10 days in Nassau

10 days in Nassau

We had a great night’s sleep at anchor in Nassau harbor, but we found ourselves drifting a bit in the morning. The holding in Nassau harbor isn’t very good and we had heard this from a couple we had met at the Columbus day Regatta. They had spent a mostly horrible week in high winds at Nassau harbor. They told stories of barges breaking loose and sweeping through the harbor leaving some cruisers boatless. “Nothing you could do, it’s just luck-of-the-draw” they said. Now, I say "mostly horrible" because somehow they managed to conceive a child in-between all the action, but as a testament to the true gravity of the situation the child was named “Summer Storm”. A great story, I'm not making this up, and just to side track things a little, look up Summer Storm on You-tube. She happens to be a great singer.

Eva and Hadrian as we entered Atlantis marina.

As we had promised he kids, the very next morning we hailed Atlantis Marina on the radio and requested a slip. Entry to the water park was included in the cost of the marina. The kids were in heaven…at least for now.

The water park at Atlantis is world class, as good or better as any in Orlando “sans the lines”. We all ran from ride to ride, no waiting. I liked the “Lazy River” the best, you just sit in an inner tube, and let the current take you around the entire park.

The aquarium at Atlantis is just mesmerizing. It is about the size of a Walmart and viewed through an extensive maze of glass tunnels about 10 feet in diameter. The collection of specimens is amazing, mostly Caribbean sea life. You've got huge sharks and grouper, schools of 20 pound jacks, yellowtails, chubs…you name it!

Joaquin, Eva and Hadrian viewing the aquarium.

The aquarium at Atlantis.

Marie got Eva and Hadrian to pose for a picture before hitting the park.

 

Sometimes I think that these two really believe that they are royalty.

Atlantis Marina was really sweet, but while the rest of the Bahamas runs on island time, these guys didn’t get the memo. Their bills do come in a “New York minute”, and they were high. Yeah it was time to face reality and move to a cheaper marina while I did my monthly run to Honduras for a day. It actually takes me 2 days due to travel time. However, I managed to program in an overnight stay in Miami to catch-up on some shopping, so I would be away for 3 days. Ours friends Bill and Connie back home had recommended Nassau Harbor Marina just past the 2 big bridges that connect Atlantis to New Providence, at about half the price, it fit the bill. Nassau harbor was easy on us. We had water and power, and across the street we had a strip mall with movie rentals, Dairy Queen, Domino’s Pizza, and a grocery store. The next few days saw us exploring sights like the old forts that once defended Nassau from pirates. I was surprised at how small the forts were.

Fort Fincastle.

Fort Montague.

A carved marble plaque on Fort Montague.

We visited gardens, and a pirate museum, it was a well needed break for us. The days just drifted by, in an uneventful way that makes it hard to recollect or write about.

If Eva could only do this at will??

There was not too much clearance to spare as we passed under the bridges to Paradise Island.

It is time to leave the comforts of civilization and sail south to ports unknown

Nassau or Bust

Nassau or bust....quite literally

I thought a northeast wind would be an advantage crossing the gulfstream, guess again. Five to ten knots of wind working together with the gulfstream to drive us to the north was quite an unexpected challenge. I tried following my GPS at first, but I couldn't figure out how to coordinate what my eyes were telling me with what the GPS was saying. When I headed 100 degrees by the compass my "course over ground", on the GPS, was 30 degrees??? I tried to bring my "course over ground" to 90 degrees and my compass read 160 degrees??? I looked up at the land and I was definitely facing south? My GPS is broken I told Marie. Wait a minute that doesn't make sense? By the way I was moving at 1.2 knots! Yeah this was to be a record crossing. I think a piece of driftwood passed us...it was going in the right direction. After a confusing 2 hours it dawned on me that all my instruments were right and what I was experiencing was simply not enough wind conspiring together with the gulfstream to drive me crazy! After studying my predicament I concluded to set the most beneficial course, note I didn't say set a course where I wanted to go, but the most beneficial course. This new course gave me some speed and an acceptable course a bit further north than I would have liked. I figured that after I got passed the gulfstream, no drought too far to the north, I would then head south and reestablished my original plan.


Great Isaac Lighthouse

 

We went passed Great Issac Light at about noon, not in the program, on our way over the Bahama Bank towards the Northern Channel. The wind picked up quite a bit and now we were healed over hard, making good speed towards the Tongue of the ocean. Then Marie stepped out at about 2 am and said "that's way too fast, slow it down". Well I had been up for over 30 hours by now so I asked her to take the wheel while I took in the Genoa and she took the wheel so that I could get some sleep.

