Is it really better in the Bahamas?

Many of our friends and acquaintances were surprised that we brought Trekker home this year.  Not so much questioning our decision to truck her because of the pandemic (which everyone agrees was a good choice) but rather why would we not continue to explore the beautiful Bahamas each winter. We could tell by the raised eyebrows or slight increase in pitch, “really?".  So since it’s a rainy day at anchor on Georgian  Bay and I’ve nothing else to do, I thought I would, from my point of view, compare the Bahamas with Georgian Bay. 

As a sailor I guess my first thought should be towards winds and waves.  In the Bahamas the wind never seems to stop.  I took to furling our flags at night so the flapping wouldn’t keep us awake (plus it’s good etiquette)!  We’ve been on the Bay now for a couple of weeks and it’s been effectively calm each night. In terms of direction, the southeast tradewinds predominate when we are in the Bahamas in the winter, with a few “northers" thrown in to keep us entertained.  The Bahamas Islands run generally northwest to southeast so one waits for a norther to head south and enjoy the trades from behind coming north. The prevailing winds on the Bay are from the southwest and most of the time are between 1 and 25 knots.  Since the Bay runs generally southeast to northwest it should be a beam reach up and down the coast, ideal! Unfortunately since we have been out this year the wind has been west or northwest, or nothing, so we have done much more motoring than we did down south. And then there are the waves.  When we went south we joked that a 6 second period (the time between successive wave's crests), which is relatively short for the Bahamas was great, because we were used to 4 seconds on the lake.  Now we’re used to a much longer period and feel like we are getting beaten up punching into short steep waves!

You can’t beat the multi hued clear blue water of the Bahamas.  In the Bahamas you can make out the details of the sea floor in 20’ of water.  On our first trip up on to the Bahamas bank I remember Karen exclaiming that she could see starfish on the bottom!  The coast of the Bay, in contrast, is a wonderful shade of weak tea.  If you look carefully you can see your toes when swimming!  Georgian Bay definitely takes this one.  Why?  Because the Bay’s tea is fresh, not salt water!  And there are no predators looking for a snack if you skinny dip to cool off before bed!  I expect it will take us a couple of seasons to get rid of the rust stains left by the salt water on our so called stainless steel.  And by the way, why did none of our salty friends or family tell us that straight vinegar removes rust stains?!  We had to find it out from Jim, who we shared an anchorage with a few days ago.

Trekker anchored at "the mine" in Spider Bay

Trekker at Warderick Wells

Apart from those previously mentioned northers, the climate in the Bahamas is perfect, 23 degrees C day and night.  The Bay however can be a bit variable.  This cruise we've had 27 C (feels like 34 C) and today the high is 18 C!  Thank goodness we can jump in the lake to cool off when it is hot and humid and we have our little fireplace to take the edge off of the cold mornings.

But what about the scenery and geography? I don't consider the Bahamas to be particularly picturesque.  Let’s face it, the highest point in the Bahamas is 63 metres. Trekker’s mast is almost 20 meters, so they are low scrubby islands.  They have lots of beautiful beaches, if that is your thing.  Karen and I prefer the gorgeous granite rock and windblown evergreens that define Georgian Bay. There is no spotting sharks, rays or tropical fish through the tea on the Bay, but the loons' calls are incomparable. 

Karen considers provisioning for a cruise on the Bay similar to a cruise in the out islands,  which is to say bring most of what you need.  There are few stores in the Bahamas and those few have little stock unless the supply boat has just been in!  There are two main centres at which to provision on the Bay, Parry Sound and in the North Channel, Little Current.  That said the Canadian stores are reasonably well stocked.

A highlight of our cruise down the coast to the Bahamas was meeting sailors from all over the world and making friends that we still stay in touch with.  Most of them were much more experienced than us, many having crossed oceans or sailed offshore to get to the Bahamas.  They were great sources of courage and information.  Not that there aren’t many very experienced and skilled sailors on Georgian Bay (they say if you can sail the bay you can sail anywhere), but there are also many more weekend warriors. They are amusing as they “set" their anchors and make us furious as they blast by at full throttle within feet of us in the narrow channels.  Serves us right I suppose for using the small craft route! 

So now I’ve written this all down, I can’t really say whether I like the Bahamas or Georgian Bay better. We’ve never seen a Green Flash at sunset on the Bay, although the colors can be spectacular. I’ve also never heard anyone trumpeting a conch at sunset, the loons and whippoorwill call instead on Georgian  Bay. They are both wonderful places to cruise, just different.  We are ecstatic to be back on the bay, and are enjoying visiting well known anchorages, and are discovering some new ones too! 

