March 11- 13
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The first stop in Dominican Republic - Isla Beata. As soon as we dropped our anchores late afternoon (the ride here was very rough! we were going about 3.5 - 4 mi/hours at most, with the waves and wind right at the bow, very exhausting) the boat with coast guard officials showed up and got in for checking our documents. Kevin and Rork presented the coast guard with a little "present" - a bottle of rum and he was very very happy about that. Uhh, keep officials happy!
Next morning we went ashore - to visit a little fishermen village and our "friend" coast guard. As we showed up, they put four chairs for us and a coast guard set in the front of us and asked if would like coffee. Of course we would like coffee!
His wife prepared coffee for everybody in the outside "kitchen" and we enjoyed it very much. Then we were asked if we would like a coconut, oh yes, of course we would like a coconut! Some young guy cut 4 coconuts from the nearby palm and cut them open for us. That was delicious. We tried to make a conversation with coast guard and his helpers, but it did not go far - our Spanich is limited and his English is NONE. We thanks for great hospitality and went for a walk around this little village. We bought some fresh fish for our dinner, even though it was not cheap, and we did not have our money changed yet from dollars to pecos. Dinner was great!
Next day we left this cute place for another long overnight passage to Barahona.
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March 14 - 19
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We got heavy rain during our night trip to Barahona, and seas were rough as well. So, we are exhausted at tired again....
We made it to the channel at about 4:30am - it's too early to enter the place we are not sure about and which has cargo ships traffic.
So, we drifted around for couple hours, just waiting for the sun to rise at 7am.
As soon as we anchored our boats, a boat with officials, coast guards, showed up first at Rork's and then our place. They checked documents and inside of the boat, and made Kevin to put his dinghy down. In an hour we got checked in and were ready to explore this town.
It's a relatively big industrial city - with cargo ships transporting sugar canes and something else, lyminar mines and some other industries. People here are NOT begging for anything, this is such a nice change! Seems everybody here is happy and doing fine, even though it's dirty on the streets - the trash is everywhere! Dominicans really love music - merenge, salsa, regaton. You can hear this music in every corner of city you go. We got new cim cards for the phones, some internet time, went to the supermercado and market, walked a lot in the town. We got a local guy Fernando to guide us around the town and since he speaks very well English, he could help us with translation and actually, teach us Spanish a bit. Kevin and Rork are slowly getting up to speed with Spanish, yea, that is helpful.
On the March 15th our friends "Island Perl", Rork and Sherry, left at night to Boca Chica where they have to meet their visitors and spent some time with Sherry's oldest child. It was so sad to separate! We had such a great and fun time together, helped each other, did all our trip planning together, but it's time for separation besides we have plans to sail down south anyway.
We said our "good byes" and we hope to sail together again maybe next year, will see....
On the next morning we had to be on the shore at 8:30am for our car trip to the Lago Enriquillo (a huge lake) with one of the coast guards and a friend of our guide Fernando. The trip was long, about 6 hours around the lake, but we have seen so much! The dominical nature, other cities, villages, parks and just how people live. We ate at the little places - just fried everything and drunk a lot of beer, including our driver-coast guard Ivan. We would stop about every hour at some bar on the way for a huge bottle of Presidente beer to share for three. And... we did not have seat belts on the back seats, and... everybody drives here crazy, and.. we saw one semi overturned in the ditch (how much beer he had while he was driving?????). But we made it safe back to our boat afternoon.
The trip was nice, but we did not see any crocodiles in the Lago Enriquillo, just saw a lot of uaguanas, very fat once.
We hand out couple more days in Barahona, with our new friend Fernando (who speaks English) and custom guys. Most of the days we spent in the bar on the corner across Customs, this bar belongs to one of the customs guy's wife. So, we met there all their family, talked, drun rum, practiced our limited Spanish with locals. We got new friends - two boats from Germany, and I had to practice my limited German finally. And finally on Wed.19th we got our "dispachio" in the morning and all our new local friends came over at 7am to the shore to say last "good byes" to us.
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March 19 - 24
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And we are off again in the seas, sailing to a new stop - Las Salinas. This is a nice clean little town of fishermen and nearby port workers. This place is much more off than Barahona - there are a lot nice big houses in the town, seems as the weekend spot for richer people from the big cities.
We anchored near our German friends we met at Barahona. It was nice reunion, and guys were very glad to see us. We met one italian boat with polish lady Hanna as a crew member, also a couple from England. Most of the days we were spending at the Hotel Salinas open patio cafe, drinking beer, coffee (nice!) and talking with all sailors cruisers, exchanging infromation. Yea, this is totally a new group of the cruisers - first of all, there are no any US sailors anymore, but mostly people from Germany and Belgium.
We got a new jock now when coming to talk with our new sailor friends - "what language are we speaking today?" Definitelly, English is in minority here, who would think so? But no matter which country and nationality are cruisers, everybody is very nice and friendly and helps with anything they can if you need to. It's amazing "brotherhood"!
We took a local bus to the nearby city Bani - very nice and very clean city. Ate there in the cafeteria with the local workers and I was afraid to get some bacteria, but seems worked out well. We still did not find a place where to buy coffee beans, weird, because they grow coffee here.
Three nights in the row we are not sleeping - Las Salinas town seems is having some kind of celebration this weekend. And, on the temproraly built stage in town they start playing latino music every night from 9pm till at least 2am. And, it friking LOUD!!!! Very LOUD. I love latino music, but not that loud and not in such quantaties, and we already learned all the songs they are playing all over and over again. I hope somebody is actually dancing all night, at least it would not be in vain. We never made it there to the party. We are still gringos and even locals are tolerating us, not sure we would not get in trouble when they are under alhocol or other influence. While I am working on the streets I get a lot of not healthy attention, I am rubio now (sun effect on my hair) and there no other blonds around. Kevin said we need to buy me more baggy cloths to cover me up, but it's soo hot here!
All native English people left from this place and now we "officially" joined the German club! All the cruisers are speaking German, but they still like us and it's fun to talk with new people (luckily they all speak at least some English).
march 26,
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Today we went into Santo Domingo. Spent most of our time walking the streets of the old town. It seems to be safe, at least during the day. The nights are supposed to be kinda rough. We won't go out at those times. We have to walk over a floating bridge to the city. The water in the marina is more poluted than we have ever seen. But that doesn't stop the locals from fishing in it. We decided to not eat any fresh fish while we are here. You would not believe how much trash is in the water. It is so bad, the marina we are at actually put up a blocker so the trash will not come in. All that did was trap the trash inside and trap some outside. There are no other cruising boats here, just us. There is one boat from Pensacola, FL, but it looks like it's been here a while. The water in the bathrooms does not work. So showers will be taken on the boat. We need more fresh water. This is going to be challenging also. Hopefully we can take a taxi to the store and get some. The city is kinda dirty, not as dirty as the water, but still a little trashy. The tourist place is nice. but once you venture off those streets, things go downhill. We managed to see a couple museums. One was Don Diego, Christopher Columbus' son. His palace is right on the bay and can be seen from our boat. We can actually see the boat from the palace, but our cameras' batteries were dead. We also found the La Hispanola School. This is were we signed up to take Spanish lessons. Our classes start in the morning at 8:30. We had to take a test so they could judge our levels. So...now we go to class for four hours per day every day util Friday. Then we might get the weekend off and we can go back on Monday if we like. It really depends on how long we can handle this marina. The marina is a little rough. So far so well, nothing has been stolen, but it can happen at any time. Maybe after class tomorrow we will go see Christopher Columbus's park and tower they built for him.
Lots of walking around and practicing our spanish with people as we try to order and ask venders for things. It is challenging, but we are getting better. Soon we will be able to understand what they are saying back to us. Right now, it is hard to understand. Lots of tourists in this area, not where the marina is, but across the bay. There was a cruise ship here yesterday, but he left sometime last night. It was not a beautiful cruise ship, it was a cruise ship that is outdated and now has a Panama home port. It needed a paint job. Our boat will need a paint job too after we leave this place. I can only imagine what the bottom will look like.
Tomorrow will be a busy day but should be fun.
March 29,
We walked and we walked and we walked. Spent the day walking and eatting and dropped off our clothes at the lavandaria. The clothes should be ready on monday after 2pm. Today we walked along the shoreline passed the hotels and casinos. Then we went up one block and walked back. Passed some car lots and many homes. After we got back to El Conde, we started walking agin in the same direction, this time to the Mercado Nacional. Along the way we found a huge park with lots of security and places for children to play. They also had gym equipment outside. Marina wanted to work out, but decided not to. After leaving the tourist section, el conde, the neighborhoods seeemed a little cleaner, but the crime, we were told, was just as bad. Again someone told marina to remove her necklace. (when we go back to the boat, we took the necklace off) The area we made it to was supposed to be the restaurant area, but we did not see too many restaurants. The next area was the shopping district, but it was getting late, so we went to the grocery store. The grocery store is huge and also has other stores on the other floors. The grocery store occupied the entire second floor and looked much like a Whole Foods of type. Not quite as much in selection as whole foods, but still had everything one would want. We bought some items and 20 liters of water, then took the cab home. We also stopped and ate a meditaranian restaurant. It was nice, but a little expensive at $72. After the Grocery store we took a cab back to the boat and unloaded our groceries on to the boat. Poured th water into the boat and then, shortly there after, Marina screamed. We found a stowaway. It was a rather large cockroach in the closet. Not quite sure why he was in the closet, but we managed to kill him. The theory is, this marina has lots of trash laying around and probably made his way onto the boat either via a rope tied to the dock, or on the grocery bags when we set them on the ground to load them on the boat. Maybe on the water jugs? We really want to believe this was the only one and we have never seen one since or after. So far so well, but we are watching. When we leave here, we thing these types of things will stop. Very certain this place is part of the problem. It isjust dirty. Spent the night on the boat, we did not go to the music playing near Don Diego's house, we were too tired from walking all day. Tomorrow we will go to the Faro de Colon.
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April 5-10
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Sailed to Boca Chica - it's nice and very cute Marina here. Not too expencive either. It has restrooms, showers, laundry, a little nice restraurant - everything you need to take a break from the dirty stay in Santo Domingo!
We sailed with Estee - our new friend from the Language School in Santo Domingo, she is Dutch from Amsterdam, and very young.
Unfortunately, the sail from Santo Domingo to Boca Chica was not pleasant and Estee got a bit seasick on the way here. But we made it.
She spent one night with us on the board and we celebrated Marina's 48th birthday together next day, it was nice to have somebody other than Kevin say "Happy Birthday" ;-)
We met with our old friends - Journey (Monica and Johnatan) and Fidelis (Eric and Jinn), had a dinner with you and hand out around in the Boca Chica little beach town.
Our neighbores in marina were two Dutch brothers (Ron and Ben) on the amazing weird huge boat - originally made as "mine sweeper", but rebuilt later as a civil ship withtout guns. We became very good friends with them and spent fun and full of laugh "happy hour" nights on their boat. It was so sad to separate with them,because it's not so easy to find people you click right away while you are cruising.
But, oh well, we have to sail to Puerto Rico and hope to see our new friends sometime somewhere again...
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April 12 ...
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We made it to Puerto Rico!!! It took us almost 40 exhausting hours to sail to Ponce (the port on the south of the island) and cross dangerous Mona passage - the deepest part of Atlantic Ocean. The ride was VERY rough, especially on entering the channel to Ponce. But we survived two sleepless nights and days with just couple problems - this time kind of serious problems: engine overheated and we ran over a huge crab pot! That was terrifying! But our "Lucky 7" survived both and continue working as a tank ;-). We spent absolutely amazing time in Boca Chica - the last stop in Dominican Republic. It was my birthday and we celebrated it with a lot of new and old friends. Our Holland young friend, Estee, sailed with us from Santo Domingo and we met two wonderful and very funny brothers from Holland and spent very very funny night on their one of the kind boat. It's 1960 built in Amsterdam mine finder rebuilt into cruising boat, huge! Now away from US cruisers we meet a lot of people from different countries - so much fun! And... I am so glad that I am not the only one now speaking English with heavy accent ;-)
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April 13...
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Kevin fixed the prop problem - we hit the crab pot on the way, but we discovered another problem - little amount of disel in the oil pan in the engine. We took all of our injectors to the disel shop in Ponce - to check if they are licking, and sure enough the mechanic found 4 licking injectors in our collection, luckily, he is going to fix them before we move on. But the suspicion is that the main problem is in the injection pump not the injectors. On Friday, 04/18 Keving spent some "cozy" time with our iron horse and we decided not to get the pump out but just change injectors and see if our "disel in oil" problem will disappear...will see.
Kevin found disent dentist in Ponce to finally make a crown for his implant. Too bad we don't have insurance and have to pay full cost ~ $1000. Oh well, he needs the tooth and we will get it!
Puerto Rico is a huge island and the public transportation realy sucks here. So, we rented a car to drive around and check places.
The best attraction so far is the long drive in the mountains - it's amazing sceenery on the oceans (both sides) and the drive itslef in the jungle, especially at night! It's creepy. Amazing to see little settlements in the mountains - the houses on the very tall sticks nobody knows how they were built, and the way puerto ricans drive here - most of the cars don't turn on the head lights, and it's very hard to see them from the sharp corners on the turns, the blood is freezing on such turns. Visited Salinas - the gastronomy place in Puerto Rico, Arecibo - not much there, but it's Juan's birth town.
On our trips we saw some bizarre things: a lot of young guys are riding the horses without any sadle or padding, these animals are so miniature, that some of riders have thier feet almost on the ground; then they park their horses near houses (do they have garages for them too?) and wash them using the yard hose - in the way we washed our cars in Austin - that is just very funny!
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label United States. Show all posts
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Friday, March 21, 2014
More Bahamas and onto DR
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Feb.2
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The best part of staying at Warderick Exuma Park is that we have "happy hour" every night. Since cruisers don't have a perseption of the
weekdays, every day could be a Friday - and consequentially, it means "Happy Hour"! We usually start at 5pm and everybody leaves like by
the order around 7pm, when it's already really dark around and we nobody wants complications on the water in the dark.
These happy hours are great for exchanging information on where and what to explore further, also, you actually make friends and try to
keep up with them while traveling your own route (yes, we meet with Southern Belle on almost each island! independently of difference of ours
or theirs plans). At the last happy hour we learned that we absolutelly HAVE to stop at Cambrige Cays for snorkling in the caves and see
Reachel's Baths. So... no civilization for another couple days then..., more vegetarian dinners, meanning getting fatter for Marina. The
good news is we can finally fish again outside of the park boundaries.
Today the wind is no better, of course, it's South Eeast again, exactly the direction we are traveling. But Kevin decides to go anyway
because I had meltdown today morning feeling trapped in one place for long time. The trip was not pleasant at all, even motorsailing was
tough and we barelly were making 4nm/h. We had to change our plans for the anchorage, because landing near Cambrigde Cays was impossible,
or dangerous with our lack of experience, due to the very shallow approach to the anchoring spot.
So, first we made it to the private Bell Island with huge three villas and groomed beach and waited there for the slack time before low tide.
We decided to land at the Compass Cay, the best technical choice for us in this cituation. Crossing the channel took some time and a lot
of effort from out "iron horse" in the engine room! But we safely anchored near the Compas Cay Marina in very beautiful and quite little bay.
We managed to the very expensive ($2.50 a foot) Marina, paid $10 per person to get out on the shore (!!!), walked around a bit, used the
restroom with AC working (it's been too long without AC!!!!), tried to shop at the Marina's store - $5 for a bottle of beer, no rum,
the lettuce in their refrigerator was NOT for sale - we settled on the beer. At 6:30 pm Marina has a potluck, of course, we attended (since
we don't have much left in our food storage, we made popcorn) this event hopping to meet more new people. That was big disappointment!
Well, we should expected that by the look at the megayachts and huge motorboats parked here. From all the people at the event (around 20 people)
only one lady was happy to talk with us, she was German and I tried to use German as much as I can (remember), but luckily she could speak
some English too. She was a grandma for the kids of the Marina's manager, leaving in one of the villas on the island and visiting this island
every year.
But, the food at party was great! Grilled lobsters, chicken, fried fish... Yam...
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Feb.3
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Big plans for today - in the morning went for a hike around the island to see Rachel's Baths. It was very nice about 3 hours event, we felt
so happy to finally walk again, even in sand and on the reef hills. On the way we saw some ruins - seems that originally it was a
big house which might be destroyed by hurricane recently. Interesting, that one of the workers at the marina build there open air gym!
With the punching bag, weights, bench press, etc. Cool!
We decided to have our lunch at the marina's little shop - and, oh boy, $15 for a hamburger... I had a bottle of Guiness and powerbar for
lunch.
