2017 Life Logs, Day 121: Hope Town to Marsh Harbor
Date: Monday, May 1, 2017
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds; Winds SE 15-18
Location: At Anchor in Marsh Harbor, Great Abaco Island, Bahamas

Due to wind direction, we motor sailed instead of sailing across the Sea of Abaco to Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco Island. But before we did that, Sam listened to Chris Parker’s daily (except Sunday) weather forecast and afterwards announced that we might have a change in plans. Sam has a 9-day flying stint starting on May 17. That gives Sam and Dawn two weeks to get the boat back to the US coast to a marina where Dawn will feel secure while Sam is off flying between Atlanta, New York City, London, and Amsterdam. But the wrinkle in the plans to see me off tomorrow and then do a leisurely trip through the island of Abaco before returning to a US port between Florida and South Carolina. They were hoping to get the boat to Little River in South Carolina, but Fort Pierce in Florida was the back-up. Well, the weather forecast this morning basically said move now and arrive somewhere by Thursday afternoon or be prepared to wait for two weeks. If we get the same weather report in the morning, Sam and Dawn decided that they are going to head to Fort Pierce immediately. They will sail from Marsh Harbor to Crab Cay tomorrow and then leave Crab Cay early on Wednesday morning arriving in Fort Pierce by 11 am on Thursday. I have been debating just how to get home using the Delta buddy pass that has already been purchased. But flying on a buddy pass is flying stand-by and although it looks like there are still seven spots available on tomorrow’s flight from here to Atlanta, the flight from Atlanta to Boston is filling up. Soooooo . . . I just might hitch a ride on Windbird to Fort Pierce, hitch another ride south to the airport at West Palm Beach, and fly home on Thursday evening from there. Sam and Dawn promise me that I am welcome as a crew member on the passage back to Florida and my sister-in-law Sue and her husband Brad say they are happy to drive up from Boynton Beach to pick me up in Fort Pierce and deliver me to the airport in West Palm. My niece, Lynn, from the Boston area will down visiting with her parents, and I’ll enjoy seeing all of them even if it is just for a few hours. However, the final decision won’t be made until tomorrow morning right after the weather. If the weather window for the passage has narrowed, then I will still try to fly out of Marsh Harbor tomorrow and Sam and Dawn will leave here and make their way through the islands with the hope that there will be another window for the passage to Fort Pierce next Sunday-Monday. If we do decide to leave in the morning, I will post a quick log to let you know because it is doubtful that we will have internet again until we reach Fort Pierce. Stay tuned.

After listening to the weather this morning and discussing the quick change of plans, we headed into two to the coffee shop to use their internet to search for flight alternatives for me if I do make the passage to Florida. Dawn and Piper walked to the pink sand beach to get a bag of pink sand for to take home while Sam and I did our searches. When Dawn got back from the beach, we got in the dinghy and rode across the harbor to the dock at the lighthouse. Dawn sat with Piper since she had been to the top of the lighthouse before and Sam went with me to the top. The views were spectacular and I loved seeing the inner workings of the rotating kerosene-powered fresnel lens. It is the only lighthouse like this in the world that is still manned by a lightkeeper. After the lighthouse tour, it was back to Windbird to secure her for the passage to Marsh Harbor. Marsh Harbor is the third largest town in the Bahamas behind Nassau and Freeport. It certainly doesn’t have the appeal of quaint little Hope Town, but it has a huge grocery store called Maxwell’s and a fleet of Sunsail charter boats. When we arrived we headed straight to the fuel dock at Conch Inn Marina / The Moorings to fill up with fuel and then found a place to anchor in the somewhat crowded harbor. Sam stayed on the boat to work on a temperamental bilge pump while Dawn and I went to buy provisions at the huge grocery store called Maxwell’s. According to the 2014 Guide to Abaco, Maxwell’s is the largest supermarket in all of the Bahamas. When we came home, Dawn made granola for the passage and right now we are waiting for her no-knead bread with habanero pepppers to complete baking before we go ashore to have dinner. This was supposed to be my farewell dinner, but Sam and Dawn just might not get rid of me that easily!

