May 13, 2016 Conch and spear fishing

Dave was up and drinking coffee in the cock pit by 6:30.  He said he felt like a little kid hoping the neighbor would come ask him to play.  Sure enough, Cracky came to get him and they went fishing until about 8:30.  They went off shore to a follow a shelf, but had no luck. Dave still enjoyed being on the water and getting to know Cracky.  His name was Bill, and his wife was Tania.  She had lung cancer and a heart attack in the last 10 years.  So she enjoys relaxing on the boat, but doesn’t do as much as she used to.  So he enjoys finding people to “play with”.  They were both in their late 60’s, and Cracky works for Avis.
 

only 2 boats at anchor

We had breakfast and then decided to snorkel and spear fish again.  As we were getting ready, Cracky came by and offered to show us where we could find conch.  There was a shallow area in front of his boat that had a lot of conch.  We snorkeled the area in about 4 feet of water and picked up a half dozen average size conch.  It’s funny how underwater you think they are so big.  So back at the boat, we looked them over and only kept some of the largest ones.  We took the conch back to our boat, put them in a mesh bag and hung them off of our stern.  That way they were kept in the water until we could clean them.

most conch we've seen in one place.  picked the largest and threw back the rest

We went back to the reef on the outside of the rocks.  We both spearfished today.  I only stuck a couple grunts.  But it was fun to try.  I also stayed very close to the dinghy.  If I caught a fish, I wanted it out of the water and in the dinghy as soon as possible.  I didn’t want a bigger fish to fight me for it. 

Dave spent most of his time looking for larger fish, since we had several little ones from yesterday.  He ended up with a sailor’s choice (looked like a grey grunt).  After cleaning all those small fish yesterday, he decided to go for bigger fish.  Today he noticed an improvement in holding his breath and equalizing his ears.  He’s working his way up to the “big time” spear fishing championships. 

We headed back to our boat to clean the fish.  But we noticed that Cracky had set up a little plastic table in the water by the beach with an umbrella.  We stopped to check it out and he told us to get our fish, conch and gear and join him.  So we spent the rest of the afternoon, sitting in about 2 feet of water cleaning fish and conch at beach.  I even brought a couple beers for Cracky as a thank you.

Cracky's fish cleaning station

He gave us lessons on cleaning conch.  Dave had done a pretty good job before, but he gave us a few pointers that made it easier.  He had a special hammer for breaking through the shell, which was nice to borrow.  We also cleaned our few fish from today. 

cleaning conch

instruction from Cracky

cleaning fish

We were tired when we got back to the boat.  Being in the sun and swimming most of the day makes you tired.  But we loved it!

May 12, 2016 Snorkeling and spearfishing

Today we took the dinghy to check out the reefs on the “outside” of the islands.  The side towards the Exuma Sound was deeper.  We found a coral reef and tried to fish from the boat.  I kept catching my hook on the coral.  I was using the leader that our friend, Gloria, had made for us.  I didn’t want to loose it, so I decided to snorkel away from the side Dave was fishing.  It didn’t take me long to figure out we needed to move the boat closer to the schools of fish near a wall on the reef.  Then Dave could spear fish.  After we moved the boat, he took the spear and stayed near the dinghy.  You want to get the fish into the dinghy as soon as possible to avoid a barracuda or shark from trying to take it away from you :(  We hadn’t seen any sharks yet.  And the barracuda were small, only about 2-3 feet long.  And they weren’t very curious. 

our boat in beautiful water

Gloria's jig on a steel leader

I enjoyed snorkeling the reef.  There were more fish here than we saw in the Land and Sea park a few weeks ago.  There was a large ray with a couple remoras following it.  After awhile, I decided to go back to the dinghy and wait for Dave.  As soon as I got in the boat, he started to bring fish up on his spear.  He had been trying to get larger fish that were deeper under rock shelves.  He spent a lot of time practicing diving, holding his breath, and getting a decent shot at the fish.  Once he saw me back at the dinghy, he went for those that were more plentiful.  He ended up spearing 4 grunts and 2 squirrel fish.  By the end of the day, his 3 pronged spear was pretzeled and dull from hitting a lot of rocks when he missed the fish. .  It was now after 3:00 and the sun wasn’t as high, making it harder to see under water.  So we called it a day.  On our way back to our boat, we noticed there was another boat anchored here, but not too close to us.  It was a Bertram, motorized trawler type of boat.  They could get into a more shallow area than we could, so they were to the east of us on the other side of a bank of rocks.

