Life on the Hook in George Town

April 2016

After everyone went home from the regatta, George Town fell quiet and became a sleepy little town once again. With a population of only 1400, it was still the second largest place we visited after Nassau. We had rushed through the Exumas to get to the regatta on time, barely stopping to dip our toes in the sand. When the regatta ended most of the boats in the anchorages dispersed and we were left nearly alone in a perfect clear harbor with a floor of white pillowy sand. We spent the next few weeks doing nothing but watch the ever-morphing shades of blue and green dance over the surface patterns of the water. 

The endless summer sun arrived mid-May and very quickly the cockpit became too hot to touch. We created a make-shift cockpit tent with garden shade fabric in an attempt to beat the heat.

Landry day! It's best to do laundry on a day rain is predicted, that way the rain can do the rinsing, saving you a lot of wringing and trips to shore lugging back jerry cans of water. 

Watching the rain clouds roll in.

Sun setting on an evening swim.

After not moving for a couple weeks the boat bottom starts growing it's own eco-system.  Luckily, there are no waters more pleasant to scrape the bottom in than these!

George Town inner harbor:

Dinghy-ing through the inner harbor:

Everything you need in George Town is accessible within walking distance from the dinghy dock, which is on a small lake you enter from the harbor.

Views across the lake:

When you exit the dinghy dock there is an outdoor bar/restaurant immediately to your right,(and a place to throw away trash for $3 a bag on the other side of it). The yacht club restaurant is directly across the street and to the left is Exuma Market grocery store. Just down from the Grocery store there are a few shops and a couple hotels with outdoor restaurant/bars. All of the bar/restaurants had free Wifi. BTC 4G cell reception is also excellent across the island and harbor.

The food options were pretty consistent across the remote settlements of the Bahamas. There is always fried chicken and pork chops, usually fried fish and fried conch, and sometimes a burger. Sides are mac&cheese and peas&rice (peas are beans in the Bahamas). Fish was only available if someone had gone fishing that day.  When fish is on the menu, don't shy away from whole pan fried snapper, it's amazing. 

George Town harbor island side:

It's easy for time to stop in George Town. It has everything you need and nothing you don't. There are uninhabited islands with secluded beaches and snorkeling spots throughout miles of sparkling harbor. And in town you have groceries, hardware, beer, Wifi, and friendly locals who will give you a ride, or take you to their best fishing spots.  Why would anyone want to leave?

Surfing a Storm Front to Nassau

A storm front was approaching, so we only had one day on Bird Cay.  We had to finish exploring the abandoned mansion and dinghy back to Robin in time to pull up the anchor and make the jump across the bay into the leeshore of Frazer's Hog Cay before night fell.  The sun set as we were entering the anchorage, and we found our spot of anchor-friendly sand by flashlight.  We waited a day and two nights in that anchorage as the wind slowly clocked from E to SE, through S and W eventually ending up NW.  Happily, Frazer's Hog Cay anchorage is protected and calm from all directions, and SV Pura Vida was there again rallying the eleven other boats in the anchorage on the radio.   That night they assured us that the wind would remain from the NW the next day as the front rolled through.  That would mean a predictable downwind run to Nassau, something that doesn't often happen.

Strong tidal currents surge back and forth from the deep Northwest Bahamas Passage ("the tongue of the ocean") and the shallow Bahamas banks every six hours, so I figured we would try to leave on an outward surge off of the Berry banks headed towards Nassau, hit low tide in the middle of the deep and catch the incoming surge into Nassau for the second half.  35+ knot winds and waves building to ten feet were predicted for the day.  I was hoping entering and exiting in a tidal surge moving the same direction as the wind would keep the waves down.  Surely my rough guess at favorable tidal currents would keep seas down to easy four foot rollers...

...35-40 knot winds built to ten foot seas by the afternoon.

Odd wave patterns converging from the two stretches of deep water behind us.

