Day #243 – North Palm Beach, FL

We left Old Bahama Bay as scheduled at 7:30 this morning.  It was like a parade getting out of there as so many boats left at the same time.  Everyone has been waiting for the weather window.  Our wait was worth the time.  The seas were virtually flat with a few rollers but hardly even a white cap.  Many boats came from Florida to the Bahamas so there was a lot of boat traffic.

We heard on the marine radio that another boater had come across a boat with three people on it that had been out there drifting for three days.  The way the winds and seas have been the last few days I cannot imagine what their experience must have been like.

As we got closer to Florida we could tell that we were leaving the tranquil Bahamas in our memories.  The boat traffic increased, helicopters flew overhead, and you could see people everywhere.  Ahhh, welcome back stateside.  We were however glad to have our Verizon internet and cell phones again.

As we entered the busy harbor we passed a boat that must belong to Richard Branson.

We had only been in port about one half hour and a storm hit us like few we have ever seen.  The skies turned black and opened up.  The winds were unbelievable and we thought for sure that we were going to lose our flybridge canopy again.  Winds howled, hail hit us everywhere and the lightening and rain were amazing.  We lost power, fire trucks zoomed through the marina and chaos was everywhere.  Jim Favors called to see if we were OK .  They had left this morning from West End like we did but were going to Stuart.  He heard on the marine radio that a 50 foot boat pulling into West Palm Beach was taking on water.  Nice of them to check to make sure it wasn’t us.  Not long ago I talked to a local business person who said they are a mile from us and there was a tornado there.  Yikes, we are lucky and glad to be in port, safe and sound, no worse for the wear.  By the way, this storm was never predicted.

Day #242 – West End, Bahamas…still

Yes, we are still at Old Bahama Bay waiting for our crossing window.  Tomorrow is the day.  Winds are predicted to be calm, seas 2-3 feet, winds 10-15 from the south.  Patience has paid off, hopefully.

Lisa, Patti and I took a long walk this morning and it was beautiful.  We will really miss the Bahamas and Old Bahama Bay has been great.  While we were walking I noticed something odd looking in the road ahead of us.  When we got closer it moved and moved quickly.  It turned out to be a blue crab.  A workman who was in the area told us what kind of crab it was and that is was unusual for him to be out of the water.

While we were talking to him he showed us a tomato plant growing in the middle of nowhere.  It was covered with tomatoes.

If you look at the surrounding area, it is amazing that ANYTHING can grow in this soil.  It is like gray dust, most likely coral.

The entire time we have been in the Bahamas we have been looking for sand dollars.  We have yet to find one but a friend of Patti and Brad’s who goes down there every year and dives for them gave her a few and she shared with me.  Lisa told us that you can tell a Bahamian sand dollar apart from others as the Bahamian have six slots instead of the usual five.

While walking around the marina we spotted a needle fish.

The marina is really filling up now that the weather has started to calm down and make the passage possible.  More than a dozen boats have pulled in today.  Many of the boats are quite impressive including  a Viking, Alaskan, Son Ship, Marlow, and several Nordhavens all 55 feet plus.

We had dinner tonight at Bonefish Folley’s with Brad and Patti, Jim and Lisa and Charlie and Linda as it is the last night we will be together here in the Bahamas.

Funny…no one ordered conch tonight!

Nice that a sunset appeared for us as well.

A beautiful end to a beautiful part of our journey…

Day #241 – West End, Bahamas

The wind is relentless.  It just keeps coming.  No boats left today and with good reason.  A couple have arrived coming through the Sea of Abaco and said it is really rough.  So, still looks like Good News and Salvage Crew will wait it out here at Old Bahama Bay for another couple of days.  Again, not a bad place to be stuck.

Patti and I took a nice walk this morning and this afternoon decided to walk the grounds and take a few pictures of the flowers here at the resort.  Beautiful, beautiful and so many varieties.

We walked the beach and pool area and are pleased to see so many people enjoying their vacation here.  Certainly busier during spring break than it was when we were here in January.

We were kind of watching for the arrival of Kismet and Freedom’s Turn today as they had emailed and said they were hoping to make it here on Saturday or Sunday.  They have had a rough few days traveling through the Abacos.  They passed through Don’t Rock passage instead of the Whale and said it was raging.  The seas were terrible and Lisa kissed the ground when they arrived at Green Turtle Cay. While we were walking the beach Andy spotted two boats out in the distance and we watched them come in.

The seas were very rough again today and they are glad to be here and we are glad they have made it.

Day #240 – West End, Bahamas

Another beautiful but windy day in West End.  We decided to take the day and go into Lucaya/Freeport.  The bus was supposed to pick us up at 9:00 and instead arrived at 10:00, it’s island time “mon.”  The bus is actually a 12 passanger van that is their public transportation.  They charge $7 per person and it takes you to Freeport where you get in another van and for $1.25 they drive you to Lucaya.  One hour later we arrived at our destination.

