Getting Out of the Bahamas

 

We spent our time hiding from the winds and rains of the tail end of tropical storm Alex behind Big Major's Spot, near Staniel Cay in the Exumas. Staniel being famous for the James Bond thriller Thunderball. This is the view from the entrance to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club. Rain dumping down outside, drink pouring inside.

The good old days

 

The Yacht Club is actually a pretty cool bar. Plus, for the Bahamas, you can get a reasonable priced meal. We didn'y get any decent weather on this trip to get a taste of the Bahamas snorkeling.

 Next up is to make the 5 day passage to North Carolina. The winds are light and a bit fluky, mostly due to tropical storm Alex marching through the area. Plan A is to head Beaufort, North Carolina for our landfall. Plan B is to cut it a little shorter and head to Charleston, South Carolina. Hopefully we can get enough wind to make our original destination without having to motor too much.

Paul 

Georgetown, Exumas

 

Another orange sunset on our passage from Fajardo, Puerto Rico to Georgetown, Exumas, Bahamas where we planned to stop for a quick rest before pushing on. It was an easy passage, with consistent 10 to 15 knot winds driving us downwind.

We were not going to make the somewhat tricky entrance to Georgetown by dark so we decided to stop for an overnight at an anchorage on Conception Island.  After having sunny skies everyday of our 4 day passage the weather decided to get gray and overcast for our stay on Conception. Not much opportunity to snorkel, but we did get in some good beach walks. Got up at 0:dark thirty and did the 6 hour sail to Georgetown.

It was an easy clear into the Bahamas. The Bahamas requires a Covid antigen test within 3 days of arrival. This is pretty tough when the passage time is longer. But we had no issues checking in: it was easy, if not a bit on the expensive side.

Just so we don't completely forget in our old age, here's a few pictures of the Old Town in San Juan that we visited in our brief stop in Puerto Rico. This is the view from the ramparts of Castillo San Felipe del Morro, known as 'El Morro'. San Juan city was founded by the Spanish colonizers in 1521 and El Morro construction began in 1539 to protect the entrance to San Juan from the sea.

The old town has street after street of colorful old buildings, many of the streets are paved with "adoquines" cobblestones made of blue stone cast from furnace slag carried to Puerto Rico as ballast aboard Spanish ships

An iguana guarding the old fort wall.

No HOA requiring that all the old town buildings be painted the same color resulting in a typical Caribbean color scheme.

_____________________________________________________________

Our plan was to arrive on the East Coast within the next few days. However, the weather seems to be in our way. Above is a forecast from the ECMWF Euro weather model for this coming Sunday (downloaded 5/31) predicting a nasty low between us and North Carolina. There's a good chance we'd end up in the middle of it if we left now. So being the prudent mariners that we are, the plan is to wait a bit and let the weather models coalesce into some decent agreement, and then do the passage north when this low dissipates.  It is interesting that this low is basically the remains of the hurricane Agnes that just hit the Pacific coast of southern Mexico and passed across the isthmus to effect weather in the Gulf of Mexico.  With the major models being so divergent, it is anyone's call whether this low will become a serious event or just another bit of rain and wind.

Paul

Headed Back to the USA

Bill, our trusty crewmate, preparing for the 4 to 6 day crossing from the Bahamas to the Chesapeake. He is carefully studying Miss Emilie's famous Goombay Smash. You can see the glow of the punch to the right of Bill’s head. The Blue Bar is apparently a must hit spot on Man-O-War Cay.

Once you have a few Goombay Smashes you have to pay up to Miss Emilie.

We left the Bahamas through Whale Cay Channel about 3 in the afternoon after an attempted last day snorkel near Green Turtle Cay that didn’t work out. It took us 4 days and 3 hours to get from Whale Cay to Cape Henry, the entrance to the Chesapeake. It was good sailing all the way till we rounded Cape Hatteras – the grave yard of the Atlantic. Then we needed half a day of motoring to get in. We had daily 24 hour runs of 120 miles to 187 miles. The latter with a lot of help from the Gulfstream current.

  While in the Gulfstream, we had southerly winds that let us pole out the jib and sail wing-on-wing (the main sail on one side of the boat, the jib sail on the other).  Pretty comfortable ride in 15 to 25 kts of wind. You can see a 995 foot container ship crossing our bow under the sail on the horizon.

An entire family of genetically suicidal flying fish.

We needed to run the genset to charge up the batteries one afternoon. This turned into sail-in movie time. I was on watch and didn’t get to watch the movie, but the resident critics said it was pretty bad. The popcorn was good.

The skipper carefully studying a 4 day old newspaper on his Kindle.

Bill got antsy when we started motoring so we told him to ‘Go fly a kite.’

A pleasant passage wouldn’t be complete without a lightning storm to greet us just as we were ready to get off the ocean and head in.

If you look at Bill’s face you can hear the thunder and see the lightning bolt that just let itself loose from the cloud.

