What goes in...

The other day, we were eating a salad out in the cockpit when Brad threw a piece of rotten tomato overboard. Suddenly out pop three very large remora (sucker fish) who fight over the small piece of food. This soon became a fun source of entertainment and I think most of our salad ended up in the water. At one point, Brad was so excited to throw food to them that when he flicked his fork containing the little food morsel he threw his whole fork in the water.

Well, what goes in must come out - especially if it's a piece of our silverware!

The Velcro Effect

They call Georgetown "Chicken Harbour" and with good reason. Traveling to the Bahamas can be daunting to the novice sailor (I can say this from experience) but traveling deep water passages to the Caribbean islands beyond can be downright scary! I prefer to think of it as having a Velcro Effect - we had been wanting to leave for about two weeks, but constant volleyball games and begging of friends to stay for "one last sundowner" had kept us firmly entrenched in the Georgetown social scene, thus delaying our departure date.

So, finally yesterday morning, we got our butts in gear and headed off towards islands more East. The wind was predicted to be 15-20, building throughout the day. We set a reef in the sail and headed for the cut. The waves were manageable and I maneuvered us through the twists and turns around the reefs with caution. It wasn't until we turned to the NorthEast and out the final leg of the cut that we felt the full force of the waves. 3-5 foot waves, in close intervals, straight on the bow. These waves are not that large, but having them so close together made it hard for me to keep her on course and we were taking every other wave over the bow; the anchor was even being lifted out of the chock and slammed back down in place (luckily we double lock it in place these days!). After 30 minutes of driving straight through the waves, we were able to make a turn to starboard where we could have the wind (and waves) more comfortably on our beam.

We had our hopes set on making it to Rum Cay, but the weather had other plans. The wind had come around to a more NorthEast direction instead of the predicted North and thus would have been right on the nose to get to Rum. So, we picked Door Number 2 and headed East to Thompson Bay, Long Island. The wind was on the beam and even with a reefed mainsail being our only canvas up, we were heeled over quite a bit and making good time. For a short period, the wind fell off a bit and we got brave and thought we would put out our jib. This worked well for about an hour and we were getting fantastic speed, but when the wind picked up again, we were well over-canvassed and heeled over at a steady 25 degrees. While we no longer consider ourselves "novice" sailors, I am by no mean a salty sailor either and in fact prefer my boat to be more upright that heeled over (I know, I know, I should live on a catamaran!). Unfortunately with so much air in the sails and reef on our starboard side, there wasn't really much to do about this except hang on. While I was talking myself out of a panic attack, Brad held the helm steady and kept reassuring me that the boat was fine (thank god for my captain!). In my mind, I knew the boat was nowhere near its limits, but I could not say the same for myself!

After passing by the reefs, we were able to bring in the jib and sail the rest of the way in relative comfort. The winds had piped up to 20 knots by the time we reached Long Island and we were happy that we had left as early as we did - being out in 20 knot winds is NOT my idea of fun as it turns out.

With every intention of only staying here for the night, we were much chagrined to listen to the weather reports today and learn that this heavy East wind is forecasted to stay through the week. So, we will tune in again tomorrow, check multiple sources and see if our best bet is to stay here or try to sneak in small sails to islands farther along our course.

For now, a drink to the Sea Gods that we made it safely is in definite order for both of us!


Oh Captain My Captain!

I snuck my head over the Lee side of the boat for a quick pic; you can see how close the rail is to the waves rushing by:

This is how heeled over we were - I was obviously on the high side with the water way down behind me. And we were so heeled over that Koa has head lodged on the side of the lee seat, because that was actually flatter than the bottom of the cockpit where his bed was!

