|
|
|
The
Final Chapter: By Ann Miller Received 5/17/07 Well, folks, ANITA is home, back in D-16, Spring Cove Marina in Rock Hall and she's happy, as are her occupants. From our night's stay at Great Bridge, south of Norfolk, we motored north through the city, out the inlet (calmer than usual) and up to the East River in Mobjack Bay for an anchorage. What a beautiful river with plenty of room for anchorages with protection from whichever direction you need it. The next day we ran to Deltaville to visit our friends, Anne and Jim Wood who so graciously found slips for us at their private marina, Stingray Point. We were buddy-boating with LEE-ANN, and her single-handed captain, Gary Stoffer who we met in Marsh Harbor. He was following along, and I can say, without equivocation, that a good time was had by all. From there, we motor-sailed to Mill Creek in Solomons where, once again, we found a safe refuge at the home of KOEL, Rene and Gresh Sackett. Not only did they treat us to a visit to their yacht club and a delicious dinner at their home, but they found a medical clinic for me to see a Doc to treat an allergic skin reaction I was having (etiology unknown; not the first time). We were also able to see some of our other new friends there, Antha and Dale from Mongoose Magic. It was a great time to chat and relive some of our most enjoyable recent adventures. The next day, we motored out the Patuxent River, avoiding all of the million and one crab pots, (now we know why there are no crabs in Maryland - those VA guys get them before they have a chance to get this far north), and out into the Big, Bad Chesapeake Bay. Winds were blowing 25-35 SW with those rolling aft-quarter seas that make everything below go flying. Geez, making the crossing to the Bahamas was easier than this. We thought we might duck into the Little Choptank or Galesville, but the farther north we went, the calmer the elements became. We motored with the jib flying the entire way to Rock Hall, 70 miles in 9 hours. There were a few dock-hounds around to help us tie up, because of course, in the creek, the wind was once again blowing at 25 knots. Oh, welcome home. It feels good. And our reaction to this cruise, you want to know? We consider this to have been our finest sailing adventure thus far. Today, Wednesday, May 16th, we walked around Rock Hall, checked in with some of our local friends and cleaned the outside of the boat. At this moment, we are huddled inside ANITA as a passing thunder storm with 35kt winds, lightening, thunder, hail and two-foot chop in the marina rumbles overhead. We're rocking in the slip, but feeling very secure. Our plan is to pick up a rental car tomorrow and drive home to Lancaster. Give us a day or two to get the systems up and running at the condo, and we'll be in touch to give hugs and kisses. Missed you all. Love, Ann and Bob
The
Previous Chapter: By Ann Miller Received 3/17/07 It is Sunday, March 11th. On Thursday, we will have been here for 3 months! We can't believe it! Our time has been filled with so much fun and new and exciting experiences. If the weather cooperates, we will be leaving the marina here on Thursday and begin the trek back to West End, on Grand Bahama Island. That was our landing spot in the Bahamas when we arrived. It could take a week to get there, followed by an unknown period of time waiting for a preferred weather window to make the dash back across the Gulf Stream to Florida. At that point, we plan to leave the boat at a marina and rent a car so that we can easily visit Florida friends and family. We are not planning to rush home. It was cooler than expected on the way down the ICW. We would prefer not to freeze on our return trip. Our target date to return home is between the middle and end of May. We will keep you informed as we make our way north. I have sent a few final pictures that reflect some of our fun. We attended a "Pirates" party in Feb., sponsored by the Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club. Our buddy group dressed the part and sang a song to support our loyal oath of "pirateness". We were great during practices, but not quite ready for the Grammys while we performed in front of our peers. Oh, well. We had a wonderful time, laughing and playing. I included a picture of a young man who follows some of the entertainers around town. He is 2 inches off the ground while doing the limbo under a flaming pole. Can you see the cigarette in his mouth? He lights it from the flame as he wiggles under the fire. We haven't seen anything quite like that before. Our younger son, Rik, and his girlfriend, Trish, visited us last week. We took them to some of our favorite spots for sunning, beach-combing and eating. They had a restful and pleasant visit and we enjoyed their company immensely. The last shot is of "BrownTip". I believe I sent a picture of him earlier while he was singing and scraping (the screwdriver across the saw). He is the most entertaining fellow during singing engagements. If you like music that makes you want to jump up and dance, then he is your man. His daytime job includes cleaning boat bottoms and changing zincs (that's something that boaters put on the shaft to protect necessary metal parts from electrolysis). The zinc is under the boat and requires the diver to have an air tank unless you can hold your breath for 10 minutes. We hired him one day to do the underwater work for us and I snapped his picture. He's a wonderful fellow, trying to make a living for himself and his family in this tropical paradise. I wonder if he will visit Rock Hall some day? We see that the winter weather is on the decline in the northeast. Good for you folks who live there. We didn't miss the cold weather at all - another reason that we will take our time getting home. See you soon!
