We are back!

We are back! After getting successfully through the winds and squalls in Green Turtle Cay, we dropped the mooring on Sat. morning and left to sail to Great Sale Cay and wait to leave for States on Monday.  After arriving we decided to leave along with another boat on Sunday afternoon instead. This was a poor choice. We should have gone with our original plan.

The winds were light  at first so we motor sailed up past Mantinilla Shoal and out into the Atlantic after dark on Sunday night where we had a bumpy ride in large swells with shifting wind direction all night long keeping us from getting much sleep at all. Monday the wind was again light and we finally decided to motor due west to the Gulf Stream in hopes of getting some assistance from the current. Well that worked and we motor sailed at over 8 kts the rest of the day and through the night until on Tuesday about 5 a.m. we exited the Gulf Stream to turn toward Charleston. The winds were pretty much non existent at that point and without the current to help we just slowly motored north. It made for a slow go. 

The good new was that with such a flat and quiet sea we both could catch up on some much needed sleep. The best part was we had 3 different groups of dolphins meet up with us and swim along in Spunky's bow waves for quite some time welcoming us back. The first group had about 4 or 5 large dolphins and the second and third groups were smaller but each had 7. They would gather at the bow and swim along side Spunky just under the surface and then come out of the water and swim off to the side. They are so graceful and keep pace so effortlessly.  We also saw 6 huge sea turtles swimming past.

 The bad news was that without wind it took us til after 11:00 pm to reach the harbor entrance in Charleston and we did not reach our anchorage until midnight. We were both exhausted and it was challenging to find a spot to drop the anchor in the dark. 

This morning we moved into Charleston City Marina and filled fuel and water tanks and washed all the salt off Spunky. We are trying to take it a little easy. We have heard from another boat that the ICW is quite shallow in spots north of Charleston. We had planned to take off Friday and go up the ICW to avoid the 30 kt. winds forecast off shore for Thursday and Friday. Now we are not sure what we will do. We will have to try to get through the shallow areas at mid to high tide and timing that can be iffy. Then we must go outside again at Winyah Bay or Cape Fear to bypass a bridge at Snow's Cut which is being worked on so that we can no longer fit under it. We will sail overnight and come back inside at Beaufort, NC and then stay on the ICW the rest of the way back.

Things are never easy. However the weather today here is beautiful and warm. We are hopeful that Spring has indeed arrived and we shall be back in the Chesapeake soon. 

Look forward to hearing from everyone on your springtime/summer plans.

E and J

Back in the USA

We are now in Charlestown, SC.  We sailed 400 miles from Great Sale in the Bahamas directly here.  Our timing wasn't good and we arrived here in the middle of the night.  We did great riding the Gulf Stream at over 8 knots.  When we left it there was no wind and we motored the last 24 hours.  I have never seen the ocean so flat.  We had lots of dolphins swim along with us and also saw some giant sea turtles.  It was very pleasant but boring and slow.  I finally took down the main sail and never bothered to turn off the auto pilot or turn the boat.  

Hope you have a wonderful week.  Our phones are now working and we get regular internet almost anytime we want.  I think it will be Netflex tonight. 

Last Wifi

This is our last shot at wifi.  We will check weather in the morning and then take off.  We will leave here, Green Turtle Cay, and then go to either Fox Town or Great Sale Cay.  We will then head out to cross back to the states on Monday.  We were going to leave Sunday but we are going to wait for the waves to settle down.

It's about 500 miles to Charleston.  If we can we will keep going to Beaufort, NC. 

Once there we will travel on the Intra Coastal Waterway.

When we get back we will activate our phones and get internet all the time.  

Tonight we are supposed to have some high winds and rain.  We just had a bad squall with high winds.  We are hopeful that it is over but we may get more.  We tired and ready to get back.  We have met some really great people but I think we are ready to move to land if the boat sells.  

I can always tell where Elyse's head is.  She has been online for two days looking at houses in Baltimore.  We think we can afford it there.  She has even been searching for opportunities to house sit. 

We will check email in the morning before we leave.  We love you and can't wait to see you.

Dad (John) & Mom (Elyse)

Heading back to the USA

This may be the last update until we return to the States. We spent Easter Sunday in Great Guana watching the egg hunt at Nippers which is a very popular outdoor restaurant overlooking the Atlantic. The staff hides eggs in the breakers for folks to hunt with their snorkel gear. We just watched from the restaurants upper deck. We have really enjoyed being anchored for the past few days in Fisher's Bay. We watched several sea turtles swim just off of Spunky's bow. There was a little excitement when a boat began dragging in the anchorage and the owners were not on board. Troy form Dive Guana went out in his motor boat and let out more rode and backed down on the anchor so they wouldn't run up on the rocks or hit another boat.

