Posted on

The Dominican Republic – Part 1

A post from Mark

Hi all,

Greetings from sunny Puerto Rico. As the girls and Julie have written, we had a great time in the Dominican Republic. Over the next few posts, I’ll do my best to give my impression of this great place, its people, the culture, the cuisine, and our adventures.
In this post, I’ll focus on the people…
We’ve met some really friendly people on this trip – many, many more genuinely nice people than not so friendly ones. That being said, I can say without a doubt that the Dominicans are the nicest, most genuine, and truly friendly people I have ever met. Every storekeeper, restaurant owner, and person walking down the street was smiling, greeted us with a ‘hola, hola’, helped us with our broken Spanish, and seemed to be in a good mood. Now, I’m aware that some of the ‘niceness’ may be attributed to the fact that the cruising community is a major contributor to the Luperon economy – but this is different. The folks we met weren’t just nice to us and other gringos – they were nice to everybody. It was great – and really put a smile on my face when I walked around town. It’s easy to understand why many people come to Luperon planning to spend a few weeks and end up staying for years (seriously… we met several people who did just that).
One example was Jose – our tour guide for our ventures around the island. Again – being a tour-guide and local politician, I’d expect Jose to be a ‘nice guy’ – but he is more than just a ‘nice guy’. Wherever we went, everybody loved Jose – and it was because that he wasn’t just a nice guy, but because we would take the time listen to everybody, and (as we later found out), speds a lot of time and money helping out the less fortunate folks in and around town.

Jose and the girls out toothbrushes that the girls collected before leaving the US (thank you to all who donated)
We also made friends with Isaac – the owner of the marina where we did some work on our boat- and his family.

We ended up having dinner with him one night and went to his house the following day so that Sally and his daughter Elena could make brownies.

Sally and Elena
I enjoyed getting to know Pedro – the guy with the best English at the hardware store who helped me find a a screw extractor and a few other things not in my Spanish / English dictionary. I even felt a bit of a connection with the owner / chef of the chicken shack where we had 2 fantastic lunches (more on that in my ‘food’ post). In Luperon, even the most transactional relationships like buying tools or a plate of fried chicken became personal – and that was great.
Other than locals, we ran in to a lot of cruisers. Unlike the Dominicans – who were universally awesome – the cruisers are a mixed bunch…. Most are great – lots of interesting folks who have chosen for one reason or another to leave the comfort of ‘normal’ life and take to the seas. Too many stories to tell – but many are pretty similar to ours– especially the ‘younger folks (and in this crowd, we’re still young)’.  There is a definatetheme of ‘life’s too short to not follow your dreams NOW’.  We’ve made lots of great friends along the way – and Luperon was no exception.
While most of the cruisers were great – a handful were downright grumpy – and while they didn’t ‘ruin’ the place, they sure did take a bit of the ’shine’ off it. Just about all of the grumpy folks were people who had stayed there for too long – and were all Americans (read into that whatever you want…). Seems as if they brought a sense of entitlement south with them – its not very attractive…. Oh well – it made leaving a bit easier (but still difficult – as I really enjoyed Luperon).
I really hope that some of the genuine niceness of the Dominican people has rubbed off on me.
Until next time,
Mark
Posted on

A Tale of Two Cities

 

A post by Mark

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  I think that was from a Tale of Two Cities (at least that’s what the Cliffs Notes say- which I’m pretty sure is the only way I muddled through that one in high school).

Anyway – it is a good way to describe our time in Staniel Cay – which was close to 2  month ago – but I’m just now able to write about it.  While we had some great experiences there, we also had our worst experience of our trip (no need to worry – we’re good and were never in any danger or anything like that).  So – here’s a summary of our Staniel Cay experience:

We arrived on a beautiful afternoon where we sailed (mostly motored) on the ‘outside’  – on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Exuma islands (vs the shallow Exuma sound side).  Most of the time, we traveled on the Sound side – as it was always calmer weather – both wind and waves, but that day, we decided to go outside – as that is where you can catch fish as you sail.  If you listen to the stories that most of the other boats were telling us, you would think that the fish would just be waiting to hop into our boat and all but filet themselves wanting to become dinner.  That has not been our experience, and as per usual, the catch of the day that night was rice and beans.  Oh well.  It was a pretty sailin the ocean, and while there was a ton of current in the cut and around some small reefs and islands leading to the anchorage, everything went smoothly.  The anchorage was a bit crowded, but we were able to find a spot, get settled, and had a good night.

Staniel Cay is known for two main things – the swimming pigs and the Thunderball Grotto.

The next morning, we decided to see the swimming pigs. Here’s the deal… As the story goes, a handful of pigs got loose on Big Major Cay (right next door from Staniel Cay) and have been living there ever since.  They have now been conditioned to swim out to tourists to get food / snacks.  Here are some pics of swimming pigs.


