svbeachhouse

Category: 2015 Jan Blog

  • Eleuthra – The Bahamas Part II and The Adventure Route…..

    February 2nd, 2015 – Continued (-5 on UTC)

    Dear Friends and Family,

    On Friday, in the midst of my marine procuring expedition, we decided to take the \”Bo Hengy II\”, the local ferry that comes from Nassau everyday and continues on to Harbour Island which is supposed to be quite up market and full of the \”R&F\” (rich and famous). While waiting, we met Anneke and Tom from s/v \”Elisa\” which Tom had sailed from Holland to the Caribbean a few years ago. They Winter in the Caribbean and then go back to Holland for the summers; leaving the boat on the US West Coast. We became fast friends and hired a golf cart at the end of the ferry ride together. The ferry ride took us through, \”The Devil\’s Backbone\” route which locals suggest hiring a pilot to do if going on your boat. Frankly, in calm conditions, it would have been a piece of cake. It was calm and the 150 foot long, 50 foot wide, 6 foot deep \”Bo Hengy II\” blasted through without any issue. The ferry ride was about an hour and it would have taken us much longer in \”Beach House\”. Also, if the conditions did get breezy, you might get stuck there for awhile. All in all, the ferry ride, though expensive at 102.00 USD round trip for the two of us…was the way to go.

    We had a nice lunch at \”Sip Sip\” right on the north shore above the Pink Sand Beach. The place was packed and interestingly, almost all the tables were groups of young women. Why? We don\’t know, but apparently one group was a birthday party and it must be a great hang out. The food and drink was great, but very expensive, the atmosphere delightful. We enjoyed carting around and arriving at 11:30 and departing at 3:40pm was just about right. If you wanted to really explore Eleuthra in more depth, it would take a car as it\’s over 100 miles long despite being only about 1/2 mile wide on average.

    When we got back to the marina, we made plans to come outside and stay in the anchorage as Anneke and Tom would be leaving to do our route to date; in reverse.
    We would be off to Chubb Cay in the Berry Islands, about 65 miles back to the west. It\’s always great to meet people you hit it off with well, but sad to depart; especially so soon. We had Anneke and Tom over to \”Beach House\” and talked about our experiences sailing and life in general. It was a lovely evening.

    The next morning, \”Elisa\” up anchored about an hour before us and waved goodbye as they began their trip north to the Abacos and on back to Florida.

    Nikki and I motored back along the inside of the reef (yet again watching out for that wreck) and enjoyed a 50 miles downwind joyride. We even had to gybe!
    Winds 12-22 knots, full main and genoa poled out to windward. We passed the odd big ship and a few cruise ships en route. We anchored in the same bay we did last year and tried to stay awake to listen to the Super Bowl. I made it to half time and despite the game sounding like a great one in the making was just too tired to stay awake any longer. I heard on Sirius Radio the next morning that New England won the game.

    Today, we\’re just hanging out at the anchorage, watching the weather which should turn favorable for our next part of the journey.

    Our ultimate destination is Panama but we wanted to avoid the full force of the Gulf Streams northerly current. Ideally, a north wind would be great to push us south, but that goes right into the chops of the Gulf Stream if you depart directly from Florida which makes for a long, slow and potentially uncomfortable ride. As such, we\’re going to to what we\’ve deemed \”The Adventure Route\” down the West side of Andros Island. Andros is the largest island in the Bahamas and nearly un-inhabited. It\’s the 3rd largest barrier reef in the world and a Biologists wonderland. Essentially, it\’s a huge mangrove swamp. I suspect Manatee\’s and Alligators might find this a perfect home away from humans. Only those who really go off the beaten path travel out there. The west side of the island for 50 miles to the west is very shallow. The charts look good and we\’ve the Navionics Soundings on Nikki\’s IPAD which really show the depth contours. We\’ll most likely make two stops in preparation to jump to Anguilla Cays which is part of the Cay Sal Bank. Not only does this route avoid the Gulf Stream, we might even get a little \”counter current\” assisted push. The Cay Sal Bank is the most remote part of the Bahamas and almost in eye sight of Cuba.

