Inertia can be a bad thing sometimes.  Every day that the weather didn’t look good for a crossing, new projects reared their heads.  Finally, we decide that we need to get off the dock, and all of the critical chores are done.  So here’s the plan.  We’ll cruise down the ICW to Fort Lauderdale or Miami, anchor out and wait for a weather window to slip over to the Bahamas.  We set Thursday, the 4th as our target, leaving around Noon, and taking 2 days to get into position down south.

First, a word about all of this timing business.  Running between the east coast of Florida and the Bahamas is The Florida Current, which runs from the Gulf of Mexico, and is the precursor of the Gulf Stream, which begins roughly around the Florida/Georgia border.  This river of warm water begins its’ journey off the coast of Africa, where it becomes known as the Equatorial Current.  From there, it flows westward to the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico, where it turns to the north and flows northward along the east Coast of the United States.  The Gulf Stream turns east just below Newfoundland, as the Labrador Current, then becomes known as The North Atlantic Drift, or North Atlantic Current before it reaches Europe, where it splits into the Norwegian and Canary Currents, flowing North and South, respectively.  The Canary Current then feeds the Equatorial Current, and is off to the races, back to America.  But, I digress.  The deal is, that the Florida Current runs at about 3.6 knots, and is 30 or 40 miles wide.  When the wind has a northerly component of any magnitude, it stacks up steep, high frequency waves in the Current, and to put it mildly, you don’t wanna be there.  So far this season, we have had front after front racing across Florida with great frequency, and very little settled weather.  This does not make for very long or predictable weather windows.  As a Low passes, you get south winds on the front side, north on the back, with crummy, rainy weather.  As a generalization, when a High goes by, you get the opposite-north winds first, then south with clear and windy conditions.  So……. pick your poison.

Back at the dock, the Admiral and I are finishing our second bottle of wine (this becomes important later) when the late forecast comes out.  To make a long story short, tomorrow, the 4th, looks like the best weather for the next 10 days to head across.  Otherwise, we’d be at anchor somewhere down along the ICW until the weather settles.  So much for “Plan A”.  We tentatively decide that we’ll cross tomorrow, but will sleep on it first, then check the morning forecast.  Nonetheless, we get the Girl all spiffed up and ready to stretch her legs after nearly 2 months of dormancy.  The dinghy would have to wait until morning to be hauled up, as no potentially dangerous stuff after vino.  After a restless night (da vino and da excitement), the new forecast hadn’t changed.  Winds were predicted to be 15-20 out of the southeast, then clocking to the north by eight in the evening.  Waves 2’-4’ out of the south, with a 4-5 second frequency, then subsiding to 1’-3’ in the evening.  Not fantastic, but the best we could expect for the next week or so.  We’d be across the current by the time that the wind changed, and have following seas most of the way to Great Harbour Cay, down in the Berry’s, some 30 hours after departure.  We got off the dock by 0810.  A little under 2 hours later, we passed the sea buoy outside the St. Lucie inlet.  We were thinkin’ maybe 3’-5’ on 4 seconds.  Wind steady at 20 knots-not good.  We figured that the waves were just stacked up in the shallows, and that once we got into deeper water, that they’d lay down a bit. My first engine room check after being out in the ocean did not go well.  Think hot engine room, slammin’ seas, lots of adrenaline, no breakfast and that second bottle of vino the night before.  Whew doggie!  Ah, didn’t feel so good.  Meanwhile, the Admiral went below to tie the cupboard doors shut, as they were threatening to empty themselves onto the galley floor.  I took the wheel.  When she returned to the pilothouse, she reported that she felt a little funky too.  By 1300, we had bailed on the notion of going to Great Harbour, and set our sights on Grand Bahama, only 70 miles away.  For the rest of the day, that wicked witch, Mal D’ Mer had me in her steely grasp.  I saw my belated breakfast twice, and couldn’t even manage to keep saltine crackers from spewing out the pilothouse door.  Suz soldiered on at the wheel, and engine room checks were not on the program (thank you trusty John Deere and engine room camera).  During the trip, we were joined at times by pods of dolphins, soaring out of the choppy seas, high into the air.  Schools of flying fish skittered between the waves, under a canopy of blowing water.  Meanwhile, sheets of water slammed into the windshields as waves broke on our bow-pretty spectacular.  As the sun went down, and the sky darkened, I stood my watch from 1900 -0100, but it wasn’t pretty.  The wind never came around, and the seas stayed up until around 0100.  Furthermore, we had really underestimated the effect that the current would have on our trusty little vessel as we headed southeast against it.  At times, we were making just a little over 3 knots.  We arrived at the sea buoy for Bell’s Channel at Port Lucaya, Grand Bahama at 0330.  Suz debated waking me up, versus just cruising for a few more hours to await sunup before entering a harbor that was unknown to us.  In the end, she decided to wake me up to discuss a plan.  The channel through the reef was very narrow on the chart, and was a mile or so long before arriving at the jetty.  We decided to proceed slowly to the seabuoy to see how accurate our GPS was, comparing our position on the electronic chart to what we were seeing out the window.  The plot was right on the nut, and since there was a pair of lighted buoys halfway to the jetty, we decided to go on in.  We breathed a sigh of relief when the chart showed us to be inside the reef, and we traversed the mile of shallow water without incident.  As we neared the opening to the harbor, Suz illuminated the jetties guarding both sides with our handheld spotlight, and we glided in at 5.2 knots on a flood current.  Once inside, the harbor was dead calm, and a warm drizzle began to fall.  We debated anchoring in the harbor, but opted instead for tying up to the fuel dock at Grand Bahama Yacht Club, where we slept the sleep of the dead until the drizzle gave way to a torrential downpour as a cold front passed over us, dropping the temperature from 74 to 62 degrees.  But……..We at de Bahamas!

-Uuurp 

Happy New Year!

We’re back at Sunset Bay Marina here in Stuart, Florida.  After the whirlwind that was the Holiday season, we’re ready to settle in for a few weeks of mundane before heading to the Bahamas.  Here’s a quick recap of the last month:

We tooled into Hinckley’s yard on Monday, the 7th of December, and as promised, the crew had us out of the water the next morning.  Our first surprise came shortly thereafter.  “What?  We can’t stay on the boat while she’s on the hard?”  Darn.  We hadn’t even considered the possibility, as we were allowed to stay onboard at the yard up in Maine.  No worries, the Admiral finds a Clarion Hotel, and gets us a room.  Only problem is that it’s 5 miles away, and we have no vehicle.  Since we’re driving the gearbox to Fort Lauderdale for its’ rebuild the next morning, the yard gives us the Hinckley pickup, and we’re off to the hotel.  The Clarion, Stuart Florida, is not exactly what you would call a high-end accommodation.  In fact, it would even be a stretch to call it middle of the road.  The Admiral peeled back the sheets, and there were no critters, so we called it good.  06h30, and we were blowin’ down I-95 in our awesome F-150 with 235K miles on the odometer.  When every day is a weekend, ya kinda forget about the “W” word.  The freeway is slammed with traffic beginning at Palm Beach, the blinding thunderstorms that are blowing through aren’t helping matters much either.  Ms. Google tells us that there are 5 accidents between us and the promised land of Fort Lauderdale, so we take a 15 mile cross country jaunt to avoid the morass.  We get to Shane’s (the local Keypower guru) place by 08h30, and it’s a trip.  His little machine shop is in a warehouse that he shares with his son, who happens to own Islamorada Brewing Company, a local microbrewery.  You guessed it, the place is stacked to the ceiling with cases and palettes of kegs.  Shane has an accent which is familiar to us, so we have a nice chat about South Africa, where we had figured that he was from (see Africa trip with Annie & Mike 2006).  Shane tells us that he’ll be a couple hours, so we take a hike.  Brian at Hinckley had told us that his favorite place for breakfast in Ft. L was Lester’s, which just happened to be at the end of the street.  As instructed, I ordered the Lox and Eggs.  Whoa! Lox, eggs, and onions all scrambled together in a heap of steaming goodness topped with cheese?  What’s not to like?  After breakfast, we cruised around the warehouse district, where we found the shops of many of our favorite marine vendors, including Bluewater Charts.  We have always ordered our charts, electronic and paper, as well as our cruising guides online from Bluewater, and now had a chance to see the place in person (for us, that was pretty much on par as touring hardware and kitchen supply stores).  Anyway, John, the president, owner, and pretty much Grand Poobah of BWC, took us on a private tour of the place.  We found out that, in addition to selling charts, they also stored charts for hundreds of megayachts in their stacks.  Never really thought about it, but when the owner of the boat is having you and the crew meet him (or her) in the Med, you don’t need all those charts of the Caribbean cluttering up the joint.  That’s where BWC comes in.  You ship the charts that you’re not using this season to them for storage, and they send you the ones that you’ll need.  So, the Admiral is telling John what a great store he has, and that we buy our stuff from him, and he sends us on our way, to explore the place on our own, while he heads back to his desk.  We’re wandering through, checking out all the folks at computers, talking on their integrated headsets to customers around the world, and Suz is wondering if this is where “her IT dude” works.  Well, John reappears, so she asks him.  Yes, as a matter of fact, Shawn’s desk is right over here (John had pulled our file, probably checking our story out, when he went back to his desk).  Anyway, Shawn and Suz had a nice chat.  She told him that she’d be calling soon for some new charts on the deep Caribbean (in literature, do they call that foreshadowing?).  Before we leave, the Chairwoman works John over for a donation to the Krogen Rendezvous next year, to which he kindly accedes.  But, I digress.  Back at the shop, Shane finds out that the gearbox has cannibalized itself.  The metal shavings that Hinckley drained out with the gear oil are from the spacers in one of the bearing sets.  There are 5 sets in the box.  Only one is munched, but the pieces have been circulating through the other gears since September.  Might as well replace all 5.  Only problem is that the bearings are not available locally.  Shane calls British Columbia, and Keypower can get a set out today.  Okay, no fixee gears today.  Back to Stuart.  Long story short, left hand didn’t tell the right hand that the parts needed to be overnighted, so no go the next day.  Good day to wax the boat, and do some odds ‘n ends.  The good news was that Hinckley gave us the truck, or Brian gave us a ride every night to get back home (to the Clarion).  Friday morning, we were on the road by 05h30.  Avoided the traffic jams.  No thunderstorms.  Got to Ft. L before Shane, so were forced to eat at Lester’s again (sob, sob).  Picked up the goods, and were back to Hinckley before noon.  The reinstall took longer than we thought, so we were able to complete the waxing of the hull.  At 15h00, the work was almost done, so I called Brian, figuring there was no way that they’d splash us before the weekend, as quitting time was 15h30.  Nope, they were getting us in as promised.  We were in the water, and on our way to Sunset Bay marina, our home for the next 2 months, by 16h30.  Alizann was at the dock shortly after dark, and her owners fell into bed shortly thereafter.  This was quite a diatribe.  Even so, it was the super-condensed, sanitized version of our week.

