Off to the Bahamas

Provisioning- Chris has been busy these past weeks making sure we are stocked up with supplies to last 3 months. Since this is our fifth season cruising the Bahamas we have a pretty good handle on what we need to bring along and what can be bought locally at a reasonable cost. Most food when available costs double what we pay here so we provision as much as possible. Beer is especially expensive but since it is heavy we limit what we bring. We can  our own venison, pork and our home grown fruits over the summer and also fill our freezer mainly with meat. Chris bakes bread and desserts regularly and I must say we eat well while aboard. Last year the fishing was excellent and we hope for the same luck this trip.

Shoving Off- Sat, Feb 22, 2014
    The weather is looking great for the next few days so we close up the house and move aboard. At 11am we are headed south to Lake Worth (Palm Beach) where we anchor for the night close to the inlet to make an early start.

Crossing the Gulf Stream- Sun 2-23
   Anchor up at 4 am and we motor out of the harbor with hardly a ripple on the ocean. We wait for calm seas to cross the Gulf Stream as it flows north at 4 knots and any North winds build big seas and make for a rough ride. By Dawn the south winds have built enough to raise the sails and we end up shutting down the engine and having a great sail for about half the trip. By 1pm we have crossed into the shallow waters of the Bahama Bank and are at anchor at our first landfall of Mangrove Cay by 5:30. This tiny uninhabited island is usually our first stop as if the winds are up we can get protection in it's lee from the waves. Very little boat traffic as we only saw 3 sailboats and 2 motoryachts all day. Dinner under the stars of fresh yellowtail snapper and Spanish Mackerel caught along the way topped of a great day.

On to Abaco- 
    Monday dawns with brisk winds and we head out under full sail flying along much of the day. Caught numerous fish with the best being a nice Mangrove Snapper we fixed for dinner and freezing 4 others and releasing a huge Barracuda. Anchored at Crab Cay along with 2 other boats.

    Tuesday brings calm waters and we motor all day stopping for lunch and clearing customs at Green Turtle
then continuing on to Treasure cay where we will wait out some nasty weather expected later this week.

    Wednesday is a beautiful sunny day and after spending the morning getting our phone and internet set up at the batelco office we were off to spend the afternoon at Chris' favorite beach. We are sharing this totally protected anchorage with 15 other boats but as the weather worsens more will pile in. The resort here charges us $10 a day to anchor but that allows us use of their pool, showers and internet. Cocktails with friends from the Catamaran True Colors who we met last year topped off another great day.

   Thurs-Fri The expected foul weather has arrived and we spend our time relaxing aboard. Winds howl but we are quite comfortable and dry reading and catching up on chores.

     Central Abaco

    Sat- Marsh Harbor- dawned sunny and cooler with brisk north winds, we headed south under full sail flying along at 7 kts and made Marsh Harbor in record time. Caught one big barracuda but cut it free, to big to eat. Our main reason to come into Marsh Harbor is for shopping and we picked up a case of our favorite local rum and a few fresh veggies.

at anchor Marsh Harbor sporting our new sun shades

Hopetown inner harbor, from atop lighthouse

at anchor below Hopetown Light

  Sun- Hopetown- with light winds we motor to Hopetown and anchor outside the crowded harbor. This quaint town is a favorite with boaters but the harbor is full of moorings with no room to anchor. Spent the afternoon wandering the narrow streets and walking the ocean beach.


     Mon- Lynard Cay- Sail south under gentle east winds to anchor in the lee of Lynard Cay. Caught a nice mutton Snapper that went on the grill for dinner. Had to cut off the head so it would fit the grill. After stuffing ourselves we still have leftovers for another meal. With a few days of moderate breezes predicted we have decided to make our way south to Eleuthra. This entails an open ocean crossing of 60 miles thru the northeast Providence channel crossing a major shipping lane along the way.  The seas on the ocean have been big for the past week and as we  settle in it’s hard to believe the weatherman that they will subside by morning.

Back to the Water 2014

After spending a great summer at our home in Northern NY we returned to our winter abode in Jensen Beach FL on Oct 15th. After a quick bottom paint job Apres Ski is back at her slip at the Pellicans Nest within an easy walk from our home.

    Winter Boat Projects
    Paint deck- My main project this year has been to paint the deck, cabintop and stern.  As with almost any project on an old boat this turned out to be much more labor intensive than planned. After removing all the deck hardware and window trim the process of sanding, patching, priming and lots more sanding was followed by multiple coats of Interlux Perfection 2 part epoxy applied using foam rollers. I then masked off all the smooth areas and applied the same paint in light tan to the non skid areas. I must say the paint was much trickier to work with than anticipated as temps, humidity and wind all played a major role in the final finish. I am quite happy with the final result and now Chris says it came out so good that I need to paint the cockpit next year.

new paint job

  Repair Transmission-Following problems with the gearbox slipping at slow speeds last year I researched this problem and found it is common with this unit in that the metal on metal friction cup and cone setup gets glazed. The suggested solution was to dissamble gearbox and burnish the clutch surfaces. This was an easy fix and was amazed at the the info available on the web especially on utube.
  Upgrade Alternator-The addition of a larger alternator, 80 amp combined with an external 4 stage voltage regulator will hopefully cut down on the time spent running the engine to charge batteries.
    Replace freezer-The freezer we bought last year (Dometic cool freeze) was a major disappointment in that it failed to keep food in the bottom frozen while the upper portion stayed at 10 degrees.  After numerous call to the company they had us return unit and refunded our purchase price including all shipping costs. I replaced this freezer with a Norcold unit that is bigger than we wanted but was a good price. Time will tell but so far this has been a great unit.(runs on same danfoss compressor but has a much larger evaporator plate.
    Sun Shades-In past years when it got to hot at anchor we would use old bedsheets attached to our enclosure to block the sun. While this was functional it wasn't very convenient or very yachty looking. This winter I fashioned sunshades using white filtertex (screen like shade material that still lets you see out) that can be zipped and snapped in place as needed.
    Mast Steps- One of the chores I hate on the boat is going up the mast for repairs and maintenance. I have always considered a set of mast steps but their cost and appearance deterred me. This fall I came upon a fellow sailor selling a box of new steps he had bought years ago and was able to get them for a song. It was a project installing them hanging from the bosuns chair as each step is held with 6 rivets. You might know that with only the top 2 steps to install I ran out of rivets! Poor planning meant another trip to the top.