Time To Catch Up

We are staged in Jacksonville....due to a muscle spasm in my back and also a few important boat repairs...we went on a whirlwind drive to Naples to see our best bud Jennifer, onto St Pete for only one nite (sorry to all our good buds in St pete unfortunately time was way too short) to get a repaired stanchion and see Elise and then Bob and Kitty's new home and then onto Niceville to see our wonderful family....time flew by. Maybe that's why I have a muscle spasm....It was awesome to catch up...Unfortunately this boat has to be ready to move North as soon as we are ready...up to the Chesapeake. The attached pics are John and his brother and our nephews...miss them already. Did I mention that my sister-inlaw (the most talented stylist in the world) just bought her own salon, that just happens to be gorgeous...her and the salon...no pics.

Where Are We?

Believe it or not this picture was taken after crossing the Gulf Stream and about 5 miles away from the Ft Pierce, Florida Inlet...The crossing 150 miles, starting at Crab Cay in the Abacos and crossing to Ft pierce...26 hours later. The nite was extremely dark due to a totally overcast sky...and a moon that went down at about 2 in the morning. On the other side the bioluminessence (little animals in the water that glow in the dark waters)was so bright...We had one boat with us within 2 miles and then about 7 miles away. We saw cruise ships...you could literally see them coming for 15 miles and then after they pass you they look like a small island...their power usage must be amazing...All in all very uneventful..As the pic dipslays how calm it was for us towards the end....The Water Gods were smiling upon us...

Great Birthday!!!

It started our nice, slow and relaxing and we ended up dancing up a storm....We spent the day at Grabbers...a beach bar on the island of Great guana. After lunch they supply lounge chairs set up on the beach...NICE!!! Then about 4:30 we went over to Nippers for a the b-day cocktail...We spent about an hour in their hammock pool chairs...see pic. Then back over to Grabbers for the band Brown Tip...3 great musicians that play traditional and non-traditional Bahamian music...using a drum, saw and other instruments. Great singers and talented dancers...They sang Happy Birthday to me...What fun! See pic of band..My hubby made my b-day a ton of fun...

A Walkabout In Hopetown

I had the great opportunity to discover Hopetown's non-commercial part of the island. The homes are gorgeous(starting price $1 million at least) but the scenery is amazing from every vantage point. I have added a few pics to give you a sense of what it is about...The roads are sand, the vehicle to get around the island is a golf cart or walking as in my case...There is 2 small grocery stores ..my favorite is Sweetings, owned by Vernon Sweeting. He is a quiet man that has filled his store with the basics and some of the luxuries like brie cheese or his homemade(by him) pies, breads and cakes. The store has lots of small pieces of paper taped throughout the shelves with anecdotes and sayings....We had a special nite with rack of lamb that is best marinated with rosemary. I asked him where we could buy some rosemary and he replied that the house down the block has a wonderful, healthy plant...just snip some. Good deal! As you could imagine there is lots of quirky things on an island such as Hopetown...

Back In Hopetown

Cruising is a funny life sometimes...You are in new places all the time. When you return to a familiar place it is actually a very good feeling. Hopetown is one of those places that is fun to come back to. It has an amazing lighthouse..still working, a great community and a very protected harbour with mooring balls. All good!
We have been walking a lot, reading, a little food shopping, lots of internet...a some planning on what our next move will be. We met Linda, a single handed sailor...who loves sailing and her husband hates sailing...usually the other way around. She has a beautiful Island Packet..with her cat/crew named Paddy...We have also met back up with a great couple from Annapolis/Canada that we first met in March 2009 in Bimini. They are entertainers that have a mentalist show...I'll get back to you on that....A bit windy here...waiting for the right weather to move on...See pics of Hopetown...

Watch Out For the Coral Heads!!

