HoHum just another day in Paradise!

January 11, 2018

Hello Folks,

I have not been blogging lately in case you hadn't noticed...not because we have been SO busy doing exciting things, but because we have NOT done anything exciting.

My grandson is the epitome of consideration and empathy. He will NOT admit that he is having a rotten time. The weather sucks!!! It was stinking hot in Florida for about a week, and he was devoured by no-see-ums and mosquitoes. Nothing we put on him made a difference...until the temperature dropped by 30 degrees and they all froze to death ...along with the rest of us.

We finally go into the water, had a spectacular crossing from Florida to the Banks, and arrived two days before Christmas, as we had hoped for . He had fun with the adults around us, all of whom made him feel special and part of the group. For that I am eternally grateful.

That week was great. Except the water temperature dropped 4 degrees from 21 to 17. 15C degrees = 59F so you can imagine how cold the ocean is...check out the stories about frozen sharks and manatees huddling in creeks near hydro plants!!

After Christmas we went to Great Guana Cay.  He got to meet his "Nipper's family and spent New Year's there. We went back the enxt day and spent the Junkanoo with our friend again and enjoyed the festivities.

We left Green Turtle and headed to Marsh Harbour on January 5. Beguiler followed us and it was a pleasant if slightly rough crossing. We actually sailed for about 6 miles.  We made it in and spent the evening with Beguiler, enjoying Greek food and playing games. C-Soul followed the next day.

We were in Marsh Harbour for 7 days and spent time with Modaki, C-Soul, Beguiler, and met up with Sandy's Way and Wingspread, both of them Ontario boats!! 

It was fun but Rick was getting restless...he wants to spend time beach combing and there aren't any beaches there that he can get to easily...like take the dinghy in. He hates being in towns. So we started planning to leave. For 2 days.

Yesterday we were preparing to leave the harbour when the windlass decided to stop working. So Rick and Todd and Mark spent the morning and most of the afternoon repairing it. Beguiler had left in the morning and by mid-afternoon called back to say that they were caught in a storm and travelling by radar...not to follow. We couldn't anyway but...

 This morning, having spent the week trying to find a weather window to take us across the North-East Channel from Abacos to Eleuthera, we decided to leave the harbour and head for Lynyard Cay...the jumping off spot.

First of all, you have to understand that at no time has there been a window of opportunity to ANYTHING, much less travel open water. Mother Nature is in a right pissy mood this year.  So when all the markers showed that this Saturday 13th is the ONLY day for a couple more weeks, we decided that we had to try it. C-Soul was going to follow but they have some business to attend to and I fear that they will miss the window...if, in fact, a window does actually open.

This morning there were clouds but also sun and a beautiful rainbow...good sign, right? NOT!! We managed to get out of the harbour and down to Turtle Creek  on the back side of Great Abaco, when She raised her head. We were going to anchor but the windlass wouldn't work, so we kept going. We managed to dodge the rain squalls three times, but then one looked like it was coming towards us so we moved over to Tilloo Cay and we dropped anchor. We started off with the wind coming off the ocean from the east. So we were facing the shore in 10 feet of water. There were two boats on either side of us with at least a quarter mile between us.  A few minute later, another cat hove into view, but we were parked in the good spot so he kept going.

Then all hell broke loose!! The biggest damned thunderstorm rolled over us and then back over us. Like Thunder Bay, it is just rolling around, swinging us! At one point we couldn't even see the rocks behind us and the boats disappeared from sight. Lightning and thunder on top of us. Poor Todd put on earmuffs so he couldn't hear it.  I think he was scared...I know I was!!

So here we sit. The storm has passed...sort of... we can see clear sky to the southwest but there is another bank of cloud sitting on the horizon...in the direction we wish to go... the rain is spitting right now but we are facing the wrong direction! The wind is coming from the north. AGGHHHH!!

