We're Home

My brother Richard and wife Rita joined us for a day
sail down the ICW

Scenes of people enjoying the ICW we passed by

the problematic dinghy leak with numerous patch attempts

casualties of the trip, a tattered sail cover

the Bahamian flag we flew

This will be my final post, until Fishhead heads out on another adventure. I'm not sure it will be as long, but the old girl (Fishhead) has a lot of life still in her. She preformed spectacularly through out the whole trip. Good job Michael!!!

Our trip up the ICW was so different than the trip down. We made it home in 4 days and the waterway was alive with people out enjoying themselves on it. Fishing, swimming, kyaking, speedboating and sailing. And all kinds of wildlife along theway. It was so different than the cold windy deserted waterway we traveled down in January.
One surprise encounter, after we crossed under the Cresent Beach Bridge near St. Augustine, my daughter Anna and her family drove over the bridge and we saw each other from a distance! 

Fishhead is parked at a marina for a month, and then on to her more permanent, yet to be determined home; and we are sleeping in our own bed again.

The first night I woke up as the cat walked across me, starttled, thinking there must be a rat on board, and last 3 nights I woke up,  saw trees out the window, and thought  "Oh, no, we are going to hit land!". 

I love being ashore, but my conciousness will have to catch up to me.

Until next time

Cindy & Michael

Last stops

out sailing

Manjack Paradise

We got to explore a bit of a couples self made paradise. A beautiful self designed house with all the creature comforts, all water is collected from roofs and stored in cisterns, power from solar and grounds  with gardens full of every eatable plant and tree that will possible grow in this environment with a few that shouldn't, but do. Plus they have chickens and bees, and trails cut thru the island to the ocean beaches, along which I spotted native wild orchids, and bromalids  blooming. Plus they have to make all their own soil,  as the island is mostly limestone. We probably outstayed our welcome asking questions and taking it all in. Absolutely lovely, and inspiring. What a lucky accident we had to stay in one spot long enough to get to know them.

path to beach (notice the poison wood trees!)

Leslie's Garden, complete with asparagus

signs leading to beach path

Back at Green Turtle

We back tracked to Green Turtle, Our visit was laundry, grocieries, fuel & water as we get final supplies and looking at the weather settling down enough to continue toward home.  Another pretty loyalist town, our last settlement stop in the Bahamas. And have stopped running into people we know along the way. Its time for all the winter visitors to head home.  Lately we have seen quite a few families traveling with young children. Toddlers even. And lots of chartered sailboats. Summertime visitors. And I can see why. We hear temps in Florida are in the high 80's and 90's, the weather here stays high 80, low 78 with a constant breeze. Its very pleasant.

The Crossing

We are back in the US! Our trip across was over 110+ miles from Sale Cay to Ft. Pierce miles and took over 24 hours. The first leg across the Bahama banks was in daylight and very pleasant sail. We threw out a fishing line and within 5 minutes had a bite, only to reel in a huge barracuda with fierce looking teeth. Threw him back and tried again and again, with the same results, big barracudas. We lost our favorite lure and another hook in the process, so we gave up.

Our final Bahamian sunset

After dark we left the protected banks waters and hit the ocean, with no moon and bigger seas. Not as bad as the first crossing, but in the dark everything seems a little more ominous. The wind died and the gulf stream was rougher and tough to get across, so the motor ran for the last 12 hours of the trip. Neither of us could sleep during our time off watch, so by the time we pulled in to Ft. Pierce we were not fit for anything.

The phosphoresence in the water was mesmerizing. As water pealed off the hull it was as full of sparkles as a starry night. At one point I flushed the toilet,  and it was full of the same sparkles. As I was sitting in the cockpit, a flying fish landed beside me!

Sail Cay waters

last minute weather flash

The lastest round of weather forecasts give us a clear window to get up to the end of the Abacos, and cross over to Fort Pierce on Sunday. We are both excited at the prospect. If all goes according to plan, I'll be posting early next week on our crossing, and home probably by the end of the week. We are scooting out of our web access, we just stopped to get more water and a bit of fresh food, and I don't have time to make a post about Manjack Cay we have been anchored off of for the last 4-5 days. It has made it to one of my favorites list, and I'll plan on posting pictures once we are in the states.


Wish us luck, and my cell phone will be turned back on once we are in the states! 

Hopping up the Northern Abacos

This last week we spent slowly working our way up from one small island to another. Sunday's pig roast at Nippers on Guanna Cay was like Conch house reggea Sunday, but instead of cars, boats converge on the island, drop anchor and head in to party. All vacationers, drinking and whooping it up. I'm so mad I didn't bring my camera. We went back the next day and it was  a ghost town. The whole Island is basically vacation homes.

But then we hit a string of really cool little uninhabited islands that have become some of my fondest memories of this trip. We have spent days exploring, walking down paths made by others before us, snorkeling, walking on miles of deserted beaches with no footprints but our own. Sometimes the trash that washes up on the beach is as interesting as the shells and shore life, and sometimes it hard to determine which is which. I spent all this time trying to get a picture of some lacy looking black seaweed dancing in the shallow water, and it turned out to be a mostly buried black garbage bag!The water is crystal clear, and some of the pictures of sea life don't even look like they are taken thru a foot or more of water. I love being in these isolated spots.

