Towing Clorox and Shooting Royalty

December 1, 2005

Friday, November 25, 2005 - Little Harbour, Little Harbour, Abacos
By Amy

There wasn't enough wind to sail today, so it was a long motor to Little Harbor. But we don't care! We caught an Almaco Jack (listed as "excellent" eating). Plus, there will soon be weather to get out of the Abacos. As you can probably tell, Thomas is less than enthused about the reception we've received since coming south of Green Turtle.

To be fair, the area has a lot to offer. The towns are quaint, there is near-U.S. selection in groceries and such, and there are plenty of restaurants and such. But if we wanted all that, we would have stayed in Florida. Basically, it seems the regular cruisers here don't do anything. No volleyball, no impromptu parties on the beach. They simply sit in marinas and wait for the commercial establishments to announce an event. So doing anything but hanging around on the boat gets expensive. Add in the mooring fees....you get the picture.

Last year we were lucky enough to find a "buddy boat" for much of our Abacos time and that made it a lot better. If we come back through this way, we will either do so with friends so we can have cocktails and such on the aft deck rather than at the bar. Or we'll do the northern islands, which we love, and then zoom through the area with these little towns.

Anyway, enough on that. Back in Little Harbor, we got to pay Bob another $15 for his mooring, even though we had already paid for 6 nights before and only stayed 5. Although he comes out within 5 minutes of any boat tying up, he swears he "doesn't pay attention" and thus we should have "asked for permission" before expecting to leave and return for our sixth day.

As Thomas would say, right here Bob!

We had a quiet night on the boat to prepare for tomorrow's offshore journey.

Saturday, November 26, 2005 - Royal Island, Eleuthra
By Tom

Today was the day. I was up at first light and had the crew roused and dressed by 7 am. We slid through the harbour entrance and out the cut into the big blue.

There was a pretty mild swell rolling and we quickly departed the coast of Great Abaco island and as the land receded over the horizon, I shot the Abacos a quick one fingered salute. (You know, the bird?)

After about 2 hours, the wind started blowing and we were able to hoist the sails. We were moving along and a good clip when we received a MAYDAY call. I thought that kind of shit only happens in the movies.

Anyway, there was this little 26 foot MacGregor sailboat that apparently lost his steering. Here we are in the open ocean, 25 miles from land in any direction and this guy is out in a boat that I wouldn't take across a pond in a stiff breeze.

Those of you who have seen MacGregors know of what I speak. These boats are the most under constructed, overly cheesy little clorox bottles ever made. I don't know anyone in their right mind that would take one of these things to blue water.

And now for those MacGregor fans who are about to write hate mail, please remember, just because something CAN be done, doesn't mean it SHOULD be done. Yes I know people bring them to the Bahamas, etc, etc, but that boat has no place in 6 foot seas in the open ocean in 20 knots of wind. Sorry.

So now, here we are in the middle of no where and this guy asks us if we can tow him in. Excuse me? I personally wanted them to abandon ship and we would take them with us, but fortunately for the crew in question, Amy is a much nicer person than me and she suggested that we at least try to tow them.

We ended up dragging their little piece of crap, forcing us to motor with full sail up as well, while they had no steering what so ever for the remaining 25 miles to Eleuthera and Royal Island. I am still puzzled why he wasn't able to use the outboard motor to steer, but at this point, I am beyond caring.

We got them to safety and they were able to jury rig something to get them to the next city. I was a little miffed that they didn't come over and introduce themselves and say "Hey thanks for saving our lives", but I'll get over it.

We had a stiff drink, then dinner, and then hit the sack.

Sunday, November 27, 2005 - Royal Island, , Eleuthra
By Amy

There wasn't much wind today, so we took a day down to regroup after our blue water fiasco. Despite the light winds, the swells were up (don't ask me) and our spear fishing venture was called on account of weather.

Figuring we were out of the land of the snooty boaters, we asked the two boats in our anchorage over for cocktails.

David and Beth from Grateful Attitudes, and John, Manu, and Bastion (age 16) from Manuela arrived about 4:30. Good time was had by all, except possibly Bastion cuz how much fun can a teenager have with a bunch of old farts? Pizza appetizer was enough for a whole meal. So now we have friends, a clean boat (I always clean for company), and no dishes! Life has improved tenfold

Monday, November 28, 2005 - Current Island, , Eleuthra
By Tom

Our happy hour last night seemed to be a success. It was nice to hang out and get to meet new people. It's funny because we tried for almost 4 weeks in the Abacos to get out and meet people, but I guess that's just not done there. On our first day in Eleuthera we met more people then we have so far in the Bahamas.