2017 Life Logs, Day 120: Great Guana Cay to Elbow Cay
Date: Sunday, April 30, 2017
Weather: Mostly Sunny; Strong Trade Winds E 20-22
Location: On a Mooring in Hope Town, Elbow Cay, Bahamas

Today was a sailing morning . . . tacking down the Sea of Abaco to Hope Town. The afternoon was spent ashore exploring on land in the most picturesque Hope Town. I’ll get to the description of Hope Town, but first I’ll go back to the morning. We had a delightful sail most of the way and then had to motor sail the last bit. We still have strong easterly trade winds blowing, and due to wind and current, if we had gone in a direct line from Fishers Bay on Great Guana Cay to Hope Town on Elbow Cay, we were going to have to motor. So, Sam and Dawn decided that they would set a course to sail by tacking our way there. Doing this doubled our mileage but was probably as fast as motoring into winds and current. We didn’t arrive before high tide, but we did get to the entrance to Hope Town just after high tide and had no problem with the shallow entry. As you head toward the channel leading into Hope Town Harbor, the candy-striped lighthouse built in 1863 greets you. It is still lit by a kerosene-powered mantle that fuels the rotating fresnel lens. You can visit the lighthouse from 9 to 6 on any day but Sunday. We didn’t know that and when we went there to see the sunset, the grounds were closed. So, we’ll go back tomorrow morning before our noon time departure for Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco Island. We need to leave here at high tide as there are 5 and 6 foot spots to transit. Today, coming in just after high tide, we saw nothing lower than 7 foot 3 inches. That gives Windbird a foot to spare. So, we will try for a successful repeat of today’s entry on our way out tomorrow.

There is no room to anchor in the harbor here, so we picked up a mooring ball. We no sooner anchored than Dawn served a lunch incorporating various left overs. There was taco salad, kabobs, and grouper and rice and beans from last night’s dinner at Nipper’s. Fat and happy, we dinghied to the Lower Town Dock. Sam took Piper for a walk and returned her to Windbird while Dawn and I walked the “road” to the Upper Town Dock to meet Sam. I put “road” in quotes as it is just a double-wide sidewalk serving walkers and golf carts. And since almost everything in Hope Town is closed on Sunday, we basically had the sidewalk to ourselves. There are little shops, bed and breakfast type places to stay, a couple of restaurants, and a sprinkling of private homes. Each and every one is painted in sherbet colors of pink, yellow, blue, orange, and white. Everything is crisp and clean and multi-colored flowers from Bougainvillea bushes drip over the edge of every fence. Sam joined us at the Upper Town Dock and we kept walking. We had read that there are pink sand beaches on the ocean side of town and we wanted to compare them to the ones we saw on Eleuthera. Ever since Dawn and I saw the pink sand ornaments and bowls on the Eleuthera island tour, we have both wanted to try to make some of the things ourselves. I did collect a gallon bag of sand, but today Dawn brought three bags to collect some for her projects. The beach we found on the ocean side of Hope Town did not disappoint. It was immediately pinker than the Eleuthera beaches, so we bagged it up. That meant we had to carry it in our backpacks the rest of the afternoon, but ‘crafty’ women don’t let a little weight stop them. We continued walking the beach and Sam noticed a bar on the hill above the beach that was open. As we walked up the hill, Dawn and I stopped to take photos of hedge with beautiful red seed pods. I’d never seen this tropical treasure before and would love to know what it is. And while we were admiring the local flora, Sam went ahead and was shooting baskets with a kid at the Hope Town School. Finally, we found the Reef Bar & Grill at the Harbor Town Harbor Lodge. We enjoyed a cool drink while soaking in the beautiful ocean view and talking to a particularly ‘lively’ cruiser who bought his catamaran in France and sailed it to the Caribbean and on to Florida. He now spends his winters in the Bahamas, sails the boat back to Florida and then summers in West Dennis on the Cape. On the way back to the dock, we discovered that there is an upper “road” and a lower “road”, so we walked to the end of the lower and return on the upper making a stop at Munchies to pick up some conch salad for dinner. We went back to the boat to drop off the heavy sand-laden bags and took our sundowners in the dinghy to go visit the lighthouse. As I said previous, that didn’t work out, but on the way home we stopped to talk to some cruisers from North Dakota and Punta Gorda, Florida. Mike on Fair Winds, the Lord Nelson from Punta Gorda, also flies small planes and has a brother who is a commercial airline pilot, so Sam and Dawn enjoyed talking to him. We ended the day with grilled steak for dinner and are spending a quiet evening reading, writing, and making plans for tomorrow.

