Riding the Donkey or a Large Reef Ass

April 12 - 18, 2006

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 - Kids Cove, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The rain continues on and off. I don't recall ever seeing this much rain in the Bahamas before.

We moved the big boat across the harbour today dodging rain drops along the way. We went into town and while Amy scoured the grocery store for provisions, I hauled 80 gallons of water back to the mother ship.

She emerged with her food wares as I was making the last trip back and we proceeded to unload, stow and generally arrange things on board. If you believe those lying bastards at NOAA we can leave tomorrow or Friday and we fully intend to.

We relocated the boat back to our anchorage off of Hamburger Beach right before another deluge hit us. I was supposed to play ball today, but it was raining so hard we couldn't see 20 feet and had to cancel. My volleyball days may be over.

With all of the rain showers, we hid below and read books for the rest of the day. Dinner was barbecue ribs in the pressure cooker. To bed by 7:30

Thursday, April 13, 2006 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The rain is still here and the wind is blowing 20 -25 knots. Needless to say we stayed put today. Chris the weather dude says maybe Friday, but more probably Saturday instead. Oh well, we aren't in a hurry to start north.

By the way, I think the general plan now is to slowly work our way north via Long, Cat, Eleuthera and the Abacos before jumping straight to Beaufort, North Carolina sometime in June. At least thats this weeks plan. Lately it seems our plans have all of the rigidity of 2 day old jello or ferret spines (slinky), so we'll just see how it plays out.

I made a very soggy trip across to town today to drop off trash and to procure some meat items that were not available when Amy went the other day. For those of you that may find yourself in Georgetown in search of meat products, if you don't see the meat item in question at the Exuma Market, walk in to the back room and ask for Tito. Tito is the man to know for all things cow. Or cow like.

Back on board, I stowed the animal flesh in our 1 cubic foot of freezer and then went in for afternoon volley ball. The games were pretty good in spite of a 20 knot cross wind.

When I got back to the boat, Amy assisted me in putting two thru hole exhaust elbows in the bridge deck for the two electric bilge pumps we have been carrying around for the last year or so. I figure I'll finally get around to installing them tomorrow.

With the daily chore done, I made pizza for dinner and we spent the rest of the evening reading books, sipping cocktails and eating. To bed by 9. Maybe we'll get to leave soon

Friday, April 14, 2006 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Today was a day of boat chores. Right after the running of the ferrets, I sent Amy to the beach for yoga, penned up the wild things and then proceeded to tear apart the entire inside of the boat so as to facilitate the installation of my automatic bilge pumps.

Two hours later, we successfully tested said pumps. While I was putting the rest of the inside back together, Amy returned to the boat, donned her wet suit and started scrubbing the starboard hull. I joined her shortly there after and in two hours we removed all of the nasty life forms from the underside of our boat.

Milo says it's a good thing we aren't French, because otherwise the grime on the bottom of the boat would have constituted lunch.

As if we hadn't done enough for the day, I also changed the oil in both of our big boat's engines. Another nasty, but necessary job.

The weather looks good for our departure in the morning. After all of this work, it better be or some weather man is gonna get his butt kicked good

Saturday, April 15, 2006 - Children's Bay, Children's Bay Cay, Exumas
By Tom

We finally left Georgetown!

First thing this morning, I made a last minute trip into town to drop off our and Anam Cara's trash. Back on the mother ship, we broke down the dinghy, stowed the ferrets and generally got ready for the offshore run out of here.

We joined the procession (about 14) of boats exiting the harbour and once clear of the cut, we set our sails and turned north. We were one of two boats actually sailing. The rest were motoring/motor-sailing as there was generally only 6 or 7 knots of wind. We purists must endure.

It took a while, but we finally got up to Rat Cay Cut, where we doused our sails and fired up the motors to get inside. We had been fishing the whole way up, but to no avail. Imagine my surprise when not one, but both fish whackers went off while passing through the cut.

The first fish managed to shake his hook out, but the second was not able to escape the awesome holding power of the red and purple "squid of death lure". In a few short minutes we landed a nice table size Cero Mackerel. Looks like fish for dinner tonight.

We got the anchor down without trouble in our spot right inside Children's Bay. There is a large two engine amphibious plane parked here as well, maybe we'll get to see him take off.

The Anam Cara's arrived about 2 hours behind us and they too anchored without incident. There engine is still acting up, so we are going to try and remove the carburetor for cleaning again.

In the evening Don and Sandi came over for Mackerel Creole and barbecued potato wedges. We hung out until after sunset and then they went home and we went to bed. We plan on staying here tomorrow and doing some hunting on the reefs near by.

