||||Slick's Adventure

I have managed to make it only as far as Bimini. I have decided that the weather in the Bahamas really has an issue with Slick and I. I am not sure why, but I think it has something to do with Slick’s 7.5 foot draft. Anyway, I will catch up to date and hopefully the next blog post will be from the east coast. Oh, and there will be a new feature at the end of the blog.

It was easy to hang around Staniel Cay and hard to find reasons to actually leave. The place is quite a special one and one evening the owner and I got into a discussion. Basically I told him the was the second best cruising bar in the world. He asked me where is the first. Obviously I was just joking with him, but this got me thinking. Its hard to find a place like that, the view, the history, the friendly locals and the steady stream of visitors so you always meet someone interesting. Combine that with a great anchorage and beautiful water and you have something. So I guess it would be a toss up for me, Kramer’s in Palau, the Mai Kai Yacht Club in Bora Bora and Staniel Cay. I am not really sure which order I would put them in or which one I would go back to first.

Anyway, enough of my top three. The time there passed meeting fun people and hanging out with a few crews from mega-yachts and even getting to know some of the locals. I made a friend, Martin, who was also single handing. He came over from Florida in a thirty foot boat. One morning he woke me up a bit frantic. A passing catamaran caught his anchor line and drug him up into the shallows and he was hard aground. Try as we could, Mutley and I could not free him. So, he had to wait until high tide, which was going to be awhile as the tide was on its way out. Eventually when the spring tide came back in we pulled him off and into deeper water.

It was really relaxing there. I could forever hang out in a rocking chair on the porch and watch the sun go down meeting whatever traveler or local happened to walk by. I felt really at home there. One night we had a bonfire on the beach, we used pallets as wood. I used to do this a lot when I was younger, so it seemed only natural.

On one of the many lazy days my phone broke. This is a shame really. My friend sent the phone to me and it is my source for weather and contacts and everything else that people need smart phones for. It turns out though that there is a known problem with the microUSB slot in them and they break often. So now I can’t charge the phone in the normal way. Well what’s an enginerd to do? At first I tried to solder one from an old phone in, but I don’t have quite the right stuff here, so I hacked up the old phone and made a charger out of it. So this is how I must charge my phone, good thing I have two batteries I guess.

I kept finding reasons to hang around and not leave. It wasn’t all fun reasons though. One day, I was going to leave and a massive thunderstorm rolled in right as I wanted to go. The storm probably lasted an hour and there was maybe 30 knots of wind coming from the west where there is no protection. There was ground striking lighting all around and driving rain that made it so you couldn’t even see 100 feet. I thought I had better stay and go the next day.

Unfortunately that night was a tragedy. We had a very good time in the bar and even though there were not many of us it was a great little party. As the bar closed we all said our good byes and I was chatting with some people out front. Then the radio from the bar lit up loudly that a tender had gone onto the rocks and many people were hurt and the tender partially deflated. The tender managed to get to the bar and the staff of the club woke up the nurse and everyone was taken to the clinic. One guy was ejected from the dinghy and he had massive scalp wounds and punctured an artery as well as his sinuses. I am not sure how he didn’t break his neck too but he certainly had a concussion and his back was cut quite bad on the rocks. Another guy had a medium head wound and a few others had some smaller stuff, bruised rib or so. But they were all in shock.

The medical facilities there are quite dismal as the clinic is just the front of the nurse’s house and there is a very limited supply of medical equipment and certainly a lack of medical personal. Since I had training from the military and prior to this trip I stuck around to help. The primary goal was to stop the bleeding of the most injured person and the nurse and a local EMT took care of that. They were aided by another guy that was at the bar. I washed out the head wound of the second guy and took to helping with the first. The night turned into a long one and several liters of IV fluid later, bandages and pressure and a lot of moral boosting talk, the two most injured guys were stabilized. I left at 6 am pretty tired and I guess they were airlifted shortly after that. It was amazing though how difficult it was to coordinate the air service. I guess it would be one thing in a far off Pacific island, but the Coasties are only in Florida, an hour helicopter ride away. I guess though it was hard to get the Bahamians and the American Air Crews to communicate. Never the less, the last I heard is that both guys are OK even though the worse of the two needed some surgery. I think too that, given the popularity of Staniel Cay, the government really needs to build a better, proper clinic there.

