Sailing the Abacos

21 May 2008

Over the last couple of weeks we have done yet more sailing. It is so nice to be moving with the wind and no diesel engine noise in the background, just the sound of "Auto" steering the boat. We are slowly working our way south down the Abaco chain. Since the last post we've made stops at Coopers Town, Green Turtle Cay, and Great Guana Cay.

On Saturday, we were anchored just off the Coopers Town sea wall for the night. We stayed on the boat that evening. Coopers Town looks much like Fox Town, a small Bahamian village. On Sunday we headed over to Green Turtle Cay. Green Turtle turned out to be a longer stop for us than we had originally intended - we ended up staying for a week as we met up with old friends who are heading north. Shortly after we had anchored in White Sound at Green Turtle Cay and were settling in, we heard someone calling "Geru Geru" so we popped our heads out and there were Brian and Lynn from Midori, who we'd last seen in Brunswick, Georgia! What a nice surprise. We spent a great evening dinner catching up on each others' stories.

On Tuesday, Lynn and Brian rented a golf cart for the four of us. We toured Green Turtle Cay, took in the town of New Plymouth, and did a little snorkelling. The island has one main paved road; the rest are dirt roads that seem to fit one car or two golf carts. Golf carts are pretty standard transportation on the smaller islands here, and they outnumbered the few cars/trucks on Green Turtle. New Plymouth is a neat little town with narrow streets and quaint old houses painted in pastel colours. We spent a few hours exploring and had a great lunch of cracked conch (tenderized conch pieces fried in batter). We had planned on snorkelling on the Atlantic side of Green Turtle, but the sea was too rough so we ended up in a bay on the Sea of Abaco side and, boy, was the water warm! We didn't see very much other than a few fish as there are no reefs on the Sea of Abaco side.

On Thursday, we were invited to go out on a trawler (a larger live-aboard motor boat) for a day of snorkelling at Powell Cay. It was an interesting trip as we had never been on a trawler before. Sitting by the helm on the upper deck, one is fairly high above the water. Quite a different view than on our boat, and the trawler also rocks quite differently in the waves. We spent the first portion of the day walking the beaches and shallow waters in a protected bay on the Atlantic side, and we ended up finding a large conch. We brought "Conchie" (later renamed "George") back with us. We spent the afternoon snorkelling around a sunken dredging barge, which was being used as a shelter by quite a few tropical fish.

On our way back from the snorkelling day, we saw that Zulia, another Canadian boat we know and had been expecting, had arrived at Green Turtle on their way back north. Zulia is another Prout 37 catamaran like Geru. We had first met Liz and Chris from Zulia in person in Brunswick, Georgia, but we had actually been in e-mail contact with them long before that. We had some issues when we first registered our boat in Ottawa several months before we left on our trip. We found Zulia as a sistership to Geru on the Canadian ship registry, and we contacted Liz and Chris for some information we needed for the registry, which they graciously supplied.

We spent a few days enjoying Green Turtle Cay, the pool at the Bluff House, and sharing a few meals with Liz and Chris and Lynn and Brian. It was tough to say good-bye.

We left Green Turtle on Monday and headed to Great Guana Cay. The passage between Green Turtle and Great Guana normally involves transiting the Whale Channel, which means heading out into the Atlantic and back to the Sea of Abaco. However, being a catamaran we decided to do the more direct shallow-draft route - the Dont Rock passage, named after a large rock (actually more of a tiny island) at its end. Most boats can't take this path as there is only 4-5' of water depth. The bottom is pure sand. The passage was really neat as the water colour changed from blue to turquoise green to almost white as we passed over the shallowest parts.

We had been told by Midori to stop at Great Guana Cay and check out the restaurant/bar called Nippers. Nippers has a pig roast every Sunday afternoon (really a buffet) which we'd been told to go to. We were there on a Tuesday, but decided to go anyway. Nippers sits atop a sandy bluff overlooking the Atlantic. We stopped by for a drink in the afternoon. As we were sitting looking out at the ocean, a group of good-looking women in bikinis and makeup showed up. Ruth commented that they must be models. It turned out that they were actually doing their photography at Nippers - and so we ended up in the middle of a Hooters Calendar Girls photo shoot! We were quite literally "in the middle" as the photographer set up for the shoot right where we were sitting. We ended up talking to him and to some of the women and watched the photo session. So we missed the Sunday party, but still witnessed quite an event!


On Green Turtle Cay


George (the conch) coming out of its shell


Ruth cutting up conch


Conch shell and conch meat


The view from Nippers


Hooters Girls photo shoot on the beach


Hooters Girls photo shoot on the beach


Hooters Patrol yacht


Heather (Miss Fort Lauderdale) and Ruth

We are in the Bahamas!