We (and Trekker) are home!

Karen said in the last post that it felt right to ship Trekker, and to hasten our return home.  Having finished our 14 day quarantine now, during which we have been saturated with COVID 19 news, including terrible news of the virus' spread in the US, and elsewhere, it feels, more than ever, like we made the right decision.

The mast came down without any issues, and I got some help from the riggers to remove all the shrouds and spreaders, which turned out to be a good idea because Karen and I would never have got the spreaders off by ourselves.  

Thursday March 26 Trekker was hauled out and we went to work finishing preparations for her shipping.  The only issue we had on that front was removing the arch on which the solar panels are mounted, and which includes our dinghy lift. The arch needed to come off because it would make the load too tall to fit under bridges on the highway.  Karen and I were able to remove most of the bolts although it did cost us a rechargeable drill that we donated to Neptune.  Unfortunately one nut was determined to "spin", and in spite of my conquering my claustrophobia and wriggling from the aft cabin into the extreme back of the boat, I couldn't reach it.  We got some help from a younger more flexible helper from Whiticar (the marina's on site service folks), but he couldn't get at it either, so the final decision was to just drill off the head of the bolt to get the arch off and worry about putting it back in Midland.

Trekker waiting to have the arch removed, but otherwise ready to ship

By the end of the day Thursday the boat, mast, boom, dinghy and arch were ready to be picked up, the car was packed, we were very hot, sweaty, tired and faced with the prospect of the trip home.  We couldn't face the idea of just driving straight through so we booked a room in Fort Pierce for Thursday night and decided to get an early start Friday and take two days to get home.

Friday morning about 5 am Karen and I each rolled over and asked the other if we were sleeping.  With two negatives we decided to get on our way!  Friday we made it to Beckley WV, and stayed in a Marriott with about 5 other guests. The clerk at the front desk was very careful, wearing gloves and disinfecting my drivers license and credit card before returning them.  We crossed our fingers that they practiced the same attention to cleanliness in the room! 

Saturday we were on the road about 6 am and headed for Buffalo.  We had originally planned to take the rental car home and then drive in convoy with our own car back to Buffalo to drop off the rental, but we couldn't get a clear answer from the US CBP as to whether or not they would let us back in to drop off the rental.  Apparently it would have been at the discretion of the border agent.  So instead our son Trevor and partner Kate came up with a plan to drive to Midland to pick up our car and convoy to Niagara Falls, ON where they would leave the car in a motel parking lot. We dropped off the rental and picked up a taxi at the Buffalo airport and drove across the border to the motel.  Trevor arrived just after us, wiped down the surfaces he had touched and left the car for us to load up. We waved our thanks, blew kisses and said goodbye.  It worked great!  Crossing the border we were informed that we were quarantined under the Quarantine Act, and that we would have to stay at home, no exceptions, for 14 days. They might be checking on us to be sure we were home.  If not we would face fines up to $750,000! The very pleasant border agent asked us if we had friends or family that would bring us food etc. and when she heard we did, bid us safe travels.

We arrived home with fumes left in the tank, and were so thankful for our move to Midland when we opened the fridge to a couple of beers and turkey soup dropped off by our friends Diane and Mac! Since then we have had numerous folks bring us food and booze. Thanks Ben, Victoria, Ken and Grace, Andrew and Rene!

During our quarantine Karen has done lots of knitting and baking, I have raked the lawn and done some figuring for how to frame the basement interior partitions and we have done one and a half jigsaw puzzles.  We have had a few online Zoom swizzles and in general enjoyed being home!

We finished our quarantine yesterday and headed over to the boat to pick up food and other essentials we had left aboard.  Unfortunately we forgot to check a couple of lockers so we went back today, moved the dinghy under Trekker, flipped it over and recovered the last of the food, including two bags of trail mix!    Karen made a few face masks the other day and plans to brave the grocery store tomorrow.

We're hopeful we will be joining friends and family again soon and sailing this summer, but for now it's one day at a time  ... stay apart, stay healthy!

What a difference a week makes!

What a difference a week makes!
The WHO declared the COVID-19 virus to be a pandemic on March 11, 2020 and that seemed to create panic, at least in North America.  Borders began closing to those that had visited areas badly affected by the virus.  Travel advisories were issued recommending that people avoid non-essential travel. Toilet paper sold out! And then, caring family and friends began sending us scary news headlines and imploring us to either stay in the Bahamas for a few more months or to return home right away. 
So much for enjoying our last few days in the Bahamas.  From Nassau we hightailed it to Soldier Cay in the Berrys, then Grand Bahama Yacht Club in Port Lucaya and then Old Bahama Bay in West End.  Even flew our spinnaker most of the way between Soldier Cay and Port Lucaya.  We sat in West End for a day for the waves in the Gulf Stream to reduce and the wind forecast to increase. Interestingly, we met 3 young 30 - 40 something couples in West End setting out to live their dreams!