We had a week of boatchores, then headed to Asheville, NC for 10 or 12 days of Christmas cheer and intensive partying with Suzanne’s family.

When we returned, it was solid days of repair, upgrade, and replace, and nights of sipsandeats with many of our Krogen buddies (of which there are over 20 here).  I’d go into detail, but suffice it to say that we both put in 10 hour days nearly every day to get the “Fat Girl” into fighting trim.  Oh yeah,  New Years Eve raft-up with 4 other boats with a party on the “Galactic”-“Klassy Kadey”-“Next Dance”-“Bulldog Sally” raft up (there were 17 boats anchored in Kitching Cove altogether).  New Year’s Day brought brunch aboard “Alizann” for our 5 boat raft, followed by a long, hour drive back to the marina for football and naps.  As of now, the last of 5 coats of varnish are on, the heads are rebuilt, the pumps are in shape, her bottom (the boat’s) is scraped and clean, and the crew is charged up for the next adventure.  We hope to get off the dock, and on our way to the Exumas in the next week.

- (Not too much)-Later.

We were pretty excited about going back to Vero.  Besides the awesome tuna nachos (raw Ahi and seaweed on a fried wonton) at the Dockside restaurant, there’s a bait shop next door where I can get one of our fishing reels restrung (?) with Spectra line.  The bike riding is relatively safe, and there’s a great breakfast joint out on the beach that we’ll hit after going to the Farmer’s Market.  Plus, Bill and Lisa are there on “Changing Course”.  Vero’s a popular spot, so when we call on the phone for a mooring ball, Courtney tells me that they’re full, and we’ll have to raft with another boat.  No problem.  “What’s your boat name?”  “Alizann-we should be in the computer.”  “Oh.  You’re 53’ long.  We can’t take boats over 50’ anymore, ‘cause  we had a mooring damaged this year, and City Council voted no more big boats”  “Gosh, we’ve been there before in high winds with no problems, and…….our friends on “Changing Course” are there now.  Same exact boat as ours.”  ………….” Well, says here that they’re 48’ long, they must have lied. “ Can’t tell you to do that.”  “I’m pretty sure that the info that you have in the computer is in error.  We’re 48’.”  “Okay, see you tomorrow.”  Therein lies the marina conundrum.  Do we say we’re 43’ (length at the waterline), 48’ (length on deck), or 53’ (length overall-swim platform and bow pulpit included)?  The ICW between Cocoa has lots of variation in scenery, from wild marshy swamps to quaint “Old Florida” homes to 15,000 foot seasonal “cottages” along the way.  As Alizann wheeled around the corner into the now familiar mooring field at Vero, it was obvious that they were quite busy, with some mooring balls occupied by 3 boats (how does the 50’ rule make sense when there are 3 forty footers on a single ball?).  After a not short pause on the VHF, the Harbormaster directs us to a ball already occupied by a 49’ motoryacht.  At first, we can’t find it, as it’s surrounded by rafted-up sailboats back near the mangroves.  Once spotted, we maneuver thru the forest of sailboats in the brisk breeze.  As we pass each moored boat, heads pop up to watch the show.  Boaters and NASCAR fans-kindred spirits, always waiting for the crash.  Suz gets the fenders and lines rigged, we’re now 10’ from our target, and there’s no one on deck to catch our lines (I’m pretty sure that someone’s on board because their dinghy is there).  As we get to within 5’ and we’re contemplating having Suz jump over to their boat, we see movement down below, and a guy pops out of the side door, only to go back below just as quickly.  Whattheheck?  So….we’re holding, the wind’s pushing the Girl back and forth, we’ve got a crowd watching, our 2-way communicators’ batteries quit, and we’re not sure what our next move will be.  Seemed like a long time, but after maybe 30 seconds or so, the guy reappears with his wife(?), ready to catch our lines.  Suz is at the stern, so I back up close, expecting that our stern will be tied quickly, and she’ll come forward to toss the bow line.  Meanwhile, we’re sawing back and forth in the breeze.  I can’t leave the helm, ‘cause the wind is blowing us back towards the 2 catamarans moored behind us, and trying to shear our bow away from our buddy.  A couple of minutes later, she comes forward and tosses our bow line to the dude, then has to tell him where to cleat it so that it won’t damage his boat.  After several adjustments, spring lines are made fast and introductions are shared.  R and P confess that they’re “newbies”, and have never rafted before (that doesn’t make them unusual-many long time boaters don’t raft).  Heading below for our post-docking debrief and learning session, the Admiral informs me that it took so long at the stern because P didn’t know how to cleat a line.

The next couple of days weren’t nearly as exciting.  We had our nachos, got the reel stripped and loaded, ate breakfast at the beach after the Farmer’s Market, and rode the “Jungle Trail” around the North end of the island.  This 30 mile bike ride traverses along the hard packed and soft sand road that the citrus growers used to move their products back in the day.  As a bonus, the holiday lighted boat parade took place one night, starting and ending at the mooring field.  All too soon, it was time to go, as the Girl had an appointment at the Hinckley yard in Stuart to have her leaky gearbox repaired.  (And not a minute too soon, as I was getting pretty tired of emptying oil out of my little Tupperware container hanging under the get-home motor since Maine.)  Along the way, we stopped at Fort Pierce for a few gallons of diesel at the lowest price on the East coast of Florida.

Tales of the Hinckley adventure coming soon.

-Later

Whoa!  1,845 miles on the rental car traveling to and from Ohio.  I have to say that the drive up through the Appalachians in North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio is beautiful though, and we had perfect weather for our drive up.  Leaving on Tuesday helped with the traffic.  Most of the vehicles on the road were trucks-not many holiday drivers.  13 hours in a car is very different from 13 hours on the Girl, so we stopped to stretch and change drivers every couple of hours.  Salad, fruit, veggies and grilled chicken provided our last low-cal nourishment before the holiday foodfest  (have lost almost 10 pounds since the wedding.)  It was a rude awakening for Yours Truly to see my necktie hanging a little less than vertical in the pictures.  It’s a real problem on the boat-meet new people, get together for drinks, go out to eat, repeat=more pounds).  Anyhow, I was a good guest and did my best to show appreciation for my sister’s culinary efforts, and watch football (drink lotsa beer) with my brother-in-law, and Dad.   No good deed goes unpunished (found 1.5# previously lost).  My Sis loves the country life-26 chickens, a couple of goats and horses, Guinea Fowl, 2 dogs and a couple of cats keep her busy.  We had a bonfire one night under a full moon, with one of my very talented nephews(Evan) playing guitar, singing and taking requests.  A few sips helped to keep the blood flowing in the 40 degree temperature.  The offshoot of the night was that the Admiral finally cashed my IOU from a few years previous.  For her birthday one year, she got a chit for a guitar, but was never able to follow through with a purchase.  Evan helped her out, and took her down to the music store, where the owner (who tunes lotsa rocker’s guitars) filed down the frets and did some other guitarjujumagic on a new geetar for my Sweetie.  Happy, happy, happy.  All too soon, it was time to roll on down the road back to the Girl.  On Saturday, we drove from Cain’tsee to Cain’tsee through heavy traffic and rain, back on the chicken and veggie diet.  I don’t even want to tell you how long it took.  As an aside, while we were still on dirt, and engaged in that four-letter word, we were always in a hurry and on a schedule.  As residents of “flyover country”, and knowing how beautiful Michigan is, and how much all those folks “flying over” were missing, we often told ourselves that when we had the time, we’d drive more, take back roads, and really see our country.  Now that we’re living “The Life”, there’s time to get excited on the way, and to assimilate on the way home, to say nothing of the scenery and people along the way.

