Sunday March 2, 2014 Last Night at the Marsh Harbour Marina & Jib Room

Today is work day in preparation for our departure tomorrow morning.  We need to provision, lift the dinghy on the davits, the motor on the motor lift, fill one fuel can, top the water tank, put bikes back on board etc.  The captains are having a meeting at 3:00 in the Jib Room so everyone is on the same page with what, when, and where!   Before we start, the young Captain David from yacht Lady Linda had us and Bill and Eileen come aboard to show us the weather…winds, waves, fronts…predicted.  What a yacht!  The owners were on board with some friends and they were very gracious about us invading their privacy!  Gorgeous, just gorgeous!  Now it’s time to get down to business so we’re done in time for our sailors’ meeting.

At our meeting, the guys all agreed on the following schedule:      

3/3  leave at 7 am,  go out the ships channel, do the Whale, and anchor at Allans-Pensicola Cay              3/4  leave at 8 am and anchor at Mangrove Cay                                                                                       3/5  dock at the Old Bahama Bay Marina at the West End and wait for a good weather window 

          

 One of the worse things a cruiser can do is try to follow a schedule.  So we’ll see what happens!! LOL

Ed & Connie

While  at the Jib Room, Chuck and I settled up our bill.  We still owed for power and water for the last 18 days.  We also decided to order our last ‘Bilge Burner’ drink…Stephen said it was on the house!  Later, we were pleasantly surprised to be invited for sundowners on the dock.  Here it was a farewell for us from our of friends on the dock.  What wonderful memories we will always have of Marsh Harbour Marina and our dock friends!

Ginger, Sam, & Tsu the cat

Janet & Gary

Peter, Carolyn, Casey the dog, & Sammy the black cat.

Saturday March 1, 2014 Reef Ball at the Jib Room

It's amazing how time flies!  I can't believe it's the 1st of March.  It only seems like yesterday that we crossed over and were sailing across the Little Bahama Bank.  March 10th is our official last day to be in the Bahamas.  If we want to stay longer, we need to go to the Immigration Office and apply for an extension on our stay.  It doesn't cost any more money but it's not very convenient since it can only be done in Marsh Harbour, Green Turtle, and the West End and only 2-3 days before our present papers expire!  As it turns out, we won't be needing to extend.  I take that back, maybe we will if we can't get out

Lady Leah

of our dock.  The 85 foot Lassara, Lady Leah, just docked on the face dock which is perpendicular to our boat.  Their 5 foot platform hangs more than half way across the width of our boat.  Ha Ha!  If she stays, we stay...LOL.  They docked for the Reef Ball and will be leaving for Nippers tomorrow.  What a yacht!  We talked to Daniel the 34 year old captain from South America.  He and his fiancee are the crew for the owners who reside in Florida.  What a great job for this young couple!

 We waited for Circe to get back to their dock.  Rita was in radio contact with them and their ETA is 12:45.  We all wanted to have a final lunch of Fish Reuben at the Jib Room.  Linda was closing lunch a half hour early because of the Reef Ball that's being held their tonight,  so we hoped Circe would be on time....and they were!  We had to eat on the deck because people of all ages were busily decorating the back patio and the jib room for tonight.  We all decided not to attend because it was $100 per person!!  The money raised is for a good cause but $200 is out of our budget!!  And the money didn't stop there. They had silent auction items and live auction items.  Stephen told us that they raised $47,000. I'd say that's pretty successful!  A little bird told us that the owner or owners of the Miami Dolphins was in attendance.  I wouldn't know them to see them.

Paula & Bobby (lost his cap)

After our delicious lunch, Billy and Eileen had to grocery shop to provision for our trip.  Chuck and I went to Mermaid Beach with Bobby and Paula.  The guys braved the rough water for one last snorkel. Paula and I decided to walk the beach.  The report from Chuck was that the water wasn't as clear as in the past because the wind and waves had the water stirred up  quite a bit.   While we were shelling, others came to swim out to the reef.  It was getting pretty busy considering the waves on the Sea of Abaco!

We all got together on Circe for happy hour  for Paula.  She's flying home tomorrow. We're going to miss her!   We've had a great time with Paula and Bobby.  As I said in a previous posting, he's making the crossing with Circe. Our happy hour lasted a lot longer than an hour!

   Rita and David went back to their boat.  Chuck and I went over to ours to eat dinner.  The Circe crew went up to the pool to sit and listen to the band.  I listened to them on our boat why still trying to catch up with my blog.  Night everyone!

