weather

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Zoomin’ Exumas

View of Highbourne Cay and marina from Oyster Cay

View of Highbourne Cay and marina from Oyster Cay

At first the goal was to speed down the Exuma chain to George Town then over to Long Island for some serious early season beach combing. The weather had differing ideas, feeling that zooming was best left to those wishing to anchor in “their spot” off Stocking Island in Elizabeth Harbor, otherwise known as George Town. After Thursday, Dec 5 the extended forecast for the northern Exumas read: East to ESE 16-22kts, gusting 24kts. Ugh. Ok, if the wind isn’t going to play nice we can work with that, and thus we went to Plan B and moved slowly down the chain. Daily high temps would be 80 with lows in the mid 70s at night. The evening temp often sat comfortably at 77 for several hours. Ignore the wind humming through the rigging when it hits 21kts 🙂

First stop: Oyster Cay by Highbourne- very near Elf Cay where we spent Christmas last year. We’d hoped to get further, to Shroud Cay (inside the Land & Sea Park boundary) but the wind died so we made water instead and ended the day early.

We weren't too unhappy to see rain over Shroud Cay in the distance

We weren’t too unhappy to see rain over Shroud Cay in the distance

Second Stop: Warderick Wells and Mooring ball #13.  Can you say, “only boat there?” Gee, guess we are early.

Lonesome Ortolan at Warderick Wells north mooring field

Lonesome Ortolan at Warderick Wells north mooring field

Andrew was holding down the fort at HQ and we talked with him on a variety of Bahamian topics. As dark was falling a sailboat entered and fortunately (but not unplanned) Andrew’s Gulfstar 42 (motor) sits on mooring #10 so he was able to direct s/v Rocinante to a mooring. Earlier that day a boat announced that they’d lost their dinghy near Norman’s Cay; no fun that. Never heard if it was retrieved.

I’ve decided that Warderick Wells is the most beautiful place we’ve visited in the Bahamas; others come close and that’s why we ooh and ahh every time we are in the beautiful Bahamas.

This cairn was built with a viewing window that I took advantage of.

This cairn was built with a viewing window that I took advantage of.

For the first time in five visits we enjoyed the attentions of a nurse shark along with her attached and unattached remoras. One remora was larger than the others and seemed to be in search of an appropriate-sized host; we hoped not Ortolan! Remoras are known to attach themselves to ships, people, turtles; not just sharks.

Nurse shark hangs around the boat with her closest BFs

Nurse shark hangs around the boat with her closest BFs

Russ got a great overhead shot of the largest remora- look at the sucker section!

Russ got a great overhead shot of the largest remora- look at the sucking disk on top!

I almost touched her but she was able to keep an inch away from my finger tips

I almost touched her but she was able to keep an inch away from my finger tips

At dusk we went in to the beach to search of those shy, nocturnal hutia- the only mammal native to the Bahamas.

Captured! An entire hutia who ventured out alone.

Captured! An entire hutia who ventured out alone.

They venture out at night for food scraps left by boaters who use the picnic tables. I sat on the bench seat which was very close to the bushes and waited. Sure enough, one slowly makes his way, stopping at the “tree line”. My camera was going to be useless so Russ used the iPhone to get a decent shot.

Third Stop: Staniel Cay- anchored near Thunderball Grotto. Saturday night we treated ourselves to dinner at the SCYC. Met a couple of guys from NY who are here for a 5 day rejuvenate vacation. They mentioned that some Pitbull-Kesha video had been filmed in the club and in and around Staniel Cay. Laughed and said we were too old to know who he/she/they were but we’d check it out.  So yes, a YouTube video is out there; haven’t watched it due to limits on our wifi here. Dinner: Lobster Chowder, coleslaw, grilled grouper with parsley potatoes and green beans and chocolate bread pudding for dessert. You’d think they knew I was coming.

And so, here we are. We could leave for our net stop 11 miles south at Blackpoint but with no good window to jump into Exuma Sound for George Town, we remain- not in a rush. Sunday was spent on board tending to those small and annoying projects that accumulate with each passing day. For one, the wind had managed to get the bottom of our flag caught on the knob that holds the flagpole in place, which resulted in 3 tears.

Jill of All Trades: today I impersonate Betsy Ross

Jill of All Trades: today I impersonate Betsy Ross

We still had some tears in our sail cover that needed patching as well as loose Velcro at the bottom of the front Strataglass zipper cover. Our fake candle was misbehaving of late, the stove and burners stopped igniting without the use of the grill igniter (again) and (JOY) the Christmas lights needed to be strung along the stern rail. Add to that some hand laundry, proofing a letter for SSCA and we had a full day; and we didn’t get to the entire list!

A very frantic s/v Petite Cordelia announced they’d lost their dinghy in the two miles between Big Major and Staniel. Fortunately another sailboat who’d just left Staniel, heading for the better protection of Big Major, found the wayward dink and an exchange at sea took place. We watched boats come and go, including the island transport, m/v Legend II  and s/v Vision360 who we thought behaved way more hardcore than the boat looked, when they headed out the cut in 22kt winds and 5-6ft seas in Exuma Sound.