Back in Jacksonville, we spent Sunday running errands with our rentacar, picking up the now-healthy computer from our favorite tech, the dry cleaning, and grocery shopping.  Monday it was boatchores-fabricated brackets for, and installed motion detectors on deck to enhance our feeling of safety while sleeping at night in sketchy locales.  This is mainly for our planned voyage through the southern Caribbean and Central America next year.  Want to get any bugs ironed out now.  Besides having to wait on the railroad bridge in Jacksonville, we had an uneventful ride down the St. Johns River on the ebb tide (which necessitated an O’Dark-thirty departure.)  We hit the narrows (and shallows) below St. Augustine near high tide, and rode the flood all the way to MarineLand.  Just before Matanzas Inlet, there is a tricky S-curve where the water is pretty skinny, requiring taking a course through that makes you feel like you’re going to be up on shore.  A little bit tricky with the current, but if you pay attention and follow the oft-moved temporary buoys, very doable.  A fifty-some-odd foot motor yacht had been overtaking us for the previous few miles before we entered the turn.  After we exited, Suz kept looking back for her.  Two hours later, when we had been tied up at MarineLand, “Have a Nice Day”, the aforementioned boat, steamed by on the ICW.  We just did a quick-hitter there, with virtually no shore leave, except to help a guy on a DeFever motor yacht get an electrical problem ironed out.  Next morning, we plowed out through the silt on a falling tide (not our smartest move, but we needed to get going (that “schedule thing” which gets boaters and pilots in trouble)), our depth sounder reading 4’ (we draw 5.2”).  A few miles down the ICW, a large motoryacht fell in behind us, and followed us for the next 7 hours until we pulled off into the City Dock at Daytona Beach.  As we turned in, we got a hail on the VHF “Alizann, this is “Have a Nice Day”, the motoryacht that has been following you all day, thanks for the ride”.  I asked him, and he had indeed run aground at the “S” the afternoon before, explaining his 2 hour delay, but all’s well that ends well.  Daytona Beach was another “quick hitter”.  We hopped off the boat and visited “Jackie Robinson Stadium”, so named because it was the first stadium to host a game for a biracial pro baseball team.  Learn something new every day.  D.B. is a typical beach town, with a strip along the ICW-T shirt shops, galleries, restaurants-you get the picture.

Another overcast day took us to Titusville, across from Cape Canaveral.  An Atlas V liftoff was scheduled for 17h50 that evening, and we wanted ringside seats for the first ISS resupply mission to be launched from American soil in over a year.  (That over a year thing is a whole ‘nother discussion, and I won’t rant about how incomprehensibly stupid I think the NASA cutbacks have been.  I’ll just limit my comments to “GRRRRRRRR!”).  Anyway, we anchored at the south end of a bay with a 2 mile fetch spawning 2’ seas, but hey, we could see thelaunch pad directly from there.  Well……….with 20 knot winds, and bands of heavy rain blowing through, the launch was scrubbed.  Dark now, we decided to move in to the lee of a bridge somewhere.  Going through the NASA Causeway bridge, the tender informed us that only half of the bridge could open, as the other half was frozen in the down position- tons of fun in a now 25 knot breeze and pouring rain.  The Admiral was standing outside on the side deck, informing me emphatically that we were going to hit the bridge, while from my seat on the centerline, things looked okay.  Still, a bit of “pucker Factor” as we blew through without any loud reports.  The anchorage south of the bridge was full of sailboats, so we opted for the 10 mile trip to Cocoa, where we had anchored the year before.  In the pitch black and pouring rain (which my Marine friends would call a real turd floater), we navigated through the mostly unlit navigational aids with our radar and spotlight.  An hour and a half didn’t come too soon.  Still windy, but no waves, we got the anchor down for a few hours of sleep before our 05h30 curtain call and the next days’ march to Vero Beach.

-Later

Hey there,

On the 17th, we departed Lady’s Island Marina at 06h30 at low tide, and passed under the bridge without an opening.  We planned a short ride to Hilton Head, as we were visiting Frank & Kathy, some Krogen friends who have a home at Windmill Point, Jenkins Island.  With an early start, we could be there in time to ride bikes and tour Hilton Head.  Windmill is pretty cool.  The development has its’ own man-made boat basin, large enough for a hundred or so boats, entered through a small lock off the ICW (Intracoastal Waterway).  As we approached the lock, we realized that there was no need to hang fenders, as the lock is 19’ wide (The Girl is 17’6”-do the math).  We locked through without a nudge of the walls.  Once inside the basin, it was like driving a gokart in a phone booth-kinda tight.  Frank & Kathy came down and opened the pedestrian drawbridge with their garage door opener, and we glided down the fairway into our spot on their neighbor’s seawall.  Sweet.  Cathy said that it was absolutely unsafe to ride our bikes across the bridge to Hilton Head, but once over, the riding on the miles of dedicated paths would be wonderful.  We loaded our bikes onto her SUV, and she dropped us off in the city center, making us promise to call Frank for a pickup on our way home.  The next few hours, we covered 22 miles, and got a pretty good look at H.H.  Suzanne was amazed at how much things had changed since she had visited as a child.  At that time, none of the developments were here, and McDonalds was the only place to eat.  We visited the historic site of Mitchellville, the first community of free Blacks in America.  Formed during the Civil War, the enclave was self-governed, and had the distinction of being the first city requiring mandatory education of it’s’ children.  After the war ended, the population slowly dwindled, as residents relocated in search of employment.  Frank picked us up, and we had no sooner put the bikes in their bag up on the boat deck, when the skies opened up and it poured for the next 2 hours.  That evening, Frank cooked up one of his specialties for us-filets with blue cheese, and roasted asparagus.  We rinsed the steaks down with a couple of bottles of French redpop, and then went home and slept soundly, serenaded by the drizzle falling on the deck over our bed.

The first lock opening wasn’t until 08h00, so we slept in.  Winds were down to 8 knots under cloudy skies as we glided down the ditch to the Wahoo River, where we anchored for the night.  The Girl did 180’s around the hook during the night as the tide ebbed and flooded.  Our intention was to make Jeckyll Island Passage at high tide, as the water isn’t deep enough for us to get through otherwise.  Our trusty little home on the water made good time, and we hit the passage at the last hour of the rising tide.  Since it was only 3 more hours to Cumberland Island, and it was about 3 hours until dark, we decided to push on.  As we passed Kings Point Naval Base, we spied a nuke at the dock being refitted (last time we were through here, there were no subs at the dock).  At the Cumberland anchorage, our hook was down as the last vestiges of sunlight faded away.  We awoke to a beautiful sunny, windy morning.  So breezy, in fact, that we decided against launching the dink, and pulled masking tape (from our varnishing project) instead.  We had a little time to kill, ‘cause we wanted to go through Fernandina Beach at high tide, as we had nearly grounded there last year at this time.  Anchor was up at 12h00, and we had a nice quiet cruise down to the free dock at Sister’s Creek on the outskirts of Jacksonville, where the ICW meets the St. Johns River.  The dock was already pretty full, but the boats there had lots of room between them.  If they pulled in closer to one another, there was plenty of room for another boat.  Nobody’s answering the VHF.  Okay, we’ll pull close enough to yell to them over the bow.  Heads down, nobody makin’ eye contact as we’re holding in a several knot crosscurrent in 18 knot winds over shoal water.  Finally, a guy fishing on the end of the dock walks over to the end boat.  Now, he HAS to acknowledge us.  After a lot of back and forth over the wind, NOPE, they’re NOT going to move.  Okay………decision time.  Do we run up the blind fairway, 100’ wide with uncertain depth on a falling tide, crosswind blowing us on to the boats lined up on the dock to get to a spot that LOOKS like its long enough for us, or do we anchor out in the current on the ICW with a cold front blowing through tonight?    In the end, we went on in and had plenty (12’) of depth.  Later, around dark when a large sailboat came in and got the same treatment, we called him on the VHF, and he rafted on us comfortably. 

In the morning, we had some intermittent mist, but the winds had subsided to around 10 knots.  There’s no future trying to fight the current going up the St. Johns River to Jacksonville, so we needed to wait until 2 hours after low tide to leave.  With an 11h30 departure planned, we had plenty of time to kill, so we walked up to the old bridge over the ICW, looking down on the construction crews that were driving pilings and pouring footings for the new bridge.  Several spans were already in place, but it didn’t look like the bridge would be done for a year or so.  The 3 hour cruise up the river kept us occupied dodging commercial traffic while watching Michigan dismantle Penn State’s vaunted defense.  The Michigan “D” showed their chops, stopping PSU 3 times inside the 10.  We arrived at the mouth of the Ortega River before the game was over, so we just drifted for 30 minutes, watching TV before calling for a bridge opening.  At Ortega Landings Marina, we were greeted by Jeff and Ellen (“Sea Dweller”), who caught our lines and brought us in safely.  Steve and Julia (“Erben Renewal”) are also here, as well as Garry & Jacquie(“Waterford”), and Doug & Jan (“Daydreams”).  I guess that’ll make this stop a mini Krogen rendezvous.  We didn’t see our Lake Superior pals, as Garry & Jacqui are Michigan State fans, while their traveling companions, Doug & Jan root for Ohio State.  They were all hunkered down watching the game.  We headed in to the office to pick up our mail (all 10 or so boxes-Amazon Prime is a wonderful thing).  I’m sure that Jeannie was pleased, as she’ll now be able to get to her desk without having to climb over boxes.  On Sunday morning, we organized a potluck dinner for the Krogen gang, utilizing the swanky clubhouse here.  As the day progressed, the party grew from 12 to well over 20 as more dockpals were invited to join in the fun.