On Monday due to a shift in the winds we sailed back over to Treasure Cay to wait out the west wind. When the winds come from any direction with a westerly component in the Abacos boats try to find a sheltered anchorage as many of the Cays are exposed to the west. Tuesday morning when the winds became favorable we left Treasure Cay again to sail around the Whale to Green Turtle Cay.

The Whale is a Cay that lies along the Atlantic and boats must go around it out of the Sea of Abaco and open to the swells and waves from the north. It needs to be passed in calm weather. We made it around and we are now on a mooring ball in Black Sound off of Green Turtle Cay. Our outboard is not starting so John rowed over this morning to see if we can get it serviced. Once that is done we will move into Black Sound Marina as we will not be able to easily get to shore and back to the mooring without our outboard. 

The weather guru has forecast high winds and bad squalls for Friday into Saturday morning with gusts from 50 to 70 kts so everyone is trying to find safe harbor for the blow. As I sit here typing the Sound is beginning to fill up with lots of boats. It will be fairly crowded by tomorrow and then the issue of boats dragging their anchors in the high winds becomes a larger problem. It means folks will sit up late watching the boats around them and being prepared to deal with a dragging anchor. We will leave here at the crack of dawn Sat. morning after the winds die down and head for either Strangers Cay or Great Sale Cay and anchor in preparation for crossing the Gulf Stream on Sunday through Tuesday Those cays are both just rocky islands with nothing on them but they provide sheltered anchorage in prevailing winds. We hope to end up in  either Charleston or Beaufort where we will continue up the ICW to the Chesapeake. 

It is really lovely here today. Warm temps and soft breezes. It is hard to believe that things will get really rough on Friday but then we never know for sure how things will be. Often it is not as bad as forecast and sometimes it is worse. 

Yesterday we filled our fuel tanks to the brim so we will have almost enough fuel if we had to motor all the way across the GS. It is mostly just for safety backup as we sail a lot of the time without the engine running. It looks like the wind speed and direction will get us by sail alone at least to the Gulf Stream and then we can ride the GS up to the Carolinas.  

We look forward to being back stateside soon and seeing some close by friends and hearing from the rest of you.

E and J

Great Guana

We left Treasure Cay this morning. Treasure Cay is a beautiful resort on Grand Bahama. The beach is long with clean powdery sand lined with huge homes and the town homes along the harbor are all painted with bright colors.

 We spent two days at anchor in the small anchorage with our friend Debbie on Illusions. We also caught up with Ken and Sara on Alegria a beautiful Cabo Rico 38. We went to pizza night at Treasure Cay Marina on Thursday. It was mobbed with locals, cruisers and all the families with kids on spring break that have flown in from the States. 

We arrived in Great Guana this morning and came in to Grabbers for a beer and internet connection. Our booster will have to be returned to the manufacturer when we return to the US as we cannot get power to it no matter what we have tried so we only get internet when we come into shore. 

The high temps are in the low 70's and the lows in the 60's. Too cold for me!! Tomorrow things will start warming up once again. We are watching the weather to see when we can head back but it doesn't look good all the way to next weekend. We hear that the temps are low on the east coast down to Florida so we are just as happy staying here rather than going back even if we could (which we can't) to cold windy days on our way up to the Chesapeake. 

We just looked at the forecast through next Sunday and don't see an opportunity to cross back to the states.  We were hoping to sail from the top of the Bahamas to South or North Carolina.  Last year we were able to make it to Charleston.  Monday we will move farther north and west.  We had hoped to go to Green Turtle Cay and then to Great Sail Cay and on to the US.  We are looking at other islands now where we might stop along the way such as Manjack and Spanish Cay.

Hope you all have a Happy Easter,

Happy Easter

We are now in Treasure Cay.  It's a beautiful resort.  Tomorrow we will go to Great Guana.  We will be there through Easter.  We will then move to Green Turtle Cay where we will top of with fuel and wait for weather.  This morning the weather guy said there would be no window until at least Friday a week from tomorrow and then there are no promises.

Elyse has been walking and I think the exercise helps her back a little.  We keep looking at the weather in the states and wonder why we are rushing back.  We heard it was 39 in Palm Beach.  It is in the low 70's here and in the 50's at night. Great sleeping.