Tuesday morning we left the marina at West End to head onto the Little Bahama Bank. As we left the harbour (still on the ocean side), we were in a pretty good sea and it was fairly rough as we headed towards Indian Cay Channel, our chosen entrance to the bank. The Little Bahama Bank is a large expanse of shallow water surrounded by reefs and islands (the smaller ones being called "cays" here) with a few passable entrances from the ocean. The pass onto the bank was interesting as the waves initally were quite large, but as soon as we were on the bank it smoothed out to much less than on the ocean side.

Arriving on the Little Bahama Bank was amazing - it is shallow enough to see the bottom as it is generally 10 feet or less in depth, and it extended as far as we could see with no land in sight. Our first night was spent at Mangrove Cay. We went to bed with the boat rocking gently in the small waves. When we woke up in the morning, it was dead calm with only a few ripples on the water - what a neat place to be! We almost whispered when we went out on deck, it was so still. Around us, sea met sky with a few small islands visible in the distance.

We left Mangrove Cay on Wednesday and spent an hour or so calibrating our autopilot. We had carried the autopilot in a box since Ottawa, we finally installed it in Vero Beach, but it needed to be calibrated before we could actually use it. Calibration entails motoring large circles and letting the autopilot take the boat on a zig-zag course of its choosing, and we had not had the calm seas and large space required to do that until now. Once "Auto" was calibrated, we let him steer us for most of the day to Great Sale Cay. What a great change for us - to be able to stand back from the helm and not having to constantly steer the boat by hand.

We had planned on spending an extra day at Great Sale Cay to catch our breath and fix some minor boat things. However, after a rough night with seas starting to roll directly into the anchorage and the wind looking like it would continue to blow from the same unfavourable direction, we decided to head out to find a calmer anchorage to spend the next night. We left Great Sale Cay and were able to sail (not motorsail) for a while - this was a first since we left Ottawa! It was wonderful to turn off the engine and glide quietly over the water. The sailing didn't last very long, though, as the wind was shifting and we ended up with the wind on our nose and bashing into two foot waves with spray on the deck. The day was pretty good as Auto was at the helm so we weren't constantly working to keep on course. We spent the night anchored just off of the town of Fox Town on Little Abaco Island.

On Friday, we checked into one of the cruisers' nets on our SSB radio and had a great chat on the radio with Skip from Isolde II, who is currently up in Brunswick, Georgia. We found out all the latest going-ons about our cruising friends up there. As Ruth says, the Jungle Drums work well. After lunch we headed into shore to see our first Bahamian town. Fox Town has a few colourful houses along the road, a grocery store (7-eleven size with mostly empty shelves) and two gas stations. We found the locals to be very friendly - a young gentleman came up to us and offered us a taste of freshly made banana pie (more like cake). Near the edge of town we found the school and the community clinic, both of which looked very new. The clinic, in particular, looked like an elaborate home with extensive landscaping. One of the locals told us that much of the town has been rebuilt over the last several years after hurricane Floyd destroyed much of the area.

The weather has been hot over the last few days, hitting 30C with lows at night around 26C. We are both finding it a bit too hot at times. There is usually a breeze, though, and when we have our two main hatches open, it keeps the inside of the boat fairly comfortable. We have seen little to no rain here so far. Our last real rains were the heavy thunderstorms in Vero Beach.


Waters of the Little Bahama Bank


Sunset over the Banks (if you look carefully, you can see one other boat anchored)


Geru anchored off of Fox Town


House in Fox Town

Crossing the Gulf Stream

Crossing the Gulf Stream from the East coast of the US to the Bahamas is considered a bit of a right of passage for sailors. The Gulf Stream is literally a stream of warm water in the ocean which heads north at two to three knots (nautical miles per hour). This current not only pushes you north as you are heading east from Florida to the Bahames, but if there is any wind from the north (which opposes the direction of this current), you get a very rough and potentially dangerous sea. The passage is also long enough (69 nautical miles or about 124 km) that you're out of sight of land for most of it.

