Absolutely Abacos

Well, it’s been big doings on the SS Lollipop. We finally broke loose from our chain of bad luck, and escaped from Nassau, up to the Abacos Islands. 

On our way north from Nassau, we made a brief stop at Royal Island, just at the northernmost tip of Eluthera. We only stopped there to catch our breath and get a good night's sleep before shoving off in the morning for the Abacos. I'm not sure what we might have missed there, but at least now we can say that we've visited all of the main island groups in the northern, or so-called "near" Bahamas. Bragging rights are important, you know.

Unfortunately, our bad luck from Nassau came along for one last attempt to thwart us. In the middle of our passage to Marsh Harbor, we got ambushed by a sudden rage, an unexpected twenty-five to thirty knot wind that tore our mainsail. It was pretty hairy for a bit there, as we were in a very narrow spot and could easily have ended up on the shallow shoals nearby, and could not safely get the sail down until we had passed it. We had to motor through with the already reefed sail flapping and ripping, flapping and ripping. Just add this episode to our already long list of calamities. It's a very old sail, and luckily the fabric didn't rip, just the stitching. I have good needles and thread aboard; it's not hard to guess what I'm going to be doing the next couple of days...

Hand sewing the mainsail

The Jib Room in Marsh Harbor

Rib Night!

While here, we got to know some wonderful people. David and Lori are the owners of Ubuntu, a forty-foot French-built catamaran. They do adventure and experiential learning charters in the Bahamas for young people and adults. David is also an artist, and he very imaginatively painted their mast and spreaders, making their boat a very cool floating objet d'art. We spent a very enjoyable evening with them aboard Ubuntu, along with their charter partners, Jean Claude and Ellen. Jean Claude is French and speaks no English, while David and I were the only non-French speakers in the group, which made for some very entertaining charades-type moments. Even so, they are all very experienced Bahamas sailors, and they had great suggestions that helped us in planning the rest of our trip. 

You could arrange for your own Ubuntu visit here or here.  

Ubuntu  

David and Lori

After a couple days laying in groceries and resting up (repairing the sail), we ventured out to visit some of the more famous Abaco spots for cruisers, all short hops of only an hour or two away. Lady Luck finally came along with us, great weather and no equipment failures. Hopetown is a big destination for cruisers, according to the guidebooks, but those books don't really say why, except that it has a much-photographed lighthouse. What they do say is that you can't anchor in the little harbor. There are a limited number of inexpensive moorings, but you can't reserve them ahead of time; there are few nearby alternatives if all the moorings are taken. We were afraid to go there and get skunked, particularly in a bad blow. Who needs to see another lighthouse anyway? But David and Lori spoke about it so enthusiastically, we decided to backtrack south in order to give it a try, and boy, am I glad we did. On our way we snorkeled at Mermaid Reef, outside of Marsh Harbor, and then walked on Tahiti Beach at Elbow Cay. Beautiful white sand beach, and lovely palms, but perhaps a bit too touristy for us. It was pretty crowded.

Kabuki (zinc, for snorkeling) sunscreen - be very afraid.

Floating snack barge on Tahiti Beach

EVERYONE drives these things here

Hopetown turns out to be a lot like my favorite place - Block Island! Except more compact, and with palm trees. And everyone is on a mooring, so no dragging worries! We had no problem getting a spot, and even had a great view of the lighthouse from our boat. The beach is, if I may say, even more beautiful than the one at Block, and we had it almost completely to ourselves. Good restaurants, charming pastel-colored cottages, laid-back vibe... The only bad thing about our stay was that it was too short. 

"Reef Wreck" - a version of a rum punch

Next we went to Man-O-War Cay, a small island community made up mostly of descendants from British Loyalists. It's a boat-building town, famous for the William H. Albury Ship Yard, and its namesake, "Uncle Will". A good two-thirds of the island's residents can trace their ancestry to the first Albury settlers. The place has a pleasing blue-collar feel, with real salt-of-the-earth types, hard-working but friendly people. To continue a bit with my New England analogies, if Hopetown is like Block Island, then Man-O-War is like Rockland, ME. Of course, there's one major difference; the sale of alcohol is banned on this island. Don't worry though, the drinking of alcohol continued unabated on Valkyrie.