    Out intention is to go from Anguilla Cay to Cay Sal and depart west from there. It\’s weather dependant and definitely the path less traveled. Hopefully our fuel line won\’t be too much of an issue. To date, I\’ve been able to clean it up and store the waste fuel out of the engine room bilge into our waste oil containers.

    So…KIT (Keep in touch!)
    The adventure continues…
    Scott and Nikki

  • The Southern Abacos and Eleuthra – Part I….

    February 2nd, 2015 (-5 on UTC)

    Dear Friends and Family,

    We\’re on email only from now till we get to Mexico…so no photos in the blog till then.

    We write you today from windy Chubb Cay. We\’ve had steady winds – ESE to SE at 15-22 knots over the last day. We\’re anchored behind the mole outside the harbor, it\’s a bit bumpy, but really fine.

    We really enjoyed our time in Hope Town and did some bicycle touring of the island as well as met some interesting folks. It\’s a cruisers hub for sure and I would recommend the stop to anyone coming to the Abacos of the Bahamas. We especially liked our lunch stop at the Seabreeze Marina.

    We departed Hope Town for Little Harbour at the very south side of the Abaco Sea. It shortened our next days sail and turned out to be a great stop. We\’re shallow draft enough that we could enter the inner harbor where we secured a mooring. In the season, this place probably really gets crowded. They told us that after Valentine\’s Day till June, it will be non stop busy. There is a nice beach bar (reminiscent of the Soggy Dollar in Jost Van Dyke) as well as a large sculpture studio and sales office where the local Johnston family has been for at least 80 years. Some lovely cast bronze pieces and they have their own foundry on site.

    We left Little Harbour on the falling a.m. tide and departed the reef for the 65 mile trip to St. George\’s Cay in the Eleuthra Group. The sail was nice, winds 12-20 knots from the NE and we made great time. When we entered the reef system, there was a mark on the chart to see a wreck. I couldn\’t see it till we were only 100 yds. away! It was above the water by only 3 feet and about 15 feet long. I\’m sure there is a story and a lot of underwater steel there, but it would be easy to miss which of course would be disastrous.

    We motored west along the south side of Royal Island; a resort that was financed by football great Roger Staubach of the Dallas Cowboys. It seems that it didn\’t work out and looked well kept, but closed. When we arrived at St. George\’s Cay, we had to wait for the ferry to enter and had to do a few loops for a couple of exiting boats. The entrance was maybe 70 feet wide, so we were given lots of radio \”thank you\’s\”.

    No moorings were available for our size boat so we decided to stay at Yacht Haven Marina for one or two nights. They had great power, water and their internet was some of the best we\’ve seen. I was able to top off the diesel, fill a propane tank and check out the marine store. It\’s not an emergency as such, but we\’ve discovered that our generator fuel system is leaking. Essentially, the boat was built around it and it\’s effectively inaccessible. As such, Mike Lonnes suggested we try and find some USCG A-1 fuel hose (good luck with that!) and run the fuel and return lines via a new serviceable route. We would then simply plug off and abandon the old copper tubing system. Another small matter was a speaker on our outside system went out which we were sure would require us to wait till Panama to get fixed.

    Low and behold! The first day, the store told us they only had 30 feet of the correct hose. On Saturday morning they cleared 200 feet via customs and we were able to buy the fuel hose. Great timing or good fortune…we\’ll take it. Putting it in will be another matter completely. I may need some expert carpentry assistance as well as a mechanic. We hope to be able to wait till at least we get to Mexico assuming the problem does not become worse. Next, we went to the R&B Boat Yard next door and they actually had marine exterior speakers as well as a few fuel plumbing parts we\’ll need in the future. Who knew?

    I\’m going to end this as \”Part I\” due to the fact that when we remote post our blogs, if they\’re too long, they don\’t post properly…
    Stand by, the rest will be out within a few hours.
    KIT,
    Scott and Nikki

  • 2015 Season Begins!…Ft. Lauderdale to The Abacos – Bahamas

    January 25th, 2015  (-5 hrs on UTC)

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    Our first major destination would be Hope Town in the Abaco Group of the Northern Bahamas. This is a panoramic of the anchorage of which \”Beach House\” is in the right middle.

