Back in USSA

We back in the US now....120 mile day!

Not a bad crossing but we's tired!

more news at 11

Crossing Back Over

Now comes the watching of the weather window....those days where the wind and waves are favorable to cross the Gulf Stream.....generally south winds and less that 2 foot waves...and a day or two of calm to let the previous waves and swells die down.

We will stage in the northern Bahamas around West End, maybe Mangrove or Great Sale Cay tomorrow night....that's a day's run of 60 miles to Great Sale, and another 28 miles to Mangrove. And then no more iternet!...but weather should be good as low winds are predicted the next few days...we target Tuesday and still wonder whether to make a short crossing to Lake Worth, or push north to Fort Pierce. We have been warned off Port St Lucie due to shoaling dangers.

So? Options?

Go from....

Mangrove to Lake Worth...~88 miles via WE or Memory Rocks .

West End to Lake Worth ~63 Miles

West End to Ft Pierce ~95 Miles

Great Sale to FP just seems too long at 131 miles!

The Gulf Stream averages 3 to 4 knots so that gives us a northern bump and saves about an hour's time if going north. It's about 25 miles wide! A pretty graphic:

http://www.passageweather.com/index.htmhttp%3A//www.passageweather.com/maps/florida/mappage2.htm

NOAA Forecast:

 SUNDAY  EAST SOUTHEAST WINDS 7 TO 10 KNOTS. SEAS 2 TO 3 FEET.  DOMINANT PERIOD 10 SECONDS. INTRACOASTAL WATERS A LIGHT CHOP.   SUNDAY NIGHT  SOUTHEAST WINDS 7 TO 10 KNOTS BECOMING SOUTH. SEAS  2 TO 3 FEET. INTRACOASTAL WATERS A LIGHT CHOP.   MONDAY  SOUTH SOUTHWEST WINDS 7 TO 10 KNOTS. SEAS 2 FEET.  INTRACOASTAL WATERS A LIGHT CHOP.   MONDAY NIGHT  SOUTHEAST WINDS 6 TO 9 KNOTS BECOMING EAST 5 TO  8 KNOTS. SEAS 2 FEET. INTRACOASTAL WATERS A LIGHT CHOP.   TUESDAY  NORTHEAST WINDS 6 TO 9 KNOTS. SEAS 2 FEET. INTRACOASTAL  WATERS A LIGHT CHOP.   TUESDAY NIGHT  EAST WINDS 8 TO 11 KNOTS. SEAS 2 FEET. INTRACOASTAL  WATERS A LIGHT CHOP.   WEDNESDAY  SOUTHEAST WINDS 5 TO 8 KNOTS. SEAS 2 FEET. INTRACOASTAL  WATERS A LIGHT CHOP.

Sun rise over Little Harbour

End of the Abacos tour....

With a beautiful sunrise on a calm morning in Little Harbor, we now contemplate our return to the "Big Shopping Mall to the West" (a local reference heard on the daily Cruisers Net, CH68)

We have worked our way down to the end of the Abacos Island chain. May sound like a long way, but you could probably do the whole chain in a day! Our daily travels involve an hour or so, a long day has been like yesterday, 2 hours!

We are now studying the weather and resultant waves on the Gulf Stream to consider our crossing back to Florida. It's looking like a docile week as far as the winds go so that bodes for a good crossing probably Monday or Tuesday. The concept is to allow the Gulf Stream waves to calm down after any northerly wind component which tends to create havoc with the northbound Gulf Stream. Calm southerlies are good.

This has been an eye-opening trip in some respects. A different slice of life is found here in the Abacos and the many other Island chains to the south now beckon....maybe we'll be back next winter?? If not, probably sooner than later, we hope.

Rescued Paella Pan

So, the neighbor from Sturgeon Bay WI is walking down the dock with a familiar looking pan....

He's throwing it away....his wife doesn't want it because it's rusty!!

So now we once again have a paella pan on board the boat....I took the last one off when we cleaned out the lazerette in the keys.

Infatuation

Who doesn't like lighthouses?