The first night on Man-O-War, we got to help out a couple of fellow sailors who found themselves aground near the entrance to the little harbor. Larry and Amy, owners of a big forty-five foot Beneteau, had misread a confusing channel marker, and ended up on a shoal, plowing onto it at maximum high tide. Usually when you find yourself hard aground (I say "usually" because it's an embarrassing, but common mistake, which we know well), you wait for the tide to come in, and then your boat can simply float off. But if you get stuck when the water is at its highest, no tidal cavalry is coming to rescue you. Rick tells me that typically, high tides come in pairs, one slightly higher than the other. The best you can do is wait for the next high tide - twelve or so hours - and hope to then be blessed with the bigger one.

Larry and Amy's Beneteau, the bow completely out of the water!

We happened over there in our dinghy when Larry and Amy were in the middle of their vigil, and we tried to make them feel better by making boat jokes and offering to help. I'm sure we weren't the only ones to do this though, and I could tell that Larry in particular was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed by their situation, and probably by us too, so we dinghied back to our boat for our sacred cocktail hour. Sitting up on the foredeck with drinks and munchies, Rick kept bringing the conversation back to Larry and Amy and their predicament. We had helped them put some lines around the nearby navigation post earlier, but even so, Rick was very worried that if they managed to get slightly off the sand at high tide, the current and wind would push them further on to that shoal. If that happened, they would be out of options, and could very possibly lose their boat. The standard procedure in such a situation, Rick says, is to set an upwind anchor so that you can winch yourself off as the tide comes up.

We only have about an hour of daylight left, if that. "Let's do it!" I exclaim. After a gin and tonic, anything seems possible. Rick dumps our heavy fluke-style anchor into the dinghy, along with it's two-hundred feet of heavy rope rode, and we speed off. 

After announcing to Larry and Amy that we are there to bother them once again, we set to work trying to set the anchor off of the Beneteau's stern. The water is a bit murky, and we can't really tell what's going on down below. Has the anchor caught or not? Rick jumps in with his snorkel mask and dives down to check, leaving me on the dinghy with the motor on idle. "Keep the dinghy nearby!" he yells over to me. 

Up until now, I had presented a fairly good impression of someone who knew what she was doing around boats. I had been helping with the rope lines, and offering suggestions, just as if I were Rick's equal partner. And I loved it. How great to pretend I was a real sailor around people who didn't know any better! Alas, within only a few moments of taking over command of the dinghy, my cover was blown. I knew how to work our smaller motor, the one we left in our garage in Baltimore. This was the newer, bigger one, the one that I had let Rick deal with exclusively for the past four months. All motors are alike though, right? I couldn't get the thing out of idle, and with Larry and Amy looking on, I helplessly drifted into the corral of lines that now streamed out from the stranded boat. I bet I was squealing in an embarrassingly girly way too. Rick had to swim over to get me. I'm no sailor; I just play one on TV.

We never did get the anchor to set, due to a deceptively rock-hard bottom. But we made use of the long line we brought by running it around a fairly distant channel marker piling. Completely soaked, we returned to our boat in the dying light. Amy phoned at a little before ten-o-clock to tell us that they had gotten off the shoal and were safely on a mooring. They claimed that our last efforts had totally done the trick, and seemed sincerely grateful for our help, even rewarding us with a thank-you bottle of wine the next day. They never mentioned my snafu on the dinghy, and neither did we...

We are totally enjoying the Abacos. Unfortunately, we have only one more week before we need to cross over to Florida and head back north. Bad luck or good, makes no difference now. We're headed home.

Wanna Iguana?

We finally made it to the Exumas. Sort of. That’s pronounced “egg-ZOO-mahs” by the way. I used to think it was pronounced “EGG-zoo-mahs”. You know, like eczema, the skin disease. Rick teased me when I said it that way, and responded with, “Yeah, I know those islands. They’re right next to the Psoriases!” Ha ha, very funny.

After a line of mishaps and misadventures that kept us hanging around Nassau and its environs for over two months, at long last we managed to escape. Unfortunately though, our departure did not go unnoticed by the gods, and their punishment was swift. The wind was up and Rick was at the helm. I was down below with my eyes closed, struck with seasickness and waiting for my meds to kick in. Totally unsurprising considering that we had done so little real sailing lately, but still disappointing. As usual, Rick had to handle all of the sailing duties by himself. About two-thirds of the way into our thirty-five mile journey, Rick fired up the engine to help with a sail change. Almost immediately, he noticed a distressing smell in the cockpit – that sour, smoky aroma that can only mean electrical fire. This smell was unfortunately familiar. Four summers ago, Rick was on his way back to Baltimore, soloing on Valkyrie, and the same smell wafted up into the cockpit. Back then, it was the starter motor for the engine that had burned out. This time, Rick did some quick checking, and sure enough, our starter motor was dead.

