May 9

As expected, we enjoyed happy hour and dinner with Bobby & Francie from Barefootin'.  At happy hour, we also met Arne & Bev from Scandia.  Arne had been our coconut counter back in Georgetown when we participated in the coconut harvest event.  We had never gotten his boat name then, although we frequently heard Bev on the radio.  It was nice to make the connection.

This morning we are heading to Green Turtle Cay, about twenty-five mile north of here.  We initially were in no hurry to leave, but then Troy the marina owner came by to confirm that we were leaving today.  I said I was and that I needed diesel before we left.  Well, that put a rush on things, because there is one large power boat on the fuel dock that is staying there, and a large catamaran that spent the night taking up the rest of the fuel dock.  There's another boat about to leave from the only slip wide enough for the cat, and as soon as he leaves the cat will be moving.  However, there is another large power boat on it's way in that will be spending the night on the fuel dock, and another smaller power boat waiting for fuel.  So, we need to get ready right now, so we can slip in and get fuel before they dock the yacht that's staying there for the night.  We were pretty much prepared to go anyway, so it was no big deal.  The boat in the slip left, the cat moved, the small power boat got in the fuel dock and started fueling, we backed out of our slip and circled just off the fuel dock for about ten minutes, and then pulled in the fuel dock as soon as the small power boat left.  We only had half the fuel dock length to work with, and I had to come in right behind the other large power boat that was there.  Meantime, the last big boat had arrived, and he was now standing off the dock waiting for me.  Well, I slid us in like I was parallel parking a compact car.  Troy and Ronnie, one of the other dock hands, were amazed at how easy I made it look.  The owner of the parked power boat was standing on his back porch just waiting for me to hit him, and was flat amazed at how close I brought it in and slid the stern in sideways and stopped on a dime.  And no fiberglass was damaged.  We quickly filled our fuel tank and all our jerry jugs.  We took fifty-seven gallons, and hold sixty-five (including the jugs), so we had eight gallons left.  Good to know since the fuel gauge had been on empty for awhile.  I keep close track of engine hours and gallons per hour used, so I can calculate pretty close how much we will take on each time, but it still makes me nervous to have the gauge on empty, even though I know there is eight or ten gallons left.  In the interest of time, Troy had brought our marina ticket down to the fuel dock, so we were able to check out for everything without walking back to the office.  We bid them farewell until next year and headed out.

The trip to Green Turtle involves going around The Whale.  This is the one place in the Abacos where you can't pass north/south between Great Abaco and the string of cays to the east of the big island.  You have to go "outside" at the north end of Guana Cay by Baker's Bay, pass Whale Cay on the ocean side, and then re-enter Whale Cut back into the Sea of Abaco.  This can be a challenge when the weather doesn't cooperate.  A strong wind against the current can make for rage conditions, that you average small boat doesn't want to do if you can avoid it.  Even big ships can have problems here.  Baker's Bay was originally developed and a deep channel dredged from the ocean so cruise ships could come let there passengers play here for a day.  After trouble with ships grounding, or having to cancel their stop because the cut was to rough, the company gave up on the location.  Their old channel makes a nice, fairly well marked route for cruisers now.  Today's winds are uncharacteristically from the west.  So, there is  no ocean swell coming in from the east, and we are hitting Whale cut right about slack tide, so the current is negligible.

