Breeze On

We celebrated New Year’s Eve today with dinner at Tiny’s Hurricane Hole in Thompson Bay, along with Jean & Michael and Dee & Ron. Good food with good friends. Of course, since we are cruisers, we were back on the boat by shortly after sunset. There is an old joke that 9:00 pm is cruisers’ midnight. That certainly does apply to us.  We left Little Exuma early yesterday morning in order to get through the shallow Comer Channel by mid-tide. Once we arrived at Thompson Bay in mid-morning we gathered our trash and walked the mile from the cove where we tied our dinghy to the trash cans near Basil’s dock. The dock has still not been repaired so our options for accessing the shore remain limited. We met Jean, Michael, Dee, and Ron near Hillside Food Supply and agreed with their suggestion to get lunch before doing our food shopping. Sou’ Side was not yet open but we went to sit in the shade on Sou’ Side’s deck while we waited to see if they would open. Before too long Vanessa pull...

This morning, just before 5 am, we pulled up the anchor and left the Hog Cay anchorage. It was a calm day. We motor sailed and motored 80 miles north to the south side of Little Exuma Island where will stay overnight before continuing on to Long Island tomorrow.  We have enjoyed our time at Hog Cay but want to restock our refrigerator and position ourselves to visit Cat Island if the weather allows (right now that is not looking promising in the near future.) Yesterday we ran the water maker, did laundry, baked a coffee cake, and cleaned the cabin. In the late afternoon we joined other cruisers at the tiki hut.                                The makings of coffee cake—rehydrating blueberries, streusel, and coffee cake batter.  The blueberries are drained and added to the batter, which is layered with the streusel in my Omnia stovetop oven.                ...

The weather has been absolutely delightful for the past few days. Sunny, lower humidity, just enough breeze to keep the mosquitoes and no-see-ums away. The wind direction (NE) has kept the solar panels pointed toward the sun during maximum charging hours and we have actually been adding more amp hours to the battery than we are using. Our batteries aren’t quite back up to 100% but they are gaining.  Yesterday we took a walk with Dee and Ron across Hog Cay on yet another one of the numerous trails on the island. We love that it is so easy to get to shore here and take advantage of the trails.  Today we have been discussing plans to move on. I used the last of my lettuce yesterday and am down to one pear and two apples. I made a slaw today that we will eat until we can buy more lettuce. If we were planning to stay a few more weeks we could ask Maxine to order lettuce for us—as well as apples, pears, peppers, carrots, avocados…—but we won’t be staying long enough to ensure we wou...

Crew members from all nine boats in our anchorage gathered at the tiki hut this afternoon to celebrate Christmas with an appetizer potluck—a nice spread with a great group of people. Earlier in the day we chatted with family and I baked another batch of brownies in the GoSun solar oven.  Yesterday we joined Dee and Ron on  a walk across the island. We are grateful that the rainy, windy weather of a couple of days ago had moved on.                                                                 Some of our fellow cruisers and the table of food.                                                                              ...

Yesterday we got up early to begin working on our chores. The forecast called for increasing wind and squalls to arrive in the evening. I wanted to get the laundry washed and dried before the squalls came. As it turned out, we had plenty of time. The wind and squalls arrived overnight and are still with us. It looks like today will be a day for staying on the boat.  One load has been washed in the bucket and spun in the clothes spinner. The sheets are in the bucket waiting to be spun.                                           Clouds were moving in last evening after our gathering at the tiki hut.                                                                View from the boat looking north. 

Yesterday we accomplished a few cleaning and repair projects on the boat and—just when we were preparing to go to shore—the Royal Bahamas Defense Force boat approached another nearby boat in our anchorage. The defense boat will come around anchorages from time to time and inspect that cruisers have the appropriate paperwork. They may even board the boat and look through storage compartments for illegal weapons, drugs, or fishing paraphernalia. In the nine years we have been coming to the Bahamas we have been approached by the defense force twice and hailed on the radio once. They have never boarded our boat. While the defense force boarded and inspected the boat next to us, we waited in the cockpit with our paperwork ready. Once they finished with that boat they went to another boat and when they finished there they left the anchorage. By that time we had decided not to go ashore at all until the usual 4 pm gathering at the tiki hut and—when no one else showed up for that—we stayed on ...

