Filling the Fridge

January 12 - 18, 2008

Saturday, January 12, 2008 - Fishermans Anchorage, Water Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

And we're off!

After listening to Chris Parker for the first time in six weeks, we upped anchor, raised the sails and turned our little boat southward. We cleared the harbour by 8 am and motored down to Hog Cay cut.

Once safely through the cut, we shut off the engines and sailed close hauled the 26 miles down to Water Cay at the top of the Jumentos Island chain. We had a couple of squalls run over us and steal the wind and we ended up motoring the last 5 miles in to the anchorage.

For the record, we covered 43 miles today and caught three fish, two barracuda and a medium sized Mutton Snapper. The latter of which now resides in the frozen section of Team Dream Catchers meat locker. Average speed for the trip down was a whopping 4.3 knots and our top speed was 8.2.

Anyhow, we had the hook down in the northern cove where the Bahamian fishermen anchor to clean their catch. Sure enough, 10 minutes after anchoring we saw a large Bull Shark swim by and inspect our boat. Needless to say, we won't be swimming off the back of the big boat.

Cariba was already anchored by the time we got in as they left an hour before us and motored most of the way. Once again, we sailing purists must endure.

We opted to just hang out on the boat after the long day under sail as we were both exhausted. We didn't even launch the dinghy. Tomorrow we plan on heading out to a couple of reefs we have dove before in the past in an effort to prevent ferret starvation. Remember, weasels love seafood.

The skies cleared in time for a spectacular sunset and Amy snapped a few pictures of Donna and Toby's boat Cariba anchored behind us and in front of the sun. See said photo, side right.

Dinner was a chicken finger and crisp garden salad medley served with a cold bottle of 2005 Vino Maipo white wine. To bed by 8 after a long day.

P.S. - Georgetown is like an oven, stay in too long and you get burnt

Sunday, January 13, 2008 - Fishermans Anchorage, Water Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

This morning I got up early to listen to Chris (weather guy) on the single side band receiver, but after twenty minutes of trying to tune him in, I realized that today was in fact Sunday. And as we all know, there is no weather on Sunday. Damnit man, I could have slept in.

Since I was up, I unleashed the ferret beasts for the morning running of the weasels and then made breakfast grilled cheesies. Amy woke up in time for breakfast and afterwords did the dishes from this morning and last night.

Around 9 am, Toby called over to assemble the war party. He and Donna joined Amy and I down on the reef. Amy and I actually got a little bit of a head start as we arrived at our first dive spot about 5 minutes early.

We were in the water about 2 minutes when a large, 12 foot, Volkswagen Beetle sized Hammerhead shark swam within 15 feet of us. Somehow Shitty Death just didn't cover it. Honestly this thing was so big I would have been scared to death if it hadn't looked so strange. The Hammerhead variety of shark has his eyes way out on the end of the hammer part and they articulate out of sync.

Needless to say we quickly retreated to the dinghy. Donna and Toby showed up a few minutes later and after a ten minute break, Toby and I entered the water and hunted as a team with one of us diving and the other standing guard. Fortunately, Mr. Hammer never returned and after about thirty minutes, the girls joined us in the water.

We hunted for just over two hours and we went home with 5 lobsters, 1 Hogfish and a massive 9 pound Grouper. Let the freezer replenishment program (FRP) begin!

Back on board, we processed and cleaned our catch and then we made Grisinnis, which is some Italian word for bread sticks. Around 4:30 we took our sticks and a bottle of wine over to Cariba for sunset appetizers.

We hung out listening to music and nibbling on food until 8 pm. Back home I played with the weasels and turned in for the day

Monday, January 14, 2008 - Fishermans Anchorage, Water Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

I was up in time for the weather this morning and sure enough weather dude showed up right on time. Way to go weather dude, now if you could just start getting the forecast right......

Just kidding Chris. Anyhow after the weather I set about doing some boat clean up until 8 when Amy announced that breakfast pizzas were ready. After breakfast, we went into visit the beach with Donna and Toby only there was no beach. Amy and I climbed up a small cliff to where we could see the entire island and sure enough the beach is missing. How strange. I know, let's blame Al Gore and global warming.

I forgot to mention that late last night a small 20 foot Bahamian skiff came into the anchorage with two fishermen on board. They apparently spent the night in sleeping bags on either side of the center console. Toby knew one of the guys so when we got to talking this morning the fisherman asked to borrow some toilet paper. Hmm, I bet he was never a boy scout.

