Protection From Your Followers

March 23 - 29, 2008

Sunday, March 23, 2008 - Eva Cay, Salt Pond, Long Island
By Tom

We awoke to rain drops this morning, but it didn't last too long. By 7 am the sun was back out shining and the day began.

After a quick breakfast hash brown with the weasels, I got in the water and scrubbed one hull of the boat. So as not to over stress myself on Easter and all, I stopped after one and decided to leave the other hull for another day.

At 12:30 we joined the Sequel's and the Dragon Fly's for lunch at Long Island Breeze. The food was kind of lame but the company was good as we enjoyed ourselves. We were back on the boat by 2 and napping shortly there after.

I spent the afternoon playing games on my computer and then at 6 pm we loaded into the dinghy with a fresh made lobster and pine-apple pizza and headed over to Dragon Fly for happy hour. George and Julie from Sequel were there as well as the couple from Kitty Wake.

It was fun to get to see Dragon Fly. George built it himself over the course of three years or so back in the 80's. Dragon Fly is a 64 foot catamaran and is absolutely huge! We spent three hours hanging out and exchanging stories before returning home at 9 pm and turning in for the evening

Monday, March 24, 2008 - Thompson Bay, Salt Pond, Long Island
By Tom

Today was some sort of holiday revolving around the Easter, so everything on the island was closed. Early this morning after the running of the ferrets, we moved the boat up to the north end of Thompson Bay as there is a cold front expected this evening.

The boat was settled by 10 am and we had an early lunch of grouper fingers and french fries. The wind steadily picked up and by noon it was blowing a solid 25 to 30 knots out of the north. We closed the hatches and settled in with our books.

Around sunset the rain showed up and we opted to forego grilling snapper in the rain in favor of a fresh garden salad with home made croutons instead. The wind settled down to mere 20 knots by 8pm and we called it a day. Man are we lame.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008 - Thompson Bay, Salt Pond, Long Island
By Tom

The rain continued to howl and we did not get off the boat all day. We did move the big ship forward and to the right of the north end of the anchorage as the wind had pushed around to the north east and steadied at 25 knots.

After playing the weasels into exhaustion, I fired up my lap top and alternately saved the world from space aliens and then beat Hitler into submission in the cold wasteland of the Ardennes forest. By the time I was done it was 1 pm and Amy made us grilled cheesies for lunch.

In the afternoon, Amy tackled cleaning the head while I cleaned out the forward weasel room. We were both done and relaxing in the salon by 4 pm. Cocktail hour started shortly there after and as the sun set into the western horizon I fired up the grill and cooked a butter-flied lobster tail and a 2 inch thick grouper steak. Amy warmed up some pitas and shredded some cheddar cheese and we had seafood stuffed pitas for dinner.

Once dinner was finished, we retired to the salon to watch Grumpy Old Men for the thirtieth time. We both still laughed our asses off, especially when the super old grand dad dude runs through his euphemisms for having sex. For the record, my favorite is "Taking the tuna boat to tuna town".

To bed by 8:45.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008 - Thompson Bay, Salt Pond, Long Island
By Tom

We were up by 6 am to catch the 6:30 weather dude forecast and then to get ready for a 7:30 pick up by the Dragon Fly's. Al and Jill not only grabbed us, but also George and Julie from Sequel and we headed in to shore and then on to Fox Auto to pick up our rental mini van.

George and I filled out paper work for twenty minutes and then we loaded the team into our 2005 Dodge Caravan. I was our designated driver for the day, mostly because no one else wanted to do it.

We started out at 8:15 heading north. We drove all the way to the north end of the island to visit the Columbus monument, Christopher Columbus made land fall on Long Island in 1492, but didn't stay. Anyhow, the British government put up a statue to celebrate his land fall when the Bahamas were still a protectorate nation and now it is kind of a tourist stop.

I say kind of, because to get to the monument you have to drive two miles through dense mangrove under growth that hasn't been maintained in years. It took about thirty minutes to drive the path each way and after having done it, I have to say, I'm glad it wasn't my car as I pretty well beat the shit out of the poor minivan trying to navigate the huge pot holes and the ever encroaching mangrove forests.

We spent an hour climbing the small mountain path to the top of the monument as well as to a beautiful little hidden lagoon that is just around the northern most point of Cape Santa maria. It was quite pretty and Amy took several pictures which are shown side right.

After the Columbus monument, we turned our nose south and stopped at the Santa Maria Resort and Hotel to take a peak at their facilities and their beautiful beach before heading to Simms and making a coffee stop for the caffeine addicts among us.

