Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Perfect Weather!

Sylvie, co-owner of the boat Whisper, and I went for a walk on the windward side of Stocking Island yesterday and were greeted by this tiny sea ray as we landed our dinghy on the leeward side.

This is Sea Pursaline, an edible plant that I routinely gather on my walks each afternoon and use in salads or serve with a dip. It has a nice crunch to it.


This is a view of Gaviotta Bay where we're now on a mooring ball since Dave leaves on January 8th to visit family at home for a week. It's a protected anchorage and close to everything going on.

Sylvie is from Iowa. Her two sons kite-surf on this ocean beach on the windiest of days.

And yes, we had most of the beach to ourselves!

The sand was perfect for walking.

This is one of our favourite places. The rocks form a barrier to what we call 'the spa', a heavenly place to bathe at low tide.

We like to meditate here. The fossil formations that you see below are called Stromatolites (http://www.scienceresearch.duq.edu/bio/biofac/jstolz/RIBS/publ/Brochure2.pdf)and and exist in very few places on Earth. They are made up of the exo-skeletins of bacteria is responsible for giving off oxygen. Life on earth would not exist without them. I always think we should post a notice advising people not to walk on them. There's a hole in the midst of this particular section from which water gushes up after waves of any size come in from sea.

We stayed longer than we had planned which is easy to do, of course.

The sun was setting as we made our way back over the burn to our dinghy and the anchorage.

It's another perfect day in The Exuma's and our first sunflower sprouts of the season are doing quite well!

With any luck, we'll have them for New Year's dinner tomorrow. Tonight, we're off to a party at the St Francis Marina and Resort(http://www.stfrancisresort.com/) They have rooms overlooking the ocean beach which are worth considering if you're interested in spending time here. We'd love to see you!

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A Christmas Weekend at Redshanks

The cold front continued on Christmas morning as we made our way south past an anchorage called Sand Dollar where some lovely and expensive boats were anchored. Smile. Two year's ago, Braveheart was anchored there. Three year's ago we spoke unknowingly to the Wurtz family, owners of Black Hawk. One never knows with whom you're chatting on the beach.

Our plan was to spend Christmas with our raw food friends, Ralf, Birguitte and Pascalle, whose boat name is Tacelopes, in the well-protected Redshank's anchorage.

The scenery as we made our way there was breath-taking.



A study of the sky is always mesmerizing.


Photos similar to those found in tourist magazines are easy to take.

Redshanks is well protected and a great choice for a cold front.

We've been sprouting of course. This is a photo of the set-up for our jar sprouts. Dave made a wooden grid of teak to support the jars at an angle and had a stainless steel drainage tray custom made. It works very well, even under sail. Here you see quinoa, lentils and adzuki beans. The photo shows half the width of the sprouting rack which holds six jars in total with room for more in the soaking stage.


Here, you can see sunflower seeds planted in trays with ankle weights used to weight them down. This year, we're trying something new. We have three trays of soil piled one on top of the other. We intend to flip the first root map for our second crop, use the second tray for our third and fourth crops, the third tray for our fifth and sixth crops, and with any luck the first tray which will have been composting on the bottom will be ready to be used again for our seventh and eighth crops. We'll let you know how the plan goes.

So far, the alph alpha and clover baby greens have been doing well. I learnt to put the lids of peanut butter jars under the plastic needlepoint sheets in order to avoid 'root rot' caused by insufficient drainage. Birguitte has suggested that I put a drop of freshly squeezed lime juice rather than my usual food grade hydrogen peroxide in the spray water. Her sprouts are amazing so I'll definately give this a try. I use hydrogen peroxide in the soak water.

In this photo, you can see our boat decorated for Christmas with greeting cards I've saved from past years hung on the hand-rails.

Space is definately at a premium.

But what a beautiful place to be...

In the end, our friends weren't able to come on Christmas Day because their vehicle wouldn't start, but the next morning was another beautiful day and we looked forward to their arrival.


Our friends sailed from Germany in the early '80s, began eating a raw food diet fifteen years ago. Ten years ago they bought and cleared land here in The Bahamas in order to build a house. They live totally off the grid. This is a boat they purchased a couple of years ago and not the one they did their crossing on. It has a daggerboard which is a terrific feature on the shallow banks of The Bahamas.

We had a lovely raw food dinner together, all be it a day later than planned.

Our friend Robin (http://www.rawketscience.blotspot.com/) inspired me to make pizza. Yummm!!!

And December 27th was another lovely day.



We had our first meal of the day with our raw food friends on their boat and enjoyed their signature breakfast made of fresh grapefruit, oranges and almonds processed in their VitaMix which is powered by a 1200 WATT inverter. What a great way to begin the day!

With that, we went to the beach to exercise. It's prestine...

And a great place to harvest the Sargassum seaweed that I'm adding to my smoothies each day. At first, I just used the berries but soon used the entire plant. Lately, I've been dehydrating and then puverizing it in the grinder so that I can easily add it to anything. It looks identical to the powdered kelp we purchased on-line.