For the record, we gave them a roll and they were on their way.

Toby and I went hunting around noon sans wife units. We started out in about thirty feet and worked our way up to about 10 feet three hours later. The hunt was productive and between the two of us we scored 6 lobsters, 1 Hogfish, another mega Grouper and 14 conch. In order to stay legal, we had to make two trips to get the conch as we are only allowed 6 a piece per boat.

Back on the boat, we grabbed our cleaning gear and Amy and headed into the beach. An hour later we had cleaned and divided up our catch and then returned to our respective boats. Around 5:30 Donna and Toby came over for a dinner of grilled lemon pepper Grouper, roasted pepper potato slices and an unidentifiable goo that Donna somehow sneaked past my anti-goo boat protectors.

The food was good(sans goo) and there were no leftovers. Donna produced some brownies for dessert and we quickly devoured them as well. We hung out until 8 and then they went home and we went to bed.

The plan is to up anchor and move further south tomorrow, but we'll have to wait and see how things shake out.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - Fishermans Anchorage, Water Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

We awoke to flat calm instead of the promised 10 - 15 out of the north. With no wind, we opted to stay put again today and use the quiet conditions to explore some of the reefs to the west of Water Cay.

Around 10 am, Toby swung by and picked up me and Amy and the three of us headed out. We stopped at the first spot and I peeked overboard with my snorkel and identified the area as having potential, but when we got ready to dive in, Toby realized he had left his mask on his big boat.

Twenty minutes later, we were back on station and in the water. Right off the bat I found a medium sized lobster hiding in a hole in twenty five feet. His defensives were pretty marginal and he quickly found his way into our dinghy. Toby added a small Hogfish and then we moved locations.

This scenario repeated itself for the next 3 hours and we did quite well. At final count, we had 5 lobsters, 2 groupers, 3 Hogfish, and 1 Florida Pompano. The Pompano turned out to be something of a surprise as I have never heard of anyone actually being able to spear them. Apparently, they aren't common in the Bahamas, only Florida and they are "go fast" fish akin to Dolphin and Wahoo.

For what ever reason, this Pompano was intent on watching us and during one of his high speed passes I took a shoot from about 8 feet away and caught him right in the belly. Unfortunately, Mr Pompano did not roll over and lay down, instead he took off with my spear.

I chased him to ground in about 30 feet of water and signaled Toby over for backup. I dove down and tried to extract said fish, but my spear was hanging on by a few pieces of stomach. As I ascended, I signaled Toby to add a second spear to the equation. Suffice it to say that Mr Pompano was not up to the added challenge.

Both Toby and I were impressed that we managed to bag a Pompano as supposedly they are super fast swimmers usually only caught by surf casters with heavy rigs. The fish posed nicely for a few snapshots and weighed out at 10.5 pounds. See photographic evidence, side right.

I forgot to mention it, but all the while we were hunting, Amy was busy snapping actions shots of us under water. Those pictures have also been included for your viewing pleasure.

We were on the beach by 2 pm cleaning our catch. With Toby and I both cutting, the work went quickly. Amy aided our efforts by bagging and labeling the fish and lobster as they were cleaned. While processing the catch, two large sharks, one Bull and one Reef showed up to eat the scraps as we tossed them back into the water. They were both huge and very scary.

Back home we filled our freezer to capacity and then took showers. Amy retired for a nap and I watched movies I have seen thirty times. Around 5:30 we headed over to Cariba where Donna made us steamed lobster pasta with a white wine sauce.

We hung out with the Cariba's until 8:30 and returned home. Also of note, while we were at Donna and Toby's, a herd of three cruising boats entered our anchorage and took up residence for the night. Having been alone out here for the last 5 days, I had forgotten that there were other boats in this country.

To bed in rolling anchorage around 9 pm

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 - Two Palms Anchorage, Flamingo Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

Man did last night suck!

The anchorage rocked and rolled all night last night. By midnight we were both up in the salon trying to lay near the center of gravity to minimize the roll, but sleep was difficult to find.

We were up in the cockpit and picking up the anchor at first light and then we rolled out the head sail for a brisk down wind run to the west side of Flamingo Cay and the Two Palms Anchorage. It only took 90 minutes to cover the 12 miles and we had the hook down and the boat settled by 9 am.

The conditions were much better in our new anchorage and by 10 am, we had both fallen back to sleep and the weather continued to moderated through out the day.