We went early – before the ‘tourists’ – and had a good time.  We pet some of the piglets, and had fun hanging out with them.

So – to the bad part…. There are multiple signs that warn folks who want to feed the pigs to either do it in the water or to put the food in the troughs for the pigs to eat – but not to feed them by hand on land.  A group of folks either ignored, couldn’t understand (as they were only written in English), or didn’t see the warnings and started to feed the pigs on the beach.  This started a stampede of pigs of all sizes – and at the end, a baby piglet (probably less than a week old) gottrampled by a huge hog. Without going into a lot of details, it was really hard to witness this little pig die.  It hit us all really hard – harder than I would have thought it would.  The next few hours were awful.  While we all pretended that we were OK – we weren’t.  We had the worst series of arguments, shouting matches, and yelling at each other we’ve ever had. It was truly awful. After about 3 or 4 hours of this, we finally had a breakthrough.  We finally realized that we were not just sad, but really mad that somebody’s carelessness caused this senseless suffering.  Once we got it out in the open – we started to feel a bit better.

About 1 o’clock, we were mostly better, and decided to go to the Thunderball Grotto.  As the name implies, the Thunderball Grotto is the grotto where parts of the James Bond film Thunderball was filmed (I’m going to re-watch that when we get home – as I only vaguely remember the grotto scenes).  Anyway, the grotto is a real place – and pretty cool.  It would be truly phenomenal – if it weren’t for the crowds. You see, the best time to go to the grotto is near low-tide and near noon – so, when we got there at 1:00, it was pretty crowded.  Now – our notion of crowded has definitely shifted over the past few months – as we are getting used to anchorages with one or two boats and only a handful of people.  We’re also used to hanging out mainly with local folks (who have been some of the nicest people we’ve ever met) or other cruisers – who are typically low-key, laid back people. The Thunderball Grotto (and Staniel Cay, in general) was swamped with folks from megayachts and vacationers from nearby resorts.  Compared to what we have become accustomed to, it felt crowded – and that took a bit away from the experience (but it was still phenomenal).   OK – sorry for the rant…. Back to the story…

To get into the grotto, you swim under a low ledge and into a bigger inner-cavern.  Once inside, there is light from an overhead opening and a few underwater holes and a bunch of fish.  Pretty cool.  Here are some pics.

On the outside of the grotto, there are even more cool fish, coral, and general awesomeness.

The next day was Sunday – one of the coolest (and still most memorable) days on our trip.  Being Sunday – we went to church.  Note – this is not a normal thing for us – but we had heard from several people that church in the Bahamas was an experience not to be  missed.  “They” were absolutely right.   We went to the Staniel Cay Baptist Church – a ‘medium-sized’ church overlooking the water on a beautiful point of land.  We got there a few minutes early – and were among less than 10 other people in the building – and all of those folks were somehow ‘formally’ involved in the service (the 3-person choir, the reverend and his wife, the passage-readers, and other church leaders).  Needless to say – we stuck out a bit.  The service got started with a bang!  Singing and dancing right out of the gate.  It was – dare I say – fun!  After a few minutes, the pews more or less filled in – just as the second song began.  After a few readings, another catchy tune, the addition of a drummer to the ensemble (another cruiser who just ‘joined in’), we got to the part of the service where we greet the other parishioners.  Now – growing up Catholic, I’m expecting the usual ‘handshake and mumbled greeting.’  Not at the Staniel Cay Baptist Church!  We all got up and circulated through the church – with everybody giving each other a full-fledged hug and exclaiming our love for one another.  The really cool thing was that it really seemed as though each person truly loved each other person there.  It was a really uplifting experience.  After that came the ‘fire and brimstone’ portion of the service – and while it was a bit hard to follow at times – the passion of the pastor was quite impressive.  The service ended with a last song – and we were on our way.  It was a really great experience.  We are still singing the songs from the service – with all of the respect that they deserve.

So – in a place known for some pretty unique tourist attractions, our best experience was spent with group of truly genuine Bahamians who kindly invited us into their lives for a few hours.

Until next time…

Mark

Posted on

Eleuthera – By Julie

Eleuthera, the northernmost island in the Far Bahamas, February 6-9, 2018

The wind was in our favor, so we decided to head north from the Exumas to Eleuthera—looking for pink sand beaches, blue holes, caves and shells. The north side of the island is Spanish Wells, the east side of the island is full of reefs and pink sand beaches, the south side of the island is all wrecks and dive spots, and the west side of the 2 mile wide island is full of harbors.

We stayed in Rock Sound Harbor —very protected and close to town. Our first stop was the Blue Hole—which happened to be next door to the primary school. It is said to be immeasurably deep and Jacques Cousteau couldn’t figure out how it connected to the ocean…Pretty cool!