We’ll pick up a rental car tomorrow (Monday), and drive up to Ohio to visit my sister’s family for Thanksgiving.  In the meantime, boatchores and socializing with our pals.

Have a happy Thanksgiving.

-Later

Goooood Morning!

November 3rd, 03h00.  Boy, it was still blowing 15 knots, but had shifted to the northeast, and the rain had stopped.  The conditions squared with the forecast, which called for decreasing sea states and winds as the day progressed.  It was overcast and dark (I’m talkin’ DARK!).  I headed to the Holy Place to check on the engine and our stillleaking get-home motor.  We were cruising along at about six-and-a-half knots, when Bam!  “Marty, we hit something! “  When I come up to the pilothouse, I check the chart plotter.  Looks like we’re smack in the middle of the wide channel heading out to sea.  Depth sounder says 6’, a little shallower than I would expect.  When I walk out to the bow, I can’t see diddly ‘cause it’s so dark, but I hear waves breaking behind me-Uh oh.  When we grab the flashlight, there’s beach under the bow-we’re about 8’ up on the beach, and the tide is falling.  After about 5 minutes of wiggling and waggling with racing hearts and rising bile, the Admiral says “I think we’re moving!”  I’m thinking that its unfound optimism, but by and by, the sound of the surf is slowly moving back towards the bow.  Following the radar out, the chart plotter says that we’re on the opposite shore.  No worries now, we’d be offshore for the next 10 hours on our way to the Masonboro Inlet, where we would rejoin the ICW en route to Bald Head Island, where we would rejoin our pals Jeff & Susie aboard “Idyll Time”.  The seas did indeed subside over the course of our trip, and were down to 1’-3’ by the time we entered the inlet-75 yards ahead are Cindy & Randy, our friends aboard the Krogen Whaleback “Morningstar”, who had been heading south on the ICW since the Rendezvous.  By 16h30, we were at Bald Head Island, where Jeff & Susie caught our lines in the pouring rain.  Susie had fixed an enchilada casserole for our dinner, and we had a wonderful evening, catching up on our previous months’ experiences.  (Jeff says that we’re brothers from a different mother-like those cousins that you see twice a year but fall right back in with in 5 minutes).  They planned to start a 2 day offshore to Fernandina Beach, FL the next morning, so we broke it up earlier than we wanted.  We got up at 06h00 to throw off their lines, knowing that we would rejoin them in Stuart, FL in December.

We always enjoy our time on Bald Head Island, so we spent the 4th walking and cruising around the island on Betty’s “Guest golf cart”, which she graciously left at the marina after her departure south on her 48’ Krogen “LiLi” (Live Life).  The week before, Jeff & Susie had picked out 3 lots to build a home on, and wanted our two cents worth regarding their choices.  In the afternoon, we met the Ewing’s, who had just pulled in next to us aboard their brand-new 44’ Krogen, “Maria”.  We were off the dock at 06h00 in pea soup fog.  Thank goodness for instruments.  I don’t know how the early mariners did it without instruments or engines.  The fog cleared a few hours later when we were well out to sea.  The dolphins were back in full force, different pods running with us throughout the day.  During the night, with our pilothouse doors open, you could hear them blowing and breathing as they jetted along a few feet off our beam.  It seems like such a big ocean out there, but at around midnight, I found that the 187 mile course that we had laid out would have taken us right through an 800’ freighter anchored at the seabuoy for Charleston Harbor awaiting a pilot.  Day was dawning as we passed the seabuoy for Port Royal Sound, which leads past Parris Island and into the town of Beaufort, SC.  Twenty-eight hours after leaving Bald Head we were tied up on the Tee at Lady’s Island Marina, just in front of Bill & Lisa on “Changing Course”.  Steve, the Harbormaster who lives aboard his boat here, informed us that we had arrived at the right time for “Steak Night” at “The Filling Station”, a “bar” down the street which claimed to be the A.B.A.T.E. headquarters for Lady’s Island.  ($8 for steak, baked potato and a side).  Of course we went-along with a hundred or so Marines and their dates from Parris Island, vowing to be back for “hamburger and hot dog night” later next week.  The next 10 days were consumed by boatchores.  We changed the oil, zincs and impellers.  We sanded, filled with epoxy, and got a couple of coats of varnish on our teak caprails, sanding between each coat.  Gelcoat repairs were a first for us, and I have to say, a pretty good first effort, thanks to Dave Cerrone’s tutelage at the Rendezvous.  More mundane tasks included scrubbing the teak decks and cockpit table, chairs and ottomans (Which also got a couple of coats of oil).  Cushions were scrubbed and waterproofed.  It wasn’t all work, we got some good walks in, crossing the bridge to Beaufort for dinner a few nights, and socializing with our Krogen pals, Bill & Lisa “Changing Course”, and Ed & Cindy “Ka-dee Anna” (who we had met at a Rendezvous many years previously).  Donna & Terry, whom we had met in Solomons this year, were also there on their newly-purchased 42’ Krogen, “Meridian”.  Suzanne found time to cook for the gang one night, and a good time was had by all.  Another evening brought our friends from East Lansing, MI, Chuck & Zoe in from their home on Hilton Head in to Beaufort to join us for dinner at “Breakwater Café”.  The food was good, the conversation better, and, as usual, the evening too short.

The forecast of rain signaled the end of the varnishing program, so we reluctantly planned our departure for the next morning, the 17th, at 06h30.

-Talk to Ya

 

Missed you.

We pulled off the wall at Atlantic Yacht Basin under a crimson red predawn sky.  As we edged down through the marshy lowland of the Virginia Cut, the wisps of mist swirling around us made for a mystical early morning passage.  As the sun rose higher, the mists evaporated, and Alizann glided along through the sunny Fall day.  The Albemarle Sound was benign, with winds under 10 knots.  (Due to its’ shallow depths and long fetch, on a windy day the Sound can often be an uncomfortable trip, with steep, closely spaced waves).  The Girl continued to forge south through the North River, crossing Currituck Sound.  We entered the Alligator River a bit before dusk, and 14 hours after leaving AYB, we were anchor down at Deep Point Cove in complete darkness.  Our radar showed around 17 boats in the anchorage, and from the height of their anchor lights, almost all were sailboats.  We vowed to be out by O’Dark-thirty so that we didn’t have to pass them all in the narrow, long Alligator-Pungo Canal.  We watched the Michigan-Minnesota football game that evening all the way to the crazy end (sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good), as the Gophers snatched defeat from the jaws of victory with my Wolverines first-string quarterback injured and on the bench.

With our hook up at 05h47, we entered the canal around dawn as the VHF started to light up with chatter from the anchored sailboat fleet.  For the next 3 hours, the Admiral (a.k.a. Swamp Girl) was in her element as we motored through the swampy lowland that the canal transits.  She regaled me with “rat facts”, recalled from her studies of marine biology and fresh water ecology at The University of North Carolina.  She spent a lot of time tromping around swamps and marshes back then, collecting water samples and tiny critters, and remembers those days fondly.  We were happy that we had made an early start, as there was no one ahead of us, and we heard the clot of boats a couple of miles behind us fussin’ on the VHF most of the day.  Eleven hours later, we had crossed the Neuse River and anchored in Hardy Creek, just south of Oriental, NC.

November 2nd.  Even though we planned on a short hop through Beaufort (that’s pronounced Bowfort in NC, whereas Beaufort, SC is pronounced Bewfort) we got going early.  Bill and Lisa (aboard “Changing Course”) had anchored in Lookout Bight on the ocean side of the Beaufort inlet, and told us that it was really pretty, making it our destination for today.  We figured that after a couple of long days of travel we would enjoy getting in early and exploring around Shackleford Banks with the dinghy, snappin’ a few of the wild horses there.  Well……….the anchorage was pretty, comprised of a nearly circular basin surrounded by low-lying sand dunes.  On our way in, we spied half dozen wild horses on the Shackleford Bank off to our port side.  We got the hook down, and the wind immediately came up to 25 knots with gusts into the 30’s.  The gray skies turned black and the lightning started cracklin’ from the storm front that we thought would miss us to the north.  Long story short, line after line of storms passed overhead throughout the day, and we were never able to get the dink into the water.  Between (and during) the rain drops, I finally figured out what was wrong with our balky, off again, on again wind generator.  Strippin’, crimpin’ and wiring in a new hull inlet brought music to my ears, the generator blasting along in the high winds.  Suzanne took the opportunity to cook up some grub for future consumption.  Toward evening, the rain slowed, the wind changed direction and abated slightly, indicating the passage of the front.  We hoped the change signaled the opening of the weather window for our 26 hour offshore passage to Bald Head Island the following day.

-Later

Been waaaaay too long.