Weather Window

With Brad safely back on the boat, we have set our sights on our next adventure - heading South for the summer. A quick look at our To Do List and a double check of the weather has us looking at Friday as a departure date. This means that we will leave our current anchor spot on Thursday afternoon to head South to the end of Elizabeth Harbour so we can "stage" our departure for the following day. "Stage" means that you get in the best possible position to be able to leave at first light the following day. In this case, that is only about 5 miles South of our current spot - but this is 5 miles off our trek the following day. That's a whole hour, so that makes a big difference!

We worked on a few last minute boat projects today and started going over our provisioning lists to see what we need to get before we go. Luckily, we are more ready than we thought and should have everything done by Wednesday night, leaving Thursday for last minute errands and goodbyes with friends.

We are so excited for this next part of our trip and hope to catch up with some old boating friends along the way! Goodbyes are hard, but reuniting with old friends makes those a little bit easier.

SHIT

Sailors love to be part of a group - give us a reason to get together, talk boats and drink some rum and we are all about it! Here in Georgetown we have a fair number of these groups, one of which is the S.H.I.T.s - Single Handers In Transit. This week, I found myself in this category - although technically I guess I wasn't, because I am not actually in transit just sitting here at anchor.

Brad headed home to Baltimore for a wedding, and while I was sad to be left behind, a quick check at the weather forecast for Baltimore had me more than happy to send him off alone! I was somewhat excited to have the boat to myself for four days - no picking up after someone else, having popcorn for dinner without complaint, laying in bed at all hours of the day. Well, that novelty wore off almost as soon as I got back to the empty boat.

My first night on my own, I got together with four other boaters on four separate boats anchored near me whose significant others were also gone for a few days. We dubbed ourselves the "Lonely Hearts Club" and had great fun having sundowners together.

Once back on the boat however, I began to feel the emptiness again. Living on a boat with your significant other means that you are together 24/7. This can seem like a lot for some people, but we both enjoy it and get along extremely well (for the most part!). So, although I could veg out on the couch and watch a sappy movie with a bowl of popcorn all to myself, I realized suddenly that four days was going to seem like a lifetime...

Luckily, all of our fellow boaters came to my rescue - my social calendar has been busier since Brad left than it has since we've been here. I have spent my days playing volleyball, socializing on the beach, having afternoon drinks with friends, being picked up by others to go across the harbour to listen to music, and have taken Koa to the beach multiple times. It has been a fabulous three days!

Had a photo shoot with Koa to occupy my time today:

Then suddenly I wake up this morning and realize that I haven't completed anything on my "Honey Do List".....oops! So I turned off the VHF this morning so I wouldn't be tempted to go out and have fun and got to work on my list (boo...). I finished everything and even had time to take Koa to the beach for a bit! Now I'm spending a quiet evening in before giving the boat one last spruce up in the morning for Brad's arrival.

While I'm lucky to have such great friends to take care of me and occupy my time so that the days didn't drag on, I am very ready to have my husband back on board!

Message in a Bottle

Four years ago during our first trip to the Bahamas, I was so excited to try sending a message in a bottle. Hoping it would travel to lands unknown and find someone who would be just as excited to find it as I was to send it. We launched four wine bottles with messages throughout the Bahamas and this year, while we were here in Georgetown, we got an email from someone who had found one of our bottles!!

While it didn't travel very far at all - only a few islands North of where we dropped it - it was still very exciting to know that someone had found it - four years later!!

These guys were from Montreal and had chartered a catamaran for the week and were traveling through the Exumas. They found our bottle on Norman's Cay, one of the islands in the Northern part of the Exuma chain. Here are some pictures they sent in their email:

Now I'm inspired to try this again while we are traveling farther out in the ocean on our way South!!

Georgetown Overview

We recently met 3 young guys traveling on a boat together who had stopped here in Georgetown while waiting for weather to head to Cuba. A really awesome trio of guys who are embracing the cruising life and taking in as much of the cultures they encounter as they can. No idea where they were headed after Cuba, but we will definitely be following their travels - I definitely recommend checking it out! "No Land In Sight"

One of the guys does paramotoring and he brought all his equipment with him. He went up multiple times, cruising around the Georgetown Harbour and made this amazing video compilation of his trips.

