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I called ‘Lucky Strike’ on the VHF since we had not seen them since the first
day. They said they were located in the small hurricane harbor N of the
lighthouse and would be out around 11 so we could pay up. After listening to the
cruisers net we prepared to get under way. The man from Lucky Strike came by and
we talked for a while, he has been busy taking people out fishing. We slipped
the mooring at noon and made our way carefully out of the harbor. Low tide was
supposed to be 10 with hi tide at 4 PM. The speedometer did not work and it had
not worked on the trip from Marsh Harbor. We did not have any problem and
proceeded down the island to Tahiti beach. We went past it to look at Yahoo’s on
Lubbers Quarters. Another sailboat ‘Gratitude’ was just anchoring there, we ran
across them at several other harbors. We circled them and returned to Tahiti
Beach and anchored just N of Bakers rock. We relaxed until 3 so the tide would
be almost full before going to the pass to snorkel. When we got there we found
that the tide was already going out and they had laid a power line across the
inlet there. A number of people were walking or sunbathing on the sandbar. As we
crossed the shallow sand we saw a good sized stingray and followed it for a
while and also a number of fish. We went further S and anchored near another
boat which was snorkeling in the pass. We swam for a while but were worried that
the current would increase. On the way back we saw a long skinny fish, about 2’
long and chased it for a while over the clear sandy bottom. After about 30
seconds it jumped out of the water and splashed along the surface for 20’.
We
returned to Bakers rock and swam around there for a while. Several other boats
including Gratitude anchored near us to swim at Tahiti Beach also. I had noticed
a little grass growing on the waterline and the back of the rudder so we
returned to the boat to do a little scrubbing. When we got a close look I was
really surprised to find a large crop all over the hull. Some of the tree like
growth was 2" long and the whole hull was covered with it, mostly within a few
feet of the surface. No wonder the speedometer did not work, I could not even
find it thru all that growth. We scrubbed for about 30 minutes and decided that
was good enough. We Prelled up and took sun showers, the water was almost
scalding. The boats in our immediate neighborhood had left but we could see many
anchored further N. By now it was happy hour and we had rum drinks, snacks and
played cards. Jill beat me in 2 straight games of spite and malice, a real
beating. The wind was E at 10-15 Kt all day but decreases somewhat at dusk. We
watched the stars for a while and Jill saw a few shooting stars.
Awoke to still, hot day. :) Called Lucky Strike after the Cruisers Net so that he will come and collect his $8 x 2 days for the mooring. Nice man, Mr. Major - has adopted twin 7 year old boys in 1st grade. I told him I'll send him a picture that I took of the boys. There is a "school ferry" here that takes the kids to school. Twice we saw dolphin in this harbor. Rich is just coming back with ice. We will soon be off to Tahiti Beach. I finished my 2 drawings of a Hope Town Home and the Lighthouse. We arrived at Tahiti Beach right after lunch. It is SO beautiful. I will surely get a picture to enlarge. The weather is gorgeous. At 3 PM we took off in the dingy for snorkeling - but the tide was too strong going out already. We went a bit beyond the open area to the sea. As we crossed the shallow sands we could see a 2' stingray and a fish of some king also about 2'. Rich chased them in the dingy. We snorkeled for a short time but the current was super strong. We saw some fish - not a lot - a little colored coral clump here and there. We came back across the sand bank. Rich followed a fish and it jumped up and stood on its tail and went about 20 yards to get away from the dingy. It worked. We laughed and went to Bakers Rock. We snorkeled around there.
We had a quiet night and in the morning the wind was light from the S. A few
other boats anchored near is in the morning and one went aground 100’ in front
of us. Another boater in a dingy went over and pushed him around and off. At
noon the boat next to us, a Moorings bareboat pulled up its anchor and we did
also. This was 1 hour after low tide as advertised on the net but probably 2
hours after in this location as we found out yesterday when we tried to snorkel.
