Nassau, Bahamas to Fort Pierce, Florida, USA

We spent another night in Nassau and even took D-Time to shore looking for a grocery store.  We were out of a few items and it was good to just get out and walk.  It was after a hard rain and the streets were wet and it was humid and hot.  Maybe walking a mile to the grocery store wasn’t such a good idea after all.  We made it back with our few purchases and then left the next day to head towards the USA. 

We were going to do 3, 8 hour days, spending 2 nights on the banks (shallow area in the middle of the ocean) but we were making such good time, we decided to make it in 2, 14 hour days.  It is always a weird feeling to me to stop in the middle of the ocean and put out an anchor but we did.  We were in about 15 feet of water, and when the sun set, we just stopped and dropped the anchor.  We rocked and rolled a little throughout the night, but it wasn’t bad.  There were no other boats around except for some occasional fishing boats off in the distance.  We got up early the next morning and continued to the U.S. 

We hit the gulf stream in the middle of the day and boy were we flying across it.  We usually do 6 to 7 knots and we were doing 9 knots.  We were practically speeding!  We had the jib out and were motoring, there wasn’t much wind, but we flew to the U.S.  We arrived in West Palm Beach late and left early the next morning heading towards Fort Pierce.  Our friend, Marshall, from our Charleston marina, was heading to the Bahamas and had some engine trouble and he pulled into a marina to get a part fixed.  We pulled into the same marina last night and enjoyed seeing Marshall standing on the dock to greet us.  It is always wonderful to see a smiling face you know and get a hug – he didn’t even care we were dripping in sweat.  J

In addition to catching up with Marshall, another added bonus of coming in the marina - plugging into electricity and running the air conditioners for a night!  What a treat!  Also, Marshall coaxed us into this marina with the promise of a West Marine and a Publix within walking distance.  We weren’t disappointed.  Daniel made it to West Marine and I made it to Publix this morning and I was a like a kid in a toy store.  Walking through the produce section, being about to recognize what the produce was, and the lower prices, it was wonderful.  I stared at the produce for so long, a guy said, do you need some help?  I explained I had been out of the country for 6 months and well, everything just looked so wonderful at Publix!  Then I said, “is that a vidalia onion”?  I pushed him aside and started filling up my cart.  Welcome Home!  (We are making our way up the east coast looking for a marina for C-Time to spend hurricane season.)

Picture Time!

Dolphins!

Dolphins showing off

Cave at one of the islands

PIGS in the water!

Feeding time

Carla's version of enjoying the pigs - I am NOT getting out of this boat!

one of our "private" islands in the Bahamas

Carla's are the only footprints on this island :-)
Bahamas

Hawksbill Cay, Bahamas to Nassau, Bahamas

June 9-10, 2014

We left the pigs and sharks for a more docile surrounding in Hawksbill Cay.  It is a gorgeous island with an amazing beach.  The trip to Hawksbill didn’t take long, a couple of hours, but with no wind we had to motor most of the way.  When we anchored in Hawksbill Cay it was warm, to say the least, and Daniel put up the sunshade for us.  It really cooled things off on the boat.  He relaxed in his hammock for the afternoon underneath the sunshade and I took D-Time to shore.  I enjoy walking beaches and looking for shells and this was a really nice white sandy beach to walk.  I walked the mile long beach and didn’t find a single shell.  I also didn’t find another human being, so it was worth the walk.  I really enjoyed putting my footprints on the pristine beach.  We had planned to walk the island the next morning, I had found a trail, but the weather forecast was calling for “squalls” and so we took off to towards Nassau to get ahead of them towards. 

 

We made the 7 hours of the 8 hour trip avoiding the squalls and then one caught up with us.  Daniel said the winds were coming at us at 20-25 knots and we had a lot of lightening and rain.  We slowed down and let the storm pass us.  We pulled into the harbor at Nassau in a light rain and dropped anchor, right across from Paradise Island and the Atlantis Resort.  Right in front of us, less than a ½ mile away sat 4 huge cruise ships in port for the day.  Nice views!