The Previous Chapter: Tales of ANITA. From Nippers to Pete's Pub. By Ann Miller Received 2/27/07 Hi, everyone.. How are you? We're doing well here in the Abacos. I thought it was time to give you an update on our adventures. When we have a forecast of good weather for a few days, we leave the marina and sail to another cay. Here are a few of our fine adventures. Guana Cay Guana is only an hour and a half away from our marina. We sailed over with several other boats and anchored outside the small harbor called Fisher's Bay. Our friends in catamarans went into the cove, close to shore, but we stayed on the outside to have deeper water. We used the dinghy to go to shore, tied up at a rickety old dock, saw a few rays swimming under the ladder (that's always a thrill) then walked to the first pub on the beach, "Grabbers". Not much happening there, so we walked down the sandy path, past a gentleman selling fruits and vegetables, past another hot spot called "Art Cafe", past the northern harbor and then on to "Nippers". Nippers has a reputation for great food, a good view of the Atlantic , a nice beach and lots of partying. As we approached, I was shocked to see that the place was painted in brightly-colored stripes. Seemed like we were in Disneyland, but no, just Nippers. We enjoyed delicious sandwiches and a "Nipper", then walked the beach, checked out the t-shirt shop and took some pictures. There were few people here on this day, but a well-known concert is held here every year, the Barefoot Man Concert, that supposedly draws hundreds of people. It's late in March, about the time we should be heading west, so we are not sure whether or not we will attend. I think I would like to go for, oh, say, maybe 15 minutes, and then helicopter out. I just can't imagine that many people there. I have not seen one porta-potty anywhere in the islands. On the way back to the boat, we stopped at the veggie stand and bought tomatoes and a pineapple. If you keep your eyes open, you occasionally find local produce, but nothing like we're used to in Lancaster County. Most of what we eat comes from the grocery store which is stocked by supplies that come from Florida. That evening we went back to Grabbers to watch the sun set and have a drink. It was cool that evening, so we didn't stay long, but went back to the boat for dinner. We enjoyed a remarkable star show that evening, crisp and clear. We didn't take the time to investigate the rest of the island, but hopefully we will some day. Man-O-War Man-O-War is just south of Guana. We've been there several times. There is a marina there but we picked up a mooring. Man-O-War is a tidy community. There are only two restaurants, a boat-building company, a canvas shop, a few gift shops, a wood carver who is famous for making half hulls and many churches. The beach on the Atlantic side is white and clean, except for seaweed and "stuff" that washes up from the ocean. Every yard is manicured, with a variety of flowers and trees. What we enjoyed the most is a baseball field built on a hill overlooking the ocean. We doubt that the folks here will sell their property to developers; they seem to cherish it. It's a lovely, quiet, little town. Last week we took a ferry ride over to M-O-W for an island flea market. It was truly "local". There were artists and carvers and baked goods as well as the locals' garage sale items. It was a fun, hometown kind of day. There are protected, secure moorings in the harbor there so it remains on our list of places to go to hang out when we have a few days. Little Harbor Little Harbor is actually on Grand Abaco Island, the same island where we are in Marsh Harbor, but it's about 25 miles further south. There is a protected harbor there where you can either anchor or pick up a mooring. The beach bar there is called "Pete's Pub". Pete is a talented guy. He also has a shop where he creates bronze sculptures. They are quite unique and beautiful and somewhat out of our price range. The beach that is up over the hill from Pete's faces the Atlantic also. It is a great place to pick up a few shells at low tide, and just after high tide, the waves come crashing in