We had to wait for the right weather for our crossing for over a week, which is what enabled us to see as much of Fort Lauderdale as we did. We left Lake Sylvia at four o'clock on Monday morning. As we left the anchorage, we realized that some of our navigation lights weren't working (why is it that things only stop working when you need them?), so we rigged up some temporary lights so we would be seen. It turned out this was necessary, as there was a surprising amount of boat traffic in the pitch darkness. Fort Lauderdale has many bright lights, but it was a new moon and it was very dark on the water. A sailboat crossed our path on the ICW and a megayacht followed us out to sea. Just as we were heading out the harbour mouth, we came upon a freighter which was coming into Port Everglades. This gave us (really just Geoff) pause for thought about the big ships out there in the dark (Ruth grew up sailing in their midst, so she was used to that thought). After pushing over to the side to pass the freighter, we were out and off. As we travelled east, we did see quite a few lights from other freighters off in the distance.

A couple of hours into our trip, we saw an odd light ahead of us - and then watched our first sunrise at sea. Our passage across was smooth. There was little wind, the waves were relatively small, and we motored the whole way. The day was very hot and muggy and it would have been nice to have some wind to cool it down, but we weren't complaining as the lack of wind kept the sea calmer for our first ocean passage. The water temperature was a steady 28C all day. We saw a few groups of flying fish, and then, to our amazement, about two-thirds of the way across (and therefore still over 20 Nm from land), a small bird (a common yellowthroat - thanks for the ID, Janie!) landed on our boat and visited with us for a while before flying off again.

We arrived at Old Bahama Bay Marina in West End on Grand Bahama Island at four o'clock in the afternoon, 12 hours after we left Fort Lauderdale - a long but successful day bringing us to our second foreign country of this trip!


A screen capture of our navigation software as we left Fort Lauderdale (all the red triangles are larger ships)


Sunrise in the Gulf Stream


Sunrise in the Gulf Stream


Our little visitor (common yellowthroat)


Geru in the Bahamas (hiding behind the dock)


Our first sunset in the Bahamas

Fort Lauderdale

Fort Lauderdale is known for its spring break partying. From what we found, it seems to live up to this reputation year round.

We spent the first few days at Lake Sylvia. It was nice because it was quiet, with the exception of the weekend parties (see photo). However, we found that it was difficult to find somewhere to land the dinghy as the area is surrounded by private properties. One option was to take the dinghy down two different canals and to cross the ICW in order to tie up at a restaurant. We only did that once - picture crossing a busy waterway with large power boats motoring through in a small inflatable rubber dinghy! It was akin to crossing a busy highway on a bicycle - quite a hair-raising experience, not to mention a wet one, as we got soaked by the wakes from the large boats.

On Tuesday, we moved from Lake Sylvia to Cooley's Landing Marina in order to be able to get to shore more easily and to allow us to do laundry and fill up with water before we left for the Bahamas. Cooley's Landing Marina is in the downtown area of Fort Lauderdale, which is actually a good distance from the beach and main cruise ship harbour, but it is right in an entertainmant district. Just down from the marina is an area called the Riverfront (along the New River) which is filled with restaurants and bars.

One evening we decided to have dinner at one of the restaurants at the Riverfront. It was still early, so after dinner we hung out watching life go by and were surprised to see a fair number of Navy personnel (in uniforms) coming into the restaurant. It turns out that this was Fleet Week in Fort Lauderdale, where several Navy ships were in town with lots of events arranged for the crews to thank them for their duty to their country. We ended up talking to some of the female officers from the USS Iwo Jima and had a great evening with them. We also ran into a gentleman there in a Canadian Navy uniform - it turns out he was a Navy chaplain who happened to be with the American fleet on a chaplain-exchange program!

On another day, we headed over to the ocean side to see what the famous Fort Lauderdale beach was like - the beach where "spring break happens". When we arrived, we were surprised at how low to the water some helicopers were flying near the beach. Shortly after that we heard, then saw why - there was a cigarette boat race going on right in front of the beach! It was so loud from the boat engines that we had to raise our voices to talk to each other. The helicopers were following the leaders, but they were so close to them that it looked like they were getting spray from the boats. The boats themselves looked crazy, too, both from the speed and from the fact that they were flying out of the water as they were jumping off of waves (it was rough out on the ocean). Other than the cigarette boats, the beach was pretty much what we had expected - lots of people out strutting their stuff and sunbathing.

Later that evening we headed out to the Las Olas wine and food show. Las Olas is a shopping street which isn't far from Cooley's. The wine and food show was held right on the street and was open to anyone to walk through (you needed to buy wrist bands to sample the food & wine). It was really neat to be at an outdoor wine and food show on a balmy evening! Afterwards, we didn't really feel like going home so we ended up at a night club at the Riverfront - what an interesting place. It had an Arabian theme with lots of seating and posh beds (!) to lounge on. People were smoking bongs while multiple DJs played hip hop music in several connected rooms. The crowd was quite young. Definitely an experience.

