at anchor on NW side of Great Sale Cay, March 18

[Hilde's log]

Great Sale Cay is wishbone-shaped. Imagine it hanging from the north, with its two legs dangling toward the south. For the last two nights, we have been in the inside curve of the wishbone, being protected from the N and NE winds generated by the norther that came through Monday. This afternoon about 2 p.m., we motored outside and up to the NW curve of the wishbone. We have good protection from the change in wind direction (now blowing E and later on SE). Tomorrow it is supposed to be SE and then S. That will be a good direction for us as we head north, away from Great Sale, and then east toward Fox Town, on Little Abaco Island. When we get to Fox Town, we’ll be in the Abacos proper; we will have arrived at our first string of islands.

I’ll be glad to actually get somewhere. Today has been a bit dismal, with the cold front bringing not only winds but overcast skies most of the day and 10 degree cooler temperatures, which made swimming sound like a truly bad idea. So we cleaned house. You can make a career out of cleaning a boat; I have never seen anything get dirty so fast.

David swabbed the decks. I dusted and then swept the floor, disinfected the galley and head, and mopped the floor with a pine-sol solution. David shook out the rugs and took everything off the starboard rail. I deep cleaned the starboard quarterdeck with lacquer-thinner. I cleaned the stainless portion of the binnacle (where the depth meter, GPS, wind meter, etc. stand, and where the wheel is mounted) and swept the cockpit. The boat felt a lot better, and more importantly at some point I killed something that was smelling. It may have been our radioactive laundry, which I took out of the hamper and stowed in a laundry bag. In any case, two hours of work yielded a lot of results. Our only other activity before heading out (other than eating leftover pasta for lunch) was to study Spanish.

Once anchored on this side of the island (an hour’s trip), we broke out the wine, cheese, and crackers and listened to a Spanish station, trying to pick out words we learned today. I fixed a nice supper of mashed potatoes, tinned beef, and fresh sautéed cabbage, but we had been such hogs with the crackers and cheese we couldn’t finish. Leftovers for lunch. Now it is dark, and I am so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open (ojas abiertas?) so I am going to crawl into bed and hope for sunshine tomorrow. I am astonished at how my mood deteriorates when it is cloudy.

Happy birthday to me, Great Sale Cay, March 17

photo #1: approaching Great Sale Cay
photo #2: perfect birthday bread
photo #3: laundry at sea

[Hilde's log]



This is certainly the most unusual birthday I have spent. Raven and crew have been tethered to the anchorage all day as the wind honked past at 20-25 knots, just as forecast. My accomplishments for the day: two loads of clothes! David also washed one load (read, large bucketful). It’s an interesting process: for the stinky stuff, we first soaked them in a bucket of seawater and pine-sol for 30 minutes. Then we washed them in Joy detergent, then rinsed them, then rinsed them again with clothes softener (all in sea water – the clothes softener is supposed to get the salt out). The proof will be in the wearing. They’ve been flapping in the wind and sun all day, making us look like real cruisers. One of our neighbors dragged anchor about mid morning, and he and our other neighbor ended up pulling up their anchors and motoring across the anchorage to set their hooks nearer shore. David and I laughed that they probably wanted to upgrade the view, not being taken with our unmentionables flapping on the lifelines. Several of the other boats left this morning and others have come in this afternoon. There are 10 of us here, but no one is anchored near the underwear boat. Fine!

I have also made a loaf of bread. It has dutifully risen to twice its size, I’ve punched it down, and now I am waiting for it to rise again before baking it. David is down to his last 6 pieces of bread, hence the baking operation. There just aren’t many 7-11s around here! Now when we run out eggs, we’ve got a problem. I used the recipe Judy from Anastasia gave me and I am anxious to see how it turns out. It will be my birthday cake. David gave me a lovely birthday card, but that’s all the evidence there is that it's my big day.

I studied my Spanish for about 2 hours this morning, which was lots of fun. I am determined to have some kind of vocabulary by the time we get to the Dominican Republic in June. My goal for this year is to learn to speak passable Spanish. Hopefully, with six months in the DR, it will be even more than passable.

