We stayed the night at Armstrong Cay on Thursday the 11th. We had planned to go into Abaco Beach Resort and get fuel and water and then move to Lynyard for staging a trip to Eleuthra next Thursday. Unfortunately we had a critical breakdown on John’s computer which is our 16th backup for navigation AND his ability to keep in touch with his Fantasy Football statistics and his Pirate game, so of course we prioritize going to Marsh Harbour (gotta have that nav backup). John takes his computer in as well as the propane tank and bats a thousand with getting the tank filled AND getting his computer fixed.
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| Seaglass.........my precious |
We spend the evening calling family and friends with SKYPE basically giving them our float plan for our planned trip to Eleuthra.
We decide to stay on the back side of Marsh Harbour Friday the 12th so that we can go in on Saturday and do a bit of provisioning and buy some BaTelCo cards that we may not be able to obtain in Eleuthra.
We were able to find all the fresh food we desired, but the BTC office was closed so we returned to the boat and took advantage of the “free internet” that we copped off of Abaco Beach Resort which is fine with us since they are the marina that put fuel in our water tanks last year and caused us so much grief.
Sunday the 14th. We don’t have plans to go to Eleuthra until Thursday so much of our morning discussion is where should we stay/go until then. Where the wind and waves will be best for the day and night. We finally decide (probably based on John’s ability to get the football game tonight) that where we are is just where we need to be. 49ers vs. Seattle. The 49ers lost and it was a bad bad night.
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| Can you see the pretty blue marble John found |
On Monday the 15th we went in to get some more BTC cards so we can have internet in Eleuthra, but found out they don’t sell the cards any more, now we can just add time via internet. Of course, like good Americans, we can’t just go back to the boat, we have to stop at the grocery store and be consumer a…holes and spend over $100.00 on things we don’t really need.
We go back to the boat and call Abaco Beach Resort (yep that’s right) and ask them if we can come in for fuel and water. We only need 15 gallons of fuel which takes 15 minutes, but we need 80 gallons of water and the hose gives us a gallon per minute so we are on the fuel dock for an hour and a half, but it is a beautiful day and our plans were to fill with water and fuel and then move to Armstrong for the night. Besides, the fuel went into the fuel tank and the water went into the water tank so all is good. ALL IS GOOD.
After fueling and watering we head to Armstrong and immediately after anchoring we go to find dinner.
Armstrong Cay is one of the islands we always enjoy anchoring at. It has good protection from westerly winds and lots of small Cays to the north where you can hunt for fish, lobster and conch. The area also has a couple of ‘Blue Holes’ that we’ve found. The ‘Blue Holes’ are 70 to 80 feet deep with the surrounding area only 3-4 feet deep. It makes for an interesting environment. We stayed at Armstrong for all of Tuesday and most of Wednesday. The weather has turned dead calm. We took Kiwi with us hunting on Tuesday. At the last Cay, we stopped and let Kiwi go ashore. She eagerly jumped ashore as the dinghy nosed into the rocks. The shoreline consists of jagged rocks so we anchored the dinghy about 10 feet away. We both got in the water looking for lobster. We found one large one but he ducked back into a hole before we could entice him out and get him. Kathi decided to swim to the next Cay while I went back to the dinghy to retrieve Kiwi from her shore excursion. When I got back to the dinghy, Kiwi was waiting there, soaking wet. She decided the island was not for her and either tried to jump back into the dinghy, not making the long jump successfully, or just swam. At any rate, she was waiting for our return. In checking the weather this evening it looks like our weather window has been pushed back to Saturday or Sunday now.
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| Teaching Kiwi how to fish |
Late Wednesday the 17th, we moved to Lynyard Cay to wait for the proper wind/wave conditions to sail to Eleuthera. We met another couple on the boat Samarang that were also at Lynyard waiting to do the same crossing. We joined them for cocktails and traded traveling stories. The next day, we invited them to join us beachcombing and seaglass hunting on a beach near the north end of Lynyard. They joined us on our boat that evening for cocktails and to discuss the weather for potential crossings. The best options continue to look like Saturday evening or Sunday.
