FIRST COLD FRONT OF THE SEASON

Lionfish

On Tuesday and Wednesday we stayed at Powell Cay.  We noticed quite a few lionfish in the area so we decided to conduct a hunt on Tuesday.  Lionfish are beautiful with long feathery fins.  They are also an invasive species, brought here from the Indo-Pacific and have no natural predators in the Bahamas.  The beautiful feathery fins are also venomous.  We always try to kill lion fish when we see them but rarely do we clean them to cook for a meal; mainly because they are relatively small and more time-consuming to clean than other fish.  We managed to kill 8 fish then cleaned them.  They are a delicious fish but to clean them you must first cut off the venomous fins using scissors then fillet them as usual.  

Lionfish for fillet table

Wednesday was a chore day.  Second Sojourn has a portable water maker aboard so they filled their water tanks then brought the unit to our boat for us to fill with water.  We are very impressed with the water maker, the model is “Rainmaker” made in New Zealand we think.  Water is the limiting factor on our boat, we carry 140 gallons which will last us about 3 1/2 weeks if we are careful.  We collect rainwater when possible but during the winter, thunderstorms are rather infrequent and we need to let the rain rinse the salt off of the deck very well before we divert the flow into our tanks.  The water maker produces about 35 gallons per hour so we ran it a little over 2 hours to fill the 1 tank that was empty.  We’ve talked in the past about putting a water maker aboard but could never decide on the right place to put it.  This portable unit would store easily so we are seriously considering getting one when we return to the States.

After filling with water we went out to get dinner; Kathi found a series of holes and ledges and got the largest lobster of the season so far.  Gary and Melanie on Second Sojourn are keeping 4 lobsters frozen for Christmas dinner when they have guests visiting.  We gave them the large lobster Kathi got today so they can keep upgrading their frozen lobsters in preparation for Christmas.  Tonight’s dinner, lobster, mac and cheese and salad.  Tonight’s entertainment, more of Downton Abbey.  Love that series!

Bucket of bugs

The first major cold front of the season is scheduled to move through on Saturday afternoon; thunderstorms and wind gusts up to 45 knots.  We decided to move to White Sound in Green Turtle Cay which is a very protected harbor for winds from any direction.  The main benefit of Green Turtle Cay is that it has a nice settlement with a couple of small grocery stores and a marina where you can get fuel.  We picked up some fresh vegetables and a few other goodies, got fuel at the marina then anchored.  Cocktails were on Second Sojourn and dinner was lobster curry.

On Saturday, Kathi cleaned the boat while I went into the marina to get laundry done.  We’re pretty frugal about wearing lots of clothes on the boat since we’re in swim-suits most of the time but towels and bedding need to be cleaned once in a while.  We’ve been here almost a month so time to freshen things up a bit.

The front was scheduled to pass through around 4pm.  As the saying goes, sometimes you watch the show and sometimes you are the show.  Fortunately today we sat and watched the show.  About 3:30 the wind started picking up out of the Southwest and one of the boats near us started to drag.  They pulled up their anchor and tried several times to get re-anchored but had no success.  Around 4pm the winds started gusting to 35-40 knots and switched directions to come out of the north along with driving rain.  The first boat that had dragged was soon joined by 2 other boats.  One of the boats was directly in front of us and was swinging back and forth about 15 feet away.  The skipper of the boat was at the helm with the engine running and holding the boat into the wind to keep from dragging into us.  He had on his foul weather gear but his cockpit had no protection from the rain.  Our biggest concern was that he would swing over our anchor chain, hit it and possibly dislodge our anchor.  We started up our engine just in case that happened. 

All 3 boats that had dragged were keeping themselves in place by motoring into the wind.  After about 30 minutes of strong gusting wind and rain the boat in front of us pulled up his anchor and tried to motor further away.  The wind caught him sideways and he almost ran into one of the other boats that had dragged.  About that time, a local skiff with 3 people aboard came out and started to assist each of the 3 dragging boats to get secured.  The first boat that had dragged was helped to one of the T docks at the marina.  The boat in front of us was helped to the marina fuel dock, the third boat was assisted to a mooring.  The strong winds lasted for another 40 minutes then reduced to a steady 20 to 25 knots.  Everyone was fortunate that the front came through during the daylight hours.  At night, or worse, at 3am with most people asleep or groggy the anchorage could have become a disaster.

The next day, the winds moderated and we left Green Turtle Cay for an anchorage at No Name Cay a short 3 miles away.