I didn't think that Robin's gloriously curved eight-ton fiberglass and lead underbody could surf, however GPS speedometer regularly surged more than three knots over base speed as the waves passed underneath.  We even hit 10.2 knots on some surfs. (though the overall readings could be influenced by tidal currents).  We started the day with a double reef in the mainsail, but were fully reefed shortly into the route.  Our tiniest triangles of sail were both pinned in place by 40 knot winds, and Robin plowed a massive trough in the ocean.  Bottomline, our 38 mile trip, anchor up to anchor down, took exactly 5 hours, giving an average speed of 7.6 knots ... in a classic full keel sailboat with a 25 foot waterline.  #micdrop  #mindsblown

Things build.

Eventually Sarah had to help me on the tiller during the hardest moments of windward helm.  It proved too much for Alfred (the self-steering windvane), and I was exhausted after nearly five hours of holding course and could barely handle it myself.   

We were happy to see land, even if it did mean the waves got steeper.  We surfed one last time past the lighthouse and breakwaters into Nassau Harbor entrance.  The waves immediately died down to a heavy chop and we finally struck sails as we made our way past the cruise ship docks to the anchorage.  There are even more videos of the passage on our YouTube channel if you didn't get your fix of POV sailing at casual bicycle speeds.

The anchor was barely in the ground before we prepped the dinghy and headed to shore to toast being alive and upright.  It took three drinks to calm down and a fourth to toast Robin's bad-ass-ery on a record setting passage.

Anchoring in Marathon, Florida Keys

Two months ago we splashed in Marathon, and anchored outside of Marathon City Marina.

Marina dinghy dock.

We stumbled upon a taste of home at Harbor Hillbillies, a floating kitchen in the anchorage. Ozark Food. Ozark prices.




We took a drive down the 7 mile highway,



and spent the evening in Key West,

before I had to go back to AR for a bit.  AJ's dad came down and they sailed for a couple weeks. Now I'm back in Marathon.  We plan to go to the Bahamas next weather window. In the mean time there is plenty to do and see in Marathon.  A dolphin research center, a sea turtle hospital,  wildlife parks, and open cockpit biplane rides!

Anchoring in South Bimini

Mid May 2014

After our fiasco in North Bimini Anchorage, Clint and I made our way around the horn of South Bimini that morning to anchor there and explore the island. We tucked in as shallow as we could manage but it still seemed like we were a mile away from shore.  Most other cruising boats, even with shallower keels than ours, coming and going in this area didn't have the nerve to push into shallow waters as we did, and were punished with an ocean swell coming around the southern horn of the island.  I was told by a good friend who cruises the islands often that they frequently anchor with 6 inches of water under their keel at low tide, and in doing so avoid the crowds. So I took their advice to heart, and sure enough, at low tide, I had about 6 inches under my keel over the shallowest coral head in our anchor swing area.  Sitting in only six feet of water makes swimming more enjoyable, and shore more accessible.  However, we were still so far from shore that even someone with binoculars would have a hard time spotting us, and the other, more bottom-timid, cruisers were about the same distance in the other direction.  With so much privacy and clear, shallow waters, I couldn't resist a morning dip and bathe, so I stripped down and jumped in with a bar of my now-must-have soap: mother-in-law handmade rosemary and goatsmilk.  A bit of stingray chasing and scrubbing later, and I got out, tied my wrap, and finished my coffee.  This pretty much set the tone for bathing over our next month in the Bahamas.

We finally headed for shore that afternoon, mainly to check out the island, and also to get a bit of gasoline for the dinghy.  It turned out to be too late to get gasoline, so we decided to hike around the island instead.  Along the hike we found a nature trail, a shark research center, and heard that there is a local claim to Ponce De Leon's fountain of youth on the island.  That evening at practically-the-only-bar-on-the-island, we found the room packed with American college students. Not knowing where they came from or where they could be staying, we mingled around the room and learned most of them were Shark lab students and crew.  One of the permanent crew extended an invitation to tour the facility the next day, and we accepted.

Southern point of South Bimini.

No fuel.  Beach instead.

The Shark lab bungalow.

You may already know that we weren't the first to tour the Bimini shark lab...

The fabled fountain of youth.  Clint found it and got to drink, but I had to spend that day re-aligning the engine to fix a strange knocking sound in the driveline...  turned out my mounts had settled by about 3/8" of an inch since installation.  The engine ran smoothly and quietly for the rest of the trip.

