Pizza Overboard or Talking by Default

June 7 - 13, 2007

Thursday, June 07, 2007 - Staniel Cay Harbour, Staniel Key, Exumas
By Tom

Today was laundry day. I didn't mention it yesterday, but the reason we stopped at Blackpoint was to utilize the new laundry facility that opened last year.

Supposedly, the laundry store opens up at 8 am and while the door was open when we arrived at 8:15, we didn't see anyone who could sell us laundry machine tokens until 9:30. Laundry bastards!

Anyway, the water pressure was so insanely low that it took 90 minutes just to fill up our three washers for the first wash cycle. All told, it was 2 hours and 30 minutes to wash 3 load in 3 separate machines. Once they were done however, it only took 20 minutes to dry all three loads. Can you say "Find some water pressure BEOTCH !"?

I think you can.

We got back on the boat at 11:30 and by noon we had the anchor up, the dinghy in the davits and the ferrets stowed. We set full main and head sail and worked our way north towards Staniel Cay. The trip was only 9 miles, but we got to sail the whole way in light winds and again we were the only boat sailing today. What is it with these other sailboaters?

We dropped anchor right off the beach, just south of the yacht club and around 4 pm we headed in to the grocery store to drop off our propane tank to be filled and to get 5 tomatoes. After that we headed in to the yacht club for a beer and some quality internet time.

We had a couple of drinks at the yacht club and met a few other fellow cruisers before returning home to make shrimp and Nassau grouper seafood pasta for dinner. It was quite tasty, but I made twenty two pounds of noodles and so now we have leftovers.

Amy turned in shortly after dinner and me and the weasels watched Pierce Brosnon and Selma Hiyak in After the Sunset for the 48th time. Selma Hiyak is still pretty cool. To bed by 10 pm.

Friday, June 08, 2007 - Staniel Cay Harbour, Staniel Key, Exumas
By Tom

I woke up at 5:30 this morning to the sounds of more crowing roosters. What is it with roosters in this country? They must come standard issue on each island. I mean, no one farms here on Staniel and no one is raising chickens for food or eggs, so where do the damned roosters come from? Maybe the U.S. is air dropping them under cover of darkness as some sort of master psy-ops plan to take over the Bahamas through the clever use of poultry.

You laugh now, but having seen how ambitious some Bahamians are first hand, I could see the country potentially falling at the hands of a few angry, dedicated and well armed roosters.

Anyway, the weasels and I played video game until 6:30 and then listened to the weather dude on the single side band. It sounds like there might be some rain today or tomorrow. By 7:00 the weather was over so we went back to playing video games until 9 am when Amy woke up and made bacon egg and cheesies for breakfast.

As an aside, I read online that the space shuttle is taking off tomorrow and in honor of America's return to space, I have been working on training Mila to walk in a zero g environment. See photo evidence side right.

After eating I took the dinghy into the yacht club to get 24 gallons of gas for the big boat. Usually we just take the big boat to the fuel dock, but the marina is so crowded that they have taken up all the available space on the fuel dock with mega yachts. Bastards!

As an aside , what's up with all of these power boats anyway? I mean, they come all the way over from the states in their 110 foot plus mega yacht to tie up to a marina dock that has no water or electricity. Where is the sense in that? Maybe they don't want to get their shiney anchors all dirty. Oh well, on with the show.

Once I got the fuel back on board I dinghied over to Isle's General to pick up our one propane tank that I dropped off yesterday. It hadn't been done yet, so I went back to the fill pit and did it myself. The same thing happened last fall on our way south, so I wasn't surprised. At least it's full now.

Back on the mother ship I dumped gas into the main tank and re-installed the propane cylinder in the lazerette. We grabbed our snorkeling gear and our under water camera and went over to Thunderball grotto to swim with the fishes. I can report that it's still beautiful and there are a wide variety of fish to see.

Thirty minutes later, we were back on board and after fresh water rinses for the crew (weasel's included) Amy and I went in to the yacht club to use their electricity while surfing the web. We had a few beers and some chicken wings before Amy started playing pool with a couple of the Bahamians while I watched CNN on the big screen. How ridiculous is that whole Paris Hilton thing? I say give her the chair (electric)! It must have been a slow news day stateside.

We got home around 5 pm and played with the ferrets for a while and then I made shrimp, sausage, ham and pine- apple pizzas on the grill. One of the pizzas was accidentally lost at sea when I tried to check his bottom to be sure I wasn't burning them.

