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You are welcome to apply any part of this article to your own personal use. Please do NOT publish any part of the article or apply any part of it to any non-personal use without the express written concent of the author.
To make a long story very short, in May of 1993 we became the owners of the perfect boat for us. Unfortunately, Volant was located in St. Petersburg, Florida, while all of our very intricate and detailed plans had been laid predicated on finding the perfect boat somewhere on the West Coast.
We figured that it was easier to adapt our plans to Florida than to truck Volant to the West Coast. So, adapt them we did.
We went to Florida 4 times in 6 months to visit her and get to know her better. By the end of November, we had rented out our house, closed down the business, tucked our parrot, Admiral Nelson, into an airline pet carry-on cage, and said good-bye to friends. We were finally on our way.
Having never gone on an extended cruise before, we thought we would be ready to go in an easy week. We just needed to set up The Admiral's cage, lay in some provisions and spares, and be on our way.
Not! It took several weeks of very hard work. Deck blocks were frozen, the GPS failed to track satellites, the windlass motor had to be rebuilt, the heat exchanger needed replacing, the old batteries were cooked, the compass needed to be swung, the outboard failed to start. As we fixed each item, we found new items to add to the list. Not only did Murphy exist, but he lived on our boat and was practicing his law on us! It seemed that we would never be ready. Every day we would have to push back our departure date yet again. How come none of these problems showed up on the previous visits?
While all the repairs and maintenance were going on, we still had to provision for 6 months. Never in our lives had we purchased food for more than two weeks at a time. When shopping, it seemed that every time we got about two weeks of supplies in the cart, one or the other of us would get overwhelmed and head for the checkout counter. We must have made 26 trips to the store before we were through.
December 30, 1993. The morning found us installing the rebuilt windlass motor, the last item on the list. We then held a caucus. Said the skipper: The weather conditions are as good as they were going to probably get for weeks; all provisions are aboard; nothing serious is broken; nothing new has broken in the last week; it isn't a Friday; offerings to King Neptune are set aside and ready; besides, I've been waiting for this moment for more than 25 years and don't want to wait another day. Said the mate: It's too late in the day to leave for the Dry Tortugas -- tomorrow morning is better; there are some interesting places to visit on the southwest coast of Florida and we may not be back this way; we've been working really hard for the past weeks; let's just anchor out for a few days to catch our breath, then do some easy coastal cruising until we've warmed up. The Admiral expressed no opinion. We decided to poke our nose out into the Gulf. If the winds were too rough, we'd tuck back into a nice little anchorage at the mouth of Tampa Bay and wait for improvement. Otherwise, we'd go for it.
Sunset found us headed due South in the lumpy seas of the Gulf, reaching in 15 to 20 knot westerlies under a full moon at next to hull speed. Next stop: Dry Tortugas!
This was our first night at sea together without additional crew. After all our years of preparations, we still had not arrived at a two-person watchkeeping schedule that we both were happy with. Without any discussion, an informal one showed up. Kit took the first watch while I got some rest. When she got tired or sleepy or just plain bored, she would wake me. Then I'd be on watch while she rested. When I got tired or sleepy or bored, I'd wake her. The Admiral would sleep all night. By morning, we'd discovered that we had a pretty nice system, at least for short passages.
The Admiral was none too pleased with his first open water trip. He backed into a corner of his cage with his claws grasping the bars of the walls and using his beak to steady himself even more. At least he didn't get seasick.
We had beautiful weather all the way. Although our autopilot went on strike shortly after morning, we still enjoyed the day. By late afternoon, we could see the markers leading into the anchorage. Unfortunately, it was too late for us to get in and anchored before dark; so we hove to for the night, continuing our watchkeeping system. What a way to spend New Year's Eve and our 11th wedding anniversary!
We had drifted 15 miles overnight. By the time we recovered those miles and worked our way up the channel and into the anchorage, it was early afternoon. If we anchored immediately, we'd have to inflate the dingy to get ashore and walk through the old fort. We decided to tie up to the dock for a few hours, planning to anchor later.
It was delightful walking through old Fort Jefferson and wandering through the museum. The fort was located on the Dry Tortugas as a first defense for American ports in the Gulf. There was no source of drinking water, and practically nothing would grow in the salty soft sand soil. No expense was spared in building a fort that was obsolete before it was started. Millions of bricks were shipped in from Philadelphia to build walls on soft sand foundations. The walls were never completed; as bricks were added to the top, the lower bricks would sink into the soft sand. It's a fascinating monument to government efficiency and fiscal prudence.
When we got back to the boat, we discovered that the wind had clocked and was now blowing us onto the dock at about 20 knots. Somehow, we got her off without any damage to us, the dock, or to the 65' very beamy dive boat that had tied up just in front of us.
We motored around the anchorage a bit trying to find a good spot. We were taking extra care since the winds were predicted to get up to 30 knots with gusts pushing 40. Much of the anchorage was unusable to us as too shallow, even though we draw only 4.5 feet. The deeper areas were already occupied. One of the Park Rangers pointed out a backup anchorage that was protected from the winds by the fort itself. We elected to give it a try. Unfortunately, the soft sand of the bottom was poor holding for our 45 lb. Bruce -- we plowed a deep furrow as we backed down to set the anchor. Our Danforth was too deep in the hold to get out before dark, so we again looked around the original anchorage. Again, no luck.
As the sun would be soon setting, we were out of options; we had to leave the Dry Tortugas. With little time to spare, we set our sights on Key West, Florida, 60 miles to the East and directly into the increasing wind. We cleared the last of the channel markers just as the sun dipped below the horizon.
It was very uncomfortable and wet motoring into those short, steep building seas that were breaking over the bow. If things continued as they were going, it was going to be a very interesting night. Fortunately, the seas moderated immediately after we left the shoals around the Dry Tortugas. It was then that Kit reminded me that Volant has a pilothouse and can be steered from inside. How dumb!
The closer we got to Key West, the lighter the wind and the flatter the seas. It also meant that the fishing boat traffic was heavier, visibility was dropping, and the moonlight was more obscured by the clouds. We definitely wouldn't have wanted to have been there without our GPS and radar.
The first markers showing the Northwest Channel into Key West showed up around 0400. There was not enough light to enter the channel, but there was a spot just outside the channel that was too shoal for most boats and with good holding. We were finally able to anchor, if only for a few hours of rest until sunrise.
We came into Key West in the middle of a very heavy squall. The first sign we saw directed us to The Galleon, one of the few marinas in Florida with floating docks. We tied up and took a well-earned nap. After the weather cleared, we went to pay our respects to the dockmaster. When he told us the rate per foot, we said that we weren't staying for a month, only a few days. He replied that it WAS the daily rate. Don't you know, he said very proudly, that The Galleon is the most expensive marina in Florida?
We already owed them for one night, and we had maintenance to attend to in the morning. We didn't want to anchor out while in Key West, especially with a front predicted with winds of 40 knots, gusting higher. It was very convenient to the main part of town, safe, and secure. It also had a hot tub. We bit the bullet and stayed for 3 nights.
The front came through as predicted that night, with very little notice on our part. We slept in, then did our maintenance as planned and rested the rest of that day.
The following morning, we decided to be tourists all day and do what tourists would do.
Key West is a fun little tourist town. There is a large selection of restaurants, covering just about any ethnic identity you can think of; most are open air. There are lots of museums to visit in the daytime, from Truman's Florida White House and Hemmingway's home, to the Wrecker's museum honoring the Shipwreck Salvagers who founded the town and Mel Fisher's museum of the treasure he salvaged from an old Spanish galleon. At night, you can shop until 2200 then party into the wee hours at several places, each claiming to be Hemmingway's favorite haunt. We visited the Wrecker's Museum, Audubon House (where John James himself visited for a few nights), Hemmingway's House, the Curry Mansion and the Lighthouse.