We walked around the marinas and the harbor for a bit.  Some LARGE boats in there but we all decided we definitely liked West End better.  A few of the sites of the area.

We had heard about a terrific Greek restaurant in town so went there for lunch and it did not disappoint.  It was very tasty and surprisingly reasonable.

We decided to try our luck at the casino again and I have to admit I am nothing if not consistent.  I was losing my big investment ($20) so made Andy try his luck.  He did a little better but ultimately we walked out $19.75 poorer than when we walked in one hour before.  I saved twent five cents so Andy couldn’t say I blew it all.

Later we walked to the ocean and they have a Sheraton and a Westin there.  This kite surfer was entertaining the crowd and he buzzed back and forth the entire time we were there, over an hour.

We stopped and listened to Mango, the local entertainer and he was quite good.

Back we headed to West End and Old Bahama Bay and quite glad to be back.  One of the boats in the marina showed us the dolphin they had caught.  They said it weighed about thirty pounds.  They took it in the cooler up to the restaurant and the chef cooked it for them.  Sadly, they didn’t offer to share.

Day #239 – West End, Bahamas

Today is the windiest day we have had in some time.  Several of the large fishing boats that arrived from Florida yesterday are still here at the dock and even they didn’t go out.

We rode bikes out to the break wall in Old Bahama Bay to get some exercise and see other sites.  The head wind was incredibly strong and you really had to work hard on the single speed bikes.  When we got out there a cruise ship was going by headed to Freeport.

The winds are coming from the south at about 25 miles per hour which makes the Atlantic side very rough.  Waves in the gulf stream are reported to be 6-9 feet again today.

We walked over to the Sea of Abaco side and it was a much different story.  We even spotted a few string rays floating in the calm water.

While we were out on the point we spotted this ship trying to make its way into the marina.  The were really pitching and rolling and it appeared they had come all the way from Florida.  When it docked, it was apparent that it is a commercial dive boat.  Not sure how happy the paying customers were for their experience in the ride over.

The curly tail lizards are everywhere and they look to be having such fun.  They make me smile.

Day #238 – West End, Bahamas

Another beautiful day in West End.  There is still quite a strong breeze, but it is sunny and 78 degrees.  Several boats pulled out of the marina this morning and left to cross to Florida.  They were facing 6-9 foot seas and we wished them luck and off they went.  2-4 foot seas were plenty for me on the way over and don’t choose to experience more, especially if we don’t have to.  One couple told me they would email me and let me know that they made it safely.

Andy discovered that one of our gallons of motor oil had sprung a leak in the engine room, so he spent most of the morning cleaning that up.  Fortunately he found it before it had pumped overboard and into the water.  Quite a messy job, but he is done and now taking his Captain’s siesta.

Brad, Patti and I rode our bikes into West End again today, about four miles away.  We stopped at the two little “grocery” stores along the roadside, but came out empty handed.  We then went to the “liquor” store a bit further down the road.  Brad bought beer at $2.45 a can and club soda at $1.25 a can.  Definitely something you don’t have to want to purchase much of around here.

On our way back we stopped and took pictures of some of the local sites.  This is a very poor area but everyone is so friendly and happy.  A fisherman walking along the street stopped us and asked us if we wanted to buy any lobster.  He pulled them out of his bag and they were still alive.  He would have sold us 12 for $30 but we had no way to get them back and still all have quite a few in our freezers.

The photo below is of their nicest pub in West End called The Star.

The  next picture is of their seaside bar across the street.  It even has ocean side seating.

Another stop showed the continuous piles of conch shells along the roadway.  Guess they gave up on trying to put the shells in the bucket a long time ago.

Across the street from that is this building adorned with cleaned conch shells.  Not sure what is supposed to go into that bucket…hungry dogs????

After we got back, Patti and I decided to try and clean the conch shells we had gathered yesterday.  Several people on the dock got into the act.  It will not be a quick project as you scrape, soak in bleach water, dry for a couple of days and scrape again.

Dinner tonight will be up at the resort restaurant, Fishbone Folley’s, located right off the stern of our boat.

Sunset at dinner.  Another beautiful day in the Bahamas!

Day #237 – West End, Bahamas

Spent our time this morning getting caught up.  Each marina seems to be different when it comes to water and electricity usage and price.  Some charge per kilowatt and gallon, others charge a flat fee.  Here at Old Bahama Bay they charge a flat fee daily for water and  electricity and knowing that we were coming back decided to put off laundry, etc. until we arrived here.  Paying per usage can really add up if you aren’t careful.  In Green Turtle Andy washed the boat and our water charge was $16.00.

The seas are predicted to be 6-9 feet today so we are definitely staying put.  Not sure tomorrow is going to be any better.  Since we are not in a hurry, we will wait it our here until the seas and winds calm down.  It looks like Monday or Tuesday of next week may be the window.