So I still didn’t leave the next day, but slept. And I stayed just a little longer in one of my favorite places. Finally it looked like if I didn’t leave I would never leave and so the weather, my only real boss, forced me to go. I gave the bar a parting gift, a mask I traded for in the South Pacific, they hung it up. After a few too many more last nights I finally left.

I stayed the night off Shroud Cay and then the next day into Nassau. I only went into Nassau for one reason and that was to eat a delicious cheese burger at the Green Parrot. They have one of the best cheese burgers in the entire sailing world, perhaps even the best. Certainly the best in the Caribbean. I had been looking forward to it for three years and it did not disappoint me. It was every bit as good as I remember. That evening I picked up some groceries at the supermarket. Turns out the supermarket is a foreign version of Whole Foods and was the most expensive place in the entire Bahamas. Ouch, 9 bucks for regular bacon and 6 for peanuts that are not even that good.

Anyway, the next morning I departed for Chub Cay but when the weather looked like it would take a nasty turn I decided to go through the night. As I was coming up to the top of the Tongue of the Ocean I spotted some pilot whales playing nearby. Then Jim Gentry went off and on the end was a dancing dorado. I put the boat in forward idle (yes it was a motor) and reeled the little lady in. I was solo so landing her was a bit harder than usual and I couldn’t find the mahi-mahi-masher so I just put alcohol in her gills. Anyway, nice fresh sushi and filets the next night and fishwiches later.

The motor across the banks was easy at first but around midnight the wind picked up on the cheek from the south and the waves built quickly in the shallow water. It became a pound just tight enough I couldn’t sail. The banks are shallow and you don’t want to get off the designated path. Slick hammered her way to the lee of Bimini and we anchored about 4 am.

The next morning I awoke. I bathed in the clear blue water, and rinsed off with some fresh and though to myself, that is probably the last time I will bath in the ocean as where I go next the water is not so clean. Then I realized that this trip really is over. It was such a weird feeling, a sad feeling. As eager as I am to move on, it’s just hard to grasp the idea that this is over. People keep asking me how I feel having sailed around the world. I guess it’s sort of like when I finished the Ph.D. The feeling is confusing and disorienting, having reached a major life goal.

Anyway, those thoughts were all bashed out of my brain as I headed to the inside anchorage of North Bimini. It was a solid bash into 20 knots and exposed ocean swell running against current. The waves were steep and nasty. I made it to the entrance of a channel I was told had plenty of water and the charts showed 12 feet. Luckily, we came in at high tide and there was only about a foot of water below Slick’s keel. With the running waves it could have been pretty nasty had I tried at any other time, the grounding would have been real bad. To be fair, I didn’t know it was high tide, I just got lucky. Once inside it was impossible to find a place deep enough to anchor. So I ended up far from anything but Resort World. Slick and I are anchored in the turning basin for sea planes.

Bimini kind of sucks. I can only leave at high tide. They didn’t have any diesel and I had to take Mutley the Super Dinghy over to the next island. I handcuffed myself by even coming in here as now I need the weather and tides to line up. Something they don’t seem to do. The next hop is crossing the Gulf Stream so I want some fair weather for it. Right now we are riding out a double passing front and its pretty miserable. I actually set a second anchor because the wind is trying to blow me into a barge.

The place isn’t all bad though. I have met some cool people and the locals are really friendly. A small bird landed on Slick yesterday at the outset of the storm. It could barely fly and when I came out to look at it fell into the oil-sheening water. I scooped him out and gave him a soapy bath and let him get warm in an old rag. He then was totally confused flying around the inside of Slick. I caught him and put him outside and he flew off. He didn’t quite make it to shore though so I went and rescued him in the dinghy. By this time the oil was gone so I took him to shore and put him in a pile of logs. I assume he is fine.