A lovely sunset at West End

 We crossed the stream yesterday without incident motorsailing all the way.

Always happy to be across the stream

The problem is, we want to get our boat home!  We are done with the Bahamas, and tired of paying exorbitant marina fees and insurance premiums for the privilege of leaving Trekker in a hurricane zone!  
So, thinking we are a reasonably practical couple, we dug a little deeper into the travel advisories and headlines.  The Canadian Government says to avoid all “non-essential” travel.  So what exactly is non-essential travel?  The government website says  that each individual will need to make that determination based on their particular circumstances.  Well, as far as I’m concerned, getting the boat north is essential.  The next biggest concern seemed to be that our travel health insurance would not respond if we were to get the virus "because they are changing the policy wording" or “because a travel advisory has been issued". So I called our insurer and they have assured me that since the effective date of our policies was before the travel advisories were issued, they are not impacted and are in full force and effect until the end of the policy period. 
The next question is: are we putting our health at risk bringing the boat north up the ICW through the United States?  I have searched State websites and been sent maps detailing the locations where cases of the virus have been confirmed, and while the status is changing daily, the coast seems nearly clear of cases up to the Chesapeake. At that point population density increases as does the risk of interacting with an infected person.  That said, we figure we can socially distance ourselves in our little floating capsule for a week at a time, at which point we will need groceries, diesel, a pump out and water. But wouldn't we have to buy groceries at home too? 

Essential supplies and an uninfected friend to socially distance ourselves with

So that gets us up to NY City where I read that Mayor De Blasio is warning New Yorkers that they might have to “shelter in place“.  I don’t even know what that means … does a boat count? Can your "place" move? But if we can get through NY then we are back in Ontario, home free!
Unfortunately, with restaurants, bars, brew pubs and potentially marinas shutting down, the trip that we were both looking forward to will not be nearly as much fun!  You could argue that it has turned into a boat delivery.
Yesterday we used the CBP ROAM app and were welcomed to the US. Today we got our cruising license from CBP without any problem.  
We have the mast scheduled to come down Tuesday March 23 and it is scheduled to ship at the beginning of April.  I got the turnbuckles loosened up today, so tomorrow we will get sails off, and prepare the mast to come down. Those are current plans but with circumstances changing daily, it really is one day at a time!

Excellent Eleuthera!

After putting Alyssa in the taxi to the airport Sunday we just relaxed … coffee at Starbucks, a stroll down the street to Montague Park and back to the marina.  Monday we topped up water, did laundry, got groceries, and ready to leave.  Tuesday February 25 we sailed from Nassau to Spanish Wells in perfect conditions.  The wind was on the beam (coming from the side of the boat for you non-sailors) and blowing 15 – 18 knots.  Most of the route from Nassau to Eleuthera is protected from the southeast by a reef, so the waves were only about 1 metre.  Half way to Spanish Wells I couldn’t help myself, “these are the days we live for!” I exclaimed to Karen.  Luckily we got a slip at the Spanish Wells Yacht Haven, to weather the next blow. 

(l-r) Hugh Sue Karen Randy

Sue and Randy met us on the dock and we marveled at how we had actually managed to connect a year after they floated the idea that we should meet them in Spanish Wells.  Tuesday evening they invited us to the cottage, called Sweet Ting, that they are sharing with Randy’s sister Marilyn and cousin Heather and we all enjoyed Bubba’s fish tacos, and some wine.

Heather and Marilyn

Wednesday we walked around St. Georges Cay, the island on which Spanish Wells is located.  And when I say walked around … I mean almost literally.  Turns out Sue and Randy love to walk, so we left the marina, walked up to the Shipyard restaurant at the extreme north end of the island to make a reservation and then down the beach nearly to Sue and Randy’s cottage at the south end of the island!

Sue and Karen on St. Georges beach

After recovering, we all went up to the Shipyard for a very lazy dinner.  Thursday we decided to sit another day due to the rather sporty conditions, and were happy we had when the black clouds rolled in in the afternoon together with a cold wind. Sue, Randy, Marilyn and Heather hosted us for lunch and then we all enjoyed takeout pizza from Wreckers for dinner.