We are going to a friend's boat for drinks and then taking the dingy in for pizza night.
Hope you all have a great Easter.  We are really looking forward to seeing you.


Love,
Dad along with Elyse

Marsh Harbor, again

Well we are still in Marsh Harbor. On Friday with our raw water strainer leaking big time and our fridge not working at all, we decided we had better make a determined effort to get assistance before everything closed up for the weekend. We removed the broken bolt on the strainer and John took a taxi to a distant boatyard to have a new bolt fabricated to fit. It only took a few hours once we figured out who could do the job so we were very hopeful that the strainer issue would be resolved. 

The refrigerator was another deal. We had been fussing with it for a week or more trying to find a bad connection. A call to the boatyard that installed it brought the suggestion of water in the coolant which would have to be drained and recharged. John just didn't think that was the problem. Last year after the freezer and frige were only 1 year old the controller went bad on the freezer and we had to have it replaced. John thought it was the same issue with the refrig but the tech at Frigoboat and the guy at the boatyard had different thoughts and not being confident we decided to get someone to look at it. For over a week it would go off for several hours and then start once again. In the off times we would take ice from the freezer and pack the refrig in order to keep 3 months of my VERY expensive medication at the proper temp. By Friday it had been off for 2 days and we were pretty sure it was not coming back on. We called around and found a refrig guy who was working on 2 other boats but said he would call on Sat. when he was finished with those jobs. By 4 on Sat. there had been no call (island time) so we were set to give up and just keep icing down the frig until we could get back to the states but lo and behold at 4:45 pm Sean called and said he was on his way and could we pick him up at the dinghy dock? (in the States one always has to take the boat into a marina as the contractors almost never come out to your anchorage). He came out with all his recharging equipment and after trying another controller he confirmed that the controller was indeed dead. So this was the second one to fail in a system less than 2 years old although we had been assured that it was very "rare " for any of the parts to fail on these units!!! 

Now we have our two major issues resolved. John did a temp fix on the third leak. We could now leave if it were not for another cold front moving through which brought high winds and t-storms. We are waiting out the weather and are hoping to move on to Treasure Cay or Great Guana by tomorrow or Wed. 

The good news is that we were able to get to shore today to fill our propane tank, grocery shop and pick up email (our booster antenna is still not working).

 Life is good and the Bahamas are beautiful. 

E and J

Marsh Harbor

We are in Marsh Harbor at anchor and visiting the internet cafe as our booster which allows us to use internet on Spunky is not working for some reason. We just returned from Maxwell's Grocery Store. It is very well stocked and either I'm just getting numb to them or the prices aren't as high as the rest of the Bahamas. 

We moved Sat. afternoon from Spanish Wells where we anchored off the shore of Russell Is., as the winds were supposed to be 20 kts out of the North, to the west side of Egg Island in preparation for our crossing of the NE Providence Channel early Sunday a.m. We were anchored with 2 other boats. One left at around 3 a.m. and we were anchor up at 6:30. It was a good motor sail. The sea was fairly flat and we were through Little Harbor Cut into the Sea of Abaco  and anchor down at Lynyard Cay by 3:00. 

John spent the rest of the afternoon trying to repair two leaks in our cooling system. One was the raw water strainer.  The bolt holding the lid on broke and it could not be tightened enough to keep it from leaking. The broken bolt set up required drilling a new hole and finding a piece of metal to hold it in place. The second leak involved a broken piece where a pipe screws into the heat exchanger. John rigged a repair with 5200 and rescue tape. Both are temp fixes but will get us home to States we hope. 

By Monday a.m. I was anxious to move up to Marsh Harbor hoping to find more permanent parts for the repairs. No luck with that so we are going with Plan B and hoping things hold together til we get home. 

We got together with our friend Debbie on Illusions who has spent all her time in the Abacos this winter. We will meet her for dinner tonight. We spent the late morning with her catching up on old friends and what she has been doing since we saw her last in Melbourne. 

We are both enjoying our trip. My back has been giving me trouble again. We will stay in Abacos for a few weeks and then look for a weather window to cross to Charleston or Beaufort, NC. 

Hope the winter is over wherever you may be,

Elyse and John

Marsh Harbor

Took this last night from the boat.

Marsh Harbor

We are now in Marsh Harbor.  Great place.  The biggest town in the Abacos.

