SailThreeSheets.com

We arrived Monday in Salem, making it back in very good time.  We did the trip primarily in 2 offshore hops, the first from Bahamas to Beaufort, NC and the second from Norfolk, VA to the Cape Cod Canal.

Stay tuned for catchup writing to the blog of some of our recent adventures.

Monday morning we woke up with the thought to knock the last few provisioning items off of our list, and to get ourselves fully prepped to depart for Long Island the next day.  As we were about to hop into the dinghy and head ashore, Martijn came paddling alongside.  He’d already been to shore, and had checked his email… and received word from his cousin that the lucrative job in Maine that he’d written about was indeed a go, and that he needed Martijn to head back to the States ASAP if he wanted to join the crew.  Knowing that this was a great opportunity for Martijn and one that would allow him to continue with his cruising for quite a while longer.  We knew what that meant - that Martijn was going to have to depart immediately.  The guys made one more run into town to take care of a couple of errands that Martijn couldn’t easily do in the kayak, and then Martijn hopped on board to say goodbye.  Hugs all around and Brian and I sadly watched Martijn paddle away to his boat, where after about a half an hour of prep time, we stood in the cockpit and watched him pull up the anchor and sail out of the harbor.  I cried when Martijn left, even though I know that we will see him again.  He has been such a wonderful friend to us on this trip, and we were heartbroken to know that he wouldn’t be able to join us at our wedding, but thrilled to know that he’ll be around this summer,  and happy for him about this great opportunity.

Brian and I had a quiet, and kind of sad last day in George Town,  taking care of laundry, last provisioning, and finally getting some propane.   We returned to the boat that afternoon, all chores taken care of, and fully topped off with water.  We spent a little time stowing away the last of our stuff, pulled the portabote up and stowed all of its seats, and cooked a small dinner before turning in early for the evening, knowing that we were going to be up and out in the morning.

In the morning, we got up early and once we’d gotten our first cup of coffee, we hauled up anchor and bid adieu to George Town and set sail for Long Island.  All in all we had a lovely sail over to Long Island.  The wind was slightly off of our quarter, so it wasn’t an upwind slog but rather a nice beam sail with good speed.

We pulled into Calabash anchorage off of Long Island - after George Town a welcome respite from the crowded anchorage, and dropped anchor in about 10′ of water off of miles of gorgeous powder white sandy beach.  Unfortunately, we’d not caught anything on our way across, so we whipped up a quick pasta dinner, and settled in for a peaceful evening.

