Breeze On

We are still running weather models and talking to Chris Parker (our weather forecaster) trying to determine when we are leaving Lucaya and what our destination will be. Right now it looks as if we will be leaving Lucaya on Monday morning and going to either North Carolina or South Carolina. We have had to delay our departure in order to avoid the thunderstorms that are forecast to be in the Gulf Stream. Unfortunately, the delay means we will have to motor most of the way.  While we are waiting George has worked on a few boat projects and I did laundry in the marina’s laundry facility. We walked 1.5 miles to the grocery store and what a nice store it was! We ate at the restaurant here on the property and plan to try another restaurant that we passed while walking to the store. Tomorrow I will be preparing the food we will eat while we are offshore.  This is a screenshot from a Predict Wind weather routing run. On the right you can see the forecast models from which you can cho...

We had another great sail yesterday from Great Harbour to Lucaya, Grand Bahama, averaging 7.7 knots over 62 nautical miles. Breeze On is now safely tucked into a slip at Grand Bahama Yacht Club, the first time she has been in a slip since November. This is our last stop in the Bahamas this winter. We will leave here to sail to somewhere in the US, but have been grappling with the decision of when to leave and how far to go. Because we have a long distance between here and home our preference is to go as far as possible when we have an opportunity. We have the right wind and seas to go as soon as this afternoon all the way to Beaufort, NC. However, one of our trusted forecast models is predicting thunderstorms off the coasts of the Carolinas Sunday evening through Tuesday. We would not only want to avoid the lightning of a thunderstorm but also the strong winds and high seas that could come with it. So, we will delay our departure. The downside is if we wait we will also lose the favora...

We left Meek’s Patch, outside of Spanish Wells, at 5 am yesterday morning and sailed 75 nm to Great Harbour Cay. The conditions were great for sailing and we were once again grateful to be able to use our mainsail. Along the way we passed one of the several cruise ship ports which had two ships in port and a great deal of construction happening on a nearby island. We have spent today preparing for our next trip to Grand Bahama, planned for tomorrow morning, but did take some time it for a brief hike.                                                                                  Full moon reflected on the water as we were leaving our anchorage yesterday.                                      ...

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)...

Today was the first day we have stepped off the boat since leaving New Bight, Cat Island four days ago. Normally I would be climbing the walls after staying on the boat more than three days, but since we have been moving every day it hasn’t been so bad. Yesterday we moved from Poison Point to the W side of the Rock Sound harbor in order to get protection from W winds. This morning the wind had moved to the N and calmed down so we moved to the E side of the harbor and dinghied to shore. We dropped our trash at the corral provided near their lovely dock. Then we walked to the grocery store in search of fresh fruit. When we last visited Rock Sound in November their main road was under construction. They have since finished the road and it is probably the nicest road we have seen in the Bahamas. They even installed reflectors! Of course there are still no sidewalks so walking along the busy road can be quite an adventure. After shopping we stopped at Louis Delights for lunch. George has be...

We left the New Bight anchorage yesterday morning and had a lovely sail 20 miles N to Bennett’s Harbour, Cat Island. We had one squall shortly after we left New Bight and dodged another one just before we anchored. In the evening several heavy squalls passed over us. During the night the wind shifted to the SE causing the anchorage to become rolly. We eventually gave up trying to sleep, raised the anchor, and set sail for Eleuthera. We had purposely picked today as our day to sail to Eleuthera because we thought we would have enough wind for sailing. We certainly did have the wind but we also had quite lumpy seas. We started out with 4’ seas with 4 second periods (4 seconds apart), increasing to 5-7’ with 8 second periods. After we rounded the southern end of Eleuthera the seas finally calmed down a bit and moved behind us which made the ride more comfortable. After nearly 60 miles we anchored at Poison Point, just outside the Rock Sound harbor, where we have some protection from the S...

We started our day yesterday with a walk on the beach at Old Bight, our favorite beach in the Bahamas. It is three miles long with beautiful, firm sand for walking, and gorgeous, clear water. Shortly after our walk we moved Breeze On four miles N to the New Bight anchorage. In the afternoon we went ashore for a fried chicken dinner at Cee Dee’s followed by ice cream at Lil Gippy’s. Yum.  This morning we went ashore to dump our trash at the convenient cans beside the police station then walked to Olive’s Bakery for cinnamon swirl bread, coconut and pineapple tarts, coconut cake, sesame cake, local eggs and guava duff. We had purchased guava duff elsewhere in the Bahamas several years ago and found it dry as a bone. This guava duff, unlike the last one, came with a sauce and was delicious.                                                        ...