Spanish Wells

Hello all,

We are in Spanish Wells.  The island was settled by Methodists.  John Wesley visited.  There is no alcohol sold on the island.  It's like living in the 50's.  The economy is based on fishing and not tourists.  They speak a dialect that is different from anywhere we have been.  I am standing outside a store with the computor on a 55 gal drum.  A woman just stopped and invited us to go to her house.  

We are going to move the boat this afternoon a little west to Egg Island and in the morning take off for Little Harbor in the Abacoes.  The Abacos are the last chain we will visit in the Bahamas.  We plan to visit about 5 or six islands and then head back to the states.  That will probably be in about 3 weeks depending on the weather.

The weather is great and the islands are beautiful.  

I hope your life is wonderful.

John & Elyse  

It's too cold!

Hope your life is good.  Elyse has been complaining because the temp has only been getting to the high 60's.  I think it will get back to the 70's by the end of the week.  We may slow our  progress north.  We went to the grocery store.  A real treat.  I think we may head out north toward Spanish Wells tomorrow.  Winds look good.  There will be another front coming through later in the week.  From Spanish Wells we will jump off to the Abacos.

Take care.

John

Rock Sound

We are anchored in the bay by Rock Sound, Eleuthera. After a couple of bouncy days in New Bight on Cat Island we asked what Chris Parker, weather guru, thought of us sailing to Little San Salvador and on to Rock Sound the following day. He said with the 13-14 ft. swells from the NE in the Exuma Sound we would not be smart to anchor in West Bay at Little San Salvador. By the time we digested that info it was 8 a.m. but we decided to pull anchor and see how far we could get up the south coast of Eleuthera. Our bail out would be Davis Harbour Marina even though the cruising guide and chart said the channel depth was too shallow for us to attempt. At that point we would be committed to traveling the remainder of the way through Davis Channel after dark which is not recommended due to shifting sand bars and shallow coral heads. We felt, however, that if we didn't leave then we would be in Cat bobbing around all night for at minimum a few days. So off we went. It was a good sail although a little intimidating. As calculated, we just made it to Davis Harbour about 1 hour prior to sunset and were grateful to hear that we could enter with no problem. 

The following morning we pulled up to the fuel dock and filled our tank to the tune of $6.00 per gallon. We departed and arrived in Rock Sound about noon. This is one of our favorite settlements as it has a great protected bay, the best grocery store south of Marsh Harbor, and Pascal's, a great bar/restaurant, where we enjoy a cold Kalik after running our errands. 

I neglected to tell you about Sandy the Manatee who lives in the waters just off the dinghy dock at Long Island Breeze in Salt Pond, Long Island. He appears to be a young manatee and he comes up to the back deck of the restaurant where the owner has left a hose for him to drink fresh water. He comes up and drinks right out of the hose. Very amazing as I assume most manatees don't get to drink fresh water. 

Anyway, yesterday "we" (my part was to crawl into the rear lazerette where I could physically fit and screw the wire to the tuner box) installed a KISS ground for our SSB as we were not getting very good reception and John cut pieces of pvc pipe to use to hold our antenna off of the back stay. We were pleasantly rewarded with improved reception this a.m.  We are here for at least one more day and then north to anchor off Pigeon Cay or in Hatchet Bay and stage for our trip through Current Cut, which has very strong currents so we must time our passage to slack or ebb tide, and on to Spanish Wells. 

We turned our clocks forward Sat. night a time I always look forward to as it means spring is near and the daylight hours are getting longer.

Best to you all,

Elyse and John

Cat Island

Here we are in Cat Island after a good sail straight from Long Island. Looks like weather and sea state will keep us here for a week!!

Elyse and John

Long Island

Hey Gang,

We are in beautiful Long Island.  The water is 80 degrees and flat.  We are doing laundry and a little food shopping.  Yesterday we swam in Dean's Blue hole.  Over 600 feet deep and where they hold world champion deep diving championships.  Lots of beautiful fish and clear water.  Tonight the wind is supposed tp pick up so we will be sure to be back on the boat.  There are a couple of weather fronts coming through and I think we will wait till they pass which may mean it will be next week before we head back north to Cat Island.

We just finished our laundry at the Island Breeze resort.  There is a manatee hanging out next to the dingy dock.  When we finish with the computer we will walk over to the grocery store.  

I hope your life is good.  We feel like we are living the life.

John & Elyse on Spunky

Last Stop South

Here we are in Long Island doing laundry and catching up on internet. The winds are supposed to get to 25 gusting 30 tonight with squalls so we are prepared to hunker down. 

