A Bahamas Christmas day

Our Christmas day, December 25^th, 2018, aboard Sea Change

7:45 – awakened to listen to the sailor’s net at 8:00, with an announcement that the planned Christmas pot-luck should be held on individual large boats, as the beach and picnic table were soaking wet from the morning rain. We used our VHF radio to contact Kate and Alex on their 58 foot catamaran where they were hosting our party, to confirm our planned arrival at 1:00 pm. Then we had French toast and bacon for breakfast and opened a few gifts (a special towel holder from One of a Kind, a music CD, several DVD movies and a lovely angel fish fridge magnet).

9:00 – I made a huge bean salad and a bottle of Bahama Mamas to take to the pot luck, along with the fresh cranberry sauce I made yesterday. Recipe for Bahama Mamas: 1 part of two kinds of rum – coconut and regular, 3 parts mix of orange and pineapple juice, a little grenadine for colour – yum-m.

10-12:30 –hung out, worked on the boat, showered and dressed in our best shorts J.

12:30 – braved huge waves in the dinghy to Sanddollar Beach, where Aquabob was anchored. Celebrated in the company of about 11 other people with an amazing pot luck lunch – including sliced turkey, fresh mahi mahi fish caught by our hosts, fresh-baked foccacia, and tons of wonderful salads. The hosts’ three year old, Alexander, was the hit of the party.

3:30 – back to the boat for tea and a rest. Jeff finished installing a fan for the galley (my hero!), and we ended the day with a bar-b-qued chicken dinner and a movie – Miracle on 34^th Street, of course.

It was a beautiful Christmas day. We missed our loved ones – but spoke to everyone Christmas eve day, and all is well in the land of ice and snow.

The Other Side of the Story

For those of you who think that we’re living the dream – here’s the nightmare side of the story. Though we arrived to all main systems on Sea Change dysfunctional, my captain and I were able to restore plumbing, sewage, and refrigeration – at least, temporarily (everything’s temporary on a boat).

But now, we have a tiny but smelly leak in the sewage system, the VHF radio is functioning intermittently, the hand-held radio is dead, and the refrigeration is kaput, after we smelled a burning odour coming from its motor, and turned it off completely. So we’re in the process of cooking all the fresh meat in the freezer until we can get some ice later today. A friend is bringing us a part for the fridge from Florida – but not for a week or two.

Meanwhile the weather has turned mean, predicted to last until next weekend – cloudy, rainy, too windy – rough waves even in the harbour. We’re going to try to get back to George Town and beat the rain to get ice before everything closes up until Dec. 27^th.

But it’s New Year’s Eve day, and our 34^th anniversary, and tomorrow is Christmas – so we’re planning to celebrate despite it all – with warmish champagne and lobster tails for dinner tonight, and a pot-luck lunch on the beach tomorrow. It’s still better in the Bahamas 😎 – though we’re definitely tested on this theory at times! Happy holidays to all of you, whatever you’re celebrating, and best wishes for a healthy happy New Year!

A New Adventure Begins!

It’s been 6 days since we left Toronto – with a smooth flight in first class, no less! That’s all Aeroplan had available, so we reluctantly accepted it J. That put us first in line at customs, and a good thing, too, as they made us unpack all of our three huge duffel bags and a box – boat stuff is always suspicious, for some reason.

For the past four days we’ve been cleaning the boat from stem to stern (lots of mold this year) and repairing the toilet, the water pump and the fridge – none of which were working upon our arrival. A friend helped with the fridge by applying a piece of tin foil to the disintegrating fuse holder – to be replaced soon!

Finally, on the day before yesterday, sporting many sand flea bites from the windless hurricane hole, we slipped our mooring at about 2:00 pm, and motored over to our favourite bar on Stocking Island for a celebratory beer and Pina Colada. We couldn’t miss a visit with the sting rays who hang around the conch hut waiting for handouts – one startled me by rubbing against my leg from behind like a cat! Then we ordered fresh conch salads to go for dinner, dinghied back to Sea Change, motored across the Bay to be sheltered from the predicted strong winds, and after three attempts at anchoring in very shallow water, settled in to watch our first gorgeous Bahamas sunset of the season, with dinner on deck.

Yesterday we motored into the Exuma Yacht Club and took a slip on the dock to top up our water and provision for the next few days. A Santa Claus visit and great bar-b-que dinner at Club Peace and Plenty ended our day in style, under the Winter solstice full moon (today).

It looks like we’ll be here in Georgetown for Christmas – with an invitation to a pot-luck lunch on the beach on Christmas day. Meanwhile, still lots to do before we set sail for points North!

All Good Things Must Come to an End

It’s hard to believe that 2.5 months have gone by since we launched Sea Change in Titusville, Florida. It’s been quite a trip!

The last two days in George Town have been recuperation time, and an opportunity to enjoy the sailing regatta which began two days before our arrival here. We reconnected with friends from The Land and Sea Park – Georgie, Larry and their 22-year-old daughter Alysha on Cabernet – here on Exuma for the first time.

Yesterday, I attended the variety show, which attracts talent from both the sailing and the local community – amazingly good performances (especially the locals!). I tried my hand in a conch-blowing contest – didn’t win but felt good about the effort. The winner blew his conch for 38 seconds – that’s a lot of hot air!!

Today, I took the Cabernet crew on their first hike up Monument Hill, and down to the dramatic crashing waves on the ocean beach below. There we had a picnic lunch, sheltered from the howling wind by huge rock formations. It's always fun to show people around what feels like our other home. Jeff chose to stay aboard and rest.

A visit to “Chat and Chill” on Stocking Island for their weekly pig roast on the beach ended the day today. Tomorrow we begin to close up the boat for another year – so this will likely be my last post for this trip. It’s been quite a ride – I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these posts as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. Until next year …

Happy Birthday, Captain Jeff

We celebrated my captain’s 71^st birthday all day yesterday. It began with a French toast breakfast, and gift and card opening.

Then we weighed anchor and spent 4 lovely hours on the ocean side of the Cays, on mirror-smooth blue water, travelling to Jeff’s favourite anchorage – Rat Cay (no rats involved!). He spliced mooring lines and I waxed the cockpit while we motored along at 6 knots – no wind at all. Very relaxing…

We arrived at about 1:00 pm, had lunch, naps and swims in the clearest turquoise water I’ve ever experienced – we could see bottom 20 feet down!

A dinner of yesterday’s freshly caught lobster, with white wine and home-made chocolate cake by candlelight, in the cockpit, with the full moon sparkling on the water, and a “Happy Birthday” call with our grandchildren ended a perfect day. Jeff said it was one of his best birthdays yet.

2^nd installment – Lost at Sea

While yesterday was for relaxing, today was all adventure! It started with a dinghy trip to the town of Barreterre, 1 mile across the water. This town is the last stop on Great Exuma –a tiny village with one convenience store, a fishing dock and a few colourful houses. We actually found a bit of food in the convenience store, and happily dinghied back to the boat – or so we thought! An hour later, we were still circling around looking for our lost boat … turns out we had gone too far South, and the shoreline all looks the same. It didn’t take long to find our way back, but did make us a little nervous for a while!

Next came lunch, and then another dinghy trip to where knew there was a good snorkeling reef, and maybe some lobster to catch. We anchored there, but the waves were huge – crashing over the rocks and tossing our little boat to and fro. Nope – that wasn’t going to work – so we hightailed it back to our safe harbor, and swam around in our snorkel gear for a while, just because we had it on.

Enough adventures for one day – back to Sea Change to watch the sun set and relax over a pasta dinner. We’ll try again in George Town – two stops away.