22. December 24, 2018: Hoffman's Cay to New Year's Eve

December 24, 2018:

Happy Christmas Eve! We left Stirrup Cay and motored/sailed to Hoffman's Cay. It is part of the Berry Islands in the Bahamas. We anchor As You Wish on the west side because we're supposed to get a windstorm from the east in the next few days. This is a little sheltered bay, and there is a blue hole on the island! There is a trail from the beach which leads to it. You emerge from the undergrowth and see a small lake below. You can walk down the right side trail to get to the water and the shallow cave below. It's a good place for a swim!

Shallow cave by Hoffman’s Cay’s Blue Hole

Dean and Wendy are on the catamaran Chaos next to us, and they're from Oregon also!

December 25, 2018:

Merry Christmas! John woke me up this morning, and said, "Honey, I don't know how you arranged my present this year, but thank you very, very much!!" I was totally confused (which is normal for me before 10 a.m.), and then he started laughing. Last night a motor boat anchored near us, and this morning a young woman "built like a brick house" came up on deck completely naked, dove into the water and went for a swim. John appreciated every moment, but neglected to wake me up for "my present", as her buff boyfriend then did the same thing!

Once clothed, they asked if we had any coffee, so John brought them some. They had come over from Florida in 3 hours in that boat. Wow! It's taken us many days of sailing and motoring. Of course, they probably have something bigger than a 39 hp engine :).

They left, and another sailboat, Becky Thatcher, pulled in. Her owners are John and Gaylene, also from Oregon! How bizarre: three boats here, and all of us from Oregon! We all went up to the blue hole, snorkeled, and took turns jumping in. At about 25 feet, it was very scary for me! That's much higher than the high dive at a pool. I remember watching Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, a movie about young girls in the 1920s who would dive horses off 40' platforms into a pool. That took guts! (And thankfully that practice was banned for both the girls' and horses' sake).

Dean and Wendy invited us all over for a Christmas lunch. Dean grilled chicken, we brought candied yams and brownies, and John and Gaylene brought salad, potatoes and chocolate pie: we had a feast!

As we were all talking, Wendy said, "What's that?" I didn't hear the splashing, but it's a good thing she did: Nikki had swam over to their boat, and was trying to get on board! What was strange is that John had just showed her how to swim today. Teddy had jumped in after Nikki, but he swam to shore. John put them both back on our boat and locked them in the cabin while we visited some more. We obviously don't learn: Nikki ate all our flour and corn tortillas, pecans, a bowl of cat food, a stick of butter and a some leftover sunflower seeds. (Kind of sounds like The Hungry Caterpillar, doesn't it?) Nikki made sure she got her feast too! Merry Christmas!

December 26, 2018:

We did some exploring along the beach and also tried fishing with no luck. I went snorkeling and saw a three foot wide stingray, and swam next to it for a ways. So cool!

John and Gaylene invited us over to Becky Thatcher today. She's an older boat that they bought for very cheap ($7,000?), but she looks good! They prepared three conch they found, and we brought ravioli. The conch was very good! She said they had to beat it for a long time to tenderize it. Conch (pronounce Konk here) is basically a big snail. Their shells are beautiful though.

We moved over to Chaos as the light was better there. We played the game Citadel, and it was fun.

December 27, 2018:

The wind is supposed to be 26-31 knots today, so we're staying here at Hoffman's Cay. John and I walked the trail past the blue hole, and found a very secluded beach. We considered skinny dipping, but the air and water were a bit too cold and we chickened out. There are low walls made of rocks in the underbrush, forming boundaries or leftover fences. Who made them and why?

I tried fishing on the south side of the bay, and a three foot nurse shark was following my bait. I didn't want that! Besides, it's illegal to keep sharks in the Bahamas.

John and I cleaned As You Wish inside and out, and had the others over. John cooked chicken, rice, Mexican tomatoes and black-eyed peas in the pressure cooker, and we had ginger ale with elder flower syrup. The others brought sides and dessert. John and Gaylene announced that they have decided to sell their boat. They discovered it's not the relaxation they thought it would be (John and Gaylene have had lots of boat repairs). Plus, it's far from home and takes a long time to get anywhere. They are on a time schedule, so I can understand their frustration. Gaylene is a music teacher, and has to be back in Oregon by the end of January. It’s extremely difficult to keep to a schedule while sailing!

December 28, 2018:

Last night was VERY windy, and everything in the boat seemed to be banging and clanking. I kept thinking we were dragging anchor (we weren't), so that didn't help. Neither one of us got much sleep. There's another “small craft advisory”, so I'm glad we're still here in this protected bay.

