Internet Pirates of the Caribbean

December 31, 2004
By Tom

Friday, December 24, 2004 - Big Majors Key, Exumas, Exumas

We upped anchor this morning and moved into a temporary dock at the Yacht Club long enough to take on water. Thirty minutes later and $35 poorer, we moved from the dock and anchored right off the beach in front of the Yacht Club.

Santa is bringing us clean laundry for Christmas, so we launched the dinghy and went into the Isle General store to pick it up. For $5 a load, Mama will clean, line dry, and fold your dirty cloths. It could be $50 a load and it still would have seen like a good deal. Some of my shorts are starting to walk under their own volition.

After picking up our Christmas present, we moved the mother ship back over to Big Major and re-anchored in the same place we had been.

In the afternoon, we went over to Eldridge C for dinner. I brought a pizza and it was a big hit. Evy and Jack own Eldridge C which is a Krogen 42 (Motorboat). Their boat is absolutely huge. They have TWO freezers! And a washer dryer! Jack says he runs his generator about 5 hours a day and it's a 6.5 kilowatt unit!

Amy and I must really be ruffing it out here.

We returned to our now seemingly less nice mother ship after a good time with the group on Eldridge C. We watched a Christmas showing of Finding Nemo, our favorite movie on board and then turned in by 9 pm.

Merry Christmas.

Saturday, December 25, 2004 - Big Majors Key, Exumas, Exumas

Ho Ho Ho! It was quite a busy day here on the luxury yacht. Maggie was jumping on my head at 5 am in anticipation of opening her Christmas presents. Santa brought her dried banana chips and she was ecstatic.

Santa brought Amy and I hot, fresh water showers and one load of clean laundry each. Most excellent.

After dispensing with the running of the ferrets and a festive breakfast of Christmas tacos, we upped anchor and sailed a whopping 5 miles north to anchor right off of the Sampson Cay Yacht Club. No, we did go into the Club, but rather we stayed on the boat in the harbour and quietly (and anonymously) used their wireless internet connection.

I don't know what their policy is on wireless usage, but it being the holidays and all, I like to think they didn't mind. Hey, does this make me an Internet Pirate of the Caribbean ? See mom, I have skills.

I downloaded 62 email's and uploaded our latest updates to the web site. Thanks again to everyone who has written. Your email's are always appreciated and we always look forward to hearing from you.

After internet chores, we motored back to the anchorage off of Big Majors Cay and dropped the hook in almost the same spot we left 2 hours before. I made the second pizza from my batch of dough from yesterday and we took said pizza into shore for a Christmas Potluck with about 30 - 40 other cruisers.

The pizza lasted exactly 9 minutes and was the hit of the food parade. I may start up a floating Dominoes.

We hung out on the beach til about 4 pm and then went back to the mother ship for a serious round of diving off the top of the boat. Up til now, Amy has been too much of a chicken to jump off the coach roof. It's only about 12 feet up and I have been making fun of her for a while now, but today she worked up the courage to finally dive in. Gold star for her.

I forgot to mention the other day, we met Chris Parker here in the Majors. Chris is about as close to a cruising celebrity as we have out here. Most cruisers know Chris as the Weather Dude who does the 745 am SSB weather broadcast. He seems pretty cool and was a lot of fun to hang out with.

We finished out our busy Christmas day with phone calls to the family back home and then a dinner of Fresh Abaco Chicken and rice

Sunday, December 26, 2004 - Fowl Cay, Exumas, Exumas

The forecasted front arrived last night and the wind clocked around to the west leaving everyone in the anchorage completely exposed. We bounced around like a three legged hobby horse until first light and then upped anchor and moved into the lee of Fowl Cay.

We stayed there until about 4 pm when the front moved a little further south and the winds went to the north. We upped anchor again and moved back to Big Major Cay and hid behind some sand bars. We will probably stay here til first light, by which time the wind should have come all way around to the north east.

Other than playing musical anchorages today, we did little else. Amy never got off the boat and I only did to scout out the next anchorage by dinghy. Oh well.

Maggie and I made bread this afternoon while listening to Football on the satellite radio. Afterwards, I tried to make the world safe for interstellar travel (video games) and Maggie slept on Amy while Amy read a book.

Spaghetti for dinner and to bed by 7:30. We may be lame.

Monday, December 27, 2004 - Big Majors Key, Exumas, Exumas

The wind shifted to the west late last night as forecasted, so we were rocking and rolling pretty bad by sunrise. As soon as we had enough light to see, we lifted the anchor and moved back around to the west of Big Majors Cay.

By noon almost all of the boats that were here before returned. I don't know if I mentioned it before, but when a cold front moves through down here, the wind goes from its normal east or north east to south, the west, then north again.