Friday the sun was out and we cast off with Sue and Randy aboard for a run down Eleuthera. Current Cut is a narrow passage one has to transit on the way from Spanish Wells to the other Eleuthera towns farther south.  Apparently the tide can flow through the cut at up to 6 knots, so the key is to arrive at slack tide.  There is much discussion in the cruising guides and on Active Captain, crowd sourced information, on the best time to transit Current Cut.  The best I could figure based on our prior experience and Active Captain was 90 minutes after Nassau high tide.  Just before we left the marina I asked Leroy, the manager, and he said 60 minutes after Nassau.  Anyway, we left in time to hit it at 60 minutes after Nassau and were pushed through by a 2 knot current. 

Once out on the Eleuthera bank we had a gorgeous sail, beam reaching in 10 knots of wind on our way to Hatchet Bay.  Then … two dolphins joined us and played in the bow wave and around the boat for 20 minutes!  Unbelievable!  We have rarely seen dolphins before, so it was amazing that they joined us while Sue and Randy were aboard.  Of course we told them that we had laid on the deluxe cruise for them!

Dolphins playing with Trekker

Hatchet Bay is a small harbour with a very narrow entrance carved through the rock.  Incredibly, freighters and ferries use the cut too.  I image they bounce of the sides at times!  There were quite a few boats already anchored when we arrived, but we took our time and luckily found a patch of sand to drop the anchor in and were very happy when we backed down on it, it buried and held.

We all hopped in the dinghy and went into town and while the Front Porch would not serve us a beer (too busy preparing dinner) we did enjoy a cool one at Two Brothers before returning to the boat for the evening.

Saturday we had the anchor up at 0730 and headed for Rock Sound.  We put in one reef and were pretty comfortable with the wind almost right behind us in spite of it gusting to 23 knots and the waves being about 1 metre.  Once in Rock Sound we downed the main and began motoring over to our normal anchoring spot by Frigates.  As we neared the other boats anchored there we noticed that it was not as protected as we thought it would be and everyone was bouncing around quite a bit.  Plus it was still gusting into the 20s.  Had we been smart we would have just gone over to the west side of the bay where two boats were anchored (and our sister-ship Breeze On anchors in a westerly blow) but instead we decided to head back out and go to Cape Eleuthera.  What I hadn’t figured on was a one hour bash back into the wind and waves to reach the beginning of the Davis Channel, a narrow, unmarked channel that one has to take to Cape Eleuthera.  Not fun.  Anyway, we made it and arrived at Cape Eleuthera marina about 1600. 

Sunday we rented a car with Sue and Randy and toured the south end of the island. We showed them the caves and ocean hole in Rock Sound and then we had lunch at Frigates gazing out at the boats sitting calmly in Rock Sound harbour, protected from the wind that had shifted to the northeast … oh well. 

Sue, Hugh and Randy in the caves

We ate dinner at Harbour Point restaurant in the marina and Monday we took Sue and Randy up to Governor’s Harbour, had a great lunch at Buccaneer’s Pub with Marilyn and Heather and then Sue and Randy went back to Spanish Wells with them and we drove back to Cape Eleuthera.

Lunch at Buccaneer's with our entertaining waiter Bigz

Today, Tuesday, we relaxed, did a load of laundry and biked a four mile loop on bicycles our neighbour kindly loaned us.  I spoke to Cherry at the Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park and put our name on the list for a mooring ball tomorrow, and also spoke to US Spars to arrange to ship our mast north while we motor up the ICW.  It’s looking like a nice day to cross to Warderick Wells tomorrow, so we’ll try and get away by about 0900 so that we can get to the inlet while the tide it still flooding through the cut, the same direction as the wind and waves, for a calm entry. Currently it looks like we are going to spend a week in the ECLSP (due to more fronts coming through), then start heading back to Florida, 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!

Trekker's travels conclude for 2019

For those who follow Trekker's Travels, sorry for leaving you hanging at Treasure Cay!

We did get a slip at Mangoes.  Much to our surprise quite a few folks that we met last year were there, which was great fun.

I made it to my meeting in Kelowna, although I'd rather not repeat that trip anytime soon.  Marsh Harbour to Nassau, Toronto, Vancouver and Kelowna are too many flights for one day! 

Alyssa and I met in Nassau and she carried on to meet Karen for the week in Marsh Harbour. They walked Marsh Harbour, took the ferry to Hope Town for the day and snorkeled with some other marina guests.

Karen and Alyssa on Elbow Cay

Karen and Alyssa snorkeling 

When I got back we had a good weather window and took Alyssa through the "Whale", seeing a water spout on the way.

Waterspout

After a few days based in Green Turtle Cay we put Alyssa on the ferry back to Treasure Cay and high tailed it for Spanish, then Great Sale Cay and then an overnight sail across the bank and Gulf Stream to Fort Pierce.

