Our first week in the Abacos

Hello again.....

Now that our vessel is in the water, and somewhat organized below decks, dinghy in the water, we are once again getting familiar with our surroundings. Not much has changed since last year when we spent a month in this area.

We are at the Leeward Yacht Club till the New Year in Black Sound.  Coco Bay and Ocean Beach/Long bay  are my favorite beaches on Green Turtle Cay.  I have already been on the hunt for sea beans and have found a few!

Some reefs here are close to shore at low tide....on Ocean Beach

                         

  This beach is on the Sea of Abaco side......

                                                

After a short dinghy ride across black sound we are off to do our errands!

It's just a short walk into town from where we docked the dinghy

                                                                       

Our boat floats!

Yesterday morning we woke up to a gentle rock from the water as Miss Ellie was launched on the Monday afternoon.
It is really nice to be out of the not so glamorous boat yard we had been in 'on the hard' since our arrival a week ago! As far as standards go , the Abaco Yacht Services boatyard is a fabulous boat yard but all boat yards are really 'boat parking lots'! Boats are not meant to be lived in while out of the water for sure.

The insurance claims/assessor, arrived as promised on Sunday and checked Miss Ellie from top to bottom and confirmed what we had already suspected.  It was a lightening strike. A 'direct one' at that, as opposed to the 'secondary strike' we had suspected . There are no holes or apparent damage to the hull.
Chartploter, autopilot, speed indicator, raymarine radar, inverter/ charger, xantrex control unit,  hot water tank, running lights, cabin lights except for the ceiling lights,  cabin outlets, fans, clarion radio etc. are all fried.

With a working engine,
we had the ok to get the vessel in the water  so Monday, Guy wasted no time asking the yard if they could fit our launch in. By 2:00 p:m we were moved to the water , and hung in the slings until we were sure water was not coming in some unfound hole from the strike. 
Dry as a bone! We are grateful for the excellent staff at Abaco Yacht Services! They are very professional and a well run and clean organized yard. I would recommend them to any thinking of staying in the Abacos.

All was good so we motored to Leeward Yacht Club next to the boat yard and snuggled Miss Ellie in a berth at the dock.

Once at the dock, Guy could hardly wait to go up the mast to retrieve the halyards to start putting Miss Ellie together again. On his way up he noticed large pieces of debris and burn marks on the radar dome situated by the spreaders. Then once at the top of the mast he discovered a melted VHF antenna . This is where the lightening hit. Luckily the deck did not suffer burn holes from the falling bits as we figure it was likely raining and all was extinguished before it hit the deck.


As of yesterday, we heard back from our insurance company and they have agreed to our requests.
We did not want to loose our season, nor did we want to wait forever, in Florida, for the repairs as we were told that this is a very busy time for marine repair services. It may take, 1, 2 to 3 months for repairs to be finished. So now we will stay on Miss Ellie till the end of March! The vessel is somewhat compromised but we will manage just fine. In the water in the Abacos beats a hotel room in Florida. This way we have all of our things with us. You know... the important stuff...guitar,  paints, books, clothes, our own bed! Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home!!

Since our inverter/charger is gone, being plugged in at the dock is of no use. Our engine works well and the alternator is charging our batteries just fine. Our dual solar panels are working fantastically in the Bahamas sunshine putting in tons of juice in the batteries. If we need hot water we just run the engine since our 'electric' Hot Water heater is blown. The heat exchanger from the engine to the Hot water tank is a very efficient and a quick way to get hot water. We have a small 400 watt inverter that plugs into a cigarette lighter for our computers and phone. OK, it isn't the "Miss Ellie" we are used to but hey there are a lot of boats cruising with less. We will be just fine!

                                     We have the sun and the cold beers also! 

We are staying in Green Turtle Cay till the New Year. With our handheld GPS with map unit,  we will make our way to Hope Town during the first week of January where we will stay at the dock till the end of March. The insurance company will send a captain and crew at that time to take Miss Ellie back to Fort Lauderdale Marine Services for the repairs. Who ever said "life is an Adventure,"knew what they were talking about.

If you are wondering where the lemonade is we made from all the lemons we were given...not 100 % sure but  I guess a cold "Kalik"beer , sun and sand for three months and new equipment at the end of the day......will be good.   

Till next time...... 

Guy and Louise 

Mother nature and Miss Ellie

  
Hello.....

We left Vancouver a week ago filled with our usual anxious, fun filled with adventure frame of mind. Although it is a long trip it is always worth it knowing we will soon be in the sun, on the beach or having a cold kalik beer or rum....

We arrived at Abaco Yacht Services on Tuesday to see our vessel just as we had left her. The staff here quickly put up a ladder for us to get up and in and plugged us in with an electrical cord. 

We were and are pleased to have no mould or any apparent sun damage to the top sides. Whistling and humming away, we started to organize all that we had tucked away in plastic bags last spring and unpacking all that we had brought with us.

