Home is where the heart is...

Home is where the heart is....or maybe it is just where there is a cold beer, a greasy burger and a beach.  We are the second boat in from the bar, but thats ok, we need the excercise.  The beach is across the street, (we have a private section of the beach), and surf fishing there or walk down to the pass for other fishing or if too lazy we just fish off the dock.  Manatee was next to our slip when we got up yesterday.  We hear the music from the bar on weekends, usually island, Florida theme with some old time soft rock in the weekend evenings.  Haven't gotten my grouper sandwich yet, but it will come.  Plan to spend a few evenings watching for the ever elusive green flash, which I have seen twice at this beach.

Here is a picture to prove I am not telling tall tales.

Bones

Content in Paradise

MV Skinwalker is safe!

The boat, our boat, our home is off the sand bar and safe with no apparent damage.  We have tested the running gear, trannies & props no problems.  No new vibrations or overheating.

In this type of grounding according to TowBoatUS there was a 50/50 chance of loosing the boat.  It was technically a salvage operation, but this boat us owner did not treat it as salvage but as a challenge.  It took two two boats with great effort to save our home.  These guys were terrific, sympathic, friendly and so very, very professional.  TowBoat US insurance took care of the hours and effort of the first boat and two men and we paid for the second boat and driver.  I am so proud of Lynn so handled everything with her normal aplomb--until we finished and reached the dock.

We have spent the last few hours cleaning up what fell to the other side of the boat and several gallons of water intrusion through a leaking porthole, as we laid on our side, we think.  The bilges are dry again and the pumps not coming on and off.  We believe all is well.

When we finish cleaning up we are going to find a burger, several beers and a very long nap.

Thank you all for caring.  We have not read your emails yet, but will after we put our shatter egos and nerves back together.  

We are both still shaken, but now relieved.

We will be leaving in the morning back to our northbound efforts and anticipate no significant loss of time.

Bones & Capt'n Lynnie

 

MV Skinwalker in peril

Skinwalker Log, Monday, April 05, 2010, 0700 hrs

Calabash Creek Anchorage Near Little River Inlet on the AICW

My whole body is quivering with tension.  Lynn is in shock.  I am in shock.  I did something stupid and dangerous.  Our vessel is in some peril.  But, now, we are not, only the boat remains in jeopardy. Jeopardy, we have learned is not just a game show.  We sit safely in a marina.  Brian of BoatUS brought us here to his marina in Little River.  Skinwalker is lying on her side hard aground.  Six years, 25,000 miles and it has come to this, taking our chances on a rising tide.

Yesterday afternoon we anchored close to shore giving two sailboats who were already anchored there plenty of room.  It is always shallow here, but we were in closer to shore then usual at low tide. Occasionally the boat would bump into the mud bank then back off by itself.  The tide started coming in and I felt more comfortable as Skinwalker floated out in the current a little way from shore.  I monitored the tide closely aware of our proximity to the shore for a while then went to bed marking in my head that high tide would be at 0130 hours and that I should check our swing at the turn of tide to make sure we swung away from shore not into shore.  I awoke at 0330 to find the boat listing to port.  During the rising tide it had turned and stretched out its anchor chain to the flow, but it had not swung out and around on the change to an outgoing tide.  Skinwalker instead had caught and settled onto a sand bar near high tide. 

I started the engines an attempted to wiggle off with no success as the boat continued to list.  I called Sea Tow and during the course of them launching a captain and boat we all discovered our coverage had lapsed in January and Lynn had only renewed with a check by mail less then a week ago. 

Lynn called the national number for BoatUS our other towing service and we got the runaround very much like people feel when they call the coast guard with the subsequence asking of many questions, while germane, are not reassuring that anything is being done expediously.  The boat heeled more.  In frustration I called out on the VHF radio for BoatUS who answered promptly in a calm reassuring voice. They dispatched a boat immediately—the boat listed further.  It was 20 minutes the beautiful red boatUS vessel showed up and calmed us with a soothing voice on the radio even as the boat heeled more onto its beam.  Then the captained probed here and there with bright flood lights, examining looking for damage and generally evaluating the situation. 

