Jan 23

We are moving on today.  Our destination is Little Harbor, which has a very shallow entrance.  We need to arrive at Little Harbor at high tide, which is not until 14:10.  Since it's a little over a three hour trip, we plan to depart about 10:30.  We also can't leave our slip until about mid tide, since we sit on the bottom below that.  We got up a little earlier than usual, but not a lot.  No alarm set.

First thing I did was listen to Chris Parker on the SSB for his morning weather net.  I have not used my SSB at all since installing it, not even to listen to anybody, so I wasn't really sure it even worked.  But, I clearly heard Chris, who broadcasts from the Tampa area.  I listened to him talk to other boats, some right by us, so I knew our plans were sound as far as the weather is concerned.  At 08:15, we tuned into the local Abaco cruiser's net on VHF channel 16 as we have done most every morning since we've been here.  One of the last things they do on the net each day is welcome new arrivals, and say goodbye to people who are leaving.  When the departures section came around, we announced our plans, along with several other boats who seem to have the same plan as we do.    After the net, we also contacted Pattie Tolar, who is the founder and main organizer of the net, and who gives the local weather, to thank her for her efforts, and say goodbye.  We had met Pattie in person during the Christmas festival.

We then took our last civilized showers for the near future, and started getting ready to leave.  I checked out with the marina and paid the bill.  I filled the water tanks, disconnected the power cords and cable TV, and we became a boat again instead of a floating condo.  We said goodbye to several folks on the docks who we have come to know over the past six weeks.  A couple of boats are also leaving today, but several will spend the entire winter here in Marsh Harbor.

At 10:30 we left the dock with the help of Tom from Larkspur to cast off our bow lines.  Barb and I had both fretted over the departure, and how the wind might affect us, and how we would get the aft lines off the pilings that were fifteen feet behind us.  But in the end, the lines came off the aft pilings with no trouble, and the wind was light enough that I was able to just push us off the dock before putting her in reverse as Tom cast off the last bow line.  We backed out like we knew what we were doing and didn't even churn up too much mud.

As the seagull flies, it is about thirteen miles from Marsh Harbor to Little Harbor.  As the boat must travel though, it was about twenty-two.  Little harbor is south of Marsh Harbor.  First you go west the length of Marsh Harbor, about a mile, to reach the opening of the harbor.  Then you go north half a mile to get into the Sea of Abaco, then you go east about four miles to get around Matt Lowe's Cay, then you turn south west about a mile, then back west three miles.  You are now due south of where you started, and could have walked in about ten minutes over land. From this point you go south about eight miles before you have to do another east/south/west jog around a shallow area.  This jog takes you to just inside the reef where the ocean waves are crashing up as they hit the reef.  It pretty unnerving to go this close to the breakers before turning south and paralleling the reef for a mile or so, then coming back in a mile west of the reef.  From here it's about four more miles south to the entrance to Little Harbor.   The Little Harbor entrance is well marked by Bahamian standards, in that there are three pair of floating buoys, reds on the right, greens of the left.  We got there about twenty minutes after high tide, so we should have had about seven feet of water according to the charts and the cruising guides.  We did fine as we slowly entered (I learned about slowly doing very shallow water when we ran aground in Green Turtle Cay back in December).  At the last pair of markers, about when I was feeling pretty good about things, we bogged down in the mud and came to a halt.  There was a large catamaran coming only a few hundred feet behind us, so I did the only thing I could, and gave it full throttle forward hoping it was soft enough and the shallow spot small enough that we could plow through it.  Fortunately we did and about twenty feet later, we were in fifteen feet of water.  Little Harbor has moorings for about a dozen or so boats, and a few more can anchor.  We grabbed a mooring, and within a few minutes, a guy in a little tender came by to collect the $15 fee.  The fee collector also has a private wireless internet deal in the harbor for $1/day.  I gave him the dollar although I may not be able to avail myself of it.  Unfortunately, last night I dropped my wireless antennae and broke it.  I took it apart and found the plug where the cable goes in had broken free from the circuit board.  I tried the PCMCIA wireless card that I have, but it would not pick up his signal.  Guess we'll be sat phone only for now.

There are two reasons to come to Little Harbor.  One is to visit Pete's Pub.  The other is to visit the bronze foundry where Pete Johnson (same Pete) casts bronze art pieces.  Pete's father had built the foundry when he first came to Little Harbor in the early fifties.  First things first, and this afternoon we will visit the pub.  We launched the dinghy and headed ashore.  We beached the dinghy at the pub and walked in.  The pub is an open air affair and the bar looks like the bow of a small boat.  There are t-shirts hung all over the rafters which cruisers have autographed and left.  We could probably start doing this at every bar that has this kind of deal and still not run out of t-shirts for a few years.  We got a drink and then walked up the walkway that went over the dune to see the ocean side.  The ocean is not more than a hundred feet from the bar which is right on the water on the harbor side.  It was a great view, especially since the swell off the Atlantic has been pretty big for several days so the waves were crashing ashore quite impressively.  There were a number of people there, including the crew of Flicka who were entertaining us with guitar and electronic keyboard music.  We enjoyed a couple of drinks and headed back to the boat before dark.

After dinner I went out on deck, outside the cockpit enclosure and was amazed at the sights and sounds.  The first thing I noticed was the stars.  Even though Marsh Harbor is not a big city, the lights from the town cause the skies to be like we would expect to see in any town back home.  Sure there are stars, but not the bazillions of them that you see when you are away from city lights.  Of course we have experienced this before, but it has been six weeks, and it was good to see again.  One of these days I'm going to bone up on my constellations again, so I can appreciate the night sky even more.  The second thing I noticed out there in the dark was the light from the Hopetown lighthouse.  The Hopetown lighthouse is a real, old fashioned Fresnel lens lighthouse, not just a beacon on a tower.  We didn't go up in it when we were in Hopetown, but I put a picture of it on the website earlier.

The third thing that caught my attention was the sound.  I recall sitting on the balcony of a vacation rental house on the beach in Cape Hatteras, NC several years ago, telling my brother that I couldn't wait to be somewhere on my boat listening to the crashing surf.  As soon as I said it, it occurred to me that if you can hear the crashing surf when you are anchored in your sailboat, you are probably too close to a dangerous shore.  Well, here I am, in a calm protected harbor, listening to the roar of the waves crashing ashore about a hundred yards away.  Pretty cool.