Hugh Alyssa and Karen at Bluff House

Unfortunately the wind ran out around 0400 so we weren't able to sail all the way from Great Sale.  

Beautiful full moon that lit our way across the Gulf Stream

In Fort Pierce we put the boat away, deciding to leave everything aboard this year.  We drove to Lake Placid FL and met Bob, Sheila, Bill and Michael for lunch and enjoyed swapping stories.  

Hugh Michael Karen Sheila Bob and Bill

Then we hopped in Karen's trusty Subaru Outback and headed home.

Trekker put away for the summer

For those that haven't heard, Trekker is for sale. What ... ??!! There are a number of reasons, listed not in any particular order of importance.

After two winters in the Bahamas, we decided that as much as we like them, there are too many other places to see to spend every winter  in the Bahamas.

We feel like we experienced climate change first hand, hiding from a big blow, it seemed, every week.  Maybe that's the new normal ....

As anyone who owns a boat (Bring Out Another Thousand) knows, it's not cheap to own and maintain a boat, especially in Florida.  We think we could take some nice winter vacations with just the amount we spend on summer storage.

While you can't beat crystal clear blue Bahamian water, nothing is better than diving into the fresh water of Georgian Bay! We're excited at the thought of getting a slightly smaller boat that we can keep at Midland Bay Sailing Club, and cruising the Great Lakes.

Since arriving home at the end of April we have been focused on two things; selling our Kitchener condo (check) and building our new house in Midland (well under way)!  With any luck we'll be moving mid September.

Loughborough's new Midland house

In the meantime we're looking forward to welcoming Bob and Sheila (Her Diamond) to Kitchener and showing them Waterloo Region and Midland and to taking a tour of the southern Thirty Thousand Islands on the Miss Midland tour boat.

Then it's off to PEI to spend a week with Karen's sister Janette and her husband Rob at a cottage in Cavendish. After that we will spend a couple of weeks in Newfoundland including a meeting in St. John's. 

When we get back we have two weeks to pack for our move! Can't wait to experience life in Midland, one day at a time!

Goodbye Exumas and Hello Eleuthera

I’ll admit that sailing from George Town to Black Point last Saturday wasn’t the best choice I've made lately.  The forecast wasn’t bad. Easterly winds 15 gusting to 20 knots, but we were going northwest, so the apparent wind we would feel on the boat would be less because it would be slightly behind us.  Waves were supposed to be 3 feet or less and again, on our stern quarter. As we prepared to raise the anchor Karen asked if this was a day we should say “maybe not" because it was gusting over 20 knots in the anchorage. “No" I said,” we'll put a reef in and we'll be fine", and off we went. Heading out the cut was fine, slightly bigger waves than expected but we were going to change course so they would be farther toward our stern. Plus there were a few boats ahead, and I saw more AIS  markers out on the sound. How bad could it be?  Suffice to say it was a very uncomfortable, long day.  The wind kept building, I saw 27 knots at one point and with the wind the waves grew so that they were a good 6’, and with a very short period between them. Helmut our autopilot really did a great job steering but every once in a while he would steer a little into the wind and a wave would push us a little farther resulting in our being beam on to the waves, and our getting laid over, the rail nearly in the water. Nearly everything stayed where it was stowed except when the locker under the stove opened and our Yeti thermos flew across the cabin snacking into the head door with quite a crash. Karen was none too pleased with me, spending most of the trip on the cabin sole wedged between the table and the settee feeling sick. However, we made it, nothing broke and we were very happy once the anchor was down in Black Point and we had Dark and Stormy's in hand to sooth our nerves! But I digress.

After saying goodbye to Sue and Randy on Wednesday, we motored into a short chop from Staniel Cay 1 ½ hours south to Black Point. As soon as we arrived we grabbed the laundry bag and headed for Rock Sound Laundry. While the machines were running we walked down to Adderly's grocery to see what they had, but true to form this year the boat was expected soon, so no fresh produce was available.

Thursday my brother Kevin and Sheryl on Quantum Leap II and Mike and Julie on Blue Train arrived at Black Point.  It was great to catch up with Kevin and Sheryl over swizzles on Trekker.

Hugh & Kevin

Friday Ida from the laundry cut Karen’s hair and after a walk around town we had swizzles with Mike, Julie, Kevin and Sheryl aboard Quantum Leap II (QL2). Saturday we all decided to move around to Little Bay, snorkelled with Mike and Julie and had sundowners on the beach until the no-seeums drove us back to our boats.

