(I thought I posted this two weeks ago)
We made it to the Bahamas! …but most of these photos are from Florida.
We used a long stretch of settled, windless, beautiful weather in Florida to make more repairs and finish provisioning. The extra time allowed us to have a forespar pole repaired, install an awesome new Garmin chartplotter/radar, dig to the bottom of the sail locker, climb the mast, explore small holes and passageways in the bilge as we ran wires and took out old ones, archive some of the outdated electronics to Jeff and Vicky’s shed, tighten stanchion bolts, redo all the corroded electrical connections on the boat, lube the rigging, put up sails, repair the outboard carburetor (twice), shove beer cans so deep in the quarter berth holds that we’ll have to be marooned on some lonely shoal and dying of thirst to dig them back out, and much much more. Our friends the lovely Wilkins family spent the last night in Florida on board with us. Bodhi and Kieran chased (and were chased by) Saba all around the deck. Joshua rowed them to shore in the morning and we set out from the Lake Worth Inlet, anticipating the wind to clock around and blow us up to the Abacos ahead of a cold front.
The passage went pretty well. We planned to head NE around the Little Bahamas Bank, and then cut back SE intending to get as close to Green Turtle Cay as possible before the wind picked up out of the north. On Sunday the wind stayed strong out of the SE, and we skipped across the Gulf Stream on a close reach, at times making 10 knots ground speed. We neared the Mantanilla Shoal around sunset, and the waves got a little funky bending around the bank from a NE swell. Pulled in a reef on the main for the night, and were about to start night shifts when a shuttle launch left a brilliant flame across the western sky. After that it got pretty boring for about 10 hours. Rounding the corner earlier than expected, we still had a SE wind and could barely point east. There appeared to be about a 2 knot current against us, maybe an eddy of the Gulf Stream? More research needed… We pulled a series of jagged, delirious tacks that left a disheartening track log across the fancy new chartplotter. Monday morning things looked up a bit, with the wind more out of the south. Soon it fell to less than 5 knots, so we got in some final naps and then kicked on the engine to make some progress. About this time I looked up to see two long tears in the leech of the genoa, right along the sailcover. Bummer. We try to avoid burning diesel as much as possible, but when we do, it’s nice to get the refrigerator nice and cold while the alternator is running. So I flipped the fridge switch and the water pump promptly sucked air and cut off. Joshua pulled out a mess of fenders and crawled in the sail locker to reset the fridge; I eased up on the throttle, flipped the switch, and the stupid thing tripped again. Now we suspected that something else was up, so he shut the inlet seacock and checked the water filter. Fine. One more time, and it worked. ! We piled all the gear back in the sail locker, went in to make some tea, and discovered that the solenoid that controls the propane for the stove had burned up. And that the bottom of the fridge had a tepid puddle from the bag of ice I threw in there (in a supposedly waterproof bag, damn it!) This is really how it is on a boat: things break, and you have to fix them. Things get messy, and you have to clean it up before you break more things. And sometimes, you have to throw back your head and scream. We spent the rest of the afternoon mopping and wrenching to the roar of the engine. The air was completely still around sunset, so we cut the engine, drifted, and ate dinner in the cockpit and enjoyed the silence. There was just enough daylight left to take down the genoa and raise a jib. Nightfall brought slightly more wind, so we sailed through the darkness and arrived at Spanish Cay around 9am Tuesday morning.
Saba? Saba, you say? The kitten just slept and slept and stumbled to his food bowl and litter box and slept some more. He was WIRED as soon as the anchor touched sand.
Since getting here, the pace of life has changed a little. We ducked into the Sea of Abaco hours before the wind started to howl out of the north, so we’ve still been spending a lot of time on the boat. Yesterday evening we busted out the dive gear and took the dinghy around to a shallow, protected channel next to some rocks. It was awesome. There were only a handful of fish, but it was so great to be in the water again. The wind is likely to continue into next week, but as soon as it calms, we hope to get out to the barrier reef.
Tomorrow we’re picking up Sarah and Ed and Viki!