When I woke up the sun was up and took the wheel and continued pass the northern channel towards Nassau. Marie and I were both tired from a harder than average crossing. Marie noticed an island to our north and asked me what it was. "That's Chub Cay", I said, "wanna go there for some rest?" She agreed so I turned the wheel and we were at Chub Cay in a couple of hours.



Eva caught a starfish



Enjoying a sunset off of Chun Cay



The marina at Chub Cay. Quite a place to have all to yourself.



The club pool.



The ocean makes a great backdrop for the pool at Chub Cay



The cabana bar, half of the seats are in the water.




One of the unfinished homes at Chub Cay


 

The anchorage at Chub Cay was not so good, It was really exposed to anything but an east wind. We found out from a  local fisherman that it was going to get rough, a cold front was going to come through. I dropped 2 anchors and monitored the GPS for any dragging at regular intervals through out the night. It blew briskly, but the anchors didn't budge. The same old fisherman came by again and said it was going to blow harder tonight. I needed more wind like Custer needed more Indians. Well that was more energy and confidence than I had to spare. I called the Chub Cay Marina and asked if that had  had room for a 41 foot sailboat. Happily they said yes, and so we headed in for a good nights sleep.

Boy was it weired to find that we were the only boat in the marina. It was such a beautiful place, world class, but no one around? It felt like the after mass of a zombie invasion.
In all truth, what it was is sad. It was sad to see someone's dreams shattered so close to fruition, a sight too familiar these days. It was clear that this project, like so many others fell to a weak economy, but hay that's why I'm sailing today.
The staff at the marina could not be nicer. They offer to open the restaurant for us if we want to have dinner. I didn't take the offer. The kids had a beautiful "infinity edge" pool all to themselves.



A quaint street at Chub Cay Village

I received an email from my employer asking me to fly to Honduras in 5 days. I would need to get to Nassau to catch a flight out, but the weather was even worse. There was a small craft advisory in effect, but we decided to go anyway. It's only bout 35 miles from Chub to Nassau, how bad could it be? Well...let me try to explain this brilliant idea of mine. The winds were from the northeast, the current was from the southwest, I needed to head southeast. We were sandwiched between the current and the waves. I'd like to know who measures the waves for the weather report, this person is very conservative in his work! we pounded and then pounded some more. Slowly every item on the boat made its way out of its place and on to the floor. It was a mass exodus. The iron Genny has behaved like a champ although we have a bit of a scare about halfway though this crossing. For no apparent reason the rpm's would drop about 200 revolutions and then go back up after a minute or so. I thought for sure that I had a fuel issue. Oh great, I thought, what a nice place to do a filter change. In my usual form, I decided to try and get by until I had no choice or until I reached a marina, surrounded by nice calm water. After about 5 of these rpm episodes Marie comes out of the boat and tells me that her coffee maker had fallen over and was turning itself on and off  with each wave, pulling so much power from the alternator that it would drop the engines rpms. That was it, that the cause of our motor problems. Score one for procrastination.
We have a "Capehorn" self-steering wind vane that I recently installed on the Mirador. On I have to be honest with you, even as this contraption came together I hadn't a clear idea of how it was going to work. This is not a common thing for me to say. I just assembled it as instructed and let my doubts ride with a "we'll see". Well, I'd like to report that the Capehorn wind vane is amazing! I set wind the wind vane just as we cleared the channel out of Chub Cay, according to a beeline course on my GPS, straight to Nassau. Now this wind vane has steered us all the way to Nassau as if it were somehow linked to our GPS. I think it would have steered us into Nassau Harbor if I had the nerve allow it. Why are these not on the back of more boats?
We would be getting into Nassau late at night. I didn't want to pay Atlantis marina rates for an overnight stay so we decided we'd anchor in the harbor and take a slip at marina the next morning.
Not enough can be said for the feeling of pulling into a harbor after passage.

