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Exploring Eleuthera part 1

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I’d have been perfectly happy to stay in paradise in the mid-Barrys for a week, but Mother Nature had other plans. January weather is tricky in the Bahamas, especially in the northern islands, and we had found ourselves in a pattern of cold fronts bringing unusually cold temperature to Florida, and then carrying on with strong north winds to our region of the Bahamas. At one point, Chris Parker was forecasting winds up to 40 knots. Yikes! So we temporarily left paradise behind, and grabbed a break in the weather to head south.

We raised anchor at 6:40 am and our small flotilla of three boats sailed south along the Berry chain, paralleling the coast of Little Harbour Cay, before leaving land behind and heading mostly east and a little bit south toward Eleuthera. It wasn’t a sure thing that we could successfully make this jump. The magnitude and direction of the wind introduced risk of high swells that could slow our forward progress enough to keep us from making it to safe harbor before sunset. But we were lucky this time, and the winds instead made for an exhilarating day of sailing! No need for our backup plan of diverting to Nassau. We set our anchor in Royal Island Harbour at 4:45 after traveling 51nm and squeezed in among the dozen boats already there; apparently we aren’t the only ones with this great idea to hide from the next front.

Royal Island is definitely safe and secure – practically a hurricane hole – but there’s NOTHING to do there. It’s a private island, hosting a luxury resort whose five villas and private clubhouse start at $14,000 per night. So they obviously don’t want riffraff like us ashore. We entertained ourselves in the calm before the storm with stand-up paddle boarding and scraping growth off the bottom of Sanitas. Fun, too, surprising the local turtle population with our loud and splashy presence.

But the next day, the front hit just as protected with torrential rain and sustained winds of over 35 knots and we never left the boat. We baked brownies, indulged in snacks of smoked salmon and goat cheese, and watched movie after movie. I’ve gotta admit – it killed me to be only four miles from the closest point of land at Spanish Wells, and not to be able to get over to town! One more reminder that while cruising, weather is always king.

So as soon as that front passed, we made another hop over to Eleuthera to find our next hidey hole and hopefully a bit of civilization to go with it. One of the best things about this second season of Bahamas cruising is that we can mix favorite locations from last year with visits to new places that we missed the last time around. Eleuthera is one of those new spots I’ve been really anxious to explore. After a fast 35 mile sail and successfully timing passage through Current Cut, we set anchor outside beautiful Governor’s Harbour. This colorful city filled with flowers was the first capital of the Bahamas, and the colonial architecture and largest library outside of Nassau attest to that legacy of influence. We put Bug in the water and rushed ashore to explore the town and beautiful French Leave Beach on the Atlantic side of the island.

Look at those cute newlyweds!

Unfortunately (say it with me now) weather is king! And the holding is poor off Governor’s Harbour, in hard marl and grass, and we couldn’t trust it to keep Sanitas safe during the next front. So with only a teaser of the islands’ charms, we hopped another 25 nm south to Rock Sound. Capt. Mike and I really tested our standard operating procedure for lowering the dinghy when we tried it in more than 20 knot winds. Good thing we’ve had a lot of practice! Flawless. Several friendly wagging dogs showed us the way to Ocean Hole Park, just two blocks from the dinghy dock, and we quickly oriented ourselves to the location of the cheap grocery store, the fancy grocery store, the free drinking water, and the absolutely not free happy hour at Frigates.

Then I had a real treat …. I’m a member of the Facebook group Women Who Sail, and I’ve learned a great deal about maintaining a boat and about cruising life from the discussions. A fellow WWS member, Amy, had posted that she lives on Eleuthera and would love to meet up. The timing worked out perfectly and she drove down to meet me and to show off her beautiful island the day before returning to winter in Vermont. We had a great time exploring marinas and secret beaches well beyond the range I could ever reach by foot.

And of course we shared stories about our families, backgrounds, and lives. It’s really special when social media can facilitate real life friendships! Amy gave us tips for where to listen to live music and how to find the local fish frys, and introduced us to another local, Bobby, who we met up with every day for the rest of our stay. Thanks for the homemade bread, cheese, and other treats Amy! And thanks for sharing your love of your beautiful island home.

Oh, Bollocks!

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After our quiet night anchored out on the Bank, we had a lovely downwind sail the rest of the way to Great Harbour Cay. Sanitas flew her spinnaker, and Leef Nu sailed wing-on-wing.