Yesterday we shared a rental car with Hayden and Raydeen from Island Spirit and went to Dean's Blue Hole which is 664 ft. deep and used for Free Dive competition. There is a platform in the middle of the hole for divers. We swam out to the platform. It is a little intimidating and there are warming signs saying to stay out unless you are a good swimmer. I figure you can drown in 20 ft. or  600+ ft. either way. We also visited Clarence Town and on the way saw one of the island race boats under construction from local trees. We visited two of the churches that were built by Father Jerome who retired on Cat Island and built the Hermitage on the hill that we saw last year. 

We had a good time in Georgetown playing dominoes and attending the opening ceremony for Cruisers Regatta Week. There was a "No Talent Talent Show" and a Doggie Parade. 

We departed Georgetown on Thursday morning and had a great sail down. We may be here for a week waiting for good weather to move on to Cat Island. 

Elyse and John

Georgetown

We have arrived Thursday Feb. 21st. at Emerald Bay Marina about 10 miles north of Georgetown. We sailed here from Black Point yesterday. We left the anchorage at Black Point at 7:15 a.m. hoisted the main and headed for Dotham Cut. Because the tide was against the wind at that time of the day we hobby horsed out the cut to the Exuma Sound. The Sound on the east side of the Exumas is more like being in the ocean. The waves are higher and the water a lot deeper than on the Banks which is on the West side. We had anticipated 12-14 knt winds out of the east based on Chris Parkers morning cast, but the winds were consistently above 20 and the waves 4-6 ft. We had about 40 miles to go to our destination. It was a bit rough.

Our stay in Black Point was very enjoyable. We had dinner at Lorraine's Cafe (a Bahamian buffet) and met a nice young couple from Montreal who were on a captained charter for 10 days. Their experience was very different from ours. No boat repairs, meals cooked and served, taxi service to and from shore, and no cleaning up.They want to buy a boat and bring it down sometime in the future. 

 We visited "the garden of Eden" which is a garden of driftwood sculpture that takes some imagination to define the subjects. The sculptor, Willie, lives in a house in the middle of the garden and he came out to give us a tour. He is an elderly gentleman with a great sense of humor. He described what each sculpture was in his mind but understood that we might envision something else. There must be about 30 of them. He then took us on a tour of his vegetable garden and fruit trees. It was quite amazing to see how much he could grow in between the rock that made up his yard (apple, papaya, banana, grapes, peas, squash, lemon grass, almond and much more)

I forgot in an earlier update to tell you about the Pig Beach in Staniel Cay. It is a beach on the West side of Big Major Spot where the island pigs, expecting to be fed, swim out to meet the incoming boats.. They are huge and great swimmers. We went just before the big blow so it was a bit rough with the wind starting to pick up. We had heard from other cruisers that the pigs try to get into the approaching dinghies and can do damage. Fortunately for us, there was a tour boat bringing out guests with lots of food for the pigs. They swam to the tour boat and we were able to watch them and take a few pics. They ignored us and rightly so as we did not bring food. 

Today we did laundry and are waiting for the fuel dock to open (the fellow who mans the dock had to drive to Georgetown for a part) and then we will take a walk. 

Black Point Settlement

Well here we are in beautiful Black Point Settlement. We arrived on Monday and walked to Lorraine's Cafe and had a couple of Kalicks and got internet. Met up with good friends from Annapolis on Alibi 2 and spent the evening catching up. 

We left Warderick Wells mooring field in the Park last Thursday before the front was scheduled to move through the area on Sat. We found a protected anchorage behind Thunderball Grotto in Staniel Cay and we stayed there through the blow. There were many boats trying to find a safe place to be in the days leading up to the front. We feel like we lucked out as our anchorage was fairly calm throughout. John kept an hourly watch on Sat. night as the wind clocked around from S to SW to W to NW throughout the day and night. We don't know how high it got since our wind indicator is not functioning. It was noisy at times. Our anchor held fine. (Thank you again Sheila and Chris) In fact, in our anchorage, no one dragged. There was a 64 ft. Hatteras, brand new, that lost it's anchor up between the Majors (which is a narrow corridor between two large cays where many boats rode out the blow even though the current is quite strong). He ended up on the rocks and started calling for help around 4 a.m. Finally a salvage boat came to his rescue and towed him off the rocks and into the marina. We heard on the VHF that he had prop damage. He was very fortunate that he didn't end up with a hole in the hull. 