For those of you who can't picture what exactly this place looks like, this will give you a better idea. Enjoy!

**Disclaimer: If you are prone to vertigo, beware!

Friends with Benefits

We have recently befriended one of the boats in our "neighborhood", about two boats over. They are two brothers, our age, who bought the boat together and have people pay to come in and stay on the boat for a week or so - essentially a charter boat, under the radar of course.

While here, they have somehow acquired a "go fast" boat from a local Bahamian and they keep it tied up to their sailboat every night. Now, the genius part - they take their friends and guests out almost everyday to go spearfishing. The guests pay for the gas and then when they return home that night, they wander around the anchorage selling their catch for the day. All the fish is reasonably priced and as fresh as you can get (the guys are still in their wet suits when they come to sell it to us). And that is how they are able to afford staying out here. Seems like a great gig to us!

A few days ago, they hailed us on the radio and mentioned that their watermaker was broken and were wondering if they could borrow our water jerry jugs for the day - in exchange for some fish. Well, after absolutely no deliberation whatsoever I said "Of course!!" They came and got the jugs the following morning and even offered to take our bag of trash in with them. They returned them later that night - all full - along with some lobster they had speared that afternoon.

I hate to say it, but I think we definitely got the better end of this deal! I think this could be the start of a Beautiful Friendship!

Checking off the List

Brad loves my To Do Lists....or at least in my head he does. These lists keep us on track and make sure we get everything done to ensure our safety when we head out on long passages.

Today, I asked Brad to accomplish a larger task and he set to getting out all the materials he would need to finish this project. And then this is what usually happens when Brad sets out to complete a task - he gets completely sidetracked. This usually works out though - even though he will most assuredly NOT complete the task I gave him, he will get a bunch of smaller things done - things that are invariably not on the list but that he has been wanting to do for some time.

So, one minute he was starting to mount the wind generator switch (what I had asked him to do) and the next, he was downstairs pulling apart our instrument panel and working on wiring. (*sigh*)

Before I knew it, we were both involved in running wires from the stern to the instrument panel through the ceiling of the cabins. After a few hours time, we had successfully run the wires to mount the wind generator volt meter and the battery charger reader along with the new XM radio antennae at our navigation table station. This is done by attaching the end of the wire to a string and pulling it through the cabin ceiling. Very very tedious as there are many many things for it to get snagged upon on the way through!

Brad will have to wait another day to cut the holes to actually mount them, but they are all hooked up and working inside now, instead of in the stern battery comparment lazarette.

After we were through with that, Brad decided our cockpit needed a bit of a makeover, so he set about rearranging the instruments on our pedestal. Since our Radar hasn't worked in years and is obsolete and will need to be replaced, he ripped out the screen for that and moved the GPS over. This allows for us to use the top of the pedestal as a hand grip - which is what it is designed for but has not been able to be used due to us having too many instruments on the pedestal. It is still a work in progress but looks so much better!!

So, after today, we have still not completed any of the items (*huff*) on our checklist and have added to our list by only half-completing these other tasks (*sigh*). But, I will admit that he did a lot of work today and it has made a vast improvement to the boat!

Going South for the....Summer

Well, after some deliberation and back and forth discussions, along with much research and persuasion from friends in the Islands, we have finally decided to head South for the Summer! This means, we will leave the Bahamas and jump to Turks and Caicos, then follow along the North coast of the DR, across the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico, and over to the Virgin Islands (Spanish, US, then British). Hopefully we can find jobs in the USVI and stay there through the summer.

After a few rough days passage coming over to the Bahamas, along with some cruising kitty issues, we had decided to just head back Stateside after our Bahamas travel. But, a few weeks of leisure in the islands along with seeing all the pictures from the Virgin Islands and hearing everyone else talking of going South, we feel ready to take on a new adventure.

