We arrived late on Saturday and our friends Dave and Joan
Wolf picked us up from the airport. We
were supposed to arrive at 11 PM or so. We did not get there until after
midnight. Why were we late? You might think the weather was bad … no, that
wasn’t it. Perhaps the plane needed some maintenance that took longer than they
thought it would … no, that’s not it either. Actually, what made an entire
planeload of people late was the first officer was late in getting to the
plane. Let me say that again. The first officer was late. When the captain made
the announcement, he said she would probably only 10 – 15 minutes late. Unfortunately,
she was late enough that we lost our take-off slot and had to wait until
another one opened up. What can I say? This is the way we consumers let
airlines be run. Grrr.
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| An Easter Egg Hunter Preparing to Delve into the bush! |
On Monday we closed – and it was the smoothest closing I
have ever attended. That afternoon we spent time calling the utilities and
closing our accounts. The electric company was easy and efficient, but the gas
company representative acted as if she had never heard of an account closing before
and asked Ann if she would go out and read the meter. Since we had moved out of
the house six months ago and since it now belonged to someone else (as Ann explained)
we thought that was kind of inappropriate. Unless, of course, they were going
to pay us for our time – I think the rate of one of their meter readers would
have been entirely appropriate.
On Tuesday we ran errands. We had to buy a tax program so I
can request an extension now and do my taxes later; we had to buy a new
American flag – our current one is beginning to show signs of too much wear; we
had to buy some TV show DVDs because we just wanted to. We also had to get our hair
done. Ann is in the process of changing her hair style and had a perm – I know,
I know, it has been a long time since Ann has had a perm but you will all get
to see her when we return for the summer. As for me, I know most of you think
that we famous authors should have our hair coiffed at some high class cuttery.
Not me, though. I have decided to put on the air of a regular guy and have my
hair cut at an old-fashioned Barber Shop. Besides, do you know how much those
high class cutters want for a regular haircut? No thank you, I think I’ll stick
with Joe at the local barber shop.
On Wednesday, I had a meeting downtown at the Carnegie
Endowment to finish a project we all started a couple of years ago, and on
Thursday the 12th we were on our way back to the boat.
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| Marsh Harbor from the air ... Yes, all that stuff really is marsh! |
As we got under way Monday morning, however, Ann pointed out
that we would be arriving at West Palm on Thursday evening and would end up
calling repairmen on Friday, hoping they could come and look at our problems
before the weekend. If they couldn’t, then we would be in the marina (paying
some exorbitant rates) for all of the following week. So, we did some quick
recalculating and decided that we could make a long day of it on Monday, cruise
past Manjack and go straight to Great Sale. That way we could arrive at West
End on Tuesday and cross on Wednesday.
So we were off. As always, when you go from the Marsh Harbor
area back to West End, you have to pass through The
Whale (This should be said in a deep thunderous voice). Now, I have
already explained the treacherous seas around Whale Cay when we came through it
the first time, so I won’t repeat myself here. I will say though, that one
should never take the Whale lightly (and we didn’t). We came through with
flying colors; there were maybe 5 foot rollers on our starboard beam that kept
our attention, but all in all, it was a pretty good passage. With the autopilot
working (thanks to my brilliant detective and repair work), it was a bit of a
boring trip – long and boring.
One thing that broke the boredom was a call we overheard on the
radio from Mickey and Gary on Little Mick
to someone else. Little Mick had been
with us at Marsh Harbor Marina for a week or two until they went south to see
what was down there. It turned out that they, too, were on the way to West End
and back to the States. They move a little slower than we do, but we decided we
would all link up at the Old Bahama Bay Marina at West End and potentially
“buddy-up” for the crossing.
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| Great Sale Cay at sunrise. See? Once in a while I do get up that early |
The next morning, we were off again across the Little Bahama Bank.
It started out to be another B-O-R-I-N-G day, until, at two points off the
starboard bow (I have always wanted to say that), we saw them. TWO, not one,
but two frolicking dolphins saw us and came straight towards the boat. The
water was so shallow and clear that you could see them coming at us from a good
100 yards away. When they got to the boat, they took turns riding our bow wave
and having so much fun that I was jealous!
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| Ann's dolphin friends. Don't they look like they are just having too much fun?! |
Anyway, about 3:30 or so we left the Bank and hit the good ol’
Atlantic Ocean. It is amazing. The average depth of the portion of the Little
Bahama Bank that we crossed is probably fifteen feet. Within about ½ mile or so
it drops off to over 1000 feet and with the changing depths, the water changes
color. From the turquoise of the Bahamas, it becomes the deep blue of the
ocean. Looking back from the Atlantic to the Bank, it seems as if God took a
pencil and separated the light blue of the sky from the deep blue of the ocean
with a line of turquoise. We took some
pictures, but they don’t do the scene justice. It was truly magnificent. Okay,
enough artsy-fartsy stuff; time to move on.
We arrived at West End at
the same time Little Mick did. She
left Great Sale about 30 minutes behind us and she travels slower that we do.
