Lisping Weasels and the Mooring Field Panic

July 5 - 11, 2007

Thursday, July 05, 2007 - West Middle Anchorage, Shroud Cay, Exumas
By Tom

We headed out after a breakfast of bacon egg and cheesies around 9 am. The wind was right on the nose, but we figured we'd suck up and deal for the 6 miles it takes to get to Norman's Cay.

We arrived off of Norman's and dropped the hook just off the beach just in front of an old early 70's Airstream pull behind camper that has been here as long as we have been coming. It didn't take long to realize that the swell creeping around the island was going to make it uncomfortable here. We decided to move the boat another 3 miles into the protection of the Shroud Cay.

Before we moved, I swam from the big boat over to two reefs to check for indigenous personnel, but all I found were a couple of teeny, tiny Nassau groupers and 3 under age lobsters. Maybe the three of them together might have constituted a lobster McNugget, but I wasn't going to mess with them.

It took us another hour to up anchor, motor down to Shroud and then re-anchor. We tucked in right off a protective spit of land in 4 feet of water. We were the only boat here initially, but as the day progressed a sailing cat and four motor yachts also filed in.

We didn't meet any of the other boats, but I'm not sure why. I guess we just didn't make an effort, but lately I've been feeling like we're the only ones out here who do make an effort, so it was our day off. Sue me.

I spent the balance of the afternoon working on fixing the ends of several of our ropes we use on board. This entails cutting new ends, burning them tight and then whipping them with small twine to keep them from fraying.

Amy tackled the two days worth of accumulated dishes hiding in the sink and then cleaned out Wickyville (the third stateroom where the ferrets play). For the record, I think I got the better end of the deal.

In the evening we swam off the back of the boat and watched another beautiful sunset before I fired up the grill and cooked home made bread (on the grill) and then potato wedges and bacon wrapped, barbecued shrimp. It was quite tasty indeed.

An evening running of the weasels concluded the days activities. We were asleep by 9 pm.

Friday, July 06, 2007 - West Middle Anchorage, Shroud Cay, Exumas
By Tom

Today was a day of boat chores. Of course, the jobs didn't start until after a well rounded breakfast of ham, egg and cheesies on English muffins.

Milo stole one of my breakfast muffins when I was outside and proceeded to burn his little ferret tongue on some hot melted cheese, consequently he spoke with a pronounced lisp for the rest of the day. There is nothing quite as sad as a lisping weasel. Nice work dumb ass.

I will spare you the blow by blow details of my work schedule, but the work list for today included:

1.) Fixing the auto pilot.

2.) Replacing the engine zincs.

3.) Sharpening two of my Hawaiian sling warheads.

4.) Repairing our dremmel that hasn't worked in 10 weeks.

5.) Diagnosing the battery situation for our underwater camera.

6.) Making a new attachment mechanism for my dive knife.

7.) Repairing the tilt mechanism for the dinghy outboard that hasn't worked in 6 weeks.

8.) Re-tying the fruit hammock in the main salon to prevent fruits and vegetables from falling down.

Wow, I was mega busy. Amy did lots of stuff inside too, but I was so busy outside that I didn't document her exploits fully, but rest assured, she pulled her own weight. By happy hour I was exhausted and we both spent the balance of the afternoon swimming off the back of the boat and enjoying fruity rum drinks until supper time.

For dinner, I cooked a large Trigger fish in a lemon juice, cracked pepper and olive oil based sauce that was served over a pile of linguine with fresh grated Parmesan cheese. It was ok, but probably would have been better without the fish.

In a rare display of motivation, I did the dishes, which for the record brings my yearly total to six times and now I'm only one away from my yearly quota. Post dinner we played with the ferrets in the cockpit as we watched the sun go down.

The wind is forecast to stay out of the south-east, which really prevents us from sailing where we want to go, so I predict we'll be here at least another couple of days. Oh well, we've got nothing but time. Stay tuned.

Saturday, July 07, 2007 - West Middle Anchorage, Shroud Cay, Exumas
By Tom

We continue to be weathered in at Shroud Cay. The wind is only 10 to 15 knots, but it's exactly from where we want to go, so we continue to wait.

