Anchor Drifting or Cornish Game Hen Head Reconstruction

September 13 - 19, 2007

Thursday, September 13, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We awoke to a severe squall moving through the area. Wind was up over 40 knots, but fortunately, we were well protected from the direction of the worst of it.

The anchor held fine, but we did forget to latch the bathroom window and consequently I ended up spending 15 minutes cleaning up a small pond that had formed in our shower while Amy made us breakfast tacos.

Post breakfast, we upped anchor and moved through the rain drops down to Volley Ball beach where we anchored in 5 feet of water just off of the Chat and Chill. The new location afforded us more protection from the chop kicked up by the high winds and it also put us much closer to poker night.

Once the boat was settled, I launched my wind surfer and spent two hours tooling around the harbour avoiding rain drops and trying to look cool. The photographic evidence shown side right proves I did not succeed.

Around 5 pm, we dinghied up to St. Francis for poker. We had 12 players show up and in the end it came down to me and Greg (son of St. Francis). The very first hand head to head, I got ace-king suited and moved all in with $6000. Greg called and turned over pocket 7's and while it was an even money bet, no face cards came up and I lost.

Damn you pocket sevens!

Back on the boat, we corralled the weasels and turned in for the night.

Friday, September 14, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The wind was up all night and it was actually cool for the first time this summer. We awoke to bright sunshine and 20 knots of wind. Amy made grilled cheesies for breakfast and then I set up my sewing machine.

Up first was a new cover for the Igloo cooler that Amy transported our steaks in from the States. I made a cushion and a cushion cover and then made the cooler cover. Finally, I mated them together with three strips of velcro and we now have a new seat at the cockpit table.

As I wrapped up the cooler cover, the rain showed back up so sewing was suspended for the day. We hid inside from the rain drops until 5 pm when I made garlic butter lobster linguine for dinner. The weasels woke up in time for dinner so the four of us shared one lobster and together we were barely able to eat the entire beasty.

After dinner we had "really old movies that were old before we were born" viewing night. We started off with Cat on a Hot tin Roof starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman followed by from Here to Eternity with stars I cannot remember. Both were really good, but I have to say I was surprised to see that Paul Newman actually had hair at one time. Who knew ?

Movie night ended at 11 pm and we turned in shortly there after.

Saturday, September 15, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

I was back out on wind surfer early this morning. There was 15 knots of wind pretty steady and through out the day I managed to get 5 hours of sailing in.

At some point in between sails, we made some chicken fingers and fries for lunch. Also at some point during the day I took time out to head across to town and pick up 15 gallons of fresh water. As an aside, the Exuma market has gotten rid of all of the dumpsters that the cruisers use for trash disposal.

Rumor has it that the market got in trouble for rats, but I cannot comfirm or deny that. I also heard that the manager was mad that all four dumpsters get filled up to the brim the first day they are emptied. Hopefully he realizes that there are only 11 cruising boats currently here, so we cannot be responsible for that amount of trash.

It also isn't clear what the cruising boats our supposed to do with trash disposal now. It's a minor problem with so few of us here, but when the season starts up again, it will be a disaster. I spoke to the Tourism Office about it and they were very pleasant, but couldn't offer anything other than "we'll look in to it". Hopefully they are looking fast.

I finished up sailing around 4 pm and after showering and changing clothes, we went up to St. Francis for a potluck cookout. Amy made a salad to share among the attendees and we brought two Cornish game hens stuffed on little tiny steel pineapple cans to cook on the grill. The "beer can chickens" were well received and they also tasted great!

As an aside, if you look at the pictures side right, you can see our artist's rendition of what Cornish game hens might atually look like if you were to see one with it's head still in place. The ferrets were none to impressed with the use of their squeeky toys for this photo opportunity.

Post cookout, we played poker with 10 players. The final three came down to George, Amy, and Terry with George coming home in first palce. Amy finished third behind Terry, but still in the money.

We returned home by 10 pm and turned in for the evening.

Sunday, September 16, 2007 - Hamburger Beach Anchorage, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

We got up this morning and moved the boat back down to our spot off of Hamburger Beach. Volleyball Beach is a nice place to anchor, but when there is no wind it gets really buggy and then on the weekends you get a lot of local traffic coming over to the pig roast at KB's.

We had the anchor down by 9 am and after feeding the weasels, we decided on a swim. Amy really impressed the rest of the crew when she voluntarily scrubbed her side of the boat hull, even though we just did it 10 days ago. She says she is trying to stay ahead of the growth, but I think she is just an over achiever.

We listened to the Pittsburgh Steelers game at 1pm and then we loaded into the dinghy and went over to the Shacks to watch the Nascar race at Shack Bar 12. The race was pretty boring, but most of the Bahamians were out and about at the Shacks, so we had lots of company. Amy got hit on about 22 times, but managed to emerge unscathed.

We returned to the big boat around 6pm and I grilled some Hogfish for supper. We retired by 8 pm amid various rain clouds and thunderstorms.

