April 26-May 1

I am from Long Island.  The one in New York.  We visited that one last summer at the beginning of our trip.  It was nostalgic and sweet.  Later last summer, we visited another Long Island.  The one in Maine.  That was traumatic but tasty.  You may recall that we bought 3 steamed lobsters for $12 and enjoyed an amazing lobster roll dinner.  You may also recall that I was cast in a new movie called “Attack of the Killer Swarming Flies”.  If you do not recall, and you want to snort that coffee out through your nose, now would be a good time to read this post:  http://www.conwaysailors.com/attack-of-the-killer-flies/  (I just read it again and it is still just as funny as last August!)

They say the third time’s a charm.  It seems that there is yet another Long Island- in the southern Bahamas.  North enough to be free of drug smugglers and refugees from Haiti.  South enough to be free from tourists (you decide which is worse.  Just Kidding!  -ish.).

Chris and the kids are always up for a long sail. More time to fish!

We had to sail 163 miles to get to Long Island from our first Bahamian port at Great Inagua.  After the 3 ½ day passage from the BVIs just a couple of days earlier, I was not yet ready for another overnight passage.  But there were a lot of islands to see, and Hurricane Season was looming…

Reese reels one in.

Bryson and Porter check the fish book for facts about our latest catch.

 “It’s a fine line between the darkness and the dawn.  They say in the darkest night, there’s a light beyond.” – ART GARFUNKEL – ALL I KNOW

My log book, which is becoming less factual and much funnier, peppered with bouts of philosophy, says this of my overnight watch (keep in mind that nothing stated at 3:35am should ever be recorded or too seriously contemplated).

4/27/13

0335: Happy Birthday Rosemary! (that’s Chris’ mom:)  We are tight-reaching under a full moon next to Acklins Island, heading north to Long Island. Anything Goes is right behind us. We caught a skip jack and a barracuda during the day. Going fast: 7.3-8 kts. But this point of sail takes all my concentration. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster. Too many variables changing all the time and we are heeling so much. I am thinking about how little I have learned about sailing this year. I am sadly understanding how little I used to know and I thought I knew a lot. I’ve been a galley slave, schoolmarm, or happy passenger this year, riding the lazarette most of the time. I wish I had more energy to devote to learning and practicing, but underway is the only time I get to rest a bit. I felt seasick before. Headachy. I lay down for few hours and the boat down below looks like it went through a blender. That’s what happens when I stop cleaning………………geez Erica.  It’s tough being the “General Manager of the Universe,” isn’t it?

0629 The sun is rising as I monitor a ship heading right at us at the Northwest corner of Acklins Island.

The sun explodes behind the clouds as a ship passes us to starboard.

See what I mean?  In the span of a few sentences, I…

1. berated myself for not being a “good enough” sailor.  Really?  We’re closing in on 6000 miles under our keel in under ten months.  It’s probably safe to say that I’ve got the basics down.  It’s all Chris’ fault, actually.  He is a natural born sailor.  He has spot-on instincts on top of years of experience at the helm of a big boat.  Although I am biased, I believe he would give most professional sailors a run for their money.  To be a First Mate next to him is a constant exercise in humility, but also an inspiration to continue to learn.

2. complained about being seasick (get over it), and…

3. pitied myself for being the only one who cleans the boat.  Luckily, upon writing those martyr-like (and untrue) words, I remembered the admonition of motivational speaker Cheryl Richardson.  I was at a retreat she was running a few years ago and she asked me why I wasn’t spending more time taking care of myself.  I launched into my usual tirade about how busy I was raising three children and taking care of a house, volunteering for this, that, and the other thing, and blah, blah, blah.  She interrupted me and asked, rather bluntly, “So what’s it like being the General Manager of the Universe?”

Stunned, I came to a sudden and instant understanding.  The world does not, in fact, balance upon my ability to keep everything neat and organized with well-mannered, well-fed, happy, smart, and creative children.  And yet, when I find myself overwhelmed and overextended, I feel as if the whole world rests on my shoulders.  I decided then and there to turn in my resignation for this ridiculous job title.  It changed my perspective when I got back home.  I took myself much less seriously.  I took my everyday tasks less seriously.  And I found that I could find time to do the things I love without the whole world collapsing.  It is still a bit surprising, given our society, that the less important and necessary I feel, the happy and more at peace I am.  Hmmm.

When I saw that I was writing, albeit at 3:35am, that I had slid back into that perceived role, I was so grateful for Cheryl Richardson’s sharp and to-the-point question.  How does it feel to the be the General Manager of the Universe?  I wrote that question to myself to shake myself out of my funk and ended up contemplating the sentences in my logbook for three hours.  All while running the boat and monitoring said ship towards the NW corner of Acklins Island.

