Thursday June 14
Okay I feel better today but my laptop does not. Jane was working on something out on deck and I said, "What is that smell? It smells like something burning." I stuck my nose into the air conditioning duct and it was not coming from there. My laptop power connection had been acting funny so I sniffed around there. Sure enough it smelled like burning. Touched it. Ouch! That's hot.
Backed up my pictures and shut down. That's why no blog until Monday June 18th. Oh, and we have been busy moving the boat.
On Friday Jane flew home in the afternoon to go pick up the girls and fly back on Saturday morning. She also picked up the new laptop that Eric Jr. had purchased for me at Best Buy on Friday morning and went to the food store yet again to get MORE FOOD. She also brought back the various frozen food items she had already prepared.
Saturday morning she was back with Elizabeth and Christy, her friend from school. The weather has not been that good while we were in Nassau this week and Saturday was not exception. I wanted to take the girls to the Junkanoo carvinal but it just rained all day and then poured on Saturday night. So we just went to the food store and loaded up on the last minute essentials. The girls were tired anyway so they slept the afternoon.
Sunday June 17
We slept to the beating of rain drops and squally winds Saturday night and awoke to a mostly overcast sky. I left open the option of not leaving that day if the weather was not good but by 1000 it looked pretty decent to get going. After some frantic buttoning down and fueling up we were underway by 1215.
No wind and no waves. We motored from Nassau to Royal Island in about 4.5 hours. When we anchored in between two islands looking out the cut to the north there was very little wind. When we sat down to our grill cooked burgers about an hour or so later is was flat glass calm. Nice night for sleeping but a little wind would have been nice since we were not running the air.
Monday June 18
Woke up at the customary sunrise time of 0600 and banged around until Elizabeth got out of bed about 2 hours later. Then we hauled anchor and headed for Spanish Wells. When we got there the south harbor entrance was blocked by a barge pilling sand on a spoil cay. So we had to go around to the east harbor entrance. We docked at the fuel dock and asked about getting a pilot to guide us through the treacherous Devil's Backbone reef on the way to Harbour Island, or destination.
We were told to hail Sinbar on the VHF radio and they promptly answered and said that a guide would be right over. When he got to our boat we asked if he was in a hurry as we were thiking about walking in town and getting something to eat. He said, "How long?" I told him and hour and half and he was off.
We all got our shoes on (even though I have an achy left foot) and set off through Spanish Wells. There's only one road. We walked down it. There were lots of brightly colored camps
along the east facing beach. Some for rent and some for sale. It didn't look busy. There was also a very old cemetary that was meticously maintained with flowers and well kept grass. It appeared that some of the gravesites had been reused, each generation refreshing the graves as needed.
We took a minor detour up a side street that went up hill. Maybe 20 feet uphill. There were some fancy modern Florida style houses mixed in with the older style homes. I got the impression that the locals would not be to fond of them based on how well the older homes were maintained. Everything was tidy and well kept and well painted. In sharp contrast to Nassau, which was a concrete jungle.
We asked a passing mopeder if there was a restaurant (we had been walking a long way) and he said yes, get back on the main road and there are two just up the way. Then when we were back on the main road and had walked for more long way we asked again and told that they were just ahead. Finally The Generation Gap and Teen Planet restaurants dominated the street (not really) and we turned into The Generation Gap as this was recommended by the last direction giver.
It was very clean and the food was excellent and lots of it. We got Conch Chowder, Fish Sticks, Macaroni & Cheese (served everywhere in the Bahamas) and other stuff. We gorged on that and then headed out for the long walke back to the boat.
Our pilot showed up right on time at 12:00 PM to take the controls of Devante's Dream and guide us through the Spanish Wells cut and Devil's Backbone reef cut. Old Pot. That was his
name he said. How'd you get that I yelled. He told me in his raspy voice that as a boy he used to collect cans and jars and they started calling him Old Pot. It stuck and now 68 years later he still had the name. I am guessing at 78 years because she said that almost 358 years ago on June 29 he was shipwrecked along with several dozen other Brits fleeing Queen "Bloody" Mary on the Devil's Backbone reef and lived in a cave.
He showed us the cave. He said he lived there two years until moving to Spanish Wells, where he lived now. It was a very cute way to tell use about his ancestors the Pinders, who were on the ship that actually did wreck on this coast of Eluethera.
Old Pot also showed us his great Uncle Ridley who is now immortalized in stone on the Spanish Wells iron shore in the form of a rock portrait. Not to much unlike to former New Hampshire Old Man of the Mountain.
The reef itself was treacherous and many wrecks are on the outer reef. However my chart plotter turned out to be very accurate and we could have made the trip without the pilot. But this was much easier on my nerves and much more fun to listen to.
Old Pot brought us right to the anchorage area next to the Harbour Island marinas. I paid him his fee and a tip and he gave me his card. He said to call if we go back north through the reef and he would bring fresh bread and johnny cakes. I told him I would.
We anchored out in just 12 feet of water with the wind blowing out of the east and keeping
us off of the lee shore of the island. Very pleasant. After getting the dinghy setup Elizabeth and Christy played on the windsurf board for quite a while. Paddling and doing log roll style balance contests. Fun to watch. I got to pay bills and catch up on some work...