We met Joshua, or Lord Josh, on the beach while walking Willie and looking for shells. He has been a fisherman all his life and advised us to go and visit the Caves up the road, across from the church, and just past another Ocean Hole. We followed his directions and walked through a labyrinth of caves formed by coral heads. It was a great relief from the heat too!

On our walk back to the boat, we stopped at the gift shop to buy some postcards. The owner of the shop (who also happens to be the owner of the sewing shop next door) was super friendly. She told us all about the Island School—a school for American high school students and which also supports a grade 7-9 local school. She also offered us the use of her car anytime she was at the shop—wow! We called the Island School and arranged a tour with Brittany the next day at 10:00.

The rest of the day, we broke out the windsurfer and the girls took their first lesson. They all did great! Here are some pictures of our windsurfing.

The next day, we went to the Island School. CJ, the harbor master, met us to help guide us in. We planned to sail over, anchor out, and dinghy in to look at the school. It turned out to be a great day for a sail, a super friendly and loving staff, and a really neat marine biology/wildlife conservation school. Here are the most notable remembrances of the Island School:

Scuba certification
53 kids per class
Farm with pigs, ducks, chickens, Juju fruit trees, veggie hydroponic garden
Woodshop
Biodiesel made onsite from Princess cruise line cooking oil
Studying and tagging bonefish
Researching black oil—turning plastic into oil
Real science
Awesome outdoor dining hall
Great upkeep
Run and swim
Duck eggs for breakfast

We made plans to reconnect with Brittany to see some sights. She surprised us at the dock with homemade Bahamian macaroni and cheese—a very yummy birthday present! And a great map of the island. I would love to work at a school like this one day…For now, heading back to the Exumas Land and Sea Park.

Posted on

George Town – by Sally

Hi this is Sally.
I am going to be writing about Georgetown.  This is how a normal day in Georgetown goes
Wake up
Listen to the net
Do school
Go play at the beach until dark
So you see Georgetown Chat n’ Chill beach is like a summer camp for cruisers and a great get together for kids! So me and my sisters were in luck! There were more than 15 kids! In Georgetown, I made a great friend Rita on Schole – the latin word for school on water and on the boat which dad quickly mentioned on his Allens cay blog post. Well I got to know Rita and spent most of the time playing on the beach with her and my other friend Hannah on Kaihunu (I don’t know the translation for Kaihuhu). Rita and I also opened a coconut together alone – no parent touched it!!

 

There is also and awesome swing that you can climb a tree and swing off its super fun!

 

Anyway on our last night in Georgetown we had a super awesome bonfire with a bunch of our friends (pic) we ate to many marshmallows to count, hotdogs, and some Chicago style popcorn ! We were so sad to leave Georgetown but will probably visit!!

-💕Sally💕

Posted on

A quick summary of where we are

Hi all,
We’re now in Long Island – in the Far Bahamas. We have found a great beach bar/restaurant with super conch fritters, really tasty rum punch, and Wifi. With our newfound Wifi, we’ll be uploading a handful of posts – probably out of order. So, to help out everybody who is playing along at home – here’s the broad outline of where we’ve been over the past few weeks.

As I wrote a bit ago, we left Allen’s Cay and headed to Eleuthera. Julie has a post about that. From there, we headed back to the Exumas and visited Norman’s Cay, the Exuma Land and Sea park (Shroud Cay, Wardrick Wells, O’Brien’s Cay), and then Staniel Cay. From Staniel, we made a few more stops en-route to George Town – the cruiser’s HQ in the Exumas. We stayed in George Town for a week or so – and now are in Long Island.

I’ll leave the details to the upcoming posts… just wanted to give you the basic timing / order of our travels.

Have a great day,
Mark

Posted on

Our first few days in the Exumas

Hi all – its been way to long since I wrote – a combination of not having decent internet access, some computer issues, and just getting behind,. Here’s an update from about 3 weeks ago. Here goes…

We sailed from Bimini to Allen’s Cay – a really smooth, beautiful 30 hour sail (actually – motor, as we were going directly into the wind for 80+% of the time. The only excitement in our journey was when we passed New Providence Island (the island with Nassau on it). Shortly after dawn – as Julie was driving and I was catching a few zzz’s, a really fast police boat zoomed up to us, slowly circled us, and then zoomed off. We think that they were confirming that we had checked in and cleared customs – and since we were all legal – no issues.

We arrived in Allen’s Cay a little after noon and headed into the relatively tight harbor. Again – no real issues – but we got our first case of having to rely on Visual Piloting Rules (VPR). Basically, VPR is when we have one or two people on the bow of the boat reading the water to make sure that we are staying in the deeper water and away from shallow sand bars or coral heads. After a few zigs and zags, we were safely in the harbor and heading towards the spot in the anchorage that we were told was the best by the folks in Bimini. We dropped our anchor and I hopped into the water to check that it was well dug-in. Everything looked good – except that there was only about a foot of water under our boat. Probably OK – as it was near low tide – but something we’d keep an eye on. Willie and I zipped into shore for a bathroom stop – and are introduced to the famous Allen’s Cay Iguanas.