If the weather window doesn't work, we will be sitting at Cherokee Point for a week or two until one comes again. I just hope that I can get internet so I can keep checking on them.  It's 2:30 and we are watching the sky lighten in the southwest and the huge black cloud is sliding slowly over us to the north east. Still lightning and thunder. The water is flat now with a slight swell, but we will probably sit here until morning.  We can see that we will get hit again with wind and rain in a few minutes.

We are exactly half-way between the anchorage at Lynyard Cay and our anchor spot at Marsh Harbour. Point of no return. 

JAn 1-3 Happy New Year

Jan 1-3 HAPPY NEW YEAR!

New Year's was great at Nipper's. The sky was mostly clear under a full moon and  we arrived around 5 pm for dinner. We were guests of the owners so w didn't have to pay the cover charge. We had wonderful food and a couple of drinks but we were ready to go home by 10:30. Todd was bored and his tablet was running out of juice. He couldn't talk to Casey because Casey was working.

TOdd had also been sick during the day. He slept until almost noon, got up, had a bit of yogurt, then a ginger ale because he had a headache, then threw up...mostly off the boat, but... then he slept again. I think he's just tired and unused to the boat motion.

We watched the first set of fireworks from the balcony, then we went to the boat. Got into our jammies to watch the sky. There were a few parties going on, but the music and fireworks from Nipper's were predominant in the harbour.

Next morning we were up and ready to go at 7:00 am to head back to Green Turtle to catch the Junkanoo. Met Modaki and TeAmore, Beguiler and also Leanne [Nipper's] and walked around with  Andy, Diane and Mark and Gail.

Todd ate more food and the parade was spectacular. The costumes were great and the kids beautiful!

After dinner we went over to Beguiler and played a game called Catch Phrase. What a hoot! [ Kind of like electronic "Password"- remember that old TV show with Betty White and Alan Ludden??- Charades with words. Even Todd liked it  and then we played Balderdash.

Night turned into bad weather and we've been stuck on the boat all day January 2. School work and some games; then reading and a movie or two. Our disc of Avatar doesn't work anymore - have to get a new one.

The only good thing about this storm is that the high winds have kept our batteries up! Love that wind generator!! I hope to get to town today to get some laundry done. But probably not, since the winds are supposed to get worse this afternoon. Just glad we aren't in the north Atlantic. Ireland is getting beaten up by a winter hurricane !

So today, Wednesday, 3, we will try to get more work done but it may turn out to be a crabby day... the winds are supposed to get up to hurricane force today. Yuck!

  

Happy After Christmas

And Happy New Year!!

So it's December 29 and we are anchored in the very small harbour of Great Guana Cay.

We left Green Turtle on December 27 and made it across the "Don't Rock" Channel [ 3 feet at low tide] and slipped into the harbour with no problem. We started walking up to Nipper's Bar when Bill Gravelle passed us, and we stopped to talk. He said he was on his way to the house and we should go up to the bar and wait for him. He came back with Annette and we talked for a while. We said we were going to stay there for supper, so he brought Casey back after supper and Todd and he talked a bit…both were shy so I adjudicated the conversation, but they decided to meet up the next day.

Todd went off with Casey for the afternoon and Rick and I went up to the bar for a swim on the ocean side and a dip in the pool…it's all salt. We had a drink and then decided we needed to eat some fries, so we could actually walk after the drink!

We met Johnny and Todd at the end of the road. We came back to change so we could go back to the beach for the Golf Cart Parade, and the anniversary party afterwards [Johnny and Janess' 21st] About 100 of their friends and relatives…great food, lots of music and fireworks that were awesome!

Tonight the menu is "Chicken-in-a-bag" …not sure what that means but tomorrow we need to stay HERE And eat!

This afternoon, the winds got up to around 15-20 knots and I stayed on the boat while Rick and Todd went snorkelling.  Todd is getting really good at driving the dinghy…needs to get his license when we get home!!! DAD!!

We are supposed to go back to Green Turtle for New Year's Eve, but the family wants us to stay here and be their guests at the party, so we'll stay here, go back on New Year's Day, weather permitting and watch Junkanoo. AS soon as the weather clears at the end of the week, we will start heading south for Exumas.

