WiFi of the Rich and Famous

October 25 - 31, 2007

Thursday, October 25, 2007 - Staniel Cay Harbour, Staniel Key, Exumas
By Tom

What a shitty day we had! The anchorage we were in over night got really rolly, so at first light we put up the head sail and sailed up to Pipe Creek. Pipe creek offers excellent protection, but is very narrow and had extreme current during peak ebb and flow of the tide.

It took us two tries to get the hook set, but eventually we got it right and all was well. At least until the tide changed. Once it did, we started swinging wildly back and forth to all points of the compass. It was ok until we swung to within ten feet of the rocky shore. Uh-oh.

We upped anchor and moved to a different spot in the creek, but when we set the anchor we danced even more pronounced than before. Ok, up anchor and try another spot. Thirty minutes later, we had the hook down again, but with no better results. We finally moved back to the spot where we first started and set the hook again. Nope, still no better.

Finally we gave up and motored back to Staniel Cay where we set the anchor for the seventh time in the last twelve hours. Shitty death! By the time we got the boat put to bed, it was 7:30 and we were both exhausted. We played with the weasels until 8 and then turned in without dinner. What a long day.

Friday, October 26, 2007 - Black Point Harbour, Great Guana Cay, Exumas
By Tom

The anchorage was again uncomfortable overnight, so we upped anchor and motored the 5 miles back down to Blackpoint, where for the first time in two days, the boat actually sat still and level in the harbour. Yay!

We put the boat to bed and tackled cleanup jobs. Amy did the bathroom and I used hull cleaner on the fore deck to remove some rust stains from our unused anchor as well as from the chain and rode swap I did last week. The hull cleaner is some pretty powerful stuff and it made quick work of the offending stains. It also burnt the hell out of my knees and elbows.

The cleaning went so well I decided to do the cockpit as well; a bold decision to be sure. That took another thirty minutes, but was well worth the effort as it removed a small patch of green mold stuff that had taken up residence next to my tackle box.

Post cleaning we launched the dinghy and I took some trash in to town and gathered ten gallons of fresh water as well. The wind was really howling up over 25 knots and it made for an extremely wet ride to town and back.

Back on the boat we got a call from another catamaran that pulled in behind us. Independencia was a 42 foot FP Venezia heading south and they called us to ask for recommendations on where to anchor for the night. We chatted for a few minutes and made plans to get together when we are all back in Georgetown.

In the afternoon we headed in to town to get a few groceries as we needed a few veggies, some potatoes and orange juice. Afterwards, we stopped by the Scorpio Lounge and hung out with Zhivago the bar tender. We mostly watched tv and played some pool, but it was fun none the less.

Back on the boat, I made shrimp pita wraps with potato wedges. To bed by 9 pm

Saturday, October 27, 2007 - Black Point Harbour, Great Guana Cay, Exumas
By Tom

The wind continues to howl. It's blowing so hard in fact that we had to shut the wind generator down for fear of cooking the batteries. It's nice to be making more power than we can use again.

After the morning running of the weasels I launched my wind surfer and even with the smallest sail I have, I was barely able to keep the board from leaping out of the water when I crossed the small chop in the harbour. It was more like flying then surfing, but it was fun none the less.

The wind wore me out after only 45 minutes and I returned to the boat to rest. Amy spent the morning reading one of her books and working on her computer. Around 3 pm we headed in to town to hook up with Zhivago to watch more tv and play a few more games of pool.

When we docked the dinghy, we ran into Loraine from Loraine's Cafe and she gave us a ride in her golf cart. On the way up to the bar, she stopped by her place to show us the renovations she and her husband have done during the off season. Her place looked really good and while we were there she sort of hit me up to help her install the new wireless internet gear she had recently had shipped in from the states. Oh well, I don't mind helping.

We left Loraine to her wall painting and wandered into the bar. There were a couple of locals hanging around and they invited us to join them. We shared several drinks and quite a few pool games over the course of the next several hours.

Around 6, we headed back to the boat and cooked some meat balls to go with the fresh home made rolls I made earlier today. Meatball sandwiches were a new dinner for Team Dream Catcher and they were pretty good.

I now feel like I have expanded my culinary horizons for the year. To bed by 8:30 while the wind continues to scream outside

Sunday, October 28, 2007 - Big Harbour, Little Farmers Cay, Exumas
By Tom

We loaded up the dinghy this morning and decided to head back down to Farmer's Cay and the Big Harbour anchorage. The wind was blowing a solid 25 knots and we ran down hill at 9 knots under head sail alone.