    Dear Friends and Family,
    We had a nice weather window to leave Ft. Lauderdale on with the cold fronts from up north providing a nice WNWesterly to scoot the 71 miles to Old Bahama Bay Marina at the northwest end of Grand Bahama Island. Our plan has been to go over the Little Bahama Bank to the north of the island and work our way to Hope Town/Marsh Harbour and it\’s famous Lighthouse at Elbow Cay.

    On our first night, we got to Customs just in time and they were in a hurry to clear us in as they were engrossed in the Seattle/Green Bay football game.
    That was easy! Normally, we keep the boat buttoned up pretty tight with the screens to keep the bugs out. As there weren\’t any bugs, Nikki left the top hatch to our stateroom open and about 9:30 pm while brushing my teeth, I hear her scream, \”There\’s a RAT on me!\”….

    So…Nikki turned on the light and crammed herself back in a corner. She saw \”Mr. Ratty\” hide in the opposite corner under our TV (which is wall mounted).

    I had Nikki get out of the cabin and slowly removed everything I could where Mr. Ratty could possibly hide. Eventually, I scared him to the corner by the head of the bed and the last thing I did after removing the top sheet was to pull the pillow and of course (already) had closed the cabin door. I also opened the side port lights, hoping I\’d be able to escort Mr. Ratty out for an evenings swim! Well, to make a long story shorter, once Nikki had given me a bucket and a piece of cardboard to cover it with, I was able after 20 minutes of going back and forth across the bed from his two hiding places to coax him into the bucket. I held the bucket up to the window and it was un-necessary to force him out…he jumped out and I could hear him swimming for the dock pole to create mayhem for the next unsuspecting yachtie to pull up to his dock. During the chase, he once stopped cold and on top of the TV bracket, gave me the look of, \”You\’re not going to kill me are you\”? He started to look like the rat in the film \”Ratatouille\”. As such, I was glad I didn\’t have to kill it and we had an understanding that this boat wasn\’t big enough for the three of us! Nikki sterilized the cabin, we buttoned up tight and were done for the night!

    The next day we took off through the reef with a moderate north wind which fortunately did not kick up any seas on the shallow bank as the outer reef knocked the wind waves down to just about nothing. We stayed at a very remote anchorage called Great Sale Cay. (Yes, that Sale, not Sail). Don\’t know the story, but it might be quite interesting? Basically…a flat mangrove. Reading the guide, we decided to put in a long next day and get down to Green Turtle Cay.

    Green Turtle was an eclectic mix of White Bahamians who were descended from British Loyalists and escaped to these island during the Revolutionary War. More came during the US Civil War to escape the Union. Despite their history, everyone here black and white seem to get along just fine, but no one seems to intermarry.

    The accent of the White Bahamians sounds like a faded UK accent with a touch of Southern. It melds into an almost \”Yankee\” sound. For those of you who don\’t know what a \”Yankee\” is…it\’s a US North Easterner. (Not a Baseball Team or a generic term for ALL Americans in this case). For those of you not from the USA, don\’t ever make the mistake of calling a US \”Southerner\” a \”Yankee\”. Those would be fightin\’ words….:-)

    The entry to Green Turtle was very shallow but we were rewarded with a lovely completely enclosed lagoon when we were deep inside. We took a mooring for the night from local \”Donnie\” who was quite a character. Nikki and I took a walk around town and interestingly, found a large lit, blue and white Star of David on the wharf.
    I suspect the local church has an affinity for the land of Jesus? We never found out, but right after we took the photo, the town\’s generator went out and it was like a ghost town. We walked back to the boat in the dark where I began to work on our new season \”teething\” issues.

    So far, our main charging system didn\’t work….found the problem. I replaced a 160 amp fuse and we were back in business. I\’ve also replaced an oil cooler, fixed some water maker leaks and with Mike Lonne\’s help figured out why one of our key features on the auto pilot wasn\’t working.

    I\’m down to a minor (I hope) issue with our big watermaker (we have two!) and a mysterious engine coolant leak (which is very minor)and so far \”unfindable\”. I\’ve place paper towel all around the engine, but it still remains a mystery.

    We left the next morning for the shorter trip to Marsh Harbour which is the government seat, small industrial port and the banking hub and marketing area. We did a quick shop at the lovely \”Maxwell\’s\”, but moved on the 6 miles to Hope Town which is picture post card.