The weather dude was barely audible this morning due to thunderstorms over Florida, but from what I gathered, the wind is suppose to build tomorrow and Monday and finally come back towards the east and north east at 15 - 20 knots. If its really does, we'll have good sailing conditions to head back towards Georgetown.

We've been kicking around our plans for what we want to do next and I think we've decided to go hang in Georgetown long enough for me to glass our dinghy extensions on and then head to the Ragged Islands for a month or so and do some serious fishing. For the record, we are only three weeks from the start of lobster season; crustaceans beware.

To fight off boredom today, I launched my wind surfer. It's been a while since I've been on it, but it didn't take long to get back in the swing of things. By the end of the day, I was tacking without falling off and I even threw in two gibes while remaining upright.

Amy got some action pictures of me sailing as well as a movie of me tooling along and I got to watch my form and technique after the fact.

We made pizzas on the grill for dinner and then I listened to the Nascar race at Daytona for an hour or so. I got tired at about the half way point in the race and so I joined Amy and the weasels in our cabin for bed.

At least one more day waiting for weather.....

Sunday, July 08, 2007 - West Middle Anchorage, Shroud Cay, Exumas
By Tom

We slept in until almost 8 am this morning before the weasels were tapping on my forehead begging for breakfast. I tried to give them to Amy, but the little girl weasel wouldn't buy it.

After 10 minutes of Mila (the little girl) sitting on my chest, I took her and Lunchbox (her brother) to the galley where I poured one iced tea for me and two orange juices mini's for the little people. Next came the blue berry regimen followed by a massive dried banana infusion and then the weasels were ready for the day.

I spent the morning playing on my wind surfer while Amy read in the cockpit and took pictures of me. I think she laughed at me a lot too, but I couldn't be sure from my vantage point. We had lunch in the cockpit and then afterwards I resumed my surfing and Amy worked in the galley.

By 3 pm I was too tired to continue surfing so we broke out the cocktails and hung out in the cockpit in the shade of the bimini until 6 pm and dinner time. Tonight we had shrimp and salad with grilled pitas and there were no left overs.

I think tomorrow we are heading south regardless of the weather. We're tired of waiting. Stay tuned, more to follow.

Monday, July 09, 2007 - Northern Mooring Field, Exuma Land and Sea Park, Waderick Well
By Tom

I was up at 6 am this morning and managed to get in two hours of surfing before Amy and the rest of the crew woke up at 8.

We stowed things on the boat and then raised the anchor and headed south under motor, right into 15 knots of wind. It was slow going as we made a whopping 5.25 knots towards the south. The going was so slow we decided to divert from Staniel Cay and put in at Warderwick Wells and the Exuma Land and Sea Park.

I have always maintained that the park is kind of lame as I do no like being told I have to use a mooring ball when there are plenty of good places to anchor as well as pay 15 dollars for the privilege, but my good friend George on Sequel is always giving me a hard time because I have never been to the park. So George, here I am.

The park is very pretty and well kept. We picked up mooring number 12 after a little difficulty with our starboard engine as the gear shift end came off when I tried to reverse thrusters, thus rendering the entire engine useless in the mooring buoy pickup effort.

A few moments of panic gave way to a large, sweeping u-turn and we eventually were able to secure our mooring by 12 pm. The slight panic prior to tie up resulted in an impromptu happy hour drink at the ripe hour of 12:15 pm, after which we launched the dinghy and headed in to the park office.

We registered our boat, got touring information of the park itself and also got an internet id and password so we could check email from the boat. For the record, the internet here is satellite based and is in fact slower than whale snot. The cost is 10 dollars per 24 hours and not worth it at all given how often the signal drops out.

Back on the boat, everything was put away and then we loaded back into the dinghy and went for a drift dive through the cut. Drift diving is basically just jumping over board in a strong current with ropes hanging off from the dink which enable you to hang on and be drug along with the boat. The current was ripping along at 2 knots or so and what we did see went by pretty darn fast.

Back on the boat, we showered off and then prepared a few shrimp, some beef short ribs and some French fries on the grill for dinner. It was little hot afterwards as the boat was sitting with the strong current rather than with the wind, so we took our pillows and a light sheet up to the fore deck and made our bed for the evening under the stars on the trampoline between our two hulls.