We got up early and tuned in to Chris Parker's weather service. For those of you who don't know, Chris is kind of a weather guru for the Caribbean. He broadcasts on the single side band four times a day on four different frequencies. The 6:30 am broadcast on 4045 Mhz deals primarily with the Bahamas, so this is the one we listen to.

The weather sounds good tomorrow for crossing over to the Exumas. We moved the boat out of Royal Island and down behind Current Island to stage for a first light departure across the dreaded Yellow Banks.

Okay, so they aren't really dreaded, but it sounded exciting didn't it?

To cross the Yellow Banks, you need good light so you can pick your way through the coral heads that seem to be spread randomly across 10 or 12 miles. Truthfully, the heads are probably too far down for us to hit even if we ran right over them, but we don't risk it.

Anyhow, we are now anchored in a fairly rolley patch of sand behind Current Island and everyone is ready to be back to the Exumas.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - Allens Cay, Allens Cay, Exumas
By Tom

And we're off! We motored out of our pseudo anchorage and put up the sails. We made a not quite blistering 4 - 5 knots towards our destination and life was good.

After about 4 hours or so, we were hailed on the VHF by David and Beth from Greatful Latittudes. They too were crossing to the Exumas and we began to see them closing in on us from over the horizon. They are catamaran sailors as well, but their boat is 5 feet bigger and thus faster than ours.

I did find out that they were motor sailing while we sailing purists were under wind power alone. They finally caught and passed us right before we made landfall in the Exumas. It was fun to have another boat to sail with.

We parted company with the Greatful Latittudes at Ship Channel Cay where they stopped and we continued down to Allens Cay where we plan on staying for a few days. There are a few other boats here so maybe we can make some more friends.

Welcome to the Exumas! It's good to be back.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005 - Allens Cay, Allens Cay, Exumas
By Amy

This is Bahamas life as it should be. We spent a restful night at anchor and awoke to sunshine and turquoise water in one of my favorite spots in the Exumas.

The wind was light to non-existent, so it was also a great day for spear fishing. We headed to the reef around 10:30 and started off with the sighting of a 30 lb black grouper. Other big fish sightings included a large Nassau and absolutely huge Trigger. Those are what we didn't catch.

What we did bring home was a lobster (yes!) and an absolutely huge Queen Trigger. Thomas is a fishing God, or so he would like us all to say. We cleaned our catch among the iguanas--nasty little beasts. Later, we made an effort to meat young folks on 30 footer that came into anchorage. We may try to hook up with them later.

Dinner was garlic butter trigger on the grill with rice and salad

Thursday, December 01, 2005 - Allens Cay, Allens Cay, Exumas
By Tom

More perfect hunting weather. The ocean looks like a glass pond.

We were out on the reef by 11 am. Right off the bat I nailed another large Queen Trigger, but after a fierce struggle she got off. Unfortunately, she was bleeding rather badly. The blood quickly attracted a large and aggressive barracuda who didn't like us very much.

Discretion being the better part of valor, we moved to a new hunting spot. We spent a total of three hours in the water, but all I got was this 2 foot, 4 pound Bar Jack shown at right. He's a nice sized fish, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

Back on board the mother ship, Mila helped me clean the fish. Afterwards, Amy and I took a head of cabbage that was going bad into feed the iguanas that live here. Amy also took action shots of said lizards.

On the way back to our boat we stopped by a large Ted Brewer designed cutter to ask what flag they were flying. Turns out it was the flag of Iceland. While we were chatting it up with the couple on board, another couple came by in their dinghy.

Apparently they (the second couple) traded a bottle of rum to some local Bahamians for three fresh lobsters. Well, it turns out that they are vegetarians and don't eat lobster so they wondered if we wanted them. Uh, yeah.

I'm not sure I understand why they traded the rum if they weren't going to eat them, but they said they did eat fish, so we went back to Dream Catcher and I swapped them my freshly caught Bar Jack fillets for the lobster. A little uneven trade to be sure, but at least they didn't walk away empty handed. We also lent them several DVD's that they had not yet seen.

Between the trade and our hunting success, we now have enough fish and lobster in the fridge for the next 4 or 5 days. With the larder full, tomorrow we will sail on to Norman's Cay.