We snorkeled in Thunderball Cave when the wind settled down some. It was full of many beautiful colorful fish of various sizes and shapes. Many more fish than we remember from last year. (cousin Mary-my snorkel gear worked wonderfully well-thank you). 

After listening to the weather guru on Monday at 6:30 a.m. we decided it would be a good day to leave Staniel and head for Black Point. We had a wonderful sail down and found a good spot to anchor  just off the settlement. We visited Scorpios for happy hour on Tuesday and are now doing laundry and preparing for a long walk and later dinner at Lorraine's Cafe. Tonight is the special buffet. 

Tomorrow we plan to sail through Dothan Cut and on down to Georgetown.

Hope you are all enjoying the winter.

Elyse and John

Black Point

We are now in Black Point.  Had a good if short sail today to get here.  Hope your life is good.

Thunderball Grotto

Happy Valentine's Day 

We are in Staniel Cay.  We are anchored next to Thunderball Gratto where the movie Thunderball with James 

bond was filmed.  We will dive in the grotto tomorrow.  We are having a wonderful trip.  Hope your life is as good or better.

John & Elyse

Exumas

Our location in Waderick Wells, the Exumas Land and Sea Park and Elyse's update are below.  We are having a great trip.  Touch wood, the boat is performing well.  There are a lot of fronts this year so you grab your chance to move and then enjoy yourself and wait for the next opening.  Most evenings are spent with new and old friends on someone's boat.  This evening a Canadian couple we spent 10 days with last year in Rock Sound are coming over.  They are on their way back to Nassau for engine batteries.

We had talked about this being our last year cruising but as we spend time in beautiful places with warm weather we may come again.  

We will leave tomorrow for Staniel Cay.  That is the location where Thunderball was filmed.  We will snorkel into the grotto where James Bond climbed on the rocks.  

Hope you have a great week.

John & Elyse on Spunky

Exumas

We left Nassau and headed to the Exumas. Our first stop was Highborne Cay where we anchored for the night and were anchor up and heading south early with a destination of Hawksbill Cay which we thought would give us a little more protection from the winds than Shroud where we stayed last year. 

Hawksbill was beautiful. Just what you imagine the Bahamas should be. There are clean white beaches that taper into turquoise water. We stayed two nights taking the trail across to the Sound side. It is one of the cays in the Exuma Park and there are rules preventing visitors from fishing or removing any wildlife including shells from the park.

Each morning on VHF the park office announces openings for the mooring balls in Warderick Wells (there are 22 balls in the North Mooring Field). Our name came up at the top of the waiting list and we were assigned a ball so we pulled anchor and headed down. This will be our third day here. Yesterday we climbed Boo Boo Hill and left a piece of driftwood with our names on it along with many others left by cruisers from past years. We have been visiting with new friends from this year and also friends from last year who happen to be here. 

Right now John is listening to the weather which we hear each a.m. on SSB so we can decide if we shall leave here tomorrow for Staniel Cay where we will anchor and ride out 25-30 knt winds from the north or stay here through Monday when we will be able to travel once again.  

We are hoping the winter is not too harsh wherever you may be. Love hearing from all of you.

Elyse and John

We have arrived

We have arrived. We overnighted from Miami leaving Tuesday morning and arriving Wednesday at noon. A calm crossing. Motored most of the way with little wind. We were able to sail from N. W. Channel marker to Nassau. We pulled into Nassau Harbor Club Marina where we stayed last year and customs was there to check us in. We met up with several boats we met in Bahamas last year and some that we met in the states. It was a nice reunion.

Today we walked to McKensies under the bridge for conch salad which the expert makes in front of you while you wait. It is unbelievable how fast he is with his knife. Yum!! There are many outdoor stalls under the bridge with "restaurants" and veggie stands etc. We went to the Green Parrot for lunch and to use their wifi but it was down. 

Yesterday after we arrived we walked to Batelco to get our phone set up. We purchased a data plan but it is not yet working. When and if it is we only have 1 gig of use before we have to pay again so we can't download attachments like photos. Please email us as we want to hear from you but please don't send photos until we return to the states. I spent quite a while unsubscribing to many sites so they won't automatically download to my phone. If we can't get it to work then we will rely on finding free wifi as last year so our email access will be very spotty and infrequent. If you need to reach us our Bahamas # is 1-242-462-6820. If you text it is less expensive. 