Mike, Julie, Sheryl, Kevin & Hugh

Early Sunday the wind shifted to the south east and when we woke we were bouncing and rolling in the anchorage so we made a hasty retreat back to Black Point for more protection.

Monday looked like a reasonable day to move south to Lee Stocking, a cay that we have heard is beautiful, so QL2 and Trekker raised anchors and headed out Dotham Cut from the bank into the sound.  We knew we would be about 1 hour after high tide when we exited the cut but thought that the current opposing the wind and waves wouldn’t be too bad.  We were wrong!  In fact there was a little rage going on that we watched QL2 pound through, and then it was our turn.  Thankfully after about 4 waves where we felt like the boat was standing on its stern going up the waves we were able to veer south out of the worst of the waves and current and head south. After about an hour we noticed that we were quickly gaining on QL2 following which they called to say their engine had stopped.  We stood by while Kevin got it going again and at their insistence carried on south.  Nearing Lee Stocking we made another change of plans, to go straight to George Town so that we could have a calm day Tuesday to cross Elizabeth Harbour in the dinghy to provision.  So on we pushed, arriving George Town after a 9 hour day of motor sailing. As usual George Town was really busy with about 250 boats anchored and after cruising up and down the harbour dropped the hook nearly where we had last year.

Elizabeth Harbour (George Town) anchorage

Tuesday we made a couple of runs across the harbour, first for groceries and a coffee at a new café, and then to fill my water bladder with free fresh water provided on the dinghy dock by Exuma Markets. After pumping the water into our tanks we dinghied to St. Francis resort where we shared a pizza for lunch.

Wednesday the wind blew as predicted so we stayed on the boat just in case we or someone else nearby dragged anchor. Thankfully once we settled to the new wind direction we didn't move.

Thursday the wind continued to blow but I was pretty confident in our holding by then so we dinghied to Stocking island and walked across to the beach. A couple of kite boarders playing in the waves provided great entertainment!

Friday we bought some more groceries, had lunch at Lumina resort on Stocking Island and prepared for our Saturday run north as previously described!

Sunday we spent a lazy day in Black Point enjoying a walk and a 4 hour lunch with Allan and Linda on Touch of Grey, another Hanse 415 that we met in Jersey City in 2017.

Touch of Grey

Monday we had a lovely sail up the bank to Highbourne Cay at the top of the Exuma chain. Touch of Grey took a bunch of fantastic photos of Trekker under full sail, including some with our spinnaker flying.

Trekker from Touch of Grey

Trekker under spinnaker

Today we motored across to Eleuthera and tucked into Cape Eleuthera marina for a couple of nights while another blow comes through.

Next it's up Eleuthera and then across to the Abacos, one day at a time!

Nassau and the Exumas

Saturday February 9 we left Nassau at 0845 bound for Highbourne Cay.  The route between Nassau and the Exumas passes over the Yellow Bank that the charts and guidebooks say have coral heads that can be less than 1.5m deep at low tide. We draw 1.7m. Leaving at 0845 was designed to get us to the Yellow Bank at high tide so that there would be more water over the coral heads. Winds were 15 – 20 knots out of the east resulting in a 3’ chop that would every once in a while find its way on deck. And then, as we were motoring into the anchorage at Highbourne Cay, protected we thought from waves, we caught a wave just right so that it literally broke over the entire boat soaking all the canvas and finding its way into the cockpit!  Where did that come from?! Poor Trekker was covered in salt when we got to Highbourne.

Shooting Star anchored in the foreground at Highbourne Cay

We stayed a couple of days in Highbourne Cay while the winds blew. Sunday we snorkeled with Ruth-Ann and Fred. Another adventure with Fred!  Monday we bid farewell to Shooting Star who were headed for the Cruisers’ Regatta in Georgetown, and Karen baked her first loaf of bread this season.

From Highbourne we headed to Hawksbill Cay, a cay we didn’t visit last year.  We arrived just behind a couple of other boats (one of which left later), anchored and marveled at the incredible crescent of  white sand ahead of us.  

Hawksbill Cay beach

We dinghied around the shoreline and then onto one of the many deserted beaches and hiked up to Russell’s Ruins, a couple of walls dating back to 1785, staring down a small snake on the way up the path. I think we won!

Russells Ruins

View from Russells Ruins

 When we returned to the dinghy we realized that we had lost one of our oars on the dinghy. Another part to be ordered!  All was calm in our anchorage until about 2:00 am when the wind shifted to the south-east and we began a wicked roll.  By 6:00 all was calm again … very odd.