So that’s what I’ve done today: study Spanish, wash clothes, cook breakfast and lunch and wash up after both those meals, make bread and wash up, read out of “Your First Atlantic Crossing” (David’s book, not mine! I just want to cruise the Bahamas, thank you), have tea, and now I’m working on this entry. And that took the whole day. I will be glad when the blustery wind settles down a bit, so we can continue on. Tomorrow the plan is to leave around noon and anchor on the NW side of the island, outside the basin, and then the next day continue on eastward to Fox Town or environs when the wind clocks around to the south again and before the next norther roars down on Thursday. I’m really glad we stayed here today; such strong wind is tiring.

And that’s about it – I’ve requested a movie tonight, so the generator is running to charge the batteries so we can do that. There’s the alarm to preheat the oven – cross your fingers for the bread.

PS: Bread turned out! Underwear did not - stiff as a board. Will rinse in fresh water when it rains and we can collect some in the dinghy.

at anchor at Great Sale Cay, March 16

photo: good day on the water

[Hilde's log]

What a lovely day! We had a leisurely start, about 9 a.m., after listening to the net. We heard Viking Rose check in as they headed north from Georgetown, and I think I heard Tarwathie check in from Green Turtle Cay.

Other than an hour to charge the batteries in the morning and another 30 minutes to come into the anchorage and drop the hook this afternoon, we sailed the entire day. One reason was that Mr. P (the engine) was running hot yesterday and we didn’t want to overtax it, and the other was that we desperately wanted to sail. Our journey today was a short one, about 20 miles, so we could take our time. That’s important when you are sailing at a leisurely 4 knots as we did most of the day. The wind was westerly, directly behind us at an average of about 10 knots, so we flew the jib and ran before the wind, making great swooping tacks about every 6 miles. When the wind is behind you, you can’t even tell it’s blowing, so it made for a calm, if somewhat rolly polly ride.

The sky was alternately overcast and clear as clouds rolled by. Sometimes the sun shone through the cloud cover, making a spotlight on the water. George the wind vane steered, so David and I sat in the cockpit mesmerized by the clear turquoise water and the sounds of Harry Christopher and his choir “16” sing Thomas Tallis on NPR. It was simply sublime, rolling gently over a blue crystal world, listening to achingly beautiful 16th century plainsong and other choral compositions by one of my favorite composers.

Raven sailed up to the anchorage about 3 p.m., to find four other boats at anchor. All of us are taking refuge from an expected cold front blowing in from the north this evening, with predicted winds of 20-30 knots as it passes. This cay gives us protection from the north, east, and west, so although the winds may howl, we won’t see much chop on the water. After we anchored, another three boats showed up, so we are eight tonight. There are five sailboats, one catamaran, and two power yachts.

After celebrating our arrival with a couple of cups of hot tea and some muffins, David attached the swim ladder and we took our first swim in the ocean. It was a bit colder than we expected, but “cold” is a relative term. It was about 75 I guess. It was a bit scary, too, going over the side for the first time, and I made David promise not to leave me in the water if I got stuck. It turned out to be easy to swim, and no current, so after a few tentative strokes holding on to a safety line, I let go and dog paddled around a little, getting used to looking up at our suddenly very steep hull (Raven actually has a pretty low waterline). David got in as well, with much gasping, and we both tread water for a bit and then decided that was enough for a first try. I didn’t want to tire out before hauling myself up that ladder and it’s a good thing I didn’t because I certainly weighed a lot coming up. Once back on deck, we washed our hair with Joy detergent, which is supposed to lather in sea water (ha!) and then rinsed off with about a cup each of some warm fresh water we had heated up in the sun in the camping shower. I went below and rinsed off some more with about ½ cup of vinegar and fresh water with a wash cloth so I wouldn’t be sticky, while David stripped off and scandalized the neighbors by sunbathing au naturel. I was a big chicken and put on some underwear and a top. The temperature was perfect and it was just a lovely afternoon.

We ate baked beans and scrambled eggs for dinner in the cockpit, followed by a glass of wine, and then secured the deck and cockpit for the coming blow. We’re below now, nice and cozy, with David hunched over the macerator pump, mumbling to himself as he figures out why it ran for 30 seconds and stopped, and me writing this log entry. We think we will be here at least two days. I hope it is not too windy to do some more swimming. I want to try my snorkel and mask! The wind has started to come up, which makes it nice to be snug below.

PS: macerator update - broken impeller paddle, no extras of that particular kind, so no macerator pump til we find a functioning hardware store