The whole trip took us about three and a half hours.  Dave & Sue on Pirate's Hideout left Guana Cay about the same time we did, but Guana is about six miles closer, so they were about an hour ahead of us arriving at Green Turtle Cay.  Green Turtle has three choices of anchorages.  One is in the open water on the west side of the cay, just off New Plymouth, the town.  This is fine when there is no west wind, which there is at the moment.  The other two choices are White sound to the north or Black Sound to the south.  Both involve entering channels that get as shallow as 4.5 feet at low tide.  We need 5.5 feet.  Pirate's Hideout went in Black Sound because they want to go to a marina, and the only one that can accommodate a catamaran is in Black Sound.  We are arriving about two hours after low tide, but it is still six hours to high tide.  As we approached, I asked Dave how shallow he saw going in.  He said 4.8 feet.  Too shallow for us, so we headed for the White Sound entrance.  This was the first place we ran aground in the Bahamas, back in December.  We slowly entered the channel and encountered six feet right at the entrance, which should be the shallowest point.  As we proceeded in the half-mile channel, we were pleased to find three times as many channel markers as were here in December.  We easily got right to where we ran aground before, and while going very slow, ran aground again.  If they just had one more channel marker this far in, I probably wouldn't have.  Well, at least the tide is rising, so we shouldn't be stuck too long.  Just a minute after stopping, the dive boat from Brendall's Dive Center can up behind us.  He stopped alongside and told me the deeper water was to my starboard side.  He said to put it gear, turn the wheel to starboard, and he would run his boat around me in a fast circle, hoping his wake would make us bounce up enough to get off this hump.  He zipped around us once, and off we went.  The people on the dive boat cheered, and we yelled a big thank you to him.

Once in the harbor, there is plenty of water.  There are quite a few boats anchored here already, but we found a spot and dropped the hook.  Once settled we hailed Pirate's Hideout to tell them where we were, and agreed to meet in the morning.  It looks like rain, so we are jut going to stay aboard for the evening.  About 18:30 a good thunder storm moved through and rinsed us off.  Once it passed, it cleared up and we reopened all the ports and hatches, but the wind went to nothing, so it is very still. 

We did have a little entertainment just before sunset.  A small sailboat came into the harbor looking for a place to anchor.  The first thing that caught our eye about this boat, was that it was bright yellow.  The whole hull is a very bright yellow.  It is what is called a cat-boat, (not a catamaran).  A cat boat is a monohull with a single mast that is set way up on the bow of the boat, not in the middle like the more common sloop (like ours).  The sail on this boat is also bright yellow.  As the boat approached, we were watching through the binoculars and it appeared to be captained by a single woman and a large gray cat.  The cat was on the bow as if it were looking for a good place to drop the hook.  Eventually, the captain slowed the boat, and put it in reverse as she came up to the bow to drop the anchor.  The timing was perfect as the anchor hit the water about the time the boat stopped it's forward motion and began to back up.  The cat was now up on the boom looking backwards, as if to make sure all was clear back there since Mom was still on the bow.  On the first try the anchor did not appear to set, so she came back to the cockpit and stopped the boat, then went back to the bow and cranked the anchor back in using a windlass mounted on the side of the mast, something I had not seen before.  Once the anchor was up, she drove around a bit and the cat picked another spot.  They went through the routine again, and this time the anchor set.  We noticed that the boat's hailing pot is Hong Kong, although she is not Asian.  I don't know her story, but good for her that she's apparently doing what she enjoys.

We had a nice dinner of homemade pizza onboard and sat out in the cockpit where it wasn't quite so hot.  We were entertained by The Gulley Roosters, a local band playing across the harbor at the Bluff House.

GPS N 26-46.718 W 077-20.159  Nautical miles traveled today 25.  Total miles 4392.

May 10

We didn't sleep well last night because it was hot and sticky and dead calm.  To make things a little worse, at 05:00 another shower came through so we had to close all the hatches and ports.  And even after the shower, there was no breeze.  I was up at 06:30 to listen to the weather and make sure our travel plans for the next few days look good.  After that I made radio contact with Diva, who is sixty-five miles north of us, Barefootin' who is just twenty-five miles back in Marsh Harbor, and Sol Y Mar, who is about two hundred miles south of us.  We have probably seen each other for the last times this summer, but the four of us plan to hook up in the fall and travel together further south in the Caribbean.

Barb got up and made us a nice breakfast, and then we called Pirate's Hideout on the radio.  They are headed our way to do laundry at the Green Turtle Club which is in White Sound.  We need ice from there too, so we met them at the dock.  They found out there was no using the laundry today because they are running low on water.  Those of you who have read Don't Stop The Carnival might see some humor in that.  We got our ice, dropped it at our boat, and then dinghied back over to Pirate's Hideout in Black Sound.  We visited there a bit, then dinghied around to the public dock in New Plymouth.  This is Pirate's Hideout's first time here, so we enjoyed showing them what we knew of New Plymouth.