From Hawksbill we motored down the bank side of the cays to Warderick Wells, one of our favorite stops last year, and were assigned the same mooring ball! There is little to no cell service in the ECLSP (Exuma Cay Land and Sea Park) but thankfully, standing by the fire hydrant at the park office one can get 1 to 2 bars of cell service, so I was able to order a replacement oar for our friends Sue & Randy to bring when they visit. We spent a couple of quiet days hanging around the park, one of which was overcast with occasional showers. We hiked up to Boo Boo Hill where cruisers leave their offerings for Neptune and found Her Diamond’s from last year but Trekker’s seemed to be buried.    

Her Diamond's 2018 Boo Boo Hill offering

Thursday dawned calm again with a forecast of more of the same.  Karen suggested moving to Hogg Cay, a narrow and quite secluded anchorage between Hogg Cay and the southeast shore of Warderick Wells.  It was a perfect time to try it out as the entrance to Hogg Cay, which is exposed to the Exuma Sound and is usually pretty rough, was as calm as we had ever seen it.  After letting the park office know that we were moving we motored down to Hogg Cay, picked up one of the two mooring balls in a couple of knots of flooding current and enjoyed yet another idyllic tropical scene! We had it all to ourselves!

Trekker in the background at Hogg Cay

We dinghied around the cay and found “stromolites” which were noted on the chart and look like little rock posts, and then went snorkeling on a reef the park calls Pieces of Eight.  The different types of coral and fish were amazing.

After a quiet night we headed down to Cambridge Cay, another favorite spot, via the Exuma Sound.  In the afternoon we headed over to a snorkeling site called the Sea Aquarium, but were disappointed to find two tour boats there dumping French fries and other food into the water to attract the fish for the tourists that didn’t appear to want to snorkel.  We did snorkel for a short time but left.  We headed over to the sunken plane but the mooring ball at the plane was occupied by yet another tour boat. We had obviously picked a bad time to go snorkeling!  On the way back to the boat we detoured to the beach on Cambridge Cay and walked across the island to the sound side to look for sea glass and sea beans, finding only one piece of sea glass, plus of course ubiquitous plastic.   Sunday we snorkeled the Rocky Dundas caves, which are caves in this little island that can only be accessed at low tide and in calm waters, and to our delight we had both! The caves contain these amazing stalactites and stalagmites, and the reef adjacent to the entrance to the cave had a huge elkhorn coral.

Rocky Dundas Cave

Elkhorn coral

We then went back to the sunken plane for a quick swim and called it a morning.

Sunken plane near Cambridge Cay

 Karen baked her second loaf of bread in the afternoon and we sat and enjoyed the soft breeze, stunning water and the wonderful island scenery.

Tuesday morning we left Cambridge Cay and had a boisterous sail (our new word for windy) over to Staniel Cay Yacht Club. We had decided to book a slip for a couple of nights to get ourselves and the boat ready for our guests. Poor Trekker was pretty crusty from all the salt water and needed a good cleaning. Laundry, water, fuel and groceries were also on the to-do list.  This marina is not our favorite, as we had quite a bad experience here last year. So it was with some trepidation that we approached the marina, especially since it was low tide and not an easy place to get into. However, all went well and we were put on an outside dock, behind several of the mega yachts that come in here, and one of two sailboats in the whole place. The first thing we did was empty the garbage and then walk over to one of the three grocery stores, only to find out that the delivery boat had not been in from Nassau for nearly two weeks and there was no fresh fruit or vegetables to be had! The rumour is that it will be in tonight and fresh food in the stores tomorrow morning. We hope so as we aare down to our last two apples!

Sue and Randy fly in tomorrow morning from Nassau and then we will leave Staniel Cay and take them up into the ECLSP for a few days and show them some of our favorite spots.

And so the adventure continues…one day at a time!

Waiting in Fort Lauderdale

It has now been a week since we arrived in Fort Lauderdale. As much as it’s a nice place to be, and certainly warmer than home (although it IS cool for Florida) we are ready to leave and cross to the Bahamas. The weather has had other ideas.

The week has been busy, with both maintenance issues, and exploring the area. We are becoming quite good at using the public transportation, and have done our share of walking as well. 

We started off the week with big winds and cool temperatures, and were quite happy to be tied to the dock. It was so windy the first two nights that we both slept with earplugs to try to cut out the noise! Despite the fact that the beach is a five minute walk from the boat, it definitely has not been beach weather. However, we have discovered a wonderful French patisserie across the street and have become daily customers! And of course the search for the best Happy Hour continues!