 

Let’s try a new font and see if I can cut and paste it onto the site-may be more readable.  The new clutch (3rd this year) finally came in from Tehas.  Scottie came on board to help me puterin.  Sometime in the past few months, he had an epiphany and thinks that he knows why they keep failing.  So….we placed a couple of shims to move the clutch 64/1,000” closer to the generator to take the preload off the bearings.  I guess we’ll see.  Anyhow, we got out of Solomons early on the 28th for what proved to be a long ride down the Chesapeake Bay under small craft warnings-4’, 4 second seas on the nose with 22 knot winds from the south.  Bang, bang, bang.  The coffee carryometer was stuck at “7” all day long.  (a “0” is you can sip while walking, a “10” is “take a step, take a dive, splash”).  Still, it felt great to be back to our world.  Not like we’re world travelers or anything, but I just don’t feel like I belong when I’m fightin’ the crowds on dirt.  Cruising is my Xanax.  Ten hours later, we were anchor down behind Gwynn Island, about ¾ of the way down the Bay.  Our anchorage was tucked in under the north shore, as winds were predicted to gust to 40+knots as a front passed through during the evening.  The wind generators were making money, the rain was rinsing off the salt, and life was good.

The hook was up by 05h37.  The winds were down, the rain had stopped, and the seas were less than 2’ under gray skies.  We made good time to Norfolk, and the skies had cleared enough that the sun was bright and the temperature was in the 70’s.  As we made our way down the harbor past the Naval repair facilities on this now familiar leg, we kinda wished that we had time to hang for a day or two, but the South and warm weather (as well as many friends) are calling. As usual, we are the ones bringing up the rear of the fleet.  Our early arrival at todays’ destination, Atlantic Yacht Basin was delayed a bit, as belied by our log entries: 1400-waited for N & PBL rail bridge construction crew; 1500-waited for Great Bridge Lock; 1600-waited for Great Bridge opening.  By 1700, our thoughts about sitting in the sun at the dock, were pretty much scotched.  After we had put on 900 gallons of diesel and were tied up at the face dock, the sun was low and we did a few chores before the Patriot’s game on Thursday Night Football.

We had to take an unexpected “personal day” on Friday, so remained at AYB.  It gave us a chance to make arrangements to store the Girl here next Summer so that we can travel to Michigan, Europe, and family vacations.  The delay also gave me a chance to witness the following vignette, taken right out of the “Boating Don’ts” parody video that has forming in my brain over the years.  I’ll try to paint the picture for you the best I can:  So, I’m up on the boat deck scrubbing, and Josh, the dock dude, walks down the dock looking like he’s getting ready to catch the lines of a boat coming in to the space behind us.  (we’re on a face dock which parallels the ICW).  Nobody coming.  He walks back along the face, and waves to a motor cruiser throwing lines to folks on the dock with red pilings (that’d be the gas dock).  Words are exchanged, and the aforementioned cruiser pulls out, and motors to the spot behind us, where Josh and another boater are waiting to catch lines.  The spot is, maybe 70’ long, the twin prop boat with bow thruster, 50’, max.  There’s a kid, maybe 13 or so on the bow, and a middle-aged guy at the aft midship cleat, both in position ready to toss the lines to the dock.  All of the yard crew is gone for the day, the sun is low-it’s that time of day before dinner that is so peaceful and quiet.  That’s when the feces hit the rotor. The guy driving the boat from the upper helm, who looks like a shirtless slightly overweight Jabba the Hut (not judgin’-just tryin’ to paint a picture here), starts screaming like a man possessed.  He’s yelling at his crew to change lines to different cleats, and etc.  The verbage is sprinkled, no laden with “F Bombs” and other various depradations regarding his crews’ lineage which should not be recorded in this polite company.  Worse, he’s like a broken record, nothing new, just the same sentences over and over again, each time at a higher volume (I didn’t think louder was possible, but like I said, this was a big man).  Maybe 20 times- no exaggeration.  By this time, Suzanne has roused from the computer in her office, as she can hear the commotion outside over the music from her Ipod.  We agree that it’d be best not to make eye contact, and go back to our business.  When the noise subsided, I looked over and the boat was safely tied, the dockhands nowhere to be seen.  Another boater walks past the Girl, looks up at me, and says “Never a dull moment at AYB”.  I make an appropriate but sensitive comment,  maybe echoing Chris Christie’s exclamation, asserting that “That was rude, even for New Jersey” (the boat’s registered in NJ) and he says “that boats’ name should be changed from “Crazy Lady” to “Crazy Man”.  There’s another chapter, but I’ll let it go at that.  Funny thing was, he had the boat lined up perfectly at the outset of the screaming, and could have just eased her in.  The moral of the story is simple.  Buy 2 way communication headsets.  I did, and now no one but me hears the Admiral when she talks to me like that.

-Later

Brrrrrrr………

So..haven’t heard from me lately, ‘cause we’re ashore doing dirtchores and Docs appointments.  And yes, that IS snow outside the Admiral’s window.  We’ll be back to The Girl shortly to beat our feets South.  The rest of the Krogen flotilla was at Bald Head Island, NC last night.  I guess they had a big blowout at our friend, Betty’s house there.  She supplied the meat, emptying the freezer in preparation for her winter cruise.  The 35 attending Krogenistas brought the sides and booze, and a good time was had by all.  I’m guessin’ there were no departures today due to an epidemic of “Brown Bottle Flu”, but you can never tell, as these people are professionals.  I think that many of them were inoculated at the Rendezvous the week before.

Talk to you soon,

…………Freezin’ in Michigan

Ola Muchachos.

It’s amazing what a good nights’ sleep will do for you.  When we got up in the morning, tropical Depression 11 which had turned into Tropical Storm Joaquin, had morphed into Hurricane Joaquin.  …….Sweet!  You know how the story ends, but we didn’t then.  Most of the models had the storm making landfall on the southeast coast of the U.S., and we were headed directly into its’ teeth.  You really don’t want to be at a dock during a hurricane, because the high water caused by storm surge often lifts docks off their moorings, and boats tied up to rise over the pilings which then hole the boats.  We scrambled to find a few “hurricane holes”-sheltered anchorages where we could put down the hook and ride out the storm.  We also called a marina in Solomon’s, where we were headed, and scheduled a haul out, just in case.  With more than a little trepidation, we cruised down the Chesapeake Bay to the Choptank River, where we spent a very windy night on the hook.  Confident with our anchor, we had a great nights’ sleep, with the wind howling overhead.  Our last leg down the Chesapeake was on 4’ seas with a 4 second interval.  Fortunately, the wind and waves were on our stern as we bashed along through the rain.  We contacted the “Sandy Hookers”, who informed us that they were at the end of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, and weren’t moving until the following week.  The forecasts were predicting Joaquin  to be tracking slightly to the East, and it looked like it might miss us.  We still had the Nor’easter to contend with, and the track of the hurricane was far from certain.  When we called Calvert’s Marina, where the Rendezvous was to be held, they told us that the docks were closed to transients because of the predicted high winds and tides.  We asked them if we might be able to pull in for a few hours to put on water and go grocery shopping with the “marina car”.  No problemo.  We docked and picked up food and water.  The wind was only 20 knots or so, so we asked if we could stay the night.  Permission granted.  The next morning, forecasts looked even more favorable, so we were granted another day.  With water and electricity at the dock, we had a very exciting day,doing laundry and boatchores.  As the day wore on, it looked more and more like the hurricane would miss us, and we were breathing sighs of relief.  The #&%#!! Clutch had been starting the “Ting, Ting, Ting” thing again, so I pulled it off again, and Scottie (who was on the scene to service the arriving fleet) sent it back to Texas.  Since our episode in Marathon last year, he had figured out why it had been repeatedly failing, and told us that a few well-placed shims would keep it from heading south again.  The problem was due to questionable engineering at Northern Lights (the manufacturer).  Since these puppies aren’t cheap, we’ll try to get a little love from Northern Lights on our replacements-I’ll keep you posted.  We had a visit from our pals, Kevin and Jess last night who drove down from their home on Kent Island.  They’ve been thinking Krogen thoughts for a few years, and will probably pull the trigger soon, now that their kids are out of the house.  We had some sips, salads with Newfoundland Halibut, and good conversation before they had to trek back home. Anyway, the water’s been high, the wind strong, but the rain has stopped on this Sunday evening.  Our responsibilities for the Rendezvous are starting to kick into gear (Suz is our webmistress and we are chairing the Rendezvous next year), so I’ll sign off for now.  After next weekend, we’ll drive back to Michigan for appointments, visits with friends, and to button up the house for winter.

-until next time.

Pages

Captain's Log

We were off the hook at Tyrell by 07h50, and had an uneventful passage to Grenada over 2’-4’ seas, with 21 knot winds on the beam.  The hydraulic oil cooling pump continued to give us problems, and the hydraulic system overheated a couple of times, necessitating trips to the engine room to break air locks.  The Xantrex charger/inverter also continued to shut down due to overheats, so we used the second unit, a Magnum without incident-another project.  By 13h30 we were at Port Louis Marina, in St. George Harbor, Grenada.  New experience.  We did a Mediterranean mooring there.  That is, we backed over a mooring ball around 70 feet from the seawall, attaching a line as we went by, and backed the Girl up to the seawall.  We secured the stern to the wall, and ran another line (making two) from the bow to the mooring ball, suspending Alizann between the wall and the ball.  We’ve done the Med-moor thing before, using our own anchor off the bow, but grabbing the ball, then backing in between two other boats with barely enough room for our fenders between was a big deal.  We get by with a little help from our friends.

