Heading North with Bold Endeavour
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Lydia Fell
May 29, 2010, 4:43:13 PM5/29/10
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05/23/10 - Anchored behind Big Galliot Cay, Exuma
I tried to have a lie-in this morning after our sail here yesterday from Hamburger Beach in George Town. Our sail up here was fast, with 14-18 knots of apparent wind at 45 to 60 degrees, and while the seas were building all day, we simply flew through the waves, making 7.2 knots during the last half of our trip. It was an exhilarating sail, and passing a 42 foot catamaran which was wallowing enough in the waves to make me feel seasick just watching them, and then leaving them in the dust made me grateful, once again, that we have a monohull.
The difference between a sailboat like ours, and a catamaran are too numerous to describe. But the main appeal for catamaran buyers, which far outnumber the monohulls these days, is the interior layout which is much wider, and consequently, more spacious than a monohull, with two separate hulls for sleeping space, and therefore good separation for children or additional crew. Catamarans also have very shallow drafts, making them great boats for anchoring close to shore and squeezing through all the skinny water in the Bahamas that we, with our 7 foot draft, can’t access. But it’s that 7 foot draft of ours which keeps our boat comfortably stiff in a seaway, and on track while we’re galloping along as we were yesterday. While we were well heeled in the wind, there was no wallowing in those waves for us, only hobby-horsing back and forth (much kinder to my stomach!) and we had the sails so well balanced that we didn’t need the auto-pilot to steer the boat.
But in the end, fabulous sailing conditions always leave you exhausted, nonetheless. It’s all that bracing your body does automatically, endeavoring to keep itself upright. It’s a great workout, and one that deserves a lie-in the following morning, but alas, that was not to be for me today. Portia, for starters, simply won’t allow it. She’s in our cabin, yowling in varying tones of plea at 6.30 am on the dot. We invite her to join us in bed, we yowl back at her, we beg her to shut-up, but nearly invariably, she wins and I climb out of bed and put the kettle on.
Roy and Doon are here, anchored next to us, having left George Town the day before we did, and so were joining us from a different location. We’ll all head up the inside of the Exuma Chain at this point, unless the wind changes direction and encourages us over to Cat Island, or Eleuthera, before we all say our good-byes and head our separate ways. We are destined back to Marsh Harbour in Abaco, where we’ll leave the boat in a canal community and fly to the States for the month of July, and they are headed to Fort Lauderdale, FL to prepare Bold Endeavour for sale.
The fact that they are getting off the boat, (commonly referred to “swallowing the hook”) even though they’re moderately resigned to the fact, saddens me greatly. I realize that I’m projecting here, but when I try to imagine putting Flying Pig on the hard, selling her and moving back ashore, adrenaline pours into my stomach and fills me with anxiety. At the same time, I’ve heard stories from cruisers who have been out for 15 years, loving every minute of it until one day, without warning, when they have an overwhelming urge to get off their boat and hang it all up. And once that happens, they typically can’t get ashore fast enough. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s how our cruising days will end, or whether we slowly but surely become physically unable to continue, and reluctantly come to the realization that we must move ashore again. At the moment, I can’t imagine that day, but unless we die at sea, I’m sure it will come eventually. Hopefully, by then, we’ll be open to that transition, and our children won’t have to rip us off the boat, kicking and screaming, declaring us to be unsafe to ourselves and others.
05/27/10 – anchored off Black Point
We snorkeled in Galliot Cay, and had a wonderful hour underwater seeing some outstanding coral and beautiful sea life, including lots of reef fish I hadn’t seen before. Some of the fish were very bold and swam right up to me to get a good look if I remained still. Others, particularly the Squirrelfish, were very shy and darted for cover behind the coral. Unfortunately, my underwater camera apparently turned itself off, and while I thought I’d taken a bazillion pictures, only the first four materialized when I downloaded them, back on the boat. Very disappointing.
Later that day, we hauled anchor and had a wonderful sail, skirting around the shallow parts of the bank, to Little Farmers Cay. Bold Endeavour sails at about the same speed as we do, so we got great pictures of each other underway, and it was a lovely, relaxed trip over gin-clear water in the last of the breeze forecast for several days. We gathered together on Flying Pig after our anchors were down, had some sundowners, blew the conch horn, and then tried to get an early night.
Doon and I did some yoga on the beach before we all dinghied in the next day to explore Little Farmers Cay. This is a beautiful little island, only a quarter of a mile long and less than a mile wide, with a population of about 70 now, and was settled by freed slaves from Exuma 165 years ago. It’s the second smallest isolated Community in the Bahamas, (presumably Ragged Island being the smallest) and we were welcomed, as usual, with typical Bahamian grace.
