The King and Substanci (sub-stans-eye)

May 31 - Jun 5, 2007

Thursday, May 31, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

It didn't rain today! Whew who! We celebrated by going in to play volley ball on the beach at 9 am with the Moxies, Norm and Speedo Ed. The games were ok, but the twenty knots of wind kept it interesting.

We returned to the boat, which we re-located before volleyball to right off the Chat and Chill and went for a swim to wash off the sand. After drying off I made fried grouper sandwiches. As an interesting aside, it turns out that Milo likes the grouper meat, but not the breading, while his sister is the reverse. Together they managed to finish a ferret sized sandwich portion in about 45 seconds.

Post lunch I spent an hour or two making some new fishing lures before we headed up to Thursday night poker. We had 17 players, but these three women who showed up to play got incredibly drunk and ruined it for the rest of us. I have since instituted a "loud, obnoxious, drunk, screaming idiot denial clause" that will keep them from playing again. It's good to be king.

We were back on the boat by 9 pm and to bed shortly after.

Friday, June 01, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

This morning I got in the water and cleaned off our anchor rode. It's been growing some sort of organic life form on the first 10 feet of rope where it connects to our 50 feet of chain. It took 30 minutes, but in the end I won out over the little mold like substanci (you know, like multiple substances right?).

At 11 we went over to the ocean side to sea how rough the sea was. The consistent 20 knots plus of the last 5 days have made some impressive 8 footers out on the ocean and I'm glad we're safely tucked in here.

On the way back to the mother ship, we stopped by St. Francis so I could take some measurements for the poker table covers I am making. Some friends of ours who live on the island managed to get hold of 10 yards of green felt that I am using to make custom fit table covers for our weekly game.

Back on the boat I spent an hour or two at the sewing machine before I stopped to grill some steak and shrimp on the barbecue. Half way through the cooking, we ran out of propane on tank number one and I had to switch over to tank two. It only takes a few minutes to do the switch, but since the grill was out during that time, I decided that the meal was now a "twice baked" steak and shrimp combo and as such the price tag for the evening doubled. I should be in the restaurant business.

After dinner I played with the weasel and Amy read a book. It was an early night and we crashed by 8:30

Saturday, June 02, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We had a 9:30 volleyball date with the Moxy's, Cavali Bob, Norm and Speedo Ed. We played until 11:30 and then sat under the palm trees watching the day go by. Around noon a guy from the states named Chappy wandered on to the court and we started talking.

He seemed really into beach volleyball and one thing led to another until eventually he and I played as a two man team against four of the regular players. We won the first game 15 -2 and the second 16-14, but regardless of the score it was fun.

We didn't get back to the boat until 3 pm and after showers and an early dinner, we met a couple of friends up at St. Francis to test drive my new poker table cloth. The cloth performed as expected and everyone was impressed. I may have a future in the over seas production of custom fit, one of a kind poker table covers.

I finished 3rd in the game, but as we had only 8 players, we only paid out the top two. Damn it man! We also watched the second race of the Louis Vitton finals. The Kiwi's won again, but only by 18 seconds.

Back on the boat I made late night shrimp and fettuccine that we devoured before turning in by 10

Sunday, June 03, 2007 - Kids Cove, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

This morning the wind had moved around to the west, so we picked up anchor and motored over to Kidd Cove. We dropped the hook just off of the dock at Georgetown Marine in 4 feet of water and then we loaded into the dinghy to hit the grocery store. We are finally getting outta here!

After we got back and stowed our food stuffs, we headed over for the last volleyball match of the season. We played from 10 until 1 pm or so and the games were pretty good. That dude named Chappy showed up again and we had some pretty good games.

We said our goodbyes over a couple of drinks and then returned to the boat. After cleaning up we spent the remainder of the afternoon getting the boat ready to travel. The plan is to head out tomorrow at first light and take what ever wind shows up in what ever direction we can sail. Stay tuned, we're on the move.

Monday, June 04, 2007 - East Pimlico Cay, Pimlico Cays, Exumas
By Tom

We got underway right about 10 am. The delay was due to another trip in to town to hit the ATM machine for some cash as well as to get a new 5 gallon bucket from Top to Bottom. Our existing bucket disappeared in one of the wind storms last week.

Anyhow, we cleared the harbour entrance and raised the main sail and the genoa. I was hoping to run the spinnaker, but the wind was too far up on the beam. We still made about 4 knots over ground and I noticed that we were the only boat sailing in these light winds. Of course, that meant we got passed by every other boat out today, but such is life. After about 2 hours we had a hit on fish whacker number 3 and after a brief but spirited fight, we landed a 5 pound Cero Mackerel which we quickly made our own.

Around 1 pm we drifted/sailed through the cut at Rat Cay in a dying wind and then rolled in the head sail. We opted to use the motors as the route is quite circuitous and very narrow in places making tacking not an option.