The next ten days was a blur, lotsa boatchores.  We pulled the balky inverter out and took it apart.  It’s cooled by 3 computer fans, and 2 were completely defunct.  The third had funky bearings.  How hard could that be to fix?  From past experience, I know that nothing’s ever that easy, so we bought a new battery charger/inverter, did some modifications to mount it, some rewiring and carpentry work to place the new remote control panel, and called it good.  I figured that we’d buy some fans back in the States, repair the eight year old unit when we returned in the Fall, and keep it as a spare.  (All boats need three inverter/chargers, Right?).  Both of the motors received new oil and filters.  The transmission got a fluid change, then we flushed out the John Deere, the generator, and dinghy outboard engines with Saltaway and bedded them down for the Summer.  Washed, buffed and polished the Girl to help her resist the scorching Summer sun, and cleaned her interior, doing a final wipe-down with a dilute vinegar solution to help resist mold during the upcoming layup.  We covered the insides of hatches with aluminum foil to keep out the sun, unplugged all appliances to protect them from lightning damage, and set the air conditioners on “Dehumidify”.  All mooring lines were doubled, and chafe protection was placed to ready Alizann for potential high winds during hurricane season.  In between the scut work, we met with a welder and a canvas maker, whose projects would include modifying the solar panel rack to accommodate our new panels, and fabricating a sunshade for the boat deck.  While we were gone, the Girl would need attending to, so we met with Mark Sutton, owner of Island Dreams, whose company would check in on Alizann while we were Stateside.  Brett Fairhead’s guys would come by and clean her bottom monthly, keeping her free of barnacles while sitting in the warm, nutrient-rich water of the harbor.  Getting the Girl ready for Hurricane Season entailed removing anything from the decks that was loose, or could potentially get loose in high winds.  We had our bicycles and kayaks stored on land, out of harm’s way, and removed everything else that wasn’t fastened down.  The weekend before we left, Tropical Storm Brett roared through, causing cancellation of flights to Trinidad.  The high winds gave us a chance to see how the Girl would do in her mooring configuration, and we were pleased.

It wasn’t all work and no play for the crew of Alizann, though.  Ed and Cheryl on Slowdown were five boats down from us, and we also made some new friends in the marina.  Our immediate neighbors, Paul and Sue, aboard their 65’ Fleming motoryacht “Suzanna Aqui” were familiar faces that we had met in Gorda Sound in the BVI.  We had several enjoyable dinners both out and in (You know by now that the Admiral loves to cook for friends), but seriously we never got farther than a mile or so from the boat.  We figured that we’d do our island exploration after our return in the Fall.  Only too soon, it was time to leave Grenada and our new and old pals to return to the States.  Hector, our driver, picked us up in a light drizzle at noon on the ………., took us to the airport, where we boarded a plane for Miami.

-Later

 

 

Good Evening

The passage to the Tobago Cays wasn’t exactly taxing.  It was windy (what’s new), but it was only a two-hour trip. The Tobagos are five small islands, four of which are encircled by a very shallow reef to the east (the prevailing wind side), creating a nicely protected anchorage.  The fifth, to the east was the island that the beach bonfire scene from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” was filmed, Petit Tabac.  We rounded into the anchorage, which is a national park, and dropped the hook onto a sandy bottom in fifteen feet of water.  We passed on using a mooring, as it was rumored that they were poorly maintained, resulting in a boat breaking loose several months earlier, with significant consequences.  The” boat boys” were in fine form here.  Several in their pangas approached the Girl within the first half hour of our arrival.  “Need bread?, Need fish?, Need water?, Want a Tee shirt?, Have any garbage?”  These entrepreneurs come over from Union Island, several miles to the south to try to scratch out a living.  The further south that we have travelled, the more ubiquitous they have become.  The vast majority are very polite, but once in awhile, you encounter persistence that borders on aggressive.  These guys are working, doing the best that they can in a part of the world where opportunity is very limited (huge understatement), so we try to patronize them whenever possible.  Cruisers that we have met along the way have raved about the Tobago Cays.  We were underwhelmed.  We could see it being a beautiful spot in the Summer, when the wind was non-existent, and no other boats were cruising.  In twenty-something knot sustained winds, under overcast skies-not so much.  We went out in the dink to do some snorkeling, but couldn’t really find a spot that was appealing, so we didn’t.  BTW, don’t remember if I mentioned this, but we met a French-Canadian (Quebecois) couple in Bequia that were cruising on their 40-something foot sailboat with their seven (yes, count’em folks, seven) kids, the eldest being twelve.  Their youngest was one, and they’ve been cruising for 2 years.  No.  We didn’t ask.  Anyway, we were anchored right in front of them here in T.C.  We reconnected with them, and were able to unload a gallon or so of boxed milk, and some other stuff that we didn’t think would survive the Summer on the boat.  After two days, we decided that it was time to push on to Union Island.  We had the choice of two potential anchorages.  One, Clifton Harbour, was off the main town on Union Island, with the potential of being very windy.  The other, Chatham Bay, would be sheltered and very quiet, with little or no population.  No brainer, right?  Wrong.  Just off the bay at Clifton, tucked in behind the reef was the home of JT Procenter Kitesurf.  Suz and I had been thinking about learning to kiteboard for the past few years.  Only problem was that everyone that we saw doing it was a tad bit younger than us.  Well, we decided to go on in and ask the pros if they thought that two sixty-somethings were trainable, so it was off to Clifton Harbour.

Another short hop brought us into Clifton Harbour.  As has become the custom, we were met by a boat boy, wanting to take us to a mooring ball.  “No thank-you.” Then, the litany of questions of do you need this or that?  We brought the Girl up into shallow water just east of the moorings, and just west of the kiteboarding center.  Facing into the wind, the bow settee was a perfect grandstand seat for the numerous boarders already riding in the shallow bay.  We didn’t waste any time in getting to shore to ask about lessons.  “No problem.  If you’re fit, it doesn’t matter how old you are, we had a seventy-year-old on a board last month.”  So….We signed up for an “Introductory Lesson”  Long story short, after a couple of lessons, we can both get up on a board and ride in a straight line (more or less).  Even with bruised ribs and some coral rashes, we were both all smiles, ready to return in the Fall for Act 2.  Besides the boarding, we found Clifton to be a place worth returning to.  The produce stalls in the town square were well-stocked every day, and Yummy’s Bakery makes the best Roti in town, as well as fresh baguettes.  The folks were very friendly, and it is rumored that there are some nice restaurants as well.

After 4 days in Clifton, we cleared out of S.V.G.(Saint Vincent & The Grenadines), and pointed our bow to the islands of Petit St. Vincent and Petit Martinique.  The former is part of S.V.G., the latter, Grenada.  Petit St. Vincent is a privately-owned island with a very exclusive resort, it’s only structures.  Petit Martinique, a mile or two distant, has a population of less than 500 people.  We anchored between the two, inside a protecting reef, close to a beautiful sandy beach on PSV.  Even though it’s a private island, guests from boats are welcome to use the restaurant and the beach bar, “Goaties.”  We did our best to go ashore, but the seas refused to cooperate.  The dinghy dock was treacherous in the wind and swell.  After 15 minutes of trying to tie the tender so that it wouldn’t get bashed on the dock, we gave up (a stern anchor wouldn’t hold on the scrabbly bottom).  We weren’t cleared into Grenada, and there is no office in Petit Martinique, but official presence is very sparse here in this no-man’s land between the two countries.  Which brings me to a story:  Petit Martinique has been known as a smugglers’ den for the past century or so.  Rum running was a main revenue source.  Rum running in these islands where there is a distillery on every corner, you say?  Ahhh, this is different.  Barrels of 80% rum alcohol, bound for blending elsewhere were intercepted, bottled, and sold as “strong rum”.  I’ll say, 160 proof!  Now, strong rum is the unofficial drink of SVG.  It’s also one of the reasons that you need to be careful about your consumption of rum punch, which I once considered a “foo-foo” drink.  I’ve seen more than one unsuspecting American feeling no pain after a couple of these.  At some time in the mid twentieth century, a new governor was elected in Grenada after running on a platform which included bringing the smugglers of P.M. to heel.  After he was elected, he embarked to Petit Martinique on a publicity junket as a show of force.  As his boat approached the dock, he could see that the pier and harbor were lined with people.  They were all wearing black!  At that point, he asked one of the ship’s crew what was going on, and was told “They’re dressed for your funeral.”  Apparently, he never went to shore, headed back to Grenada, and didn’t fulfill at least one of his campaign promises.  We headed the dinghy over to Petit Martinique, where the docking was much easier, and strolled much of the perimeter of the island.  There isn’t much going on there, but the people are nice, and the island is pretty.  We picked up some cheap booze (Hmmmh.  Yeah, we bought some), and spent a rolly night on the hook.  By the way, my rum punch smoothies, courtesy of our Vitamix blender have never been better.

It didn’t look like the weather was going to change for the next few days, so the next morning it was time to continue south, aiming towards Carriacou, which is part of the nation of Grenada.  We had heard stories from other cruisers, and on the internet, that the Customs and Immigration officers in Carriacou were a little less than enthusiastic about their jobs.  We didn’t find them to be rude and abusive as others had reported, but Suzanne did wait patiently for a good bit for the officer to terminate a personal call on his cellphone.  By the time that Suz and I had left the office, the four of us had shared a few laughs.  We think that a lot of the enmity between officials and boaters arises from preconceived notions on both sides.  Suzanne is good at “breaking the ice” with a little plain old civility.  Here in the islands, it’s considered bad manners to “get right down to business” without exchanging a few pleasantries first.  At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that we’re guests in another country, and that these officials are not our employees.  Being pleasant also moves you to the front of the line, and gets you on your way quicker.  End of rant. 