I also use fresh Aloe Vera leaves from our raw food friends' garden. I fillet one leaf per day and include an inch of the flesh which aids with regularity.

The scenery is spectaular.

You can easily have a beach to yourself here.


This is a photo of our dinghy anchored amongst mangroves in Redshank's.

Dave got some unscheduled exercise. Smile.

This was dinner on the 27th. We used ground raw sesame seeds as a substitute for parmesan on our zucchini pasta with raw marinara sauce and re-hydrated mushrooms. Tacelopes grinds sesame seeds and eats them with honey as a snack. We wrapped shredded cabbage and carrots in nori sheets. Tacelopes' house dressing is made with fresh coconut.

On Monday, we made our way back to our anchorage at Volleyball Beach. These are photos of the sunrise on Tuesday morning. It's all very beautiful!

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Christmas Eve in Georgetown

Here are some photos from a fun-filled evening on Volleyball Beach last evening shared with fellow-cruisers.

We sang carols and sat under the trees.

Some of the children in the anchorage performed a sailor's version of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas'.

Others sang 'Dashing Through the Waves...'

We had 'The Nutcracker'.

And a reading of 'The Polar Express'.

The evening ended with dancing under the stars.

The boats were lit and the anchorage looked very beautiful as we made our way back to the boat in our dinghy.

This morning, we're off to a somewhat more remote anchorage south of Volleyball Beach called Redshanks to spend a quiet few days with our raw food friends, Ralf, Birgit and Pascalle. The onion bread smells scrumptious!

We wish each of you a happy holiday.

Thankful to have reached Georgetown for the cold front...

The cold front materialized as predicted later Monday afternoon and we were thankful to have reached Georgetown in front of it.

Georgetown needs rain. Our friends Ralf and Birgit lost many of their organic fruit trees last summer.

It was a rock 'n roll night at anchor as the winds reached gusts above 30 knots.

Life is good...


Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Consciousness at Sea...

Sixty-six hours later, we're in George Town in The Exumas...we're home for the winter!

If there was ever doubt about the power of a raw food diet, this is proof. We slept very little, and remained alert and in good spirits throughout the passage. When we arrived, we had lots of energy to go to town where our friends remarked on how fresh we were after such a long trip.

What did we eat? Smoothies made from Vega, Chlorella, Spiralina, Maca, flax, rooibos tea and RenewMe!(an E3-live product). Each evening, we had a green salad made with kale, hemp, bee pollen and a dressing. Dave had his usual breakfast of sprouted buckwheat, nuts, seeds and goji berries. I had a form of powdered wheatgrass called Green Kamut (http://www.pureplanet.com/). We snacked on apples, oranges, and a mixture of nuts, seeds and dried fruit.

For most of the trip, Dave read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and I listened to A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I was inspried to be conscious in each moment of the passage and was aware that I didn't want to miss a single moment of this breath-taking experience, mine for the taking.

We left Cape Florida just south of Miami FL last Friday, December 19th at 12 noon with light winds out of the East and sunny skies. Chris Parker, whose weather forecasts we listen to each morning on our HAM/SSB radio, had suggested that a window would present itself from Friday afternoon through Monday morning after which time, there would be a considerable length of time when high winds would prevail making travel all but impossible. While the majority of boats who were staged to cross seemed to be waiting until Saturday to leave when more moderate conditions were forecast for The Gulf Stream, we chose to leave on Friday in light of conditions forecast for The New Providence Channel once we crossed The Gulf and The Banks.


These are some of the many boats stage to cross. Hurricaine Hole appeared to be over-flowing!

We were thankful that the seas had calmed down as we made our way out towards sea.

This is a photo of Cape Florida as we made our way beyond Cape Florida.
We were happy to be on our way.
This is an ocean race of dinghies.
The homes that were badly damaged by hurricaines in past years in what is called Stiltsville seem to be in the midst of being re-built.
Mother Earth beckoned to us.
And we settled into life at sea for the passage.
Rusty was tucked into his 'beddies' on the high side.

Our friends, Bob and Gail on Star decided at the last minute to cross at the same time
.

By 2145 hours, The Florida Strait was behind us and the sun set as we crossed The Banks.

We took turns taking watch with 'Captain Auto' at the wheel.

The sun rose in time for Dave to jury-rig the antenna for our HAM/SSB radio in order that we listen to Chris Parker's morning weather report on frequency 4045 USB at 0630 hours.
Our choice of leaving when we did seemed prudent as the sea state for The New Providence Channel was forecast to be relatively calm. The New Providence Channel is part of what is called The Tongue of the Ocean with a depth of 6000 feet.
Sun-rises always seem spectacular on the ocean.
The guys were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!
While we were still on The Banks, Dave added fuel from the jerry cans that we store on-deck. We carry sixteen gallons of diesel in our tank and another sixteen gallons in three jerry cans. We use about .6 gallons per hour when motor-sailing. In total we used thirty-five gallons for the entire sixty-six hour passage from Miami to George Town for a cost of $140US.