spear fishing

grunt and squirrel fish

Dave cleaned the fish on our stern again.  He wasn’t at it too long when our neighbor came over in his fishing boat to introduce himself.  His nickname was Cracky and he was here with his wife, Tania.  They were from Nassau and had been coming to this spot for a bout 15 years.  They can make it here in about 3 hours.  After watching Dave for awhile, he left and came back with a fish scaler.  We used to have one, not sure why we didn’t bring one.  Cracky invited Dave to go fishing in the morning for mahi off shore a ways.  Of course, Dave jumped at the chance.
 
click for video of Dave cleaning fish and feeding the remora

May 11, 2016 passage from Rock Sound, Eleuthera to Exumas

We left Rock Sound about 9:00.  Since we had turned off our autopilot with the rewiring, we had to “recommission” before we could use it.  Part of the recommission was done at anchor.  You have to teach the autopilot what the limits of the wheel are and what type of boat you have, etc.  Then on the water, it has you maintain a course while it reads what the boat is doing, then the autopilot “learns” from there as you use it.  We like how simple the new Raymarine Autopilot commissions.  The autopilot gyroscope, the GPS and the navigation computer all have to “talk” to each other to have the headings match.  We have 3 readings on the boat for our heading, true, magnetic and compass.  Dave had been choosing whether we will use true or magnetic, and usually uses true.  The actual compass is affected by metals and electronics near it.  The GPS uses satellite.  And the auto pilot computer gets a bearing from the gyro and the GPS.  Today, we found that the readings were the closest to each other that they have ever been.  Right now, the distances we are traveling can easily be corrected by a few degrees because we can zoom out and see our destination on the chart plotter.  But if we were covering a long distance across a big body of water, being off a few degrees can make a big difference.  And zooming in and out distorts the accuracy of the chart.  Somewhere in the world, the true and magnetic readings align.  We think it is in Miller, SD, the center of the universe. 

We have 2 cup holders near our compass head.  Dave thought he would put our hand held VHF radio in one of the holders.  He brought me over to watch the compass as he removed and placed the radio in the holder.  It actually moved the compass by five degrees!   Guess we won’t be putting the radio in that spot.  We don’t have to rely on our compass, but it’s there as a backup.   

We just love our days at sea.  The different colors of the water always amaze us.  By about 2:00, we could see land.  But it would take us 3 more hours to actually anchor.  At about 4:30, we caught a 2 foot mackerel.  We brought it on board and wrapped it in a wet towel to let it die and to keep it until we anchored and could clean it.  But we didn’t get it in the towel before it splattered fish blood on the boat and on us.  I don’t know what we’d do if we caught something that was 4 feet or bigger.  Other sailors have told us that the cock pit ends up being a bloody mess.  We’ll give it a try if that’s what it takes.  We usually wear “boat clothes” on the boat, so if we get a few blood stains, oh well.

We headed to Sail Rocks in the very northern tip of the Exumas.  They are a group of small islands that don’t offer a lot of protection from strong winds.  But we were expecting several nice days and thought we’d give it a try.   It was beautiful!  And we were the only ones there.

no one in sight for miles

Dave cleaned the mackerel off of our swim platform.  He used the head as bait in our crab trap.  We threw if off the stern to see if we could get any sand crabs.  As Dave was filleting the mackerel, he fed the fish parts to the sea gulls and and remoras.  We thought the remoras were sharks at first.  It was quite a show. 

mackerel

bait for crab

it's a fight between the birds and the remora

one for the remora

one for the birds

We enjoyed our mackerel and a beautiful sunset in our cockpit in our own little paradise. 

nice fillets

May 11-29, 2016

Just a preview during the last minute of wifi until who knows when.
We spent 5 wonderful days in the northern Exumas finding conch, whelk and spearfishing.
Then about 2 weeks in norther Eleuthera in Current Settlement and Spanish Wells area.  Spanish Wells is by far the nicest community we have seen in the Bahamas.
Now we're heading to the Berries for a couple weeks before heading back to the states.  Not sure what kind of wifi we will have.  We really like the remote areas.