We all climbed up to Ocean Cabin, the little pub/eatery/book-swap (a wonderful building with an atypical ambiance, very reminiscent of a mountain cabin) and met Terry Bain, the proprietor, who served us a cold beer and then dove into a discussion about the Haitian problem. Little Farmers Cay hosts the famous 5F Festival on the First Friday in February every year, and this last festival was in full swing with many attendant cruisers, when a sailboat with 62 Haitian refugees crammed on board, with standing room only, sailed into the harbor. I’ve covered this story in another previous log, so I won’t repeat myself here, but Terry told us that there’s a steady stream of Haitian refugees to the Bahamian islands, nearly all apprehended, fed and watered, and then sent back to Haiti. Isn’t it amazing how fortunate, or unfortunate we all are, simply by accident of our birth?
We had a lovely barbecued chicken dinner on Bold Endeavour that night, and then motored together a bit further north west to Black Point. It was an overnight stop for us, having anchored fairly close to shore, making visiting mosquitoes a real menace in a rare lack of breeze. Skip and I decided to move on the next morning to an area around the South Staniel waypoint which looked promising for snorkeling, and we wanted to see the iguanas on Bitter Guana Cay.
05/29/10 – anchored off Staniel Cay
As my pictures will prove, the iguanas are amazing, and some of them are 4 feet long head to tail. They’ve been routinely fed scraps by visitors (highly discouraged by Park Rangers), so they fairly run to you when you first step on shore, waiting for a treat. We didn’t bring them anything, so they didn’t visit very long before ambling back across the beach to some shade, but they were very cooperative about having their pictures taken.
Skip and I tried to catch some dinner on the way back to the boat by trolling two fishing lines in the cut out to the Atlantic side, but no such luck. So we up-anchored again, and moved a bit further NW to Staniel Cay.
Roy and Doon had already anchored before we arrived and we met them at Thunderball Grotto, the famous site of the James Bond movie, Thunderball. The grotto is absolutely packed with reef fish, and we must have taken a hundred pictures which I reluctantly scaled down to merely scores. We had enjoyed this snorkeling adventure when we had mum with us last year (although she didn’t feel up to the snorkeling), but this time we were armed with an underwater camera, catching some pictures of the very shy Queen Angelfish, a Grey Angelfish, some Queen Parrotfish, many yellow French Grunts, a Rock Beauty, Spanish Hogfish, and thousands of Sergeant Majors. I saw another Squirrelfish too, but it was much too shy to have it’s picture taken. There really hasn’t been a snorkeling experience elsewhere that matches the Grotto because the fish are in such profusion. They are so used to being fed by visitors that they aren’t shy, with the exception of a few different types, and are so enthusiastic about your fare that they get a bit carried away with the nibbling. The coral in the cave is magnificent, and of the sort we haven’t seen elsewhere. It’s really a wonder it’s all survived given the number of visitors who don’t seem to know how fragile it is. Roy told me he watched a woman standing on some brain coral, evidently completely ignorant of the damage she may have caused.
And then, for a huge change of pace, Skip and I dinghied to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club for a hamburger for dinner which was divine. I caught some great photos of the nurse sharks there, which, like the rays, are all pets and are used to being fed fish scraps just off the dock.
On the way back to the boat after dinner, the sun was falling out of the sky. It was another stunningly beautiful sunset, just a day after the full moon, and yet another opportunity for pictures. If you wade through these most recent links I’ll put up, you’ll be staggered by the amount of sunset pictures. I never get tired of taking them; I never take one for granted. Being on the water and having the perspective from sea level, it’s a religious experience, each and every one, and the rare Green Flash is always very special.
So, on that note, here are the links to the latest pictures. Apologies once more for inundating you, but reminding you that this is my web-based storage, so I’m not interested in further editing.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/StanielCay?authkey=Gv1sRgCJP-hIHtw9607gE#
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/ThunderballGrotto?authkey=Gv1sRgCPmim5Xrj7Hf4gE#
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/SouthStanielCay?authkey=Gv1sRgCIyms8qJn4S6IA#
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/BitterGuanaCay?authkey=Gv1sRgCK67yYXpu6XdHg#
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/BigGalliotAndLittleFarmers?authkey=Gv1sRgCJCJpcCb4uyj7gE#
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/GeorgeTownRevisited?authkey=Gv1sRgCLWoxLmt8P6FTQ#
I’ll catch up with you further up the chain, as we head towards Abaco and our flight to the States.