So that’s it. Maybe I will leave Saturday for Florida. I don’t know. Then on to the next thing, up the coast and keep moving the ball down the field on starting my own company Oh one last thing. I decided to monetize the website. I am trying to do this in the least annoying and intrusive way possible. So I will start to write short reviews and links to products I used or books that helped me or whatever. Follow the links and spend some money and Slick and I get a little percentage. The amount we get is based on what you buy after following the link, not actually the item itself. So go buy a TV or something!

The first one of these I will put in will be about the author Alan Watts. I bring this up because of a comment on one of my videos about a joke I repeat all the time. Anyway, there are two books I found especially helpful, Instant Wind Forecasting and Instant Weather Forecasting. In these two books Alan Watts teaches you to read the clouds to understand what sort of weather is coming and where the wind is. They are most helpful, especially out in the open ocean as the weather forecasts are typically pretty broad. They cover at the smallest maybe 30 miles or so. By learning to read the clouds you can predict your own local weather, or at least know what is happening. Both of these books are full of pictures and charts. I found them to be generally very accurate too even though they mostly focus on coastal based stuff. You have to be a little patient with them though, it isn’t like they are something you just sit down and read. Oh, and the joke is that nearly every cloud you see indicates “deteriorating conditions.”

The circumnavigation is complete. Staniel Cay is the first place we pull into that we have been before and after three and a half years of going around to some of the most beautiful places on earth I still really like this one. So that’s good. I feel a great sense of accomplishment but shouldn’t rest too long. I still need to get back to Boston and move on to my next mission.

I should extend a tremendous thank you to everyone who helped and joined me along the way though. I suppose I can list them in order of miles spent with me:

Nathan – 11,000
Zach – 10,000
Susanna (the Phantom Traveler) 5,000 (not all sailing though)
Mathew – 4000
Sean – 3800
Joep – 1400
Linda – 1300
Alex – 900
Moritz 600
Will – 300
and the other visitors, Luisa, Lesley and Sara.

I hope I didn’t forget anyone. And also thank you to all the people who I met, old friends I found in various places and all those who helped me in any number of ways. This list is too big to recall.

Meanwhile, back in Staniel Cay. We left San Salvador after quite a nice week and headed to Rum Cay. We only stayed the night though as it didn’t seem that interesting. The next day we had a long spin run to Cat Island and anchored off the Bite. On the way we caught a fairly decent sized skip-jack so we had that for dinner with some friends we made on a catamaran. The next morning we left for Staniel and had another fantastic spin run, this time with a poled out jib. We hooked an enormous mahi but it got away. I could feel him still biting the line but the hook wasn’t grabbing. When I reeled it in to see what the problem was, the hook was bent straight!

We pulled in through the cut and anchored between Big Major and Little Major Cays. This was it, the finishing point of the circumnavigation. I felt only a little different but I was happy to have accomplished it. So, we went to the Stanaiel Cay Yacht Club to celebrate. Things were a little different that I remember, like they added a restaurant, but it is still a great spot.

I’ve been hanging around here since. And why not? It is absolutely stunning in terms of beauty, its full of fun people and you can watch children pet sharks, not to mention eat endangered conch every night. Oh, and there is even a beach here where pigs will swim off and greet you hoping you have some food. There is also a grotto here form a James Bond movie, but I saw that last time.