At 3:30, Donna and Toby came by and picked us up to go to shore and walk a path that has been cut through the dense foliage from on side of the island to the other. The hike was pretty and we spent an hour walking it's length.

Along the way, we found a tidal pool that was home for several thousand pink shrimp. It was cool to get to watch them walk around in their tiny sized environment.

Anyhow, we were back on the boat by 4:30 and then around 5:30 Donna and Toby came over for chicken wings and pizza. We hung out until 8 pm telling stories before they returned home to get ready to leave at first light. They are heading back to G'Town tomorrow to await the arrival of some friends on Saturday.

Tomorrow's plans are uncertain for us and I suspect we will be sitting still and catching up on some boat work. We're waiting for a developing cold front to decide which way it's going to go before we decide on heading north or south. Stay tuned, more to follow

Thursday, January 17, 2008 - Fishermans Anchorage, Water Cay, Jumentos
By Tom

Right after the 6:30 weather report on the SSB, Toby and Donna picked up anchor and headed north. Toby called on the VHF to say that the wind was way far up on the nose and that the seas were breaking pretty badly over the barrier reef.

They continued on regardless and we were quickly left alone in our anchorage. We spent the morning doing absolutely nothing productive. Amy read and I played video games and watched movies until 11 am. After a late brunch, I tackled inspecting battery water level and then I moved on to diagnosing the problems we are currently experiencing with our grill.

Apparently, the grill burner plate has cracked and as such, I am only able to get half of the burner to ignite. Shitty death! Magma Grills, you suck. This baby only has 5,000 miles on it, it shouldn't be breaking already. Christ my Home Depot $30 unit that I had on my first boat lasted 6 seasons. Magma you need to get your head out of the sand.

Ok, so after battery detail, I made a batch of homemade pretzels. Amy assisted and in the end we had 12 precision designed pretzel specimen. Sweeet!

Around 2:30 another boat heading north wandered into our anchorage. They dropped the hook near us, but a few minutes later the swell started sweeping around the southern edge of our secluded little cove.

By 3 pm, both boats had picked up their anchors and set sail for Water Cay, some 12 miles to the north. We arrived off the anchorage by 4:30 and a few minutes later we had the boat anchored safely. By the time the boat was put to bed, it was time for the sunset so the crew massed in the cockpit to watch the fiery red ball descend below the horizon.

Dinner was Italian seasoned Pompano steaks served over a fresh garden salad. The Pompano was a new fish for us and I must report it was most excellent. I think it might rank up there with Hogfish and Mahi on the taste meter.

After dinner, we watched Bad Santa with Billy Bob Thorton which we just got from Donna and Toby. It had exactly two funny moments and the rest of the flick sucked ass. I haven't seen anything that bad since the last time Don tried to spear a fish.

Just kidding Don, the movie was worse. Just kidding again.

Anyway, we turned in shortly after the movie by 9 pm. We plan on catching the weather in the morning and then spending the day sailing north. Stay tuned, more to follow

Friday, January 18, 2008 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

After listening to the weather at 6:30, we decided to head back to Georgetown today so as to arrive ahead of the next cold front coming our way.

We had the full main and about 1/3 of the head sail out as we rocketed back north at an average of 8 knots. We arrived at the Hog Cay cut about an hour after low tide and promptly went aground. Shitty death!

I'll spare you the details, but it took almost 2 hours to get unstuck, but we finally floated free. Did I mention shitty death !?!

Anyhow, once free of Hog Cay's evil clutches, we shot out into the Exuma Sound and the twenty knots of wind dead behind us pushed us home quickly. We had the hook down off of Hamburger Beach by 3:30. No sooner was the boat cleaned up than Bruce from Different Drummer called us to invite us over for cocktails around 6.

Since we hadn't eaten all day, we quickly launched the dinghy and raced up to St.. Francis for a burger and fries as neither of us felt like cooking. Thirty minutes later we were back on our boat and by 6:15 we made it to Different Drummer.

Donna and Toby from Cariba and together with Bruce and Debbie we spent two hours catching up with each other. Amy and I returned home around 8:30 or so and after tucking the weasels into bed, we turned in for the night.

Final tally for our week in the Jumentos, 16 conch, 12 lobsters, 4 grouper, 3 Hogfish, 2 Mutton Snapper and 1 Pompano for a net total of 42 pounds frozen.