Afternoon at the low tide we managed to snorkle in the reef's caves Rocky Dundas - that was amazing site with stalctites and stalgmites
in the cave. We could not explore this site at the best because seas were not very calm, but still we got a good feel of this cave.
Talked with our friends (Island Perl) on VHF, they are in Black Point, and we really want to see them, but there are couple more stops we
want to make before.
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Feb.4-6
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Waiting for the high tide to leave Compass Cays and sail (or motor) to Big Major Cay - the island of the swimming pigs!
After motorsailing and anchoring among hundreds boats we dinghy to the nearby Stainley Cay. We finally filled up gas for the dinghy,
got some disel in jerry can, got 20 gallons of water and bought phone minutes at the local BTC office. Funny, the BTC (bahamian phone
service) office works 2-4 pm, the grocery stores work whoknowswhat hours but definitelly 2-4. Between three grocery stores on the island we got some fresh (well, it's relatively fresh) produce, some chicken, yogurt, bread and rum. Wow, we can have great dinners with drinks! In the Isles General store Kevin bought fishing spear with the sling to fish for lobsters and fish. Good luck, Kevin!
On the way back to our anchorage, we stopped by at the marina's bar to get some food (not prepaired by me finally!), drinks and meet some people. We met with a couple of about our age from North Carolina who worked at IBM too, and at the same location where we worked
with Kevin in RTP. Wow, such a coincidence. The difference is only that we travel by a sailboat, but they use faster means for that - little airplane which they fixed themselves. It was very nice meeting surprise.
Next day in the morining we made it to the island with swimming pigs and that was so funny and exciding! These pigs are huge, about 500 lbs and they practically attack the dinghy to get some food. So far, this island is Marina's favorite. Well, after seeing pigs we did not get much more excitment because we decided to spend some time on our "internet" work - updating a blog, answering emails, calling
by skype. Kevin finally got online chat help for the company which manages our voice mail (since our USA service is not working here anymore), but at the most important point the power went off on the whole island, bummer again! It's about two weeks and we still
cannot use our data minutes on our phone because pin numbers are not valid...Not sure how people claim that they can work remotelly on
the islands, we would say - this is a myth!
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Feb.6-8
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Made it to the Little Farmer's Cay - the home of the February First Friday party and C-Type sail races. Our friends, Rork and Sherry, made it here too, that was very nice reunion after we separated in Nassau. We had very exciting and fun time at this place, and Kevin and Rork got great education on spearfishing. Thanks to the very nice young local guy who took us on a spearfishing adventure on the nearby corral reefs. He got for us six huge lobsters and caught a huge fish for himself. Rock was so lucky to get another lobster too!
The girsl, Sherry and I, had to stay most of the time on the dinghy and drive when it driffed too far from the fishing place, and still
we were able to snorkle a bit. Afternoon, we had to go to the Ocean Cabin Bar - the place of entertainment. We both were judges and participants for the party games at this bar - wet T-shirt contest, guys buns and legs contest, eggtoss and plunger game - that was too
much fun!
We had an amazing lobster dinner at our boat that night! Next morning we went fishing ourselves, without our guide, and did not have much luck - Rork caught only one lobster and Kevin none (however, he practiced with his spear to kill lionfish).
Afternoon the whole island was full of the visitors from the other islands for the C-Type sailing race - there were couple hundred people on the island with only 60 original citizens.
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Feb.9-10
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Time to move again - at some point we have to make it to the civilization, do laundry, buy normal food and, most important, get the cash. Not many places in past two weeks accepting credit cards, and we did not expected that.
Left Farmer's Cay and landed at Lee Stocking Cay, near the former Caribbean Marine Research Center - this is our midstop before Georgetown. As soon as we parked, Rork and Kevin were eager to go to spearfishing again. It's a beatiful place here with some good reef.
As soon as we stopped at the best reef for fishing, Kevin spotted a huge shark cruising near him, so, in panic guys got back on the dinghy and decided not to go back in the water again. Our mistake - we went in the high tide time when sharks are coming from Exumas Sound to Exumas Banks throug the cuts to get some food. We did not want to become their dinner, and, we did not catch anything for dinner. Macaroni and lentils again...
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Feb.11..13
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We are in the oasis of civilization - Emerald Bay Marina. It's very nice marina, only $1 per foot a day. And, there is an amazing state of the a;om, great spacious restrooms and showers, huge TV in the community room at the marina with great expensive
furniture where we have happy hours almost every day. It's a DREAM spot to "lick our wounds".
Every day I was doing lundry - washed almost everything from our boat, including pillows and blankets. It's absolutelly amazing feeling
to sleep in the clean bed and in dry clean cloths. We found very cheap liqure store in walking distance and couple grocery stores.
Chicken for dinner, finally!
Nearby resort has nice and busy restaurant (not counting tonns of the bugs eating you while you eat - use "Get Off!") where we had couple dinners with our friends from "Island Perl" and "Joerney". Kevin even had chance to start limbo game on the beach while locals
were playing drums (of course, he won!). We tried to hunt for lobsters and fish, but not successfully.. however, we found a bunch of huge coconuts in the nearby golf course and Kevin extracted coconut water to mix with rum.
But the weather is getting better, so we can move further south to Georgetown. So sad to leave this clean place...
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Feb.14..22
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We actually sailed (!) all the way to Georgetown, that was very pleasant trip. By the description from other cruisers Georgetown seems to be a city well compaired to Madrid or Paris! Will see...
Today is Valentine's Day and we are going to famous Chat and Chill to.. well, chat and chill with other cruisers, and dance! they had valentine dance at the bar. It was fun! We met with crew, Will and Stephany, of one of the megayaht parked at the marina. Next day we met the bar and Kevin made sure to be invited to their boat, while the owners were not there. It was very nice excursion: the machine room is very impressive, as a jacusi on the deck! We went dance after in the nearby bar and ... Kevin started Limbo game again! To his
disappointment he did not win this time, but he got very famous on the island - next days people on the street greated him as a "Limbo guy". Not everything just a play around here: we had to provision our boat, get cash from the bank's ATM ($100 in a time and $3 for service), purchase more phone minutes from BTC, connect to internet and do some work and checking on things, skyping, etc. Well... internet is really bad around here and it takes very strong nerves and great patience to do anything online.
While staying in this capital of Exumas (there are maybe about 100 people leaving here, looks more like a village with one beatup road and couple old cars, the only concreate buildings belong to two banks and BTC phone office) Kevin was able to earn $50 from the boat he
offered to change zincs on the prop via free diving and holding breath for some time under the water and. We spent this money on the same day in the nearby bar... The other day Kevin's ability to play pool paid off well - he got a second place in the pool tournament with the prize $15, which payed for our drinks, but the drive home in the dinghy at night was absolutelly horrable!
We play voleyball at the Voleyball beach, take long walks on the island, talk with other cruisers who is going further south to Caribbeans, swim, drink and .. wait for two packages to arrive (supposed to show up couple days ago, but hey, it's island time....)
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Feb.23
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Sad day for us today! All our friends are left in the morning to the next islands - Conseption and Rum Cays, but we have to stay in Georgetown because we did not get our packages sent DHL OVERNIGHT(!) to the shipping spot at the store Top2Bottom. Well, the overnight grown into a week now, and it's a possibility to get them maybe (please please please) tomorrow, on Monday.
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Feb.24 -27
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We got our packages on the Monday morning, two of them! Rushing to Georgetown to get more free water, gas and some other provision.
In two hours we were on the road, finally leaving this city (as we call it Sun City, considering the avarage age of cruisers here is 67).
Running with full sails and hard working engine with 7nm/hour to make it to the next stop - Long Island north tip - at the day light.
It's very dangerous to anchore later than 4 pm because you cannot see any corral heads and reefs in your parking spot. And, every island is just inpested with those corral heads - meanning, one wrong move and you get either stack in corrals or get a hole in the hull of your boat.
Next day in early morning we sail further, to the middle of the Long Island - it's 40 hours of motorsail. But the good news is that we finally were able to catch up with our "boddy boats" - Island Perl and Journey. We parked at the marina (expensive, $2 a foot), but needed to top up on fuel and water before southern islands which don't have much provision to offer.
It was a great day - Kevin caught a HUGE mahi-mahi!!! It will feed us and our friends for at least couplde weeks. We had 5 mahi-mahi on the hook, but were able to get out only one in the cockpit. The las fish broke the line and took our "lucky" bate, which we got as a present many years ago from the caribbean poor fisherman. Oh well, we hope we could find another lucky one soon.
At night we had amazing dinner with the fresh grilled fish and decided to more south tomorrow - need to use a great window of good weather.
Approaching the next island - Crooked Island - we hit the corral head! Oh boy, we hope that corral did not damage our hull.
This is was the best example of "not to do" - anchoring at the time when sun is not over your head!
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Feb. 27
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Leaving at 5:40 am, before even light, so we can make it earlier to the next stop - Acklins Island - we don't want to hit the corral head anymore!
We made it safe to the anchorage this time, did not hit any corral reefs, but it took us four attempts to securely anchore the boat!
Each time our anchore would hit just a corral or a rock on the bottom, instead of sand. We were parking more than one hour!
Kevin had to dive to check the anchore and surraundings and just to be sure, we had to set our second anchore. That was some work!
Thanks our friends, they got their dinghy down to help us.
It's a beatiful anchorage, such a serenity! Only two of our boats in the whole bay and water is amazingly clear and calm. We got very
good night sleep!
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Feb. 28- March 2
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The weather is dictating us to move ahead to our last island in Bahamas - Great Inguana. And, it's a bit far, so we have to go overnight. Leaving at 3pm our beatiful anchorage in Acklins Island, so we can make it before the weather gets really nasty - by early morning in Great Inguana.
The first part of the trip, from 3pm to about 6am next day, was not so bad. We got rained, and some squals with lightning passed us without any harm. We had to double reef the main because in the night (no moon!) it was hard to predict where we get gails. All the trip we had to motorsail because wind was not enough to get us moving no sails only.
The last part of the trip, near the Mattew Town in Great Inguana, we got some really big following seas, it was a bit scarry. I even had to wake up Kevin before his watch duty to take the helm. But we made it safe and did not get any water in the boat.
We looked for the safe anchorage for couple hours, because of the northerly winds and this island is not very protected from this type of wind. It was a bit nervebreaking to get through one narrow cut in the corral reefs to get to the anchorage, besides, visibility for navigation between the reefs was very poor since sun just started rising. But we made it save and anchored fine, now we can relax, get morning coffee and breakfas. Oh that feels good!
We stayed at this secluded place for couple days enjoying swimming, diving and catching lobsters. Kevin caught the biggest "walking" lobster we have ever seen! Rork had to help him to carry this huge sea animal to our dinghy. And, of course, we had absolutelly amizing and feeling dinner (and next day lunch) with lobsters.
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March 3 - 5
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These are our last days in Bahamas, we are waiting for favorable weather to sail to Haiti. We moved to the new anchoroge at Mattew Town which is better protected from the easterlies winds. Explored all the town back and force, and yes, we found wifi finally.
It took us the whole day to get diesel and water to provision our boats for the next long run. Poor Kevin and Rork, they had to carry, then drive dinghy multiple times to the boats from the govermental dock at Mattew Town using just 4 jerry cans.
And at 4 pm we are off to the new unkown for us destination - Haiti!
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March 6-7
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At last we are in Haiti! The place which USA goverment is not suggesting to visit at all, and insurances do not cover damage of the boats traveled in Haiti. We were very cautions approaching in the early morning unknown land (the charts don't have good info on the shores of Haiti either). We picked Pointe de la Perla bay for landing, at least just to hang out and sleep after overnight passage.
Closer to that place we were greeted by a bunch of the haitian fishing boats, and one of the fishermen (his name is College) started speaking English with us. We were so greatly surprised and happy, because none of us four speaks any French.
College showed us where we can drop our anchors, said no problem, stay, right at the shore off the beatiful little fishining village.
The scenery of this village is amaizing: situated on the beach, with houses (namely hutts) built right on the beach, behind the beach there are tall mountains of different hights, beatiful blue water. The place is just from the fairy tail, really a pearl.
It seems we were back in time, at least 200 - 300 years back in time. The village doesn't have electricity, no running water (they have a well with rain water which as we understood doesn't have clean drinking water - the villagers boil their water trying to clean it from cholera), and all haitians live like a big family, very close community.
While we were anchoring, the whole population of the village gathered on the beach watching us - including babies, children, grown ups and elderlies. As we learned, they don't have much white visitors by the boats, maybe once in couple months.
Then our new friend College came with his boat to pick us up to take to the shore so we can visit his village. Such a hospitality!
We gave candy to kids and their faces were so happy while putting a treasured pieces of sugar in their mouths - we guessed, they don't have much treats at all. All population is skinny and fit, seems not much food other than fish they get around. There were a lot of goats around, and their milk is sold to the big nearby city - the way they support themselves.
The pastor proudly showed us a community church (which remineded an old hutt), there were old benches for villagers and a set of drums, which pastor plays during their masses. Next we visited their newly rebuilt school and College asked what we can do for church and school, they really wanted us to give them some paint for school. But we don't have any paint on the boat, and if we had, not in the big amounts. So, we donated what we could - some cloths, shoes, paper, pencils, some dry food. Each of our boats donated an old sails for their community fishing boats. We felt bad that we could not give much more to these nice people.
Funny, we were treated as some higher up officials from United Nations, they had placed four chairs on the beach for us to sit and all the villagers stopped all their chores to stay around us and just... looked at us. We even were presented with the last four bottles of President beer, which they kept in only freezer in their village (they have couple little solar panels for it's operation).
Kevin started entertaining children by playing some games - jumping rope and limbo. Everybody were so happy and laughing - that you can understand without any words!
The anchorage was very rocky at night, and we left the next morning to the next Haity stop.
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March 8-10
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We had very long overnight passage, 32 hours long and arrived at La Vache at around 3:30 pm. We were very exhausted when we entered this bay. The anchorage is beautifully situated in just some hundred feet from the village on the beach. There are a lot of selfmade sailing boats (without ANY motors) sailing in the bay around us and some are dragged on the shore.
At the moment we arrived, haitian boys of ages 6 to 16 attacked us on their selfmade "dugout" canues, or on the worn out paddle boards. And, of course, everybody is just paddling, no engines! There are already 6 of thoses little floating devices hanging at our boat and we here French from any direction: "Madam, laundry", "buy our bread", "do you need to clean the boat", "trash?","give me something", etc. Ohhh, it's so annoying especially when you try to anchor for already third time! (anchor is not getting set in this bottom for some reason). Then one big boat with an engine hits our boat on the side (the water taxi) with some official guy on board who demands $5 to pay him right now! Oh well, ok, here is $5 and get lost. Ignoring all this caccophony is just impossible and I lose my temper and yell "everybody shut up! get off my boat!". Yes, they all finally shut up, but all the floating devices were still haning out on the sides of our boat.
This anchorage was much better, calmer and we all get good night sleep. Until...at about 5 am one of the neighboring boats started dragging to the shore. Villagers came to help to stop and move this boat to other safer place. It was very nice of them to help without asking anything in the return.
We arranged with local teenage boys purchase and delivery of disel for both boats from the bigger city - Las Cays (5 mi away). We were so glad we did not have to do that ourselves!
Rork put their dinghy down and took us all to the shore. It was so nice to be on the sturdy ground again, finally!
First thing first - we need to find wifi. Surprised we found an "internet cafe" in this primitive farmer/fishermen settlement, considering that this place doesn't have electric power and running water. Funny. The internet place belongs to the young haitian with couple brothers and he has solar pannels to keep his place running.
Very quickly we were disappointed with the speed of internet (very very slow) and went for a walk with our new haitian friends to check around. The life of haitians is very primitive. Most of them have selfmade sailboats for fishing, women are farming, taking care of cows and goats, and childres and houshold. Women don't smile in Haiti! we figured they have very tough life.
The La Vache island is very beatiful and very green. To bad that mangoes are not ripe yet... we tried to visit a nice house where some canadian lives, but he was not home, or just did not want to talk with us... We are back to internet cafe and found our dinner ready on the table (we asked them before if they can feed us). We had a white rice, fried plantains and fried little fish (the whole fish with head and eyes and tail). Food was delicious. After we almost finished, the gate opened and a bunch (about 10 or so) little 7-8 years old girls showed up all dressed up with some kind of pink. It was bizar and very funny. They sat at our table and we offered them to eat whatever we did not finish at the table... well, they ate the rest of the dinner as well they cleaned our plates too! Poor girls, seems they don't have much food to eat very often. Then Kevin, of course, started to game - call out your name holding the hands.. that was hillarious because none of girls understood anything said in English.
