Graycliff wine cellar and humidor

Jane and Eric took a lay day (for the most part) and visited the Graycliff Inn with it’s amazing wine cellar which we felt privileged to receive a tour of. They have wine bottles from as old as 1727 which the steward showed us. Part of the wine cellar was used as a jail in the pirate days and he joked that if we were to be locked up here he would make sure we did not have a cork screw. We were very careful not to bump any of the 250,000 bottles of wine!

This was followed by a fabulous four course lunch meal with different wines for each course. First was Bahamian conch chowder and packet? wrapped fish with a Chilean chardonnay. In between the main courses a cool tart berry sherbet was served on a tiny spoon. Then the meat course, a lamb chop with vegetables, was accompanied by a Rothschild bordeaux. For desert we had cheesecake and another Rothschild special desert wine that I cannot remember the name of at that time… Just awesome.

Our dining room was the veranda of an old mansion that is almost 300 years old. The part of the living area is not air conditioned but our dining area was. We looked out over the lush gardens with Jasmine and Acacia trees. After lunch Jane and I walked in the garden which was steaming as if vents were keeping the foliage moist. It had just rained and now the sun was out.

We walked through the garden and headed over to the famous Graycliff Humidor. There they have 15 cigar makers hand rolling cigars. We walked right into the factory. Jane made me have a cigar. There were two men smoking cigars and working on laptops in the smoking room. They recommended the Chateau Grand Cru. I choose the Presidente size. It was a great smoke and I enjoyed their conversation. They were amazed by Jane and called her a keeper!

Later on Jane took a nap while Eric hauled the dinghy up to the main dock (hot and sweaty) and checked it for leaks (Bill, Eric and Mike narrowly survived a deflated dinghy ride in Fresh Creek) with soap and water. The soap and water makes air bubbles that you can see and hear. I only found one leak. It was the main valve and evidently we just didn’t have it tight enough. So now we have a working dinghy.

We finished the day with a nice sunset walk, looking at Atlantis and the very big mega yachts on the dock near us.

Eric

Getting ready in Nassau

Ugh! Major work day here in Nassau. At least the weather is nice and cool (for this time of year) and we have a car to help out with the errands. Here's what Jane and I have done so far....

• Remove all of the cushions and bedding and floor boards from the starboard aft stateroom and clean up the spilled diesel fuel and wipe up all of the bilge, wash down all of the woodwork, let the cushions breath outside and the put everything back in.
• While the floor boards were out of the stateroom Eric check the eletrical connections to the ever troubling generator pump. They were fine. After letting the pump run for a few seconds with the outlet hose disconnected and then reconnecting it the generator started fine, which it always does after performing this procedure. Oh well...
• Disconnect and replace the head (toilet) fittings (they had them at the supply store!) so that the (sh**) does not flow back into the bowl. Fun!
• Run to various supply stores and try to find parts that are hard (if not impossible) to find in the Bahamas. Got most of the list except the dinghy pump adaptor which is lost but we can fill with the vacuum.
• Install rope hooks in the aft lazarette to hold the dock lines, electric cords and hoses.
• Install cup hooks in the kitchen cabinet to hold the coffee cups
• Put everything away that we took out (a lot)

Passage to Nassau - End of trip segment

Thursday afternoon was a nice needed down time after being so busy. We pigged out on another of Bill's fantasic lunch's, explored Fresh Creek and then took naps. Later in the afternoon we started to prep the boat for the passage to Nassau. When I told Bill and Mike it would only be 5 hours they said, "Piece of cake, we're used to 20 hour passages..."

It actually took 8 hours since the wind was right on the nose the whole way. We motor sailed some of the way since we had to go north anyway. But eventually we had to turn northeast and into the wind. It's just as well that we made quite a bit of northing since a thunderstorm formed over New Providence and chased us all the way to the harbour.

The storm actually beat us there and just as we entered decided to pour rain on us for the next hour while we entered and then docked. Fitting we thought since that is how we came into Fresh Creek.

End of the trip! Time to clean the boat and go eat a big dinner at Atlantis. It was our only dinner at a restaurant and what a dousy! New York strip, Veal Chop, Tenderloin and Tail. Awesome finish.....

Bill and Mike flew out on Saturday morning. It worked out great because I was picking up Jane at the same time.

Diving with Small Hope Bay Lodge

Mike said that there was room on their boat for Thursday so we got Johnnie to give us a ride over there in his taxi. He agreed to pick us up 12:30 after diving.

Moose, the dive master, met has at the dock and checked out Bill and Mike's c-cards. He asked Bill about his experience and since he did his check out dives in 50 degree water and we dove The Marion the day before he was cleared to do the deep dive with us, which was planned for 90' on the outer wall. We got our gear on the boat and talked with the new assistant dive master, Brittany, she was very nice and nice eye candy.

The dive was very nice. As soon as we got on the wall in 90' of water Bill had to stop me and point out the Hawksbill turtle just hanging out. He did run away as we snapped pictures of him. We went out along the wall until Bill had under 2000 PSI and then turned back. The we hung out at around 65' near the anchor line. As I was poking around I found a nice swim through that completed the dive.

The second dive was your garden variety shallow dive. Bill and Mike got to experience a never ending sea of coral and how hard it is to find the boat when it's like that....

Eric

Diving The Marion

That night I called Mike at Small Hope Bay Lodge and got the bad news. There boat was full for tomorrow morning (where have I heard this before), so we can’t dive with them. “We’re diving off of the boat,” I told Mike and Bill. “Okay,” they replied, “Whatever it takes.” We’ll be fine.

The next morning we started to prep at 0700, get food in the stomach thanks to Bill’s awesome cooking. Get the dinghy ready, thanks to Mike doing whatever else needs to be done. And…get all our dive gear together. No small feat.