About a mile out from the harbour, a large squall moved through the area and we quickly dropped the head sail as the wind pushed up over 40 knots. We motored in rough, breaking swells into the lee of Farmer's and the relative safety of Big Harbour.

It was about an hour after high tide and we had no trouble getting over the bar. It took us three tries to get the anchor to grab and once it did Amy dove on it to be safe. The wind was really kicking up some mean swells outside on the open ocean, but there was only a two foot chop or so in the harbour, which wasn't exactly comfortable, but definitely not dangerous.

I tried to get online, but the internet seemed to be down all day. We made shrimp linguine for dinner and then retired to our bedroom to read. Around 7 pm I heard a VHF call go out for weather information. Someone on another boat responded and we followed their conversation up to channel 18.

It seems a tropical depression has given way to a tropical storm named Noel and is heading our way. The high winds we are experiencing are apparently associated with the tropical storm and are supposed to intensify over the next three days.

It being dark already, there wasn't much we could do except batten down for the night and try to get a weather report in the morning. It looks to be a long night as I will be standing anchor watch until first light to ensure we don't drag anchor and end up on the beach

Monday, October 29, 2007 - Cave Cay Marina, Cave Cay, Exumas
By Tom

Ahhhh! Run Ned, it's coming right for us! (Southpark reference)

It's official, hurricane Noel (rhythms with Dole, not no-elle) is heading right for us. Actually, it's still a tropical storm according to NOAA, but two stations on Hispaniola have clocked a steady 75 knots, so that technically makes it a hurricane.

And in the category of "How f*#@ing stupid is this?", we have the following. Earlier today, a Unites States Air Force WC-130 Hurricane Hunter had to abort their mission to fly through the eye of Hurricane Noel due to the fact that their flight path would take them in to Cuban air space.

How messed up is this? People are probably going to die without this information, but thanks to my government and their inability to play nice with others, we have to do without. I guarantee you someone, somewhere will be on the news saying "We didn't know it was coming for us!" within two days.

Ok, so anyway, we awoke to thirty five knots out of the east. Even in the relative all around protection of Big Harbour, we were feeling the effects. After catching the 6:30 am SSB broadcast from both the weather Dude and the butt monkeys at NOAA, we decided to see if we could sail the 6 miles down to Cave Cay and the supposed new marina that has been built in an all weather, man made harbour, carved out of a 30 meter cliff.

We tried calling Cave Cay on the VHF, but no one answered. I wasn't too disturbed by the lack of radio response as very few places in the Bahamas answer the radio regularly. We upped anchor and sailed out of Little Farmers into monstrous 10 foot breakers coming through the channel. To say it was a bit rough would be an understatement.

Once we cleared Farmer's Cay Cut, the waves smoothed down to 4 or 5 footers and we sailed on without problems. 40 minutes later, we came up on the entrance into Cave Cay and we had no problems getting through the well marked and deeply dredged channel.

Once inside the harbour, we picked a good landing space on the new, expansive, floating docks and managed to tie up without incident. Within twenty minutes of landing, Cedric, the dock master and a Bahamian, came out to meet us. We told him we were looking for a place to hide for a few days while the weather passes through and he said no problem.

We spent about two hours putting things below, removing canvas and head sail, doubling all of the lines, and generally getting ready for hurricane force winds. In the afternoon, Steve, the owner came by and introduced himself to us. As we are the only boat here, Amy and I both thought it was a nice gesture.

Steve spoke about his plans and how he envisions the development of his island going forward. It sounds like it will be a really nice place when it's all done, but when it might be done is hard to say.

Once the boat was ready, we decided to tour the island. We crossed over to the ocean side and were both impressed (read scared shit less) at the size and magnitude of the waves outside as there were easily 10 to 15 footers breaking every which way.

We both liked the way Steve is constructing his house as well as the guest cottages. He's made a substantial investment in solar technology and if he has planned correctly, he'll be able to run his house and all 9 guest cottages on solar power alone. Pretty sweet!

We were driven back to the boat by higher winds and driving rain. On the way back we ran in to Steve again and he had printed off the latest forecast from NOAA for us. We stood talking for several minutes and he mentioned that he had heard a boat named Blue Bonnet calling in a mayday earlier while we were coming into the marina.

Blue Bonnet was the boat I spoke to last night and this morning on the VHF about the weather. I tried to talk him out of running to Georgetown outside today as it was obvious the weather was seriously going off outside, but he said they wanted to ride out the coming storm there.

