A year long family sailing adventure on our Pearson 36-2, "Zusammen". Departed Padanaram, MA on September 9, 2011 bound for the Southern Bahamas. Follow our trip here.
Now that we are back in the USA call us anytime at 617-872-1763
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Yesterday, as an end of year surprise for the kids, all the parents planned 'Field Day'. Kathryn from 3@Sea was the ringleader, and did a fantastic job making it an exciting event for everyone. After the games, we headed to the 'Sugar Shack' for ice-cream, and then the pool for a quick swim before dinner. We had a fantastic day!
Hope Town is a wonderful town on Elbow Cay. Its a little bit of a culture shock, as there are clothing boutiques, gift shops, bars, restaurants, surf shops, you name it. It is a very quaint town, even with all this activity. The buildings are all small, and painted different pastel colors. There are rental cottages dispersed through the town with beautiful gardens. This is the first town we've been in with cement 'roads' everywhere. The roads are really designed for walking or golf carts, as they are about 8 feet wide in most places. We've seen a few cars outside town, but golf carts are the primary means of transportation. Yesterday we rented carts, along with 5 other boats we know, and we cruised the island. We explored beaches all morning, then stopped at a great restaurant called 'On Da Beach'. We had been here once before, and really enjoyed it. Yesterday was just as good, great sandwiches and drinks! After lunch we did a bit more exploring, then put all the kids on Dharma while the adults went to a lovely restaurant for dinner called 'Firefly'. I had a delicious crab quesadilla, maybe my favorite food item so far in the Bahamas. After dinner we found a bar with a live band and danced to old covers until we couldn't keep our eyes open. A great day!
We spent a few days in Linyard Cay, enjoying the peacefulness of an island with no settlement. Dharma, Makana, Cookie Monster, and 3@Sea were all achored alongside Zusammen. The water was clear and beautiful, and I enjoyed some exercise swims with my friends which were much needed. The kids built an impressive fort on the beach with help from some of the men. The ocean bottom was all sand and grass except for on 5 foot section of reef. On the teeny reef, we found 4 HUGE lobsters. Unfortunately for us, and fortunately for them, lobster season is over, so we left them in peace. We left Linyard on Wednesday evening to return to Hope Town, to sit on a mooring for the big wind coming thru on the weekend. Osprey, Celilo, and Chere will all be joining us in Hope Town. Can't wait to see everybody!
Had a great long weekend with the cousins and Steve did his magic on the disk, saved most of the files and has taken the disk and old PC back with him. We had a great time catching up, had some great sailing to Guana @ 7 and half knots with Steve at the helm.
The Abacos is a major culture shock to us in that many of the islands around Marsh Harbor are loaded with tourists. Hope Town is like Martha's Vineyard of the Bahamas.
We had a super easy ride here from Eluethera five days ago, traveled with Makana and Cookie Monster. It's a fairly long passage - longer than the trip across the gulf stream to West End. We arrived @ Linyard Cay on Wednesday last week, cleaned the bottom of Zusammen the next day (we were losing .8knt due to hair...), and then went snorkeling at Sandy Cay. The kids thought the reef was better than the Aquarium @ Cambridge Cay. I'm not sure I agree, but it certainly was spectacular. We then ran up to Hope Town through some super skinny water and met up with Three @ Sea and Dharma. Fun reunion dinner ensued @ on Da Beach.
I met a fella in Hope Town, Sammy, that manages a marina and is also a lighthouse tender. We got an invite to climb the lighthouse that night with the kids, and light the 1860's vintage kerosene fired light and wind the mechanism. Amazing. The light has Fresnel lenses and a kerosene fired lamp that woks like a giant Coleman lantern. Sammy has to climb the 101 stairs every two hours to re-wind the mechanism to keep the lenses spinning.
We left Hope Town on Saturday with Steve and Gina aboard and sailed up to Guana Cay and also made a run to Baker's Bay and Spoil Cay for some shelling.
We'll be heading back South tomorrow to around Linyard Cay for some diving and hanging with Cookie and Makana as well as Dharma and Three@Sea. Sounds like Osprey, Chere and Celilo will be up in the Abacos on Thursday. We'll be taking over the Abacos soon.
I am going to fly to NY early next week. Sounds like Elsa isn't doing all that well.
Steve and Gina land at 1215 today in Marsh Harbor! talk about a house call! cant wait to see them! they pulled the trigger on making the trip in about a half an hour!
Steve is bringing a new laptop and will get the old one squared away.
typing on kindle. laptop disk has failed and it won't boot. we dont have backup of most of our pictures. i am hoping someone can help us with a company that can recover the data off thh the failed disk. any ideas, email me (i can get email on kndle slowly) schnauck@gmail.com or comment on blog. it will generate an email.
thanks fo any help.
trip today was super easy but long. it was father than our passage across the gulf stream from florida. long motorsail, but as we used to say with Cambia, "we'll take the boring passage over the exciting anytime!"