This one still works! Unguided tour up to the top. Here is the rotating beacon....I actually made it spin...easily on it's bed of mercury!....and it just kept turning gently.

The fresnel lenses are clearly seen here and th kerosene burner in the middle...also note the chimney above the lamp....very cool!

a month in the Abacos

Yesterday marked our first month in the Bahamas at the Abacos Cays. (it was also Vaughn's birthday so we splurged with Conch Fritters and French Fries at lunch and then were given a big chunk of fresh Grouper by a neighboring boat.)

Our Hopetown stop has included access to a very nice pool next door at Hopetown Hideaways....large nice deck with gazebos surrounding the largest pool we've used in the Abacos.

Local spear fisherman come by to clean some huge grouper...maybe 25# fish.

There seem to be some constants in these here islands.....

Warm and Sunny during the day with temperatures up to about 80. Usually a breeze.

Cools down at night for good sleeping weather...about 70, usually a breeze.

We have not used the air conditioning at all.

Not much rain, sometimes clouds.

Lovely sand beaches.....sunrises....sunsets....moon and stars!

Lots of different boats to see and great boaters to talk to....Australians, Europeans, Canadians...

Folks from Park City Utah, Toronto, Washington DC, Sturgeon Bay, Vancouver...you never know

Everything is expensive....gasoline $6, beer $5, ice cream cone $5....case of beer $50-75

Fish and Conch cheaper.....grouper $9/lb, snapper $6....a dozen conch fritters $7

.....expect to pay about 2 to 3 times what you do at home in the grocery....but they do have selection in the big city of Marsh Harbor.

...except the rum $8 for a bottle.

Water is sold by the gallon, usually about 25 to 30 cents out of the hose....cheaper on the mainland at $3/day if you stay a few days. In our first month we've been able to only pay once for water at Marsh Harbor....8 days at $3....so our first month was only $24....We came over full, had free water at West End, filled up at Harbor View Marina and still have another week in the tank (we hope).....probably fill up this week with another night at MH.....$15?

We've done a couple of the local venues.....rib night at the Jib Room, Sunday Pig Roast at Nippers, Sunset at Grabbers, Breakfast at Mango's and our cheap date at Captain Jacks with the nice $3 fries!

Real estate here is crazy expensive....but we're close to the US and like everywhere have driven up prices and then collapsed....who knows where prices go now!

Maintenance of the boat continues....Vaughn now touches up the brightwork. I've replaced the pump on the generator and zincs in the engines......batteries are a challenge....found I'd boiled my instrument bank dry somehow...keep a better eye on them now!

We now will head south this week for snorkeling at a shallow reef that was recognized by Jacques Cousteau and go to Little Harbor to see Pete's pub and enjoy the protected anchorage there.

Then who knows....off to Bimini? or back through these Abacos.

Cool...

This lighthouse was a joy to sit under. After the sunset as the dusk settles in the lighthouse was darkening in the sky. Suddenly the whole lantern is aglow in a golden light as the lamp was lit. Another minute or two and the lens started rotating on its mercury bed.

5 flashes, then 5 seconds delay.

It was mesmerizing sitting in the darkness watching this old kerosene lamp fired lighthouse work, essentially using a grandfather clock mechanism and cannonball weights!

HOPETOWN

We found a dock for $100 a week right under this historic lighthouse....no electric or water...but hey, it's a new dock and better than a mooring or anchoring.

Who could hate a lighthouse? Years ago Bahamians, especially Abaconians, felt a strong and guiltless enmity towards lighthouses.... animosity began in 1836 when the first two major lighthouses were built in the Bahamas, one on the southern tip of Great Abaco Island at Hole-in-the-Wall and the other at Gun Cay just south of Bimini. Concerned shipping interests had implored England to improve navigation aids in her colonies because of the increasing number of ships that were leaving their bones there.

"However, because many Abaconians made a good living from salvaging (then know as 'wracking') the unfortunate ships that ended their sailing days on the dangerous shoals of this low archipelago of reefs, rocks, cays and white beaches, navigation aids were no friends of the 'wrackers.'