We saw Ed (SlowDown) on our way to Customs, so we joined him and Cheryl for sips that evening.  They were on their way to Grenada the following day, and we talked about all of the things that we had to do to get our boats ready for Summer.  By the time that we returned to the Girl, we had decided to head to Grenada as well.  We’ll explore Carriacou next Fall.  Spending a week or so in Alizann’s Summer home would allow us to get to know the marina staff, and our neighbors before jetting back to the States, and leaving the Girl all alone.

Sooo……In the morning, we were off to Port Louis Marina, on Grenada.

-Later

Good Morning!

It wasn’t exactly a long ride from Bequia to Mustique.  We were on the mooring ball by 11h15.  Then we were off.  The Harbormaster wanted the phat Girl on a stouter mooring.  Okay, we can always use the practice.  So, you probably know that Mustique is a private island.  The unwashed masses are allowed to visit at certain times of year when the well-heeled are not present.  Boaters are allowed three days, and must take a mooring.  (The mooring fees are quite reasonable, though-$200 Eastern Caribbean for 3 nights).  Well, we didn’t see any celebrities, but we sure saw a lot of the island.  We hiked over 20 miles in 2 days, circumnavigating the coast, and crisscrossing the hilly interior.  The windward side of the island featured a rugged coastline, with dramatic views from cliffs down into small pocket bays and isolated beaches.  There aren’t a lot of them, but the homes that we saw (from a distance) were spectacular.  The going prices, once affordable at a million $ or so, are now easily ten times that much.  We didn’t spend a lot of time house hunting.

Being the off-season, the island was pretty quiet.  The first afternoon, as we were doing a quick recon of “town,” we stopped at The View, a restaurant perched on a cliff high over the harbor.  Well named, the open air dining room has a panoramic view of the harbor and surrounding sea.  Suz and I were the only guests until we were joined by Alastair and Fiona, fellow boaters on the s/v Busco Viento II.  British citizens, but living in California for the past couple decades, they cruise for several months a year.  They were bar-hopping by dinghy, and reported that they had just missed Bryan Adams (Canadian rocker) at their previous stop, The Cotton House Plantation bar.  Lisa, the owner of The View was chattin’ us up, and by the time that we left, we had reserved the prime table for dinner (Barbeque Night) the following evening.  The barbequed pork, beef, and chicken was delicious (or was it because we had hiked all day?)  The half-inch of rain that drenched the four of us in 10 minutes on the way to dinner didn’t dampen our spirits.  We just wrung out our clothes (literally), and carried on.  Another evening, over sips on our boat, they were intrigued by our flopperstoppers.  They took our extra one home, and were so impressed by it’s performance that they ended up taking it off our hands.

Three days went by in a flash.  We had heard of a new multimillion dollar marina that was being built on Canouan, so we decided to check it out.  The facility, Glossy Bay Marina, is to have a retail center, hotel, restaurants, and private residences in addition to the marina, which is equipped to handle megayachts.  The marina had just opened the previous month, and we were the only boat in the whole place.  The place is going to be gorgeous.  The man-made harbor is surrounded by a granite-capped seawall with nicely rounded edges.  Stainless steel power pedestals with both 50 and 60Hz electric service, as well as reverse-osmosis water are evenly spaced between substantial mooring cleats.  The marina is set up for Med-mooring, that is, stern-to, but they allowed us to side-tie as it wasn’t exactly crowded.  Acres of new plant material have been placed, and a gang of nurserymen were planting more by the day.  Excavators and bulldozers were moving dirt and placing topsoil out on the point opposite the Girl, while crane operators and construction workers hung steel and poured concrete for the retail center and hotel on the other side of the lagoon.  It’s very clear that no expense is being spared in the creation of this project.  Yanik, the dock dude insisted that we have a golf cart at our disposal, so he parked one right next to our boat.  It was a good thing, too, as the beach club, pool, and restaurant (Shenanigan’s) on the point between the marina and the ocean was about a half mile (by land) around the lagoon.  We played the first afternoon.  After a late lunch, prepared by the chef (not cook) at the restaurant, we lounged on the couches under the shade of the pergola near the bar.  Suz napped while I availed myself of the WiFi, continuing to put our website back together.  (You may have noticed that the site was a shambles for a few days, with most of the content gone.  We don’t have any idea how it happened, but I was literally sick when I discovered the mess that appeared where our website once was.  After exchanging a few frantic emails with Bill, our website designer, he worked through the weekend to get us back up and running.  We’ll have better backup systems in place from here on out-lesson learned.)

The following day was all work.  In anticipation of leaving the Girl for the summer, we have a lot of deep cleaning to do.  Mold and mildew are big problems during the hot, humid Caribbean summers, so the cleaner the boat, the better.  We emptied the lazarette.  Wow, is there a lot of stuff in there!  We cleaned every square inch with soapy water, then wiped down with a vinegar solution to kill any mold spores.  We laid out over a thousand feet of line on the seawall to bake in the sun.  After taking an inventory of the stuff, it was re-pack time.  We took a quick break, then Suz was into the front machinery space to give it the same treatment, while I headed to the engine room to fiddle with the hydraulic oil cooler again.  (Scottie suggested that I take all of the hoses off and check to make sure that none had delaminated and collapsed inside).  Well, the hoses all looked good, but I did find a fingernail-sized bit of tree bark in the hose between the thru-hull and the sea strainer.  I doubt that this was the problem, but we’ll see-fingers crossed.  I also re-routed one of the hoses for a more favorable angle out of the raw water pump.  By the time I was done, Suz was just finishing up.  We’ll do the remaining two bilge spaces when we “pickle” the watermaker, and prep the engine and generator for storage.  It doesn’t sound like much, but by the time we were done, we were whipped.  Showers, sips, spaghetti and meatballs (Yeah, Baby!), and about 10 minutes of reading in bed, and we were out for the count.  That is……….....until The Admiral jars me awake in the wee hours shouting “Someone’s on deck!”  Whoa, I didn’t even know what planet I was on, let alone what was happening.  However,…we had rehearsed this scenario many times, and the training kicked in.  Suzanne hit the panic switch that I had installed next to the bed.  All the deck lights popped on.  I had the “Bear spray” in one hand, and the axe handle in the other as I woke up on the run to the pilothouse.  Didn’t see anyone in the cockpit or side companionway, nobody visible on the bow.  Once outside, I saw no one up on the boat deck.  (If there had been someone there, I’m not sure what would have scared them more, my weapons or the sight of me in my birthday suit.)  In the end, we’re not sure if someone was outside, or if Suz, in a sensitized half-sleep (she had been awakened by a carful of partiers leaving the bar earlier) had heard one of the fenders rubbing against the hull.

We’ll head down to the Tobago Cays on this, the last day of May.  With the very un-Caribbean-like speed with which the construction is progressing, it’ll be interesting to see what this place looks like when we pass back through here in six months.

-Later

Allright?

19th of May, off the ball at the Pitons in St. Lucia by 05h00.  Of course, the drizzle started just as we were bringing in the flopperstopper birds, and quit when we were ten minutes out. The lines went in the water at first light, and we trolled along with 20 knots of wind on the port beam in 2’-4’ seas.  I had rigged up a couple of frozen Ballyhoo, but they didn’t feel “right.”  The first time that I reeled them in to check for weeds, they were just a head and a hook, with a defleshed spine trailing (Musta thawed out somewhere along the way-oh well).  Threw out some lazy man’s bait (lures) and kept on truckin’.  With the luck that we’ve had fishing this year, I didn’t expect to catch anything anyway.  As we motored along, with the oil cooler overheating every forty minutes or so, the lures kept picking up clumps of Sargasso weed.  Reel in, clean lure, let out-repeat often.  At 09h57 we had a big clump of weed on one of the lines and the reel was slowly paying out.  As I was reeling in, and I could see the lure around 50’ behind the boat two big fins appeared just behind it.  Then, it was off to the races!!  That line started screaming off the reel.  I increased to full drag (I can barely pull line off the reel at this setting), and the line was going out so fast, that I swear the reel was smoking.  Three hundred yards (that’s three football fields, folks) later, he started coming back to the boat, and I was reeling as fast as I could. Then, he decided that perpendicular to our course was a good idea, and he “tailwalked” across the surface.  He was a huge Marlin!!  He snapped 80# Spectra line like it was kite twine, and the excitement was over.  He had my lucky lure and I didn’t even have a picture to show for it-only a tall tale about “the one that got away.”

