Hanging out in New Providence

There are definitely good and bad things about hanging out in Nassau. There is an amazing grocery store and a Starbucks across from the marina where we are staying. Hugh laughs at me as I wander up and down the aisles in the grocery store … you don’t see a lot of the brands at home, or anywhere else in the Bahamas. Plus it’s lovely and cool in there, I could spend hours looking, and buying a few things. A great place to stock up before heading out to the desolate islands of the Exumas!  

The bad things about being here are the noise, crowds and frustration of trying to get around town to see the historical and other attractions of New Providence Island.  We are quite far from the “downtown” of Nassau, so getting there requires either an expensive taxi, or a local bus ride, which we have discovered, is an adventure.

Alyssa arrived on Monday, after numerous delays to her flight from Tampa to Nassau, just in time to enjoy a lovely meal at Latitudes, the new restaurant in the marina. When we were here last year they were in the process of building it, so we were happy to see it was finished and busy!

L-R Hugh Alyssa and Karen at Latitudes

Our lives on the boat are mostly dictated by weather, and we had been hoping to sail down to the Exumas with Alyssa for a few days and bring her back to Nassau, as we couldn’t find any flights from Staniel Cay to get her back. But, the wind gods were not on our side, and we were worried about getting her back for her flight on Sunday, with a big front and high winds coming in Friday night. So the decision was made to stay on the dock Tuesday, go out for a couple of nights and anchor, then be back for Friday nights’ blow.

Tuesday was “Explore Nassau Day” and after “tour guide” Hugh did some research about what to see and do, we boarded a local bus that was headed downtown, giving us a cheap tour of some local neighborhoods.  Our first stop was The Water Tower, which was built in 1928 to supply water to the town.

Nassau Water Tower and Fort Fincastle

Beside the water tower is Fort Fincastle, a small fort built in 1793 to protect the entrance to the harbour. There was also a little market with local vendors selling tourist wares. It was a busy place, with busloads of cruise ship passengers coming and going. There were 4 cruise ships in the harbour that day! (a bad thing).

Cruise ships docked in Nassau Harbour

Also in the area was The Queens Staircase, which was carved out of solid limestone by slaves in 1793 to honour Queen Victoria. It is also known as The 66 Steps. It was quite beautiful, with a small waterfall and trees growing in the gorge.

Alyssa and Hugh on Queen's Staircase

We found the John Watling's distillery, and had a tour of the rum factory and a small sample. Established in 1789, it still makes very light to very dark rums.

John Watling's Rum Distillery

Our own tour continued down through several lovely areas of government buildings, The National Art Gallery, and an old hotel, Graycliff. We eventually made our way back to the downtown area and found a bus to take us back to the boat. A busy but interesting day!

Alyssa and a pirate!

On the Wednesday we decided to sail down to West Bay, an anchorage at the west end of New Providence Island, with good protection and holding. We had a lovely sail down, and found a good spot to sit for a couple of days. It was so nice to be off the dock, with the peace of sitting at anchor.

West Bay Sunset

Thursday we went exploring on shore, only to find out that lovely park we were walking in was private and in order to walk or sit there you had to pay an entrance fee of $11 each! So back to the boat we went, and decided to try to find some snorkeling sites we had read about. They are quite busy with tour boats during the day, so we waited until they were gone later in the afternoon, but were quite disappointed with the state of the coral, dull and broken, and few fish. The next area we found was one we had heard about called the Sir Nicholas Nuttall Coral Reef Sculpture Garden, with this huge concrete “man” crouched in the water. We were the only ones there, and I took my GoPro to take pics, but somehow it didn’t work, so no actual pictures to show you, (sorry!) just a copy of one I found.

Sculpture Garden

Friday we left bright and early, in windy conditions (as predicted) and even went through some squalls and fog. We made it back to the dock, and were glad to be there, as the winds really blew that night and Saturday.

We spent the last couple of days with Alyssa exploring more of Nassau, including going to a “fish market”, with locals selling their catch and actually filleting it for you, visiting the Nassau Yacht Club, and taking another local bus to Compass Point for lunch on a very windy, squally day.

Montague Beach Fish Market

Karen and Alyssa at Compass Point

We said goodbye to Alyssa yesterday, and we are now waiting for a good weather window (tomorrow?) to sail up to Eleuthera and visit our friends Sue and Randy who have rented a cottage there for two weeks. It will be really nice to get to another island!

From there we are hoping to go to the Exumas for a few weeks, then start the journey back to Florida.

Hopefully the weather gods will be with us … one day at a time!