We are back in Eluthera...Harbour Island. It is a gorgeous island about 60 miles from the Exumas(southern Bahamas). We stayed 3 nites in a great, sheltered anchorage in Royal Island. After 2 cold fronts passed we went into a marina in Spanish Wells...a settlment that has been around since the 1700's. Most of the residents are decendants from the early settlers. We shopped in a huge grocery store that was about 20 times the size of any that we had been around since early Feb. It was like a kid in a candy store. Who knew one could get so excited about yogurt....Anyway, today we hired a pilot by the name of Ole Pot...a 6th generation Spanish wellian that has been piloting boats between Spanish Wells and Harbour Island since 1956...He arrived in his small skiff and came along side our boat and then hopped on and we towed his boat behind us. He steered the entire way betweeh Spanish Wells and Harbour Island thru an area know as THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE...The entire 11 miles is strewn (?) with coral heads. I think he could do it blindfolded... only a slight exaggertion. By the way his given name is Vivian...that is why he known as OLe Pot....I have also inclded a gorgeous pic of Shroud Cay...a favorite island in the Exumas...

Seaplanes and the Other freedom

You would not know there was a recession going on in the Bahamas...The signs of wealth are apparent in the Exumas...Seaplanes landing where else but on the water and dropping off wealthy patrons to awaiting megayachts in the middle of the coral reefs...Certainly it is not across the board this booming economy but where it shows itself it is pretty amazing. There is a island inhabited only by pigs, placed there years ago. A seaplane came in for a landing by the shoreline, threw out an anchor and proceeded to drop off visitors to see the wild pigs...who are huge, aggressive and always hungry...yet picky food eaters. We had the same plane take off right next to our boat as the pilot waved to us from his cockpit...pretty cool. We are presently anchored off a private island that has a marina...Sampson Cay. We are here with 4 other buddy boats. In the past we had heard of another boat by the name of Freedom...upon seeing this 1926 motoryacht...there is no confusing our boat with this Freedom. It is gorrrrrgeous! Varnished wood like nothing we have ever seen...See pics...WoW!

JUnkanoo In Black Point

We were in Black Point on Great Guana Cay for Easter...For tradition the Bahamaians have Junkanoo...a parde with music and costumes...The band on Black Point was from Nassau..they started playing music as they strolled down the main street...The crowd came from all over the island and joined in the dancing..We all followed the band down the street...What a fun time!The headresses were pretty cool...See pic..

Shark Attack

Now that i have your attention....We were in Staniel cay...where they filmed the movie Thunderball in the 70's...starring Sean Connery as James Bond. They have a grotto...a cave of sorts that upon entering at low tide you can snorkel the inside. The "ceiling" is about 25 feet high and the the sun shines through....As far as sharks...they cut up all the fish that is caught daily at the cleaning station at the Staniel Cay Yacht Club...the nurse sharks appear and congregate to eat a morsel...sometimes the stingrays also gather...SEE PIC...

Little Farmer Cay

Little Farmer Cay...a small 3mile by 2 mile island in the Exumas. The people are amazingly friendly and the island is surrounded by coral reefs. One of the 3 establishments on the island is Ocean Cabin...owned and operated by Ernestine and Terry Bain. Ocean Cabin is one of the major reasons you would visit the island. After eating lunch one day with OffThe Hook at Ocean Cabin...Ernestine was inundated by 13 people who all wanted lunch and drinks. We all got persuaded to help out...John bartending and Kristy and I cutting veggies and serving food. It was actually quite fun! We also met Jeffrey who is a fisherman on the island...he goes out wuth 2 divers that dive for lobsters in all their hiding places. We purchased 6 -6inch lobster tails, 1 3 lb lobster tail and grouper fillts all for $35 ...what a deala nd what a dinner. The next day John and snorkeled the reefs and saw a wonderful amountof reef fish and a nurse shark...sleeping....

Paradise Found

Everyone can stop looking for Paradise. We found it on Long Island, an island in the Bahamas. Paraddise is THE BLUE HOLE near Clarence Town. It is a spit of a beach at the end of a dirt road. When you roun the bend you see this amazing BLUE HOLE and gorgeous little beach. We rented a car with our friends Anne and Chris, Jason and Laura...The Blue Hole is 660 feet deep...You can sit at the edge in 6 inches of water and shimmy yourseld into deeper water and then snorkel over it. It is the deepest Blue Hole in the world. The World Freedive Championship ios held here each year. The guy who won went down 300 feet w/o any fins...just a bathing suit. Amazing! The scenery is breathtaking....The water is deep, deep blue....See pic...Also to our delight when we cruised over to Long Island we (John) caught a 25 lb mahimahi....what fun it was watching him fight with this beautiful fish...Great dinner for 8...SWEEET!!!!!!