We had lunch at a little restaurant there, and hit the grocery and several gift shops.  About 15:00 we went back to our boats with a plan to meet for dinner and to hear the Gulley Roosters at the Green Turtle Club tonight.  We met at The Green Turtle Club for drinks about 18:45, and were seated for dinner at 19:15.  Three of us had a crab pasta dish and Barb had Italian lobster.  It was excellent, as we remembered from our visit in December.

The manager, Ben, was there and when I reminded him of what he had told us about liking sailboats in the marina back in December, he recalled meeting us before.  After dinner he stopped and chatted with us for a few minutes.  We mentioned the lack of water for laundry this morning, and he explained the problem.  The power had been out for quite a while yesterday.  The club has a generator that makes two-phase electricity.  The water maker requires three-phase, so they have to rely on stored water when the power is out.  They have two cisterns that they store water in, but the larger one has a bad leak, so they can't use it until that's repaired.  That makes the story even funnier to those of you who may have read Don't Stop The Carnival.

The band started at 21:00 on the deck outside, and we joined a good sized crowd to listen.  The band is four local guys, a drummer, a bass guitar, a lead guitar, and a keyboard.  We learned that the lead guitar and singer is the dockmaster at the marina that Pirate's Hideout is staying at.  They were entertaining, and played mostly Bahamian songs, but they need to keep their day jobs.  We left about 23:00 and said our goodbyes to Dave & Sue since we are leaving early in the morning.

GPS N 26-46.718 W 077-20.159  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 4392.

May 11

We were up at 06:30 as usual to listen to the weather on the SSB.  It sounded like the forecast is the same, so we are leaving.  Our plan is to go all the way to Great Sale Cay today, which is about sixty-five miles, so it will be a long day.  We also want to leave early because high tide is about 07:30 and we don't want a repeat performance of our arrival.

We were underway at 07:30 and got out of the channel with no problems.  We headed northeast along the coast of Great Abaco, past Munjack Cay, Powell Cay, and Spanish Cay, all places we had visited on our way southbound.  At Spanish Cay, the course turns almost due west along the northern shore of Little Abaco.  This is about the half-way point of the day.  We were motoring the whole way of course, since we need the engine to keep the batteries charged enough to run the auto-pilot and instruments.  There is very little wind anyway.  As we turned west, the wind picked up to about fifteen knots, which was more than forecast, but it also shifted direction so it is right on the nose.  We are in shallow (fifteen feet) of water all the way today, so the wave action, thus the ride, is not bad, but the wind on the nose slows us down almost a knot even when motoring full bore.

A little after our westward turn, we passed Center of the World Rock.  No kidding.  That's it's name on the charts.  I took a picture.

About ten miles from Great Sale, we noticed a black cloud ahead.  It didn't look like it was raining though, so I wasn't too concerned.  Barb had been watching it too, and she changed sides of the cockpit to get a better look at it.  She then pointed out a little piece of cloud sticking out the bottom that looked like a comma.  I moved to where I could see it and said it was just a wisp of cloud and nothing to worry about.  But, as we watched, it grew longer and longer, reaching towards the water.  It looked like even if this really was a developing water spout it would pass north of us.  I changed course twenty degrees to the southwest though, just to be sure.  When the tail of this cloud was about halfway to the water, and just as Barb came back above with camera, it vanished.  It didn't pull back up into the cloud, just dissipated.  As Kelly McGuire would say, "I'm having major doubts about waterspouts".  I have never been close to a waterspout, and would prefer to keep it that way.

