A day at the beach

These photos are from the Atlantic side of Great Guana.

photo #1: enjoy a rum something at a Nipper's picnic table, overlooking the Atlantic

photo #2: at last, palm trees!

photo #3: looking up from the beach to Nipper's

photo #4: at the edge of a very big ocean

photo #5: we had the beach to ourselves - 5 miles of it

Back at Great Guana, April 4, 2008

photo #1: "Buck a Book" sells you paperbacks for a dollar and donates its profits to benefit the wild horses of Abaco, descended from Columbus' time, and numbering only 8 horses at this time

photo #2: interior of Java, my favorite coffee shop in Marsh Harbour

[Hilde’s log]

Raven is slopping quietly at anchor at Settlement Point, Great Guana Cay. We returned to Great Guana after several days in Marsh Harbour, where we stocked up on groceries, got rid of our trash, and visited with friends. My favorite stop is a little coffee shop called Java, where I enjoyed an iced chai in a lovely non-air conditioned setting. Although the islands are warm (lower 80s most days), the constant sea breeze keeps everything comfortable and only a few places have air conditioning. This makes me very happy, since the air conditioning at home smells stale and is always set at right about freezing. At Java, the front and back doors are always open and the breeze sweeps through, taking the aroma of the coffee right out on the porch. There is art on the walls for sale, a table of books for exchange, tea and coffee for sale, couches and chairs for those who want the shade, and comfortable plastic tables out front for those who want more light.

Although Marsh Harbour is one of the “big” towns (you can get there by plane), it’s pretty easy to walk to what you need. The grocery store, Maxwell’s, has just about everything you’d want. The prices are quite expensive, reflecting the fact that just about everything is shipped in, but when you’ve lived on canned food for awhile where no produce is available, price is insignificant and availability is everything. David and I stuffed our purchases into our little wheeled plastic carts and lugged our booty about four long blocks to the dinghy dock. I felt as though I were some old horse dragging a wooden cart. There are few sidewalks and Bahamians drive on the left, so traffic was also an issue. It took us three separate trips to the store to stock the boat because we could only carry so much at a time. We also resupplied with propane and gasoline. We’ll fill up with water and diesel later in the week when we stop in at a dock (trash pickup, hot showers, dockside laundry…what luxury!).

The promised winds did come through, but much less strongly than anticipated. Marsh Harbour is a great foul weather port, protected on all sides with great holding. Larry and Barbara, on Laura May, told us of one fellow who rode out a hurricane in that harbor – on the boat. No thanks!

Today we made a quick hour and a half trip back to Great Guana Cay. We took a mooring ball at Settlement Point and went ashore to find Nipper’s, one of the two local watering holes. A passing golf cart gave us a ride right up to the gate. Nipper’s has a fresh water swimming pool, an open air bar, a restaurant, and guest lodges and sits on a sand dune overlooking a long stretch of Atlantic beach. What a glorious sight! This was the view I kept seeing on all the brochures – five miles of unspoiled beach trimmed with sandy cliffs and palm trees, white-crested rollers breaking over white sand, deep neon-blue sea to the horizon. There is a reef about 75 yards off the beach where you can snorkel, plenty of places to jump the breakers or body surf or just sit in the sand and roast. Children dug sand, adults alternately played with them or leaped in the breakers, couples strolled down the beach, small dogs played endless games of tag with anyone who showed the least interest. We watched it all from the shaded edge of Nipper’s porch, listening to island music and the surf, a cold beer in hand. Tomorrow we will make our own foray to the sand. David has just ruined Galveston for me by bringing me here. I mean ruined.

laundry day at Marsh Harbour

[Hilde’s log]

Just back from doing our radioactive laundry at the marina laundry facility. $16 for three washers and one dryer. Needless to say, I’ll be drying most of our things on the lifelines today. We’ve been in Marsh Harbour for two days now, waiting for high winds that have not yet materialized. It’s supposed to blow 30 knots, but we haven’t seen anything over 23 so far. The water in the harbor is a bit choppy, but we made it to the laundry without getting sloshed. It was a bit of a challenge when we arrived, as I had to climb up a five foot wooden ladder to reach the dock. Heights (even five feet) give me the willies, but I made it up and down. Everest is next!