Crazy cruiser or Salty Sailors? They head out into Exuma Sound

Crazy cruiser or Salty Sailors? They head out into Exuma Sound

Made a dump run and checked out the ocean beach on Staniel’s east shore. No beach combing there. 😦  Lunch on the porch at the YC was a nice treat and our first YC lunch and outside too- in the lee of the still boisterous wind of course.

Photos from the early days of SCYC

Photos from the early days of SCYC

Another Rum Punch- even better than Sat night's.

Another Rum Punch- even better than Sat night’s.

Bunting at the protected dinghy landing beach next to the YC. Ortolan in background

Bunting at the protected dinghy landing beach next to the YC. Ortolan in background

A sad footnote: a couple of days ago we heard from SeaSparrow friends that Stella the wonderdog was diagnosed with cancer (took at least 4 vet visits over several weeks to determine) and had to be put down in Marsh Harbor, Abaco. She was laid to rest in Green Turtle Cay overlooking the lovely Sea of Abaco. Two 1/2 yrs old. So young. R.I.P. Stella

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We cross with Chris

Weather guru Chris Parker that is. One the most frequently asked questions among cruisers, besides, “Is it 5 o’oclock yet?, is “Do you use Chris Parker?” Our “we can take care of that ourselves” reply has always been “no”. Well heck if it was free then that would be a no-brainer. Two years ago we tried the SSB route but the unit, tried mightily as we would, never picked up Parker’s reports. So we sold it. We use a variety of other sources for weather and have the apps on our iPhones for: Weather Underground, Passage Weather, Wind Alert and Weather Channel. NOAA weather is part of the Garmin package and we can call that up on the chart plotter for local and offshore, but not Bahamas. When in the Bahamas, we listen to the Cruisers’ Nets and the Met Office weather reports and widespread cell coverage lets the phones work 90% of the time.

This year we needed to be all the way down to George Town, Exuma by Dec 22, an aggressive but not impossible schedule. Crossing asap after Thanksgiving would be ideal and while we were prepared to make a less-than-ideal crossing, marching elephants in the gulf stream were not acceptable. So, we caved, but at least now we can claim membership in the “Hail to Chris Parker” clan. Toe-only, not the entire foot though. We bought a one-month subscription to six days a week emails of weather forecasts (Bahamas too) including crossing conditions and suggestions.

As much as we were packed to the gunwales (pronounced “gunnel”) with provisions for four months, we now were overflowing with weather info. Once a crossing window came on the horizon we began to track weather on our top four services which now included Chris Parker. We studiously read, digested and pondered just how “salty” our sailorselves wanted or needed to be. Would we be happy with a crossing day described as “the least-bad day for “Salty Sailors” with winds 20kts or less and seas 7-9ft?  If you thought “No”- you are darn right! Thanksgiving Day Mr. Parker recommended we spend the next 3 days getting ready to make the most of a 24-36 hour opportunity expected to begin mid Sunday, Dec 1. Right-o! That we did, as our other sources confirmed a crossing was imminent. On Saturday the “bottom line” advice for crossing was to make good use of any mild weather now through Dec 9.

After one more trip to Publix and filling our water jugs, we paid our mooring tab then got ourselves unstuck from Velcro Beach. Plan 1 was to take 2 days to get to Lake Worth then jump down and over very early Monday.  The wind, and the seas especially, would remain up too much until Sunday. We anchored in Ft Pierce which meant we’d be close to that good inlet. Ummm, we could skip anchoring in Lake Worth and just jump out at Ft Pierce Sunday afternoon and go for a double overnight over North Rocks, through Northwest Channel and into Nassau by Tuesday morning. Seas would still be sloppy but the advantage would be calm weather for a few days once over there.  Being well-rested for the ordeal- I mean trip- would be good.

Friday night, really Sat morning I guess, at 3am Russ was awakened by s/v Northern Goose entering with flashlights blazing, voices shouting; not exactly making a good first impression. The next morning they were shouting again as he’d gone up the mast to drop down the genoa(?) which had several obvious tears.

Just because their sail got ruined was no need to ruin our sleep!

Just because their sail got ruined was no need to ruin our sleep!

We moved further away from their noisy wind generator (one of the few things Russ can’t abide).  The expletives are deleted here from Russ’s loud lament when he saw them re-anchoring closer after we’d moved. They dropped anchor practically right in the channel- uh not good folks- then they moved back to behind us. I should have taken a photo of Russ with his bright orange earplugs in :-). Not a single flag on the boat either; since they are not a U.S. vessel a U.S. courtesy flag should be flown from the starboard spreader. Homeland Security was just around the corner (we met them last Spring); maybe we could make an anonymous tip 🙂

Instead, we made good use of a couple days at anchor and checked off all our pre-crossing and rough seas prep items. Come Monday, it WILL be alright. 🙂