We left Rock Sound after finding Easter baskets left by the Ocean Bunny (who knew rabbits could swim?) and headed North to Alabaster Bay. It was a beautiful sail, and we had an easy day with no motor running, smooth seas, and bright sun. We pulled into Alabaster Bay at about 5 p.m. The kids went for a run on the beach with their friends, while John and I prepared a feast of Cornish Game Hens, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts, corn, and gravy. After dinner, Tyler made an Easter cake all by himself, which was spectacular.
We spent a week in Rock Sound, provisioning at an incredible (US-like) grocery store, getting water, and fuel. Its a good sized settlement, with all a cruiser would need, and very friendly residents. We walked one day, about 2 miles in the blazing sun, to the ocean side beach. It was a beautiful sight as we arrived, hot from our walk, and ready for a swim. We found at the end of the beach, and amazing restaurant with a patio looking out over the ocean. The proprietor, Ms. Rosie, made us huge platters of conch fritters, grouper fingers, and french fries, to eat along with our Kaliks and sodas. Ms. Rosie took pity on us after we had eaten, and loaded us all into her van for a ride back to the dock.
Thursday to Sunday, it has been 'Homecoming' here. This is a festival where any person born in Rock Sound comes back to see their friends and family and party. Starting on Thursday, there were games, music, food and drinks, set up under tents along the beach. On Saturday night of the festival, our group of boats stayed in until midnight, eating, drinking, listening to the live Defense Force band, and watching fireworks. The band was excellent, and we all wished they had played longer. We danced to the music, had a Bahamian try to teach us some moves, and had a great time. The kids decided to go back to Chere at about 8 and watch movies, and I think the 9 of them probably had a great time too.
The Long Walk
Ocean Side Beach
Ms. Rosie's Bar
The 'Dr. Suess' trees, looking off the deck at Ms. Rosie's
Zusammen and Chere kids heading back to the boats
The crew on Celilo, Mike, Roberta, and guest Bruce
In Warderick Wells we hiked the 'Boo Boo Hill' trail and placed our 'Zusammen' sign. The kids and I worked on our sign together and were very proud of it. We've already had cruisers tell us they spotted it on the hill!
We had a blast in Waderick Wells - this trip we had great weather, the guys on Osprey and Celilo to hang with and an insider view of the happenings at Exuma Park.
The Osprey gang is good pals with the folks at the park (for good reason, Johnny helps them with projects and keeps engines humming whenever he can stop by) and had us along for the ride. I helped with repairing one of the boats that the visiting scientists use for diving. The bow had been torn off the 27' Carolina Skiff. Johnny and Chris Calder (of Spindrift and Nigel's brother as it happens...) did most of the hard stuff, but it was fun learning a bit about major boat repair from guys that really know their stuff and helping out where I could.
Lex got a bit sick while we were there, she contracted a pretty nasty staph infection and the Bahamian Defence Force guys gave her a ride down to Staniel Cay in one of their fast boats to see the doctor that comes there once a month. We were lucky that the doc was in when she was and super lucky and eternally grateful to Henry and Fred for the speedy transport. After an intravenous antibiotic and some good painkillers, Lex is feeling much better and should be back at 100% in another day or so.
A couple of days ago, we all went diving a couple of miles offshore, well out of reach of the dinghies with the Administrator of the Park, and the Commanding Officer of the Defence Force outpost there. What an amazing couple of dives. The first one at Danger Reef was one of the best I have ever been on. Apparently some years ago, a commercial dive operation placed the moorings and used to bait the sharks in with chum. They seem to have a long memory. As soon as we tied up at the mooring, the sharks showed up. It was pretty comical, prepping your dive gear and looking down into 70' of water and seeing six foot sharks (5 or 6 of them!) circling the boat right below the surface! Don't believe me? Check out the video below! The visibility was amazing (the camera does it no justice...), I would guess 150' or so. Tyler and I dove with Kaeo and Johnnie and Andrew gave us the tour. It was a truly amazing dive. There were grouper the size of go-carts and jacks as big as Liza everywhere. The sharks were with us on and off for the whole dive which always adds some excitement. We swam through pillars of coral 20 feet high and loaded with fish. It was amazing.
We all jumped in at a second site for a short dive in around 45' @ Parrot-fish Reef and again saw amazing life, including a few more sharks. What a day. Andrew, who used to be a dive instructor before he was a park administrator, asked, "How many dives has Tyler been on? He's quite confident for a kid." I think this was official dive number 3... The bar is set pretty high... Eliza can't wait to get certified and join the ranks of the nutcases that literally, jump into "shark infested waters"!
We spent a few days in Linyard Cay, enjoying the peacefulness of an island with no settlement. Dharma, Makana, Cookie Monster, and 3@Sea were all achored alongside Zusammen. The water was clear and beautiful, and I enjoyed some exercise swims with my friends which were much needed. The kids built an impressive fort on the beach with help from some of the men. The ocean bottom was all sand and grass except for on 5 foot section of reef. On the teeny reef, we found 4 HUGE lobsters. Unfortunately for us, and fortunately for them, lobster season is over, so we left them in peace. We left Linyard on Wednesday evening to return to Hope Town, to sit on a mooring for the big wind coming thru on the weekend. Osprey, Celilo, and Chere will all be joining us in Hope Town. Can't wait to see everybody!
