Florida's Other East Cost

November 12, 2006

Sunday, November 05, 2006 - White Sound, Green Turtle Cay, Abacos
By Tom

Ok, so the weather hasn't changed and we're still stuck at Greene Turtle. It has rained pretty much straight through for the last 3 days and we haven't gotten off the boat in forever.

The wind is still howling, so we have plenty of power and we seem to be spending most of our time online.

Nothing much happened today and that's all there is to it. Pretty boring huh

Monday, November 06, 2006 - White Sound, Green Turtle Cay, Abacos
By Tom

The rain is still here, although now it is much more intermittent. During one of the lulls, we assembled the dinghy and motored the 2 miles into town. Having a dinghy that stays dry and planes kicks mega ass.

In town we wandered the streets mostly for want of something to do. We stopped at the grocery store and got a bag of locally made English muffins. For $5 you 12 muffins. Not a bad deal around these parts. We also got a bottle of cheap rum and a Chilean bottle of white wine.

We ran out of roads to walk after about 30 minutes, so we got in our dinghy and went back to the boat. The sun came out and we decided to walk back over to the windward side of the island to the beach that we visited the other day.

We got there ok, but the wind was blowing so bad we couldn't stay. 15 minutes later we were back in the dinghy and back on the boat. The weather is supposed to be bad through tomorrow so I suspect I will have nothing to report again

Tuesday, November 07, 2006 - White Sound, Green Turtle Cay, Abacos
By Tom

Another boring day stuck on the boat. I'm not even going to attempt to find something interesting to say, except see you tomorrow.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006 - Marsh Harbour, Marsh Harbour, Abacos
By Tom

Hurray! We finally left Greene Turtle!

The weather is still very cloudy and rainy, but the wind finally died down to less than 25 knots. We upped anchor and set out towards Marsh Harbour via the inside passage. It's pretty thin water and not recommended in the guide book, but using the preferred Whale Passage was not an option as we had 10 - 12 breaking seas on the outside.

We timed our departure with the high tide and we easily made it through the Don't Rock Passage without ever seeing less than 6 feet of water. No problem mon! Actually, we just took our time through the 1 mile stretch that is labeled shoal -- visual piloting only. Now that we have been through it and have proper GPS coordinates, I wouldn't hesitate to use this route again.

Our trip down to Marsh Harbour saw us dead down wind, so we broke out our newly built spinnaker for it's inaugural run. Much to my surprise, it opened up and set just like it was suppose to. No seams busted and the sail looked great. Amy said she was never worried in my sewing abilities, but I think she secretly expected to see a giant explosion resulting in spinnaker matter spread all over. She doesn't recognize my sewing power.

We rode the spinnaker all the way down to Marsh Harbour and anchored in our usual spot. Not much has changed here.

Once the boat was put to bed, we launched the dinghy in the drizzling rain and took our one empty propane tank in to be filled. We dropped it off at the hardware store, where they said it would be filled by that afternoon. We then hit the grocery store for a few fresh veggies as well as the pharmacy for a few packages of sea sickness pills.

Back on the boat we put away our purchases and then headed back in to collect our propane. Afterwards, we dinghied over to Snappas for a few cocktails before returning to a dinner of barbecued ribs and potato wedges.

Tomorrow we try and finish up some chores so that we can continue our trek south

Thursday, November 09, 2006 - Hopetown Harbor, Hopetown, Abacos
By Tom

Amy was up early and ashore taking care of laundry while I changed the oil in our main engines. She radioed me for a pick-up just as I was finishing up.

After the laundry was put away, we went back to the grocery store for a few more things and then we upped anchor and sailed over to Hopetown. We've been here before and it's a charming little town, but mostly we just wanted to get out of Marsh Harbour. Marsh Harbour has great services and a good anchorage, but the harbour is polluted and unless you want to go do touristy things there isn't a lot going on.

Anyhow, we got to Hopetown and picked up a mooring ball as there is no anchoring here. I finally hauled Amy up the mast to get the main halyard that we lost on the crossing from the states.

Afterwards, we went ashore and got a phone card so that Amy could call here grand mother in New York. We stopped at Captain Jacks for a beer and then returned to the boat for dinner before retiring for the evening.

Friday, November 10, 2006 - Lynyard Cay, , Abacos
By Tom

We left Hopetown early this morning and motored south to White Sound on Elbow Cay where we stopped to take on fuel and water. We needed 42 gallons of fuel and 40 gallons of water. The total cost was $182.

Junior, the dock guy, remembered us from when we stopped here three years ago. We talked for a while and caught up on where each of us has been. He just got back from the boat show in Annapolis, which was our old stomping ground. He's a great guy to deal with and if you ever stop there, make sure to look him up.

After fueling, we continued south with no wind at all, finally stopping at Lynyard Cay. We had been putting off scrubbing the bottom of the boat for quite a while, but the time had finally come. Shitty death!

Two and a half hours later, we had beaten the sea life forms into submission and off the bottom of our vessel. With that job done, we got the boat ready for offshore work once more. Tomorrow we are going to make the 50 mile ocean run to Eulethera. By the way, Amy broke out the underwater camera and has begun trying to figure out how to use it properly. Notice photographic evidence side right.

And so without further ado, we say farewell to the Abacos, Florida's other east coast.

Saturday, November 11, 2006 - Royal Island, Eleuthra
By Tom

It was a long day for Team Dream Catcher. We were up and underway by 7 am. For some reason, the last two days we have been unable to get the weather dude's broadcast. The radio appears to be working fine as we can tune in other broadcasts, but for whatever reason, Chris hasn't been heard. Maybe he's on vacation?

Anyway, the weather looked ok for going offshore, so we ducked out the cut at Little Harbour and turned our nose south towards Royal Island, Eleuthra. I deployed our full array of fish whackers and not much happened for several hours. Around noon, one of the lines got a hit, but it turned out to be just a small, 1 foot Almaco Jack, which we released back into the wild.

Royal Island appeared on the horizon and I thought we were going to go home empty handed when a different fish whacker started peeling off line. Amy manned the helm and I the whacker. (That's pretty funny huh?)

When the dust cleared, we gaffed and hauled aboard a nice 8 pound black fin tuna, which is a new species for us. Mr. Tuna yielded 12 good sized tuna steak, half of which went to the fridge and the other half to the freezer. Looks like fish is back on the menu for dinner.

It was rough enough offshore that we did not break out the camera to photograph our tuna, so I have included a picture of Milo, who oddly enough closely resembles the Black Fin Tuna dimensions. He is doing his best large tuna imitation here, but some imagination may be required.

Right before the Royal Island cut, another fish whacker started peeling of line, but whatever attacked our lure bit through the chinsey mono filament that came as OEM on the lure. Our lure manufacturer sucks ass and as such I have replaced all of the mono filament line with steel leader material.

Anyhow, we entered the anchorage and got the hook down by 4 pm. We covered 60 miles at an average speed of 6.5 knots, which is pretty good considering we had to motor most of the way. Dinner was fresh tuna and barbecued grilled potatoes. Tomorrow we plan to jump to Current Island and then on to the Exumas come Monday.