Finally we make in to Cape Henry. l-to-r the old Cape Henry Lighthouse, the new Cape Henry Lighthouse, and the Virginia Pilot’s control tower.

 

And just to make up for the lightning storm, we ordered up a nice rainbow once we entered the Chesapeake. Now we’re officially back in the USA.

Paul

Entertainment Disaster

We normally introduce guests onboard to the cruisers life by forcing them to watch the movie Captain Ron, an important part of their safety-at-sea orientation. It is a 1992 classic comedy that won less than rave reviews from just about anyone who reviewed it:  The New York Times review gushes: “"Captain Ron" looks like the pilot film for an unsold sitcom.”; ”The cast is headed by Kurt Russell as the skipper, who talks like Long John Silver”; ”Though the film could not have been too inexpensive to produce on its Puerto Rican locations, it manages to seem threadbare, mostly because of the lack of a comic imagination”. But then, a more balanced review from a reader of the NYT who effectively sums it up for cruisers: “Without question, this is the most loved movie aboard EVERY cruising sailboat (and the boats of many not cruisers). Most have memorized every line. If this movie is not funny; there are no funny movies!”

“If its going to happen, Its going to happen out there.”
-Captain Ron

A list of filming mistakes in Captain Ron: http://www.moviemistakes.com/film235
Somehow our valuable copy of Captain Ron has gotten deleted from our hard drive. It is no where to been found. This meant we were unable to fully induct Derrek and Mary into the cruiser’s life. Perhaps a little Netflix searching will allow them to finish their homework.
______________________
We met up with our good friends Denny and Becky on Kokomo. We’d spent a lot of time with them in Mexico, El Salvador and Panama. They are headed north to Florida and then the Chesapeake. We met up at Normans Cay for a reunion dinner with them and their friends Steve and Rena.
Next morning we took off from Normans into the deep Exuma Sound. A beautiful all-day downwind sail in 22kts of wind. Ended in Rock Sound, Eluthera. We spent a couple of days sailing north inside the Bight of Eleuthera. It was a beat to weather into 8-15 kts of wind that had us making 2 or 3 mile tacks out and 8 miles runs in with smooth seas and 80*F air. If you have to sail to weather, i.e. into the wind, then that’s the comfy way to go. Ended our time in Eluthera in Royal Island.
We entered the almost completely enclosed narrow oblong shaped bay of Royal Island looking for a space to anchor. There were 10 or 12 boats all nestled together on the west side, with no one on the east side. Must have been the cruisers herding instinct. We dropped our hook in 11 feet on the east side, all by ourselves; just in time for a swim to the empty shore before sundown.
Next day was a long one making 50 miles or so to Little Harbour area of the Abacos. Light downwind sail. We had our spinnaker up for most of it, but still had to motor the last 1 1/2 hours so we could get through the ocean pass before the sun was too low in the sky to see the reefs.
We’ll be in the Abacos for about a week. Saturday we pickup our friend Bill from San Francisco, then we’ll be watching the weather to make the jump north to the Chesapeake.
Paul

Tour de Derrek and Mary

After the first hard rain we’ve had in 3 months, Derrek and Mary hopped off the commuter flight from Nassau to the Staniel Cay International Airport tarmac. They were both ready for a snorkeling vacation.


It didn’t take long for us to have them diving into Thunderball Cave of 007 fame. On the way back from the cave in the dinghy, I thought Mary was going to tear some skin because of the size of the grin on her face.

Mary’s first sail. 80* air temp. 12 kts of wind. Flat seas. Mary, its always like this.

After each dive we played identify the fish. This is a angel fish.

A commuting lobster. These guys were really out cruising!

Attack Sergeant Majors going after Derrek

Another Sergeant getting ready to take out Mary

Volcom and O’Neil product placement

We stopped at Norman’s Cay to dive Carlos Lehder’s plane

The Sting Rays were hanging all around the plane, some in modern desert sand camouflage.

  Derrek’s snorkel is pointing to the sly ray above.

We headed up the mangrove lined river at Shroud Cay. Turned out to be a really low tide, so we had our boat boy pull us over the sand bars.

The payback was this great Atlantic side beach

The beach was empty except for one Paparazzi

The view from Camp Driftwood hill.

A little R&R from a hard day.

One big Nassau grouper

It took Chris and Mary a long time to get the lipstick on this gal- a queen triggerfish

A scary night Hutie hunt led by the famous Australian bush hunter Criky Derrek

We eventually came face to face with one of the endangered rats -- I mean Hutie.

The blue highway swimming competition.

Getting ready for a treasure hunt

The team cam back with these classic Busch can treasures

The hike up Boo Boo Hill at Warderick Wells

Finally, sometime to relax on the foredeck

 

One last lobster hunt

 

A sunset before we head to Nassau

After the cruise everyone got these Disney Stickers to put on their luggage.

Paul