Fish, Wind, and Unknown Depths

28 June 2008

On Saturday, June 21st, we motored for eight hours to George Town (Exumas) from Rudder Cut Cay, taking the outside route (in the Exuma Sound). The day was quite breezy with the wind almost on our nose, so we didn't sail. Since we were in open water, we decided to try out our fishing handline (a set-up with only a reel of line - no rod) for the first time. As we have more open-water passages ahead of us, we didn't expect much on the first day of trying it, especially because we were just motoring along a chain of cays which were less than a mile away. Geoff thought that the line might not be long enough, because we clearly saw the lure skipping along on the surface behind the boat. Well...Within an hour of putting the line out we had our first fish! We identified it as a Cero (a type of mackerel), and we filleted it on the back deck right away (and ate half of it for dinner at the end of the day). Inspired by our success we put the line back in the water. Two hours later we had another bite! We pulled the fish in close to the boat. It was another Cero. While attempting to gaff the fish, he somehow got off the hook and slipped away. Disappointed but undaunted we dropped the hook in again. This time it took less than five minutes for the next one to bite! Our third fish in as many hours. This fish was an Almaco Jack (we think). His fillets went into our freezer.

As we entered George Town harbour, we noticed that our depth sounder wasn't working - it has had some intermittent problems for a while, but now it just wasn't showing any depth. Because we are comparatively shallow, we generally trust our chart plotter and don't worry about the depths too much. When we anchor, however, we usually try to get as close in to shore as possible to get the most protection from wind and waves. So when we went to anchor off Stocking Island across from George Town, we had to use the old method of a lead line to figure out the depth - an interesting proposition when you care about a one foot error! We anchored safely and added a new depth sounder to our list of things to do. As it turned out, we ended up with a fish finder as that was the closest thing we could find in George Town.

George Town is the largest town of the Exumas, but is still fairly small with little in the way of services. The town surrounds a small lake (Lake Victoria), which is accessible by dinghy via a connection under a bridge to the main harbour. Most of the beach anchorages are across the harbour from George Town along Stocking Island, such as Volleyball Beach, Hamburger Beach, and Sanddollar Beach. We were anchored just off of Volleyball Beach, near the Chat'n'Chill beach bar. During the winter at the height of the cruising season, hundreds of boats stay in George Town harbour (properly called Elizabeth Harbour). Because we were there in the summer, there were only a handful of other cruisers around. We spent a couple of fun days with Renata, Kuno, and Tatiana from Blue Moon.


Geoff with our first fish (a Cero)


Geoff with our third fish (an Almaco Jack)


Dinner!


Geru at Volleyball Beach on Stocking Island


We've come a long way...


Exit from Lake Victoria, George Town - with Geru out front


Some fun on the beach at night (Tatiana and Ruth)

To the Exumas via Eleuthera

22 June 2008

On Sunday, June 8th, we motored to Eleuthera and anchored at Royal Island. We had planned on sailing across, but shortly after leaving the cut to the ocean Geoff got quite seasick. There were some fairly large swells (about five feet). We ended up motoring, because it would have been more of a challenge for Ruth to handle the sails alone while also looking after Geoff. Geoff was finally able to get enough Gravol in so that by the time we arrived he was feeling almost normal. Other than the swells, it was actually quite a nice day for our trip to Eleuthera.

We spent Monday at Royal Island for Geoff to recover and install the watermaker (it now works!). Outside of another boat on the other side of the anchorage, we were alone in a large and almost completely enclosed bay. The statement of the day by Ruth was "What a wonderful Monday.... everyone's at work - and we are here!" It certainly didn't feel like a Monday at Royal Island. We are finding that we frequently lose track of the days of the week.

On Tuesday we motored to the northernmost islands of the Exumas chain. We had been hearing since Florida that the Exumas are wonderful. The water is very clear here, so clear that you can see the bottom 20 feet down even with just the moonlight. But the rest of the landscape is very barren and scrubby - not the tropical paradise we expected. We are begining to think many people like the Exumas because during the crusing season (which is over the winter) it is not as crowded as the Abacos.

