Artificial Gravity or Weasels Over the Wire

June 21 - 27, 2007

Thursday, June 21, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The weasels escaped from their cage last night and as a result, I awoke at 5 am to the insistant dig of fury little paws telling me it was time to eat. Several blue berries and a diet pepsi later, the weasels and I sat in the cockpit and watched the sun come up.

Amy joined us around 9am and together we tackled several boat cleaning projects. After cleaning, I made the forms for my dinghy pontoon extensions. I ended up using 4 layers of inch and a half closed cell foam and then duct taping the snot out of everything to insure they hold together during the fiberglassing process. I'll keep you posted as I make progress.

In the early afternoon I ran in to the hardware store to pick up a couple of odds and ends, but when I got there, the store was closed as the owner was out to lunch. I waited an hour and thirty minutes for the store to re-open only to find out they didn't have what I needed! I ask you dear reader, how can a hardware store run out of duct tape?

Oh well, such is life on island time.

I returned to the boat and made some chicken wings on the grill with french fries before our regularly scheduled Thursday night poker game. We had 12 players and neither Amy nor I placed in the money. With both of us out of the game, we returned home early and had a cocktail with the weasels before we called it a night around 9:30.

Friday, June 22, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Hello, and welcome to summer. I guess it officially started yesterday, but hey, we're on island time remeber. Speaking of summer, the weather must know it's summer too because today it was 92 and humid. This officially qualifies as "hot".

Speedo Ed showed up this morning around 9 am to pick me up to go spear fishing. We took his dinghy outside and the ocean was completely flat. It was so flat in fact that you couldn't tell where the separation point was between water and sky on the horizon.

We dove at 4 or 5 different spots and in the end we got 1 good sized Hogfish and 2 Groupers of the "spiny" variety. We saw lots of lobsters out and about and at least half of them were walking around pregnant, which is good to see.

Maybe the government should think about instituting a cash for breeding policy with the lobster nation to ensure the continuation of the species? It seems to work with the Bahamians.

Back on the big boat, I stowed my fishy friends and then we moved the boat up to Hamburger beach. Counting us, there are now three boats anchored here. With the hook down, I retired to the cockpit and read a book while Amy braved the mind altering and often times corrosive chemicals in our hull cleaner to remove the layer of grime from our galley surfaces.

Way to take one for the team baby!

We spent the remainder of the afternoon alternating between reading and floating underneath the boat in the shade formed by our two separate hulls. Around 5:30 we headed in to the managers party at the P&P for free rum punch and chicken wings.

In a bold and surprising move, the P&P also served meatballs. It's a tough life when the highlight of your day is an unexpected and properly cooked meatball.

While at the happy hour, Doc (the bartender) introduced us to a British couple our age on their honeymoon that are staying at the P&P. They seemed to be having a good time and we exchanged stories for a while before they headed off to dinner at the fish fry.

Also of note and for a purely unbiased reporting effort for you our dear readers, I must dutifully report that there was a women at the happy hour with the largest, biggest, most over the top, gravity defying, fake boobs I have ever seen.

They were so big in fact that I believe they had there own gravity well. I know this because I witnessed first hand several, mostly male, people get physically drawn in the direction of said boobs as they passed by close to them.

For the record, my return to the P&P tomorrow will be solely for the purpose of gathering more data (pictures) so that I can publish a scientific journal entry about this new found gravitational effect. Maybe I'll bring Milo to help.

Anyhow, we left the P&P around 7 and stopped by St. Francis on the way home. George had set up his DVR at the bar so we stayed and watched Blood Diamonds with him, Jillian, Kenny and Linda. The movie was pretty good, but it portrays the South Africans in a really bad light.

The movie lasted 2 hours and we didn't return home until 10 pm where we promptly turned in for the night

Saturday, June 23, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We got off to a slow start this morning and didn't really get up and moving until almost 10 am. Today promised to be a scorcher as the temperature was already at 88 while we ate breakfast.

The weather report says wind is coming starting tomorrow, so we spent the day getting the boat ready to travel. This involved stowing all of the things we've taken out since we returned to G'town a week ago as well as putting the finishing touches on my fuel injector replacement.

In between jobs, we took swims to cool off. I also filled up one of our sinks with fresh water to provide the weasels with their own pool, but mostly I had to force them in to cool off. After the third trip, Milo dove to the bottom of the sink and used his teeth to remove the drain plug and hide it in my tool bag.

Cooler temperatures came with the setting sun and we sat in the cockpit with an evening cocktail and some music on the stereo. To bed by 8.

Sunday, June 24, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We awoke to flat calm and when I checked, it seemed our forecasted wind had been pushed back a day. We decided to head out anyway.