I tried to have a lie-in this morning after our sail here yesterday from Hamburger Beach in George Town. Our sail up here was fast, with 14-18 knots of apparent wind at 45 to 60 degrees, and while the seas were building all day, we simply flew through the waves, making 7.2 knots during the last half of our trip. It was an exhilarating sail, and passing a 42 foot catamaran which was wallowing enough in the waves to make me feel seasick just watching them, and then leaving them in the dust made me grateful, once again, that we have a monohull.
The difference between a sailboat like ours, and a catamaran are too numerous to describe. But the main appeal for catamaran buyers, which far outnumber the monohulls these days, is the interior layout which is much wider, and consequently, more spacious than a monohull, with two separate hulls for sleeping space, and therefore good separation for children or additional crew. Catamarans also have very shallow drafts, making them great boats for anchoring close to shore and squeezing through all the skinny water in the Bahamas that we, with our 7 foot draft, can’t access. But it’s that 7 foot draft of ours which keeps our boat comfortably stiff in a seaway, and on track while we’re galloping along as we were yesterday. While we were well heeled in the wind, there was no wallowing in those waves for us, only hobby-horsing back and forth (much kinder to my stomach!) and we had the sails so well balanced that we didn’t need the auto-pilot to steer the boat.
But in the end, fabulous sailing conditions always leave you exhausted, nonetheless. It’s all that bracing your body does automatically, endeavoring to keep itself upright. It’s a great workout, and one that deserves a lie-in the following morning, but alas, that was not to be for me today. Portia, for starters, simply won’t allow it. She’s in our cabin, yowling in varying tones of plea at 6.30 am on the dot. We invite her to join us in bed, we yowl back at her, we beg her to shut-up, but nearly invariably, she wins and I climb out of bed and put the kettle on.
Roy and Doon are here, anchored next to us, having left George Town the day before we did, and so were joining us from a different location. We’ll all head up the inside of the Exuma Chain at this point, unless the wind changes direction and encourages us over to Cat Island, or Eleuthera, before we all say our good-byes and head our separate ways. We are destined back to Marsh Harbour in Abaco, where we’ll leave the boat in a canal community and fly to the States for the month of July, and they are headed to Fort Lauderdale, FL to prepare Bold Endeavour for sale.
The fact that they are getting off the boat, (commonly referred to “swallowing the hook”) even though they’re moderately resigned to the fact, saddens me greatly. I realize that I’m projecting here, but when I try to imagine putting Flying Pig on the hard, selling her and moving back ashore, adrenaline pours into my stomach and fills me with anxiety. At the same time, I’ve heard stories from cruisers who have been out for 15 years, loving every minute of it until one day, without warning, when they have an overwhelming urge to get off their boat and hang it all up. And once that happens, they typically can’t get ashore fast enough. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s how our cruising days will end, or whether we slowly but surely become physically unable to continue, and reluctantly come to the realization that we must move ashore again. At the moment, I can’t imagine that day, but unless we die at sea, I’m sure it will come eventually. Hopefully, by then, we’ll be open to that transition, and our children won’t have to rip us off the boat, kicking and screaming, declaring us to be unsafe to ourselves and others.
05/27/10 – anchored off Black Point
We snorkeled in Galliot Cay, and had a wonderful hour underwater seeing some outstanding coral and beautiful sea life, including lots of reef fish I hadn’t seen before. Some of the fish were very bold and swam right up to me to get a good look if I remained still. Others, particularly the Squirrelfish, were very shy and darted for cover behind the coral. Unfortunately, my underwater camera apparently turned itself off, and while I thought I’d taken a bazillion pictures, only the first four materialized when I downloaded them, back on the boat. Very disappointing.
Later that day, we hauled anchor and had a wonderful sail, skirting around the shallow parts of the bank, to Little Farmers Cay. Bold Endeavour sails at about the same speed as we do, so we got great pictures of each other underway, and it was a lovely, relaxed trip over gin-clear water in the last of the breeze forecast for several days. We gathered together on Flying Pig after our anchors were down, had some sundowners, blew the conch horn, and then tried to get an early night.
Doon and I did some yoga on the beach before we all dinghied in the next day to explore Little Farmers Cay. This is a beautiful little island, only a quarter of a mile long and less than a mile wide, with a population of about 70 now, and was settled by freed slaves from Exuma 165 years ago. It’s the second smallest isolated Community in the Bahamas, (presumably Ragged Island being the smallest) and we were welcomed, as usual, with typical Bahamian grace.