Thursday & Friday, February 27-28, 2014 Marsh Harbour

Thursday:  The first thing on Chuck's agenda this morning is to shorten  the new bolt and screw it back into place.  Billy is coming over to give some thought to our problem.  Hopefully, this bolt will be strong enough to do the job!

Our plans are to go to Hope Town today for a night or two with Circe.  However, we might change our plans because the wind is starting to blow like stink, 15-25 mph and there's an 80% chance of rain and thunderstorms.  My concern is that we'd get all the way over to Hope Town and not be able to find a vacant mooring ball!  Hope Town is very protected and a favorite for boaters to sneak into to wait out the nasty weather.  With the predicted weather for today and tomorrow, I bet everyone is going to stay hunkered down right where they are!  Wow, the skies to the north are looking dark and threatening and they are moving our way!  Okay, time to lower our side panel before it starts to rain...just in time....and it's pouring!  The first lull in the rain, I make a dash for the Jib Room with my laptop.  I need to to some banking and pay bills while I have wifi.  There are so many others with the sam idea that the internet is running very slow....darn.  Being persistent pays off and I finally get my payments set up and ready to go. While I was fooling around with the internet, Chuck was on the boat changing the oil, oil filter, and the two fuel filters.  Happy Hours II should be ready for her long trip back to Ohio.

At 3:00, our crew decided to meet at the Jib Room and play LRC for quarters. There were 10 of us playing...Rita, David, Eileen, Billy, Paula, Bobby, Ginger, Sam, me and Chuck. There were 4 women playing Mexican Train at another table but they weren't as vocal as us.  We had about 1.5 hours of a 'hooting and hollering' good time.  After 4 games, the winners were Eileen, Billy, Sam, and David.  What fun.  It was soon approaching 5:00 and time for the Cruisers' Pot Luck.  None of us were going because we were too busy playing LRC instead of making an appetizer!  Back to our boats for the night.
Friday:  It rained all night!  It's good for the island and it's people because they really need the rain to fill their cisterns.  Chuck and I decided not to venture to Hope Town today with Circe.  Since we're leaving on Monday, we thought it best to stick close to home and rest up for the big trip.

Rita called to see if we wanted to do lunch at Conchy Joes at noon.  Well, yes!! This will be our last chance to watch them crack conch.  As soon as we got in the dinghy, it started to rain.  It's a good thing we have our foul weather jackets on!  It's bad enough that by the time we got to the other side of the harbor, we both had 'dinghy butts'!  We ordered our meal and conch salad and got to watch Ebony clean fresh conch.   She pulled a string of conch up out of the water in front of the bar/restaurant.  They keep their conch in the water to keep them alive until ready to eat.  Ebony then cracked the conch and skinned them in record time.  Boy is she good...and she's got to be 18-20 years old!!

me & Rita at Conchy Joes

Once we got back to our boat, Chuck took the helmet conch out of our freezer.  Someone told him this was one way to kill the mussel.  It looked dead so Chuck tried to remove the animal.  It came out in pieces.  Desmond came by and gave Chuck some suggestions as to what to do...we'll see.  He suggested taking the shell to the beach and pound it on the hard sand. Desmond said the mussel will just fall out after about 25 poundings!   He even offered to remove the conch if Chuck needed help.

While we were playing with the shell, Lisa Mann called twice and we didn't hear my Bahamian phone ring.  I called her back and we made arrangements to meet  Lisa, Herrick, and their friends Shalina and Bob at Snappas at 6:00. The young sax player is on stage from 6-8:00 and the restaurant has free appetizers.  By the time we walked up to the table, all the food was gone.  We could see why....people had their plates piled like this was the main course!  What manners!  We listened to Mr. Eckley play his instrument while we ate and talked.  It was nice to see friends from Ohio.

Me, Lisa, Herrick, Chuck, Shalina, & Bob

Wednesday, February 26, 2014 Last Humpday at Marsh Harbour

This is more than likely going to be our last 'Humpday' at Marsh Harbour!