South Bound

We finally made it to Georgetown in the Exumas....We motor sailed from Little Harbor in the Abacos to Royal island...then waited 2 days...(with our buddy boat Blue Blaze)and then we left on a very lumpy and bumpy ride to Georgetown...24 hours almost to the hour. The nite was extremely dark and when the sun came up...I can't explain how great that makes you feel. Then sailed into Georgetown which is like a huge camp for cruisers. The anchorage is HUGE...about 240 boats are here. The water is turquoise and very clear. Our other buddy boat, Cloud Messenger is also here with 2 visitors from California. We have been eating extremely well...Italian one nite, Greek the next. I need to back up for one moment. I have a pic of John from Marsh Harbor...he had Jason shave his hair off..Surprisingly (ha!) this occured during a "happy hour" at the JIB ROOM. Jason and John left for a while and when they came back, John had no hair. Quite the entertainment....Back to Georgetown...all 3 boats are leaving for Long island (Bahamas) tomorrow the 21st and then Rum Cay on the 22nd...we will wait out some weather on the 22nd at a Marina...Rum Cay sounds pretty exciting...pirates etc...Attached is a pic of John and yet another gorgeous sunset...

Pickle-Ball

That's right Pickle-Ball...That is the name of the game when you are waiting for friends to come back to Marsh Harbor and waiting out a really windy cold front...As we listened to the daily cruisers net that comes on at 8:15 daily, we heard them announce that anyone interested could join in a game of pickle-ball...Laura, John and I arrived (Barry watched, wrong shoes)to learn a new game. Bob, a fellow cruiser (79 years of age)tried to explain the game. It is a cross between tennis(think of a tennis court about 3/4 the size of a regular court), oversized ping-pong paddles (padded like ping-pong paddles) ....you can play singles or doubles, whoever gets to 11 first wins...Great fun...The ball is like a wiffle ball..plastic with holes in it, about the size of a baseball. The wind did not do us any favors as we tried to win against Laura and another cruiser. John and I did finally win but the best part was the new found game and the exercise...to offset any drinking or eating...that is an ongoing challenge....Bob, at 79 is amazing. He played during the morning and then was going to play a tennis game in the afternoon...maybe there was something to this pickle-ball thing after all....No pics today....

Man-O-War---What An Island !

Man-O-War....Sounds kind of creepy, war-like etc...but the island is actually one of the most beautiful islands I have ever seen. It was founded in the 1700's by Royalists from England. There are about 300 full-time residents and another couple hundred part-time residents that come in the summertime. The island has scenic trails through forests and flowers...There are incredible homes and some very humble abodes...The entire island seems manicured and well, perfect. It is a dry island...no alcohol or cigarettes sold...You can bring it in....you better come supplied. There is 2 small grocery stores, a boatyard(with a 50 tone boatlift), 2 ice cream stores, gift stores, a ball fiield ,one restaurant...and a wonderful elderly woman by the name of Lola that rides around in a golf cart and sells cinnamon rolls and bread. You can walk from one end of the island to the other in a couple of hours. The anchorage is either right outside the northern entrance or inside at the marina or mooring balls...Take a look at some of the pics to see why it is so amazingly scenic....

Drift Snorkeling

When you have 2 divemasters on your buddy boat and one happens to be a marine biologist...lots of great experiences come of this friendship. We went to Snake Cay off the island of Great Abaco (northern Bahamas) and we dinghied into an inlet just south of our anchorage. The inlet has about 20-25 feet at the entrance..lots of water in the Bahamas. As we went in we decided to drift snorkel out with the tide...what this entails is holding onto the line that is attached to the dinghy and drift out with the current...no motor. When we got in the water we immediately saw 2 huge (5-5 1/2 feet across) eagle rays swimming about 15 feet below us. There are so incredibly graceful..the we saw about 2 turtles also swimming underneath us...Great snorkel...Then at happy hour on Bravo...we were all sitting and enjoying the sunset when a sting ray jumped out of the water...3 times. He was all of 10 feet away...it is a wild thing to see. They (marine biologist)do not know why they jump out of the water...Wonderful day!