The resort has loaner bikes and Andy and I reserved some for this afternoon.  Patti and Brad have their own.  So we rode into West End a couple of miles away.  We were looking for conch shells to take home.  There is a big conch fishing industry here and shells are cast off and plentiful along the roads.

We were lucky enough to stop just as a fishing boat came in.  They said they had lots of conch, lobster and hog fish.  We watched them clean out the conch and they saved a few shells for us.  They take a small hatchet and crack a slit in the back of the shell to release the muscle and then slip the conch out.  For as tasty as conch is, they sure are ugly.  We loaded up our backpacks and rode back to the marina.

I washed the shells and will let them sit in the sun for a couple of days.  After that I will soak them in a bleach/water solution for a couple of days.  Last time I did that, they came out beautifully.  Hope I am as lucky this time.  They sure do STINK now!

Two other boats here in the marina belong to people from Michigan, one from Monroe, one from Grand Rapids.  Small world and guess no one wants to stay in Michigan for the ocld winters.

Day #236 – West End, Bahamas

We left our peaceful anchorage at 7:00 this morning and were presented with a beautiful sunrise.

It is not unlike our sunset last night, just different landscape.

Did a few more stats on the trip so far and this time it was concerning our weather since we left.  I have kept a ship’s log and have kept track of our temperatures and skies each day.  I tend to lean more on the side of optimism so some days that appear partly cloudy, I term sunny, percentage takes over.  Anyway our weather has been spectacular most of the time and breaks down as follows:

Sunny – 176
Rainy – 16
Cloudy – 44

So, now you can see why we feel so blessed with the weather we have had.  May it continue!

You could visually see when we crossed from the turquoise waters back into the dark blue.  Although still pretty, the turquoise are exquisite.  For the first time ever, we saw schools of flying fish.  Really hard to get a picture, but they are spectacular.

We pulled back into Old Bahama Bay on West end forty five days after we left.  The trip through the Abacos consisted of approximately four hundred miles of travel and beautiful scenery.  We enjoyed every day.  We will wait here for our window weather to cross back over to Florida.

Day #235 – Great Sale, Abacos

Happy Birthday today to Scott and Dianne.

Hope they have a wonderful day!

We left beautiful Green Turtle Club and Marina at 7:30.  The wind had picked up overnight and it was a bit bumpy.  Andy backed the boat out of the slip which wasn’t easy to do they way they had us situated.  The day started out a bit cloudy but cleared up and we had a beautiful ride to Great Sale Cay.  The trip was a little over 70 miles and 7 hours.  We pulled into the same anchorage as we did on our way over.  A nice protected harbor and glad to have made it.  I know the site of the turquoise water is nearing the end and we are enjoying every minute of it while it lasts.

We dropped anchor about 2:30, seventy miles and a little over seven hours.  There are six sailboats and Salvage Crew anchored with us.

A few tabulations thus far into the trip:
We have traveled an average of 16.10 miles per day
We have averaged 1.67 hours on the water per day
We have averaged 1.4 miles to the gallon
Total miles traveled to date is 3,896
and every day a new adventure!

Dinner aboard Good News tonight.  Patti made conch chowder while underway and they brought it over for dinner.  It was delicious and we were reminded that it was our last night in the Abacos.  Tomorrow we cross back over into the Bahamas.  We never dreamt that we would be here eight weeks which we will have been on Thursday.  Oh, what a great time we have had and how lucky we are to have been able to share it with our new friends.

Thoughts to Ponder…

We received this in our “Welcome Packet” at Orchid Bay Marina on Great Guana.  Many of these “Pearls of Wisdom” I had seen before , but I thought they were worth remembering.  Some good advice.  Hope you enjoy!

21 Suggestions for SUCCESS

1. Marry the right person. This one decision will determine 90% of your happiness or misery.
2. Work at something you enjoy and that’s worthy of your time and talent.
3. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.
4. Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.
5. Be forgiving of yourself and others.
6. Be generous.
7. Have a grateful heart.
8. Persistence, persistence, persistence.
9. Discipline yourself to save money on even the most modest salary.
10. Treat everyone you meet like you want to be treated.
11. Commit yourself to constant improvement.
12. Commit yourself to quality.
13. Understand that happiness is not based on possessions, power or prestige, but on relationships with people you love and respect.
14. Be loyal.
15. Be honest.
16. Be a self-starter.
17. Be decisive even if it means you’ll sometimes be wrong.
18. Stop blaming others. Take responsibility for every area of your life.
19. Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the ones you did.
20. Take good care of those you love.
21. Don’t do anything that wouldn’t make your mom proud.

by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Now, on a lighter note, Jimmy Buffet released his new song at Margaritaville in Key West last month.  It is called ” A Lot to Drink About.”  Quite humorous and thought everyone could use a laugh.  Enjoy…  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGbrCJfgH8s