It's time to get to the boats and to our surprise we could not find our dinghy parked on the beach (wherever we left it) and we started to worry that Rork's dinghy was stollen! In about 20 min it showed up, with Justin (one of our haitian helpers) driving it. We were so frustrated that haitian boys took a dinghy without permission! It was not very plesant accident... At they explained later they used a dinghy to drive one of the boys with injured foot to the hospital. Maybe, or maybe it's not true, but we were glad to have Rork's dinghy back. Next day we left very frustrated this pretty place, we felt that we were cheated when dinghy was used without permission...
So, we are back on the road, and the next step is Dominican Republic.
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March 11- 13
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The first stop in Dominican Republic - Isla Beata. As soon as we dropped our anchores late afternoon (the ride here was very rough! we were going about 3.5 - 4 mi/hours at most, with the waves and wind right at the bow, very exhausting) the boat with coast guard officials showed up and got in for checking our documents. Kevin and Rork presented the coast guard with a little "present" - a bottle of rum and he was very very happy about that. Uhh, keep officials happy!
Next morning we went ashore - to visit a little fishermen village and our "friend" coast guard. As we showed up, they put four chairs for us and a coast guard set in the front of us and asked if would like coffee. Of course we would like coffee!
His wife prepared coffee for everybody in the outside "kitchen" and we enjoyed it very much. Then we were asked if we would like a coconut, oh yes, of course we would like a coconut! Some young guy cut 4 coconuts from the nearby palm and cut them open for us. That was delicious. We tried to make a conversation with coast guard and his helpers, but it did not go far - our Spanich is limited and his English is NONE. We thanks for great hospitality and went for a walk around this little village. We bought some fresh fish for our dinner, even though it was not cheap, and we did not have our money changed yet from dollars to pecos. Dinner was great!
Next day we left this cute place for another long overnight passage to Barahona.
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March 14 - 17
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We got heavy rain during our night trip to Barahona, and seas were rough as well. So, we are exhausted at tired again....
We made it to the channel at about 4:30am - it's too early to enter the place we are not sure about and which has cargo ships traffic.
So, we drifted around for couple hours, just waiting for the sun to rise at 7am.
As soon as we anchored our boats, a boat with officials, coast guards, showed up first at Rork's and then our place. They checked documents and inside of the boat, and made Kevin to put his dinghy down. In an hour we got checked in and were ready to explore this town.
It's a relatively big industrial city - with cargo ships transporting sugar canes and something else, lyminar mines and some other industries. People here are NOT begging for anything, this is such a nice change! Seems everybody here is happy and doing fine, even though it's dirty on the streets - the trash is everywhere! Dominicans really love music - merenge, salsa, regaton. You can hear this music in every corner of city you go. We got new cim cards for the phones, some internet time, went to the supermercado and market, walked a lot in the town. We got a local guy Fernando to guide us around the town and since he speaks very well English, he could help us with translation and actually, teach us Spanish a bit. Kevin and Rork are slowly getting up to speed with Spanish, yea, that is helpful.
On the March 15th our friends "Island Perl", Rork and Sherry, left at night to Boca Chica where they have to meet their visitors and spent some time with Sherry's oldest child. It was so sad to separate! We had such a great and fun time together, helped each other, did all our trip planning together, but it's time for separation besides we have plans to sail down south anyway.
We said our "good byes" and we hope to sail together again maybe next year, will see....
On the next morning we had to be on the shore at 8:30am for our car trip to the Lago Enriquillo (a huge lake) with one of the coast guards and a friend of our guide Fernando. The trip was long, about 6 hours around the lake, but we have seen so much! The dominical nature, other cities, villages, parks and just how people live. We ate at the little places - just fried everything and drunk a lot of beer, including our driver-coast guard Ivan. We would stop about every hour at some bar on the way for a huge bottle of Presidente beer to share for three. And... we did not have seat belts on the back seats, and... everybody drives here crazy, and.. we saw one semi overturned in the ditch (how much beer he had while he was driving?????). But we made it safe back to our boat afternoon.
Feb.2
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The best part of staying at Warderick Exuma Park is that we have "happy hour" every night. Since cruisers don't have a perseption of the
weekdays, every day could be a Friday - and consequentially, it means "Happy Hour"! We usually start at 5pm and everybody leaves like by
the order around 7pm, when it's already really dark around and we nobody wants complications on the water in the dark.
These happy hours are great for exchanging information on where and what to explore further, also, you actually make friends and try to
keep up with them while traveling your own route (yes, we meet with Southern Belle on almost each island! independently of difference of ours
or theirs plans). At the last happy hour we learned that we absolutelly HAVE to stop at Cambrige Cays for snorkling in the caves and see
Reachel's Baths. So... no civilization for another couple days then..., more vegetarian dinners, meanning getting fatter for Marina. The
good news is we can finally fish again outside of the park boundaries.
Today the wind is no better, of course, it's South Eeast again, exactly the direction we are traveling. But Kevin decides to go anyway
because I had meltdown today morning feeling trapped in one place for long time. The trip was not pleasant at all, even motorsailing was
tough and we barelly were making 4nm/h. We had to change our plans for the anchorage, because landing near Cambrigde Cays was impossible,
or dangerous with our lack of experience, due to the very shallow approach to the anchoring spot.
So, first we made it to the private Bell Island with huge three villas and groomed beach and waited there for the slack time before low tide.
We decided to land at the Compass Cay, the best technical choice for us in this cituation. Crossing the channel took some time and a lot
of effort from out "iron horse" in the engine room! But we safely anchored near the Compas Cay Marina in very beautiful and quite little bay.
We managed to the very expensive ($2.50 a foot) Marina, paid $10 per person to get out on the shore (!!!), walked around a bit, used the
restroom with AC working (it's been too long without AC!!!!), tried to shop at the Marina's store - $5 for a bottle of beer, no rum,
the lettuce in their refrigerator was NOT for sale - we settled on the beer. At 6:30 pm Marina has a potluck, of course, we attended (since
we don't have much left in our food storage, we made popcorn) this event hopping to meet more new people. That was big disappointment!
Well, we should expected that by the look at the megayachts and huge motorboats parked here. From all the people at the event (around 20 people)
only one lady was happy to talk with us, she was German and I tried to use German as much as I can (remember), but luckily she could speak
some English too. She was a grandma for the kids of the Marina's manager, leaving in one of the villas on the island and visiting this island
every year.
But, the food at party was great! Grilled lobsters, chicken, fried fish... Yam...
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Feb.3
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Big plans for today - in the morning went for a hike around the island to see Rachel's Baths. It was very nice about 3 hours event, we felt
so happy to finally walk again, even in sand and on the reef hills. On the way we saw some ruins - seems that originally it was a
big house which might be destroyed by hurricane recently. Interesting, that one of the workers at the marina build there open air gym!
With the punching bag, weights, bench press, etc. Cool!
We decided to have our lunch at the marina's little shop - and, oh boy, $15 for a hamburger... I had a bottle of Guiness and powerbar for
lunch.
Afternoon at the low tide we managed to snorkle in the reef's caves Rocky Dundas - that was amazing site with stalctites and stalgmites
in the cave. We could not explore this site at the best because seas were not very calm, but still we got a good feel of this cave.
Talked with our friends (Island Perl) on VHF, they are in Black Point, and we really want to see them, but there are couple more stops we
want to make before.
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Feb.4-6
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Waiting for the high tide to leave Compass Cays and sail (or motor) to Big Major Cay - the island of the swimming pigs!
After motorsailing and anchoring among hundreds boats we dinghy to the nearby Stainley Cay. We finally filled up gas for the dinghy,
got some disel in jerry can, got 20 gallons of water and bought phone minutes at the local BTC office. Funny, the BTC (bahamian phone
service) office works 2-4 pm, the grocery stores work whoknowswhat hours but definitelly 2-4. Between three grocery stores on the island we got some fresh (well, it's relatively fresh) produce, some chicken, yogurt, bread and rum. Wow, we can have great dinners with drinks! In the Isles General store Kevin bought fishing spear with the sling to fish for lobsters and fish. Good luck, Kevin!
On the way back to our anchorage, we stopped by at the marina's bar to get some food (not prepaired by me finally!), drinks and meet some people. We met with a couple of about our age from North Carolina who worked at IBM too, and at the same location where we worked
with Kevin in RTP. Wow, such a coincidence. The difference is only that we travel by a sailboat, but they use faster means for that - little airplane which they fixed themselves. It was very nice meeting surprise.
Next day in the morining we made it to the island with swimming pigs and that was so funny and exciding! These pigs are huge, about 500 lbs and they practically attack the dinghy to get some food. So far, this island is Marina's favorite. Well, after seeing pigs we did not get much more excitment because we decided to spend some time on our "internet" work - updating a blog, answering emails, calling
by skype. Kevin finally got online chat help for the company which manages our voice mail (since our USA service is not working here anymore), but at the most important point the power went off on the whole island, bummer again! It's about two weeks and we still
cannot use our data minutes on our phone because pin numbers are not valid...Not sure how people claim that they can work remotelly on
the islands, we would say - this is a myth!
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Feb.6-8
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Made it to the Little Farmer's Cay - the home of the February First Friday party and C-Type sail races. Our friends, Rork and Sherry, made it here too, that was very nice reunion after we separated in Nassau. We had very exciting and fun time at this place, and Kevin and Rork got great education on spearfishing. Thanks to the very nice young local guy who took us on a spearfishing adventure on the nearby corral reefs. He got for us six huge lobsters and caught a huge fish for himself. Rock was so lucky to get another lobster too!
The girsl, Sherry and I, had to stay most of the time on the dinghy and drive when it driffed too far from the fishing place, and still
we were able to snorkle a bit. Afternoon, we had to go to the Ocean Cabin Bar - the place of entertainment. We both were judges and participants for the party games at this bar - wet T-shirt contest, guys buns and legs contest, eggtoss and plunger game - that was too
much fun!
We had an amazing lobster dinner at our boat that night! Next morning we went fishing ourselves, without our guide, and did not have much luck - Rork caught only one lobster and Kevin none (however, he practiced with his spear to kill lionfish).
Afternoon the whole island was full of the visitors from the other islands for the C-Type sailing race - there were couple hundred people on the island with only 60 original citizens.
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Feb.9-10
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Time to move again - at some point we have to make it to the civilization, do laundry, buy normal food and, most important, get the cash. Not many places in past two weeks accepting credit cards, and we did not expected that.
Left Farmer's Cay and landed at Lee Stocking Cay, near the former Caribbean Marine Research Center - this is our midstop before Georgetown. As soon as we parked, Rork and Kevin were eager to go to spearfishing again. It's a beatiful place here with some good reef.
As soon as we stopped at the best reef for fishing, Kevin spotted a huge shark cruising near him, so, in panic guys got back on the dinghy and decided not to go back in the water again. Our mistake - we went in the high tide time when sharks are coming from Exumas Sound to Exumas Banks throug the cuts to get some food. We did not want to become their dinner, and, we did not catch anything for dinner. Macaroni and lentils again...
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Feb.11..13
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We are in the oasis of civilization - Emerald Bay Marina. It's very nice marina, only $1 per foot a day. And, there is an amazing state of the a;om, great spacious restrooms and showers, huge TV in the community room at the marina with great expensive
furniture where we have happy hours almost every day. It's a DREAM spot to "lick our wounds".
Every day I was doing lundry - washed almost everything from our boat, including pillows and blankets. It's absolutelly amazing feeling
to sleep in the clean bed and in dry clean cloths. We found very cheap liqure store in walking distance and couple grocery stores.
Chicken for dinner, finally!
Nearby resort has nice and busy restaurant (not counting tonns of the bugs eating you while you eat - use "Get Off!") where we had couple dinners with our friends from "Island Perl" and "Joerney". Kevin even had chance to start limbo game on the beach while locals
were playing drums (of course, he won!). We tried to hunt for lobsters and fish, but not successfully.. however, we found a bunch of huge coconuts in the nearby golf course and Kevin extracted coconut water to mix with rum.
But the weather is getting better, so we can move further south to Georgetown. So sad to leave this clean place...
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Feb.14..22
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We actually sailed (!) all the way to Georgetown, that was very pleasant trip. By the description from other cruisers Georgetown seems to be a city well compaired to Madrid or Paris! Will see...
Today is Valentine's Day and we are going to famous Chat and Chill to.. well, chat and chill with other cruisers, and dance! they had valentine dance at the bar. It was fun! We met with crew, Will and Stephany, of one of the megayaht parked at the marina. Next day we met the bar and Kevin made sure to be invited to their boat, while the owners were not there. It was very nice excursion: the machine room is very impressive, as a jacusi on the deck! We went dance after in the nearby bar and ... Kevin started Limbo game again! To his
disappointment he did not win this time, but he got very famous on the island - next days people on the street greated him as a "Limbo guy". Not everything just a play around here: we had to provision our boat, get cash from the bank's ATM ($100 in a time and $3 for service), purchase more phone minutes from BTC, connect to internet and do some work and checking on things, skyping, etc. Well... internet is really bad around here and it takes very strong nerves and great patience to do anything online.
While staying in this capital of Exumas (there are maybe about 100 people leaving here, looks more like a village with one beatup road and couple old cars, the only concreate buildings belong to two banks and BTC phone office) Kevin was able to earn $50 from the boat he
offered to change zincs on the prop via free diving and holding breath for some time under the water and. We spent this money on the same day in the nearby bar... The other day Kevin's ability to play pool paid off well - he got a second place in the pool tournament with the prize $15, which payed for our drinks, but the drive home in the dinghy at night was absolutelly horrable!
We play voleyball at the Voleyball beach, take long walks on the island, talk with other cruisers who is going further south to Caribbeans, swim, drink and .. wait for two packages to arrive (supposed to show up couple days ago, but hey, it's island time....)
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Feb.23
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Sad day for us today! All our friends are left in the morning to the next islands - Conseption and Rum Cays, but we have to stay in Georgetown because we did not get our packages sent DHL OVERNIGHT(!) to the shipping spot at the store Top2Bottom. Well, the overnight grown into a week now, and it's a possibility to get them maybe (please please please) tomorrow, on Monday.
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Feb.24 -27
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We got our packages on the Monday morning, two of them! Rushing to Georgetown to get more free water, gas and some other provision.
In two hours we were on the road, finally leaving this city (as we call it Sun City, considering the avarage age of cruisers here is 67).
Running with full sails and hard working engine with 7nm/hour to make it to the next stop - Long Island north tip - at the day light.
It's very dangerous to anchore later than 4 pm because you cannot see any corral heads and reefs in your parking spot. And, every island is just inpested with those corral heads - meanning, one wrong move and you get either stack in corrals or get a hole in the hull of your boat.
Next day in early morning we sail further, to the middle of the Long Island - it's 40 hours of motorsail. But the good news is that we finally were able to catch up with our "boddy boats" - Island Perl and Journey. We parked at the marina (expensive, $2 a foot), but needed to top up on fuel and water before southern islands which don't have much provision to offer.
It was a great day - Kevin caught a HUGE mahi-mahi!!! It will feed us and our friends for at least couplde weeks. We had 5 mahi-mahi on the hook, but were able to get out only one in the cockpit. The las fish broke the line and took our "lucky" bate, which we got as a present many years ago from the caribbean poor fisherman. Oh well, we hope we could find another lucky one soon.
At night we had amazing dinner with the fresh grilled fish and decided to more south tomorrow - need to use a great window of good weather.
Approaching the next island - Crooked Island - we hit the corral head! Oh boy, we hope that corral did not damage our hull.
This is was the best example of "not to do" - anchoring at the time when sun is not over your head!
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Feb. 27
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Leaving at 5:40 am, before even light, so we can make it earlier to the next stop - Acklins Island - we don't want to hit the corral head anymore!
We made it safe to the anchorage this time, did not hit any corral reefs, but it took us four attempts to securely anchore the boat!
Each time our anchore would hit just a corral or a rock on the bottom, instead of sand. We were parking more than one hour!
Kevin had to dive to check the anchore and surraundings and just to be sure, we had to set our second anchore. That was some work!
Thanks our friends, they got their dinghy down to help us.
It's a beatiful anchorage, such a serenity! Only two of our boats in the whole bay and water is amazingly clear and calm. We got very
good night sleep!
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Feb. 28- March 2
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The weather is dictating us to move ahead to our last island in Bahamas - Great Inguana. And, it's a bit far, so we have to go overnight. Leaving at 3pm our beatiful anchorage in Acklins Island, so we can make it before the weather gets really nasty - by early morning in Great Inguana.