These ugly guys are pre-historic iguanas – mostly docile – except for the largest ones who seem to take-on the role of ‘protectors of the flock’ (or whatever you call a bunch of iguanas). Luckily, they weren’t interested in messing with Willie – and he was mostly interested in just going to the bathroom and sniffing around.

As I was heading back to the dinghy, I ran into Atom – a really nice guy on one of the boats that was anchored outside of the harbor. He mentioned that his crew were planning to have a cookout and bonfire on the beach and invited us to join them. Great news!

We head back to the boat – and now I notice that there are only about 4 inches of water between the lowest point on our boat and the sandy bottom of the anchorage. OK – even though it is dead low tide, looks like we may want to move – as the next low tide is in the middle of the night – not the best time to deal with an issue. Easy enough to do – we just move about 100 feet farther from shore. The only downside to the move is that we are now in more current – which just made swimming off the boat a bit more of a challenge. After re-setting the anchor, it was time to head to shore for the cookout.

On shore, we meet up again with Atom – and meet Joe, Christa, and Wilson. Joe is the owner of the boat – and Christa, Atom and Wilson are traveling with him. Like just about everybody we’re meeting on this journey – they have a great story. Here’s how I understand it… Joe’s plan is to sail around the world – sailing for a few months at a time and heading home for a few weeks to manage his company in Oklahoma. One of the stops was in Bimini (a week or two before we arrived there). While the boat was in Bimini – and most the crew was back in the states – a fourth crew member stayed on the boat for ~3 weeks. In this time, he met and became friends Wilson – a Bahamian who was working at the marina. Turns out, Wilson’s dream was also to travel the world. When Joe and the rest of the crew got back to the boat, they invited Wilson to join them for the rest of their trip. Before I go any further – I have to mention that Wilson is awesome! Super nice, really hard worker, and a super fisherman, and all around good guy. After Joe and his crew left Bimini, they went to Nassau – where Wilson showed them the Nassau most non-Bahamians never see. They visited Wilson’s extended family, played dominos with some of his old friends, ate and drank in local places, etc. Sounded fantastic. Anyway – back to the story…

When we got to the beach, Wilson and Atom had already collected a bunch of conch and sea snails and had a roaring fire for cooking the snails and another one for a bonfire (in a fire-ring of conch shells). Wilson then showed us how to open and clean a conch. He then cut-up the conch he cleaned into 5 pieces for our family to try – fresh, out of the shell. It was fantastic. Really sweet, really tasty, and not too chewy. I was pleasantly surprised. Next came the sea snails. As the name implies, these are snails that live in the sea – and the shells are about the size of a clenched fist. They were cooked in a dutch oven of boiling seawater for one to two hours, pulled out of the shells and cleaned up, and eaten right away. Again – really tasty. As the sun was just starting to set, another boat pulled into the harbor and joined us. A kid boat – mother, father, 8 yr old boy, 10 and 12 yr old girls. Again – really interesting people – but I’ll skip the details on this one. We spent the next few hours around the campfire talking and getting to know each other. When it was time to go back to the boat, we realized that we didn’t leave any lights on – and it was now pitch black. Luckily, we had a general idea where the boat was – and with a little looking, we were able to find it. A great first day in the Exumas!

The next day, we explored the island – and had a few interesting moments. First, we had a face-off with an alpha-iguana. As we got onto the beach, a pretty darn big iguana ambled out of the brush and headed directly towards us. He stopped about 3 or 4 yards from us, struck pretty aggressive pose, and just held his ground. Since he was between us and the path we wanted to travel, we decided it best to walk around him – which meant we had to wade through knee-deep water to the other side of the beach. Once we got around him, we walked up and down a 100 ft path in the brush and ended up on the Atlantic side of the island. As we walked down the beach, we encountered two bales of marijuana that had washed up on the beach. The night before, Atom and Wilson had mentioned them – and Wilson was very clear that the Bahamian government does not mess around with drugs and we should stay clear of them (which we did – and would have even without the warning). Our best guess is that someone was smuggling the drugs to either the US or Bahamas, got spooked by the authorities, and dumped them overboard before getting caught. Anyway – made for an interesting stroll down the beach. Later in the day, we went back to the beach and scoured the rocks for some sea snails for dinner that night (they were that good!). After less than an hour, we had 20 or so snails, and posed for some pictures:

Right after this picture was taken, Sally’s snail decided to come out of its shell and attached itself to Sally’s hand. Here’s the result:

We’re still laughing at that one…

Since the wind was kicking up a bit and it was getting late, we decided against to starting a fire on the beach and, instead, opted to cook them in our pressure cooker onboard.
We also decided to ‘fancy them up’ a bit – and cooked them with a little garlic, butter, and white wine – served over rice. Super yummy!