Today we had an adventure that was new to us—a 4 mile dinghy ride to the dock in Duncan Town. Duncan Town is the only settlement in the Jumentos/Ragged Island chain. We are told it had about 50 residents. Dee and Ron organized the trip and crews from four boats participated. A young Duncan Town resident named Cianna must have been monitoring the VHF radio when we were making plans. She hailed Dee on the radio and asked that we stop to see her. As it turned out she meet us on her electric scooter. She, Mitchell, and Freddy acted as our tour guides as we walked to the Lost Key Lodge to inquire about lunch and/our drinks, and then to the beach. The kids were delightful and informative. Cianna told us she is one of five students in her class on the island but that school is out until early January.  Mitchell, Freddy and Cianna, our tour guides. Standing in front of the Lost Key Lodge.  Lover’s Leap Rock (the large one on the right) as seen from “graveyard beach”—to access the beac...

Hurricane Melissa removed quite a bit of sand from the beach in our Hog Cay anchorage. The crews on Sojourn and Namid worked moving sand from the beach to the tiki hut a few days ago and today several more of us continued the effort. The photos below are courtesy of Karen on Sojourn.                                                            Dee adding sandstones which served as a base.                                                                                     Michael and Bev.                                         ...

There was quite a crowd at the tiki hut the other night. Meeting other cruisers there is one of the things we love about this anchorage. Another thing is how easy it is to get to shore, even in windy conditions. We are able to anchor relatively close to shore so there is not a lot of wind chop between our boat and the beach.                                                                              Good crowd at the tiki hut.  George noticed this sea turtle swimming under our boat. It is the biggest one we have ever seen—it has to be at least 3’ in diameter.                                                      We could actually hear it exhaling when it cam...

After a long day of sailing 80 miles yesterday, we are now at Hog Cay in the Ragged Islands. In order to allow arrival by sunset, we were up at 3:15 and underway by 4:00. We had a brisk sail in the deep water on the east side of the Jumentos and Ragged Island chains. The wind was a few knots more than we expected and the seas were reminiscent of some of our offshore passages. When were arrived—tired, hungry, and ready for a break—we couldn’t get the sail to roll into the boom. It became jammed in the track on the mast. We eventually dropped it onto the deck and anchored. Then we used dish soap to get it out of the track, and then rolled it into the boom. We will investigate why it became jammed on our next calm day.  Today we cleaned the cabin, then spent the rest of the day relaxing. Next up, meeting other cruisers at the tiki hut.                                          ...

Today we left George Town, on the first leg of our trip to the Ragged Islands. When we went up into the cockpit at 10:30 am to begin our preparations for leaving we saw dark clouds to our north. We checked the radar and it indicated that the squall was moving our way. We were able to get ahead of it and—although there were squalls around us most of the day—we never got wet. We timed our departure to get through the shallow Comer Channel at about mid-tide and to arrive at our planned destination around sunset. We looked longingly at Hog Cay Cut, a shortcut that would have reduced the trip by half. Even at high tide, however, we would have had just inches beneath our keel. Too close for our comfort.  Since my brother left two days ago we have been doing laundry at a laundromat, shopping for fruits and vegetables, buying gas and diesel, dumping trash, and giving each other long-overdue haircuts.                          ...

This morning my brother, Dave, left after six days of a wonderful visit. On Thursday—the day after he arrived—we motor sailed to Long Island. The three of us joined Jean and Michael for a delicious dinner at Chez Pierre. The next morning we motored down to Thompson Bay. In October Hurricane Melissa hit the lower portion of Long Island and we were anxious to see if Salt Pond and Thompson Bay had suffered any damage. We were relieved to see that the buildings seemed intact but Basil’s dock—the private dock that the owner, Basil, allows cruisers to use—had lost almost all of its planking. George, Dave, and I opted not to try to walk on it. Instead, George and I went to the cove a mile north of the dock but we found other challenges there. Two trees had fallen over the path from the cove to the road, blocking our access. We walked through the woods to get around the trees but it wasn’t easy. Jean and Michael have since cleared the path—thank you! George and I walked 3/4 mile on the road to...