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; WEST END I was totally amazed at the beauty of the West End and the Old Bahama Bay Club. ; The waters were amazing and the sand on the beach was white and pristine. ; There were no restrictions with Ziggy either which made things easier for us. ; Ziggy loved the waters too as there were no waves just wading waters. ; He loved to swim out and look into the water for fish with no fear of the usual California waves that he would be afraid of at home. ; We saw a few sting rays and other unfamiliar fish as the waters were so clear. The cottages of Old Bahama Bay are charming also. ; Their pastel shades are perfect against the backdrop of the blue skies filled with white clouds against the aqua colored waters. ; They were the most beautiful shades of pastels; yellow, blue, pink with white metal roofs. ; The waters are magnificently clear and the most beautiful shades of blue and aqua. ; The staff is friendly and amiable. ; I think we dropped off into Paradise without knowing we were headed that way. I don’t understand how just a few hours away is the chaos of Fort Lauderdale. ; It was such an easy quick escape to paradise. We had a late afternoon lunch at their beach bar and restaurant. ; It was great. ; Ziggy was allowed to sit under the table as we enjoyed two margaritas and delicious conch burgers. ; No more uptight people about Ziggy. We had the most amazing sleep in a long time. ; No sounds of airplanes, boat motors, cars or freeways rumbling in the back ground; just the sounds of winds blowing through the halyards of all the surrounding sail boats. ; We were enjoying the wonderful fresh air. ; ; We got up a few times during the night, as did other boaters, to check and retie or add extra lines to withstand the gusts that accompanied the Front that followed us in from Florida. December 29th (West End –
Old Bahama Bay) We awoke to strong winds gusting to high 30s. ; It’s wild but exciting. ; The resort is well protected though and you can actually walk along the beach and swim in protected waters from the wind. ; It’s beautiful and violent at the same time. ; Exciting. ; We took Zig for a long walk and there is plenty of space for him to run free. ; He has fallen in love with the protected waters of the beach and swims and swims. ; There’s lots of little fish acitivity to keep him interested and in the hunting mode. ; He scared us a few times stirring up some sting rays. ; God the colors here are amazing. ; How could anyone think of painting a house here anything but these beautiful pastels shades. ; It’s a feast for the eyes, so bright and clear. ; We’ve been studying the weather reports and trying to get a feel for them. ; We read our own reports first before we get the ones from Chris Parker, the weather guru in these parts. ; We haven’t quite got the gist of it yet but can decipher when is the best times to go. ; I guess that’s the most important part rather than figuring out these troughs and ridges. ; We’re in no hurry and have heard a few horror stories from other boaters so we’re playing it safe. ; This is supposed to be fun after all. ; It’s nice finally not to be on a schedule. ; The guy in the sailboat next store said they came over Christmas Eve in the middle of the night planning to arrive here at 2:30 AM. ; Well, we remember the weather being bad in our protected dock up the New River, so can imagine what it was like out here in the Gulf. ; Why would anyone plan to arrive at 2:00 AM? In the dark? ; He said the seas were too rough and there were no lights on here to mark the entrance so they had to motor around outside for 4 or 5 extra hours. ;He said they had been at sea for 18 hours and were exhausted. ; I feel for them but my question to that is, why plan to arrive at night and why didn’t you watch the weather report? Although I know we all get stuck in situations that get us in trouble or give us a scare but the signs were all there and could have been avoided. Well the winds blew like hell all day but we loved it because we were in a nice place. ; The sun was out and occasionally the clouds would blow by and a short rain squall would break up the day. ; They moved the sailboat that was on the outer pier beside us to make room for a 100 foot power boat scheduled to come in. ; It arrived about 5:00 PM. ; In came a huge blue hulled boat. ; It looked like the dive boat for the resort but it became obvious when they pulled up beside the dock that it was a private boat. ; A huge wonderful red and white octopus was painted on the blue hulled bow of the boat. ; It seemed to wrap it tentacles around the boat. ; The ship was appropriately called the Phantom. ; We watched as they docked the boat. ; We noticed the owner had a Santa Barbara Yacht Club T-shirt on and we asked if they were from SB Yacht club. ; They said yes. ; They said they also had a sailboat in SB called Orca and they are building this boat custom. ;They must have been exhausted because they brought it across from Stuart in absolute terrible conditions. ; Guess they are going to take it to Santa Barbara and get a mooring for it in Fools Bay sometime in the future. December 30th (West End to
