Breeze On

We left William’s Bay yesterday morning after a squall passed through, motored 30 nautical miles south, and arrived in George Town ahead of another squall. There was just enough time to drop the anchor near town, quickly visit our friends Jean and Michael, then dinghy into town to drop off garbage and pick up a few groceries. After returning to Breeze On we raised the anchor and moved one mile across the harbor before the skies opened up.  We are here preparing for a visit from my brother who will fly into George Town next week.                                                                            The squall is on its way toward us.  As we were chatting with Jean and Michael from our dinghy, George noticed two dolphins nearby, one seemed smaller and quite playful. When we returned from...

Yesterday and today we snorkeled around the islands named tug and barge. It is easy to see how they got their names. The current was strong and the clouds rolled in yesterday so we decided to return today under better conditions.  Today is Thanksgiving Day. We give thanks for each other, our family and friends, our health, and our ability to do the things that we love. Our freezer is tiny—just enough room for two ice trays—so there is no turkey on Breeze On. We will instead be celebrating with Lentil Enchilada Casserole.                                                                                           Tug & Barge                                       ...

It has been lovely here in William’s Bay where, until a few hours ago, we had the anchorage to ourselves.  We are now sharing this big space with one other boat! We spent the day yesterday working on chores—water maker, laundry, baking crackers—then went to shore for a brief walk in a very short beach. Some of yesterday’s crackers weren’t baked quite enough so today I re-baked them in the solar oven but over baked the last few. My technique needs some work. We went to shore again for a hike on a steep, rugged, rocky trail and were rewarded with some beautiful views on the east side of the island.                                                                William’s Bay. Breeze On is in the distance.                                   ...

We enjoyed our time at Little Bay although we have moved on after spending just two nights. This morning we had a nice sail south in the shallow waters west of the islands before we had to go through Galliott Cut to the deeper waters of Exuma Sound. There the conditions were much better than they had been earlier in the week and we had another nice sail to William’s Bay, another favorite anchorage. In my last post I forgot to mention something funny that happened to us as we were going to our snorkel spot the other day. As we were motoring along in the dinghy, a very small plane came up from behind us—only about 20 feet above the water—and the pilot leaned out of his open window to wave at us! We were so startled that, after we waved back, we forgot to take a picture. Being buzzed by an airplane while in a dinghy was definitely a new experience for us.                                 Breeze On anchored ...

                                                                                      Assorted corals.                                                                                                Sea turtle.  My favorite tropical fish, the Queen Angelfish. I love the coloring that makes it look like it is wearing bright blue eyeshadow and lipstick.                                                      ...

Last evening we went up on deck to watch for the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket. We had information on the trajectory and, right on schedule, it came into view. We were able to watch it from just above the horizon to the north until it disappeared in the south. At one point I decided to see if I could get a photo. Since I didn’t realize the iPhone would be taking a long exposure photo in the low light my first attempt didn’t work. On my second try I attempted to keep the phone still during the exposure period and it came out. I hadn’t moved to the other side of the boat so I you can see parts of Breeze On in the photo.  In the morning we had quite a bit of dew on the deck so George used our microfiber mop to swab the deck. It is a good way to get the salt off the deck without using our precious fresh water. Later in the day we went to the grocery store then made another trip to get five more gallons of diesel and five gallons of gas for the dinghy and the water maker. Today we sailed ...

This afternoon we treated ourselves to lunch at Louis Delights, complete with a milkshake (George) and ice cream (Bev.) When we arrived in Rock Sound two days ago we hoped to go Louis Delights after dropping the anchor. Fortunately, we checked their hours before we left Breeze On and found out they were already closed and wouldn’t reopen until today.  We have been busy with boat chores for the past two days—running the water maker, laundry, buying fuel, and cleaning—while also appreciating a somewhat slower pace.                                                                              George with his milkshake.                                                  ...

Since our refrigerators didn’t have a lot of room, I held back on yesterday’s purchases from Eleuthera Island Farm. Nevertheless, I was quite pleased with our haul. As a bonus, we happened to be there on one of the two days each week when fresh cinnamon buns are available! I baked a batch of brownies in our new GoSun solar oven after returning to Breeze On. The oven was recommended by Marla and Tommy, our friends on Alboe, and it is a big improvement over our last solar oven. I assembled and vacuum packed the dry brownie ingredients before leaving home. My recipe makes quite a few brownies so it took 2 1/2 batches in the solar oven to finish them. Each batch baked for about 45 minutes. We are quite happy with the results.  Today we sailed and motored south 23 miles to Rock Sound. We had hoped for enough wind to sail but it was too light for sailing until the last hour. We plan to be in Rock Sound for a few days.          Our catch of the day—avocados, red b...

Whenever anyone asks us what islands in the Bahamas we like best, our standard response is we like a lot of the islands for different reasons. Right now we are visiting Eleuthera and it is an island we don’t want to miss. We started in Spanish Wells at the top of Eleuthera. Spanish Wells has a great grocery store, and other services like fuel, marine, and hardware stores. It also has a few good restaurants. In addition, it has options for protection from many wind directions. We would have loved to stay and relax there a few more days but we decided instead to take advantage of a few days of NE wind and sail down the coast of Eleuthera. We left Spanish Wells early yesterday morning to catch the slack tide at Current Cut. From there we sailed to the pretty and peaceful anchorage at Rainbow Cay. This morning we relaxed for a bit before sailing 13 nautical miles South to Governor’s Harbour, where we dinghied ashore in hopes of eating at the Buccaneer Club. We discovered it will not open f...

We are in Spanish Wells, Eleuthera sitting out our first cold front of the season. In the Bahamas cold fronts have the most impact on the wind direction and speed, lowering the temperature just a little. For example, yesterday’s low temperature here was 81° (it was indeed hot and humid) and today’s low temperature was 67°. We rarely see a temperature that low in the Bahamas. Since the front arrived last night the winds have been in the 20’s, gusting into the 30’s. Breeze On is tied to a mooring ball in the well-protected harbor—and is only about 100 yards from shore—so we have been able to go to shore twice today with ease.  Our trip from West End to Spanish Wells was probably the easiest one we have had since leaving home. After a few hours of occasional bashing over waves, the wind shifted and we were able to comfortably motor sail. By midnight the wind picked up enough to allow us to turn the engine off and sail the rest of the trip. We were in an area with numerous ships—cruise...

We spent the day yesterday transitioning from winter mode to summer—aka winter in the Bahamas—mode. Since the laundry facilities at the marina are not in working order I washed most of our warmer clothes on the boat and hung them out to dry on the lifelines. We took the enclosure panels down and stowed them. We have been having intermittent trouble with the engine stalling and not wanting to start. We thought there might be air in the fuel system but couldn’t see where it was entering. On our trip from Brunswick to West End George discovered that a fuel filter he had replaced in Beaufort was not seated properly. He replaced it with another new filler and now the engine seems quite happy.  We are now on our way from West End to Spanish Wells, Eleuthera, expecting it will take about 22 hours. A strong cold front is forecast to arrive tomorrow evening and we want to be settled somewhere we like before then. After that I will be happy not to have to do any overnight trips for a while....