After that excitement, I was ready to be anchored, even though there wasn't any other threatening looking weather coming.  Great Sale Cay is a long skinny island that run north/south.  The bay where we want to anchor is on the west side of the island, so we have to go past the southern tip and then turn north into the bay.  There is a shoal that extends south from the southern tip of the island that you have to go around as well.  It is clearly marked on my electronic chart at the helm, and the paper Explorer Charts as well.  I was on a course to a waypoint from the Explorer Chart, but it looked like I could cut the corner some based on the electronic chart.  So, as we neared I was slowly adjusting our course to make a nice curved approach instead of hitting the waypoint and making a ninety degree turn.  I was still south of the shoal according to the electronic chart.  Suddenly, the water got real shallow.  As if no more than fifteen feet all day wasn't shallow enough, we were now in about seven feet.  We quickly realized that the Explorer Chart clearly states that this shoal extends four miles south of the tip of the island.  I had read that before, but neglected to realize that the area marked on the electronic chart only went about two miles south of the island.  So, we turned due south and slowed way down to almost idle speed.  If I do run aground, I want to do it slowly so maybe I will be able to back off.  We poked our way back to the original projected course line and saw mostly under six feet of water for over a mile.  We draw five and a half, and I'm amazed we never bumped.  It made for an interesting course line on the chart.

Eventually we got to the anchorage about 17:30, and we are the only boat here.  That always makes me wonder if I missed something, since this is a very popular place to stage for crossing the Gulf Stream.  The wind is forecast to be out of the south most of the night until a cold front passes before dawn, and south is the one direction that this anchorage is not protected from, but it isn't supposed to blow that had, so I'm not concerned.  We tucked up as far as we could into the cove, so when the front comes through and the wind shifts to the north, we'll have adequate protection.  Since we are arriving a couple hours before high tide, we put some effort into making sure we got in as far as we could without risking touching bottom at low tide.  When we dropped the anchor, we backed down extreme hard on it, and put out a ten-to-one ratio of chain based on the high tide depth, so we should be fine.

Shortly after anchoring, a seagull came to check us out.  We don't have any old bread, and I'm not giving up good food, so he got no offerings.  That didn't stop him from hanging around and inviting three more of his friends over.  The four of them appear to be the only ones on the island.  After they got tired of flying around us and getting no food, they decided to just sit down and wait.  One sat up on the bow rail, they sat on the dinghy for awhile, and one enjoyed the view from atop the radar antenna.  If you look at the picture of this guy, notice the spinning wind generator blades right behind him.  Think blender.  Remarkably, with all of their flying very close to the generator, the seagull population of Great Sale Cay has not be reduced.

We relaxed and had a light dinner, and showers on deck since we have no audience.  Bed came soon after dark.

GPS N 26-59.274 W 078-12.889  Nautical miles traveled today 65.  Total miles 4457.

May 12 - up to 16:00

Well, the wind blew harder all night than had been forecast, but I slept remarkably in spite of it.  It really wasn't any rougher than a number of nights we spent in Georgetown, and at least here there are no other boats to hit if we did drag anchor.  But, we did not move at all.  My anchor rocks!  For those of you who are nautically inflicted, we have a thirty-five pound Delta plow anchor, and it has only drug twice in a year.  One of those was in sloppy mud, and one was in an ICW inlet with loose sand and a strong reversing current.  It has held through many blows and direction changes while others boats in the same anchorage with CQR's or spades had to be careful when they came loose and reset.  The plow never breaks loose during a directional change.  It just plows around to the new point of pull on it's shaft.

Back to the story, the front was still not here at dawn.  The wind was still from the south.  I got up at 06:30 to listen to the weather guy, and he said it was slower than expected, and also there were more squalls associated with it than expected.  He now said it would be to Great Sale by 08:00.  Well, he was right on.  We started hearing thunder about 07:30, and by 08:00 we got our first heavy shower.  By 08:30, the heavy rain had passed and it looked to be clearing up.  The wind came around to the northwest and should be north before noon.  It should be clocking to the east by the time we leave this afternoon.  A few more scattered showers came through during the morning, and Barb spotted another waterspout.  This one was northeast of us and on the other side of the island.  It appeared to be moving away from us, although I wasn't worried because if it hit the island it would likely fall apart.  I got a picture of this one.