But the place to be is down on the wharf by Mallory Square for the Sunset Ceremony. Sunburnt tourists position themselves for the best view to the west. Vendors hawk, street musicians make music, mimes imitate and jugglers toss -- all vying for the attention and dollars of the tourists. Behind all this are several bars, each with a balcony with a clear view to the west.
That evening, we too joined the crowds heading toward Mallory Square. Not being able to get a good view from the docks, we watched the Sunset Ceremony from the top balcony, sipping rum punches. Just before the sun disappeared below the horizon, those on the wharf broke out in spontaneous applause. A moment later, those in the lowest balconies followed suit. Then the middle balconies joined in. We couldn't figure out what was happening. Finally, old Sol slipped out of sight. At that instant, our balcony also broke out in spontaneous applause. We joined in, being touched by the beauty of it all. That's when it hit us. The sun had disappeared for each level in turn; the higher we were, the later the sun would appear to go down for us.
Continuing our role as tourists after dinner, we joined the late evening shoppers milling about downtown. Kit even purchased 2 bathing suits. Tired from our long exhausting day, we closed the hot tub at The Galleon instead of closing one of the bars in town.
January 5, 1994. The morning after was very lazy. We snuggled until noon, finally getting breakfast at 1300. Then we looked asked about The Galleon's check out time: 1400. Oops! In a decidedly unlazy fashion, we departed immediately.
We sailed up Hawke Channel. The channel is broad and shallow. Yet, the water is very flat, being well protected by the fringing reefs. We were doing over 7 knots close hauled in 12 knots apparent wind. Glorious! Even The Admiral was enjoying it.
The position of Admiral already having been occupied by the parrot, Kit promoted herself to Commodore and chose the anchorage for that night. According to the guidebooks and charts, Newfound Harbor was a quiet, snug horseshoe shaped anchorage with good holding and open only to the northeast; although entrance required negotiating a narrow, twisting route several miles through the shoals, it was well marked and easily transited. It seemed that the only problem was our late start; we would reach the outer markers at sunset.
Kids, don't try this at home. We doused our sails and entered the channel under power just before sunset. When the sun went down that night, it went down fast. The moon hadn't come up and the channel markers were unlit. I was steering in the cockpit, barely able to see the bow, so I slowed the boat way down and concentrated on the compass. I had lost all my bearings and was completely dependent on Kit. She was in the pilothouse working the radar, GPS, depthfinder and chart, and enthusiastically calling out course changes. She knew exactly where we were.
About 45 minutes into the channel, she came up for a quick look around. After her look around, she looked at me with wide eyes, muttered one unintelligible word and went back below. From that point on, her course changes were announced with a much more serious tone.
We did get in and anchored without incident after nearly 2 hours in the channel. We had dinner and settled down to sleep around 2300. But, what was that noise? Was Murphy throwing something our way? It sounded like a swarm of bees. The sound was clearly heard below decks but was not heard topsides. It remained unidentified and kept us awake all night.
When we were finally able to look around at our surroundings that morning, we were delighted! The still unidentified hum had disappeared around 0500. The harbor was a very pretty place, and quite protected. There was some tidal current causing us to swing slightly broadside to the wind, but not enough wind to be uncomfortable. Even though it was the coldest day in the Florida Keys since the previous March and had to turn on the heater, we were quite content. We celebrated with the first of many private Sunset Ceremonies in the cockpit.
That night, the mysterious hum reappeared around midnight, giving us another restless night. At first light the next morning, the hum again disappeared.
We eventually resolved this mystery several months later at Allan Cay in The Bahamas. When the boat lies across the wind in exactly the right speed from exactly the right angle, the wind causes the upper and middle shrouds to vibrate between the lower spreaders and the chainplates, where they are separated by only two inches. This vibration is amplified by the hull, not unlike the sound of a guitar string being amplified by the body of the instrument. Thus, we could only hear the sound while inside the amplification box. Once we tied a short length of line around the two shrouds to slightly change their tension and to reduce the distance between them, the hum would immediately stop.
The source remained undiscovered at that time. It was quite spooky, actually. We were not about to spend another night in that anchorage. When there was enough light to see, we weighed anchor, headed out the harbor entrance and out into Hawke Channel.
The next few days passed uneventfully, daysailing our way north toward Miami. The first night was at Long Key, the next at Key Largo.
January 9. 1994. We arrived in Miami in the early afternoon, and tied up at Miami's Dinner Key municipal marina.
The next two plus weeks were occupied with catching up with Murphy. Major repairs were made to the mechanical and DC refrigeration systems, very time consuming. Minor repairs were made to the depth finder (had to go to the factory), and windlass and autopilot (brushes needed cleaning). My passport was renewed, the propane tanks were topped up and several more provisioning trips were made.
January 26, 1994. We were finally ready to go in the early afternoon after getting The Admiral's health certificate. We crossed over to Key Biscayne, topped up our diesel and waited until 2100. The moon was full and bright, the sky clear and the visibility unlimited. We could see easily. There was no trouble negotiating Biscayne Channel out into the Gulf Stream. Next stop: Cat Cay, The Bahamas, about 8 miles south of Bimini.
According to NOAA, conditions should have been perfect for a Gulf Stream crossing. Winds were to be easterly at 15 knots; seas were to be less than 6 feet; the Gulf Stream drift was at 2.5 knots. We should be able to sail close reaching to Cat Cay and arrive around 0900. We now refer to them as "Don't NOAA". Winds were coming directly at us at over 20 knots true. The seas were over 10 feet. The drift of the Gulf Stream was pushing 4 knots.
Conditions were very uncomfortable. We could barely make 5.5 knots through the water, and were being set toward Bimini at an alarming rate. Unless things changed, we'd miss The Bahamas altogether. Kit got sick.
We furled the jib, double-reefed the main, fired up Iron Jenny and motorsailed as close to the wind as we could get. By daybreak, things had settled down quite a bit.
We decided to charge up the refrigeration system in the early morning while we were using the engine. Shortly after starting it up we heard an unusual noise. On checking things out, we saw that the belt driving the refrigerator compressor was in shreds in the bottom of the bilge! Mr. Murphy had left his calling card, letting us know that he was still thinking of us.
We sighted Cat Cay (in The Bahamas, cay is pronounced KEY) around 0900 and made it through the tricky and unmarked cut between Cat and Gun Cays and were directed to the Cat Cay guest dock just before noon.
Clearing customs and immigration wasn't quite painless. The Admiral's health certificate neglected to indicate the specific tests that were done to insure he was free of disease. It seems that the Bahamian parrot is on the verge of extinction, and they are rightfully very concerned about letting in any potentially disastrous diseases.
Fortunately, the agent accepted the six week old health certificate required by the airline to fly The Admiral from California to Florida. If we hadn't kept that certificate, we would have had to return immediately to Florida.
After clearing in, we motored back out the cut and anchored on the west side of Gun Cay. It was exposed to the west, but the winds were still easterly and we would have a great view of the sunset. Champagne was in order for our first ever clearing into a foreign country on our own boat!
We woke the next morning to find that the wind had clocked to the west of south. Volant was pitching like a horse on its first halter. We quickly weighed anchor and went through the Cat Cay Cut for the third and final time. We were on the Great Bahama Banks.
70 to 100 miles wide and several hundred miles long, the Great Bahama Bank is only 12-15 feet deep. The water is so clear, you can see the ripples of sand and occasional critters on the bottom even as you sail along.