Trip to George Town Wednesday March 18
We awoke early, and after a quick cup of coffee, we collapsed the Portabote and stowed it away, and then, last as always, we hauled up our anchor and began to head out.  Both Rotop and Renaissance had tried to go out Little Farmer’s Cut, but had turned back and gone down the Exuma Bank to Galliot Cut, a couple of miles away.  We made the decision that we could make it out the cut, and we carefully threaded our way out of Little Farmers and into the Exuma Sound.  What a rough ride that was.  We got out into the Sound, and the waves were extremely choppy, 4-5′ and coming from our port front quarter.  Oh how we both wished that we were under sail rather than under power, but there was nothing to be done for it.  We met up with Rotop and Renaissance as they came out of Galliot Cut, and shortly thereafter we received a hail on the radio from Renaissance, the chop was too much for them and they were going to turn in at Cave Cay Cut, which was about 2 miles down from Galliot and wait a day to see if the waves would subside. We initially hailed back that we would be doing the same at Rudder Cay Cut another 2 miles down, and that if they would like to meet us there they could come down the back side of the islands on the Bank to meet up with us. Michael hailed back to say that they were having some engine issues, and would probably stay at Cave Cay for the day.  With that thought in mind Brian and I continued on our course, with the thought that we would re-evaluate our plan as we approached the cut.  Shortly thereafter we hailed Rotop and we all decided we’d best push on as far as we could that day, and try to make it to Lee Stocking Island, another ~10 nm or so down from Rudder Cay.  We hailed Renaissance back to let them know of our plans, and agreed that we’d meet up with them in a few days in George Town, one way or another. We continued to plow along, with the waves (thankfully) subsiding slightly as the afternoon wore on.  We turned into Lee Stocking’s beautiful protected harbor at about 2:30 in the afternoon and threaded our way into the anchorage which was well protected from the wind.  Rotop pulled in shortly thereafter, but due to his deeper draft had to anchor further out than we had - too far to Kayak over really :(, but we chatted on the radio and all agreed that we’d be setting off for George Town as early as possible in the morning in concurrence with the tide so that we were not fighting additional current coming through the cut.
In the morning, before we departed, I thought it would be a good idea to take Martijn’s suggestion to switch out the halyard that we were using as our backup to the Genny Halyard/forestay as he was quite concerned about the amount of stretch in the halyard we’d doubled and attached to a bottle screw.  This should be an easy thing, take the new spare halyard we’d rigged for taking the stay down, and attach a messenger line to the end, then run that line down, leaving the messenger in place, and do the same with the stretchy spare halyard.  No problem right?  Easy, right?  The spare went off without a hitch, and I was able to quickly secure the messenger line into a continuous loop.  Yay!  I lead the staysail halyard forward and tensioned it as a back up to the genny halyard, and then unscrewed the bottle screw, losening the tension on the stretchy halyard, attached the messenger line and ran the halyard down, then ran it back up onto the new spare without a hitch.  YAY! I attached the halyard I was using to replace the stretchy halyard to the end of that messenger line and began to hoist the halyard up the mast and through the block… until the messenger line decided to jump off the track and between the block and the sheeve! Da** Da** and double Da**!!!  Bri and I tried to pop it free, with no success.  Nothing to be done but to get out the mast climber and go up and free the messenger line from the block and feed the halyard back down.  In the midst of this, the boat we’d anchored next to the night before - Luna Sea - was preparing to leave.  As we’d missed the weather that morning, I called over to them to ask what the conditions were, and Judy called back reassuring news, 10-15 knots with subsiding seas.  WHEW!  I thanked her and finished rigging up the mast climber.  Brian offered to go up, but as I said to him, my project, my problem - I’m going up!  Thankfully, the anchorage at Lee Stocking is so well protected that it was a very easy climb up the mast.  Brian spotted me and just as I got to the top, Amber Isle, the huge powerboat that had been anchored next to me hailed up to us.  Sandy and Valt took some great pictures of me at the top of the mast, which we’ll post as soon as we can upload them to the site.  Once up there, Brian cleated my safety off, and we quickly were able to run the halyard through at the top of the mast and back down so that we’d be able to secure it to the bottle screw.  Brian spotted me down, and we went to work securing this last bit and putting away our equipment.  We then pulled anchor - an hour and a half later than we had wanted to but were able to get out of the cut at Lee Stocking, and in much calmer seas, motored our way down to George Town. 
Getting into George Town (Elizabeth Harbor) is tricky, but fortunately for us, with our digitized Explorer Charts, we were able to thread ourselves through Conch Cut and over to Monument Beach, where we anchored right next to our friends on Ventoso and close by to Martijn, who had beat us there by an hour or more.  Relieved to be in George Town, we surveyed the map - realizing that we were far from any access to the town itself - a 2 mile LONG WET dinghy ride away, we decided that we’d lay low for the night (after a quick dinghy ride around the anchorage to say hello to a few folks and to meet a couple more people) and then would go over in the morning on Martijn’s boat with the Ventosos for a nice day ashore, and to take care of a few things like laundry and provisions.  The disappointing news was, however, that when we’d called the folks who were supposed to send the stay to Reggie Express, we found out that it had just shipped out on Wednesday, and therefore would definitely not be in George Town on Reggie’s Thursday delivery (they only fly in on Tuesdays and Thursdays)… so we’d definitely have to be here through the weekend and at least until Tuesday of the following week.
As it turns out, we were not so lucky that the shipment arrived as promised to Reggie by their Tuesday flight.  We contacted Reggie Express and they had not received the packages on Tuesday morning, so we decided we’d stay on board the boat for the day and do some other projects around the boat and go in on Wednesday to get a refill on our propane.  That night we were spoiled by a lovely trip over to the One Eyed Parrots, a couple from Louisville, KY who Brian had helped out with a SSB issue in the morning.  We had a delightful cocktail hour with them, where Leigh plied us with wonderful cheese and salami and some other tasty nibblies.  We were joined that night by another gentleman, Skip from Isolde II, who had also been helping out with the SSB problem, and it was great fun to meet up with some other boaters and hear some of the stories from their travels.  Both Skip and the Parrots (great name for the boat since that’s their last name) have become good buddies here in the anchorage, and it’s been really fun to get to know them over the past week.  We were lucky enough to catch a ride in on Wednesday with Glenlyon, Sue and Rodney, who were going ashore for the morning, so we didn’t have to pull up anchor to get across.  We had a lovely ride over with them, where Sue shared some great info she had on baking fresh bread, and when we got to the other side we were able to hop into our dinghy and run ashore to the Exuma Market docks.  I filled up the two water jugs we’d brought ashore with us, and then we popped over to the dock where we were supposed to be able to get a propane fill up.  Unfortunately, the gentleman who runs the propane service was ill and had had to go to Nassau to the hospital, so no propane… fortunately for us we were just filling up our second tank so not an issue, but one of our fellow boaters was completely out of propane!  We used our time ashore to run a few errands and to pick up a handful of groceries so that we could have some fresh veggies to go with dinner. We got back to the boat and received a confirmation email from both Reggie Express and our other vendor letting us know that they had received our packages and that they would be arriving in George Town the next day on Reggie’s Thursday flight.  That night we went ashore with a large group to a Rake and Scrape, a form of Bahamian music, and had a great time grabbing some local food for dinner and dancing until it was time for the group to pile into the taxi boat at 10 and head back across the harbor to the anchorage.  We’re hoping to be able to find the Rake and Scrape when we’re at Cat Island, as we think it would be great fun for us to incorporate that into our week of wedding festivities!
On Thursday we had a little calmer weather, and although we were unable to set up a taxishare or arrange for our packages to be picked up from Reggie Express that day, we made great use of the day.  A couple of days previously we’d finally fixed an ongoing problem with our starboard water tank, which had refused to give us any water pressure.  In a conversation with Ken and Leigh (the Parrots) they suggested that we might blow air into the tank through one of the hoses to see if we could clear whatever the blockage was and lent us their motorized dinghy pump to do so.  We had great success with their suggestion and now have a fully working starboard tank (we had some calcium build up that was blocking the hose).  In return, I volunteered to go up their mast to put their radar reflector back up so that they would have it on their return trip to the States.  When we went over to return their pump Brian and Ken worked on some computer issues that Ken was having, while Leigh and I had some lemonade and chatted in the cockpit, and once the guys were set, we set up the mast climber and up I went, getting the radar line restrung and then climbed back down.  FUN! and as always it was really great to visit with them!
The following day when I was lucky enough to be able to coordinate with Toby from Dutchess, who also had packages arriving, as did Jamie on WindWhisperer… and a 14′ tender to zip across the harbor to the town docks.  On our first ride across, we met up with Clifford, a taxi driver in town, who was able to arrange to pick up our packages from the airport for us in conjunction with another trip he was making out there. Both Toby and I did a quick run to the market, and then returned to our boats to await word from Clifford once he’d collected our packages.  Fortunately for us, our package had arrived, and Toby swung by and picked me up (Brian was at a fishing seminar at the beach) and we headed in to collect our packages.  Unfortunately, Jamie’s package hadn’t arrived, but he met us at the dock with our packages in hand.  We quickly filled up with water, disposed of our garbage, and zipped back to our boats.  I’d just arrived back by about 10 minutes when Brian came back, and the forestay process began…
We contacted the folks at St. Francis, the marina around the corner, who have a long dock, which would make cutting and assembling the new forestay much easier than attempting to do it while at anchor and they were kind enough to say that it would be OK for us to tie up to do the work provided that we were out by their lunch rush.
Brian was able to assemble the first of the Norseman fittings yesterday afternoon (Friday) and we borrowed a cutting tool from Krasna, one of our neighbor boats. We got so many offers of help and some great advice from other folks in the anchorage who have done this kind of project themselves - one of the most amazing things about the boating community is how ready and willing people are to lend a hand and help one another.  It truly is an amazing community!  We went ashore last evening to Rockin’ Ron’s dance party at Chat N’ Chill, had some terrific ribs and a great time socializing and dancing with our fellow boaters.  Knowing that we needed to tackle the forestay project today, we turned in early last night, hitting the hay at 10PM so that we could get up at 7 to pick up the cutting tool from Krasna and then head over to St. Francis.  At this point, we hit a few snags….  I’d hauled up the anchor and secured it when Brian called up to me that he needed me to come up and drive since he needed to figure out what was going on with the Garmin depth sounder unit… it wouldn’t turn on!  I hustled back to the wheel, and I piloted us along the channel back towards Monument Beach while Brian tried to sort out what was going on with the Garmin.  He replaced the fuse, only to have it still not work, and an ominous smell emit from the connector cable.  At this point, we decided best to turn back around and anchor while we tried to sort this out.  We’d no sooner re-anchored when Martijn kayaked over… and after a few minutes of the guys examining the Garmin, and the installation of yet another fuse which also tripped, the determination was made that we would have to just carefully sound our way into St. Francis’ dock cutting through the anchorage to ensure we were in deep enough water.  We were anxious to get the forestay fixed, especially given that the weather and wind prediction for tommorrow is for strong gusts, meaning for another day’s delay in installing the stay and roller furler track, and also another day where we would be relying on halyards instead of a proper stay.  By this time we’d well missed our target time of getting to the St Francis dock at 8:45 as it was almost 10:30!  I hauled the anchor up again, and we sounded our way in, and were fortunate to be able to make it all the way to the dock.  While the guys set about measuring out the stay, I set up the Topclimber and began gathering up the various parts to install the furler track back onto the mast.  Unfortunately, we discovered - after putting both Norseman fittings on, that the track wouldn’t slide over.  OOF.  So the guys took one end back off, and went through the tedious process of re-assembling the track.  All of this took longer than we’d hoped or expected, and next thing that we knew, we were sitting alongside the dock… on the bottom.  Crumb!!  Well, nothing to be done for it.  Brian, Martijn and I carefully hoisted the assembled forestay up the mast, and then Brian went up the mast to put in the cotter pin.  Success!!  He climbed back down, with me spotting him on one of the spare halyards.  Now for assembling the bottom pin, which the guys accomplished lickety split.  Of course this left us still with one small problem… we were hard on the bottom and not going anywhere.  We offered to take Martijn up to St. Francis’ restaurant to get some lunch, which he declined saying that he needed to get some stuff done on his boat, but agreed to meet up with us later for some dinner and perhaps a movie on our boat as a thanks. 
We decided to go up to the restaurant (not before we’d cleaned up a little bit) both to thank the owners of St. Francis, but also to give them some business and get a delicious lunch.  I had THE best Philly Cheesesteak that I have had outside of Philadephia, and Brian had a terrific pizza and a blender drink each to wash it down.  We are so grateful to the owners of St. Francis, who made what could have been a disasterously challenging job had we had to do it on the boat or on the beach into something much more managable.
Now we have to try to sort out the depth sounder/Garmin issue, which thankfully Skip may be able to help us at least test if it’s the unit itself or something in the wiring.  That said, we’re so happy to finally have the forestay issue resolved, and relieved (at least on my part).  Hopefully tomorrow will be a decent enough day weather wise (it’s been SO windy here and really rolly in the anchorage) and we’ll be able to go across to Kidd Cove where we can do the last of our provisioning and some laundry and then we’re hoping we’ll be heading out of here to Long Island on Monday. Wind and weather permitting.
Sunday was almost a total waste of a day. We pulled anchor and moved over to Kidd Cove so that we could take care of some last minute provisioning and the like, only to get into town to find that we had no Wi-Fi access (with the laptop) the laundry wasn’t open and the grocery store, which we did manage to get to, closed at 11 for the day.  We did what we could as far as getting some last grocery provisions and headed back to the boat where we waited for the wind to die down so that we could put the genoa back up and roll it up on the furler.  That achieved, we settled in to do some cleaning up around the boat in hopes that we’d be able to head off in the next day or so, weather and wind permitting.