What a perfect morning.  We have flat, calm, water with very light winds.  I'm loving every minute of the Abacos.  After the Net, I talked to Eileen about our plans for the day.  The weather predicts strong winds, 20-30 by 3:00, so we have time to stop at Fowl Cay and play around.  None of us have been there yet! ...and we still will have time to get settled back at the dock before the blow.  Our motor sail was going along smoothly when all of a sudden I heard the boat making a funny noise...and it was coming out of the engine room!!  That's not good.  Chuck went down to investigate while I backed the engine down.  He shouted for me to shut off the engine.  Oh boy!! The bolt on the alternator that he just replaced broke again.  Chuck's thinking we only have about 8 hours on that bolt.  So, he jerry-rigged something  and we now are by-passing Fowl Cay and heading very slowly to Marsh Harbour.  Billy noticed we were having problems and called on the VHF.  He is staying with us just in case.......This is not what we need to happen since we're leaving in a few days to make our journey north.  Maybe it's better to happen here than out in the Gulf Stream!!  Billy and crew are still hanging tight but sailing behind and beside us.  It's great to have friends that are will to change their plans and watch out for us.

We are getting near the day markers at the mouth of Marsh Harbour.  The winds are picking up earlier than what was predicted.  I just hope the worst waits until we are docked!  Everyone is passing us on their way into the harbor and looking at us like we're nuts were motoring so slow.  Oh well.  I just hope nothing happens while we're passing through the mooring field....which is more crowded than normal because of the weather.  Jason was waiting for us with our lines but it was gusty and coming out of our least favorable direction.    Spring line...on, bow line....on, aft line.....oops the gust pushed us over to the stern piling.  That's okay because it made it easier for Chuck to grab that port stern line hanging on the hook on the piling!!  We made it and all is well.

We all decided(Circe, HHII, and Whisper) to eat ribs at the Jib Room.  This will be our last chance to partake of their delicious food!  Billy and Eileen wanted Paula and Bobby to not only experience the food but the party out back...dancing, rake n scrape, and Desmond's limboing.  We had a blast and the ribs were excellent.  Chuck's half of a chicken was excellent too!

Circe went snorkeling after lunch, which was our original plan.  We had to opt out to go in search of a case-hardened bolt.  We were directed this time to AID(NAPA).  They had the right size but they   weren't hardened but  Chuck bought two anyway.   On our way back to the dinghy dock, we decided to try the Marine Store....nope.  The guy there directed us to the Marsh Harbour Boatyard which he said was 15 minutes away.....I have to laugh.  He knew we were walking.  I think the 15 minutes was by car and it turned out to be 1 hour in the heat and high humidity...up past Maxwell's, left at the first intersection, and then follow that road down to the Boatyard on the Sea of Abaco!  After walking all that way, they didn't have the bolt we needed but one of the mechanics went back to look through his odds and ends and found a bolt.  It was too long but it was case-hardened and Chuck is going to cut it to the proper length.  The guy wouldn't take any money for his bolt....very nice!

sv/Mar-A-Lago
Jane & Brian

Once finally back to our dinghy, we motored over to Mango's Marina to see if we could spot Brian and Jane on sv/Mar-A-Lago.  It's been since sometime in December that our paths crossed....at Vero Beach.  We did find them and went aboard to visit for awhile.  It was great seeing them and hearing about their travels to Bimini, Nassau, Eleuthra, and the Exuma's.  It was soon approaching time for us to go back to the Jib Room and get ready to meet the gang for Rib Night.  We
 had 12 people sitting at our table for dinner.  After we ate, we all went out back to party..,it was the best party yet.  Jason must have played 10  'last songs' to get everyone to leave.  No one wanted to go!  LOL  What an experience for Paula and Bobby.    It's time for bed.....

Bobby playing the harmonica!

Boy could he dance!

Tuesday, February 25, 2014 Last Trip to Nippers and Grabbers

Our plans as of last night are to stay at Tahiti Beach, snorkel early, and leave around 11:30 for Hope Town.  Change of plans.....Since it's going to be such a nice day, we didn't want to be on the moorings inside Hope Town Harbour.  So now, we cruising to Fisher's Bay...again.  This will be our 4th and last visit to Great Guana Cay!  Sigh!   Nippers and then Grabbers.  What a great way to spend a glorious day!  Eileen and Billy want Paula and Bobby to experience these to beach bars...and they should!  Since the weather is suppose to deteriorate as the week progresses, this is a good plan.  In fact, tripping over to Hope Town from Marsh Harbour in the rain is doable on Friday if we want.