“Morning has broken, like first morning…”

The hours of solitude during night watches bring so many varied experiences for me.  Chris is a better night sailor.  He just sails the boat.  Fast.  I am too affected by the immensity of the universe and the billions of stars and the power of the dark ocean to keep my mind from wandering.  Sometimes, I am hit with a philosophical question to ponder.  Sometimes I am awed at the beauty of the ocean, sky, and world around me.  Sometimes, when it is calm, I throw myself into the book I am currently reading (shh. Don’t tell Chris that I’m not constantly staring at the tell-tales and trimming the jib!).  And sometimes I am a big old complainy pants who writes her “grievances du jour” in her log book and stuffs Twizzlers in her mouth to pass the time.  But sometimes, I am just a sailor.  (And a good one, too.)

Long Island to port!

s/v Anything Goes and s/v Patronus anchored off Great Inagua Island, The Bahamas

April 24-26, Great Inagua Island, The Bahamas

“There are three sorts of people; those who are alive, those who are dead, and those who are at sea.” – Old Capstan Chantey, attributed to Anacharsis, 6th Century BC

We arrived after our 3 ½ day passage from the BVIs at 1700 on April 24^th.  We had calm seas on the way in, so we cleaned the boat, took showers, and we were pretty well put together by the time we dropped the anchor off of Matthewtown on Great Inagua Island in the southern Bahamas.  I thought about the fact that just 8 months before, we had taken our first overnight passage, from Maine to Boston.  I remember feeling nervous.  I remember spending days getting ready to leave and spending days recouperating and cleaning up.  We had literally come a long way. We had been blessed by Neptune on this trip and made good time with little in the way of difficult weather or seas.  That said, we know that no sailor, no matter how salty, can ever rest on his or her laurels when it comes to ocean passages.  Each one will forever be a new adventure with its own unique set of challenges.

Our new backyard…

We paused for a moment to look around and settle into what would be our home country for the next 6 weeks.  The island was low and flat with white beaches in some places and rocky shores in others.  We saw a handful of buildings and a lighthouse on the point.  The water all around us was the brightest turquoise blue you could imagine.  It went on and on and on as far as the eye could see.  We could not see any other land besides Great Inagua.

I dinghied around to say hello to the other two boats in the harbor and asked about clearing customs.  It was after 5pm, so it would have to wait until the next day for sure.  Back at the boat, Chris and Reese swam to check on the anchor and we had an early night to catch up on sleep.  We hoped that Anything Goes would arrive the next morning!  Looking around at the clear blue water and the inspirational beauty of this part of the world, I made a resolution to both swim and meditate every day we were in the Bahamas.

A Haitian boat and the Mail Boat block the entrance for hours so they can unload their goods.  Everything needed by the people here has to be brought in from Nassau or Florida.   Well, except for salt…

Bryson woke up at the crack of dawn to see Anything Goes enter the harbor and drop anchor.  We did schoolwork early and then went over to say hello.  We hadn’t seen them since St. Maarten and it was too long!  Wendy and I attempted to take the dinghy to town to check into customs, but the mail boat had arrived to unload groceries and it was blocking the entrance to the inner harbor.  Well indoctrinated to living on “island time”, we turned back and figured we would just come back later…

Craig and I returned after lunch and were lucky to get a ride to Customs and Immigration by the gentleman in charge of Customs, who happened to be leaving the docks.  He was very welcoming and helpful in answering our questions.  The customs agent was also very friendly, but we learned very quickly that things don’t move at a very fast clip here.  “Island Time” seems to have been taken to a whole new level here.

Craig and I filled out a lot of forms.  We listened with interest to the banter going on between the customs agents but were bothered and distracted by the television, which was droning in the corner.  We hadn’t seen TV in months and experienced culture shock at the coverage of the weeks following the Boston Marathon bombing.  I was so sad and angry and frustrated.  We had only been away from the states for 6 months, but all the news that reached us was just awful: Hurricane Sandy and the nor’easter, the school in Connecticut, and now this.  We looked at each other and worked hard to formulate a plan that would allow us to stay out sailing forever.  But five minutes later, we gave up, yet again, and decided to just enjoy the CNN/Fox/MSNBC-free world while we had the chance.

Most of the countries we have visited have fees for clearing customs.  We had paid as little as $20 and as much as $100.  We were in for a shock.  $340 later, we were given the okay to cruise the 700 islands and 2400 cays of the Bahamas for up to a year (I don’t think we are going to see it all…).  We also had a fishing license, which would save us much more than the $340 in free* fish.