The first part of the trip, from 3pm to about 6am next day, was not so bad. We got rained, and some squals with lightning passed us without any harm. We had to double reef the main because in the night (no moon!) it was hard to predict where we get gails. All the trip we had to motorsail because wind was not enough to get us moving no sails only.
The last part of the trip, near the Mattew Town in Great Inguana, we got some really big following seas, it was a bit scarry. I even had to wake up Kevin before his watch duty to take the helm. But we made it safe and did not get any water in the boat.
We looked for the safe anchorage for couple hours, because of the northerly winds and this island is not very protected from this type of wind. It was a bit nervebreaking to get through one narrow cut in the corral reefs to get to the anchorage, besides, visibility for navigation between the reefs was very poor since sun just started rising. But we made it save and anchored fine, now we can relax, get morning coffee and breakfas. Oh that feels good!
We stayed at this secluded place for couple days enjoying swimming, diving and catching lobsters. Kevin caught the biggest "walking" lobster we have ever seen! Rork had to help him to carry this huge sea animal to our dinghy. And, of course, we had absolutelly amizing and feeling dinner (and next day lunch) with lobsters.
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March 3 - 5
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These are our last days in Bahamas, we are waiting for favorable weather to sail to Haiti. We moved to the new anchoroge at Mattew Town which is better protected from the easterlies winds. Explored all the town back and force, and yes, we found wifi finally.
It took us the whole day to get diesel and water to provision our boats for the next long run. Poor Kevin and Rork, they had to carry, then drive dinghy multiple times to the boats from the govermental dock at Mattew Town using just 4 jerry cans.
And at 4 pm we are off to the new unkown for us destination - Haiti!
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March 6-7
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At last we are in Haiti! The place which USA goverment is not suggesting to visit at all, and insurances do not cover damage of the boats traveled in Haiti. We were very cautions approaching in the early morning unknown land (the charts don't have good info on the shores of Haiti either). We picked Pointe de la Perla bay for landing, at least just to hang out and sleep after overnight passage.
Closer to that place we were greeted by a bunch of the haitian fishing boats, and one of the fishermen (his name is College) started speaking English with us. We were so greatly surprised and happy, because none of us four speaks any French.
College showed us where we can drop our anchors, said no problem, stay, right at the shore off the beatiful little fishining village.
The scenery of this village is amaizing: situated on the beach, with houses (namely hutts) built right on the beach, behind the beach there are tall mountains of different hights, beatiful blue water. The place is just from the fairy tail, really a pearl.
It seems we were back in time, at least 200 - 300 years back in time. The village doesn't have electricity, no running water (they have a well with rain water which as we understood doesn't have clean drinking water - the villagers boil their water trying to clean it from cholera), and all haitians live like a big family, very close community.
While we were anchoring, the whole population of the village gathered on the beach watching us - including babies, children, grown ups and elderlies. As we learned, they don't have much white visitors by the boats, maybe once in couple months.
Then our new friend College came with his boat to pick us up to take to the shore so we can visit his village. Such a hospitality!
We gave candy to kids and their faces were so happy while putting a treasured pieces of sugar in their mouths - we guessed, they don't have much treats at all. All population is skinny and fit, seems not much food other than fish they get around. There were a lot of goats around, and their milk is sold to the big nearby city - the way they support themselves.
The pastor proudly showed us a community church (which remineded an old hutt), there were old benches for villagers and a set of drums, which pastor plays during their masses. Next we visited their newly rebuilt school and College asked what we can do for church and school, they really wanted us to give them some paint for school. But we don't have any paint on the boat, and if we had, not in the big amounts. So, we donated what we could - some cloths, shoes, paper, pencils, some dry food. Each of our boats donated an old sails for their community fishing boats. We felt bad that we could not give much more to these nice people.
Funny, we were treated as some higher up officials from United Nations, they had placed four chairs on the beach for us to sit and all the villagers stopped all their chores to stay around us and just... looked at us. We even were presented with the last four bottles of President beer, which they kept in only freezer in their village (they have couple little solar panels for it's operation).
Kevin started entertaining children by playing some games - jumping rope and limbo. Everybody were so happy and laughing - that you can understand without any words!
The anchorage was very rocky at night, and we left the next morning to the next Haity stop.
==================================================
March 8-10
==================================================
We had very long overnight passage, 32 hours long and arrived at La Vache at around 3:30 pm. We were very exhausted when we entered this bay. The anchorage is beautifully situated in just some hundred feet from the village on the beach. There are a lot of selfmade sailing boats (without ANY motors) sailing in the bay around us and some are dragged on the shore.
At the moment we arrived, haitian boys of ages 6 to 16 attacked us on their selfmade "dugout" canues, or on the worn out paddle boards. And, of course, everybody is just paddling, no engines! There are already 6 of thoses little floating devices hanging at our boat and we here French from any direction: "Madam, laundry", "buy our bread", "do you need to clean the boat", "trash?","give me something", etc. Ohhh, it's so annoying especially when you try to anchor for already third time! (anchor is not getting set in this bottom for some reason). Then one big boat with an engine hits our boat on the side (the water taxi) with some official guy on board who demands $5 to pay him right now! Oh well, ok, here is $5 and get lost. Ignoring all this caccophony is just impossible and I lose my temper and yell "everybody shut up! get off my boat!". Yes, they all finally shut up, but all the floating devices were still haning out on the sides of our boat.
This anchorage was much better, calmer and we all get good night sleep. Until...at about 5 am one of the neighboring boats started dragging to the shore. Villagers came to help to stop and move this boat to other safer place. It was very nice of them to help without asking anything in the return.
We arranged with local teenage boys purchase and delivery of disel for both boats from the bigger city - Las Cays (5 mi away). We were so glad we did not have to do that ourselves!
Rork put their dinghy down and took us all to the shore. It was so nice to be on the sturdy ground again, finally!
First thing first - we need to find wifi. Surprised we found an "internet cafe" in this primitive farmer/fishermen settlement, considering that this place doesn't have electric power and running water. Funny. The internet place belongs to the young haitian with couple brothers and he has solar pannels to keep his place running.
Very quickly we were disappointed with the speed of internet (very very slow) and went for a walk with our new haitian friends to check around. The life of haitians is very primitive. Most of them have selfmade sailboats for fishing, women are farming, taking care of cows and goats, and childres and houshold. Women don't smile in Haiti! we figured they have very tough life.
The La Vache island is very beatiful and very green. To bad that mangoes are not ripe yet... we tried to visit a nice house where some canadian lives, but he was not home, or just did not want to talk with us... We are back to internet cafe and found our dinner ready on the table (we asked them before if they can feed us). We had a white rice, fried plantains and fried little fish (the whole fish with head and eyes and tail). Food was delicious. After we almost finished, the gate opened and a bunch (about 10 or so) little 7-8 years old girls showed up all dressed up with some kind of pink. It was bizar and very funny. They sat at our table and we offered them to eat whatever we did not finish at the table... well, they ate the rest of the dinner as well they cleaned our plates too! Poor girls, seems they don't have much food to eat very often. Then Kevin, of course, started to game - call out your name holding the hands.. that was hillarious because none of girls understood anything said in English.
It's time to get to the boats and to our surprise we could not find our dinghy parked on the beach (wherever we left it) and we started to worry that Rork's dinghy was stollen! In about 20 min it showed up, with Justin (one of our haitian helpers) driving it. We were so frustrated that haitian boys took a dinghy without permission! It was not very plesant accident... At they explained later they used a dinghy to drive one of the boys with injured foot to the hospital. Maybe, or maybe it's not true, but we were glad to have Rork's dinghy back. Next day we left very frustrated this pretty place, we felt that we were cheated when dinghy was used without permission...
So, we are back on the road, and the next step is Dominican Republic.
==========================================================
March 11- 13
==========================================================
The first stop in Dominican Republic - Isla Beata. As soon as we dropped our anchores late afternoon (the ride here was very rough! we were going about 3.5 - 4 mi/hours at most, with the waves and wind right at the bow, very exhausting) the boat with coast guard officials showed up and got in for checking our documents. Kevin and Rork presented the coast guard with a little "present" - a bottle of rum and he was very very happy about that. Uhh, keep officials happy!
Next morning we went ashore - to visit a little fishermen village and our "friend" coast guard. As we showed up, they put four chairs for us and a coast guard set in the front of us and asked if would like coffee. Of course we would like coffee!
His wife prepared coffee for everybody in the outside "kitchen" and we enjoyed it very much. Then we were asked if we would like a coconut, oh yes, of course we would like a coconut! Some young guy cut 4 coconuts from the nearby palm and cut them open for us. That was delicious. We tried to make a conversation with coast guard and his helpers, but it did not go far - our Spanich is limited and his English is NONE. We thanks for great hospitality and went for a walk around this little village. We bought some fresh fish for our dinner, even though it was not cheap, and we did not have our money changed yet from dollars to pecos. Dinner was great!
Next day we left this cute place for another long overnight passage to Barahona.
========================================================
March 14 - 17
========================================================
We got heavy rain during our night trip to Barahona, and seas were rough as well. So, we are exhausted at tired again....
We made it to the channel at about 4:30am - it's too early to enter the place we are not sure about and which has cargo ships traffic.
So, we drifted around for couple hours, just waiting for the sun to rise at 7am.
As soon as we anchored our boats, a boat with officials, coast guards, showed up first at Rork's and then our place. They checked documents and inside of the boat, and made Kevin to put his dinghy down. In an hour we got checked in and were ready to explore this town.
It's a relatively big industrial city - with cargo ships transporting sugar canes and something else, lyminar mines and some other industries. People here are NOT begging for anything, this is such a nice change! Seems everybody here is happy and doing fine, even though it's dirty on the streets - the trash is everywhere! Dominicans really love music - merenge, salsa, regaton. You can hear this music in every corner of city you go. We got new cim cards for the phones, some internet time, went to the supermercado and market, walked a lot in the town. We got a local guy Fernando to guide us around the town and since he speaks very well English, he could help us with translation and actually, teach us Spanish a bit. Kevin and Rork are slowly getting up to speed with Spanish, yea, that is helpful.
On the March 15th our friends "Island Perl", Rork and Sherry, left at night to Boca Chica where they have to meet their visitors and spent some time with Sherry's oldest child. It was so sad to separate! We had such a great and fun time together, helped each other, did all our trip planning together, but it's time for separation besides we have plans to sail down south anyway.
We said our "good byes" and we hope to sail together again maybe next year, will see....
On the next morning we had to be on the shore at 8:30am for our car trip to the Lago Enriquillo (a huge lake) with one of the coast guards and a friend of our guide Fernando. The trip was long, about 6 hours around the lake, but we have seen so much! The dominical nature, other cities, villages, parks and just how people live. We ate at the little places - just fried everything and drunk a lot of beer, including our driver-coast guard Ivan. We would stop about every hour at some bar on the way for a huge bottle of Presidente beer to share for three. And... we did not have seat belts on the back seats, and... everybody drives here crazy, and.. we saw one semi overturned in the ditch (how much beer he had while he was driving?????). But we made it safe back to our boat afternoon.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
George Town, Exumas ,Bahamas
=================================================
Feb.2
=================================================
The best part of staying at Warderick Exuma Park is that we have "happy hour" every night. Since cruisers don't have a perseption of the
weekdays, every day could be a Friday - and consequentially, it means "Happy Hour"! We usually start at 5pm and everybody leaves like by
the order around 7pm, when it's already really dark around and we nobody wants complications on the water in the dark.
These happy hours are great for exchanging information on where and what to explore further, also, you actually make friends and try to
keep up with them while traveling your own route (yes, we meet with Southern Belle on almost each island! independently of difference of
ours
or theirs plans). At the last happy hour we learned that we absolutelly HAVE to stop at Cambrige Cays for snorkling in the caves and see
Reachel's Baths. So... no civilization for another couple days then..., more vegetarian dinners, meanning getting fatter for Marina. The
good news is we can finally fish again outside of the park boundaries.
Today the wind is no better, of course, it's South Eeast again, exactly the direction we are traveling. But Kevin decides to go anyway
because I had meltdown today morning feeling trapped in one place for long time. The trip was not pleasant at all, even motorsailing was
tough and we barelly were making 4nm/h. We had to change our plans for the anchorage, because landing near Cambrigde Cays was
impossible,
or dangerous with our lack of experience, due to the very shallow approach to the anchoring spot.
So, first we made it to the private Bell Island with huge three villas and groomed beach and waited there for the slack time before low
tide.
We decided to land at the Compass Cay, the best technical choice for us in this cituation. Crossing the channel took some time and a lot
of effort from out "iron horse" in the engine room! But we safely anchored near the Compas Cay Marina in very beautiful and quite little
bay.
We managed to the very expensive ($2.50 a foot) Marina, paid $10 per person to get out on the shore (!!!), walked around a bit, used the
restroom with AC working (it's been too long without AC!!!!), tried to shop at the Marina's store - $5 for a bottle of beer, no rum,
the lettuce in their refrigerator was NOT for sale - we settled on the beer. At 6:30 pm Marina has a potluck, of course, we attended
(since
we don't have much left in our food storage, we made popcorn) this event hopping to meet more new people. That was big disappointment!
Well, we should expected that by the look at the megayachts and huge motorboats parked here. From all the people at the event (around 20
people)
only one lady was happy to talk with us, she was German and I tried to use German as much as I can (remember), but luckily she could
speak
some English too. She was a grandma for the kids of the Marina's manager, leaving in one of the villas on the island and visiting this
island
every year.
But, the food at party was great! Grilled lobsters, chicken, fried fish... Yam...
==================================================
Feb.3
==================================================
Big plans for today - in the morning went for a hike around the island to see Rachel's Baths. It was very nice about 3 hours event, we
felt
so happy to finally walk again, even in sand and on the reef hills. On the way we saw some ruins - seems that originally it was a
big house which might be destroyed by hurricane recently. Interesting, that one of the workers at the marina build there open air gym!
With the punching bag, weights, bench press, etc. Cool!
We decided to have our lunch at the marina's little shop - and, oh boy, $15 for a hamburger... I had a bottle of Guiness and powerbar
for
lunch.
Afternoon at the low tide we managed to snorkle in the reef's caves Rocky Dundas - that was amazing site with stalctites and stalgmites
in the cave. We could not explore this site at the best because seas were not very calm, but still we got a good feel of this cave.
Talked with our friends (Island Perl) on VHF, they are in Black Point, and we really want to see them, but there are couple more stops
we
want to make before.
==================================================
Feb.4-6
==================================================
Waiting for the high tide to leave Compass Cays and sail (or motor) to Big Major Cay - the island of the swimming pigs!
After motorsailing and anchoring among hundreds boats we dinghy to the nearby Stainley Cay. We finally filled up gas for the dinghy,
got some disel in jerry can, got 20 gallons of water and bought phone minutes at the local BTC office. Funny, the BTC (bahamian phone
service) office works 2-4 pm, the grocery stores work whoknowswhat hours but definitelly 2-4. Between three grocery stores on the island
we got some fresh (well, it's relatively fresh) produce, some chicken, yogurt, bread and rum. Wow, we can have great dinners with
drinks! In the Isles General store Kevin bought fishing spear with the sling to fish for lobsters and fish. Good luck, Kevin!
On the way back to our anchorage, we stopped by at the marina's bar to get some food (not prepaired by me finally!), drinks and meet
some people. We met with a couple of about our age from North Carolina who worked at IBM too, and at the same location where we worked
with Kevin in RTP. Wow, such a coincidence. The difference is only that we travel by a sailboat, but they use faster means for that -
little airplane which they fixed themselves. It was very nice meeting surprise.
Next day in the morining we made it to the island with swimming pigs and that was so funny and exciding! These pigs are huge, about 500
lbs and they practically attack the dinghy to get some food. So far, this island is Marina's favorite. Well, after seeing pigs we did
not get much more excitment because we decided to spend some time on our "internet" work - updating a blog, answering emails, calling
by skype. Kevin finally got online chat help for the company which manages our voice mail (since our USA service is not working here
anymore), but at the most important point the power went off on the whole island, bummer again! It's about two weeks and we still
cannot use our data minutes on our phone because pin numbers are not valid...Not sure how people claim that they can work remotelly on
the islands, we would say - this is a myth!
===============================================
Feb.6-8
===============================================
Made it to the Little Farmer's Cay - the home of the February First Friday party and C-Type sail races. Our friends, Rork and Sherry,
made it here too, that was very nice reunion after we separated in Nassau. We had very exciting and fun time at this place, and Kevin
and Rork got great education on spearfishing. Thanks to the very nice young local guy who took us on a spearfishing adventure on the
nearby corral reefs. He got for us six huge lobsters and cought a huge fish for himself. Rock was so lucky to get another lobster too!