Monday, September 17, 2007 - Sandbar, Stocking Island, Exumas
By Tom

Shitty death!!!! Disaster struck in the night!!!

Last night around 3:30 am a squall came through the anchorage bringing with it the usual lightening, thunder, rain and wind. I stuck my head out the hatch to make sure we were ok and it seemed we were.

An hour later I was woken by the sound and motion of the boat smacking the bottom. Ahhhhhh !!!!!

I scrambled on deck to check the anchor only to find out the anchor was gone!!!! Ahhhhhhh!!!!

This isn't even anchor dragging, it's anchor drifting! Shitty Death!! Again!!

Amy joined me on deck to assess the situation and we discovered that the shackle that connects the anchor chain to the rope splice had exploded. The boat then drifted free about 400 yards until it encountered the sand bank at the north end of the P&P dock just off of Hamburger Beach.

The sand bank caught us before we drifted out to sea or worse up onto the rocks, but the tide was dropping and we were mega stuck. I got into the dinghy and Amy lowered me our two spare anchors which I set out to keep us from going any further up on the sand bar.

Low tide came didn't show up until 5:30 am so we had to sit on the bottom for several hours while the water continued to run away. By 6:30 it was light enough to see and discovered that the starboard side hull was sitting in approximately 14 inches of water.

Suffice it to say dear reader, that even for a shoal drafted vessel such as ours, 14 inches isn't enough.

It took until 9 am before there was enough water float free. Once we got off, we motored back into the anchorage and set our back up anchor. Once we were secured I donned my wet suit action figure Bozo attire (wet suit) and went searching for our missing anchor.

After a few minutes I found it and Amy came out in the dinghy to help me retrieve it. Upon inspection, we were able to determine that the shackle itself physically broke apart and it was not the pin backing out.

I made a trip to town to get a replacement shackle and then spent an hour redoing the splice in the rode and re-attaching the rode to the chain.

By 2 pm we were back in business, so we upped anchor and motored back down to Volleyball where we set our newly repaired primary anchor. After cleanup and showers, we took the dinghy up to George's for poker night.

We had 10 players show up and I proceeded to take out my anchor frustrations on the other poker players by winning all their chips and taking home the first place money. George was second and Amy finished third.

Back on the boat I made little pizzas and we munched them down before turning in for the evening

Tuesday, September 18, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

Another day stuck in Georgetown. Currently there are three tropical depressions roaming the North Atlantic so Team Dream Catcher is still sitting and waiting.

To fight off boredom, I spent most of the day wind surfing through the harbour. When I got tired, I stopped by the Chat and Chill and had a beer with Arlene or I stopped by Lattittude and scored a beer from Kenny and Linda.

This wind surfing thing is a lot more fun if it's beer goal oriented. As an interesting aside, the more I drink the better I think I surf and the less it bothers me when I crash and burn. I may be on to something here.

Around 2 pm the rain showed up with a vengeance and I had to retreat to the big boat. I cleaned up and had a free, unlimited rain water shower and then packed up my computer fix-it bag and headed over to look at Kenny and Linda's computer problems.

They have been having trouble with their external wifi antenna and adapter, so I offered to take a look. We tried various combinations of things and eventually I was able to swap in my spare USB wifi adapter and a borrowed cable from Speedo Ed to make things work.

While I was over at Kenny and Linda's, I bummed several movies to bring back for Team Dream Catcher. We miss new movies.

Dinner was half of a lobster. We only had half because it was so big that was all we could eat. I guess tomorrow we will have lobster part two.

Post dinner we watched the first Harry Potter movie before turning in for the night.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007 - Volley Ball Beach, George Town, Exumas
By Tom

The rain kept up all night. It hasn't rained like this down here since last December.

Amy made breakfast tacos for the crew this morning before we got down to boat chores. Mine involved cleaning and oiling my hand tool set as it has been getting really rusty of late. I have the Craftsman brand of tools and was always happy with them when I worked on cars and stuff back home, but out here they aren't holding up. Mostly its the ratchets that are failing and I will have to replace them all when we return to the states.

I spent about an hour making another repair on the universal joint of my wind surfer. I really need to get a new one, but so far it's been tough to find. Any wind surfers out there know where I can get a rubber universal joint for my mast base?

I test drove my repair during a lull in the rains and it seems to hold up ok, but I doubt it will last long term. Back on the boat the crew massed in the cockpit under the bimini and shared a rum drink while the rain fell. Thanks to all the rain over the last 24 hours, this is probably the cleanest the exterior of the boat has been in 5 months.

For dinner I put on my rain coat and cooked lobster part two on the grill along with a grouper fillet and some baked potatoes. It was most excellent. I may not have mentioned it, but the weasels seem to enjoy eating any food that would cost lots of money back in the states. We rarely see them eat things like Vienna sausages, but if you break out the lobster or fillet minion, watch out.

Post dinner Amy read with the weasels while I watched Harry Potter Part Two. To bed by 10