We made it to Hope Town for Christmas

 

 Since my last post, we stayed in Green Turtle Cay for a few more days than expected due to a  strong wind from the NE. Not great for the 4-5 hr. sail to Hope Town. So we kept meandering around this cute quaint authentic Bahamian little town. We found this interesting Fan Palm in the front yard of a home in New Plymouth. 

 Streets in New Plymouth are narrow and houses are at the edge.

We took a walk on the Beach (Atlantic side)  and made our way to Guillam Bay. The sand had been recently groomed!

            The many Roosters and chickens are everywhere. 

      The night before we decided to go around The Whale, we anchored out in front of the New Plymouth settlement. We needed high tide to exit Black Sound on Green Turtle Cay due to our 6 ft draft. We also needed high tide to enter Hope Town Harbour so we couldn't just exit one and go to the other. It would mean entering Hope Town in the dark and so we left one high tide and waited for the next day's high tide to enter Hope Town Harbour. 

      West winds were light and variable, and the sunset spectacular. Later at about midnight, the wind piped up again to 16-18 kts making for a very bumpy, rolly sleepless night. There is little protection from the West!

Whale Cay Passage

One of the major parts of going past Green Turtle Cay and into the Southern Abacos is through the Whale Cut Passage. This can be a bit daunting as it is where the mighty Atlantic Ocean meets the Sea of Abaco. If the wind is kicked up from the North or East, you can expect the break to cause a treacherous ride across the 1.5 nautical mile trek. Although it doesn’t seem long, problems can arise at any time. 

The passage around the Whale was easy and uneventful. We motor sailed for the next 4 hours in light winds to arrive at our destination a few hours before high tide.

      Every evening at exactly 6PM the local church in the town plays bells and Christmas chime bells for about 3 minutes. From the harbour, you hear the bells and can watch the lighting of the last hand lite kerosene lighthouse left in the world. Hard to believe but they have all been replaced with mechanized electric versions. The Hope Town Light is lit by a lighthouse keeper. The huge glass lenses rotate on a pool of mercury...Hand-cranked to lift the huge weight that turns the lenses. Much like a grandfather clock assembly. Local volunteers string long strands of lights for Christmas from the top to the ground. They took a lot of wind stress these last few days!

     We arrived in Hope Town late afternoon. Miss Ellie was tied to a mooring ball, we lowered our dingy, and went to the Hope Town Inn where there was an open house for the holidays. Free treats and wine were served. There, we met up with friends and happily participated in different conversations. Then, we went to the 4th annual Christmas Village set up at the main park in town. A magical place that seems to appear overnight. It seemed like a whirlwind after the last calm two weeks in Green Turtle. 

      This is the skating rink at the Winter Festival. The excited faces of the kids skating on hard plastic panels are worth the work involved to set it all up.

The next day, a strong weather front was coming our way. This pic is the night before  The sky was spectacular.

The wind blew for two days....(we are where the small green dot is on this pic from our GPS fix on Wind Finder's mapping.)  Guy had made sure we were well secured on our mooring ball and we battened down the hatches.

The night after the mighty storm. All good....

We are happy to see the sun shining again and resume our visiting, walking the beach, happy hours etc.

We wish our family and friends a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!   xoxoxox  

Bye Bye Florida - Hello Bahamas Nov 26th- Dec 7th

       Last minute preparations before our early morning departure Nov 30th. from Fort Pierce in the morning. Checked the streaming light for motoring under sail and it was not working. Checked the bulb but the connection was loose. Got the steaming light working but the spreader light is out also. Need a new bulb. Not a problem for motor sailing just for light at night on the deck. As it is, we could have used it. The moon was non-existent for our crossing and a spreader light to light the deck would have been useful.

       We left the dock at 8:30 am and motored down the intercoastal. We were anchored in Peck Lake by 2:00 PM.
  
       The next day, Saturday, Dec 1st, we lifted anchor and once again made our way down the intercoastal to  Lake Worth in West Palm (Florida) where we leave from for the crossing over to the Bahamas! The wind was blowing 15 knots with gusts to 20 knots. Not so much fun as we had several bridges with openings on the hour or half hour. 

Without much room to turn around it makes it difficult to
hold a  position in the current and a strong wind while waiting for the bridge to open to let us through!  The 65 ft fixed bridges are not an issue as our mast is only 57 ft off the water.

We spent a full day anchored in Lake Worth the next day waiting for the planned crossing on Monday, Dec 3rd.

The day has arrived....we are finally going! We lifted anchor at 5:30 am, motored out  of the Lake Worth Inlet channel by 6:00 am,  hoisted the sails and we were on our way! The wind was SW at 6 to 10 knots and the seas were 1 to 2 Ft. I was thrilled as some weather sites predicted much more wind and much higher waves!
The sunrise was spectacular! We were not alone but it looked that way at first.