As is the case when there is no TV to distract you, we read for a while and then turned in about 21:00. 

GPS N 26-19.654 W 76-59.969  Miles made good this leg 22.  Total miles covered 3715.

Jan 24

We had a great night's sleep.  We were secure on a mooring, we were in a fully protected harbor, and the wind only blew gently all night.  Just before dawn we had about a two minute rain shower, but we were all closed up so it didn't matter.  It wasn't enough to rinse the salt off the boat from yesterday's trip.  Because of the surf crashing just over the dune, there is a constant salt mist in the air anyway, so everything has got a salt haze on it.

We had a good full breakfast and then headed ashore.  We first went to the west side of the harbor to peak at the cave where Pete's parents originally lived back when they first came here as the original settlers of Little Harbor.  Pete also lived in the cave in 1999 after Hurricane Floyd destroyed his house.  From there we went back to the east side of the harbor where the pub, gallery, and foundry are.  We went to the foundry first to see if they offered tours.  Turns out they sometimes do, but the guy who does it just left to go fishing.  We learned later that the guy who told us this was Pete.  So, I'm not sure if just he didn't have time to entertain us then, or the guy who had just left in a jeep really was the one who does tours.  At any rate, Pete was interested in our necklaces which are coins from the wreck of the Atocha, and asked about what kind of boat we were on.

We walked on over to the gallery where we browsed around looking at many quite expensive bronze works.  Most were priced in the few-thousand range, while the highest I saw was $120,000.  We bought a book about Pete's father, who was also a bronze artist, and built the foundry.  While there, Pete's son Gregg came to drop of a new bronze piece.  After he left, the girl in the shop showed me a picture of Pete's father as a young man.  It was remarkable how Gregg looked like his grandfather.

We took a walk around the harbor on the dirt road that is the only street in town.  There were several nice homes around the harbor, as well as several one room houses that looked to be full time residences.  We walked back to the dinghy and went back to the boat for awhile.  About noon, we went ashore again and had lunch at the pub.  I had a grilled tuna sandwich and Barb had a cheeseburger.  There were quite a few people there, as there is a growing collection of boats here waiting to go south tomorrow, the same as we are.  There are at least fifteen boats in the harbor, and another dozen or so anchored outside.

We were back at the boat about 13:30, and started getting ready to move outside.  We hoisted the dinghy and made sure everything was secure.  We have to leave the harbor at or near high tide and we will anchor a couple miles away in the lee of Lynyard Cay.  The cut out to the Atlantic is just outside of the harbor entrance, so to get over to Lynyard, you have to cross the incoming swell from the ocean.  We left about an hour before high tide, based on asking another boat who was leaving what depths he saw at the place we bumped coming in.  I got a good running start so that if we did bump, we would plow through it.  We passed the place where we bumped coming in and never saw under six feet (we need five and a half).  Feeling pretty good, we headed out and then bumped several times at the first pair of markers where we had not touched coming in.  Since we were moving fast, we just slowed a bit as we pushed through it.  As soon as we were outside the harbor, we were getting hit on the starboard beam by the ocean swell.  The boat ahead of us was rolling wildly from side to side.  We didn't roll nearly as much, but I was still glad this was only for half a mile or so.  Once in the lee of Lynyard Cay, the rolling stopped.  Fortunately, there is a large area to anchor, because there were now twenty boats here.  More had come from the north during the afternoon.  We dropped the hook in about sixteen feet of water, just about a hundred yards offshore.  Again, we can clearly hear the roar of the surf just over the dune.

After we were anchored, the wind died down and we were treated to a nice sunset.  Our plan, and just about everybody else's, is to depart at dawn and head to Royal Island.  It should be an interesting race.  There has been chatter on the radio about how this many boats will fit in the small anchorage at Royal Island.  Hopefully we won't be at the back of the pack.

GPS N 26-21.296 W 76-59.117  Miles made good this leg 2.  Total miles covered 3717.

Jan 25

We were up before dawn to begin our crossing from Abaco to Eluthera.  I actually set an alarm for 05:45.  I hadn't slept worth a darn all night anyway, and I picked up my watch and looked at it at 05:39, so the alarm wasn't necessary.  I guess I didn't sleep well just because of the anticipation of going to sea again, because the anchorage was not bad at all.  While we were exposed to the west wind, we were protected from the ocean swell, and the wind had pretty much died during the night.   Anyway, at 05:45 I started the coffee and looked around to make sure everything was secure in preparation for the crossing.  Since this was going to be a longer ride than we have had in the past 6 weeks I gave the cat a Dramamine.  On the trip from Marsh Harbor to Little Harbor he was not doing too well in the rolling seas.

The route today takes us pretty much due south for about fifty miles.  The considerations are, getting out of the Little Harbor Cut, the break in the reef between the Atlantic and the Sea of Abaco, the height of the waves in the ocean, and of course the wind today.  The offshore waves have been quite high for almost a week, which is why over twenty boats have collected here in Little Harbor waiting to go south.  Today, the forecast is for the seas to diminish to four foot swells from the east.  This directly affects getting out of the cut also.  Prior to today, there were breaking waves all the way across the cut.  Today it should not be breaking.  The local winds are out of the southwest this morning at about 10kts, which will make for a close hauled sail until the predicted cold front comes through about noon and switches the wind to the northwest then north, building to about 20kts.  That will be a downwind sail for the last couple of hours to Royal Island.

When I went above at 06:00, it looked like all the boats had activity on them.  I had just finished my coffee and morning routine when the first boat weighed anchor and headed out.  There was just a hint of light on the horizon at this point.  Within the next fifteen minutes, all but two of the twenty boats anchored here, as well as a few who were actually still in Little Harbor, headed out the cut.  We heard later on the radio that some people on the beach saw us all leave and inquired with locals if it was a regatta of some sort.  By the time the sun actually broke over the low clouds on the horizon, we were clear of the cut and headed south.  We were about the fifteenth boat in the parade, and although it wasn't a race, I was keenly aware that during the day I passed three boats, including the only trawler, and I was passed by three others.  There was a concern about space in the Royal Harbor anchorage, but that was unfounded.

The day was fairly routine.  We hoisted the main as soon as we were clear of the cut, so as to give us stability in the waves, but continued to motor.  We needed to fully charge the batteries, as well as meet the deadline of arriving at Royal before dark.  It was very interesting to listen to the other boats chatter and find that they all had the same thought process as we did.  "Yeah, we'd love to have a leisurely sail, but we need to be there before dark."  There are so many details like schedules, specific destinations, and electrical needs that make real cruising so much different than day-sailing when you just go wherever the wind takes you for however much time you have.