Diving off of the boat also entails picking a location. I floated the idea of diving a wreck to Bill, but he was thinking more of coral and nice fish. Okay, no problem we can do that. There is plenty of that out there.

We motor out of the harbour and Mike drops in the water to check out what’s down below. “Some old coral heads,” he says. Okay, we’ll try further down. Then I am thinking, “we are awfully close to the Marion wreck. Why don’t we just dive that? It’s only in like 50-60’ of water.”

I plugged the coordinates in the GPS and we are pretty much right on top of it. Mike jumps in again with the mask and finds it right away. Okay, here we are. Let drop the grapple anchor on it, which we did. Then we spent he next hour gearing up. New gear for Mike and Bill and a new experience diving off of the boat, it takes some getting acclimated to. However, much better than a dive boat….

Bill did great for his first deep (67 feet) dive. However, our dive was cut short when Mike BC was runaway inflating. I had to make a beeline for the anchor line to keep from popping up to the surface too fast.

We cooked burgers on brats on the grill and took a long surface interval. There we no waves and the sky was overcast so it was very comfortable on the boat. After gorging ourselves we setup Bill with our fourth tank and Mike and I dove on the remaining air in our tanks. Mike used one of my extra BC's. We had enough air for a second 20 minute dive on The Marion.

Afterwards to we could not raise the anchor, although Bill was determined we'll have to dive down to unhook it....

Eric

Passage to Fresh Creek Andros

After windsurfing in Bimini for the afternoon (and getting sunburned) we cooked burgers on the grill and the ate them in the cabin to escape from the heat of the day in the air conditioning. After the burgers we had a pow wow about what to do next.

Bill was coughing a lot and his head was congested. He was a major trooper up to this point, making the passage from Key West and even windsurfing while sick, determined to have fun :). But SCUBA diving as obviously going to be too much, at least in Bimini. So after talking about it and our options we decided to head to Fresh Creek Andros, where Devante's Dream had been last year. We thought about Chub Cay as well and actually called over there on the new cell phone but they don’t have a dive outfit setup there yet. So Fresh Creek it is.

We moved over to the fuel dock and put on our 10 gallons of diesel (not much for going 165 NM) and I checked out of Bimini Blue Water Resort and Marina and set sail at 6:15PM. However, we had to douse sail as soon as we got out of the harbour as the wind was going with us so it was faster to motor. Bill and Mike are getting great practice setting and dousing the sails. We headed for North Rock off of Bimini and then turned to the east.

Just after we turned the wind picked up out of the south at 20 knots. It was probably there all the time just being blocked by the island. We set sail again and then enjoyed at beautiful sunset under a full head off sail going 8 knots… Very nice.

We stuck to our two hours shifts after 10:00PM. Bill had the first real night shift at 2200 and watched the moon rise. Then he had the 0400 to 0600 shift and made the North West Passage (just a few hundred yards wide in the dark which he called "threading a needle") and then watched the sun rise….

That day we gruelled through the passage the Andros against the wind. Eventually putting the sails away and just motoring. Bummer.

We made it to Andros by about 1400 just as a thunderstorm hit the area. Driving rain and low visibility. I was glad that I had been here before so I knew what to expect. Just as we were about to enter the harbour the low clouds cleared and we had good visibility. Two power boats that had passed us on the way over where waiting outside the harbour. When we went in they followed us. Evidently they were not familiar with the harbour entrance but were happy to follow a deep keeled sailboat in! When we docked the sun came out and baked us to a crisp….

Bimini

Today Eric, Bill and Mike finished up checking into the Bahamas at Immigration. The we pondered out fate as Bill still has a pretty good chest cold, meaning that he really should not be diving. So... we are not diving. Because we are not going to be diving for at least a few days we decided to head out and make our way further east, either Chub Cay or Fresh Creek (Andros).

I got my Bahamian cell phone upgraded to the new GSM service and called over to Chub Cay. They don't have a dive outfit there so we strached that idea. We're heading to Fresh Creek where we can dive with Small Hope Bay Lodge. I had Mike's cell phone in my old Bahamas phone so I called him to make sure that they have room for us on the dive boat. "Should not be a problem," he said. So, we're heading to Fresh Creek.

We decided that in the morning and figured that the best time to leave would be between 4 and 6 PM. That left us with five hours to kill. After much coaxing and discussion Bill and Mike agreed to setup the Windsurfer at the beach that is at the entrance to the harbor. We setup the windsurfer in the shade near the pool. It was no big deal after all. Then I rented a golf cart and we strapped the windsurfer on the top, grabbed out cooler of beers and headed to the beach.

It took a while but we figured out how to put the sail and mast and boom together at the beach. The sail is a hideous pink color. Hey, I got a good deal on it. Bill went first, trying to keep his balance on basically a surf board with a 16' mast and sail on it. He went pretty good after a few wipe outs. However, he did not want to get back on after people on a boat fishing pointed out the shark that was going right by us. We waited for the shark to leave and then went back at it.

Then I gave it a try and managed to sail for a bit. We had a long rope tied to the back of the windsurfer so that we could pull it back to the beach. Until you know how to do it well its hard to turn around...

Mike was last to try and since he got to watch Bill and I he ended up getting the hang of it the fastest. He tried to sail away but we pulled him back to shore. Then we all tried again and did better the second and even the third time. Finally we loaded the board back on the golf cart, grabbed our beers and stayed in the water talking about our exploits.

Now we are packed up and getting ready to head to Fresh Creek. It will take about 20 hours. There is no wind to speak of so we'll be motoring. It's also pretty warm....

Eric