We don't get out much

Junkanoo parade

We're usually back on the boat before dark for dinner and bedtime. Cruising in remote areas where not much is going on helps promote that kind of behavior.

But here in the Abacos, there is a lot going on. Last Wednesday night, we went to rib night at the Jib Room in Marsh Harbour. The ribs were falling off the bone delicious and there was live music and limbo.

 

Then last Friday night we went to the Goombay Festival at the Sea Spray Marina. The full moon was big and orange while rising and then amazingly clear and bright. While the festival was going on, we got to see the Delta IV launch from Cape Canaveral in the distance. It was quite a sight and the live music and crowd made it even more memorable. The festival ended with a Junkanoo parade which features colorful costumes and a whole lot of noise/music.  The kids loved the parade but were certainly tired after a long day of snorkeling and the late night.

Desmond, who apparently has no bones to worry about. Only
his feet and ankles are touching the ground here.


Putting the kids to work

Now that they're 5 and 6, it's about time the kids started to pull their own weight around here. To that end, we are starting to give them some jobs on the boat.

Conrad helps lower the dinghy, puts in/pulls out the dingy plug when it rains, and bails out the water. Conrad has helped scrape growth off the bottom of the boat. Mark and Conrad take turns pushing the button to reset the location on the anchor alarm when we anchor (if they can pull themselves away from whatever argument they are having during the anchoring process itself when we are too busy to deal with them).

Mark and Conrad love cleaning the boat. They both set and help clear the table. Conrad also helps to sweep the boat and wash clothes. It's amazing what kids think is fun when you stick them on a boat all day.

Conrad caught this snapper. Dad helped reel it in.

Birthdays and bottoming out

Hope Town Lighthouse before the rains came.

On my (Jen's) birthday, we had an eventful day. They say bad things come in threes.

In the morning, we headed over the Sandy Cay to see whether the conditions were good for diving. It was too choppy and chilly so we anchored near a beach to have some lunch. As we were anchoring Matt said in his calm way, "We have a problem." The port engine was running but not doing anything to move the boat.  Luckily the anchor went down without issue and we went to investigate.  We had read stories about boats who's props had fallen off and had just gotten through resolving issues with the starboard side transmission, so we were fearing the worst as we opened the engine room hatch.  We quickly saw that the propeller shaft had decoupled from the port engine transmission.  Not good, but (relatively) easily fixable.  Matt spent the next hour or so re-bolting the shaft to the transmission- using locktite on the bolts to insure it didn't happen again. After that, we were good to go.

We headed back towards Hope Town and were having a great time with the brisk winds. A couple of times we saw 9 knots, which for us is pretty fast. We had a little friendly competition with Halcyon. This is Matt "winning".

Unfortunately, as we got closer to Hope Town we heard one noise (there are several of course) you don't ever want to hear on a boat. We had gotten too shallow and the boat momentarily scraped and bounced along the bottom. In hindsight, we realized that we had mistaken a poorly marked safe water buoy for a harbor channel marker. The shoal wasn't shown on the charts, though. 

Five minutes after finding the bottom we thought things were back to normal but then the jib started flapping wildly.  What now?  Spinning the winch offered no resistance and we saw the sheet had simply parted about 5 inches from where it was tied to the sail.  Fortunately, we were ready to bring the jib in anyway and we quickly furled it.  We're not certain why the sheet failed, but for now we reversed the line and retied it to the jib.  It came with the boat so we're not certain how old it is. We will probably have to replace it at some point.

 

After we anchored, Matt dove to assess the damage and found a chunk of missing resin from our keel that told us we must have hit some rock as well as sand. With it's shallow waters, this kind of thing is one of the main dangers you face in the clear waters in the Bahamas. Sigh. Hopefully this is a lesson learned that we will not repeat. Matt will be diving later to put in a temporary repair with epoxy until our next haul out. Fortunately, it is solid fiberglass down there, so no structural damage was done..

That evening we anchored near Hope Town and took a quick climb up the Hope Town lighthouse. It is a working lighthouse that is powered by kerosene.

