Heading for the Abacos

Day 9: Wednesday March 4, 2015

Man did we sleep well.  In bed before 8:00 and as usual, up at 5 but feeling rested.  Started the day with some blog typing and a breakfast of sausage gravy on a tortilla.  The boat is a wreck inside.  We spent the first hour after breakfast washing last evening’s dishes and mucking out the salt covered interior and exterior of the boat.  The pounding and splashing brought water into the boat so the foot of our bed was wet as well as some of the clothing stored in tubs in the bilge.  We were in no hurry to leave so after both of us took 20 minute mini naps, we drug the wet stuff out into the cockpit so it could dry.

Bahamian Customs Office in West End,
Grand Bahama

I didn’t discuss navigation yesterday.  Our GPS/Chartplotter has a number of functions that make navigation really easy.  For this trip, I had put a waypoint at the exit of the Lake Worth Inlet and one at the entrance of the Old Bahama Bay Marina.  I told the plotter to create a route between the two and it did.  There is one problem that I have yet to be able to solve, however.  The plotter wants you to start at the first way point and if you try to enter further down the route, it tries to turn you around and go back to start.  The plotter can also be slaved to tiller pilot (an interesting autopilot) so when you tell it to follow the route, the boat turns around and heads for point number 1. 

That happened to us not long after we got out into the ocean and we quickly became disoriented as to which way we were actually going.  When we figured it out, we realized that we were following a track that was taking us south towards Miami.  I finally figured out that if I started a new route from my current location to the waypoint on my destination, the plotter would do that automatically.  But at 12:30 at night in a dark bumpy ocean, it was a bit of a challenge.  We had a couple of glitches where the plotter and the auto pilot would lose communication and the boat start off course.  I would have to redesign and reset my course.

Fuel Dock and Harbor Masters Officer

We didn’t have to hand steer the boat from Lake Worth all of the way to the Bahamas.  Distance sailors really complain if they have to hand steer for hours at a time.  And, the plotter/pilot do not get distracted which is sometimes a problem when one is hand steering in areas with no visual landmarks.

The day was basically a rest and recharge our systems type day.  We wiped down the cockpit of the boat to get the crystalized salt off.  Rebuilt our bed, cleaned the floor.  After a typical lunch, we took a nap, studied charts and set up route plans for the next several days.  I spent time studying the owner’s manual for the chart plotter in an attempt to solve some of the problems that we encountered as we crossed.

Hotel Lobby where we borrowed bikes for the ride to town

In the middle of the afternoon, we took the dinghy back to the marina and deposited our trash and enquired as to where we might find a grocery.  We were directed to a lady at the front desk of the hotel.  She said that the store is in the town which is 1 ½ miles down the road.  We asked about a cab and she said that the courtesy van was gone and would be so for the next hour or so but we could use the bicycles.  I asked the fee and she said that they were free so Janine and I took off for town.  The contrast between the marina/resort area and the town is amazing.  The folks are obviously very poor but almost everyone whom we passed greeted us in a very friendly manner. A school bus was dropping off  neatly-uniformed children.   There were many more bars than the three or four churches.  We talked to one fellow who had just came out of his shipping container home and he gladly gave us directions to the grocery.

The grocery was amazingly well stock and well maintained.  The shelves were fully stocked and neatly arranged. We bought a bunch of bananas, two ice cream sandwiches and a bottle of water for the return trip to the marina.

50 foot cutter from Norway

On the way back we met a couple who were riding bicycles and after we passed, the gentleman yelled back asking if we were the sailboat who were anchored outside of the marina,  We turned around and had an interesting conversation.  They had just come over from Ft. Lauderdale on their 54 foot cutter rigged sailboat.  They were from Norway and had sailed the boat to the US in 2010 and had spent most of the last 5 years cruising in the Caribbean. Interesting folks.  We motored past their boat on our way back to Second Wind and were impressed d that not only was she 54 feet long, she was well appointed with all of the latest bells and whistles.  He couldn’t go over to the Abacos because most of that area is too shallow for his boat that draws 8 feet.  Ours can draw up to 6 feet but we can pull the keel and rudder up so that it only draws 18 inches.

Back at the boat,we spruced up a bit and headed for the marina restaurant where we had a truly fine meal.  I had blackened snapper with garlic grilled potatoes with a medley of vegetables and Janine had fettuccini alfredo.  We each had a nice glass of wine to accentuate this fine meal.  (I felt I owed Janine something like this for allowing me to put her through the Crossing.)  We had a nice calm moonlight cruise back to the boat in the dinghy.



This mockingbird is the only wildlife we saw in West End

Back at the boat, we did some reading before calling it a night at about 9:00.  We plan to move on toward the Abacos tomorrow.