About 10:30, another sailboat pulled in the anchorage.  Don't know which way they are going from here or when.  We plan to leave here about 16:00 this afternoon.  The departure time is based on a forty hour trip to St. Augustine and wanting to arrive there during the daylight hours.  The weather is supposed to be light winds, and we'll be motoring.  With the full moon, it should be a nice ride. 

GPS N 26-59.274 W 078-12.889  Nautical miles traveled today 0.  Total miles 4457.

May 12 16:00 to May 14

Well, the trip started out just as planned.  We left the anchorage at Great Sale Cay at 16:00 Friday.  From Great Sale, we will travel about fifty-five miles northwest to Matanilla Shoals.  This is the most northwest corner of the Bahama Banks.  The water depth for this first leg is about fifteen feet max.  The wind was very light and from the southeast, right behind us.  We started our passage routine of taking turns being on watch, even though the autopilot does the work of driving.  At 01:00 Saturday, I gave Barb the helm and went below to sleep.  Three hours later, at 04:00, Barb came below and woke me from a sound sleep.  I went above and she gave me "turnover".  Whenever we change watches, we fill each other in on what has happened, have any other ships been sighted, anything in sight now, speed, course, weather, etc.  She told me the wind had shifted back to the northwest and was picking up.  This was not in the forecast.  Any wind from north-anything is not a good thing in the Gulf Stream.  The Gulf Stream runs north, and when the wind opposes the current, the waves can stack up steep and close together.

As my watch wore on, the wind built and built.  Within an hour we were looking at 20-25 knot winds from the northwest and seas of 12-14 feet.  We were trying to go almost northwest, so the waves were hitting us just off the starboard side of the bow.  Many waves came over the deck and washed up over the dodger (windshield).  Many times, the wave would hit the boat and splash up, only to be blown into the cockpit from the side, making the captain (and the cat) cold and wet.  Our original plan had been to run a course from Matanilla Shoals to St. Augustine, and let the current of the Gulf Stream set us north as we crossed it, and then adjust the course once we were out of the stream.  With these conditions, my priorities changed to just get us across the stream as quickly as possible.  I adjusted the course to due west so that we would cross the stream at it's narrowest point and get out of the current.  Barb didn't sleep much during her off time, and I stayed at the helm past my three hour watch.  We finally were out of the Gulf Stream about 08:00 a little north of Vero Beach.  Once out of the stream and in "shallow" water of less than 200  feet, we turned north.  The wind was still blowing 15-20 knots from the northwest, so we were still bashing into a good four to five foot short chop.  It was great compared to the last eight hours, but still quite uncomfortable.

We passed Cape Canaveral and could see the launch pad structures and the shuttle assembly building.  We were running about ten miles offshore.  Between about 08:00 and 16:00 we took turns being on watch for an hour or two and napping.  We were both beat from the hammering in the stream.  At 16:00, we resumed our three hour watches, with me taking 16:00 to 19:00.  The second night was much calmer than the first, although it still wasn't the nice flat ride we had hoped for.  It got fairly chilly overnight so we were wearing sweatshirts and using a beach towel to wrap around our legs.  Both of us slept soundly during our off-watch times and had to be awakened by the on-watch person.

We saw remarkably little other traffic during the crossing.  There was one sailboat headed east which we passed in the middle of the worst of it.  Off of Cape Canaveral late in the afternoon Saturday, there were dozens of fishing boats coming home after a day of fishing.  Why anybody would go out in a relatively small fishing boat in these conditions is beyond me, but there were lots of them.  Two cruise ships left Port Canaveral just after we were north of there, so they weren't an issue.  During Saturday night we saw nothing but lights onshore.  Just about dawn Sunday, a cabin cruiser was catching us from behind, on a course just a little more northeast than our northerly course.  I saw the boat coming for quite awhile, just a little faster than us.  As it got close and passed us to port, I saw nobody at the helm.  It passed about a hundred feet from us and then crossed our path about a quarter mile ahead.  I think it was on auto-pilot and they never knew we were there.  We never saw nor heard any military traffic.  Last year we had quite a bit of military traffic in this area.