As we continued on our 18 plus hour sail,  the waves and wind did pick up to what had been predicted. 10 - 15 knots with gusts to 19 knots. Winds changed to SE so it was a great fast sail. 
The waves also showed up....at first 2 to 3 ft, then 3 to 4 ft with the occasional 5 footer.  We continued to sail with our jib and mainsail 60 degrees on a starboard beam reach.  

Our depth finder's last reading was 445 ft. After that, we were in the deep sea crossing the gulf stream.  I hesitated to take pics of the large waves as a few of those waves splashed me as I sat on the combings. We were happy to be tied to the jack lines! So no big wave pics! 
We had our course set for "Memory Rock" at the edge of Little Bahama Bank. There we went from thousands of ft of sea under us to 18 ft in a matter of minutes!  So amazing! The colour of the water goes from a deep dark blue to a beautiful light turquoise! 

                      We averaged 7 to 8 kts for most of our crossing

After we reached the banks, we kept going for another 8 hours to reach Great Sale...an anchorage where we could drop the anchor and get some much-needed sleep.  It was a beautiful sunset! 

      I really wished it had not been a few weeks away from the shortest day of the year! I am not fond of anchoring in the dark with just a sliver of a moon! 
      The banks can be tricky so we stayed to known safe routes on the Banks. When we approached Great Sale we didn't see any other anchor lights in the bay where we were going to anchor. It was soooo dark we couldn't see 10 ft past our bow. We crawled in at 1 knot putting along using the chart plotter as our eyes. Louise on the bow with a searchlight revealed nothing. The darkness swallowed her light. I was staring at the chart plotter in the cockpit. Then I heard Louise yell,"STOP!!!" Not more than 50 ft in front of us was a blue and white trawler dead ahead. I quickly turned and full reverse and we just missed the trawler. The combination of Louise screaming and the searchlight scanning the boat woke up the captain and crew in the trawler. I couldn't help but call him a total moron!!! He had not one light in or outside the boat turned on. No anchor light! If I hit him he would be at fault and would be responsible to fix both boats. It could have ended our winter fun.

      ALWAYS have an anchor light on. Even if you are the only one in an anchorage . It is the law!

      After we calmed down and anchored and had a few cold beers we crashed in our bunk dead tired.

After a great sound sleep, we awoke in the morning to this on our starboard side! Miss Ellie and our Trawler were alone in the whole bay. 

                              We are in the Bahamas!

Our destination now is Green Turtle Cay...another 8 hours!          We need to check in with Customs before we can leave the boat. So far we have been on here without making landfall for 4 days! 

The wind is in our favour again and we sail with the main and jib all the way to Green Turtle averaging 7 to 8 knots.

                          We passed by "The Centre of the World Rock" 

Captain Guy is looking scruffy (needs to shave) but happy after our crossing!  Glad he did not take a pic of me! LOL!

                                 It's a great day on the water!

I happen to look down at the cockpit floor and gasped when I saw this little stowaway crab. He must have crawled up a dock line and into our boat while we were in Fort Pierce at the dock! He is a Bahama citizen now lol.

We arrived in Green Turtle at 3:00 ish, 2 hours before high Tide. Having a 6 ft draft, we worried about our entrance into the Black Sound Harbour.  We noticed a boat ahead of us going in, so Guy radioed him and asked if you wouldn't mind giving us some depth readings as he entered! The lowest he had seen on his depth sounder was 6.1 so we slowly went in!  

New Plymouth is a small establishment on the other side of the Harbour! Small, quaint, and mostly original.

We hoisted our Quarantine Flag as per the Bahamian law.  As it goes, by the time we anchored, dropped our dingy in the water, then it's motor, it was 3:55. Too late to clear customs. We could not get off the boat for yet another night!  Now that makes 5 days/nights with no dirt under our feet!

The next morning we got up early and made our way to New Plymouth to check in. After lots of repetitive paperwork to fill out, we were granted a 90-day permit and gave them our  $300.00 US
.

On our return to Miss Ellie, we took down the quarantine flag, and hoisted up the Bahamian courtesy flag!

After our customs check-in, we were ready to get off the boat.
Clean shaven Captain Guy had a craving for a lobster wrap and fries at The Green Turtle Club restaurant in White Sound Harbour nearby! Wouldn't be complete without an ice cold 'Kalik' beer. I had plans to do laundry so we did the laundry while we had lunch! 

While the laundry was in the dryer, we took a walk on Coco Bay Beach nearby! Low tide and lots of beach to walk on.

                       We marvelled at the colour of the water!

If you look closely to the right, you can see Guy carrying the clean laundry back to our dingy in the water on the left!   A great 1st day on land in the Bahamas!  Guy and some buddies, have a gig (guitar) Saturday night at Sundowner's here on the island. It is a bar and restaurant on the West side of the island hence the name. After that our plan is to move on down the island chain. 

Our next blog will be from Hope Town where we will spend most of the winter.  

                        Have a great weekend!
                             Guy and Louise