Category Archives: Bahamas

Bahamas, Florida, Nassau

Back in the USA

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Greetings from Marathon, Florida! We left Nassau, Bahamas, Monday morning and after 45 hours and a slow, rough Gulf Stream crossing we put the anchor down outside Boot Key Harbor at Marathon to await the high tide that will take us across Florida Bay and into the Gulf of Mexico then on up to Fort Myers Beach. However, the weather forecast didn’t sound that great and we needed time to take the mainsail off and put up the old spare due to some minor damage coming across, so we stayed another night and will leave this afternoon at high tide instead, unless these thunderstorms don’t clear out this morning like they’re supposed to, then we’ll just stay here until it clears up. Once we do leave it should take us about 24 hours to reach the Fort Myers Beach anchorage then we’ll get busy finding a place to leave the boat for awhile. That’s all for now, see you soon.

David and Claudia
aboard MA’ALAHI

Bahamas, Conception Island, Dolphins, Exumas, George Town

Still Better In The Bahamas

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Well, the clock is ticking down on our going-on-three-year HawksbillCay2Caribbean adventure. I figure we’ll be stateside come Tuesday at Fort Myers Beach, Florida, but in the meantime, the Bahamas is sure a great place to wind it up! We arrived at Hawksbill Cay in the Exumas a couple of hours ago after a motor-sail from Big Majors Spot near Staniel Cay this morning. The beauty of all the very clear and multi-colored water here is still the best we’ve experienced anywhere in our travels.

P0001966After leaving San Salvador at the end of May we spent a couple of nights at Rum Cay before heading over to Conception Island which is just as great a place as we remembered. While there we transplanted our palm tree in a spot that is visible from the anchorage. We hope to watch it grow as we revisit this place as often as we can. But with company coming we headed on to George Town and awaited the arrival of our daughter, Christina, her husband Rick and two very special grandkids, Justin and Kristina. A P0002003very few minutes after their boarding, the kids and their Papa (that’s me) were swimming off the side of the boat, which immediately became a daily must-do. If those kids had half as much fun as we did during their visit then they had a BLAST! We swam and snorkeled and hiked and dinghied around and played at the beach and even got to swim with a dolphin who decided to spend the afternoon swimming around the anchorage.

We made the all day sail back over to Conception Island, which pushed the endurance limits of the land-lubber crew but they all decided it was very much worthwhile after the first half day there. The snorkeling here is some of the best we’ve seen and the kids really enjoyed seeing so many of the fish that we had shown them in our fish-ID book. More time was spent swimming off the side of the boat with Papa and at the beach and hiking around. On day two, Christina decided to stay at the beach while the rest of us took a long dinghy ride over to and up the “creek” that is accessible only at high tide. We saw lots of turtles, starfish and barracuda in the crystal clear water of the creek. When we finally got to the very shallow headwaters we saw something splashing around ahead. Was it a couple of giant turtles or what? Wait a minute! It’s a SHARK! COOL!! We dinghied over and identified it as a nurse shark, at least 6 feet long in about 2 feet of water. We followed it around trying to get close enough to pet it but it kept swimming off. The kids thought that was pretty neat and we couldn’t wait to get back to the beach and tell Christina what she missed! However, when we returned Christina’s eyes were big as saucers and she excitedly told us about the sea monster she’d just seen swim up to her as she sat in the water near shore. Christinas Shark_Conception IslandFrom her description it sure sounded like a big shark! Can’t wait to see the pictures she took. For some reason none of them wanted to go snorkeling again, but strangely, the kids still wanted to swim off the side of the boat with Papa. We broke the return trip to George Town in half by overnighting in Calabash Bay at Long Island where there was more fun at the beach and swimming off the side of the boat with Papa and Mema.

After our return to George Town we still had two more days of fun before they flew home to their normal lives. We’ll be sure to rest up for the next batch, as we’ve got nine more grandkids to share this fun with. Y’all better hurry before we get too old!

Our current plan is to sail to Allan’s Cays tomorrow (20 miles) then on to Nassau which will be our last stop before Fort Myers (unless we change our plans, of course!)

See you in the USA!!

David and Claudia
6/21/2001

Bahamas, San Salvador

Land Ho!

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AllansCays_TopOMast1Five days and two hours after raising anchor at Puerto Rico, it was splashed again but this time in the clean, clear and blue water of San Salvador in the Bahamas. It was here, purportedly, that Columbus discovered the New World on October 12, 1492. He couldn’t have picked a nicer spot!  Our passage was less significant but more enjoyable I’m sure. We ran our engine when the wind died, knew where we were going and, therefore, took the direct route, let our autopilot do all the steering, made fresh water from sea water, stayed in contact with friends and family via email and radio, were informed of weather conditions 24 to 48 hours in advance of it’s occurrence, and never once feared sailing off the edge of the earth! All in all it was a long but easy passage. “Long” is such a relative term. While we were under way we received an email from Rick and Mary on TRANQUILLITY, announcing their arrival in the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific after their 21-day passage from the Galapagos. Their description of French Polynesia suggests that it is well worth the effort of getting there. Check out their adventures at http://www.tranquillity.net. We are looking forward to checking out Rum Cay and Long Island in the next few days, as we sailed past them the last time we were here, but we’re especially looking forward to revisiting Conception Island, a mere 35 miles from our present location, it being our very favorite Bahamas island. It is there that we will transplant our palm tree that we’ve raised from a coconut picked up in Bequia over a year ago. Although we left the Caribbean back in Puerto Rico and then sailed out of the tropics yesterday when we crossed north of the Tropic of Cancer, we still have a few weeks left of cruising the Bahamas, some of the best cruising and definitely the prettiest water we’ve seen, before making the west coast of Florida the first part of July. Please drop us a note and fill us in on your goings-on, too!