We reached The North West Channel Light at 0900 hours on Saturday morning. It marks the beginning of The Tongue of the Ocean. Needless to say, we were delighted with the sea state.

At this point, I came up with the idea that rather than proceed to Nassau as we have done in past years, we could turn South, check into Customs and Immigration at Morgan's Bluff on the island of Andros, and then carry on in good conditions to reach Georgetown before the extensive cold front forecast for Monday afternoon. Dave adjusted the setttings on the GPS chart plotter and we radioed Star of our change in plans. They were well ahead of us by this time.

We've often talked of visiting the island of Andros and were glad we'd chosen to check in here.

There was lots of water (i.e. depth) at the dock in this small harbour and the entrance markers to the channel were exceptionally clear.

While the dock was cement, there was a huge fender in place keeping us away from the concrete wall. Our's were unnecessary.

Having called ahead to Customs and Immigrations on our SAT phone, a taxi awaited our arrival to take us to the airport, some ten miles South.

Gundy, our driver, was most hospitable and it felt as though we had a tour of North Andros during our brief three-hour stop.

Government buildings in The Bahamas are always painted pink and schools yellow with green trim.
We stopped at a couple of stores in an attempt to purchase the honey that Andros is famous for but were without luck.
We were successful in obtaining fuel from a fuel station next to a ScotiaBank.

It's quite common to see unfinished buildings in The Bahamas.

Andros is known for its agriculture. These are crates used to transport grapefruit to the harbour for shipping to Nassau and the US.

On our way back to the boat, Gundy stopped at Captain Henry Morgan's Cave.


Morgan's Bluff was a hide-out for the famous pirate.

His treasures, according to legend, left in the caves.

This is a young banana tree growing out of one of the cave entrances.

There were numerous fruit-bearing trees.

I thought this picnic table with seats for children at either end was an interesting design.

Gundy was a proud ambassador for Andros, the island on which he had lived his entire life.

We left the harbour at 1600 hours, cruising permit in hand.

We raised our Bahemian courtesy flag and were pleased with our decision to clear Customs and Immigration in Andros as opposed to Nassau.

Dave entered the log.

It wasn't long before the guys were resting up for their turn on watch.


Rusty takes his job of protecting the charts seriously.

We headed South down The Tongue of the Ocean, to the west and South of New Providence Island.


The sun set in the West over Andros Island.

As we made our way down the shipping channel in the dark of the night, Dave made intermittent calls over the VHS radio to any marine traffic that might be in the area. One captain responded and was kind enough to share the information he could had on his radar screen.

We think radar would be a wonderful addition to our boat!

The moon came out at about 0200 hours as we made our way across The Decca Channel which is marked by three buoys. We reached the final mark at about 0800 hours.

The aqua-marine waters characteristic of The Bahama Banks were breath-taking as always.

This was the weather we'd been dreaming of...the fresh organic grapefruit from Florida was good too!
I feel badly that I haven't yet found a raw food diet for Rusty. He seemed tired...

In the distance, we could see The Exuma Chain of cays (i.e. tiny islands).

It was an absolutely beautiful day on the water.

And we began hearing VHS radio transmissions from boats we've cruised with in previous years.
We love the cays of The Exuma Chain and always intend to spend more time on our way South to Georgetown but more often than not, the story is the same. Impending weather sped us on our way.
We stopped for four hours at Galliot Cut in order that we have light to enter the cut at Elizabeth Harbour. After changing the oil in the engine, Dave discovered that the starter motor of our engine no longer worked. Dave installed an extra that we had on-board and we departed Galliot Cut in the black of night at 1100 hours. Shortly thereafter, I alerted Dave to the fact that the wheel was spinning out of control. The boat was soon doing the same. The message on the chart plotter displayed the message 'No rudder control'. This was no mystery when the wheel fell of its mounting shortly thereafter. The nut holding it on had come unscrewed over the course of the passage. We were relieved when we eventually found the nut and agreed that it would be a good idea to have an extra on board in future. The boat stopped spinning and we both took a deep breath, greatful that this hadn't happened a few moments earlier in the cut.

This was the third of three thrilling overnight passages. I didn't want to miss a moment of the breath-taking scenery. I love moon-lit passages and the break of day.

Seven hours later, we approached The Elizabeth Harbour Cut as light came over the horizon. Approaching Georgetown is always an exciting moment for us.

Once again, Dave jury-rigged the antena in order that we listened to Chris Parker's weather forecast.
We were thrilled to have arrived in Georgetown feeling as rested as we did, and felt good about the decisions we'd made together.

The front would materialize in the next few hours. It was a miracle that weren't going to be weathering it out in Nassau.

The monument below, which our friends Mick and Mary on Escargot anchor each year, is actually a navigation beacon for ships.

One by one, we recognized boats that we knew from previous years.

And the sun rose as we approached our favourite anchoring spot.

We were home and our friends awaited us.

We were and continue to be greatful for a safe passage, our lives, and family and our friends.