The first 10 days

I am surprised how little adjusting it has taken us to live off of the grid. All of Marie's demands for power, water, and heat now seem to be paying off. Well just a minute, lets take a step back, I've got this boat so complicated that I'm always holding my breath. Will this work will that work, and when I hear a strange noise I cringe. There are many little glitches that I somehow manage to overcome. I got about 100 gallons of water out of the watermaker before the high pressure pump fell apart. After some soul searching about what went wrong, we concluded that although the pump was new it was over 10 years old and the seals probably just dried out. A special thanks to the guys at SK watermakers for helping me out and getting the parts to me quickly.
Our friends Bill and Connie, on a trawler named Polan, invited us to raft up to them at the Columbus day regatta. With our 7 foot draft I thought it best if we arrive a Elliot Key at high tide, this meant we would have to leave Coconut Grove during low tide. Well no sooner did we clear the channel at the end of the anchorage, than we ran aground. The wind was blowing us further onto the shoal every time we got a little slack. If only I had a little more power (a tow) I knew could clear the shoal. Eva, our first officer in charge of ships relations, came on deck and flagged down an open fisherman. The captain was nice enough, but he was not up for a tow. Instead he offered the carry an anchor off to deeper water so that we could pull ourselves off as the tide came in. Help never comes for free, in this particular case, I had to listen to him rant about how I should work myself free and that I shouldn't be on the west side of Biscayne Bay. I took it like a champ. Just as he left and I started to pull on the anchor line a tow boat showed up and pulled us into deeper water, lickety split.
Back on course, we were off to Elliott, shaken, but not broken. We arrived at our destination without any further setback. Bill had picked out a great spot. I am really pleased with my anchoring setup. It may be slightly oversized, but man it's like a suction cup on the bottom of the ocean. That first night at Elliot we had the great pleasure of being serenated by Ken Gill and his daughter Summer Storm, cool name huh, look her up on youtube. I just thought the world of them.
Everyone in the raft-up was leaving the next day, but I really needed a little more time to amortize the effort of getting there, so we stayed another day. To me it looked like we were a hundred yards from the island of Boca Chita, so I got everyone into the dinghy, and headed for shore. For a while there it felt as though time stood still. On and on we went, but the little island just didn't get any closer. When I looked back at our boat, it however was getting smaller and smaller. Point, I need to get better at judging distance on the water. Boca Chita was bought by Mark Honeywell, yes the Honeywell on a lot of our electronics, in the 1930s. He used the island as a retreat and hosted extravagant parties attended by famous entrepreneurs, I wasn't there. In any case it is a great destination for a day on Biscayne Bay.
Mirador performed really well and my confidence in myself (how fast I can fix things) and the boat has been bolstered. One more going away party and we'll be ready to sail into the sunset. The truth be told I am a little embarrassed about a second going away party, it definitely seals my fate. I have to go!

On the hook

We did it! It was one of the hardest things we have ever done. It was hard to find a place on the boat for everything we wanted to take along with us on our trip around the Caribbean. It was a literal game of Othello, but we were persistent. Our scheduled departure was July 5th. We had a big going away party at the dock on July 26th. We finally left the comfort of our slip at Dinner Key Marina on September 28th. Not a day went by that a dozen people didn't crack a joke about my departure date. For those of you who thought you were being original with your comments...think again. My tolerance of all the comments (exhibit "A"), I render as proof of my good disposition.

So okay, for the last few days I would threaten Marie with leaving the dock and she would convince (by convince I mean a scandalous altercation would ensue and I would just back down less I end up in a cell next to OJ) me to stay another day, this went on for about 5 days.

Minutes before leaving the dock. Photo by Connie.

Patty, at the dock office, would just laugh every time I walked in. She didn't think I'd do it. As high tide approached on that fateful day, the most unexpected thing happened, I won the argument. We started the engine and a small crowd gathered, witnesses of this great event. We released the dock lines and slid back, out of the slip. If anyone would have x-rayed my insides at that very moment the medical books would have to all be rewritten. Balls in the throat, heart in the stomach, guts in a knot, etc. It was unnerving as we traveled down the channel with only inches to spare under my 7 foot plus keel. The tide gave me a little advantage. We rounded the end of the main channel and made our way towards the southern end of the anchorage. I had my eye fixed hard on the depth sounder. I was not able to calibrate it back at the marina because of the muck on the bottom, it's 3 feet thick. The sounder was reading 5.8 feet at times, remember we draw 7...Perhaps I plowed the bottom like slicing cheese. This is one time that I thought "maybe the rising sea levels aren't such a bad thing after all."
We picked a clear spot to anchor, as close to shore as possible, a full mile. I released the anchor slowly and let Mirador drift back as I paid out chain. I let out about 45 feet of chain before belaying the rode, and we came to rest about 120 feet directly in front of another sailboat. The sailor was out on deck just watching as I stripped him of his privacy...oh well. I hope he doesn't like to hang out "au natural".

This is the view from my backyard, what did you pay for your view?

Our new neighborhood.