The engine itself was just fine, but without a starter motor to get it going, you can’t make any use of it. You have no engine. “So, who needs an engine?” you might be thinking. “You’re on a sailboat.” Well, of course it’s true that a sailing vessel can move around without an engine, as long as there is wind. But maneuvering around in small spaces, like an anchorage, is almost always done with engines these days, and for good reason. You have much more control with both speed and steering when you are not under sail. If the wind happens to be strong, while fighting the typically strong Bahamian current, weaving in and out of other boats that might be parked there – things can become quite dangerous in a hurry. If the wind peters out, you are at the mercy of the current. Forget being able to steer your way into a slip. 

I can tell that something is wrong, and scurry out on deck to check in with Rick. He is being incredibly calm under the circumstances, certainly for my benefit, because we are really in a pickle. We have a brief moment of indecision after we turn the boat around to go back to Nassau, but Rick very quickly recognizes that we wouldn’t easily make it into the harbor until after dark, making an already difficult situation a clear recipe for disaster. We decide to reverse course again for Allans Cay, and hope to land there without too many anchored boats to foul us up.

It’s pretty ballsy to show up in an unfamiliar anchorage with no engine, but we lucked out by arriving early when there was only one other boat, a big catamaran in the main section of the little natural harbor. Rick chose our anchoring spot very carefully, in what for other boats would be the least desirable location near the entrance. He hoped this spot would be the most advantageous for getting us out later if he couldn’t fix our “little problem”. Good thing too, because the anchorage soon filled up with boats, all but one staying well away from us.

Last spring, before we left Baltimore, Rick had tried to think of every eventuality. We had read that having your boat serviced in most parts of the Bahamas is an expensive, slow and unreliable proposition at best, and that replacement parts are difficult to get. Rick had bought a whole slew of spare parts - just in case - and luckily, one of those parts was a new starter motor!  But before you go getting all excited, replacing the old one turns out to be much more complicated than Rick’s abilities will permit. We have an over-sized engine on Valkyrie, and the already small engine room is near impossible to work in. In order to gain access, other parts of the engine will probably need to be removed, and tools Rick doesn’t have will probably be needed.  A return to Nassau, tail between our legs, is now our only answer.

Allans Cay is one of the northernmost Exuma islands, and our little harbor is made up of a cluster of small islands that include Allans. These little islands are uninhabited, by people anyway, but are chock full of iguanas who have the run of the place. The Exuma Iguanas are a distinct species, thought to have been all over the Bahamas at the time of Columbus, but now endangered and found only on these few islands. I was very excited to visit these critters, having read about them in the cruising guide books. While waiting for the right wind to get back to Nassau – now more important than ever – we have a couple of days to relax and enjoy the iguanas.

There’s a lovely little beach just off our boat, with nary a lizard in sight, but once we arrive onshore with our dinghy, the welcoming committee starts to descend. By the time we’ve been there only a few minutes, we count seventeen iguanas on the beach. The big ones, the size of absurdly long-tailed dachshunds, seem quite aggressive, staking out their territories close to us, and chasing off any competitors. You’re not supposed to feed them, but the guide books warn that so many people do, they’ve now come to expect it. The books also warned that the creatures are not tame.  I had wanted to take a walk on this beach, but with all of those crazy reptiles nipping at my heels? Nothin’ doin’.

The next day we dinghied over to one of the other islands, and the iguanas there were very docile, even sweet. During our stay, we saw a number of tourist boats  coming in to that first beach, but not the other islands, and I suspect that those iguanas are being fed, and not exhibiting their natural behavior. I also learned that they are herbivores. Now I feel a bit silly for being so scared of them. But they do look like little dinosaurs, don’t they?

 

Love that neck wattle!

It is now very important to use as little electricity on the boat as possible. We have no solar panels or wind generators. We've got three big batteries, but we need to run the engine to fill them. No engine, no electricity. This is not just a problem involving our computers, iPads and cell phones. Electricity is what fuels our chart plotter, a device we desperately need to plot our course back to Nassau, and help us not to run aground once we are there. So no computer crosswords, no Seinfeld episode DVDs, no unnecessary lights at night, etc. Also, our refrigeration is engine driven. No ice in our G&Ts… No fun.