The girsl, Sherry and I, had to stay most of the time on the dinghy and drive when it driffed too far from the fishing place, and still
we were able to snorkle a bit. Afternoon, we had to go to the Ocean Cabin Bar - the place of entertainment. We both were judges and
participants for the party games at this bar - wet T-shirt contest, guys buns and legs contest, eggtoss and plunger game - that was too
much fun!
We had an amazing lobster dinner at our boat that night! Next morning we went fishing ourselves, without our guide, and did not have
much luck - Rork cought only one lobster and Kevin none (however, he practiced with his spear to kill lionfish).
Afternoon the whole island was full of the visitors from the other islands for the C-Type sailing race - there were couple hundred
people on the island with only 60 original citizens.
==================================================
Feb.9-10
==================================================
Time to move again - at some point we have to make it to the civilization, do laundry, buy normal food and, most important, get the
cash. Not many places in past two weeks accepting credit cards, and we did not expected that.
Left Farmer's Cay and landed at Lee Stocking Cay, near the former Caribbean Marine Research Center - this is our midstop before
Georgetown. As soon as we parked, Rork and Kevin were eager to go to spearfishing again. It's a beatiful place here with some good reef.
As soon as we stopped at the best reef for fishing, Kevin spotted a huge shark cruising near him, so, in panic guys got back on the
dinghy and decided not to go back in the water again. Our mistake - we went in the high tide time when sharks are coming from Exumas
Sound to Exumas Banks throug the cuts to get some food. We did not want to become their dinner, and, we did not catch anything for
dinner. Macaroni and lentils again...
=================================================
Feb.11..13
=====================================================
We are in the oasis of civilization - Emerald Bay Marina. It's very nice marina, only $1 per foot a day. And, there is an amazing state
of the a;om, great spacious restrooms and showers, huge TV in the community room at the marina with great expensive
furniture where we have happy hours almost every day. It's a DREAM spot to "lick our wounds".
Every day I was doing lundry - washed almost everything from our boat, including pillows and blankets. It's absolutelly amazing feeling
to sleep in the clean bed and in dry clean cloths. We found very cheap liqure store in walking distance and couple grocery stores.
Chicken for dinner, finally!
Nearby resort has nice and busy restaurant (not counting tonns of the bugs eating you while you eat - use "Get Off!") where we had
couple dinners with our friends from "Island Perl" and "Joerney". Kevin even had chance to start limbo game on the beach while locals
were playing drums (of course, he won!). We tried to hunt for lobsters and fish, but not successfully.. however, we found a bunch of
huge coconuts in the nearby golf course and Kevin extracted coconut water to mix with rum.
But the weather is getting better, so we can move further south to Georgetown. So sad to leave this clean place...
===================================================
Feb.14..22
===================================================
We actually sailed (!) all the way to Georgetown, that was very pleasant trip. By the description from other cruisers Georgetown seems
to be a city well compaired to Madrid or Paris! Will see...
Today is Valentine's Day and we are going to famous Chat and Chill to.. well, chat and chill with other cruisers, and dance! they had
valentine dance at the bar. It was fun! We met with crew, Will and Stephany, of one of the megayaht parked at the marina. Next day we
met the bar and Kevin made sure to be invited to their boat, while the owners were not there. It was very nice excursion: the machine
room is very impressive, as a jacusi on the deck! We went dance after in the nearby bar and ... Kevin started Limbo game again! To his
disappointment he did not win this time, but he got very famous on the island - next days people on the street greated him as a "Limbo
guy". Not everything just a play around here: we had to provision our boat, get cash from the bank's ATM ($100 in a time and $3 for
service), purchase more phone minutes from BTC, connect to internet and do some work and checking on things, skyping, etc. Well...
internet is really bad around here and it takes very strong nerves and great patience to do anything online.
While staying in this capital of Exumas (there are maybe about 100 people leaving here, looks more like a village with one beatup road
and couple old cars, the only concreate buildings belong to two banks and BTC phone office) Kevin was able to earn $50 from the boat he
offered to change zincs on the prop via free diving and holding breath for some time under the water and. We spent this money on the
same day in the nearby bar... The other day Kevin's ability to play pool paid off well - he got a second place in the pool tournament
with the prize $15, which payed for our drinks, but the drive home in the dinghy at night was absolutelly horrable!
We play voleyball at the Voleyball beach, take long walks on the island, talk with other cruisers who is going further south to
Caribbeans, swim, drink and .. wait for two packages to arrive (supposed to show up couple days ago, but hey, it's island time....)
================================================
Feb.23
================================================
Sad day for us today! All our friends are left in the morning to the next islands - Conseption and Rum Cays, but we have to stay in
Georgetown because we did not get our packages sent DHL OVERNIGHT(!) to the shipping spot at the store Top2Bottom. Well, the overnight
grown into a week now, and it's a possibility to get them maybe (please please please) tomorrow, on Monday.
Feb.2
=================================================
The best part of staying at Warderick Exuma Park is that we have "happy hour" every night. Since cruisers don't have a perseption of the
weekdays, every day could be a Friday - and consequentially, it means "Happy Hour"! We usually start at 5pm and everybody leaves like by
the order around 7pm, when it's already really dark around and we nobody wants complications on the water in the dark.
These happy hours are great for exchanging information on where and what to explore further, also, you actually make friends and try to
keep up with them while traveling your own route (yes, we meet with Southern Belle on almost each island! independently of difference of
ours
or theirs plans). At the last happy hour we learned that we absolutelly HAVE to stop at Cambrige Cays for snorkling in the caves and see
Reachel's Baths. So... no civilization for another couple days then..., more vegetarian dinners, meanning getting fatter for Marina. The
good news is we can finally fish again outside of the park boundaries.
Today the wind is no better, of course, it's South Eeast again, exactly the direction we are traveling. But Kevin decides to go anyway
because I had meltdown today morning feeling trapped in one place for long time. The trip was not pleasant at all, even motorsailing was
tough and we barelly were making 4nm/h. We had to change our plans for the anchorage, because landing near Cambrigde Cays was
impossible,
or dangerous with our lack of experience, due to the very shallow approach to the anchoring spot.
So, first we made it to the private Bell Island with huge three villas and groomed beach and waited there for the slack time before low
tide.
We decided to land at the Compass Cay, the best technical choice for us in this cituation. Crossing the channel took some time and a lot
of effort from out "iron horse" in the engine room! But we safely anchored near the Compas Cay Marina in very beautiful and quite little
bay.
We managed to the very expensive ($2.50 a foot) Marina, paid $10 per person to get out on the shore (!!!), walked around a bit, used the
restroom with AC working (it's been too long without AC!!!!), tried to shop at the Marina's store - $5 for a bottle of beer, no rum,
the lettuce in their refrigerator was NOT for sale - we settled on the beer. At 6:30 pm Marina has a potluck, of course, we attended
(since
we don't have much left in our food storage, we made popcorn) this event hopping to meet more new people. That was big disappointment!
Well, we should expected that by the look at the megayachts and huge motorboats parked here. From all the people at the event (around 20
people)
only one lady was happy to talk with us, she was German and I tried to use German as much as I can (remember), but luckily she could
speak
some English too. She was a grandma for the kids of the Marina's manager, leaving in one of the villas on the island and visiting this
island
every year.
But, the food at party was great! Grilled lobsters, chicken, fried fish... Yam...
==================================================
Feb.3
==================================================
Big plans for today - in the morning went for a hike around the island to see Rachel's Baths. It was very nice about 3 hours event, we
felt
so happy to finally walk again, even in sand and on the reef hills. On the way we saw some ruins - seems that originally it was a
big house which might be destroyed by hurricane recently. Interesting, that one of the workers at the marina build there open air gym!
With the punching bag, weights, bench press, etc. Cool!
We decided to have our lunch at the marina's little shop - and, oh boy, $15 for a hamburger... I had a bottle of Guiness and powerbar
for
lunch.
Afternoon at the low tide we managed to snorkle in the reef's caves Rocky Dundas - that was amazing site with stalctites and stalgmites
in the cave. We could not explore this site at the best because seas were not very calm, but still we got a good feel of this cave.
Talked with our friends (Island Perl) on VHF, they are in Black Point, and we really want to see them, but there are couple more stops
we
want to make before.
==================================================
Feb.4-6
==================================================
Waiting for the high tide to leave Compass Cays and sail (or motor) to Big Major Cay - the island of the swimming pigs!
After motorsailing and anchoring among hundreds boats we dinghy to the nearby Stainley Cay. We finally filled up gas for the dinghy,
got some disel in jerry can, got 20 gallons of water and bought phone minutes at the local BTC office. Funny, the BTC (bahamian phone
service) office works 2-4 pm, the grocery stores work whoknowswhat hours but definitelly 2-4. Between three grocery stores on the island
we got some fresh (well, it's relatively fresh) produce, some chicken, yogurt, bread and rum. Wow, we can have great dinners with
drinks! In the Isles General store Kevin bought fishing spear with the sling to fish for lobsters and fish. Good luck, Kevin!
On the way back to our anchorage, we stopped by at the marina's bar to get some food (not prepaired by me finally!), drinks and meet
some people. We met with a couple of about our age from North Carolina who worked at IBM too, and at the same location where we worked
with Kevin in RTP. Wow, such a coincidence. The difference is only that we travel by a sailboat, but they use faster means for that -
little airplane which they fixed themselves. It was very nice meeting surprise.
Next day in the morining we made it to the island with swimming pigs and that was so funny and exciding! These pigs are huge, about 500
lbs and they practically attack the dinghy to get some food. So far, this island is Marina's favorite. Well, after seeing pigs we did
not get much more excitment because we decided to spend some time on our "internet" work - updating a blog, answering emails, calling
by skype. Kevin finally got online chat help for the company which manages our voice mail (since our USA service is not working here
anymore), but at the most important point the power went off on the whole island, bummer again! It's about two weeks and we still
cannot use our data minutes on our phone because pin numbers are not valid...Not sure how people claim that they can work remotelly on
the islands, we would say - this is a myth!
===============================================
Feb.6-8
===============================================
Made it to the Little Farmer's Cay - the home of the February First Friday party and C-Type sail races. Our friends, Rork and Sherry,
made it here too, that was very nice reunion after we separated in Nassau. We had very exciting and fun time at this place, and Kevin
and Rork got great education on spearfishing. Thanks to the very nice young local guy who took us on a spearfishing adventure on the
nearby corral reefs. He got for us six huge lobsters and cought a huge fish for himself. Rock was so lucky to get another lobster too!
The girsl, Sherry and I, had to stay most of the time on the dinghy and drive when it driffed too far from the fishing place, and still
we were able to snorkle a bit. Afternoon, we had to go to the Ocean Cabin Bar - the place of entertainment. We both were judges and
participants for the party games at this bar - wet T-shirt contest, guys buns and legs contest, eggtoss and plunger game - that was too
much fun!
We had an amazing lobster dinner at our boat that night! Next morning we went fishing ourselves, without our guide, and did not have
much luck - Rork cought only one lobster and Kevin none (however, he practiced with his spear to kill lionfish).
Afternoon the whole island was full of the visitors from the other islands for the C-Type sailing race - there were couple hundred
people on the island with only 60 original citizens.
==================================================
Feb.9-10
==================================================
Time to move again - at some point we have to make it to the civilization, do laundry, buy normal food and, most important, get the
cash. Not many places in past two weeks accepting credit cards, and we did not expected that.
Left Farmer's Cay and landed at Lee Stocking Cay, near the former Caribbean Marine Research Center - this is our midstop before
Georgetown. As soon as we parked, Rork and Kevin were eager to go to spearfishing again. It's a beatiful place here with some good reef.
As soon as we stopped at the best reef for fishing, Kevin spotted a huge shark cruising near him, so, in panic guys got back on the
dinghy and decided not to go back in the water again. Our mistake - we went in the high tide time when sharks are coming from Exumas
Sound to Exumas Banks throug the cuts to get some food. We did not want to become their dinner, and, we did not catch anything for
dinner. Macaroni and lentils again...
=================================================
Feb.11..13
=====================================================
We are in the oasis of civilization - Emerald Bay Marina. It's very nice marina, only $1 per foot a day. And, there is an amazing state
of the a;om, great spacious restrooms and showers, huge TV in the community room at the marina with great expensive
furniture where we have happy hours almost every day. It's a DREAM spot to "lick our wounds".
Every day I was doing lundry - washed almost everything from our boat, including pillows and blankets. It's absolutelly amazing feeling
to sleep in the clean bed and in dry clean cloths. We found very cheap liqure store in walking distance and couple grocery stores.
Chicken for dinner, finally!
Nearby resort has nice and busy restaurant (not counting tonns of the bugs eating you while you eat - use "Get Off!") where we had
couple dinners with our friends from "Island Perl" and "Joerney". Kevin even had chance to start limbo game on the beach while locals
were playing drums (of course, he won!). We tried to hunt for lobsters and fish, but not successfully.. however, we found a bunch of
huge coconuts in the nearby golf course and Kevin extracted coconut water to mix with rum.
But the weather is getting better, so we can move further south to Georgetown. So sad to leave this clean place...
===================================================
Feb.14..22
===================================================
We actually sailed (!) all the way to Georgetown, that was very pleasant trip. By the description from other cruisers Georgetown seems
to be a city well compaired to Madrid or Paris! Will see...
Today is Valentine's Day and we are going to famous Chat and Chill to.. well, chat and chill with other cruisers, and dance! they had
valentine dance at the bar. It was fun! We met with crew, Will and Stephany, of one of the megayaht parked at the marina. Next day we
met the bar and Kevin made sure to be invited to their boat, while the owners were not there. It was very nice excursion: the machine
room is very impressive, as a jacusi on the deck! We went dance after in the nearby bar and ... Kevin started Limbo game again! To his
disappointment he did not win this time, but he got very famous on the island - next days people on the street greated him as a "Limbo
guy". Not everything just a play around here: we had to provision our boat, get cash from the bank's ATM ($100 in a time and $3 for
service), purchase more phone minutes from BTC, connect to internet and do some work and checking on things, skyping, etc. Well...
internet is really bad around here and it takes very strong nerves and great patience to do anything online.
While staying in this capital of Exumas (there are maybe about 100 people leaving here, looks more like a village with one beatup road
and couple old cars, the only concreate buildings belong to two banks and BTC phone office) Kevin was able to earn $50 from the boat he
offered to change zincs on the prop via free diving and holding breath for some time under the water and. We spent this money on the
same day in the nearby bar... The other day Kevin's ability to play pool paid off well - he got a second place in the pool tournament
with the prize $15, which payed for our drinks, but the drive home in the dinghy at night was absolutelly horrable!
We play voleyball at the Voleyball beach, take long walks on the island, talk with other cruisers who is going further south to
Caribbeans, swim, drink and .. wait for two packages to arrive (supposed to show up couple days ago, but hey, it's island time....)
================================================
Feb.23
================================================
Sad day for us today! All our friends are left in the morning to the next islands - Conseption and Rum Cays, but we have to stay in
Georgetown because we did not get our packages sent DHL OVERNIGHT(!) to the shipping spot at the store Top2Bottom. Well, the overnight
grown into a week now, and it's a possibility to get them maybe (please please please) tomorrow, on Monday.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
People don't understand us
We have made some friends along the way, actually we have been hanging out with the same people we left Marathon Florida with. This is crazy. We traveled from Marathon to George Town Exumas with the same people. Sometimes they pass us, or we pass them, but some how we all keep meeting up. If anyone would have told me I would be traveling with the the people I met in Marathon, I would have laughed hysterically. But sure enough.
They are all nice people, we are just a bit younger than most. Some how we find the people we want to hang out with and they kinda stick around. But they don't seem to understand us too well. We used to have parties at our house, which I'm sure most of you remember, they were fun. Nothing terrible happened, we all just had a good time. Well these people have no idea. We have not even started to have fun yet and they are scared of us. They think we are off our rockers. I think they are all stuck on their rockers. Most of these people don't swim, don't fish, don't stay up past 8pm, don't play pool, don't drink too much, don't smoke, don't swear. I am not sure what they do, but it's hard to get them to play.
I was in charge of the wet t-shirt contest and the plunger game. It was like pulling teeth to get them to play the games. The T-shirt contest I understand, but the plunger game is fun and easy. They just wanted to watch. Most of the participants were the organizers of the other games going on so they had to be there.
Tonight we went out with some original friends. I didn't they one couple would ever hang out with us again. I guess I got a little out of control. Nothing I would not have done at home. But they tried to hang out again. I don't think they will do that again. We had dinner then went to the bom fire at the beach. We were late, the party was over, so we started it up again with a game of limbo. Me and Marina were the only ones playing....and the band. The rest of the people did not play. I kinda felt like we were going out on a limb and being rebels, but nothing bad was happening, just limbo by the fire at the beach. That lasted about 1 hour then we headed back to the boat. Picked up the coconuts we hid and then stepped in a big puddle.