This phenomenon usually results in having to pick a different anchorage for the western portion of the blow. There are very few all weather anchorages down here, so we end up moving around a bit trying to find the best protection from wind and waves.

It's kind of funny to watch, because I have long held the belief that people are herd animals and let me tell you, if thats true, then cruisers are even worse. All it takes is for one boat to pick up and move and soon you have a stampede of boats all moving whether there is a real need to or not.

Of course this exodus is proceeded by hours upon hours of constant VHF communication in the futile attempt to divine some shred of wisdom to rationalize the move in the first place. I think people watching/VHF conversation listening is one of my favorite things to do when lounging about on the boat

The wind is still howling above 20 or 25 knots and is suppose to continue until Sunday. I guess we won't be going anywhere to soon. This afternoon I tool the dinghy to shore and broke it down into its composite parts in an attempt to patch a hole in the floor that is allowing copious amounts of salt water to enter. We'll see how the repair looks, but I have my doubts.

Other than the dinghy work and this morning's anchoring maneuvers, we did very little else today. I think we may venture into town tomorrow, but unless we move the mother ship closer, it will be a long, wet dinghy ride

Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - Big Majors Key, Exumas, Exumas

The wind is still howling. I've taken to shutting my wind generator down for about half the day because we are making so much power I am afraid we will start to cook the batteries. I even have the fridge turned down to Maximum Ice Age Conditions (i.e. - butt numbing cold) and we still have too much energy. All in all, not a bad problem to have.

Amy and I were talking today about how popular we are here. We never had this many friends back in the states. I think its my sterling personality, but Amy says no, that I am in fact a bozo and people are just nicer and more tolerant the farther you get from Washington, DC.

In any case, we were visited by multiple dinghies through out the day, mostly just people wanting to say hi or stop by and chat for a few. This afternoon, Ritchie and Liz off of Remedy called us and set up a game of cards on our boat for later tonight.

I did some minor boat work in the early afternoon and then I made pretzels for tonight's card game. While they were baking the family off of Bananas stopped by to invite us to play beach soccer tomorrow. We also have tentative spear fishing plans with a few others here in the anchorage, so our dance card is filling up quick.

In other news, I put up our cockpit enclosure today for the first time in over a year. I kind of feel like a wuss, but the wind has been blowing so damn hard that we can't really sit in the cockpit and be comfortable. Maggie says we should have put it up weeks ago as she chafes easily. I think she cares more about her own comfort than ours.

Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - Staniel Cay Harbour, Staniel Key, Exumas

Ritchie and Liz (the Remedies) showed up last evening and we played Canasta. Liz and I had played before, but Ritchie and Amy had not, so we played two hands kind of together so everyone could get the idea.

After that Amy and Ritchie teamed up to beat Liz and I, but I filed protest with the ICOB(International Canasta Organization of Boaters) about Amy's playing tactics. I won't say she cheated, well, yeah, I will. A card layed is a card played.

A re-match has been scheduled for a later date.

After breakfast this morning, Amy and I loaded up our spear fishing accessories and went out to find dinner. After a few spots that didn't pan out, we found a small coral clump that had quite a few targets of opportunity. I swam around and missed a few tough shots and then proceeded to shoot two Schoolmaster Snappers only to have them wiggle free from my spear tip. Bastards!

As time was running out (I was getting cold), I made one last dive down deep and lo and behold I saw a tasty Schoolmaster looking back at me from under a rock ledge. WHAMMMOOOOO ! We are having fish for dinner.

Back on the boat, I cleaned said fish while Amy did dishes and then sailed the boat over to the town side of the harbour (2 miles away) so we can be close for the New Years festivities which get underway today.

There is a two for one happy hour scheduled at the yacht club starting at 4:30 pm and being that cruisers are extremely cheap, I expect we'll see everyone there.

It sounds like the weather will continue to both suck and blow until at least Sunday, so here we sit, anchored in a whopping 4 feet of water off of the main beach at Staniel Cay

Thursday, December 30, 2004 - Staniel Cay Harbour, Staniel Key, Exumas

Today was a lazy day. It started out with home made biscuits, scrambled eggs, and hash browns. Maggie ate her biscuit but only laid on her eggs to keep her belly warm. After dishes, the ferret and I played video games until noon, while Amy read books.

In the early afternoon, we went in to the yacht club for lunch. Lunch turned into the 1 pm charity auction, which then turned into the 3 pm happy hour. We met a couple at that bar named Mitch and Lahani who had flown in on Mitch's little airplane. They are staying in the little cottage on the beach right in front of our boat and were fun to talk to for a while.

We left happy hour about 4 pm before it got too rowdy and returned to the boat for steak and baked potato on the grill. After dinner we watched Hero with Jet Li. I thought it was pretty good.

Another day in the books. Tomorrow is New Years Eve and I think there might be fireworks as well as a local boat race.