2013 Chart
Scroll down to see the actual stops made on this trip.
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2013 Itinerary
Trip Plan, 2013 - Abacos
Latitude Longitude dist degT days Arrive StatusAct. ncum. nm
Marina 24-Apr-13 done
Lake Worth Inlet 26 45.8 N 80 2.6 W 5 165 1 25-Apr-13 done 5
West End, Grand Baha 26 42.1 N 78 59.5 W 57 94 1 26-Apr-13 done 62
Mangrove Cay 26 54.8 N 78 37.1 W 24 57 1 27-Apr-13 done 85
Great Sale 26 58.6 N 78 13.0 W 22 80 1 28-Apr-13 done 107
Allens Pensacola 26 59.4 N 77 41.9 W 28 88 1 29-Apr-13 done 135
Marsh Harbor 26 32.9 N 77 3.5 W 43 128 4 03-May-13 done 178
Tahiti Beach 26 30.2 N 76 59.1 W 5 124 2 05-May-13 done 183
Cormorant Cay 26 27.6 N 77 3.0 W 4 232 1 06-May-13 done 187
Buckaroon Bay 26 24.4 N 77 1.8 W 3 161 1 07-May-13 done 191
Tilloo 26 29.0 N 76 59.5 W 5 24 1 08-May-13 done 196
Hopetown 26 32.2 N 76 57.7 W 4 27 1 09-May-13 done 199
Fishers Bay 26 40.1 N 76 7.2 W 46 80 2 11-May-13 done 245
Tahiti Beach 26 30.3 N 76 59.2 W 47 258 1 12-May-13 done 293
Marsh Harbor 26 32.9 N 77 3.3 W 5 305 2 14-May-13 done 297
Treasure Cay 26 40.4 N 77 16.8 W 14 302 1 15-May-13 done 311
Crab Key / Manjack 26 49.0 N 77 21.9 W 10 332 2 17-May-13 done 321
North Manjack 26 50.5 N 77 23.4 W 2 319 1 18-May-13 done 323
Powell Cay 26 54.1 N 77 28.9 W 6 306 1 19-May-13 done 329
Allens Pensacola 26 59.3 N 77 41.3 W 12 295 1 20-May-13 done 341
Mangrove Cay 26 55.1 N 78 37.3 W 50 265 1 21-May-13 done 391
Lake Worth Inlet 26 45.9 N 80 2.6 W 77 263 1 22-May-13 done 468
Marina 5 345 1 23-May-13 done 473
2013 Abacos Trip
After a few years of mostly land-based activities, it was time to ease back into cruising a little, and a month in the Abacos seemed like a good way to test out our recent repairs and upgrades.
From our base in the Palm Beach area, West End is only a short 50 mile hop across the gulf stream (weather permitting), but for some reason we haven’t made the trip in 10 years.
As you can see in the following chart, from West End we followed the Indian Cay channel to Mangrove Cay and Great Sale Cay, thence to Allan’s-Pensacola where we planned to stay a few days. Need for a new generator charging battery altered that plan though and we made the trip through the Whale to Marsh Harbor the next day, staying in the area south of the Whale and north of Little Harbor for a couple of weeks.
Although we have been there many times before, this trip was unique in that the weather conditions (including days of west winds), let us visit some anchorages like Cormorant Cay and Buckaroon Bay that were new to us. Old favorites like Powell Cay, Allans-Pensacola, and Manjack Cay were as great as we remember them, but significant development has altered the experience at once-idylic places like Baker’s Bay.
The Abacos appear to be thriving, with many more houses on the shoreline and lots of cars in Marsh Harbor. Cruising traffic for May seemed light though, and most of the boats moving around seemed to be Sunsail and Moorings charters – mostly catamarans.
Please follow the links in the box at upper right for our photo albums, daily logs and itinerary.
Repower Project – 2008
Starting in June 2008, we upgraded Windwalker with a new engine. After a lot of dockside work, 37 days on the hard, and another several months of finish-up work at the dock, we declared victory just prior to New Year’s of 2009. An extensive sea trial to the Florida Keys in the spring of 2009 completed the project.
The new engine is a Westerbeke 44B, replacing a Volvo 2003T. Because the new engine is longer (4 cylinders versus 3), lower, and with a V-drive down-angle of 15 degrees instead of 20, the old beds had to be significantly modified. Other incompatibilities included a smaller exhaust size (2″ vs 2-1/4″), electrical connections and control cables on the opposite side, and interference with the bilge pump and fresh water systems components, to name a few. As you may expect – there was a bit of engineering involved. The space was modeled using Drafix CAD, and drawings were made for the beds and engine setup, and a template was constructed from plywood to insure engine alignment before committing to glass.
Cabinets and bulkhead components were removed, and work got started, but we didn’t haulout until everything was ready so as to minimize the yard time which was going to cost $80/day after the first month. All in all, the haulout and engine swap went fairly smoothly and took only a week longer than planned. With temporary plumbing, electrical hookups and instrument panel, we splashed in October and made our way back to the dock (5 miles) under our own power. At the dock, we completed final plumbing and electrical, mounted the panel in the cockpit (which required the casting of a new fiberglass insert), mounted the refrigeration compressor and new hoses, hooking up the hot water heater, relocated the bilge pump, fresh water system, and oil change pump, and put all the woodwork back together.
It was an extensive and complex project as you might expect, but by doing all the work ourselves, it was not as expensive as it could have been. The engine was purchased from Valiant in Texas at a good discount, and drop shipped to us in Florida from the Westerbeke plant in Massachusets. Setups and measurements, as well as custom fabrication of the compressor bracket and other parts was done in our garage, while much tear-down was done at our dock prior to entering the yard.
For a step-by-step description, photographs, and an accounting of the costs involved, please see our project page.
Voyage 3 – 2006
After a couple of sailing sabbaticals from IBM, including the initial trip in 1999-2000 from Texas to Maine and the Caribbean, and then a similar trip in 2003, Fred finally retired for good in 2006. Planning some longer trips, we did some equipment upgrades and a haulout, then headed north in July of that year.
After a couple of days offshore in the Gulf Stream from Palm Beach, we made landfall at Wynah Bay in South Carolina, chased inland by a series of squalls and forecast for worse. Making our way up the ICW, we visited with Bob and Kay of Rima in New Bern, NC, then on to Norfolk, Virginia. Weather was still not great so we took a liesurely route to the Chesapeake Canal and through Delaware Bay and then offshore to Newport, RI, Provincetown Massachusetts and finally to Maine where we spent much of the summer hanging out at Mt. Desert Island and the islands around Penobscot Bay.
As the weather turned colder, we headed south through New England, New York, New Jersey and were in the Chesepeake again in time for the Annapolis boat show in October, then returned to Florida through a series of ditch runs and offshore hops, arriving home November 8.
The plan had us spend Thanksgiving and Christmas at home, then head down island in January, but engine problems over the latter part of the trip intervened and we decided to begin a series of repairs that ultimately led to repowering in 2008. See the project pages for a synopsis of that undertaking.
Although we had made the trip north twice before, there are so many places to visit in 1500 miles of coastline that we had a lot of adventures in new places and learned some new things about old favorites. Some of the highlights included the more rugged trails in Acadia, marine museums in Bristol, RI, St. Michael’s Maryland, and Solomon Islands Virginia, the Charleston Naval Museum, and our favorite Maine place for lobster – Boothbay.