Where was I….?

The adventure continues….
Sunday, January 25th, 2009
Where was I…oh yeah. David left for a few days and Sam and I filled our days with activities, bridge, volleyball and goofing off. Sam learned how to play Texas hold’em and beat the entire adult group by bluffing with a pair of 9’s (could be a future in that). Sam and I moved the boat over to the other side of town prior to the Griffey’s visit so we wouldn’t have to dinghy too far. Sam and I worked out our communication system and got it done with no problems. I was very proud of how Sam handled it, not worried at all.

Nancy, Charles, Vivian and Ross stayed at Regatta point. We did some snorkeling with Ross and Nancy (skinny people) shivering most of the time, but saw some cool stuff. We ended the trip on a good note with Charles doing the “alligator” on the dance floor at fish fry. The taxi cab driver came to pick us up and we pleaded with him to let us stay, thank goodness he did not relent. Thanks for coming to see us guys!

We left Georgetown on Thursday for Long Island. It was a fun trip since we left with around 20 other boats. David, of course, made it a regatta in his mind. We finally caught up to the Beneteau 40 that was plaguing us and got passed like we were standing still by a Catalina 42. One of our cruising buddies s/v Rio Dulce is a Katana 470 (catamaran). Absolutely beautiful boat. It started about an hour after us and reeled us in, but after it caught up, we held with it! We found out later he used his MOTOR to catch up with us. We also gleaned that catamarans don’t go up wind as well as Calibers. Score one of the monohulls! That is only thing they don’t do though, we are starting to turn to the “cat-side”

We are anchored in Thompson Bay, Long Island. Again, it is absolutely beautiful here. This is one of my favorites though. It is 70 miles long and about 1 mile wide, hence the name Long Island. We bit the bullet and rented a van yesterday with another family to tour the island. I was fortunate enough to drive the group around, which was cool since the steering wheel was on the other side and I was driving on the left. I only got yelled at once by my navigator (not David). The whole tour took 13 hours. It was a bit much to jam into a day, but well worth the $50 for the rental. We saw a Columbus Monument, the beautiful beaches of Santa Maria, some ruins of churches, some really old churches (circa 1800’s), a 1100 foot cavern that the Lucayan Indians used and one of the largest blue holes in the world. If you don’t know what a blue hole is, I will try to explain. This one in particular was 670 ft deep and about 100 yards across surrounded by a 30 ft cliff on three sides and a sandy beach on the other. They (people around the harbor) think it may have been a formed by a salt dome. It is very dramatic, you wade out about 2 yards and then it drops off to nothing. It almost make you dizzy to look down into it. It is a little frightening to think about what lives down there. We have heard lots of speculation from sharks and tarpon to enormous Jew fish. We only saw cute, smallish fish around the hole, thank goodness. I thought the best part was at the end when we swam over to the coral head and saw a Nassau grouper (my first) and then, lame as it is, a bunch of live sand dollars (another first).

Today we are recovering from yesterday’s extremely exciting excursion. We laid around in the morning, with the exception of Sam, he did school. Then we visited one of the Atlantic side beaches with awesome cliffs for a couple of hours. The amount of trash on the East sides of islands around here is very sad. Almost all of it is plastic, some glass and rubber. The most interesting find was a rusty old mine, minus the detonator.

We are lucky enough to have made some cruising buds with kids. These include 4 boats: Liberty, Rio Dulce, Got a Life and 3 at Sea. The kids are all between 8 and 13, one even has the same birthday as Sam. All of these kids are using Calvert home school like us. Some are further along than we are, they didn’t have a hurricane and a gulf crossing to contend with. Usually when one or more boats make a plan, they let everyone in on it and whoever wants to join in can. Here is a picture of us all spelling GEORGETOWN. This is a very nice life.

We will probably be heading for the Jimentos in a couple of days. They are to the south of Georgetown, west of here. They are not so populated and supposedly full of fish and lobster. We shall see….

Happy New Year!