Thanks for following.
Mary

May 10, 2016 International Zip Tie Tuesday

Since we are in the Bahamas, today in going to be known as International Zip Tie Tuesday according to Dave.  After working on rearranging our electronics, he had to go back and zip tie the wires.  If you don’t, they will vibrate and rub and break, or the insulation will come off.  Bare wires can start a fire or burn something out.  Plus, as you store things in the area of the wiring, you won’t accidentally pull a wire loose.  

Dave decided not to wire the 12 volt outlet at this time.  He would have to take everything out of the aft cabin and pull up all the boards up that support the bed mattresses.  We don’t need it right now, so he will run the wiring when he is working in that area in the future.

I heard him from the aft cabin say “If there were Olympic competitions for boat repair, one of them should be tying a zip tie one handed where you can’t see it.”  Must have been a tough spot to get to. 

It is funny how you come up with the littlest things that can simply life on the boat.  For instance, I have been making fresh bread, so I have been using our bread knife on a regular basis.  We keep all of our knives in a drawer with covers.  You can’t leave them in a knife block because if the boat is healing or rocking in a storm, they can go flying through the air.  Well, our bread knife was too long to fit in our ONE drawer, so we had been tucking it up behind some spices so it wouldn’t go anywhere.  Today, I checked it out again and realized that the knife isn’t too long, just the cover.  So I had Dave cut the cover to fit the knife.  Ta Da?  Now it fits in the drawer.  Maybe we should have figured that out a couple years ago, but we weren’t using it very often. 

Dave spent some time in the starboard aft lazarette.  It is deep enough that he can actually stand in it.  He had to reroute cables for the instruments which meant he also had to zip tie the cables and wires.  While he was in there, he pulled out all of our paper products that were stored in there so I could verify my count.  I was pretty close.  I may have mentioned this before, but toilet paper and paper towels are very expensive here.  So we bought the two brands that we like, put them in 2 gallon zip lock bags, then bagged them in a kitchen garbage bag and then a heavy construction bag.  Don’t want them getting wet.  We really like Viva paper towels for cleaning.  But we decided we could go with a cheaper brand to use as a dinner napkin in the future.  We don’t have separate dinner napkins or Kleenex tissues.  2 less things to store when the paper towels and toilet paper will do the trick.  

pulling paper products out of starboard stern lazarette

It took Dave a couple calls to R&B boat yard to catch Robert.  Dave wanted to discuss the quote for painting the boat.   When we found out that they wouldn’t be able to paint our boat until mid June, we decided it wasn’t going to happen.  We need to be heading back to the US by then.  We may go to Spanish Wells to buy the paint and check out the boat yard for future plans.   But now we can take our time.

We decided to get the boat ready to leave tomorrow.  We are going to cross over to northern Exumas first, then take Fleeming Channel to Current Settlement, and then on to Spanish Wells.  No plan for how many days.  The weather will probably decide for us. 

I made bread today using the recipe we like.  But today, I put the dough in the freezer after the first rise.  We want to experiment with thawing it and baking it.  Some days just aren’t conducive to making the bread.  You can’t leave a bowl on the counter to rise if the boat is rocking and rolling.