Before we raised our anchors, the 3 guys ended up snorkeling like planned but not at Tahiti Beach! Last night after we got back from White Sound, Billy knocked the lid to his grill into the water while trying to grill in the dark!  He wanted to find it if he could.  The water is so clear this morning because there is hardly a ripple on the surface that I have faith in our men!  The guys jumped in the water and did a sweep around the circumference of the water where Circe moved on her anchor during the night.  It was a successful recovery with Billy finding the lid.  Actually, Chuck swam right over the lid but thought they were looking for the sumbrella cover!  LOL

Off to Guana Cay.  We motored to Fisher's Bay in 2 hours.  The winds are light and variable so the Sea of Abaco is very calm. Once we pulled into the bay, I was surprised to see only 2 catamarans anchored.  Wow, where is everybody?  The last 3 times here, we had plenty of company!  That's okay, it makes it easy for us to find a sandy patch to drop the anchor.  It's usually a bugger to maneuver around other anchored boats looking for good holding!  We didn't want to waste a minute of our time, so we agreed to meet at the beach where we'll tie up or anchor our dinghies.  Usually we walk to Nipper Beach Bar but since there's not much wind stirring and it's hot and humid, we all decide to ride in the courtesy golf cart to Nippers.....lunch on the deck and then down to the beach for snorkeling , body surfing, and swimming.   We walked quite a
distance up the shore because 3 sharks were sighted by some of our friends in the water directly in front of the bar.  It seems, 3 guys were spear fishing in that vicinity, speared some fish, and the blood attracted the shark.  Yikes!!  Not what I wanted to hear!  We finally decided we weren't going to let a few shark keep us out of the water.  We'd needed to cool down!  The water was so refreshing and the waves were a blast to ride.  While the 6 of us played in the water,  we kept our eyes on the northern skies.  It was getting dark and we could hear rumbling off in the distance.  We were hoping it wasn't going to rain on our beach!  As the front move in, the winds picked up and the temperature dropped from 88 to 78 degrees.  Walking back to our dinghies, we couldn't resist a grabber.

Eileen invited us over to their boat for turkey leg slices????
Nobody knew what they were!  I had to get busy and make cheesy potatoes to take. In the meantime, the rains came and the 2-3 foot waves were suddenly rolling into the harbor.  This is going to be fun to try to get into a bouncing dinghy carrying a hot casserole dish!  Of course the front passed through, the waves flattened out, and the winds became peaceful, after we boarded Circe.  Once again we had a great time and all laughed about trying to eat the turkey...yuk.  All I can say is, it's a good thing I took the potatoes and Eileen had left over chicken heated up, just in case.......Ha Ha Ha!!  Back to HHII....nothing is better than relaxing with calm breezes blowing through the hatches!

Monday, February 24, 2014 Back to Tahiti Beach

We got a call on the VHF from sv/Mar-a-Lago this morning.  They  were docked at the Mango Marina and arrived sometime yesterday afternoon.  Chuck told Brian that we are getting ready to take off for a 2-3 day sail and that we would get in touch with them when we get back.  Hopefully we can connect on Wednesday before the Rib Dinner at the Jib Room!!  We haven't seen  Brian and Jane since we left them at the Vero Beach Anchorage sometime in December. While we went as far as West Palm to make our crossing, they traveled down to Miami and crossed over to Bimini with other buddy boats.

Whisper left her anchorage about a half hour before we were able to pull away from our dock. Today is Rita's Birthday....Happy Birthday Rita....and they decided to go to Hope Town instead of down to Tahiti Beach with Circe and us.  David wanted to take Rita to Sea Spray for her birthday. When he heard that Sea Spray and Abaco Inn shuttle boaters from the mooring field to their
restaurants, David decided to take advantage of this service.  The courtesy van was scheduled to pick them up at the Post Office Dock at 3:30 so they would get to Sea Spray at 4:00.  From our anchorage in Tahiti Beach, it's a short dinghy ride into White Sound where we eventually will meet them for a birthday drink and toast!  Keith left his anchorage shortly after the rest of us and sailed down to Sea Spray Marina.  His son, Dale and family are flying in today to stay at a house beside the Abaco Inn.  He and his family will also meet up with us at the outdoor bar.  This is going to be so much fun if we can pull it off!!

Billy, Eileen, Bobby, Paula, Chuck and I dinghied over to one of our favorite beaches, Tahiti Beach, to play.  Chuck took off to snorkel while the rest of us went shelling.   Not much of the beach was exposed right at the moment because of the high tide.  Chuck signaled me to meet him near the water's edge.  He was holding 4 conch shells that he found while snorkeling....1 conch and 3 helmet conch.  The smallest helmet conch was beautiful both on the outside as well as the inside. We both would like to take that shell home with us!  The only problem is that there are animals in all 3 of these conch, so we're not sure whether we'll keep any or them or not.  Soon, all of the guys took off to see what they could find by snorkeling. Chuck was the first to come back because he had been in the water longer than Billy and Bobby.  When we looked at the time, we knew we needed to head back to our boats to change into dry clothes.  We definitely were going to be late for our 4:00 meeting with David and Rita.