Great Sale Cay) That was the end of perfect sleep with only the sound and smell of fresh air and wind whispering through the sailboat masts. ; Last night I had dreams of the Trojan horse peeing all night in the biggest toilet you could imagine. ; I awoke about 2:00 AM and the Phantom just never stopped peeing since it’s landing next to us. ; Since the wind was coming out of the West now, the Phantom was blocking the wind too. ; So long paradise. ; I finally got up and closed our hatches to get some peace and quiet as I glanced across under the dock to see what the hell that none stop noise was. ; Their windows are all blocked with thick storm plexi glass so I guess they have to run the AC constantly. ; So the water noise was from that. ; Just when you thought you were getting used to the noise and imagining possibly that it was a waterfall, then it would stop and giving a couple last plops like the end of itself relieving itself, and you’d take a sigh of relief, it would suddenly start all over again. ; After closing the hatches and reading Jimmy Buffet new novel for another hour I finally got to sleep again. This morning I was awakened at 6:30 AM by people talking on the docks, one of them being Larry. ; I got up to see what was going on and Larry was already out on the docks talking to all the boaters who were getting ready to leave. ; The winds had died down and the skies were clear. ; Everybody was rustling about. ; The Phantom was still peeing a load and when Larry came back aboard, I said where is everybody going? ; He said they are heading to Sandy Cay. ; I said maybe we should go too, I don’t really enjoy this place now that we have the big pee tank next to us. ; That’s just what Larry wanted to hear and we immediately started getting ready to leave, first of which is taking Ziggy to shore. ; Within minutes we were ready. ; It was exciting as about 10 of us all began to leave the marina, one right after the other. ; A 49 foot De Fever named Madonna Bella was the only other powerboat. ; Soon we were backing out with the help of some other boaters on the dock who offered to throw us the last line. ; Larry hopped aboard and I backed her carefully out until Larry could take over. ; ; ; There’s something really exciting about heading out after a storm with other boats. ; The waters are pretty calm outside though we are taking water spray over the bow, it’s still very comfortable. ; We hail Bella Donna on the
radio to connect as he’s headed the same as we are today. ; We’ve decided to head
farther north than the usual cut into the protected waters at Memory Rock
because another power boater said that it may be iffy with our draw because of
the shoal the hurricanes left last year. ; There’s no name for the turn we took
but its two miles north of Memory Rock. ; Bella Donna said they are going to try
to make the turn before Memory Rock. ; We decided not to follow them. ; We draw
six and they draw five so we decide to stay on safe side. ; I’m always happy to
be on the safe side though we were looking forward to having a buddy boat to
follow with experience in these waters. ; We’re not used to visually identifying
the waters here to tell how shallow or deep they are. ; There are no land marks,
it’s all navigation and we’ve read you can’t count on the charts verbatim. ; We
know we are going to experience treacherously shallow waters in the next few
months but today hopefully is not going to be the day. ; ; ;
