On the Thorny Path

29 December 2008

We spent just over a week at Cat Island. We stayed a bit longer than we had originally planned waiting for weather - a common pastime on the Thorny Path to the Caribbean. Cat Island is interesting, and it seems that not many cruisers visit here - most head down to George Town instead. During our stay at Cat Island, we didn't see a single other cruising boat (in fact, we didn't see many boats at all, only one or two local motor boats!).

We were anchored just off the settlement of New Bight for most of our stay. Like we had encountered on other Bahamian islands, the town has no obvious town centre; instead, it is spread out along one road which roughly follows the shoreline. The police station and government office are located at one end and the grocery store is at the other, 1.5 miles away. Along the road there are a fair number of houses. They are mostly very small (by our standards) single-story homes. In between the occupied homes there are many ruins of older houses, usually overgrown with bushes and greenery and with the roof missing. It seems that the locals don't bother (can't afford?) tearing down the old homes, so they just build beside the ruins or elsewhere.

Any visit to Cat Island would not be complete without a visit to Father Jerome's hermitage. Father Jerome was a priest/architect who built many of the churches in the Bahamas. His hermitage on Cat Island, which was his retirement home, is the most famous. The hermitage, which is a small building complex with a chapel and living quarters, is built on top of the highest hill in the Bahamas (63m!) with stations of the cross along the steep path leading up to it. What a feat to have built it on the top of this hill without the modern tools we have today!

On our walk up to the hermitage we saw our first Bahamian farm, and it was unlike any other farm we'd ever seen. The farmers had cut down larger trees to about 4-foot tall dried-up slender trunks, and they had left all the rocks in the ground. They simply planted in the small pockets of earth in amongst the rocks. We saw watermelons, tomatoes, corn, and breadfruit growing. During our stay at Cat Island, we met Reverend Johnston, who is a school teacher and a farmer. He spoke of the old days when they would go on horseback to collect bat guano from caves on the island to fertilize the plants. Today they simply buy commercial fertilizer from Nassau. We bought a very tasty and juicy watermelon from Reverend Johnston.

We left Cat Island for Rum Cay on Saturday, December 20th. We left at dawn and arrived just after sunset, anchoring in the dark. It was a long day. We motorsailed the whole way. The wind and waves were just off our bow (i.e. almost from the front), which made for an uncomfortable trip. Things improved during the day as the waves died down a bit.

We spent just over a week at Rum Cay (again waiting for weather), including Christmas. It was really odd being there for Christmas as it did not feel like Christmas at all. There were virtually no decorations, music or even mentioning of Christmas. The island was pretty quiet with only a few people around. Some of the locals were "off island" for the holidays, presumably visiting with relatives and friends. Initially we anchored out in the bay, but after a few days we took a slip in the protected marina as it was pretty rolly in the anchorage with the ocean swell coming in over the reef. Besides, it was Christmas, and so we treated ourselves to the convenience of being at a dock.

While at Rum Cay, we saw our first cruising boat in a long time. 'Zanadu Sea' is a Canadian catamaran with a retired couple on board who are also heading down to the Caribbean islands. We spent Christmas with Cliff and Rosalind enjoying a cruisers' Christmas dinner on the 25th. We did quite well given the limits of the pantry on a cruising boat! It was nice to be with other cruisers for christmas, especially given that when we first arrived at Rum Cay the anchorage was empty, and we thought we'd be spending it alone.

One evening, Ruth saw (Geoff missed it!) the fabled "green flash" at sunset. This is a bit of a rite of passage among cruisers, as it appears to be a rare event and usually requires having sat through many sunsets (where the sun is setting over water from the viewer's perspective) looking for the elusive green flash. We had read that it is an atmospheric phenomenon that occurs under specific circumstances, where a reflection of the setting sun appears as a bright green flash on the horizon. Ruth said it looked like the very last bit of the top of the sun suddenly turned bright green for a second or two before it slipped below the horizon.

While we were at Rum Cay, we watched many a cruise ship go by late in the evening. Holland America has a "private" island not far away where their cruise ships anchor for an afternoon and the guests get to enjoy the beach. We also really noticed how many stars you can see when you are away from all the city lights - just amazing!


Customs House at Smith Bay, Cat Island


Geru off the beach at New Bight, Cat Island


Geru off the beach at New Bight, Cat Island


Houses on Cat Island


Old Ruin on Cat Island


Entry to Father Jerome's Hermitage


Second Station of the Cross on the way up to Father Jerome's Hermitage


Stations of the Cross on the way up to Father Jerome's Hermitage


Father Jerome's Hermitage


Pew for One at Father Jerome's Hermitage


Farm on Cat Island


Farm on Cat Island


Some Ingredients for a Cruisers' Christmas Dinner

Merry Christmas!

24 December 2008

We wish you all a merry christmas and a very happy new year from Rum Cay in the Bahamas.

Back in the Bahamas

12 December 2008

On Friday, December 5th, we moved down to Key Biscayne to be closer to the ocean for our crossing over to the Bahamas the next day. On Saturday we left for our fifth crossing of the Gulf Stream. Thankfully, it was uneventful and we were back in turquoise waters on the Great Bahama Bank at Bimini just before sunset. As we continued on through the night, Ruth, who was on watch, had an unnerving experience. As we were approaching Mackie Shoal, which is a very shallow area on the bank, there were two boats anchored close to the lit shoal marker in a way that forced us to pass between them and the marker. Because it was night and depth perception is poor in the dark, Ruth had very little feel for how close we were to those boats, so she motored along, anxiously keeping an eye on them. When we finally passed them, she could see the hulls in the ambient light, and we ended up motoring just a few boat length in front of one of them.

