Jan 29-30

January 29

Busy Day!! Moved the boat over to Stocking Island in the morning...ugh... really rolly over there so we moved back in the afternoon.

We had a Regatta meeting and got lots more volunteers, so today I need to get the work done for Jeanne and we can post the schedule and information.

After Cordell gave his talk to the boaters, we sat down and had an in-depth conversation.

Met an artist on Magic Dolphin...not your Magic Dolphin, Quentin, and he is working with the kids in St. Andrews teaching them to paint coconuts. We spent a long time talking about art, and his objectives.

We came back to the Kidd Cove side and 'parked' then went over to meet Blue Heavens. We went with them to the Trivia night at St.Francis...Gordon's really smart! And we won!!!Woo-hoo!

In the middle of the night the wind came up and the next "norther" is blowing through now. We checked the instruments around 4 am. I am neurotic about dragging!

This morning the boat next to us, Pearl, the British trawler, not the sailboat Pearl, reported that they had rescued a dinghy off the shore...ours!!! Crap! The rope frayed through overnight and we lost it this morning! It was there when we looked out at 4 am, but when I went out to turn on the radio, I was so focussed on Barabas Rock behind us that I never noticed the dinghy was gone!!

They brought it back and it is fine. Rick started it and pumped it out, and up. Still haven't found the leak, but as long as we have the pump with us, we're good!

One more chapter in the "Book of Stupid"...

January 27-28

Jan 28

Yesterday we spent the day wandering around town. We were supposed to set up the t-shirt stand but we didn't have enough volunteers. We got the lemon tree delivered and a christophene and a ginger plant as well. If we have something that starts to grow, I can't cut it up and eat it, so we plant it.

I gave Rick a haircut...he was starting to look pretty shabby.

Today we spent the day putting up and painting the stand and selling the shirts. We were going to move over to Sand Dollar but we crashed early, so we will move tomorrow morning.

Not much is going on yet. We aren't in the Rake and Scrape mood yet. More boaters are starting arrive... Anneteak got here today and Pearl arrived yesterday! YAAAY! Happy to see you guys!!

 

Moving crew

Jan 23-26

January 22

When we arrived in the harbour, we went into the Litter Pan...a part of the harbour that only shallow draft boats [cats] can use. We got in, anchored and settled in for the night.

Jan23

Next morning on the cruiser's 'net the weather was supposed to start ramping up by noon, and it did...clear skies appeared after the front line when through [you saw the pics] and THEN it clouded up around noon. We watched and only saw winds that maxed out at 28 knots but we have a shorter mast than most.

We rode the storm all night but we were fine.

Jan 24

The next day the winds died and settled out around 15-20 knot. We went to town and got water and diesel. We also got some groceries. Interesting...the storm knocked out the power to the high school on the other side of the island, so some of the kids were off school.

We went for diner on Blue Heavens. Gordon made awesome chilli and we had a great night. 

Jan 25.

Happy Birthday C-Soul [Gail] and Stryder [Brent]. Today was another calm and settled day so we moved the boat out of the Litter Pan to in front of the Exuma Yacht Club. It looks like Lagoon city here but there is another Prout in this anchorage.  It's a German or Swiss boat called ZOIE.

Jan 26

Today was a great day for me!  When I went to town with Jeanne, I met Nelson Ranger in person! We are facebook friends. I also met Reggie Smith, who is very involved with the local sailing school and the Family Island Regatta. We had a very interesting meeting. Rick took me to Peace and Plenty for my birthday dinner, and I saw Mrs. Adderly, one of the teachers I worked with last year, as well as Jillian, and Rashad, the crazy dancing kid! Great day!

January 23

This is what our front line looks like this morning...winds around 202-22 knots ?? Supposed to be up around 35 knots . It was over us and then moved southeast. Missed us???

More January 22

SO, the saga continues...

We went hard aground in front of one of the Musha Cay cabins...automatic lights on a timer, but the voices were probably my imagination.

Anyway, according to the tide tables we weren't going to get off the sandbar until 2-3 am. It was so still...but I couldn't sleep. The wind generator was screaming all night and I was extremely pissed off. [Sailing is supposed to fix my blood pressure!]

Around 1:30 am, I got up because we were bumping bottom. I waited until around 2:00 to wake Rick up and we tried again...several times. Finally at around 2:30 success... we got off and went over to the channel and anchored there in 9 feet. He only put 25 feet down thinking we would hold in that but he had me back down on it.