The sea state was flat calm at the time of the incident which led the accident survey committee (Amy) to suspect that rum may have played a signifigant part in the incident. Oooops. My bad.

After dinner we played a game of cards and retired by 8:30

Saturday, June 09, 2007 - Staniel Cay Harbour, Staniel Key, Exumas
By Tom

We had planned on moving on today, but when I woke up this morning, it was raining and the internet weather forecast as well as weather dude said it was going to be an all day affair. We resigned ourselves to spending the day indoors.

True to the advertisement, the rain stayed with us on and off all day. Around noon we had a mega bad lightning and thunder storm, but it only lasted 30 minutes. The thunder was so loud that poor Mila peed herself in fright. She ended up hiding inside the shirt I was wearing for the duration of the storm. For the record, Milo slept through the whole thing.

To pass the time, we read books and cooked. I made a loaf of bread and Amy made cookies. The bread was of the plain white variety, while the cookies were chocolate chip in nature.

In the afternoon, the rain let up long enough for us to drop the dink in the water and head in to the yacht club. We played free pool and sipped rum drinks for a couple of hours while the rain continued to come down. After a couple of games, I got bored with playing so I left Amy to play against a string of men, all of whom she beat rather handily.

I sat at the bar watching more on the Paris Hilton debacle and meeting crew members from several of the mega- yachts currently tied up at the marina. The people on or who own the mega yachts are too good to hang out with us sailing types in the bar, but the crew members invariably seem pretty nice and down to earth. If I had to go back to work, I think captaining or even crewing on one of these behemoths might be pretty cool.

We returned home dodging rain drops all the way by 5 pm and for dinner we made shrimp bruschetta served up on fresh bread crisped on the grill along side 12 shrimp. Amy went to bed to read around 7 pm while the weasels and I played on the computer and surfed the web. We hope to head out tomorrow, but it's really up to the weather.

Sunday, June 10, 2007 - West Anchorage, Little Farmers, Exumas
By Tom

We were up and under way by 8:30 this morning. There was no wind to speak of and it doesn't sound like there will be any for a few days, but we were tired of sitting at Staniel so it was time to go. I negotiated the shallow pass between Harvey Cay and Staniel and then we turned the boat south towards Little Farmers.

We motored along in 3 knots of wind and let the autopilot drive. It was a short 3 hour ride and by 11 am we were just outside our usual anchoring spot of Big Harbour in between Big and Little Farmers. Contrary to the name, Big Harbour is no more than 300 meters front to back and maybe 400 meters wide.

There is also a very shallow bar that must be crossed to get into Big Harbour and only the shallowest of cruising boats can get in. We've probably been in somewhere near 30 times over the past few years, so I was somewhat surprised when we hit the bar. And then hit it again. And then hit it one more time for good luck.

We were at dead low tide, but I've been in and out before at low, but when I checked the tide tables, I discovered that we are at a very rare below zero low. This only happens like 4 days a month in the Bahamas. Once the tide came in we could still get inside, but every twelve hours for the next four days, we'd be touching bottom at dead low.

We decided to head around to the backside of Little Farmers and anchor in the lee of the airport runway instead. The term airport is kind of a stretch, but there is a runway, so the description is not totally without merit.

Once the anchor was down, I donned my bozo wet suit action figure attire and swam over to what turned out to be a sunken, upside down airplane. Obviously he had a few issues on final approach as we generally do not find planes upside down in the water 500 meters from the end of the runway. I hope the passengers got a refund.

The wreck turned out to be fairly interesting and I made friends with two groupers living there. They were both marginal sized and as such I did them no harm. I also found fifteen or twenty baby conch about the size of tennis balls that were clustered together in a small hole and I kind of got the feeling that they were attending some kind of conch caucus or perhaps a religious celebration.

Back on the boat we both hosed off on the deck steps with fresh water and then made an afternoon cocktail. We sat in the shade of the cockpit with our ferrets watching the day fade away.

Around 7 pm, I fired up the barbecue and grilled a steak, a few shrimp, some potatoes, the last three pieces of my bread loaf, and a foil wrapped mix of indeterminant vegetables that Amy supplied. We ate as the sun set and listened to the comedy channel after the Nascar race got rained out. To bed by 8:30.

Monday, June 11, 2007 - Rocky Point, Great Exuma, Exuma
By Tom

I was up at 4:30 this morning and the weasels and I sat around eating banana chips and drinking diet Pepsi while waiting on first light. As soon as the sun peaked over the horizon, I started the engines and pulled up the anchor while Milo operated the autopilot and Mila worked the throttles.