All was going well till we tried to turn on a fan, or a light, the inverter, sirius radio, and the control panel of the boat.  All came to an abrubt end when Guy went to check what was causing this. 

Although we had one solar panel bringing in some power....the electrical extension that was plugged in was doing no good. Our electronics, chargers, etc. have been zapped by a lightening strike sometime this summer by mother nature. 

WE are bummed beyond belief. We have contacted our insurance company. They are sending a claims/assessor  from Miami Sunday afternoon to assess the damage. We are not yet in the water as we were warned not to till the bottom is checked out for damage. We don't see any at this time. They have also told us that they will send a captain to take Miss Ellie back to Florida for repairs with no timeline in sight as there are many cruisers ahead of us in the repair yard  plus the holidays are in the mix.

WE are weighing out our options while we pass the time here in Green Turtle. We may rent a house for 3 months here or in Hope Town, we may go back to Vancouver. We just won't really know till we get a clearer picture as to what is involved with the insurance. 

We will however make lemonade out of these lemons .....the place is filled with friendly people, lots of sunshine and great beaches .

I will give an update within a few days.......

Take care,

Guy and Louise

Our time in the Bahamas is almost over.......for this year!

Since my last post....we have not done much sailing.....however we did do alot of relaxing

Guy has done some paintings and is thrilled to have accepted  a month long exhibition at the Hummingbird Gallery in Hope Town in the near future. A date is being discussed at present.
The next six pics are some of the pieces he has completed.
'Hope Town' and 'Man o War' Cays are the center of builders of 'The Abaco Dinghy' These dinghies are built of local lumber and no exact plans exist. Each builder uses his own sense of shape and size. They have a very shallow draft and have one sail. Usually between 12 and 14 ft long. It is a treat to see them gather on Sundays in Hope Town for the Sunday dinghy races. They have big following here and are considered pieces of art and history.
As such Guy has painted an Abaco dinghy series.

These paintings are 9 x 11 oil on board. The last two have been commissioned to be done in a larger size and shipped once Guy returns to Vancouver.

While Guy immerses himself in his art, I along with some friends head to the ocean to go "Beaning" I had never heard of this before but since I have found many, I am now the President of our 4 member beaning club! LOL!

Sea-beans (also known as drift seeds) are seeds and fruits that are carried to the ocean, often by freshwater streams and rivers, then drift with the ocean currents and (hopefully!) wash ashore.

These sea-beans don't initially come from the sea and while some are indeed beans, many are not technically beans at all! Some "sea-beans" are technically fruits that contain seeds. Nonetheless, if they drift to and into the oceans and wash ashore, we collectively refer to them as "sea-beans".

These sea-beans come from trees and vines that grow along tropical shores and rain forests all over the world. The seeds or fruits fall from their parent plant into waterways, such as the Amazon River, then drift through inlets to reach the ocean. They travel with ocean currents until they wash up on a beach somewhere, perhaps thousands of miles from their origin. Sea-beans are quite hard and buoyant, which helps them survive their long-distance voyage.

The heart sea bean on the right has been sanded starting with 120 grit and ending with 2000 grit sandpaper to give it this polished look. It is way too time consuming so I will wait till I get myself a dremmel to do the rest.

Sea hearts have a long and colorful history in fact and fiction. Early naturalists thought the unusual heart-shaped seeds came from strange underwater plants whose origin was shrouded in mystery. Christopher Columbus was fascinated with objects that drifted ashore on beaches of the Azores off the coast of Portugal. It is said that a sea heart provided inspiration to Columbus and led him to set forth in search of lands to the west. In fact, the sea heart is called "fava de Colom" or "Columbus bean" by Portuguese residents of the Azores. In Norway, a bitter tea was made from sea hearts to relieve pain during childbirth. In England, sea hearts were used as teething rings and as good luck charms for sailors embarking on a long ocean voyage. If sea hearts could survive a long and perilous journey across the ocean, perhaps they could also protect their owner. Sea hearts were also carried as an amulet to protect the owner from sickness and to ward off evil spirits. Sea hearts commonly wash ashore on islands of the Caribbean, and in Jamaica they are beautifully hand painted and sold as lucky pendants.

On the left is a pic of a hamburger sea bean, "burger", before polishing, a polished hamburger sea bean on the right and my favorite and only one so far is the polished sea bean "purse" at the bottom.

A side view of the sea bean to show the interesting likeness of a hamburger

These sea beans are called "golf balls"or coconut sea beans. When polished (right) they look like burrowed wood....

These are the beans we have polished so far from our collection while listening to good music in the cockpit....

We do spend time wandering around checking things out here and there on Elbow Cay Island in the Abacos

Thought this sign was "different" ?

I captured a little bird on this banana pod while on a walk

These  culry  tail lizards are everywhere.........