Pigs and Sharks

We left Rudder Cay and headed towards Staniel Cay and the pigs.  We missed the pigs on the way down the island chain and honestly, I think Daniel was tired of hearing me say “I want to see the pigs” so he made it a stop on our way back.  We were not disappointed.  We dropped anchor right in front of the island with the wilds pigs.  There were loads of people already on shore “visiting” the pigs so we decided to watch and then go make our visit to them first thing in the morning. 

We took a few treats with us to feed them and made our way to shore in D-Time.  Actually, we stopped short of shore to see if they would swim out to us and this HUGE pig did.  I mean HUGE.  His snout was like a foot long – and he must have weighed 400 pounds or more - this was one big pig.  Daniel gave him a few of our treats and then we pushed on towards shore and Mr. Big Pig followed us.  About a dozen small to medium pigs came out to meet us.  Daniel hopped out of D-Time and went ashore and started feeding them.  I’m a city girl – the pigs are supposed to be in cages or something – ain’t no way I’m getting out of D-Time to get close to them, I can see them just fine from D-Time.  Daniel petted them and fed them but when Mr. Big Pig pushed and made squealing noises at the little pigs, I felt like I made the right decision to stay in my safety zone, D-Time. 

So now, we can add wild pigs to our list of animals we’ve seen on a beach in the Bahamas or the Caribbean, along with donkeys, horses, cows, goats and chickens.  It’s sounds a bit like a farm, doesn’t it?  (I have pictures of the pigs to share, but have to wait until I have better wifi to post them.)

We left the pigs and made it back to D-Time and decided to swim a little at the boat (the pigs didn’t swim out that far).  We swam for a bit and then I went aboard first and started drying off.  Daniel was still in the water and he came up to the side of the boat and said “did you see the shark”?  Oh. My. Gosh!  Shark?  He said it was as big as D-Time (which is 11 feet).  No, I didn’t see the shark, but I would not be getting back in the water to look for him either.  Daniel likes the sharks, he wanted to swim with them.  The man is crazy.  He said they were “nurse” sharks and they didn’t like to eat humans.  I decided to not chance it.  We had quite a few sharks that ended up swimming next to and under our boat.  It was neat to watch them, from the deck of the boat. 

George Town, Bahamas to Rudder Cay, Bahamas

June 6, 2014

We cleared customs and immigration in George Town and then made our way to a local yacht club for a nice lunch out.  Fried conch fritters and blue cheese burgers were delicious!  It was also really nice, for me, because there was no cooking or dishes to be washed – made my day.  After lunch Daniel had to refuel our jerry cans with diesel (there aren’t any marinas where you can dock and get fuel in George Town, you have to carry your jerry cans to the local gas station and do it yourself), and I made my way to the local grocery store.  It had been a little while since we were at a grocery store and we were out of our “staples” (milk, cereal, bread and eggs).   We stocked back up, loaded D-Time with the diesel and groceries and made our way back to C-Time.  We spent the night in the harbor at George Town and left the next morning for Rudder Cay.

The water in George Town harbor runs 7-13 feet which means, I spent a lot of the morning we left on the bow of the boat watching for coral and rocks.  We made it out of the harbor and Daniel put the sails up.  We were only going about 3 or 4 knots, but we really weren’t in a hurry, so I just settled down with a book and Daniel took his iPhone music to the bow and we relaxed through a lazy sail to Rudder Cay.  Once we found the anchorage, we took D-Time to explore.  We basically have the place to ourselves again, which is really nice.  We took D-Time and was able to go inside a couple of caves with it and look around.  Then we made it to a place at the end of a cove (in about 15-20 feet of water) where it is rumored David Copperfield had a statue of a piano with a mermaid playing the piano, dropped in the water.  It was awesome to see.  It was almost the size of a real piano and the mermaid was big too.  It was kind of strange to see it, just in the water there at the entrance to this cove.  We swam around it and took some pictures. 

