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Twelfth Trip Report – Wednesday, May 21,2008
Departed: Staniel Cay, Exumas
Miles Traveled: 8.7 nm
Arrived: Black Point, Exumas
At Anchor: 9:45 am
When I sent the eleventh report, we were in the Staniel Cay
Yacht club. The Internet was working unexpectedly well
so I chose to get off my reports while I had a chance.
Unfortunately, I did not have time to go back to the boat to
get my camera. So here are a couple of late pictures
from the dinner at Fowl Cay.
This is our anchorage. We had it all to ourselves
that night. In the distance, you are looking at Exuma
sound.
This picture was taken from the deck of the restaurant
and shows Rum Daze and Zydeco at anchor in the background.
On Wednesday we left for Black Point and a much needed
Laundromat. The Laundromat was surprisingly modern.
However, like most enterprises in the Exumas, you need to
do several things to survive. While we were waiting
for the laundry to be done, we went next door to Lorraine’s
for her excellent cracked conch. Lorraine is the
owner, waitress, and cook. You are your own bartender.
Departed: Black Point, Exumas
Miles Traveled: 14.1 nm
Arrived: Little Farmer, Exumas
At Mooring: 15:45
Since the anchorage was so rough in the unusual southwest
winds, we chose to move on to Little Farmer’s Cay. We
picked up a mooring that was administered by Ocean Cabin, a
combination restaurant and bar.
The specialty of the house was some form of rum drink
that was blue in color.
While pondering the power of blue colored rum, we
discovered that others of our sailing club been had
obviously been here before us.
Somehow, Skip, who has never met a stranger, found
someone to buy fresh frozen grouper from and is now making
dinner for all five of us.
Thursday, May 22,2008
Departed: Little Farmer, Exumas
Miles Traveled: 17.6 nm
Arrived: Leaf Cay, Exumas
At Anchor: 12:15 pm
It was dead calm until about 2 am, then the breeze came up
at about 10 miles per hour – a welcome development when it
is 80° outside. The winds have been strange this year.
We start off the morning in 10-12 knot winds and then over
three or four hours the winds die completely.
We left Little Farmers this morning for our last stop before
Georgetown on Great Exuma Island. We are planning to
reprovision there and perhaps get in some diving. In
any case, Leaf Cay and Lee Stocking Island was our
destination for today.
Several of the island cuts are marked in some way or
another. We were looking for Adderly Cut.
Adderly Beacon as a navigational landmark marks Adderly Cut.
The beacon sits about 20’ above high water. The base
is a 5’ cube. The shaft of the beacon is circular and
approximately 20’ tall with a concrete cap.
A beacon implies that it is lighted, but I doubt that it
is. I have no idea who put it here or if it is
maintained, but it is unique in what we have seen so far.
Lee Stocking Island is home to the Caribbean Marine Research
Center. There was nothing active when we were there.
We understand it is closed until fall. It appears that
people are living there because there are signs of life.
The institute provides four mooring balls to the public
on a free, first come first served basis.
We spend the afternoon dingying all around the area and
doing some snorkeling. As has been the case recently,
the afternoon ocean was dead calm.
Tonight, Zydeco is hosting us to a spaghetti dinner.
Friday, May 23,2008
Departed: Leaf Cay, Exumas
Miles Traveled: 28.0 nm
Arrived: Georgetown, Exumas
At Dock: 1:30 pm
We left for Georgetown, what we expect will be the most
southern port of this voyage. As has often been the
case on the way down islands, the wind was directly on the
nose so it was a motoring day.
Since Skip is on the boat, we are fishing and today I
reeled in a nice “mystery” fish. It looks like it may
have been a small amberjack or another member of the jack
family. The meet looks good, so we will have it one of
these nights.
The trip was largely uneventful, but pleasant.
Georgetown is located in Elizabeth Harbor. Once we
entered the harbor, we had about six more miles to travel in
relatively shallow water. We had Skip on the bow with
headphones directing Sandy around the shallow spots.