Over the next ten days, we slowly worked our way down the Exumas island chain. We spent a day at Warderick Wells in the Land and Sea Park for our first real snokeling of the trip. We saw some nice coral and tropical fish. On Sunday we anchored off Big Majors Spot. The cay is famous for the pigs that residents of a neighboring island keep here. The pigs roam freely and are fed by cruisers arriving on boats. We took the dinghy into the beach, and the sound of our outboard engine brought a large pig running towards us out of the shrubs! We brought some cut-up potatoes and got to feed and pet the pig. On Tuesday we toured Staniel Cay which gave us our first feel of an Exuma town. The two grocery stores were really small - they seemed to have less food and household supplies in them than we had in our house in Ottawa! One of the attractions of Staniel Cay is Thunderball Cave, which was featured in both the 1960s Bond 007 movie "Thunderball" and in the movie "Splash". The snorkeling in and around the cave was pretty neat. We brought some cut up potatoes with us (the left-overs from the pig adventure!) and dozens of small tropical fish went into a feeding frenzy - Ruth couldn't see her hands through the fish as she was feeding them! The cave also had some of the best coral we've seen yet.



Sailing on the banks between Eleuthera and the Exumas


Our neighbour at Hawksbill Cay


Hawksbill Cay


Ruth feeding a pig at Big Majors Spot


Beach of conch shells at Staniel Cay


Town of Black Point on Great Guana Cay

Position Reports

Because we haven't been able to get internet for the last little while, we thought we'd point out that you can always find out where we are by looking at our position report. The link is in the sidebar at the top right of the main page.

Southbound

9 June 2008

On Tuesday, June 3rd, we left Marsh Harbour for Tahiti Beach, which is located on the southern end of Elbow Cay. Tahiti Beach is one of the neatest beaches we've seen - it only appears at low tide and completely disappears at high tide. We spent a few hours on the beach, then spent some time snorkelling around the boat to clean barnacles and other sea life off the bottom.

The following day was hot and sunny day again as we sailed and motored south to Little Harbour on Great Abaco Island. We tried to put up the stay sail to add a bit more speed today. We had not put this sail up before. It turns out that our stay sail doesn't fit the current rigging on the boat. The last owner broke the original mast on Geru and had a new one made. It appears that when this was done, the attachment point of the inner stay to the mast was moved. Since the staysail predates this modification, it no longer fits - it is too big! So...sometime we will need to get that sail recut.

Little Harbour has a neat little foundry and gallery of cast bronze sculptures (along with other local art), which we visited on our second day there. We had also heard of a nearby beach that is supposed to be full of beach glass (which are shards of glass, often old, that have been smoothed by being tumbled in the surf and rocks). The beach was a mixture of sandy sections and ledges of sharp old rocky coral. We did find some glass, although we'd expected to find larger pieces. One afternoon we walked up to the lighthouse. Today the lighthouse is an electric light on a tall post that apparently works "sometimes". The post sits next to the ruins of the old lighthouse. This was the first time in our travels through the Bahamas (but not the last) that it struck us how harsh life here must have been before the advent of regular food and goods shipments from the outside. It's very barren, there's little soil to grow anthing, and the only fresh water in most places is from the occasional rain. Today many towns have reverse-osmosis watermaking plants that produce fresh water from sea water on a large scale, but most houses also still have cisterns to catch rain falling onto the roofs.

Our next stop after Little Harbour was the island of Eleuthera. The trip from the Abacos to Eleuthera takes a full day over open ocean. This was only our second passage like that - the first being our Gulfstream crossing. We had wanted to leave Little Harbour and head for Eleuthera on Friday. However, the weather didn't allow for it as the wind was blowing right against us and the seas were on the large side. The weather looked more favourable for Sunday. We were faced with a bit of a dilemma, though. The entrance to Little Harbour is a little too shallow for us (and we only draw three feet!) at low tide, which was right when we needed to leave on Sunday morning in order to make our passage in daylight. So on Saturday, we moved half an hour north of Little Harbour to Lynyard Cay in preparation for our sail to Eleuthera.