This morning we took D-Time to another close by island that, at low tide, is joined to another island by a sandy beach.  I looked for shells while Daniel went snorkeling.  I walked both islands and enjoyed the beach walks.   It is always nice to “stretch your legs” on solid ground.   

A Close Call and a Close Encounter

June 3, 2014 - Long Island, Bahamas

Sailing offshore has its ups and downs (get it?).  We had made passages with 6-8 foot seas, and we’d sailed downwind with 15-20 knot winds gusting to 25 knots, so when I took another look at the 2-day old wind and sea forecast, I was confident we would have a comfortable sail.  After we were well underway, I listened to the Bahamas weather guru and all I heard was “a few squalls with locally increased winds associated with the squalls”.  The day started with a gently rolling 6-foot NE swell and not enough wind to sail, so we furled the sails and motored, expecting winds to pick up later in the morning.  Before the winds picked up, the swell increased to 8’ and more turbulent wind waves developed.  Carla became seasick quickly and started dosing up on the Dramamine, while I literally “stood” watch.  The squalls set in mid-morning and were relentless for the next 4 hours.  Being the good watch-keeper, I would take quick restroom breaks and return to the wet cockpit, hanging on with both hands.  While scanning the rain-obscured horizon, I started hearing a strange noise, thinking that the engine was vibrating a different portion of the boat.  As I continued my scan, I could barely make out a ghostly image of a ship off our starboard bow.  I leapt toward the steering pedestal and looked at the chartplotter to find an AIS target on a collision course with us.  By that time, the ship was readily visible and about 500 yards off our starboard bow, blowing his fog horn to get our attention.  I abruptly changed course so the ship would know that I had seen them, and to allow them to pass in front of us.  We were very fortunate that I had taken a restroom break about 5 minutes earlier, otherwise we would have seen the ship VERY close.

Tired, sick, and wet, we surfed into Little Harbour, not believing how quickly the surf settled.  As soon as we had dropped anchor, two dolphins appeared next to the boat, one of them holding its head above the water to see what we were doing.  I donned the snorkeling gear and got in the water.  It was the most awesome experience, as the youngest of the two came up to me and gazed in my eyes, tilting his head in wonderment, then rolling over on his back as if to invite me to scratch his belly.  The two of us swam side-by-side for a minute, then the momma came to check on us.  She was about 7 feet long and probably weighed twice as much as me.  Although she seemed indifferent toward playing with us, she still swam along with us and allowed me to get close.  This rare experience almost made me forget the previous 9 hours of difficult travelling. 

Sand Cay, Turks & Caicos to Atwood Harbor, Bahamas

May 30, 2014

Sand Cay to French Cay, Turks & Caicos

We left beautiful Sand Cay at 5:30 this morning, knowing we had a long day sail to French Cay today.  I sure hated to say good bye to Sand Cay.  As we started on our way we saw a couple of ships, one of which was the Carnival Breeze.  It’s neat to see them when they are out to sea like we are. 

Today was going to be “interesting” because we had to cross the Turks Banks – a huge area that is really shallow.  It took us about 5 hours to cross it.  It ran between 12 and 15 feet deep which is really strange, considering we are in the middle of the ocean.  As soon as we got off the banks, we were in 2,000+ feet of water.   You can see the “line” in the water that marks the shallow to the deep water.  Daniel drove most of the way across the banks and saw some rocks and coral near the surface.  I was a little nervous too but I offered to drive a little bit so he could have a rest.  As soon as he went below, I had a dolphin come up next to the boat.  Made me smile.  I waved at him and the next thing you know he went and brought some more of his friends to visit me.  I ran for my camera and then went to the bow of the boat to watch them jump and dive and swim all around us.  Yes, I was supposed to be driving so I only stayed on the bow for a couple of minutes.  It was really great to see the dolphins – made my nerves settle down.  We made it to French Cay at about 5 this afternoon.  Again, we are the only boat here – it feels kind of weird, but kind of nice too.  We snorkeled a bit, to check on the anchor and now we are settling down for the night.  We have an early day tomorrow – heading to the Bahamas!