Tomorrow we hope to leave and head to the Exumas. This year the fronts are moving through with greater frequency so travel will not be as easy as last year. It seems there is usually only a day to get from one spot to another before you have to set anchor and hunker down and wait for the winds to calm and the seas to lay down to travel to the next cay. 

We are happy to be here. It is beautiful and the weather is lovely. Will send an update when I can.

Elyse and John

Monday is the day

Hey gang,

Happy Groundhog day.

It looks like Monday will be the day we leave, we think.  We plan to leave mid day and sail overnight and arrive in Nassau Tuesday afternoon.  We will make a final check of weather Monday morning to be sure but it looks pretty good.  I don't think there will be much wind so we will probably motor most of the way.  

We are hoping to spend enough time in Nassau to do our laundry and get some conch salad from under the bridge.  When we leave the states, we will put our phones on vacation.  I live by my smart phone.  It's hard to believe there was a time when I couldn't call or check email at will. We will activate our Bahamian phone so we can reach the states.  Our wifi will be much more intermittent.  We will check in from Nassau but many of the islands (cays) where we stop do not have wifi.  

Yesterday we commissioned our new water maker.  We were excited to drink our first toast.  We will be much cleaner in both body and boat this year.  It makes 20 gallons an hour.  In the Bahamas you have to pay for water in most places.  Normally we would take our 6 gallon tanks in the dingy to a dock where we would pay as much as 50 cents a gallon.  We would then bring them back to the boat and pour them into the tanks.  A gallon of water weighs 8.34 lbs and lifting a 50 gallon can is an effort. 

Have a wonderful weekend and go San Francisco.

John & Elyse 

Spunky Moving South

John has sent out a couple of short updates but he sends to a somewhat different list than I so I will send mine as well and apologize for any duplication. 

We left Stuart, FL on Thursday morning and had an uneventful motor trip down the ICW to Lake Worth Inlet where we went out onto the Atlantic about 4:30 p.m. and set course for Miami. Shortly before going through the inlet our autohelm started to act up. As we sailed south from the inlet the autohelm stopped steering a course so we turned it off and began to hand steer. We sailed for a few hours but the wind died down and with the waves behind us it became difficult to hand steer so we turned on the engine for the remainder of the trip. It was an easy trip. It was very pretty watching the shore lights as we went by. We shortened our watches as we were hand steering and arrived outside of Government Cut in Miami by 6 a.m. We slowed down and waited for two huge cruise ships to enter the cut and then followed them in. With the ships docking in the channel, the marine police close it to recreation traffic and we took a left and came in by Fisherman's Channel. We had anchor down by 7;30 a.m. in our anchorage just south of Belle Island right off South Beach. It is so pretty here with interestingly designed condos lining Biscayne Bay.  We spent the day napping and trying to decide what to do about the autohelm. We called a contractor to try to get an idea of repair cost and it had the potential to be huge. We would have to go into a marina and have the contractor test the compass. If it was working they would suspect the control computer which would have to be sent back to Ray Marine for repair or totally replaced. After adding up medical bills, boat insurance and potential repairs it was clear our cruising kitty would be gone. 

Saturday our friends whom we met in Stuart, Rick and Chris on One With The Wind, arrived in the anchorage and we took them into South Beach to show them the Publix, Ace Hardware and Lincoln Mall which a wonderful outdoor mall-actually a main street that has been closed to traffic with shops and restaurants. We walked all the way down to the Beach listening to all the voices speaking many languages and watching all the interesting people. At night we watch the lights.

Sunday Rick came over to Spunky to help troubleshoot the autohelm. He spent about 3 hours moving our compass location and cleaning wire attachments. We took Spunky out that afternoon to check the results and still did not have success. John and I then disconnected the compass once again and checked the resistance between the wires and put things back together again. 

Monday we once again took Spunky out to try to calibrate the autohelm which requires going around in circles a full 360 degrees 2 to 3 times until the autohelm senses what it requires to steer our boat. Success !!! we think. It seemed to hold a course so we returned to our anchorage. 

John thinks we are set. I am hopeful. Now we will enjoy South Beach find a laundry and await a weather window that will allow us ample time to cross the Gulf Stream and arrive in Nassau. 

The weather here is lovely. Temps in the high 70's and low 80's. We hope that 2013 is beginning well for all of you.