The next morning, just after we left the bank, we were approached by a large motor boat of the Bahamian Defence Force who asked to board us. After one of their officers stepped onto our boat (not a small feat in the rolling seas!), we were informed that we should have cleared in at Bimini, our first possible port of call. After informing them that this was not mentioned in any of our guide books and that we were planning to go straight through to Cat Island, the officer said it was okay - this time. Later on that evening (we were now on our second night of non-stop travelling), as we were passing south of New Providence Island, Ruth was sitting in the salon when the whole boat was lit up by a strong search light - another Bahamian Defence Force vessel! This time they did not board us, but took the paperwork from our last boarding and copied it. Papers were passed back and forth between our boat and theirs, again in rolling seas and with their boat coming dangerously close to hitting ours. Most people never even see the Bahamian Defence Force, and we had them visit us twice - we guess this is what happens when you travel at night where most innocent cruising boats don't!

We were pushing to get to Cat Island but the weather started deteriorating. We ended up stopping at Highbourne Cay on Monday morning, and we immediately went to bed as we hadn't slept well during our night passages due to the waves rocking the boat in a rather uncomfortable manner. We spent four days in the Highbourne/Allens Cay area waiting for weather to cross over the Cat Island. The night before we left Allens Cay, a squall came through at about 4am. Just before the squall hit, Geoff had woken up because the boat started moving differently in the changing winds. He looked outside and saw that we had rotated 180 degrees on our anchor with the veering wind and that we were getting quite close to two other anchored boats. There was still enough distance so Geoff wasn't concerned. Then the squall hit and we tugged on our anchor, extending our rode to its full length. Geoff checked outside again and was a little alarmed - we had slid backwards to sit exactly between the two boats, each one being only a boat length away! It was really lucky that we didn't run into one of them. The boat to our right was swinging a lot at its anchor (some boats have a tendency to do that - it's called "sailing at anchor") and was getting awfully close. Ruth awoke to shouting on deck in French, as the boat did get close enough that they would have hit us from the side had Geoff and the other owner (who only spoke French) not physically pushed the two boats apart. Because we were the boat in the middle and were too close to both, we started our engine, picked up anchor and re-anchored a few hundred yards away for a rough rest of the night as we were closer to the inlet now and the waves were much larger. All of this happened in howling wind and pounding rain in total darkness! Two hours later at dawn, we left for Cat Island. Our trip over was a smooth but fairly long one - we arrived at 8pm in the evening, anchoring in the dark to the lights of some houses on shore.

South on the ICW

5 December 2008

Between November 12 and December 5 we worked our way south on the ICW passing by many of the places we'd seen last winter, but it felt quite different this time around. We were more relaxed as we "knew what we were doing", but we were also pushing hard to get south quickly so we could leave for the islands sooner. A few notable events from the trip include:

One evening, we were heading for an anchorage we had picked out on the chart. As we passed a little bay off to the side of the ICW, Geoff suggested we try it instead - it looked very calm and beautiful. It was charted at only 4 feet deep, so we slowly nosed our way out of the channel and towards shore. Well, it turned out to be 13 feet deep, which was deeper than the dredged ICW beside it! It was a great spot - fully sheltered from the wind, in the middle of a gorgeous golf course, and with wifi access!

A few days later, as we left an anchorage just south of Lake Worth at Lantana, the engine started having an odd - and rather violent - vibration. The engine RPM at which the vibration occurred seemed to be changing. We had a rather worrisome two days of motoring, trying not to run the engine at an RPM that would vibrate. Once in Fort Lauderdale, Geoff searched the web and both of us brainstormed on the possible causes - our biggest fear was that it was the transmission. After much more thinking, trying things out ("what happens if I push here while we rev the engine ?"), disassembling and reassembling things and cursing the boat builders, we believe it's a misaligned/loose connection between the transmission and the outdrive. We have fixed it to the point that it only vibrates above our normal operating RPM - we can live with that until we have the time, tools and location to look into this further.

Just north of Miami we had our best encounter with dolphins yet - they we jumping out of the water ahead of us when we first saw them, and, as we approached, they came over to check us out. Standing on the front deck, Geoff had a great view of the dolphins playing between the bows!

We spent a week in Miami Beach and just loved it. Of all the cities we have visited on our trip, it is one of our favourites. South Beach has everything in a small area, from grocery stores to restaurants, from art galleries to cinemas, from art deco boutique hotels to luxury condo towers. Each day we would wander the city picking different ways to walk to the beach and back. We loved the eclectic mix of people - there are the affluent, the artsy, the alternative, and the good-looking, to name but a few. The beach is one of the nicest and largest we have seen - it's huge, both in length and depth, and there was no lack of interesting people to watch.



ICW Lawn Ornaments (!?)


The "golf course anchorage"


The "Vote Boat" seen in Fort Lauderdale


Dolphins just north of Miami


Flowers on Lincoln Road, Miami South Beach (in December!)


Miami Beach


Miami at night