Since our arrival to the anchorage, we were intrigued by a small, uninhabited chain of rocks a little over a mile south.  "Turtle rocks" as they were marked on the charts.  Turns out they were uninhabited for a reason.  They were simply a mass of "iron shore": old coral, eroded by the sea to leave razor-sharp pockets and fins of only the hardest remaining minerals.

But the rocks weren't a total bust.  They were crawling with large sea snails, known as whelks, so we collected two and a half dozen of them and I whipped up some lemon-pepper snail gnocchi for lunch on our return.

South Bimini was a laid back relief compared to the constant comings and goings of rich weekend sportfishers in the narrow channel of North Bimini.  We were able to browse the extensive shallows and shoreline for creatures to kill and eat, Clint even scored a nice blue crab that we steamed up right away with some Old Bay rub.  We did not eat great Bahama starfish, though they are an impressive creature find in the Bahamas

We spent a week poking around south Bimini almost by accident, but it wouldn't have mattered if we were eager to leave instead, as the wind that week (in mid May) was constantly strong from the east and would have prevented our progress anyway.  When the time (wind) finally came for us to leave, we hauled anchor at 6 AM and rounded the northern point of North Bimini an hour and a half later in order to avoid the southern shallows on our 14 hour route to The Berries Island chain. I enjoyed South Bimini, but knew we had just scratched the surface of The Bahamas, and was eager to explore more.  We rounded the point and set a course for Big Stirrup Key, the most northern of the Berry chain, over 70 miles, and 12 hours away.

Sailing, Love, Injuries, and Memories

I could take it no longer, I had to sail.  Sarah blew out her ankle again a few weeks ago when we moved aboard, and then, just as she was successfully hobbling around without the crutches on her 32nd birthday, she dislocated her shoulder...  again.  This time while she was just walking across the parking lot to our boat.  By now we know the drill and we managed to put it back in socket in record time.

Now, I know it's not all about me, and I am heartbroken to have a wife in an ankle brace and shoulder sling, especially on her birthday, but I can't pretend I wasn't also a bit heartbroken over the loss of a full week promising beautiful weather and ripping wind, just one day after I had finished the navigational light wiring and scraped the prop in preparation for our first sail.

For the panel, I just drilled out some starboard and added a bunch of toggle switches, all wired to of one of the 5amp breakers for surge protection.  I love the positive feel of those big chrome toggle switches.  Since all the lights (except the foredeck and steaming lights) are LEDs, even with every light blazing, the 5 amp breaker won't trip.  Interestingly, the low power LED spreader lights are significantly brighter than the high power draw halogen foredeck light.  Wiring was the easy part.

Then I had to dive into the municipal-swimmer-health-warning water to scrape the prop.  I dove on the propeller a couple weeks ago to discover it was a mess of barnacles, but was mentally unprepared to do anything about it.  This time I was ready.  Suited up with some work gloves, goggles, and a prior evening of internal pep-talks, plus a hose at the ready to finish with a triclosan-rich shower, I still managed to hate every minute of it, but at least it all ended with a clean prop and no sinus or ear infections.

But no hard work of mine can heal Sarah's wounds.  I figured with her new injuries, we were dock-bound for at least another few weeks, but Sarah insisted that we sail (Right?  I totally remember that it was Sarah doing the insisting), so we called our friend Clyde, who also lives on a sailboat in Port Salerno.

Like us, Clyde isn't so much a sailor as much as a self-declared slave to sanding/painting/fiberglass repair.  He bought a fiberglass Pearson 31 on the hard in a boatyard in inner Florida, and after 2 years of restoration, he finally launched it and has still been faithfully preparing it to sail over last year while living aboard.  He is almost done, just three years later.  Sounds like a familiar tale.
Clyde jumped at the opportunity to crew with us/me, and we were on the water only a couple days after Sarah's shoulder dislocation.

Sarah still performs on the camera with one arm.  The lovely motor out to the sailing grounds leads under a fixed bridge.  I hadn't checked the height beforehand, but I have gone under it with a Catalina 32 tall rig with no problems, and we have the same masthead height, so I figured no problem.

