Bahamas Sailing Notes

Leg 1

May 2, 2000: Wrap up final details and head out at 12:45 weather report was for 5-10 knots easterly winds to hold thru the week. After clearing the Sanibel bridge at 16:45 we found ourselves in light west winds. 22:00 we encountered SE winds 20-25 and gusty. Seas soon became short chop 4-5 foot. We were taking water over the bow, occasionally heavy, several deck seams had opened, and water was pouring in, we also had several hull seams that had opened from sitting. By 2:00, Wednesday, the bilge pump was running constantly. Pump screen was plugged, once cleaned it could keep up.

May 3, 2000: 11:00 reach Bullard Bank, marker was incorrect, Coast Guard would not verify the markers were being changed, we were on our own. Bullard Bank is now marked with a green marker not a red, and the red markers are not numbered. We fueled at Marathon and continued into the harbor, anchoring at 14:00. The fresh water pump filter was plugged, cheapo plastic crap filter is on edge of failing to seal. 16:00 pump up and running, then investigated deck seams, some sections needed recaulking. After eating and getting ready for much needed sleep, Pam mentioned she didn't think the frig was working. It wasn't, at about 22:00 the problem was found, the D.C. wires had corroded at the connection behind the compressor. Repair was completed by 24:00

May 4, 2000: Ripping out bad seams and recaulking.

May 5, 2000: Sealed seams and went hunting for materials, gear and parts.

May 6, 2000: Spent finishing deck leaks.

May 7, 2000: Visit friends and rest.

May 8, 2000: Head out for Rodrigueze Key, and again the forecast was wrong, 10-15 knots and 20 percent chance of showers, turned to 15-20 knots and gusting, overcast and crappie in general. Wet decks but no leaks this time.

May 9, 2000: Forecast 10-15 knots E to SE, with not much change for several days when a strong front was to approach. We headed out across the gulfstream for Cat Cay, Bahamas. Total distance of 75 miles from the anchorage, anchor up at 6:30. Great trip with 10-15 knots ESE winds and 3-5 foot seas and dry down below. We made Cat Cay at 16:30 and cleared customs. $50 charge to tie up to clear and $100 to clear in customs and immigration. Underway out of Cat Cay by 18:00. Encountering shallow water about 5 miles out to about 8 miles.

May 10, 2000: Russell is not marked and N.W. channel is not clearly marked, we saw a white cylinder with a stick and green day mark on top. Maybe that is it? Was choppy going across the bank, we went slow so as to arrive at the N.W. channel after daybreak, 7:00, wind became very light out of the south, we kept moving. Around 10:00 one alternator stopped charging, switched batteries to charge with second alternator. Arrived Nassua 17:00 and fueled.

May 11,2000: 2:00 started working on the charging problem, finished at 6:00. Salt water corrosion on wire ends at alternator. Nassau bad, stores locked with buzzers during the day! Phone calls and supplies and head out at 12:00 for Allens Cay. Anchored outside Allens Cay at 17:00 and went snorkeling, picked up 6 conch right away, conch salad : )

May12, 2000: Winds 5-10 Knots E-SE, Moved to Highborne Cay and anchored off the beach, 10:50. Washed boat and clothes with water from cistern. Dive, Highborne cut and shoot large margate fish, pick up more conch, ran over to Ellens island(Little Spirit). Ellen wasn't home, stopped at Tea Table Island and played a bit. Then back to Camelot after getting gas at Highborne, $3.14 a gallon. 15:45, headed out for Normans Pond, couldn't get in, so headed back to Highborne, anchoring at 19:00.

May 13, 2000: Went to cistern on Highborne Cay and carried 58 gallons of water back to boat. Went diving off north end of Highborne, shot trigger and got more conch.

May 14, 2000: Mothers Day, fish and eggs for breakfast. Decide to go to Tea Table. Almost no current, incoming moderate out going choppy. Went snorkeling and hand lining, caught snapper, porgy and trigger. Porgy not the best texture.

May 15, 2000: Light ESE winds, 8:00, Sail to Allens, change out anchor chain and end for end anchor rode, recompensate auto helm. Anchor south end of Allens, 11:30, ready for storms(none). Butch snorkels, Pam sits in dinghy.

May 16, 2000: Sand and varnish forward cap, toe rail and top of rub rail. Tightened rigging.

May 17, 2000: Highborne run (Phone calls, wash, 5 gals. fuel, 10 gal.water from cistern). Dinghy engine ailing, repaired engine, make-up Hawaiian sling and sell for $100.00. Went diving and handling, speared trigger and caught 3 margates. Good day, pickled trigger, 3 jars fish and conch dinner. Wind starts blowing for east, 20 knots, rockin night, not bad.

May 18, 2000: Blowin 20 knots. Cleaning, polishing, deck seams aft deck. Dinghy bungy repair, replace dragon eyes.