We walked past the blue hole trail, and found the ruins of an old stone house. It was very small, maybe 8' x 8', but it had a massive fireplace: why would someone need that here? Someone heard that they cook down conch shells to help make concrete, so that may be it. There are also some very large agave plants around here, so maybe someone was making tequila? Another mystery!

John on left, massive termite nest on right!

Dean picked us up in his dinghy, and we fished near the breakers. John caught a pinfish, and we added it to our supper with other leftovers.

I saved the pinfish head and guts, and used them as bait. I was fishing between our boat and Becky Thatcher, where John was up on his deck. My John was down below when suddenly my line went crazy! "John! Grab the camera! I've hooked a shark!" I saw it streak back by between our boats. Just before John got out of the cabin, the shark jumped six feet out of the water! Then it broke my line, biting through my metal leader. John on the other boat saw it too. It was about 5 feet long, and was so cool to see! (I'm glad I didn't have to deal with taking that off my line). Wendy, who had been on the beach, later asked if it was a dolphin because it had jumped so high.

December 29, 2018:

John and I went to a nearby island and explored. It was very rocky on the Atlantic side. There were big waves, even though it was low tide. We harvested seven large whelk snails. Since the Bahamians eat them, we'll give it a try too.

We tried fishing, but no luck. It was hot and secluded, so soon John was wearing only his shoes and a hat. Murphy's Law: our four neighbors came around the corner in their dinghy: oops! Clothes back on!

Everyone snorkeled off the beach except me as the water was murky. Then John and I went to a different beach with clear water. We saw coral, squirrel fish, a baby blue tang (they're yellow!), a queen trigger fish, and a sea turtle! Exciting!

Once back on the boat, we boiled the whelks whole (that way they are easily cleaned). THIS DOES NOT SMELL GOOD. The meat saved and chopped up. I added it to a rice dish, and it tasted like clams. These were large whelks, and they didn't have much meat. I won't bother making this again, unless I'm starving. Not worth the hassle or the smell.

We took Penelope to the beach, where she met Pierre, Dean and Wendy's poodle-schnauzer cross. He was more interested in chasing lizards than her.

Three Oregon boats at Hoffman’s Cay, Bahamas

We played the card game "The Village Idiot" at Dean and Wendy's with John and Gaylene. Fun! (Google Village Idiot Card Game for instructions).

December 30, 2018:

We're leaving this morning for New Providence (the island where Nassau is located). I wish we could stay here; this would be a great place to bring guests!

Later: be careful what you wish for, you may get it! Our engine won't even turn over. John thinks it's seized up. We are going to have to hip-toe our dinghy to the back side of As You Wish (thanks to a Sailing Uma video!!) to help us get through the cut, and then we can sail to New Providence. I'm glad that Chaos and Becky Thatcher are in touch with us!

A long day! Chaos left early. Becky Thatcher stayed and they were waiting for us because they were concerned about their engine, when it was ours that turned out to have the problem. The hip-toe with our dinghy worked great for getting through the cut. Then we hauled up our dinghy, hoisted our mainsail and started sailing. We tried to set a direct course, but we were being blown into the rocky, crashing shoreline, so we had to sail away from it first. We sailed all day, and lost radio contact with Becky Thatcher. We wondered if they had decided to stop at the end of the Berries.

The sun set, the stars came out, and they were so brilliant! We even saw two meteors. Finally, the lights of West Bay, New Providence became visible. Chaos hailed us on the radio, and Dean said that he would come out to the mouth of the harbor and guide us in. What a blessing! After we anchored he even gave John and the dogs a ride to shore so we wouldn't have to bother with our dinghy. As they landed on the beach, they were met by an armed guard with an M-16! The park there closes at dark, and he thought the guys were up to no good. Everyone was relieved that it was just for a doggy potty break.

Becky Thatcher had arrived just before us, and they had been watching for us also. What good friends to be so concerned!! The cruising community really is great.

December 31, 2018:

New Year's Eve! West End is a beautiful harbor, but last night there were several big rollers every minute or so. I crashed, but John didn't sleep well. There are many coral heads here, and I'd love to dive them, but we need to get to Palm Cay Marina on the other side of New Providence. Dean is having an appraiser look at the damage to his catamaran there (some boat crashed into them at the Bimini dock), and we hope he can tell us of a good boat mechanic.