We could walk a few feet to shore if we needed to, but we were not positive the boat would survive sitting on its side as it now was.  Adrenaline kicked our minds into warp drive and that brought fear that we contained to nervousness as we struggled to master that fear with a veneer of calm.  We couldn’t walk around the boat.  A bench was now lying on the recliners, the refrigerator was straining, bulging out of its cabinet trying to wrest free of its restraints.  Everything took five times longer to do because we were walking on the corner of the rooms where the floor meets the walls, the floors not allowing us purchase and the walls a little to steep to walk on.  Our home had turned into the a scary fun house where up seem sideways and down the other sideways.  It was disorienting.  Finally Skinwalker stopped its sideways fall at 45 degrees. 

However, water was seeping in a seal porthole and the master was taking on water so Lynn tightened the hatches further still.  Lynn & I were both disoriented.  We closed seacocks, hatches, loaded up clothes, money and one computer.  We made a rope fast to horns on the aft cleat and used that to pull or lower us up and down the back deck then used it to climb over the starboard rail and with great effort lower us down past the end of the swim platform and down further into the towboat.  One at a time we both made our way down into the towboat.  I turned around and there in front of me was Skinwalkers starboard rudder and prop high in the air.  The keel reflected light off its bright green bottom paint.  “Look how clean the bottom is” was my first thought, while my second thought marveled in disgust at the innocence of the first.  The boat was mammoth tipped on its side.  The severity of the situation soon became clear.  Stupid, stupid, stupid, how incredible stupid can I be for allowing this situation to occur.

The towboat captain has brought us to his marina as I have said.  We sit here now waiting for the tide to float the boat, perhaps, later today.  High tide is going to be lower then it was night.  Chances are we will get off, but that is uncertain at this time and in the darkness of my mind strange and horrible things are happening just now.  I am still shockly.  Who would think such a small thing would have such a great effect both physically and mentally.  Our home is not our home at least for a few hours,  Then, ever hopefully, it will be again.

I can’t throw up again.  I can’t go to the bathroom one more time.  Now it is sit, worry, wait worry and worry hope two towboats can get us off a few hours from now.  I am frightened, yet strong, yet not as strong as I should be.  Lynn is holding it together.

There wasn’t much chance of dying, unless dying of fright is really possible.  We will return at high tide and see if our home, our precious home is still there and able to re-float.  It is likely all will be well, but even the small thought of it not being well is more chilling then I would have ever thought.  We are helpless, but alive.

More to come this afternoon after we workout what needs and can be done to save our home.  Bones & Capt’n Lynnie

Lumbering around the Whale with 2-3 foot swells

Skinwalker Log, March 11, 2010, Thursday, 0758

 

Black Sound, Green Turtle Cay, Abacos, Bahamas

 

26.45 N

76.19 W

 

It was a lovely day yesterday and the day before.  After waiting for almost two weeks we lumbered around the Whale on Tuesday with 2-3 foot swells out of the NE and 4-5 foot swells out of the SE, a full ten seconds apart.  As we made the turn past the Whale into the pass we surged, surfing into Whale Passage on the relatively robust, yet gentle swells. 

 

Our intentions were to leave Marsh Harbour on or before March 1^st and tour the Northern Abacos for the month.  That is not to be.  The spring winds have been annoying, brisk and cold, as it has been all winter.  The water has been too cold even for Canadians to swim in.  That left the social life of Boat Habour for us to endure with an extended variety of activities with the same people every day.  That, and old demon rum, a very old friend of mine, provided ample afternoon and evening entertainment most days, by way of engaging others who often became touched in the head during a few hours of excess.  For those who don’t quite get the picture there was always someone drunk on their ass to laugh at or ridicule, depending on the nature of the observer and his memory of the last time he was in the bottle. Occasionally someone put together a pool betting on how much the rummy of the day would remember the next morning.  I never won.

 

Since arriving at Marsh Harbour we were viewed as newbies, which we were to the Bahamas.  It is odd that being new to the Abacos meant to others we are inexperienced cruisers. 

 

This newbie concept led many others to share their experience regarding rounding the Whale assuring us that with their experience we could safely follow their lead.  I almost believed them for a bit. 

 

We finally recognize a potential window to pass the Whale and we follow two boats to Guana Cay to stage for the passage and leave the next day, It was a suspicious day by all accounts for making an open ocean passage, yet my colleagues assured me all would be well despite the small craft warnings issued by the Bahamians.  I was frank with the two captains suggesting they could be the sacrificial lambs and I would hang back in third position to see how they did. 