By dawn we were about an hour away from the outer markers for the St. Augustine Inlet.  I started getting my second wind, partly because we were near our destination, and partly because the sun was coming up.  At 07:00, I woke Barb.  I kept driving, but she helped me pick out the markers to enter the inlet.  Since the inlet is always subject to silting and dredging, it is not charted at all.  You have to just follow the markers from the outer sea buoy.  It turned out to be no challenge at all, since the inlet is quite wide.  We got inside the inlet and turned immediately south into Salt Run.  From here there is a privately marked channel into the Conch House Marina.  We hailed the marina on the radio and they said call back when we were right off the docks.  We proceeded the mile or so to the marina and hailed them again.  We wanted to get fuel before going to our slip, but the diesel pumps are not working, so they told us to just go to our slip.  Our slip is near the end of a fairway, so I elected to back in, making departure easier.  Now, as I have probably said before, most sailboats don't back up well, but mine does.  But it's still is more challenging to drive it backwards than forwards, and I was pretty tired.  But I went for it anyway.  I backed all the way down the fairway and turned into the slip like I was backing my car into my garage.  Even I was impressed with how well I did it, and the dockhand was really impressed.  We got secure and plugged in the power.

The boat is one big salt crystal from all the salt water we took over the decks and into the cockpit during the crossing.  Anything you touch has salt on it.  However, washing it will wait.  Washing us will not.  After getting checked in, we hit the showers.  When checking in, we found that the office supplies free coffee in the mornings, and this morning they also had Krispy Kreme doughnuts.  There were just two doughnuts left.  Perfect!  After our showers, something seemed to be missing.  We have an arrival ritual, that the Captain (and usually the crew) enjoy an adult beverage.  But it was only about 09:00 on a Sunday morning.  Then I remembered the bottle of Bloody Mary mix we have been toting around for several months.  Perfect!

The reason we picked St. Augustine for our stop to fix and upgrade the boat, was that our friends Clyde & Linda on Gypsy have a condo here with a slip and cars.  They are in Turks & Caicos heading south, and were generous enough to offer the use of the condo, slip, and cars while we did our boat work.  The condo and it's private dock is right next to the marina.  Clyde is actually in the States right now, and although he is in West Virginia right now, he will be back here tonight.  He had arranged for me to get a key to the condo though, so we went next door and checked it out.  The private dock is being dredged right now and should be done tomorrow, so that's why we went to the marina today.

Over the past two months, I have been ordering stuff online and having it delivered to my friend Donna in Tallahassee.  Her mother lives near St. Augustine, and today being Mother's Day, she is visiting her Mom and brought my stuff with her.  Mid morning, Donna, her mother, and her brother arrived at the condo to deliver my stuff.  The biggest box was the two solar panels I'm going to install, and then there were five other little boxes.  It was like Christmas again.  We unloaded the boxes at the condo, and then went next door to the boat to visit for awhile.  About 13:00, they had gone and we went to the Conch House Restaurant, on the marina premises to have lunch.  It was pretty crowded, being Mother's Day, but we got seated immediately and enjoyed a very nice meal.  I happened to be wearing a Hawaiian shirt very similar to the one that all the wait-staff wore, so they kept looking at me thinking I was one of them and wondering why I was eating and not working.

During the afternoon, we washed the boat and straightened things up some.  Even though it was just a cursory wash, it was 100% better just to have the salt off so everything wasn't sticky.  Late in the afternoon, Clyde called.  He was back from WV, and at the condo.  We grabbed a couple of beers and walked over there.  We caught up on the past six weeks or so since we last saw them in Rum Cay.  We were getting hungry again, and Clyde suggested ordering pizza.  During the last couple weeks, Barb and I have talked about what we missed about the States and what would be high on the list of things to do when we got back.  Pizza was at the top of the list.  Perfect!  We had the pizza delivered and managed to stay up until after 22:00.  We went back to the boat for the night and planned to move to Clyde's slip tomorrow.

GPS N 29-53.684 W 081-17.636  Nautical miles traveled today 290.  Total miles 4747.