I guess you could say we finally experienced the “fair winds and following seas” that everyone has been wishing us. We were slightly concerned about the approach to Great Harbour because all the charts warn that the channel markers are missing, and show water depths as low as 5 feet. So as our three boats and a fourth unknown boat converged on the island, we ALL sort of slowed down and hoped someone else would go first. But the new boat, C’est La Sea, hailed us on the radio and said that they draft 8 feet (!) and asked if we’d mind testing the waters for them. Well that made Sanitas’ 5.5 foot draft seem shallow, so they shamed us into heading in. We timed it well, and had about 1.6 feet of extra water due to the tides, so we were all fine, and anchored just off Rat Cay for the night.

After snorkeling the wreck of a DC3 airplane just outside the anchorage, we all dinghied ashore to explore the small town of Bullocks Harbour. Not much to it but a few brightly colored houses and some pretty flowering gardens and one actual hill to give us a bit of exercise. We sat outside on a grassy bluff overlooking the harbor and had a lunch of pork chops and peas and rice at Coolie Mae’s Sunset Restaurant. (I took this picture with my phone inside my Ugo waterproof purse. Not the best quality picture, but a fun experiment to see if it would actually work)

Everything runs on island time, and there is no such thing as fast food. So lunch can take the better part of the afternoon. After taking our orders, the waitress returned and asked, “For the people who ordered the pork chops, do you want the good news, or the bad news?” I chirped up “The bad news!” And I guess I stumped her. She couldn’t think of any bad news, just told us that the pork chops would be served grilled with barbecue sauce. I think that’s going to be my new motto for this cruising season, “There IS no bad news” 😀

The next morning, we raised anchor at 7am and sailed around the north side of Great Harbour Cay and then 31 nm south to Devil’s Cay. It’s been fun traveling with Elixir and Leef Nu. Their crews are both from Ontario and their backgrounds involve sailboat racing on the Great Lakes. So they always prefer to sail rather than motor, and they challenge us to do the same, even when wind condition isn’t optimal. We essentially raced around the top of Great Harbour, constantly trimming the sails, and pointing as high into the wind as our various boats and sails would allow. Sanitas’ cutter rig gave us an advantage, and we were able to point at about 38 degrees to the wind, keeping ahead of the longer and faster Leef Nu who had to repeatedly tack. Good fun!

Great Stirrup Cay and Little Stirrup Cay, just off the north tip of Great Harbour, are private islands owned by the cruise ship lines. For some reason, they think you need zip lines and a water slide park to get the full Bahamas Island experience. For the record, I disagree. As we sailed by a Royal Norwegian Cruise ship, close enough to watch the movie they were showing on the deck and the count the little people running around the track, I was disappointed that not one person waved to us (or threw us an omelette or some bacon from the buffet). Sanitas was trying her best to give them a show, flying all three sails and heeled over prettily, sailing about 6 knots. I thought of a good way to show our displeasure. I radioed back to Leef Nu and went for the nuclear option; escalating directly to double-dog-daring them to moon the cruise ship as they sailed past. A few minutes later, we got the happy news of “Mission Accomplished!”

This is what a massive cruise ship looks like from 0.2 nautical miles away.

Our pleasant sail was made even more enjoyable when a pod of about a dozen dolphins, including babies, joined us and swam along side. Capt. Mike and I took turns going to the bow to wave at them and squeak at them while they circled around and around to accompany us as long as possible. These social and intelligent creatures are magical, and I feel blessed every time they choose to keep us company.

We made such good time, that we were anchors down west of Little Gaulding Cay by 2:30 pm. Plenty of time to put Bug in the water and go explore some of the pristine white sand beaches that surround the stunning anchorage.

Key West is Delightful as Always

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This is the third time we’ve visited Key West with Sanitas, and we really looked forward rewarding ourselves with a bit of a vacation after all the hard work and preparation required to actually start cruising. This time, instead of staying in the anchorage off Fleming Key, we decided to try picking up a mooring ball at Garrison Bight.

For the princely sum of $20 per day, you get a safe ball to tie up to in a fairly protected harbor, access to the town dinghy dock, use of a rather spartan shower and restroom building, and access to laundry. It’s not the most convenient location in the world – about a 25 minute dinghy ride in little Bug, and about 20 minutes of walking to Old Town, but we’ve decided that the calm waters are worth it. Capt. Mike and I both slept much better here!