Our food stores are getting down to the bottom, we have plenty to eat, but mostly canned and dried at this point (Michael still has some  coke left).

At the rate we were traveling there was probably a week left till we hit the end of the islands, next stop Florida. I say were because weather reports started forcasting strong winds and possible squalls for  5-6 days, which means we have to hole up somewhere. We have backtracked to Manjack Cay,    a protected anchorage which had a lot more exploring potential to it. I'd be happy here for the whole time, but Michael is wanting to be at Green Turtle,  a populated island with amenities (including ice cream stores) next down. :(  Maybe we will split our time between them.

remember this tree

the day after at Nippers

Uninhabited No Name Cay's driftwood tables

When the wind dies down we will resume our trip up the islands and the end of our trip and home is on the horizon. I'm looking forward to it.

The first conch we saw anywhere in the Bahamas, and there were lots of them.
They were all too young to collect.

underwater!

some kind of coral I think

another conch on the move

Ocean trash shrine?

The Forgotten Resort

We spent the morning sailing and motoring from Man of war Cay to Treasure Cay.When we arrived at the  harbor, I wanted to turn around and leave. It was completely bulkheaded with ugly american houses and condos around it. A sign at the entrance to the harbor says you must register, and when we went into the marina to let them know we dropped anchor there, it was 10.00 to anchor. But with that we got the run of the resort, with free internet (on the boat!!!!), showers, pool, and a beach. Well we ended up staying 3 nights. The beach was spectacular. We'd swim, walk on the beach then get to shower off. The place was almost deserted. No lights on in the condos at night, very few people around. These beach pictures were taken mid morning on a perfect Saturday. Later in the day I saw 2 people on the beach and a couple of ladies at the pool. Happy hour  had 3 or 4 people in the poolside bar. We had the run of the place. The sad story is, we ran into these kind of places often thru out the Bahamas. Unlike alot of them, Treasure Cay was still fully staffed with bar and restaurant open.

Mr. Cheesecake

Treasure Cay bulkheaded harbor

Fishing guides waiting for customers

The marina

a dream beach

where are all the people?

senior cheesecake?

hiding from horse flies

We are both feeling like our trip is almost over. Boats that we have met along the way have all headed back, and there are not that many islands left to explore in the Abacos, as we head west. Supposedly  only one or two of them even have wifi, so this blog may suffer.

Marsh Harbor

Marsh Harbor sunset

Rain storms are coming every day, but nothing like our first one. We have desided to hunker down at a Marina till the unsettled weather passes. It is only the second time in the Bahamas we have stayed at a dock, taking showers, internet, easy access to laundry and being free to just walk off the boat has been really nice. Plus we could just stick a hose down in our water tank to fill up. 

frigate against our flag.

We had an impromptu sort of party on our boat, as people from other boats we have met along the way stopped by to say hi, and bye. Plus us we had 8 people and one dog in the cockpit, everyone is on their way back to the states.  We have met all kinds of interesting people on this trip. All I has to offer them is water and pretzels, but no one seemed to mind and they stayed til mosquitos drove everybody away. Biting bugs didn't arrive until the last week or so. The winter/spring winds have died down to a more gentle summer breeze, and I guess the mosquitos can fly again.

The Abacos is definately more like America. Except we still hardly ever hear news. There is just no real access to it. If someting monumental happens it gets passed along boat to boat,  I suppose when I get internet I could go onto news sites, but I am always focused on emailing to hear personal news from friends and family, and getting posts loaded on the blog to keep you informed about us.

Prestissimo from Raleigh, NC (Joseph & Ruth)

Wine Down from New Symrna (Wayne  & Sherry)

Calypso from Toronto (  they are on a one year honeymoon)

In the last few days we have been seeing frigates flying around, I dont think I have wver seen one.  Huge black birds that terrorize the sea gulls, and rarely land, spending most of their life in flight over the open ocean. They have large split swallow tails that open and close as they swoop around.

More Hope Town pictures

interesting porch

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Live snowflakes on the bottom. 

A HFantasy Island

Hope Town Street

community cemetery

Light house mechanical parts

View from top of lighthouse

 Hope Town fire department

Hope Town is like a little storybook village. Skinny little golf cart size streets, a riot of flowering vines, trees and bushes everywhere with houses painted in pastel colors. A large percentage of the houses either have for rent or for sale signs on them, I'm not sure how many people live there permanently, but it is a beautiful place to visit. The entrance to the harbour has a historic lighthouse that is lit each night and is the last of its kind still in operation. 

We arrived in Marsh Harbor," the big city" of the Abacos, and shopped in Maxwells, a grocery store that looks like America. Actually a lot of the Abacos is like America, with tons of waterfront homes dotting the shoreline as we sail from Island to Island. We've started to see thunderstorms build each afternoon, so it beginning to feel like Florida summer.