Almost forgot to mention dinner at Nipper’s on Great Guana Cay last night. We all had grouper and it was great. Nice spot with beautiful ocean views. I’ll post photos when I get home.

2017 Life Logs, Day 119: Arrival in the Abacos
Date: Saturday, April 29, 2017
Weather: Sunny; Strong Trade Winds E 20
Location: At Anchor in Great Guana Cay, Bahamas

The 132-mile passage here from Eleuthera took us exactly 24-hours. I was able to sleep on my off-watch time, but Sam and Dawn were not as fortunate. They did sleep some, but the rowdy conditions didn’t make for peaceful rest. I have the gift of being able to fall asleep no matter how rough the conditions, so last night’s romp across the Northeast Providence Channel and up the east side of the Abaco islands was no different. But we all felt like a nap was in order this

afternoon to catch up on lost sleep. Sam and Dawn are still napping, so I took this opportunity to write today’s log earlier than normal. We will be going to shore for dinner and hopefully I can post it then.

I enjoyed last night’s passage. The sliver of a moon set early, so I had no moonlight on my 10 pm to 1 am watch. I prefer moonlight, but last night there was nothing to “watch for” on my shift. Not a creature was stirring except for the brilliant stars in the sky and the fairy-like sparkles in the water from the phosphorescence. Sam’s 7 pm to 10 pm gave him a challenge, however, when the AIS showed a Carnival cruise ship on a collision course. But seeing that early on the chartplotter screen gave him time to quickly change course to get that situation under control. For the non-sailor’s out there, AIS allows you to see other registered vessels right on your chartplotter or radar screen. The Garmin chartplotter and AIS capability are new additions to Windbird and they do make navigation easier at night. But Sam and Dawn are very disappointed with their new Garmin wind speed instrumentation. The wind indicator on the top of the mast is supposed to send a wireless signal down to the read-out panel in the cockpit, but it only works half the time. So sometimes you can see wind speed and wind direction and half the time you can’t. Last night this affected the actual time of day readout and when the wireless system was working it showed the true windspeed anywhere from 20 to 500. Those were new issues that surfaced last night. But the chartplotter still shows the accurate position of the boat, so the issues were more an aggravation than a problem. Sam and Dawn will have to wait until they are back in the US to talk to Garmin to work out the problems.

So hopefully I will get to send last night’s log and this one to the website when we go ashore tonight. We hope to move to Hopetown tomorrow morning and will be in Marsh Harbor on Monday afternoon as tides require us to enter and exit Hopetown around noon on those days. If the Delta ‘buddy pass’ thing works, I’ll be flying home on Tuesday. Flying that way is cheaper, but you are on stand-by. If that doesn’t work on Tuesday, I’ll buy a regular ticket to Nassau on Wednesday morning and on to Atlanta and Boston via stand-by.

The update I heard from my sister on Thursday on my brother-in-law Joe’s recovery from his knee surgery was good news. He is now home and doing well. But today I got news from my good friends Ed and Lynne in Nyack, NY, that Ed fell on Thursday and broke his hip. So I sure hope Joe is continuing to do great and I’m sending all the positive energy I have to Ed to help him with a speedy recovery from the hip surgery. Hopefully both Joe and Ed will be back on the golf course sometime this summer.

2017 Life Logs, Day 118: Overnight Passage from Eleuthera to the Abacos
Date: Friday, April 28, 2017
Weather: Sunny; ESE Winds 18, Turning E 20
Location: Northeast Providence Channel

So far, so good with this overnight passage to the Abacos. Most of the day we were sailing dead downwind as we sailed from east to west from Rock Sound on Eleuthera to the Fleeming Channel. We just got through the channel and are now headed northward in the Northeast Providence Channel. The first part of the day was a rolly downwind sail and now that we have turned we have 20 knots of wind on the beam. The seas are a choppy and once in a while we get a big wave that throws us a bit, but we are flying toward the Abacos. We will have an early dinner, so I can sleep from 7 pm to 10 pm while Sam is on first watch. Dawn is going to stay up with him until the sun goes down and then she will try to sleep as well. My watch is from 10 pm to 1 pm and then not again until 7 am in the morning. So other than a bit of a lumpy ride right now, all is well on Windbird.