Trip to Staniel Cay & Staniel Cay March 8-
In the morning, after a quick consultation with the gang, we decided to head off to Staniel Cay, in the hopes that we would be able to make the full distance in one hop.  Rotop was joining us, but Renaissance decided that they’d stay behind for a day or two, and that they would make a stop at Wardrick Wells in the Exuma Land and Sea park on their way to Staniel.  As per the norm, we discovered that the winds had not shifted around as far to the North as predicted, so we were sailing upwind for most of our journey, and not able to make the kind of speed that we had hoped.  We attempted to hail Rotop to let him know that we were adjusting our plans and would be anchoring in at Pipe Cay for the night, but he was out of range. Oh well, we thought, we’ll meet up with him at Staniel tomorrow, and we slipped into the peaceful anchorage at Pipe Cay and dropped the anchor for the night. 
The next morning, we arose around 8 and once the first pot of coffee was brewed, we pulled up anchor and made the short 10nm hop down to the Big Major’s anchorage right off of Staniel Cay.  We pulled into Staniel just before 11AM, and were able to drop anchor in a lovely and protected spot where we quickly got our dinghy set up and got settled in.  We’d planned to stay in Staniel for a few days, as this was a location that Brian had been to on his last trip to the Bahamas, and had really enjoyed the location and the social life that this small settlement offers. We made a trip ashore to see the pigs that live on the island (aparently domestic pigs that were abandoned on the island at some point that now roam freely).  The pigs are really quite friendly and cute, and will eat lettuce or bread that you bring to them, and love to be scratched behind the ears.  I dubbed Brian the Pig Whisperer, since he actually got the momma pig to lie down at his feet for scratching!  In fact, we were so popular with the pigs that one of the little brown spotted pigs climbed into our dinghy!!  We then went back to the boat before heading around the point and into town where we dinghied around a bit, and then went for a quick snorkel around one of the little island reefs before going to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, where we changed into dry clothes and availed ourselves of their weekend happy hour, where the Kaliks are $3 and rum punches are 2 for 1, and they serve a buffet of delicious snacks for their guests.  We headed back to the boat after a couple of Kaliks and some snacks, hoping that we’d arrive to see either Rotop or Renaissance had joined us.  Unfortunately, no sign of either, so we decided to lay low for the evening and watch a movie before turning in for the night.
In the morning Brian decided that we should tackle one of the projects that had been on the list for a while - one we’d needed a calm anchorage to take care of - climbing the mast to replace the batteries on the wind gauge, and to do an overall check while he was aloft.  We got the climber rigged up, and a secondary spotting line rigged, and up Brian went.  What a good thing that he did!  No sooner had Brian reached the top when he hollered down to me, “Oh boy honey, we’ve got a problem!  Our forestay is in BAD shape!” Uh-oh!  Fortunately he’d taken the camera up with him, so in addition to snapping the pictures he’d planned to take of the fantastic view from the top of our mast, he was also able to take pictures of the forestay “issue”… which turned out to be that four of the outer strands of our forestay were unravelling at the terminal.  NOT good!  For those of you who are not sailors who are reading this, the very short version of this is that had we not caught this problem, we could have had that forestay snap without any warning, which would likely result in a dismasting of the boat - i.e. the mast snapps off - very dangerous in every imaginable way.  Fortunately, we caught the problem… now how to solve it?!  Despite having EVERYTHING imaginable on the boat, a replacement stay wasn’t one of the items we’d had the foresight to provision with.  
Shortly after Brian got back on deck, we heard the familiar voice of Michael hailing us on the VHF, and caught sight of Renaissance approaching the anchorage.  They pulled in and anchored behind us and shortly thereafter Michael popped over in his dinghy.  We apprised him of our forestay situation, not good, and he offered up that he had a spare stay.  Unfortunately, it turned out not to be long enough, but it gave us the idea to do some asking around in the anchorage to see if any other boats might have a spare stay.  We were all wondering what had happened with Martijn, whether given how the wind had been, he had continued on straight to George Town, and we’d not been able to hail him on the radio.  We were all glumly contemplating what our next steps could be to deal with this problem, and decided that rather than sit on the boat and fret, we’d make another trip into visit the piggies, which Michael and Cate wanted to see.  While we were in visiting with the pigs, a really nice couple from Montreal came in to walk their dog Soscio - an adorable yellow lab.  In talking with them, we learned that Rene had worked in George Town and he gave us the advice that our best tactic for getting the parts would be to order the proper cabling and Norseman swages from the US, and to ship them to George Town via an air freight service called Reggie Air who he had used numerous times and found to be extremely reliable.  Grateful for the information, we went back to the boat and began to do some research about the parts. Fortunately, we were able to buy some wi-fi access to do that, although the wi-fi situation in Staniel Cay was quite poor, and was extremely intermittent. After some preliminary research, we put our cares on hold and went over to Staniel Cay Yacht Club with Michael and Cate for a Kalik, and then Brian treated me to an extraordinary dinner there, wonderful rack of lamb for me and amazing pork roast for him. We had a wonderful and romantic evening, relaxing at Staniel Cay before we headed back to the anchorage and turned in for the evening.
The next morning, we woke up to an extremely welcome sight… Martijn sailing into the Big Majors anchorage!  We’re always really happy to see Martijn joining us, but were especially so given the situation with our stay!  If anyone could help us with fixing this problem, it would be him!  When he kayaked over we told him about our problem Ever the one for action, Martijn and Brian formulated a plan for the next morning to take the stay down and replace it with a couple of halyards if we were unable to locate a replacement forestay amongst the boats in the harbor.  Given that the wind was gusty, we made the decision to all pile into the dinghies and go over to dive at Thunderball, where some of the James Bond movie of the same name was filmed.  It’s a natural cave that you can dive in at low slack tide, and it is incredible!  It is truly like diving in an aquarium.  We saw tons of beautiful fish, snappers, blueheads, starfish, pipefish, and schools of little neon gobies, who flock around you as you’re swimming around.  It was an absolutely amazing and beautiful experience.  We floated lazily around in the grotto and Cate and Mike took pictures (which we hope to be able to post at some point when we get them) of all of the beautiful fish. We swam in and out, and the most amazing part is that the hole in the top of the island allows a lot of light to come in so even in the center of the cave the visibility is incredible.  While we were there we met the folks sailing on the two double masted steel boats that had been anchored behind us for the past couple of days, Free Spirit and P’tit Louis who, it turns out, have a full machine shop on board.  They suggested that we come by the next day in the morning so that we could talk about our stay issue and we could see if there was anything that they could do to assist us with our problem. 
The next morning, we availed ourselves of their offer, and after about an hour of trying to sort out whether they had the appropriate parts, and determining not, we went back to our boat and began the process of dealing with removing our stay and rigging temporary stays so that we could measure our stay and place our order for replacement parts. We took the Genny down and flaked it, and then rigged up our genny halyard and our spare staysail halyard as supports. Brian climbed the mast and we rigged an additional halyard from the top as a support to help us with guiding the heavy stay and roller furler down to the deck.  While I spotted Brian on our original spare halyard (he was rigged on the climber to the main halyard), Martijn worked with Brian to get the forestay secured at a mid point, and then Brian detached the top of the stay and used the spotting halyard we’d been using to hold the top of the forestay once it had been detached from the mast.  To say that the few minutes that it took Brian to get back to the deck were nerve wracking for me is an understatement.  Although I know that the Main halyard and climbing line are strong and well attached, I was definitely fretting about him coming down the mast without a spotting line as back up. Needless to say, he made it down without incedent, and we then went through the painstaking process of lowering the forestay with roller furler still on it to the deck.  Thankfully we had Martijn’s help with this process, because it took all three of us to carefully lower it down - as it was imperative to get it down without bending any of the sections of the furler. Once we had the stay and furler safely on deck, the guys began the slow process of disassembling the 7′ sections of furler track. Lots of little pieces and a half dozen big sections of track later, we had the furler off of the stay.  During this process, we also discovered that the forward bolt that holds the stay on the boat had had the threading mangled, and once we’d gotten the stay down and all of the parts stored so that they were out of the way and wouldn’t be damaged, Brian hopped in the dingy and went back over to the double masters to see if they could help us out, either with a replacement pin or, as they ultimately did, by re-machining the threads on their lathe.  They were so wonderful to us with all of their help, and refused any kind of payment for it - so we gave them some coffee and some paper towels, which were items that they needed on their boat.  Brian and I took the stay ashore and laid it out on the beach so that we could get an accurate measurement, and then proceeded to contact a company in the States to get replacement 9/32″ cable and Norseman terminals so that we could reconstruct the stay. 
By the time we were able to get a connection to place the order it was Thursday morning.  We tried to Skype the company, and finally had to resort to breaking out the Satellite phone to call it in and to get the shipping sorted out with Reggie Express.  We had found another supplier who had the items in stock, so instead of using our usual (and reliable) vendor Defender, we placed the order with this other company, who I had used for getting some of the parts we needed for the winches way back in the summer (with great success).  Secure in the knowledge that we’d have our parts by the end of the following week, we made the decision to spend one last day enjoying Staniel Cay.
We decided that Friday to hike across the island to a wreck we’d seen after we’d been to Thunderball so that we could take some pictures.  What a disaster that turned out to be!  We found what looked to be some trails crossing the island, but about 15 minutes into our walk, we some how managed to lose the trail, and what had started out as a pleasant hike turned into a bushwacking expedition through the scrubby brush of Big Major. We were more than half way across, so we made the decision to keep going, with the thought that we’d try to catch a ride back with one of the many dinghies that are constantly zipping about.  Unfortunately, the fates were not with us, and once we’d taken our pictures, Martijn offered to hike back to the beach where we’d left our dinghy and come back to pick us up.  Imagine our surprise, and relief, when he returned about 45 minutes later in a huge tender driven by the nice owner of Legacy, Ron, who had seen Martijn emerge from the brush on the island by the anchorage, but not close to the beach, and begin to pick his way along the rocky shore!  Gratefully we hopped into his tender and he zipped us back at an incredible pace to the beach where we’d left our dinghies.  We’ve all vowed that from now on any wreck photos will be done via dinghy ride!  No more hiking through the scrub for us!!
The next morning we all pulled up anchor and moved down to Black Point, where we’d heard that there was free wi-fi to be had, and where we thought we’d be able to take care of a few errands.  Again, a short hop, and given the situation with our forestay, we decided that we’d motor rather than attempt any type of sailing.  We pulled into Black Point and dropped anchor, and then once we were all situated, we went ashore to check out the little town.  A short walk took us to Lorraine’s where we had some delicious french fries, cold Kaliks, and raided her book swap for more reading materials.  We returned to the boats for a relaxed evening of dinner and a movie with the crew. 
The next day Brian went to help our new friends Janet and John, a Scottish couple on a boat named Ventoso with a GPS/computer problem that had been happening since we’d first met them in Big Majors.  We had a lovely relaxing day at Black Point, wandered around the small settlement a little more, availed ourselves of the free RO water, and made plans to travel down to Little Farmer’s Cay the next day, as that was another location that Brian had fond memories of as a good place to visit. 
The next morning we all pulled anchor and continued down the Exuma chain the short distance to Little Farmers.  We dropped anchor in a beautiful spot facing a beach, and we all dinghied ashore for a walk around the town.  Unfortunately, on our ride over to the beach, the rear seat of our trusty little Portabote gave way, and poor Brian found himself driving the boat low rider style… what a bummer.  We made the best of it, and joined the gang for a great walk around the small town, stopping at Ali’s bar (about the size of a large closet) where we got cold Kaliks wrapped in paper bags, and then continued our walk around the town.  We walked up to JR’s where a local wood carving artist was hard at work carving a 3′ long sculpture of a barracuda and had a nice visit with him and met his new puppy (a tiny little mixed breed about 6 weeks old), and continued on down the road which dead ended at a property where one of the folks was in the process of building one of the famous Bahamian racing boats.  We turned back and walked back to the central intersection, taking the road leading out to the beach on the other side of the island, and stopped for an impromptu game of HORSE at the park on our way to the beach. It was a lovely walk and felt wonderful to get out and really stretch our legs after a couple of days on the boat with very little walking around.
The next day we decided to go snorkeling around some of the coral reefs nearby, and after much dinghying around we settled on a spot around the corner from Little Farmers.  The guys decided to do some spear fishing, while I just swam around and enjoyed the beautiful water and all of the colorful fish.  Mike was able to catch some really good sized snappers, which we had on the grill that evening for a delightful dinner.  We shared a bottle of wine, and some of Nunnie’s famous baked beans and some rice to round out the meal.  Based on the weather, we made the decision that we would all move on the next day, with our target being a straight trip to George Town, so we turned in for the evening relatively early, so that we could get a good start in the AM.