We often see turtles  poke their heads out of the water and are in awe when we see them swimming on top of the clear water...

In addition to "sea beaning" I often walk the shore with some friends to collect sea glass.....at low tide.

We were ankle deep in the water one day last week looking for sea glass when we saw this bullshark within a few feet of us....It kept swimming out and then coming back to where we were....needless to say, we made a hasty retreat after taking this pic.....

The Bahamas has many beautiful, colorful flowers in bloom......all the time

One of the few rainy days we have endured since December.......

This pic was taken at the Hope Town Sailing Club Jubilee celebration. This boat was decorated as the "Titanic"and won 1st prize in the boat  parade... The band played as the boat sinks...

Every other Sunday we went out to watch the dinghy races. This is the sun fish category.

Good choice for a boat name.....LOL! An older 40 ft wooden gaff rigged day sailor.

Time has arrived when we have to secure things down below and head north .....

On the way, in the "whale" channel between the sea of Abaco and the Atlantic, we saw this (we think) Humpback whale or maybe a Sperm Whale. Not sure as we didn't see the fluke.  Good thing we didn't hit it!

It was as large as our boat (40 ft) and a spectacular sight!

After our whale excitement, we anchored in Fisher bay on Guana Island for the night in company of  John and Debbie, our friends on S/V Mandalay

We dinghyed ashore to check out the island and scout out a place for lunch....

We followed the signs to a well know restaurant/bar in the Abacos....

This decorated tractor was on the path....

And here it is....the famous Nippers on the beach....Here we had a yummy lobster roll with a cold 'Kalik' beer!

One of many beautiful, calm sunsets......

From left to right...Guy, myself, Julie and Dawson of Sudbury Ontario on s/v Jazzabell, Lee and Randy of Toronto on s/v Silver Maple and Debbie and John of Annapolis on sailing vessel Mandalay. It's time to part ways as we are all headed back to our land lives but we do look forward to seeing our friends again next year to continue sharing fun times,  experiences, beaning, walking and finding sea glass on the ocean shore  and our euchre games.....

We are leaving our vessel Miss Ellie at the Abaco Yacht Services here in the Bahamas  for the summer.  Our Haul out date is the 22nd of April. We will be cleaning, polishing, varnishing, filling tanks and emptying one till then. 
                              It is alot of work...boo hoo!  
 We will fly out from Marsh Harbour to Ontario on the 24th for a few weeks before we fly out to Vancouver. 

As beautiful as this picture of the Bluewater Bridge in our home town of Sarnia is.....we hope the ice is gone by the time we get there!  Thanks Pete for sending it to us!  See you soon!

I hope you enjoyed my blog this year and will return to see what we will do next year........

                              Life is a journey !  Enjoy!

                 Take care.........Guy and Louise   xoxoxo

February with Family in Hopetown

Hey there.....it's been 3 weeks since my last post and it's time to let you know what we have been up to.

On January 31st, my brother Mike and sister in law Sandra flew away from the frigid  and snowy weather of Toronto. They stayed in a room here at the Hopetown Inn. The next morning they joined us on Miss Ellie for french toast and real Canadian Maple Syrup. Fantastic start to the day!

This is the Hopetown Inn

  

Renting a golf cart or bikes is how we get around this picturesque Elbow Cay island . Here we choose the cart....and head a few miles down the narrow road for some sightseeing and lunch.


The Abaco Inn is an icon that has been serving patron for many, many years. It is out of town a ways and requires a golf cart to get to it. If you call them, they will even come and pick you up for a meal and drop you back off in town. Just part of how they do business here.

Guy and Sandra looking and listening to the waves  of the Atlantic just before lunch at the Abaco Inn.

After lunch, we piled into the golf cart and made our way to Tahiti beach a short distance away to walk off our lunch......at low tide....
it is at the South end of Elbow cay. There is a passage opening out to the Atlantic. So, there is great shelling here. The ridges in the sand at low tide reach far into the Atantic.

Next stop is a little bar called 'On Da Beach'. After all it's almost 4:00 pm by now and it is very hot......

This quaint friendly little place had every thing painted in a turquoise that matched the color of the ocean.

Inside the bar was this sign.....notice a spelling mistake?

Making our way back to Hopetown, we stopped to check out a few brave and talented kite surfers.

There are so many reefs along the shore that we assume they must have been locals...and knew what they were doing. Very strong winds and huge surf and reefs all around them!

On one of the nights we took Mike and Sandra,  to the Firefly...our favorite restaurant in the Abacos so far. There we celebrated their 10th anniversary and our birthdays.
 

This is the view of the Firefly property as we arrived by golf cart.

We were asked if we wanted to sample some of their "moonshine"
So we did!