We had made plans to go down island before we left the States, and as such, have many of the things we need to pursue our route. We will pick up some provisions here in Georgetown and fix a few things on the boat and we should be ready to head out. So now, the only thing standing between us and our departure is a wedding. Brad's fraternity brother is getting married mid-March and he has decided to attend. So, while I hold things down on the boat here in Georgetown, he will head back to Baltimore where he will spend some time with friends and family, and also pick up some last minute things that we need to make our trip South easier.

I am already feeling less anxiety about our trip as just the decision itself was causing us both quite a bit of stress. That, along with lots of research about visiting the islands, and I am feeling much more secure in our decision. We are also lucky because we have many resources at our fingertips - in the form of cruising friends. Most of our friends blog and are active on facebook, which allows us to contact them for information regarding places to go and how to make checking in and out of countries a bit easier, as well as consulting their old blog posts to see how their travels progressed.

We are excited to have a new goal ahead of us and I have already started making lists (my favorite part of the whole process!!) to keep us on track for our departure date. In just a short month's time we will be on our way!

Custom Job

Everyone around here was one of about four types of outboards and one of three types of dinghies. They are only differentiated by the size of the outboard or whether you have chaps (material covering the pontoons) on your dinghy. This can make finding your dinghy at the dinghy dock amongst 50 others quite the chore....especially after a few Rum Punches. And it has been said that, down island, the more conspicuous you can make your boat the better. Who knows if this is true, but that's the word on the street.

So, today, we decided to customize our outboard a bit. Brad spent most of the morning pealing off the old Suzuki sticker labels and then used almost an entire bottle of Goof Off to get the glue off the cowling (the cover that goes over the outboard motor).

Then came the fun part. Stickers that we had laying around the boat for years now were finally being put to good use! And now, not only is our outboard recognizable, but it is a great conversation starter. No one will mistake where our allegiance lies.

Before:

During:

Finished Product!!

Saying Goodbye

Holly left yesterday afternoon after a week of perfect weather and beach days. We had plenty of entertainment around as she came right in the middle of Regatta week. And the beach is entertainment in itself. She was a fabulous guest, so easy going and always smiling. It is always fun for us to have friends visit and take some time to enjoy and understand the life that we lead. Although most people think of it as glorified camping, they can also appreciate the views it brings and the ability to travel to new and beautiful places and to meet people who are similar to us with a passion for traveling and exploring new worlds.


As usual, from the moment she arrived Koa and Moo thought she was here solely for the purpose of petting and loving them. And she didn't let them down. Since she was occupying Moo's "room", they spent a lot of time together and Moo thoroughly inspected her suitcase and belongings. Koa made sure to deposit enough drool and kisses on her to last her for awhile after her departure.

We were also able to give her a morning send off sail around the harbour before depositing her on dry land for her trip home. All in all, I think she had a great trip and we definitely loved having her here!

Margaritas with little umbrellas immediately make you feel like you're on vacation!

We even let her blow the conch horn at sunset:

All Day Every Day

So for the next three days, Brad signed up to do every event in Regatta. I made sure he got to all the events and entertained Holly along the way.

Thursday was the in harbour race. We had scored him a spot on our friend's boat, Cloud Messenger, and since neither of us had ever raced before Brad was pumped just to go out and race and see what it was all about. Holly and I delivered him to the boat early that morning and towed their dinghy back to our boat so they wouldn't have to leave it at anchor by itself. They spent the first hour just putzing around the course checking out the wind direction and familiarizing themselves with the course. Finally, around 11am, they were off. There were over 40 boats, but they were broken down into 5 different heats, each starting at a different time. Brad had 8 other boats in his heat and took an early lead. They were doing great, but unfortunately Brad quickly realized that the boat didn't point well into the wind, so in the upwind portion of the race, they fell behind a bit. The final nail was on the last leg of the race when they had a very near miss run-in with another boat. They gave way, since the other boat showed no intention of doing so, and it cost them a few precious minutes sending them into 5 place. But, Brad learned a lot and had a great time.