The next day, we met-up with the kid boat folks and went snorkeling at a reef just outside the island. Later that afternoon, I went back to the reef with Rob (the dad) and Grace (oldest daughter) to try spearshing for the first time. Unfortunately, the catch of the day that night was rice and beans. I think I may have scared one fish with my spear – other than that, I didn’t get very close to getting anything. Oh well – I’ll keep trying…

Well, that’s all for Allen’s Cay – as the next day, we made the last-minute decision to head a bit further east to Eleuthera. More to come on Eleuthera later.

Until next time,
Mark.

Posted on

A week in the Bahamas

A post by Mark
Hi all,
We’ve had a good week or so since I last wrote.

We stayed a bit longer in Bimini than we planned – as it took 8 days to get a weather window through which we could travel. Life on Bimini was good – we met some great folks, ate some good food, did a little fishing, enjoyed the beach, climbed the mast, and visited the Dolphin Museum.

The highlights:

Friends
We made some great friends – Carly, Alfredo, and their 9 (almost 10 YO) daughter Sophie. They are great folks – and Sophie and Sally were nearly inseparable by the time we left the island. We will keep in touch and really hope that we meet up again sooner rather than later.

We also spent a few hours with another cool boat family on South Bimini. Lastly, we met a bunch of other sailors at a happy-hour type gathering at a neighboring marina where we got some great tips on where to go throughout the islands.

Food
For the most part, we’ve eaten every meal on our boat since we left Racine, except when were visiting family in FL. On Bimini, we treated ourselves to some great conch salad. It was fantastic – very simple – chopped conch, onion, pepper, tomatoes, garlic salt and lime juice – and delicious. The folks at Joe’s Conch shack de-shell the conch when you order your salad and prepare everything right in front of you. So tasty! There was a side benefit as well – conch slop. Conch slop is the slimy, disgusting mess of that is cleaned from the edible meat of the conch. While it is really gross – it is fantastic fishing bait (more to come about that). Our other Bimini treat was coconut Bimini bread. Bimini bread is a really tasty, sweet white bread. The day we went to Charlie’sbread bakery, he was just finishing up a batch of coconut bread – which we could not resist. It was very, very tasty. It made a great breakfast!

Joe’s Conch Shack

Fishing
On our crossings, we haven’t had any luck catching anything – as most of the time, we’ve beeb sailing through the ‘good’ fishing areas at night. At the dock, we had better luck. Using our conch slop as bait, we caught about 10 fish over a few days – 2 were ‘keepers’. We ate one the night we caught it  (yummy) and have the other in the freezer (as it is supposed to be good in fish stew – but we need more fish for that).

The Beach
Bimini is known mostly for fishing – as it lies right off the Gulf Stream, so it is less than a mile from the dock to great bluewater sport fishing. While it doesn’t have the typical tropical beaches you find in the guidebooks, we made due with two small beaches that were a few minutes walk from our boat. When we first arrived in Bimini, the first thing we did after clearing customs was to walk to Radio Beach and go swimming. It was great – the water was clear and warm(ish) and there were pretty shells all around. About 10 minutes after we got to the beach, the cold-front that kept us in Bimini for 8 days blew in and cooled us down significantly – but it was still nice. A little closer to our marina was a small, un-named beach on the point of land that makes up the southern end of North Bimini. When we first arrived, it was littered with trash – mostly plastic and other junk that looks like it washed ashore. It seems as though all of the floating junk that comes by Bimini ended up on that beach. The 2nd day, we met-up with a Bahamian work crew that was collecting trash and helped them for about an hour. It was fun to help out – made us feel a bit less like tourists. This little beach was great for sea glass – as it seemed like all of the glass in the area washed up here as well. In our time in Bimini, we collected about 2 mayonnaise jars full of sea glass (and we didn’t spend all that long looking)! Lastly, our little un-named beach is where we would hang out with Willie – running up and down the beach, digging in the sand, and chasing sticks and coconuts into the water. Lucy did a great job tiring Willie out there each afternoon.

The Mast!
On our passage from Marathon to Bimini, our wind indicator decided to quit working. So, I ended up climbing the mast to take it down so I could try to fix it. It was really windy all week – so it was challenging at best. After I did my climbing, the rest of the family tried as well – and all had some fun. A few days later, I tried to put the indicator back on the mast – but only got 2/3 or so of the way up before I turned around. It was too windy for me to keep going – I was getting tired of getting banged around the mast – and I guess got a bit scared. Heidi, however, really wanted to climb the mast – so up she went. She flew up with what seemed like little effort and worked on the wind indicator. Looks like we found our new mast climber!