The air was balmy, the seas were less than 1 foot, and clothing was definitely optional as we beam reached across the banks.
We anchored for the night on Mackie Bank, in the middle of the Great Bahama Banks. We looked around: no land in sight, no other boats in sight, water nearly as flat as a lake, quiet enough to hear a pin drop into the water. Time for another Sunset Ceremony.
The next morning, we were so blissed out that we didn't get underway until the early afternoon. We were only sailing for 4 hours before we dropped the hook in the shadows of the nonexistent Russell Beacon for another night on the banks.
Things were so enjoyable that we had forgotten about Murphy. Except, he didn't forget about us. That afternoon, we noticed that water from the tanks seemed a bit colored, and the mechanical refrigeration system wasn't cooling the freezer.
The water discoloration showed up many times over the next few weeks. We eventually discovered that the rusty color to the water was coming from the water pressure accumulator and not the tanks. An in-line filter solved that problem.
The mechanical refrigeration system was something else. The compressor drive belt had broken. Fortunately, we had spares. Unfortunately, none of the spares fit. We tried the DC system, but its raw water heat exchanger pump wasn't running. We then tried a temporary repair on the belt, and it worked well enough to cool things down.
We slept well that night until 0400. The wind had gotten up to 25+ knots and the seas were very short and steep. The chain snubber broke; without that shock absorber, Volant would really jerk hard as she hit the end of her chain. We let out more chain to ease the stress until first light, weighed anchor and set out to the edge of the banks into the Northwest Channel.
The boundary between the Great Bahama Banks and the Northwest Channel is very sharp. One moment you are in 15 feet of water, the next moment you are in 1500 fathoms (about 1.5 miles) of water. As you cross the line between the two, the water goes from a very pale green to the deepest indigo blue with hardly any gradations in between. The sea conditions were, although of a different period in length, just as sloppy and uncomfortable as those on the banks.
We arrived at Chub Cay at the south end of the Berry group late in the afternoon. We couldn't find good holding ground or a spot without surge outside. On attempting to enter the little land-locked harbor we ran aground. The bottom was very soft and we weren’t going very fast when we struck, so we were able to back off. One of the boats anchored just outside the entrance hailed us and gave us some directions for lining ourselves up properly before trying to get in. With those directions we entered without difficulty. It was very well protected and as secure a place as we've seen.
January 31, 1994. The next morning, nearly everyone in the harbor left for Nassau. A weather front was due in the following day, and they wanted to ride the northerly that precedes such fronts. We stayed, and had the harbor virtually to ourselves.
We went to work trying to catch up and, hopefully, to get ahead of Murphy. We managed to find the only drive belt in the Berrys that would fit the refrigerator compressor; it was now working. We found a blown fuse in the DC refrigeration system. We would have no appropriate replacement fuse until we could get to Nassau (not critical, since it was normally only used while connected to shore power). We then did our weekly preventive maintenance. Aha! Kit discovered the 12 volt wire coming from the alternator was rubbing against the watermaker compressor pulley and had worn nearly through the insulation. Some electrical tape and ties quickly took care of that. Mr. Murphy wouldn't catch us with that one.
We sat out the front reading below decks as it came through the next day. The harbor was so protected that we hardly felt or heard a thing.
February 4, 1994. We were finally on our way to Nassau. We left early, getting out in the Northwest Channel by 0730. It was probably the best sailing day of the trip. We were close hauled on port tack with the wind at 10 to 15 knots apparent. After we were out of the protection of the Berrys, the wind increased to just over 20 knots, so we took in one reef. Volant handled beautifully, slowly pulling away from 3 larger boats that left at the same time. The wind eased to just under 15 knots by 1100, enough that we could shake out the reef. We entered Nassau Harbour at the stroke of 1500.
By 1630, anchors were set just off the BASRA (Bahamas Air/Sea Rescue Association) docks. Into the water for the first time under our management went the inflatable dingy and outboard that came with Volant. Kit started the old motor and ran it for about 30 minutes. When she shut it down and attempted immediately to restart it, it refused. Murphy must have slapped a restraining order on it.
We had to row ashore that morning because the outboard refused to kick over. After spending a day being tourists in Nassau, Murphy gave us a break and let the outboard run just long enough to get back to Volant. After that, we were on our own. Drinks at Capt. Nemo's Restaurant that evening required a tow going both ways by Dennis, Ann and their children Megan, Leigh and Ty of Microwave. We had met them at Chub Cay and made the passage to Nassau on the same day with them.
John from Puff the Magic Dragon, whom we had met with his wife, Gayle, clearing customs at Cat Cay and remet the previous evening at Capt. Nemo's, came over in the morning and worked on our outboard. A little adjusting was all it needed. It was running fine.
As he left John said, "I don't know anything at all about outboard motors; I've never fixed one in my life. If it's still running after 7 days, then we can consider it fixed." We later found out that John had recently retired as a Captain in the Navy. In his last post, he commanded a Ship Repair vessel. Before that, he commanded a nuclear submarine. Navy ship commanders must be able to do every job on board their vessels, including routine maintenance.
Thus started one of the most outstanding parts of our trip, our interactions with other cruisers. Everywhere we went we were continually meeting very interesting people from all walks of life. At each anchorage where boats gather for a period of time, mini-communities seem to blossom. If you got to an anchorage where you knew a boat previously, you were immediately included in that little community. Those in that community whom you had not previously met would become the entrance into another newly formed community later on down the line. Many of the friendships that developed in these little groups will be with us for years to come.
There also seemed to be a sort of informal, yet necessary etiquette among cruisers. Here are some examples: boat names replaced surnames as an identity; when invited aboard for drinks, bring your own since supplies and selections are always limited; try not to use the head on the other boat.
We quickly grew tired of Nassau. It is a town of around 200,000 people, about 95% of the Bahamian population. On any given day, there are anywhere from 2 to 6 large cruise ships on the docks. The ships would arrive in the early morning, disgorge thousands of tourists for the day, retrieve them in the evening and be off for the next destination. Sometimes they would stay over for 2 to 3 days, rarely longer.
The vast majority of the tourists stayed within easy walking distance of their ship. Thus, the area right around the docks contains many tourist "attractions." Some were formal, such as the Straw Market selling thousands of items hand woven out of straw or palm fronds. Some were more informal, such as the streetside vendors hawking conch (pronounced KONK) shells for $1.00 each.
Wherever we went in Nassau, we were hustled. One hustler introduced himself uninvited, and then asked me where I was going; when I answered, he gave me directions and demanded $5.00 for this valuable service. The only hustler who succeeded gave us a reasonably good 5 minute talk on the history of a particular point of interest, then asked for a small donation; we contributed $2.00 and considered it a fair value.
The major attraction in Nassau seems to be Paradise Island, the cay that comprises the north side of Nassau Harbour. It has its own international airport and its own airline, along with several large expensive hotels. One of the hotels has a casino similar to what we find at Lake Tahoe, although on a slightly smaller scale.
February 7, 1994. Early in the morning we completed purchasing necessary parts and did some reprovisioning. We were on our way to Allan’s Cay at the north end of the Exumas chain.
We couldn't leave until 0900, because the Exuma Banks were shallow and dotted with coral heads. We needed a high sun to read the water and avoid any we might encounter. The wind was light and directly on the nose most of the way, so we motorsailed. We got in and anchored by 1650, just before sunset. Puff the Magic Dragon and Microwave also made the passage that same day. Sunset Ceremonies took place aboard Puff the Magic Dragon, with the Dennis, Ann and family of Microwave and Jack and Donna of Shiraz, a Canadian boat.