Oops! Here are the Hopetown Pics

The pics attached are:
Amazing Sunrise
Laura The Great Fisher woman
Hopetown Lighthouse

Hopetown...What a Gorgeous Place

The day start with a fairy tale image of a lighthouse, add charming pastel painted houses, palm trees, soft, white beaches and you get Hopetown. We arrived on a windy morning at hight tide due to the skinny waters at the entrance. All 3 boats...Blue Blaze, Cloud Messnger and Seafox was already there to meet us. The days leading up to Hopetown were full of fishing and adventuring...Laura, the Great FisherWoman of the Abacos caught a 12-15 lb grouper...Wow, very exciting! Then John and the guys joined forces to catch 4 large lobsters and 3 conch...YUM! If you can beleive it, we had lobster ravioli...Paula has a manual crank pasta machine...we (royal we) all helped to make the goat cheese, lobster ravs...Amazing..!The day before we arrived in Hopetown, we anchored in some shallow waters to get us ready to go to Hopetown at high tide..The sunrise was one of the most beautiful I have ever seen...It was the payoff to getting up a 5 to be ready to move the boat...

The Weather outside Is Frightful....

Okay, the holidays are over BUT it sure is cold here! We have a high of 60 with 20-30 knot winds at the moment....(9 am Mon)....with the wind chill factor it is in the 50's. The Bahamians have not seen such cold weather in a long time. The cold fronts have brought close to or up to gale force winds. That is why we are in a marina so we can get off the boat for a walk etc....of course hot showers are a real plus! I have included some pics of this crazy weather, a beautiful sunrise and a pic of Jason(Blue Blaze) with a huge lobster he snagged. John, Laura, Cheryl and I actually went snorkeling in our wetsuits (water temp 60) on Mermaid reef...a walk from the marina....Even the fish were moving slow...we saw a Nassau grouper, parrotfish, grunts and snappers....

A Beach To Dream About

As my last blog stated, we are at Treasure Cay in the Abacos. The island has an amazing 3 1/2 mile beach...white soft sand and the water is the color of seafoam with a little turquoise. The island is well developed with condos etc. Fortunately the beach has only a few condos and one restaurant, the CocoBeach Bar. Since my last blog was totally void of pics, I have included some of the beautiful sites for you to see. We have another boat with us, since Green Turtle Cay. Their name is Cloud Messenger...a beautiful Crealock 38 sailboat. The owners are Cheryl, Dave and Ollie(a chihuahua)...a very cool couple from California. It is great to have Seafox back in the fold..off the dock and anchored out with the rest of us. As you might remember, Seafox is a motor yacht with paula and Barry from Rhode Island. They stayed in the Abacos for the entire summer...luckily that worked out very well. We did quite a bit of adventuring with them in April and May. We just got back from a dinghy ride where we caught a mutton snapper...Yum! Dinner tonite....

It's about time...

Sorry for the lack of blog updating....We are in Treasure Cay with 3 other buddy boats. It's awesome to have such great friends along for the ride. We have managed to make Mexican nite for New Year's Eve and italian nite for John's b-day...(Jan 2nd)Hey Rick, Happy B-day!!! We watched the movie The Hangover for John's b-day...not for everyone but it was pretty hysterical. The cold fronts have been quite often and are accompanied by 20-25 knot winds...It makes it hard to make any kind of distance plus you want protection from the winds...also difficult. We are in Treasure Cay for a few more days. This island has amazing protection from bad weather. We finally realized that being in a hurry is totally unnecessary. We did do some great snorkeling before the cold front came...We saw puffer fish, a flying gurnard (look it up), lionfish,parrot fish, trigger fish....lots more. Pretty cool! All is well!
Happy New Year to all..lots of good health and happiness in 2010....