Friday, December 11, 2009

Dec. 5-6 After several weeks at the marina and a Thanksgiving trip north, we were ready to brave the New River again and head for the Bahamas. Our helper, captain Mike Richards, came with us as we worked our way out of our tight slip and down the river. John was a bundle of nerves but managed to get us through the gauntlet of 7 bridges and one tourist paddlewheel coming up river. We dropped the captain off and headed out of Ft. Lauderdale harbor passing by the new gigantic cruise ship, Oasis of the Seas! The passage over to the Bahamas is about 55nm and crosses the Gulf Stream. Usually, one has to proceed SE at quite an angle to make up for he northward flow of the stream. We did not feel much sideways current and were able to just about stay on our rhumbline to a spot called Great Isaac Light. Reaching the Light and the Bahama Banks in the dark is a little surreal because the depth goes from thousands of feet to about 25 ft in a very short time. The Bank is big and it took us about 7 hours to cross. The average depth was 15ft! We arrived at Chub Cay alittle early, as we needed light to see our way into the anchorage area, so I circled for awhile. At sunrise, we went in and anchored just off the channel in clear turquoise water. We had arrived! During the day, we went into the marina and cleared in though customs and then went out and anchored again for the night. By 8pm, we were sound asleep.


Dec. 7 It was a gloriously sunny day with very little wind and calm seas. We got up at 6am and left for the Exuma Cays. The first leg of our trip took us past the western end of New Providence Island (30nm away) where Nassau is located. Once again, we were in thousands of feet of water. As we rounded the island, we were again on another shallow bank called Exuma Bank. The north/south border of the Bank is the Exuma island chain. This is the area we will cruise in during the winter. Our first destination was Norman’s Cay (48nm away) which is about the third island down the chain where cruisers stop. It is possible to anchor off the western side of the island but there are sandbars in may spots. We worked our way in as close as we could and ran into very shallow water and had to turn around and go back to deeper water and anchor (deeper being 11 ft). In the Bahamas, you have to “read the water” by its color to tell the depth, and makeup (sand, reef, grass on sand). After dinner and a few hands of cards, we collapsed into bed.


Dec. 8 We only went a short distance today because I wanted to check out Hawksbill Cay which we always rush past in our travels up and down the chain. It is in the Exumas Land & Sea Park which means it is a protected area so it stays nice. After anchoring off the beach, we took a much awaited swim in the wonderful water. After dinner, it was movie time and then bedtime.


Dec. 9 This was reconnaissance day for us. The main route down the Exuma chain, that everyone follows, we call highway 101. We needed to check out two anchorages along the chain that would give us protection from strong west winds. Checking out the first involved going out a cut between islands and then motoring along the ocean side of an island and coming back in another small cut into our protected area. Thank heaven we have electronic charts and we can put a course on them to follow through the maze of rocks and shallows! High tide was important and so was constantly watching the water color for changes. Our second spot involved skirting around the end of an island and then following channel to a deep spot that went behind another island protecting us from the right direction (west). We anchored but decided not to stay because we didn’t want to wait for high tide the next day to leave. Now, the tide was lower but the route was still possible and we followed our inbound trail to the safety of deeper water. Down highway 101 to our winter anchorage at Big Majors Spot near Staniel Cay. Dinner and a good movie and to bed.


Dec. 10 Sunny and calm and time to take the dinghy down off the top deck for the winter. We only have a small crane so the process is not easy and we don’t have a “system” in place yet. Finally she was in the water and the larger 15 hp engine in place. The engine acted up but John was finally able to get it running but only at high revs. He took it out for a spin to try to clean out the carburetor but it died in the middle of the harbor. I saw him anchor there and called our neighbor sailboat on the VHF radio and asked for assistance which they agreed to readily. John was towed back to the boat and the other skipper offered to help with the engine later in the day. He and his wife came over and the two men worked on the engine while I got to know his nice wife. Finally, after they had done all they could, John said he wanted to try once again to just run the thing around to see if this time it would clean everything out and low and behold it worked! We invited our helpers to cocktails and had a pleasant evening on the aft deck sitting around our table in the evening breeze.

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