Allan's Cay anchorage is between Allan's Cay to the west and Leaf Cay to the east. There are some protecting cays to the north and south, making it very protected. However, being on the edge of the Exuma Banks, tidal currents are very strong.
There is no source of drinking water. The cays are all composed of hard limestone and coral, so not much can grow. They are all too small to be inhabited in any case. They are the last home to a unique species of land iguana. They are very friendly and curious, due to the cigarette boats that bring tourists over from Nassau to feed them several times a week.
It's the water that is most enticing. As far as I know, it's the clearest water in the world. The snorkeling is fascinating. The conch was easily found and delicious. The lobster (called crayfish in The Bahamas and the Caribbean) was not so easily found. The only one we saw was the one we bought from a Bahamian named Leroy who was catching them to order for us cruisers.
We spent 4 delightful days swimming, playing and socializing. Except that Murphy caught us again on the third morning.
I had gotten up at 0600 to check our anchors and the dingy was there. At 0730, we got a call from Microwave; where was our dingy? We checked and found that the painter had parted. It had drifted down into a little rocky pocket on Allan Cay, punctured one of its tubes on the sharp rocks, and partially sank. The motor was under water.
Dennis helped us retrieve the dingy and motor. John came over with some tools, a Sun Shower for flushing the salt water and a very large can of WD-40. The motor was running by 1230. The dingy holes were patched shortly after.
February 12, 1994. We returned to Nassau while we had favorable weather. A cold front was expected around the 14th. My daughter Sara was flying in on the 15th and Kit had to return to California for a week on the 16th.
As we came in to Nassau Harbour, we noticed Frangipani, a neighbor boat from St. Petersburg, at anchor on the Paradise Island side. We swung by to renew acquaintances, then headed over to our old spot near the BASRA docks where we knew our anchor would hold. Unfortunately it was not available, so we had to look for another spot. We did find one nearby, but it took us several tries and over an hour to finally get our hook to hold.
The cold front came through as expected on Valentine's day, keeping us on the boat. The high winds caused several boats to drag their anchors. We were glad we were in harbor for this one. We made good use of the day, however, cleaning out the bilges. Kit noticed that we were taking on water slowly and insisted that we get it out of there.
We spent the most of February 15th puttering around the boat and running little errands ashore. We went out to the airport at 2100, expecting Sara on a 2130 flight. She didn't get in until 2230; she missed her Miami connection, but was able to get another flight only one hour later.
February 16, 1994. Most of the day was taken up by getting Kit to the airport. She left to go to California for a week. That night, there were pretty high winds through the anchorage, pushing 50 knots according to what we heard over the radio. Sara and I stood anchor watch all night. She did great on her first 'trial.'
Sara and I spent the next week mostly just puttering around and getting used to each other in the tight spaces of the boat. Intermixed with the puttering, we did some sightseeing and some just plain hanging out together. Sara made friends of the crew on Frangipani, so they spent some time together when she got tired of hanging around the old guy. Given the weather front that was expected and that Kit would be back on the 22nd, we were only able to go out and spend one night away from Nassau; we went out to Rose Island, one of the cays around Nassau.
Kit returned on schedule, minus luggage that wasn't delivered until February 23.
February 24, 1994. By early morning, we had picked up the rebuilt windlass motor and completed temporary repairs to the engine air filter. We were finally on our way back to Allan's Cay to show it to Sara.
About 15 miles out, we started the engine to cool down the refrigerator. Oops! The engine raw water pump stopped working and the engine overheated. While we did have a spare pump, we elected to return to Nassau; we wanted to insure be would be able to get Sara back to the airport if we had additional problems.
When we got back into Nassau, we had to run the engine for a minute in order to make it into Nassau Yacht Haven, one of the yacht marinas in Nassau. Unfortunately running the engine without the water pump really overheated things; in just about 1 minute of running, the water-lift muffler was melted and the engine quit. We completely lost power and had just enough momentum to come directly into the dock, bow first. Since we had notified the dockmaster by radio of our situation, he was waiting to catch a line from us as we hit the dock. He tied us to the dock where a local tugboat normally docked.
The water pump was easily replaced with an on-board spare. Within a day we had a temporary elbow constructed and installed in place of the muffler and were able to run the engine without problems. What a relief! The tug captain was happy to get his spot back so quickly too, since we were able to move from the tug's spot to a regular guest dock immediately.
We now had to remain in Nassau for a few more days until the replacement muffler would arrive from Ft. Lauderdale. With that, we had run out of time to go anywhere with Sara and still be confident of getting her back to the airport in time. So, we all just hung out around town and played tourist until her departure on March 3. While we were weathering another front with high winds, Sara got us to spend almost the entire day cleaning the boat.
We did celebrate my 50th birthday in style on February 27. We spent the day going over to Blue Lagoon Island (Salt Cay) and swam with the dolphins. We all had our turns petting them, water surfing by being pushed by them and, in turn, being pulled by holding on to their dorsal fins.
March 4, 1994. We finally returned to Allan's Cay. We motorsailed all the way, since we had left so late and were barely making 5.5 knots under sail alone. It was a beautiful day.
We stayed at Allan's Cay until March 7. While there, between stints of working on the boat, we dove for and got several edible conch. Some conch went into cervíché, prepared by Kit, which we served to Michaelanne from San Francisco, other went into other delicacies that we thoroughly enjoyed.
We decided that we had go to 90 miles in 13 days to reach Georgetown in time to pick up Gavin, my youngest son who was scheduled to fly in and join us there. That meant that we had about 23 crow flight miles on each of 4 legs, resting one day and exploring one day at each stop. That would give us only 1 day in reserve. Since Volant is not a crow, we figured that we would have to do more than 30 sea miles each leg.
March 7, 1994. The first leg to Georgetown was a sail to Wardwick Wells, the center and headquarters of Exuma Land and Sea Park. It was a long day (over 40 sea miles), but beautiful and noteworthy due to the visit by 3 dolphins playing on our bow in the middle of the morning. When the wind died around 1400 we motorsailed the rest of the way, picking up our mooring around 1645. This was much too late to enter the area, as the sun was too low to read the water; even though we had excellent directions and the route was clear, we still touched bottom as we proceeded down the channel.
We became members of the Land and Sea Park for $30, which entitled us to free mooring for the year; the fee for 2 nights turned out to also be $30, so it was worth it for us.
While there, we met Merry Sea and Summer Place who had just returned from Georgetown. We snorkeled, then hiked to the top of Bobo Hill where cruisers leave an artifact memorializing their trip; we too left an artifact from Volant -- we'll look for it next time we visit here. We hiked all over the island with the Merry Sea and Summer Place crews and had a delightful sunset ceremony with them. We also got reacquainted with the Sun Duchess crew, Terry and Sam (Sandra), whom we had met earlier at Allan's Cay.
March 10, 1994. The second leg to Georgetown was to Staniel Cay. We had a beautiful close reach in 6 to 10 knot winds, clothes optional. The wind died for the last 3 miles, so we again motored into our anchorage. We used 2 anchors here because the currents were pretty bad and some strong winds were expected.
That night we tried to reach Zia by VHF, friends from Dinner Key Marina in Miami, just in case they were close enough. We had been expecting them for the last month and had heard nothing. Instead, we were intercepted by Sanduval (David and Barbara) also from there. David said that they were on their way south and were stopping only for the night in The Bahamas; he told us that Zia had still not left Dinner Key and would not be leaving for several weeks yet.
