Robin had left the boat in Charleston, NC so she could complete her physical for her new/old job. I brought the boat up from there to Middle River alone with Robin in my thoughts everyday.


These two years will always be in our memories. We made such wonderful new friends and acquaintances. We visited and explored so many beautiful, wonderful places. We had adventures and misadventures, excitement, peace and tranquility. An opportunity to share our love, to party, to be alone. Sun, sand, crystal clear water, beaches, and music.


Thank you, our friends for sharing this trip with us...

13 May 2016

Daytona, FL, USA

We are in the ICW heading north, we will be in St. Augustine this afternoon. Mary and Scott are visiting Wendy and Bob Shortes, we hope to visit with them.

We really enjoyed the Georgetown Family Regatta. Robin got to crew on a C class boat for all 4 races. She was on “Dream Girl” a boat owned by David Rolle of Nassau. David likes to have a mostly female crew, Robin had a blast. Some of the guys we met on the fishing boat in the Ragged Islands were there and raced A, B, and C class boats. Brothers Cameron and Amil Knowles of Mangrove Bush, Long Island were a partying crew and very competitive. Cameron’s boat “Whitty K” won the C class division. Long Island builds the winningest boats. These boats, sometimes called “smack boats” are beautiful, really exciting to sail and watch. They have shallow drafts, huge sails, and use “prys” or hiking boards to control heel. There is much shouting, jockeying for position, and sometimes a Chinese fire drill. It is nothing like the sailboat racing in the US.

Regatta also is a carnival with LOUD music, food, rum, and heated discussions about the racing that goes on until 4 or 5 AM every night. There are speeches by government officials, even more so as this is an election year and award ceremonies, high school marching bands, and the Royal Bahamian Police Marching Band and a Junkanoo.

We left Georgetown after Regatta and sailed north up the Exumas to Highborne Cay to make a crossing to Nassau. While anchored in Allen’s Cay we met another fishing boat who sold us a huge Grouper and gave us some fresh conch. We had a pretty good blow that night with gusts to 50 mph, our anchor held but we had a sleepless night.

We normally do not spend much time in Nassau but really enjoy a Greek Restaurant there. The Athena Cafe is above a jewelry store with outdoor tables on a balcony looking over a busy commercial street. The food is excellent, the view of the tourists entertaining and the proprietors friendly. We got to see Anna Marie, the daughter of the owner, her brother George, and our favorite Eddie Murphy lookalike waiter Keith. Anna Marie was gracious as always and mentioned she vacationed on Long Island, she was a childhood friend on Cameron of Mangrove Bush.

While in Nassau we went to the Nassau Junkanoo Carnival, WOW! The parade was hours long, bright costumes, dancing, rum, beer, food, and LOUD music. David Rolle, the captain of “Dream Girl” was there, imagine catching up with him in the thousands of people there. Robin and he shared tales of racing and he introduced us to his friends. 

We left Nassau the next morning and sailed 30 hours to Lake Worth, FL. I have mentioned before how beautiful it is sailing at night with more stars than you can believe, phosphorescent sea life flowing in the boat wake. It is a little daunting knowing you are all alone in very deep water at night but also very peaceful, an opportunity to reflect on the past two years and this wonderful experience.

We arrived in Lake Worth late in the afternoon, we caught a Barracuda and a Mahi on the way and had very fresh Mahi dinner. The next day we checked into Customs and Immigration, got new cell phone service, and started up the ICW.

After stopping in St. Augustine for a couple of days we will continue as far north as possible. Robin will have to rent a car and drive to Baltimore and leave me single handing the boat. She needs to be in Baltimore on May 26th for a pre employment physical and starts work the 6th of June. I will try to get home around the second week of June.

Sorry the photos are not in the correct order, Blogger seems to put them when it wants.

Cameron Knowles on the right, Long Island Fisherman 

Rake and Scrape band the guy in the red shirt singing is Sidney Portier's nephew

The start of the C Class race. Everyone starts at anchor, when the gun goes off they all haul as fast as they can

The crew of "Dream Girl"

Just a lovely Bahamian girl

Somewhat typical fishing boat

Fresh Conch given to us by the fishermen above

Robin and David

This is during our 30 hour passage, dawn is breaking

Barry the Barracuda

Amin Knowle from Mangrove Bush, Long Island

Fresh Mahi for dinner 

Rounding the mark, shortly after this photo they swept booms knocking one sailor off of each boat, all were ok

Robin out on the pry

Robin pointing the way

Richard Gere is a Cruiser?