*not including the mega bucks spent in fishing stores for lures, lines, hooks, and other paraphernalia.  Just kidding.  Kind of.

look at the masts and booms, which are rough hewn tree trunks.

On the way back to the dinghies, we got the low down on the broken down sailboats littering the harbor.  These boats defied seaworthiness.  The masts and booms were made of rough hewn tree trunks.  Like, practically with the branches still attached.  Seriously.  They hadn’t seen paint in years and looked like they couldn’t move an inch without sinking to the bottom.  Imagine our surprise when we learned that these boats were here from Haiti to purchase supplies and groceries!  The Haitians sail 60 miles without lifejackets, running lights, safety equipment, or an engine.  I was impressed, sad, afraid, and shocked.  Some Haitian boats arrive under the auspices of getting supplies, but they are actually smuggling refugees and/or drugs.  Two of the boats in the harbor had been impounded by the Bahamian government when they arrived carrying thousands of pounds of cocaine.  Um.  I think we’ll lock our boat up tonight.  We learned the next day that the Bahamian government has to spend millions of dollars a year to deal with the Haitian refugees and drug smugglers.  I understood why the Bahamians allowed these facts to give them a very negative opinion of them, and I recognize that the government has to do something, but when I think of the Haitians, I see desperation, fear, and sadness.  I remembered the 7 Haitians who drowned trying to leave Dominica when we were there.  As a fellow sailor, I have to feel concern for them as they take to the open sea in such boats.

Wendy and I pore over charts and guidebooks to plan our voyage through the Bahamas. How do you cut 700 islands down to 23?

That night, we enjoyed a quick reunion drink with Craig and Wendy, but we all needed to continue to catch up on sleep after our passage.  As always, our conversations centered around the question, “Where should we go tomorrow?”  We only had until July 1st before we had to be back in the states for hurricane season.  We needed to make the most of our time in the Bahamas by devising a good plan.

Great Inagua isn’t known for its tourism, but it did have a few points of interest, so we decided to check it out since we were already there.  We hired a friend of the customs agent to take us on a tour of the national park in his pickup.  We wanted to see the famous flamingoes and visit the salt flats, where they make sea salt for Morton’s.

The kids got to ride in the back of the pickup truck while we bumped all over Great Inagua.  Here are some interesting facts we learned:

No seat belts, no car seats, no problem. There are also no traffic lights and only about 10 other cars…

• *Great Inagua makes 1.3 million tons of salt a year.
• *When the islanders need salt, they just go out to the flats and scoop some up.
  *Salt is made in marshes in 3 stages.
  *Flamingoes lay only 1 egg a year and live to age 45.
  *Flamingoes are gray in color when they are young and turn pink from the plankton and algae they eat.

mounds and mounds of salt, ready for shipping.

at the top of the lighthouse

After our tour, we climbed the lighthouse in Matthewtown and walked back to the docks.  As is customary, we stopped in the superette to check out the food scene.  We snagged some produce and were pleased that the prices of most items were good.

We were leaving that evening for a 163 mile passage to Long Island, Bahamas, so Chris grabbed some roadside barbecue to go.  We love roadside barbecue!  In many communities, a local will set up a tent and a giant barbecue and cook up fresh, awesome, authentic island foods.  You can eat it there or take it to go.  We filled up on bbq chicken, rice-n-beans, corn on the cob, Bahamian macaroni and cheese, and mashed potatoes and then prepared to sail.

be safe, sailors.

We weighed anchor for our overnight passage just as the Haitians pulled out of the harbor.  They sailed off in their crazy boats for Haiti.  My heart was heavy as I watched those men enter the sea without any of the safety measures that the rest of us take for granted.  I kept saying over and over, “They don’t even have running lights…”

The trucks scooping up the salt.

Salt is moved from section to section as the salt content rises.

salt is moved out on belts and poured directly onto ships. hmmm. that sounds dirty to me. can you “wash” salt??? do they?

the beaches along the salt ponds are crusted in salt.  We’re pretty much set for salt for the next ten years!

fun! I kept thinking it would be slippery to walk on, like ice. Nope. Just very crunchy.

Kings and Queens of the Salt Flats

The flamingoes didn’t like the rumbling of the pick up truck, so it was hard to get good pictures of them.

mud flats in the Inagua National Park

picking wild cotton on the side of the road.

From inside the lighthouse

Lighthouse steps

looks like a shell to me..