Allen’s Cay and Norman’s Cay March 4-7
We arrived mid afternoon at Allen’s Cay, after a very uneventful motor-sail across the Yellow Banks.  As has been the case with so much of our travels, we found that we were in need of charging for the batteries, and also that we were going to be travelling mostly upwind for our crossing, so we made the most of it and got a full battery charge on the way.  We pulled into the anchorage just ahead of Rotop and about 45 minutes before Renaissance and worked our way up along the channel along the edge before dropping hook.  Rotop opted to anchor closer to the entrance, as did Renaissance who had a tough time finding a spot to drop the hook.  Little did we know that they had truly made the best choice, as our location proved to be extremely rolly.  Given that the entire anchorage was so rough, we decided to postpone Cate’s birthday dinner until the following night, and all three boats tucked in early for a good night’s rest… which for us proved not to be so restful as we were pitching and rolling around all night.  When we “awoke” in the morning we decided to pull up anchor and move back in the anchorage closer to Rotop and Renaissance.  Shortly thereafter Mike zipped over in his dinghy and offered us a ride ashore to see the Iguana Iguanas - Allen Cay is the only place that these endangered species still remain - a sad fate for a native creature that once populated all of the Exumas and likely the Bahamas.  As the guidebook indicated that they should not be fed, we didn’t bring anything ashore, however several other boats came ashore while we were there and were feeding the Iguanas lettuce leaves right out of their hands. The Iguanas are not timid at all, they come flocking out to the beach when they see a dinghy approach, but they don’t actually come up to you unless you are offering food.  Truly remarkable and prehistoric looking creatures, and it was neat to get to see them in their native habitat.
That evening, we had dinner for Cate’s birthday on Three Sheets, which was great fun, as I got to bake my first cake on board.  We had a great relaxing evening, at the end of which, we all decided it was time to move on from the rolly anchorage of Allen’s Cay and down to Norman’s Cay, just a stones throw away. 
In the morning, we all hauled anchor and set off on the short sail down to Norman’s Cay.  We were there by noon, and decided that we’d go for a dinghy ride ashore to check out the beach, and then on to check out the town where we’d read that there was water and fuel.  Our dinghy ride ended up being further than we’d expected, almost 2 miles, but fortunately it was a relatively calm ride over. We landed the dinghy close to the end of the airstrip, and then proceeded to walk along the airstrip/street until we reached McDuff’s.  Although the signage was somewhat stand-offish,  Michael went inside and discovered that there was a great beach bar on the property which was welcoming to all.  We decided to head in and to grab a nice cold Kalik, which turned into two and the best hamburgers we’ve had since leaving the states.  We had a great time talking with the owner Stephan, and had a great time playing with their dogs Salt (a lab) and Pepper (a chihuaha) as well as some other local dogs Barley and Hopps who came in with their owner.  We also got a tour of their property, as Michael thought it might make for a good destination should he and Cate decide to do a destination wedding - beautifully appointed cottages with spectacular views.  Seems like an ideal location! After our delicious meal we hiked back to the dinghy and hopped aboard for what turned out to be a VERY wet and VERY long dinghy ride back to the boats.  By the time we got back to our boat, we were soaked, so much so that despite having wrung out my jacket, it was stiff from the salt water once it had dried!  We all turned in for the night, with plans to continue our trip south to Staniel Cay the next morning.