Dave had emptied a couple fuel cans into our tank and wanted to go into town to refill them.  I decided to go along.  It’s nice to take advantage of a walk on shore (and have an ice cream treat-it won’t freeze in our freeze).t

mailboat- arrives at the island one day a week bringing groceries and whatever

May 9, 2016 Electronics, laundry and baking

We started out the day with a couple loads of laundry.  You have to start early to go through both the wash and rinse buckets with soaking.  And then it takes most of the day for everything to dry.  We hang some on a line that Dave runs and some on the life lines.  I always wipe off the life lines first.  They get a crust of salt on them after a passage.  Today I thought about my mom always wiping off the clothes line before hanging clothes to dry.  She probably didn’t get a dryer until I was about 10 years old.  Even then, it was a used one, and she still hung lots of the clothes.  In the winter, she would hang them in the basement with fans blowing on them.  Dave took over doing most of the laundry.  My hands get really tired wringing out the clothes.  We looked into getting a wringer, but something that won’t rust is really expensive.   I help wring the lighter things and hang them up, move the clothes pins halfway through to dry the pinned spots, and take things down.  We have never lost an article of clothing, only the pins.  But we decided not to wash sheets on really windy days anymore.  Anyway, laundry ends up being an all day affair.

nice breeze-watch those clothes pins that are $1 each

Since I had free time today between laundry chores, I decided to try our bread recipe again.  I have some of the previous bread in the freezer.  But by the time we are out of bread, I won’t have the free time to devote to bread making.  I used the same recipe as last time, from the bread flour package.  I tweaked a couple things and it turned out great!  This is what I have been looking for!  I think we have the recipe and technique we have been looking for.  The plan is to stop buying bread (unless it is from a local bakery/often someone’s home). 

best bread yet

yippee

tasted as good as it looked

Dave called the R&B boatyard again today.  He asked for an estimate for boat work a week ago.  He received an e-mail with in a couple hours.  Dave has just a couple questions for them.  And then we have decide IF we want the work done here and WHEN it can be done.  We have a couple boatyards in mind in the states.  I guess it would have been smart to be getting estimates from them, too. 

Dave got back into his electronics (when he wasn’t wringing clothes-such a multi task-er).  First he hooked a new wire to the 12 volt outlet.  That wire will have to be run back to the circuit breaker that is for all of our 12 volt outlets.  That is located in the nav station in the main part of the cabin.  To get there, this wire has to go from the port lazarette on the side of the boat to aft port lazarette on the stern, then down to the aft cabin where it runs diagonally under all the boards under the mattress for the bed,  then under the hanging closet, then thru the aft head under the sink and behind the holding tank, then to the circuit breaker in the nav station.  Dave will run that wire tomorrow.  AND it has to be zip tied all along the way. 

a sample of getting everything out of the port lazarette

Next he moved the autopilot control head to the binnacle and the depth gauge to the port engine start panel.  The depth gauge gave him the most trouble.  There are 2 wires hooked to this meter, one is for speed and temperature and the other is depth.  There is a long story about how he thought he could run one, but had to go back and run both that I am not going to go into.  Those wires start in the v berth under the floor where the sounder is located and run the length of the boat to the binnacle.  The speed log is beside the depth sounder.  He was worried that there would not be enough wire to make this move, and their wasn’t.  So he had to trace where they ran.  He climbed into the port aft lazarette and found where the wires were installed in a zig zag pattern for no reason.  He was able to move the wires to get more length and secured them in place.  But he will zip tie it tomorrow. 

Now he needed to move the autopilot wiring from the port engine start panel to the binnacle in the center of boat.  That wiring comes down the port side into the aft cabin.   From there, Dave had to remove a ceiling panel to get to a tube that all the wires run through then up to the binnacle.  Once in the binnacle he had to keep these wires away from the steering cable and throttle cable.  This needs to be zip tied tomorrow, too.

mess of wires to zip tie

After Dave had the  autopilot wired, he noticed that the GPS wasn’t working.  He figured out that he had the GPS hooked into the autopilot.  So now he had to get the GPS wire out of port side.  That meant going back into the aft cabin, removing a different ceiling panel to get access to the GPS and then move across the ceiling in the wiring tube to reach the binnacle.  And that will have to be zip tied tomorrow.

working in the binnacle

Dave nonchalantly said to me “I don’t know if you know it, but tomorrow is ZIP TIE TUESDAY.   And since we’re in the Bahamas it will be International Zip Tie Tuesday.”
Everything was back into running smoothly before sunset.  Whew!  So many people ask “what do you do all day?”   This just shows you how complicated some projects can be. 

The home made bread was yummy with our left over pork.