Tried to play pool with a tourist, but he was with his children playing. I did play with our 2 friends, that was fun. Had pot luck dinner. So much food. That was nice.
It is fun, I just don't think they understand us yet. I will give them some more time.
On ward to Chat and Chill for Valentines day party tomorrow night.
They are all nice people, we are just a bit younger than most. Some how we find the people we want to hang out with and they kinda stick around. But they don't seem to understand us too well. We used to have parties at our house, which I'm sure most of you remember, they were fun. Nothing terrible happened, we all just had a good time. Well these people have no idea. We have not even started to have fun yet and they are scared of us. They think we are off our rockers. I think they are all stuck on their rockers. Most of these people don't swim, don't fish, don't stay up past 8pm, don't play pool, don't drink too much, don't smoke, don't swear. I am not sure what they do, but it's hard to get them to play.
I was in charge of the wet t-shirt contest and the plunger game. It was like pulling teeth to get them to play the games. The T-shirt contest I understand, but the plunger game is fun and easy. They just wanted to watch. Most of the participants were the organizers of the other games going on so they had to be there.
Tonight we went out with some original friends. I didn't they one couple would ever hang out with us again. I guess I got a little out of control. Nothing I would not have done at home. But they tried to hang out again. I don't think they will do that again. We had dinner then went to the bom fire at the beach. We were late, the party was over, so we started it up again with a game of limbo. Me and Marina were the only ones playing....and the band. The rest of the people did not play. I kinda felt like we were going out on a limb and being rebels, but nothing bad was happening, just limbo by the fire at the beach. That lasted about 1 hour then we headed back to the boat. Picked up the coconuts we hid and then stepped in a big puddle.
Tried to play pool with a tourist, but he was with his children playing. I did play with our 2 friends, that was fun. Had pot luck dinner. So much food. That was nice.
It is fun, I just don't think they understand us yet. I will give them some more time.
On ward to Chat and Chill for Valentines day party tomorrow night.
And further into the Exumas
=================================================
Feb.2
=================================================
The best part of staying at Warderick Exuma Park is that we have "happy hour" every night. Since cruisers don't have a perseption of the
weekdays, every day could be a Friday - and consequentially, it means "Happy Hour"! We usually start at 5pm and everybody leaves like by
the order around 7pm, when it's already really dark around and we nobody wants complications on the water in the dark.
These happy hours are great for exchanging information on where and what to explore further, also, you actually make friends and try to
keep up with them while traveling your own route (yes, we meet with Southern Belle on almost each island! independently of difference of
ours
or theirs plans). At the last happy hour we learned that we absolutelly HAVE to stop at Cambrige Cays for snorkling in the caves and see
Reachel's Baths. So... no civilization for another couple days then..., more vegetarian dinners, meanning getting fatter for Marina. The
good news is we can finally fish again outside of the park boundaries.
Today the wind is no better, of course, it's South Eeast again, exactly the direction we are traveling. But Kevin decides to go anyway
because I had meltdown today morning feeling trapped in one place for long time. The trip was not pleasant at all, even motorsailing was
tough and we barelly were making 4nm/h. We had to change our plans for the anchorage, because landing near Cambrigde Cays was
impossible,
or dangerous with our lack of experience, due to the very shallow approach to the anchoring spot.
So, first we made it to the private Bell Island with huge three villas and groomed beach and waited there for the slack time before low
tide.
We decided to land at the Compass Cay, the best technical choice for us in this cituation. Crossing the channel took some time and a lot
of effort from out "iron horse" in the engine room! But we safely anchored near the Compas Cay Marina in very beautiful and quite little
bay.
We managed to the very expensive ($2.50 a foot) Marina, paid $10 per person to get out on the shore (!!!), walked around a bit, used the
restroom with AC working (it's been too long without AC!!!!), tried to shop at the Marina's store - $5 for a bottle of beer, no rum,
the lettuce in their refrigerator was NOT for sale - we settled on the beer. At 6:30 pm Marina has a potluck, of course, we attended
(since
we don't have much left in our food storage, we made popcorn) this event hopping to meet more new people. That was big disappointment!
Well, we should expected that by the look at the megayachts and huge motorboats parked here. From all the people at the event (around 20
people)
only one lady was happy to talk with us, she was German and I tried to use German as much as I can (remember), but luckily she could
speak
some English too. She was a grandma for the kids of the Marina's manager, leaving in one of the villas on the island and visiting this
island
every year.
But, the food at party was great! Grilled lobsters, chicken, fried fish... Yam...
==================================================
Feb.3
==================================================
Big plans for today - in the morning went for a hike around the island to see Rachel's Baths. It was very nice about 3 hours event, we
felt
so happy to finally walk again, even in sand and on the reef hills. On the way we saw some ruins - seems that originally it was a
big house which might be destroyed by hurricane recently. Interesting, that one of the workers at the marina build there open air gym!
With the punching bag, weights, bench press, etc. Cool!
We decided to have our lunch at the marina's little shop - and, oh boy, $15 for a hamburger... I had a bottle of Guiness and powerbar
for
lunch.
Afternoon at the low tide we managed to snorkle in the reef's caves Rocky Dundas - that was amazing site with stalctites and stalgmites
in the cave. We could not explore this site at the best because seas were not very calm, but still we got a good feel of this cave.
Talked with our friends (Island Perl) on VHF, they are in Black Point, and we really want to see them, but there are couple more stops
we
want to make before.
==================================================
Feb.4-6
==================================================
Waiting for the high tide to leave Compass Cays and sail (or motor) to Big Major Cay - the island of the swimming pigs!
After motorsailing and anchoring among hundreds boats we dinghy to the nearby Stainley Cay. We finally filled up gas for the dinghy,
got some disel in jerry can, got 20 gallons of water and bought phone minutes at the local BTC office. Funny, the BTC (bahamian phone
service) office works 2-4 pm, the grocery stores work whoknowswhat hours but definitelly 2-4. Between three grocery stores on the island
we got some fresh (well, it's relatively fresh) produce, some chicken, yogurt, bread and rum. Wow, we can have great dinners with
drinks! In the Isles General store Kevin bought fishing spear with the sling to fish for lobsters and fish. Good luck, Kevin!
On the way back to our anchorage, we stopped by at the marina's bar to get some food (not prepaired by me finally!), drinks and meet
some people. We met with a couple of about our age from North Carolina who worked at IBM too, and at the same location where we worked
with Kevin in RTP. Wow, such a coincidence. The difference is only that we travel by a sailboat, but they use faster means for that -
little airplane which they fixed themselves. It was very nice meeting surprise.
Next day in the morining we made it to the island with swimming pigs and that was so funny and exciding! These pigs are huge, about 500
lbs and they practically attack the dinghy to get some food. So far, this island is Marina's favorite. Well, after seeing pigs we did
not get much more excitment because we decided to spend some time on our "internet" work - updating a blog, answering emails, calling
by skype. Kevin finally got online chat help for the company which manages our voice mail (since our USA service is not working here
anymore), but at the most important point the power went off on the whole island, bummer again! It's about two weeks and we still
cannot use our data minutes on our phone because pin numbers are not valid...Not sure how people claim that they can work remotelly on
the islands, we would say - this is a myth!
===============================================
Feb.6-8
===============================================
Made it to the Little Farmer's Cay - the home of the February First Friday party and C-Type sail races. Our friends, Rork and Sherry,
made it here too, that was very nice reunion after we separated in Nassau. We had very exciting and fun time at this place, and Kevin
and Rork got great education on spearfishing. Thanks to the very nice young local guy who took us on a spearfishing adventure on the
nearby corral reefs. He got for us six huge lobsters and cought a huge fish for himself. Rock was so lucky to get another lobster too!
The girsl, Sherry and I, had to stay most of the time on the dinghy and drive when it driffed too far from the fishing place, and still
we were able to snorkle a bit. Afternoon, we had to go to the Ocean Cabin Bar - the place of entertainment. We both were judges and
participants for the party games at this bar - wet T-shirt contest, guys buns and legs contest, eggtoss and plunger game - that was too
much fun!
We had an amazing lobster dinner at our boat that night! Next morning we went fishing ourselves, without our guide, and did not have
much luck - Rork cought only one lobster and Kevin none (however, he practiced with his spear to kill lionfish).
Afternoon the whole island was full of the visitors from the other islands for the C-Type sailing race - there were couple hundred
people on the island with only 60 original citizens.
==================================================
Feb.9-10
==================================================
Time to move again - at some point we have to make it to the civilization, do laundry, buy normal food and, most important, get the
cash. Not many places in past two weeks accepting credit cards, and we did not expected that.
Left Farmer's Cay and landed at Lee Stocking Cay, near the former Caribbean Marine Research Center - this is our midstop before
Georgetown. As soon as we parked, Rork and Kevin were eager to go to spearfishing again. It's a beatiful place here with some good reef.
As soon as we stopped at the best reef for fishing, Kevin spotted a huge shark cruising near him, so, in panic guys got back on the
dinghy and decided not to go back in the water again. Our mistake - we went in the high tide time when sharks are coming from Exumas
Sound to Exumas Banks throug the cuts to get some food. We did not want to become their dinner, and, we did not catch anything for
dinner. Macaroni and lentils again...
=================================================
Feb.11..
=====================================================
We are in the oasis of civilization - Emerald Bay Marina. It's very nice marina, only $1 per foot a day. And, there is an amazing state
of the art FREE laundry room, great spacious restrooms and showers, huge TV in the community room at the marina with great expensive
furniture where we have happy hours almost every day. It's a DREAM spot to "lick our wounds".
Feb.2
=================================================
The best part of staying at Warderick Exuma Park is that we have "happy hour" every night. Since cruisers don't have a perseption of the
weekdays, every day could be a Friday - and consequentially, it means "Happy Hour"! We usually start at 5pm and everybody leaves like by
the order around 7pm, when it's already really dark around and we nobody wants complications on the water in the dark.
These happy hours are great for exchanging information on where and what to explore further, also, you actually make friends and try to
keep up with them while traveling your own route (yes, we meet with Southern Belle on almost each island! independently of difference of
ours
or theirs plans). At the last happy hour we learned that we absolutelly HAVE to stop at Cambrige Cays for snorkling in the caves and see
Reachel's Baths. So... no civilization for another couple days then..., more vegetarian dinners, meanning getting fatter for Marina. The
good news is we can finally fish again outside of the park boundaries.
Today the wind is no better, of course, it's South Eeast again, exactly the direction we are traveling. But Kevin decides to go anyway
because I had meltdown today morning feeling trapped in one place for long time. The trip was not pleasant at all, even motorsailing was
tough and we barelly were making 4nm/h. We had to change our plans for the anchorage, because landing near Cambrigde Cays was
impossible,
or dangerous with our lack of experience, due to the very shallow approach to the anchoring spot.
So, first we made it to the private Bell Island with huge three villas and groomed beach and waited there for the slack time before low
tide.
We decided to land at the Compass Cay, the best technical choice for us in this cituation. Crossing the channel took some time and a lot
of effort from out "iron horse" in the engine room! But we safely anchored near the Compas Cay Marina in very beautiful and quite little
bay.
We managed to the very expensive ($2.50 a foot) Marina, paid $10 per person to get out on the shore (!!!), walked around a bit, used the
restroom with AC working (it's been too long without AC!!!!), tried to shop at the Marina's store - $5 for a bottle of beer, no rum,
the lettuce in their refrigerator was NOT for sale - we settled on the beer. At 6:30 pm Marina has a potluck, of course, we attended
(since
we don't have much left in our food storage, we made popcorn) this event hopping to meet more new people. That was big disappointment!
Well, we should expected that by the look at the megayachts and huge motorboats parked here. From all the people at the event (around 20
people)
only one lady was happy to talk with us, she was German and I tried to use German as much as I can (remember), but luckily she could
speak
some English too. She was a grandma for the kids of the Marina's manager, leaving in one of the villas on the island and visiting this
island
every year.
But, the food at party was great! Grilled lobsters, chicken, fried fish... Yam...
==================================================
Feb.3
==================================================
Big plans for today - in the morning went for a hike around the island to see Rachel's Baths. It was very nice about 3 hours event, we
felt
so happy to finally walk again, even in sand and on the reef hills. On the way we saw some ruins - seems that originally it was a
big house which might be destroyed by hurricane recently. Interesting, that one of the workers at the marina build there open air gym!
With the punching bag, weights, bench press, etc. Cool!
We decided to have our lunch at the marina's little shop - and, oh boy, $15 for a hamburger... I had a bottle of Guiness and powerbar
for
lunch.
Afternoon at the low tide we managed to snorkle in the reef's caves Rocky Dundas - that was amazing site with stalctites and stalgmites
in the cave. We could not explore this site at the best because seas were not very calm, but still we got a good feel of this cave.
Talked with our friends (Island Perl) on VHF, they are in Black Point, and we really want to see them, but there are couple more stops
we
want to make before.
==================================================
Feb.4-6
==================================================
Waiting for the high tide to leave Compass Cays and sail (or motor) to Big Major Cay - the island of the swimming pigs!
After motorsailing and anchoring among hundreds boats we dinghy to the nearby Stainley Cay. We finally filled up gas for the dinghy,
got some disel in jerry can, got 20 gallons of water and bought phone minutes at the local BTC office. Funny, the BTC (bahamian phone
service) office works 2-4 pm, the grocery stores work whoknowswhat hours but definitelly 2-4. Between three grocery stores on the island
we got some fresh (well, it's relatively fresh) produce, some chicken, yogurt, bread and rum. Wow, we can have great dinners with
drinks! In the Isles General store Kevin bought fishing spear with the sling to fish for lobsters and fish. Good luck, Kevin!
On the way back to our anchorage, we stopped by at the marina's bar to get some food (not prepaired by me finally!), drinks and meet
some people. We met with a couple of about our age from North Carolina who worked at IBM too, and at the same location where we worked
with Kevin in RTP. Wow, such a coincidence. The difference is only that we travel by a sailboat, but they use faster means for that -
little airplane which they fixed themselves. It was very nice meeting surprise.
Next day in the morining we made it to the island with swimming pigs and that was so funny and exciding! These pigs are huge, about 500
lbs and they practically attack the dinghy to get some food. So far, this island is Marina's favorite. Well, after seeing pigs we did
not get much more excitment because we decided to spend some time on our "internet" work - updating a blog, answering emails, calling
by skype. Kevin finally got online chat help for the company which manages our voice mail (since our USA service is not working here
anymore), but at the most important point the power went off on the whole island, bummer again! It's about two weeks and we still
cannot use our data minutes on our phone because pin numbers are not valid...Not sure how people claim that they can work remotelly on
the islands, we would say - this is a myth!
===============================================
Feb.6-8
===============================================
Made it to the Little Farmer's Cay - the home of the February First Friday party and C-Type sail races. Our friends, Rork and Sherry,
made it here too, that was very nice reunion after we separated in Nassau. We had very exciting and fun time at this place, and Kevin
and Rork got great education on spearfishing. Thanks to the very nice young local guy who took us on a spearfishing adventure on the
nearby corral reefs. He got for us six huge lobsters and cought a huge fish for himself. Rock was so lucky to get another lobster too!
The girsl, Sherry and I, had to stay most of the time on the dinghy and drive when it driffed too far from the fishing place, and still
we were able to snorkle a bit. Afternoon, we had to go to the Ocean Cabin Bar - the place of entertainment. We both were judges and
participants for the party games at this bar - wet T-shirt contest, guys buns and legs contest, eggtoss and plunger game - that was too
much fun!
We had an amazing lobster dinner at our boat that night! Next morning we went fishing ourselves, without our guide, and did not have
much luck - Rork cought only one lobster and Kevin none (however, he practiced with his spear to kill lionfish).
Afternoon the whole island was full of the visitors from the other islands for the C-Type sailing race - there were couple hundred
people on the island with only 60 original citizens.
==================================================
Feb.9-10
==================================================
Time to move again - at some point we have to make it to the civilization, do laundry, buy normal food and, most important, get the
cash. Not many places in past two weeks accepting credit cards, and we did not expected that.
Left Farmer's Cay and landed at Lee Stocking Cay, near the former Caribbean Marine Research Center - this is our midstop before
Georgetown. As soon as we parked, Rork and Kevin were eager to go to spearfishing again. It's a beatiful place here with some good reef.