On an unhappy note: if you have ANY influence over the educational life of a child, please check out their progress and put pressure on the parents/ schools/ teachers to get real!!!! I am staggered at how long Todd was allowed to coast through his school life with absolutely no assistance/ control/ pressure. It is devastating to think of what will happen to him in Grade 9 if I cannot help him learn grade 4-8 spelling/math / grammar and writing skills before May next year.

It is criminal that we let kids pass and don't hold them back when they can't do the work because "we don’t want to affect their Self-esteem" --that is teacher-speak for "I'm too lazy and get paid too much to give a shit!"  

If there is such a need for special teaching assistants is it because there are so many more functionally disabled kids? Or maybe the school curriculum is inadequate???Or maybe the teachers are incompetent??? Just sayin'… Perhaps instead of school trips to farms, museums and baseball games, they should be having extra math and English lessons. I didn't need to go to a museum to distinguish between mummies and totem poles; or visit a farm to learn the difference between cows and chickens, did you?

Okay..rant over…Happy New Year and wherever you are, stay safe and warm!

 

Golf cart parade

Nippers Bar

Bill and Annette

Nippers Pool& Rupert's cabins

Sculpture garden Green Turtle

Merry Christmas!

December 25

Merry Christmas everyone!

Yesterday we had a great time with C-Soul and Jande, [formerly Windreka]. Good food, good friends, good laughs!

Christmas Eve dinner on C-Soul

Santa found him!

Christmas Eve

In our backyard!

Christmas dinner lineup

Still have our Christmas vests!!

First starfish

First live sea urchin

Today the plan was to hang out at the pool at Bluff House which was supposed to be closed. We were going to go over at 9:30 and then at 1:00 pm heading to the giant potluck on shore.

Around 10 am Te Amore [aka Mr. & Mrs. Claus] came by with goodies for everyone.  Shortly after that Beguiler came by with more goodies!

We hooked up with C-Soul and went over to Sundowners for our Christmas potluck dinner. It was a great potluck organized y Jan and Cam on TeAmore and assisted by Brenda on Beguiler. Lots of good food, including the lobster chowder made by Jan. {I'm not a seafood fan but it was really good! Todd liked too!}

After dinner around 3:45 we headed back to White Sound and went over to the pool at Bluff House and swam for a while. Then home to bed. What a busy day but it went so fast!!!! Tomorrow we'll go and have more fun!

The Crossing

The Crossing

It was amazing!

We got down to Lake Worth and anchored. C-Soul arrived later that evening and we were making pans to cross in the morning.

Shh! Don't tell anyone but Todd drove the boat through West Palm Beach - Lake Worth!!
we woke up at 2:30 am too hyped up to sleep, so we got up, did slow prep and at 3;45 turned on the engine. C-Soul's lights came on at the same time and we all started out the inlet.
Todd sprang into action, because he thought it as cool to sail in the dark. But when the sun came up, he went down!

With the new prop on, we were smokin'! We left C-soul behind us and for the first time ever, we actually passed boats!! When we crossed the Gulf Stream, we averaged 7 knots! and at one point I saw 12 on the GPS!!! Almost scary!!

We made it across in 8 hours! That's 4 hours faster than our fastest time! Everybody wants to rename the boat "The Rocket.' We went so fast we stripped off our new stripes! LOL

We took two days to get to Green Turtle. First night we stopped 8 miles from Mangrove Cay. We stopped only because we were tired and waited for C-Soul to catch up!! But that was a  75 mile day and we still stopped at 4 pm. The water was dead calm and  there was no wind. Rick and Todd went swimming to check the anchor and other things!