May 31, 2014

French Cay to Mayaguana, Bahamas

It was a long day today.  We left at about 5 a.m. and pulled into our anchorage just about 7 p.m.  It was another good day for sailing, it was just a long one. 

June 1, 2014

Mayaguana, Bahamas to Atwood Harbor, Bahamas

We left at about 6 a.m. with only 50 miles to travel today.  Again, the winds were favorable for us to sail most of the way.  We pulled in and anchored in Atwood Harbor at about 3 p.m.  We immediately went for a swim and a snorkel.  We’ve seen quite a few starfish on the bottom but didn’t see any fish.  We are again, the only ones in the anchorage. 

Puerto Rico to Turks & Caicos

May 28, 2014

We left Puerto Rico yesterday morning at about 7:30 a.m., starting our long journey to Turks & Caicos.  We were able to sail most of the way yesterday and last night until the wind died down at about 4 a.m. and we had to start the engine.  We had a lot of wave action but nothing we haven’t seen before.  What we did have was quite a few rain showers.  They mostly appeared on Daniel’s watch.  We try to alternate our watches so each other gets plenty of rest but we aren’t on a set 4 hours on, 4 hours off.  That just doesn’t work for us.  We are more like, sleep an hour or two and then get up and check on the other person.  If they look sleepy, swap places with them.  We did that off and on throughout the night.  Daniel is really good about “if you need anything, just come wake me up”.  So at one point he had been asleep about 30 minutes when we had a radar alarm go off so I had to go get him.  There was a container ship on our path, but they were at least 4 miles away.  We passed in front of them and never came close to them.  The alarm also alerts you to bad weather and since we had off and on showers last night, the alarm just kept going off.

I was able to comfortably maintain my watch time because I was able to see the Dominican Republic off in the distance.  There is just something about knowing there is land, just right over there, if you need it.  We passed the end of the island of the Dominican Republic at about 7 this morning and we chose to keep going.  We could have pulled into a little cove and slept a little, but really, the conditions were very favorable to us just continuing on, so we are.  After listening to the weather and having breakfast, I laid down for the first of what I’m sure will be many naps.  Just another 24 hours and we should be in Turks & Caicos. 

May 29, 2014

Lots of naps, for both of us, throughout the day and another all nighter.  The winds stayed at about 15-20 knots most of the night so we were able to sail.  The waves were about 4-5 feet during the daytime and died down to maybe 3-4 feet throughout the night.  The winds finally died down so much we started the engine, but only for a couple of hours.  Mostly we just sailed.  We covered 300 miles in 50 hours and made a land stop at Sand Cay, about 70 miles shy of Turks & Caicos. 

Sand Cay was a beautiful 1 ½ mile long island, in the middle of the ocean, it was paradise to see!  No one else was there, the island was all ours.  We anchored close enough to shore that it wasn’t a bad swim to shore.  Once we arrived, the birds welcomed us and followed us along as we explored their island.  The white sandy beach was the one you see in all the magazine ads that say “come to the Caribbean” – it was that pretty.  We walked most of the beach and went “in land” which wasn’t far until you got to the other side, a 2 minute walk maybe, and checked out the view on the other side.  A lot of “sea trash” was on the shore.  Nets, cups, plastic containers, that kind of “trash”.  After we finished our discovery of the island, we swam back to C-Time and relaxed a little.  Daniel threw in a movie for us to watch but I don’t think either of us made it past the first 30 minutes of the movie.  Two “all nighters” had taken their toll and we slept soundly the rest of the night.