 

 

That evening, as the rain started, we had a great dinner with Halcyon and dessert was a delicious chocolate birthday cake that Matt threw together in between repairs. Thanks Brit and Sandy!

 

Elbow Cay

Hope Town Fire and Rescue (volunteer)

Here are some shots near Elbow Cay (the island where scenic Hope Town resides), where we anchored for a couple nights. There seems to be no end to how much the boys can entertain themselves by digging at the beach. We plan to return to Elbow Cay Thursday for the Goombay festival.



If I can just ride far enough, I know there will be
ice cream at the end...

Brit kite boarding

 

Remoras like moldy pita bread

We worked our way towards Marsh Harbour with easy day sails. We bought some produce, met up with our friends Brit and Sandy on Halcyon, and have been having a great time hanging out with them. We did some diving at Man-O-War Cay and biked to Hope Town (they allow only a few cars on the island). There is a great sand bar at Baker's Rock near Hope Town where Brit has been having a great time kite boarding. I know Matt is itching to try it.

Here's a video of the kids feeding remoras off the back of the boat back in Little Harbour. We have had limited internet and expect that to continue.

 

Little Harbour

We moved up to the middle of Abaco island, which is the start of the 'real' cruising grounds. Behind the outer islands the Sea of Abaco is usually calm and serene, and packed full of anchorages to explore.  The trip up from Sandy Point took the full day. Again, our wind died so it took a couple (ermm, maybe 4) hours longer than we thought it would be, but we resisted the urge to crank up the engines and instead put up the spinnaker for the first time. At least it was all downwind and no one got sick, so we had that going for us.



All alone off Lynyard Cay. Everyone left when it got windy.

After a day off of Lynyard Cay getting swarmed by biblical amounts of flies after a brief rain, we are in Little Harbour now. At it's heart is Pete's Pub, a very charming art gallery and beach bar that serves fresh fish caught daily by one of the owners. The owners (now the third generation) also run Johnston Studios which produces some beautiful bronzes.  We saw them perform a bronze casting today, which seemed very old-timey and somewhat dangerous. 

Playing the ring hook game, the island version of bags.

We also went to one of the caves next to the anchorage. The Johnston family (of Pete's Pub and Gallery fame) apparently lived in the caves while Randolph (Pete's dad) was building their original home back in the 60's. The boys were disappointed that they didn't see any bats but liked being in their first cave.

Fix, fix, fix your boat...

The local club scene.  No cover charge.

Many of our mornings are spent doing school with the boys (Jen) and fixing the boat (Matt). Good thing we didn't buy a fixer upper. Here's Matt fixing those escape hatch corners that broke on the way over. He's sitting in the dinghy underneath the boat.

 

 

Before we left Ft. Lauderdale, Matt redid the trampolines at the front of the boat. This was a project that had been identified before we bought the boat. It was not a high priority but prevented anyone from safely hanging out in front. It required Matt to replace/reseat a number of eyebolts and then restring the trampolines using high-strength line. Jen had to be called in to get in to some of the small lockers and compartments to tighten the bolts. Nothing like getting stuffed into a closed, dark, gasoline smelling compartment in the hot Florida midday sun!  But now we can lounge in the front of the boat just like the people in the all those glossy chartering ads.  Boat boy! Another drink please!

 



 

Afternoons are reserved for something fun, like fishing, playing on the beach or exploring.

What a difference a day makes

Jazz Fest in Ft. Lauderdale on the Sunday before we left.

We set sail for the Bahamas on Tuesday. We had made one final call to our no-show boat side fuel pump out guy, who eventually called us back just as we started the engines to move to the marina to top off our diesel tank. Against all odds, he had someone meet us at the dock and we got our tank cleaned out.

The clouds in the distance were
forming little water spouts. Our friends on Waterbug  warned
us that these are common in this area this time of year.