Enjoying New Adventures

In Hugh's excitement to post that we had made it to West End, he forgot to mention the lovely day we had in Lake Worth. After sitting on the boat for a very blustery day (it amazes me how noisy wind can be!) we finally got off the boat and dinghied over to the town dock for a walk and a coffee. On the way over we stopped by Malarkey, the boat that we came down from Ft. Pierce with, to see how they fared in the blow and to say hello. They mentioned that they were going to go to the Flagler Museum in the afternoon, with another couple, Elaine and Steve off of S/V October, and would we like to join them? Of course we would! So we all met at the dock and called for Ubers to take us over to the museum on the ritzy Palm Beach side.  We are fairly familiar with Mr. Flagler, as we visited his hotel in St. Augustine on our trip down the ICW, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  The museum in Palm Beach is actually the house, Whitehall, that he built as a wedding gift to his third wife. It has 75 rooms and they only stayed there about two months a year. It was built in 18 months being completed in 1902, which at the time was amazingly fast. We took a tour with the resident Docent and enjoyed hearing all the stories of the couple and the mansion.

Flagler Museum - White Hall

The Museum also houses Flagler's private rail car in which he travelled to the house.  Interestingly, he also built the East Florida Railway from Jacksonville to Key West. Quite a feat!

Flagler Rail Car #91

After the tour we decided to walk over to the Breakers Hotel, which is a very fancy hotel right on the ocean, and have a drink. These cruisers were our kind of people!  I’m still surprised no one stopped us as we were dressed in “boat clothes” and I felt pretty conspicuous! We waltzed in like we owned the place and got a table, a beer and shared some amazing fries (drenched in melted gorgonzola cheese!).  A very fun day with very fun people. One of the things I love about cruising!

Breakers Hotel Palm Beach

So, the next day we crossed to West End (see Hugh’s post). In spite of Daniela and Dennis'  help taking lines we had one of our worst dockings, which Hugh failed to mention! (but no damage). Daniela and Dennis own Viaggio, a Beneteau Oceanis 55 from Annapolis that was docked nearby. We seemed to hit it off right away, and found out it was their first time over to the Bahamas, and they had lots of questions. Since we are such experts (!) we invited them over for swizzles and to talk about cruising. There was also a catamaran docked in the marina (that was it … three sailboats) and we invited them over as well, as it turned out they were also newbies. Tim, Ingrid and crew Mike (hired? We never found out) on S/V Wanderlust from Atlanta. We had a lively discussion about where to go and things to do and see, as Mike slowly got drunker and drunker.

After they left, Daniela and Dennis stayed and we all wondered how quiet Tim and Ingrid put up with Mike. Well, turns out they don’t, as he was released the next day.

So we hung out at Old Bahama Bay for a couple of days, waiting for the weather to calm down, with Daniela and Dennis. On the Tuesday we both decided to travel down to Port Lucaya, which is on the south side of Grand Bahama Island, just east of Freeport. We have never been this way, as we usually go over the top of the Island and head for the Abacos. Due to the devastation caused by Hurricane Dorian, we decided not to go there this year. I’m not sure there is much left of our beloved Hopetown, Man-O-War, and Marsh Harbour. It’s very sad. Even though West End and Port Lucaya were hit by the hurricane, they didn’t get hit as hard, but we can definitely see some damage, and the water is not potable as the treatment plant was damaged and is still not repaired. You could tell when you showered that the water was slightly salty (yuck).  Talking to some of the locals was very interesting as well. They had lots of stories about destruction and survival.

The sail to Lucaya was bumpier and windier than expected, and we were amazed to see two huge oil rigs , not marked on the chart, just before Freeport!

Unmarked oil rig being serviced off Freeport

We docked at Grand Bahamas Yacht Club, had a shower (still salty water) and then over to the pool bar for lunch and a beer! Daniela and Dennis joined us, and we decided to go exploring the next day, with the ultimate goal to find a BTC store to buy a Bahamas sim card, and groceries. After a false start, and a local bus ride (always adventurous) we found both. The grocery store was one of the nicest and cleanest I have seen in the Bahamas. Always exciting! We rode the bus home, right to the marina driveway, and then we had to get ready for our party night!

(L-R) Karen, Hugh, Daniela, Dennis

The marina has a wonderful dockmaster, Fabian, who invites all the cruisers in the marina every Wednesday night to a Fish Fry on a nearby beach. All 12 of us gathered in the parking lot at 6pm, and Fabian and his wife Rosie drove us over.  A good time was had by all, with a great dinner, beer and even dancing!