The Dolphin House / Museum
On our second day in Bimini, we met Carly and Sophie – and they brought Julie and the girls to the Dolphin Museum (I took Willie for a longer walk – and after hearing the stories of the museum, I wish I had joined them and walked Willie later). From what I pieced together from their stories, the Dolphin Museum is a 25 year-old work in process. It is a house, built by one man (Ashley), entirely of recycled materials with all of the design and artwork inspired by dolphins. A visit to the museum is a guided tour around the house by Ashley – where he tells one heck of a story. As he tells it, his life changed one day when swimming with the dolphins. On that swim, he connected telepathically with them, and now sees the world in full color through the eyes of a dolphin. He has since dedicated his life to creating his shrine to the dolphins. No – I’m not making this stuff up…. Like I said – I think I missed a good one here. Oh well – Willie and I did have a good walk.


So, as you can see, we had a good time on Bimini.

Next stop – Allen’s Cay in the Exumas (where i’m typing this now…). Our adventure keeps getting better – more details to come.

Until then,
Mark

Posted on

Greetings from the Bahamas!

A post by Mark

Hi all – we finally made it to the Bahamas!

Last Friday, we started making plans to head out on Monday afternoon. On Sunday afternoon, it looked like we were going to be in Marathon for at least another week. On Monday morning, we got an improved weather forecast. On Tuesday morning, we departed Marathon – heading for The Berries in the Bahamas. On Tuesday morning, we arrived in Bimini (not The Berries – but ~70 miles closer to FL). We’re all good – and here’s the story of how we got here…

On Friday, we got a mixed weather report – saying that there was a weather window to the Bahamas – but it may be short (and uncertain). Since the next window was at least a week out, we figured we’d plan to leave Monday – knowing that we could always decide to stay put if the window wouldn’t work. The biggest thing for us to do was to get Willie to a vet – as he needs to get checked out by a vet 48 hours before arriving in the Bahamas. We make an appointment for 9:00 AM Monday.

On Sunday, the cruising community in the harbor had a great potluck brunch – at least 50 or 60 people all hanging out having a good time. We brought Monkey Bread – which appeared to be a hit – as it was all gone by the end of the brunch. After the brunch, we had a meeting with most of the folks who were planning to head to the Bahamas. In that meeting, we got a bit ‘scared’ – as the vast majority of folks were deciding to stay put. The only boats going over Monday were two ‘kids’ (a senior in college and his brother who is taking a gap year between high school and college) and a pretty experienced crew (we think from France) who were delivering relief supplies to Puerto Rico.  Both of these boats are on a schedule – so we were reluctant to sail with them.  Looks like we’re staying put for a bit…  Since we weren’t going on Monday, we decided to cancel our vet appointment.

Monday morning rolls around – and the forecast has improved! The front that was coming through stalled a bit, and now Tuesday morning is forecasted to be a good, solid window – and the best one for the next ten days. Furthermore, the seas are projected to get smoother and smoother as the day progresses. Later in the morning, we catch up with a family from Maine who got the same weather report as us and is also now planning to head out on Tuesday. This is great – because now we have a ‘buddy boat’ to sail with. Things are looking up! The downside to the forecast is that there is a big front coming in right after this window – with winds blowing up to 40 knots and gusts even higher. Thus, wherever we go on our crossing, we should expect to stay there for at least 4 or 5 days until the front passes. Knowing this, we decide to head to Great Harbor in the Berries – about 70 miles East of Bimini – kind of the middle of the Northern Bahamas. According to the guide books and folks we talked to, there is a nice anchorage with good holding there, along with some great snorkeling, pretty beaches, etc.

So, Monday morning, we call the vet and get an appointment for 2:45. The rest of the day, we finished getting ready to go…. Topping off our water, picking up a few last-minute things from Home Depot and Kmart, a final shopping trip to Publix (and I’m sure one or two other things I’m forgetting – turned out to be a really busy day). All was going smoothly –  until about 7:00 pm as Julie and I were walking home from Publix with a very full wagon full of groceries. It’s only a mile or so from the marina – so we ended up walking home (we thought about getting a cab – but we didn’t have our phone with us to call one and didn’t have any luck flagging one down). Tuns out, we should have tried harder – as our wagon broke down about 1/4 mile or so from the marina. So, while Julie hung-out out with our broken wagon, I ran to the marina, get a cart, and headed back. What a pain in the neck – but all part of the adventure. The rest of the night was uneventful (thankfully).

On Tuesday, we head out at sunrise to this beautiful view.