About noon, the cold front caught us.  The winds clocked from the southwest to the northwest, then finally to the north, and there was a brief rain shower as the front passed.  Once it was past, the wind driven waves were opposing the easterly swell, so the ride got a little sloppy for the last two hours or so.  I started to feel a little queasy, so Miss Never Gets Sick, paid attention to where we were going while I laid down in the cockpit and closed my eyes for an hour and a half or so.  The Dramamine helped the cat and he finally found a place he was comfortable and stayed there.

After fifty miles of due south, we were at Egg Island.  We turned east and cut between Egg Island and Little Egg Island and then turned northeast for the last three miles to Royal Island.  Royal Island was a private estate back in the 50's and 60's, but the buildings now are merely shells.  There apparently is a plan to build a new marina and resort, but there is no evidence of that yet.  The harbor at Royal Island is protected from all directions.  There is a narrow entrance from the south, and then the harbor is an egg shaped harbor.  There is plenty of depth inside and room for thirty or forty boats.  We counted twenty five at dusk, and it's not crowded by any means.  Several of the boats that left together this morning did not come here.  A couple went directly to Spanish Wells, where we hope to go tomorrow.  A couple pressed on to Current Cut on their way to the Exumas without stopping at Eluthera.  And, a couple went to Nassau.

Once anchored, we relaxed, read a bit, plotted the next couple of days and Barb made some seafood enchiladas.  She getting pretty good at the galley stuff.  (Barb put that in the log!) Bed will come early due to lack of TV and conserving power, as well as because I'm tired.  Hopefully I'll sleep better tonight.

GPS N 25-30.945 W 76-50.700  Miles made good this leg 55.  Total miles covered 3772.

Jan 26

Royal Island has absolutely nothing to offer other than a very secure anchorage from all directions.  We want to see Spanish Wells and Harbor Island while we are in this area.  Bill & Victoria on Interlude were planning to go to Nassau today, but the seas are not conducive to that, so Bill hailed Cinnabar on the VHF to see if he had any moorings available in Spanish Wells.  He replied that he had two, so Bill told him to hold them for us both.  We weighed anchor about 08:30 and started the short seven mile trip to Spanish Wells.  There are two ways into the Spanish Wells harbor.  The one from the south is shallow, but marked, and should be doable even at low tide.  The other way into the harbor is from the east.  This eastern entry is from a channel that runs north/south.  The southern entrance to this channel is shallow and unmarked.  The northern approach to this channel would be from the open Atlantic where we were yesterday, and it requires a local pilot to navigate the coral heads.  Interlude (who is a trawler drawing five feet) led the way (we draw five and a half).  We got to the southern entrance, and found the apparent depth based on the water color to be less than the Explorer Charts indicated.  We did however, make it in the entrance to the channel, and once inside the depth was ten feet.  Interlude got up the channel past where you make a ninety degree turn and found the channel blocked by the mail boat which was backed into the dock so it could unloaded a forty foot container.  They called back to us, but we were already in the very narrow channel.  Interlude was able to turn around right alongside the mail boat, and we were able to turn around at the place where the channel turns ninety degrees.  As we headed back out to the open water, Bohengy, the fast catamaran ferry from Nassau was approaching.  They waited as we and Interlude both got out of the narrow channel.

About this time, we got hailed on the radio by Cinnabar.  He said to wait out there and he would lead us around to the other channel since the mail boat was not leaving immediately.  We headed in the right direction slowly on our own and were in less-than-six foot water.  A few minutes later a small skiff with two men in it came out the channel and waved for us to move to port some.  They passed us and indicated to get right behind them.  They then led us both around Charles Island and into the mooring area from the east.  The path they led us on was not how we would have gone based on the C-Map chart.  They took us around and into the mooring area.  Once there they picked up the mooring pennant and helped Interlude get hooked up first.  We went ahead and came around to the other empty mooring on our own.  The wind was blowing ashore very strong, and the moorings are setup so that our stern will only be about twenty feet offshore.  So I had to circle around tightly to try and catch the pennant.  We missed but I kept circling hoping Barb could grab it from the side.  Once we got sideways to the wind, we were being blown toward the very close shore.  I should mention we were between two other moored boats.  I had flashbacks of being out of control sideways in the Charleston City Marina last October.  I applied full power backwards and got control backwards to back out between the boat next to us and the next one, circled around backwards and approached the mooring backwards.  By then the guys in the skiff had come over and gotten the pennant ready to hand to Barb.  I was able to back right up to them without ramming their boat and we got attached.  They helped us get a double bridle through the pennant loop.

The guys in the skiff were Bradley Pinder a.k.a Cinnabar, and Tom, a guy who lives in a house here with his wife during the winter, and takes his Grand Banks north to Rhode Island in the summer.  I paid Cinnabar the twenty dollars for two nights and then gladly gave them twenty more as a tip for leading us in and helping with the mooring.  Bradley said we would have been aground for sure had we continued on the course we were on before they caught us.

By the time we came into the mooring area, the mail boat was leaving and had to wait a minute for us to clear the channel.  Seemed fair.  I guess we could have just waited outside for fifteen minutes or so and gotten in the other way.  Right behind the mail boat was Bohengy, the fast cat, going on to Harbor Island.  We noticed that just as he got out into the north/south channel, he stopped and then backed up.  This seemed odd, and then we heard him hail the dock on the radio.  He said he had sucked something into one of his jets and was trying to get it out.  After about ten minutes of messing around, they got underway.  They called back to the dock to say they had sucked a log into the port jet, but they got it out.  Glad to hear that since we are going to use this ferry tomorrow.

We had a bit of lunch and then launched the dinghy to see Spanish Wells.  We tied the dinghy at Pinder's Super Market.  We went into the store and bought a couple of ice cream bars and verified it was ok to leave the dinghy there for awhile.  The town is laid out basically three blocks wide (north/south) and a couple miles long (east/west).  We were near the western end at 7th St.  One thing we particularly want to find is a store we read about in the cruising guide that sells computers.  I am hoping they may have a USB antenna to replace the one I dropped and broke.  We asked at Pinder's and the computer store is on the main street that runs down the middle on the island at 13th St.  So we headed off for a walk.  The blocks here are good sized, so it was a pretty good walk.  We got there at 12:15. and as is the case with most island small businesses, they were closed from 12:00 to 13:00 for lunch.