It was really fun to be here during the holidays – the nautical themed Christmas lights along the waterfront are amazing! The nights are long this time of year, but not at all depressing with beautifully decorated homes in the historic district, and more visitors than we’ve ever seen, all in a great mood and filled with holiday spirit.

Our vacation included a bit of culture: visiting Hemingway’s house and Truman’s Little White House. And, since we’re cruisers and on a budget, it included an on-going search for the best happy hour food and drink specials in Key West. (If you’re curious, I vote for the half-price peel and eat shrimp and smoked fish dip at Two Friends Patio Restaurant)

Honestly, the best part of this trip to Key West was reconnecting with our friends Chris and Stan of SE of Disorder who we cruised with all last season. They have settled permanently in Key West, so they’ve sure got things figured out! Chris and I ran together, training for the Key West half marathon and competing in a “Glow in the Dark” 5k.

Stan showed Capt. Mike where to find lobster right outside the mooring field. OMG, delicious!

And Chris let us use her Sail Rite sewing machine to finally finish our salon cushion project and to make a curtain to hide the chaos of the quarter berth

Oh yeah. We did also take this opportunity to repair that darn alternator regulator that tried to kill us on our first day in Key West. We ordered a new part and paid extra for overnight delivery. And then we learned the hard way that although a package might actually make it to Key West overnight, the Post Office will generally take a couple more days to acknowledge it arrived, before generously allowing us to retrieve it. Talk about living on island time! It took the better part of a day, but Capt. Mike was successful in installing the new regulator without any more close calls of fire alarms. Hopefully that’s the last of the big projects before hitting the sea and really starting cruising!

Best of all, having friends here meant we were sure to have a great time on New Year’s Eve! Key West has three different midnight “drops” to suit any style. A pirate wench drops from the top of a mast at Schooner’s Wharf, a conch shell drops at Sloppy Joe’s Bar, and a drag queen named Sushi drops from the sky in a glittery red high heeled shoe at Bourbon Street. Duval Street is closed to traffic, live music plays everywhere, and Old Town Key West turns into one big street party. We started the evening with snacks and champagne on Art and Sherry’s boat, and ended it at the Green Parrot which has the best live music in Key West. For a fun surprise, Todd and Celia of SV Eileen took a bus down from Marathon where they’d been waiting for a weather window to cross to the Bahamas and joined in the New Years revelry.

All in all, a very fun night. BUT…. I think the walk back to the dinghy dock somehow tripled in distance after midnight. It felt like we were walking to Miami. But we all made it home safely, with even out noisemakers in tow 😃

We’re Cruisers Again!

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When folks asked about our plans for this cruising season, I glibly answered, “Oh, we’ll spend a couple of months in the yard, but we’ll be cruising by Thanksgiving.” Even as I said it, I didn’t really believe it. Sure enough, Christmas somehow snuck up on us before we finally finished our projects, completed provisioning, and finally felt ready to untie the lines and head south.

This year, we had a flurry of friends seeing us off! Our friend Pat, from Siesta Key, joined us for the trip from St Petersburg to Sarasota. He and his family have been real supporters of our adventure. I think he finally understands what sailboat cruising is really like: it took an hour from him to drive to St Petersburg early on December 22nd, and it took us seven hours to bring him home by boat!

The trip down the ICW was fairly uneventful, until we were circling to wait for the next draw bridge opening. I was at the helm, and Capt. Mike was below decks getting a snack. He called up, “You doing ok?” And I said “Sure!” And then the depth reading went from 9 feet to 8 feet to SHALLOW WATER ALARM!!! And our boat speed went to zero. Darn it! Tried a quick burst of reverse to no avail. Mike had already heard the alarms and leapt into the cockpit. Now he loosened the mainsheet and swung the boom way out over the port side and called out to Pat for help. “Come on Pat! We’ve gotta hang our fat butts off the side!” With that strategic distribution of weight, Sanitas tipped over just enough that I could rev the engine, jam it into forward, and turn us sharply to starboard into deeper water. Hooray! We were moving again, and still had barely enough time to make it to the bridge for the next opening. (Ironically, we had just passed another sailboat aground just a quarter mile back. The drifting sand and shoaling in this part of the ICW is pretty tricky! Apparently you really need to be in the center of the channel!)

