The Day Started Out Nice

At Sea
29 40.93N 078 01.78 W

Things were fine right up until I posted yesterdays's blog article. We had a nice night making lots of progress. The weather forecast was good. The wind picked up a little and we were making 6 knots under the spinnaker. Then, I heard Libby cry out, "Help! Dick." She never uses those words unless she means it. I sprang up on deck in time to see the spinnaker sail dragging in the water beside the boat.

What happened? The spinnaker sail ripped from top to bottom. It blew out, in sailor's jargon. Jim and I scrambled to get it out of the water and stuffed into a bag. I checked, and the wind was only 17 knots. The sail should not have been over stressed. I have no idea why it failed. Sometime, when I can stretch out the torn shreds on a lawn, I'll try to do an autopsy on the sail.

Anyhow, without the spinnaker, we put out the jib. It seemed that we no sooner had that job done when the wind died almost entirely.

Being out at sea when there is no wind but there are waves is uncomfortable. Worst of all is that the rocking of the boat makes the sails flog back and forth. That causes excessive wear and we can't allow it to continue. Therefore, we soon had all the sails down and were motoring.

At midnight, just as Jim went on deck to take over the watch from Libby, we started having trouble with the motor. The charging current from the alternator keeps cutting out. I checked the belt. It is fine. It could be a bad alternator. Then, the push button that stops the engine failed to work. That never gave trouble before. Hmmm two things at once going wrong. If the alternator fails, we would have to use the Honda generator to keep the batteries charged. I never took out the generator when at sea and I don't ever want to do that.

Anyhow, two good things happened also to brighten the day. We were visited by a pod of dolphins at night. Libby and Jim got to enjoy that. Also, I saw Venus shine for the first time. I didn't know such a thing exists.

I was standing the 0400-0800 watch. I was enjoying the milky way and the meteor shower that seemed to be in progress. Then, I saw Venus rising. I didn't get fooled like yesterday. It came up at the same place and the same time as the day before, so I recognized it right away. However, before rising very far it went behind a cloud. I continued looking and I was amazed to see the cloud glowing, and then Venus reappeared. You know how moon shine causes an obscuring cloud to glow? Well Venus did the same thing. It was proof positive that planets shine much stronger than stars.

Bermuda Triangle Weird

At Sea
28 32.55 N 077 48.31 W

The sailing weather is delightful. As a matter of fact, we have been using our spinnaker at sea. We never did that before. With the spinnaker we're managing 5 to 5.5 knots average speed in light wind and calm seas. We're loving it. Our progress for the first 24 hours is 125 nautical miles. (143 statue miles), not bad.

Jim got a touch of seasickness yesterday but Libby gave him a Bonnie pill and that cured it.

Yesterday afternoon, just as we passed the northeast corner of the Bahamas Banks, we encountered a really weird spell. All of a sudden, our speed changed from 5 knots northward, to 11 knots toward the southwest. That's almost moving backward. I fiddled and fussed with the sails and the rudder, trying and failing to get control. It seemed that we had a sudden dramatic wind shift that made the sails collapse. Anyhow, Jim and I scrambled to get the spinnaker down and the jib up. Libby stayed at the helm. After 10 minutes with the sail change, we returned to the cockpit to find that Libby had everything back in control. Once again we were going nearly 5 knots northward.

So what happened? I have two theories. Unfortunately my recollection of the relevant facts make it impossible for me to rule out either.

Theory one: We met up with a particularly strong swirl of current, 15 knots or more in speed. Evidence against this is that no effects on the water surface were seen. Evidence for it was the shift in apparent wind which could be explained exactly with a strong current. Further evidence of a swirl was that we sailed out of it within 15 minutes.

Theory two: There was no real anomaly, just a period of non-convergence and bad readings from the GPS. Every once in a while, the GPS loses a satellite or otherwise screws up. The symptom is bad position readings and implied velocities that aren't real. What about the wind shift? Well, my memory of the incident is not precise enough to remember whether or not I fiddled with the sail and rudder before or after the wind shift. Evidence against: always in the past, GPS anomalies lasted 30 seconds or less.

You're free to ascribe the whole thing to one of those Bermuda Triangle mysteries if you like. The kind that causes ships and airplanes to lose their way and disappear.

New Subject: I didn't expect to see any ship traffic last night. However, around 5AM I was alone in the cockpit standing my watch. I saw a light on the horizon to the east. I looked like a ship. The color was reddish. I took a bearing on it. I looked for a blip on the radar -- nothing. When I looked back a the light again it seemed much brighter. Wow, it must be close. A few minutes later again it seemed elevated above the horizon. It must be a masthead light on a sailboat, I thought. Wait a minute! It is Venus! I sure got fooled. I checked with the Stellarium program on the PC. Yes it was Venus. But Stellarium also let me know that Mars, Uranus, Neptune and Jupiter were also in the same section of the sky with Venus. Uranus and Neptune are too dim to see with the naked eye but I saw the others.

Whew, What a Day

At Sea
26 43.13 N 077 18.17 W

We had a blast at the Green Turtle Heritage Day. It began with a sail across The Whale Passage. Conditions were calm and the passage was no problem.

