Little Harbor 2

Some pretty nasty squalls while Little Harbor, but thankfully short lived.  Mason had a great idea to create some dams on the deck to divert rain water into our tanks, so now squalls are actually welcome.  It means less time running the water maker and thus less fuel consumed.  At $4.50 a gallon, we have been much more conscientious about running engines.  With extra crew aboard, we now even sail onto and off the anchor if we have working room.



The old lighthouse at Little Harbor.  Watch your step or you fall into the basement!

Little Harbor

We snuck in to Little Harbor which is the SW most protected harbor in the Abacos anticipating a passage South to Eluethera.  On the Atlantic side of the harbor, there were some nice beaches, but they were covered with plastic.  The sea is able to break down virtually anything to the atomic level, but plastic seems to be its nemesis.

In only 20 minutes of looking we found 6 sandals in the correct sizes lying on the beach. We had hundreds to choose from..

Bahamas (finally)

Well, we have finally made it to our first non-US offshore destination.  A short hop from Florida to the Bahamas where we met our good friend Mason Baker who flew out from Oregon to join us for January cruising.


We are starting in the Abacos and have visited Great Sale, Green Turtle, Marsh Harbor, Man of War and now Hope Town.  It has been a bit wet and blustery with several fronts moving through.  First time we have broken a 5/8" thick bridle in 30knt winds in Marsh Harbor. Good thing dad always remembers to double up with a brake on the anchor chain!

The water here is just beautifully clear allowing you to see the anchor as it sets and is freed from the bottom.  It is also quite shallow with 12' considered deep, so it can be a little unsettling with the depth alarm seeming to always want to go off and squawk.  Only gone aground briefly once and that on a rising tide, so we were ok.

Today finds us a Hope Town with some final shopping to do for some fresh produce and treats for David's 5th birthday which is tomorrow!

Later today we will head South to Pelican Cay and the marine sanctuary there for a little snorkeling before continuing on to Little Harbor which will be our furthest point south in the Abacos before making our 55nm passage to Royal Harbor on the island of Eleuthera.

Vero (velcro) Beach

Well, we came for a few days, and now have stayed almost a month.  This place is well named.  Free bus route to the marina, about 200 boats in the harbor, wonderful community of cruisers, and new folks rafting up to your boat every now and then.   I am all in favor of rafting since it is a great way to meet people.  Here is a shot of boats rafted up in the harbor and Gypsy Queen in the lower left corner



Just plain fun to meet new friends you never knew you had.

And yes, it is possible to squeeze 7 people into an Uber taxi on a Sunday morning when you have lost track of how many people you have invited to church!

Daytona Beach

A simple question for you all.  Would YOU trust this helmserer...?

Note the toe on the autopilot control and the fingers on FaceBucket...

Answer?  Yes I trust her.  She is actually double checking the Navonics app against the Garmin chart plotter.  Ata girl..

Saint Augustine

The namesake city of my favorite saint.  If you have not Augustines confessions, you should!  The picture below is  Flaggler College, once the Ponce De Leone grand hotel, which put the sleepy little place on the map a century ago and the reason Henry built his railroad down the east coast of Florida. Ornate is not sufficient to describe the place.  It is so opulent that you need to buy a tour ticket just to see the college cafeteria which is the oval grand room surrounded by the largest collection of Tiffany stained class in the country.  I used to do stained and beveled glass in my earlier years, so I was agog at the spectacle.

Our stop here included lots of provisioning to get ready for the Bahamas.  Christine couldn't resist the Robinson Caruso hats made from palm leaves sold by a street vendor.  We are now all set..

I am now done fixing broken things on the boat.  I look forward to merely improving things that are already mostly working.  The latest thing was re-wiring the rather complex setup of alternator, external regulator, and battery isolator.  After an evening of study, I felt like I understood how it was all supposed to work.  I am not sure how the existing setup EVER worked since there was a gross wiring error.  Now corrected, we are now back to being able to charge house batteries with the main engine which saves us from having to run the separate generator while underway allowing us to do things like run the water maker while motoring.  Little things that can make a big difference.  We now have three sources of electricity: main engine, generator, and solar panels.  Redundancy is good in an environment where thing have this habit of failing.

Now that all the major systems on the boat are working, I can start in on my long list of improvement projects at leisure.  Ahh.....

It's good to be back in the Blue waters of the Atlantic

After a long Summer hiatus, we are BACK in the Blue waters of the Atlantic and we were welcomed back by a few of our closest friends.

We just completed our longest offshore passage to date.  408nm direct from Oriental NC to Saint Augustine FL.  Only one exciting moment when the alternator bracket on the engine failed, and Mark had to MacGyver a solution to keep us running since we were over 50nm from shore at the time.  Your standard boating adventure.