We cleared the harbour entrance and put up the sails in a whopping 5 knots of breeze. We chose to head north as this allowed us to at least pretend to sail. We headed up to Children's Bay and along the way we caught and lost a large Mahi Mahi as well as some other leviathan of the deep that never materialized on the surface. Not our best day of fishing.

The hook was down and the boat to bed by 3 pm. We both took a swim off the back of the boat before retiring to the cockpit to read books.

Around 7 I made grouper linguine in the cockpit on the portable camp stove in an effort to keep the heat out of the cabin. Dinner was excellent and afterwards we watched the new James Bond movie Casino Royale. It was ok, but not great.

Monday, June 25, 2007 - West Anchorage, Great Guana, Exumas
By Tom

We got up and under way by 8 am. We raised the main and set the spinnaker and away we went. We sailed 40 miles in just over 5 hours and we had the hook down off of Great Guana by 1:30 pm.

We had to jibe the spinnaker a few times and also we had to switch to the genoa when we turned to far up into the wind, but overall it was a good sail. We did have a minor problem with the sock for our spinnaker as it developed a nine foot long tear in the top. I'm not sure if I can fix it or not, but we'll take a look at it later and see.

As an aside, we also anchored under sail and it went pretty well. This is only the second time we've ever done it and the first time we drug in the middle of the night. This time, we both dove on the anchor and verified it's set. As it turned out, it held fine through out the night.

Dinner was rice stuffed green peppers done on the grill along side pork chops and french fries. The pepper things weren't very good and I don't think we'll be trying them again anytime soon. The wind is supposed to fill in some more tomorrow and start swinging around towards the south. It should be a good sailing day, so stay tuned.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - Staniel Cay Harbour, Staniel Key, Exumas
By Tom

Early this morning around 5 am a small squall came through the anchorage and turned the wind around 50 degrees which made our anchorage totally suck. Needless to say, Amy and I had the anchor up and the sails set by 6:30.

We zipped up to the harbour off of Staniel Cay in less than 90 minutes under full sail. We tacked past the yacht club and dropped the hook in 4 feet. As an aside, it's always funny coming in to this anchorage. In order to clear the shoal at the entrance, you have to almost hit the end of the dock at the yacht club. This becomes increasingly more funny if there is a mega yacht parked at the end of the dock as there was this time.

The hired captain, two mates and an irate owner came out on the aft deck of this 130 foot monster as I tacked to within 15 feet of their stern. No one said anything to us, but completed the tack, gathered speed and passed with at least 20 feet to spare, I could tell they thought we should have been further away.

As we sailed past, Milo farted in their general direction. I guess it's safe to say we won't get invited aboard that yacht any time soon.

With the anchor down and the boat to bed, we went in to the yacht club to call home, drop off a bag of trash and then surf the internet. We had hoped to play some pool, but all of the balls were missing. Why do you think someone would steal the pool balls when this is the only table on the island?

We hung out in the yacht club until 5pm and then returned to the big boat for a dinner of shrimp pitas and french fries. Right as I was taking the food off the grill, a small squall came through and kept us locked below for the remainder of the evening.

We read books and played with the weasels until 9 and then turned in.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007 - Big Majors Key, Exumas, Exumas
By Tom

We were going to head north today, but the weather forecast is calling for more squalls so we decided to wait another day before moving on.

I worked on several small boat projects in the morning and Amy did a couple of cleaning jobs inside. Around noon, we went to shore to use the phone to check up on a few things back home, but my Dad was at work, so we had to call back later.

Back on the boat we surfed the internet and read until 5pm when we returned to shore and called Dad again. This time we were able to get what we needed and afterwards we retired to the Yacht club for a beer.

We dinghied back to the boat around 6 pm and discovered that our anchorage had become rolly, so we picked up the anchor and sailed under genoa only around the corner and in to the lee of Big Majors Cay.

We anchored off the southern beach and one of the resident pigs swam out ten or fifteen meters to see if we had food. After a few minutes I guess he realized we weren't coming ashore, so he paddled back to the beach, snorted in our general direction and then disappeared into the brush.

We were both surprised when we rounded the corner and found 6 mega yachts, 3 trawlers, 2 catamarans and 1 sloop all anchored here. Don't these people know that hurricane season is here?

After securing the boat, we fired up the oven and cooked the loaf of bread I made this morning. When the bread was done, I started the grill and cooked a pair of fillet mignon steaks that I brought back from the states last month. Mmmmmm good!

Tomorrow after the weather dude is done, we hope to sail up to Norman's Cay or maybe Shroud Cay depending on the wind direction. More to follow. End of line.