One of the highlights of the week was an unexpected phone call from Hugh’s brother Adrian, who we mentioned many times as our “phone a friend” during our trip south last year. He is a semi-retired professional Captain, a wealth of marine and ICW knowledge, lives in Florida, and is currently driving a 125 foot private yacht. It seemed that he needed to move it from Miami to Fort Lauderdale and would we like to come along as “crew”. He did not have to ask us twice!

So Friday morning he picked us up at our marina, drove us to the marina where the boat stays, we all hopped in an Uber to Miami, and boarded Kimberlie.

Kimberlie

Wow, this is how the other half live! The owner of the yacht lives on it full time, so we really could not wander around, as this is her home. I did manage a quick peek around, and Hugh got a tour of the engine room with the boat’s engineer, which is probably twice the size of our main salon! The kitchen is huge, but despite the size they do not eat on board, ever!

Dining room

Main salon

The boat employs a full time engineer/manager and one full time crew, then hires Adrian and a stewardess as needed. We sat up in the pilothouse with Adrian and watched with awe as he maneuvered the boat away from the dock, out a narrow opening and into the ICW.  We passed through eight bascule bridges and arrived in Lauderdale and again watched him dock the boat in a space just about as big as the boat. Not much room for error! His many years of experience certainly was evident. Thanks again Adrian for a great day!

Adrian at the helm

So the maintenance issue we have dealt with while waiting is the house bank of batteries, which Hugh was sure were slowly failing. I will let him tell you what happened and the solution!

Before we left Fort Pierce, we unplugged from dock power to see how the solar and batteries survived the summer.  While the overnight electrical load was the same, we use about 65 amp-hours overnight between when the sun goes down and the solar panels stop producing electricity and when the sun comes up in the morning and the panels start producing again, the battery voltage (a measure of how much energy is left in the batteries) dropped to 11.7 volts meaning the batteries were less than 50% charged, whereas last year we never went below 12.4 volts or about 80% charged. Of course, the question is why … I left a solar panel hooked up over the summer to keep them charged, and the panels have a “smart” controller that is supposed to prevent overcharging the batteries.  To maximize the life of lead acid batteries they are supposed to be fully charged after being discharged and we had a hard time doing that in the Exumas when we anchored most of the time. Maybe that was the beginning of the end.  Anyhow, I wasn’t going to the Bahamas with suspect batteries and risk that we wouldn’t be able to keep the fridge and freezer running.  Three options were open to us, replace the batteries with the same mid level AGMs we had, although I was leery about that when we had not got the life out of them that we should have expected.  A second option was to go the least expensive route and pick up regular flooded lead acid batteries from Costco or Walmart, but of course that would mean modifying the battery boxes to make them fit, or, go high tech and get lithium batteries.  George and Bev, friends of ours on another Hanse 415 Breeze On went with lithium batteries a couple of years ago and are very happy with them.  Key advantages are that they can be recharged much more quickly, important for us when we want to minimize running our main engine or our generator.  They are happy living life between 20% and 90% charged whereas lead acid batteries shouldn’t be discharged more than 50%, so they offer much more usable capacity, and finally, they are much lighter.  George recommended Alex from Sea Tek in Marathon, so I gave him a call, and luckily he was planning to travel to Fort Lauderdale for some other business and offered to come up and swap out our batteries for the lithium (LiFePO lithium, ferrous, phosphate to be accurate) batteries.  The install went very quickly and after a night of charging we unplugged and in spite of a couple of days of very overcast rainy days where the solar put in virtually nothing, we consumed 190 Amp-hours of our 400 Amp-hour bank and still had a couple of days capacity!  Suffice to say I’m very pleased.  My only reservation is that the alternator will be working a lot harder with the lithiums because they accept a much higher charge for a longer period (hence the fast recharging).  Hopefully the alternator is up to the challenge.  I have a spare!

So now we are hoping to cross tomorrow, although we just looked at the ocean and there is no way we are going out there unless it calms down. I have never seen the horizon as “wavy” as it was today. The plan is to go overnight and get to the Berry Islands, check in there and stay a day or two, and then hop south to the Exumas.

Windy day!

Fortunately, we have met another boat also waiting to cross (Mike and Julie on Blue Train). They are also from Toronto, and even better, Mike grew up in the same neighborhood that I did, and his mother lived in the same retirement home as mine does. I love “small world” stories! So we are going to cross together, which is great, as they say, safety in numbers!

Unfortunately, we recently found out that our friends and buddy boat from last year, Bob and Sheila, have decided not to cross over to the Bahamas this year. They will explore the Florida Keys and west coast. We will miss their company!

So with laundry done, and provisions topped up, we are ready to go. Let’s hope tomorrow is a good day.

And so the adventure continues ... one day at a time!