Sunday, April 16, 2006 - Children's Bay, Children's Bay Cay, Exumas
By Tom

Don showed up around 8 am this morning with his carburetor. We stripped it down and placed it in the parts washer bucket that we carry with us. With the carburetor soaking, we all gathered up our hunting gear and headed out.

We started in a spot on the outside. There was not much wind today, but there was still a little bit of a swell coming in off the ocean that made things tough. About 20 minutes in I bagged a two pound Mutton Snapper. Amy chased a variety of fish around, but to no avail and Don and Sandi didn't do much better. I think they may be pacifists at heart and as such they secretly spend their time feeding the fish and making friends.

We moved back on the inside and tried another spot where we had been before. I nailed another smaller Mutton and Amy got a nice sized Queen Trigger and a smaller Black Grouper. Don and Sandi came away fishless, but Don managed to apprehend the ever elusive and often wiley conch.

Don swears he is trying hard, but I'm not so sure.

Back on the boat I cleaned the fish before showering off on the back deck. Later the Anam Cara's came back over for another fish dinner. This time it was fried Snapper fingers with fried Conch bites and Caribbean Jerk potato wedges. Most excellent.

Again, we hung out til after the sunset and then went our separate ways before bed time. Tomorrow we plan on moving up to Leaf Cay to hunt the numerous coral formations there

Monday, April 17, 2006 - Lee Stocking Island, , Exumas
By Tom

We upped anchor right after the morning SSB weather broad cast around 8 am. We had a whopping 4 miles to cover to our designated hunting ground today, so even though the wind was only 4 or 5 knots, we sailed up there anyway. Anam Cara followed right behind us.

We anchored off the research center and got our gear ready. We were out on the reef by 11 am. I quickly shot a medium sized Nassau Grouper, but the shot didn't go all way through and he escaped with nothing more than a flesh wound.

We moved around to various spots, but without much success. Right as we were about to through in the towel I managed to get a medium sized lobster. At least we didn't go home empty handed. Don and Sandi, however, did.

By the way, we are still fighting problems with the engine on Anam Cara. It runs for a while, but then stops for seemingly no reason at all. Our current theory is there is a fuel or fuel delivery problem. Work continues.

After returning to our boats, we hung out and read books. Sandi came by in the afternoon and delivered us two large Queen Conchs. She found a whole bunch and wanted to share the wealth. I have a love hate relationship with conchs. I love to eat them, but hate to clean them.

I was pleasantly surprised when I got the first one out of his shell in under a minute. This is definitely a record for me. The second one took like 15 minutes and pretty much ruined my success with the first. I hate you sea slugs. I hate you so much.

Tonight we dined alone. The menu was grilled, garlic butter Queen Trigger served with baked potatoes. Another excellent fish dinner. I stayed up and played with the ferrets until around 10 pm before joining Amy in bed

Tuesday, April 18, 2006 - Big Majors Key, Exumas, Exumas
By Tom

We upped anchor right after the weather report and headed out the cut just north of Lee Stocking Island. We hadn't even cleared the cut when the starboard side fish whacker started screaming off line. Fish on!

Amy had to negotiate the pass by herself while I fought the fish. And fought and fought. It took almost 30 minutes, but eventually I prevailed. Our latest fishing conquest was a 38 inch, 28 pound Amber Jack. See accompanying photos at right.

Suffice it to say this guy is absolutely huge! I will call him mega-fish and he will be my mega-fish. (Nemo reference) Once we got the boat safely clear of the cut and under sail , we turned on the autopilot and Amy helped me clean our catch.

We ended up taking 19 pounds of meat off of this guy, which equates to 48 single serving meals. Sweeet ! By the way, I saw in one of my reference books that the Greater AmberJack is sometimes called a Reef Donkey. That means we now have 19 pounds of Reef Ass in the fridge, weird huh?

With all of the fish excitement, the rest of the day should have been anti climactic, but it turned out to be one of the best sails of the year. The wind was coming out of the south west and we were able to sail up the ocean side under full sail making between 8 and 9 knots the whole way.

We were making such good time we decided to sail all the way up to Staniel Cay instead of stopping 15 miles shorter at Little Farmers. I say we because we are still traveling in the company of the Anam Cara's (Don and Sandi). Of course, "traveling with" might be a stretch as they pretty much ate our dust the whole way up here. You didn't hear it from me, but we had the anchor down and the boat put to bed and about one and a half hours later they showed up.

With so much fish, we invited Don and Sandi over for dinner. I also dinghied around to another boat anchored near us so I could give them some free, fresh fish too.

In other news, Anam Cara's engine quit again as they were trying to anchor. I hate their engine.

Dinner was excellent. We had two inch thick Amber Jack steaks done Caribbean Jerk style on the grill along with home made potato wedges and a side salad. To bed right after sunset.