Nassau- February 28-March 4
We awoke on the 28th to calmer seas but still good stong breeze, and after a quick consult over the radio with Michael and Cate, we decided it was time to head off.  We’d disassembled the Portabote the night before and stowed it and I’d repaired the top car on our mainsail (thanks to some spares that Martijn had on board) so after brewing our second cuppa, we pulled anchor and followed Renaissance out the cut and into the Tongue of the Ocean - heading for Nassau.  Although we were able to have our main and genny up, we also needed to run the engine for some much needed charging of the batteries.  The day was perfect, sunny, solid, steady breeze and beautiful seas all around us.  We did regular radio checks (on the hour) with Renaissance who was running under full sail.  All in all, it was a gorgeous day to be out, and a completely uneventful trip down to Nassau.  About 2nm out we crossed paths with Rotop who was under full sail and heading into the harbor.  Michael and Cate beat us to the anchorage by about 30 minutes, and we pulled up into the anchorage and were able to drop our hook alongside them.  Nassau harbor is crazy, full of boats - including some tremendous cruise ships, and tons of working boats, but thankfully the anchorage is set just beyond the main crowded area and was full of other cruisers who, like our little armada, had all made the trek to Nassau to get ahead of the impending front which would have trapped us in the Berries for close to another week.  Shortly after we dropped anchor Rotop joined us, and we all congregated on our boat for a simple pasta dinner and to formulate our plans for the upcoming days. First order of business was to plan a Sunday brunch for the gang the following morning!  As we’d all travelled the whole day (except for Martijn who had just done a little sail from his anchorage at the west end of Nassau that morning), we were all pretty tired and decided we’d regroup in the AM at about 10, and Michael volunteered to go ashore to get some more eggs and bacon for our breakfast extravaganza.
In the morning, we all met up on Three Sheets and while I cooked up some bacon and eggs to go along with the biscuits I’d already made and the home fries that Renaissance brought over, Michael made up some Bloody Marys.  We had a great, leisurely brunch, and made plans to go ashore and do some exploring in the area around the anchorage. Martijn had met up with another boat that he knew from St. Maartin from previous years and had made plans to visit with them in the afternoon, so when we were all done with brunch, Michael, Cate, Brian and I went ashore and wandered around.  We checked out the grocery store (getting a sense for what we could get there for provisioning and picking up a handful of items like more eggs and some fresh milk).  Cate and I then took their dinghy back to our respective boats - leaving the guys behind to find us some Kaliks.  When the guys got back, we had dinner on our respective boats, and then we all ventured over to Atlantis to check out the aquarium and to do some people watching.  Atlantis was interesting… and expensive!! so much so that Brian and I shared a drink for our walk around/people watching expedition.  I mean honestly!! who needs to pay $12 for a vodka tonic?!?  The aquarium was great - although I thought any better than Mystic, Boston or Monterey’s aquariums - but it was neat to have seen it nonetheless.
The next day we had a great day… doing laundry.  We had a lot to catch up on, and five loads later, we were all set.  We had a pretty low key evening, and Cate and I made a plan to go ashore together the next day to deal with some provisioning and then to do a little walking around in Nassau.  We’d charged the guys with a few other errands that needed to be done, including some stocking up on the inexpensive rum that was to be found in Nassau.  When we returned to the boats a couple of hours (and some heavy carrying of groceries) later, we found that the guys had taken care of that errand and gone back out into Nassau.  We decided that we’d head out as well and do some walking around Nassau and through the touristy area closer to the cruise ship landings.  Although Cate and I had a really nice time walking around, Nassau is not somewhere that I can envision returning to.  The area around the crusie ship docks was tacky/touristy juxtaposed with extremely expensive shops carrying things like Cartier, Rolex, Dooney and Bourke, and high end clothing.  The second we wandered out of the “tourist” area it was filthy (even the tourist area wasn’t that clean) and filled with closed shops and we even saw a really large rat scurrying down a fence before disappearing behind a building.  All in all, I really didn’t find much appeal in Nassau… oh, and I forgot to mention the boats and (my favorite) jetskis that started bombing through the anchorage at about 7AM and didn’t stop until about midnight.  We were anxious to leave and head to the Exumas, and though the next day (the 4th) was Cate’s birthday, we collectively decided that we’d head out of Nassau and make our way to the Exumas the next morning and head to Allen’s Cay.

Hoffman’s Cay/Devil’s Cay was a beautiful, although very rolly anchorage.  We had come in and tucked in somewhat behid Fowl Cay to get some additional protection from the winds and the surge coming off of the “Tongue of the Ocean” - the waterway we’d entered into the harbor from.  Unlike Bimini, and even Great Harbor Cay, the islands surrounding the anchorage are unpopulated, and for the most part seemingly untouched by man.  Our first full day there, the boys set up the hookah and dove around the shallows exploring the fish and looking for lobsters.  Given that the wind was somewhat Northerly, it was a little too cold for me to want to be in the water.  Aside from a few baraccudas and many conchs, the guys reported back that there was not much to see in the waters around our anchorage, and that the current was quite strong - two additional deterrents for me going for a swim.  Our second day at the anchorage, we decided to load up in the dinghies and take a ride over to the beautiful pristine beaches to wade around, and to hike up the trail on Hoffman’s Cay to see the famous blue hole (see pictures).  Supposedly there’s a Giant Grouper that lives in the blue hole, but all that we saw were some mollusks and a lone jellyfish (which again was a deterrent to getting into the water).  We hiked right down to the water’s edge and peered in, and took a little time to explore the cave formations that have carved out over time as the water has erroded the limestone around the hole.  On our way up, Martijn went slightly ahead of us, reaching the lip of the blue hole well before the rest of us, and much to everyone’s amusement, I got a chance to demonstrate my Payne genes - letting out a whoop of surprise when he threw a rock into the hole from the top and startled the bejeezus out of me.  We were all having a good giggle about it for the next few hours as it had echoed wildly in the cavernous area.  Once we were all back at the top, we took one of the other trails leading off and wandered down to the beach  - which turned out not to be the route to the ruins as we’d hoped.  As the water was quite warm and appeared to be shallow, we decided we’d walk along the craggy shore back to our dinghies… not such a good plan.  Ultimately while the guys picked their way along the shoreline, Brian went and collected our dinghy and circled over to pick Cate and I up to bring us back to the beach.  We poked around a little while longer, then climbed into our dinghies and circled around to the other side of the island where we explored on the beach for a little while, then headed back to our boats for the remainder of the evening.
The next day we had planned to make the almost 2 mile dinghy ride to Flo’s Conch Shack on one of the neighboring cays.  We tried hailing them before we left, but figuring that we would be there around lunch time, it shouldn’t be an issue to get there and meet these folks, who according to the guidebooks are wonderful hosts, and have some great stories about the area as well as a delicious rum punch.  Cate, Brian and I loaded into our dinghy, while Martin and Mike went in Renaissance’s and we set off on our long ride… which became even longer as we had do circle around an extra set of cay’s to be able to actually reach Flo’s due to the sandbar in between which exposes at low tide.  Mike and Martijn went over the sandbar, walking the dinghy through the shallowest bits, and we all arrived at the same time at Flo’s… only to find it empty except for a few dogs and some chickens.  What a disappointment!  We waited for about an hour in the hopes that they would return, and while there played with trying to catch some of the crabs that were scuttling around on the piles of conch shells (Cate was the only one who was successful), and finally we gave up and climbed into our dinghies to head back to the anchorage.  Unfortunately, we’d timed the tides wrong, so we had thought we’d be able to cross the sand bar on our way back… not so. The tide was still falling, so we had to turn around and go back the long way around the other cays and back to our boats.  We made one stop at a beautiful little cay a little further down from our anchorage, where we collected scores of shells just by walking along the beach, and then returned to our boats for yet another rolly evening at anchor.  The next day we took one more exploratory dinghy ride to a small island where we’d noticed a beautiful beach with a chair positioned right underneath a huge coconut tree. While the guys explored the caves, Cate and I took a walk around the island (which is quite small) in the shallow water, and collected some more shells.  Unfortunately, the wind had still not abated, so we were unable to do our bonfire as we’d planned, and we were all anxious to move on, so we decided to make an early night of it in the hopes that we would be able to set out the following morning to sail either to Nassau or at least to Chubb Cay before the next weather front came through.  When we awoke the next morning however, we still hadn’t seen much abatement in the winds, but as we wanted to make it to Nassau before the next front, we decided that we would be making the trip straight there rather than stopping in Chubb as we’d first thought.  After brief discussion, Martijn decided that he was going to head off regardless, and we planned to all meet up in Nassau.  As we watched him pitch and roll out through the channel, we all thought to ourselves, hmmm perhaps best that we’re not departing today.  I hailed Martijn shortly after he’d cleared out of our view, and thus out of the tricky cut out of our anchorage to share some info I’d just found in our books about coming into Nassau, and he responded that he thought it best that we all stayed put as it was quite rough even out of the cut, and that he thought another day waiting for the winds to subside was advisable.  We concurred, and agreed that we’d all catch up in Nassau the following day.  We settled in for a very low key day at the anchorage and all turned in early so that we could set off for Nassau early in the morning.