Sure enough, the bridge gauge was at 64 feet, giving us an easy 12 feet of clearance...  the problem with vertical perspective still haunts you as it happens though.

Finally, after seven years of planning and saving, and four years of hard work, Sarah and I get to spread sail together for the first time in some stiff 20 knot winds.  But that didn't phase Robin.  Even under full sail, we were able to maintain an easy motion and acceptable heeling angles.  Sarah had no problems enjoying the ride.

Now is my opportunity to brag on Robin.  Such a smooth sailing boat with a slow, comfortable motion, and best of all, with a tweak of the mainsail or genoa, you can get the boat to self-steer on almost any point of sail but downwind.  At one point we crossed the entire harbor close hauled without touching the tiller.

 With our confidence in the boat and bridge clearance, we decided to shoot under, pinching hard on the wind with full sail on the way back.  Clyde at the helm.

The time lapse between the last series of photos, passing under the bridge, and the sweet contemplation photo of a great day on the water, below, included some classic sailor's excitement.  A small pontoon party barge full of curious retirees pulled right up and cornered us between the piers and a rocky point so they could get a look at our pretty sailboat.  I say "cornered" because as a sailboat we are wind-direction dependent and at that moment we were flying towards the piers, just past the rocky point, giving us just enough room to round into the wind so I could drop the mainsail.  Instead, we had to do a 360 degree tack and gybe with full mainsail in 20 knots of wind, all in an area about 30 meters squared as I was clinging to the mast on the cabin top, waiting to bring the mainsail down when we rounded up again.  The exciting roundabout, narrated by a fountain of profanity at the floating cocktail hour, managed to get us a lot more space along with some shocked looks as the party put their cameras away and motored the barge back to the bar.

Serenity at last.

Sarah and I have been dreaming of sailing since we re-met, in fact it is the reason we re-met, and the reason we are together today.

We re-met only 7 years ago while I was on leave after I had just returned from my first deployment to Afghanistan.  I invited her to come along on a week trip to Europe while I was off to feel out what I remembered of her adventuresome spirit.  On the trip I asked her if she was interested in sailing around the world, something I have wanted to do for a long time.  She paused to contemplate the vast reality of that question, and answered yes with no reservations.  In the ensuing discussion, in that tiny attic studio loft in Amsterdam, we fleshed out our future together.  The next day we got tattoos.  After we came back to the US, Sarah moved from Arkansas to New York, where I was stationed at the time.  The Army sent me to Europe where we solidified our love of travelling (check out the back history on our Flickr).  I got out of the Army after another deployment, this time to Iraq, and the rest is history...  literally the history captured on this site.

But that wasn't how I first met Sarah.  Sarah and I met for the first time 15 years ago, then in ballet/jazz class.  She was 16 years old and Prima material: petite, graceful, and with impressively strong ability en pointe; I was taking the class for fun because I loved to move and be physical and it was free for men.  Sarah was likely headed for a scholarship at a dance school.  Unfortunately, she had worsening scoliosis, and at 17 years old she had to have titanium rods and screws installed from the base of her neck to the base of her spine.  I was 18, and we were dating at the time.  Without a car, I rode my bike 10 miles back and forth to her house every day for months as she recovered.  She spent a full month of that summer not moving from the bed, and while I was over I did as much as I could to help out.  I had to carefully roll her onto her side to change the bandage that covered the two feet of stitches that were to become the scar down her back.  It was painful but exciting helping and watching her learn to walk again as her hips were no longer aligned in the same way anymore and her old muscle memory caused her to trip on her own feet.  It took a few months, but eventually she was able to live life mostly like a normal person, albeit with limited flexibility, a lot of pain, and never able to dance again.  Time went by, and eventually, as most teenage romances do, we split up.  We didn't talk nor see each other for nearly seven years before we re-met and found our lives had wandered down different paths that led us into a similar understanding of how life should be lived.

And despite Sarah's current injuries and upcoming shoulder surgery, we are determined.  This is how our lives should be lived.  We are happier than ever.