Arriving at Green Turtle, we had a bit of a problem anchoring. The anchor wouldn't bite on the grassy bottom. We tried the plow, then the danforth, then the plow again. I put on my diving gear, swam out and dove on the anchor to bury it manually. No good. Finally, we moved to a more sandy spot, then I dove on the anchor, and this time it bit in.

The festival? It was almost too much to describe. We loved all of it. The pre school children, the conch cracking contest, the people watching, the talk about bush medicine, lunch consisting of conch burgers and grouper burgers, the conch blowing contest, and the talk about early Caribbean history. Most of all, we like the junkanoo parade in the evening. The music and the costumes and the people were wonderful. We repositinoed ourselves to watch the parade pass us four times. We took lots of pictures and video. You'll have to wait several weeks however before we post them.

This morning, we repaired the jib furler, and prepared Tarwathie for an offshore passage. We are heading for The Whale right now, in 90 minutes we'll have exited the Bahamas via The Whale Channel and we'll be out to sea. It is 500 miles to Beaufort, NC. The weather reports are favorable for at least 5 days. Yippee; look out world, here we come.

Jim is excited. This will be his first offshore experience.

Heritage Day

The Sea of Abaco
26 43.02 N 077 16.49 W

Well we just went through The Whale one more time and we survived. Actually, it was as calm and gentle as a farm pond today. No wind, no waves, no trouble.

Last night Libby made us a big spaghetti and meatball supper. I really appreciated it because while Nancy was here we ate much less meat. Libby piled the meatballs on. Jim appreciated it because he had to get up at 0500 yesterday morning to catch his first flight and he never got to eat breakfast or lunch. After that, we settled down for a good night's sleep. We were anchored in Baker's Bay, right next to the entrance to The Whale. It was bumpy but we didn't care.

Jim slept up in the V berth. He said that he woke up in the middle of the night and poked his head out the hatch. The moon had set and the sky was mostly clear so that the stars shone brilliantly. Jim said that it was the first night in a long time when he could clearly see the Milky Way. The weather is very agreeable for lounging and sleeping, 81F high, 69F low, mostly sunny & clear. Just the same as every other day.

Today we're heading for the Heritage Day festival on Green Turtle Cay. We'll get to see a dinghy race, a conch cracking contest, the Royal Bahamian Defense Force Marching Band, and a junkanoo parade after dark. Google junkanoo and you'll see pictures of the fantastic costumes they wear. We'll also take a lot of pictures but I won't be able to post them to the blog for a few weeks because I have no Internet connection.

Tomorrow we set sail for the USA. Still to be decided is our route and our port of entry. I'll think on that tonight.

it's been fun

Sea of Abaco
26 35.74 N 077 05.71 W

Well, I just put Nancy on the plane to take her back to Boston. It has been great fun having her here. Libby and I love having company on the boat; especially family. (Hint Hint Hint) It entertains them, it entertains us, and it provides proof to the external world that we are not just making up all this stuff on the blog about having continuous fun.

Yesterday, Nancy and Libby rode the ferry to Hopetown to have a ladies day out. According to the reports I got back, they had a great time. The ferry ride was nice. They got invited into people's houses for tours. They got free rides around on golf carts as nice people stopped to offer them rides. They toured all the nice parts of Hopetown, but not the lighthouse. They had a fantastic lunch at a restaurant overlooking the sea.

After lunch, Nancy put on her swim suit, snorkel and mask, and went swimming. The beach at Hopetown is not only beautiful, but there are reefs just a few yards away from shore that can be excellent for snorkeling. That was good for Nan because snorkeling was one activity that we didn't have a chance to do earlier in this week. Nancy was duly impressed by the clean clear water and the multi colored fish and coral all around her. She said it was like swimming in an aquarium. Forgotten however was the underwater camera and food to feed the fish. The fish around here are so tame that if a tourist starts feeding them, they come out from all their holes and swarm around the feeder.

They visited the gift shops, and then found a coffee house where they relaxed until the ferry took them back.

Me? In the meantime, I was doing engine maintenance most of the day. Oil changes, alternator belt, clean up the engine compartment and the bilge, and prepare Tarwathie for an offshore passage. When the ladies returned I tried to play the poor boy having to do dirty, hot, sweaty, labor all day while they luxuriated elsewhere. I didn't fool them a bit and I got no sympathy.

Now, I'm at the airport and Jim R's plane isn't due for another 6 hours. What shall I do? Why I'm gathering materials for more pine needle baskets. Now it is Libby and me and Nancy all making baskets in parallel. It's a great pastime. I also hope to snag a WIFI connection to post this blog but so far it isn't working. No all that is a smoke screen. My real mission this morning is to stay off the boat and out of Libby's way as she prepares for another guest.

UPDATE: Now it is 6 hours later. The WIFI at the airport never did work.

Jim arrived fine, about 10 minutes ahead of schedule. He said that he never had tighter connections than today, but he made the flights. We rode a taxi to the dock, rode the dinghy to Tarwathie, weighed anchor, stopped for fuel and water. Now we're under full sail, doing 5-6 knots, and everything is beautiful. We'll anchor tonight at Baker's Bay. Tomorrow morning we'll cross The Whale and head for Green Turtle Cay. The festival activities start at noon tomorrow on Green Turtle and it should be great fun.