We found ourselves the last of our little armada of three in our departure from Bimini, our several nights at anchor with two anchors down had produced a nice twisting of the two anchor lines.  With a little effort from both Brian and I, we managed to unwrap our secondary anchor’s rode from around the primary, allowing us to easily pull both anchors aboard once we’d gotten the tangle undone.  By the time we’d completed this, both Renaissance and Rotop were well into the channel leading out of Bimini.  With Brian at the helm, I quickly got both anchors stored and secured for our trip to the Berry Islands.  Our plan was to sail out to North Rock, and then turn down into the Great Bahamas Bank where we could anchor on the Bank for the night and then make our way down to Little Whale Cay or Chubb Cay in the morning.  We had been expecting to have pretty strong winds that would allow us to easily make this course, although we were expecting that the waters might be somewhat rough given that the proceeding two days had been a pretty strong Northerly breeze.  As we rounded the point and came out of Bimini’s channel, we found that the winds and waves were not quite as expected.  Both Rotop and Renaissance were well ahead of us, and we radioed ahead to them to confirm that they were still game to move on, which they both were.  Poor Cate was below, feeling quite seasick, which left Michael at the helm without much help - Renaissance has a tiller and no autopilot or self steering mechanism, so whatever ground we covered that day we wanted to ensure that we were taking a prudent course that would be managable for them.  We established hourly radio checks - just so that we were all in good contact and so that we could make decisions about how to proceed as the day went on.  We’d gotten a later start than we’d hoped or planned due in part to Renaissance’s battery issue, and for us due to having to untangle our anchors, but we were out of Bimini’s harbor before 10AM, which gave us a good long day to cover the miles we were hoping to cover.
At about 3PM the wind had continued to shift around to the Southeast, forcing us off of our preferred anchorage spot, and after some discussion, the decision was made to alter course - falling off a bit - so that we would instead head for Great Harbor Cay, at the top of the Berry Islands - it would make for a much longer trip, but as Michael was game for it, and it would make for a slightly more comfortable sail for all of us, we all fell off and made our way to Great Harbor.  All of us were making great speed, averaging 6.5kts or more.  Renaissance is slightly smaller than we are, and Rotop is both slightly smaller and heavier as she’s steel, so by the time that we made this course shift, we had caught up and passed both of our sailing partners.  Also at about this time we all managed to catch some fish!  Martijn and Michael both caught a Spanish Mackerel apiece (Martijn had cooked and eaten his by the time we dropped anchor) and although Michael got his filleted while underway, by the time we reached our anchorage he ended up tossing it overboard as he hadn’t been able to cook it and the smell was bothering Cate who was feeling quite ill from our prolonged ride.  As for us, Brian caught a Black Grouper which we threw back (high risk of cinguaterra) and another fish that slipped the hook JUST as we were about to bring it aboard.  All in all we had an epic run, covering close to 80nm before finally reaching our anchorage at Great Harbor Cay at about 11PM.  A long and exhilarating sail (and exhausting for poor Mike), and once we’d all dropped anchor, we checked in for one last time for the night and all hit the hay for a good night’s sleep.
We awoke in the morning to find ourselves in a beautiful anchorage - craggy shoreline interspersed with beautiful sandy beaches and crystal clear water.  Mike and Cate had gotten up earlier than we, and had sounded their way in closer to the shoreline to get additional protection from the land as although we were anchored within the cove, we were still somewhat close to the mouth of the harbor which afforded more surge from the ocean than was really comfortable.  Mike buzzed up in their dinghy and suggested that we do the same, as he’d found plenty of depth and the bottom was quite sandy affording good holding for our anchor (which does not like seagrass at all!).  We followed his lead, as did Martijn, and found ourselves well protected and in phenomenal water for a swim.  Mike and Cate went ashore to do a little exploring and came back reporting that this island was used by the Norwegian Cruise Lines as a stop for their cruise ships… we knew that it was used for one of the cruise lines…just not which one.  Cate opted to stay on board while Brian, Martijn, Michael and I all piled into Renaissance’s dinghy (we knew we were staying for only a day, two at most so didn’t want to deal with setting up the Portabote) and went for a swim in the beautiful water (Mike having been assured by the Norweigan staff that it was no issue for us to explore the island as long as we respected their guests’ privacy - and there was no ship there that day… so not an issue at all!).  We beached the dinghy and went for a wonderful snorkel where we saw all kinds of colored reef fish, a ton of conch (Brian found a huge one that we kept the shell from), baracudas, lion fish (not good - wish we had known then that the Bahamians want us to kill them if we see them - they’re an invasive species from Asia that are destroying key reef elements) and most exciting of all… Spiny lobsters!!  Mike and Brian had some good luck that day tickling them out from under a coral head/spearing them so we had a fantastic dinner that night - conch salad and lobster tail served over rice.  Delicious!!!
The next day the wind was still not cooperating.  Brian and I awoke to the sound of our fishing line spooling out… we’d thrown some conch bits on a hook and dropped it over the side.  I ran topsides just in time to see a huge fish break the water… and our line :(. Mike took the dinghy around the corner of the harbor and came back reporting 4′+ swells, so we opted for spending another day exploring in Great Harbor Cay.  This day there was a cruise ship that had come in, so compared to the peaceful atmosphere of the previous day, we were “treated” to the sound of jetski’s racing around in the anchorage in the morning.  We decided to go ashore, as the folks from Norwegian had told us that there would be shops set up for the cruiseline guests and that we were welcome to check them out.  We made the hike up and over the hill to the facility, finding the beach on the other side to be PACKED with cruiseline guests.  We did a little exploring of the shops (little of interest to us but it was fun to see). wW walked back to our boat and set up the hookah so that we could do a little more diving.  Unfortunately we don’t really have enough weights for three of us to dive, and since Michael and Brian were having such a great time, I gave them my weights and just continued snorkeling around and enjoying the wonderful water.  No fish for us that night, since by the time the guys were done with their dive, it was too late really to go out and snorkel for spearfishing - besides we were all fished out!
The next morning we awoke to find that the seas had calmed some, and the wind had started to clock around to the north slightly, allowing us to make our next hop down the island chain to our next stop at Hoffman’s Cay.  We decided to depart around noon for our short hop of about 15 miles.  Martijn had gone ashore to take some pictures of the “airport” (see pictures) and to do a little more exploring before heading out, and told us that if he wasn’t back by 1 to head out and he’d catch up with us (as we’d all agreed on our anchorage the night before) so at 1 Renaissance and ThreeSheets weighed anchor and set off.  We’d no sooner cleared out of the channel then we caught sight of Rotop’s mast coming around the bend just behind us.  All in all we had a lovely sail down to Hoffman’s Cay, although the entrance was a little daunting as the water has a tendency to be quite surgy.  We pulled in at about 4PM and dropped anchor near Renaissance (who ended up moving soon thereafter because the location was too rolly for their boat) and awaited Rotop’s arrival.