We went down 13th St. to the ocean side of the island.  There is a long beach here, but the water is so shallow for a long ways out, that it looked like coffee from the brown sand being only a few inches below the water.  We took a few pictures and then went back to the channel side of the island.  A few blocks further west at about 17th St. we found Spanish Wells Yacht Haven, the only marina in town.  This would have been our second choice had we not been able to get a mooring.  The docks looked ok, fixed and with full length finger piers.  They had power, but that looked to be about the only advantage to the marina over the moorings.  If there were bathrooms and showers, they were well disguised.

We headed back to the middle street and found the Food Fair grocery store.  I can't tell you how odd it feels for both of us to find entertainment in browsing a grocery store just to see what they have.  We did pick up a few things, including some Johnny Cakes and a loaf of homemade bread.  It was funny to see a couple shelves full of locally made baked goods and jams and pickles, in a regular grocery store.

By now, it was almost 13:00 so we headed back to the computer store.  About a block from the store a local stopped and offered us a ride on his golf cart.  We thanked him but declined since we were almost there.  The store owner had just come back from lunch, and we were greeted by a little Yorkshire Terrier who ran up to our feet and laid down wanting petting.  We said hi to her and then I asked about an antennae.  No luck.  He has the wireless routers, but not antennas since most laptops these day have the antenna built in.  We headed back to the dinghy, with a stop at a variety/furniture/gift/card store to see what they had.  Barb found an acceptable pair of cheap flip flops to replace the pair she has worn out.  When we got back to the dinghy, I went into Pinder's Grocery again to get a bag of ice.  They don't have ice, but directed me to two places that do.  Both are a fair distance, so we got in the dinghy and went by water to Spanish Wells Marine and Hardware to get ice.  Don't you always get your ice at a hardware store?

I have had two observations about Spanish Wells.  One has to do with NASCAR.  The favored transportation here seems to be golf carts.  There are plenty of cars too, but it seems to be about 50/50.  Many of the golf carts have NASCAR related bumper stickers on them.  Jeff Gordon's #24 seems to be the most popular, with Jimmy Johnson's #48 a close second.  There was however one cart that was a very new looking red #8 Budweiser logo'ed Dale Earnhardt Jr. special.  It struck me a little odd that a laid back, small community in the Bahamas would have such a NASCAR following, even if their TV does come from Florida.

The second thing that struck me was the consequences of having a limited gene pool.  In the Abacos, about every third family was named Albury.  In Spanish Wells everybody is a Pinder.  The families who settled here generations ago have kept going with limited outside influence for years.  But, you can only keep marrying cousins so long before the genetic implications start to show.  I am not mentioning this to in any way make fun of these fine folks.  They are friendly, generous people, but in just one day we saw more "special" people than you would expect to see in a month.  Bradley "Cinnabar" Pinder, who appears to be in his sixties,  mentioned to us when he helped us tie up that he was born and raised here and had three children, one of which was "handicapped" and lived at home.  It's sad to see this side effect of a small tight knit community.  In this case it's a geographical limit on the community, but it is similar to the Amish in the States where the community is defined by their beliefs.

GPS N 25-32.501 W 76-44.721  Miles made good this leg 7.  Total miles covered 3779.

Jan 27

We have big plans today.  We are going to join Bill & Victoria from Interlude, and Garon & Lee from Gliding Gander, and take Bohengy, the fast catamaran ferry, over to Harbor Island for the day.  Harbor Island is supposed to be a place to see because of it's pink sand beaches.  Dunmore Town is the name of the village proper, and it is supposed to be like a quaint New England town.  I'm looking forward to the ferry ride as much as visiting the town.

Bohengy is a fairly large, two decked jet driven catamaran.  (For the non-boaters, that's jet driven in the sense of a jet ski, not driven by jet engines.)  This is the boat that we got in the way of yesterday when we had to turn around in the channel and go back out because the mail boat was blocking the channel.  Bohengy leaves Nassau each morning at 08:00 or so, gets to Spanish Wells about 09:40, spends just enough time to drop people and load people, and then continues to Harbor Island.  Normally, it spends the day at Harbor Island and then goes back in the afternoon.  Today though, they have a charter from Harbor Island.  This will be important later in the story.

The course the ferry takes from Spanish Wells, takes it north out a narrow channel to the Atlantic.  It then turns east along the coast for a bit and then enters the Devil's Backbone, a narrow channel through numerous coral reefs that runs east and then south into the bay between Eluthera and Harbor Island.  If we were to have done this in our boat, we would have had to hire a local pilot to drive us through the reefs at $60 each way.  The ferry costs $25 round trip per person, and takes thirty minutes instead of a couple of hours, so it was no-brainer.  Besides, the ferry ride was fun.  The wind has been blowing from the northeast at twenty knots or more for two days now.  So the stretch of the trip that was eastbound with the open ocean to our left, and the beach about a hundred feet to our right was pretty cool.  We were taking six to eight foot waves on the side, and we were flying.  I don't have any idea how fast the boat really goes, but it was probably thirty or forty knots.  The boat would rise and then the bottom would drop out, very much like a roller coaster.  While there was a lot of up and down movement, and quite a bit of rolling side to side, it was at the same time very smooth.  Most of us thought it was pretty cool and would have been an E-ticket ride at Disneyworld.  There was one lady who had come from Nassau who was hysterically crying and praying while bending over in her seat so she couldn't see.  Every time she sat up and looked out the window she screamed and hid her head again.  Once we turned into the bay the ride was great.  Myself, Bill, and another vacationer who is not a boater, knelt on the front row of seats, which face backwards, so we could see out the front.

Once at the dock in Dunmore Town, we disembarked.  There were people there to greet friends, people from hotels to pick up guests, and many guys who were offering golf cart rentals.  Bill, Victoria, Barb and I had planned to rent a cart, so the first one who offered, I said yes.  He took us to a cart right there on the dock, charged us forty bucks and said to just leave it there with the keys in it when we came back.  No paperwork, no seeing ID, nothing but a reminder to drive on the left.  He didn't have a clue who we were, and we had no idea who he was if we had any trouble.  In hindsight, I don't even know if it was his cart.  Other than the cart being a little temperamental a couple of times, we had no trouble.  The man did warn me not to explore the northern end of the island past the town limits, because the road was rough and there were a lot of big trucks up there due to much construction.