 

After all was secure we decided to put the dink in the water and go back to shore. We awkwardly struggled, using a winch and halyard to lift the little beast. This was not a choreographed dance. Once the dink was in the water I handed Marie our British Seagull motor and she mounted it on the transom.
Yeah you heard me, British Seagull. I thought that with proper care I could keep that little motor running and show it off as we traveled. It is a curio. I went through it a week ago and had it running like a charm...on the dock...in a bucket. We were in the dink, I started the motor and off we went at a snails pace. From the noise coming from the motor you would think someone was skiing behind the boat. Marie and I could not communicate accept for sign language. A friend passing by was saying something and we did our best to read his lips. The wind was in our favor yet I barely had enough speed to steer. I was watching the motor like a hawk and I could tell the stream of cooling water was slowly diminishing. Just as we neared the marina the motor stopped. The Seagull has a pull cord that you wrap on top of the flywheel and give a brisk yank to start. I had to square up in front of the motor to be able to get the necessary leverage to pull the cord. Marie stood up and moved forward balance the boat. As I tried over and over to start the motor the cord would fly back like a whip and eventually it found its mark on the back of Maries thigh. She didn't know what hit her. "What hit me, what hit me?" she cried. Not sure just how angry she was, I decided to plea the 5th. I acted oblivious, less she insist on a "tit for a tat", and want to hit me back. We gave up on the motor and rowed the rest of the way in. I then realized that the British Seagull has its rightful place...in a museum, someone's mantle, but not on my cruise.

Eva and Hadrian bailing out the dink.

Okay, I lied

Well the hits just keep coming. My "to do" list bares a good resemblance to that old song "one hundred bottles of beer on the wall". Will it ever end? But the kicker, the real deal breaker, was a broken refrigerator. My first reaction was to just accept it and leave anyway, without the refrigerator. Oh I was hot. I told Marie "we are leaving without it". It's amazing what a little time to think and a glass of luke warm water can do for your disposition. Okay okay, lets take a minute here, I can fix this. Lets trouble shoot the problem. I'll call tech support, they were great when I first installed the unit...bout 6 years ago. And so it went, I found the new tech support number, it turns out the company was bought by a company called Dometic group. I called the company and started the whining, I mean trouble shooting. The new tech support guy may or may not be qualified, but I'll never know because he just refused to put forth any effort. As soon as I called out the fault code on the refrigerator he immediately concluded it was the control module, "you need a new one, it's the module". Okay, that was quick, just from having walked the earth for a few years, I know there are more tests one can try in order to pinpoint the cause of this fault, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. So out I go the hostile jungle we call Miami, and I buy a module, Three hundred dollars. Well guess what...the frig just continues to do the same thing. so I call Mr. Tech support. (am I allowed to use his real name?), and I tell him it was not the module. Surely out of the shame of having misdiagnosed the problem earlier he would be more through now, after costing me $300.00. Well guess again, no sooner did I finish my first sentence when he blurted out, "then its the compressor, you need a new one". Now I am not a smart man, but I can tell when the guy on the other end of the line is even less smart. Now the compressor is a $600 dollar part, and it comes with the module, so I would hypothetically be out $900, that's if I had listened to Mr. Tech support. But no sir I was not about to follow this guy anywhere ever again. If this guy turned out to be Jesus I was ready to burn in hell. I'll just have to concentrate and shake the cobwebs off of that part of my brain that knows about refrigeration. It's a lot like a bicycle, it all comes back to you...yeah right. I was able to find my old gauges and I went ahead and purchased a Freon leak detector. I am rusty as all hell at this so it does take repetition, as the gears turn in my head, but I concluded that the source of my problems was a leak somewhere in the system. However, while there was Freon the refrigerator did cool, so that pretty much excluded the compressor being bad. My new leak detector made short work out of locating the leak. So now I need a new evaporator.

That's the evaporator inside the refrigerator box.

The one that "Mr. No Support" sells costs $550, but I found one in California for $125. You followin what I'm saying? You pickin up what Im laying? Well I called the guys out in California and they were real nice, kinda like that old tech support guy from long ago, we got that part ordered. I felt so good about the amount of money I was saving that I decided to splurge on the shipping, Yeah, 3 day shipping.

Well I have plenty of other projects to work on while I wait for my frig part.

Check out the new rubrail on my dinghy

I even doubled up on the padding at the bow!

And so. for those of you that are so juiced up on Ritalin that you can actually get through all my ranting, I am afraid that that line in the sand that I so authoritatively drew, that I would not pay for Septembers dockage, is....how-to-put-it, postponed until I get the courage to draw another line.