Thirty minutes later, we anchored momentarily off of the research center at Lee Stocking Island, but the wind direction combined with the mega strong currents made the boat lay funny on her anchor, so we opted to head another 4 miles north to the Pimlico Cays.

The Pimlico Cays aren't listed as an anchorage in the Explorer Chart books, but in any light or westerly wind it turns out the East Pimlico Cay provides excellent protection and we had the hook down in 4 feet of water by 2 pm.

It was hot and we decided to don our snorkel gear and check out the little rocks and coral heads near by. I went with the full wet suit-spear attire while Amy was just brought her underwater camera and flippers and nothing else. I think more than one fish was scared by her lack of clothing, but you didn't hear it from me.

After 20 minutes of swimming, I found a Yellowfin Grouper hiding under a rock in 9 feet of water and after analyzing the situation I dove down and introduced Mr. Grouper to my little friend. Whammmo!

Amy also contributed a large Queen conch that I cleaned back on board after Mr. Grouper. We sat in front of fans until the sun went down in an effort to stay cool and then I lit the grill and cooked Italian Mackerel fillets with grilled French fries. Amy also contributed two small side salads.

After dinner, we retired to our cabin with the weasels and after I read them a bedtime story we all turned in for the evening.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007 - Big Harbour, Little Farmers Cay, Exumas
By Tom

We awoke around 8 am and were under way from our anchorage in the middle of nowhere shortly after. The wind was at 8 knots dead behind us and we rode under spinnaker at a whopping 3 knot average up to Little Farmer's Cay.

It was a slow trip, but at least we were sailing and we were the only boat that could say that today. All of the other sailboats we saw were motoring along in the flat calm sea as they passed us by. At $5.15 a gallon, we will take sailing slow versus motoring anywhere.

We only had 12 miles to cover today, so we had the hook down and the boat to bed before 1 pm. We spent some time swimming around the boat in an effort to stay cool and I also adjusted the idle screw on the port side engine.

In the late afternoon a float plane showed up and landed in the harbour right next to us. See supporting photos side right.

As the sun got further down in the sky, we went up on the fore deck to watch sunset approach and when the it disappeared over the horizon, I made stuffed Yellowfin grouper pitas for dinner, The crew went away full.

After the dishes, we retired to our cabin to read and play with the weasels at which time I promptly fell asleep.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007 - Black Point Harbour, Great Guana Cay, Exumas
By Tom

We had a peaceful night sleep and awoke to a sunny and almost windless day. Our destination for today was Blackpoint Sound on Great Guana Cay, which is a whopping 14 miles northward.

Since there wasn't far to go, we decided to have breakfast before we got underway. Amy made us bacon egg and cheesies on English muffins and they were quite good. Once breakfast was complete and the ferrets were run, we upped anchor and raised the spinnaker. The wind was blowing 7 - 8 knots dead behind us, so we weren't exactly screaming along, but we held a respectable 3.5 knot average.

Three hours later, we closed on the harbour and the wind dropped all together. We motored the remaining mile and a half in and dropped the hook at the head of the anchorage in 4 feet of water. There were 7 other boats here when we arrived, but only 3 of them are sailboats, although when they passed us today, they were motoring. As an aside, we haven't seen another sailboat sailing in three days!

Once the boat was secure, we launched the dinghy and motored into town. I had a bag of garbage to get rid of and the people at Blackpoint provide cruisers with free trash drop off right at the dinghy dock. Remember, free is good.

Post trash run, we walked up the only street in Blackpoint towards Loraine's Cafe, but no one was home. We continued on 200 feet and stopped at the Scorpion Bar and Sometimes Restaurant. I say sometimes restaurant because in four years I have never seen any food prepared here, but who knows, maybe they hide it all when I'm in town.

We sat at the bar with 5 other Bahamians and watched super cheesy, 90's style, U.S. sitcoms for an hour and a half while having a couple of cold beers and a few rum drinks. I also managed to score a frozen snickers bar as well.

Around 6:30 we headed back to the dinghy and then back to the mother ship. We had another round of rum drinks on the foredeck trampoline as the sun slowly set and afterwords I cooked the two remaining spare ribs in the fridge along with some grill fries while Amy made herself a left over Grouper finger salad wrap. Dinner was good if not somewhat eclectic.

Post dinner we decided to watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I think Amy and I are the last two people on the planet who haven't read any of the Harry Potter books and the movie wasn't bad, but I think dude needs to get a better haircut and update his style if he's ever gonna score with that Herminie chick.

Amy fell asleep right at the end of the movie and I had to put Milo in her shirt to get her to wake up long enough to take her contacts out and go to bed. Ferrets make extremely good wake up calls. See you all tomorrow.