We first headed south.  We drove past Valentines marina, which is a large marina which is being rebuilt since one of the hurricanes.  The docks, restaurant, bar, and dive shop are done and open.  The ships store was built but not open.  Across the street three large buildings that looked to be a dozen or more hotel/condo units each were being built which are also part of this complex.  Further on, we found the Harbor Island Marina, which is not as fancy.  Both marinas only had a couple of boats in them.  We continued south until we ran out of road and then turned around.  On the way back, we went east on a street that looked like it might take us to beach access.  We found a path down to the beach at the end of the street.  We parked the cart and walked down to the beach.  It was a pretty beach, to be sure, but I was a little under whelmed at the 'pink' part.  It didn't look much pinker than any other beach we've seen here to me, but then I'm color-impaired.  Barb and Bill agreed though that you needed rose-colored glasses to see much pink here.

We went back to the cart and continued back through town again, but this time on an interior street, not the harbor-side road.  There were lots of modest looking shops and typical small island businesses, but were again under whelmed at the town in general.  The cruising guide referred to it a 'quaint New England town in the islands'.  Many of the houses were cute and architecturally similar to old New England houses but painted in typical bright island colors, but the majority were plain looking concrete houses in various stages of construction or disrepair, depending on how you looked at it.  All in all, the places we saw in the Abacos, like Hopetown and Guana Cay were much prettier and better kept that Dunmore Town.

That said, there were a few interesting things that we saw.  We came across a pile of garbage directly under a sign that said "No Dumping".  This must be an international thing, because we saw the same thing in Marathon in the Florida Keys.  Down the street we came across a construction site, building a new house.  Typical of construction sites, there was lots of stuff; a storage trailer, a pile of dirt, concrete blocks, no visible work, etc.  What made this site unique was the goat laying in the middle of the stuff.  I was not sure if he was tied to something or just laying there, but he didn't mind us stopping to take his picture.  A little further down the road I saw lots of golf carts parked on the side of a side street, so I turned down the street to see what the attraction was.  It turned out to be some type of ceremony at the school.  It almost had the appearance of graduation, but the timing isn't right by our standards for that.  Back to the main street, we passed the backside of a Methodist church where the graveyard was.  The two oldest looking graves had headstones with dates of death two days apart in October 1895.  The last names on the stones were different, but one must wonder, given the month if perhaps it was the result of a hurricane.  The last thing of interest was the bay itself.  There are large flats which are exposed sand at low tide.  This is part of why you have to know where you're going to get in here in a boat.  Many small boats were sitting hi and dry on the sand as it was low tide when we drove by.  One in particular caught my eye.  It was a good sized, fairly new fishing boat with the Miller Lite logo on the side.  It was half aground as if it had been driven up on the shore by someone who had too many Miller Lites.  In reality, it was anchored there and the outboards were raised so sitting on the bottom like this didn't hurt anything.

Given the lack of things to see, we headed to Valentine's Marina to eat lunch.  Initially we were the only customers there, but a few other people came in after us.  We enjoyed a nice lunch and a couple of beers.  We took our time over lunch since there didn't appear to be much else to do until the 15:55 ferry departure.  We finally left and decided to explore the north end of the island, despite the cart guy's warning about the poor road.  We found two things.  One, he was right about the road.  It turned to dirt and was very narrow and rough.  Two, we found where the money on the island is.  Despite the bad road, the homes on the north end, were huge properties either overlooking the bay or the ocean.  Most of them were far enough off the road that we couldn't even see the houses, but the grounds were beautifully landscaped, with nice paved driveways and gates with "Private" signs on them.  Guess they leave the road bad to discourage the tourist riff-raff like us from getting too close.  After a mile or so we turned around and headed back to pavement.

Back in town we still had two hours to kill, so we hit a bar right across the street from the ferry dock.  We had been warned that this ferry ran on time and not on "Island time", so we wanted to be where we could see it when it came back.  This brings me back to that charter comment I made earlier in the story.  Apparently today, Bohengy had a special charter, because when we arrived this morning, quite a few people were waiting for the boat, and it departed Harbor Island shortly after we got there.  So, as we sat in the bar sipping our fruity boat drinks, the dock was empty, save the little ten person ferry boats that run back and forth across the bay to Eluthera.  We had one round of drinks and it was just 14:30.  We had until 15:55 to departure time, so we ordered another round.  About 15:00, when we were about halfway through those drinks, a guy wearing a Bahamas Fast Ferry jacket came up on the patio where we were and asked if we were on the Bohengy.  We said yes and he said we needed to get to the dock immediately.  Bohengy was not at the dock, so we were a tad confused.  He said Bohengy was not coming and was in Spanish Wells, so if we wanted to catch it back to Nassau, we needed to get in gear via the alternate route.  Well, we aren't going to Nassau, but we still followed the crowd who was.  The explanation we got once down at the dock was that the seas had built even more and it wasn't safe to bring the big boat around the way we had come in the morning.  So instead, we were given a three piece voucher.  This voucher would get us: 1) On a small ferry, ten or twelve people at a time, across the bay to Eluthera.  2) In a taxi van across Eluthera about seven or eight miles.  3) On another small ferry across the channel we came in on yesterday to Spanish Wells.  On one hand, I was really disappointed to miss the cat ride again.  But on the other hand, it makes a much more interesting island experience in how plans are flexible.  The fact that they had this guy in Dunmore Town and they had these vouchers preprinted in books that he passed out tells me that this happens now and then and that they have the backup plan in place.  It was very similar to what happens when an airline overbooks or cancels a flight and they spend more money than they make to accommodate you on another flight or with vouchers.  As it turned out, since Spanish Wells was our destination, we didn't have to hurry at all.  But those who were going back to Nassau did, because Bohengy pulled out of Spanish Wells right on time just as we were dinghying past them back to our boat.  They were pulling off the dock as we came down the channel in the dinghy and he hesitated to pull away until after we passed.  I gave the captain a salute, which he returned, since this was the second time in two days we got in his way, although he didn't know that.

Before we left the docks, we had stopped in the seafood shop and bought two lobster tails for dinner.  I know, we are supposed to catch our own, which we will do when the water is warmer, but for now, this will be our first lobster onboard.  Back at the boat, we boiled the tails, melted some butter for dipping, and had a nice fresh salad with produce we stocked up on before leaving Marsh Harbor.