When I called in to the marina, I asked for the location of
the fuel docks. They told me two times before I
realized I was not going to understand the answer. The
combination of me being hearing impaired, talking over a VHF
radio and the local accent told me we were going to have to
find it on our own. Normally, that wouldn’t have been
much of a problem because usually fuel docks are on the
outside of marinas with easy approaches. This one
wasn’t. We took the outside of a “T” dock and I went
ashore to find the fuel dock and plan an approach.
Once we knew where it was, it wasn’t much of a problem
getting in.
The real joy came when they told us our slip would be in
front of the fuel dock – and that we needed to turn the boat
180° so that it was headed out. My normal procedure is
to stick Sandy with all the tough boat maneuvers. I
have to admit that she has a better touch with the boat than
I do in these situations and I have more reach and upper
body strength to handle the lines. However, it was
clear that with the winds blowing at right angles to the
fairlead (right to left) in the following picture, and the
relative narrowness of the fairlead and the relative length
of the boat, that this was not going to be fun. So I
did the maneuver. We started just ahead of where our
boat was in this picture with the boat headed in. I
backed it up from the dock, and then turned it to the
outside of the fairlead. Unfortunately, I got a little
too close to the outside edge, which made my turn late.
(Turning sooner would have scraped the dingy off the back of
the boat) The crew got excited. However with good use
of the bow thruster, prop walk and the wind, the boat turned
quickly just like I knew what I was doing. We had a
small bit of damage – a scrape from a screw on the dock
gouged my rub rail, but that was just a minor problem.
Here we have marina headquarters.
The original plan was to go diving tomorrow with Dive
Exuma. However, when I called them, they were booked
until Monday. We will either leave tomorrow for Long
Island or do something else here. That decision has
not yet been made.
So far, we have progressed along the red path. Our
possible path for the near future is identified in yellow.
We are hoping to dive with Stella Maris on Long Island and
with Riding Rock on San Salvador. Who knows how this
plan will survive contact with real life?
Anyway, sometime in the next few hours, we may have a new
plan. Stay tuned.
Jerry and Sandy
S/V Rum Daze
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Thirteenth Trip Report – Saturday, May 24,2008
Departed: Georgetown, Exumas
Miles Traveled: 30.7 nm
Arrived: Stella Maris, Long Island
At Dock: 1:20 pm
With the local dive operator being unable to accommodate us
until Monday, and knowing most things are slow or closed on
Saturday and Sunday, we decided to proceed to Stella Maris
Marina/Resort on Long Island. Before we left, I took
one final picture.
Mom is an institution in Georgetown. She bakes
bread and pastry at home then sells them from her car under
the tree that has this sign on it in downtown Georgetown.
With every purchase, you also get a hug.
Unfortunately, she was out of coconut bread – so we still
don’t know what it tastes like.
We decided to leave as early as possible. The marina
we are going into on Long Island has a controlling depth of
3.5’ at mean low water. Since Rum Daze draws 5’ and
the tidal range was about 2.5’ we wanted as much of the high
tide as possible to help us get into the marina. We
could have sailed the whole way, but in the interest of
time, we motor-sailed at 7+ knots and arrived at the shallow
area just after high tide. Zydeco followed at a more
leisurely pace, in fact they sailed the whole way.
However, they only draw 3’.
When we got to the marina, the VHF contact told us to
pick any slip and pull in if no one was on the dock to
direct us. That sounded easy until we realized that
the marina was very small … and very full. Docking in
this marina required backing up to the sea wall – something
we have not had to do before. We pulled straight in,
but then could only get off by climbing over the bow pulpit
and that was going to get old if we spent several days here.
So, we dropped the dingy and parked it at the fuel dock,
then took the boat out, turned it around and managed to back
it in without hitting anybody.
I had to take the ladder off the swim platform so we
could climb on to the dock, but now it is a very comfortable
arrangement.