May 8, 2016 Rosie's Restaurant for Mother's Day

 It was nice and calm this morning.  It made for a nice dinghy ride to shore for church.  Some days you get sprayed with salt water.  I went to St Ann’s Catholic Church in Rock Sound that I attended in March.  They had all the mothers in the church come forward for a special blessing.  There were about a dozen.  Then they presented each one of us with a  tray of fresh fruit.  I was so tickled.  Fresh fruit is so expensive in the Bahamas.  We have bought bananas and apples.  Otherwise, we have been eating canned peaches, pears, or mandarin oranges.  And a consumable gift is the best on a sailboat, since it won’t take up space for long. 

our boat from shore

same church I was at for Palm Sunday and Easter

Mother's Day gift from the church

We had made lunch reservations at Rosie’s North Side Restaurant.  We had heard good things about her place on the ocean side of the island about 2 miles away.  The best part is that she will pick you up and return you to town.  When I called her yesterday, I asked if she would be open on Sunday.  She had to think about it a minute, asked how many people, and then said yes.  She said she had jerk chicken and BBQ ribs, if that was ok.  Sounded great to us, we would probably do one order of each to try them both.  Then she said she had fish and conch, too.  So I asked if she wanted us to choose right now, and she said no, we can decide tomorrow.  Then we discussed the time.  I said we could be ready anytime after 11:00.  She would be attending church and wondered if 1:00 would be OK.  She also invited me to join her at church.  Then we decided where to meet and that she would be driving a Toyota Corolla and that we would see her teeth before we see her face.  And she said she could be late, not to worry, it’s “Bahamian time”.  She was so friendly!

community dock

beautiful bush on side of road

We waited until about 1:45 and were just beginning to wonder if she forgot about us when she showed up.  She apologized.  They had a visiting minister and he was still preaching.  She left before the service was finished.  She wanted to swing back by the church to pick up a friend.  Miss Margaret joined us.  She was celebrating Mother’s Day and her birthday.  We stopped one of her daughters in the road on the way out of town to ask her to join them for lunch. 

We took a paved road across the island, but turned north on a gravel road that lead to her restaurant/home.  There was no way we would have found this place if we had walked.  And about half way there, we may have turned back.  Her place sat on a bluff over looking the ocean side of the island, very beautiful view!  After a few minutes in the kitchen, she took off for town to pick up a couple more people.  She had Miss Margaret serve us water while we waited.  She returned with a man and a woman.  We thought they were together, but later figured out they weren’t.  The man  was a tiny black man named Shorty, and he was pretty quiet.  The lady was Gear, “just like in a car”.  We visited with her and Margaret about their families and about living through hurricanes on the island.  Then Margarets daughter and 3 children came to join everyone.  She introduced us as her new friends, Miss Mary and Mr Dave. 

Rosie's North Side Restaurnat

Pretty soon, Rosie starts bringing out plates for everyone.  She served Dave the jerk chicken with peas and rice, potato salad and coleslaw.  She served me BBQ ribs, peas and rice, coleslaw and Bahamian macaroni and cheese.  That’s exactly what we would have chosen, if she had actually taken our order.  We just giggled to ourselves and enjoyed the great meal.  It was like being at someone’s house for Sunday dinner. 

After we ate, we asked her if we had time to walk on the beach before she took us back to town.  She told us to take all the time we wanted.  There was a wooden stairway going to the beach of about 30 steps.  Dave went ahead of me to test them out.  We only saw one other house from the beach.  It was pretty isolated and beautiful. 

view from Rosie's deck

walk on the beach at Rosie's

Rosie's deck

Back at the restaurant, we settled our bill.  She gave me my dinner for free because of Mother’s Day.  We threw in an extra large tip, also because she gave us a ride.  We were the first ones ready to head back to town, and Shorty rode with us.  She went a block out of her way to show us the Blue Hole park in town.  It is about 600 feet deep and about 100 yards in diameter.  I saw it in March, but Dave didn’t.  It was only about 4 blocks back to the dock, so we decided to get out to look closer at the Blue Hole and walk back.  

I had a great Mother’s Day!