The way the weather works in the Bahamas, we could have easily been stuck here for a week or more, waiting for the right wind to sail back to Nassau, running out our batteries and spoiling all the food in our fridge. But, as luck would have it, the perfect conditions all lined up just two days after our landing at Allans. We got up at dawn to take advantage of the brief moment of slack tide. At any other time, the strong tidal currents would make it impossible to get the anchor up. Normally we would use the engine to run us up over the anchor to dislodge it, but this time we had to do it the old-fashioned way. Rick pulled on the chain, little by little and faster and faster, working up enough momentum to get the boat moving over the anchor, and then popping it out of the bottom and pulling it up. Then we immediately unfurled the headsail, and after a tricky little jibing maneuver, managed to catch the current and sail out of the little harbor. Whew! There were so many things that could have gone wrong, and Rick had been working over in his head what we would do if. Like, if we couldn’t get the anchor up, he was going to let the entire chain pay out and then leave it all behind. That’s how bad this situation was. But thankfully, Rick is a skilled captain, and we were able to get out of there with all of our gear and crew onboard. First hurdle of the day cleared.

On our way back to Nassau, an eight-hour trip, we went over our plan of action for landing in the harbor. When this happened to Rick four years ago in the States, he sailed in close to the harbor in Manesquan, NJ, and then called for a towboat to come and get him. He had towboat insurance, and still does, but it’s not usable in the Bahamas. Rick had called the owner of the little marina we had stayed at in Nassau before, and was advised to try and anchor on our own, because towing is so ungodly expensive here. This was definitely going to be a two-man operation, and it would go down fast, so I needed to understand all of the steps ahead of time. We were sailing with only the jib because getting the mainsail down quickly without an engine would just add to the difficulty. That meant we were not moving as fast as we might have, but that’s okay – the timing of our arrival should work out perfectly for the tidal current in Nassau harbor. If there are too many boats already in the anchorage, we might have to try and anchor farther out in the channel, which would not be ideal. Fingers crossed.

We also debated what we would do if we couldn’t find anyone locally with enough knowledge to fix the engine. Will we be stuck here? Would we have to abandon the boat? Rick had already decided that if we had to, we would first get a good night’s sleep, and then sail thirty-six hours or so, all the way back to Florida where we could call for a tow.

An upside-down flag is a distressed vessel signal (Rick actually did this earlier as a statement of political distress)

We pull in to Nassau Harbor at about four in the afternoon, and take a slow tour through the anchorage to scope it out. There are lots of boats, but Rick sees a few spots that would work for us. He chooses the one closest to the marina slips so that we can dinghy in easily. We take a deep breath, and then turn into the spot, still under sail, but before we get very far, we see Peter, the owner of the marina, waving us down at the end of his dock. “No, no, too close, don’t anchor here!” he seems to be yelling with his gestures. D’oh! He recognizes us, and quite reasonably doesn’t want an engineless boat too close to his docks. We have to make a quick jibe and turn back into the channel to regroup.

Good thing Rick had already scoped out another spot, this one at the far end of the anchorage. We take another breath or two, then turn in for our second attempt at anchoring. The idea is that Rick will roll up the headsail while I steer us right into the wind, which is pretty strong, and then once the sail is put away, Rick will quickly lower the anchor, all of this before we move too far forward and run aground (or into the embankment). Ready… Buh! – Just at the crucial moment, the jib sheet comes loose, and is flapping like crazy in the wind, along with the sail itself! Rick rushes forward to try and grab it, while I’m still at the wheel, helplessly watching while that line (rope) is whipping around at my husband. The sail is designed to catch enough wind to move our ten-ton boat, and all of that power is now unleashed. Rick looks like a horse whisperer up there, trying to calm an elephant-sized wild beast in order to grab the reigns. Jesus, don’t dislocate your shoulder again, I’m thinking to myself, or get one of your eyes whipped out!

Thankfully, Rick manages to get ahold of the sheet without injury, and runs it back to the block where he secures it. By now of course, we are in the wrong place for anchoring, so we have to turn around once more. I guess the third time’s the charm; everything slips into place, and we do a textbook-perfect anchoring job. Too bad our neighbors saw the other attempts though… Not so impressive. My heart is still pounding, but we did get here safely at least. Second hurdle down.