Regards,

David and Claudia
aboard MA’ALAHI
5/25/2001

Bahamas, Puerto Rico, San Salvador

Under Way

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SUNDAY 1100 AST MAY 20

We finally left Puerto Rico, Saturday morning, after waiting there about a week, first to help get Runa from RUNAL on an airplane home to Sweden to be with her family and terminally ill mother (she passed away a week after Runa arrived) and then for Al’s brother to arrive to help him sail RUNAL on back to Florida. We’re 24 hours out of Puerto Rico and our current position is 19 degrees 37 minutes north and 067 degrees 18 minutes west, heading 308 degrees magnetic on a rhumbline to San Salvador, 489 nautical miles distant. We’re making 5 – 6 knots with the wind right on the stern which makes life a little rolly but it’s a lot easier going than beating into the wind, waves and current! We hope to arrive in the Bahamas Thursday morning and are looking forward to spending a little time there before sailing on to Florida toward the end of June. I’ll keep this short since we have to turn off the autopilot to transmit on the radio (and we’re quite spoiled to not having to hand steer!).

Later,
David and Claudia

MONDAY 1050 AST MAY 21

Well, I never got around to getting this sent out yesterday so here’s a brief update: Our current position is 20 deg. 43 min. N, 069 deg. 03 min. W. Sailing along at 4.5 – 5 knots but the forecast is for the winds to decrease to only 10 knots Tuesday night so we’ll be doing a lot of motoring before we get in.

D & C

Bahamas, Conception Island

Tropical Arrival

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We officially made it to the tropics yesterday when we crossed the GeorgeTown_Maalahi_Sailing_2Tropic of Cancer at 23 degrees, 30 minutes latitude. We’re currently anchored at Mayaguana, Bahamas, waiting for the 20-25 knot trade winds to subside and/or back enough to allow us to make it on down to Provo, Turks and Caicos, 45 miles to the SE. From there, we’ll cross the Caicos banks and then its only 80 miles to Luperon, Dominican Republic. We spent 12 days in George Town, exploring several different anchorages with our friends from Houston, Mike and Cynthia, who flew down to stay with us for a week. We’ve hooked up with another cruising boat from our marina in Houston, “Sunrise”, with Bob and Susan aboard. They’re heading to the same places we are and with a very similar time table, so we’re traveling together for now. After leaving George Town April 2, we had a nice ConceptionIsland_3motor-sail over to Conception Island, an unbelievably beautiful, uninhabited, travel-brochure-quality island with the requisite deserted, white-powdery-sand beaches, clear, clear turquoise water and great snorkeling reefs. We spent 3 days hanging out there in very settled weather and then decided to move on down 20 miles to Rum Cay. As we neared Rum Cay, the wind and seas were so cooperative that we decided to take full advantage of the light NE winds and continue on to Mayaguana, 142 miles further to the east and south (the direction of the normal wind conditions). During the night the winds picked up just enough to, get this, actually turn off the engine and sail with just the sail-thingies (a very rare event). Along the way, we caught a wahoo, caught and released a barracuda and caught and lost 3 progressively larger dolphins (mahi mahi). The wahoo is big enough for 3 meals (we’re having the first tonight) but it will be time to replenish some fishing tackle when we get to a provisioning port. Claudia is making the required courtesy flags for each of the countries we’re visiting. She got her sewing machine out the other day to start work on Turks and Caicos and discovered that it had been soaked by salt water, probably the day we were beating down to George Town and the forward hatch had been slightly ajar. Anyway, it appears to be a total loss; the motor and mechanisms have turned to solid rust. She finished the T & C flag today sewing it all by hand. We’ll definitely be looking for a replacement machine! For anyone with access to a Ham or SSB radio, we’re checking in on a cruiser’s net at 0830 EDT nearly every morning. The frequency is 8152.0. They cover a very large area from Texas to New England, the Bahamas, NW Caribbean and E Caribbean, making good use of relays, so if you check in there’s a good chance we’ll make contact.

Well, the wahoo is done and so am I.

