Breeze On

We left Harbour Island early yesterday morning at the end of a parade of boats—one ship and four large motor yachts. The wind was light and seas were calm which made for a good passage through the Devil’s Backbone. As we rounded Gun Point, just before arriving at the entrance to Spanish Wells, we noticed other boats anchored in the Gun Point anchorage and it seemed well protected from the then moderate S wind. We decided to give that anchorage a try. It remained calm throughout the day and only became a little rolly before sunrise this morning. Yesterday afternoon we took a dinghy ride into town to dump garbage, eat lunch at Budda’s Snack Shack, and buy some vegetables at the Food Fair grocery store.  This morning we left Gun Point and motored through town to anchor on the W side of Meek’s Patch. George ran the water maker and I did laundry and made seed crackers in the solar oven.  George driving the boat through the narrow part of the Devil‘s Backbone. The beach is closer th...

Yesterday we took a walk to a nearby point. After landing the dinghy on the beach we walked a short distance to a long set of pored concrete steps that were located in the woods. We wondered who put these very nice steps there. When we returned from our walk we found out. We had stopped to chat with three very nice women who were sitting on the beach. They are all from South Carolina and one of them owns a house near where we walked. We asked if she knew who installed  the steps and she told us that they had belonged to a hotel that used to be on the property. After chatting with the women a while longer we dinghied over to a spot where turtles usually congregate. Throughout the day tour boats come and feed the turtles to attract them to their customers. The turtles must have known that we brought no treats because saw only two and they weren’t terribly interested in us.  Today we went snorkeling for the first time in quite a while. The water temperature is cooler than usual a...

After the wind finally started to subside yesterday morning we raised the anchor and moved to the northern end of the harbor to the Man Island anchorage. It is a beautiful spot with two nice beaches. It can be quite peaceful if there aren’t too many other boats/mega yachts/jet skis, etc. The southern beach on Man Island was quite busy so we took a ride to the beach at the northern end and had a lovely walk. Off and on during the day we enjoyed watching two turtles swimming near the surface and bobbing their heads up for air. We were on Brreze On and they were close to shore so we were not near enough to take a picture.  This morning we raised the anchor again and moved closer to Dunmore Town. That area is very busy with boat traffic so we stayed just long enough to go ashore for lunch, then moved again to the southern end of the harbor.                                          ...

Early yesterday morning we traveled from Spanish Wells to Harbour Island via the Devil’s Backbone. We have made the 10-mile trip a few times before and yesterday was one of the easiest. We had relatively calm seas and no other boats passing in either direction. It can be nerve wracking if we encounter a boat going the other way when we are in the narrowest part of the route with coral reefs on one side and a beach on the other. Once we arrived in the large harbor we went straight to an anchorage on the W side in preparation for strong W winds that were due to arrive overnight. The winds did indeed arrive last night and are still with us this afternoon.  Today was water maker/laundry day. It was so windy that George rigged up a couple of clothes lines so we could hang the clothes in the cockpit rather than on the lifelines. Even so, I had to run up into the cockpit to rescue a sheet that was coming loose before it escaped off the back of the boat. The sound of a clip hitting the dec...

It seems as if we  have been moving around quite a bit lately. Yesterday morning we left Alabaster Bay and motored then sailed to The Bluff near Spanish Wells. We thought we would have a calmer night in that location with better protection from the S wind. That was true enough until some very loud music coming from shore started at around 8:00PM and continued until late at night. Fortunately our earplugs muffled the noise enough to allow us to get to sleep. Today we moved 2 nm closer to Spanish Wells. The S wind was still blowing giving us a fair amount of chop but the dinghy ride into town wasn’t too bad. Our first stop was Wrecker’s restaurant at the Spanish Wells Yacht Haven. From there we walked to the grocery store for a few odds and ends. Next we dinghied to Pinder’s for fuel then back to Breeze On. We once again raised the anchor moved 2 nm to Meek’s Patch to give us better protection from the now SW wind.  While we were in town we saw that the supply ship was there. We...

In 1960, when I was six years old, my family moved from western New York State to Florida. My dad had recently completed a BS degree in mathematics and was searching for a job. My parents chose Florida for the job search because of the climate. After interviewing for jobs on both the east and west coasts of Florida my dad accepted a position at RCA near Patrick Air Force Base, south of Cape Canaveral. He worked in data reduction, taking the huge volumes of data regarding the trajectories of military ballistic missiles and reducing them to more manageable levels. I consulted with my brother, Dave, about our dad’s work and he said it took them a month to reduce the data from a single launch.  In the late 1950’s the Air Force built the Eastern Test Range; comprised of twelve down-range tracking stations—one of which was on Grand Bahama, another was on Eleuthera. George and I happen to be anchored in Alabaster Bay, which is very close to the ruins of the AAFB (auxiliary Air Force base)...