As soon as we stopped at the best reef for fishing, Kevin spotted a huge shark cruising near him, so, in panic guys got back on the
dinghy and decided not to go back in the water again. Our mistake - we went in the high tide time when sharks are coming from Exumas
Sound to Exumas Banks throug the cuts to get some food. We did not want to become their dinner, and, we did not catch anything for
dinner. Macaroni and lentils again...
=================================================
Feb.11..
=====================================================
We are in the oasis of civilization - Emerald Bay Marina. It's very nice marina, only $1 per foot a day. And, there is an amazing state
of the art FREE laundry room, great spacious restrooms and showers, huge TV in the community room at the marina with great expensive
furniture where we have happy hours almost every day. It's a DREAM spot to "lick our wounds".
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Marina's Diary through the Bahamas
Jan.22-25
================================================
It was painless 4 hours motorsail from West Bay to Nassau Harbor together with our friends. At the entrance to harbor you have to request
permission to enter via VHF because there is some traffic in this harbor, predominaly, huge cruise ships. We landed at Yacht Harbor
Haven Marina ($2 per foot/night - $80 a night). It's nice to be at sturdy ground again, having restroom, shower, trash bins and laundry.
At the same day we checked out nearby marine store and .. bought a new Mercury 15hp outboard 2 stroke engine! Feels like Christmass again.
We blow off our budget out of proportion, but it's time to replace our 43 years old Mercy (running only on one cylinder now), at least
it's $500 cheaper then in Florida!
Starbucks (2 of them) and Whole foods (called here Fresh Market) made it here to Nassau! Very expensive coffee and outragiously expensive
groceries. What can you get for $50 in the grocery store? Well, for this money I got one zucchini, cup of ricotta, box of green salad,
ice cream and gallon of distilled water. We reallly need to figure out this fishing thing...
We did not like Nassau much - downtown is packed with tourists from cruise ships, everything is very overpriced - impossible to afford
a lunch in downtown restaurants and, it's dangerous to walk couple blockes up from main street and after dark on any streets because of
the street gangs.
In Nassau we found a dentist for Kevin, but have to wait for his decision if he can create a new crown for Kevin's implant - it's nothing
easy on the islands! Well, after two expensive but comfortable nights at the marina we will return to our original anchorage in West Bay.
Motorsailing again..no wind.. when finally we will have a chance just to sail all the way?
Hiding at this anchorage from the front with strong winds. Nice, we meet our young friends here - they try to use only anchorages and no
eating out (we have to make an effort to live by their example). We spent a relaxing day at the Clifton national park - walked this place
all over. The beaches are very nice here and one of the beaches, Jaws beach, is famous for screening "Jaws" movie.
It's a nice place here but too far from civilization, and we are out of bread...and then I found out that my dry east is not good anymore
Yea, live on the boat is not fun every day. At night three couples meet for planning the next trip to Exumas!
Everybody is convinced that Exumas are Heaven, will see tomorrow... And, I got a replacement for my "unactivated" yeast - Anjella and Cody bought the fresh
one for us in Nassau, yes, now we can make bread again!
================================================
Jan.25-26
================================================
Early in the morning, at 6:54am we left West Bay (actually, we should leave earlier, like at 6, but it never happens) and sailed to Allan's
Cay in Exumas. We were surprised to find that anchorage full of boats, and worked a bit harder this time to find space to lay an anchor.
Next day right after breakfast we got into dinhgy and started exploring beaches and little reef islands scattered around. Our goal was to find
something to eat, if not fish then at least a lobster or a conch. Otherwise we have to eat vegitarian dinner again...
Anjella and Cody joined us in our quest for food. Guys were snorkling with spears (looking like cavemen) hopping to catch something, but
after couple hours it was clear that "our" food was picked up by somebody else already, and there was a 6 feet bullshark swimming around.
We decided not to take chances with that creature and just hang out on the beach and enjoyed interactive activity with jaguanas - hundreds of
them on the beaches! They are such unattractive and rude and fearless creatures, and they might be considered as a source of dinner, but we
were not sure if we can eat them, so we left them just crawl around asking for our attention (they got used for tourists to feed them
all kinds of things). Today we finally satisfied our desire to swim and snorkle around for the whole day, that was a very fun day
(including jaguanas).
===============================================
Jan.27 - 28
===============================================
Still at Allan's Cay. Today is somewhat maintenance day for us - Marina is backing bread and Kevin dove to check bottom of the boat. Turned
out that our camera is fully covered with barnicles and zinc is gone on almost all bottom parts, which means.. yes, we have to find a marine
hardware store, again, and again.
Afternoon we motored (yes, there is no wind at all!) to Highborne Cay. It's mostly a private island with very overpriced marina. We just
anchored nearby and took our dinghy to get water and check out the store - we are low on salt and alhocol. Water was $0.50 per gallon - not
bad, but we could not affort to buy anything in the store other than salt, rum and cigarettes. This marina was occupied with multiple huge
megayahts, everything is very clean and very "brittish" (the megayahts are coming here from England).
We made friends with local fishermen - Kevin suggested work with them for free, actually, just for fish for dinner. They gave us three
fresh red snappers in the exchange for entertaiment: Kevin has to prove that he knows how to clean fish. Well, that did not go very well,
but we still got fish for dinner and got free rum and coke, we even exchanged phone numbers in case we need each other (life is funny,
everything can happen).
We fried the fish the way locals told us and food was delishious. Later at night we caught a huge unknown to us fish, broght it in
the cockpit and quick found it's picture in our fish reference book. Turns out it's a horse-eye jack, which is poisonous with ciguatera.
So, we had to let our fish go.... so sad, because it could feed us for at least 3 days.
Next day we saw a sailboat ran aground (corral reefs) in the channel and he could not get out himself for a while. We rashed on the
dinghy to help and joined other bigger boat there already trying to pull poor sailboat out of the reefs. We worked on that at least an hour
but in vain, so sailboat had to stay aground waiting for hight tide hopping that will help him to get out of this trap.
It was very good excesize for us - so we would know what to do in situation like that.
On the way back we saw about 20 HUGE bull sharks swimming around - that is very creepy scenery! Cannot swimm here...
At this marina we met our buddies in motorboat who we met yet in Clearwater, Fl and then met them again in Bimini. Definitely, we have to
hang out together! So, we decided to go with them to Shroud Cay this afternoon.
In the evening we visited Southern Belle (our buddies trawler) for drinks and talks - as usually, Kevin entertained everybody with our
previous sailing stories.
================================================
Jan.29
================================================
Shroud Cay is uninhabited island but has a lot of nature attractions. While checking out nearby a little beach with very white sand
we found a water well in the depth of mangroves which are growing on reefs. The water here accumulated from rains and was pretty clean-
we washed our salty dirty bodies and our clothes in FRESH water, that was a treat!
We had very busy day exploring nearby island Norman Cay by dinghy. We snorkled at plane crash (from the drug war in 1980s), saw the caves
in the reef walls where drugs were stored (maybe?) and explored deserted beatiful beaches with absolutelly amazing water of different
colors. Color of the water is defined by the depth of the water and terrain on the bottom and we are getting much better at "reading water"
because it's essential survival skill here, in Bahamas. At the middle of the day we stack with our dinghy in the middle of the huge Normand
Cay Bay - it was the low tide and whatever was before 2-3 feet depth now was just sand! This change happened very quickly, so we did not
have time to get to deeper waters. As a result of that, we got a hard and great workout just drugging our dinghy by hand throught the sand
to the deeper waters, that was a loooong drug... But we were revorded by the deserted beatiful white sandy beach where we allowed ourselves
to swim nacked, pick up sanddollars, check the sea stars in the water and have our lunch in the shade of only one tree on the beach.
With all this beaty around you notice some human's non-positive involvement in the nature: we saw a lot of trash on the beaches, predominaly
plastic cans of different sizes and functionality. It's very sad to see that in such a beatiful nature.
================================================
Jan.30 - 31
================================================
We made it to Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park (VHF 9) after about 4 hours of motorsailing (again). Very nice park with very slow and expencive
wifi - $15 per 24 hours, plus $20 for mooring ball per day. And... no restrooms or water or trash disposal or any other amenities.
But it's very beatiful wild nature park with typical Bahamian vegitation, blue holes, nice snorkling reefs, and fearless birds (they eat almost
from your hands!). And we saw a very weird animal at night near the office, which remined a very fat rat, but without a rat tail. We still
don't know what is was. By the tradition any new arrived boat has to bring a drift wood with the name of the boat to the Boobo Hill - and we did.
We met some new cruisers here and saw our old buddies, Southern Belle (we keep bumping with them at any place we go!). Every night somebody
from the cruisers organizes a happy hour, which is great opportunity to meet new people and share experiences.
Oh, and we had our 11th anniversary on Jan.31. Marina made nice dinner: mashed potatoes, salad from last cucamber and last tomato, last two chicken
breasts (can't believe they still were frozen!) and last bottle of nice red wine (Phantom - our favorite).
=================================================
Feb.1
=================================================
Waiting for better weather today - wind is to strong to move to another island. Maybe tomorrow we can finally sail to the civilized place - it's time to
get some provision and water would be great. Laundry is already so long time overdue too...
We use today for some maintenance of the boat: changed wind generator blades (the new once supposed to be more efficient), made a bread, listened to all
weather staition Kevin could find on HEM radio.
================================================
It was painless 4 hours motorsail from West Bay to Nassau Harbor together with our friends. At the entrance to harbor you have to request
permission to enter via VHF because there is some traffic in this harbor, predominaly, huge cruise ships. We landed at Yacht Harbor
Haven Marina ($2 per foot/night - $80 a night). It's nice to be at sturdy ground again, having restroom, shower, trash bins and laundry.
At the same day we checked out nearby marine store and .. bought a new Mercury 15hp outboard 2 stroke engine! Feels like Christmass again.
We blow off our budget out of proportion, but it's time to replace our 43 years old Mercy (running only on one cylinder now), at least
it's $500 cheaper then in Florida!
Starbucks (2 of them) and Whole foods (called here Fresh Market) made it here to Nassau! Very expensive coffee and outragiously expensive
groceries. What can you get for $50 in the grocery store? Well, for this money I got one zucchini, cup of ricotta, box of green salad,
ice cream and gallon of distilled water. We reallly need to figure out this fishing thing...
We did not like Nassau much - downtown is packed with tourists from cruise ships, everything is very overpriced - impossible to afford
a lunch in downtown restaurants and, it's dangerous to walk couple blockes up from main street and after dark on any streets because of
the street gangs.
In Nassau we found a dentist for Kevin, but have to wait for his decision if he can create a new crown for Kevin's implant - it's nothing
easy on the islands! Well, after two expensive but comfortable nights at the marina we will return to our original anchorage in West Bay.
Motorsailing again..no wind.. when finally we will have a chance just to sail all the way?
Hiding at this anchorage from the front with strong winds. Nice, we meet our young friends here - they try to use only anchorages and no
eating out (we have to make an effort to live by their example). We spent a relaxing day at the Clifton national park - walked this place
all over. The beaches are very nice here and one of the beaches, Jaws beach, is famous for screening "Jaws" movie.
It's a nice place here but too far from civilization, and we are out of bread...and then I found out that my dry east is not good anymore
Yea, live on the boat is not fun every day. At night three couples meet for planning the next trip to Exumas!
Everybody is convinced that Exumas are Heaven, will see tomorrow... And, I got a replacement for my "unactivated" yeast - Anjella and Cody bought the fresh
one for us in Nassau, yes, now we can make bread again!
================================================
Jan.25-26
================================================
Early in the morning, at 6:54am we left West Bay (actually, we should leave earlier, like at 6, but it never happens) and sailed to Allan's
Cay in Exumas. We were surprised to find that anchorage full of boats, and worked a bit harder this time to find space to lay an anchor.
Next day right after breakfast we got into dinhgy and started exploring beaches and little reef islands scattered around. Our goal was to find
something to eat, if not fish then at least a lobster or a conch. Otherwise we have to eat vegitarian dinner again...
Anjella and Cody joined us in our quest for food. Guys were snorkling with spears (looking like cavemen) hopping to catch something, but
after couple hours it was clear that "our" food was picked up by somebody else already, and there was a 6 feet bullshark swimming around.
We decided not to take chances with that creature and just hang out on the beach and enjoyed interactive activity with jaguanas - hundreds of
them on the beaches! They are such unattractive and rude and fearless creatures, and they might be considered as a source of dinner, but we
were not sure if we can eat them, so we left them just crawl around asking for our attention (they got used for tourists to feed them
all kinds of things). Today we finally satisfied our desire to swim and snorkle around for the whole day, that was a very fun day
(including jaguanas).
===============================================
Jan.27 - 28
===============================================
Still at Allan's Cay. Today is somewhat maintenance day for us - Marina is backing bread and Kevin dove to check bottom of the boat. Turned
out that our camera is fully covered with barnicles and zinc is gone on almost all bottom parts, which means.. yes, we have to find a marine
hardware store, again, and again.
Afternoon we motored (yes, there is no wind at all!) to Highborne Cay. It's mostly a private island with very overpriced marina. We just
anchored nearby and took our dinghy to get water and check out the store - we are low on salt and alhocol. Water was $0.50 per gallon - not
bad, but we could not affort to buy anything in the store other than salt, rum and cigarettes. This marina was occupied with multiple huge
megayahts, everything is very clean and very "brittish" (the megayahts are coming here from England).
We made friends with local fishermen - Kevin suggested work with them for free, actually, just for fish for dinner. They gave us three
fresh red snappers in the exchange for entertaiment: Kevin has to prove that he knows how to clean fish. Well, that did not go very well,
but we still got fish for dinner and got free rum and coke, we even exchanged phone numbers in case we need each other (life is funny,
everything can happen).
We fried the fish the way locals told us and food was delishious. Later at night we caught a huge unknown to us fish, broght it in
the cockpit and quick found it's picture in our fish reference book. Turns out it's a horse-eye jack, which is poisonous with ciguatera.
So, we had to let our fish go.... so sad, because it could feed us for at least 3 days.
Next day we saw a sailboat ran aground (corral reefs) in the channel and he could not get out himself for a while. We rashed on the
dinghy to help and joined other bigger boat there already trying to pull poor sailboat out of the reefs. We worked on that at least an hour
but in vain, so sailboat had to stay aground waiting for hight tide hopping that will help him to get out of this trap.
It was very good excesize for us - so we would know what to do in situation like that.
On the way back we saw about 20 HUGE bull sharks swimming around - that is very creepy scenery! Cannot swimm here...
At this marina we met our buddies in motorboat who we met yet in Clearwater, Fl and then met them again in Bimini. Definitely, we have to
hang out together! So, we decided to go with them to Shroud Cay this afternoon.
In the evening we visited Southern Belle (our buddies trawler) for drinks and talks - as usually, Kevin entertained everybody with our
previous sailing stories.
================================================
Jan.29
================================================
Shroud Cay is uninhabited island but has a lot of nature attractions. While checking out nearby a little beach with very white sand
we found a water well in the depth of mangroves which are growing on reefs. The water here accumulated from rains and was pretty clean-
we washed our salty dirty bodies and our clothes in FRESH water, that was a treat!
We had very busy day exploring nearby island Norman Cay by dinghy. We snorkled at plane crash (from the drug war in 1980s), saw the caves
in the reef walls where drugs were stored (maybe?) and explored deserted beatiful beaches with absolutelly amazing water of different
colors. Color of the water is defined by the depth of the water and terrain on the bottom and we are getting much better at "reading water"
because it's essential survival skill here, in Bahamas. At the middle of the day we stack with our dinghy in the middle of the huge Normand
Cay Bay - it was the low tide and whatever was before 2-3 feet depth now was just sand! This change happened very quickly, so we did not
have time to get to deeper waters. As a result of that, we got a hard and great workout just drugging our dinghy by hand throught the sand
to the deeper waters, that was a loooong drug... But we were revorded by the deserted beatiful white sandy beach where we allowed ourselves
to swim nacked, pick up sanddollars, check the sea stars in the water and have our lunch in the shade of only one tree on the beach.
With all this beaty around you notice some human's non-positive involvement in the nature: we saw a lot of trash on the beaches, predominaly
plastic cans of different sizes and functionality. It's very sad to see that in such a beatiful nature.
================================================
Jan.30 - 31
================================================
We made it to Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park (VHF 9) after about 4 hours of motorsailing (again). Very nice park with very slow and expencive
wifi - $15 per 24 hours, plus $20 for mooring ball per day. And... no restrooms or water or trash disposal or any other amenities.
But it's very beatiful wild nature park with typical Bahamian vegitation, blue holes, nice snorkling reefs, and fearless birds (they eat almost
from your hands!). And we saw a very weird animal at night near the office, which remined a very fat rat, but without a rat tail. We still
don't know what is was. By the tradition any new arrived boat has to bring a drift wood with the name of the boat to the Boobo Hill - and we did.
