’t sail in the dark unless we are in deep water or heading to deep water through a well-marked channel.

When we do stop for the night, our preferred way of securing the boat is at anchor. And our preferred time to have the anchor down is before 3pm so we have time to relax and time to move the boat if the anchorage isn’t quite right. Cupcake at a dock doesn’t move and doesn’t point into the weather. Being fixed to a dock means that if rain comes it may blow in from behind or from the side. Because of the way the hatches and portholes are oriented, the boat is best able to stay dry when the bow points into the weather. And on a hot day with the hatches pointing forward, they help funnel a breeze below. Plus, docking is expensive, anchoring is free.

Moorings are another option we try to avoid. Our issue with moorings is that we don’t know the condition of the mooring gear and believe our anchor, chain, and shackles are in better shape than a random mooring. 

We also get questions from people about what it’s like sailing out of sight from land. When we first started sailing, the out of sight thing interested me too. But in practice being unable to see land while we sail is not a big deal. Not even a small deal. Yesterday when Miami (and by extension, the entire USA) dropped over the horizon behind us, nobody on board noticed it until maybe 30 minutes later. There’s no psychological jolt or fear or anything like that. No wistful or nervous looks astern. Maybe the reason it’s no big deal is that we are aware of where the land actually is (just over the horizon) or maybe it is because we know it’s not really the distance from land that should cause concern. It is whether or not the boat is safe and floating.

What was exciting yesterday was making landfall. Sighting the tops of the palm trees on Bimini as they first peeked over the curvature of the earth was a thrill.

(Oh my goodness is the internet slow here! No pictures for a while I think.

Oh yes.

Key Biscayne

This will be the last post from the United States until April or May. Think about that! We have sailed just about the entire east coast in Cupcake. Today we passed south of Miami (by a tiny bit) and are anchored at Key Biscayne for the evening. 

In addition to putting the docking equipment into deep storage, we have retired the ICW guides. Our daily companions for the past three months can take a break. We are done with the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway for five months.

It’s bit of what my mother calls a “zoo parade” down here right now as all the weekend boaters are making their way home. We get to experience their wakes, but are optimistic that things will settle down soon. There is an anchorage here called No Name Harbor but we decided to anchor outside so our departure tomorrow morning for Bimini is simpler. (Also we didn’t realize where No Name was until the anchor was set. Too lazy to haul it and move at this point.)

Tomorrow we intend to have the anchor up and the boat underway by 4am so we can cross, more or less, in daylight. If all goes according to plan we should have the anchor down in a different country by 2pm tomorrow.

The route planning is pretty interesting for tomorrow. Because the Gulf Stream is about 45 miles wide down here, and because it has a current flowing northward at an average of 2 - 3 knots, we can’t just set our course straight across it. If we do that we would expect to find ourselves about 18 miles north of Bimini by the time we got to the Bahamas. If we compensated for the current by sailing south just a little bit into the current all day, we would find ourselves, by the time we got to the east edge of the Stream, pointing essentially south into the current making limited way towards our destination.

The better solution is to head on a deep southerly course right after getting clear of Florida’s shallow water but before we get into the heaviest current, then sail a slightly less deep southerly course the rest of the way. The idea is that by the time we are mostly out of the current and across the Stream, we will be right on target for Bimini but will not have had to crab our way sideways on an increasingly southerly route. It’s called sailing an S-course and we’ve plotted ours based on some prior experience, some courses we found that other sailors on similar boats have sailed, and flat out guesswork and optimism. Despite the course, if it works the way it is supposed to, our track will be much closer to straight across once we get the first 1/3 of the way across.

Hollywood Beach.

This morning we sailed out of Fort Lauderdale, timing our departure to avoid the craziness of cruise ships but catching the 7am opening of the 17th Street drawbridge. We motor sailed in light winds down the coast, passing Hollywood Beach where Moss’ grandparents Pinky and Bob went out on the balcony of their apartment to snap our picture as we passed about half a mile offshore. We took their picture too.

The Miami inlet and general metropolitan area were not nearly as crazy as we thought they might be, and the water was cleaner than expected. We saw two sea turtles on our way down to Key Biscayne. As soon as the anchor hit the sand, I was in the water with my mask, ostensibly to check out the set, but really to start the swimming. The current here was ripping past the boat as the tide went out. Water was murky here but plenty warm and refreshing. We all had a nice swim.

Miami skyline.

Key Biscayne lighthouse. Here’s the thing: lighthouses are picturesque on shore, but from the sea they generally indicate there are dangerous shallows around. Still, lovely.

Early to bed tonight. We think we have an excellent weather window for our crossing tomorrow: light winds from the west (maybe, MAYBE we will be able to fly the spinnaker), seas of 2’ or less, temperatures in the 70s and 80s, no rain in the forecast. We may even try to catch a fish.

Tonight we turn our cell phones off for the next five months. Think about that! If we can get a SIM card or some wifi, we will update things tomorrow with our new Bahamian identities. But if you don’t hear from us and haven’t seen anything about Cupcake on the evening news, don’t panic. That just means we aren’t connected yet.

Cruising tip of the day: Biscayne is a tricky word to spell.

South Florida has lots of trains to transport the containers that come in from the enormous ships that berth in the enormous ports all down the coast.

Phoenix (on the left) with a huge, shiny (classy?) figurehead/hood ornament.

Too sleepy for a selfie.