Headin northward

So we had planned on staying a week or so longer but Mother Nature has other ideas.  There is a possible tropical low and depression which may form around Cuba next week early. If it forms then it will likely effect the weather on the fl coast either east or west and the SE US coast for 2 or so weeks to come. That together with a couple or 3 lows coming down from the north has us looking at going back a bit earlier than planed. So we're going to set off tomorrow Saturday and sail northward with the help of the Gulf Stream with a desired arrival into charleston sc sometime on Tuesday. Winds are predicted to be light so we may do a bit of motor sailing along the way. But we should make it in before the arrival of the southward moving lows and well in advance of the tropical development which right now has about a 20% chance of actually developing. Might as well be safe and slow rather than on the edge and in more wind. Stay tuned for a Tuesday or so arrival on Charleston SC. 

A little bit of heaven 05/22/15

We had Water Cay just south of Red Bay all to ourselves. Even though the Abacos are more populated, this little cluster of rocks and inlets was all our own. 

Just a little bit of heaven. 

 

BottomSiders cushion

I used to think the BottomSiders cushion was mine. Being short, I could stand on it or sit high on it to see over the deck. But no, I had it all wrong. It's the admiral's princess bed:

Posted by Bette

Greenish blue water 05/16/15

We had a wonderful time at Bullock's Harbor on Great Harbor Cay in the Berry's - BBQ with cruising friends, bicycling, beach walks. We left when we were ready, on our way to make an overnight passage across the Northwest-Providence Channel over to the Abacos..

But first, this:

Most of this photo is with 6 inches under the keel. And that includes taking our depth meter's 1 ft safety margin into account. Cool.

Posted by Bette

05/21/15. Oh yeah!

And the beach is nice too. 

(Crossing Bay beach, great Abaco Island)

Posted by Bette

I'll say this about that

We've been sailing every day since leaving the Berry Islands on the 26th of May. We sailed in the Bwrry's but we also motor sailed some days and we also just motored some days. Here in the Abacos, every day has been a sailing day.

Beautiful sailing with blue skies, blue water, and perfect breezes. Unbelievable in the Sea of Abaco. Every day!

Inside Whale Cay:

Where we've been:

Posted by Bette

Where's Minnie?

You know when you have an animal on board that sooner or later that fretful day will arrive when you can't find Minnie ( or Fido or Fluffy or Max or other four legged furry). Our day has come.

How many places are there to look? The boat is only so big. There's not that many places so it's even scarier when the cat or dog is nowhere to be found. Then you figure out who will get in the dinghy and go searching while the other person keeps looking. Wait, wait, she's found in a place she's never been.

Behind the head door (door is on the right of the photo), behind the shower curtain, on a shelf, in a shower curtain basket.

It makes so much sense in after-thought. It's a basket, it's a shelf, and she's a cat. BUT she's never been seen there before. #stupidhuman..

Posted by Bette

Sketchy wifi here at Treasure Cay but.....

.....for 10 bucks to anchor in the harbor overnight we were able to take multiple showers, get rid of trash, grocery shop and a 3 mile beach walk. We'll be just fine with the slow connection.....thank you very much. We'll head out on the high tide at 1300 today and sail a nice beat in 12-15 over to Great Guana Cay. 

Harriett's driving

Reaching off, Harriette is in her element and driving. She'd doing the work!

To Abaco

To Abaco or not to Abaco was never the question. Late start from SC with  Ernie up in VT until the first week of March, traveling down the coast, then just getting down to Exumaville would have taken all the available time we had, leaving no time to smell the flowers. We have lived with a June1 north of FL border insurance halo in the backs of our minds and it affects our plans. Next year will be our Exuma year with an earlier start.

From Bullocks Harbor on the northern end of the Berry Island group, we plotted out courses for heading out westerly around Memory Rock, then coming back east to the Abaco Island chain, as well as the eastward option around Southwest Point on Grand Abaco Island. At first blush, Southwest Point is the southeastern point of Grand Abaco. Maybe whomever named it was facing backwards and got their east/west turned around..( I digress to mention that I know someone , a boating pointman, who would cross up his port and starboard when he faced aft, back in the 1980 timeframe. LOL). Ah, but the spoiler, there really is another piece of rock even more easterly that is named Southern Point. Still looks odd to see Southwest Pt on the charts!

Beating easterly overnight got a bit rough as the wind developed over 25knots. With small gib and reefed main we went further faster than our projection. Rather than venture out to rough seas early and in full darkness, we opted to head backward 8 miles in the lee of SW Pt then 180 back around and head around Southwest Pt in the predawn light. We stuck our nose out around the corner, said "nope", and did an about face. We had passed a shallow bay whereby we'd have easterly protection for the rest of the night/day and there we fell asleep.

Today is much more civilized and we're able to sail up to our next anchorage. 

Ozzie gets a much deserved break and Ernie's on the helm.

I'm happy!

Yes this is still fun.....

So today was a sleeper

Our thoughts developed on how we'd like to spend the remaining 14 days that we have here in the Bahamas. We decided to travel east from the top of the berry island group and head to the Abacos, the next island chain east and slightly north of the berrys.  This would require an overnight sail from Great harbor cay some 28 miles due east to the Great Abaco Island. Overnight because it's best to arrive in daylight and working backwards some 83 nautical miles from our desired landing spot had us leaving Sunday not later than 1600. Going upwind in a sailboat is sometimes challenging but we didn't want to have to motor the entire way. The weather gribs showed us that Sunday night still had winds in the 14-18 knot range which would be doable. We changed down to a smaller jib for our roller furled so that we would not have to stress the older furling unit that we have with a partially furled jib as the wind increased. Good call by Bette as the wind started out as predicted but soon built to a steady 20 to 26 for the balance of the ride. As we arrived this morning at an alternative stop since we were both pretty bushed come daybreak, we slept and read the day away. We are happy to be here tonight since the gribs did hold true today and tonight's winds are under 10.....a full all night motor it would have been. 