We left Ft. Lauderdale around noon. The winds we were promised did not materialize. Instead they were very light and right on our nose. So we motor sailed for about 8 hours through choppy seas in the gulf stream. Mark and I (Jen) both lost our lunches. We continued overnight (our first on this boat as a family). The winds finally picked up and we turned off the engines and started sailing.

The following day, the waves were hitting us on the side and were spaced just right for optimum discomfort. Conrad got sick and even Matt was feeling it. At one point there were some big slamming waves that hit the bottom of our boat and one of them broke the catches for the hatch handles and allowed the escape hatch to open. We had to quickly turn the boat downwind to keep the waves out and Matt had to rig a temporary fix until we could get to anchor.  Luckily we had our doubts about these catches and had already ordered some new metal ones to replace the plastic ones.  Guess we'll be installing these sooner rather than later...

While we were motoring, the engine stopped at one point. It restarted fine but it seemed like a lot of exhaust was leaking out because of a missing bolt. Running it with the engine hatch open seemed to solve the issue. Later, Matt determined that there was a crack in the exhaust elbow that would require that the whole piece be replaced. In the meantime, he has fashioned a temporary fix using some high temperature sealant. He's doubtful about how it will hold.

We arrived at Sandy Point on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas on Wednesday feeling drained and tired. After an early dinner, we turned in for a much needed night of rest. Unfortunately we were swarmed by mosquitos and noseeums that fit easily through the mesh screens over the hatches.

On Thursday, we headed to the beach for some time off the boat. We have the anchorage all to ourselves (not counting the bugs) and are enjoying being back in the Bahamas. When the wind shifts again, we'll head around the south point of the island and north towards Marsh Harbor.

Groundhog Day (the movie) - Day 33

We have officially been at Lake Sylvia for more than month. The anchorage is ringed with about 25 multi-million dollar properties. In all the time we have been here, I can count less than a dozen instances where I have seen the occupants using their beautiful back yards. Most of the people we see appear to be gardeners or caretakers. It seems like a waste. Maybe it's all the anchored boats cluttering up the scenery.

Yesterday, Ft. Lauderdale got a record amount of rain. You can see a lot of the buckets we put out yesterday (including a 5 gallon one, not shown). They were all completely filled and overflowing. We use the water to wash the boat, rinse off, and do dishes.

During the storm, we saw some dolphins jumping between the boats. We were all really excited. But it was game day (the day of the week where the boys get electronic games). So after about 20 seconds of looking at the dolphins, Mark starts saying, "Okay, time to say bye-bye! Bye-bye dolphins. It's game day!" Score one for the unlimited screen time camp.

We took a dinghy ride downtown to pick up a new electrical enclosure box and breakers, which was way more expensive than we thought it would be due to the breakers being European. This latest project will keep us and others from being electrocuted when the generator is running, so I guess it's money well spent.

The fuel disposal guy who was going to help us pump out the bad diesel appears to be a no show. We probably won't wait for him. We hope to be out of here within the next few days. Have I said that before? I feel like I've said that before.

Hitchhiker

Taken by Peter on Transition.

This was the chain of our friend's boat as he tried to pull up anchor. The anchor chain was really twisted around this rusty old bike. Matt went over on the dinghy to help get it untangled and it took at least 15 minutes to get it undone. The chain had managed to get a knot around the bike and had wrapped around it at least 10 times. We'll see what we get on our chain when we finally get out of here.

Like a clown car but in a kayak. Another shot from Peter.

So the big weather window that we were counting on disappeared and we will be here for at least another week. The marine electrician came by, scratched his head over our situation (which made Matt feel a little better about his own skills), and gave us some advice on how to potentially fix the FUBAR wiring situation. It's not really that bad and requires putting in a longer ground wire and adding some breakers so that we don't electrocute ourselves. The voltage drop is also probably not the reason the charger died, so we feel more comfortable putting the new one in now. We highly recommend these guys for marine electrical work, by the way.

We also have the fuel tank cleaning boat coming Thursday (so he says). Once that is taken care of, there is nothing keeping us here other than uncooperative wind.