On a bit of a quaint Bahamian side of things, the day after we arrived the Bahamian FAA came in and closed the runway for having too many potholes. This was a problem for us as Alex had a flight out. Well, all the flights were now leaving from Black Point, a few cays down. We asked around about this and couldn’t find much of an answer since the place is pretty sleepy and answers are notalways readily available. Nor is anything else really, except conch. Anyway, we walked out to the airstrip to check it out ourselves. We just walked on to the run way and had a stroll, no security or anything like that. And why should there be? The runway indeed had a few potholes and some scrapes, but in the end it is no worse that any of the many grass or sand fields I have seen all over the world. Never the less we still had to figure out how to get Alex on his flight. So we stopped into a gulf cart rental shop next to the airport. They said we had to go to Samanta’s house as she was the rep for Flamingo Air. No Office? Nope, just knock on her door, it’s the purple one on the corner over across the bridge. We went, but no Samanta. That’s OK because this is a small island and everyone knows everyone else’s business. So we asked at the general store next door. They told us there was a shuttle boat and we just needed to be there an hour and a half before the flight. OK, great. They naturally also took the time to complain about the government and the new taxes and how they have been asking for a new runway for years. So, satisfied, we went and had some conch. But we thought we better come check how it all works, so we showed up for the afternoon flight and met Samanta and sure enough, there would be no problems for Alex the next morning.

Or would there? The next morning we showed up and, on island time, so did Samanta. They weighed Alex’s luggage and he was a little over the weight. Samanta asked for a fee but how could we pay, there is no cash machine on the island and we had no cash? Ahh, there was a form to fill out and the credit card would be billed in the next to weeks. Well another lady who was checking in had hardly any luggage and volunteered to take one of his bags, putting him under the limit. Samanta agreed as all this was easier than processing the form. After everyone was ready, they boarded the boat and that was the last I ever saw of Alex.

I heard later though that when he got to Black Point they took him off the plane as the entire thing was overweight. I assume they grabbed him as he was the biggest guy on there, I am not sure. In any case, this was a problem as there are only two flights a day and he would then miss his connecting flight by an hour. Nonsense, the Bahamians declared and the flight took off with out him, they promised to come right back and get him. An hour and a half later another plane showed up and took him and a few stragglers to Nassau and all was right again.

I could never imagine such a thing happening in the US. I guess though I have gotten used to this sort of thing, that seems to be the way it works in much of the world. It was not such a shock to me but I think it was probably the first time for Alex. Anyway, it was a great visit and he was surely helpful on the trip and we had a great time. Now I am alone again, but at least it is in a place with people around and a place that I really enjoy.

So next up I head to Nassau, then Chub Cay, across the banks to Bimini and then to Florida. I am not sure where I will land yet but I am thinking Cape Canaveral since it is pretty easy to get into. I guess even though the circular part of the trip is over and I am certainly a much better sailor than when I started, I still cannot take the last 2,000 miles for granted. It is the walk out, but in the end, the walk out is where most people get hurt. So there is still a little danger left, especially with unsettled spring weather coming off a continent.

Never the less, I am eager to get Slick to her new home in Boston. She will be staying at Constitution Marina for the summer and I will try to work towards starting a waste to energy company with the specific goal of creating a package solution for all the waterless islands I have visited around the world. I spend most my days designing and simulating parts of the machine and hope to begin prototyping when I return to Boston. With the meeting of my recent major life goal, this has become my new mission.

Oh, And here is a great big map of the trip so far:
 

Its been awhile since I made a blog post. So this one might turn sort of long. But plenty of great things have been going on like sailing and diving and visitors. Plus I have now crossed all lines of longitude. Well, we did that a few weeks ago but at least that box is checked.

Slick and I left USVI and had a short and sort of unpleasant sail through the Virgin Passage and stopped in Culebra, Puerto Rico. The protection of the harbor is incredible and so off I went to check in. Yes, even though I left USVI and went to Puerto Rico I still had to check in, with customs at least. So I parked the dinghy at the “Dinghy Dock” bar and walked out to the airport. The airport had a grass runway that wasn’t even flat. But the check in went smoothly and I had to get some special sticker issued by Homeland Security. Weird, I think it is just a revenue generator but I am not sure.

I was only in Culebra a few days and spent the evenings at the very relaxed Dinghy Dock bar. They have a good atmosphere and good food. Best of all, as the name implies, there is a place to tie up the dinghy. They feed the scraps to tarpon which draws in a lot of frigate birds. On one of the nights the frigate birds even enticed a labrador to swim across the narrow channel and try to retrieve them.