It's still blowing like stink from the east, so we will be here at least one more day.  It's that old good news bad news thing.  Good news - there's lots of wind, so we have not worried about the batteries for two days since the wind generator is almost keeping up.  Bad news - there's lots of wind so going anywhere would not be a comfortable trip.

GPS N 25-32.501 W 76-44.721  Miles made good this leg 0.  Total miles covered 3779.

Jan 28

The wind continued all night, and the forecast is for more of the same for the next two days.  We have decided to stay here until Monday.  There is not much to do in Spanish Wells, and everything closes at noon on Saturday anyway, so we just stayed aboard and read all day.  Although the wind was cool and blowing hard, it was very comfortable to sit in the cockpit, protected by the dodger and warmed by the sun.

I had not been much of a reader prior to the trip, and I'm really enjoying spending whole days now occasionally just reading.  I would have said that I preferred non-fiction before, but when we were in the airport in Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago, I bought John Grisham's The Broker.  I had read about 100 of the 400+ pages during the New Orleans trip, but since getting back to the boat, I had been catching up on three issues of Latitudes and Attitudes.  Well, today I picked up The Broker again, and finished it.

At 16:30, we went to a neighboring boat, WindRose, and joined Carl & Sue, and Clyde & Linda from Gypsy for cocktails.  WindRose is a Hunter 40, just like our friends Brian & Tammy's Another Road.  The differences were WindRose had a light oak interior instead of teak, and it has a five-foot draft instead of six-and-a-half feet that Another Road has.  It was funny to be so familiar with the boat, but not be the boat I really knew.  We enjoyed their company for a few hours and then returned to MoonSail.  Since we had snacks on WindRose, and it was 20:00 when we got back to the boat, we just made some popcorn and watched a DVD. 

GPS N 25-32.501 W 76-44.721  Miles made good this leg 0.  Total miles covered 3779.

Jan 29

During the night, the wind briefly stopped entirely, which was not in the forecast.  I awoke about 04:00, and it dead calm.  No waves on the water, no wind generator noise.  By dawn the wind had returned and then blew about fifteen knots all day again as forecast.  The wind direction has slowly clocked around from northeast two days ago to southeast now.  It's interesting to me how much more I have had to become aware of the weather and it's implications on our travels.  We not only want to avoid traveling during storms or frontal passages of course, but we have to plan our anchorages based on wind direction and strength too.

We spent the better part of today reading again.  I started and finished a book by Cap'n Fatty Goodlander.  He is a character known to most sailors from his articles in various magazines.  The book was the semi-true story of his life from childhood to his forties.  He is about my age, so I could identify with times in which he grew up, although his family and life experience were a lot more colorful than mine.

About 15:00, we decided to take a dinghy ride, just to get off our butts for a little while.  Spanish Wells is a very religious town, so nothing is open on Sunday, but we thought we'd just tour the harbor by dinghy.  We are moored at the east end of the narrow harbor.  We traveled west through the harbor, checking out the lobster boats.  The lobster industry much be much more profitable than shrimping in the Gulf of Mexico, based on the boats.  Most of them are old shrimpers which have been brought here and refurbished.  They still have the tall outriggers on them which they use only for stability when offshore.  They all have nice paint jobs, seem to have had the windows replaced, and are very clean.  On the stern they have a large square tank where the shrimper would have had it's nets.  This is for carrying diesel fuel for the small boats they tow along to use when lobstering.  The way they get the lobsters is they take cement blocks, precut lumber, and galvanized corrugated roofing material out to the lobster grounds.  On-site, they use the materials to build the lobster motels.  They aren't really traps, but lobsters just want to be under something during the day.  So they hide under these squares of roofing material which is held a few inches off the bottom by the blocks and wood.  Later, the lobstermen come back, lift up the steel, and pick up the lobsters.

Further up the harbor we came to Spanish Wells Yacht Haven, the only marina in town.  Gypsy is tied up here.  We did not have our boat cards with us last night when we met them, so we wanted to exchange info with them.  They are from St. Augustine, and offered us local knowledge when we get back there in the spring.  They we not on the boat, so we just left a card.

We continued up the harbor to the end where there is a bridge between Spanish Wells and Russell Island.  Just past the bridge is the twisted remains of an old bridge.  The current bridge looks to be a prefab steel structure that was placed across the narrow channel.  Past the bridge the channel goes out into the open water of the Northeast Providence Channel.  We turned around and headed back to the boat.

We chatted a bit with WindRose to gain some knowledge about the route we are going to take south from here.  They have been here before, and any knowledge we can gain from other's experience is helpful. 

GPS N 25-32.501 W 76-44.721  Miles made good this leg 0.  Total miles covered 3779.

Jan 30

The weather is finally getting close to decent enough to depart, so today we are going to move back to Royal Island for the night and head south from there.  It's only seven miles, which is just a little over an hour, but it is important to the plan.  Between Royal and Allen's Cay, we have to navigate a cut through the reef which requires tide timing, and after that we have to cross the Yellow Banks, where there are random coral heads that you have to watch for.  That should only be done with the sun overhead.  So, by cutting an hour off the trip by moving to Royal Island, the timing of the rest will be perfect.

I want to fill my diesel and water while it's easily available, so I dinghied over to what appeared to be a fuel dock to verify they had diesel and good potable water.  They said they did, but one of the big lobster boats was on it's way down the channel to get fuel.  I told them I'd wait for it to get secure and then sneak in behind it.  I went back to the boat, tied the dinghy alongside since we are going to tow it to Royal.  When the lobster boat got there, they had him move as far down the dock as he could so there would still be room for us.  We slipped from the mooring and moved over to the dock, which was just a few hundred feet from our mooring.  We slipped right in behind the lobster boat with room to spare.

We took on about twenty gallons of fuel and then asked again about the water.  They assured us it was good, so we filled our one tank that was empty.  Normally it doesn't take too long to fill a thirty gallon tank.  But, the pumps were apparently off, because the water was just coming at a gravity feed speed.  So, it took a good twenty minutes or more to fill the tank.  Of course another boat from the moorings had come over by then specifically fill their water tanks, so they had to wait for us.  We had met the people on Gliding Gander the other day, so after we were back on the boat I hailed them on the radio and apologized for taking so long.  We spoke to them again later on the radio, and they ended up taking a couple of hours to fill their eighty gallon tank.