We are so sorry for being out of touch, I have all kinds of excuses, none of which you probably want to hear. We are in Georgetown. We have been here since the 20th . We anchored in the not so crowded anchorage of Monument Beach and were very happy with the holding. We went to town on the 23rd to pick up Meme from the airport and left MC at Monument beach. While we were waiting for her at Peace and Plenty, who did we meet, my Mom and Dad! I could not believe it, they surprised us with a visit. Meme came in an hour or two later and we all stayed at Regatta point. Of course it was our luck that the town ran out of water the next day and we couldn’t take a shower. We had a wonderful Christmas, Chelsea came in on Christmas Eve and it was great for us all to be together again.

Junkanoo was on Boxing day (day after Christmas). I was impressed with the “old people” who got up at 0130 in the morning to watch the parade. The celebration actually began at 0330 (Bahamas time). Mom, Dad and Meme befriended some of the locals and learned a great deal about the traditions. We were all exhausted around 0600 and walked back to Regatta Point hotel (best place to stay for Junkanoo btw). We crashed for a while and then David and I went to rent a boat for the day to go snorkeling. We woke up when David crashed into the bridge with the bimini of the rented boat and knocked me down. We decided to use a little less cowbell for rest of the day. Snorkeling wasn’t great, but the visitors seemed not to notice.

We ended up leaving MC alone for three days, she was lonely and needed a charge so we brought her to town for some loves. We took her for a cruise the following day (see fish story and pics later). Meme and Chelsea left on Monday the 29th and Mom and Dad stayed with us on MC one night and left the following day. It was a great visit and really helped David and I focus on what was important – each other and our family.

During the visit from our families, we befriended the water taxi guy, Elvis. He was hilarious and continues to give David grief daily over his volleyball skills when driving by. If we have any, we will throw him a beer. Interesting guy, and making a killing on us touristas. It costs $12 round trip to Stocking Island.

After two trips across the harbor in 20 kts of breeze in our small dinghy with a 9.9 hp motor and giving a fortune to Elvis we decided to upgrade our dinghy. We picked up a bigger dinghy and motor (15hp) from another boat. They are both 10 years old, but are in better shape than the dinghy/motor we have now. So now we have two dinghies, which will come in handy for Nancy and Charles when they come to visit this week.

We are now at the popular anchorage off of Chat-n-chill or volleyball beach. The boats are much closer here, but we are getting used to it. Our days are filled with Sam doing school in the morning, then we go to play volleyball or swim in the afternoons. Sam is improving every day and is the only “kid” allowed to play with the grown-ups. Apparently, there is a 15 year old rule, but the people we have been playing with have been very cool about it. Sam also has a pack of cruising kids to run with now. He is having a blast. It is great for us to have a scheduled activity to get some exercise. We are planning bridge lessons tomorrow. I am going to start swimming in the mornings and join in the race across the harbor.

David left today to go to his grandmother’s funeral. She passed after a long sickness that started in early December. Sam and I are holding down the boat.

Fish On: stories for those who care about fish.

Sam in his brilliance caught a 4.5 ft Mahi on the way to Georgetown that was very tasty. We ate that fish for three days. It was also my first attempt at filleting a fish. I got two gallon bags of meat off, and should’ve gotten more.

Sam's Mahi

Dad/Grandpa/John – caught a 3 ft Mahi and 2 ft Little Tunny. The Mahi gave him a good fight, but the smaller Tunny really fought. He kept saying, “oh, this one is big, this one is big”. Then when it came on board, we all had to laugh. Apparently, they are known for sounding (diving deep) and being a tough catch. The Mahi and the little tunny were excellent eating. The little Tunny (which is not noted for good eating in the books) tasted like tuna to me.

Dad Catch

Yesterday, we went for another cruise around the island, hoping to land some more fish. We had out 4 poles with various lures. We took another family with us from S/V Liberty. Luckily for us they know what they are doing and taught us some stuff. After trolling for a while (about 30 minutes) we finally hooked something…a big something. David from Liberty grabbed the pole while we slowed down. The line went out another 100 ft. It stopped for a while and then went out again. My David went to help reel it in to give the other David a break. Then it got easier all of a sudden. We could still see it on the hook and brought it in. It was about a 6-7 ft Wahoo or at least it used to be. We only got 1/3 of it, something much bigger (very large shark perhaps?) took the rest. Even with that amount we got two gallon bags full of meat and enjoyed an excellent dinner at Liberty. The steaks were about 4 inches thick. David from Liberty is a brilliant chef. I think it was the best fish I have ever tasted (sorry Dad).

OMG!