The highlight of Staniel Cay (on some charts it is labeled Staniard Cay) was the Thunderball Cave. This is the cave where the underwater scenes were shot for the movie "Thunderball". We were able to swim in at change of tide in the late afternoon, about 1300 that day. The cave occupies virtually the entire islet. It is quite large inside, dome-shaped with several openings around the outside and at the top. We had heard that the fish like to follow the swimmers, hoping for something tasty from them such as frozen peas; we had no frozen peas, but they followed us anyway
We stood anchor watch the second night there due to the cold front that came through. Fortunately there were no problems, so we finally got to sleep around 0230.
The wind was still up the next day, so we just hung out and read. We went ashore to the "yacht club" (any restaurant with a dock in The Bahamas is a "yacht club") for a spaghetti feed. Sun Duchess joined us, and gave us a wet and wild ride in their dingy. We went to bed thinking that we'd have two more days before we could leave because of the heavy winds.
March 13, 1994. When we got up on that morning, we saw a perfect day for sailing south on the inside (shallow, western side) of the Exumas, so we did our third leg to Georgetown down to Little Farmer's Cay. We got some excellent sailing in, going along about 6 knots overall occasionally hitting over 8 knots!
We explored the little village, talking at length to several inhabitants. There are two families on the island: Nixon and Brown. Roosevelt Nixon owned the "yacht club" and gave us some interesting history. We came across the little cemetery and noticed the gravestones did in fact have only two family names. Many of the residents there had lived a reasonably long life, mostly into their 80s and 90s.
Sun Duchess joined us for lunch at the Ocean Cabin Restaurant, which is by VHF reservation only. The folks running the restaurant don't even live on the island; they open it up for cruisers and locals who call on the VHF radio and request reservations. On the way to the island to open up, they catch the fish and lobster that they then serve fresh.
While having lunch, we arranged for Bird, a local resident, to guide us to a cave on a nearby cay. He hadn't been to the cave since he was a lad, so we had a fun time wandering all over the cay until we finally found it.
The next morning we made an impromptu decision. Rather than staying another night, we elected to move to the inside (west side) of Cave Cay, just two miles south. We went outside, then back inside through Galiot Cut where the water was quite fast and rough -- we hit 9.1 knots as we followed Sun Duchess through the cut!
There was no one really close, so I skinny dipped and cleaned the boat bottom. After lunch and a nap, Terry and I went looking for lobster and conch at slack water; no luck.
While we were doing the "guy thing," Sam set up a semi-formal (no shoes) cocktail party on a nearby sand spit (we later named it "Sam's Spit" in honor of the occasion) at sunset. The spit was 20 miles long at low tide and barely one square yard in area at high tide. Hayden and Helen, the owners of La Cornice, a 110' Fedship, were also invited. Having been served a choice of wine, cheese, crackers and paté, it was the highlight sunset ceremony of the trip.
We served chicken fajitas to Sun Duchess as a thank you that evening -- also very enjoyable.
March 16, 1994. Our final leg to Georgetown was 4 days ahead of schedule. We got an early start, since the wind shifted to the west and our anchorage became exposed. Kit drove Volant back through Galiot Cut very nicely, following Sun Duchess. We kept within a mile of her on a beam reach all the way down. When we got in, we wound up anchoring off Volleyball Beach on Stocking Island within a few hundred yards of Sun Duchess, Shiraz, Microwave and Puff the Magic Dragon. Shiraz (Jack and Donna) joined us for sunset ceremonies to renew acquaintances.
We had planned to stay a while in Georgetown, so we spent most of the first day, March 17 and St. Patrick's Day, exploring Georgetown on the other side of the harbor. While out exploring, we ran into Lwaxana (Rich and Le'Ann) whom we've crossed paths with several times starting at Nassau. They had their trawler just off the town, so they gave us a ride (towing the dingy) back to Volant saving us a very wet trip.
After a round of Painkillers aboard Lwaxana, we went over to Volleyball Beach. It seems that a number of cruisers claimed to be Irish, so there had to be a celebration of St. Patrick's day. We stayed and enjoyed until the first wave of mosquitoes started their attack just at sunset.
While awaiting the arrival of Gavin, scheduled for March 21, we worked on the refrigerator heat exchanger pump. Kit had noticed in Nassau that it seemed to be pumping less water, and in Wardwick Wells it was working intermittently. It failed completely right after our arrival. John, from Puff the Magic Dragon, helped immensely in effecting repairs.
In between stints of working and general boat maintenance, we found time for other activities. We had a daysail with Lwaxana and Aries Tor (Ernie, a single-hander in his late 70s who had built his boat himself) as crew. We had dinner with Lwaxana, where we taught them to play Texas 40. Kit visited St. Andrew's (Anglican) Church with Sun Duchess that Sunday, while I was visited by Freelance (Daryl and Jennifer) and Lwaxana (Rich only, this time). Then there was the great potluck on Volleyball Beach with Microwave, Shiraz, Puff the Magic Dragon, Sun Duchess and Lwaxana.
March 22, 1994. Gavin wound up arriving one day late, missing his connection in Miami. Kit didn't have much reacquainting time with him, since she left the very next morning.
Gavin and I pretty much hung out together while Kit was away. We did go on a fish/lobster expedition at the Dog and Puppy Cays with Sun Duchess (successful -- 1 yellowtail snapper, one spiny lobster and one slipper lobster were caught by Terry) and watched lots of "Star Trek -- the Next Generation" videos. We also managed to repair the dingy, whose transom was separating badly (we borrowed a "loaner" dingy from Summer Wind for the several days while the glue set). We also hosted a farewell to Shiraz and Puff the Magic Dragon Sunset Ceremony with Microwave the night before the two boats left.
March 29, 1994. Kit arrived early from California just after lunch. Gavin and I were snorkeling in the Elizabeth/Guana Cut area at that time. She waited for us at the Peace 'N' Plenty Hotel lobby until she could finally contact us.
We took a day to get Kit settled in and rested, and to prepare to visit some of the outer islands with Gavin.
March 31, 1994. We left early in the morning bound for Concepcion Island via the north end of Long Island.
Shortly after getting underway, Gavin finally saw where we were getting water into our bilges. The Las-Drop shaft seal, which is never supposed to leak, was leaking significantly. Unfortunately, it can only be repaired by hauling the boat and removing the propeller shaft! That could wait until we're back to Florida, since we could monitor and control the water in the bilges now that the source was known.
The winds were somewhat light on the way over, so we wound up motorsailing the entire way across Exuma Sound. We got in to West Cove, by Cape Santa Maria at the north end of Long Island easily before Sunset Ceremonies, so Gavin and Kit got some snorkeling in. That evening, Gavin saw what we think was a pod of Sperm Whales feeding; there were about 5 of them going in circles close to a reef -- as I understand, a typical feeding habit.
We had an easy motor the next day to West Bay of Concepcion Island. After anchoring, Gavin and I decided to do some snorkeling.
While filling the outboard with gas in preparation for our outing, I dropped the gas can. When the can hit the bottom of the dingy, gasoline spilled all over Gavin; since it irritated his skin, we delayed snorkeling until he was cleaned up. Then my snorkeling mask strap hinge broke -- not repairable, and I noticed that the dingy transom was reseparating -- my repair didn't take. With spirits somewhat dampened, we snorkeled anyway.
When we got up the next morning, we saw 2 dolphins swimming near Volant in some interesting maneuvers. Gavin got in the water but was unable to get close; they probably were more interested in each other than in puny humans since it was the local mating season for dolphins.
We were one of only 2 boats in this very large, uninhabited, beautiful and peaceful harbor. Gavin really enjoyed his time there swimming, snorkeling and exploring the beach. He even got us to photograph him sunbathing in his trench coat as a gag for his friends at home who rarely see him without it.