Saturday Morning, 11 am: We made it! We are at anchor behind Great Guana Cay in the Abacos. It is much more upscale here than the Exumas or Eleuthera. It looks more like Florida than what I have seen of the Bahamas. We do not have internet on the boat, but we will go to Grabber’s bar onshore this afternoon and try to use their internet to send this log. Life is good.

2017 Life Logs, Day 117: Rock Sound to Governor’s Harbor
Date: Thursday, April 27, 2017
Weather: Crazy Weather Day–Early Morning Squalls to Changing Wind Directions
Location: At Anchor in Governor’s Harbor, Eleuthera

Today was a crazy weather day. I woke up sometime during the middle of the night to thunder and psychedelic lightening. I tried to convince myself that this was not going to result in rain, but I finally succumbed and got up to close the open hatches. Rain had not been forecast this far north, but we all know about weather forecasts. It was hot and humid, so closing up the boat was not a first choice. But waking up to pouring rain inside the boat was also not a first choice and I made the decision to button up everything and went back to bed. Sometime later when the pouring rain woke me up, I was very glad that I had closed up earlier. When we all got up at 6:30 am, Sam was listening to the morning weather report from Chris Parker. Chris was not on today, so his substitute was forecasting. And indeed, the squalls that had been forecast yesterday for much further south were upon us and wouldn’t be subsiding until mid-day. Since it was windy and rainy and leaving in that kind of weather just wasn’t what we wanted to do, we decided to turn a negative into a positive. We went to the laundromat to do a final wash and rinse of the cockpit cushion covers without having to use any more of Windbird’s water supply. Washing those cushions became a ‘must do’ yesterday when we returned from shore and found that a split in Piper’s paw had become worse and he had bled all over the cockpit cushions. Since we were having guests for dinner, we simply took off the cushion covers and Sam scrubbed the spots with Shout and put the covers in the shower stall to soak overnight in Oxi-Magic. But rinsing them was going to take a lot of water and the laundromat seemed like the best option since we had some time to kill. A couple of hours later, we returned to the boat with clean clothes and clean cockpit cushion covers. And as soon as we got back on the boat, we were off for Governor’s Harbor. We left with SSE winds in the 10-12 range and with our angle to the wind, we decided it was a perfect time to put up the spinnaker with the pole out. The first problem arose when the spinnaker pole attachment to the mast broke. Thankfully it held until we were able to lower the pole. Sam and Dawn got the pole down on the deck and then we raised the spinnaker. By this time, the winds were down to 4-6 knots True, but with our angle to the wind, we were going along just fine. THEN . . . the wind shifted from 145 degrees (SE) to 80 degrees (just north of E) which put us instantly on a close reef at 7 knots. We got that under control, took the spinnaker down (broke a shackle in the process), and then the winds slowly backed to 112-120 degrees, so we put the headsail and the staysail out and had a great sail until we got closer to our destination. We finally had to use the engine to get into the anchorage. It was a challenging sailing day due to the weather and “equipment’ failures, but still it was a good day on the water.

Tomorrow at 10 am, we will leave here headed to the Abacos. For some reason, we don’t have a internet tonight, but hopefully that will be fixed by the morning and I will be able to post this log before we here. If not, it will be Saturday afternoon before I can post again if we have internet on Great Guana Cay. If not, we will be in Hopetown on Sunday night and we should be back in the land of internet by then. So no worries if you don’t see a log for a couple of days.