The started S and we followed them. We saw 2 sailboats headed N and I supposed
that everyone would stop at Yahoos for lunch but everyone else kept moving so we
anchored alone about 200’ off their beach. They have a wooden deck with a large
round awning made of long logs attached to a central iron ring. This is covered
with wire fencing and old sails. They have a bar and 6 tables. On the beach they
have a few chairs for sunbathing. The beach appears to be imported sand since
the rest of the shore there is rock. The facility looks clean and new and we
found out that they have only been open for 6 weeks. We had their special
drinks, the Foot Twister and the Leg Spreader, both good and strong. I ordered
the Mahi-Mahi salad and Jill ordered the Sautéed Snapper. both came with garlic
bread. Both meals were excellent, possibly the best prepared of any meal we have
had here. We had to have a piece of their Apple Strudel which was hot out of the
oven and equally excellent. The waitress was just filling in to help out and
said she does watercolors which are sold in stores in the area. We probably saw
some at the Sea Spray Marina. Another artist Anne ? also lives on the island.
After lunch we walked around the island for a while. We found a sign leading to
the beach on the W side of the island and after a short walk down a wooded path
we found a bench overlooking a small beach. The island has lots of new roads cut
thru and signs advertising lots for sale. They also have street signs driftwood
boards with street names painted on them and mounted on poles. This is very
different from any other island we have been on where street sign or signs of
any kind are almost unknown. We followed one road down to the beach S of Yahoos
and walked along the beach back to the dingy.
Back onboard it was 3 PM and we pulled up the anchor and proceeded S to Sandy Cay for snorkeling tomorrow. The wind was blowing 15 Kt from the S but with the newly cleaned bottom we made good time and anchored next to a catamaran at 5. There was some swell coming in from the ocean and we rolled a little but not excessive. We watched the sun go down, ate dinner in the cockpit and played RummyCub for a while. The wind decreased at disk and we should have a nice night.
When we came back to the Phoenix we saw a bunch of sea life on the bottom of our boat! We spent some time cleaning it. There were a lot of fish - of all kinds around the rock (Bakers). A few came under the boat later when we were cleaning the sides. :)
The catamaran left before we got up but several more sailboats soon anchored
near us. A string of 10 trawlers steamed by towards Little Harbor around 10. Low
tide was sometime around 11 so at 10:30 we dingied into the island with some Pop
Tarts to feed to the hermit crabs. We walked all over the island but could not
find a single crab except one large dead one on a rock that some bird may have
been in the process of eating. We headed for the reef outside of the island.
Several boats were there already and there is now only one mooring buoy. We
asked the people tied up to it if we could tie up also, short of them and they
said OK. The tide was already coming in but the current was still light. We swam
around for half an hour and saw lots of fish and corals. Finally the current was
getting stronger and we returned to the dingy. We got pictures with the old
underwater camera and a new disposable camera. It will be interesting to see how
they compare
.
Back at the boat we had and omelet for brunch and watched several trawlers come
in and anchor. Lots of boats were going by, both N and S. One trawler with a
Northill anchor had trouble and dragged. The people were still aboard and did
not seem to be concerned. They even got into the dingy and got a few hundred
feet away before returning and re-anchoring. They left again and the boat began
to drag but seemed to get a bite after dragging a few hundred feet. After lunch
we departed. The wind was again 15 Kt from the S and after passing Tilloo Bank
we had a great sail up to Lubbers Quarters. The autopilot still did not work and
I suspected it was the cans stacked below the sink which is where the compass
is. Jill removed some of these and the autopilot started working fairly well. I
had noticed that the autopilot operation had improved until we reached Marsh
Harbor and then stopped completely. We had been eating the cans from below the
sink, the steel in the cans was interfering with the compass. After
re-provisioning at Marsh Harbor we stuffed the compartment with more cans and
this completely blocked the compass. Another mystery of the sea solved. Lots of
boats were anchored at Tahiti Beach and we joined them just a little further N.
After relaxing for a while we had happy hour with rum drinks and popcorn. We
played RummyCub and Jill won 2 out of 3 for the championship. The day was a
little cloudy and overcast. The radio said there were big fires in Mexico which
was causing the reduced visibility over here. The wind decreased somewhat at
dusk and we should have a quiet night. At least there is no swell here behind
Elbow Cay as there was at Sandy Cay.
