Taking a Bad Beat

October 11 - 17, 2007

Thursday, October 11, 2007 - Kids Cove, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We awoke to more rain and almost no wind, so over breakfast BLT sandwiches, we decided to take our computers into Eddie's and hang out on the internet for the afternoon.

This turned out to be harder than expected as we had to time our departure to coincide with the infrequent pauses in the rain. Around 11am we made a run for it and got almost to Eddie's before the skies opened up and we had to hide under the awnings of the battery shop, a mere 100 meters from our destination.

After 15 minutes of hiding with no let up in site, we decided to make one last dash to the relative dryness of Eddie's. We got soaked. Of course it turned out that all of this was for naught as the internet is down island wide. Shitty death!

We were so dejected at this that we didn't even pretend to try and stay dry on the walk back to the dinghy and the ride out to the big boat. Fortunately, our laptops are in water proof bags, which worked as advertised.

Back on the boat we dried off and decided to watch a movie instead. Post cinematic experience, we made lobster linguine inside the cabin and then read books until 7 pm when we called it a day. How lame are we?

Friday, October 12, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We actually raised a sail (or unrolled it I guess) as we picked up anchor and sailed up to Hamburger beach this morning. We dropped the hook in our usual spot in 4 feet of water just off the Queen's Dock.

Today is some sort of holiday in the Bahamas which means everything is closed, but not one Bahamian I found today could tell me what holiday it actually is. Hmm, sounds kind of suspicious to me.

I was going to ride out to the airport with our friend Charlie who lives and works down here and has a car, but with the holiday we figured that the Customs office will be closed, so I'll have to wait until next week to get my wind surfer part.

Once the boat was settled and the crew fed, I took the dinghy out to the reef in search of sea life. I found the usual cast of fishy suspects and managed to apprehend a large 5 pound Mutton Snapper, who due to his size, will be joining us for dinner both tonight and tomorrow.

Back on the boat, Amy assisted me in processing my fishy friend and then she and I loaded up the laundry and hit Saint Francis in an effort to get our clothes dry. With all of this rain nothing is drying and I'm starting to feel like I might be mold.

While our clothes ran through the spin cycle Amy and I talked to Jillian and watched TV. It took four loads to get everything washed and two loads to get everything dry, but in the end we prevailed and we are now a mold free family once again.

We lugged the laundry back to the dinghy and then back to the mega yacht where the weasels helped us fold the clothes and put them in their proper storage areas.

Around 6 pm we decided to head over to the managers happy hour at the P&P. They only just recently re-opened after having taken the month of September off, so we figured it would be good to see some of our old friends.

True to form, the rain started up right after we arrived and it kept most people away. We hung out for an hour or two with about 12 others who braved the weather eating buffalo wings and drinking Doc's rum punch.

We were back on the boat by 8 where I made ribs and fries on the grill in the rain. Post dinner clean up was followed by the evening running of the weasels and then bed.

Saturday, October 13, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Yes, yes, still more rain. Disaster struck in early morning when our dinghy filled with water and capsized! Shitty death!

What has now become an easy routine of dragging/swimming the capsized dinghy to shore, emptying the water from both the dinghy and then engine, swimming the whole thing back to the boat and then rebuilding the engine took almost three hours.

However, the engine started on the first pull, so no damage was done. In fact if you want to try and find something positive about the whole episode, I had been putting off changing the oil in the outboard, so this at least made me do that. Later in the day, I would find out that 4 others dinghies either turned turtle or outright sank due to the extreme amount of rain we got last night.

Remember, proportionally inverse to strength, I find there is less humiliation in numbers.

The rain stopped in the afternoon and we took the dinghy to town to get Amy a fresh vegetable and 10 gallons of fresh water as well. It's a good thing we came by dinghy because most of the town was under water. Things do not drain very well here. By the way, the dinghy ran fine all way over and back, so it looks like we're in good shape.

By the way, I ran in to Speedo Ed in town and his rain gauge says we got 7.5 inches of rain yesterday. That's a lot of freaking rain.

Around 6 we went up to St. Francis for poker night and I ended up coming home with the top prize and 80 bucks out of the 13 people who showed up. Amy finished a respectable third and George finished second. We were home by 10 and to bed shortly there after.

As an interesting aside, after Amy turned in, I started playing with our good digital camera's low light, super secret, infra red light magnification, warp factor 6 image enhancement feature. Basically, it let me take a picture of the weasels in the dark. See photo evidence, side right.

Sunday, October 14, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The rain showed up again around 3 am which sent me scurrying on deck to close all of the hatches and to remove the dinghy engine and put it up on it's perch on the stern rail of the big boat before returning to bed.

We slept until almost 8 am when little weasel noses forced us out from under the covers. Breakfast was ham and egg muffins for the humans and ham "just" for the weasels.

Later, we packed up the weasels and took them in to the beach to run around for an hour. Milo managed to spook a small (12 inch) snake out of the weeds and then ripped him in two before I could stop him. I think he may like snakes even less than I do. Remember, the only good snake is a dead snake.

Back on the boat we washed the sand from the ferrets and then turned our attention to boat chores. I had several small jobs in the cockpit that I had been putting off, but an hour and a half pretty much saw them done.