 

The starter motor is in there somewhere - three feet deep!

Our marina-owner friend Peter recommended a repair guy named Jason who was available that very afternoon, and willing to come out to the boat if we picked him up on shore in our dinghy. He didn’t need to remove much of the engine after all. Instead, he used a couple extensions on his socket wrench, making the handle longer. Unfortunately, even with his extensions, the handle still wasn’t long enough. He had to borrow a couple more from Rick, making the handle a full three feet long. That gave him access to the spot Rick couldn’t get to, but he still had to utilize Rick’s help on the other side of the engine to do the job. The whole thing took a little less than an hour, and the engine started right up, no problem. Thank you Jason! Ice cubes again!

So, total disaster averted. Unfortunately though, our time is up for exploring the Exumas. We just got that one little taste, with the iguanas. We have to start heading north if we want to be back in Baltimore by May. So, assuming no more problems arise, we are off to the Abacos tomorrow. Shh. Don’t jinx it.

  

New Year's in Nassau

We just can’t seem to leave Nassau. NOT the most beautiful place in the world, by any stretch. There’s poverty, slums, high prices, blatantly distasteful tourism, and of course, blatantly distasteful tourists. We don’t find Nassau to be anywhere close to our ideal fantasy of an island paradise. And yet, every time we plan to leave, some unforeseen impediment arises and we have to change our plans. It’s as though someone has attached a five-mile length of line to our boat, and tethered us to the city.

 

Giant cruise ships lined up in Nassau Harbor

Nassau was about a forty-mile sail from Chub Cay, and we needed to get there by January 2^nd to pick up my son from the airport. Dewey was spending Christmas with his Aunt Star and her family in Miami, and the plan was for him to join us on the boat for a few days before his return to Baltimore. We arrived in the area in plenty of time, and spent a few days anchored at Rose Island, a mostly uninhabited little place about five miles from Nassau. I had been reading up on the city, looking for things to do with Dewey, and the guide books kept referring to the Junkanoo Festival as a particular Bahamian tradition, not to be missed. It happens twice a year, on Boxing Day (the day after Christmas), and on New Year’s Day. Dewey would arrive too late, but it seemed a shame for us to miss it. “Let’s go!” I urged Rick. We reserved a slip at a marina and arrived on New Year’s Eve.

Junkanoo is basically a parade, with elaborate costumes, floats, dancers and cowbells. The whole town was set up with temporary bleachers that lined the main street, to provide seating for the locals and tourists. What the guide books didn’t make clear is that Junkanoo happens in the wee hours of the morning; yes, it’s technically on New Year’s Day, but it begins right after midnight (New Year’s Eve), and goes until dawn. Most days on the boat, I can’t stay awake past ten-o-clock. This could be a real problem. We decided to take a long nap starting at eight, giving us a good stretch of sleep before getting up around one and then walking in to town for Junkanoo. Of course that’s not what happened…

We slept through the whole thing.

Discarded costumes after Junkanoo

Everyone we encountered the next day, marina personnel, grocery store clerks, waiters and waitresses – everyone asked us, “Did you see Junkanoo? How did you like it?” We were honest at first, but it was so embarrassing to admit that we had snoozed through the biggest celebration of the year that after awhile we just started responding with, “Oh yes, it was wonderful!”

Dewey’s visit was short, too short really, but we made the absolute most of it. Unfortunately, the weather took a distinct turn for the worse as soon as he arrived; cloudy, windy, rainy and cool. Not the best beach or sailing weather to say the least. We decided instead to make his trip a cultural experience that would include museums and local cuisine. Walking everywhere, ducking under overhangs to dodge the intermittent rain, we went to the very informative Pompey Slavery Museum, and then to the impressive sixty-five steps of the Queen’s Staircase which lead up to Fort Fincastle, an eighteenth century fort built in the shape of a ship. By the time we visited Fort Charlotte, another, bigger fort built around the same time, the wind was whipping around enough to almost knock us down, and the rain was starting up again too. Luckily, we managed to hail a cab for the trip back to the marina.