It was also a bit tricky timing our passage under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. Three cargo ships were passing through at about the same time, and they are gigantic! If it came down to a game of chicken with a cargo ship, Sanitas will lose every time. Discretion is the better part of valor, so we slowed down by tacking upwind and let them go right on ahead.

Lots of traffic at the Cortez bridge on a sunny (but cold!) Saturday morning!

After picking up a ball at Marina Jack’s, we celebrated our first day back on the water with cocktails at Louies Modern.

Thanks for keeping us company, Pat! Come back and sail with us again any time!

When You’re Tired of Key West, You’re Tired of Life

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We almost skipped Key West on our way home to St Petersburg from the Bahamas. But we had a line on a new dinghy outboard, and our two buddy boats were anchored there, and…well… Key West is a lot of fun!

We arrived just in time for the Minimal Regatta. Teams build their own boats out of a short list of ingredients:

1. One sheet of 4′ x 8′ x 1/4″ plywood
2. Two 2″x 4″ 8′
3. One pound of fasteners
4. One roll of 2″ x 60 yard duct tape
5. No caulking or adhesives – Epoxy paint is permitted
6. Painting of boats is optional
7. Oars/Paddles must be made out of these materials

Teams dress up in costumes and cheer their paddlers on. Some slice through the water like dolphins, some drag slowly, others sink all together. Prizes are awarded for best costumes, themes, best paint job….The crowd, fueled by adult beverages, has a great time regardless.

Celia and Todd from SV Eileen live in Key West. They’re “fresh water conch” which means they’ve live there over 7 years. (You’re not a full-fledged conch unless you were born there!) The last time we saw them, in Boot Key Harbor, they wrote me out a detailed guide to everything fun to do in Key West. So, we stayed an entire week and checked as many things off the list as possible.

Culture :

  • The Customs House Museum – has an excellent exhibit on the history of Key West (did you know, it was once the biggest city in a Florida?) and Guy Harvey’s Old Man and the Sea illustrations.
  • Lighthouse Museum – Tells the story of the men and women who kept the lights shining and kept the ship’s off the rocks for hundreds of years. Also has photos and history of all the other lighthouses on the Florida reef that we’ve been sailing past for a week. Cool to finally learn about them.
    • Tropic Cinema – Amazing Art Deco Theater (and great place to escape the heat) with full bar and homemade popcorn and art movies. We saw a wonderful movie about “Notorious RBG”

  • Exercise:

  • Yoga Sanctuary – This lovely and peaceful studio is a fabulous place to practice. I made it there three times, and always felt welcome although I hadn’t been to my mat in ages and felt a bit rusty.
  • Swimming: So remember… it’s June. In Key West. Which means it’s darn hot. Every day, I left the boat with a bag of everything I’d need for the day. Including a swimsuit. And every afternoon, we sought out a pool. Some, like Dante’s are completely open to the public. Others just might have been intended for hotel guests only. But, as long as we bought a couple of drinks from the bar, no one ever complained!

  • Eating and Drinking:

  • I have to admit…we did a lot more of this than we did exercising. Key West is a bargain hunter’s delight at happy hour time. Even at the historic waterfront district, you can find cheap drinks and delicious eats. Heck, at the White Tarpon you can not only get oysters for $1 each, you can get a whole rotisserie chicken for $6. Why would a thrifty cruiser ever heat up the galley with deals like that? And the happy hour at Mary Ellen’s, just off Duval St, starts at 11:30 and offers gluten free pizza!
  • Once again, we made good use of Todd and Celia’s Key West knowledge and noshed our way across the island, sampling tapas at Santiago’s Bodega, tacos at Mellow Cafe, breakfast at Harpoon Harry’s, shrimp at the Half Shell Raw Bar, and oysters at Alonzo’s. And we became regulars at the Sunset Tiki Bar, where Todd used to work. We introduced ourselves as sailing friends of Toddo’s and were immediately welcomed with open arms. And with the best margaritas I’d tasted since Colorado! Most evenings found us on a bar stool at the Tiki Bar appreciating the gorgeous Key West Sunsets.
  • Our last day in Key West was spent celebrating Pride. I love the fact that so many different types of people – Navy enlisted men, members of the LGBTQ community, sailors, artists, tourists, and families – all get along in Key West. We had a great time joining the festivities at the Pride Parade where everyone we met was happy, welcoming and ….. Proud!