This is Bella's preferred stance when riding
 in the dink

I love this picture Robin took our last day in Georgetown, you pick a caption

Robin and Captain David Rolle of "Dream Girl"

Junkanoo parade in Nassau

Christopher Columbus actually never landed in North America. He first landed somewhere around Conception Island

Robin, my dream girl
This is at Junkanoo in Nassau

I was smoking a cigar, this guy was smoking a CIGAR

22 April 2016

Georgetown, Exuma, Bahamas

We left Georgetown, sailed to Long Island then back across to the Ragged Islands. The shallow waters of the banks require us to go east down a mile or so south then back to the west in Comer Channel. 

We anchored at Water Cay and had the island to ourselves for a day and a half. Another boat arrived, “Blaze Star” out of Annapolis and they anchored the next cove over. We did some snorkeling and at one time were snorkeling around the boat on a small reef. I forgot to tell you the Long Island fisherman and some from the Dominican Republic fish here and take Conch. They clean their catch on their boats and clean conch on the beach, they throw the scrapes into the water. This is also the mating season for sharks in the Raggeds. While we were snorkeling we saw some Nurse sharks, harmless, and had Remoras under the boat. While we were snorkeling around the boat I noticed a LARGE dark shadow to my right and realized it was the biggest shark I’ve ever seen. I called to Robin and suggested rather strongly to “GET BACK TO THE BOAT!”. Needless to say that was the end of our snorkeling for the day. 

The next day we moved on down to Flamingo Cay. We are told the Flamingos used to come here to feed on the small pink shrimp in the onshore ponds, no Flamingos anymore. We anchored at “Two Palm Beach”, well there used to be two palms, now just one. We had the island to ourselves again until “Blaze Star” arrived and later a Long Island fishing boat. Blaze Star told us the fishing boat was trying to hail us so we stopped by. The captain of the boat kindly told us we might want to anchor a little farther from shore as if the wind turned we might be in shallow water. While there I asked questions about  what they were fishing for and how they did it. The boat was a 53 foot trawler type and was escorted by three center console skiffs. Each skiff had a crew of two. The mother ship would anchor and the each of the skiffs carrying two traps, much like our crab traps, would venture out on the banks. They would dive for conch for bait, find a small reef, and place the trap about 50 yards from the reef. They would then move away, smoke a joint, and go back and pull the trap. They repeated this process all day, they were catching Lane Snapper. At the end of the day they returned to the trawler and stuffed 30 gallon bags with their catch, about twelve bags from each skiff. The trawler had a freezer below. They stayed out until the freezer was full then return to Long Island to sell their catch.

We, along with Amy and Pat from Blaze Star were invited to the trawler for dinner. Fried whole fish, heads on, peas and rice and the best cole slaw ever. We drank rum and listened to stories late into the night. I was offered buds of home grown Long Island pot and a large joint of Jamaican rolled in a tobacco leaf. They smoked constantly. They were very friendly and hospitable, some of them are sailing in the Regatta and we hope to see them again this coming week.

We continue to have minor engine issues, the temperature sending unit is flaky, and the transmission cooler sprung a corrosion leak. We were informed of a weather front coming. The Raggeds are fine in easterlies but can get untenable in any blow from the west or north. We headed back to Georgetown to order parts as there is no internet or phone cells in the Raggeds. 

Now normally we would cross east, eight hours back over to Long Island spend the night, then west to Georgetown. We tried a short cut through Hog Cay last year and found it too shallow, it would cut a day off of the trip. Blaze Star draws 6 inches more than us and told us he had a GPS track to get through on a high tide. Long story short, we made it through with only a few heart stopping moments and got into Georgetown harbor just at night fall.

Since we won’t be cruising next year, we have been checking out resorts to vacation here sometime in early Spring. We have found what we think is a good place, we will rent a boat to get around. We hope some of our friends might like to join us, we would love to show them a little of what this life is about.

The Island Family Regatta is next week, local sailing skiff racing, food, drink, music and parties ending with a Junkanoo. It ends next weekend and we will be heading north, Robin has to be in Baltimore the end of May and might have to leave me sometime during the trip to start work. A little sooner than we expected when we started this journey but opportunity changes plans. She thinks one of the worst parts of work is to have to wear shoes. Seriously we will miss the friends we’ve made here the most, it’s been a great lifestyle.

We have been partying hard trying to enjoy every minute we have left. Rake and Scape music, Texas Holdem poker, beach party this afternoon. Boat parts arriving Wednesday of next week. Once Regatta starts there is racing during the day and carnival, music, rum and food every night.

Bella is happy

It is hard to tell the sea from the sky

Long Island fishing boat

Mother ship fishing boat

Rain 

Two Palm Beach on Flamingo Cay

Add caption

Conch shells fossilized

Nurse shark (harmless)

Remoras under the boat

Barracuda

Remoras will suck onto the boat (they have suction disks on the top of their heads)

Drive into cave

Blaze Star out of Annapolis

Texas Holdem