Once underway, the trip to Royal Island is a straightforward one.  We were able to leave Spanish Wells harbor the easy way, unlike when we came in, and then just headed west for about seven miles.  Unlike last time we were at Royal, when over twenty boats were in the anchorage, today there are only four counting us.  One of the others is Interlude, who we have been with since Marsh Harbor.  They left while we were fueling and were already anchored when we got to Royal.

Once we got settled, we dinghied over to Interlude to ask Bill if he wanted to join us in an exploration ashore.  He did join us.  Back in the 1950's, Royal Island was privately owned and it had a large mansion with many outbuildings, a private ocean side beach, roads, boat ramps, etc.  Sometime in the1960's, it was abandoned, and today nature has reclaimed the majority of it.  The main house is gone and we couldn't find any evidence of it, although it may just be hidden.  There are several buildings which were probably staff housing, a couple which were garages or boat houses, and one good sized building that appeared to be for entertaining.  It had a tile floor, a large fireplace, and a large porch.  Today all that is left is the walls and roof.  The large group of cruisers who spent a couple of days there after we moved to Spanish Wells, had an impromptu pot-luck up there the night we left.  We heard then organizing it on the radio after we were in Spanish Wells, and we heard them raving about how much fun it was the next day.  I'm sorry we missed it.  We could tell on our tour that they had cleaned the place up quite nicely for their get together, and had a fire in the fireplace.  We hiked the road from the bay side over to the ocean side and found a beautiful view.  It's amazing though how shallow the water is for miles from this side.  We have heard rumors that the island is going to be redeveloped, and we saw evidence of surveying that has been done in the past year or so.  Time marches on.

When we got back to the boats, Bill & Victoria invited to come over to play dominoes.  We grabbed some rum, Pepsi, and ice from our boat and went over there for a game of Mexican Train, which we learned in Marsh Harbor.  Mexican Train is not a fast game, so we spent a few hours over there visiting with them.

Back at our boat, reality set in.  We encountered the worst thing that can happen on a boat, short perhaps of sinking.  Did we blow the engine?  No.  Did we loose the propeller?  No.  Did we blow out a sail?  No.  Did we loose the mast?  No.  We clogged the head!  More specifically, I probably clogged the head.  There is a rule on boats, that with the exception of sparse amounts of toilet paper, nothing goes in the head that you didn't eat first.  We strictly adhere to that rule.  The first order of business was problem determination.  Just where was the clog?  For the non-boaters, I will briefly describe a marine head.  After you use the head, you don't flush.  You pump.  The pump brings in seawater and pumps it through the toilet.  From the toilet, a large hose takes things to a Y-valve.  The Y-valve position decides whether the output goes directly overboard, or to a holding tank.  If it goes to a holding tank, then you either get pumped out at a dock, or pump it overboard later when you are more than three miles offshore.  Outside the U.S., there are no pumpout facilities, so you either go straight overboard, or what we do is still use the holding tank in harbors or marinas, and then pump it out when we are offshore.

Back to problem determination, I thought I would switch the Y-valve to the overboard position, and see if it pumped.  This would indicate the clog was in the line between the Y-valve and the holding tank.  Of course since this valve has not been turned it seven years, the handle broke off when I tried to move it.  Get the big channel locks to grab the remains and twist.  The valve finally turned, but still no pumping.  This means the problem is before the Y-valve.  So, I cautiously removed the hose where it comes off the head.  There was no great pressure release, so I thought perhaps the problem was in the head itself, which would be easiest to address.  But, with the hose off, I pumped the head and the water came right through (onto the floor of course), so the problem appears to be in the hose from the head to the Y-valve.  Well, that's what they made metal coat hangers for right?  So, I unbolted the toilet from the floor and disconnected the raw water intake hose, and moved the toilet out of the way.  I then made a coat hanger into a straight wire and shoved it up into the hose.  Again, I must digress to explain what happens inside a hose in a marine head system.  There is at least fifteen feet of hose between the toilet and the holding tank, So when you flush, the last deposit is somewhere in that fifteen feet until next time you flush and it moves on.  Also, remember that the water you flush with is salt water assuming you are floating in salt water.  Well, the urine and salt water in the hoses combine over time to build a calcium-like deposit on the inside walls of the hoses, not unlike all that plaque in the arteries of most of the middle aged population of America.  And just like those arteries, which finally reach a crisis point and cause a heart attack, the head hoses finally get to a point where the slightest solid piece can no longer squeeze through, and you have a blockage.  At this point, it was after dark, and I was not in the best of moods.  We decided to go back to Spanish Wells in the morning where there is a good chance we can get a new hose, or at least be dockside and have power and water to try and resolve this.  We do have a whole second head, but it is full of "stuff" since we don't use it.  Moving this "stuff" really isn't a good option.  So, we'll try to fix the main one.

Somewhere in the middle of dealing with the head, and slightly after dark, we were both in the aft cabin when we heard the cat going nuts up front.  Barb went into the galley to see what he was doing, and found him attacking something on the galley floor.  At first she yelled that she thought it was a bat.  I got up to come see, and by that time whatever it was got away from the cat and flew into the aft cabin.  It turned out to be a huge moth.  It had a good four inch wingspan.  Barb unsuccessfully tried to snag it a couple of times, and then it suddenly flew in my face and landed on my chest.  I slowly walked out to the main saloon and up the stairs and then nudged it off me to be on it's way.  On the floor in the galley was a large smudge from where the cat had it and the dusty stuff on a moths wings came off.  Don't know if that would hurt it or not.  I think the cat was miffed that I took his new toy away.

Once the decision was made to go back to Spanish Wells, I rested a bit while Barb warmed up some leftovers for dinner.  We were sitting below after eating when we thought we saw a spotlight flash across us.  We went above, and sure enough a boat was approaching the anchorage, and they had a spotlight out looking for the entrance.  The entrance to Royal Island is pretty straightforward if you know what to expect.  There is a an opening between the two points of land that is probably a hundred yards across.  In this opening, there is a rock that is about a hundred feet from the west side of this opening.  The only way to come in is in the narrow channel between the western point at the rock.  The larger opening to the east of the rock is too shallow.  We weren't sure from our vantage point if they were on the correct side of the rock or not.  They appeared to be uncertain too.  We did figure out that it was a good sized catamaran.  They did come in correctly, and then they were looking for a place to anchor.  Keep in mind there were twenty-some boats here a few days ago, and now there are four.  But, in their defense, at night, your whole perspective and distance judgment is altered.  They finally dropped the hook, not too far from us, but an OK distance.  We didn't know why they were coming in after dark, but we felt for them.