2017 Life Logs, Day 116: Island Tour and Dinner with Totem
Date: Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Weather: Partly Cloudy, E 10 knots
Location: At Anchor in Rock Sound, Eleuthera

It was a long but great day. We picked up the rental car and were on way to touring the island of Eleuthera by 8 am. We drove north to a place called the Glass Window Bridge and worked our way south. The first stop, the Glass Window Bridge, is the narrowest part of the island at only 30 feet wide where you can see the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the Exuma Sound to the west. We climbed the prickly limestone rocks to a high spot to take photos and saw two water spouts in the Atlantic. We then drove a little south and climbed through those prickly limestone rocks once again to get to the Queen’s Bathtub which is a series of natural tide pools where you can sit and soak up the sun in warm water if the sun is shining. Unfortunately, we were there when it was cloudy and the tide was coming in, so the pools were not as warm as they could have been. Yet, the view of the Atlantic Ocean was gorgeous. Next, we had lunch at Daddy Joe’s and continued our trek back to the south. We made stops at a couple of beaches, in Hatchet Bay, and in Governor’s Bay. The two bay stops were important as it helped Sam and Dawn make a decision on our next stop. Hatchet Bay has a very narrow entrance and Governor’s Harbor is beautiful, thus much more alluring. So tomorrow we will sail from here to Governor’s Harbor. The homeward bound part of the trip was spent trying to find one of the pink sand beaches that Eleuthera advertises so I could take a sample home. It was a great day and I hope to post photos tomorrow once we reach Governor’s Bay.

But our day was not over when we returned from the island tour. Sam and Dawn had invited Totem’s captain and his three children over for dinner tonight, and what a delightful evening we had together. Totem is on her way home to Washington state after their 9-year circumnavigation. The three children are now 17, 14, and 12. They have grown up and been educated onboard and are three most impressive teenagers. Niall (pronounced like the River Nile), the oldest, could go to college this fall, but he wants to remain on the boat until they complete the circumnavigation when they cross their path in Mexico. So he will be applying for colleges this fall. While we talked about their adventures in Papua New Guinea with all of its World War II history, Mairen and Siobhan (pronounced She-vaughn) built card houses. It was fun to watch them work so carefully to keep the card structures from falling. And all I could think at the end of the evening is that it would be wonderful if all children could be so lucky as to experience the world as they have. This family was in Falmouth last summer giving a talk at the Falmouth Academy. I had been invited by friends Bruce and Jane Wooden to go, but I didn’t make it. This was just one more reminder of what a small world it is.

2017 Life Logs, Day 115: The Ocean Hole and A Gift
Date: Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Weather: Beautiful Day with Winds W 10 knots
Location: At Anchor in Rock Sound, Eleuthera

Plans to tour the island by rental car were changed when we arrived at the gas station/car rental and found they are no longer are in the car rental business. They tried to help us find a car by calling various people in town, but a rental was not in the picture for today. Since we had our snorkel gear with us for the island tour, we simple changed plans and walked to a place called The Ocean Hole. This is a somewhat salty deep water hole (sink hole) right in the middle of town. There’s not a huge variety of fish, but near the ladder where you get into the water, there are lots of fish waiting to be fed by tourists.

We didn’t bring food, but the fish stayed near us anyway. There were three big Gray Angelfish and four equally big Blue Tangs among the other rather nondescript fish. It was a refreshing way to start our day and now we know why there are all these signs in town leading to The Ocean Hole.

It was only 9:30 am when we left the ‘hole’, so Sam and Dawn followed up a lead on a rental car we got from another couple who came to snorkel and feed the fish at The Ocean Hole. They said to go to the supermarket and talk to the manager. Since we had backpacks and snorkel gear, I volunteered to wait with all of our things at the dock and let Sam and Dawn do the car rental hunt. I sat on the dock being a sun worshiper and took the opportunity to call my sister to check on my brother-in-law’s progress. He is still in the rehab center and doing so much better than he was this time last week. He has been in a rehab center for the past week, but the doctor is going to release him to go home on Wednesday. He is being released from the rehab center because he has made such good progress. Let’s hope that progress is enough to make the transition to home go smoothly. Hang in there, Joe. You’ll soon have that knee working like new.

Now back to the car rental hunt . . . it was unsuccessful. There was a car available for tomorrow, but nothing for today. We discussed just how to amend our plans and finally decided that we would stay here for another day and tour the island from this location tomorrow instead of traveling north to Hatchet Bay. Dawn called Hatchet Bay car rental possibilities looking for something to rent there on Thursday, but she could not get anyone to commit to a set reservation. So we’ll stay here for tomorrow, probably sail to Hatchet Bay on Thursday, and then do the overnight crossing to the Abacos on Friday into Saturday morning. But there is huge ridge of high pressure that might cause the returning trade winds to be a little stronger than Sam would like. If that scenario plays out, we will skip Hatchet Bay and go straight from here to the Abacos.

