Another Day on the Dink

Today we spent the morning exploring a couple of more Cays. These were South of Guana Cay and quite spartan. There were only a couple of places we could land the dink as the shoreline was quite rough. For the most part the shoreline of the cays was certainly not friendly to hard bottom inflatable dinks. All one needs to do is brush the shoreline and this would spell disaster for the tubes.

It was probably an eight mile round trip in the dink which is about as far as I like to take it. We could have gone out on the Atlantic. The water was like glass and we could easily see the bottom. We saw a large sea turtle and a few rays, and quite a few fish around the marina's break water. Then we went to nippers for lunch and a swim in the pool.

We've uploaded some additional photos as well as the GPS tracks.

Life on Guana Cay and a Spoil Island dink

 Power on the island has been off several times since we arrived. No doubt much of this is related to the fire at the main power plant but all of Marsh Harbour was out recently because a garbage truck hit a power pole. I probably shouldn't say this but the internet access has been relatively stable and performance is definitely better than it was last year.
 As part of living aboard I went and tried our Village Marine desalinator in the water over here and it let us down yet again. It's producing water at 500 ppm total dissolved solids and that is marginal performance at best. We had ok performance in the US waters but over here the water it produces is not up to their own standard.
 I have a feeling their in house membranes are not all that great. I may elect to try an alternative brand membrane and see what happens.

 So we took the dink out to Gumelemi Cay and Spoil island yesterday. The water was quite calm so the ride was fine. We could have gone out in the Atlantic to a reef if we wanted to but heck it's only a 340 Avon with 18hp! There were a number of small boats on the water given it was Sunday and the water was flat. Many of them chose to go where we did so we always had some company about. I have to admit that Spoil Island has been picked over well so the variety of shells on it has dwindeled since last year. But we managed to collect some and here is a photo of that collection.

Hopefully as the season continues and we visit other places the diversity of the shells will go up. I've updated the GPS tracks to include the dink outing and will upload some more photos of what things are like around here. The sunsets have been nothing less than spectacular.

Orchid Bay, Photos, Power and fuel

 I've uploaded some photos into the bucket and the tracks are updated as well.
 Over all, I'd say Freedom has been good to us with regard to fuel consumption as long as we didn't push it hard. We can easily get 1.5 Npg and we are sure that we have hit 2.
 Coming across the stream we pushed her to 1500 and that dropped the consumption to 1.0 without question. But it was a choice between slogging through it or waddling through it and we chose to make the time in the stream pass more quickly.
 Anyone coming over here had better make sure they keep topped off before they decide to go anywhere. Gas is non-existent and diesel is also difficult to locate. We dried up the pumps here at Orchid bay when we took on about 55 gallons of diesel.
 The power on the island is remarkably stable in spite of the fire they had at the main power plant on Abaco. It seems a high voltage switch panel blew up and it took three hours to put the fire out. As a result rolling black outs have been occuring. It's a good thing we have the inverter because it along with the house battery bank has been able to fill in the shore power voids.
 Hopefully that ability continues!

 It was 90 down here today and we took a ride to Spoil Island where we found a few interesting shells. It was quite a rough ride back in the dink since the wind was out of the South and that put it square on the bow all the way back to Orchid Bay.