We left early, and since the marina is only about 17 miles away, I thought we'd be there by noon. After an hour, we were in full sail, and I was below deck when a squall hit us. We'd never encountered one of this magnitude: it nearly blew our sails into the water! John yelled at me to get on deck and help roll up the jib "before we die". He saw a 38 knot gust. We were blown off course quite a ways. That's usually not a problem, but now we had hundreds of coral heads between us and Palm Cay Marina. Also, we now needed to head directly INTO the wind. That's not a problem if you have a working engine, but since we didn't, we had to tack. Back and forth. For hours and hours. Sailing can be SO BORING when you are trying to reach a destination!! Wind speed is now 15 knots, and speed over ground is 5.8 knots.

What do I miss about my "old life"? I definitely miss getting places faster than five miles per hour, real toilets, not having to ration water, my electric oven, always being on 110 power, US grocery stores, a washer and dryer, and Thai food!

I also miss having good cell and internet coverage. Last night I had no coverage at all, so I used the Garmin inReach. I have three preset messages: 1. We're okay but out of cell service 2. We are okay but are delayed 3. Things are getting rough. If the Coast Guard calls, give them our boat specs and sailing plan. I just realized that only Chaos and Becky Thatcher know of our sailing plans today. I couldn't have sent our family the information had I thought of it.

1 p.m.: It's turned pleasant for the moment. It took us five hours to go the last 8 miles, and we have 10 more miles to go. Those are all "straight line" figures of course; we are still tacking. Hopefully this afternoon will be more productive than this morning.

Things we will not miss once we're back in our RV: using the head while underway (me), and fixing all the things that break on a boat (John). There are always things to fix wherever you are, but it is so much more inconvenient here! We had to tack out to Conch Spit before tacking back towards the marina in order to avoid hundreds of coral heads.

As we were struggling against the wind (our boat wanted to go in circles), a Bahamian police boat with about eight armed men pulled up beside us. "What are you doing here?" It turns out we were near their base. "We lost our motor and we're trying to get to Palm Cay Marina!" They basically nodded and left! Not a "Do you need some help?" at all! It felt to me like we would never make it to the marina, and I was so frustrated I broke down and cried. I never even did that in the storm!

We had rolled up the jib because we'd been overpowered, but we put it back up and finally made progress towards Palm Cay Marina. It was already pitch black as we approached its markers. Dean said he would come out and lead us in again. We ended up being closer than we thought. I was trying to see markers in the dark (all on big posts, and many of them were missing their lights), so I was on the bow of the boat, yelling directions to John so we could stay between the red and green markers. Suddenly there was a big post right in front of us! We were a little to the right of it, and I didn't think we had time to go left, so I yelled "Go right!" John did, and said "Drop the anchor!" I didn't have time to do anything when we came to an abrupt stop! John thought "Wow, that anchor really grabbed!" until I informed him otherwise. We had ended up on a coral head or a dredging pile, and we were stuck fast. With no working engine, we couldn't even try to back up. We were less than 50 yards from a rocky lee shore; not a good thing if she would suddenly come loose.

Thankfully Dean showed up in his dinghy. We were at low tide, and he tried to move us, but we didn't budge. He ran back to his boat, and came back with leftover chicken burritos for our supper! How thoughtful!! High tide wasn't until 4 a.m., so he told us to drop anchor and he promised to come back then. We also tied off to a marker post just in case the anchor failed. We didn't want to end up on the rocks (any more than we already were).

Let me add that during this time we tried to reach someone at the marina. The marina guard knew about our predicament, but everyone was celebrating New Year's Eve, their biggest holiday. We had the marina, condos and houses very close to us, and we could hear the parties going on.

We figured that we may as well try to sleep until 4. John fell asleep, and then the tide started coming in, lifting up our boat and letting her down with a bang! I woke John up, fearing our boat would crack in two. He assured me that Island Packets were built to withstand this, but we got our emergency ditch bags ready just in case. We were utterly exhausted and fell into a deep sleep until midnight.

Pow! Pow! Pow! Bang! Bang! Dogs and cat piled into bed with us, and we were sure we were being shot at! We finally realized that fireworks were flying out over the water, right over our boat! Then it sounded like the stuff was falling onto our boat. Since we have a canvas cover, now we get to worry about fire! Luckily that didn't happen. I guess it's Happy New Year, 2019! I don't think we're going to forget this night any time soon.

Continue reading in "23. January 1, 2019: Happy New Year!"

22. December 24, 2018: Hoffman's Cay to New Year's Eve

23. January 1, 2019: Happy New Year! Palm Cay Marina to Hawksbill Cay

21. December 15, 2018: Crossing to the Bahamas!