Sam was successful in uploading the new updates for the autopilot when we arrived here and he took advantage of our down time today to get those installed. After lunch Dawn and I went into town so I could upload a few photos to the website, but it was so slow that I didn’t make much progress. I was using free wifi at a local craft store called The Blue Seahorse, so while I uploaded photos, Dawn took the opportunity to talk to the owners of the shop about the things they make and sell and about some of the places we hope to visit on the island. When we returned to Windbird, we took her out to do the sea trials with the auto pilot. The conditions were good—not much wind, near slack tide, and calm seas—and the system said all were successful. We’ll find out when we sail out of here on Thursday if it works as well with wind and sails up, but both Sam and Dawn are encouraged. This is the auto pilot that was installed after lightning struck Windbird during the first week they owned the boat. It is a top of the line Garmin but has never worked just right for them. I sure hope the updated software and today’s trials set things right.

And now about the gift. It all started this afternoon when Dawn and I were walking down the street to go to The Blue Seahorse. On the way we met Marcus, a sailor from San Francisco they had met in Georgetown. We talked for a bit and Marcus mentioned that a restaurant on the ocean side of the town had been highly recommended to him. He wanted to go there for dinner and asked if we would like to go as well. He called the place Rose’s and after he tried to call and I tried to call, we gave up the idea of going there. But just before 5 pm, Rose called back. She said she would pick us up on the dock at 6:30 pm. I don’t think any of us really knew what to expect, but Rose and her little restaurant were the ‘gift’ I mention in the title of this log. Rose is a Bahamian woman of many stories. First, her restaurant and Northside cottages she rents out are at the end of the world. It is only a couple of miles from town, but it is remote. Rose and her husband purchased the property and moved here from Freeport on Grand Bahama Island seventeen years ago to build their dream house on the ocean. Just after moving, Rose’s husband died leaving her with six children. Rose was raised by her grandparents when her mother died when she was very young. The grandparents made sure she got a college education and Rose did the same for her children. Rose has lived alone since her husband’s death and has built a beautiful life. Her college educated children now live all over the world. One is in Canada, one in Switzerland, one in Australia, a grandson in England, and on and on. So tonight, she not only prepared and served a wonderful dinner for us, she shared her family photo album and all the stories that go with it. She has visited South Africa and has a picture of herself shaking Nelson Mandela’s hand and pictures of herself in cities around the globe. Meeting her was a true gift. Before we left, she sang a little song to us. “Love is something if you give it away, give it away, give it away; love is something if you give it away, you end up having more.” The second verse was about sharing your wealth, and the moral of the story is that if you don’t, you are the loser. Her stories, her songs, her jokes and laughter, and her positive outlook on life are an inspiration and gift to each of us. Thank you, Rose.

Now to bed. We leave here at 7:15 am to go get our rental car to see more of this island that becomes more interesting the longer you are here.

2017 Life Logs, Day 114: Spinnaker Run to Eleuthera
Date: Monday, April 24, 2017
Weather: Beautiful Day with Light West Winds
Location: At Anchor in Rock Sound, Eleuthera

Today was a beautiful, sunny day but the winds were light. Sam and Dawn have never sailed with Windbird’s spinnaker, so that was the adventure for today. It was much easier than they anticipated and we had a great sail for most of the day. But as the winds got even lighter, 6 to 8 knots true, we were going slower than desired even with the spinnaker, so at that point we turned on the ‘iron genny’ and motored the last bit into Rock Sound.

It was a delightful day on the water and I enjoyed every minute. Once we arrived, we took a walk around the little town, took the dinghy out to talk to the folks on a boat named Totem, and then came home for a delicious dinner or chicken, beef, and veggie kabobs. Dawn just keeps serving fantastic meals, one after another.