over the near-shore reef, bringing with them pieces of sea glass. It's a great way to spend an hour and exercise the back! The food at Pete's is very good and somehow comes out of a tiny little kitchen at rapid speed. Like most restaurants in the area, if you want to have dinner there, you make a "meal reservation". There is no table or time reservations; they just want to know how much food they have to cook. Show up; find a picnic table and order a drink. Very informal. One morning while we were at Little Harbor while the wind was minimal, we took the dinghy out of the harbor, around the corner and into a large cove. The water is fairly shallow there, so large boats do not venture in. We motored over to a small beach for investigating, passing turtles and schools of small fish. We dubbed this beach the "conch shell graveyard." There were hundreds of old, broken, gray conch shells that had been cut open for their meat and then dumped. We found two small shells that had not been cut and considered ourselves fortunate. We put those two shells into the dinghy while we continued to walk the beach. When we returned to the dinghy, we were"hit in the face" with a stench that we hadn't experienced before. When we looked down, we realized that there was something seeping from the one shell. (Yes, we had examined them before we put them in the dink!). We swished it around in the water and looked at it again. Ah, there was a critter in there; we could just barely see his foot. We figured that we should put him back in the water to go about whatever it was that he was doing, but as we swished one more time, the deceased slid out of the shell, along with some slime that could rival the aroma of a skunk. It was such a pretty shell! We had a decision to make. Could we handle it? Absolutely! We put clothespins on our noses and motored back to ANITA. Get the clorox! We soaked the shell for a while, then set it out in the sun. Two hours later we gave it the sniff test. Yuck....needed another soak. Well, we finally got the stink out of it and she is now a beautiful adornment on our boat. By the way, there is a recently enacted law that forbids non-Bahamians from taking live conch. The government has realized that the conch numbers are dwindling and they are beginning to enforce restrictions. There is also a moratorium on certain types of fish, including bahamian grouper. Well, got to go. We are expecting son, Rik and his girlfriend, Trish to fly in tomorrow for a week's vacation. Must make a shopping list for the morning's chores.
The Previous Chapter: By Ann Miller Received 1/25/07 Link To Pictures - you do not need to "sign in" at this site to simply view the pictures. Just click on the "View Slide Show" button. We spent a few days in Hopetown last week and it was such a pleasant experience, I thought you might enjoy hearing about it. There was much debate in the early morning about whether or not the wind was "right" for a trip to Hopetown. It was blowing from the south at 15-20, but by the time the decision was made to go and we were out in the Sea of Abaco, the wind had died to 10-15. We were able to sail about half of the way, then needed to attend more to the chartplotter to help us through the narrow, shallow points that had to be passed. As we made our way into the Hopetown channel, a large ferry boat came out, through us a wake, and because it was near low tide with little water under us, our boat rode up one side of his wave and came down hard on the bottom. Bob was not a happy captain. Of course he blasted him on the radio, for naught. After we picked up a mooring and went into Hopetown Marina to pay, Bob told the owner, Rudy, about the incident. He immediately called the Port Authority and filed a complaint. Evidently, it is an ever growing problem with some of the ferry captains, not showing consideration for smaller vessels. Oh well. No damage done as far as we can tell. Oh, yes, about the pleasant experience - One day we walked around the town (more like a village), visited some shops, made a few small purchases, met our friends from Koel and Mongoose Magic who also made the trek, and called the Abaco