We all climbed up to Ocean Cabin, the little pub/eatery/book-swap (a wonderful building with an atypical ambiance, very reminiscent of a mountain cabin) and met Terry Bain, the proprietor, who served us a cold beer and then dove into a discussion about the Haitian problem. Little Farmers Cay hosts the famous 5F Festival on the First Friday in February every year, and this last festival was in full swing with many attendant cruisers, when a sailboat with 62 Haitian refugees crammed on board, with standing room only, sailed into the harbor. I’ve covered this story in another previous log, so I won’t repeat myself here, but Terry told us that there’s a steady stream of Haitian refugees to the Bahamian islands, nearly all apprehended, fed and watered, and then sent back to Haiti. Isn’t it amazing how fortunate, or unfortunate we all are, simply by accident of our birth?
We had a lovely barbecued chicken dinner on Bold Endeavour that night, and then motored together a bit further north west to Black Point. It was an overnight stop for us, having anchored fairly close to shore, making visiting mosquitoes a real menace in a rare lack of breeze. Skip and I decided to move on the next morning to an area around the South Staniel waypoint which looked promising for snorkeling, and we wanted to see the iguanas on Bitter Guana Cay.
05/29/10 – anchored off Staniel Cay
As my pictures will prove, the iguanas are amazing, and some of them are 4 feet long head to tail. They’ve been routinely fed scraps by visitors (highly discouraged by Park Rangers), so they fairly run to you when you first step on shore, waiting for a treat. We didn’t bring them anything, so they didn’t visit very long before ambling back across the beach to some shade, but they were very cooperative about having their pictures taken.
Skip and I tried to catch some dinner on the way back to the boat by trolling two fishing lines in the cut out to the Atlantic side, but no such luck. So we up-anchored again, and moved a bit further NW to Staniel Cay.
Roy and Doon had already anchored before we arrived and we met them at Thunderball Grotto, the famous site of the James Bond movie, Thunderball. The grotto is absolutely packed with reef fish, and we must have taken a hundred pictures which I reluctantly scaled down to merely scores. We had enjoyed this snorkeling adventure when we had mum with us last year (although she didn’t feel up to the snorkeling), but this time we were armed with an underwater camera, catching some pictures of the very shy Queen Angelfish, a Grey Angelfish, some Queen Parrotfish, many yellow French Grunts, a Rock Beauty, Spanish Hogfish, and thousands of Sergeant Majors. I saw another Squirrelfish too, but it was much too shy to have it’s picture taken. There really hasn’t been a snorkeling experience elsewhere that matches the Grotto because the fish are in such profusion. They are so used to being fed by visitors that they aren’t shy, with the exception of a few different types, and are so enthusiastic about your fare that they get a bit carried away with the nibbling. The coral in the cave is magnificent, and of the sort we haven’t seen elsewhere. It’s really a wonder it’s all survived given the number of visitors who don’t seem to know how fragile it is. Roy told me he watched a woman standing on some brain coral, evidently completely ignorant of the damage she may have caused.
And then, for a huge change of pace, Skip and I dinghied to the Staniel Cay Yacht Club for a hamburger for dinner which was divine. I caught some great photos of the nurse sharks there, which, like the rays, are all pets and are used to being fed fish scraps just off the dock.
On the way back to the boat after dinner, the sun was falling out of the sky. It was another stunningly beautiful sunset, just a day after the full moon, and yet another opportunity for pictures. If you wade through these most recent links I’ll put up, you’ll be staggered by the amount of sunset pictures. I never get tired of taking them; I never take one for granted. Being on the water and having the perspective from sea level, it’s a religious experience, each and every one, and the rare Green Flash is always very special.
So, on that note, here are the links to the latest pictures. Apologies once more for inundating you, but reminding you that this is my web-based storage, so I’m not interested in further editing.
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/StanielCay?authkey=Gv1sRgCJP-hIHtw9607gE#
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/ThunderballGrotto?authkey=Gv1sRgCPmim5Xrj7Hf4gE#
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/SouthStanielCay?authkey=Gv1sRgCIyms8qJn4S6IA#
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/BitterGuanaCay?authkey=Gv1sRgCK67yYXpu6XdHg#
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/BigGalliotAndLittleFarmers?authkey=Gv1sRgCJCJpcCb4uyj7gE#
http://picasaweb.google.com/lafell/GeorgeTownRevisited?authkey=Gv1sRgCLWoxLmt8P6FTQ#
I’ll catch up with you further up the chain, as we head towards Abaco and our flight to the States.
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