Cutting the cord

Our friends at Dinner Key Marina organized a going away party for us on July 28th. It is now August 25th and we are still tried to the dock, ugh. There seems to always be "something else to do", like layers in baklava. Is there such a thing as "we are ready to go"? I'm not sure?? Maybe it's like planed parenthood. I have six kids, they're always kids to me even if they are in their late twenties, and I can't really say any were planned. I may have been more ready for some than others, but never planned. They are all the collateral damage of a vacation or in some cases a party, you know when you're so distracted in the moment that your reflexes lag a little too long. Where am I going with this?, oh yeah, I think there comes a time in preparing for an extended voyage when you just have to go, and hope that all the major stuff is on board. Just "Cut the cord" so to speak.

Last night my friends John and Mary Lynn, took me up on an offer to grill. I am endearingly called the "Grill Master" by my friends, and it suits me fine cause I do put love into it. They graciously bought the "slab-o-meat", over eleven pounds. I had to cut slab in half just to get it on the grill. I asked John about splitting the cost of the meat, but he said "no I got it , but now you have to leave". As if the pressure from the first party wasn't enough? The leader of my fan club, Stephanie, and her husband Andy provided the grill, Darcy and Erick brought over a mango cucumber salad with sesame seed dressing that was a great complement to the meal. The libations flowed, and laughter was the "white noise" heard all over.
The life we have made for ourselves here at Dinner Key is as close to perfect as I have ever heard of. There are more expensive lifestyles out there but better? I don't think so.  We are surrounded by people, always in good spirits, that we love. Almost every day is an event. How can leaving this place be easy?! However, human nature being what human nature is, we must push the envelope.
Seriously now, I have drawn a line in the sand...and that line is the end of August. I refuse to pay the marina for September. At the very least we will be on the hook in Biscayne Bay for September.
It seems I have a million little things yet to do. It is amazing how complex our  modern lives are, we just rarely ever need analyze all the inner workings, our society provides or facilitates so much. As we try to sever ourselves from "the Matrix", nothing can be taken for granted, the details are endless, and at times overwhelming...not unlike family planning.
 

Cold shower

How do you get a family of 4 ready to leave on a sailboat for 2 years? I thought getting the kids ready for school on time was a challenge, but lord, lord, lord, this is going to shorten my life by a few years. My wife and I have talked about sailing away for 15 years. She was definitely on board for all the trash talking. Yeah, we're gonna do this and, that and, visit this place and that place...and so on and so forth. I guess it's not the same to talk about the Devil as it is to see him coming. In any case, she procrastinated quitting her job of 20 years like taking a cold shower, but she had me, on her shoulder like Jiminy Cricket. I knew she had to give fair warning before she left so I was on it, "did you tell then, did you tell them?", every day. And so one day she did it, she resigned. So what's my problem with this? Well for god sake she agreed to work until the week of our scheduled departure. We're not getting on a plane, we're leaving on a sailboat for 2 years. We have to prepare, stock up and test the boat, and plan, We needed to get in the zone...you can't get in the zone in one week. No you need a few weeks. I wanna hurry up and slow down.

Actually the problem with delaying our departure is that we are getting deep into hurricane season which is something like June thru November. August and September are the busiest months, you really want to be at a safe harbor by August. I'm okay leaving in July and taking my chances then because I figure I have a certain amount of good luck, and Gods' had plenty of chances to put me down before and he hasn't so why would he do now? But August? I don't know about August.

I wanted to be in a safe harbor by August, something like Luperon in the Dominican Republic. Our boat, "Mirador", is a mess. Everything is all over the place from all the work I have been doing over the past 8 months. We have not provisioned at all, that's what we call food on a boat, provisions. It's going to take a week to provision the Mirador for our trip.

Marie has planted the idea of heading north instead of south, maybe Washington D.C. This is a possibility, but it would mean that we would have to take the "Thorny Path" south. With a name like that, who wants to take the Thorn Path? Not I. The Thorny Path is a sailing route that takes you first to Bermuda, 700 miles east, out in the middle of Atlantic, and then south to the Caribbean, another 1000 miles. That's about 20 days of offshore, blue water, middle of nothing sailing. My crew is going to mutiny. You think Columbus had it bad?

So no, I don't think we will be headed north.

Just in case I wasn't feeling the pressure yet, our friends here at Dinner Key Marina want to schedule a going away party. Nobody just says "Hello" anymore. It's always "so when are you leaving?