While I did the clothes, David got out his sewing machine and restitched the mainsail cover. Now he’s digging around in the port lazarette, working on an adjustment to the rudder post stuffing box. I’m about to continue with hanging out the clothes and making bread.

Not much to report, except a marvelous trip from Fisher’s Bay at Great Guana Cay to Marsh Harbour through perfectly clear water. We took turns sitting at the bow, watching the sandy bottom roll by. We saw one fish, probably 20 star fish (with short, stubby little arms), and a number of sea slugs (some of them are bright red!). Once at anchor here in the harbor we saw several sea turtles, which was a big thrill for me, fan of turtles that I am. The harbor water is cloudy so we can’t see the bottom (probably just as well), but the turtles floated to the top and looked around at everyone before diving again. They were probably 18” to 2 feet across, with big yellow heads. I finally saw what I think are tropic birds at Great Guana Cay. They look a bit like sea gulls, having large, white bodies, but their tails are like scissortails back home and they don’t scream like gulls do, but rather call with more of a chirp. Four of them played above us in the breeze as we lay at anchor, chasing each other in dips and glides, obviously with romance on their minds. It is spring, after all.

We met up with Viking Rose here in the harbor, and heard from Gerda and Jack on Sadie A on the VHF. They are snorkeling at Great Guana this week. Richard, Penny, David, and I all walked up to Marshall’s grocery and were delighted to find that this local grocery is loaded with food – even produce. We plan to go back to Great Guana later in the week and take a mooring ball in order to leave the boat without worrying about dragging, so we can roam that island, enjoy the beach, and do some snorkeling. Then we’ll turn around and come back here on our way south.

We met Tony and Kris from Ticketoo, who are returning to the States after three years in the Caribbean. They came aboard and visited with us last night, and had lots to tell of ports we hope to visit, especially lots of information about Luperon in the Dominican Republic, which is our goal for June. They have wonderful photos on their website at www.spaces.msn.com/members/ticketoo. We met them because they came up to the boat in their dinghy and announced they were the cake fairies. Company they had expected were forced to cancel their trip, so Tony and Kris were handing out slices of the chocolate cherry cake they’d made for the company to their neighbors (it was just wonderful). If that wasn’t enough, Barbara and Larry on Laura Mae, our neighbors to port, sent over some fresh coconut bread. After so many years in cities, where neighbors have uniformly ignored us (and, to be fair, we pretty much ignored them), the friendliness of people on the water just astonishes and delights me.

As we were barreling along yesterday in the dinghy, exploring the harbor for dinghy docks and boats we’d met before, we saw Ru’ah, a boat that routinely checks in on the cruisers’ net. When we approached to make introductions, we were warmly greeted by Helen, a lovely English lady who spends her time travelling the world crewing on other people’s boats. She had the widest, happiest smile, told us of some of her more memorable moments travelling, and simply insisted we go to the South Pacific. Helen has been travelling for over 20 years and has friends everywhere. We've finally learned that to meet people while cruising, you have to go up and say "Hi." Everyone we've ever introduced ourselves to has been happy we did and many of them have become friends. We just got an email from the nicest fellow we meet in Green Turtle Cay, GW on Serenity, who had dinner with us and more new friends, Ken and Maria, from Duet. The dinner was an imprompu affair over pasta and brownies, was the highlight of our stay at Green Turtle, and came about because we dinghied over to Duet one morning and said Hi. Amazing!!

Clear view

This is a view from the side of the boat, looking down into 12 feet of water. No wind this morning (can it be possible??), which allowed this photo.

Leapin' Lizards, we're in Great Guana Cay

[Hilde’s log]

Another first for Raven: we successfully navigated Whale Cay Passage, a channel from the Bahama banks to the Atlantic, then travelling about a mile off the islands in the Atlantic, and coming back to the banks through Loggerhead Channel to anchor at Great Guana Cay. These cuts must be travelled carefully, when the swells coming in from the Atlantic are low and the wind and current are in accord. We hadn’t planned to take that route today, but the cruisers’ net on VHF 68 reported very good conditions, so we rushed around and secured everything, heaved the dinghy up on deck, and headed out.

The conditions were good, as reported, and we could see why you’d be idiotic to try the passage in anything less than good conditions. The sea and wind were both on our nose, which makes for slow going. The swells, though “only” of the two to four foot variety made the transit a bit lumpy as they tended to stack up and come in at a fairly rapid pace. The passage saw a small rush of traffic as boats passed us headed north to Green Turtle and sailed with us toward Great Guana Cay and farther south. The cruisers’ net has proved invaluable, as they broadcast “eyewitness” weather reports from the local islands. Needless to say, a weather/sea report from a boat on site is a whole lot more accurate than NOAA could ever be.

The sea was its usual (for here) astonishing self, jewel-deep aquamarine streaked with navy blue, almost black, and stunning neon green, all of it blindingly brilliant under the sun. We anchored in Fisher’s Bay about 1 p.m. and congratulated ourselves on a good day’s work. It was exactly the amount of sailing I like to do – four hours. I fixed a big, late lunch, after which David took a well deserved nap and I buried myself in The French Lieutenant’s Woman. He woke up about an hour later, groggy until he looked outside and noticed we’d dragged about 200 yards. That got everyone moving! Fortunately, we were at the edge of the bay with no one behind us. We went out into the cockpit, upped anchor and reset, dragged again and reset. The reset was complicated by the fact that the anchor chain clumped up and jammed belowdeck after about 60 feet, so David had to run up and down from the bow to shake it loose.

While we were resetting, the wind blustered from 20 to 23 knots. Trying to point into a strong wind is a challenge, because it catches Raven’s bow and blows her around like a top when we aren’t moving forward (you have to stop to lower the anchor). NOAA had forecast 10-15 knots for today. I shouldn’t have been surprised at the discrepancy. We have a friend who says that to get the NOAA wind forecast to be accurate, you have to add 10 knots to the wind speed and assume it will blow opposite to the direction forecast. That’s probably a little exaggerated, but it’s how we end up feeling!

Once we set, David hauled the remaining 150 feet of chain up on deck to inspect and untwist it. This is a dirty operation, as the chain has rusty dust all over it, which instantly muddies the deck (my beautiful used-to-be clean deck) and gets on your hands, your feet, your clothes, whatever lines may be around, and of course the dinghy, which was still fastened to the foredeck. The wind frisked happily all blinking afternoon and we were afraid the anchor would pop up again (although with 120 feet of chain out the second time, that seemed unlikely), so I sat in the cockpit and stared forlornly at the beach and the tiki bar and all the trappings of civilization I thought I’d get to sample today, but can’t because of the wind.

I was picturing a mild breeze and a lazy afternoon on the beach. I realize this is just another case of being blindsided by expectations, but I am getting a bit testy on the subject. We’ve been in the Bahamas two weeks today, and I’ve been ashore exactly three times, and have yet to sit on a beach under an umbrella. For some reason I have it in my head that if I do this, the trip will have been a success. Well, there’s always tomorrow. For today, I am licking my wounds (a splinter in my finger, a bruised ankle, and a kitchen cut) and waiting, although I am not waiting very patiently.

Our destination tomorrow is Marsh Harbour, where we hope to meet up with Viking Rose, friends we have not seen since Vero Beach. They are due in tomorrow as well. We can still explore here a bit, as the distance from here to there is not far and, hey, the wind will be blowing only 10-15 knots. NOAA says so.

Green Turtle Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

photo #1: early morning ferry

photo #2: marina

photo #3: David on the beach

photo #4: White Sound (Green Turtle Cay)

photo #5: island cove

Glimpses of New Plymouth, Green Turtle Cay, Abacos, Bahamas