May 19, 2000: Bread baking, still blowin 15-20 East, need some rain. Battery bank 2 seems to be bad, after charge no load, went dead in 4 hours, hygrometer test finds bad cell. Brass strap lower mizzen stays to belayin rail. Pendragon, work and sail, modifying sheet line, repair cam cleat, add clam cleat to mast for sprit, and find jam cleats. Need to relocate jib sheets. Sailed Pendragon to beach and explored. We burned the trash on the beach, good evening, still windy.

May 20, 2000: Pam's ears very bad, not getting better, been diving alone. Readied for a beach day, but couldn't land dinghy, all rocks up to beach and heavy surf. So we handlined and got plenty of fish and dove up conch.

May 21, 2000: Clean Pam's ear(high pressure hot water, one ear cleaned out well other still plugged). Went over to Dutchess of Durth(French folks). New boaters about a month, showed them how to clean conch. Pam adds material to awning bag, I thru bolt dinghy lifting arm, and ready for sail back to Nassau to get new batteries.

May 22, 2000: Early start, underway 6:00, motorsailed, made Nassau 11:00, Fueled by 11:30, anchored secure 13:00. Weird seaweed covering bottom east end of harbor, had to anchor twice, found old anchor, tempted to tie to it, but didn't. Hitched a ride to shore with French, found and purchased batteries. by 13:45, grocery run completed by 14:30, pulled bad 8D battery out of Camelot and put in dinghy and went in and swapped out. No help from marine facility, put new batteries. in dinghy and took to Camelot, installed by 15:15, very tired, decide to leave in morning. Spent evening going over both charging systems and checking all batteries. End of day 21:00.

May 23, 2000: Pull anchors, catamaran doing the same, all of the sudden I hear a scream. The man on the bow of the cat flipped head over heals over the bow. He surfaced and was hanging on his anchor unhurt. Had a great motor and sail to Allens with SSW to SW winds. Anchored N. Allens by 16:00. About 17:30 a sailboat came in and ran aground, about 19:30 still aground I decide to see if they would like some help before it got dark, they said yes, but didn't think my little boat could do any good. About 15 to 20 minutes later they were floating again. They were very happy, (the boat, Bear).

May 24, 2000: Beautiful morning, the couple(Ed and Ximena) from Bear came over with a gift for helping them, it was a patchouli candle and a couple of Coronas, and they thanked me again. We explored the island and did some fishing. Fishing was good 5 fish, stop at Bear on the way back . Had a great time!

May 25, 2000: Sail to Saddleback Cay. Had to set anchors several times, strong current and fowled bottom with coral rock. Had to seat a huge rock on top of anchor. Visited our friends, Ralph and Michelle on Normans Cay, kept them up past their bedtime. No sleep for the Captain, the boat was riding up and around on the anchor with the chain dragging on the rock bottom, making a terrible noise.

May 26, 2000: Take a dinghy ride to visit our favorite beach on Normans Cay. Spent most the day walking the beach and playing. Ralph and Michelle were out for the evening. We want to get out of Saddleback anchorage, to tight and wild.

May 27, 2000: Early morning visit with Ralph and Michelle to say good-byes. I dive on the anchor and remove the rock off the danforth and off we go. 10:00 tight motorsail to Pipe Creek and our special little spot. Did a Bahamian moor. Pam is so happy to be here again, so am I.

May 29, 2000: Snorkeling, couple conch then fishing. Caught a trigger and mutton snapper. Great day!

May 30, 2000: No rain, still. Trip to Staniel Cay and snorkeled Thunderball Cave, made phone calls and got gas and water. It took about an hour each way in the dinghy. Best to leave on rise and return on falling tides. Cave best at low, slack tide.

May 31, 2000: Pam repairs the new tears we found in the Main sail. I redo the gaff cable with rope and rerig the back haul on jib track(add larger cleat and new line). Our friends on Bear come into Pipe creek, we are so happy to see each other again, we do a fire on the beach and had a lot of fun. (wonderful people)

June 1, 2000: Need rain, it's everywhere but here. Add a topping lift to the mainsail. Pam does some varnishing. Get Pendragon down and take a nice sail with Pam. Lunch on Bear and then snorkeling, had to watch for thimbles, they were everywhere, found 4 conch.

June 2, 2000: Dinghy ride to Staniel Cay with Ed and Xemena. Did the beach cookout on Staniel. Caught low tide at Thunderball Cave, great snorkel, but thimbles thick, to ocean side home.

June 3, 2000: Early start fishing. Took Xemena fishing, we caught 4 fish. Great dinner on Camelot.

June 4, 2000: Rain, please, please, please. Sand and varnish, I rerigged Pendragon's jibs and main. Put jam cleats under the seat. Worked excellent. Invited to Bear for dinner. Xemena made a Spanish tortilla. We did cracked conch and bread, later we gathered wood and had a fire on the beach. (late night).