Bella Donna is following a little to close to the edge of Little Bahama Bank for my taste. ; We are traveling about 9/10th of a mile off it and he’s riding right on the edge all the way. ; We watch as he heads out across what looks like a wide stretch of the shallow bank. ; Larry hails him on the radio to see if he’s heading across. ; He says they’re going to try and poke his nose in to see how it is. ; Larry says he may want to consider crossing two miles to the north where the stretch of the bank is a ½ mile stretch of shallow water rather than 3 miles. ; Bella Donna decides to go ahead anyway. ; We’ve got him tracked on the marpa and watch as he goes. ; About 10 minutes in I notice on our tracking that he has come to an abrupt stop and then is starting to turn in several directions and finally makes a full turn and starts back the way he came. ; Larry says maybe the marpa is not showing him accurately because he is going very slow but then we track him at 8 knots speed. ; Soon we notice he has made a complete turn around and definitely is coming back. ; He soon hails us on the radio and says that the depth showed 10 feet when it should be 16 feet so they decided to not go through there. ; So, again we have a partner heading north. ; Larry is wondering if maybe he doesn’t know whether the depth finder is reading from the bottom of his boat or the water line. ; If it’s reading from the bottom of the boat then that reading would be accurate. ; He’s a delivery captain so we’re not sure if he knows the boat that well but surely he would know that. ; We were laughing because we had no intentions of leaving this morning so we got a good nights sleep. ; We both have admitted that the night before we head out for a long day, we can’t sleep the night before. ; Don’t know why that is as we are prepared and should have nothing to worry about but it always seems the case. ; This time we didn’t know we were leaving so we had a great night’s sleep except for the hour in the middle of the night listening to the Trojan Horse pee. ; Well Bella Donna is starting to
head across just north of Memory Rock. ; Looking at the charts, we say “no way”
so we head on north to where we know for sure there is a deeper spot. ; We watch
Bella Donna on radar heading across. ; He seems to have no problems this time. ;
About half an hour later we get a call from him on the radio. ; He said they had
15 to 20 feet all the way which does not reflect what the charts say so I guess
as the books say the charts aren’t that accurate. ; We are way past the point now
and we decide to still will go ahead to the deeper water crossing. ; Have to go
by our instincts to follow the charts and information at hand. ; I guess when we
get a feel for these waters we will be more adventurous but not today. ; Bella
Donna said the water conditions inside were good so that’s nice to know. ; I can
see on the edge of the bank now and the change in water color is clear from the
Indigo blue to the beautiful aqua. ;
We make our turn with anxiously as we go from over 1000 feet deep to a line on the chart that quickly or should I say abruptly changes to 16 feet. ; I stand by Larry’s side at the pilot chair watching the depth and peering out to see the color of the waters changing. ; The depth is going down quickly 900, 800, and so on. ; I’m thinking of that cruising guide that gave me so many concerns the other night and thinking about all their pictures identifying what the waters look like at different depths by colors and blotches and so on. ; Nothing made much sense to me out of that book as I looked out at the waters. ; The waters have now turned from Indigo to aqua now and we are coming to shallower depths but still according the charts we are not over the bank yet. ; None of the depths that we read come even near close to what the charts say. ;I guess the cruising guides are correct, that the charts aren’t very precise. ; This will be a whole new kind of cruising for us. ; We are kind of rigid with the charts, and always going on the conservative interpretation and it will be difficult for us to free wing it. ; Hopefully we’ll get used to this. ; We both are a little tense even
though we know we’ve arrived over and clear of the bank, we’re still feeling
like a new born baby venturing out. ; I remember bumping into Jim Leishman (VP of
Nordhavn and well know boater) one day on the docks at Santa Barbara Harbor. ; We
chatted about several things and he mentioned we’ve got a lot of experience
under our belts now having done a lot of cruising. ; I said that no matter how
much we have cruised now we still never feel quite comfortable, we’re always on
edge and overly careful. ; He said that’s good because the more you cruise the
more you realize how careful you have to be and the dangers out there. ; That was
comforting to hear from him. ; Well, again, we are on edge. ; We see dark areas in
the aqua water and I keep wondering what the depths will be. ; What did it say in
that book? ; As we cross over it we lose about 2 feet. ; OK. ; That seems to be
consistent. Now we’ve learned to identify that. ;