When we leave the harbor and head out, we start our sail in pretty bumpy water. Sally and Lucy don’t fare too well in the waves (Sally quite a bit worse than Lucy). Turns out, our buddy boat is also having a tough time with the waves – as a ‘few of them’ are getting seasick (didn’t get much more info). Given this, they decide to cut their sail short, skip the crossing and head towards Miami to wait for the next weather window. Since both Lucy and Sally were OK (not good at this point – but surely OK), we decide to press on. It turned out to be a great decision, for about an hour or so later, the waves really began to lay down and the ride got smooth. By the time we got to the Gulf Stream – the seas were perfectly calm – with almost no wind. While this made really smooth sailing (mostly motoring), it wasn’t great for making progress towards the Berries. Since the wind died so much, we were going a bit slower than we thought – and realized that we may not be able to make it all the way to the Berries by nightfall the next day (we were already planning to sail overnight). Next came an hour or two of ‘hard thinking’ – mapping out different paths, modeling different current and boat speed assumptions, and looking for good anchorages with protection from winds from the North and East (where the big winds were forecasted). The only place we could find that we could comfortably get to was Bimini, but we’d have to stay in a marina there – as the anchorages there aren’t very good. While we weren’t happy about staying in a marina for up to a week – it was the safest and smartest thing to do. We were able to call a marina on our satellite phone and get a reservation. That relived a bunch of stress. NOTE: I’m writing this on Friday morning – in ~30 knot winds and after a night of 40+ knot winds. I can definitely say that I’m happy to be tied up to a dock and worrying if our anchor was going to hold!

Our crossing through the Gulf Stream was pretty uneventful – except that we had to dodge 2 cruise ships and a container ship. Nothing unexpected or dangerous – but the amount of commercial traffic in the Straights of Florida will definitely keep you on your toes!

Other than knowing that we’d have to pay to stay in the marina for a while, the only other downside to going to Bimini is that we arrived around 4 or 5 AM – and thus, had to just hang out outside the harbor entrance until the sun came up and we could get ahold of someone at a marina. No big deal – but for the first time since we left on Columbus Day, I may have gotten bored for an hour or two (I was also pretty tired – as the stress that both Julie and I took on trying to figure out the best path forward took a lot out of us).

All turned great again around 8:00 am. I got in touch with the folks at the marina, they gave us some guidance on how best to get through the channel into the harbor, and we were again on our way. By now, all the girls were up – and along with Julie, were at the bow of the boat helping guide me in by looking through the crystal-clear water at the bottom to make sure we weren’t going to hit a rogue sand bar. From the bow, the shrieks of joy erupted as we passed over a school of dolphin (the fish – AKA mahi-mahi), a spotted eagle ray, and a bunch of other tropical fish. The rest of the ride to the marina was smooth, and we got tied up in our slip without any issues. Within an hour or so, I cleared us through customs and immigration – and we were finally legal visitors to the Bahamas!

The rest of the morning we took Willie for a walk on the beach, took care of a few things around the boat, and had lunch. After lunch, we walked to another beach and went snorkeling. As we got to the beach, the winds shifted and started building from the North and dropped the temperature about 10 degrees – signs of the front coming. Not a lot to see in the water – as we just snorkeling went off the beach, and not to a reef, but we still had fun looking for shells and just being in the water. After a little while in the water, we were ready to head back to the boat and rest a bit before dinner. All in all, a great day!

Willie enjoying his time at the beach

Since this post is getting too long already, I’ll fill you in on the next few days in my next one. Spoiler alert – things are good!

Until then –
Mark

Posted on

Greetings from Marathon

A post by Mark

Hi from Marathon FL – the heart of the FL Keys

Marathon was hit pretty hard by Hurricane Irma. Something like 150 or 200 boats were destroyed in the harbor, the marina docks got pretty banged up, and the town itself was pretty badly damaged. That being said — the folks here have done a really great job rebuilding. While it is clear that ‘something’ happened here, Marathon is definately ‘open for business’ and a great place to visit. From the stories we’re hearing, the way the community here came together to help rebuild was beyond amazing. And I believe it… To a person, the folks we have met here have been among the friendliest, most down to earth, and generally great people we have met on our trip.

Sally recently wrote about our impromptu snorkeling trip — courtesy of our new friend Jon — so I won’t rehash the whole story. However, let me tell you about the few hours before the trip — interesting times….

Since Santa brought us a newer, larger dinghy for Christmas, we were looking to sell our old one. In Naples, we connected with a guy in Ohio (Dave) who was on his way back to Marathon and was looking for a dinghy. We arranged to meet Dave’s friend Jon in Marathon – and if Jon liked the boat, he would buy it from us. Turns out, Jon has been helping Dave rebuild his sailboat after Irma (and done a lot of good work so far). So, we met Jon – super nice guy. He lives here in the winter, and in NJ in the summer. Jon and I took the dinghy for a pretty long ride to test it out. On the ride, he showed me the beach, a good snorkeling spot, and gave me a list of other places to check out. As I would have expected, the dinghy rode like a charm — not a single hiccup — until we were about 30 seconds from the dock at Jon’s house. That’s when the engine decided to just stop. No warning, no bad sounds, no smoke, no sputtering… just humming along one minute, dead as a doornail the next. A few pulls of the cord — nothing. Are you kidding me? With Jon’s help, we get the engine started and limp back to his dock. Luckily, he knows a lot about outboards, and pretty quickly, we determine it was a clogged fuel filter. A quick clean of the filter, and the engine ran like a champ again. We take another ride around the harbor — this time with me, Lucy, and Sally following in our new dinghy just in case. Everything went as smooth as can be, Jon was convinced that the engine was cured, and decided to buy it. Phew…. As we were drifting around just out of reach of his dock, I was pretty sure I had lost the sale!