Once fortified we continued our trek southward stopping as the mode grabbed us. I didn't really look around too much as I was trying not to run us off the road or into oncoming traffic, but we stopped in bunches of places and everyone seemed to enjoy the trip.

Around lunch time we pulled in to Max's Conch Bar as we had head she has free wi-fi and good food. The wi-fi part was true enough, but the food kind of sucked and everyone in our group of six gave it a less then stellar review.

The service was particularly bad and it took two hours for us to get our meals and eat. The bartender said they were short staffed today and I would tend to agree with his assessment.

Once fed, we loaded back in to the van and headed another coupled of miles south. We stopped at a Bahamian museum and although it was small, it was very well done and definitely worth the three dollars a person entrance fee.

After the museum we headed down the island and after a few aborted attempts we finally found the blue hole that everyone on the island talks about. The blue hole in question is one of the deepest ones on record and although the lip is in three or four feet of water no more than 10 feet off the shore, the hole itself drops over 700 feet down. The actual diameter of the hole is no more than 100 yards and some guys who participate in extreme deep free diving practice here.

I heard second hand from an islander that a couple of the locals can free dive over three hundred feet using a rock anchor to get them down that far and then swimming back to the surface. Uh, no thanks.

From the blue hole we headed down to Clarencetown. We checked out two old churches that are from the late 16th century and I was shocked and amazed that I was not electrocuted or incinerated by some higher power when I toured through them.

And on the topic of churches, I thought I'd share my now perfected dinner prayer that I have been working on all season. It goes: "Dear Jesus, please protect us from your followers. Amen".

I know, I know, I am so going to hell.

After the church outing, we went down to the Clarencetown marina and checked out a couple of boats we knew that were tied up there. There was a huge swell running through the anchorage and I am real glad we aren't anchored over here.

After thirty minutes, we were back in the car and on our way north back towards our boats. Along the way we stopped at a straw craft shop and a farmer's road side shack. The shack provided the vegetarians amongst us with cabbage, collared greens, and a couple of un-identifiable fruits to boot.

After thirty minutes of visiting with the farmer, we continued on up to Salt Pond where stopped to re-fuel our minivan beast at $5.44 a gallon. Thirty five dollars later we decided to head to Parrots of the Caribbean for cocktails. While there we ran into Chris off of Coan who was with us down in the Jumentos a couple of weeks ago. He joined us for a few drinks and then we took him with us a mile up the road to the to score some Bahamian fried chicken.

Dinner was awesome and we ran into another two cruising couples we knew at the restaurant. Our table ballooned into 12 or 14 people and everyone had a good, if somewhat noisy, time. In due course dinner was over and everyone piled back in the mini van for the short trip home.

I dropped everyone off at the dinghy dock and then took the car back to the rental dude a quarter mile away. I rejoined the crew a few minutes later and then Al (Dragonfly) took us all back to our respective boats.

We were home with our purchases put away by the ultra late hour of 10:15 and after a brief search for the weasels everyone retired for the night.

Thursday, March 27, 2008 - Thompson Bay, Salt Pond, Long Island
By Tom

This morning we slept in to recover from our drive across the island yesterday. We didn't really get moving until 10 am or so, but after a quick breakfast grilled cheesy, we took the dinghy into the grocery store to score some fresh vegetables. The freighter was in yesterday so there were plenty of fresh things to choose from.

Back on the boat we unloaded our purchases and stowed things away. Shortly afterwards, George from Sequel stopped by and bummed my USB memory stick that I had put the pictures from yesterday on.

In the early afternoon, Amy took a nap and I ran down to Long Island Petroleum to get some fuel. Back on the boat I added the fuel to the big boat gas tank and then Amy and I went in to Parrots to say good bye to our friends as we are leaving in the morning.

We were back on the boat by 5 pm and shorty there after, Al and Jill from Dragonfly stopped by to say goodbye. They hung out and shared a bottle of wine with us before returning home at 7 pm. As they were leaving, the couple from Kittywake stopped by to give us some shark steaks that they had gotten from a Bahamian. Mostly they stopped by because someone had told them that we had mega-lobsters on board and they were looking to trade.

After a rum cocktail, we sent them on their way with a pair of medium sized bugs and a promise not to tell anyone that we were their lobster connection. Can't let the word get out now can we?