 

As they bound enthusiastically into the main of the incoming seas we were a distance back at the edge of the crossing entry behind coral reefs.  We started rocking and rolling in 3’ to 5’ footers of a tight period of 4 seconds.  There is no word from them.  I like comfort.  This is not comfortable so we turned around wondering what mistake we had made and how they can do it and we cannot.  Soon we hear terse tones from the two boats attempting to convince each other it is not too bad out there.  Soon, nothing is heard.  I could sense they were too busy to talk.

 

We chugged back toward the marina confused, hearing yet others state the Whale is doable and wonder what we have missed and how--trying to reconcile what we had just experienced and what we were hearing.

 

A short while later the other two boats conversed.  The captain of the lead boat in a tone of tense relief mixed with residual concern and the other captain bordering on barely suppressed fear are surviving 6’ to 8’ swells not far apart.  The captains are not happy—they sound fearful, but would deny it if confronted.  Their crew by admission are very unhappy, likely fearful and downright mutinous.  I have witnessed it all before first hand.

 

It is hard to fault another’s decision, we all must make our own.  This day mine was right for us.  The other two boats will be back in the states a week or more before Skinwalker.  But at what cost?  Lynn & I will still be speaking to each other with grace and perhaps engaging comfortably in sex this week.  I don’t think those captains will be getting any for a while.  I think their crews are really angry.

 

The desire to get somewhere is overwhelming and contorts reason.  Egos and macho displays of manhood can drive decisions further off the correct course.  I almost got caught up in the adrenaline of desire and the testosterone of manhood, yet experience grabbed me by the shirttail as I was about to step off the contrived cliff of desire and jerked me back to the reality of reason.  I want to be angry. I have tried to be angry at those captains for luring me into complacency.   It is not their fault.  It is my problem.  If anything, I should have warned them from the beginning.  I knew the forecast and that it bode bad for a crossing.  When I arose that morning the water was trembling in the harbor and I told Lynn it was not a good portent for a safe passage, yet I was driven. 

 

No harm no foul?  If accepted that platitude will allow me to attempt a similar error in the future.  I almost made two classic mistakes.  Perhaps flogging myself will beat enough sense into me to cement the need for clear thinking underway at all times, for unemotional decision making, for using the right head and not following my manhood around like I had a leash being held by my ego.  One of these days I am going to get it right without the preamble of stupidity slowing me down.

 

We are currently holding in Green Turtle with no current prospect for a weather window for the Gulf Stream.  Heck we may be here forever if the weather doesn’t break in our favor.  But, not to worry.

 

We will share our time with locals at Sundowners, Pineapples and McIntosh liquor store that also doubles as a restaurant, bar and local gathering spot across the street from the small wharf where the supply ship comes in twice a week.  Might even take in Bee’s for the original Goombay Smash.  Currently docked at Black Sound Marina. While not the only boat, we are the only ones on a boat here and it is quiet, peaceful and almost lonely.  The manager, Mr. Carroll Sawyer, stops by once a day and finally, finally I say, has provided us with the wifi password that he had to get from the owner in the states.  We have been here three days with no method of comm’s except our boat radios and we have felt utterly isolated except when we go to Pineapples and visit with the pretty young owner or one of the other small bars that we have come to know intimately. 

 

For those who have not been here, the streets in town are golf cart narrow like on Tangiers in the Chesapeake and the local anglos have a very similar dialect as the fishermen of Tangiers.  It is a charming place with great vistas and a wonderful laid back attitude complimented by the gracious people.  We don’t care how long we have to wait.

 

The day we left Florida our navigation computer took a coffee bath and I sent it to Father Phil to bless it.  He did and got it back to us in the Bahamas.  The day we left Marsh Harbor the same computer went TU due to a dead battery.  Phil saved us once again by emailing a patch so I could get the nav system working on the other computer.  I hate confusers.  I cannot tell you how many times Phil has save our butts with computer fixes.  Phil, thank you ever so much.  We owe you dinner when we get there.

 

I am proud to announce, as a minor self proclaimed partner of the Silver Foxes Vegetable Car Racing team, that our vehicle won.  Well, really it is Jims team and car. But never-the-less, I will be attempting to collect prize money for my verbal contributions given to Jim one rummy evening.

 

Lynn & I look forward to returning to the states when it is safe and comfortable to do so.  When ever that might be.

 

Bones & Lynn

Abacos: a landscape etched on the fabric of time

Abacos

 Mother Nature, the masterful artist of our world, employs her earthly medium to create the wonders of the Bahamian cays, a landscape etched on the fabric of time.  The breath of Mother Nature, the wind, wields its modeling tools of ocean and sea with precise repetitive tics and, by turn, creates, shapes, changes, re-creates, as if seeking the perfect element for its creatures.