On Friday we went to have lunch at Pete’s Pub, a great little beach bar at Little Harbor. There is also a great seaglass beach about a mile from there that is a nice walk. We spent about an hour looking for sea glass, getting soaked to the skin from the waves and came away with a nice amount of beautiful glass. I found a blue marble while Kathi found several beautifully shaped and colored pieces. We had lunch, our traditional hamburger, since we eat fish so often, then went back to the boat to suit-up to catch our evening meal. We dinghy’d to the reef at the south end of Lynyard and I speared a foot long Bermuda Chub for our dinner. We also spotted a 4-5 foot Carribbean Reef Shark cruising the area so we decided that we would look for additional provisions elsewhere. Kathi speared a big lobster and then a foot long red snapper that had decided to investigate the hole that had just held the lobster - a big mistake for the snapper! After we got back to the boat, Kathi spent some time showing Kiwi how to catch fish using a fishing pole. Kiwi was fascinated to watch and to play with the fish Kathi caught, then released. We have a kitty game app where Kiwi steps on the fish on our i-pad and the wiggle around. iIt was like watching her play that game in real life.
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| A pet for our pet |
Looking at the weather this morning, we’ve decided to cross to Eleuthera on Sunday, leaving our anchorage around 6am. The winds may still be too light to sail; if so, we will motor-sail to be sure to make the 56 mile crossing during daylight; at 6 knots it will take us almost 10 hours. The swells are still projected to be very low, 2-3 feet with 10 second interval so we look forward to a nice smooth crossing with hopefully catching a mahi-mahi along the way.
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| Good Bye for now Lynyard |
Our last day here in the Abacos, at least for a couple of months, we spent seaglass hunting on Lynyard Cay. Like always, and as it should be, plans set in jello. Our plans have changed again based on wind and wave charts. I am getting things prepared to make Lobster nachos while John is on the internet looking at weather and he says “what do you think about taking off now?” We are always less than an hour away from being sail ready so I say why not? I put all the stuff away for lobster nachos and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We raised the anchor 20 minutes after John’s suggestion and we are on our way to our next adventure.
After careful consideration, we decided to leave Lynyard late Saturday afternoon, 4:30pm, for our trip to Royal Island, just north of Eleuthera. The winds are projected to be light, same as tomorrow, the seas very calm, 1-2 foot swells, so leaving Saturday evening allows us ample time to get to our destination before the winds increase and shift to the south on Sunday evening. We had a great night sail for the most part. Kathi had the helm until midnight and got in some great sailing, 5-6 knots, right on course. When John took over, the winds had shifted to the SE so we had to steer off our planned course in order to keep the sails full. Daybreak found us about 8 miles west of our destination so we moter sailed the rest of the way and reached the anchorage around 7:30am. Overall, the sail was smooth but could have used a little more wind from the east. Kiwi handled the crossing perfectly, spending most of the trip in the cockpit with us. After a couple of hours of sleep, we took the dinghy about 4 miles to explore Egg Island reef. We saw beautiful reef and on the way back got 2 lobsters to make lobster nachos for dinner.
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| This is pretty much how we all felt after our overnighter |
On Monday the 22nd, we went to Spanish Wells to pick up a few supplies, mainly a turkey to cook for Christmas. We called Barry and Lindy on Samarang and wanted to know if they wanted to join us so they could see Spanish Wells and do any provisioning they might need. Their boat has a 7 foot draft and the area around Spanish Wells is quite shallow and there was really no reason we needed to take both vessels over. Spanish Wells is about 6 miles to the NE of where we are anchored at Royal Island. The first grocery store only had turkeys too big for our oven, so we walked a mile to the second grocery store and they had 1 turkey that would fit in our oven so we invited Barry and Lindy to our place for Christmas dinner. They are going to bring some dishes that are traditional for Christmas in the UK. We are expecting strong winds and thunder stroms on Wednesday and our next destination doesn’t have great protection from the southerly winds forecasted so we have all decided to stay at the anchorage at Royal Island where we have very good protection from winds coming from any direction and just chill until after Christmas.
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