"Merchant sail flourished between 1820 and 1880 and the Bahama Islands lay spread-out along its way. The Bahamian wracking fleet stood ready to help, with almost 300 vessels licensed to cruise the reefs in search of luckless ships to salvage, employing half of the able-bodied men in the country and accounting for about half of this British colony's revenue. The records for 1860 show an amazing average of one wreck per month at Abaco alone.

"Wracking was a lucrative business. The system required that the salvaged cargo, considered to be imported goods, be shipped to Nassau for auction with the government taking 15%, the agents 15% and 40 to 60% going back to the wrackers. The ship owners received the 10 - 30% that was left, which doesn't' seem like much, but had it not been for the wrackers and the system they would have received nothing.

"In order to build the Elbow Reef Lightstation, the Imperial Lighthouse Service, Trinity House, London, brought in some outside help but also employed many Hope Towners to unload supplies, quarry the limestone rock for building foundations and cisterns, to mix the cement and carry out the myriads of other chores can are a part of a construction job of such magnitude. The locals were glad for the jobs but at the same time they wished that they were not building a lighthouse. There were reports by the supervisors that some locals sank a supply barge one night and also withheld fresh water from the workers.

"Despite the wrecking community's protests, the light station was completed in 1864: a fixed (non-rotating), first-order (of brightness) light, warning ships away from the treacherous reef extending a considerable distance to seaward of Elbow Cay

"Lighthouses ­ ever silent sentinels and angels to the sailor ­ along with the advent of steam replacing sail and more accurate nautical charts, combined to finally put the wracking industry on the rocks.

"Another economic bubble had burst for the people of Hope Town.

"In 1936 the Imperial Lighthouse Service realized that the light at Gun Cay was being 'used less and less . . . and so it was closed. At the same time the Service realized Elbow Reef's need for a beacon which could be more easily identified by ships at sea. The Gun Cay Lighthouse was decapitated. The iron lantern room with its dome, the petroleum burner equipment, the turning mechanism and the rotating Fresnel lenticualr panels with five bull's-eyes which had been going around at Gun Cay since 1929 (and may have been elsewhere before that) were brought to Hope Town to replace the 1864 standing wick-type light.

"The 'new' light source for Elbow Cay was built by Chance Brothers of Birmingham, England and is till sending out the light today from the top of the Elbow Reef Lighthouse. The hood petroleum burner is rated at 325,000 candlepower, a first order light. A hand pump is used to pressurize the kerosene in heavy iron containers in the service room, directly below the lantern room and travels up a tube to an atomizer which sprays into a mantle (a hood of network fabric) having been pre-heated before lighting. Some camping lanterns operate similarly.

"The beautiful Fresnel lenses concentrate the mantle's light into a piercing beam straight out towards the horizon. The eight thousand pound lenses and burner equipment float in a circular tub of lubricant thereby reducing friction so that seven hundred pounds of weight, when wound up to the top of the tower by a hand winch and using a series of bronze gears, rotate the four ton apparatus once around every 15 seconds and very smoothly at that. The keeper on duty has to wind up the weights every two hours. The smooth sweep of the turning lenses with their five swords of light cutting the darkness over the sea, while the light constantly glows between those beams, is know as the 'soul' of a lighthouse. Once seen and compared to an electric flashing light, it is not soon forgotten and the use of the word 'soul' is more easily understood.

Abacos weather

http://www.abacoescape.com/Weather/AbacoWeather/Weather.html

I ran across this piece today....nice description of weather and hurricane history for the Northern Bahamas....aka Abacos.

We don't use the A/C but it does heat up a bit during the day....into the 80's, but cools down after sunset for nice sleeping weather.

Winds do seem to be a bit higher than projected sometimes and waves respond accordingly.

Skid Marks....

This is a marked passage, albeit shallow! Clear waters abound!

The skid marks are from previous boats....maybe a keel? or an engine or two!

We were very close to bottom....and our depth finder tends to go out when we have little water under our keel....we get used to it and just humm words to the tune..."lately I've been running on faith" by Eric Clapton.....don't know which song we'll sing when we run aground!

Crystal Clear

It's like being in a swimming pool!