The Queen's Staircase

Foodwise, we got a good sampling of island treats. Nassau is filled with crowded chain stores and restaurants (can you say “Burger King”?) that cater to the cruise ship clientele, but just off the main drag are a few unique and local eateries that we found much more inviting. Sadly empty, the food at a place called Bahama Cookin’ was marvelous – the conch salad and chicken barbeque were superb, and believe it or not, the best mac and cheese I’ve ever tasted. We had dinner at the local cruisers’ hangout, the Poop Deck, where Dewey had his first taste of Caribbean spiny lobster, along with conch fritters. The next night we got take-out from a fantastic Jamaican place and had dinner on the boat. All in all, a very good visit.

Spiny lobsters are really more like crayfish - no claws!

 

A few days after Dewey returned home, I took my own flight back to Baltimore for a set of scheduled doctors’ appointments. My neck and shoulder issues remain a problem, but what we thought would be a, “Keep doing your exercises and I’ll see you again in May,” kind of visit, turned instead into a steroid injection and a, “You need at least a month of hands-on physical therapy,” sort of thing. Kind of put a wrench in our plan to sail off to the Exumas as soon as I got back. I did come back briefly to see Rick, and also to pick up items from the boat that I would need for a more extended stay in the States.

After I took off for Baltimore once again, Rick moved the boat out to Rose Island where he basically stayed by himself and worked on his book/sabbatical project. I’m sure that he missed me, but without my distracting presence he managed to get a great deal of work done, so not all bad. I spent the month hanging out at home and seeing my physical therapist a couple times a week. It was painful to be away from Rick for so long, and not so pleasant being in cold winter weather unexpectedly. And the physical therapy was painful too, by the way. But I got to spend time with my friends, check in on Dewey, and see lots and lots of movies – all things that I had been missing. One real upside of this tripus-interruptus is that I was able to buy some small fans in Baltimore that, once back on the boat, would hopefully help to combat those nasty no-see-ums.

Turtles at Rose Island!

So where are we now? I have returned to the boat, shoulder much improved, and we are back at – where else - Rose Island. We were here two weeks ago, waiting for a good weather window to FINALLY get down to the Exumas when our almost-brand-new dinghy motor conked out, thwarting our plan once again. It took until a couple of days ago to get it fixed (in Nassau of course), and now so much time has passed that we will need to shorten our Exumas visit to just a few of the northern islands.

In the meantime, life on the boat is pretty idyllic. We had spent most of the time at Rose Island on the southern side where there is a well protected cove with passable  scenery. But we’ve since discovered the northern shore, which is kind of a mini-paradise with a beautiful half-mile crescent beach, pure white sand, trees for shade, gorgeous azure water and nearby coral reefs for snorkeling. This is the Bahamas I had been picturing in my dreams. There’s no wind right now, but there will be soon. After being in the area for almost nine weeks, our plan is to go back to Nassau on Friday to provision the boat and prepare for a Sunday sail to the northern Exumas. But if something else happens to thwart that plan, well, there’s always Rose Island. I could stay here all winter – and of course if the gods decide to pull again on our tether, we might just be doing exactly that.

Christmas

It's been a while since my last post. Sorry about that. Between internet woes and a couple of unscheduled trips back to Baltimore, I've gotten way behind. But not to worry, all is quite well. We have not sunk. Rick has not murdered me like that guy at Cay Sal Island. Not yet anyway (you can read about that here).

More B'sSA episodes are on their way, and hopefully I'll get caught up soon. What follows is a piece I wrote a couple of days after Christmas, but never posted:

Our boat Xmas tree - decorated with popcorn and cranberries

I am not feeling very Christmassy this year. Not that I’m turning into a Mister Grinch or anything. But usually I’m thinking up presents for people way ahead of time. I love decorating the tree, looking at all of the colored lights around the neighborhood, the cold air, eggnog, fires in the fireplace, maybe even a little snow… It just doesn’t feel like yuletide, by ourselves on a boat in the Bahamas. With palm trees. And sand fleas.

I’ll admit it, I’ve been pretty down lately. My episode with the no-see-ums has left me constantly itchy, and even though we’ve gotten the bites down to about five or ten new ones a day, my image of life in the Bahamas has taken a big hit. Our internet connection is pretty spotty here too, so I don’t even have that to keep me distracted. Not that news of the latest Trump catastrophe would be particularly uplifting, but I don’t like being cut off from all the people I love, particularly during the holidays. I’ve been spending most of my time inside the boat, fully clothed even in the heat in order to prevent more midge bites. I’m sure it’s a sin to not be ecstatically happy while wintering in the tropics when others in the US are freezing their butts off, and I feel a little guilty about that, but I just can’t seem to shake off my blues.