As we passed the lee side of St. Vincent, we rued the fact that it was not a safe place for cruisers to hang out.  There were several nice little anchorages, and many potential snorkeling spots.  Geographically speaking, the island is gorgeous.  The reality is, that several cruisers have been attacked and brutally murdered here in the past decade.  Senseless ultraviolence.  As we neared Bequia (Beck-way), the rain came down in sheets, washing off lotsa salt.  We dropped the hook off Princess Margaret beach, and went in to Port Elizabeth to clear SVG (Saint Vincent, Grenadines) Customs.  From there, we proceeded to fall in love with Bequia.  Suzanne found Donnaka, the local hiking guide, online, and we met with him the next morning to map out a few hikes around the island.  Born in Ireland, but having spent most of his life working in the European equivalent of the Peace Corps, he has lived all over the world.  We decided on 3 hikes, one by ourselves, and two with Donnaka as our guide.  Over the next three days, we covered nearly twenty miles, most in the bush.  We visited most of the bays/beaches on the windward side of the island, and summited Mt. Peggy, the highest peak on Bequia.  Along the way, Donnaka gave us a running history lesson of the island and its people.  We learned that Bequia is still allowed to hunt whales, and that 2 families on the island still do.  The International Whaling Commission allows Bequians to harvest up to 4 whales per year, using only traditional methods.  That is, boats no longer than 7 meters, hand-thrown harpoons, meat is not allowed to be exported off the island, etc.  Some years, no whales are taken, this year-only one.  One of the families has announced that as of this year, they will no longer be involved in the hunt.  I’m guessin’ that it’s just a matter of time before there is no whale hunt on Bequia.  Between our hikes, we enjoyed the village and its people.  Model boatbuilding is a traditional craft here, so we hit several workshops, and were amazed at the fine craftsmanship.  Getting around on Bequia is a story unto itself.  Mass transit entepreneurs abound.  Careening up and down the just barely two lane streets, brightly-colored 8 passenger minivans blaring a Soca beat from their oversized sound systems get you formheretothere.  Just stand on the side of the road, wave your hand, hop aboard, and you’re in for an adventure.  One of our rides stood out from the rest.  First, let me lay out the scene:  the buses always have one driver plus what I would call a “shotgunner”, who rides at the sliding door, collecting fares, operating the door and managing the seating.  Well, this bus stops, the door opens, and the inside sure looks full to me.  No problem.  No one blinks an eye.  Suz and I wedge in, and we’re off.  But wait!  There’s more!  We stop THREE more times to pick people up.  Jump seats are dropped, then homemade cushions are placed in the cracks.  By the time that we departed the circus clown-car there were 20 souls on board.  Quite a pungent, ear-splitting experience.  Oh, I almost forgot.  The driver’s staying cool by drinking a beer, driving with the other hand.  (“Tell me again how your parents died?”)  It’s hard to paint an adequate picture.  Bequia is like what I would imagine the “old Caribbean” was like-unspoiled by tourism or development.  Happy people with a laid-back lifestyle.  We swam on deserted beaches, bought fresh local produce from a “Mom and Pop” stand, ordered Roti in an alleyway off Front Street, and enjoyed homemade fruit juices from a small shop, hidden away on a back street.  Could’ve stayed for a long time, but Mustique was calling, and the weather looked favorable for a stay in the marginal anchorage there, so on the 26th, we were off.

-Later

Well, the flopperstoppers got a rigorous test in the Bight off Roseau.  After a night of 3’ swell on the beam (no exaggeration), we pulled them aboard at 04h15.  The new “bird” did very well.  Our older (and undersized one) came up waaayyy too easily.  The rings holding the lines to the wings had separated, allowing the bird to hang at a ninety degree angle.  No Bueno, but fixable.  By 04h25 we were underway on the 12 hour passage to Le Marin, on Martinique, where we have tentatively planned to dock for a couple of months over the Christmas holiday.  The passage was pretty snotty, but we had expected it.  All of the cupboard doors had been Velcro-tied closed, and everything that could take flight was stowed away.  What we didn’t expect was for the hydraulic oil cooler to take a hike, causing us to overheat the hydraulic system.  Every hour or so, I was in the engine room, bleeding the raw water pump and sea strainer, coaxing it back to life.  Of course the lines were in, and we continued our streak of nobitesnofish.   With the anchor down in the bay outside Le Marin, we headed to shore to clear Customs and begin our reconnaissance mission.  We had no sooner tied the dink up than Bobbie and Craig (Mona Kai) appeared on the dock.  They had just arrived, and were leaving their boat here while they flew home for Craig’s family reunion in Illinois.  By the time we got done yakkin’, we barely made it to clear in before the office closed.  Next day, I opened up the raw water pump for the oil cooler, and inspected the impeller and cam.  They looked Okay, but I replaced them anyhows.  Later, we scoped out the rental car offices, located the boulangerie (always a must for baguettes on French islands), noted the inventories of the marine stores and visited the grocery store to check the produce.  We decided that this was the place for our long stay over the holiday, so made our reservation at the marina office.  Our day wasn’t allworkandnoplay.  We ended our recon with a fashionably late lunch at “Zanzibar”, a Paulette and John recommendation.  After a two hour lunch and a bottleawine, we were all about a dinghy tour of the harbor, and the little hurricane holes around its’ periphery.  Looking forward to our next visit, we had the hook up by 07h00, headed for Rodney Bay on St. Lucia.    Lines in the water, our drought ended.  The big gold reel was spinning off line so fast that it was almost smoking.  I increased the drag to the stops, and it continued to run.  After 400 yards were off, I was beginning to wonder if that bad boy was going to strip the reel.  All of a sudden, the rod snapped back, and the line went limp.  Dunno what it was, but it was big and powerful.  At least he left me my lure.  As we neared the island, we rejoiced in the fact that the oil cooler had performed flawlessly in the heavy seas.  We were docked at the IGY marina in Rodney Bay by noon.  Of course, the skies broke open right as we neared the dock, just in time to give us a good shower.  The marina there has a dock with U.S. shorepower pedestals, making it possible for us to do laundry and run the air conditioning.  Having a sackful of dirty clothes, and a very salty boat interior in need of a thorough cleaning, the washer and air conditioning would be handy.  After clearing Customs and checking in, we walked the docks in search of the sailing vessel, “Slow Dance” Ed and Cheryl, her owners, are friends of John and Paulette’s and expected our arrival.  They were both knee-deep in boatchores, so we agreed to meet for sips at the dockside Tiki bar later that evening.  Even though the oil cooler had not failed on this leg, it still hadn’t been fixed, so I didn’t delude myself-it needed attention.  But…….the engine room was too hot to fuss with the oil cooler, so we rolled up our sleeves, filled the sink with Murphy’s soapy water, fired up the air conditioning, started the washer and got down to it.  Four hours later, the Girl was standing tall again, and Suz and I had clean clothes back in our drawers.  Definitely time for sips.  Besides being fun folks, Ed and Cheryl shared a wealth of information, having cruised this part of the Caribbean off and on for over a decade.  On Monday, we made use of some of the tips that they shared with us.  That is; AFTER I spent a couple of hours in the engine room, taking apart the oil cooler, removing its’ hoses, backflushing it, and basically not finding anything wrong with it.  GRRRRR!  We found the ATM, hit the grocery store (which was pretty nice), and checked out the dive shop that Ed had told us about (John and Paulette got their SCUBA certification there and had raved about it).  Walking into Dive St. Lucia’s shop was like stepping into another country.  It was easily the nicest dive shop that we’d ever been in.  Besides the beautiful showroom, their educational facilities are top-notch.  They have a swimming pool with a 14’ deep end, replete with a wheelchair hoist for accommodating handicapped students.  Their classrooms are well-lit, and air-conditioned, with up to date audiovisual equipment.  They have 2 custom-built dive boats which look like new.  Before we left, we had signed up for a class to get our enriched gas (Nitrox) certification, and 2 dives the following day.  Before heading back to the boat, I stopped at the chandlery to pick up some European electrical parts so that I could fabricate an adapter for the Girl’s visit to Martinique next Christmas.

The class was a breeze, Suzanne and I were the only students.  By 09h00, we had aced our tests and loaded our gear on the boat.  The dive site was a 40 minute ride.  It was a joy to have someone else drive and we used our time to meet 2 other cruising couples with whom we’d be diving today.  The first dive was along a fringe of coral surrounding a small bay.  The reef was very healthy, so we were pleasantly surprised.  When we surfaced, lunch had been served.  Lunch.  Not snacks.  Really?  Roasted chicken, peas and rice, fried plantain, green salad.  What a treat!  The afternoon dive was on a small wrecked freighter which had been intentionally sunk for use as a dive site.  Back on the surface, fresh fruit for the ride home.  We had so much fun that we wanted to go the next day, but were told that there were no openings.  Our new cruiser buddies, Bob, Suzanne, Kevin and Ellen wanted in, too, so when we returned to the shop and whined a bit, Marcel (the owner) called a couple of employees to see if they could come in the following day.  Voila!  We were a go.  Bob and Suzanne asked us to join them for dinner, but we had already planned to eat at a local steakhouse with Ed and Cheryl.  They ended up being at the table next to us at the same place.

Today, Wednesday the 15th, we dove Superman’s Flight, a dive site just below the Pitons (Gros and Petit).  The dive was spectacular.  We saw beautiful sponges, corals, invertebrates, fish and crustaceans of all types.  Lunch was great again, the afternoon dive in the same bay, was very nice too.  We’ll leave the marina tomorrow and grab a mooring ball below the Pitons for the night.  There really isn’t much of a weather window, it’s just going to be a little less crappy on Friday than it will be for the following week.  Our plan is to cross to Bequia (in the Grenadines), travelling in the lee of St. Vincent.  We don’t plan on stopping in St. Vincent (beautiful island, but lots of crime against boaters), but if the seas are untenable, we’ve heard of a marina on the south end of St. V that has good security where we can duck in.

The internet is miserable here, so I’ll put this up

-Later 

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