We stayed for 3 days at Concepcion, probably the most beautiful and enjoyable of all the islands we visited. Even though we were quite remote there, we managed to contact Sun Duchess via SSB radio. They left Georgetown the same time we did, bound for Rum Cay and points south. This was our first SSB (Single Side Band MF and HF marine radio) contact. Since we were waiting news of the birth of our first grandchild, we were now satisfied that we could get that news from the SSB-based High Seas Telephone Operator reliably.
The trip back to Georgetown from Concepcion via Cape Santa Maria (West Cove) was an uneventful 2 days. We arrived on April 5, in time to put Gavin on the plane on April 6.
We stayed in Georgetown until April 14. We were trying to get our rebuilt-yet-again windlass motor through customs so I wouldn't have to haul the anchor and chain up by hand. While waiting, we explored Stocking Island, explored various anchorages by dingy, waited out several cold fronts, repaired the dingy transom again, did general boat maintenance and just generally hung out. Most of our friends from our previous visit had gone, so our social life slowed down considerably.
We did some trip planning. We decided that we just didn't have enough time to see some of the Far Out Islands of The Bahamas; that will have to wait for another trip. We would head out to Cat Cay, Eleuthera and the Abacos in that general order, planning our arrival in Florida sometime in late May or early June.
The last day in Georgetown was spent anchored near the Government Dock. We fueled up the starboard fuel tank while rafted to Golden Mean and put Kit ashore to run errands just before anchoring. Kit was finally able to get the windlass through customs, buy last minute groceries and get back to the boat (courtesy of a dingy ride from Family Time) by late afternoon, just before low tide. It was just in time, because Volant was nudging the bottom at that anchorage as Kit got aboard. That last night we anchored at Monument Beach, the northernmost anchorage in the harbor, in preparation for an early morning departure for parts west and north.
April 14, 1994. We got underway early, clearing the entrance by 0730. Our destination, Cat Island (not to be confused with Cat Cay), was 44 miles away. We got into the anchorage at The Old Bight within 7 hours, averaging over 6 knots of pure sailing. The anchorage was very quiet, the beach was deserted, there were no boats nearby and the beach was over 3 miles long. This was peace. We decided to stay a few days instead of just overnight.
The next afternoon Sea Witch, who had recently anchored with Proton and Pussy Cat about a half mile away, gave me a ride ashore (the dingy was still not ready for use). This gave Kit some time alone on the boat. I explored more than 3 miles of beach and went overland a few hundred yards to look over the interior lagoon.
The following day, we finally put the dingy into the water. This time, the transom repair stayed fixed. We still had a leak where the transom met the hull; that couldn't be fixed without special factory equipment -- we decided to live with that for the duration of this trip.
With a working dingy we were able to explore the lagoon and do some unsuccessful snorkeling for conch. We then installed the windlass motor; we could now raise the anchor with the motor for the first time in 6 weeks.
April 17, 1994. Kit, as skipper, moved us from The Old Bight to The New Bight on Cat Island. She did an excellent job.
The New Bight is the location of The Hermitage, the retirement retreat built by Father Jerome on the highest spot in The Bahamas (205 feet). Fr. Jerome arrived in The Bahamas in 1908 to help rebuild churches that were destroyed by a hurricane that year. A stone mason, he naturally had them built of stone. He was an Anglican priest to begin with and became a Catholic priest in the later years. On Long Island, there are two churches side by side; one he built as an Anglican and the other as a Catholic. The Hermitage was built with his own hands of stone and completed during his retirement. He died and was buried there in the early 1960s.
We motored more than 30 miles to West Bay of Little San Salvador on April 18. Diving that evening right under Volant, I got several good conch, but only one of edible age. We contributed that conch to a sunset ceremony preceding a potluck dinner on Dream Catcher with Blue Swannee and Trez-Even.
We spent several days and could have stayed longer at Little San Salvador. It was one of the more enjoyable islands where we've stopped. Quite a few other boats felt the same way, making it somewhat crowded. We had already met many of the boats earlier (Blue Swannee, Trez-Even, Proton, Sea Witch and Pussy Cat), so it didn't seem too full. Besides, the anchorage was wonderful as long as the wind didn't have a westerly component. Snorkeling, relaxing and just plain hanging out were the orders of the day. One morning was occupied helping Peter of Blue Swannee to solve a 9-pin to 25-pin adapter problem; one evening was occupied with Sunset Ceremonies and a game of Texas 42 with Vger (Kevin and Peggy), whom we originally met in Nassau.
April 21, 1994. We made the passage to Eleuthera. We left early to give us several options for anchorages for that night. The wind was light and we were heading DDW (dead down wind); to keep our options open, we had to motorsail so that we kept up our speed over the ground. We elected to turn the corner of Powell Point, the SW corner of Eleuthera, rather than stay in the very protected harbor there. We thought that it might have an insect problem given its surroundings; we found out later from Trez-Even that we were right. We also were turning the corner at the perfect time to transit Davis Channel, which is very tricky to negotiate at any time other than slack water.
Continuing around the corner of Eleuthera and through the Davis Channel, we saw lots of conch boats working. Each open boat had one man in the stern and two in the water snorkeling (the water was about 10' deep in mid-channel). Each of the snorkelers would go down for about 15 to 20 seconds, then come up to the boat with 2 conchs. The snorkeler would toss the conchs to the guy in the boat and go back down again. The one in the boat would make a small hole in each of the shells for accessing the adductor muscle when they would be cleaned later, then toss the shell in the large pile in the front of the boat. They were bringing up 4 to 6 conchs each minute. They had to work fast, because slack water lasted less than 45 minutes.
After transiting the channel, we killed the motor and sailed to Governor's Harbour and anchored in Balera Bay under sail just before sunset. This was Kit's favorite sail of the trip; she was tired of the noise of the engine and was willing to go to any anchorage we could sail into.
We moved Volant to the main bight behind Cupid's Cay the very next morning. Balera Bay is exposed to the south, and the wind veered that night to make that anchorage very uncomfortable.
We originally planned to stay at Governor's Harbour only one night. We wound up staying nearly a week.
It started when Nick, a windsurfer, sailed by shortly after we moved and noticed that Volant was homeported in Palo Alto. He had just moved to Los Altos, a neighboring town. He introduced us to his father who owned his winter home, "Tamarind," in Governor's Harbour for nearly 20 years. After a pleasant visit, he invited us to stop by "Tamarind" later in the week.
Then we found out that there are some interesting things in that town. They have a movie house, the only one we heard about outside of Nassau. There's a Club Med on the ocean side with an outstation in the harbor where people learn to sail and water-ski. Cars are available for rent, important since Eleuthera is 90 miles long and we wouldn't have a chance to see all we wanted in our limited time there.
We spent one pleasant afternoon at "Tamarind" with Nick, his wife Terri, and his father. I got my movie fix while Kit had her time-alone fix. We spent one afternoon and another evening at the main Club Med sight walking the beautiful Atlantic coast beach. We visited with our cruiser friends, starting with Blue Swannee and Trez-Even, then finishing with Proton, who gave us some fish, and Sea Witch. We were too busy socializing that we kept postponing the weekly maintenance. On Sunday morning Kit went to the local Anglican Church. We finally did our maintenance and washed the sheets to hang them out to dry when a small front came thru and rinsed them again.
April 24, 1994. We spent the day with a rental car.
Just getting the car was an adventure. Neither of the "rental agencies" had available cars. We went to the Tourist Office. The lady there pointed us to Mr. Prinder's house. Mr. Prinder wasn't in town, but we could talk to his wife in the Government Building upstairs over the Tourist Office. Mrs. Prinder didn't know which cars were available, but her son did; she would try to track him down. When she finally did get him, the only available cars were at the airport, 15 miles north of town. Finally, he agreed to deliver the car to us in front of his mother's office; he arrived shortly before noon.