The kids at the bottom of the lighthouse

Porter hanging out at the base of the lighthouse

Bryson and Maggie

Oh dear.  The time has finally come to say farewell to the fair blue waters of the Caribbean.  Our adventures in the Lesser Antilles have been more than we had hoped for.  We laughed, we cried.  It was better than Cats.

Our passage to the Bahamas from the British Virgin Islands would be over 550 miles long.  It would be our second longest passage yet (the first being our 1440 mile trip from North Carolina to St. Thomas).  We would sail between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to the south and the Turks and Caicos to the north, making landfall on Great Inagua Island, one of the southernmost Bahamian islands.  We hoped that our time in the Bahamas would be as amazing as all the cruisers say it is.  It was hard to imagine anything more wonderful than the Caribbean.

With so many miles under our life jackets, we were pleased to find that we were not nearly as anxious about the upcoming passage as we were leaving North Carolina.  But we had lots of work to do just the same.  As soon as the Armitages boarded their ferry back to civilization, we raced back to the boat and spent 4 days preparing to depart.  Back in St. Maarten, Anything Goes was making the same preparations.  They would leave several hours before we did in hopes of sailing within VHF range during our passage.

Ice run at a pretty sketchy “superette”.

We got ice and food, dropped off our laundry, and started cleaning the boat.  During our week with the Armitages, we neglected our typical cleaning and maintenance routines.  We also had bigger projects that had to be completed.  Chris started off with fixing the compass lights.

We were happy to have company to break up the hard work.  Bryson and Cindy had arrived back in Soper’s Hole and were busy preparing Xanadu to leave for the summer.  We all worked hard each day and then got together for easy taco dinners and drinks in the cockpit at night.

Porter helps by cleaning the cockpit.

Chris and I took advantage of the massage therapist in Soper’s Hole, which soothed our muscles after days of hard work on the boat.  The kids caught up with school.  They did very little the week before and would likely do almost none on our passage (it is usually too rough offshore to do schoolwork).

Our new friends from Massachusetts!

On our last day, we noticed a charter boat take a mooring next to ours.  We met them later when they dinghied over.  The boy on the boat, Peter, was a student in Mr. Whittier’s class back in Massachusetts!  If you recall, Mr. Whittier contacted us last summer when he saw our boat in Tenant’s Harbor, Maine.  He is a teacher and has utilized our blog and adventures as a tool in his English classes throughout the year.  We published one of his students’ essays a while back.  It was fun to meet Peter’s whole family and wonder about this small, small world we live in.  What are the chances that their boat would pull into Soper’s Hole on that exact day and take a mooring right next to our boat and recognize our boat name?  My mind is boggled every time I think about the serendipity of it all.  Now we just have to head back to Maine to meet Mr. Whittier! (spoiler alert)

Our last view of the Caribbean…

On the morning of April 21st, we made water, checked out at customs, and got fuel, ice, and last-minute produce.  We hauled the dinghy onto the cabintop and contacted our emergency contacts to let them know we were leaving.  The weather was fair (obviously.  It’s the Caribbean.) and the wind was blowing 20 knots out of the East-Northeast.  We’ll take it.  Chris set out the fishing lines and we were off.  Next stop: Great Inagua.

 

 

 

 

“The sea continues to feed our spiritual need for adventure into the unknown.” –Robert Ballad (this one’s for Aunt Carolyn)

a rough start, but the wind is behind us, so we’ve got some good speed.

For 12 hours, we fought off “first day seasickness” from the large following seas.  I took Sturgeron, the kids used their seasickness acupressure bands, and we kicked a brand new bag of pretzels.  By the time my nightwatch started, I was back in business.  I grabbed Jimmy Buffet’s book A Pirate Looks at Fifty, 3 Twizzlers, and a pudding.  My watch was uneventful except for seeing a cruiseship in the distance.

The next day, the kids played “Far Side of the Mountain”, a wilderness make-believe survival game they made up after reading the book series by that name.  We had bagels for breakfast (not me, of course.  the bagel diva is holding out until we reach home.)  Chris made tacos for dinner.  My neck and shoulders were hurting, a sign that I’m holding in all that sadness about leaving the Caribbean.  I took a hot shower – such a luxury only on Day Two! – and tried to come to terms with the close of this last chapter in our trip.

Bryson assists Chris climb the mast while under way.

spending lots of time together on passages has been one of the highlights of the year.

At 1700, we saw the first signs of life since the cruiseship the night before.  A U.S. Coast Guard plane flew overhead.  The kids continued playing nicely and were feeling fine.  I tackled my pile of schoolwork that needed to be corrected after our catch up sessions back in Soper’s Hole.