I did some diving there too. It was very cheap which was nice. I met some fun people on the dive too but the dive itself was just OK. Actually I thought it was a bit boring. The best part was seeing an enormous slipper lobster but otherwise it was sort of run of the mill coral and not much else. The disturbing thing though was that the dive sites were littered with unexploded ordinance. See something new every time I guess.

I came into San Juan a few days later with the express purpose of picking up my friend Alex. He actually started the trip with Nate and I but got off in Newport. So just a short rider. The way into San Juan brings you by a tremendous walled waterfront culminating in two giant forts built by the Spanish a long time ago. Once into the harbor there are plenty of cruise ships to dodge but I finally made it way in to the marina. As I was pulling into the dock the lead dock boy yelled at me that I am not allowed to go boating alone. Eh, what’s that you say? There was obviously a huge dissonance between us but once Slick was secured in the slip I heard no more of it other than I must be stupid.

I went for a walk through Old San Juan which was quite nice and I guess I can see why so many cruise ships call here. I was having trouble finding dinner though so I relegated myself to eating at a Subway. So when I left the US I remember Subway being one of the few favorable chains and not really having any sort of problem with it. As opposed to fast-food burger places that severely damage my poor tummy. Well, eating at Subway turned out to be quite painful. So I went to pick up Alex at the airport.

Miraculously he arrived with all his luggage. That makes three guests in a row, which makes me think something bad is about to happen. Anyway, we headed back to the boat and he settled in. The next morning we went out to provision and the only place we could find for breakfast was another Subway. Well, fool me once… We provisioned up and fueled up and were basically ready to go early so Alex and I headed for a walk downtown and through the Old San Juan again. It was very good to catch up with an old friend. That night we were pretty hungry and wanted to have a nice last meal before setting off. The only place close by that didn’t involve crossing several lanes of high speed traffic was a Sizzler. I hadn’t eaten at a Sizzler since I was 12. It was a truly painful experience. I am not sure what it is with American food, or at least system gastronomy.

We left the next day on a double overnighter to Cockburn on Grand Turk. The passage started out easy, and indeed stayed easy. It was a good introduction to bluewater cruising for Alex. On the way we saw whales broaching in the distance and bottlenose dolphins swam with us awhile. Alex hadn’t seen that before and they put on quite a show, I think there was probably 50 of them playing around Slick. As we were coming up to the banks of Grand Turk a whale surfaced very close to Slick but went down fast enough all we saw was the disturbed water. These whales, humpbacks, are migrating this time of year through here and we expected to see them. They can be mean though, unlike the bride’s whale that came across the Atlantic with us. We landed in Turks late in the afternoon, and unfortunately we hadn’t caught any fish.

We anchored were all the day boats that service the cruise ships are. It was easy to get into and gave fine protection for the night. The next morning I went into customs and checked in. On the way back I stopped by the bar, Jack’s Shack, to ask a few questions. The owner, Jack, from West Roxbury started chatting and when he found that on the way we crossed off my last line of longitude he insisted I have a drink. It was 9:30 AM.

We tried to move Slick up to the town but the fringing reef was too shallow to cross so we ended up back down by the cruise ship terminal but a little further north, anchored off Governor’s Beach and the ominous but beached Mega Triton One. This turned out to be a great anchorage and once the cruise ships left it was very quiet except for the islands generator.

We headed into town and arranged for some diving. The town itself was quite surreal but in a way that is not possible to describe. This is the capital of the country but you would never know it. There are a few shops, mostly catering to tourists off the ships and when the ships blow the return horn the entire town closes down and some crazies get let out. While the ships are around though, you can take all sorts of wacky tours, like segways, quads and mules to tour the island. No one on these tours looks happy and I am not sure why, perhaps it is all the dust and salt flake off the salt ponds, or perhaps it is because they decided to spent their vacation on a cruise ship.

