March 20, 2019 Spanish Wells

The worst of the storm passed last night, so we moved closer to Spanish Wells.  Nancy actually sailed the boat for about an hour and was thrilled.  That was an experience she'll never forget.  After anchoring, we took the dingy to town.  We went directly to the Vault Snack Bar for lunch.  We had the Vault burger special.  Nancy and I split one and had conch fritters, first for Nancy. Dave was wishing he had split the burger with someone.  It has bacon, cheese, onion rings, lettuce, tomato and a special sauce.  Crazy good. 


 
 
 
 
We walked to the BTC office, Bahamian Telephone Company, to renew Nancy’s phone plan for another week.  On the way, we checked out the beach on the north side of the island.  We stopped at the Ponderosa Shell shop for Nancy to check out a few other gifts.  She wants to take some Bahamian coins home with her, so she asked Delroy if he had extra coins.  He actually had lots of coins that he was happy to get rid of.  He said the bank in town probably wouldn’t have had what she wanted, so it was a lucky find.  Who knew?

 
On the way back to the dock, we checked out a “fish pen” on one of the docks.  There were very large grouper, lobster, angel fish and a few others.  We took the dinghy through the canal that separates Spanish Wells from Russell Island to the west end of the island.  There is a bridge between the islands where kids jump off into the channel.  Looks a little shallow for this old lifeguard, but it doesn’t seem to be a problem. 

On the way back, we stopped at the Yacht Haven Marina to catch the happy hour at Wreckers.  Their $3 special was a watermelon rum drink with mint.  Very refreshing.  Nancy also tried the local Goombay smash, very fruity rum drink.  We say the people that were in Royal Harbor on the Beneteau 370.  They had moved to this marina before the big storm hit.  They said it reached 70k at one time.  We also found out that several boats in that harbor had their anchors drag during the storm.  One almost ended up on the rocks.  Sure glad we stayed out of there. 

As we left, we saw another boat that we knew.  We stopped to say hello to Early Out.  When different people came out, we asked about Fred and Debbie.  They said they were tied up below.  Then they explained that they had bought the boat from them just last year.  We took their info and hope to cross paths again, good sense humor.
 
 
 

 

March 18-19, 2019 Royal Harbor storm days

Monday
Nancy and I enjoyed coffee in the cock pit this morning.  We were lucky to see dolphins playing in the water not too far from our boat.  Wait for them to show up in the video.  Nancy felt really blessed to experience that.  I made French Toast with the remaining Irish Soda Bread.  It had lots of raisons and tasted yummy.

Since we didn’t want to move the boat before the storm, I defrosted the freezer and cleaned the galley today with help from Nancy.  Her best flight arrangements overlapped with our other guests, so I told her we would have to put her to work doing some of our usual chores.  She even cleaned her own head/bathroom.

had to get a picture of that tongue going to work

Dave fixed our 12 volt outlet in the cockpit since it was rusty.  He fixed a leak in one of the 3 tubes in the dingy.  The day Nancy and I went 2 miles to the wreck, it was low.  I learned how to pump it up before we had left.  But it was much worse by the time we returned.  So time to fix it.  He discovered several craze lines in the inflatable tubes, so might be time for a new dinghy.  Bummer. 

Dave added Doel-fins to our outboard motor on the dingy to help it plane.  Afterwards, we took it for a test run.  We went over to Royal Harbor to see how many boats were anchored there to weather the storm.  There were about 8 boats there including a boat we met at Great Sale when we first arrive.  Wakatiataia (sp?) Is a catamaran with a family of 4.  We visited with them and one other Beneteau 370. 

 
 
Back at our boat, we reset the anchor for better protection from the wind.

 Tuesday
We made it through the night just fine.  Winds weren’t bad through the night.  The sustained winds are supposed to be around 25k for a few days.  But the squalls could bring gusts to 50k with possible water spouts or tornado activity.  We just hung out all day doing odd jobs.  Nancy and I played cribbage.  

cleaning her sea shells before packing

About 6:00, a squall come through.  We had pretty heavy rain, which washes the boat nicely.  We rediscovered a leak in the main cabin from the overhead port lights.  It’s already on the to do list.  After things settled down, Nancy and I watched a movie, The Book Club, and had several laughs. 

nice heavy rain to clean the salt water off of the boat

March 17, 2019 St Patrick's Day

Happy St Patrick's Day!!  Not a typical celebration, but we'll make do.

We started with laundry day.  We soaked clothes over night.  Today we rinsed them and hung them on the boat.

Nancy and I took the dingy to the wreck that is off of Little Egg Island, about 2 miles away.  Once we were over the wreck, I steered the dinghy from in the water with my snorkel gear, and Nancy viewed the wreck through the “lookie bucket”.  That really has been handy for those that don’t snorkel.  Nancy loved it.  My underwater camera is acting up, so no pictures.  I may have to spend the big bucks for a decent underwater camera.  But I included a couple from a 2 years ago.

part of wreck exposed

Nancy with the "Lookie bucket"

 
 
 
 
On our way back to the boat, we stopped at another beach.  This one was at the west end of Royal Island.  Of course, Nancy found more shells to take home.  Dave taught me now to pump air into the tube of the dinghy that has a leak.  It was worse on the way back, but we made it.

this beach connected to a bay on the ocean side

Dave worked on receiving weather faxes using the Single Side Band radio.  We are expecting a storm this week.  We aren’t near a tower for our wifi to work well, so nice to have another source. 

Back at the boat, we took down the laundry before starting our St Patrick’s Day celebration.  Dave had made us corned beef and cabbage with potatoes and carrots.  He also made Irish Soda bread.  Boy did the boat smell good.  And of course, it all tasted wonderful.  We enjoyed a few beers, but didn’t go overboard.  We are preparing for a storm and will relax afterwards.

Dav'es Irish soda bread

Crazy Sista' coozie with Guiness

Corned beef and cabbage dinner

March 16, 2019 Passage from the Abacos to Eleuthera

We left our anchorage at 7:30 am for our passage to Eleuthera.  We traveled about 55nm in 8 hours.  Nancy did great!  She was amazed by the deep blue color of the deep water.  The deepest we saw was about 14,000 ft deep.  Dave always has to say “you could drown in that”.  We saw several ships once we were in the Northeast Providence Channel between the Abacos and Eleuthera.  We saw several flying fish and what we think were sharks feeding on the surface. 

Dave's entertaining Nancy during morning coffee

Dave's putting out fishing lines

 

Mary delivering oatmeal

 

Nancy's watch

zoomed in to see these 2 fish

 
 

indescribable blue

OK, these two are bored

caught a barracuda to liven things up

removing the hook and avoiding their nasty teeth

you should have seen the side of the boat

 
We anchored at the west end of Egg Island to spend some time on the beach.  Nancy and I saw another stingray at the beach and found lots of seashells for her grand children.  We took a dingy tour of Little Egg Island.  Nancy was able to see fish and the coral reed through the “lookie bucket”.  We also saw a large turtle on the way back to the boat, probably 3 ft diameter shell.  Fun day enjoying nature.

 
 
 

 Back at the boat, we decided to move the boat to the south side of Royal Island at the west end.  It will be more protected from the wind.