June 5, 2000: More clouds and rain everywhere, but nothing falling on us. Bear is getting anchors up and untwisted. Wind is picking up, go to the beach with them and check out ocean and get some pictures, girls do some shelling. Doesn't look bad out on the sea, get back to boats and the wind and clouds increase. Ed decides not to leave, we offer a raft off Camelot so they don't have to reanchor. We decide to go snorkeling, and dinner is surf and turf.

June 6, 2000: We hop a ride with Bear to offshore Staniel, say our good-byes. We hop in our dinghy and run into Staniel, call Matt, get fuel $3.20 gal. and head back to Camelot. Snorkeled around the boat and then down the reef, came across many conch, had four conch when I noticed the barracuda, he started circling me getting closer and closer. Nothing was getting him to back off, I was to far from the boat, I yelled for Pam briefly not wanting to take my eyes off him. Five minuetes go by, no Pam, I scream, this time to get her ass over here now, this barracuda is coming at me with teeth showing, he's about 2 to 3 feet from me, I start swimming, the barracuda follows right alongside about 3 feet away, I stop, he stops and starts moving in again, jabbing at him only seems to make him more agitated. I start swimming again and so does he, right next to me jawing. I finally come to the beach and jump out. Pam hollers, do you want me to come and get you? Yes!!! A little time passes and I realize she won't be able to pull the dinghy to the shore, it's shallow and rocky, so I lay back in the water to swim out and the cuda is just sitting there watching. Eiry, dangerous cuda, gotta go. I've seen this before.

June 7, 2000: Did some sanding, check some light problems. Trip to ocean side, Joe Cay beach, hot and sunny, still no rain and little breeze today. Took some good pictures and found some neat shells. Had a wonderful day.

June 8, 2000: Worked on Camelot all day. Pam sanded and varnished, I rerigged topping lift and tore down blocks and inspected. Added through bolts, greased and reasssembled. Replaced topping lift line with heavier line, removed and refastened cleat. Evening went to beach and picked up firewood and took pictures. Still no rain, storm split in front of us, went each side.

June 9, 2000: 3:00, Rain, got up and started catching every drop I could. Pam woke around 6:00 and helped. We filled port and starboard tanks, plus filled drinking tanks about 9:00, water from dinghys was used to wash clothes. Rain and drizzle all day :) We're happy. I went back to bed while Pam washed clothes and baked bread. Clothes dried in the drizzle, it was very breezy, we washed Camelot down with remaining water in the dinghys. We were beat, Pam made a wonderful pizza and we watched a movie, near dark settled in the cockpit to have cocktail and noticed more rain coming. I thought maybe we should take the tents down, but didn't. 20:35 the rain hit us with a nasty squall out of the west, the wind was some where around 70-90 mph. We leaned and rolled, the tents were looking like parachutes. I felt something wasn't right and took the spot light forward to check the anchors, I spotted the island and we seeemed very close, looking at the anchor line I knew we had drug, we were sitting on the bottom and the two remaining anchors were tight as violin strings. It was still blowing. I tell Pam we need to get the tents down and I start the engine. We had quite a time wrestling in now 40-50 knot winds with the tents, then light hail, fun! Dark, frothy, rocks near and current running, but were sitting still, waited and watched then started lifting the anchor that pulled loose, got in the whaler and ran it out again, but couldn't see very well, dropped the anchor at the end of its rode and ran back to the boat. A little throttle and we were back in our spot.

June 10, 2000: 1:45, I'm still up. Watching, now the wind is NE, and shoving us broadside toward the shoal on our starboard side, but looks like we're holding fine. Dark black out, wind is not more than 20 knots, hope it stays that way. I can't say enough on the importance of anchoring, overkill, there is no such thing, it's to late when the wind hits. I felt that I should of had more scope out, I was at about 6 to 1 with 20 lb. weight, but not enough for hurricane force wind. When the day begins I'll be setting that anchor over the otherside of the reef and checking the other two anchors.

June 11, 2000: Sunny, go fishing by the cut. Hot spot! Catch 4 fish in 5 minutes. We follow the path from middle beach of Thomas Cay to oceanside. We visit Mike on Smidgeon Cay.

June 12, 2000: Sand and varnish, fish, the barracuda again, deck seam repair, fire on the beach.

June13, 2000: We varnish and I rip plank seam and rebed. Work, work, work.

June 14, 2000: Our anniversary, went fishing and almost lost a hand. One bad ass barracuda. He came out of the water, hitting the dinghy and grabbed the fish as it was being pulled from the water, like a bolt of lightning, so quick you weren't sure what happened. Called it quits and went to Smidgeon Cay and had a wonderful day.

June 15, 2000: Trip to Staniel, called Matt, they are coming on the 18th. Got gas and some food.

June 16, 2000: