November 22 through December 22, 2007

Fort Lauderdale to George Town, The Bahamas

After almost a month in the River Bend Marine Center, all of our boat chores were finally finished. We now have a new reverse-osmosis water maker that makes 20 gallons per hour of fresh water from salt water and the boat looks great with new varnish on all the exterior wood. We were now ready to leave, but had to wait for a weather window which would allow us to cross the Straits of Florida to The Bahamas.

Unlike the two other times we crossed in the summer, it was now late fall, almost winter, and the normally placid crossings in the summer were a memory. In the winter, the cold fronts from the north move all the way down to Florida, creating strong northerly winds (which blow towards the south) and pushing up huge waves against the north-moving Gulf Stream. Waiting for the right weather window can take days, or even weeks, and in many cases the weather "window" may only be open for 24 hours or less. To take advantage of these opportunities, we needed to move closer to the jetties, so we moved the boat down the New River to our old friend, the Las Olas municipal marina.

Early on Thanksgiving day we listened to Chris Parker, the weather Guru for all cruisers, on the shortwave radio to hear that the next day we would have a small, 24 hour window to cross to the Bahamas. After that, another cold front would drop down from the north and make it very difficult to cross for the next several days, or even a week. The bad news was that he didn't expect much wind at all, but that wasn't a problem for us since we could easily motor all the way to Nassau with plenty of fuel left over.

So while Terri was doing 6 loads of laundry at the marina's laundromat, I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for the two of us with all the fixings. The next day we left early to get fuel and were off to The Bahamas. Just before sunset, we crossed over the Great Bahamas Bank. That night we motored calmly over the Bank with a beautiful, full moon to light the way.

We arrived Nassau harbor around 10 in the morning. The winds had picked up significantly since sunrise (that was the end of our 24-hour window), but we were in the harbor before the waves picked up too much. We stayed in Nassau for 4 nights waiting for the wind and the waves to subside before we went further towards the Exumas. While we were in Nassau, we went diving one morning with our newly-minted SCUBA certifications. The dive was great! We also spent an evening at the Atlantis hotel and casino, a huge, beautiful facility across the harbor from where we docked. We had a delicious dinner and left the required alms to the casino before we left.

The Exumas

On Wednesday, November 28, the weather improved enough for us to leave Nassau and sail towards The Exumas. The first stop was Allan's Cay ("cay" is pronounced "key") with their infamous iguanas. The anchorage was well protected and deep but just around dinner time, we heard and felt a bump in the boat. It turns out that the wind had swung us around onto a small, shallow sand bank (not on the chart, of course). Luckily, the bottom was sand and there was no danger to us or the boat, but it was an uncomfortable feeling for an hour while the tide changed and we bumped every few minutes.

The next day we dinghied over to the beach to check out the iguanas. Although we were anchored only about 400 feet away from the beach, we couldn't see any of them from where we were. As we got about 50 feet from the beach, suddenly, about two dozen iguanas scampered out of the tall grass onto the beach. The iguanas get fed by tourists who come from Nassau on speed boats, so they have figured out that boats mean food. By the time we beached the boat, there were at least 30 or 40 iguanas eyeing us. Not having brought any food for them, we took some pictures and quickly beat a retreat in case they thought the dinghy was edible.

The next day we sailed to Shroud Cay, the first major island in the Exuma Land and Sea Park. The park is a no-take area, which means that nothing can be taken from within the park's boundaries (fish, lobsters, rocks, plants, basically everything). Since the fish and the coral are protected, the snorkeling is fantastic and we saw some of the biggest lobsters we had ever seen. We stayed in the park for six days in three different locations. It's there we started getting to know other cruisers. Every night just before sundown, a whole group us would get together on the beach for Happy Hour.

On December 5th, we sailed out of the park and towards Staniel Cay. Here we stayed just over a week, partially because of the weather, but also because it was such a great place. The anchorage was well protected and had good holding (that means, we can set our anchor down and not be concerned about waking up the next morning somewhere else). Also, there was the Staniel Cay Yacht Club, a very comfortable bar/restaurant with great food, very cold beer and free Internet. Finally, our group's original beach Happy Hours were getting more and more popular, and now included a bonfire almost ever night.

Of course, what everyone wants to see is the swimming pigs. The pigs, similar to the iguanas, have figured out that humans mean food. But the unlike the iguanas, the pigs can swim (well, lets says they can wade in the water up to their necks). The pigs were quite interesting and well behaved, except for the male pig who had a tenancy to nip people who didn't bring food.

We were sorry to leave Staniel Cay, but we still needed to get to George Town. We moved over to Black Point on Great Guana Cay for a changed of pace. There Terri tried to wash clothes in the slowest washing machine in the world (45 minutes to fill the machines with water, but at least they worked). We got together with eight other cruisers for pizza night at DeShaMon's Restaurant. The pizza was excellent, or maybe we were all so starved for pizza that anything would have been good. We ate them out of all of their pizza ingredients.

Finally, December 16, we had a weather opportunity to go offshore down to George Town. Though the winds were still fairly strong, we were able to motor-sail down to George Town and arrive late in the afternoon. The next morning, we found out the compressor for the refrigerator would not start. Luckily, we found that the only refrigeration person in the area was still in town (he was about to leave for the holidays). After checking out our unit, he concluded that the compressor was fried. Before we new it, he was on the phone ordering a new compressor from Fort Lauderdale and having it flown into George Town the next day on Reggie Express. We picked up the compressor at the airport and his son showed up at 8am the next morning to install the new unit (his dad had already left town). Before lunchtime, the new compressor was humming quietly and the freezer and refrigerator were slowly dropping to the correct temperatures. With a sigh of relief, Terri removed the six bags of ice that were keeping the units cold for the last few days. The last time the refrigerator system died, we had to return to Florida from The Bahamas. This time, we were lucky.

The dock we were on was not very well protected from the wind and the waves. We had been bouncing around very uncomfortably for three nights at this very unpleasant marina. Finally, we were able to get off the dock. We crossed to the other side of Elizabeth Harbor and dropped the anchor near Volley Ball Beach. We were able to relax again after the trauma of yet another piece of equipment failing (in this case, for the second time!). I didn't even tell you about the broken water pump on the generator....