Sunset over the Northwest Providece Channel. Lots of cruise ships out here also make the crossing interesting. They are lit up like cities as they ferry their patrons on to the next beach and shopping spot.

So tomorrow the Abaco adventure begins. 

Soldier Cay

You can tell we don't like it here.

The ocean is higher than where I' m standing on the leeward side of the stretch between 2 Cay's. Hard to capture in photo, I'll admit.

White Cay, Berry Islands, Bahamas

Behind White and Fowl Cay's in the Berry's is a lovely spot. So many turtles, birds, ocher starfish, black rays (no spotted eagle rays here), and land lizards galore. We really enjoyed this anchorage. This is where we met Lynn and Russell on their Peterson 44.

Lots of these little lizards on the way to Blue Hole. 

Blue Hole: looks really really deep.

The water has cut back under the banks of the hole leaving stalactites and mites under the banks.

And then there's this fabulous beach  and other nearby islands to explore:

The Berry Islands

We've enjoyed our time at the Berry's, hopping in and out of one cove after another. It's been great, and the cruisers we've met and local Islanders have all been amazingly good people. Some of them are continuing on with a bit of VT maple syrup to remember us by.

What can you say when you anchor in 8 ft of water and see every shape under the boat?

The backsides if some cays have a swell but the faithful stern anchor takes care of that in fine shape.

Cockpit cocktail parties, hikes to the Blue Hole with new friends, life is good.

Soldier Cay tonight.....

A short sail today of 6 nm finds us behind Soldier Cay tonight. Lots of pics to post tomorrow when we take a dock at Great Harbor Marina. Will catch up on blogging, email, provisions and maybe fuel....don't need water however since our Spectra 150 water maker has been giving us about 13 net gallons after a 3 hour run. Lots of fresh water to spare. Good night from the Berry's. 

Sunset over Chub Cay

Looking west from our anchorage tonight here is the sunset over Chub. We're all alone out here. Wonderful. Everyone said oh...you're going so late.  But you know what .... We're all alone and loving it. Good night from the Berry's. 

Wonderful sail from Bimini

Left Bimini at 0830. How hard it is to leave new friends. No matter how much one interacts with the neighbors, in the cruising community it's very hard to say farewell.  We're out here by Mackie shoal tonight anchored on 10 ft of water 40 or so nautical miles from anywhere. We're looking for the wind to settle a bit overnight and the seas to do the same. We are a port in the night for a new friend. 

Low pressure circulation

A fresh look, every day, at the gribs exposed this low pressure system with developing circulation that includes where we'd hope to go. Our Abacos plans are now changed. And we'll likely stay south of it by heading to the Berry's.

The whole weather pattern has changed so we can now get there, the Berry Islands, from here.

When I was in town today buying fish (nice grouper) the fisherman was telling me that he had traps up at West End, Abacos and there was no way he was going up there because he saw the developing low. 

Nice to get such a confirmation from someone whose basic livelyhood is weather dependent. 

Wind and wave state

Hi from sunny Bimini:

 We hope to sneak out of here tomorrow night. It won't be optimum conditions but it'll have to do.

Here's a GRIB to show what's been holding us up:

No matter if we want Abacos or Berry's or Exuma's, they are all north and east same as the wind. And plenty of wind.

Wave state doesn't look like we can find a comfortable night throwing the hook out on the bank:

The Bermuda high that has brought all this has been stuck in place for a few days and will do so for the next few as well. But there is a 24 hour shot more easterly than northerly that we'll have to capitalize on and shoot for the Abacos. If we can do so within reason.

Ciao for now.

1000 uses for duct tape

Blew a tear in the mainsail on the way over from Miami. One of yesterday's chores was to get it repaired. The Dacron  patch material we have is back in VT ( oh well) and there's no supply of it here on Bimini. Duct tape!! Needle and Palm and we have a patch completed. Woo hoo!

 

Making the best of it

We're still here in Bimini waiting for a wind direction we can use, and a settling of waves both off and on the Bahama Bank. 

But you know, we could be stuck in Miami waiting for this weather pattern to change. So we're grateful for this:

The company here is great with folks from neighboring boats:

Dita, Nicollette, Alfredo, and us, off on a daily walk,

Or swim:

And on the beach, when you feel something tickling your feet, look down for bird-life:

There really are worse places to be stuck,

but we'd love to move onward. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

This is how we roll

 We had planned to leave Bimini at 7 a.m. tomorrow and head over to the Berry Islands.. But on the dinghy ride home from dinner, a boat neighbor ( folks from Germany) asked us to join them and other boat neighbor (from Italy) for a morning walk. Dita said to stay an extra day. And we agreed. Just that like.

The deck sun shade gets to stay up an extra day (75%UV block from Lowes, but the air passes through it easy).

And if we left, we'd be busy looking at charts tonight. Now, all that can wait. We can enjoy the moonlight!

Ernie on his way to customs this morning- first time for us on our own boat. Oh, this feels good:

Conch salads for supper tonight at a local place: 

A young man who entertained us tonight  with his wisdom of stingrays, crab, puffer fish, spotted eagle rays as he pointed them all out to us at the conch salad bar:

We're looking forward to our time in the Bahamas. I was concerned about our 

keel depth before coming over. But in our anchorage, 1boat draws 7.5 ft, another  draws 7ft, two of us have 6'6"; another draws only 5'. These boaters are at the ends of their trips, and move when the tide is high. But all felt that deeper drafts had a place here.

Life is good.