While we waited for Zydeco, we went to the resort and
took a tour. The resort is 40 years old and very nice.
The rooms are large and comfortable. We are going back
tonight for dinner.
Zydeco got the last slip – which is really the end of the
ramp where the working part of the marina has a rail car to
haul boats. There is no other space in the marina.
However, the electricity works well and is powering the A/C
and there is water for washing (but not drinking) at the
slip. We have some surprisingly large boats in the
marina with us who also had to time the tides to get in and
out.
We went up to the resort for dinner. There is a bat
cave close to the resort, and with Sandy’s background of
being responsible for bats in Nevada for a couple of years,
she had to see it.
We are going diving tomorrow. Then the plan is for
Sandy and Skip to go bone fishing on Monday while Mike,
Linda and I get a car to explore the island. This
Island is 80 or so miles long and 4 miles wide and has a
couple of communities to explore. Tuesday, we will
leave the marina after noon, again to catch the high tide,
and head for Conception Island for the night. Then it
will be on to San Salvador and diving with Riding Rock –
weather permitting.
By the way, we are no longer in the Exumas. We are now
in the Far Bahamas and are using a Chart Book I never
expected to open. This is all new exploration for both
boats.
Sunday May 25,2008
At Dock: Stella Maris Marina, Long Island, Bahamas
Stella Maris means “Star of the Sea.” It is proving to
be a delightful place to spend a few days. Three
German families who are the decedents of the original
owners/developers run the resort. This is the first
complex in the Bahamas whose electrical wiring might pass US
inspection. The wiring on the dock in Georgetown was
so exposed that it caught on fire and they had to shut off
all our power while they “patched” the system.
We were quite impressed with dinner last night and were
looking forward to some great diving today. We had the
boat to ourselves. With Captain Matt and divemaster
Tony, we set out on our dive cruise.
Tony shot this picture of the five of us on the back of the
boat as we were headed out of the marina.
We dove two sites. The first was Blue Tang Reef – a
nice reef with depths of up to 45.’ After a guided
tour by Matt, we were left to dive as long as we had air.
In our case, we logged 75 minutes. It is very unusual
for a dive operation to not set a maximum bottom time – so
we were pleasantly surprised. The dive site had a wide
variety of fish and reef creatures, as well as the now too
common lionfish. The fish were smaller because this is
an area that is fished.
Between the first and second dives, we were taken to a
great beach for lunch and surface interval. The sand
on this beach was talcum powder fine and the water was 84° -
there wasn’t another person in sight.
The second dive was on Flamingo Tongue reef. Another
nice reef with a maximum depth of under 40.’ We logged
80 minutes on this dive. Without being heavy handed, the
crew did a great job watching over Skip who is just now
getting back into diving after ten years. They were
good at finding creatures to see and in handling our gear.
We would dive with them again – it was a big change from the
Bahama Divers experience.
Tonight Skip cooked a great grouper dinner for the five of
us on Rum Daze. Skip is one of those cooks who throw
some stuff together and it comes out as a five star meal.
Weather permitting; Skip and Sandy have their bone fishing
set up for tomorrow.
The plan still is to leave here on Tuesday. However,
due to the need for high tide, we probably can’t get out
until 3pm which means that we will probably have to pick a
close anchorage for the night and that we will have to
finish the trip to Riding Rock the following day. A
front has come through the area and the weather is
unsettled. There is very little protection from storms
between here and there, so monitoring the weather and fine
tuning the decision will be a necessity.
For those of you who are sailors and interested in the XM
weather available on certain GPS Chart plotters, I have now
been able to locate the text forecast so I am getting the
same data that was available on the Sirrus network.
The network is supposed to cover 100 miles from the
continental US. We are further than that and it is
still working. I am glad to have the information
available.
Jerry and Sandy
S/V Rum Daze
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Canning's Folly - Part 5 (pdf file)
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