And just like that

 We're in Orchid Bay on Guana Cay. After 130 nautical miles we are are in a spot where we can spend some time relaxing. There were a couple of occassions during which we were wondering if we would continue. A new main refrigerator, a untimely failure of a  raw water pump and another raw water pump issue on the opposite engine had us concerned that Freedom was not going to be reliable enough to continue.
 But we pressed on making repairs along the way and Freedom perservered as long as we maintained her. So here we are around Whale Cay safe and sound and that means our Winter is relatively locked in. By the way, the hurricane season has been declared dead as well.
 The first leg of this portion of the trip started at the Grand Bahama Yacht Club at Lucaya. A great stop. Mention Freedom and you will save 10 percent if you speak with Thomas. From there we traveled to Sale Cay where we anchored out for the night. The trip up the Lucayan water way was a welcome break from the slamming we took across the Gulf Stream. Upon enterring the canal we were greeted by turtles and various other crites. Since we were the only ones in the canal the water was extremely clear and a pleasure to look through. The view eventually faded from interest since the more one moves into the canal the less the aquatic life there is to review. The view of clear water is replaced by the vestiges of failed business ventures like Viky's place.
 This is not a passage to be taken in a larger boat. We had plenty of depth throughout the canal  at 8 feet minimum but at the North end of the canal we were concerned. We were not in any danger of running aground but we were concerned. We followed the charts and with a rising tide we probably had 3 feet to spare upon exiting the canal into Dover Sound where the skinny water is. There were also a couple of pinch points in the canal that would certainly preclude anything with more than say 16 feet of beam from continuing. Anyone that moves through this pinch with more beam would be fool-hearty.

 We clearly saw plenty of damaging options on the bottom as we moved through. It looks as though this was going to be a bridge site that remains unfinished as another example of the failed investments.

 There was quite a bit of unfinished work along the canal. It's actually pretty sad because a short trip along this canal will convince you that many people invested alot of money into something that is not paying off. Just thinking about the money spent on digging the canal and lining parts of the canal wall with concrete will certainly convince you. By the way, the canal is only say sixty or eighty feet wide at many points on the northern half.

 Once out on the bank we were all alone with no other boats in sight. We traveled this way all day on glass all the way to Sale Cay and threw the hook for the night. In spite of the wind shift we sat right on our anchor and had no worries.

 As an example of what has gone wrong, here is Viky's place. It's a highrise example of how to lose a mess of dollars. But moving out onto the bank, and then across to Spanish Cay we were treated to very calm water. It was certainly the equal of the Hudson on a calm week day afternoon.
 Pulling into Spanish Cay Marina Merle helped us in and we settled down after a long day on the water. That included dinner at the marina restaurant and it was quite good as well as being reasonably priced.
 Later that night when the sun light faded we turned on the transom lights and were treated to quite a display of aquatic life. Big, large, in your face aquatic life. The kind that can eat you.
 Yup. Sharks.
 Big sharks. Hungry hunting at nite hoping to cash in on our transom lights sharks. We tried to ID them but we can only come close thinking they were Bull or Lemon Sharks. We suspect that they were after the large grey snapper than chased the bait fish for a while. For one reason or another they dissappeared into the night. Maybe that's why they were big snappers eh?
 Here at Orchid the water is very clear at night. And yes, our buddy the Green Heron is still here and he picks out the bait fish at night with the transom lights attracting them.
 Diesel is 4.10 a gallon and they are out at this point. Perhaps they are trying to discourage people from moving on by falsly saying they have no fuel . I have no idea, but the Bahamas are hurting big time. Many facilities have no fuel of any sort.

Stream crossing made easy

 Buy a copy of the Dozier's "Waterway Guide". We have the 2008 version. It has a section "Crossing the Gulf Stream" which has a great chart outining starting points, destinations, speeds and courses.
 Even though the rhumb line course from Ft. Lauderdale to Lucaya is 80 degrees, as much as I could I set the autopilot to 90 degrees as indicated in the chart for 10 knots. When the autopilot was not a viable option due to rough water, I used the compass and swagged 90 as best I could. At the points early in the stream crossing where we miander the bow was certainly being pushed North into the North East Swells by the stream (I suspect). Sometimes it was better to "go with the flow".
 So by steering 90, we vectored over to Lucaya. It's the sum of vectors or preliminary physics. I might be able to handle that still just don't ask me to derive Einstein's Theory of relativity again. I'll certainly send you into a black hole.

 As far as choosing Lucaya over West End? They raised their rates and we were up for something different. That gave us the incentive.