Elyse and John

sv/Spunky

Sweating in Miami

We are enjoying our stay in Miami waiting for weather.  Thanks to my new best friend Ric, on One with the Wind, our auto pilot is now working. He spent yesterday morning cleaning terminals and relocating the compass.  This morning Elyse and I calibrated the auto pilot and adjusted the deviation.  He saved us a bunch of $'s and time.  We are now just waiting for a good weather window.  We are hopeful it will come next week.  There is a short window tomorrow but we are going to wait for a little longer window.

South Beach is a great place to spend some time anyway.  We may watch the Super Bown there.  We are rooting for Elye's  49ers.  Hope you have a good week.

John & Elyse on Spunky

Miami

Hey gang,

We arrived in Miami at the crack of dawn on Friday after sailing (motoring mostly) overnight from Stuart.  We had some problems with our auto pilot and will see about getting it resolved.  We have a nice breeze this morning and we are told it will be 81 degrees.  We had a couple we met in Stuart over for a drink last night and showed them some of South Beach today.  He is coming over tomorrow to look at our auto pilot.  I am hopeful I will only need a new compass.

It was great walking down the Lincoln Mall today.  It's not your typical mall.  The closed about 7 blocks of Lincoln Ave and put in fountains and restaurants, etc.  While in Publics today we ran into a young man we met last year in St Mary's, GA.  He is single handing his way down to the Florida Keys.

As soon as the auto pilot is fixed and we get a good weather window we will head to Nassau.  It looks like the wind will be out of the North East for the next several days.  We need to wind to be out of the south to cross the Gulf Stream.  

As my friend Ed Kelly says, I hope this is a great week for you.

John & Elyse  

Update from Stuart

Dear Friends

I have included a photo of the mooring field where we have been living for the last month.  It's the Sunset Bay Marina in Stuart.  It is a great place with a nice downtown.  The marina has a lot of services including free bicycles and a bus that takes us to many places like grocery and marine stores.  We have met some great people.  We are having dinner tonight with some Canadians we met last year.

As of the 20th I am cleared to do what ever I want.  Elyse has kept me busy.  Yesterday we changed the fuel filters and today we took the boat in and filled our fuel and water tanks.  Our current plan is to leave here on Thursday and go off shore at Lakeworth, FL and sail overnight to Miami.  It is also a great place.  The grocery and South Beach are a short dingy ride away from where we will anchor.  We will wait there until we get a good weather window.  That means that the waves in the Gulf Stream are under 3 feet and the wind will hopefully enable us to sail.  We will sail from Miami overnight to Nassau.  From there we will work our way down the Exuma islands.  There are a lot of places we want to visit again and couple we missed last year we want to see. Places like Big Major where the wild pigs swim out to greet you when you dingy ashore.

The weather has been great in the 70's.  Today the wind is blowing pretty hard.  We hope it will die down before we dingy in for dinner.  We have settled into some routines.  Meeting people, doing boat chores and relaxing.  It is a nice life.  We hope your life is good as well.  As my friend Ed Kelly says, "I hope this is the greatest week of your life".

John &  Elyse on Spunky

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! It is 2013 and we are here in Stuart, FL. There is supposed to be a great weather window this week, the first week of the year, so many of the southward bound boats will be leaving the mooring field. We, of course, will remain as we are awaiting John's appointment with the surgeon on Jan. 4th.

We are enjoying being in one place for an extended period as it has allowed us to order some needed items on line and have them shipped to the marina. The weather has been lovely excect for a few days of high winds when a front passed through and the morning temps dipped below 50 degrees. The sunsets are beautiful and the dolphins play in the river. We don't think we could have found a better spot to be "stuck"  for 6 weeks.

We are trying to take advantage of some of the opportunities here in Stuart so we went to see Paula Poundstone perform at the Lyric Theater. She was very funny. The theater gets some very good acts and it not anywhere near the cost of the DC area. We are buying our vegetables at a small local market within walking distance of the marina that carries local produce and products and we rented a car to take to Melbourne for John's appt. and used it to go to a movie, Les Miserables. In the evenings we watch shows on Netflix and read a lot.

As for John's appt. with the surgeon, it went well. The doc said everything looked good and John could begin to lift things again slowly just not any major strain til 6 weeks. Once we get to Jan. 20 he can pretty much do what his body tells him is not painful. So we are relieved. We will remain here until then and try to decide if we want to go off shore again and risk another emergency. We will probably head down to Miami before the end of the month going outside the ICW at Lake Worth, FL and see how we do with raising the sails.

Today we will go into shore for a marina potluck and to watch the Redskins play Seattle.Life is good for us and we hope for all of you as well.

Elyse and John