Steve didn't know what happened to them other than that they were talking with Emerald Bay about trying to get the coast guard out to take them off the boat. I hope they made it alright. I feel a little bad in that maybe I should have been a little more forceful when I talked to him this morning in telling him it wasn't safe to go outside today.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't think it's my fault they got in trouble or anything, but still, when I spoke with the captain this morning, he didn't strike me as having a lot of offshore experience and while I did say I wouldn't take my boat out in those conditions, maybe I could have told him he was being an idiot just considering going outside in 35 knots and 15 foot, short, steep seas.

All kidding aside guys, there is no Tow Boat U.S. or U.S. Coast Guard standing by to assist you here.

YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE GOT TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOURSELF OUT HERE OR YOU WILL GET HURT!.

All I can say is I hope Blue Bonnet was able to make safe harbour somewhere.

Ok, enough doom and gloom. Team Dream Catcher is safe and sound tied up to the dock with every line we have on board currently holding us fast. It looks like the worst of the weather will be on us at first light and as such, we are turning in as soon as I finish this log(right around 7 pm).

See you tomorrow.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007 - Cave Cay Marina, Cave Cay, Exumas
By Tom

The weather got real ugly around midnight. The wind blew a sustained 60 knots for about 5 hours and the highest gust we saw was 72 knots. I'm glad we are here hiding instead of anchored out somewhere.

The 6 am position on Noel puts the storm west of us about 100 miles and just south of our lattittude. She is forecast to continue her movement of 340 degrees and speed of 12 knots for the next 24 hours, so this is as bad as it should get for us.

The weather kept us on the boat for most of the day. While the marina is pretty well protected, getting on and of the boat is fairly dangerous, so we only made one trip a shore to use the laundry machines and take hot showers.

The washing machines worked well enough, but there were no functioning dryers. Shitty death! This definitely falls under the heading of "information we could have used earlier". I mean what is the point of telling us you have free washers if the dryers are broke? Maybe it's just me, but perhaps they should have mentioned that too.

The rain was pouring down, so there was little point in hanging the clothes outside to dry. We did the next best thing and strung up a 50 line in the shore side shower facilities and hung our clothes there. I do not expect them to dry much as the weather isn't exactly cooperating, but what else can we do?

Back on the boat, we hid from the torrential rains and watched movies all afternoon. The storm really freaked out the ferrets and they both hid in their sleeping bag all day emerging only to eat and go to the bathroom. It must be the atmospheric pressure drop that is bothering them, because there is no thunder, only rain and the motion is fairly stable. For the record, the pressure as I write this shows 991 millibars.

As an interesting aside, we are able to pick up the wireless signal from Musha Cay, which is the next cay down and about 1 kilometer away as the crow flies. Musha Cay is the ultra pricey, mega exclusive resort island that Hollywood stars rent for $350,000 a week, but supposedly it was recently bought by Nicholas Cage.

What he plans to do with it I don't know, but I figure that since I'm using his Wifi connection I am now living the internet life style of the rich and famous.

Hey Nick, for the record, your connection speed blows, but I'm pretty sure I see what the problem is, so maybe we can trade some computer work for a week's rental on your island? Have your people call my people. We'll do lunch.

Around dinner time, we made home made tortilla wraps with a recipe we downloaded off the internet. They were really good and not one of them survived dinner. My half of the tortilla's were used to wrap up five sauteed shrimp with some bacon, cheddar cheese and lettuce. Amy's half were used to hide some sort of bean goo from the light of day.

After dinner, we did the dishes and listened to the rain drops fall. At 7pm I tried to get the weather update from Chris Parker on what the tropical storm is doing, but he was not readable. I guess the 35 - 40 knots of wind and monsoon like rains were the cause. We gave up trying by 7:20 and turned in for the night

Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - Cave Cay Marina, Cave Cay, Exumas
By Tom

Happy Halloween!

Wow, another rough night as the wind stayed between 35 and 40 knots until sunrise. Around 6:30, the wind died to 30 knots, but the rain if anything increased. According to the Nassau Met office, we have had 12 inches of rain in the last 6 hours.

I got up several times during the night to go out in to the storm and inspect our dock lines for chaff, but all was fine. I couldn't raise either the weather dude or NOAA this morning on the single side band and again, I must assume that it is the extreme instability in the atmosphere. I was able to get online and download weather information that way.

I'll spare you the details of our boring day hiding. Hopefully, tomorrow the wind will be down to a manageable level and we'll leave the marina and move back to the protection of Big Harbour on Little Farmer's Cay where we can replenish our rapidly dwindling rum supply.

Stay tuned.