 You'll never guess what happened...the rope from the dinghy anchor had blown out of the dinghy and, you guessed it... I backed over it. Only this time we had no line cutter. Luckily we were only in 3 feet of water. I held a flashlight and  the dinghy off the back deck while he used a diving knife, a hammer,  screwdriver and wrench in the dark in surging seas, [ because now we're floating in the channel], to remove the prop, untangle the line and re-install the propeller, all without losing any of the pieces!!! Not that we couldn't have found them in the crystal clear water but neither of us wanted to go swimming at that time of night ...or morning.

At 4:00 am I got up and saw that we were dragging...100 feet...back to the sandbar. I woke him up and we re- set the anchor and went back to bed. I don't think either one of us slept at that point.

We were up at 6:30 and ready to go. The winds started at 12 knots and ramped up to 22 by the end of the day, but we got here intact. We were motor-sailing between 5-7 knots and when we finally hit the harbour, I turned off the motor and we sailed down the Sound at 4.5 knots with just the jib close hauled. Non-sailors won't be impressed, but those who sail know that's not bad, especially for a cat!

A few people have suggested that I should write a book. I would call it:

 "How many stupid things can two people do on one sailboat?" 

Jan 22

HA! t's 2:30 pm and the anchor is down in the litter pan in Georgetown! We went outside from Musha Cay through Rudder Cut to Elizabethtown Harbour [about 50 miles] and wait til you hear the rest of the story...later. I need to chill a bit!

Jan 21

January 21

So today is not so nice a day. The sky is clear but the winds are building...right on the nose of course. It's noon, we are almost at Staniel Cay [Harvey Cay waypoint] and we have about 20 miles to go before we are off this pounding sea. We are only in 19 feet of water so that is the real reason it's rough. We have only 13 knots of wind but we are still going 4.5 knots into it. Power boaters think this is cool...I don't like it at all.  The best seat is the helm seat and frankly, it's boring there too!  I used to want to drive all the time; now I'd rather do chores. We need Auto back!!

We will be in a sheltered bay tonight and if the day pans out like it's predicted we will be in Georgetown tomorrow before the storm starts.

So, Bruce wants to hear more about the Blue Marlin. Well...at 1107 in the am when neither of us was paying any attention to the rod, the Marlin hit. It took the entire line and we thought maybe we'd [he'd] caught a whale. The rod snapped as he was trying to reel it in and so he had to hold both pieces and hand line it. Took 40 minutes..not bad for an old man. And he didn't even want a pillow for his stomach...but he sure was hurtin' later.

He flipped it into the dinghy on the back deck...we have no gaff...oh , back up. We discussed fishing earlier that morning and we decided that we didn't a] have time,  or b] room in the freezer and since I don't even like fish and wasn't going to clean anything he caught...we wouldn't fish. See, we really weren't ready for one...no gaff.

Thank god it wasn't a 400 lb fish. we're going to have to more pciky about what fish we catch!

After the marlin flipped itself out of the dinghy and off the hook, having bled a little in it, we [he] lamented about the loss. I was glad...it's too beautiful to carve up. We also realized later that the dinghy was deflating. Did he poke a hole in it?? We don't know because we haven't had time to check it.

It's now 6:30 pm and we are waiting for low tide to turn here so we can get off the sandbank in front of Musha Cay. We [he] were admiring all of the houses that rent out fo

Sailing over a coral head

BLue Marlin

Looking down it's throat...beautiful colours

r $300k a week, wondering who would want to rent one and what they would do when we [he] ran aground. We [he] was following our track but the scale was so small he wasn't aware that the channel is only 100 feet wide and we[he] were 90 feet off. SHIT!!!

So we are eating beans and hotdogs [I'm not cooking...too pissed off] and we will wait for a bit of incoming tide to lift our ass off the bank. Wet threw the anchor out to deep water so as soon as we are floating, we will pull off and move. And right now EVERYTHING is annoying. I can hear voices on shore; the wind generator won't stop, and we are not quite sitting on bottom so instead of riding the waves, we are bumping. GRRRRR.  The only consolation is that we may actually be in Georgetown by mid afternoon tomorrow...unless of course the winds increase earlier than expected, from the south, or when we go out Rudder Cut, we.....never mind, I'm not going to say it.  Later.