We had a nice time celebrating Rita's birthday and meeting Keith's son, daughter-in-law,  and 2 grandchildren.  Rita usually drinks beer but she had a special rum punch drink. Before we knew it, she was showing us her cherry stem.  She had knotted it with her tongue!   I had to try, and actually tied mine in 30 seconds!  Paula was next.....and succeeded.  Eileen and the men wouldn't even try!  What party poopers!!  We knew David and Rita had reservations for dinner and didn't want to hold them up any longer. We climbed down into our dinghies and motored over to the
docks behind the Abaco Inn.  Chuck and I thought that the Circe crew needed to experience this ocean-side restaurant/bar.  What a view!!   The sun was getting low in the sky, so we knew we needed to make the run back to our anchorage while we still had a bit of light!  

Friday, Saturday, Sunday February 21-23, 2014 Marsh Harbour

There's not much happening this weekend!

Friday: Chuck is going to try again to  connect with Capt'n James over near Curly Tails.  He's the guy that rented 2 pairs of fins and 1 mask to Rick and Bev...cheap.   He gave them a great deal and then told them they could use them as long as they needed.  Chuck's tried to return the snorkeling gear about 4 times to no avail!  Capt'n James originally had suggested that we give them to Jason at the Jib Room but Jason didn't seem to be too keen on the idea!  What to do?   Eileen had the captain's phone number.  He said he'd drive over and pick them up.  That was simple!!

Saturday: Today is hot and humid.  The direction our boat is docked allows no wind ventilation through the boat until Chuck and I put the wind scoop up.  Yeah!  What a difference it makes!!  The wind is now funneling throughout our boat!

I am excited about tonight.  There is a Junkanoo starting at 9:00 pm tonight!  This particular Junkanoo is called 'Love Rush'.   This parade will display colors, rhythm, and dancing.   Billy and Eileen are going to venture over with us.  Once we got to the dinghy dock, there were quite a few other boaters headed in the same direction.  Since we didn't know much about this parade, we asked one of the judges to explain a little of their history.  She told us that years ago the owners of the African slaves living in the Bahamas would give them one day a week to do whatever they wanted.  They decided they wanted to keep their native traditions and customs alive.  They didn't have much to work with, so they made their costumes out of paper and feathers or whatever else they could find.  Their rhythm was created with cow bells, whistles, and whatever they could make drums with. Today, the young Bahamians also use trumpets and tubas to create their rhythmic sound.
I was told that the 'Super Bowl' of  all Junkanoos is held in Nassau.   We only stayed to watch the first team compete because they were so late in starting the parade.....10:00 pm.

Sampling of Green Turtle Team

The first team was from Green Turtle Cay....they were on time.  The second team was from Marsh Harbour and we were told they have a notorious habit of always being late.  Even though we didn't see Marsh Harbour perform, we walked by them when we headed back to our dinghy. Their costumes were more elaborate and while they were tuning up, they sounded better.  I would place money that Marsh's team is going to win.  We found out the next day that even though they were penalized 300 points for being late, they still won....and for the third year straight!  Awesome!!

                                                                         
     Sampling of Marsh Harbour's                          Team

Sunday  Billy and Eileen's friends are flying in today from Colorado!  Paula  will be on board until next

Sunday and Bobby is going to make the crossing back to the states with Circe II.   An extra hand is always welcome!  Anyhow, tonight Eileen and Billy are having us all over to their sailboat to 'welcome' their friends. Hopefully, Bobby brings all his official papers that are necessary to fly in to the Bahamas but leave by boat!   After I made my appetizer, Chuck and I decided it was so hot and humid that we were both game  to get wet.  We got our fins, mask and snorkels, and walked the short distance over to Mermaid Reef.  Since the winds are blowing out of the south, the Sea of Abaco will be flat!  There are 2 boats anchored out which means there are already people on the reef. By the time we swam out from the shore, everyone left and we're the only ones on the reef.....and the hundreds of tropical fish.  It seems each time we snorkel this reef, there are more fish than the previous times!!  It's time to head back to the boat so I can heat up my appetizer for our happy hour.  We finally get to meet Paula and Bobby.  The temperature here in the Bahamas must be a real shock to both of them. It was 18 degrees when they left Colorado and they arrived to 80 degrees!  What could be better?    The sun is starting to set and we can hear the conchs being blown from Mango Marina across the harbor.  It's time for us to give them a little competition.