Bimini has been wonderful, but it’s time for us to move on!  We’ve got a good weather window that will allow us to make it to the Berry Islands within two days travel, so we’ll be pulling hook shortly and moving along.  That said, I am yet once again laggard in my updates.
The day we arrived in Bimini, we finally got a chance to play with the Brownie - we loaded it into the dingy and took it over to the beach adjacent to our anchorage, and set the system up then did a little walk off of the beach into 15′ water where we played around with the system and worked out what our weighting should be with this equipment. After an overnight trip and a good long swim, which felt wonderful, we were pretty tuckered out, so we made a quick dinner and turned in early for the night.
The next morning we awoke to find that the other boat that had been sharing the anchorage with us had departed in the wee hours so we were solo in this pretty anchorage next to the new Bimini Bay Resort.  We decided we’d do a little exploration of the island after lunch, so we putted over to one of the beaches and beached the Portabote then ambled along Bimini’s lone main street and into Alice Town… not much to see but there had been a wedding that day, and the happy couple and their entourage passed us about 4 times driving up and down the street, balloons tied to their car, and honking to the whole town who applauded every time they passed.  When we returned to our dinghy, we found that another boat had joined us - and we putted by and “gave a knock on the hull” to say hello.  Turned out to be a really great couple, Michael and Kate, who are a little younger than we are, but are on the same kind of journey as us, engaged and making the most of a layoff (from advertising as well!) they decided to travel on their boat for about six months.  They invited us aboard for a drink, which turned into an evening of hanging out and having a great time and dinner together.  We all retired for the night on the later side, with the thought that we’d regroup in the morning and perhaps do some exploration/snorkeling on the sand bar across the channel from our anchorage.
We spent the next couple of days relaxing and enjoying the great weather- snorkelling for conch, and hanging out. Turns out that I am good at spotting Conch when snorkelling - and although we didn’t kill any of them there was one point where I’d gathered up 5 large conch!  We saw spiny black sea urchins, HUGE red starfish, lots of little Spanish Grunts and sea anemones - very cool! Kate and Mike had had a conch salad at Joe’s Conch shack, and were raving about it, and determined to make some - but we ultimately decided that the best approach was to buy the prepped conch from Joe, and then prepare the ceviche ourselves, rather than try to clean the conch’s ourselves, plus a northerly wind had cropped up, which made the temperature of the air much cooler than the water, so none of us was really up for a swim.  We hopped in our dinghies and decided to go for a little walk in town, over to the ocean side to check out the beach and the half sunken wreck that was lying agains the rocks on the shore.  Just as we reached the beach, we saw a really welcome sight - Rotop!!  We waved energeticlly to Martijn as he picked his way up the channel, and when he was close enough, we hollered that we’d meet him at the customs dock (a mere 5 minute walk back into town).  Brian, Mike and Kate stopped at the liquor store to pick up a Kalik for each of us, and one to welcome Martijn to town, and I continued over to the dock to meet up with him!  Once Martijn had cleared customs, we directed him to where we were anchored, and then trekked back to our dinghies and made our way back to the anchorage where Martijn had already gotten himself anchored and the trusty Kayak out.
We had a wonderful evening all hanging out together, and started to formulate a plan for the next leg of our journey… we debated departing yesterday, but the wind hadn’t fully swung around to the right direction for our trip, so we spent yesterday doing projects - finally replacing the broken slat - actually our whole companionway door from a piece of salvaged plexiglass, installing a few hand rails, and just generally making ready for today’s trip.  We all turned in early for a good night’s sleep before our early morning departure today - which has been somewhat delayed while we sorted out Mike’s dead batteries… now fixed, and our little armada is about to pull anchor and head off to the Berry Islands for the next few days.  I suspect that our posts will be somewhat delayed and erratic from here out, as the availability of an internet connection is questionable, but I’ll keep on keeping a log, and will make posts when connectivity permits!

So despite my usual format of chronicling our adventures chronologically, I am going to break from form here and combine our posts from where I left off (our trip to get to Little Palm Island) to here (Bimini, Bahamas).  We were in Key West for quite a while, more on that later in the blog, but we had absolutely ROTTEN internet!  I tried to post about our stay at Little Palm Island no less than 6 times, and every time the connection went dead… could be because we were sitting out about 1/2 a mile from shore in a mooring field, so I suppose in most regards, the fact that we even got “some” internet access was amazing, but it did lead to much frustration on keeping the blog updated!  All that being said… Little Palm Island…

We had called ahead to make sure that it would be OK for us to arrive a little earlier than we’d originally thought we’d be able to get to Little Palm Island - no problem of course.  That was the theme of our entire stay at Little Palm Island.  What an AMAZING place it is.  The motto there is “Do Nothing, Time is too Precious to Waste”, and they really take that to heart there.  We followed the directions that had been given to us by the dockmaster and at about 11AM we were approaching our desingated slip, with a welcoming crew there to help us with tie up… unfortunately, our 5′1″ draft was deeper than the pathway to the slip… just sand, but we weren’t able to get our boat to the slip - apparently there had been some exceptionally drastic tides over the previous week, and our timing was such that we were coming in just after low tide.  Chris - who seems to be the concierge of the resort - hailed us and directed us to turn around and tie up at the Sunset Dock which was just around the bend.  We easily pulled up alongside, and Chris and one of the other guys secured us up against the dock.  We got ourselves pulled together… one of the funny things about arriving somewhere on your own sailboat is that you are effectively bringing your whole “house” along with you, and given the variance we’d seen in the weather, we hadn’t really packed our overnight bag for our arrival.  Just after we pulled up, the resort’s boat the Woodman pulled in, and Chris went to assist the passengers with their arrival.  Most of the guests went with their luggage up to the resort, except for one other couple, Richard and Janet… who were from Boston!!  They were returning for a 20th anniversary (I think I have that right) and we were pulled together enough by that point that we got to walk up to the resort and get a tour with them, as neither of our rooms were quite ready.  I would swear to you - although it still hasn’t come to me from where - that I had met them before, Richard in particular.  We chatted about Boston a little as we got a tour of the resort’s beautiful grounds, and after Richard and Janet settled in on the beach for a few moments to await their rooms, Chris took Brian and I over to the Quarterdeck, where he let us take a refreshing shower in the changing room and then we settled in by the pool while we waited for our room to be ready - but really I should say suite!  Chris came and collected us from by the pool and we walked along the palm fronded, meandering sand paths to the most exquisite guest suite I have ever seen.  We were in Woodpecker Suite - a thatched roof bungalow, with a wrapped porch looking out over the water, a living room, that by simply sliding the glass doors open transformed into an open air living room, a spacious bedroom with a butterfly net enclosed king-sized bed (that you needed a step to climb into), and a bathroom larger than our entire boat footrpint - with a two person jacuzzi spa and a stall shower that had three sets of jets capped by a rainshower!  Oh and an outdoor enclosed shower!  Every detail, every amenity had been thought of, to the wooden letter sign that said Hunter at the crook in our staircase leading to the porch, to the chilled bottle of champange set out awaiting us, the ultra plush robes and slippers, and loads of towels!  Chris walked us through our suite, showing us the amenities (and how to use the great but super complicated espresso maker in our room) and then left us, encouraging us to make use of the resort’s many amenities… including a life-sized chess game where folks who work at Little Palm actually move the pieces for you while you sit in throne like chairs!  Brian and I just looked around in awe - we didn’t even know where to begin, except that we were both starving, so we headed back over to the pool area bar, where they serve lunch until 4:30, and grabbed a sandwich and a mojito.  We strolled along the beach, sat for a while in some of the deluxe lounge chairs in a secluded little corner and just relaxed.  We had made a reservation for 7:30, and after a swim in the pool, we headed back to our rooms to change for dinner.

Like everything else at Little Palm Island, no detail has been missed when it comes to the food - it is outstanding.  We were able to get a fantastic seat outside, right on the water’s edge and fairly close to the outdoor firepit (which is very cool, fire bubbles up through a water fountain, something to do with propane, but it’s beautiful and romantic and soothing).  We had an absolutely AMAZING dinner, the best lobster risotto I have ever had hands down, and we shared a fantastic bottle of wine and some beignets for dessert - absolutely to die for.  We were so relaxed that we decided after sitting by the fire for a little while we should return back to our room and turn in early so that we could make the most of our next day there.  We’d signed up to go SCUBA in the afternoon, a much needed refresher since we just got our certification in April, and we’re planning lots of diving while we’re in the islands.

We got back to our room to find that we’d received a lovely turn down service, along with a little present of some seashells - a lovely touch.  It was so glorious to be able to sleep in a king sized bed, that didn’t move while we slept (or rather the whole building didn’t move while we slept) and with really enough room for Bri and I who are both tall.

We slept like babies, getting up in the morning to find a newspaper outside of our room, had a lovely cup of latte on our porch in the super plush robes, and then dressed for the day and made our way up to the restaurant for breakfast - amazing!  After breakfast, we took one of the resort’s little powerboats and went for a ride around the island and got to take a look through the bird sanctuary - we saw a great blue heron, tons of cranes, mockingbirds and all kinds of birds I couldn’t identify.  Really neat!  We also saw a sea turtle, swimming lazily along which was really cool.  After our boat ride we lounged by the pool, taking a brief swim, and then went back to our suite to gather up our dive gear, which we dropped off at the quarterdeck before heading over for lunch.  Despite it being a little rough, the dive was still on, so we headed back to the Quarterdeck and Dive Shop to meet up with the divemaster.