We’re anchored in a little harbor just off of Chub Cay, hanging out while we wait for a good weather window to cross over to Nassau. Chub is a privately owned island, and there’s really nothing there except a fancy resort on one end, including a string of pastel colored time-share houses and a high class inn. They can’t stop us from anchoring here, but we are not allowed to go ashore. Well, that’s not entirely true; you can bring your dinghy into the marina, but you’ll get hit with a fee. For the privilege of simply setting foot on the dock, they charge $107. That’s one hundred and seven dollars! Anything you might want to do, eat or drink once off the dock is similarly high-priced. At the moment, almost no one is staying at this resort (we’ve seen a total of three people who look like guests), and it is depressing to see all of the empty beach chairs while listening to bad music and advertisements being blasted over the resort speakers. Apparently the upper one-percent choose to spend Christmas at home.

There are plenty of other boats though. Our neighbors include a few sailboats, undoubtedly cruisers like us, and a couple of mega-yachts anchored farther out, fully equipped with jet skis and enormous water slides. Rick has been working hard to improve my spirits, taking me on swimming excursions and illegal beach walks on the other side of the island, each time returning to our original anchoring spot at the end of the day. On our way “home” from one of these mini trips, we are both excited to see two sailboats we recognize from a week or so ago at Honeymoon Harbor.

The owners are young people in their early thirties, a rarity among distance cruisers who tend to be older, usually retirees. These two couples have been on a similar winter voyage to our own, meeting at the beginning of the ICW and traveling together ever since. Back at Honeymoon, they seemed to me to be quite the adventurous types, the women with tans and bikinis and the men with full beards and spear fishing equipment. They invited us to their evening bonfires on the beach, but we never did join them. Not because we didn’t like them. They reminded me greatly of Rick’s nephew Ross and his girlfriend Anna who last year quit their jobs and traveled around Alaska in their make-shift-live-aboard SUV. Even though I love Ross and Anna, I still felt like we would be the old fogies crashing the young people’s party, so we left them to it.

Now here they are, the day before Xmas, lighting up the area simply with their presence! One of their boats even has a tree fashioned out of colored lights decorating her bow. Suddenly I start to feel some holiday spirit. We invite them all over for Christmas Eve drinks, and they arrive ready to celebrate.

Rick, Joyce, Matt, Sarah, Mike, - and in the foreground, Johnnie Walker and friends

Joyce and Matt have completely cut loose of their former land lives. Joyce is an accomplished former dancer – she was Elmo in Sesame Street Live (OMG!), and spent a number of years touring. More recently she became a massage therapist, and Matt was a driver for UPS. Married for a number of years, they lived in upstate New York but grew dissatisfied with their long hours at work and the consumerist culture they were a part of. Work more, play less, spend more, owe more - it was time for a change. They radically reigned in their spending habits in order to pay off their debts, sold their house, and even moved in with Matt’s mother in an effort to stockpile money. This last spring, they bought Duchess, a thirty-two foot Allied Seawind ketch, moved aboard, quit their jobs and left the rat race for good. This is their first visit to the Bahamas and who knows where life will take them next.

This is also the first time for Sarah and Mike, but they have a totally different story to tell. Mike is an engineer who is taking a six month leave from his job in order to make this trip. He has a collection of sailboats at home in Annapolis, and chose Intrepid, a thirty-six foot center cockpit Beneteau for this voyage. Sarah works at a veterinarians’ office in north-eastern Maryland, and lives at least two hours away from Mike. I don’t know how long they have been a couple, but they have never lived in the same community, let alone together - until this trip. Talk about taking a giant leap of faith. Sailing is not everyone’s cup of tea, and small spaces can really put a strain on any relationship. But they certainly seem happy! It obviously was a good move for them.

Age was a non-issue as we exchanged histories and entertained each other with sailing horror stories, as boaters are prone to do. We had such a good time together that Christmas Eve drinks turned into an invite for Christmas Morning brunch onboard the Beneteau, and then Christmas Night drinks on the Seawind. And in between, a group snorkel at the nearby choral reefs. What a blast. You guys really made my holiday. I can’t thank you enough.

Merry Christmas, one and all!