Bahamas 2019

Our departure had been gated by a meeting, and more importantly, by picking up and putting on our new mainsail from Mack sails. We'd been bringing stuff to the boat for several days, leaving frozen and refrigerated foods, and final clothing and electronics items until the last day. Fred went to the boat to cool the refrigerator and freezer. Iris made two trips to the boat with the food stuffs. We closed up our home, left a vehicle at the marina, and moved aboard. Iris noticed that part of the bimini stitching separated around a zipper and she made a hand-sewn repair with the bimini in place. While we debated anchoring out, it had been 2 years since our last trip and we wanted to make sure we didn't forget anything important - so we decided to spend the night at the dock. After dinner we went for a walk around the marina. Interestingly - our trip is starting one day later than we started 2 years ago!

Fred started the engine at 8:40am and we made the 9am PGA Bridge. We were on our way! First on our agenda was to test out the new mainsail. We went out the inlet at 10am; the conditions were choppy with irregular wind. Oh oh - the main doesn't look like it fits very well - but the sailing conditions made it hard to judge. We'll have to adjust it later in the trip. Back through the inlet, we dragged on our first anchoring attempt and quickly reset. Our trip was a going to be a go, so Iris made slip reservations at Old Bahama Bay and sent out our float plans to family. While Iris was making drinks and Fred was in the cockpit we heard someone calling Fred's name. Lo and behold, the beautiful motor yacht anchored next to us was Dolphin, owned by Don and Gayle Curtis - the original owners of Windwalker! We spoke on VHF - both boats agreed that we had a short window to cross with less than ideal conditions (2-4', 10-15K+ NE with gusts to 25K) and that we were both going to go for it the next day - Windwalker heading to West End and Dolphin heading to Cat Cay.

Neither of us slept well. The crossing forecast had gotten worse overnight (15-20K NW shifting to NE, 2-4' seas w occasional 6') but we were still a 'go'. Anchor up at 5:15 and out the inlet at 5:30am. The first 3rd of the trip wasn't bad. We tried to go by sail alone, but we were moving too slowly and conditions were deteriorating so motor-sailed into 'sloggy' conditions with 5-6' seas and a lot of water coming over the bow. The mainsail looked like it had dropped or pulled out. Enroute there were several ports leaking and Iris discovered that her side of the 'bed' was wet. We hadn't dogged the ports sufficiently, however one of our hatches was leaking a bit. We arrived at Old Bahama Bay at 4 as planned. Marina staff didn't hand us clearance paperwork so Fred went to Customs/Immigration without papers filled in, which was not appreciated. Iris saw Fred trudging back to the boat with an official in tow. The official stepped into the cockpit, said it looked like a boat, and got off. Fred guessed that he didn't believe that we had no pets, guns, bicycles or paddleboards. Iris did see him board other boats - have never had that occur in any of our previous Bahamas trips!

OBB has mandatory water charges, but we decided to also splurge on electricity and turn on the A/C to dry out the boat. But we didn't have a 50amp adapter, so Fred once again trudged to the other side of the marina to 'rent' one. He then hosed off the boat on his return. However we were not happy to see our starboard aft quarter covered in black soot. We didn't see smoke, but that side of the boat was under water most of our trip and the exhaust had to go somewhere? Iris bought 15gb of BTC Bahamas prepaid data for $35 for 30 days on the account we've maintained for several years now. We'd brought an older phone with us but wanted a nano sim for our newer phone and didn't want to risk cutting our old sim. The Galaxy 3 worked ok in the interim (although we would find its internet performance was marginal.) Dinner was ok at the restaurant, and we used the showers near the marina office. OBB was in flux, having just reopened at the end of March. It's currently being managed by the condo owners while various lawsuits over ownership are in progress.

Iris got up around 6:30 trying to listen to Chris Parker's Bahamas forecast on the SSB (single side-band). To much interference, but we had lots of other sources of weather with the internet. We went out to breakfast at around 8 and decided to sail northwest to Memory Rock and enter the banks from there since the low tide wouldn't allow us to take Indian Rock channel. This would add at least 2 hours to our trip to Great Sale. We left the dock at 9:23 after checking out of the marina and had a really nice sail with main/genoa, making 7 knots until we made our turn at 11:40am. Genny down and motorsailed for awhile. Fred made some adjustments to the main enroute and it looked a bit better. Then we had to take the main down as well and motor into sloppy, choppy seas for the remainder of our day. We saw very few other boats traveling in either direction and heard little radio traffic. We pulled into Great Sale after dark and immediately had a chain castle when Iris got out less than 10' of chain. So she went below to clear the chain and we completed anchoring at 9pm. We had no cell signal, but Iris called her mother via our Iridium satphone.

Animal sightings: Manatee in OBB Marina.

Just as two years ago, we'd hoped to stay at Great Sale for a couple of days and explore the beaches some more. But once again, the conditions were expected to deteriorate and we had communications needs. So we decided to move and have breakfast enroute. We raised anchor at 7:50 and Fred had to clear a swivel jam in order to secure the anchor. We were able to motorsail slightly off the wind and had a much more pleasant day making 7 knots and with a favorable current. Three brief but heavy showers cleaned up some of the salt. We anchored at around 2pm with mixed reviews of our set upon swimming on it - Fred thought it was good for the expected blow, Iris thought it was so-so ;-). Fred noticed that our shaft zinc lost two screws that had to be fixed before we next ran the engine. He tried wiping some of the soot off of the hull as well. He fixed two leaks in the toilet, and gave the shower sump a whack to get it going! We enjoyed a celebratory steak and wine dinner in our cockpit enjoying the beautiful sky with little light pollution. We plan to be here for a few days.

Wildlife: Sea turtle, dolphin, sea cucumber, waterspout. Communications: Poor internet and 3 bars cell - this is due to phone - cell towers in view!

Iris set a daily 6:30 alarm for Chris Parker. After a relaxed breakfast and some reading and internet in the cockpit, we tackled some chores. Iris repaired our American flag which had taken a beating for the last several days. Fred dove on the zincs and removed the shaft zinc so that it wouldn't hit the prop when it would come loose. Given the forecast, we decided that today was the best day to dinghy explore - so we put the dinghy in the water and went clockwise around the huge anchorage, checking out a flock of cormorants, abandoned construction equipment and landing the dink on the beach. We went in search of a road we'd seen on google satellite maps - but all we found were trails through the woods. But it's always fun to discover new hikes and we went in a 1/2 mile on each of the trails we found. We continued on further around the harbor before returning to Windwalker. By evening there were 9 boats in the harbor. Fred made some adjustments to the generator and the engine. He is getting concerned about the batteries, so we didn't make water. The winds were starting to pick up with steady 15-20knots at nightfall so he put out a little more chain with 60' at the waterline in 10' of water.

Wildlife: Cormorants, rainbow.