We had lunch at 'Yahoo's" and then off to Sandy Point. A few other boats are anchored here. We took Pop Tarts to feed the crabs but saw none. Not a one! Rich says there were tons of them when he was here years ago. We rocked a lot during the night, but it was calmed in the morning. We dingied around to share a mooring with other snorkelers and then spent a heavenly time snorkeling among fishes and corals of all colors and descriptions. For an hour we swam and took pictures. The sun sent rays onto the corals. The pictures we took should turn out good. We each had a camera :). A wall of coral 30-40' extended from the sandy ocean floor. There were beautiful parrot fish and blue fish. All kinds! We didn't see sharks or a barracuda. I was glad. Ha, ha. We didn't get too tired because we've had good biking exercise - but the current gradually got stronger and made it hard to swim. We left in the after noon and sailed back toward Tahiti Beach and Lubber's Quarters.
We decided to take a day off and stay here. As before the wind went light at
night and blew stronger during the day, about 15 Kt from the S. We watched boats
come and go all day long and split a couple of games of spite and malice. Jill
won the last which was memorable because it went on so long. The piles were all
Jacks and I had all the Aces waiting to play a 2 and Jill had all the Queens.
Real spite and malice. At 5:30 we called Yahoos and made reservations for 6:30
and then motored over there. We both had several drinks and meet some of the
locals including Rays, Anne Ray is an artist whose Abaco pictures are on sale
all over the place. We both had the fish platter with fish and glazed conch and
then the apple strudel. A great meal. They were lighting the torches as we left
and it was quite dark as we made our way back to the anchorage off Tahiti beach.
We motor sailed back in a S breeze but had trouble rolling up the jib, the
spinnaker halyard keeps getting wrapped in the roller furling.
Jill came up with the Phoenix prayer:
Now I lay me down to sleep
We pray to God the water is deep
If we should list before awake
We pray to God a flood to make
After playing Spite and Malice and reading we motored with Phoenix over to Yahoo's for supper. The owner is a guy named Tim. Hans is the Danish chef. Hans owns a house in Ft. Lauderdale. Nice guys. They have only been opened for 6 weeks. They 'glaze' conch. It isn't "bruised". Very good food. They cook with ginger and curry. We had that fabulous apple-strudel for desert. It was almost dark when we sailed the mile back to our anchorage. A buy named Bob? whose wife is an artist invited us to her art studio. We have already walked by there.
It was another perfect night and we slept late again. In the morning we swam
and cleaned more weeds from the bottom after charging the refrigerator and after
lunch we read and relaxed. I re-rigged the spinnaker halyard and hope it does not
foul again. At 2:30 we pulled up the anchor and motored the short distance
across the bay to Yahoos. They have live music and the musician, Tom Sawyer was
just setting up as we got there. We are regulars now. We had a number of drinks
and they served peanuts for snacks. The musician was very good with all sorts of
electronic accompaniment. We returned to the boat and could hear a lady singer,
possibly karaoke singing as we sailed away. We sailed back to the anchorage and
anchored all under sail. The jib rolled up just fine this time. The wind was SE
at about 10 Kt. Several other boats were already there and more anchored after
us. The sky has clouded over in the afternoon but it does not look like rain or
any severe weather. We played RummyCub in the cockpit until the sun set.
Writing letters and post cards - reading - wrote a page or two in "my
book". At 3 PM - after a long swim and sun showers we went to 'Yahoo's' for a
drink and to listen to "Mr. Sawyer #2". He is the son of a well known Bahamian
singer. He has several pieces of "support" musical instruments - but he isn't
real good. He did sing some good songs but his style isn't exceptional. We
motored to Yahoo's and sailed back to our good spot by the yellow house at
Tahiti Beach. Rich cleaned more on the bottom of the boat. I swam around
watching fishes and found a big red starfish. Some porcupine looking sea
creatures and sea cucumbers. :)
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