GPS N 25-30.945 W 76-50.700  Miles made good this leg 7.  Total miles covered 3786.

Jan 31

Our original plan had us leaving here at the crack of dawn so the timing was right for the passage.  That isn't important now, but I was awake at dawn anyway, so I got up and listened to the morning weather net on the SSB radio.  Barb got up a little later and we had coffee. Bill from Interlude hailed us on the VHF, wondering why we were still here, since he knew we planned to leave early.  I told him my tale of woe about the head and our plan to go back to Spanish Wells.

About 08:15 we weighed anchor and headed back.  The wind was pretty strong from the southwest as the wind swings around before the approaching cold front.  That meant we had good sized beam seas for the first half mile or so as we left the harbor.  With no sail up, we rolled quite a bit.  Barb went below to make sure everything was secure, since we had not really prepared for this much roll.  After ten minutes or so, I heard a clank that didn't sound right come from behind me.  I looked back and saw the bowl containing the Y-valve and vacuum break elbow, which had been soaking in vinegar on the rear deck where it wouldn't smell so bad, sliding to the toe rail.  Unfortunately, by the time I saw it, the vacuum break elbow had already committed itself to the deep.  I ran and got the bowl and Y-valve, and came back to the cockpit muttering several things.  My first thought was that now we were really screwed.  A few minutes after being really pissed (there's a pun there I think), it occurred to me that we have the second head.  While we can't unpack it permanently to use it, we can unpack it temporarily to scavenge parts as needed.  Now I didn't feel so bad.

While underway, we hailed Spanish Wells Yacht Haven to tell them we were coming.  I knew from walking by there a couple days ago that they had plenty of room.  It took about an hour of uncomfortable motoring to get there, but once in, we pulled up to the marina and were greeted by Treadwell who took our dock lines and secured us.

As soon as we were secure, I took off to find a plumber's snake.  The coat hanger had not been stout enough to get through the clog, but I hoped a real plumber's snake would be so I could avoid removing the hose.  From the marina, there are three choices for marine stuff and general hardware.  The first one, Spanish Wells Marine and Hardware, did not have one.  The second, Ron's Service Center, also did not.  But the third, a general hardware store, had one fifteen foot spiral snake.  Just what I wanted, and it was only seven bucks.

Back at the boat, and full of confidence I was going to snake my way out of this, I attacked.  The length of the hose in question was about six feet.  From the head end,  could get about three feet in before it felt like I was hitting a hard dead end.  I kept trying, and tried spinning the snake, but got nowhere.  So I attacked from the top end.  From here it seemed I got about two feet and hit a dead end.  After an hour, I was convinced there must be an elbow that the snake wasn't passing.  Thinking this was unreasonable, I placed a sat phone call to Warren Pandy, the very helpful customer service guy at the factory where the boat was built.  I got him and he was able to grab the guy who probably installed the head in the boat, and they assured me there should not be any elbow.   I thanked him and changed tacks.  I walked to the grocery store (there was a lot of walking today) and got a bottle of Liquid Plumber.  I poured the Liquid Plumber in from the top of the hose, so it would settle on the clog and work it's magic.  When after thirty minutes, the clog had not cleared, I used a small pump I have to empty the hose into a bucket.  The output was interesting, and I thought we made a little progress, so I poured more Liquid Plumber in and waited.  After three hours and four doses of chemicals, we still had a clog.  So, I went to plan B.

Plan B unfortunately involves cutting fiberglass.  Production boats like Catalina's and Hunters, do things like build the hull, put in the wiring and plumbing, then set in modular inner things like the heads and inner floor pan, then cap it all off with the deck..  This means the hoses and wires that may need replacing are in places where they just cannot be accessed.  Well, I picked a place where I figured I could eventually put an inspection port, and I drilled a four-inch hole in the fiberglass behind the toilet.  Well uncharacteristically, I hit exactly the right place, because I found a plastic u-clamp holding the hose I needed to replace to the head molding right there.  What engineer ever thought this was a good idea should be taken out and forced to fix marine heads for the rest of his miserable life.  It is impossible to replace this hose, which would be considered routine long-term maintenance on a boat, without destroying part of the interior.  I undid the clamp and was able then to pull the clogged hose out.  I measured the length and headed back to the stores for a new hose.  Spanish Wells Marine and Hardware had a lot of hose, but the only 1 1/2" was clear plastic intended for potable water.  I bought six feet, thinking it would do for now.  Once I tried to install it though, it was apparent it wouldn't work since it easily pinched off where it had to go around a tight bend.

So, I went to Plan C, where I try to clear the clog from the original hose, now that I can beat it on the dock.  I whacked it on the dock and also bent it tightly by hand and finally after much work, got it clear.  It was astounding how many solid chunks came out of the hose from the arterial sclerosis it was suffering.  Once clear, I replaced the hose, replaced the Y-valve with new guts including a new handle since I had a rebuild kit, installed the vacuum break scavenged from the other head, and remounted the head with a new joker valve installed.  (Boaters know what a joker valve is.  If they don't now, they will someday.)  With everything reconnected, I opened the thru-hull for the flush water and gave it a try.  Low and behold, it flushed easier than it ever has.  Problem solved!

Of course by now there was a considerable mess to clean up which Barb graciously took care of while I soothed myself in the cockpit with my first of several medicinal rum drinks.  I have body parts hurting that I didn't know I had.  As boaters know, boat heads are not generally areas of large expanse.  So, when you have to perform tasks other than the natural ones, it requires much bending, twisting, grunting, sweating, and general physical stress than normal.

Once clean, we both enjoyed showers and dinner and drinks.  We have met three new couples today at the docks, and reconnected with a couple we met a few nights ago.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to be very sociable and plan to leave tomorrow.  We were the talk of the docks though as the "people with the clogged head".

From Barb--Again as I am proof reading these log entries, my Captain has fallen asleep on the couch.  Not a good idea since it is not very comfortable and with the way we both are hurting, I think we will call it a night and try to find somewhere to publish the logs tomorrow before we leave Spanish Wells.   Miss you all and enjoy the logs.

GPS N 25-32.501 W 76-44.721  Miles made good this leg 7.  Total miles covered 3793.