Amy brought her little spy light to read her book by and I lasted 18 minutes before fading to black. I awoke sometime around 4 am and watched shooting stars flinging themselves back and forth across the sky until a subtle glow on the eastern horizon signaled the impending arrival of the sun.

P.S. - I worked on that last sentence for thirty minutes.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - Northern Mooring Field, Exuma Land and Sea Park, Waderick Well
By Tom

I watched the sun rise this morning and the entire crew was awake by 7 am and Amy kindly made us egg-a-mooby muffins.

Once starvation had been averted, we took the dinghy to shore and followed the guide signs up to Boo Boo Hill, which is where passing cruisers place little signs with the name of their vessels and the date of their passing. We didn't partake in this somewhat odd ritual as it seemed an awful lot like littering.

Amy took a bunch of pictures, shown side right, and as you can see, the park is very pretty. We walked over to see some blow holes, but apparently they got the day off as there was no blowing going on. Perhaps they are just suck holes as I am pretty sure they sucked.

Back on the boat, I finally got around to looking at Amy's underwater sea camera battery that has been misbehaving. I think the problem might be attributed to operator error as the camera started right up for me. To test it out, we went for a short dive off the back of the boat and shot several pictures of under water critters that passed us by.

We were back on the boat and ready for happy hour by 5 pm. We watched the sun fall towards the horizon and then fired up the grill to cook barbecued Mutton snapper and some green vegetable wedges of an unidentifiable origin.

Amy and Milo did the dishes after dinner and then around 9 pm, the ferrets went to their cage and Amy and I retired to the fore deck to sleep under the stars again. Tomorrow we head further south.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007 - Big Majors Key, Exumas, Exumas
By Tom

It was mega hot last night and we opted to sleep out on the fore deck in the breeze. Around 3 am, it got windy and cold enough to drive us both back to the cabin.

I was up by 6 am stowing wind surfers, dinghies, and miscellaneous dive gear. Amy joined me around 8 and we cut loose our mooring line and then headed out the narrow cut that leads from Warderwick Wells back onto the banks side of the Exumas.

The weather wasn't any better for sailing and we motor slogged our way the entire 16 miles down to Big Majors. We had no problems en route and the anchor was down by noon. We dinghied in to the yacht club around 2 pm for internet access and rum drinks.

We spent 2 hours and 25 bucks at the yacht club drinking and catching up on our internet related activities before heading over to Isles General grocery to get a few fresh things, but apparently the mail boat hasn't been here in over a week so there wasn't anything to be had.

On a different note, the service at the yacht club has fallen to a new low and now sucks mega ass. The staff is friendly and all, but the owner (David) is spending more and more time back in the states and while he is gone, the quality of service bites the big one.

We actually waited 30 minutes for a drink, which in island time is like 2.45 years! If it hadn't been for the free wi-fi I would have packed up and left. The one bar dude (Dave) only had 9 or 10 people to wait on, but he just couldn't keep up.

We saw 4 different groups of people get pissed off and leave because of the service.. It's a shame because the yacht club here is pretty cool and I'd hate to see it go under because of staffing problems, but who knows? Definitely not my problem, but if any of my dear readers knows David (the owner) better than I do, you should drop him a line and let him know whats going on in his absence.

Anyhow, back on the boat I launched my wind surfer with the 6 meter sail (read: a big ass sail!) and proceeded to embarrass myself repeatedly to all the boats in the anchorage as I got spanked several times by the 20 plus knots of winds.

In spite of showing my back side more than I like to, I still had a good time and I finally feel like I'm getting a handle on this whole wind surfing vibe, although I don't think you need to look for me any time soon on your local box of Wheaties.

After about an hour and a half I was done and returned to the mother ship. It may interest you dear reader that I was able to navigate my wind surfer right up to the back step of the mother ship and actually step aboard the big boat without so much as a splash or a crash or an "Oh No!".

See, I have skills.

After I secured the board and got showered up, Amy and I teamed up to prepare tequila lime shrimp, honey teriyaki Mutton Snapper and wedge cut grill fries for dinner. They were served with fresh grated cheddar cheese, lettuce and tomato along with crisped pita bread halves for your enjoyment.

Truly a most excellent dinner.

After dinner, the entire crew (weasels included) massed in the cockpit to enjoy rum based drinks and watch the sun set over the endless panorama of turquoise water.

To bed by 9 pm.