Around 4, we dinghied over to the Fish Fry to watch the Dallas versus New England football game at Les's Bar 12. Amy and I both cheered for Dallas for no real reason other than I just finished a book about how 18th century New Englanders were directly responsible for forcing the Civil War. I guess you can tell, we aren't big football fans.

Anyhow, it was a good game, but Dallas lost out in the end. We dinghied home and then made steak fajitas for dinner before retiring to our cabin with the Wickies (weasels) for the night.

Monday, October 15, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The wind moved to the south this morning, so we upped anchor and moved back to the protection of Volley Ball beach. After anchoring, I broke out my sewing machine and finished a couple of minor things that had been laying around for a week or two.

Afterwards, I tackled cleaning up our spare cabin (Wickie-ville, where the weasels live) where I store engine parts as well as wind surfer pieces that are small enough to live below decks. The surf board is almost 11 feet long and the mast is 17 feet tall, so they live outside. All this cleaning took the better part of the morning and pretty much sucked my will to live for the remainder of the day.

While I organized Wickie-ville, Amy worked on cleaning up the headliner in our bed room and she reported it as being no fun as well. Why does work have to suck so much?

In the afternoon, we went for a swim before showering and putting on clean clothes for Monday night poker. We had 15 people show up and I got knocked out of the final table on the worst beat of a life time when I lost an all in bet to Kenny from Lattittude.

Here's the story, I was dealt pocket aces on the button and raised three and a half times the big blind. Four of the remaining six still in the game called and stayed with me. The flop came down with an ace of hearts, a five of spades and the three of diamonds.

With trip aces I quickly went all in at $3500 and Kenny, who was the big stack with about $5500, wasted no time in calling me. Everyone else folded and the pot was now worth $9500!

With only the two of us remaining and me all in, we both turned over our cards. Kenny was sitting with a three and four of spades and working the straight draw with a pair of threes to boot, while I was dominating him with trip aces. The turn came up the ace of spades!

Whew who! Four aces! I am invincible! Right? Wrong.

The river was the two of spades, which gave Kenny the straight flush; ace, two, three, four, five of spades. Shitty Death! I mean come on! How can you loose with quad aces ?!? I hate this stupid game. I hate it so much.

Anyhow, my night was over and the game went on without me. Linda from Lattittude ended up winning the top prize while Bea from Joybells came home in second. We were home by 9:30.

This will be our last poker night for a while as Team Dream Catcher is about to leave the harbour. Ed and Bea from JoyBells also fly home to the states on Wednesday for a month, so with the four of us gone, I don't know if there will be enough people to set up, tear down, deal and organize poker night. Call ahead if your planning to play.

Anyhow, tomorrow we will take on fuel, water, and veggies and then on Wednesday, we plan on heading out at first light. Where we head will depend on the direction of the wind, but right now it seems the forecast is for south east winds under 15, so we are thinking on maybe running up the Exuma chain to Staniel and then either jumping east to Eleuthera and Cat or maybe heading directly to Water Cay in the Jumentos via Farmers Cay and the backside of Great Exuma.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We slept in this morning and didn't really get going until almost 9.

At 10:30, I hooked up with Charlie and his friend Auggie, from the DEA, to bum a ride up to the airport and the customs office so I could claim my wind surfer universal joint. Godfrey, the head customs dude, was cool and let me have my part for free with no import duty. Remember, free is good.

I was back at the dinghy dock by 11:30 where I collected some fuel and some water before heading back to the mega yacht. I spent the next two hours re-assembling my pieces and parts for the wind surfer to verify that everything was in working order. Houston we are go for launch!

Once I was done, Amy and I headed back into town to top up our supplies. We also stopped at the liquor store and loaded up on rum. While in town, we ran into Bo on Free Spirit who is trying to find a place to haul his boat out to have the bottom done before he heads down towards Cuba. Good luck Bo if we don't see you before you leave.

Anyhow, we were back on the boat with everything stowed away by 4pm. Around 6 I fired up the grill and cooked two ribs, three shrimp, and the remaining half of Mr. Mutton for dinner. It was a good, if a some what odd, mix and there were no left overs.

Post dinner book reading with the weasels before bed at 8 pm. Tomorrow we're outta here!

Thursday, October 18, 2007 - Childrens Bay, Childrens Bay Cay, Exumas
By Tom

And we're off!

Actually, before we left I ran back into town to drop off trash and to get 10 more gallons of gas, but who's counting?

And we're off! Again!

We raised the main, pulled up the anchor, unfurled the genoa and turned our nose northward. The wind fell almost dead behind us, so we swapped the genoa for the spinnaker and off we went. We managed a stately 4.3 knot average in 8 to 10 knots true and it took us nearly 6 hours to sail up to Children's Bay. We didn't mind the slow pace as at least we were sailing. It's good to be moving again!

The trip up was quiet and uneventful. We ran three fish whackers the whole way, but all we caught was one small, two foot barracuda which was released back into the wild, unharmed. We had the anchor down by 4 pm, just a head of a light rain shower that moved through the area.

For dinner we had baked potatoes and fillet mignon on the grill. Needless to say, there were no leftovers. We were both tired from a long day in the sun and bedtime came at an ultra early 7:30pm. Tomorrow we'll head back out and move the boat up to Farmers Cay and points north.