We didn't have time to drive to the abandoned lighthouse at the south of the island, so we drove north. There were 3 interesting destinations that we would not be able to visit by boat: Harbour Island (pilot required and somewhat out of the way), Spanish Wells (pilot strongly recommended), and the Glass Window (no nearby anchorage).
Eleuthera may be 90 miles long, but for most of that length, it is less than 1 mile wide. At Glass Window, it is only wide enough to support a single-lane (originally double-laned) bridge. There we were fascinated by the deep Atlantic on one side and 3' to 5' depths on the other. The bridge is about 30' over the high water mark; yet during a "rage" (rough water driven by storms far out at sea) not very many years ago, one wave knocked the bridge 7 inches off its base and now there's only one useable lane. That wave must have been huge!
Harbour Island was reachable only by water taxi from the NE corner of Eleuthera. We got there in time for lunch and a quick exploration. The beach was wide and unoccupied for miles. It was the pinkest sand I've ever seen. The town is very wealthy, so it rebuilt quickly after Hurricane Andrew just 2 years ago. The island is one of the more populous in The Bahamas (1,500 souls), yet we saw very few people about. Kit liked the watercolors on display at the restaurant, but the artist was out of town so we did not see his studio. This is one of the towns we would recommend to visitors to The Bahamas; you can catch a small plane over from Nassau.
We returned by water taxi around 1500 and drove the few miles to the NW corner of Eleuthera. There, we caught a water taxi to the island of Spanish Wells. We discovered our old friends, Proton, Sea Witch and Pussy Cat, in the marina, so we interrupted our exploring for a short visit.
The folks in Governor's Harbour warned us about Spanish Wells. They said that all of the inhabitants are related. They don't bother completing school because they all know they'll fish for a living and school doesn't teach them how to fish. They are only interested in money. They are very clannish and closed off to outsiders.
What we found there was a very interesting working fishing village. Except for their Appalachian accent (their ancestors were Loyalists in the American Revolution), the village was very much like any small fishing town here or anywhere in northern Europe. Physically, we did notice that the kids all seemed to look alike except for their hair: they were either blond or brunette. We didn't find them to be closed or clannish. When we returned to the water taxi point to get back to Eleuthera, we found out that they stopped running at 1700, and it was now 1800. However, a local woman took a break from cleaning her fish and gave us a ride back to our car -- at no charge!
The long drive back to Governor's Harbour was broken with a stop at the very nice Rainbow Inn for dinner. There we remet the crew from Enchantress, whom we had anchored next to in the Bight at Cat Island, and met their friends on a companion boat, Sally Forth.
Of course, we didn't forget to continue our on-going battle against Mr. Murphy. We did our weekly boat maintenance 2 times while in this anchorage.
April 26, 1994. We left Governor's Harbour bound for Royal Island via Current Cut. Unfortunately, we started too late to make the slack water time through Current Cut, so we diverted north to Mutton Fish Point, just south of Glass Window. We found ourselves in a very nice private anchorage, given the prevailing easterly winds. If the winds had any westerly component, we would be in trouble.
We left Mutton Fish Point the next day, again bound for Royal Island via Current Cut. This time we made it.
We left our anchorage under sail at 0930. By 1000, the wind was up over 15 knots. We were sailing DDW with a prevented boom to avoid an accidental jibe. The going was somewhat uncomfortable DDW, so we bore off a bit south to be broad reaching, then single-reefed the main and double-reefed the jib. Kit was anxious during most of this time; to ease her fears, we doused the main and motorsailed with a full jib to insure that we got to Current Cut during the window.
Current Cut was a piece of cake at the time we went through.
Between Current Cut and Royal Island, the water was flatter, but the wind was slightly higher. Kit was anxious from the higher winds and wanted to reef the sails; I thought it was premature. By the time the discussion was over, the wind had increased enough that I agreed it was indeed time to reef. After reefing, we sailed on starboard tack until just outside the harbor. We then doused everything and motored in to take a mooring.
We wound up staying at Royal Island for 4 nights, waiting for a good weather window for the 50 mile run across the Northeast Channel. The island is now abandoned. The buildings had been abandoned for many years (the concrete overheads in some areas were weeping stalactites). Given its design and age, we guessed that it was a fishing resort in the 20s and 30s. It must have been very POSH in its time; even the outdoor patio areas were floored with faded but obviously expensive hand painted Italian tile.
There were quite a number of boats also waiting for the same weather window. Some were our old friends: Proton, Sea Witch and Pussy Cat. One was an acquaintance from Georgetown: Rainbow. Others became new friends: Equity and Imagine. Others remained unknown. There were about 15 boats in the anchorage by the time the window opened.
There's only about half a day of exploring on Royal Island. Once that was done, there was nothing left to do but boat maintenance and socializing with the other cruisers. Someone organized a potluck one afternoon. Another afternoon Proton, at the instigation of Sea Witch, organized a Texas 42 (dominos)Tournament and Book Swap.
May 2, 1994. This was the day of the crossing to the Abacos. We left at 0630 to insure we would be able to get in while the sun was still high. The winds were light (5 knots) and we were going nearly DDW. We wound up motorsailing all the way. When we got in to our anchorage Kit said, and she also said I can quote her, "I'd prefer higher winds so we could sail the whole way!"
There were about 14 boats that made the crossing with us. Those we could name were: Proton, Sea Witch, Hot Chocolate, Imagine, Equity, Ariel III, Trez-Even, Rainbow and Pussy Cat.
We came in through Little Harbour Cut and around into Little Harbour, Grand Abaco Island. Although the entrance into Little Harbour is shoal, we timed it perfectly to enter at high tide. We were anchored and entirely cleaned up by 1600. Sunset Ceremonies were aboard Proton, with Sea Witch and Pussy Cat. The other boats choose other destinations.
Our arrival was the anniversary (plus 1 day) of taking title to Volant, and 11 years and 4 months since we arrived in the Abacos for our honeymoon.
Little Harbour was the adopted home of the late Andrew Johnson, a well-known bronze sculptor. His family still lives there and operates the Johnson Gallery, which we visited the next day.
Kit decided to have a showing of her watercolors during the hour when the Gallery was closed for lunch. We had fun writing out the invitations to our friends in the harbor: "private collection," "exclusive showing," "Grand Opening" and other catch phrases showed up. By all accounts, the showing was a success.
Early that afternoon, at high tide, we weighed anchor and slipped out to Lynnard (pronounced LIN-yard) Cay, just north of Little Harbour. We didn't want to be stuck for another day waiting for the tide to work our way north.
May 4, 1994. We left Lynnard Cay bound for Hope Town. The weather was overcast with rain, thunder and lightning squalls. We skipped a day stop at Sandy Cay for snorkeling due to the weather and headed for the Tilloo Channel, by far the shortest route to Hope Town.
The controlling depth showed 3.7 feet at low tide on the charts. The tide tables showed that low water would be .9 feet when we transited the channel, which should be (just) sufficient for our 4.5 foot draft. As we passed the shallowest part we lightly brushed the bottom in a spot where we were just a bit closer to shore than the charts indicated we should have been.
Although the weather was squally, we were either just ahead or just behind the cells most of the way. We had only about 45 minutes of rain the entire trip. Kit wanted to wait for an hour before starting for the squalls to pass and the tide to come up, but she wasn't the skipper.
We got into Hope Town just after noon and took mooring #1. We had finally returned to one of the anchorages of our honeymoon.
After paying our mooring fee, we took a long walk around through a back road to get to the Lighthouse; a dingy ride would have been much faster but not as interesting. The view from the top was almost unchanged since our last time 11 years ago. More exploring of the town followed, where we bumped into our friends from Trez-Even and Pussy Cat.