    \"Hope
    Hope Town Marina – View of Elbow Cay Lighthouse

    The famous thing about this place is the Elbow Cay (which is where Hope Town is)- Lighthouse. Built in 1864, rebuilt in the early 1930\’s, it is apparently one of only three manually monitored lighthouses in the Western Hemisphere. The other two are also in the Bahamas. One on San Salvador and one on Great Inagua Island.
    There was a great fuss when the light was first built as a cottage industry of \”wreckers\” were living here. Their livelihood depended on one or two shipwrecks a month (which the light was built to prevent). I can just imagine how that craziness went down.

    We met the two guys who trade off during the night maintaining the light. First, it has to be wound up, which keeps the light revolving for two hours! It then has to be wound again. It is also manually lit and kerosene is the fuel. It has a mantle like a Coleman lantern and a pressure tank that has to be pumped up every few days. \”Elvis\”, who has been doing this for 18 years, gave us the complete tour and let us watch and mini assist in setting the light off. First, Elvis isn\’t too exact about the time he lights this puppy up. Lighthouses are supposed to be lit from \”sundown\” to \”sunrise\”. Well, let\’s just say he\’s \”in the ball park\”. (Tonight he lit the light about 90 minutes after it was pitch black!)…Sailors beware. In truth, no one in there right mind would try and enter this reef system after dark and with modern GPS, the lighthouse becomes a \”check\” to see that all is well. As an aside: We saw Elvis try to light the light tonight and apparently he couldn\’t get it going as it has not been on all night (It\’s now 10:15 p.m. as I write this). There is a generator back up with an electric light, but I don\’t know why it\’s not on? (We found out that the lighthouse is indeed down for scheduled maintenance for the next four days!)

    \"Nikki
    Nikki assisting Elvis (who was definitely in the building) to wind the light mechanism which must be done every 2 hours! All Night Long….

    The lighthouse is very picturesque. A Red/White stripe pattern really sets it off against the backdrop of the bay. The history and the view are worth the experience and we\’re really glad we got to come here. In 2004, this was to be our destination sailing in from Gibraltar and the Canary Islands. Unfortunately then, we were \”weathered out\” with really late Spring Gales in the Straits of Gibraltar. So, in memory of my Dad and Cindy who were on that trip, I really wanted to come and see the light….

    \"The
    The Fresnel Lens which weighs in excess of a ton. Here we see the mantle lit which Elvis had just done. The light is visible for 17 miles. It must be covered from the inside during the day or, like a magnifying glass might light something in the distance on fire!

    We\’ll be here for another day or two, including today which in my 61st birthday! Thanks for all of you who wrote me on facebook last night and I love the e-cards as well. Having internet is nice, but some of the cards don\’t come through…welcome to the outer islands mon….

    \"Nikki
    Nikki always bakes me a cake. Isn\’t she wonderful! With our new oven, it doesn\’t even get burnt…:-)

    The winds have been up, but we should get a nice opportunity soon to make the day hop to Eleuthra Island before heading toward Andros and \”to the west\”….:-)

    We plan on at least making the east end of the Panama canal this season and getting to explore the Western Caribbean. There may be a few surprise stops along the way?…

    We have been tardy getting this post out as our email system was lost for awhile and Web Guru Ken Edwards figured it out and saved us. Thank you Ken!

    That\’s all for now…feel free to write at any email you have for us…
    Cheers,
    Scott and Nikki

  • Beach House getting ready to start the 2015 sailing season…..FINALLY!

    January 17th, 2015 (UTC -5)

    Ahoy Friends and Family,

    We\’re in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and will head toward The Abacos in the Bahamas, Eleuthra, Andros and then may go exotic!…Stay tuned.
    We should be in Panama on the East side of the Canal in April with lots of stops in Central America along the way.
    We\’ve done a tremendous amount of work on board this past summer and Beach House is in great shape.

    This is just a reminder that we\’re here and getting ready to blog away again this season.
    It\’s also a test of our new email satellite service to see if it works and posts this correctly.

    Please feel free to keep in touch at any email address you may have for us!
    Welcome back to the Voyages of s/v Beach House
    Scott and Nikki (who just had a new grandbaby!)