Tahiti Beach


Little Harbour Gallery


Beach on the Atlantic side of Little Harbour


Little Harbour (view from up the mast)


Pete's Pub in Little Harbour

The Hub of Abaco

3 June 2008

After spending a couple of days at Great Guana Cay, we left for Man-o-War Cay. Man-o-War is an old community of predominantly white people who have been living on the island for generations. Inter-marriages between members of the same extended family are quite common. This is evident in the names of many of the businesses. On Man-o-War, the predominant family name is Albury, so signs can be found everywhere for Albury's Ferry, Albury Boats, etc.

Our time at Man-o-War was hot. During the day we saw 34C with high humidity, and the coolest it got at night was 28C with almost no breeze. The harbour is small and well protected, and it was full of boats, most of them left for the season on moorings. On our second day there, we saw another Canadian catamaran come in, and so we met Tim and Carol. They are from Ontario and had lived in Ottawa in the past. They are travelling aboard their boat, a Manta 42 catamaran named "Somerset 33". We spent a nice afternoon and evening at a restaurant on shore chatting with them until the staff kicked us out because they wanted to close up for the night!

We got to experience some local culture on Man-o-War Cay as well. We noticed a handwritten sign advertising dinner at "Sheila's", so we decided to go there. It turned out that it was take-out (we didn't know), and it was cooked in the house of a woman named Sheila. The food sounded good, so we stood in a sort of small living room waiting to get our order. Just as we picked up the food, it started raining heavily (the first real rain we'd seen since Vero Beach!). Sheila took pity on us and offered us to stay right there and eat, which we did while a stream of locals shuffled in an out getting their take-out food. We both thought this was a neat way to see the local life.

We spent four days on Man-o-War and then had a great sail over to Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island. We were headed there to reprovision our fresh food supplies. Marsh Harbour is a relatively small town, but it is the main town in the Abacos. This means that it has more stores and services, like two full grocery stores and multiple hardware stores. Marsh Harbour felt very much like a second world town - a juxtaposition between first world (newer cars and modern stores) and third world (dusty streets and many small rundown houses). Shopping in the Bahamas is very interesting because of where the products come from. As expected, many items are brought in from the US, but because the island nation is a commonwealth country, they also have a fair number of products from Europe such as Irish butter. While doing our groceries we were also quite surprised to find orange peppers from Canada - this being only late May, we assumed from a greenhouse!

The following day we headed over to Hope Town on Elbow Cay. Hope Town is famous in the Bahamas for its picturesque lighthouse and the quaint town that surrounds the harbour. The town has the feel of a small version of Niagara-on-the-Lake or Merrickville with a tropical climate. We climbed up the lighthouse and saw great views of the Little Bahama Bank, the Atlantic and Hope Town.

Geoff tried to install the watermaker we'd been carrying since Ottawa - and found out that we were missing some parts. (Watermakers are used to make drinking water from sea water. The units work on the reverse-osmosis principle). We needed to get some fittings for the pre-filter, so we headed back to Marsh Harbour. While we were there, Geoff spent some time scrubbing our waterline to remove the grass skirt we've been carrying around with us since Vero Beach. Geru is now looking a little less grungy, although she is still awaiting a good cleaning topside.

While in Marsh Harbour, we met up with Somerset33 again and with Tania and Greg from Wobbley (another boat with an Ottawa registry!) whom we had briefly met before at Green Turtle Cay. It was a neat gathering as everyone was from or familiar with the Ottawa area. Tania and Greg do a lot of snowmobiling in their hometown of Manotick, which is just outside Ottawa. We learned that in the summer people actually race snowmobiles on the water there! Apparently it works if you've got enough speed, and apparently the snowmobiles still work fine even after getting a dunking. Sounds like quite the event to watch!


Street on Man-o-War Cay


Bank on Man-o-War (not your typical-looking RBC branch!)


Fuel barge (actually a barge with a fuel truck on it!)


Geru anchored outside Hope Town harbour
(view from the lighthouse)


Hope Town harbour


Hope Town lighthouse


Hope Town street


Hope Town street


A perfect sailing day (temp is water temperature)