Two nights later we found the bar strip just two blocks away from the marina with clubs frequented by the "older" generation. Each side of the street has a sidewalk which is lined with outdoor tables where you can be served drinks (open alcohol on the street seemed ok in Fort Lauderdale). There were people in the bars, but many were out on the street, so we grabbed a table and watched people walk by. We noticed that a large number of the women appeared to have breast implants, many of them so large as to be extreme. Must be the beach culture.

On Sunday, we left Cooley's to go back to Lake Sylvia in order to be closer to the ocean inlet for the start of our trip to the Bahamas. As expected, there were lots of local boats anchored in the lake for a day of partying. One group consisted of at least eight power boats rafted up together, essentially creating a floating island.


Lake Sylvia on the weekend


Geoff with senior officers from the USS Iwo Jima


7th Ave Bridge in Fort Lauderdale


Fort Lauderdale Beach


Fort Lauderdale Beach


Cigarette boat racing on Fort Lauderdale Beach


Fort Lauderdale Night Life


The busy ICW through Fort Lauderdale


The busy ICW through Fort Lauderdale

Goodbye Vero Beach

After spending two and a half months in Vero Beach, we finally felt ready to leave last Thursday.

Thursday morning we left saying goodbyes to friends, the majority of whom are heading north at this time of year. We were travelling alone again, for the first time in quite a while. Much to our surprise, later on on Thursday we were passed by a trawler with a couple we knew from Vero Beach. We ended up anchoring in a place called Manatee Pocket with them, and the four of us spent a nice evening at a local restaurant. The restaurant had the usual happy hour, but with a twist: free appetizers, which for cruisers means free dinner - what a great find!

Friday we continued our trip down the ICW to Lake Worth. We had yet another beautiful sunny day. This was also the first day we had to deal with large numbers of careless motor boats. The power boaters on this section of the ICW are very rude, passing about as close as possible without reducing speed, and really rocking our boat with large waves. We even got spray into the cockpit from a few!

Saturday we decided to travel "outside" on the ocean along the coast down to Fort Lauderdale rather than on the ICW. We had been warned that the ICW is just insane with power boating traffic on weekends. Being out on the ocean brought its own challenges, however. It was a rough ride as we had the wind and waves on the beam (from the side) with seas of about four feet.

The last (and first) time we entered the Port Everglades harbour in Fort Lauderdale was on the cruise ship we spent a week's vacation on two years ago. At that time, we hadn't bought Geru yet, but we were beginning to dream about and plan for our adventure. Arriving in Fort Lauderdale this time felt great, both to be out of the uncomfortable seas and to be entering Port Everglades on our own boat.

We anchored for the night in Lake Sylvia surrounded by mega-mansions. The anchorage lies in the middle of one of the most expensive neighbourhoods of Fort Lauderdale. Certainly a change from the natural mangrove islands we were surrounded by at Vero Beach!



Leaving Vero Beach (marina is behind the bridge)


A gated community on the ICW (gated from the water side too!)

The Last Two and a Half Months

Vero Beach turned out to be our provisioning, dental care, and upgrade harbour. We (especially Geoff) spent much time installing equipment - an additional solar panel, new batteries, the autopilot which we have carried with us in a box since Ottawa, pieces of the floor, and new winches, just to name a few. Time was also spent provisioning the boat with food that will be harder (or much more expensive) to get once we are in the islands. Geoff was also able to get his root canal done and now has a crown on his tooth as well. During our time in Vero we have learned that things take much longer on a boat than they would ashore - if you think it will take a day to install something, it will take at least twice that, and if you go shopping for food one day, expect another to get it all put away on the boat.

Our time in Vero Beach was also filled with wildlife around the boat. Ruth particularly enjoyed the pelicans diving for fish around the mangrove island behind our mooring. Other wildlife included lots of dolphins, a very friendly manatee that seemed to be quite curious about our boat, and numerous wading birds.

Ruth: I would like to thank all of you who have sent me e-mails or otherwise expressed your condolences and offered your support over the last few weeks. It has meant a lot to me.



Ruth figuring out the medical kit


Vero Beach bus drivers


New solar panel (195 Watts)


All this for four bolts! (to install the solar panel)


Carrying our provisions back to the boat


Okay, now let's put it all away...


View of the ICW south from the Vero Beach bridge

More Photos from Vero

Some of the wildlife we saw - a heron fishing by the mangroves


Ruth getting used to going up the mast


View of the back deck and Ruth (and Geoff's foot)


View of the deck before we added the extra solar panel


View of Vero Beach from half way up the mast


Vero Beach mooring field


Vero Beach mooring field


Cruisers' potluck dinner