Our company was gone by 8 pm at which time we loaded our dinghy into the davits and called it a night. Tomorrow we should have wind to fly the spinnaker all the way up to Jewfish Cay on the back side of Great Exuma.

Friday, March 28, 2008 - Rocky Point, Great Exuma, Exuma
By Tom

We were up at 6 am and after catching the weather, we raised our spinnaker and took off from Salt Pond. Today's destination was Rocky Point on the back side of Great Exuma, near Barrataria, some 60 miles away.

We averaged a stately 5.5 knot dead down wind in 12 to 15 knots true. Not exactly setting the world on fire, but it beat motoring.

Around 8 am, Amy dropped below and made 4 breakfast pizzas for the crew while the weasels and I played dice in the cockpit. Once breakfast was served, the weasels were stowed below and the crew ate while the auto pilot drove.

Around noon we had to jibe the spinnaker, but we were still almost dead down wind. The day continued to pass us by as we sat in the shade of the cockpit and read books. My book for today was Echo Burning and it pretty well sucked. Amy was reading Team of Rivals which is a historical book about Lincoln's presidency and I think it will take another three or four weeks for her to finish. Suffice it to say it's a pretty slow paced book.

Around 3 pm, we passed through Jew Fish cut and after inspecting the anchorage here, we decided to instead set course for Rocky Point, some 9 miles distant. A rain squall showed up ten minutes later and we spent the last 90 minutes motoring with no wind and an absolute down pour.

The weather cleared ten minutes before we got to the anchorage and by the time we got the anchor down, the sun re-emerged and we got to watch it settle below the horizon before we sat down to a mega-sized chef salad that Amy prepared while she was inside hiding from the rain drops.

Today's log showed us covering 65 miles in 11.5 hours today and all but last 90 minutes were done under spinnaker. It was a long, but fun day and we turned in at 8 pm as soon as dinner was done. Tomorrow we hope to sail up to Big Harbour at Little Farmers Cay.

Saturday, March 29, 2008 - Big Harbour, Little Farmers Cay, Exumas
By Tom

As we were watching the sun set last night, another PDQ 36 named Next Exit came into the harbour and anchored near us. Don is the owner and single hander of Next Exit and we had met him a year or two ago in addition to meeting him again down at Buena Vista Cay in the Ragged Islands a couple of weeks again.

Anyhow, we both got under way a few minutes after the weather dude went off the radio. I called Don and he was headed a little further north today than us, but neither one of us had more than thirty miles to cover today and it was fun sailing with the same boat as our all the way up to Farmer's Cay.

For the record, Don was about a half a knot faster than us on all points of sail. His boat is actually a year or two older than ours, but his sails looked to be composite (mylar) and his main was a loose footed cut and had one more baton than ours, so I suspect it was a high performance after market deal.

After he sailed by us, I secretly started working the sails and playing the wind shifts in an effort to keep close, but he continued to pull away. I wasn't too worried about being passed as we were letting the auto pilot drive while we read books. We generally don't pay a lot of attention to sail trim, but seeing him sail past us makes me wonder if we shouldn't start.

Anyhow, we arrived off of Little Farmer's and anchored in Big Harbour after our third attempt to get the hook to set. Amy dove in to check the set of the anchor, which turned out to be ok, but not great and I repacked the main sail.

With the boat to bed, we spent the early afternoon just hanging out. Amy read a book up front and I scored some quality time on the internet from the local yacht club. Man I love our mega wi-fi external setup.

In addition to updating the web site, I downloaded the latest weather updates and it looks like we're in for a serious blow over the next three or four days. Tomorrow the rain is gonna start and then the wind is supposed to blow for three days at over 25 knots with gusts to 35 and even 45 in squalls.

While the anchorage here isn't bad, I don't think we want to ride out that kind of wind here, so I suspect we will wait for high tide tomorrow and then slide over the bar and sail north 10 miles up to Blackpoint on Great Guana and weather the blow there.

Anyhow, around 5 pm we launched the dinghy and headed in to town. Ali's shack was open and we spent 90 minutes hanging out with him and a couple for the other locals we know. We caught up on the latest island gossip since our last stop here right after hurricane Noel. To sum it up, not much.

We were back on the boat by 6:30 and after storing the dinghy, I fired up the grill and made some bacon wrapped, barbecued nurse shark steaks served along side baked potatoes and a random can of assorted fruit cup that we have been carrying around for almost a year. Dinner was excellent and there were no leftovers.

Post dinner, we pre-washed the dishes and then turned in for the night with our books. See you tomorrow.