Fabian (left) hosts us at the fish fry

Friday looked like a good day to cross over to the Berry Islands, and I think nearly all of the boats at the marina left, except for Daniela and Dennis who have to fly home next week, so had decided to keep the boat there while they were gone. We left the dock at 6:20am and had a good motor/sail all the way down to Soldier Cay, passing three cruise ships anchored at Coco Cay, a cay which includes a "village" owned by a cruise line at which ships stop for a day. We anchored, and had a lovely quiet night. The next morning the winds were nil and the water was calm, so we motored to Nassau. On entering the harbour, we saw five more cruise ships waiting at the docks!

Cruise ships lined up in Nassau

So we are now in Nassau, waiting for our daughter Alyssa to join us tomorrow for a week of sailing. We are looking forward to her visit.

After she leaves, we will see where the wind take us ... one day at a time!

Crossed!

We are in West End, Bahamas!

Trekker docked at West End

We decided that today was the last chance we would have to cross for about another week, so we decided to poke our nose into the Gulf Stream, see what it was like and retreat to Lake Worth or Ft. Lauderdale if we didn't like the conditions. 

After waiting for a cruise ship to come through  we cleared Lake Worth inlet about 0730 and set a course for West End.  In fact, due to the Gulf Stream flowing north we were headed quite a bit south of West End.  Our instruments indicated that at it's fastest, the stream was flowing north at 4.7 knots! Swells were about 3 feet to start building to 4 to 5 a third of the way across but they were on our aft quarter or beam so we actually surfed down the face of many of them. As we reached the half way point they started to decrease. Winds started out at 18 knots out of the NW and slowly clocked around to 12 knots out of the ENE by the time we cleared the worst of the stream.  We had our working jib and double reefed main as well as the engine on most of the way across.  As the crow flies we averaged just over 6 knots, but of course we had to fight that Gulf Stream much of the way!

We are checked in with Bahamas Customs and Immigration have our cruising and fishing licences although anyone who knows us knows that we are unlikely to catch any fish, and we are celebrating with a beer and home made guacamole!

Tomorrow we rinse off all the salt!

Cheers!

Waiting to cross

During our busy week home after preparing Trekker for the season we said goodbye to family and friends and attended our niece's baby shower.  While the women were at the shower the men got together for lunch at a local pub.  Eight hours later I was sicker than I have been in years ... methinks food poisoning!  Thankfully it passed nearly as quickly as it came on.  We buttoned up the house, with lots of folks agreeing to keep an eye on it,  and flew down to Fort Lauderdale and drove up to Fort Pierce and Trekker.

We splurged and while we were in Midland had Trekker professionally cleaned, waxed and polished so she looked pretty spiffy when we launched January 31. 

We moved aboard, finished putting her together, recovered our frozen meat and fish from my brother Adrian and bought perishable provisions.  We also visited CBP and completed the appropriate paperwork to travel down the coast and then cross to the Bahamas during the earliest weather window. 

Tuesday February 4 we were up at O'dark o'clock and left the dock at 0700 to travel down to Lake Worth (West Palm).  As we were throwing off the lines we noticed a couple across the dock from us doing likewise and chatted quickly to learn that they too were headed for Lake Worth. It turned out that the couple are Sally and Ian on Malarkey, a Jeaneau 469. They are also planning to go to the Bahamas, but plan to carry on down to Fort Lauderdale and then across to Bimini. 

Our original plan was to cross to West End from Lake Worth on Wednesday. The forecast was for wind and waves up to 1m out of the SSE. Typically one allows for 45 degrees between the wind and heading on a close-hauled course. If the wind was 157.5 degrees, our course steered 126 degrees (because one has to steer 25 degrees south of the heading to West End because the Gulf Stream is flowing north at 2 1/2 -3 knots) that would mean we were only heading 31.5 degrees off the wind, which is too close for us. So ... Wednesday we sat in Lake Worth and again today. A cold front is coming through today so we have winds of 20 gusting to 30 knots.  So far our faithful Rocna is holding us (touch wood and all).  

This is an interesting place to sit. We are adjacent to Rybovich Superyacht Marina that probably has 20 mega yachts lined up at their docks.  We had the 200' yacht ROCKIT anchor behind us this morning.  Apparently its owner made his $1.7B net worth franchising Jimmy John's Gourmet Sandwich shops!

ROCKIT

Our current (loose) plan is to try and cross Saturday to West End although the wind is forecast to be out of the NE, and accepted wisdom is not to cross the Gulf Stream when the wind opposes the current. Alternatively we'll go down to Fort Lauderdale and maybe travel to Bimini with Malarkey. 

So that's all for now, boat systems seem to all be working, including our Lithium batteries, thank goodness. Here we sit until we can cross to the Bahamas ... taking it one day at a time!