We had an absolutely amazing two dives with Bob and Larry… on our way out to Looe Key we saw a spotted eagle ray jumping and flying out of the water - really cool!  We were the only folks on the dive, so it was a great experience and a wonderful refresher for us.  I had been quite nervous about diving on our own with our new Brownie - since the last dive’s we’d done were our qualifying dives in April.  We saw all kinds of amazing sea life on our dives-nurse sharks, a Golliath Grouper (which is HUGE!), a Hawksbill Turtle, Lion Fish, a Grey Angelfish and tons of parrot fish and gobies.  Really beautiful!  Despite the fact that it was somewhat rough topsides, it was clear and beautiful under the water and warm - which was lovely.

After our dives we made use of the hot tub before heading over to the boat to check on Skipper, feed her, and make sure that we’d “battened down the hatches” as we could see a weather front approaching us.  During dinner the thunderstorm struck, with an accompanying downpour - it made for a very romantic background in our window seats in the restaurant.  We had an absolutely amazing dinner and  then took the remaining wine back to our room, where we sat in the living room and watched the storm play across the water.

We awoke the net morning, sad that we were leaving Little Palm, but completely relaxed and refreshed.  We pulled ourselves together, and went up for another delicious breakfast.  We went and checked on Skipper, and did a couple of little preparations to be able to leave, then availed ourselves of one last multidirectional super hot shower in our deluxe accomodations, before calling the Quarterdeck to let them know that we were set to check out.  They arrived to take our bags to the boat, and once we were settled, gave us some much needed assistance to get off of the dock (as the wind was coming directly at our side) and we glided out into the channel and headed further south to Key West.

We had a great sail to Key West doing about 6kts with about half of the Genny out, and we turned into Key West’s channel at about 4 in the afternoon.  We had to make our way up the channel (to the North) and around an island to reach the mooring field at Key West Garrison Bight, where we were planning to stay to wait out the Northern winds.  As we turned back to the south, coming around the island, we were stopped by a guy on a jetski, who directed us out of the channel as the Navy had divers down in the channel doing a training exercise… not a huge deal except that by this point it was starting to get dark, and we were concerned about getting a mooring ball secured before it got too dark.  We navigated into the mooring field, where we’d been directed to pick up any ball except for one with a red tag on it, as those balls were a part of the scheduled maintainance… tons of balls, should be fine right?  wrong, the first three we approached had the dreaded red tag on them.  We finally found a mooring ball that was ok, and I snagged it with the boat hook on the first pass… except I got the hook stuck in the ball, and ended up snapping the hook!  C**P!!  As we made another pass to try to grab the broken off hook, still caught in the mooring ball, our neighbor Drew, from the boat next to us, came zipping over in his dinghy and offered to give us a hand.  Thank goodness, I didn’t know how we were going to pull this off without the hook!  He got us securely affixed to the mooring ball with the required two lines, and after many thanks, returned to his boat for the evening and we settled in for the night.  Thank goodness we were on a mooring ball, because the wind was really gusty, and from the North - the one disadvantage to being in the mooring field rather than at anchor was that the mooring field is protected from all sides except the North, so it was a pretty rough night, but the anchorage had been extremely crowded, and from accounts later, there were a half a dozen boats in the anchorage that dragged either ashore or into other boats in the following days.

We spent the next two days on the boat waiting for the wind and waves to die down before going ashore, but we spent that time well, taking care of reorganizing some of our stuff, and doing some projects that we’d wanted to take care of - like getting the salt water sprayer re-hooked up.  Finally on our third day, we went ashore - did our official check in with the city marina, and then dinghied over to the dingy dock and walked into town.  We had a great time exploring downtown Key West, eating lunch at a little place that was shaded by vines, and walking to the Sunset Pier to watch the sun go down (with about 200 other people) before heading over to a Cuban restaurant we’d found where we had a wonderful dinner before going back to the dinghy and back out to our boat.  We sat tight for the next day, completing a few more projects, and went back into town the following day.  We’d had the thought that we would rent an electric car (there are tons of them there) but they wanted $140 for half a day!!! so instead we rented tricycles… which was pretty hilarious in and of itself.  I was a disaster on mine for about the first 45 minutes… they don’t steer like a bike, you don’t lean with them… so while Brian was riding along like a pro, and doing tricks like getting it up on only one of the rear wheels, I was concentrating REALLY hard on not falling off!  I did get the hang of it, and we went and ran some errands, including a trip to West Marine for a replacement boat hook - which they were great about… it was one of those “unbreakable” ones, so they gave us a new one on the spot without any question.  We then rode out to the other end of town to the grocery store for some provisions which we loaded into the portabote, and after negotiating with the guys to keep the trikes for another day - since we hadn’t finished all of our errands, and the wind still hadn’t begun its swing South, we returned back to the boat.

The next morning we got up early, finished up a few things and some storage on the boat, and headed back into the marina where we picked up our trikes and went off to finish up our errands.  On our way, we did make a special stop at the Southernmost Point in the US, just to say that we’d been there.  We went back past the marina and over to a BJs like grocery store where we picked up the last of our food provisions, and then to Conch Republic Liquors, where we were able to get some more wine (with the help of a great and knowledgable guy named Hector) to bring with us on our journey.  We loaded all of our stuff into the Portabote, returned our trikes, got one last shower at the marina, and made our way back out to our boat, where we stored the last of our provisions… we’re provisioned really well :), had a delicious steak dinner that Bri cooked on the grill, and then turned in early so that we could get on our way first thing in the morning.  The wind was finally starting to shift South, and we wanted to make sure that we didn’t miss this window to cross over.

We awoke in the morning to a mild breeze from the South YAY!! and since the chop had died down, we were able to easily pull in the mooring ball and cast off.  We made our way up the channel and around the island, and then back down to the sister marina Key West Bight Marina, where we pulled in to fuel up, get our last water, collapse and secure the Portabote and mail a couple of things.  We cast off of the dock a few minutes before noon, and headed out the channel.

We knew early on that this was going to be a good trip… we saw all of our happy omens on our way out of Key West.  The Dorothy Moran was there!  to bring in a ship that was coming down the shipping lane (so we had to stay outside of the channel but there was plenty of clear water so no issue there) then we saw a dolphin, and shortly their after a sea turtle!  Bri and I joked that all of our lucky omens had showed up to see us off.  Sure enough, we truly could not have had an easier crossing the only thing that would have improved it would have been for us to be able to sail without the motor, but given that the wind was light, and not fully southerly (more easterly) we ran the engine for our entire trip across.  That said, all of my dread about crossing the Gulfstream was for naught.  Although we had a little tossing around, this was the calmest passage we have made thus far on the trip, and for a good while, with the Genny out and the engine running we were doing a consistent 8.5kts to our destination!  Bri napped in the afternoon, and then relieved me at about 6PM so that I could do the same.  He woke me up at 1AM to switch and told me that he’d seen lots of cruise ships crossing to Miami, but hadn’t seen anything for quite a while.  I relieved him at the helm, and luckily for us, the autopilot is working beautifully, so I was able to sit upstairs on watch, letting the autopilot drive, and read my book.  I stayed on watch until 7AM (finishing my book) and only saw two boats in that whole time, one cruise ship who was heading to the Bahamas that crossed well off to our starboard, and another sailing vessel who we overtook.  When Bri relieved me at 7, I went below to nap for a little while, and awoke as we were approaching Bimini.

We put up our Q flag (quarentine) and our US flag, and picked our way into the channel and up to the customs and immigration at the government dock.  We tied up, and went through the easiest customs and immigration I have ever been through - no issues with our kitten, no actual boarding - and then cast off and motored down the channel to our anchorage right next to the Bimini Bay Resort (new resort on the island) where we dropped two hooks, suited up in swimsuits, and took our Brownie over to the beach for a walk off test dive with the Brownie.  Fisrt swim of the trip, and it was glorious!  We came back to the boat and grilled up some steaks and asparagus we’d bought in Key West…  then popped open the bottle of champagne that John W had given us in New London that we’d been saving for just this occasion!  We toasted eachother, and our successful arrival in the Bahamas!  Finally we’re in the Caribbean!!!