We are anchored in Green Turtle Cay! Safely checked in and all legal with Customs. We met up with Jande, [Diane and Andy] C-Soul [Mark and Gail] and Modaki [Joe and Yvonne - friends from Owen Sound]. Had a VERY long lunch at Miss Emilie's and we all returned to our boats. We will go back to town tonight around 6 for the golf cart parade and food at the basketball court! We plan to stay here and participate in the Christmas Eve potluck, the Christmas Day potluck, and Violet [the owner of Miss Emilie's ] thinks we should stay for the New Year's Junkanoo. She says Todd will love it.

This evening we went to the Golf Cart Parade. It starts with lots of food, drinks and social time, then the kindergarten kids came out and sang Christmas songs. We met a few new people, hooked up with old friends from previous years, even neighbours from Owen Sound.

When the parade started some woman grabbed Gail and I and asked if we would help judge the Gold Carts. She didn't explain that we would be the ONLY ones! It was a great time! 

Today we will have Christmas Eve dinner on C-Soul, with Jande and tomorrow we will have a potluck Christmas Day Dinner with the boaters at one of the bars that lets us use the place when they aren't open!

Calm waters!

Beautiful morning!

ON the Move - December 17

Sunday we left Riverside at 8 am and tuned the corner to Harbourtown Marina for fuel and water. By 8:30 we were in the river heading south. At 12:45 we were anchoring [attempting to anchor ] in Manatee Pocket. Last year that took all day!!! New prop!!! We sat and enjoyed the calm, well...not really. There is a no-wake rule in here the Pocket and for the most part people obey it, but there was a constant parade of boats. The ICW was vicious and we are hoping that we can be out of it before the holiday weekend starts.
Todd spent some time playing with his boat but somewhere someone else had a remote with the same frequency and he almost lost it!! He can try it again on the islands.
After dinner we sat in the cockpit enjoying the Christmas lights all around us. We have lights to put up the mast but the batteries can't handle it and our wind generator needs a little TLC to get it moving again...very stiff right now...probably from a summer of being tied off and dust from the yard in the mechanism. Today we will have lunch with Bill and head to Peck Lake tonight. Tuesday we will be in Lake Worth and Wednesday...crossing !!!

He watched us leave the Riverside dock

Swabbing the decks and securing the diesel cans

Running the boat

Our morning wake-up whistler-and he's the little one

Finish painting the dinghy

it came back!!!

We are off the ground!

Okay, this is a bit of a cheater...this was our Christmas card in 2014, feeling pretty smug. Of course it turned out that we spent Christmas in Lady's Island S.Carolina, with C-Soul, our boat buddies, but this year its' mostly wishful thinking!!! We hope to be on an island for Christmas...ANY island!

We were launched on Friday at 12:45  after I had a complete meltdown on the crews that were planting boats in the middle of the road. blocking once again. Rick promptly had us tied up to the pilings so we could shop...naturally he directed traffic and made me back up onto a sandbar, so tonight [Saturday] we are still here because we missed high tide today. Tonight we will drift down the dock pilings to deeper water...its' dark and we are not trying out the Channel n the dark.  ICW is VERY shallow and narrow now.
Tomorrow at 7 am we will go under the bridge, get fuel and water and head south to our jump off spot.

And in case we run out of data, here's a Christmas card for you: Have a joyous and Merry Christmas filled with love and laughter, and stay warm!

Our Christmas Poem 

T’was the night before Christmas and out on the boat

The Schultz’s were sleeping ...no blanket or coat!

The boat was decked out with all manner of light.

Fake flamingos and pelicans lit up the night.

Their stockings were hung in the palm trees nearby

In hopes that St. Nick would see them from the sky.

All through their slumber, warm breezes did blow,

But they dreamed they were back home shovelling snow.

They dreamed of snow banks, of snow ploughs and ice,

Of snow tires and ditches, tow trucks...not nice!

They awoke in the morning and sighed with relief,

Jumped into the water and swam to the beach

To check out their stockings. A note they did find:

“It’s coal this year, Schultz’s for leaving everyone behind!”

They looked at each other, then grinned and shrugged.

“Sorry we’re not there, y’all, but here’s a BIG HUG !”