We can hear some of the sailboats on the radio talking to each other. ; They took the earlier short cut and have a big lead on us now. ; They’re asking each other how they found the depths crossing the bank. ; Most said they saw around 11-15 feet. ; Well, if that’s the case we could’ve easily done that. ; Well, I guess we’ll learn how to do this, we kind of feel a little silly but better to do what you feel comfortable with than follow the crowd. ; No shame in that I guess. ; They’re talking about making lunch and eaves dropping on them we begin to feel hungry too. ; I immediately went into the galley and made a nice rewarding breakfast. ; The seas are just about perfect now inside the protected bank. ; There is a little wind to keep the air temps nice and no waves. ; There is no land in sight most of the day and the waters are amazingly beautiful. ; I just can’t get over the aqua blue color. ; You can see all the way to the bottom like as if there was no water. ; Our only companions are a few flying fish here and there. ; No one is on the radar screen. ; It’s kind of wonderful to be out here completely alone now. ; The waters are consistent with about 8 feet below. ; We can now see Mangrove Cay in the distance. ; It looks flat with nothing more and a brush cut of scrubby brush. ; We can now see two sailboats way off in the horizon and a blink on the radar about 8 miles ahead. ; It’s a beautiful clear day. ; We should arrive at Great Sale Cay, our anchorage, about 4:00 PM. ; Winds should be negligible tonight so we should have a calm night. ; Great Sale Cay We arrive at Great Sale Cay
about 4:00 PM on the nose and there are three sailboats there already. ; Bella
Donna is there too. ; ;The anchorage is large with plenty of space for everybody
to be on there own with room for privacy. ; We are well protected and it’s flat
as glass. ; We look to shore wondering whether to get the dinghy down and take
Ziggy in and both decide this is going to be a stay on the boat night. ; Ziggy
will have to learn to poop on the deck again. ; The shore looked nasty and we
imagined all sorts of vicious bugs. ; We were still recovering or should I say
dealing with some annoying bites right now that we got in a civilized place so
we knew we couldn’t expect anything but trouble there. ;
Ziggy caught on pretty fast and took a pee so we felt better, I’m sure he did too. ; We had a spaghetti dinner with green salad and sat on the bridge and enjoyed some wine and the beautiful surrounding before dinner. ; The sky at night was amazing. ; It was so filled with stars it was almost unreal even though we were staring right at it. ; ; The sunset was magnificent, the colors different from any we’ve seen before. ; The sky was fluorescent orange, if there is such a description, mixed with purples and lavenders, and silvers. ; For in the distance, jets had left two large x’s in the sky like an affectionate sign off on a letter. A lone star, brilliant in its strength shone brightly coming out of the SW. ; It was an early riser and hung around until eventually the sky became filled with the Milky Way and other characters filled with mythology and night time dreams. ; It was energizing to connect to all this and it reminds us of how much modern day life forgets what we are missing. ; There was not a sound in the air except for an occasional voice of another boater in the distance and soon that was gone too. ; It’s was like all of us at the anchorage had a level of respect for the place and its sounds of silence and joined in just sitting back and taking it all in. ; I think we all were silently and breathtakingly in awe of the experience. ; We went to bed early not wanting to stay up with artificial lights in the boat to taint the place and rose before sunset as we heard the first clink of someone’s anchor, getting an early start. ; We climbed the stairs to the pilot house and could see some of the boats still sleeping at anchor with only their anchor lights on but a couple already had their green and red running lights on and you could see their silhouettes walking to the bows of their boats to get ready to pull anchor and head off. ; Soon, the magic of the place was fading as everyone began to leave, slowly, so slowly, as I suppose they didn’t want to disturb this heavenly place with even the remotest hint of a wake. ; We watched them as we drank our morning coffee heading out on this placid lake, heading into the pink mist of the morning. ; Off behind us the sun was stretching and getting ready to throw the sheets off as the horizon lit up with an orange red glow, soon, he was up with the rest of us and once he’s up he changes the mystery and magic of this special place. ; Suddenly we all get into gear and begin to fuss around and think we should go. ; What an experience this was at Great Sale Cay.< "abaco_cay.htm">; |