We met some new cruisers here and saw our old buddies, Southern Belle (we keep bumping with them at any place we go!). Every night somebody
from the cruisers organizes a happy hour, which is great opportunity to meet new people and share experiences.
Oh, and we had our 11th anniversary on Jan.31. Marina made nice dinner: mashed potatoes, salad from last cucamber and last tomato, last two chicken
breasts (can't believe they still were frozen!) and last bottle of nice red wine (Phantom - our favorite).
=================================================
Feb.1
=================================================
Waiting for better weather today - wind is to strong to move to another island. Maybe tomorrow we can finally sail to the civilized place - it's time to
get some provision and water would be great. Laundry is already so long time overdue too...
We use today for some maintenance of the boat: changed wind generator blades (the new once supposed to be more efficient), made a bread, listened to all
weather staition Kevin could find on HEM radio.
Friday, January 24, 2014
West Bay, Providence , we spent 3 nights here.
Mainly just a spot to stop and spend the night before you move on. Walked the park and tried out our new 15 hp engine. That dinghy gets up and goes now. Today is a rough day, tomorrow we will try to head out to the Exumas. Not much left here in Providence Island to do. Nassau is really only a bus stop for the cruisers headed to the Exumas and beyond.
[pe2-gallery album="http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/113758362718683506275/albumid/5972553968612273361?alt=rss&hl=en_US&kind=photo" ]
[pe2-gallery album="http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/113758362718683506275/albumid/5972553968612273361?alt=rss&hl=en_US&kind=photo" ]
Nassau....it's everything you would expect
Most expensive store we have found. A Whole Foodish store. The other Super Value Store we made it to, we had to walk the green mile again. We have been spending time with some of the people we followed across the Gulf. That is nice, but it's time to spread our wings and learn to fly on our own. The herding thing is nice, but one really has to let go of the ropes and do it on your own.
Our herding group has a project manager, who talks a lot, I mean a lot. But most of it is worth something. We have a weather guy, kinda the worker type and errors on the side of caution. That is nice. I believe they call us the Mr. Calm and The Panic Button. We really don't have to do much. Just wait to hear the orders and push onward.
Nassau
Our herding group has a project manager, who talks a lot, I mean a lot. But most of it is worth something. We have a weather guy, kinda the worker type and errors on the side of caution. That is nice. I believe they call us the Mr. Calm and The Panic Button. We really don't have to do much. Just wait to hear the orders and push onward.
Nassau
The Great Banks
It's weird parking in the middle of the banks. Not a bit of land in sight. Water is at most 20 feet deep. Watch out for coral reefs.
http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/113758362718683506275/albumid/5972554823799951441?alt=rss&hl=en_US&kind=photo
http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/113758362718683506275/albumid/5972554823799951441?alt=rss&hl=en_US&kind=photo
The Great Banks
It's weird parking in the middle of the banks. Not a bit of land in sight. Water is at most 20 feet deep. Watch out for coral reefs.
The Great Banks
The Great Banks
Pictures of the trip from Bimini
Here are some of our friends we met. Just so I remember their names. Rork and Sherry, on Island Pearl; Jonathan and Monica, on Journey;
Jaral our friend we met on the island, he thinks I have problems. Actually at this point, I think all our new friends do.
http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/113758362718683506275/albumid/5972555132004836417?alt=rss&hl=en_US&kind=photo
Jaral our friend we met on the island, he thinks I have problems. Actually at this point, I think all our new friends do.
http://picasaweb.google.com/data/feed/base/user/113758362718683506275/albumid/5972555132004836417?alt=rss&hl=en_US&kind=photo
Pictures of the trip from Bimini
Here are some of our friends we met. Just so I remember their names. Rork and Sherry, on Island Pearl; Jonathan and Monica, on Journey;
Jaral our friend we met on the island, he thinks I have problems. Actually at this point, I think all our new friends do.
Bimini
Jaral our friend we met on the island, he thinks I have problems. Actually at this point, I think all our new friends do.
Bimini
Marathon to Bimini to Nassau to West Bay
We left Marathon and what a relief it is. That place has too many people that just live there on their boat. The place certainly has all the amenities one needs, but it is much like a dorm room, only with adults. The people chatter and chatter. One person says something and it spreads like a disease.
Around 2pm we headed out of the Marathon toward North Bimini. The trip was supposed to take 20 - 24 hour, it took 21. We motored out across the wall into the deeper water of about 100 feet. After about 3 hours of that, we sailed for the next 18 hours. Across the gulf stream. The water heated up to around 84 degrees near the middle of the stream and then back down to 77 as ground started coming up again. The gulf stream is around 2800 feet deep on the average. That's deep. Our depth sounder does not go that deep. It just blinks the last number it sees. Sometimes in the middle of the gulf it will blink 34 feet, I guess it found a fish.
We traveled with 10 other boats across and we all made it to Bimini the next morning. Checked in with the authorities and then walked the island. Actually we rented a golf cart and drove. That took all of 1 hour. 7 miles long, 3 blocks wide.
We spent the next few days there waiting for weather to cross the next hop to Nassau. This included 1 night at an anchorage on the great bahama banks. This is where the land is only up to 20 feet deep all the way across to Nassau. Kinda weird to anchor in the middle of nowhere and all you see I water. Saw the sunrise and then on to Nassau.
Nassau is everything you would expect. 3 cruise ships, many people, crime and dirty. The people are not as near friendly either. It is a typical turist stop for the cruise ships. They did have your favorite stores, Gucci, Starbucks, Cartier, United Colors of Benetton, and Fat Tuesday's
Spent 2 night at Nassau Yacht Marina and spent more money that we should have. So we left.
Before we left I tried to fix the leaking diesel tanks. Thought I had it until we started going. Actually had 2 problems. One the caps leaks. Diesel ate right through the glue. Second, somehow the valve was switched to feed the return diesel to a different tank. So one tank was empting rather quickly, while the other tank was overfull. All that extra diesel went to the bildge. about a gallon or so. That is tough to clean and stinks. I can still smell it as i type.
Around 2pm we headed out of the Marathon toward North Bimini. The trip was supposed to take 20 - 24 hour, it took 21. We motored out across the wall into the deeper water of about 100 feet. After about 3 hours of that, we sailed for the next 18 hours. Across the gulf stream. The water heated up to around 84 degrees near the middle of the stream and then back down to 77 as ground started coming up again. The gulf stream is around 2800 feet deep on the average. That's deep. Our depth sounder does not go that deep. It just blinks the last number it sees. Sometimes in the middle of the gulf it will blink 34 feet, I guess it found a fish.
We traveled with 10 other boats across and we all made it to Bimini the next morning. Checked in with the authorities and then walked the island. Actually we rented a golf cart and drove. That took all of 1 hour. 7 miles long, 3 blocks wide.
We spent the next few days there waiting for weather to cross the next hop to Nassau. This included 1 night at an anchorage on the great bahama banks. This is where the land is only up to 20 feet deep all the way across to Nassau. Kinda weird to anchor in the middle of nowhere and all you see I water. Saw the sunrise and then on to Nassau.
Nassau is everything you would expect. 3 cruise ships, many people, crime and dirty. The people are not as near friendly either. It is a typical turist stop for the cruise ships. They did have your favorite stores, Gucci, Starbucks, Cartier, United Colors of Benetton, and Fat Tuesday's
Spent 2 night at Nassau Yacht Marina and spent more money that we should have. So we left.
Before we left I tried to fix the leaking diesel tanks. Thought I had it until we started going. Actually had 2 problems. One the caps leaks. Diesel ate right through the glue. Second, somehow the valve was switched to feed the return diesel to a different tank. So one tank was empting rather quickly, while the other tank was overfull. All that extra diesel went to the bildge. about a gallon or so. That is tough to clean and stinks. I can still smell it as i type.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Well, Marina is back at it...the saga continues
===========================
Nov.29 - Dec.31, 2013
===========================
We got "too busy" life lately and did not put any effort in updating our blog for some time....
We spent more than 3 weeks at the anchor in St.Pete Beach and we loved it there every minute! So far, it's our most favorite stop
while traveling from Clear Lake,TX to Florida.
I had my Carpal Tunnel Syndrom surgery done Dec.16 in Tempa and in couple days we got our new main sail done. It's time to move on to Keys...
It was very sad to leave this beatiful old little beach town with miles of the white beaches.
The next stop we had in Venice, Fl. Spent a night there and sailed next day to Charlott Bay - we finally got 4 hours of pure sailing on broad reach!
Tested out our new main sail - great!
From Charlott Bay we took 24 hours sail straight to Key West since weather was getting bad again. In Key West we stayed at ABC Marina for couple days and
waited for our daughters to show up for Christmas vacation. We were surprised to find out that there are no nice beaches in Key West and in Keys in general.
But we spent our time walking a lot around, visiting Hemmingway house filled with sixtowed cats, movie, bars, restaurants,etc.
In couple days we moved down the Keys ancoring at a secluded place, then Bajia Honda state part, and finally made it to Marathon.
The Boot Bay in Marathon was full of the boats (at least 250!) of different kind, ancored or on moorings. So far it was the best setup for boaters at the
City Marina. Restrooms, showers, laundry, community room with working wifi, "boat projects" rooms, dinghy lift, water, etc - everything to support
normal life of the sailors on the way to their destinations. And finally, we made some friends sailors, who planned to get to Bahamas too.
================================
January 18, 2014 -
Day? Who knows...lost track of days we are on our trip. I guess, this is a good thing?
================================
We made it to Bahamas, North Biminy, on Jan.14th. 2014
The crossing of the Golfstream was a team effort. In Marathon, Fl, we met with other boaters with the same sailing plans as ours - make it to
North Biminy, Bahamas. Every day at 9am we had a chance to chat with other boaters in Marathon via VHF sessions and had "Bahama" meetings
periodically. That helped us a lot in preparation of the Golfstream crossing and we made good friends with couple "buddy" sailers. The harderst
part was waiting for the favorable weather for this crossing.
As soon as we came back from our short trip to Austin (trying to fix Kevin tooth), the weather changed in our favors and our buddies were planning
to leave next day! We just had couple hours to prepare for departure to Bahamas: got provision from Publix store, got gasoline for our dinhgy, filled up
water tanks, etc. In such a rush we did not have time to do laundry at the City Marina - we accumulated a lot of dirty clothes after our daughers visited us
for Christmass and New Year celebrations. But oh well, we got to go finally!
We sailed for 22 hours with three "buddy" boats. It was interesting that everybody had chosen about the same pass and while sailing overnight we could see
lights of our friends boats everywhere around us - false feeling of security. Next day, around noon, everybody made it through the dangerous pass to the Browns
Marina in North Bimini.
After clearance with customs we finally could relax, "lick our wounds" and take a nap.
For couple days we got sucked in to close socialazing with our new friends: dinners, lunches, happry hours, fun, helping each other with boat
projects - feels like we are back to college dorms! Feels good!
There are not many attractions on Bimini, except of the beatiful ocean and banks waters of different colors - there are more than five different shades of
aquamarine, and blue, and green. Kevin tried to catch some fish on the first night, but we were so surprised to find out that our catch of the day was a neighbor's
dinghy! Since then we did not have much luck with fishing, however, we saw couple sharks and enourmous tarpon swimming around our boats.
The main food around here are different dishes from conch (I like salad from raw conch - delish), and of course, fish.
But, it's time for us to continue with our trip - tomorrow we are planning to start our couple days trip to Nassau, and yes, we are going
with our "buddy" boats again.
=====================================
Nov.29 - Dec.31, 2013
===========================
We got "too busy" life lately and did not put any effort in updating our blog for some time....
We spent more than 3 weeks at the anchor in St.Pete Beach and we loved it there every minute! So far, it's our most favorite stop
while traveling from Clear Lake,TX to Florida.
I had my Carpal Tunnel Syndrom surgery done Dec.16 in Tempa and in couple days we got our new main sail done. It's time to move on to Keys...
It was very sad to leave this beatiful old little beach town with miles of the white beaches.
The next stop we had in Venice, Fl. Spent a night there and sailed next day to Charlott Bay - we finally got 4 hours of pure sailing on broad reach!
Tested out our new main sail - great!
From Charlott Bay we took 24 hours sail straight to Key West since weather was getting bad again. In Key West we stayed at ABC Marina for couple days and
waited for our daughters to show up for Christmas vacation. We were surprised to find out that there are no nice beaches in Key West and in Keys in general.
But we spent our time walking a lot around, visiting Hemmingway house filled with sixtowed cats, movie, bars, restaurants,etc.
In couple days we moved down the Keys ancoring at a secluded place, then Bajia Honda state part, and finally made it to Marathon.
The Boot Bay in Marathon was full of the boats (at least 250!) of different kind, ancored or on moorings. So far it was the best setup for boaters at the
City Marina. Restrooms, showers, laundry, community room with working wifi, "boat projects" rooms, dinghy lift, water, etc - everything to support
normal life of the sailors on the way to their destinations. And finally, we made some friends sailors, who planned to get to Bahamas too.
================================
January 18, 2014 -
Day? Who knows...lost track of days we are on our trip. I guess, this is a good thing?
================================
We made it to Bahamas, North Biminy, on Jan.14th. 2014
The crossing of the Golfstream was a team effort. In Marathon, Fl, we met with other boaters with the same sailing plans as ours - make it to
North Biminy, Bahamas. Every day at 9am we had a chance to chat with other boaters in Marathon via VHF sessions and had "Bahama" meetings
periodically. That helped us a lot in preparation of the Golfstream crossing and we made good friends with couple "buddy" sailers. The harderst
part was waiting for the favorable weather for this crossing.
As soon as we came back from our short trip to Austin (trying to fix Kevin tooth), the weather changed in our favors and our buddies were planning
to leave next day! We just had couple hours to prepare for departure to Bahamas: got provision from Publix store, got gasoline for our dinhgy, filled up
water tanks, etc. In such a rush we did not have time to do laundry at the City Marina - we accumulated a lot of dirty clothes after our daughers visited us
for Christmass and New Year celebrations. But oh well, we got to go finally!
We sailed for 22 hours with three "buddy" boats. It was interesting that everybody had chosen about the same pass and while sailing overnight we could see
lights of our friends boats everywhere around us - false feeling of security. Next day, around noon, everybody made it through the dangerous pass to the Browns
Marina in North Bimini.
After clearance with customs we finally could relax, "lick our wounds" and take a nap.
For couple days we got sucked in to close socialazing with our new friends: dinners, lunches, happry hours, fun, helping each other with boat
projects - feels like we are back to college dorms! Feels good!
There are not many attractions on Bimini, except of the beatiful ocean and banks waters of different colors - there are more than five different shades of
aquamarine, and blue, and green. Kevin tried to catch some fish on the first night, but we were so surprised to find out that our catch of the day was a neighbor's
dinghy! Since then we did not have much luck with fishing, however, we saw couple sharks and enourmous tarpon swimming around our boats.
The main food around here are different dishes from conch (I like salad from raw conch - delish), and of course, fish.
But, it's time for us to continue with our trip - tomorrow we are planning to start our couple days trip to Nassau, and yes, we are going
with our "buddy" boats again.
=====================================
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Spent the day at the Boat show.
One should not go to the boat show. All you see is boats you cannot afford. But they sure are nice.
Boat Show
Boat Show
Came back to the boat the other day to bird shit...everywhere
Some bird had a bad case of diahrea and decided to use our boat as it's dumping ground. I spent the next hour washing the crap off. We have spent 8 days here and no bird has bothered us...but this day, while we were out...they made up for it. Marina did notice that it seems to be the Crows that are the culprits and not the Pelicans. The crows like to sit on masts and poop. The pelicans just fly around and head right back for the tree to do their business. We head to the hotel across the street to do our business. Those damn crows need a place.....
Took the damn sink apart for the 3rd time.
I glued it shut. It better never leak again.
that damn drain would leak and leak and leak. I siliconed it....I plumber puttied it, this time I 3M 4200ed it. That shit should work.
we went to Home Depot to get a new drain for the sink...they don't carry that size drain. went to Lowes...same story. tried to get a new sink...none fit. Only thing left. Glue!!!!!!
I have taken it apart 3 times. I know how to freaking plumb a sink. something else is wrong with this piece of doodoo.
that damn drain would leak and leak and leak. I siliconed it....I plumber puttied it, this time I 3M 4200ed it. That shit should work.
we went to Home Depot to get a new drain for the sink...they don't carry that size drain. went to Lowes...same story. tried to get a new sink...none fit. Only thing left. Glue!!!!!!
I have taken it apart 3 times. I know how to freaking plumb a sink. something else is wrong with this piece of doodoo.
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