We raised the main sail and rolled out the genoa and then shut off the engines and stowed them in their upright and locked seating positions. We ghosted along at a stately 3.5 knots heading down the back side of Great Exuma. Our guide book says less than 20 boats visit the backside a year and we decided we should be one of them.

Amy joined the land of the living around 8:30 and offered to make the crew personal pan pizzas for breakfast. Mila and I chose to share the Hawaiian special which included ham and pineapple. I did not see what Milo and Amy ate because Milo hogged most of it before Amy could bring it out in to the cockpit. Damn is he ever fat!

Around 11 am the wind died and we had to resort to engine power. We motored along at 6 knots and anchored in the lee of Rocky Point around 2 pm. Rocky Point is mostly just a collection of scrub barrier islands and is too small to actually have an official cay (key) designation.

We had hoped to snorkel and hunt some this afternoon, but rain showers showed up shortly after the boat was put to bed and drove us inside. We spent the afternoon playing on our computers and sharing a few rum drinks. Dinner was pan seared Grouper served with rice and there were no left overs.

After dinner we had an encore showing of Captian Ron and we both found it kind of funny.

The wind is suppose to be out of the direction we want to travel tomorrow, so we will probably just stay where we are and try and get some diving in. Stay tuned, more to follow.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - South of Hog Cay, Hog Cay, Exumas
By Tom

I was up in time for the weather report at 6:30 am, but all of the lightning storms off the coast of Florida made reception a little difficult, but we were able to get the jist of it. It seems there is no wind for the foreseeable future.

Lack of wind aside, it was kind of funny because we are only 20 miles from Georgetown as the crow flies and I could here several people trying to talk to the weather dude from the harbour, but they couldn't hear him.

Well, the people that talk to the weather dude have several thousands of dollars invested in their SSB rigs, while here we sit with $130 tied up in ours and yet we were still able to pick up the forecast and they couldn't. Go figure.

With no chance of sailing anytime soon and lots of rain in the forecast, we decided to motor onward. Initially, we decided to head for Green Turtle Cut, but a mega squall came in and we anchored temporarily outside the cut to wait out the storm.

An hour later conditions improved enough to head in and take a look, so we raised the anchor and worked our way in. It was actually a much tougher entrance that we were led to believe and it took us 30 minutes of nerve racking concentration to gain entrance.

Once inside, it looked great, but after trying to anchor several times, we discovered that the bottom was very rocky and scoured and there was a 3 knot current ripping through. Given our experience (horror story) of anchoring in strong reversing currents, we decided to pick up and try elsewhere.

In the end we motored another 18 miles back down to Hog Cay Cut at the end of the Exuma chain where we anchored in 4 feet of water just off the beach. Dinner was grilled Grouper and shrimp with potatoes. Tomorrow we'll probably motor the remaining 10 miles back to Georgetown.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - Kids Cove, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We awoke to still no wind and decided we'd motor on back to Georgetown. We got through the cut without any problems and made it back to town by 10:30 am.

On the way back, we got hit by two angry squalls and I got soaked watching the auto pilot drive. Some members of the crew however stayed below decks and got to stay dry. We also caught two Almaco Jacks, but they were kind of on the small side and since I didn't feel like cleaning them in the thuderstorms and lightning, they were released back into the wild.

We dropped the hook right inside of Kidd's Cove and assembled the dinghy. We took our 10 days accumulation of trash in to the dumpsters at the market and then Amy loaded up on some fresh green things before we headed back to the big boat.

In the afternoon we used a lull in the storms to head back in to town and grab a cold beer at Eddie's Edgewater. We ran in to Speedo Ed there and got caught up on what's been happening around here. The short version is "not much".

On the way back to the boat, I stopped in at Epic Batteries to check on the price and size of 4 - 6 volt Trojan T-105 golf cart batteries. The price is a whopping $130 each which is about 40 bucks more than in the states. I measured one of them so I can make sure it will fit in our battery box under the salon settee and if they do fit, I'll be back in the next couple of days to purchase four. Ouch, that's gonna hurt this months budget.

Back on the boat I cooked some shrimp and pasta for dinner and then we watched the movie Paulie which was about a parrot that could talk. I kind of thought they did that by default, but I guess I am mistaken and this is why I don't make movies for a living. To bed by 9 pm