Anyway, we arranged for the dive boat to pick us up on Slick, which was very convenient. We headed out on the first day of diving. Alex hadn’t dove in several years and I paired up with the rest of the group. The dives are all big wall dives with plenty of coral and fish and with the amazing visibility the view off and down the wall into the deep blue. I really enjoyed it, and so did Alex until he ruptured his eardrum. No more diving for him. I did a few more dives there and then it was time to go. The group that we were diving with were staying a month, they also didn’t breath. So some of the dives were an hour and fifteen minutes long, it was pretty incredible. When we suited up with them the first time they all had thick wetsuits which confused us. After being underwater that long though, it was clear why because it got cold.

We had a fairly easy overnighter to Mayaguana. About an hour off Grand Turk, two humpbacks surfaced right next to Slick. They were so close we could have jumped out and rode them. Shocked, we were not really able to get a picture as we were busy turning hard to port. They left us alone after that and the passage was a bit boring. Just more dolphins and some good sailing, and no fish.

We arrived at the isolated outpost island of Mayaguana at about 8 in the morning and the entrance was very tricky. We had to traverse about 3 miles of ten foot water littered with coral heads. We, of course, couldn’t see them as the sun was in our eyes, so we went real slow. We could only get about 1.5 miles from town before it was too shallow for Slick so it was a long dinghy ride. I went ashore to check in, it was a Saturday and of course customs was closed. I met a man on the street and he told me to go to the house with the pink roof and yell for Ina, she is the customs lady. I did and she opened the shop for me. Abraham’s Bay is a settlement that has about 150 people in the most isolated part of the Bahamas. Nothing happens there. Nothing except the weekly mail boat that comes on Mondays and the whole town vacates to go meet it. This is only important as Alex and I really wanted lunch before heading off to San Salvador, but no such luck, at least not at first. We waited probably 4 hours to get our lunch.

We spent four days there, mostly riding out a cold front which can be very nasty down here. It was nice in the sense that it was a giant swimming pool. The sand banks of the Bahamas are stunning to be in, as long as they are deep enough for your boat. We had enough free time that we managed to improvise a fix for Jocelyn the wind turbine with some wrong sized blades someone gave me awhile back. She works away now and I think is even quieter than before. So with the wind blowing and her working we now have power to spare. We were not able to leave after lunch so we tried to spear fish for lobster on the last day of lobster season. No luck, but the water and the reef were gorgeous, so that made it worth it anyway. And we saw a giant sting ray, which was nice.

In the next afternoon we headed out following exactly our track as before and made for San Salvador. It was about a 110 mile sail and started out pretty heavy but by the evening died down. It was an easy overnighter and on the way in we caught two barracuda. I was hoping for tuna. We had to throw them back as it isn’t safe to eat them here. One was pretty big though and it took me awhile to get my hook back, so I had to revive him in the flow of the boat. Once he awoke he looked up and asked why his mouth hurt so bad and off he went. Anchoring in the sand flats off, yet another, Cockburn Town was easy and I made arrangements to do some more diving. The two islands with the same city name both claim to be the site of Columbus’s first land fall.

This place is very close in terms of diving to Grand Turk except here is full of sharks. The dive guide carries a spear with him and spears lion fish and feeds them to the sharks. Its a pretty incredible thing to watch. The wall is huge and there are parts that fall right to 7000 feet and the visibility is well over 200 feet. In fact I would say the Bahamas has the best visibility in the entire world except for maybe Niue. On one of the dives I saw a hammerhead shark come up briefly from the deep but he was only around for maybe ten seconds and I couldn’t get a picture. He was way down so it wouldn’t have come out anyway.

Everything has been closed due to the Easter weekend but that’s OK. We have managed to keep ourselves entertained on this isolated little island and have completely enjoyed the friendly locals and the gorgeous water. I was wondering how it would be coming back to the Bahamas, I liked them so much the first time and was curious if after going around the world if I still would. Pleasantly, I still do. I am just hoping the fishing gets better, I remember it being some of the best.

Next up we move to Rum Cay and then Conception Island and finally we will land in Staniel Cay. This will be the first port I return to and at that point the circumnavigation will be complete. Alex leaves from there too so I will be alone again, right now for the rest of the trip but I am sure someone is bound to visit for the trip up the East Coast back to Boston.