We plan to rent a car to see some of the island tomorrow and at the end of the day will make a decision as to whether we will leave here on Wednesday morning or spend one more day. In any case, we will have internet for the next couple of days, unlike the last four days we spent in the Exuma Land and Sea Park. Also, I wanted to mention that the people on Totem, the boat we went over to visit, are slowly headed home to the Pacific Northwest to end their circumnavigation with three children onboard. The woman, Behan, discovered my logs before heading out around the world and it was really great to meet someone who had used my logs as they sailed. She now writes her own blog which can be found at sail@SailingTotem.com.
Check it out.

2017 Life Logs, Day 113: Squally Day in Hog Cay
Date: Sunday, April 23, 2017
Weather: Overcast and Squally, Winds SSE 20, Gust to 25+
Location: Warderick Wells South, Hog Cay Anchorage

As expected, today was spent on Windbird waiting for this weather front to pass. The rain started during the night and the wind has maintained a steady 20 knots with gusts to 25. When the gusts come through we get jerked around just a bit, but it is fairly calm in this anchorage to be as windy as it is. With this weather, we all decided to do rainy day activities. Dawn baked this morning while Sam did planning for the next few days. I have worked all day editing underwater photos and naming videos from our snorkeling adventures. They have the Humann, Deloach Reef Fish and Reef Creatures Identification books onboard to help me. From time to time, Sam, Dawn, and I consult on exactly what kind of fish we really did see. We have learned that what we thought we saw is not nearly as accurate as looking at the photos or pausing videos to study the fish characteristics. Right now it is late afternoon and Dawn is watching a movie while Sam is writing his monthly article for Flying magazine. He needs to send that in once we get back to the land of cell and internet service. I don’t think I mentioned in a previous log that in the May issue of Flying magazine, Sam’s monthly article includes a two-page spread photo of Windbird at anchor. I excited to read the article and am hoping to find a copy at the airport in Atlanta on the way home. Today he is writing about his experience of working his way up to becoming a captain at Compass Airlines for six years before getting his position with Delta flying Boeing 757’s and 767’s. Luckily for him, during the winter cruising season, flights in his fleet are down by 28 per cent. So for right now, Delta is happy to let him have the time off to cruise during the slow flying months. It’s a good deal for Delta and a great opportunity for Sam and Dawn. But he goes back to work in June and it is time to get Windbird back to the US East Coast for the summer. They have chosen to spend the summer near Annapolis so Sam can easily get to the airport in Baltimore. The first leg of the trip to Annapolis is to get the boat to Marsh Harbor in the Abacos. From there I will fly home and they will prepare for their passage to the East Coast. They hope to get to Georgetown, South Carolina, just north of Charleston to get new canvas for the cockpit enclosure and then they will head to the Chesapeake Bay. But first we have to get to Marsh Harbor in the Abacos so I can fly home. Due to tides, today Sam changed our itinerary. We have eliminated Spanish Wells from our trip northward. If weather permits, tomorrow we will head to Rock Sound in southern Eleuthera. We plan to spend Tuesday there and rent a car to tour the island. On Wednesday the forecast is for almost no wind or variable winds at best, so we’ll probably motor northward to Hatchet Bay. From there the plan is to head west to Fleeming Channel and do an overnight to somewhere near Marsh Harbor. If this plan sticks, we should be there by Friday. But as always with sailing, you make plans and then you adjust them as you go. We have had no internet service since Black Point, but once we reach Eleuthera, we should be back “online” for a few days. I’m getting anxious to hear how my brother-in-law Joe is recovering from his knee surgery last week. Hopefully he is doing great!

2017 Life Logs, Day 112: Emerald Rock to Hog Cay
Date: Saturday, April 22, 2017
Weather: Overcast and Rainy Early, Sunny PM; Winds ESE 20
Location: Warderick Wells South, Hog Cay Anchorage

The title of this log is Emerald Rock to Hog Cay because we did move anchorages this morning, but it should have been called “A Wild Ride to and from the Malabar Cays.” First, I’ll tell you about moving anchorages and then I’ll tell the story of wild ride.