Long passages call for drastic measures. Yes, I am teaching my kids the Macarena.

sunset on the Puerto Rico Trench

Dinner underway. If only our bowls had suction cups.

listening to music, checking the instruments, and telling myself jokes to stay awake… that’s night watch.

At 1951 (7:51pm) on 4/22/13, the log book states: “Kids in bed.  Erica on watch.  Turned on Tri-Color (the light at the top of our mast), got the flashlight ready.  I see those two stars in the sky that I always see first.  Moon is almost full.  Bright out.  No targets on AIS (like radar for other boats) for 24 miles.  All alone out here.  We are north of the Dominican Republic.  Wish we were stopping here.  Wind angle 97 degrees at 17 knots.  SOG (speed over the ground) 6.3 knots.  HDG (heading) 305 degrees.  Compass lights working nicely.

some might think it looks lonely. I feel like I’m hanging out with my dear friend, The Universe.

At 2130: Ate an orange so I don’t get scurvy.  Ha Ha Ha Ha!

At 2315: wrapped jib around headstay trying to go wing on wing.  Chris hurts his toe on the foredeck trying to fix it.

good morning Patronus!

On passage, sometimes the kids sleep late.  Especially if the engine is on and lulls them.  But the next morning, at 0655, Porter popped up on deck, his lifejacket already on.  He crawled over to the starboard lazarette (bench seat) and stared sleepily up at the sails for a good fifteen minutes.  It was so cute.  I crawled onto the lazarette with him and snuggled the early morning away.

I will treasure these moments forever…

running up to watch the dolphins playing

We made blueberry muffins for breakfast, which proves that the waves had died down!  Anything Goes was cruising along 70 miles behind us.  We played games in the cockpit all day, made guacamole, and watched dolphins jumping high in our bow wake.  We literally sailed right into the sunset.  Sounds too good to be true?  It was.

into the sunset…

At 2045, I was on watch, reading my book on Kindle.  I was checking the AIS screen frequently because there was a ship in the distance that was headed right for us.  He was a long way off, but I wanted to alter course and/or contact the captain on the VHF if we got too close.  I heard the AIS make a beep.  That’s not usually good.  I went over to check it and it was off.  I turned it on and scanned the pitch black horizon to see if I could see any lights.  When the display came back on, we were still a long way from the ship.

I went across the cockpit to the port side wheel and instruments and saw that the autopilot had also turned off.  THAT IS NOT GOOD!  I grabbed the wheel and screamed down below to wake Chris up.  I looked up at the wind vane, looked at the sails, and tried to figure out what was going on.  Although this only took a few seconds, it was a second too long.  As Chris got up on deck, we crash jibed because the boat had gone way off course.  Unfortunately, the main was on a preventer (“preventing” it from jibing).  You may ask how in the world we jibed then.  The preventer is used just to keep the boom from banging around when you are too close to “dead downwind”.  If the pressure gets too much on the sail, the preventer is designed to break and allow the jibe.  Unfortunately (that’s a lot of “unfortunately’s” for one event…) the preventer did not break.  Instead, when the boat jibed, the sheet block diverter ripped out of the boom.  I’m not sure why these things always happen in the middle of the night, but they always do.  Chris went up to take a look, but there was nothing we could do about it.  Fortunately (yay!) the autopilot was not broken, which would have been most unfortunate.  It appears that the power flickered off for a moment, which turned off the AIS and reset the instruments.  When the instruments turned back on, they went into “Standby” mode (traditional hand steering) instead of “Autopilot” (the kind I like, so I can eat my Twizzlers and read my book in the middle of the night).  I was upset that I was not quicker at assessing the situation so that I could steer us back on course before jibing.  While usually good in emergencies, when it comes to sailing the boat under duress, I tend to panic and get all turned around.  Argh.

“Welcome to the Gun Show” (someone’s been hanging out too much with her dad)

Way too much. (yup, she’s kissing her muscles)

The lighthouse on Great Inagua Island

The final day of the passage was smooth enough to do all our “post-passage” cleanup as we ran along the south shore of Great Inagua on our way to the anchorage.  We saw low, flat land with white sandy beaches.  The water was an impossible blue.  The water was so blue that the bottoms of the clouds were blue from the reflection.  It looked so different from the Caribbean.  It reminded me only of Anegada, a coral atoll in the BVIs.  It was so calm that we took showers and I worked on catching up on our blog all the way though Dominica.  I’ll still miss the lush green hills and rainforests of the Caribbean, but it looks like this is going to be one spectacular island after another!

Welcome to the Bahamas!

The foul weather gear is ready to be hung up for another few weeks…