That night we had quite a thunderstorm, with winds gusting to 30+ knots. Even though we were on a mooring, I slept in the pilothouse berth that night; I wanted to be available to respond quickly if something happened. Boats were sailing on their moorings in the wind. The moorings were too close together -- the boat behind us came within 6 inches of our transom as it sailed. I had to move our dingy from our transom to our beam so it wouldn't get hit.
We walked along "The Queen's Highway," a dirt road leading out of the village to where there were many winter homes along the beach. We finally found an owner who said we could cross over. None of the homes were there before, nor was the "Highway." We did find the beach we had explored on our honeymoon; thanks to the houses, it was still deserted.
We did more exploring after that, including looking up Bessy's Bakery where we got some wonderful conch fritters on our honeymoon. Sadly, Bessy passed away a few years ago.
May 7, 1994. Kit skippered as we left Hope Town bound for Man-of-War Cay, another honeymoon port. It was only a 40 minute ride, but enough to charge the refrigeration with the motor at idle while we sailed. We came into the island's South Harbour, where we took a mooring.
We didn't bother to explore the town until May 9 -- we stayed on the boat at the anchorage and did weekly maintenance instead. Once we got ashore, we found the sail shop where we bought hats and bags 11 years ago. We bought me a new hat and we had lunch on their picnic table. The owner offered us some of their desert (a delightful orange cake). We noticed that her shop is not in the same place. She commented that she was "in town" (300 yards away) next door to her mother until she passed away a few years ago. After that, she didn't need to stay "in town," so her sons built her the new shop on the water.
Kit was again skipper when we left Man-o-War Cay, bound for Iguana Cay, a port we had missed in our previous visit. There was no wind, not even a whisper. We got into the bight of Iguana Cay at about 1400 and anchored. I noticed a small conch in the shallows and sent Kit to capture it. It took her a while to get it (it was nearly 5 feet down); in the end she triumphed. I then went diving and picked up 40 more within an hour. These were the smaller, but just as tasty, Ghost Conch. We kept only 20 of them and threw the rest back into the water for someone else to catch later.
The town was very quiet -- too quiet. It is a pretty island, but too depressing for us. The local people just seemed to hang around under the large tree in the center of town and grouse about how awful things were. We did enjoy exploring the beach on the ocean side -- very pretty and very quiet. Trez-Even and Pussy Cat are in the harbor here also.
May 12, 1994. Midmorning saw us leaving Iguana Cay bound for New Plymouth, Green Turtle Cay, one of our favorite honeymoon towns. We anchored at No Name Cay for lunch; as the holding was poor, we didn't stay for the night. We got to Green Turtle Cay and anchored just outside the settlement. We felt that anchoring in Settlement Creek would be too noisy, and there was nothing interesting in White or Black Sounds.
The town hadn't changed much to our eyes. It was still enjoyable and quaint and clean. We stayed for several days.
For one day we explored the town. They've added a delightful garden loaded with busts of prominent Bahamians, black and white, many of whom are still alive. While touring the garden Trez-Even bumped into us for, as it turned out, the last time this trip.
We visited the Albert Lowe Museum, which we had missed last time out. It was a wonderful historical house with lots of charm. The docent was a distant relative of the owner of the house in Key West that is now the Wrecker's Museum there.
One evening, we had dinner at Bluff House, the restaurant where we had lobster on our honeymoon. Little had changed, except that they had expanded the library where we had the hors d'oeuvres before. They seated us with Michael and Barbara of Sea Hawk for a delightful dinner conversation.
Another evening, we had dinner and a game of Texas 42 on Volant with Pussy Cat, whom we had run into earlier in the day.
May 15, 1994. We had an easy sail bound for Crab Cay (by Manjack Cay). The anchorage there was not good enough, so we diverted to Manjack Cay, called Nunjack Cay on some charts. The anchorage there was not very cozy either. There was too much grass on the bottom, so I had to put out 2 anchors and dive them to get them to bite. It was close enough that we could go over to Crab Cay for snorkeling, which we did the following day.
May 17, 1994. We left for Powell Cay. We didn't like that anchorage, so we diverted to Spanish Cay. That one also wasn't satisfactory to us for an overnight spot, so we diverted to Hog Cays. Again we couldn't find good holding, so we went to Crab Cay (by NW Abaco Island). We finally found some holding on grassy bottom at Crab Cay. I dove the anchor so it held.
That evening we contacted Sun Duchess in Puerto Rico and Zia at Crooked Island by SSB.
At 0145 in the morning of May 18 we had a severe thunder and lightning storm with rain squalls. We stood anchor watch in case of dragging. Lightning hit the water very close.
That evening we got the news via SSB that grandson Tyler Alan Downing was born at 2258 PDT on May 17 (0158 on May 18, Bahamas time during our lightning storm). He was 9 lbs. 2 oz., and 21" long. The High Seas Operator managed to reach Todd and Samantha in the hospital so we could talk directly to them. Tyler could be heard making baby noises in the background -- it was very exciting and moving. We celebrated his birth with our last bottle of champagne that we had set aside for that purpose.
The next day, we went over to Hog Cays to look for conch and do some snorkeling. We found some, but they were all too small. Snorkeling was mildly interesting. When we came back to Crab Cay, I again dove the anchor and put out another 50 feet of chain just to be sure.
We held a caucus. Something was different, being grandparents. We decided to speed our way back to the States so we could see Tyler about a month earlier than we had originally planned.
That night another squall passed through. Winds sustained at 35 to 40 knots, gusting to 45 for over 30 minutes. When they dropped to 20 knots, we noticed how quiet it was. We used radar during the worst of it to keep track of our position. We did not move.
May 20, 1994. We motored to Great Sale Cay. When we had winds, they were directly on the nose. We again had grassy bottom, but the anchor seemed to have caught and buried deep when we backed down; when I dove it, it was buried so deep that I couldn't find the shank!
We stayed at Great Sale Cay for 3 nights waiting for weather to clear for the trip to West End, Grand Bahama Island. While there, we got Kit all the way up the mast, with the assistance of First Light, to check on why the main halyard was chaffing near the top. We found that the main halyard was not lead correctly at the masthead. The problem was easily corrected by releading the topping lift, then end-for-ending the halyard to move the chafed portion down on the deck where there would be no strain on it.
May 23, 1994. The trip to West End, Grand Bahama Island, was a 45 mile run. We motorsailed as far as Mangrove Cay and sailed the rest of the way. The way into West End from the north east was very shallow and tricky. There were some poles marking the channel, which helped only a little. While we made it without incident, about half way into the channel we passed very close to a boat with 6’ draft that was aground. We were very thankful for our 4.5’ draft for this entrance. The other boat came in about 2 hours later after the tide rose enough to get them afloat.
May 24, 1993. The next morning we left West End at 0400, bound for Ft. Pierce, Florida. The moon was still high, so we could see the bottom by moonlight. The crossing was a piece of cake. There were hardly any seas and hardly any wind. Around 0900 there was enough wind to motorsail, so we were able to pick up some speed. We ran the engine at 2500 RPM, higher than usual but enough to get us in by 1700. We cleared US Customs by 1730 by phone at the Harbor Town Marina.
Volant was hauled out of the water for the hurricane season on the very next day, ending our first major cruise.
We had a wonderful trip. Yes, we had some problems with the boat. But with each problem we learned a lot about us and Volant; and with each solution we learned even more. While we’ve had plenty of decades of practice living in a house; we’ve only lived on the boat for 6 months. We’ve a lot more to learn.
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