Meanwhile, Holly and I camped out on the bow of our boat, watching the action as it passed by. It was a perfect day for sailing and is always such an awesome sight to see all those beautiful sails up in the harbour.

Friday morning brought early morning beach golf. All three of us trekked over to the ocean side and Holly and I set up for a beach day while Brad walked down to the course to try his hand at golf. It was a perfect beach day, with calm ocean swell allowing us to get in and enjoy the crystal clear water. A couple hours later, Brad rejoined us, having not done so well at golf, and we all headed up for a delicious lunch at St Francis.

Lunch was followed by an very unorganized Bocce Tournament. We thought the tournament would be a somewhat short event as so many of the others had been, but instead it took a few hours. Holly and I played around on the beach and in the water, keeping one eye on Brad and his teammate. Brad had been paired up with a French Canadian who had placed in the tournament for the last four years. Other than curling, Bocce could be the country's sport - all French Canadians are inherently terrific at Bocce. And Brad being Brad and being fabulous at most sports he puts his mind to, the two made a great team and soon climbed through the initial rounds into the finals. It was a great final game, and they just barely lost. But they still came out with another burgee and a bottle of wine! That's a win in my book!

Saturday was the final day of the Regatta, ending with an around the island race. We once again ferried Brad over to the racing boat and towed their dinghy back to our boat. We waited until the race started and they had passed by our boat on their way North out of the cut and then we headed over to beach and hiked up to the Monument for a better view of the race on the ocean side. Another perfect sailing day and they looked great out there!! We had high hopes of them placing this time, until the line of squalls moved in. They were near the South entrance back in the harbour when the squall finally reached them. They hadn't reacted in time and were extremely over-canvassed. They opted to pull all the sails in and motor through the squalls. Once you turn the motor on in a sailing race, you are disqualified. They were only one of about 10 other boats who made this same decision, and there were a few squalls lined up behind each other, so perhaps it was the safer route. Either way, it was good experience for Brad and great fun for us to watch.

We attended the final party that night, along with most of the harbour and had a great time - we even closed down the party! Although we had fun with Regatta, it sure will be nice to relax tomorrow and not have to rush around to all these events. Seems like a lazy beach day may be in store...

Volleyball Tournament

Unfortunately, as timing would have it, Holly's first day here was our Volleyball Tournament. So, while Brad and I played ball, Holly just sat on the sidelines and watched. Luckily, it was a short tournament and in the meantime, we had a great cheerleader and photographer!

There were six teams of four players each; Brad and I were on separate teams and we played each other the first game. My team was a bit rough and Brad's team easily defeated us. But, we came back, rallied and won all of our other games! Brad's team did great as well and also only lost one game. So....we met again in the final match for the championship!

Everyone thought this was great and there were cheerleaders for each side, with sly comments about whether Brad was ever going to eat again if his team won, or if I would get a ride home in the dinghy if my team won. It definitely made for an interesting final match for everyone. Though everyone was exhausted, it was a good game with lots of good rallies. Unfortunately, my team did not come out on top. Brad's team was the better team and we just couldn't seem to get ahead. But, in the end, we got two more Regatta Flags to add to our inventory AND a bottle of Rum and Wine!! So, I think it was a win win for everyone (it has only taken me a week to be able to say this without bitterness ;-)).

That night, we had dinner outside in the cockpit and then Brad headed in to the Poker Tournament while Holly and I stayed on the boat and had sundowners and carried on with my poker night tradition of popcorn, wine and movies. We had a fabulous night catching up and when Brad came home I was so proud to learn he had won First Place in the tournament!! This was his second big win of the day! And he even got a plaque to commemorate his win, along with cash winnings - always a welcome addition on this boat!

It had been a very successful and enjoyable day aboard All In and we have more Regatta events in store!