Sam and Dawn invited Dan and Isabella over for a breakfast of Sam’s specialty, Mexican Eggs. Breakfast was delicious and then we listened to the Park’s morning radio check-out and check-in of boats for Park moorings. Both Windbird and Epiic had hoped to get a mooring in the north anchorage to ride out the nasty weather front headed out way, but there was only one spot in the north anchorage so we both took the two moorings available in Hog Cay. This required us to go out and around the Park into the Sound and then south to this hidden, and very tiny, anchorage. We were bashing down the Sound against the wind for a couple of miles, so it was slow going. It was overcast with sprinkles as we did this, but once we made the move and got settled, we were all very happy with the location. It is a beautiful anchorage and well protected.

After a late lunch, we got ready to go snorkeling at the Malabar Cays. We could see the little islets from our old anchorage at Emerald Rock, but from here we would have to dinghy around the bottom of Warderick Wells and go about a mile and half to two miles to get there. The Park information says to only snorkel there in settled conditions, but we decided that 20 knots of wind was settled. Besides, the sun was shining, the skies were blue, and we wanted to get into the water. Dan decided not to go, so we went to Epiic to pick up Isabella. Just as we approached Epiic, Isabella dropped one of her dive fins in the water the current sent it flying toward us. We tried unsuccessfully to pick it up as it flew by but we only succeeded in making it sink. So Sam dove in the water and I took over the dinghy maneuvering. I had to pick Sam up to give him a ride as he also got caught in the current, but he knew where the fin had landed and we finally got it. Then the three of us headed out. It was a wet ride as we had spray from the waves, but as we learned on the way home, the ride out was really calm in comparison! Mark and I had snorkeled the Malabar Cays a couple of years ago and we never really found the spots indicated on the Park map. And the same thing happened to us today. So we finally gave up and snorkeled on the north side of the Cays as Mark and I had done previously. There was no good place to anchor the dinghy, so I stayed while the others went in to decide if it was worth it. It was, so Dawn came back to the dinghy to take over so I could get in the water, but I told her I would just jump in and trail the dinghy behind me since the current was not too strong. The most exciting thing was that we got to see the Queen Triggerfish that we didn’t see at Emerald Rock yesterday. And like the Peacock Flounder

we did see at Emerald Rock, the Queen Triggerfish changes colors from light to dark when she feels threatened. Sam had my GoPro and captured the change in colors. After completing our snorkeling on the north side of the Cays, we decided to dinghy out and around to go back to the south side to look for the designated snorkeling areas. As we did this, we realized the ride was a lot rougher on the outside. But we persisted and as we rounded the last islet we noticed a long length of dark water which looked promising for snorkeling. We problem was the water was rough and we weren’t sure the dinghy anchor would hold. So again, I offered to stay in the dinghy as I am quite familiar with that Yamaha 15-horse motor which takes quite a yank to start. And since Dawn and I feared we were getting low on fuel, I was turning off the engine and drifting toward the rocky islets before starting the engine again to get away from the rocks. Dawn came back to take over the dinghy while I jumped in, but before that happened we saw Sam swimming toward us . . . we thought intentionally. We had the motor off so there were no worries about him being close, but then he ran right into the dinghy. He was watching a big barracuda and didn’t even see us. When his fin hit the dinghy, he thought the barracuda hit his fin and came up cursing. It was quite ‘entertaining’. I then went in with Sam back in the dinghy and what I saw was beautiful. There were large schools of fish and the sunlight was just right for great video, but I didn’t have the GoPro with me. When I got back to the dinghy I asked Sam if he would go back in to try to capture it, and he did. When he got back to the dinghy it was time to head home, and that is when we learned what a really wet ride can be. We had water coming into the dinghy from behind and in front and somehow we had left the plastic bailer on the boat. There was so much water coming in from the front that we had to wear our snorkel masks so we could see. But then we had to take our masks off to try and use them to bail some of the water out of the dinghy. That didn’t work at all, but Isabella noticed the dry bag we had water bottles and other things stored in. If we emptied that, they dry bag would hold enough water to possible bail out the dinghy. Dawn was on bailing duty and she did a great job. I don’t think the people who sell dry bags ever thought of this unintended use, but it worked!

Once again, Dawn served a great dinner of Indian Butter Chicken. And after dinner we were all invited over to Epiic. Even though they insisted, I didn’t go because I thought I should give Sam and Dawn time alone with their friends, and it wasn’t until after they left and I started writing this log, that I realized just how tired I was. So I have a feeling it is going to be early to bed for me tonight.