So, I know you are asking, “How the heck did Little Mick get to West End the same time you did?” Okay, I’ll tell
you. There are two ways to get from Great Sale Cay to West End. One is to go
almost due west until you get to Memory Rock, then turn south. As I said the
average depth along this route is about fifteen feet, though it gets a little
shallow right around the Rock where it drops to eight feet or so. The other way
is through Indian Rock Cut. Now, the chart lists the depth there at Mean Low
Water at 4.9 feet. (Mean Low Water is supposed to be the average water depth at
low tide over a period of time.) Our boat draws 4.5 feet of water and we were
scheduled to be at the Cut right around low tide. I may be a dummy, but not
THAT kind of dummy. Needless to say, we went around Memory Rock. Little Mick, however, draws only 3.5
feet, so she went right through the Cut and had, Gary said, about two feet
under her bottom the whole time. And that is how Little Mick showed up at West Wend about ten minutes ahead of us.
Old Bahama Bay is an expensive marina. It costs $2.99 per
foot, which is pretty pricey but not exorbitant, until you add the mandatory
$15 per day for water and (for a 50 amp boat like ours), another $27.50 per day
for electricity. For us it came to nearly $200 for one night. You can see why
we only wanted to stay here one night and didn’t want to have to wait here for
good crossing weather. In fact, some of the sail boaters who arrived at the
same time we did decided to anchor in rather poor holding ground rather than
pay those rates. I can’t say that I blame them.
As always, the actual crossing of the Gulf Stream was
anticlimactic. If you have a good boat and you wait for good weather, crossing
this little patch of ocean isn’t that much of a problem – especially when your
autopilot is working. On the way across, we chatted with Little Mick and a few other crossers. Ann read and dozed, I played
with my radar and chart plotter, ate a sandwich, read some of the operators
manuals for some boat systems – as you can see, it was a pretty unexciting
crossing.
So finally, let the fireworks blaze, the ticker tape fly and
the champagne flow; we are back in the Good Ol’ USA. |
| I forgot to say we went to s Steak Night at the Job Room where Desmond was performing his Limbo. This time we actually had a camera! |
Immediately upon arriving at the marina, we called US
Customs and Border Patrol to check in via the Local Boater Option – for which
we had previously registered. For those of you planning on leaving the country
on your boat, you should look up the Local Boater Option program on the web. It
saved us a trip to Customs and a lot of time. Second, we called Marine Plumbing
so we could get our heads fixed. I am not going to go into great detail,
because I don’t know what the details are. However, as you know we have had …
let’s just say … we have had a few issues with our heads. Luckily for us, we
had at least one of them working through our time in the Bahamas – until the
last 2-3 days. So, the first task we need to accomplish is to get our heads
fixed. It is a long trip from our slip
to the onshore bathroom at the marina. The third task was to call Florida
Rigging and Hydraulics. They, we were told, would probably be the guys to fix
both our dinghy davit and our steering. For all you mechanically minded people,
who read this Blog for no other reason than to learn all about Lectra San
heads, Sea Star Hydraulic steering systems and Dayton winches, I promise to let
you know details about all of those systems and more! But that will have to
wait until next time as I really need to get this entry out.
ANN’S NOTES: A lot has happened since my last entry…
The closing for our house
was ‘all good’. ..the new owners are a young family with a three year old son
and a dog…nice normal people . They love the house and were so excited about
living in the neighborhood. I told her she had to hang a humming bird feeder so
the hummingbirds that took me five plus years to attract will have food when
they return. I hung a feeder every year with no luck and just as we were
putting the house on the market last spring…like magic I had two regular visitors
at the feeder. I feel the same way about hummingbirds as I do about
dolphins…just pure delight and magic. It makes me feel good that the house will
be filled with love and laughter once more.
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| Ann wanted another picture of the dolphins in her section of the Blog |
Once we were back in Marsh Harbor we got ready to head back
to Florida. Since our winch no longer works and we were without a dinghy…it is
cradled safe and sound on the second deck…we had to ask our fellow boaters with
dinghies in the water for a ride across the harbor to the grocery store. We
went shopping and took a taxi back to the marina…we now had food for the
crossing.
The crossing was good and again I was filled with wonder and
smiles as the two dolphins came to play with me. This time I have pictures to
prove it…you know how excited I was with just one dolphin… imagine how
delighted I was with TWO!! What a wonderful universe we live in that has such
beautiful animals to love…just another OMG moment to treasure.
Michael is correct in saying that at times the crossing can
get boring…I kept busy reading …and yes …I did doze. I was fighting a sore
throat…I think I got it from the airplane air…just breathing everyone’s else
germs in. I also liked watching the flying fish as we cruised by. Those little
guys know how to travel a long distance…sort of look like humming birds once
airborne J
So…now we are in Florida…waiting for repairs before we head
up the ICW. I am back in the land of cell phones and grocery stores…
Traveling Soul….out
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