Inn to come into town to pick us up in their taxi so that we could enjoy lunch at their restaurant, which we did. The Abaco Inn is several miles south of Hopetown on Elbow Cay and probably has the most beautiful view of the Atlantic that we have seen thus far. The Inn is lovely; the food was scrumptious, the view breathtaking and the weather that day was mostly sunny, 75*. After lunch we walked about a quarter of a mile farther south to Seaspray Marina which is also nice but with a very narrow, shallow entrance channel. There was only one sailboat there. The taxi returned us to the dinghy dock where we had left our dinghies, then back to our respective boats for some R&R. (That lunch made us sooooo tired.) We did meet for happy hour by the pool (the water was a little too cool for our tastes) that evening, enjoying the star show in the overhead sky. I wish I knew more about stars. I will need a big star chart if we make this trip again sometime. The following day we walked to the top of the Hopetown lighthouse, 101 inside steps, about 20 steps leading up to it. No problem, man. The view was gorgeous with the blue-green water and the blue sky. I will send some pictures and hope that you will be able to enjoy the colors. Later we went through the Malone Museum which is being developed by volunteers. It shows Hopetown's history from the 1500s. Quite interesting. Later that day, we heard through the marina grapevine that visitors may accompany the lighthouse keeper when he lights the lantern at the top. Well, how could we pass up an opportunity like that? We met the others at the lighthouse near sunset, and the keeper for the day, Franklin, invited us to climb up and watch him light the lantern. It seemed a shorter hike the second time. Our friend, Antha, from Mongoose Magic was chosen to turn the crank which raised the weight, which turns the lens as it falls. I don't know much about lenses, but it was a huge Fresnel lens which rotates around the lantern, shining far out into the water (20 miles, I think) with a flashing every-5-seconds pattern. The weight needs to be cranked up every two hours. It was a unique experience to be able to witness the operation from a bird's eye view. One day we gathered with some other folks and took a Froggies charter. That's a company that runs boats out to the reef for diving and snorkeling. We left Hopetown, went south past Lubbers Quarters, a castle, Tahiti Beach and on to Sandy Cay State Park which is mostly water. We snorkeled for an hour or so, spotting some fish, some nice coral, and a few rays. It was a little rolly and rocky at that spot because there was an ocean cut nearby that was sending in some waves. Antha and I stayed in the water until the last minute, letting the others get on the boat ahead of us. This way, we did not have to sit on a rolling ship, which often has an unfortunate gastrointestinal result. Good plan. We were fine. We were taken to another spot, Little Harbor, to enjoy a "local" Tiki restaurant called "Pete's Pub." What a blast. The kitchen was inside a small building; the bar was under the tiki hut, and the tables were on the beach. The grouper was delicious. We plan to go back there again. We could take our boat or rent a car and drive there. As we were leaving Little Harbor, Suzie and Ron on Easy Time were coming into the harbor, picking up a mooring to spend the night. Such a small world, half a world away. On the return trip to Hopetown, Froggies let us snorkel a little more at a sandy shallow spot where we could pick up shells if they were empty. We found a few sand dollars. Now the trick is to get them home; they are very fragile. We ate twice at Captain Jack's in Hopetown and can highly recommend it. Not fancy (good); great food (good); not expensive (very good). All in all, it was a great experience. Hopetown can also be reached by ferry, if we have any visitors who do not appreciate the fine art of sailing. That's about it for now. I must go back to my task of writing a "jingle" for our group to sing when we go to a Pirates Party for the Royal Marsh Harbour Yacht Club. (Sounds fancy, but not) There are not enough hours in the day!