This is the guy that served us some of the 107 % alcohol...
I'm thinking that this stuff would cure a cold in a matter of seconds...It is brewed state side and brought to the Bahamas. It is the only place to buy it and a couple of drinks made with this stuff and you are ready for anything!!

A great sunset for our celebration....

The next morning we are off to the beach.....

Mike goes snorkeling....

We all enjoyed a good amount of time body surfing and laughing like little kids along the shore! We found a beautiful long sandy beach with a reef about 50 ft off shore. Mike wanted to see the fish on the reef. Luckily no sharks came to play with him.

The afternoon was spent by the pool playing backgammon, with a cold beverage and a few snacks

Guy and George provided the music

One evening, just before sunset, we walked over to the Elbow Cay  Lighthouse. It is the most recognizable landmark on Abaco. This 89 foot high candy stripe edifice was built in 1863 and is one of two hand wound kerosene burning lighthouses still operational in the world. The lense is beautiful to see up close. It floats on 1200 lbs of mercury! (quick silver) The lense turns by having the lighthouse keeper turn a large crank every 2 hours. One of the last remaining in the world. There are supposed to be 3 lighthouse keepers. Each doing an 8 hour shift. But one died and one was injured so it was left up to one lighthouse keeper to do all the work every night! The poor buggar! He has another job during the day also. It is not uncommon to find the light not turning. He must have fallen asleep. Everyone understands.
 

The  Fresnel lenses concentrate the mantle’s light into a beam directed straight towards the horizon.  The lenses and burner equipment, weighing 8,000lbs, float in a circular lubricated tub.  This reduces friction so that the 700lbs of weight, when wound up to the top of the tower by hand, smoothly rotates the 4-ton apparatus once every 15 seconds.  The lighthouse keeper on duty must wind up the weights every 2 hours in order for the red and white candy-striped lighthouse to be seen from 17 miles away.

We climbed 100 plus steps to the top of the lighthouse.

This pic is of Sandra and I  inside and Mike and Guy taking our picture from the outside...through a small window.

I finally braved going outside.....for an un-interrupted, spectacular view....Since the first mate is afraid of heights, it took a fair bit of coaxing to get me out on the narrow walkway at the top!
 

This is a good view of the harbour. These are all mooring balls. No anchoring! Everyone is really close but it seems to work.

The sunset from the lighthouse

After a fun five days we vowed to do it again next year....

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On Valentine's day, Drew and Janet arrived from Florida where they had a few days to thaw out after leaving the frigid cold of Ontario.

The first day, Drew rented a small boat to take us to a flea market on Man-O-War island (the next island from Hopetown)

 

It took about 20 minutes in the choppy sea of Abaco to get there. Big winds had churned the Sea of Abaco into a wild ride. Drew handled the boat like a local.
Some of us were a bit sea sprayed after the bumpy ride....

After we browsed through the flea market, resisting any purchases...we set out to find the Atlantic side beach.

Who doesn't like to have their feet photographed? Do you believe the colour of that water!! I still find it amazing!

After the Man -O- War island lunch and fun, we returned to Miss Ellie for a cold beer.....and some laughs....

That night, we went to our favorite, The Firefly restaurant to celebrate Guy's Birthday!

The Birthday Boy! Not bad for 60!!! The hair is growing in nicely after the shaving a few months back.

The next day we loaded Drew and Janet in our little dingy and took them for a walk around the little town of Hopetown.

We walked  along the carless (golf carts only) narrow streets looking at the many origional colorful homes and rental cottages. Picket fences are everywhere. The streets would be just big enough for a horse and carriage. No cars here!

A walk on the beach and a stop for a photograph

Day # 3...we are off to do some deep sea fishing for the afternoon.

Out of the harbor, into the Abaco sea and out to the ocean. We had been along this stretch of coastline earlier in the week and it was all just reefs. Yet our deep sea captain was a 'Local Boy'. Fishing and selling to the restaurants in Hope Town since he was 12! He cut through this reef at high speed like it was a highway. Scimming past huge coral heads to reach our fishing grounds. I would have been nervous in our dinghy but he said it was a channel his father had taught him many years ago. Amazing to see!

Guy trying out the fishing chair and eagerly anticipating a "bite or catch"

Here he is practicing the technique...LOL!

And look whose is proudly holding a "catch" of the day!

A 45 lb dolphin

This is Justin owner of Local Boy charters preparing to fillet the 
catch for us....This fish was actually caught that morning on another charter. Justin felt so sorry that we did not have any luck in the 5 hours fishing that he let us take pics and gave us 6 generous mahi mahi fillets. He is still laughing about us taking pics of someone else's catch.  Who can resist a "fish story"?

After such an exciting day on the high seas....and a nice dinner at the Inn, we return to Miss Ellie for a night cap , guitar playing and singing....

We will continue to reminisce our good time with family this February in Hopetown...Thrilled to share our life in paradise with them and will keep the drinks cold till they return.