  

This is a place where harvested conch shells waste at the water’s edges, where lobsters live in underwater condos as man occupies those edging it.  The colors of the Abacos are shades of greens & blues, often reflected off the bottom of soft clouds floating in from the Atlantic.  A place where fish replaces beef and fermented cane-squeeze lords over whiskey and the crawfish are huge.  Here reef sharks out-number the gentle stray dogs or “potcakes” as they are known and blue holes replace swimming pools.  Where the red sand in stone comes from another time and the Sahara. Where African beans fetch up on island beaches.  The dead coral of the cays supports life for the ragged, scruffy landscape as the living reefs give contrast to the vast plains of underwater desert of the Abaco banks. 

Just now a sweetness about the place struggles with itself.  There is a vacant quality that rings empty like a furnished house with no people. The islands, long ago stripped of their indigenous wealth of flora and fauna now replaced by the poverty of low lying coral skeleton scattered with sand and plant detritus too thin to plow, renders farming a foreign concept here and industry non-existent.

The locals, no longer aboriginals, but descendants of slaves and the remnants of crown Loyalists from the original American colonies, supplement the current tourist economy as hunter-gatherers from that which provides for all—the ocean waters.  As in many poverty venues the people make do and develop their own system of trade and barter, and, as in many modest tropical settings, they do so slower than more plenteous cultures.  The Bahamians recognize their exotic home is their primary product through tourism and understand they must share its virtues. They do so without complaint; yet I believe their mellow demeanor is more than understanding.  Why is it that poor countries often seem to engender gentleness in their people?  Is it the tropical clime, the need to work collectively or the commonality of life’s struggles?  The Bahamian people are nothing if not genuinely nice people.

The government of the Bahamas is typically third world with nepotism and cronyism being an adjunct of the weak political system, which wields power whimsically, often with tepid results.  Yet they continue to try and that is good. 

It is hard not to like the Abacos especially when cruising the family islands and smaller settlements away from Marsh Harbour. The real Abacos is placid and laid-back with a familiar softness that is comfortable.  It is a serious cruiser’s paradise with each cay releasing its own beguiling virtues leisurely and its waters captivating although cool just now.  My favorite are the placid anchorages off a quiet beach, backed by a tiki bar shrouded in the shade of curved swaying palm trees overlaid with the soft grating of rake and scrape music wafting from a distant venue.  There is nothing for it.  The Abacos is seductive, its charm delicious and a recipe for a walkabout on the Skinwalker as the winds abate and the water warms.

Winter in Bahamas

Skinwalker Log, February 2, 2010, Tuesday, 0630 hrs

Boat Harbour, Marsh Harbour, Abaco, Bahama

Some may say, after this log, that I don’t like winter in the Bahamas.  Not true.  

Tom Conrad, a fellow scribbler, brings it close to the truth, with understatement, as he admits his expectations were not the same as the reality.  Tom sees the good in everything.  The next time we meet I will remind him that angst is the seed of literature.

I believe a bit of enlargement pushes a yarn along.  But in this log to prevent damage to others’ expectations, hyperbole perhaps should be hobbled.  This log should be a factual narrative like weather reports or world news.  Well, maybe not the news. News is historical after all and only the survivors write history.  Come to think of it, news readers are pretty good at taking a circle of facts and with a practiced twist make a pretzel, still the truth, but different.  So it is with the Bahamas. 

This archipelago of islands tricks you with its stunning variations of water color and gorgeous sand beaches fringed with sets of coconut palms and scrubby mangroves. The many hues, shapes and sizes of reef fish are exciting and the local cuisine differs enough to elicit interest, but same enough to enjoy.  So what is the problem and how can I justify whining that perfection is not perfect?

I hasten to remind all that I am an Arizona boy, and a Florida resident and, quite frankly, I don’t do cold.  Never have and never hope to embrace the weather systems that bring the cold.  Besides, if I enjoyed cold I would be with my ex-wife.  Now there is cold.  She was so cold I wore insulated pajamas to bed to prevent freezer burn. Yes, I know cold.  Cold is when you can’t pee in the woods without fear of losing body parts.  Cold is when you can’t make love in a field with, oh, never mind.