Another Previous Chapter: By Ann Miller Received 1/17/07 Link To Pictures - you do not need to "sign in" at this site to simply view the pictures. Just click on the "View Slide Show" button. We continue to thrive in our winter home. The cold fronts that come through bring very little rain, but plenty of wind and some clouds. The temperature ranges from 68 to 73 instead of the normal 75 to 78. It's not difficult to adjust to that. We stay at the marina when it's blowing instead of cruising around with the boat. Yesterday we had a very busy day and I will give you a picture of our typical day. I did two loads of laundry upon arising. There was already wash in both machines that someone brought in from a moored boat in the harbor. I put my bag down (in line) and went into the marina office to acquire tokens which are used in the machines, not quarters. Each token costs $3.00. Yep! $3 for the washer/ $3 for the dryer; that's $6 per load times 4 loads per week - a nice tidy sum of $24 to do laundry each week. And did I happen to mention that the laundry is outside? That adds a whole new dimension to "doing the wash." Eventually it's my turn to put the laundry in, followed by stretching exercises, switching the laundry to dryer, breakfast, clean-up, pickup and fold laundry. OK, now the day can begin. It's 10:00AM. We gather our cart, our flexible cooler, and a backpack, hustle it and us into the dinghy, and we're off to the grocery store. Most people on our side of the harbor walk into town and take a taxi back, but we use the dinghy if at all possible. You know how Bob loves his dinghy. It's a nice 5-minute ride to the other side, wind whipping in your hair, spray splashing in your face. We tie up at the dock with 20 other dinghies, in a space meant for 6. We climb from the floating dock that is rocking to and fro from all the boat action, to the concrete stairs (no railng) to a platform above which becomes the street. We walk two blocks to a good-sized grocery store that has almost everything you want if the "grocery boat" has been in. If we hit it on a bad day, there are few fruits or vegetables, dairy products are questionable and forget snack foods. We have finally noticed a pattern; food seems to come in on Wednesdays and Saturdays and so we have been fortunate not to have made too many fruitless trips. Just to give you an idea of the cost of foods, here is a sampling. A six-pack of soda is $4.39; a pack of romaine lettuce is $5.40; cereal is at least $5.25; a 10-oz. bag of thin pretzels is $3.00 and chips, you can't find them. Occasionally we'll be lucky and find a bag of corn chips for $4.49 to be able to use for appetizers. And last, but not least, a case of beer is $44!. You heard it right! $44!!!! Most boxed and canned foods as well as deli meats and cheeses are about the same price as home. Steak, pork, ham, chicken, fish run slightly higher than home but not painfully so. We have not yet had to purchase paper products because we brought quite a lot. I had been warned by other boaters while we were in Florida that paper products are very expensive here. I looked at a 6-pack of toilet paper the other day and it was $10.00. Do we begin to count sheets? The bright side is that the water in Marsh Harbor is put through a reverse osmosis system that makes it drinkable. We filter it into our water tanks, then put it through a Brita pitcher and it is fine to drink. Did I mention that we pay the marina $30.00 each month for our water? Then we schlep all the goodies back to the dinghy after a quick stop at the post office and the liquor store. A small manila envelope cost $13.00 to mail to the US. Wine is comparably priced to US, rum is cheaper and most other liquors are slightly higher. Bob has taken to rum and diet coke; I'm still switching around. I drink a lot of water and Crystal Light ice tea. The ride back across the harbor to the marina is usually more exciting since the wind is often on our face on the return trip. "More exciting" translates to "wetter". After having returned from a grocery trip with a wet box of cereal, we have finally figured out what has to go into the cooler and what has to go into the big ziploc bags. It's all a matter of trial and error. It takes a while to store all the goods; everything in its place, you know. Then we have a quick lunch and it's off to the snorkeling reef. We have learned how to get our wet suits on and off within 10 minutes (by sitting down on a rock for the first 5 minutes) rather than the 30min we needed on our maiden dip.. We have escaped all cameras during these private and embarrassing moments, so far. No pictures, thank goodness. We have seen some beautiful fish and I will try to send a few pics of them next time. Our friend, Ron, has a case for his camera that allows him to take pictures under water. Neat-O. When we return to the marina after snorkeling, all gear and suits must be washed with clean water, then shower for us and a little rest. That's the perfect time for reading and computering. Later we get together at the marina for happy hour with friends, snacks and drinks if we are going to be eating on board that night, or just a quick drink if we have planned an evening outing. This past week we went to a "Chili Cookoff", a Jr. Junkanoo, a Happy Hour special with live music, and dinner at the marina with "Brown Tip" music and dancing. It was a busy week. The next time I write, I will explain more about these interesting adventures. Tomorrow we are hoping to be able to leave the marina for a few days and go sailing to another island, perhaps Elbow Cay, where the town of Hopetown is located. Details to follow.
PS. While I have been typing, Bob has been on the bow changing anchors (again). That's a whole story in itself - the "Bruce" or the "CQR". Everyone has an opinion and a story. He's not satisfied wih either so he continues to experiment.
Good wishes to all, Ann Miller and Bob Halter This page was last updated on 03/20/09.
|