David and Claudia

Bahamas, Conception Island, Mayaguana

A Fish Tale

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A Fish Tale

Our trip from Conception Island to Mayaguana Island started out successfully enough when I caught and landed a good size Wahoo. I didn’t even bother to measure its length or take a picture, but got him filleted straight away. Next, I caught a very large dolphin. Boy, can these guys fight! It’s especially neat when they jump straight up out of the water trying to shake that hook loose. I was too late in asking Claudia to reel in the other line and the 2nd time he crossed over it he cut it and I lost the lure (green Magnum) on the line he hadn’t bitten. I got him up to the boat and just held him there, admiring his blue, green and gold colors in the deep blue water, trying to figure out how to gaff him while still holding the rod. While trying to transfer rod to Claudia and gaff to me, the line broke and he swam away with a the feather jig lure still in his mouth. The fight was almost worth losing 2 lures, but the biggest disappointment was not having him in the freezer. An hour later I got another, bigger dolphin and this guy REALLY liked to leap out of the water. My 30 lb test didn’t hold long enough to get a gaff in him either and off he went with another feather jig. Enough is enough so I stripped off the 30 lb and put on new 40 lb line. Moments later I landed and released a barracuda (at least the line didn’t break). The next day when we arrived just offshore of Mayaguana the reel went screaming and this one turned out to be the dolphin mother-lode (I was using the larger, red/white Magnum like yours, Gary). I was making no ground on him at all so I just held on and pulled on the rod to try to wear him down. He did finally tire enough to start bringing him in. I swear, I’ve never had a fish this size on the other end of a line. I knew he was worn out when close to the boat he was lying on his side on the surface while I dragged him close in. With his last strength he jumped and shook out the lure. At least the line didn’t break and I kept the Magnum but I was worn out and am wondering if I’ll ever get to grill another Mahi Mahi.

Sure wish you both were here. I know we’d have landed ’em all.

David

Bahamas, Exumas, George Town

George Town

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Nurse_SharkTwo weeks after our first Bahamas landfall, we’ve made it to George Town on Great Exuma Island, Bahamas. Apparently it takes more than two weeks for the senses to adjust to waking up everyday in paradise, for we haven’t yet made the adjustment. I hope we don’t get too spoiled to it because I don’t know how we’d beat it. We made the 38 mile offshore run to George Town today from Galliot Cut. While anchored there last night, I caught a 4 foot nurse shark off a 5 ExumaSound_Dolphin_1inch bait fish that I caught during the day off a 5 inch lure. (That should improve the gene pool for the stupid 5 inch fish species). It was an experience getting the shark off the hook to throw him back, but we finally succeeded. We got a keeper today when I landed a 39.5 inch dolphin (mahi mahi, not Flipper). He’s all filleted and in the freezer waiting to be grilled.

We’re trying hard to adjust … I think we’ll eventually do it.

David and Claudia

Bahamas

Greetings From The Bahamas

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That’s right, we finally made it. We left Kemah Nov. 3 and with 1458 nautical miles under our keel (1678 landlubber miles) we’ve arrived at a destination worthy of our efforts. We left Boot Key Harbor Saturday morning at 11 am, hopeful that the light easterly winds forecast for that night would, indeed, materialize. They were blowing 15-20 knots when we left so we had bailout plans for Long Key or Rodriguez Key if they didn’t. Not only did the wind cooperate (we wanted ’em light because our heading was ENE) but the seas were a calm 2-3 ft, even across the Gulf Stream! The next morning, Banks_VastSwimmingPool4after 116 miles at 0830, we crossed onto the Great Bahama Banks at South Riding Rock. It is amazing to go from over 2000 feet of depth to 20 ft in such a short distance! Calm wind and calm sea made for one incredible experience here. For the next 40 miles we were motor-sailing in a vast swimming pool. The pictures we took do not do it justice.

We have 3 fuel filters for our engine; a primary, secondary and the third one (I don’t know what you’d call that). Anyway, the third one hadn’t been changed since Texas and it announced that it was overdue 3/4 of the way across the Gulf Steam. The engine didn’t die, but every 23 minutes it would race, then begin to stall, then recover. I got a new filter, the required wrench, bucket and rags out ready to do the change out if it actually died, but thankfully that never happened (thanks to our electric fuel pump, Emeril, who kicked it up a notch and pushed the fuel on thru). However, lacking full power we failed to get across the banks before dark so we anchored for the night 2 miles south of the Russel light buoy.

Banks_DivingOnAnchorAnchoring in these Bahamian tidal currents requires skills that we don’t have yet, but we finally got it down. The party was over at 11pm when the 20 knot winds kicked in. I tied on a 2nd snubber to the anchor chain and we moved to the cockpit to “sleep”. Morning revealed that the hobby-horsing the boat did all night in the chop had nearly chafed the first snubber line thru. With first light it was time to get off the banks! The new fuel filters (I went ahead and changed ’em all) cured the engine’s woes and with double-reefed mainsail we beat our way across the remaining 14 miles of banks. Over the banks and into the deep water of “The Tongue of the Ocean” brought 25 knot winds and 5-6 ft seas which would have made for a fast sail to Chub Cay (14 more miles) if they weren’t just off the nose. Things calmed down a bit once in the lee of the Berry Islands and we finally made our first landfall and cleared into the Bahamas at Chub Cay Club marina.

Wow!

David and Claudia