As if making the sale wasn’t ‘good enough’, our day got even better – when Jon generously offered to bring our family snorkeling at a reef about 6 miles offshore (Sombrero Reef). Since Sally did a good job describing our snorkeling adventure, I’ll move along…

The rest of our time has been good here – although the girls are a bit bummed that there aren’t any kids here. Turns out, we were a day or two late getting here – as a bunch of boats (and a few with kids aboard) left the day we arrived. We’ve been here a week now – waiting for a weather window to cross the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas. Fingers crossed – we think we may be able to leave the end of the week or early next week. While we are looking forward to going, there are worse places to be ‘stuck’ than Marathon – and we are thankful for that.

Until next time (hopefully, written from the sunny Bahamas),
Mark

Posted on

Greetings from the Conch Republic

Hi all-
As I write this, we are happily anchored out in Key West Harbor after a fun-filled day.
We left Naples Friday afternoon and sailed through the night, arriving Saturday morning. It was pretty windy – but relatively uneventful until about 7:00 am when we approached Key West Harbor.

As we entered the entrance to the harbor and fired up our engines, they didn’t work too well…. Since Lucy and Sally sleep on top of one of the engines, and Heidi sleeps over the bin of spare parts, it was a loud, rushed, rude awakening for the girls (Mom and Dad were navigating and steering). After some quick repair work (water pump belt), we got one working fine and motored into the harbor. In Key West, there are several anchor spots and a pretty big mooring field. We decide to pick up a mooring ball. Sounds pretty simple, however, with one engine, 25-30 knots of wind, ripping current and a ton of boats – it was anything but. The boat motors fine quickly with one engine, but has very little maneuverability going slow – making a challenging task. After 3 or 4 failed attempts, we finally get one. Unfortunately for us, the lines on it were very tangled, and snagged the boat hook. Try as she might, Mom couldn’t get it loose and the sea ate our hook. Ugh. It floated away from the mooring and dangerously close to two boats. On the third circle through that minefield, Heidi was able to grab it. Phew – things were looking better. After that debacle, we decided maybe we should just drop an anchor. That went very smoothly (should have done that first!)

There was, however, a bright spot in our mooring field adventure – Mom had a conversation with a sea turtle. During the second go-around to retrieve the boat hook, Mom saw a sea turtle surface and said “Hi Sea Turtle”. The turtle looked right at mom, waved (rolled to one side and flapped a flipper), and squeaked “Eeeh!!!”.

The rest of the day, we stayed on board, cleaned up from the passage, checked and fixed both engines (all good now), and laid low – it would have been a really wet ride into shore with the wind and waves.

Today (Sunday), we woke up to a brilliant, blue, clear sky and a bit less wind. We also all woke up in great moods – highlighted by Sally singing her new hit single “Its a blue, blue, blue, blue day” – sung at full volume. Lucy also serenaded the surrounding boats with a call of “Good Morning Harbor”, and Heidi quietly enjoyed her tea.  After a good breakfast (Thanks Dad), we headed into shore.

Willie was very happy to go ashore. Turns out, there are lots of good smells on Key West – an interesting combination of chickens, 6-toed cats, crazy people, and a few spilled drinks.

We first walked from the harbor on the north shore of the island to the Southernmost Point in the US.

After that, we walked down US-1 to the end of the road – Mile 0

We then wandered around a bit more and then headed to the boat for lunch.

After lunch, the girls tried their luck at fishing off the back of the boat. No fish tacos tonight.

In the afternoon, we headed back to shore without Willie (pretty sure he slept on the couch). We walked around some more, went to the Little White House, walked down Duval St, made the pilgrimage to Margaritaville, and hung out at Starbucks for a little while to download movies catch-up with some friends.

Hanging out on the grounds of the Little White House

 

A few highlights / interesting moments…

We saw a bunch of chickens and a cat that looked a lot like Cleo (our old cat).
We saw a cruise-ship tourist eat a free sample of soap (in his defense, it looked a little bit like candy if you squinted). He then returned the 4 other samples that he grabbed.
We then saw his horrified wife and shocked sample giver react to this display.
We saw a guy on a bike break into a spontaneous dance when he passed a car blasting music.

Back on the boat, we saw a beautiful Key West Sunset.

Not bad for day-1 on Key West. Tomorrow, we’re planning to say in Mallory Square for the sunset celebration on shore.

Bye for now –
The crew of S/V Love and Luck