The wind blows in the Bahamas, sometimes less than others.  But almost always it blows and blows.  There have been five days in two months that the wind did not blow.  We are not sailboat people.  We like them well enough, but we do trawlers--don’t need and don’t want the wind.  Wind makes waves.  Sometimes wind moves boats not so well anchored in the shallow sands of the Abacos.  That is no fun.

The water is cold.  Even with a wet suit the water is cold after the first few cold fronts.  It takes effort to enjoy snorkeling when the water is cold.  You have to want it to spend an hour in the water.  On occasion, the water will warm enough to enjoy a day, but be mindful and ready to go.

We are staying in one of the largest marinas in the Bahamas.  The resort is simply beautiful, with heated pool, tennis courts, beach, fine dining, all nestled in lush landscape in a keen locale.  It could be a resort in any southern beach town in the US, which is part of the problem; we are in the Bahamas.  While a wonderful place, there are so many North Americans here that it doesn’t feel Bahamian.  Marsh Harbour loses some of its charm by being a primary supply hub for the family islands in the Abacos and so follows Boat Harbour Marina, too big and too busy to properly exhibit that delightful syrupy slowness, that laid back attitude which prevails in armchair musing of the Bahamas.

I am not a group person--big surprise there.  Boat Harbour is for people who enjoy group activities of every ilk.  Yes, you can enjoy other couples in more intimate settings, but there is always significant pressure to be a member of the larger group events.  It is easy to relegate ones self to outcast status.  There is a balance each person must find and hold close on the social titter-totter.  

Aw, but the real Bahamas is only a scratch away.  The water may still be cool, the breeze a bit brisk and anchoring indeed can pose its challenges, but the Bahamas are what they are and once understood you file your expectations and enjoy what is offered.  Part of that offering is the tiki bars—another big surprise, yes?

I enjoy Saturday, steak night at the Jib Room in Marsh Harbour and listening to subtle Bahamian melodies such as “Who Put the Pepper in the Vasoline” best performed by a Rake n’ Scrape duo.  That a person occasionally falls off a dock or down on the dance floor isn’t a problem.  The challenge is not to step on them while dancing or allowing them to sleep in the water.

I love the Sunday afternoon pig roast at Nippers on Guana Cay.  The food is Bahamian, the Frozen Nipper strong, the bikinis enticing and the crowd noisy. 

Grabbers nestled in the palms down the hill is set on a Polynesian-like lagoon that is postcard picture perfect and a nice respite from the rancor at Nippers.

Elbow Cay offers Captain Jacks that hangs over the Hope Town harbour.  The small, protected mooring field is studded with cruising boats loosely packed as sardines. The red striped lighthouse on the hill maintains a one-eyed vigil over it all.  Sea Spray Marina is down island from Hope Town.

Down south is Pete’s Pub in Little Harbour.  It can be treacherous in some regards to get there.  But you pick a good day and go.  Pete’s I hold dear.  An overhead deck is the roof for this wall-less bar, the floor nothing more than a sand beach that trickles down to the water’s edge.  Oddly it reminds me of a lonely Mexican Cantina in the middle of a Milagro bean field.  It is comfortable, local and quiet.  Don’t beach your dinghy at high tide.  You know what I mean?  They serve Blasters here.  Make sure your dinghy knows how to get back to the mother ship before getting Blasted.

Oh, there is so much more than the tiki bars to explore yet they seem to be a part of each day whether you are snorkeling an inner reef, making your way through the shallow tidal flows of Old Robinson Bight, diving for conch off Johnny’s Key, searching the grass edges for lobster condos, or fishing a pass.

It is expensive to enjoy the offerings of the tiki huts.  Bar food sandwiches range mostly from twelve to eighteen dollars and drinks seven to ten dollars each—rather like New York City.  But there is nothing to do for it, so after a while you simply spend the money.  Wiling the afternoon away can easily lighten our load by a hundred dollar bill, so we pace such events as we can. 

The wind will moderate for the next couple of days allowing us to explore either by dinghy or mother ship or both.  We look forward to a bit of adventure away from the marina. 

I do like the Bahamas with its isolated places along the road less traveled and it exceeds my expectations in that regard.  When the wind holds us captive we cannot explore nearly as often as desired.  The cool curtails daily underwater curiosity.  Yet, the ripe roundness of the conch horn sounding each day home leaves a mellow contentment to settle over us, a feeling that is uniquely Bahamian.

Tomorrow we taste more of the Bahamas.  I think Man-o-War Cay.

Bones

 

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