Eric
Okay I feel better today but my laptop does not. Jane was working on something out on deck and I said, "What is that smell? It smells like something burning." I stuck my nose into the air conditioning duct and it was not coming from there. My laptop power connection had been acting funny so I sniffed around there. Sure enough it smelled like burning. Touched it. Ouch! That's hot.
Backed up my pictures and shut down. That's why no blog until Monday June 18th. Oh, and we have been busy moving the boat.
On Friday Jane flew home in the afternoon to go pick up the girls and fly back on Saturday morning. She also picked up the new laptop that Eric Jr. had purchased for me at Best Buy on Friday morning and went to the food store yet again to get MORE FOOD. She also brought back the various frozen food items she had already prepared.
Saturday morning she was back with Elizabeth and Christy, her friend from school. The weather has not been that good while we were in Nassau this week and Saturday was not exception. I wanted to take the girls to the Junkanoo carvinal but it just rained all day and then poured on Saturday night. So we just went to the food store and loaded up on the last minute essentials. The girls were tired anyway so they slept the afternoon.
Sunday June 17
We slept to the beating of rain drops and squally winds Saturday night and awoke to a mostly overcast sky. I left open the option of not leaving that day if the weather was not good but by 1000 it looked pretty decent to get going. After some frantic buttoning down and fueling up we were underway by 1215.
No wind and no waves. We motored from Nassau to Royal Island in about 4.5 hours. When we anchored in between two islands looking out the cut to the north there was very little wind. When we sat down to our grill cooked burgers about an hour or so later is was flat glass calm. Nice night for sleeping but a little wind would have been nice since we were not running the air.
Monday June 18
Woke up at the customary sunrise time of 0600 and banged around until Elizabeth got out of bed about 2 hours later. Then we hauled anchor and headed for Spanish Wells. When we got there the south harbor entrance was blocked by a barge pilling sand on a spoil cay. So we had to go around to the east harbor entrance. We docked at the fuel dock and asked about getting a pilot to guide us through the treacherous Devil's Backbone reef on the way to Harbour Island, or destination.
We were told to hail Sinbar on the VHF radio and they promptly answered and said that a guide would be right over. When he got to our boat we asked if he was in a hurry as we were thiking about walking in town and getting something to eat. He said, "How long?" I told him and hour and half and he was off.
We all got our shoes on (even though I have an achy left foot) and set off through Spanish Wells. There's only one road. We walked down it. There were lots of brightly colored camps
along the east facing beach. Some for rent and some for sale. It didn't look busy. There was also a very old cemetary that was meticously maintained with flowers and well kept grass. It appeared that some of the gravesites had been reused, each generation refreshing the graves as needed.We took a minor detour up a side street that went up hill. Maybe 20 feet uphill. There were some fancy modern Florida style houses mixed in with the older style homes. I got the impression that the locals would not be to fond of them based on how well the older homes were maintained. Everything was tidy and well kept and well painted. In sharp contrast to Nassau, which was a concrete jungle.
We asked a passing mopeder if there was a restaurant (we had been walking a long way) and he said yes, get back on the main road and there are two just up the way. Then when we were back on the main road and had walked for more long way we asked again and told that they were just ahead. Finally The Generation Gap and Teen Planet restaurants dominated the street (not really) and we turned into The Generation Gap as this was recommended by the last direction giver.
It was very clean and the food was excellent and lots of it. We got Conch Chowder, Fish Sticks, Macaroni & Cheese (served everywhere in the Bahamas) and other stuff. We gorged on that and then headed out for the long walke back to the boat.
Our pilot showed up right on time at 12:00 PM to take the controls of Devante's Dream and guide us through the Spanish Wells cut and Devil's Backbone reef cut. Old Pot. That was his
name he said. How'd you get that I yelled. He told me in his raspy voice that as a boy he used to collect cans and jars and they started calling him Old Pot. It stuck and now 68 years later he still had the name. I am guessing at 78 years because she said that almost 358 years ago on June 29 he was shipwrecked along with several dozen other Brits fleeing Queen "Bloody" Mary on the Devil's Backbone reef and lived in a cave.He showed us the cave. He said he lived there two years until moving to Spanish Wells, where he lived now. It was a very cute way to tell use about his ancestors the Pinders, who were on the ship that actually did wreck on this coast of Eluethera.
Old Pot also showed us his great Uncle Ridley who is now immortalized in stone on the Spanish Wells iron shore in the form of a rock portrait. Not to much unlike to former New Hampshire Old Man of the Mountain.
The reef itself was treacherous and many wrecks are on the outer reef. However my chart plotter turned out to be very accurate and we could have made the trip without the pilot. But this was much easier on my nerves and much more fun to listen to.
Old Pot brought us right to the anchorage area next to the Harbour Island marinas. I paid him his fee and a tip and he gave me his card. He said to call if we go back north through the reef and he would bring fresh bread and johnny cakes. I told him I would.
We anchored out in just 12 feet of water with the wind blowing out of the east and keeping
us off of the lee shore of the island. Very pleasant. After getting the dinghy setup Elizabeth and Christy played on the windsurf board for quite a while. Paddling and doing log roll style balance contests. Fun to watch. I got to pay bills and catch up on some work...Eric
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