 By the way if you come to Lucaya, Thomas the dockmaster has asked me to let everyone know that he will grant you a 10% dockage fee discount as he did for us. We are going to wash up Freedom and check out the reefs all over the shore here. We saw numerous glass bottom boats out there on our way into the Grand Bahama Yacht Club.
 The power is good at 225v, and the facility is well protected and quiet.  

Lucaya Bahamas

 After a day of 10 hours on the water that started somewhere around 4:30 a.m. we have arrived in Lucaya on Grand Bahama.

 The trip started on the new river at 6:15 am when we went to leave the wall and spin Freedom around for the trip down the New River from Ft. Lauderdale. The first photo gives you an idea just how narrow this river is. It also implies what it must be like to spin a large boat around and head down stream. There are mega yachts all over the place and channel 9 has several "Security" broadcasts being issued. The passages are narrow and one does not want to meet a 100 footer in some of the kinks.
 We were located just the other side of the bridge in the back ground because we needed an early start and that bridge did not start opening until 7:30 am. With that, at 6:15 am we shoved off in darkness and proceeded to spin Freedom around. As I approached perpendicular to the river, Deb yells look out!! I freak and see a commercial boat ripping up stream headed right for us. So he stops and I leave room. He gets pushy, I hold still. He relents and lets me flip the boat around.

 An ugly start but we got 'er done.

 So on down the "miracle mile" we head looking at houses of all sorts. They have mansions and quaint old houses that were built decades ago mixed in here and there. The old ones survive because they have refused to sell out. It's an odd mix but it works imho.

  Anyway out the inlet we went and we hit the Gulf Stream. It hit us back again and again. While the water was not high at 2-3 it was of a short duration that we figure was not more than a few seconds. We were constantly pounding or rolling as it was hitting us smartly off the port bow. This went on for about 3 hours and then subsided. If you look at the image of the WxWorx screen you will see the wave predictions we depended on to make the trip. We knew it would be a bit rough to start. Eventually we were hoping it would lay down as we approached the Southern side of Grand Bahama. That turned out to be the case. What did not turn out to be the case was that the initial water was 2-3 with some 4 footers in there and they were only a few seconds apart. Sort of like 3 foot chop ok? This area was forecast to be 2 feet or less. Ugh. Fortunately it was calm for the last half of the trip so the "gambit" played well. By the way darker colors to green mean larger waves. The contour lines indicate the period.

And yes, it was a while before Dan could take a break from the driving. Next time perhaps I'll only have one cup of coffee in the morning.
I've started a new photo bucket album and that is listed to the left of the blog main page. Along with that I also have more GPS data. You'll see a couple of dodges in the track. We had a container ship catch and pass us along the way so we left some extra room off the rhumb line. If you zoom in on the track to Lucaya you will see that it's obvious when I was using the autopilot and when I was not. Early on it was rough and I chose to pick different courses to make the ride as smooth as I could. Once it laid down, we dialed her in and let her have her stride. All 10 blazing knots of it.

 All in all it was an Ok call to move to Ft. Lauderdale and skirt some of the rough water. Given how the NOAA forecasts were a bit off lately based on some grumblings we've heard we hoped a more Southern starting point would be to our advantage. Sure we could have waited another day but the way the forecasts have been flip flopping around less wave heights off West Palm and how there were consistently lower heights to the South we gave it a shot and it paid off. It might well have been 3-5 off West Palm today.

Say the secret word and ...

 Ok, Groucho used a duck on his show "You Bet Your Life". Things have been kindo dull around here what with waxing the boat and other work. Anticipating the forecast only to find it change in the evening. So here I am sitting on the aft deck pondering the predicament when Pete comes in for a landing. He flew right off the aft deck almost getting his wings under the hard top, and landed on the pole a few feet away. I wonder if he's the same one that landed nearby last year.

Anyway the forecast looks good for tomorrow, and better for Wednesday at this moment. But given the way things have been going we're pretty sure the forecast will degrade with the afternoon spin.